Cairns Part Four: The Daintree Rainforest and Cape Tribulation

A short drive north of Cairns and our lovely little Love Shack is the Daintree rainforest.  The best way to see the rainforest is by way of one of the dozens of tours offered, most of which include lunch and a jaunt to Cape Tribulation.  The four of us (Papa Osborn has no fear of forests) took a smaller tour and were mostly pleased with the day.

Our tour guide, David, was in a little bit of a hurry and we all grew a little tired of him tapping his watch.  There was some road work that seemed to stress him out.  We guess he thought it would hold up our return or something, but there were only two other people on the tour so it wasn't like spending an extra five minutes somewhere was going to ruin everyone's evening.  We did see a lot because of David's rushing about, but a small tour like that should feel relaxed, not anxious.  Other than that, David was pretty good.  He taught us about strangler figs and another creeper vine, the scandalous start to Port Douglas, and he even pointed to an area where Steven Spielberg filmed part of "The Pacific" TV mini-series.

David's greatest contributions were taking us to the Daintree Ice Cream Company and to lunch - both of which were delicious.  Jeff ate kangaroo, which Aussies call "eating Skippy" after the popular 1970s TV show "Skippy: The Bush Kangaroo" about a kid and his kangaroo pal, Skippy.  It was pretty much their "Flipper," so most don't like to eat Skippy too often.  Skippy, Jeff found, was good but not amazing enough to order again.  Kangaroos are pretty flippin' cute, even if you didn't grow up with the TV show, so it is hard to get excited about eating them.

The bush plum, the favorite meal of cassowary's everywhere

The rest of the Daintree tour lived up to what we had heard - the rainforest is interesting and Cape Tribulation is beautiful. 

Highlights for us were seeing the freaky dinosaur-era relic cassowary (no photos, as only Jeff and Annette caught glimpses), learning about the amazing natural processes used by mangrove trees, the aforementioned ice cream, and (of course) spending another wonderful day with ma and pa Osborn!!  Our one-hour saltwater crocodile-spotting tour with Ken the super-grooved out white mustached croc specialist with special guest appearances from a few very pretty kingfishers was also a highlight!

Homemade exotic flavored ice cream as good as any we've had!

Saltwater Crocs lined these muddy banks for us to oggle at

Cairns Part Three: The Great Barrier Reef

We have just one word for the Great Barrier Reef: Amazing!

But, if we had to use two, they would be "incredible" and "visibility" because we could see over 30 meters clear as day whilst our heads were underwater at the surface, and not much less than that when we were 15 meters below on our dive.  From our full-day GBR tour on the super-fast Quicksilver, which took off out of Port Douglas, we saw turtles, giant wrasse, sharks, and a gazillion different types of coral (oh, the colors!) and fish.  We snorkeled twice with Mama Osborn and did one fantastic dive.  The dive was really cool, as we had dove in some spots with good visibility before, but nothing like this.  Our dive guide mentioned that the water was about as clear and calm as it gets in Winter, which is the best time of year for visibility and calm water around the GBR.  We liked taking the one dive and sandwiching it between two snorkels.  The snorkeling was superb all on its own, and the dive added another dimension.  We were really lucky with the weather, and couldn't have been happier with our GBR tour!



Apparently the reef at the area we visited (the Agincourt outer reef) had been even more alive and beautiful before the cyclone last year that destroyed some coral.  Some kind folks we met later, from Gettysburg, PA, told us that their daughter lives near Cairns and saw the reef before the hurricane, a few months after, and again around the same time we did.  They noted that she was impressed at how quickly the reef had grown back, as it looked pretty bad just after the cyc;one, but still was nowhere near as full and alive as it was before the wind and waves took their toll.  (Jeff decided that if we ever meet anyone from Gettysburg again he would tell them that he likes their address.)


