Rain, Laundry and that F%$*en Red Fluff!!!

We keep putting off the touristy things here in favour of the indoor activities in the perhaps misguided hope that this rain will clear... this however presents 2 problems, 1 we are running out of indoor activities and 2, we are running out of time. We are off to Macau tomorrow and still have not done the peak or the giant buddha, 2 things high on our list.

So, stuff it. We are cranking out our umbrellas (one trend we aren't partaking in just yet is the designer gumboots) and heading to the peak tonight.

This morning we had an interesting excursion to do some laundry, a simple task? Not bloody likely. We shot off to the island with our sacks in hand chasing the "by the pound" laundry stores lonely planet speaks of, the 1st one was closed down, the 2nd one only did per item, 10 times the cost and the 3rd one we found eventually couldn't give them to us by Tomorrow as it is a public holiday here and were shut. This mind you, was in the pouring rain and really not that much fun.

So pissed off, we trudged back to the hotel only to find, on the 9th floor, a freaking self service laundry, FUCK!!! All for just $80, washed and dryed (about $10 Aussie... Not happy!

This was all good, except for the fact that I didn't think to check my pockets for the enormous red paper ticket that was in there... Oh, did I mention that it was in the dark load? Red Fluff everywhere. Not happy. Shirts were ruined, a quick text to mum (aren't they great) had it all sorted - in the dryer rick, keep emptying the filter. Good as new. So now, after a 6 hour laundry stint.. We are clean and heading out for a touch of retail therapy.... Aaahhh Hong Kong!!!

Hong Kong Photos....continued

The Famous Peninsular Hotel(which is one block from where we are staying)


Rick getting in the Asian spirit


2 for 1 San Miguels...2 pints for $6.20! This makes Rick very happy


Beer!!!


There is a lot of shops in Hong Kong!!!

Photos from Hong Kong

We haven't been able to connect to the internet here in Hong Kong. We have been having a great time though. It's a lot different to Singapore...it feels like we are actually in asia!! They don't speak english as well here in hong kong as they did in singapore.... The waiters in the chinese restaurants don't speak english very well and even the people at McDonald's don't speak english (we asked for a cheeseburger, fries and a McFlurry and we ended up with a happy meal with milk, and a double cheeseburger.....seriously it took 5 staff members to eventually sort out our order...).
It is a very large city though with some great views. The weather has been very rainy and cloudy so we haven't done the touristy sights but have done a lot of shopping, eating and drinking!!!

Check out these photos to see what we have been up to!

Thiursday Night - Did anyone say Tiger?

We woke after an hour or so of sleep and were ready to hit the town.

We jumped in the cab and shot down to the singapore flyer (www.singaporeflyer.com) the worlds biggest ferris wheel, like the London Eye. We got there and it started to rain and we just weren't in it.

So we bailed from there and headed for dinner, Newton Circus, the overtly touristy food centre that everyone hits apparently.

Trudes' first taste of real asia, high pressure tactics were well and truly in force trying to lure you into there stall for dinner. Ended up giving in to a nice guy called Po. Ended up a great meal. Chilli stingray, sweet n sour chicken and veges and oyster sauce. And then there were the tigers... Started gently on a can each then hit the tallies, $6.50 each (which is like $5 Aussie, this is a bargain in Singapore where we were used to paying 8 or 9 for a tinnie.

Ended up fairly loose then jumped on the train back to the unit, was a wonky ols walk home...

Thursday - Seriously, do we really need to do more shopping?

So, Thursday rolls round.

We hit the roads early for some sight seeing as no shops here seem to open until 11.30/12. Had a great walk around the city centre/colonial district. Did the very stereotypical Raffles experience, cool place. Dropped into the museum in Raffles for a look, very cool to see how much it has changed over the years.

Visited, city hall, supreme court and some very interesting war memorials.



Then it was shopping time, we were over it by this time. It was hot and we were tired. Walked aimlessly around a couple of centres but were over it so bailed back to the unit. A little disappointing really.


Me and Rick outside RAFFLES HOTEL!!!


The Fountain of Fortune(Biggest water fountain in Asia, or something like that)

We shot back to the unit for a couple of hours R & R then hit our local strip, Orchard Rd to explore. Found some very cool centres, it is interesting. 1 street has like 10 to 15 indooroopilly shopping centres on it, crazy.

