Today, Vivien asked me if I would like to take her friends from Sydney, Australia out for a day. And I said yes, sure! Haha. Like I'm so totally experienced at this already.

It was fun today. Again, I explored my own country. Chinatown + Gardens By The Bay this time.

I've never been to the Gardens and honestly, I'm freakin impressed. I was stunned! I ser-wearrrr. It was nice talking to them too, hearing their tourist perspective of our country~

Shall share with you later, but for now pictures!


Chinatown

I've visited this place the most number of times coz of Maxwell food court. Kept going there. And I'm heading there AGAIN this Saturday with Yuanyun. And ONE MORE TIME with my mom hahaha. Year of the Chinatown before heading to NZ.





Yeappp, if you were thinking Angmohs, nope, they're Asianssss : ) Born and bred Down Under.
Can pass off as Singaporeans rightt.
But the 4 of them are really nice girls!!! I like em.





Tasting Sotongs, which looked pretty good btw.
Walking with them, we realised there was actually a lot of food around. Like Vivien and I just walked right past all of them without realising, while the 4 of them would stop and buy these little treats. Interesting.


Like these potted plants. I'd just freakin walk past without stopping hahaha.




Then...

MAXWELL FOOD CENTRE!!!

This is my umpteenth time there already.



FOOOD FOOOD OH GLORIOUS FOOOODDDD

Nugget, I've been eating A LOT these few days. Like my god... I think I'm eating like I'm pregnant I swear.

Anyway, they LOVEDDDDD all the food here. Like wow, freaking praising it like hell. Coz they said it's cheap, and good. Like freakin cheap to them. In Australia, you get chicken rice for $4. I was like hmm... that's still ok no? $4? Then one of them told me, Oh, just the RICE is $4. WTF!? . For us add rice only 50 cents. And their rice is only a small portion. Like half the bowl. Then she said chicken rice WITH the chicken would probably come up to $8-10. Wow. No wonder they loved everything.

They were reallleh full by the end of it and they wished they weren't so full so they could eat somemore hahaha. Plus, it was their last day here so they were wistful and wishing they could have all the food over there in Australia and stuff.

Btw Fish soup is damn awesome at Maxwell, please try it. Even them and Vivien liked it. Local + Foreign.

They went to New Zealand before and they were very excited about me heading there for exchange and told me all about their trip there. Got me so freakin excited to head over there already!!!!! They told me to eat ALLL the Asian food here before going coz there's completely no good food over there HAHAHA.

Anyway, this is Jo trying some awesome.... guess what it's a Singapore fruit.


DURIAN!!!!!





1) I'm gonna try some durian!!!
2) UGH EW
3) I think the taste is growing on me.

SEEEE, you gotta give the durian a chance hahaha. She sorta accepted it. But in the end, they all didn't really wanna carry on with eating it. Vivien carried the remaining in her bag and the smell was just PUNGENT. Everytime she opened her bag, homg, zee Chanel 101 fragrance was just... wow. We now realised why the govt banned durians on public transport. It really DOES pack a punch when you air it in the open.


Some awesome $1 ice creammm.

A Must-Eat, Duh. Haha.


Then, it was time for me to be a Tourist.






This Bayfront Mrt Station looked pretty awesome... like it was spacious and.. nice. Haha. I sound stoned, but really, it is.


When we walked outta the mrt station,
What greeted us was this...



OH MY LORDDDDD. Did Man build this? Coz boy oh boy, he make'em reallll high.

I'll never stop getting amazed by this MBS. Really ah. Too much leh this one.

And then...








Gaspp!! So pretty!!!!!!
The structures looked damn unreal. Like sci-fi or Avatar. I think you can't just look at the pictures. You gotta be there to actually feel the enormity of these structures. Woah.

Sorry, but here are some whoring photos of the thing. It is pretty shameless I have to say.








I really liked marvelling at it.
Love that track thing btw. Helps put a focus to the photos.

PLUS we got to go up on that "track"!!! It's called a skytree grove btw haha. Costs 5 bucks to go up. They considered it really cheap so they went right up.

And it was really quite awesome up there.

Had to take a picture ya know.