Papa Osborn skipped the GBR tour and snorkeling.  He isn't a big water guy and refuses to snorkel.  He enjoyed lounging at the Love Shack, visiting an opal store nearby called the Opal Mine, and shuttled us to and from PD for the boat.  The following day, all four of us took a trip to the coral cay of Green Island.  The small island is a short boat trip from Cairns and an excellent way for folks to get a day on the reef without getting wet.  We took a glass-bottom boat ride that turned out to be awesome and not cheesy.  It was a really great way for Papa Osborn to see fish, coral, and turtles without strapping on a mask or submerging his face.  We also had some nice beach time.  There is almost nothing Papa Osborn likes more than beach combing ("There is so much stuff!"), and he really liked the visit to the island and a glimpse of the GBR. We also saw whales from the boat on the way out to Green Island.  It was cool for Papa Osborn to get to see those, and we really liked watching him get excited about the island, whales, and underwater amusements!

Cairns Part Two: Port Douglas

About an hour north of Cairns lies the once-quaint little town of Port Douglas.  We drove up to PD early one morning for breakfast, the town's famous Sunday market, and a stroll on their other famous draw, Four Mile beach.

The beach was pretty, but maybe a bit over-hyped.  Everything you read about PD touts four mile beach like it's the second coming of beaches or something.  Perhaps in the warmer months it would have been more alive with beach-goers, but we liked it the way it was, calm and pretty peaceful.

PD really won us over with a delicious breakfast (we probably could have thrown a dart at any of the many tasty-looking breakfast spots and hit a winner) and the market.  PD's Sunday markets are alive with the bustle of tourists and locals rubbing shoulders and brushing elbows as they sniff out the best deals and coolest handmade crafts.  We liked that the markets enforce a rule making sure that all booth operators (or an immediate family member) must be the creator of the goods.  This rule ensured that the quality, interest, and originality of items was kept to a high standard.  We went to the markets just for something fun to do on a Sunday, but left with souvenirs, jewelry (Jeff couldn't help himself), chocolate, and gifts (one for Jeff's mom that we gave her at the end of the trip - sneaky!).  We certainly bought more at the Sunday market than we intended, a la Central Market in KL.

We really enjoyed PD's small town charms even though the streets and markets were packed with tourists (like us!) and went back to the Love Shack happy, well-shopped, and ready for the Great Barrier Reef the next day!

Cairns Part One: Meeting up with the Osborns

 

Jeff's parents spent the second week of their Australian vacation with us!  We were both really looking forward to the familiar faces of family and couldn't wait for our week with them.  We had plans to stay in a vacation house 20 minutes north of Cairns, unfortunately named the Love Shack.  The LS turned out to be freaking awesome, with a BBQ, swimming pool, adequate kitchen (cooking our own meals was divine), and two cozy bedrooms (one detached) all just a 5-minute walk from the very pretty Clifton beach.

Our six nights in the LS were preceded by one at a hotel near the Cairns airport.  The best part about our first night with the Osborns was that it was a complete surprise for them.  We had told them that we were running behind schedule and that we would be in Townsville until the day after their flight.  But we were in Cairns all along, which set the stage nicely for Jeff to fluff up his hair, throw on a pair of funny-nose glasses, and surprise G & T at the Cairns airport.  They were thrilled to see us (Mama Osborn may have teared up a bit)!  They were also relieved that they didn't have to pick up their rental car and try to find the hotel (we did it all for them--sneaky us!),  They took us out to dinner and coffee and we all delighted in each other's company.


We cooked dinner four of our six nights with Jeff's folks and stocked the house with meals and snacks our first day there with an enormous shopping trip to Annette's favorite Oz supermarket, Coles. After the big shop we hung out around the LS, explored the beach, and discussed plans for touring the Great Barrier Reef, the nearby Daintree rain forest, and other area attractions for the coming week...

