Singapore and Malaysia 2018

May 03
May 04
May 05
May 06
May 07
May 08
May 09
May 10
May 11
May 12
May 13

April Review

This is the April review, almost forgot due to holiday distractions.

Two running races in the same month, about time.

• Sri Chinmoy Williamstown 10km
• Wasn't very confident due to lack of racing
• Finally managed to stay under 4:00/km pace
• Finished in 38:45 but could have gone a little quicker
• Run The Rock
• Didn't register in the end, lucky as the rain and wind was bad
• Werribee 10km
• Last minute decision was a good idea, fun course
• Finished in 39:00, but the course was a bit harder
• Park Runs
• Parkville 18:45 better than expected
• Lalor new event, horrible wind!
• Lilydale 18:35 course pb

Lalor parkrun.

No biking.

No big change in shares, haven't invested due to holiday expenses.

Two more shows at the comedy festival.

• Lawrence
• 7 out of 10
• Not as good as previous years
• James Veitch
• 8 out of 10

Too much sport at the moment, but hard to pick out the good content from the Commonwealth Games and then have time to watch it. Don't really have time to watch a two hour road race for example. Just managing to keep up with NBA playoffs by watching the last quarters only.

The to do list:

• Foxtel
• Got changed over to satellite
• Don't understand why you don't get all the secondary free to air channels
• And seems like their installation has broken the downstairs aerial reception for those channels!
• Holiday
• Possibly the least planned holiday
• Only bought plane tickets in the last month, hotels the last week or so

Nobody seems to know when we'll be ending our work project now, which is a bit frustrating. Still don't seem to find much spare time for study while winding down.

That's it for this month, quickest one in a while.

• Books
• None
• Movies
• A Quiet Place
• 8 out of 10
• A unique movie, but the silence was a bit awkward in cinemas
• Ready Player One
• 7 out of 10
• Had high expectations, didn't really deliver
• Music
• None
• TV
• The Challenge Season 31 - Vendettas
• 7 out of 10
• Most of the hopeless competitors seem to make the final these days
• Should be more elimination and less politics
• Video Games
• Xbox 360
• Final Fantasy XIII-2
• Finished 100% at last!!!
• Not sure what will be next

Singapore and Malaysia 2018, May 13 (Epilogue)

Travel summary:

• 10:00am flight
• Got hotel reception to book a taxi to come in 20 minutes, to save time waiting after finishing breakfast
• I asked about going to the airport instead of the central train station
• He said they don't do it, you have to use 'a website' yourself
• I asked what website, he seemed confused so I had to rephrase it - Grab or Uber apparently
• That seemed weird, so I just asked for a taxi to the train station and he wrote down my room number
• Finished breakfast and ready to leave!
• Checked on the taxi progress, he asked if I wanted to book it now!
• So...this made the whole previous conversation pointless
• The 'taxi' arrived, it was actually just a Grab driver, just managed to fit a suitcase in the back
• A bit too stressful, but got to the train and the airport with no more issues
• So many different queues to get to the departure gate, but moved fast
• Went with Air Asia instead on the way back, since it was direct from KL
• No screens in the head rests, really boring listening to podcasts and staring at nothing
• It was weird that I had booked a meal as part of the baggage allowance, they had two meal services but you only get one meal!
• Melbourne luggage carousel must be the slowest in the world, always takes at least 20 minutes
• The car battery started in the long term car park!

Next time...not sure yet.

Magnet updates.

Singapore and Malaysia 2018, May 12 (All These Things That I've Done)

Last day. Saturday morning is parkrun day! There's exactly one event in Malaysia, so I chose a hotel that was close enough to run there. The park was quite small so it was a strange course, run a small loop once then a large loop three more times. Even with an early 7:30am start it was very tough conditions in the heat, finished in just over 20 minutes for the 5 kilometres.

Back to the hotel and breakfast, this time got a bus ticket booked online for Genting Highlands to avoid any confusion. Only booked for about a half day, since I was not expecting too find much there since the previous indoor and outdoor theme parks have been closed down and the new 20th Century Fox theme park is well behind schedule. What a surprise...

