Last day of the trip :( :) :(

Being in Taipei for only 24 hours was...unfortunately short. It felt like there was way more stuff to do here than in Singapore but we were only in Taipei because of the layover going home.

We were able to make it to the hot springs this morning at Xin Bei Tou. On our walk up to the public hot springs we ran into a few guys going to the same place from Toronto. The management made us wait until the next group time and then it started raining.

This place was really nice and only cost about $1.50 US to get in and it was full of old Chinese people. I think we were the youngest people in the hot springs. So how it works is that the top pool is the hottest, about 108f and then the lower pools are cooler. The rain was actually really nice because the water was so hot, when you would get out of the water steam would actually come off your body.

We headed back to the hostel and I needed to get my regular Asian haircut which I do on every trip. I paid less than $20 and got a head and shoulder massage before the haircut. Unfortunately it took longer than I anticipated and we had to catch a cab to the airport instead of the bus which is a huge cost difference $30 for the cab vs $8 for the bus.

I will definitely be making another trip to Taipei. I was forced back into using my very rusty Mandarin but according to the old lady that was sitting next to me in the hot springs, I can still communicate.

I guess this will be my signoff for this trip. As of right now I'm sitting at 1700 page views over the 3 weeks that I updated my blog. I bought a Fitbit before the trip and throughout the 19 days we walked a total of 90.5 miles, averaging 4.75 miles a day, the most we walked in a day was 12.87 miles in Singapore. Pretty neat data.

Thanks everyone for the support and prayers during our trip. I had a blast keeping you updated on all the places we got to experience and I'm already planning on where to go next time.
I'm glad that we were able to check out so many different locations, therefore I don't have an exact favorite place on the trip. We were able to make a ton of new friends which was the best part and I took almost 900 pictures in total.

Thanks for following along, I hope to keep you updated on the next journey back to Asia! Now it's time to get back to real life.
-Andrew

Jump jump jump around

I haven't blogged the past few days just because we've been jumping from place to place (hence the related title). Over 4 days we'll be going from Singapore > Manila > Taipei > Minneapolis.
Spent most of the morning yesterday getting from Singapore to Manila. We didn't really have any plans last night but to either go to a cock fight or midget boxing. The hostel said cock fights aren't safe at night so we opted for the latter. We're not allowed to take pictures inside the bar so I just did a quick google search and found a picture taken from someone else. Besides the midget boxing, they also had lady boy boxing...yah it's exactly what you think it is.

We spent most of the day today getting to Taipei, didn't arrive to the hostel until 9pm. We're really happy with the hostel, it's really comfortable and clean. Since we only have about 22 hours in the city, we rushed over to Shilin night market. It really reminds me of Meyongdong in Seoul. Basically a lot of clothing and food shops spread over a few blocks.
Unfortunately, we didn't get into Shilin until about 10:30 so a lot of places were starting to close up but we managed to get a few snacks.

And what's a trip to Taipei without bubble tea? This big cup was $1 US.

I didn't know that you can't drink or eat on the subway. We were about halfway up the escalator when a security guard just books it up the escalator, I joke that he's coming after me because I took an accidental sip and he really did yell at me for drinking in the subway..oops, I'm sure if this were Singapore I would have gotten caned

Tomorrow we're going to try to make it out to the hot springs near the city before we have to pack up and start the long journey home. Trip is almost over and we're sad :(

Laid back day

Today was a pretty laid back day. Since we're going back to Manila tomorrow we figured we'd lay low and try to spend the least amount of money as possible. Christopher flew into Singapore on his way to...somewhere, Bali? so he had a half day layover here in town which was great because it was just another opportunity to hang out.

Most of the day was wandering more malls and finding things to eat. This old man sold literal ice cream sandwiches. He sliced blocks of ice cream and put them between bread. It was pretty good, not great.

For dinner we thought about getting siu long bao (pork dumplings) again but everywhere we went it was basically a dollar per dumpling. I did a google search and found another person's blog that found a good place in chinatown that sold them for half price.

I got an order of the steamed pork bao dumplings and the pan fried pork and leek dumplings.  We were really glad we found it easily and had our fill of dumplings

We're just going to lay low tonight because everything is pretty pricey to do in the city and we're heading back to Manila in the morning.

Here a mall, there a mall, everywhere a mall mall

I didn't post anything yesterday just because all we did was pretty much wander malls. I think between the 3 days we've been here, we've gone to at least 15 different malls in Singapore.

