My Trip to Malaysia & Singapore!

Recently, I had a week off of work for the Chinese Public Holiday. I decided to make the most of this time off and do a little bit of solo traveling to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Singapore, Singapore. It was such an awesome trip, and I fell in love with both cities! This post is going to be a long one, so brace yourself…

I left for my trip bright and early at 5:30 on Saturday morning bound for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I had tried (for once) to go to bed at a reasonable hour since I had to be up so early before a long day of travel and exploration. Naturally, the second I got in bed I was wide awake for hours. I only got a few hours of sleep, and it definitely showed once I got to the airport. I had it in my head that I was traveling domestically (which I obviously was not) and got in the wrong security line, then had to get out of line so I could get in an international security line, then go all the way back to the entrance to actually print my boarding pass, and then finally get through security. I think my lack of sleep was catching up to me at this point. I grabbed some food and boarded my flight right away. My flight was only about four hours, but we still got a complimentary meal and a blanket, so I did get to catch up on a little bit of sleep. Eventually, I got off my flight, took a taxi to my hostel, got my bearings, and headed out for the day.

By the time I got settled and head out to explore it was about 3:30pm. I headed straight for the Petronas Towers, which are twin towers in the center of the city and one of the most iconic sights of KL. As mentioned in my previous blog post, malls are a big thing in Asia, and especially in Malaysia. My roommate LiYen, who is from Kuala Lumpur, has said that there are so many malls because its so hot outside so the only thing to do is hang out in a big air conditioned building with food and shopping. I became quite familiar with the mall that’s directly underneath the towers. I explored around this mall a bunch. I even found a Garrett’s Popcorn! I got it twice during my time in KL 🙂 I couldn’t resist. It’s a taste of home! I also found the most amazing frozen yogurt place, and it turns out they have a location in Guangzhou that’s dangerously close to my apartment. This is both good and bad news… When you exit the other side of the mall so that you are behind the Petronas Towers, there is a big fountain and park.

I kept walking around in hopes of finding the KL tower (another must-see in KL), but got way too lost and decided to find it a different day and instead ended up in a complex of malls and shops called Bukit Bintang. Seriously, these Asian malls put American malls to shame. They are SO fancy and modern and chic. One of the malls I walked through had a HUGE open pavilion in the middle and a giant red carpet. It was a little bit over the top and unnecessary, but I kind of loved it. At one point when I was walking through some of the outdoor shops I came across a street musician who was playing “Fix You” by Coldplay, which is one of my all time favorite songs. I stopped and listened, and I’m so glad I did. It was so beautiful that I literally started tearing up and crying in the middle of this busy street. I had to put on my sunglasses to hide my tears haha. I recorded some of his performance, and while the video itself is awful, the audio is beautiful. I’ll insert it below and would HIGHLY recommend listening, but ignore the shots of my feet, the ground, and briefly my legs (sorry! lol). **Side note: I can’t insert videos with the free subscription that I have for WordPress so I went and uploaded the video as an unlisted video on YouTube just so I could insert it in this blog post. That is how imperative it is for you to witness the beauty of this musician. That is all.** For dinner that night, I went to a vegetarian restaurant and got a charcoal burger. I honestly don’t know what this means, but I’m assuming it’s just because of the black bun? There was some kind of egg patty in it, and instead of fries it was served with little deep fried mushrooms. It was SO good. After that, I explored a little bit more, got myself some ice cream, and took the metro back to my hostel.

The next day, I had plans to meet up with my roommate LiYen, who, as I mentioned, is from KL. She was spending the week off back home in Malaysia visiting with her family, but she was nice enough to take me to some of her favorite food places (she is a strong believer that the food is the best part of Malaysia). In the morning before I met up with LiYen, I stayed near my hostel and explored around there. I was staying right by the Central Market, which is basically an indoor/outdoor shopping market. There are tons of kiosks set up all over selling everything from food to luggage to jewelry to perfume to clothing. I didn’t buy anything, but I did enjoy looking around. I also walked around and saw some government buildings, a city gallery, and the national mosque. The architecture in this side of the city is very different from the center of KL that I had explored the day before. The center of the city was more modern and sleek with lots of skyscrapers, but this side of the city showed more of the historical roots. The architecture reminded me a lot of what I had seen in Morocco, which I was not expecting.