Whitsunday Islands

Part of the splendor that is the Whitsunday Islands is the contrast of the islands themselves with the water around them.  The land and trees look a bit like the San Juan Islands, rocky and covered with greenery.  But many islands had sweeping white beaches with fine sand, and others had broken coral-laced beaches that looked like sand from a distance but felt like jagged rocks when tread upon.  All of this was surrounded by emerald-ish, crystal clear water.  Our two nights and three days on the Apollo were a nice blend of swimming, chatting, acting as weights when the sails were up (as in all passengers had to line one side of the boat  to keep it from tipping - at times the boat was pushed so much that one had to hold on the rail to avoid falling back toward the water).  We met some more nice travelers to chat with (including a RARE German basketball fan with whom Jeff BSed with for some much needed sports talk).  We also got our second set of glimpses of the Southern stars (Fraser had some nice, clear nights too) and confirmed our theory that most travelers in Australia are German (more than 50% of our fellow shipmates were Germans, and we were told by more than one person that Oz stopped issuing work visa's to them because there were already more than  4 million in the country - there are only 22 million Australian citizens[!]).

We also had one of our best wildlife encounters while sailing the Whitsundays, or we should say, Annette did.  Jeff missed it.  He was down in the bottom of the boat preparing a hip-hop playlist.  The captain had put on a mix of Aussie hip-hop our second full day on the water and Jeff wanted to return the favor by playing some of his favorites.  Only his iPod ended up dying before the playlist ever saw the light of day and Jeff missed a pretty incredible moment.  Annette was up on the deck of our racing sailboat-turned cruise for backpackers when she heard the captain yell out, "Whale! Whale, right in front of us!"  The captain jerked the boat to avoid, in what he later described as a moment of panic, a humpback whale mum and calf.  Annette happened to be sitting on the right side of the boat, as she got to watch the momma and babe pass within about 6 or 7 feet of he boat and she described the mother as being the width of a large SUV. Everybody started taking photos like mad.  The captain wiped his brow, happy to have avoided wrecking a million dollar boat with 26 tourists and 3 crew by slamming into two whales.  And Jeff was downstairs, lining up a doomed but perfect US hip-hop sampler on his ipod that would die just a few hours later.  The real tradgedy though, was that Jeff also had our camera with him downstairs.  Annette was grateful for the up-close view of the whales, but regrets not having a photo to share with you all (damn it, Jeff!).
 
But the Whitsunday's provided plenty of other pleasing wildlife encounters (just none quite as amazing as the near-miss/once-in-a-lifetime photo op with the mum and calf).  We saw plenty of other whales from varying distances - enough that the captain noted that he had never seen so many on one three day trip before.  We also saw a nursery lagoon bursting with baby sting  rays and black-tipped reef sharks, several turtles, as well as eagles and birds a-plenty (the first-mate of our ship showed off by tossing chicken bones high in the air when eagles were near so they could swoop down and pluck them out of the air - a practiced routine, but impressive none the less). 

The natural beauty shined too.  The most impressive area we visited was the famous whitehaven beach, which was as pretty as all of the photos we had seen (and also housed the shark/ray nursery).  We also did one dive, which introduced us to the outer Great Barrier Reef and the astounding colors of  the coral that grows there.  The water was far colder than what we were used too, but we still tried snorkeling a few times after our chilly dive.  There were fewer fish around than we were used to in the tropics, but the size, variety, and (again) color of the coral gave us a sneak-peak of the beauty to come diving the GBR about a week later. 

The third wonder of the Whitsunday Islands, after the natural beauty and wildlife, is Eugene, our ship's cook.  Ours was his first trip out as Apollo's new chef.  And the meals he was able to create from the cramped and inadequate ship kitchen were worthy of praise.  Eugene modestly whipped up delicious pastas, potato salads, chicken lunches, and rice dishes out of a tiny, joke of a kitchen.  With some help from the captain, Eugene made a delightful Oz BBQ dinner that capped off his glorious run.  Annette brought no hat, but Jeff certainly tipped his cap to Eugene (and Annette gave her verbal praises) for a job very well done.

We arrived back in Airlie Beach (the shoving off point for all of the one billion offered Whitsunday cruises) around 4 o'clock with several hours before our over-night bus to Cairns was set to pick us up.  And so it was that we saw how thin the line is between homelessness and backpacking.  We set up a temporary camp on a bench in a waterfront park to re-organize our big backpacks, which we had left in lockers for the duration of the cruise.  We then hucked our gear to dinner and a bathroom break/time killing sit-down at a nearby food court,  before finally making our way to the bus stop to catch our Ozzie dog (Australian Greyhound) to the shining beacon of Cairns - where we were to meet up with Jeff's parents, dive the Great Barrier Reef, explore the area's rain-forest, and unwind at our vacation rental for a week, the Love Shack!


