So for our honeymoon, Alex and I decided to take 3 weeks together to travel to Singapore and Australia. While we have done 3 weeks before, this was quite the experience for the 2 of us.
First week: Singapore
Alex and I arrived in Singapore on a Monday night. The first thing we noticed is that it was hot. Like really hot. And we were exhausted from a 23 hour flight that included a stop in Guanzhou. But once we settled into our hotel, we went down to a hawker center, which is what Singapore is famous for. We ate simple things, some bbq pork and chicken and a chili shrimp dish. The chili shrimp dish was a great introduction to the food we would encounter in Singapore.
Our first real day consisted of heading to the aquarium. The aquarium is right next to universal studios, so it was very touristy and easy to get to. It was quite a nice aquarium with a lot of sharks and jellyfish, both of which I did not need to see while scuba diving. We then went on the cable cars and got a great look at city from high up. It was pretty enjoyable, but we debated on whether to do anything else. One of our main problems with Singapore was the sheer heat made things very difficult to do. Going outside was just stressful. I can understand why almost everything good in Singapore is in a giant mall. We ended up eating lunch in little India and spending most of our time in Mustafa's, which is a huge department store that literally has anything you could ever want. That night we ate at Jumbo Seafood, which is known for chili crab, the signature dish of Singapore. We ate the chili crab and black pepper crab and Alex had a blast. I'm not a crab person, but it was definitely something unique. Many of the places near Jumbo Seafood were for ex-pat's and there were even several Mexican restaurants. We had fun walking around at night where it wasn't so oppressively hot.
Our second day was mostly spent in malls. Alex discovered a mall called the Digitalife mall and decided that's where we needed to go. We spent the day looking over a plethora of electonic and computer shops before he decided to buy a MacBook Pro from a retailer. With exchange rates and tax refunds, the computer was going to cost about $500 less than it would in the States, so it was a worthwhile investment. We also got another dish that was unique to Singapore at the mall, known as Tian Tian chicken. It wasn't great and honestly was very similar to a chicken dish Alex's dad makes for us. But when in Singapore, it is recommended you eat it once. We also checked out the Singapore Gardens on the bay, which had these huge artificial trees that lite up at night. It was very beautiful.
Our last day was spent mostly just hanging out. We did head to Chinatown and ate at a place called Tim Ho Wan's, an impressively expensive but really good dim sum restaurant chain hailed from Hong Kong. We saw the most famous temple, the Sri Mariamman temple, and also walked around the outdoor market there. However, considering the heat, we ended up going to Orchard Road and walking around the huge shopping malls there. They are all connected, so it made life easier for us. We decided to watch The Martian while we were there and man do I wish we could have such nice movie theaters in NYC. We then went to the most fancy buffet I've ever been too. Las Vegas would probably only compare to the plethora of food we had there. We are talking unlimited seafood, including lobster, Indian food, Italian food, English food, Chinese food and Japanese food. It was a good last meal in singapore that just showed the diversity of Singapore. We then took a midnight flight to Sydney.
Week 2: Sydney and Cairns
Arriving in Sydney at 10am, we made our way down to the hostel I had booked for the weekend. Unfortunately, the hostel turned out to be not as good as it looked on the website. But it was only for a few days and we needed to do laundry. But we then walked over to the harbor and was able to eat kangaroo steak as our first meal in Australia. It was delicious and I really wish we could get kangaroo in America. It was like a very flavorful venison. However, after that we ended up crashing pretty early due to lack of sleep on our overnight flight. The next day we headed to the Turonga Zoo, which is probably one of the best zoo's in the world. It's all located on a mountain that you take a cable car to the top and walk down. While we were doing that, we received a call from one of Alex's contractors with Robotic Potato, an animator named Rachel who lives just outside of Sydney. We met her after coming back from the zoo and spent the night hanging out with her and received an invitation to her apartment the next day. So Sunday was spent swimming in the pool in Rachel's apartment complex as well as eating the most delicious lamb roast I've ever had. Rachel is a very cool person and we were happy to meet and get to know her.
After Sydney was Cairns for what I consider our "true honeymoon." We got there Monday evening and went out for fish and chips. I also upgraded our hotel room, since the hostel in Sydney was so bad. Totally worth the money. We went to bed pretty early as well, since we had to get up early for scuba diving the next day.