Most buses take you to the bottom of the hill, which has the outlet mall and the cable car station up to the top. The line seemed to be moving deceivingly fast but it was just so long it took nearly 30 minutes to reach the front - it's going to be a total disaster once the theme park opens. I couldn't understand why so many people would bother going there when there isn't all that much to do, much better off just doing the equivalent activities in KL.

There's some temple at the middle station you can get out at, but given how long it took to get into a car, you wouldn't risk getting out and having to wait for another empty one again. So finally reached the top, a bit like the Crown complex I suppose, and likewise including a hotel and casino. There was a few smaller attractions that seemed to be more suited to children, video game arcade, restaurants, shopping, cinemas and bowling.

Probably not a good sign when the light show is one of your main attractions.

Given the amount of time available, just decided on some bowling after having looked at all of the options. The bowling was really cheap like the cinemas, paid for two games and did well considering having not played in a few years.

Could have gone close to 200 with a bit of luck.

The trip back down was great by comparison, 15 minutes or less.

Just had time to visit the Nike store at the outdoor outlet mall at the bottom, seemed like a good place and had lots of shops, but didn't have time to look anywhere else. Maybe saw a couple of size 13 shoes but none worth getting, instead got a couple of pairs of large shorts instead of medium this time, but they still weren't much longer! So need extra large in Asia.

More waiting in line.

Legs feeling really sore just sitting on a bus for an hour, not looking forward to an eight hour flight tomorrow. Back at the hotel I had to find an ATM at the shopping mall, given the preference for cash you'd think these things would be everywhere, but there was like one every second floor and took forever to find it, makes no sense.

Steps: 14,000 (2.5 hours)

• KL
• 7 out of 10
• Good
• Cheap also
• Park Run
• Bad
• Few signs for streets and train stations
• Less frequent trains
• No theme park at Genting Highlands
• Vegetarian options
• Missed Out
• Some of KL Forest Eco Park
• Malacca

Singapore and Malaysia 2018, May 11 (The Backup Backup Plan)

Had a two hour bus trip booked to go to Malacca at 8:30am, I was ready to leave a 7:30am but Jason wasn't even done with breakfast until 7:45am, so wasn't going to be on time for that - it only cost a few dollars at least. Took a train to the main bus terminal anyway, next available buses weren't until 10:00am so didn't really want to wait around in a bus terminal for that, it's only slightly better than an airport terminal.

Went back to KL Sentral instead, had a look at the bus situation to Genting Highlands, didn't look good so got out of the station. This was probably my least favourite experience, the streets around KL Sentral are just not pedestrian friendly at all, it's all highways and exit ramps and no way to get around on foot, just kept going around in circles reaching dead ends.

Eventually got to the museum / planetarium / gardens / bird park / butterfly park etc. Lots of things around, too bad it's almost impossible to get to. Found fake Stonehenge and a deer park walking through the gardens, only all the deer were just hiding in the shade, providing no entertainment. Tried out the KL Bird Park of all the available choices, described as the world's largest walk-in aviary. It was better than I expected, there is a big net over the whole park so the birds can't escape, and you can just walk around with most of the birds, somehow they don't have an issue with all the people being around them. A few had to be in cages for various reasons - their safety or yours.

White flamingo?

Some kind of parrot.

Favourites:

• Emu and Ostrich
• Flamingo
• Parrots

Walked to the closest train station, forgot it was another one of those KTM stations that was closed! so had to find the next station instead. Still dealing with sore legs so during the afternoon went back to the hotel, got a ticket for the cinema at the shopping centre. Bargain prices for movies, $4 for regular seats and the front few rows are only $3. The best option seemed to be this horror movie Truth or Dare, in English but with subtitles, no problem. There was a problem though, due to the Malaysia culture or whatever, they were cutting out bad words but also some themes must be inappropriate so suddenly the movie would just skip forward as they'd cut entire parts out of it. Really weird and confusing to watch. The movie would have been terrible even without the edits, like those Final Destination movies.