Note:
Traveling with so many Germans isn't all bad.  On Fraser Island we learned that the German word for hooded sweatshirt, or hoodie, is "kapuzenpulli."  A funny word to say or hear anytime!  Annette also learned, erroneously, from a Team Bondage friend on FI that Germans call the Milky Way the "Milky Tree."  Unfortunately the Germans on Apollo corrected us.  Annette had misheard our friend.  They actually call it the "Milky Street," which is still cool but not nearly as funny.  Another bonus of hanging out with so many Germans is being able to test the unintentional comedy scale.  Without knowing it, Germans often crack everyone else up.  We think it is the combination of some really funny-sounding voices, their accents when speaking English, and a pretty hysterical language.  Whether speaking German or English, some German folks just sound comical.  We truly cherished one fella in particular on our Apollo boat.  His drunkenness plus our slight buzzes made for two evenings of some really fantastic unintentional comedy.  The last few sentences might have seemed to be in poor taste, but those of you who have spent much time with any Germans will surely agree that there is no funnier sounding language or accent.  Even another German on the boat told Jeff, with a smile, that the aforementioned fella with the funny voice was annoying.  We wouldn't say annoying, just unfortunate in the best way.

Fraser Island

Despite Fraser Island being the largest sand island in the world, we camped two nights and spent three days driving around its beaches and overland tracks (no roads to speak of on this island) without Annette getting that glass-in-your-eye feeling sand and contacts so frequently team up to inflict.  Instead we both got that warm fuzzy feeling one often gets when in (or, in this case, on) a surreal natural setting.

The world's "largest sand island" doesn't necessarily inspire images of amazing scenery, rare wildlife, or even having fun.  But FI was all of the above: We were greeted by a dolphin as we drove on the beach after arriving by ferry; we saw humpback whales playing just off the beach of our campsite with a gorgeous sunset as their backdrop our first night; we watched dingoes go about their business on more than one occasion; we ate pipis (a clam-type animal that is easy to dig up and tasty to fry with chili sauce) caught by us and our tour-mates and cooked by our super-Aussie guide, Luke; Jeff drove our 4x4 in a small town (first opposite side of the road experience), on the beach, and on a bit of bumpy dirt track;  and we made friends with our car-companions cum-teammates. 

We toured FI by way of something called a tag-along tour, which consisted of 26 people divided into three 4x4s and one lead vehicle.  The driver of the lead vehicle was our guide, Luke.  Our Toyota Forerunner sat seven people with a very cramped three-person front seat, soon dubbed the "bondage seat" (our group took on the name, "Team Bondage").  The tour is designed to give you a thorough visit to FI over the course of 3 days and 2 nights. There are no roads on FI, only driving on the beach and a handful of inland tracks.  They used to let people hire their own 4x4s more often, but those tourists unaccustomed to the many nuances of driving on sand were frequently crashing them, injuring themselves and others, so these tag-along tours are now the main way to see the island for non-locals.  The cars, a guide, food, and camp gear are all provided (as are a shovel and a porto-tent for girls to use for wee only).

Everyone gets an opportunity to drive if they have the desire and a license (and, as Annette soon found out, the ability to drive a manual transmission).  Jeff took a few tries behind the wheel and didn't flip the car or injure any one, though he did drive for 15 minutes of his first stint with the parking brake on!  We really liked our group, made up of two German girls, a young and hilarious Austrian/Finish hybrid named Max, Kyle from Vancouver B.C., and a young English girl named Sally.  One of the German gals was our best driver, beasting dunes, soft sand, and everything in between all while chatting and laughing.  Our worst driver (surprisingly not Jeff) was the other German girl, who almost flipped the car for no apparent reason and nearly reduced Sally to tears (Sally was freaking out to the point that she began to try to read a book to take her mind off the driving.  Later, the driver told us she thought Sally was going to start crying.  A little after that Sally told us that she DID almost start crying!).

