Asia So Far (KL and Singapore)

  Asia so far has been nothing short of awesome. I finally am getting to travel internationally with my boyfriend Schuyler, so that's pretty amazing. He is in Singapore for work for 3 months (Ugh) so I decided to come visit him for 2 weeks! Currently he is at work and I'm hanging at a Starbucks in Clarke Quay. I know, I know. Starbucks isn't exotic but it does have darn reliable WiFi so here I am.

I guess let's start with what I've done so far.

Wednesday: I left Raleigh for a 26+ hour journey to Singapore! The flights were relatively uneventful, but hella long. My trip happened to line up with Back to The Future Day which is pretty sweet since I traveled in time (sorta) forward 12 hours. I even watched all three Back to the Future movies on the plane.

Friday: I arrived at like 1am. Yes, I just skipped Thursday. I basically lost a whole day on the way here, haha. My super sweet boyfriend picked me up and we hopped in a taxi back to the hotel. I made a rookie error and slept the rest of the day. I know, I know. I should have got up and headed out for a run, but dude. It was not happening. I tried (5 more minutes.... ZZZZZ). I really did. Anyway, I got up in time for Sky to come home from work and we were off to go prawning with Schuyler's company. We basically sat around a concrete mini pond and stuck chicken hearts on a line and tried to catch prawns and lobster. (Not really my thing, but it was actually pretty fun!) There were a few contests for biggest catch, heaviest catch etc. We did alright, but didn't win any prizes, though Schuyler did get second with this guy:

Saturday we got up at the crack of dawn and we were off to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia! We caught our flight and we were off on an adventure! Schuyler's friend Chao and his girlfriend Ming (spelling?) actually offered to show us around so they picked us up at the airport. Our first stop was for food! Can we just talk about how I ate a black egg? If that's not living on the edge I don't know what is! I also even ate a bite of frog.

Next we headed to the Batu Caves. We climbed about a million stairs and passed several monkeys along the way. That was pretty much my goal when coming to Asia was to see some monkeys. Mission accomplished!

Check it out!

                               Perhaps my favorite picture of all time.

We opted not to tour the caves because the people coming out were mad filthy and I was wearing a skirt and longer WHITE shirt. I was trying to dress a little conservatively so I would respect the temples etc... turns out in general they aren't as conservative as it sounds online.

We went to several more places around the city including the two towers! We even went up to a sweet viewing platform. Side note before these pictures - there is a phenomenon known as "The Haze." Essentially Indonesia is burning land and the smoke is wafting over all of South East Asia. Thus, these pictures may make it seem like it's foggy, but in reality it's the haze.

Did you think this picture would ever happen??? No? Me neither hehehe. #HANDHEART

He must really like me :)

                       This is the Chinese Temple we also visited in KL

Schuyler is great at pointing at things.

Sunday we explored Singapore! We walked through the botanic gardens and saw the MerLion of Singapore. That's sort of a famous land mark here. The lore was hundreds of years ago a sailor supposedly spotted a lion swimming in the ocean so they made a statue. I mean, there's probably more to it than that, but ya know.

MerLion!

Schuyler pointing at the Singapore Flyer, which is like the London Eye. We opted not to go up because the Haze was pretty bad and we wouldn't be able to see much.

Some flowers from the Botanic Gardens!

I'm all about that knee brace travel life.

Monday I chilled the heck out. I took it easy and allowed myself a lazy day, but I still managed to get off my butt and go exploring. There is a Nando's (My favorite foreign restaurant) AND a Crepe stand. There are 3 malls within walking distance of our hotel, which is pretty crazy. It was fun exploring and  wandering around new cities is one of my favorite things to do.

Today I headed to Clarke Quay. I will say the train ride took longer than I thought. It doesn't seem that long of ride in theory, but I feel like the trains move slowly. I have set up camp in a Starbucks to get some things done but will be heading out to explore for a bit before heading back to meet Sky. Tonight we are going to go watch the water and light show by Marina Bay Sands, and I'm excited :)

That is a hotel with what is supposed to look like a ship on top! We are going to go up there and watch the light/water show tonight!

I'll keep you guys posted as we do more and more things. We are headed to Thailand this weekend and I have booked us an
(Humane and ethical) elephant encounter!!! I'm super excited.

Love,
Lena