I had two glorious days sleeping in.

Also I'm back in Oz!! And it's good to be back in nice cool weather because all Singapore and Malaysia was, was steaming hot!! and I don't just mean the sun is burning hot right now I feel like i'm about to get a tan the moment I step out, it was like walking into a sauna. It was humid, sticky and nothing compared to the hot weather in Sydney!! Singapore and Malaysia was worse!!!

Throughout the trip, I made a list of all the things that differed singa and malay from oz:

Singapore:

1. The people are so polite and less annoying. That's not to say Oz isn't because we are polite but these people were much more courteous, sweet, and naturally? nice. There were a lot of donators on the streets (most of them were students in schools) and after you say "no sorry" they would say back "thankyou!". Almost everyone says thankyou and almost every shopping centre / store you enter in, someone greets you.
2. At restaurants, they charge you tea and peanuts. Anything edible that's on the table before you're seated.
3. No one is awake in the morning. Streets are dead set quiet. Shops open at 10am to 10pm and it goes freaking crazy at 9-10pm. A LOT. I MEAN A LOT of people are out at that time. It's like what you see at Town Hall/ Central station at 5-6pm in Sydney but at 9-10pm in Singapore. People go nuts at that time.
4. Omg the pedestrian lights are awesome. It tells you the seconds left you have to get to the other side. It'll start counting down from 10 seconds.
5. Because Singapore is so hot, indoors are extremely cold. The first day, so on Saturday 22nd, had a full day of shopping. Stepped out to heat and entered the first shopping centre. Because all the shopping centres are connected to one another, you can walk from one centre to the other because they're all aligned on the same street. Anyways that whole day of shopping, I was just indoors because there was no reason to go out if the shops are tied together. 
6. Taxi is cheap.
7. Trains are even cheaper. Like what is up sydney?! Trains were so efficient and easy to navigate. There were just signs everywhereeeee and they were so easy to follow/ find your platform. Buying your ticket was easy. And you entered by tapping it like an opal card except that this ticket was like super faster at detecting the ticket than the opal. 2 trains of the same line comes to the platform, with one departing every 5 minutes. This is underground trains btw. They have fully enclosed gates to open/close before opening the train doors (to, you know, prevent suicides). In the train they tell you which side will open. They have a map with red LED lights showing you the next stop. And the way they designed the bars of the train was clever.
8. Everyone speaks english.
9. Food everywhere.
10. They dress so god damn well. Smart and casual most of the time.
11. There's no retirement age. I saw a lot of old people, probably like my grandmother's age, working as janitors or general cleaners of the shopping centres and it was so sad. This one time when me and my sis had a really nice and conversational taxi driver, we asked him what the retirement age in the country was and he said none. You work until you die. You work until you have enough money to live until you die. So sad. Made me think of how lucky we were.
12. Although it was super hot, there were no bugs. NO CREEPY CRAWLIES OR FLYING INSECTS. IT WAS SO STRANGE.

Malaysia:

1. No one indicates in their car in this country.
2. They have no pedestrian lights. You literally just cross whenever and hope to god you don't die. The funny thing was there was a white couple (assuming tourist) and a local Malaysia couple infront of me. We approached like a main road and wanted to cross. The white couple stopped to look but the Malaysian one just walked straight ahead. Dangerous!?? 

Anyways after the trip, I realized a lot of benefits Australia has that other countries don't have.
Can you imagine not having a retirement age?
Can you image not having Centrelink?
Can you imagine not having Medicare?
Our airport security/ quarantine is really really good. When I left Aus and came back, we had to fill in these health forms but for singapore and malaysia we didn't have to. We also had to fill in this Ebola form and I thought our country really cares about us.
Also our currency/ money is so easy to identify. We have purple, blue, red, gold and green notes to differentiate them from one another. In malaysia they have $1 notes in blue, light blue and sometimes purple.... ?!!?!? why so many $1 colours?!?!?!


I'm going back to work tomorrow :(



Sunday, November 30, 2014 11:52 AM