Around noon, LiYen and her sister picked me up at my hostel for our day of fun. LiYen had been telling me all week about the places she was going to take me, so I had very high expectations. She grew up in a suburb of KL, so she and her sister drove me out to their town, and we even stopped by her parents’ house briefly to pick up one of her other sisters to join us. I had assumed that we would be going to places around the city, so it was a fun surprise to get to see her hometown! Our first pit stop was a Buddhist vegetarian restaurant. The menu is deceiving because it lists items like lamb, fish, pork, etc. but nothing on their menu is actually what it says it is. All of these dishes are “fake” and made of vegetarian foods instead, yet they taste like the real thing. The dishes are small so we ordered a bunch for the four of us to share. We got “lamb”, some little fried mushrooms, “fish” with vegetables, tofu, and rice. It was all SO good, and it really was surprising how much these “fake” meats and fish tasted like the real deal.

The next place we went was an Indian restaurant that was half indoor/half outdoor. LiYen said that places like these are super popular for people to come hang out at night because they can sit outside and the owners will set up a projector and play the football (soccer) games. It seems like it would be a very fun place to come socialize, eat, and watch a game – especially because everything there (and in Malaysia, in general) was so so so cheap. We got pull tea, pita bread, and tissue bread. The tea was 1.60 MYR which is about $0.40 USD. Isn’t that crazy?! Forty cents for a drink?! The menu at this place was insanely big. There had to have been at least 60 items on it and the most expensive thing was 16 MYR, which is about $4 USD. The pull tea basically was like milk tea – I don’t know how else to explain it because I’m certainly no tea expert, but it was very tasty. We got a pita bread that came with a bunch of dipping sauces – my favorite was the yellow bean sauce. But the best thing we got was tissue bread…. oh my god. This was unreal. I could eat this every day and never get tired of it. It’s basically a really thin piece of pita bread that is rolled up into a cylinder. The inside is spread with butter and sprinkled with sugar. It’s so thin and crispy that it breaks right off and melts in your mouth. The flavor almost reminded me of kettle corn… except better. We also got a condensed milk dipping sauce, but I didn’t have much of it because it was so good on its own. We got the small size, and it was still huge. The plate was about a foot wide and the tissue bread hung over both ends of the plate. According to LiYen, the large size covers the length of at least three of those plates and is the length of an entire table of six people. I like the way these people think. In the picture below, the plate on the left is just the normal pita bread with the yellow bean sauce. The food that I’m devouring (please note my claw hand lol) was the tissue bread (I was too excited to take a picture before digging in). LiYen had taken this picture to send to Clint who had stayed back in Guangzhou to hold down the fort.

The final stop on our food tour was quite possibly my favorite part. But I don’t know because that tissue bread was so dang good. We went to this cafe for dessert and got their famous waffles and ice cream. I also got an iced peppermint chocolate drink, which was SO good. They had tons of waffle/ice cream combos to choose from but we went with the classic one. It was just a regular waffle topped with Earl Grey ice cream, strawberries, blueberries, bananas, coconut shavings, and maple syrup. OH MY GOD. This was so freaking good. The four of us devoured this waffle in about 0.2 seconds. I honestly could have eaten an entire waffle all by myself, but thankfully I didn’t because I hadn’t realized how full I was until after we got in the car, drove back to the city, and I couldn’t move for 30 minutes. This cafe was so cute, and it was really fun getting to just hang out with LiYen and her sisters. I definitely didn’t think I’d ever meet her sisters, so it was a fun day!

LiYen and her sisters drove me back to my hostel where I sat in the lobby for a good 30 minutes because I was too full to stand up before heading back out to explore some more. I ended up heading back to the Petronas Towers because there is a music/light show every night at the fountains just outside the towers. I walked around the park and enjoyed the weather now that it had cooled off a little bit. I got myself a good seat in front of the fountains (and broke my flip flop in the process) before the show. I love me a good music and light show and this one was no exception. I sat and just admired the pretty fountains for a long time feeling grateful for life and travel before heading back to my hostel.

