Singapore and Legoland!!!

I must confess, I was keen to get out of Singapore as quick as possible because I thought that we would do nothing but haemorrhage money. We did in fact spend a lot of money, but it was all convenience items that we found dirt cheap after having lived in New Zealand for three and a half years.  Stephanie now has a new phone. I have some camera extras. Aurora an Mp3 player, and all of us some portable charging devices. Nothing we needed, but we left so much more that we wanted!

I feared Singapore, the city country, because it was uber-developed, and I imagined it crowded and devoid of any sort of culture. While it is not brimming with the ancient sites you will find in its neighbouring countries, Singapore does have a great culture. We stayed in Little India, and I counted about 20 curry joints on the short walk from the MRT to our hotel. Public transit from the airport, a significant journey, cost us $2.50SIN for the whole family, or less than the price of a single trip fare on the LRT in Edmonton, or the buses in CHCH! Transit in general was dirt cheap and went pretty much anywhere you needed to go. If you missed a train, the next was by in 2 minutes. I later discovered that there is an obnoxious tax on getting a car on the road in Singapore, that can make ordinary vehicles worth about $100000!

​The one tourist thing we did do was the world famous Singapore Zoo, which lived up to its fame as an ethical (as much as a zoo can be) free range zoo. We had our first Uber experience here as well, waiting all of four minutes to be picked up and taken to the zoo, for about what it cost us to take a cab 3.5km to the airport from our house in CHCH: $30SIN. We have our sights set on Europe next, but with all of the international schools, and comforts of big city living in a very-westernised Asian country, which doubles as a transport hub, we may have to give this some reconsideration. The moral here: go in with low expectations, and you will be pleasantly surprised. The cockroach in our hotel bathroom and the shitty WIFI could not even dampen my view of this place.

​What I was really looking forward to though was Malaysia. More specifically Legoland Malaysia. When I was in Grade 5 in Germany, my favourite teacher Mr. Taylor organised a trip to the original Legoland in Denmark, but he moved with his previous years grade 5 class to grade 6, and the Legoland trip taken the year before became a one off anomaly. My dreams of a Legoland driver’s license all those years ago thwarted, I was excited to live vicariously through my daughters on this trip.

We scored a sweet Air Bn’B deal at a posh condo complex about a twenty minute walk from Legoland in Johor Bahru. We were even picked up by car, and driven across the border into Malaysia, my 25th country on my mission to 100, before death departs me. What struck us about this area is how deserted it was, but also how the infrastructure was geared toward crowds of hundreds of thousands someday living and visiting the area. Complete with six lane motorways, multiple dozens of high rise apartment buildings like the one we were in, which had a 24 hour security detail, pool, tennis courts and the full nine, this place was built with the future in mind, and all developed within the last ten years.

Once in Legoland itself, it was more of the same. We waited no longer than five minutes for any ride. Food was reasonably priced, and the rides were great. We spent a very long day doing just about all the place has to offer, we never had time for the waterpark, and I missed the Star Wars exhibit by minutes L The whole time at the place I was reminded of Euro Itchy and Scratchy land from The Simpsons:

“Hello, Euro Itchy and Scratchyland open for business! Hello? Come ona peepuluh! Ma children needa wine!”

Aurora got her Legoland driver’s license, so childhood fantasy lived vicariously through eldest daughter: check. Off to Penang and more Malaysian adventures of the proper cultural variety