Steps: 21,500 (3.5 hours)

Singapore and Malaysia 2018, May 10 (Batmania)

Started the day on a train to Batu Caves, which is possibly what I did last time, but with less difficulty:

• Train to Bandaraya LRT station
• Walk to Bank Negara KTM station (closed)
• Walk back to Bandaraya LRT station
• Train to Sentul LRT station
• Walk 1.5 kilometres to Sentul KTM station (quicker than waiting for the replacement shuttle bus)
• Train to Batu Caves KTM station

Batu Caves was about the same as last time, still lots of tourists managed to make it there, most from those big tour buses I suppose. The pack of monkeys weren't on the main staircase anymore, but they were still hanging around, one received a banana then got attacked by another monkey which started biting it's tail - they get pretty ferocious. I'm not really sure why the place is such a big attraction actually, besides walking up all the stairs it's just a big open cave and then you turn around and go back. There is a separate Dark Cave guided tour but you have to queue for it.

Here we go again.

So took a train back to KL, got out at KLCC. Bought some lunch but it was almost impossible to find an exit into KLCC Park, it's like they don't want you to ever leave. KLCC Park is a great spot, lots of open space and you can see the twin towers in the background. We investigated going up the towers but it was something in the range of $30-40, didn't seem worth it.

Petronas TT.

Instead walked up the hill to the KL Forest Eco Park next to KL Tower. The entrance we arrived at was in the middle of the park, so after walking across the sky walk rope bridges to the bottom it wasn't really worth going all the way back to get to the other end. Otherwise a good walk through a miniature forest in the city.

Eco park.

Back on a train, then switched to the MONORAIL to Bukit Bintang, basically the main shopping and retail district. Got a pair of shorts from the Nike store, I never bother to try clothes on before buying but probably should have as the medium fit alright but just wasn't as long as I hoped. After a week of walking my legs were starting to hurt much more than usual, so had to finish a bit early and head back to the hotel. I found a place selling red bean buns! but they only had one left.

Steps: 25,000 (4.5 hours)

Singapore and Malaysia 2018, May 09 (Nothing Important Happened Today)

Last half day in Penang, there wasn't many flight options to KL so picked one for the mid afternoon.

Walked down to Komtar bus terminal again, took a bus towards Gurney Drive. I started walking towards the botanical gardens area, and some temple or other on the way too, but realised it was going to be about three kilometres each way and probably just a bit too far given limited time. Walked through the malls on Gurney Drive instead, seems to be a higher class district and had a lot better looking shopping and restaurant options, too bad it wasn't very close to the city centre. Possibly due to the public holiday there was nobody around either. I should mention the shopping experience is just dreadful, particularly in an empty store, as soon as you enter you get one of the staff members just follow you around not saying anything, so awkward. I'm sure I've encountered this previously, but had thankfully forgotten about it.

There was no beach to see on Gurney Drive, I think it only starts further down the coast, instead you just get a fence as they are doing some land reclamation project that looked to be inactive.

Gurney Drive, nothing to see here.

Just had a bit of time to go back to the city, explore a bit more and get some lunch, but failed to find a good magnet! The taxi to the airport and check-in went much quicker than expected, so got stuck at the airport for over an hour. So in conclusion, I don't think afternoon flights work well, you can't plan out a full day or do anything that is a risk of being delayed, but at least I had time to find a magnet before taking off.

• Penang
• 6 out of 10
• Good
• Cheap
• Street art
• Bad
• Bus travel times
• No credit cards
• Traffic
• Missed out
• Bayan Baru
• Botanic Gardens and hill temple
• Penang national park
• Teluk Bahang

Landed in KL about 5:30pm, got the airport train, then had to change lines and buy a Touch n Go card for the rest of the train network. Their system makes Myki look good. The Touch n Go seems to be a new card which is multi-purpose, you can use it on toll roads for example, except almost no train stations have the recharge machines for them still. All the locals seem to be sticking to the old MYrapid card, which has several machines at every station.

The hotel was inside a large shopping mall, so it was easy to find. Also convenient having lots of food options nearby for a late dinner, but there was no vegetarian alternative most of the time, which was a recurring problem. Landed on a place with a sushi train, but also had proper meals to order off a tablet, much better than having to call a waiter. Somehow I managed to order the same meal three ways - tempura with rice, tempura by itself, rice by itself. Finally got to pay with a credit card again.