The next day (my last in KL), I headed to the Batu Caves, which are quite a big tourist attraction just outside the city. The caves are known for the giant gold Buddha statue that sits outside of them and the giant staircase (272 steps to be exact). The stairs are normally just plain old cement colored, but recently, the stairs were painted a bunch of rainbow colors. I’m so glad I got to see them painted this way because they were beautiful! It was quite a steep hike but I kept stopping to admire the view, take pictures, or look at the monkeys that were bopping around so it didn’t wear me out too much. The caves themselves were nothing too special. There were some small temples, but otherwise the main attraction was the colorful staircase. It was very pretty!

After visiting the caves, I headed back to my hostel to grab my stuff and made my way back to Bukit Bintang. I was taking a bus to Singapore, and my bus was departing from nearby. I grabbed some snacks to take with me (my second bag of Garrett’s cheesy popcorn and an incredible Oreo brownie), and headed to the bus. It was about a five and a half hour bus ride from KL to Singapore, but the bus was super nice. It was double decker, so I got a seat on the upper deck. The seats were really wide and reclined all the way so I was able to get a nap in too. We even got served dinner. I finally got to Singapore around 11:30pm and took a taxi to my hostel, took a quick shower, and went straight to bed.

I packed a whole lot of stuff into my first day in Singapore, and HOLY MOLY I am in love. It is one of my new favorite cities – potentially in my top 3. The first thing I did in Singapore was visit the Gardens By the Bay, which is just a big nature park. They have two indoor exhibits that I visited – the Flower Dome and the Cloud Forest. The Flower Dome was basically just an indoor garden. They had some kind of special exhibit going on that featured a bunch of sunflowers, and it was Wizard of Oz themed so that was cool! The Cloud Forest was also awesome. It’s another indoor exhibit that has a big “mountain” in the middle that is covered in foliage and has waterfalls cascading down the side. You walk all the way around it, and then take an elevator up the middle. There are then walkways going through and around the outside of the dome that show you what it’s like being above the treetops. Both indoor exhibits were nice and cool (temperature-wise) and smelled so fresh.

Another part of the Gardens By the Bay is the Supertree Grove, which is basically a big area with these giant “trees”. There is also a walkway at the top of the some of the trees. At the tops of some of the trees are restaurants and “rooftop” bars. This was my favorite part of the Gardens By the Bay, and the part that I had heard most about. It was so cool – I just hung out there forever in awe of my surroundings.

The Gardens By the Bay is right by the famous Marina Bay Sands hotel, and if you take the walkway underneath it you end up on the other side of the hotel and in the Shoppes of the Marina Bay – another huge, fancy mall. There were canals, gondolas, and fountains in this one. It was cool to walk around this mall, but it was one of those malls that only has super high-end stores so I could never dream of buying anything there. This isn’t surprising since the Marina Bay Sands is a super fancy, expensive hotel. I did eat there, though! They had a big food court, but I couldn’t find anything vegetarian (although apparently I didn’t look hard enough because I found something there on my last day). As a last resort, I ended up checking out this restaurant on the third floor far away from the crowds of the food court on the first floor. This restaurant was a DC Comics Superhero restaurant, so their entire menu and decor was DC comic book themed. I’m not even into comics, and I still thought it was awesome. I ended up getting a veggie quesadilla that was Green Lantern themed. It came with a cheese Green Lantern logo on it (at least I’m pretty sure that’s the Green Lantern logo…) and my water glass had a cape. It was very cool and definitely a unique find!