Scuba diving the reef was amazing. It took us an hour to get out to the reef and since it was raining that morning, the ride was a little rough. But once we got out there, everything was good. The sun came out and visibility was great. Alex and I did 2 dives and our dive instructor was surprised to learn we were certified divers (we were booked for discovery dives because it had been so long since we last dived). It ended up being really great because the dive was very relaxed and we saw some really awesome fish, including giant sea slugs and clown fish. Our second dive had a shark swim right over us. We did a snorkel swim for the last site because Alex was pretty exhausted. But by the end, I was feeling pretty tired myself. It was a great day, but we crashed early then as well.
The next day was supposed to be a crabbing tour, but the person who confirmed our reservation gave us the wrong time and we got to the dock when the tour was completed. So we went to the concierge and he was able to book us a different crabbing tour for the next day along with a jetski tour for the afternoon. So instead of crabbing, we went on a jetski and looked for crocodiles. We spotted one that was at least 10 feet long, so that was pretty awesome. We also did parasailing after the jetski tour, which I loved but Alex did not like. We then walked along the night markets in Cairns, which were pretty interesting and ate there for the night.
The next two days were spent fishing off of boats. The first boat trip was in the harbor where we caught some small fish and a lot of crabs. Our boat captain cooked the crabs we caught in the nets and it was some of the best crab I've ever had. So fresh, though not very filling so we ended up eating burgers at Grill'd afterwards. The next day was reef fishing. We were the only true tourists on this trip and we felt like it. I also was the only female on a boat of about 10 men. Alex and I learned quickly that fishing is a skill that we definitely don't have. All the men on the boat were catching 10-15 pound huge fish and I ended up catching 1 little fish (the smallest fish of the day) and Alex caught nothing. But the guys on the boat were very nice and gave us a very large fish they caught to take home along with my little grouper. We had it cooked up at the restaurant attached to our hotel and man was it amazing. Saturday was our rest day and we spent it swimming and going out to dinner at a famous eatery in Cairns called Dungee's.
Week 3: Adelaide and Melbourne
Adelaide was our next stop. After the high that we had in Cairns, Adelaide seemed very not nearly as fun. Being so far south, it was actually pretty cold when we got there. However, we had 2 thing booked for when we were there, so we had to go. Our first tour was kangaroo island, which surprisingly did not have very many kangaroos. I actually would not recommend this place unless you really like plants. There was definitely a lot of interesting fauna, but I didn't really care. We did get to go up pretty close to a bunch of seals lying on a beach and saw koala's and kangaroo's. However, it was a very long tour and we ended up getting back at almost midnight.
The next day was a dolphin swim, which was probably one of the craziest thing's I've ever done. You pretty much sit on the back of a catamaran until the crew spots a dolphin pod, Then they throw out a rope and tell you to get in the water and grab on to it while the boat is going 20 miles an hour. Then they yell at you on where to look and hope that you can see the dolphins as you are dragged behind the boat. I drank a lot of salt water with the first swim and saw no dolphins. The 2nd swim was with seals and I did get the hang of what we were doing. A seal actually swam right under me and did some crazy water acrobatics under the water. The 3rd swim, I was the only one who wanted to go in the water, but it was also the best one. I saw 15-20 dolphins and a few of them were mating, which was interesting to see. Luckily, it was a half day, because even with the wetsuits, being in 50 degree water is tough.
We headed to Melbourne and got ready for PAX. We picked up our badges on Thursday and walked around the area. We even participated in a bar crawl that was a pre-party for PAX goers. PAX itself was pretty enjoyable. We went to many informative panels, played a few video games that were part of the indie game scene in Australia and Alex got to do a lot of networking. One of our major takeaway's from PAX was how we needed to pitch Spacecats to an international audience. Alex usually describes the game as British cats fighting Nazi dogs, which makes Americans excited to play. However, the Australian audience was not nearly as receptive and someone even said that no studio would touch a game like that if it had the word Nazi in the pitch. This was very odd to us because there are many popular games that have Nazi fighting in it. Also our influence for the game, Disney afternoon cartoons from the 90's, did not strike the nostalgia chord we had hoped because the shows like Tail Spin never made it to Australia. PAX was quite the experience and we learned a lot and made friends with a few developers.