What you get when you're not paying attention.

Paul Blart doing the rounds.

Steps: 19,500 (3.5 hours)

Singapore and Malaysia 2018, May 08 (The Hills)

Time to try out breakast buffet v2. The chocolate milk dispenser was the highlight, heaps of choices but not many I was interested in, I don't really understand having hot dinner meals for breakfast. Lucky we got up early for breakfast as there was a queue on the door afterwards waiting for an empty table, probably one of those annoying tour groups all showed up at the same time...

Walk to Komtar bus terminal, for some reason three very similar bus routes all go towards Air Itam aka Ayer Itam, so just take the first one that arrives! Like Melbourne trams they all showed up at the same time. I paid for mobile roaming with my Singapore SIM so I had 1GB to use in Malaysia, which was more than enough for Google Maps.

Got out at the correct stop and started walking to Kek Lok Si Temple, only saw one other person doing the same thing, most people on the bus were locals which was better than tourists. No cost to enter the temple grounds, just a small fee to take the funicular up to the top level or to enter one of the pagodas - didn't understand the reason for the second one.

Walk to Kek Lok Si.

Lots of worship places along the way, had those joss sticks and all of these ribbons you could buy and tie up for good luck, except they all had quite weird English translations. For example, the 'more information' ribbon would be good for vague people, but I'm not sure who needed to 'hurry up'.

My favourite sign.

Who! Who doesn't want to rear the ribbon?

A bit disappointing at the top to see the bronze Kuan Yin statue wasn't quite finished, so you couldn't walk up to it. The main pagoda had about eight levels of narrow spiral staircases, but was good when you finally reached the top.

Pagoda.

George Town in the distance.

Kuan Yin.

Walked the streets to Penang Hill aka Bukit Bendera lower station, about 1.5 kilometres. Got a return trip to the upper station, it's a long ride but if you're not in the very rear cabin looking straight down you can't really see much on the way up.

The vertical train.

I expected some good trails or forest walking tracks at the top, but was just two main roads leading to some place called The Habitat and maybe a monkey enclosure. There was a downhill path that went 5 kilometres all the way to the Botanical Gardens, but there's no nearby connecting bus down there and I'd already paid for a return ticket for the funicular. Got a bus back to George Town, wasn't one of the bus numbers I was looking for, but it worked out.

George Town in the distance.

Had a very late lunch, still haven't managed to pay for anything with credit card yet. I don't understand why Malaysia still hasn't adopted this technology yet. The one dollar notes are fun and all, but I ended up with a wallet that would barely close because of all the notes and coins I was accumulating. When you aren't familiar with the currency it's a bit hard to quickly calculate the correct coins - made more difficult because the 20 cents and 50 cents come in two different colours and sizes!

Pepsi energy drinks.

Due to the amount of walking my legs are usually at breaking point by the end of each day, but a session at the gym and swimming pool actually seemed to help.

Street food outside the hotel.

Steps: 20,000 (3.5 hours)

Singapore and Malaysia 2018, May 07 (GT)

Still haven't perfected holiday travel. A 9:45am flight doesn't sound early, but working backwards became 6:00am breakfast and 6:45am leaving for the airport. And that's why I hate airports, even if you find a good flight time you have to factor in the worst case scenario for: travel to the airport, check-in, customs and immigration, multiple layers of security, boarding. I think late morning flights might be the best as we will find out later...

The flight to Penang didn't take long, maybe an hour and a half. Got a taxi instead of a bus because of  the small price difference and was much more convenient, only took about thirty minutes which was ahead of schedule for once. The driving conditions were similar to Bangkok, cars and motorcycles just drift in and out of lanes, somehow it works.

Just dropped luggage at the hotel and went to find some lunch. There was a shopping mall just down the road but it was deserted. This new product all the bakeries were selling was a chocolate croissant covered in cocoa powder. A chocolate man might enjoy it, but you just end up with chocolate powder everywhere! Also found these Pepsi energy drinks at the 7-eleven that I'd never heard of, pretty good.

