Singapore

After a few days in Cambodia, we headed onto Singapore for the rest of the week.  Ricky and I arrived there on September 20th, 2011.  Singapore is a tiny island located at the southern tip of Malaysia.  The island is half the size of Rhode Island and has a population of 5 million (5 times Rhode Island).  The capital is also Singapore, and it occupies most of the land.  It is a wealthy, advanced country, with a per capita GDP 33% higher than the U.S.  They have a harsh judicial punishment system, and low crime rates--even lower violent crime rates.  The murder rate is 4th lowest in the world (beaten by Iceland, Monaco and Palau). 

Touring Singapore is nothing like touring Cambodia.  It is a busy, first-world city, with no ancient ruins.  It is also much more expensive.  It was neat anyway, and I'm glad I went.  The highlight of the trip was the six hour "Joo Chiat Food Walk."  This was at the Betelbox Hostel in Geylang Serai, on Joo Chiat Road.  Our guide, Tony Tan, showed us life in the high rise apartments, told us about Singapore's history, the Geylang Serai area, the religions, the languages, the law, and of course the food.  Our group had two Americans (us), seven Australians, and one Korean.  At a nearby fruit shop we tried maybe 10 different fruits, 6 of which I've never had before.  Mangosteen, mango, dragonfruit (both red and white), rose apple, guava, starfruit, pineapple, watermelon, yellow watermelon, and another which I cannot remember.  If you've never had a mangosteen, I recommend you try it now--it is probably the best fruit I've ever had.  We had dinner in Tony's restaurant (located below his hostel), where we tried about 20 dishes and 6 desserts. 

The tour group, outside the hostel.

View of the east side of the city, from a high-rise apartment building.

Tony Tan, explaining the local businesses and real estate. 

A mangosteen.  Ugly outside, tasty inside.  It is segmented like an orange.

The dragon fruit are the pink, flowery ones.  Rose apple is the red, pear shaped one.  Guava is green on the right.  Mangosteen is dark brown, top center.  Mango is the yellow one on the far right.  Starfruit on the bottom.  And the tan one in the upper left...I can't remember.  It was grey and gelatinous, but very good as well.  

Food was a big part of our time in Singapore.  Below is a "hawker center."  Instead of having street vendors, the city rounded them all up and put them in organized locations.  This mainly kept the food clean, and the streets clean.  Lots of good, cheap food found here.  There are centers in Chinatown, Little India, and a few other areas.  Each hawker center tends to sell the cultural food of whatever neighborhood it is located in. 

Chinatown hawker center. 

Our favorite area in the city were two riverfront spots called Clarke Quay and Boat Quay (pronounced key--Clarke "Key").  They had good restaurants, bars and views. 

Boat Quay

Clarke Quay.  Much of it had those huge umbrella-like structures, which created a shaded, rain-free, outdoor shopping and eating walk-way.  

Clarke Quay at night.

Chinatown.  Entrance to the MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) station.  Their metro. 

Little India.

Raffles Hotel.  This hotel was named after Sir Stamford Raffles, the founder of Singapore.  It is from the late 1800's, and the interior looks like it was taken straight out of British colonialism.   Supposedly Rudyard Kipling and Joseph Conrad (old English writers) used to hang out here. 

Long Bar (Raffles Hotel).  

Singapore Sling.  We got these at the Long Bar, at Raffles Hotel.  Why?  Because this is the spot where the drink was invented.  They don't readily advertise the price, and when we got our check and realized each cost S$31 (25 US dollars), we were a little shocked.  

View of the financial district.

Lastly, the Merlion.  Not the best name.  

Cambodia

In mid-September I went to Siem Reap, Cambodia, with my friend Ricky, to tour the ancient cities of the Khmer Empire.  The region containing these cities is known as Angkor.  It's easier for me to classify Angkor as one large city, rather than a bunch of smaller ones.  Technically it is much larger than Rome, but it is more spread out.  The ruins are equally amazing, and nothing like what you can find at Roman ruins. 

The dollar goes very far in Cambodia, and they often charge US Dollars anyway so you don't really need to exchange money.  They don't have American change, so they give paper Riel when they need to break a dollar.  One US Dollar is worth between 3800-4000 Cambodian Riel.  At the end of the trip Ricky ended up with nine leftover 100-Riel bills, worth about 20 cents.  The look and feel of Siem Reap is certainly third world, however, they have roads, a very nice airport, hotels, reliable transportation and little crime that we could tell.  We felt perfectly safe walking around the city at night.  Pickpocketing is rampant in Italy; it was nonexistent in Siem Reap. 

Siem Reap sits in the northern half of Cambodia, at the northern tip of the large Tonle Sap Lake.  It is a jungle climate, very hot and humid, with rainy seasons.  The temperature is between 80-90 degrees year round--much hotter when you factor in humidity. 