Got some cool stuff, old Trudes is struggling with the asian way of customer service, they follow you so closely its painful, she just needs to be more forceful and tell them to piss off, she is too n ice.

Ended back to the room for a snooze.

Wednesday Night - When in Rome...

Evening People,

My turn, we thought what better way to welcome ourselves to a country/region than make ourselves look like the locals, wigs and costumes were the order of the day!

No, but seriously, hair cut time. After 4 days of nagging from T I finally succumbed to getting the chop... So after a lazy 5k run (this is my turn to write and I will talk myself up as much as I like..) we made ourselves presentable and headed down to the hotel's hair chopper (crazy asian hair dresser - T's suggestion, not mine) Trudes was first, what would you like darling? Do whatever she says, I peer over my book in surprise, you do know we are in a foreign country trudes and I am not sure about you, but I haven't seen an abundance of good hair since I have been here, but maybe that is just me...

Long story short, her hair looks great (I always have had a thing for asians, no I know, it is all in the hair...) I promise we will post some photos. As for my hair, gay. That is all we will say about that one.

So, we headed off for dinner, on Lonely Planets suggestion to an Indian restaurant, turns out that it is a vegetarian restaurant, not to worry. Was a good feed (a little on the spicy side though - Why are you sweating Rick?)

Then we had this great idea to go shopping, walking a long Orchard Rd, but everything was shut so we jumped on the train and headed sightseeing. Checked out the waterfront in the financial district with the spectacular Fullerton Hotel (pics coming) and then the Merlion, very cool.

The construction site for the Marina Bay Sands (new casino) was still pumping at 11pm, 11PM!!! Wow, no wonder we are so backwards in Australia, what would the unions say on that one?? We counted 50 cranes.

We then wandered back through Boat Quay, a cool little restaurant strip where we were accosted by every crab peddling local and expat restaurant owner in the strip, we got offered everything from cheap crab, to drinks to something one referred to as a happy ending (not sure what he meant there, maybe they sing us a song at the end of the meal)

Anyway, Trudes is complaining we have to go.

Until next time

Hooroo

Rick

The underground mall that links that mall to the other mall, no not that one, the other one...

Today was our first real shopping day in Singapore (and by our, I mean I dragged rick around by the ear for 14 hours... )We decided to check out Marina square which is where the majority of the shops are. Even if we had 2 weeks here just for shopping, we still wouldn't have enough time to see all of the malls. AS well as having about 20 million shops, from the end of may to the end of july is a promotion known as the The Great Singapore Sale, where all of Singapore goes on sale

Seriously this is the only place where the malls are connected by malls, oh yeah, this is the connector mall not the link mall...

Some excellent acquisitions were made, I will put some photos up. I eventually succumbed to ricks complaining and we headed home..

Tuesday Night Post

Tuesday Post

Monday Night Post

Our adventure begins

Sitting on the plane, anxious to leave the country and start our adventure, we hear an announcement over the load speaker, "We apologise for the delay but our ground engineers are checking the engines. This is normal procedure. We hope to be pull off soon. Thank you for your patience."...AN HOUR LATER, our plane pulled off from the terminal and began it's journey to Singapore. Overall the plane trip was fairly uneventful cepts for the fact that rick's tv screen crashed and they had to reset it and the old lady sitting next to him thought it was ok to put her head on his shoulder and her pillow on his dinner tray whenever she decided she no longer wanted it.
We had a transfer to pick us up from the airport to take us to our motel. He was nice; he seemed to want to tell us everythign he knew about singapore.....i mean EVERYTHING. "See that dark patch over there, that's a grassy area","those buildings over there, they are apartments"
Got to the motel around 2am, singapore time and went straight to bed!

Signing off
Trudy

Sydney...

Afternoon good people

We are sitting here in Sydney Airport, 10 minutes before boarding starts, ready for the adventure to begin.

Uneventful flight from Brissie, train ride (wow how bad is Brisbane transport when you experience any other cities...)

Wish I could be exciting, witty or even remotely interesting. (Well my writing anyway..) But that is it... I am sure I will warm up to that!

Will talk again soon

Rick

Not Long Now....

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