Nyahahhaa






SO NICE RIGHTTTTT?!??!!
Le sighhh. I swear I was damn bloody impressed. That much until one of the girls was like, "Ahh, I can see even you are amazed"

Yeap, even I was.

You could see MBS, the Singapore Flyer, Marina Barrage, alllll up there and it was a nice feeling coz the wind was blowing in your hair and face. Wow. And the sun's glow.... omg..


Heh. LOL AT VIVIEN'S FACE.
I believe sunset's the nicest time of the day to be up there.


Top half's the skyline. Bottom half's the gardens. The walkabout through the gardens is ok only. I wasn't jumping around looking at all the greens and gardens.



But this thing is some pretty awesome thingum man.


Look at the suspension lines.


More Tourist Photos~~





Luvvin it.



Can't wait to see the vines growing out of these things soon, in the near future... Vivien said the plans for this gardens is to walk through the gardens and then supposedly enter a "jungle". She worked here as an intern before. So I guess these plants have a lot more growing to do haha. See you in maybe 5 years' time.

I've seen pictures of these things lit up at night. Wow... magnificent. Maybe I'll get to see them on my next trip.



I had to take this picture coz it's pretty amazing that something this magnificent greets you at the end of the escalator...



The road view was pretty awesome from up here. The bridge that connects MBS and Gardens.

They were wondering what ERP stood for.
"Is it Eat, Rest, Play?"
We wish!!! Hahahaha.


Interior of MBS. They were impressed by the architecture haha.



Just one final picture of MBS.
I think it's magnificent! I still can't believe man-made structures could be that big. Country bumpkin max.


Anyway, it was a really nice outing with them. I feel like once again, I peeled my eyes open to my own country. I saw things I normally wouldn't, as a local resident. I stopped to see things I would usually float by. I saw NEW things today as well, places meant for tourists.

What's more, they're such friendlyyyyy Australians. Like it makes me feel less anxious about going there on my own, because there'll always be nice people around. Be they Asian or not. And I'm really comforted... they got me damn pumped up for NZ. Omg I can't waitttt already ARGH AHHH. They told me to go to Rotorua for hot springs, skiing at Queenstown and of course extreme sports like bungey and wow, everything. I'm excited! They're really nice people.

Besides that, both Vivien and I could really tell that they enjoyed Singapore very much. We felt immense pride to be Singaporeans, showing them around our beautiful, albeit man-made, little city. They're not trying to be polite or anything but sincerely, they were telling us things that we never thought possible. For them, food is superrrr expensive at Australia. So to them, everything here was cheap. Like I mentioned earlier, a plate of chicken rice was WOAH cheap-as. Sugarcane juice at 1.50 was so cheap to them, they bought 3 cups yesterday and wanted to bring the machine back today hahah.

They also told us, they loved our public transport. Something we Singaporeans complain about all day every day. I complain about it too. How it's getting so crowded and shit. But we overlooked something... the frequency of our trains. They kept telling us how damn fast our trains arrive. And how accurate the system tells us when the next train arrives. Coz for them, they could be told 4 mins but end up having to wait for 20 mins. Sometimes, the train breaks down because their trains are run on tracks.. So they're railways and the rails expand in the heat and can't be ridden on.

Furthermore, taxis are apparently cheap here as well. I was surprised because to me, taxis are damn ex here. The revision of prices can just keep going. But for them, once again, they're super expensive in Sydney. One of them told me they've only taken a taxi ONCE IN HER LIFE. Like womg. She says the taxi fare can come up to $80. Omfg. The taxi meter increases 10 cents per second lol lol that's crazy.

After returning from 6 months' of study so far in Brisbane, Australia, Vivien really appreciates Singapore much more... that's what she told me.

So looking at what they're telling us... what we overlook in Singapore are really some of the things that you can't find overseas. Or are worse there. We complain here, thinking the "grass is greener on the other side". Well, literally it must be coz they have nature and all haha. But we'd always think else where is better. And that's not necessarily the case. If you think about it, everywhere experiences the same problems as us. We'd think it's a Singapore problem but in actual fact, it happens around the globe. Countries all over are thinking of minimising the same problems and coming up with solutions to deal with a burgeoning population. Problems are everywhere. I guess it's how we look at it in a different light.

Maybe... From a Tourist's. ;D