Angkor, built between 800 and 1300 A.D., was the largest ancient city in the world, covering 390 square miles.  That becomes more impressive considering it vanished after the 1400s and wasn't discovered again until the early 1900s. 

We visited a number of sites in the city, the most impressive being Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom.  Overall, we toured following complexes, temples or structures:  Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, Victory Gate, Thommanon, Chau Say Thevoda, Ta Keo, Ta Prom, Banteay Kdei, Srah Srang, and Prasat Kravan. 

There is really too much information to try and convey about these sites, so if you're interested, I would just suggest reading about them on Wikipedia, I have linked them for you above.  Please click on the pictures and then view them zoomed in as well.  You can't tell very well, but nearly every square inch of wall, tower, door, and roof has been hand carved in some way.  The carved reliefs were as prevalent as paint would be for us today--truly amazing. 

The outer wall of Angkor Wat, as seen from inside.

And example of a small section of wall covered in carvings.  This particular wall was well over 100 feet long and 12 feet high.  Every inch was carved like this.  These scenes actually depict Khmer history.  

A view of the Angkor Wat grounds.

View of the main  temple once you get through many layers of walls.  One more layer to go.

The upper gallery of the Angkor Wat temple. This is the center tower, in the middle of four others on the corners of the square temple.  Five towers in all. 

A statue, possibly of Brahma or Vishnu (I'm not sure), in the upper gallery, below the center tower.

View of the temple from the back side.  If you look very closely you can make out all five towers.  

Me, sweating like crazy.

 Another view.

The South Gate.  It serves as the entrance to Angkor Thom. 

The Bayon temple, the largest structure in Angkor Thom.

A closer view of the Bayon temple.  Every one of those peaks has four identical faces on it.  There must be hundreds of these faces here.  You couldn't turn your head without one of these faces looking at you.

Another view, from the natural entrance to Bayon.

Baphuon.  Also located in Angkor Thom.

Phimeanakas - also at Angkor Thom. 

Ta Keo.  

Chau Say Tevoda.  This temple complex is not as tall or tiered as many of the other temples, but it is a sprawling network of buildings and paths and roads.  As you can see, the forest has become one with it.

Chau Say Tevoda.

Chau Say Tevoda.

Chau Say Tevoda.

A relief carved into a wall at Banteay Kdei.  

Siem Reap and the Night Market

Ricky and I also walked all around the city during one afternoon and evening.  There you could find all kinds of souveniers, food and drink.  We were hassled pretty hard to buy massages, "fish doctor" massages (where a specific species of fish nibbles all the dead skin off your feet), and Tuk Tuk rides.  A Tuk Tuk is a cart hitched to a motorcycle.  The main taxi-like service available there.  We took a Tuk Tuk to and from the airports, and all around Angkor while touring. 

Our view from the Tuk Tuk. 

The pool and restaurant at our hotel.

The local beer.  

Food to buy at the market.

An entrance to the night market.

The weird fish massage or "fish doctors."

Me and Ricky at a bar.  Those beers were $1.  

Mount Fuji

With Ashley and Hazel gone, I climbed Mount Fuji on August 8th, 2011.  It was a long, beautiful day, and in the middle of it I was struck by lightning at the summit.  Pretty interesting experience overall.  The climb up took me 5 hours and 30 minutes, and the climb down was 2 hours and 40 minutes.

Here is the view of the mountain from or starting point, the 5th station.  This is at 7,562 feet.  Snow usually covers the mountain, but mid-July through August there isn't any snow and the temperature is warm enough to climb safely.  It was about 60 degrees at 06:30 in the morning here. 

After a 15 minute walk from the 5th station, this sign shows you where to go, tells you how far you have to climb (6 km) and tells you how long it should take you (385 minutes). 

Dude just climbed for an hour, so naturally he needed a smoke. 

That was one awesome banana.  It was about 65 degrees here. 

Branding hiker's walking sticks.  These each cost 200 Yen, and filled up your stick by the end. 

The stations also served as sleeping huts.  You could rent space on one of these mats. 

A typical resting station.  Busy with people taking a break.

These guys were taking some extra oxygen in those aerosol cans.  I didn't have any, but I don't think I needed it.

One of the last stations.  It looks like it's built right into the sky.

The Torii Gate and the lions greet you just before you reach the summit.

This is the doctor that delivered Hazel.  Pretty unique that she was up there the same day at the same time.

A vending machine at the summit.

 

There at the top was a kind of pioneer town.  A few places would rent you a place to sleep and another place served hot lunches.

This is the crater at the top.  Behind me you can see the weather station that technically sits at the highest point of the mountain, 12,389 feet.

The volcanic rock was a range of colors.

The Fujisan-Do Post Office.  For all your top of the mountain mailing needs. 

A strong rainbow after the storm.  About 30 minutes before this is when I was hit by the lightning.

Back at the bottom, glad to be done climbing.  My left knee was really sore at this point.

And that's the end. I took a three hour bus ride back to the hotel in Tokyo and went to sleep.