After lunch, I headed to the ArtScience Museum which was right outside the Shoppes. I was SO excited for this because I had heard and read so much about it and seen some incredible photos. I’m not much of a museum person, but I loved every second I spent in this museum. It was so unique and innovative. (@Kyle, you need to go to Singapore if only for the sole purpose of going to this museum) I’m not going to do a very good job explaining it but here I go… Future World, which is the main exhibit, is an interactive and technology-centered “journey of discovery” through five different narratives – nature, town, sanctuary, park, and space. Nature was basically just a big dark room with projections and screens of flowers and plants all over. Town was super cool. There was a big slide that had projections of the same flowers from Nature and every time you slid down it, a trail of flowers would follow you and the ones in front would move out of your way. The whole museum was very “action/reaction” centered so you were part of the exhibit, and no two visits would ever be the same. They also had a section of Town with drawing tables and coloring sheets. You could pick a plane or truck or train car, and sit at one of the drawing tables and color it in however you like. They then had stations where you inserted your drawing into a machine and scanned it, and then your drawing would appear on the wall where there was a giant image of a Town that was filled with all the creations of the people visiting. So your plane would appear on the wall flying through the air or your car would pop up on one of the streets and stop at the nearest intersection. It was so cool creating something and then seeing it become part of the exhibit! This was my favorite part of Town. It was especially cool because everything is so kid-friendly, and it was magical for them. Seeing them get so excited when their drawing popped up on the wall was really fun. Sanctuary was an isolated room that just had some cool projections and calming music.

Park was similar to Town with the idea of drawing something and scanning it so that it would show up on the screen. This time, however, instead of planes, cars, and trains, you could draw people! They had templates of people with different outfits and hairstyles. I had tried scanning my drawing in Town, but I either didn’t do it right or I just couldn’t find my drawing. So this time I made sure that my drawing would stick out. I drew my girl with bright red hair, a striped dress, and bright green shoes. I scanned her, and there she was! She popped up and started walking across the screen. It was cool because all the people on the screen were interacting with each other. You could have also drawn an animal, and someone had drawn and scanned a penguin. My girl walked right up to the penguin, gave him a hug, and they started dancing together. This was especially cool because I have a beloved penguin pillow pet, so it’s like it was me and my pillow pet up there. Funny how things work like that!

The last part of Future World was my absolute favorite, and this was the part I was most excited for. It was called Space. It was just a small room with mirrored floors and walls and ton of hanging strands of electronic lights. There was calming music and the lights changed colors and patterns. I found out after sitting and watching for a while that there was a tablet in the corner of the exhibit where you could select the “design” of the lights. Going along with the Space theme, each explosion of lights resembled different kinds of stars, constellations, or other elements of space. It was seriously the coolest thing. I sat in that dark room and just watched the lights and the people for nearly an hour. It was mesmerizing. Definitely my favorite part of the museum! I didn’t want to leave.

After leaving the museum, I walked along the bridge to the other side of the Marina Bay area. I stumbled upon this performing arts center called the Esplanade. There is a beautiful theatre and an arts library with specific sections dedicated to music, art, dance, and drama. It was so cool! There were tons of advertisements for upcoming performances that were part of some dance festival, but unfortunately it was starting the following week. It was super cool though because one of the performances that was going to be there was one that I had seen while I was in London. It was the very first performance that I saw with my Dance Theatre class, and it was incredible! It was so cool to see not only that the company would be performing, but that they were performing the exact same show that I had seen and loved over 2 years ago.

I kept exploring the Marina Bay area and walked across the Jubilee Bridge, which gives an awesome view of the Marina Bay Sands, the shoppes, and the ArtScience Museum (the funky white building on the left that looks like a piece of modern art). I grabbed some ice cream, which proceeded to melt the second I got it and spill on my shirt and my shoes. So I decided I needed to sit for a second after getting the chocolate off of my shirt and feet. I found a cool Starbucks with an awesome view of the bay. I sat and relaxed for a while and read my book – ebook, that is – for a little (I’m rereading the Harry Potter series! I was in the middle of my Order of the Phoenix). I shortly got back up and kept walking around the city. I headed more into the downtown area of Singapore and got to see lots of cool architecture and turn down the cutest side streets. After even more walking and exploring, I found another cool outdoor area where I sat and again read my book while I cooled off. It was so hot this day, and worst of all I had forgotten my hair tie at my hostel so my hair was just sticking all over. I had to sit down and hold it off of my neck for a while for the sake of my own sanity. Much of the rest of the afternoon was spent aimlessly wandering around the city and exploring. I passed by lots of cool buildings that reminded me of English architecture or American government buildings. Their National Gallery is beautiful, and it looks like the US Capitol building. I also passed some really pretty cathedrals, and of course, more malls.