All in all, this was quite the trip. I think it will be a very long time before I have the chance to do something like this again. It was probably the best vacation I ever had!
First week: Singapore
Alex and I arrived in Singapore on a Monday night. The first thing we noticed is that it was hot. Like really hot. And we were exhausted from a 23 hour flight that included a stop in Guanzhou. But once we settled into our hotel, we went down to a hawker center, which is what Singapore is famous for. We ate simple things, some bbq pork and chicken and a chili shrimp dish. The chili shrimp dish was a great introduction to the food we would encounter in Singapore.
Our first real day consisted of heading to the aquarium. The aquarium is right next to universal studios, so it was very touristy and easy to get to. It was quite a nice aquarium with a lot of sharks and jellyfish, both of which I did not need to see while scuba diving. We then went on the cable cars and got a great look at city from high up. It was pretty enjoyable, but we debated on whether to do anything else. One of our main problems with Singapore was the sheer heat made things very difficult to do. Going outside was just stressful. I can understand why almost everything good in Singapore is in a giant mall. We ended up eating lunch in little India and spending most of our time in Mustafa's, which is a huge department store that literally has anything you could ever want. That night we ate at Jumbo Seafood, which is known for chili crab, the signature dish of Singapore. We ate the chili crab and black pepper crab and Alex had a blast. I'm not a crab person, but it was definitely something unique. Many of the places near Jumbo Seafood were for ex-pat's and there were even several Mexican restaurants. We had fun walking around at night where it wasn't so oppressively hot.
Our second day was mostly spent in malls. Alex discovered a mall called the Digitalife mall and decided that's where we needed to go. We spent the day looking over a plethora of electonic and computer shops before he decided to buy a MacBook Pro from a retailer. With exchange rates and tax refunds, the computer was going to cost about $500 less than it would in the States, so it was a worthwhile investment. We also got another dish that was unique to Singapore at the mall, known as Tian Tian chicken. It wasn't great and honestly was very similar to a chicken dish Alex's dad makes for us. But when in Singapore, it is recommended you eat it once. We also checked out the Singapore Gardens on the bay, which had these huge artificial trees that lite up at night. It was very beautiful.
Our last day was spent mostly just hanging out. We did head to Chinatown and ate at a place called Tim Ho Wan's, an impressively expensive but really good dim sum restaurant chain hailed from Hong Kong. We saw the most famous temple, the Sri Mariamman temple, and also walked around the outdoor market there. However, considering the heat, we ended up going to Orchard Road and walking around the huge shopping malls there. They are all connected, so it made life easier for us. We decided to watch The Martian while we were there and man do I wish we could have such nice movie theaters in NYC. We then went to the most fancy buffet I've ever been too. Las Vegas would probably only compare to the plethora of food we had there. We are talking unlimited seafood, including lobster, Indian food, Italian food, English food, Chinese food and Japanese food. It was a good last meal in singapore that just showed the diversity of Singapore. We then took a midnight flight to Sydney.
Week 2: Sydney and Cairns
Arriving in Sydney at 10am, we made our way down to the hostel I had booked for the weekend. Unfortunately, the hostel turned out to be not as good as it looked on the website. But it was only for a few days and we needed to do laundry. But we then walked over to the harbor and was able to eat kangaroo steak as our first meal in Australia. It was delicious and I really wish we could get kangaroo in America. It was like a very flavorful venison. However, after that we ended up crashing pretty early due to lack of sleep on our overnight flight. The next day we headed to the Turonga Zoo, which is probably one of the best zoo's in the world. It's all located on a mountain that you take a cable car to the top and walk down. While we were doing that, we received a call from one of Alex's contractors with Robotic Potato, an animator named Rachel who lives just outside of Sydney. We met her after coming back from the zoo and spent the night hanging out with her and received an invitation to her apartment the next day. So Sunday was spent swimming in the pool in Rachel's apartment complex as well as eating the most delicious lamb roast I've ever had. Rachel is a very cool person and we were happy to meet and get to know her.
After Sydney was Cairns for what I consider our "true honeymoon." We got there Monday evening and went out for fish and chips. I also upgraded our hotel room, since the hostel in Sydney was so bad. Totally worth the money. We went to bed pretty early as well, since we had to get up early for scuba diving the next day.
