The journey continues...

** Jade keeps telling me off because I have forgotten to mention that on our last night in Sydney, Kerry took her to see James Blunt in concert as an early birthday present! She says it was amazing and they were standing a couple of rows from the front so were in the centre of the action! **

Since our last update we have travelled pretty far and are now in Kuala Lumpur.
On our last couple of days in Singapore we went over to a small island called Sentosa for our 4 year anniversary and stayed in a really nice hotel (a huuuge difference from the likes of the Hawaii hostel we've been in). The whole place is like a theme park type island with loads of different activities and sights to see. We spent the day fitting in as much as we could, which included another Luge (tobogan/go-kart cross breed) taking our tally to 3 now, as well as the aquarium where we got to touch sharks/stingrays/puffa fish etc. We also went to a fullsize simulator type ride in a cinema where everyone sits in seperate boothes that move around to match up with the movie, and then to see a pink dolphin lagoon show! We didn't even know that pink dolphins existed - next they'll be showing us those flying pigs!
Our last day in Singapore was a bit of a naughty day for me, as we headed to the main shopping district, which also happens to have a huge selection of electronics shops. It wasn't as if we had even been looking around for ages and I got dragged into a sale, it was in our first shop! We spent well over an hour in there, and I ended up coming out with a digital video camera with built in 6 megapixel digital camera (that fits in the palm of your hand!), a 2Gb memory card, spare battery and tripod! Oops! Those damn tax free savings! Oh well, hopefully I've gotten it out of my system now (yeah right!!! I nearly walked out with a Canon 350D too!). I worked out it was over 150 quid cheaper than the UK price, so I definitely got a good deal.
I was all spent out after that, so we just did some window shopping before heading back over to Chinatown for Jade to get her hair "rebonded" which is some fancy Japanese process that chemically straightens your hair so that hair straighteners are obsolete! It took 4.5 hours and cost a small fortune, but Jade seems to think it was worth it, so it's all good! Plus it is a damn sight cheaper than my electronics addiction.

The next morning we caught a bus to Mersing in Malaysia (4 hour trip and cost 4 pounds!) and got straight on the speed boat over to Pulau Tioman, which is a tiny island where they filmed South Pacific! I had one small complication on the bus journey there when we had to change buses, and that was me getting stuck in the door with my rucksack on and two holdals of hand luggage. I think the bus driver must've thought I wasn't getting off quick enough as he just shut the door on me. I was literally stuck in the door and two guys had to shout for the driver as he had walked off the bus and on his way to the cafe! Jade was completely oblivious to the fact that I was still trapped in the door as she had half walked into the station herself! But when she finally saw, she decided to laugh instead of helping me get out! Typical women!

The island itself was amazing and the huts we were staying in were less than 10 quid a night which isn't half bad! The whole resort of Salang was no more than 300m in length and ran parallel to the beach. All the restaurants/bars were on the beach and our meals were costing less than a quid each! Can't complain at that.
We have finally started to top up our tans again as we were slowly heading back into pastyness. Jade decided to take it one step too far though and now looks like she is wearing a red body suit with white pants!
We did a 4 hour snorkelling trip around Coral Island and a couple of bays which was amazing and unlike our Barrier Reef snorkelling trip, 99% of this one was actually spent in the water rather than the boat! We swam with turtles (again) as well as thousands of different tropical fish, and Jade even saw a stingray too.
We also had another small blunder on Jades part while we were there as she locked our key in our chalet and the guy had to hammer the lock off as he couldn't find the spare key. He decided to ignore my advice of unscrewing 4 screws (it wasn't the most secure place) to get in, in favour of hammering it and breaking the door in the process! Each to their own I guess!

We stayed on the island for 3 nights before catching the ferry back to the mainland this morning and getting a coach (6 hours - less than 4 quid!) to Kuala Lumpur. On the ferry ride, our boat managed to get stuck in the sand as it went through water that was too shallow, so we all had to climb onto another boat to get back to shore. This one then proceeded to get stuck also, so we had to climb onto a 3rd boat to finally get back to shore! Don't we just get all the luck!

Anyway, we are now in KL and going in search of food. Will update again soon with more tales from our adventures.

Hope you are all well.
Take care
K&J
xxx

Singapore baby....

Well we have finally left the comfort of Kerry's flat in Sydney and made it over to Asia! It's quite a shock losing all the creature comforts, but it's about time we did some proper backpacking! :o)

Everything seems to work perfectly over here so far. We got off the plane, had our luggage and were through customs in about 10 mins! Then got straight on the MRT (about 50p) for our 20 minute journey to our hotel. If only Heathrow and the tube worked as well in England!

It's not all good though as it's 30 degrees (which isn't the bad bit) but it seems like there is about 99% humidity all the time! You get out of the shower sweating! Yes I know, nice thought for all of you! Lugging around a 20kg rucksack with another 5kg's for hand luggage = very sweaty Kyle & Jade!

Anyway, enough of that. We've been very busy since we got here, and seen loads of stuff already. We didn't get in until about 7pm yesterday, so didn't have too much time to sight see, so we just checked out the shopping malls and food court on Bugis Street before crashing out at the hotel. Today however, we've more than made up for our lack of exercise in Sydney by walking what feels like from one side of Singapre to the other! We moved hotel this morning which was a mission in itself, then headed to Suntec City (more shopping) which has the world largest water fountain. After all that excitement we needed to relax, so went to Raffles for a Singapore Sling (it had to be done!), then checked out Raffles City, followed by a huge food complex called Chijmes. I then got turned away from the New Asia Bar on the 72nd floor of the Swissotel building for wearing a vest! Cheeky b**tards, how the hell do they expect you to wear anything more in that heat!!!! :o) (I was wearing shorts too in case you were wondering.It wasn't just a vest!) ;o)

Anyway, headed to the Esplanade, Merlion Park, Boat Quay and Clark Quay which were all pretty cool in their own way. It was at Clark Quay we encountered our first monsoon! You'll see from the photos that there is a pretty big storm brewing in the background! The heavens opened and it poured down for about an hour, so poor us had to sit in a bar and drink beer until it passed! We were really bummed about that! ;o)

We also checked out the Bugis street markets among many others which had some quality knock off gear dead cheap, but with Thailand looming it's just not the time to start buying that yet. The stuff was much better quality than I expected though, and 3 quid for a quiksilver t-shirt can't be bad! They do get a tad confused with their copies though as one stall had blokes t-shirts with the roxy girls logo splashed all over the front!
They had some top quality knock off watches too like the fake Dolce & Gabana (D&G) with D&F written on them - couldn't help but laugh. The TAG ones were funny too, called TAF. Guess they just picked the closest letter in the alphabet!

We're both knackered after all that walking and beer drinking so gonna head back to our new hotel, which is a dive but half the price of the first one! Loads more planned for the next few days, so will update again soon!

Hope you are all well. Drop us a mail if you're bored.

By the way, Jade and I are now on our old English mobile numbers, so don't use the Australian ones any more.

Take care
K&J
xxx