Too much chocolate.

Got to check-in at the hotel then went off to explore George Town aka Georgetown for the afternoon.  On foot it was also like Bangkok - no footpaths and you nearly get killed trying to cross the roads. Passed some jetties, I think Clan Jetties and Chew Jetty, walking along these things you are just hoping the whole structure doesn't collapse under your weight.

Looks safe.

Chew jetty.

Went searching for some of the street art around the old town area, found a few good ones, others looked they had almost worn away unfortunately.

Street Art #1

Street Art #2 they like their bicycles.

Ended up at the Esplanade grounds, had a big clock tower and some fort. Decided to get the free city bus back towards the hotel, but it took somewhere between 15-30 minutes to arrive and wasn't worth the wait.

The esplanade.

The bus ended back at the Komtar building, it was difficult to navigate inside but managed to reach level 6 which had an elevator up to an observation deck near the top, not the most exciting of views.

George Town.

Went back to the hotel a bit early, watched Match Of The Day then finally got to try out the hotel pool, always ran out of time in Singapore and never got around to it there. The Singapore one was much better too, one of those infinity pools on the roof.

Steps: 21,000 (3.5 hours)

Singapore and Malaysia 2018, May 06 (Paper League)

Took the train to Harbourfront, not the same as Bayfront. Got tickets for a cable car to Sentosa, I walked all the way from Mount Faber to the island last time instead, took forever. On the way over I noticed some of the hotel suites have their own private pools, should have stayed there!

Could be almost anywhere.

Just walked around the waterfront area. Not too much to do there if you aren't going to Universal Studios or the waterpark - which I already knew from last time but Jason wanted to go for some reason. Ended up at Siloso Beach, so hot without any shade around. Waited for the bus to Siloso Point instead of walking all the way to the end. They had some dirt bike (sand bike) course built on the sand, the bikes were just getting stuck in the sand though, they weren't very good.

Think where we'd be without sand!

Got some lunch before leaving Sentosa, just missed a heap of rain but it only lasted a few minutes, not a big deal when it's hot anyway. Got the cable car all the way to the top of Mount Faber, walked along to Henderson Waves and back, so many steps. Final cable car trip back to the beginning again at the harbour.

There wasn't enough time to go exploring in Bukit Timah forest, maybe next time. Instead got a train to Jurong East, which is actually to the west, the train was really slow. A quick detour to IMM Outlets but I knew what to expect - that's right, Nike only had size 12 shoes! I was just looking for some shorts anyway, but didn't find any. The Adidas store was garbage, one of those places where they only have small or extra large for sale.

Running low on time, hardly had time to get some dinner and didn't get to walk past the Chinese or Japanese Gardens on the way to the soccer stadium.

Is this the Chinese gardens, or Japanese gardens?

The match was Albirex Niigata vs Hougang United. Albirex was the home team, like a satelitte youth team for a bigger Japanese club. We just walked in the first entrance, somehow everyone else seemed to know this was for away fans, but at least it wasn't as full. The only problem was the visiting fans had some drum kit they were playing non-stop, so bad for my ears which don't like loud noises anymore. The quality of the teams wasn't terrible, they just had no ability to create chances when attacking. The home team had won 30 home games in a row, but just barely got a 1-0 win with a free kick goal towards the end.

Are you ready for some loud drums?

Got a stream going for the Red Bull Wings For Life run, on at a slightly better time in Singapore than Melbourne. Hadn't considered running in it though.

Steps: 30,000 (5 hours)

• Singapore
• 8 out of 10
• Good
• Bakeries
• Cheap 100gb SIM card
• Driverless trains
• Bad
• Marina Bay Sands
• Replacing a SIM card
• Running a race after a day of walking
• The walking distance between underground train platforms
• Missed Out
• Botanical Gardens
• Bukit Timah
• Chinese and Japanese gardens

Singapore and Malaysia 2018, May 05 (The Temperature Strikes Back)

Got the train around to Fort Canning Park, bit of a walk uphill to get to the actual park from the closest train station though. Waited around for the Battlebox tour to start at 9:45am, the staff were a bit late. The tour was a guided underground headquarters bunker tour about World War 2, Singapore being invaded by Japan and surrendered. An interesting story, I don't know a whole lot about Malaysia and Singapore during the wars. The only negative was no photos allowed.