As with any tour, ours was made great because of our guide. Luke knew the island well and his knowledge gave us a great campsite and helped get us to beaches and other areas we might have missed with a guide less experienced with the weather and tides.  FI has many fresh water lakes, which have beautiful sandy beaches and freezing water (we only swam in one).  FI's beaches, views, and overall natural beauty is stunning.  The forests are from the Jurassic period, though the oldest and largest trees were logged early on in Oz history.  Driving on the beaches and through the overland tracks was niiiiiiiice.  And to say that the beaches and lakes were beautiful is being both modest and selling them both short.  The combination of natural beauty and unique wildlife (FI has the most genetically pure population of Dingoes in the world) was pretty darn terrific.

We left FI happy with our camping trip (we slept in tents both nights) despite the meager lunches (no more salad wraps!--the dinners were all good) and excited to explore the rest of the East coast.


Note:
Our guide Luke was pretty damn good.  He knew his shit - from tides to the best tracks - which helped us get the most of our short time on Fraser Island.  Chatting with him the second night was a highlight, and we'd like to share a story he told us about one of his favorite wildlife encounters on the island:  On one tour, he had a mother and daughter from Germany.  The mother was intent on seeing a dingo whilst on FI.  She would ask him questions about dingoes in her broken English, hoping to get as much info as possible to help her spot one of the famous dogs.  The last morning she was brushing her teeth when a wallaby bounded right through camp, directly past her, between her and Luke.  Her eye got as big as two saucers, and she looked to him with the tooth brush still in her mouth and said hopefully, "Dingo?"

The most common way to see FI is to take a tour starting from either Rainbow Beach or Hervey Bay.  Ours began in Rainbow Beach, a town with fabulous beaches (one, we didn't see, that has something like twelve different colored sands, hence the name of the town) and not much else.  We stayed only one night before FI and one night after.  The day before we took our 4x4 self-drive tour was spent at an orientation for our tour followed by a guided walk up a giant sand dune (or sand blow, as the locals called it) above town where we gave boomerang throwing a try and found we're in need of a lot of practice. The sand blow also provided awesome views of the ocean and was an excellent location to watch the sunset. Rainbow Beach turned out to be a pretty nice little town all on its own.  Worthy enough for two photos on this blog anyway.

Brisbane: The City We Would Move to if it Weren't for Our Friends and Family

Our beautiful Brisbane morning

Arriving at your destination late at night when everything is dark and closed, only to wake up to a sunny and beautiful day in a new city is one of the true joys of traveling.  And that is exactly what happened to us in Brisbane!  We flew from Singapore to Brisbane on a late flight, arriving to a totally dead city.  We were thrilled to open our eyes to sun and a sparkling jewel of a metropolis.  The bright city has a picturesque river winding through it, which allowed us to take in our first views of the big B in the best possible way - from the inexpensive and super-convenient City Cat water taxi.  We were soon saying things like, "We could live here if it weren't for our (damned) family and friends."  And we still think that is true.  Maybe Brisbane won our hearts because it was so different from some of the hot, muggy Asian metropolises we had been to in the last few months.  Maybe we liked Brisbane so much because of its similarities to home.  (Indeed, a theme began to emerge in Brisbane and followed us throughout Australia:  "It's just like home...but a little bit different.")  But we also think Brisbane is a special city - alive with friendly people, beautiful parks, a gorgeous river, and a smart food culture. 

Like Seattle, the big B is a city made up of many different neighborhoods, each with its own vibe, food, and sub-culture.  We took most of a day in Brisbane to explore as much as we could on foot. In just that short time we got a great feel for the city;  we saw several of the neighborhoods and were charmed by their individual personalities, visited many of Brisbane's older buildings, meandered along the river, and soaked up the positive vibe the city exudes.  We ate a breakfast that reminded us of Seattle to the extant that we had an entire conversation about which neighborhood the restaurant would be in back home (and settled on Wallingford).  Beyond the food, we just enjoyed being able to read everything from menus to street-side plaques and marveled every time someone spoke English to us (though not every Aussie is easy to understand on the first try, and our Irish hostel mates might as well have been speaking Chinese at times). 

