Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

I hope that all of you had a lovely relaxing Christmas with family and friends and I wish you all the best for the New Year 2007!

I am HOME again!

“Two weeks away it feels like the world should've changed but I'm home now and things still look the same… (Dido – Sand in my shoes) ”
I have been away for more than 7 months and nearly nothing has changed in my little home village in Thuringia. The houses look the same, the neighbours are the same and everyone still seams to do the same things. It is so fantastic relaxing to come home and everything is still the same! It feels like home!
I really enjoyed the Christmas holidays with my family! Decorating the tree in the morning of the 24^th, going to church in the evening, having traditional potato salad and sausages for dinner and unwrapping presents afterwards. This year we had duck à l’orange for lunch the next day – yummy :-) We didn't had "white Christmas" as such but it was kind of white because of foggy weather on Christmas night. But finally today it snowed for the first time.
After some very relaxing days here at home we are preparing now for New Years Eve in Dresden. I am really looking forward to see the fireworks in front of the old skyline of Dresden!

Sentosa Island

On my last day today I took the cable car over to Sentosa Island, a poxy little island south of Singapor. This is the plainly the tourist island of Singapore. I think it is just there to please the tourists and to “steal” their money. You either hate or love it, but I knew what to expect.

So I just wandered around the island and had a look at everything. Apart from the various, expensive tourist attractions (underwater world, sky tower, 4D magic,…) there are also nice nature walks through the rain forest. And because it was a very rainy day there were only a few people on the island so I enjoyed walking through the green forest all by myself :-) The beaches are not natural, they had to bring the sand there and they look so unnatural! Especially the big container ships in the background are very pretty ;-) I also went to the “Southernmost point of Asian continent” but why is this point in the SOUTHWEST of Sentosa ISLAND???

Singapore City

On my third day in Singapore I met with a friend early in the morning and he showed me around his home country. In Singapore everything is about food - Chinese, Malay, Indian! So we started the day in a typical Chinese food hawker or centre. This is a huge hall with lots of little food stands with tables and chairs between them. I just watched while Kevin ordered bits and pieces of everything. The first course was frog porridge! YES! Poor little frogs drown in hot rice porridge. But if you don’t think about it frog really tastes like chicken :-). Then we had something Indian which I can’t remember, essentially it was a crepe like thing which you dip into a spicy curry. For dessert we had bean something – a kind of sweet soy bean soup with solid soy bean bits ;-) And we drank cane juice. They crush bits of sugar cane and extract the juice – very yummy!!

Then we walked through Chinatown and started our little sightseeing tour in “Little India”, followed by the Raffles Hotel, the Esplanade, various temples and of course shopping malls :-) We had lunch near the “Fountain of Wealth” – apparently the world’s largest. The special dessert comprised of ice (water ice) with a sweet corn – durian flavoured sauce on top of beans and black jelly – DISGUSTING!! Durians are very smelly fruits with a very distinctive flavour! You either love them or hate them! Some hotels even forbid durians because of their smell :-)After about 7h or so of walking we were both pretty tired and finished the little sightseeing tour with a cocktail in the “New Asia Bar” which is located on the 71^st floor of the Stamford hotel. You probably get the best view over Singapore from there.

After a short afternoon nap I walked along Orchard Road and admired the amazing Christmas decorations. But the weather got slowly worse. On my first day it only drizzled a bit at night. On the second day it only poured down when I was sitting in the bus. The third day had long non-raining periods between short showers. Today it was raining pretty much the whole day – long drizzles alternated with short heavy showers. This is also the reason while I am writing this while still in Singapore. I saw pretty much everything I wanted to see and after visiting Sentosa Island this morning I am now enjoying WIFI in my hotel room :-) because sightseeing in the rain is not really fun. It is still raining outside and the forecast doesn’t say anything different. The positive side: the temperatures dropped from 30°C to 26°C but the humidity is now pretty much 100%.

Malacca

The next morning I got up very early to go to Malacca. It was an organised tourist tour but there were only 6 others with me in the bus so it was not too bad. Malacca is a historic town in Malaysia, just 3h form the southern border. So the procedure to leave Singapore and to enter Malaysia is as follows:
Everyone has to get out of the bus before crossing the bridge to Malaysia, queue up, present their passport and stamp-out. Meanwhile the bus and the bus driver are checked as well (death for drug traffickers!). So we get into the bus again at the other side of the building. After crossing the bridge the same procedure again – everyone out of the bus, through passport control and into the bus again. The same actually holds for every passenger on any bus or train. It is really quite funny to see the crowds leaving and entering the bus at the borders :-)

The first thing we visited was a traditional, family run tin factory where they showed us how to make all sorts of things out of tin. But it was more like one of these typical tourist stops where they chase you through shops expecting you to buy all this crap.
On the way to Malacca we drove through huge palm plantations. They produce palm oil for cosmetic products or cooking.
In Malacca we walked through the old city and visited temples. We watched people praying, sacrificing incense sticks and this paper money. They burn special sheets of paper and by this they send this money into the next world to deceased. But you can also buy big paper cars, paper houses, paper “hell passports”, paper visa cards,… every you might need in the next world :-)
The whole time we were pretty lucky with the weather because the wet season just started. And the rain started as soon as we entered the bus to drive back to Singapore. It actually poured down!! And we say flooded areas and people trying to get to their houses.