Outside Battlebox.

Walked back down the hill to Orchard Road, aka shopping mall road. Not as hot walking outside today. Just had time for lunch, then went to a pre-booked session at Sandbox VR. For this you get put in a room with a VR headset and motion detection gear, there's a few different games but in each one you have to shoot all of the enemies that are invading your area - a lot like those Call Of Duty zombie survival mode mini-games.

The technology is very cool, the only limitation is you can't move around too much, have to stay within a designated square. I tried looking around a lot at the start to check out all of the entrances, like you would do in a normal FPS game, but you can get dizzy very quickly doing this! You can revive the other players when they die by touching them on the shoulder for a few seconds, but it was a little confusing when you were supposed to do this. I got the game MVP with 56% accuracy, I was trying to be accurate and go for head shots, but I'm not actually sure if that mattered.

Train back to the hotel, fiddled around blindly at the back of the TV, since it was attached to the wall, and managed to get a HDMI cable attached to stream some NBA games. Wouldn't normally be in the hotel during the afternoon but was getting a quick bit of rest and preparing for the Star Wars Run at 5:00pm.

In the race instructions they said you had to get to the start by 4:30pm or you might not be allowed to line up - a complete lie. I got a good spot near the front due to this misinformation, but they were still letting people show up until like 5:10pm and even seemed to delay the start for them. They had two separate lines on the F1 grid for the light side and dark side, but only my section (light side) was in the shade from the pit buildings at the beginning!

I didn't think I'd win this race but thought I could do alright...that was until I saw some Kenyan runners doing their warmup. The prizes weren't huge, but $1000 and a $600 Garmin watch for first is reasonable, still wouldn't provide much profit if you travelled just for this.

Anyway, the half hour prior to the race I spent stretching out my hamstring, since it was feeling pretty bad since yesterday, but getting a little better. Right before the start the stupid 60, 70 and 80 minutes pacers all came right up to the front! I'm here planning to run under 45 minutes, yet a 80 minute pacer with balloons thinks they need to start in front of me, and start taking group selfies, so stupid.

I think I'm just behind the two green balloons.

Finally we were off, I got out of the way of the pacers just before the start, but nearly crashed into slow people in the front few rows, as they were basically at walking speed. I went out way too quick at the start, about 4:00/km for the first two kilometres in the heat. It was such a bad strategy, probably because of the minor injury I didn't have a race plan in mind. I realised I should slow down by the third kilometre but had already done the damage. Drink stations were every 2.5 kilometres but the cups were so tiny they did not help, so I was dead before getting to the 5km 'drink' station.

I was feeling worse in the second half going along Gardens By The Bay, but didn't slow down too much, a few near misses with pedestrians though. The last couple of kilometres back over the bridge was pretty terrible, but managed to make the finish line without stopping. My time was 42:20 but Garmin only registered 9.74 kilometres, maybe it missed a bit somewhere. Official times was 42:15 23rd of 2245 and Jason 49:42 76th. They don't have a results leaderboard, only a manual name search, so I don't know who the winners were.

I grabbed a carton of drink at the end, I thought it was some kind of juice but it was coconut water! Yuck! I must have gone through about eight cups of water instead, got another t-shirt and a finisher medal as well. Overall a fun race, the only issues were the long wait to start and inadequate drink stations.

I walked around and did a lot of stretching of my calf which was starting to cram up, got some dinner and back to the hotel. Rested again, then out to try the Clarke Quay again. Had better timing tonight, getting on a cruise almost immediately. The cruise went out to Marina Bay for a loop and came back, good views at night, lucky to sit on the good side for photos. The Singapore Flyer was red and blue to celebrate the Star Wars Run apparently.

The merlion.

Marina Bay Sands.

Step: 12,000 (2 hours) + 10km run etc.

Singapore and Malaysia 2018, May 04 (Enter Sands)

All the hotels had buffet breakfasts, convenient but not so good for your weight.