Brisbane's Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary helped make Annette an even bigger fan of the city.  The sanctuary was the first of its kind and today it is home to over one hundred of the grey furballs, gobs of kangaroos, and many other Aussie animals.  The kangaroo area consists of a big field where kids of all ages can feed the kangaroos and get up close and personal with one of Austalia's most beloved animals and national symbols.  It was really something to get so close to so many kangaroos, but the real event at Lone Pine is getting your photo taken while hugging a koala.  The moment they put the koala, Max, into Annette's arms, she knew it was love.  She loved the firm hug of the koala and the cuddliness (they are as huggable as they look).  The koala we held didn't stink to high heaven, as we were warned.  He just gave darned good hugs and gave Annette thoughts of animal theft (how good can their nighttime security really be?)  We also saw a baby koala, which was even more cute that you would imagine.  One the highlights of Lone Pine for Jeff were the pictures of celebrities who had visited and held koalas: Steve Austin, Regina Spektor, and Mikhail Gorbachev were some of the most amusing).

We left Brisbane with just under two weeks to head up the East coast to Cairns.  We had a hop-on hop-off Greyhound bus pass (no relation to the US company) and tours booked for Fraser Island (the world's largest sand island) and the Whitsunday Islands.  Brisbane was a great city, but with just under two months in Australia we knew we had to move on and see what else the country had to offer.  Though, everywhere else we would visit had a high bar to meet!


Notes:
Brisbane impressed us in many ways, but one was the city's cleanliness, especially considering that earlier this year Brisbane had some horrible flooding - water reached as high as 4.5 meters in some areas of the city.  But we couldn't tell there had been any flood at all.  There were a few posters that reminded us, but the city itself was spic-and-span.  Healed, restored, and full of energy.  Cheers to the people of Brisbane and Queensland for rebuilding so quickly!


We arrived in Brisbane to beautiful, sunny weather.  Therefore, we were a more than a little perplexed when we began to see signs in shop windows about the chilly weather.  This was their winter, but it felt like a beautiful summer Seattle day.  This is cold to these people?!?

Our koala photos.  Clearly, Annette can take a better photo than Jeff.  And Max obviously prefers Annette to Jeff.

 

Singapore the City State

Despite having had the same party, and effectively the same Government,  in charge since its independence over 50 years ago, the people of Singapore appear to be pretty gosh-darn happy.  Singapore has a healthy economy and all seems well - things really hum there.   We spent five days in Singapore.  More specifically, we spent five days in Singapore eating.  The city-state is heralded globally as a world-class food city and it did not disappoint.  (Not even after coming from Melaka by way of KL and Bob's food extravaganza.)

Singapore's food is really good, but what really makes it great (truly, to paraphrase Anthony Bourdain, "a foodie's paradise") is the food culture that seems to eminate from the whole city.  There are food, or hawker, centres (we would call them food courts, but these have much more soul than our version) everywhere, most forehead-smackingly cheap and delicious.  People in S-pore like to eat out as much as we do (and who can blame them with such amazing food costing less from a hawker stall in a food centre than it would to make it yourself at home?), so there always seemed to be plenty of people slurping, munching, cramming, and crunching wherever and whenever we were in the mood for food.  We didn't eat the famous Singapore chili crab until the night before we left and, even though it was a highlight meal of our trip, we could have left the city without eating it and been happy with our food experience.