Scuba diving the reef was amazing. It took us an hour to get out to the reef and since it was raining that morning, the ride was a little rough. But once we got out there, everything was good. The sun came out and visibility was great. Alex and I did 2 dives and our dive instructor was surprised to learn we were certified divers (we were booked for discovery dives because it had been so long since we last dived). It ended up being really great because the dive was very relaxed and we saw some really awesome fish, including giant sea slugs and clown fish. Our second dive had a shark swim right over us. We did a snorkel swim for the last site because Alex was pretty exhausted. But by the end, I was feeling pretty tired myself. It was a great day, but we crashed early then as well.
The next day was supposed to be a crabbing tour, but the person who confirmed our reservation gave us the wrong time and we got to the dock when the tour was completed. So we went to the concierge and he was able to book us a different crabbing tour for the next day along with a jetski tour for the afternoon. So instead of crabbing, we went on a jetski and looked for crocodiles. We spotted one that was at least 10 feet long, so that was pretty awesome. We also did parasailing after the jetski tour, which I loved but Alex did not like. We then walked along the night markets in Cairns, which were pretty interesting and ate there for the night.
The next two days were spent fishing off of boats. The first boat trip was in the harbor where we caught some small fish and a lot of crabs. Our boat captain cooked the crabs we caught in the nets and it was some of the best crab I've ever had. So fresh, though not very filling so we ended up eating burgers at Grill'd afterwards. The next day was reef fishing. We were the only true tourists on this trip and we felt like it. I also was the only female on a boat of about 10 men. Alex and I learned quickly that fishing is a skill that we definitely don't have. All the men on the boat were catching 10-15 pound huge fish and I ended up catching 1 little fish (the smallest fish of the day) and Alex caught nothing. But the guys on the boat were very nice and gave us a very large fish they caught to take home along with my little grouper. We had it cooked up at the restaurant attached to our hotel and man was it amazing. Saturday was our rest day and we spent it swimming and going out to dinner at a famous eatery in Cairns called Dungee's.
Week 3: Adelaide and Melbourne
Adelaide was our next stop. After the high that we had in Cairns, Adelaide seemed very not nearly as fun. Being so far south, it was actually pretty cold when we got there. However, we had 2 thing booked for when we were there, so we had to go. Our first tour was kangaroo island, which surprisingly did not have very many kangaroos. I actually would not recommend this place unless you really like plants. There was definitely a lot of interesting fauna, but I didn't really care. We did get to go up pretty close to a bunch of seals lying on a beach and saw koala's and kangaroo's. However, it was a very long tour and we ended up getting back at almost midnight.
The next day was a dolphin swim, which was probably one of the craziest thing's I've ever done. You pretty much sit on the back of a catamaran until the crew spots a dolphin pod, Then they throw out a rope and tell you to get in the water and grab on to it while the boat is going 20 miles an hour. Then they yell at you on where to look and hope that you can see the dolphins as you are dragged behind the boat. I drank a lot of salt water with the first swim and saw no dolphins. The 2nd swim was with seals and I did get the hang of what we were doing. A seal actually swam right under me and did some crazy water acrobatics under the water. The 3rd swim, I was the only one who wanted to go in the water, but it was also the best one. I saw 15-20 dolphins and a few of them were mating, which was interesting to see. Luckily, it was a half day, because even with the wetsuits, being in 50 degree water is tough.
We headed to Melbourne and got ready for PAX. We picked up our badges on Thursday and walked around the area. We even participated in a bar crawl that was a pre-party for PAX goers. PAX itself was pretty enjoyable. We went to many informative panels, played a few video games that were part of the indie game scene in Australia and Alex got to do a lot of networking. One of our major takeaway's from PAX was how we needed to pitch Spacecats to an international audience. Alex usually describes the game as British cats fighting Nazi dogs, which makes Americans excited to play. However, the Australian audience was not nearly as receptive and someone even said that no studio would touch a game like that if it had the word Nazi in the pitch. This was very odd to us because there are many popular games that have Nazi fighting in it. Also our influence for the game, Disney afternoon cartoons from the 90's, did not strike the nostalgia chord we had hoped because the shows like Tail Spin never made it to Australia. PAX was quite the experience and we learned a lot and made friends with a few developers.
All in all, this was quite the trip. I think it will be a very long time before I have the chance to do something like this again. It was probably the best vacation I ever had!
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