I tried to get my SIM card slot open, but the safety pins were so weak they just kept bending and I didn't want to break the slot release either. Eventually gave up, but bought a SIM card from a different 7-eleven store, lucky I had read that you need your passport to buy one! The official Samsung shop wasn't open yet to help get by SIM card out.

Had to line up at the service desk at the train station to buy a tourist three day unlimited pass, it's not available from the machines. The people at the front were buying tickets on behalf of a group of like 50 people, took 20 minutes just to serve them, everyone waiting looked annoyed.

Finally got the train to Bayfront, forgot to turn on my phone to count the steps for the day so far. Walked over to Gardens By The Bay, had been here before but didn't go into the two paid observatories.

• Flower Dome - good diverse selection of plants from different continents, the Australia section was alright
• Cloud Forest - not as good, a bit like an indoor rain forest, but not as much to see

Flower Dome.

Cloud Forest.

Walked back over to the Sands, the shopping mall is just ridiculous, takes forever to walk from one end of the other, should have levels instead like every other shopping mall ever built. The food court was a bit crap, got tickets to the Sands Sky Park instead. I didn't have much expectation, but had walked so far just got it anyway. It was disappointing for whatever it cost, just had access to an observation deck, not even rooftop gardens or anything. Then had to walk most of the way back through the Sands again to get the train station. Probably would have been better to walk outside and over the bridge.

From the Sands sky park.

I found a couple of those mobile phone kiosks in the next shopping mall, they all seemed puzzled by my question about the SIM card slot. So gave up again, got lunch instead.

Walked over to Singapore Flyer, I ran out of time on the previous visit. A big group of tourists in front thought they owned the place, trying to arrange their own private cabins and numbers to go in each, hate those tourists. The recorded audio playing during the trip was pointless, the wheel goes very slow so you have plenty of time to look around. It was surprising how many large apartment towers they have all the way to the east coast, all look identical, a bit depressing if you lived there.

From the Singapore Flyer.

The Star Wars Run festival had just started near the F1 pit buildings, walked over to collect race pack for tomorrow. Got a tote bag, running shirt, some kind of picnic mat - different coloured stuff if you sign up for the light side (blue) or dark side (red). I got a medium t-shirt which fit alright but not great, not the first or last time I forgot about 'asian sizes'. Waited around a bit for some tribute band to play, started with the main theme song then didn't recognise the rest so didn't stay long.

Star Wars Run festival.

Star Wars band, not sure what they do the rest of the year.

Train back towards the hotel to Chinatown, got my SIM card slot open at the Samsung store! but they had none of the tools for sale. Had a quick rest at the hotel, legs were way too tired, not good race preparation. Got a bit of energy back, walked down to one of the Chinatown hawker centres. Didn't eat much, but also McDonald's had a veggie crunch burger on the way back!

Went to Clarke Quay to see if any boats were running, was 20-30 minutes wait so going to try again later.

Steps: 25,000 (4 hours)

Singapore and Malaysia 2018, May 03 (Prologue)

Just a whole day spent (wasted) travelling, the standard for travelling international:

• 8:30am
• Stuck in traffic in Greensborough!
• 9.30am
• The Qantas check-in line took forever, expected better from a 'premium' airline
• 12:00pm
• Left almost on time
• 1:00pm
• Watched Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, not great but helped pass the time
• 6.00pm
• Arrived in Singapore, got a bonus 2 hours from the timezone change
• 7.00pm
• The immigration queue took like half an hour, just wasn't moving
• Had those stupid individual lines instead of a single long line
• 7:30pm
• Managed to get money from the ATM using my bank card, off to a good start this time
• Didn't buy a SIM card yet, realised I forgot I can't get the SIM card slot open!
• 9:00pm
• Train to Chinatown, had to change lines after one stop, then took about an hour
• Still like 25 degrees outside, walk to hotel
• 10:00pm
• Had a quick walk around to get some good, found some safety pins
• 7-eleven had all advertising on the door about SIM cards, but had run out of everything!
• 7-eleven was selling Match Attax cards at least