Singapore Zoo and Night Safari
I was already pretty tired when I arrived at the zoo and so I kind of ran through the whole park aimlessly for 2h. But nonetheless it was good! The landscape designer did a really good job. The animal enclosures look very nice and natural – I just hope the animals think this as well… because after all it is just a zoo. So you also see small and poxy cages with animals walking around in circles like they are crazy. And of course there are huge souvenir shops trying to sell EVERYTHING! :-)
After dinner at Bongo Burgers I visited the Night Safari as well. After sunset you can see night active animals in another zoo next to Singapore Zoo. Visitors are driven through the park in small trains while a ranger comments on the animals. The ranger asked a couple of times to be very quite so not disturb the animals but somehow Asian people don’t understand that… they were happily chatting along and it wasn’t like whispering or so… But apart from that the tour was very good. All the animals had dinner so they were exactly at the spots where we could see them :-) The “Creatures of the night show” in the end was also quite entertaining.

Singapore

So we went to the Perth airport on Saturday morning. The flight was overbooked so they were looking for volunteers to go onto a plan later this afternoon. In reward they were offering S$500 (250€ or A$490) + taxi vouchers + upgrade vouchers for business class. And of course I volunteered but unfortunately I wasn’t the only one. So I only made it onto the waiting list and in the end they didn’t need that many people :-( But at least Ian and I got a free breakfast at the airport while we were waiting.
I arrived in Singapore half an hour earlier due to a strong tail wind :-), took the bus to Chinatown and got a room in a nice and cosy backpackers. After I checked in I took the MRT (mass rapid transit train) to the famous Singapore zoo.

I am excited!!

I am flying home tomorrow! I can’t wait to see all my family and friends again!
But before I arrive in Frankfurt I am going to make a little stop-over in Singapore. A friend of mine from uni will be there as well. He is visiting his family. So we are going to meet and he will give me a little insider tour :-)
But right now I am very busy packing all my stuff! I am afraid the suitcase will be much too small or I bought far too many Christmas presents :-)
We started this day already very relaxed! Ian took half a day off and we went for breakfast to this lovely restaurant directly on the beach in North Cottesloe. It was a beautiful morning! The ocean was totally flat and had this amazing colour!
When Ian comes back from work we will have our first little Christmas! Because we will both spend Christmas with our families in Germany and Australia respectively, we decided to exchange presents today, so we don’t need to take them to Germany and back.

…. and ended very good!!

After I wrote the last blog entry I felt still really unhappy and worried about my little scooter. So I decided to go for a swim, distract me and think of something else. I took a little detour because I hoped that the thefts dumped the scooter somewhere around here maybe. And really I spotted something mint-green in the grass just 200m from here! I started running and couldn’t believe it!!! It was my scooter, standing there happily :-) No scratches, no broken mirrors… but the steering lock is broken, so I can’t start it. But I will get this fixed easily! I am so happy!!!

The weekend started off very good…

My weekend actually started on Thursday already :-) I went shopping with a friend from uni. I haven’t been shopping for a long time! So we two girls visited every single shop in the city in order to find the best Christmas presents for our families. It was so nice! Girls just love shopping ;-)
On Friday I left uni early after lunch because I hade to prepare the dinner. We invited two other couples – a German/German and a German/Australian couple – over for dinner. So we sat outside in our front garden (actually the nicest part of the house at the moment ;-) ) and ate our way through entrée, main and dessert – yum! It was a really lovely evening, we enjoyed each others company and enjoyed eating, chatting and drinking :-)
The Christmas shopping on Thursday made me feel like more shopping – I haven’t been shopping for new clothes for ages!! And while walking across the Freo markets I saw this beautiful designer skirt and top! I tried it one, Ian said ‘yes’ and so I bought it!

The Saturday ended with our first visit at the Somerville outdoor cinema this year. As it is tradition we packed our little picnic back and sat in front of the big screen to have dinner. Then we watched “Infamous”, a really good movie about the writer Truman Capote. But it was kind of weird seeing Daniel Craig (the new James Bond) playing a gay guy and kissing other men…

So far the weekend was pretty good! But what can you see on the picture on the right? Nothing?! Correct! This is the place next to our front door where my scooter is usually parked… YES, they nicked it last night!!! When Ian got up at 7am this morning to go swimming my lovely little green scooter was gone! Even though we leave windows and doors open (but locked) during the night we didn’t hear a think!! And the scooter was parked right next to the front door! So as you can imagine I was pretty unhappy this morning and still am… but in the end it is ‘only’ money…maybe they find it…
So if you see a cute little mint-green scooter (license plate: 1CA524), please let me know!

Coffee induced insomnia

I usually don’t drink coffee, especially not late at night. But the other day we went to see some friends we haven’t seen for a while. And they make really good coffee - freshly grinded beans, coffee plunger – yummy!
But it was 9pm at night when I drank 2 big cups of coffee… so when we went to bed I was lying there and thinking “I am AWAKE!!!” I was lying there with my eyes wide open and thinking about what to do… couldn’t read, the light would have waken Ian up who was sleeping peacefully next to me already…. So I ended up watching him sleeping :-) Eventually he turned and squinted at me. I think I scared him a bit when I stared at him because he just mumbled “what?!” “Sorry, I am just bored!” :-)
But I managed to fall asleep eventually.

1st of December

I opened the first door of my advent calendar. My mum sent me this calendar from Germany after I requested it :-) [I guess I will never be too old for this.]
But even though it is December already it doesn't really feel like Christmas here. You can hear Xmas songs in the shops, you can buy Xmas chocolate, everything is decorated and I even saw a big tree with fairy lights! But when the sun is shining and it is 30C outside, it doesn't at all feel like Christmas!!
Today I just realised that I will be home very soon! In just 2 weeks from now I am flying home again! I am sooo looking forward to this! I already arranged to go to the Christmas markets when I come back, so I will hopefully get into Xmas mood in time before the 24^th.