I made a giant circle and headed back to a restaurant I had passed earlier in the day for dinner. I sat outside right on the water and had the best truffle mac n’ cheese ever. I walked all the way back around to the Gardens By the Bay and into the Supertree Grove for the free nighttime music and lights show. I found a perfect spot where I could lay down and look up into the lit up “branches” of the Supertrees. I didn’t know until the show started, but the show was MUSICAL THEATER themed (!!!), which is very much my jam and objectively the best music genre so I was immediately 10x more excited than I had already been. The show was awesome! They played classics from shows including Cats, Phantom of the Opera, Les Mis, Fiddler on the Roof, and Chicago. I took some videos that I’ll put in this post but they really don’t capture how amazing and surreal it was. I was SO SO happy in that moment. Ugh. It was the best. I left the show feeling so happy and blissful and ready to hit the hay.

My second day in Singapore was spent on Sentosa island, which is right off the coast of Singapore and is a big destination for families. The reason I went there is because they have a Universal Studios! I can’t pass up an opportunity to go to a theme park, so I had to pay a visit. It’s a fairly small park so I only spent about 5 hours there even after doing everything that I wanted and taking my sweet time. It also wasn’t very crowded, and I got to go in all the single rider lines so I didn’t have any long waits. I went on the Transformers ride, the Mummy ride, both of the Battlestar Galactica dueling coasters, the Jurassic Park water ride, and Shrek’s 4-D adventure. It was awesome! I love me a good theme park.

Also, side story: I hadn’t realized when I first planned on going to Universal that it would be during October, which is obviously when they have their Halloween festivities going on. Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights (HHN) is supposed to be SUPER scary, and I knew that I could not go if there was going to be anything scary around. You have to buy a separate ticket for HHN, and it’s a special event where they close the park at 6 and then the Halloween events start at 8, and it’s only on select nights. I went on a Wednesday, which was not a HHN select night. But I just wanted to be EXTRA sure that there wouldn’t be any scary characters dressed up and walking around the park scaring people during the day just because it’s the Halloween season. I tried looking it up on Google but couldn’t find any specific answers, so I literally found the Sentosa Island Instagram, which includes Universal Studios, and sent them a direct message asking if there would be any “scary people” (my exact words) during the day on the specific day that I was going. I (rudely) did not get a response for weeks, but they eventually responded and told me to “rest assured” that there would be no HHN characters. It’s so pathetic, and luckily I’m able to laugh at myself, but I really am that much of a scaredy cat. If there were going to be scary characters, I wouldn’t have gone. As I told some of my friends, I wasn’t going to spend $55 on a ticket if I was just going to be crying all day (lol).

After leaving the park, I walked to the Southern beach of the island. I visited the Southernmost Point of Continental Asia, so that was cool! I sat on the beach for a bit with my toes in the water and just relaxed. I walked some more along the beach and ended up finding a big open green area where lots of families were hanging out. I laid down in the grass and ended up napping a little bit. It was so relaxing. I woke up as the sun was setting and was just so at peace. I walked over to the shops/restaurants part of the island and bought a ticket for the island’s outdoor nighttime show called Wings of Time. Before the show, I grabbed some dinner at a fast food place to bring with me into the venue so I could snag a good seat. They had a veggie burger, but instead of a normal veggie burger patty it was a hash brown patty. OKAY. Hash browns in a burger… why do we not eat that all the time? All I’m saying is we should because it was amazing. The show was awesome! It was a water, laser, light, music, and firework show. I’ll attach a link to a (probably illegal and low quality) video if you’d like a glimpse of the show. After the show I headed back to my hostel and went to bed.