Our chili crab meal was near perfect, even though it took us a while to decide where to eat it.  It is probably true that almost anywhere we got it would have been tasty, but we wanted to eat amongst some locals and not over-pay too much for what we were to be served.  We eventually decided, after much research and discussion, to go back to a food centre we had been to before and order from one of two stalls situated on the outer edge facing a row of seafood and satay BBQ carts.  We picked our stall, chose our (live) crab, waved goodbye to him, and sat down.  We ordered a side of buns along with the crab, both of which appeared soon enough.  Our little crab had transformed from creep crustacean to delicious-looking meal.  His shell had been cracked to make our access to his jucy flesh less of a chore and he had been soaked, cooked, and carefully placed in a bright red-orange sweet chili sauce.  The crab meat was succulent and fresh.  The chili sauce just spicy enough, with a nice underlying sweetness that brought out the flavors of the crab rather than overriding them. 

And the buns.  Well, the buns turned out to be the best call of the meal. They were crispy on the outside, and soft on the inside.  Not a buscuit or a roll.  Just a really marvelous bun.  They soaked up the sauce and stray bits of crab flesh with grace, and stayed firm in your hands because of their crispyness.  It might seem silly to go on  like this about some buns, but they were so perfect for their task that they deserve a moment or two of reverence.  Needless to say, we ordered another round of buns and everything went down nicely with some light (what else do they make in Asia?), cold Tiger beer.

The Laksa Man!

We also ate and fell in love with laksa and fried carrot cake.  Laksa is a spicy fish soup that is popular in Malaysia and Singapore.  We searched out a hawker stall mentioned by Bourdain (a frequent visitor to S-pore) only to find it was no longer in the spot it used to occupy.  We wandered blindly for some time and, eventually and quite by chance, stumbled on to an out-of-the-way food centre housing the laksa stall we had been looking for earlier.  The laksa was well worth the line and the (roughly) $2.  Laksa is not a clean or delicate soup.  It is rough and bold, and though it may have been made better by the circumstances, we think the use of fresh fish, a variety of unexpected flavors, and a light (spicy) heat made it such a delight (even in the hot, sticky Singapore weather. The fried carrot cake, called chai tow kway, is actually fried radish cake.  It can be ordered "black" or "white" (sweet or savory).  This fried carrot cake, even ordered sweet, is nothing like our carrot cake, but it is a sensation all its own.  It may have been one of Jeff's favorite Singapore dishes for its amazing dough and simplicity (well, those two things, and the fact it is fried).

Singapore also has some sights.  The funniest is its Merloin, which is the city-state's mascot for some unfathomable reason.  The most prominent Merlion in Singapore is the giant statue that spews water near the CBD (Central Business District).  Not far from the eternally barfing Merlion is the amazing Marina Bay Sands, which is just one of S-pores seemingly endless collection of fantastic architectural achievements.  Clever and creative buildings loom beautifully all over Singapore, adding to a really clean, well-designed city, quite bright and airy feeling, despite the often-oppressive heat.  Singapore is one of the most impressive cities either of us has ever been to.   The Singapore Botanical Garden was an unexpected highlight, shady in all the right places.  We were endlessly awed by the collection of orchids at the National Orchid Garden with over 400 varieties of the exotic plant arranged in a sprawling, romantic wing of the park.

We also visited the highly-regarded Singapore Zoo.  We saw tigers and other big cats of every kind, but where the zoo truly shined was its handling of their extensive money and primate collection.  They have smartly and successfully implemented an "open concept" in the zoo, which means orangutans can climb and frolic directly above you.   Annette's favorite were the baboons who entertained us for almost 45 minutes with their antics (the best was at feeding time when a smaller baboon ran to a corner of their enclosure with a carrot in its mouth and so many in its little arms that it had to keep stopping to pick them up as they fell).  We spent hours at the zoo and followed up our zoo visit with a tour of the Night Safari that evening where you get to see nocturnal animals out and about.  We saw a Siberian tiger prowling through his jungle enclosure and wolves howling to the moon (and unforgettable sound!).

Singapore dazzled us with its design and architecture.  It filled us with its delicious and soulful food.  And surprised us with its cheerfulness and contagious positive vibes.  We really enjoyed the city-state and were sad to leave.  But there is no time on the road for tears, for we flew from Singapore to the Southern Hemisphere and a new continent: Australia!


Next up: Brisbane: The City We Would Move to if it Wasn't Half Way Around the World from our Friends and Families