This morning, after an early wake up call, we walked through the dark yet crowded streets of Chinatown to make our way to the bus station. Tori split off from the group and took a subway to the airport, where she would catch a flight to Bangkok.
We headed to the bus station, where we I got some snacks to hold me over for breakfast on the bus. Once we loaded our stuff into the lower compartment, we climbed aboard the amazingly luxurious bus. The seats were like the first-class seats on an airplane. They were like La-Z-Boy recliners that had been installed in a bus. I fell asleep soon after we left the bus terminal. When I woke up a couple of hours later, we were in the countryside. It reminded me a lot of driving through England, if only that we were seeing the world from the left-hand side of the road.
We took a break at a rest stop that had lots of food stall options, and a small grocery store in the back. Jenna and I split a waffle sandwich with chocolate and peanut butter that was still warm from the waffle iron. It was so good. (Much better than the puffed rice snacks I had bought at the bus terminal.)
We drove to Johor Bahru, unloaded the bus for immigration, and then reloaded it when we had passed through the border check. We arrived in Singapore around 2 PM. It was raining when we got off the bus, and we did our best to keep our backpacks dry while they were unloaded. We walked to the MRT (subway) station looking like a little trail of hunchbacked garden gnomes, wearing our hooded ponchos over our backpacks.
It was nice to be back in Singapore because we have some basic knowledge of the city now. We got off the MRT at the at the Caldecott stop for the SDA Headquarters, where we were staying once again. Jenna and I got settled into our room, then walked back to the MRT station to explore the city a little bit and find some dinner. We went to the Orchard Row stop, and found that it exited directly into a mall. It doesn't get much more convenient than that. We found the food hall, and got some lovely Vietnamese food. We were going to get pizza, but Vietnamese food seemed more appropriate for our last night in Asia. I got delicious vermicelli noodles with veggies and a side mango salad.
The mall was probably one of the nicest ones I've ever been to. It had several basement levels, and there were other malls on either side of it. Underground tunnels connected the malls to each other, and to the MRT. It could be a little confusing. We tried on makeup in one mall, then went downstairs to find a Japanese grocery store. They were selling miniature donuts in the shape of fish that they made using a specially shaped waffle iron. The fish were filled with custard, chocolate, caramel, and many other flavors. We got a small school of fish to enjoy. Those were the most delicious fish I've eaten on this trip.
Again using the MRT, we went to Chinatown. We popped up on a very colorful street of shophouses with apartments above. It was fun, but much more expensive than the Chinatown that we had just come from in KL. In KL, the conversion was much better, which also helped. The quick mental math procedure was to take any price that they offered and divide it by three to get the price in USD. In Singapore, every USD is about 1.25 Singapore Dollars. I confess, I needed a calculator for my transactions in Singapore's Chinatown.
After we had our fill of shopping, we went back to the Caldecott station and walked back to the SDA guesthouse. It was about 8 PM, but amazingly few people were out and about. The streets were basically empty, but very well-lit. I felt very safe in Singapore, even at night. It was an odd sort of consolation to know that if anything did happen, it would be caught on camera and recorded by the government.
We packed up our backpacks, ever-more-bulging, and tried to get some rest before the next (and last) day of traveling.
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