My last day in Singapore was pretty relaxed. I had seen basically everything on my bucket list so I was aimlessly exploring for most of the day, which is nice! I started my day on this really cool street called Haji Lane. I got a super yummy acai bowl and explored all of the cool vintage stores. I explored some more malls, hung out in the library for a bit, and stumbled upon lots of hidden gems. In one mall, I happened to get on the escalator behind two adults and a girl who had her hair in a bun and was wearing pink tights underneath her shorts. I figured she was either coming from or going to ballet class (I remember the good old days of having to go somewhere before/after class in your leotard and tights… good times…). I didn’t really have any destination so I figured I would casually follow them (from a distance) and just see if there happened to be a dance studio hidden in this mall or if it was just a chance encounter. I’m so glad I did because it turns out that on the top floor of this totally random mall was the Singapore Dance Theater – the country’s national dance company! I was able to peak my head in and watch the company class that was going on for a little bit. It was the coolest thing, and I’m so glad I got behind that girl and her parents on the escalator because otherwise I would have never known that I was seven floors below the Singapore Dance Theater.

I had one specific food place that I wanted to visit in Singapore, so I made my way there next. I had been spending most of my time right in the center of Singapore near the bay. This place was further inland, which was cool to see! I took the metro there, which was fun. I don’t know why, but I have a strange love for public transportation. The Singapore metro was particularly cute. They had signs above courtesy seats with a little cartoon lady that said “Show you care – offer this seat! #StandUpStacey”. There were other signs reminding people to put their bags on the floor when it’s crowded. These signs had a little cartoon boy that said “Bag on the floor makes space for more! #BagDownBenny”. I’m sorry, but could Singapore be any cuter? I think not. Anyways… I went to this place called Sunday Folks, which is a bakery and dessert place. I wanted to go there for their waffles and ice cream (we need more places like this in America because Malaysia and Singapore are really on top of these waffle/ice cream places). This was… the best thing… I have ever tasted… They have waffle/ice cream combos you can choose from or you can create your own. I created my own. I got the double chocolate ice cream with strawberries, chocolate sauce, and caramelized marshmallows (!!!). There was also chocolate sauce and maple syrup drizzled around the plate. This was so freaking tasty. I am sad writing this because I miss it so much. I cannot emphasize enough how good this was. That is all.

I walked around this area a little bit and then took the metro back to the Shoppes of the Marina Bay. I got some pasta for dinner and then went to my hostel to pick up my stuff. The last thing on my agenda was going to Millennium Dance Complex Singapore to dance for a little bit! I took two classes – a contemporary class and a jazz funk class. Honestly, they weren’t that great… the contemporary class definitely wasn’t contemporary at all, and the jazz funk one was just eh… but it was nice to be dancing in a class that I’m not teaching. It felt good to be moving!

After my classes ended around 10:00pm I headed to the airport. My flight wasn’t until 5:15am the following morning, but I didn’t want to have to pay for another night in a hostel or worry about waking up to an alarm at 3:00am (the other people in my room would surely not have appreciated my many, many alarms in the middle of the night) or find a way to safely get to the airport by myself in the middle of the night. So I figured I would just hang out at the airport overnight. The Singapore airport is the #1 airport in the world, so I knew I’d be able to keep myself occupied. I had planned on being much more adventurous and exploring, but once I got there I was just so tired. They had a movie theater that I sat in for a while, but I came in during the middle of Avengers 2 (which I have never seen, and I’m not really into Marvel movies) so I was lost. I was just texting my mom the whole time 🙂 I found a free massage chair and sat there for a good hour. Then I grabbed some ramen and headed to my gate. I couldn’t sleep on the plane so I was VERY tired by the time I got back to my apartment around 11:00am that morning. I was wiped out after a long, fun-filled week. I needed a vacation after my vacation.

Despite how tired I was after getting back, I was so so happy. It was an AWESOME trip. Kuala Lumpur was incredible, and it was so fun getting to hang out with LiYen while I was there. It was nice to meet up with a friend on a solo trip! Singapore was just amazing. Everything I expected and more. One of my new favorites. I want to live there. I’m so in love. I never thought I’d get to visit places like these, so I am feeling super grateful for the opportunity to live here and explore this corner of the Earth. 🙂

That was the longest post ever, and funny enough… that’s the short version. Lucky for my mom, she got to listen to the long version for hours and hours while I explained everything in extreme detail and gave a minute-by-minute rundown of my entire week 🙂 It’s a good thing she loves me so much. Thanks for reading!