Yesterday we finally found the anime store we were looking for, actually there were 4 all on the same floor of the Funan Digital Life Mall. There was a ton to look at and in typical Japanese fashion, all the cool stuff was very expensive.

Alex and I had a very romantic moonlit evening walking through the Gardens by the Bay last night. Great place to take a date. There was a section called the Super Tree Grove which were HUGE pillars compiled of many plants put together with lights. Every half hour there was a concert and the lights would change according to the music.

Afterwards we went to the 9:30 showing of the watershow at the Marina Bay Sands. I didn't really bother to take pictures or video myself because I knew I'd be able to find a better quality video on youtube to share. Click on the link below and jump around. The show was a really incredible way of using water, fire, lasers, and video projection.

My wallet hurts in Singapore

I learned one travel lesson, it's just easier to plan everything ahead of time. I booked the Matchbox hostel back in February along with the rest of my reservations but I only booked one night as everything I found in Singapore was pricier than the other places we've stayed at. So I figured once we got here I could shop around or we could extend our stay. Yah big mistake, now we have to move hostels today because Matchbox is full and it's going to cost more. On the brightside, since they confused our reservation, we got our first night free.

I would say yesterday was QUITE an adventure for us. Also another day of firsts for Alex. Our hostel is only a 3 minute walk from Chinatown so we started there first. Lots of familiar sights and sounds from what I'm used to seeing in Shanghai. I do have to agree with everyone that's been to Singapore, it is very very clean here and people don't push each other around like in China.

We grabbed some pork soup dumplings (siu long bao) at Din Tai Fung, they were really good and full of soupy goodness, I burned my mouth because I was so excited to bite into my first one in a long time.

One very impressive thing about Singapore is its subway systems. They have a 3 day unlimited tourist card for $20 to use on the subway. It was Alex's first time riding a subway, I was amused that he would randomly say during the day "The subway is SO convenient!" Here's him looking excited for his first ride :/

After lunch we took the subway to the bay front and checked out one of Singapore's many shopping malls. This one was the Marina Bay. This was a huge mall with shops that I would never go into like Prada, LV, or any fancy store you can think.

There was a casino in the mall and we wandered in. What I found interesting is that if you're a foreigner it's free to walk in but if you live in Singapore, you have to pay about $100 USD to get into the casino, basically in this case, the house for sure will win. We left with a net balance of zero so I think we ended up better than most leaving the casino

One thing Alex wanted to do while we're in Asia was check out an actual anime store. I looked up a few on my phone and we were off to find one. We literally crossed the island twice looking for two stores. Spent 4 hours looking for the locations I found on my phone and the stores moved. At the end of the day we were pretty disappointed but determined to eventually find an anime store so the search continues.

The thing on the top of my list was to eat at Hai Di Lao a hot pot chain that I blogged about last year when I went to Shanghai.

Quick rundown why I like it here so much. We arrived and had to wait about 45 min for a table, they served us ice tea, fruit, cheesy popcorn and banana chips. Ladies can also get their nails done, all for free.

They gave me an ipad to order off of when we were seated. I ordered beef balls, shrimp paste, golden mushrooms, beef slices, tofu, veggies, and hand pulled noodles. Also I got the split broth of Ma La for Alex (he wasn't really a fan of it) and a tomato base which was really tasty.

What Hai Di Lao is well known for is their noodle dance, they hand pull noodles for you and dance around with them. The guy in Shanghai was a bit more enthusiastic than the one we had last night though.

At the end of the meal you can finish things off with more free fruit (watermelon, oranges, and longan) and almond pudding. Also, you can have the pleasure of using one of these future toilets to *ahem* end your meal

Overall we had a really long day, my fitbit said we walked almost 13 miles in total. I'm looking forward to seeing what food we end up eating the rest of the time we're here.

Breaking the law

Apparently Singapore has some really strict laws like it's illegal to litter and you'll get fined heavily and/or caned in public...I decided to become a criminal today

It's been a long day, my fitbit told me we walked almost 13 miles. I'll do an actual post tomorrow morning. Good night.

Looong Travel Day

I'll just do a really quick post to update you on what's been going on.
We left Coral Bay at 9am this morning, the boat ride took an hour to get to shore and then we had another hour and a half bus ride to get to Coron Town. When we got there it was noon and they told us to come back at 2 to take us to the airport. We got to the airport and flew out at 5 and arrived in Manila, flew out of Manila at 8 and arrived in Singapore at 1am.

I booked the hostel for 5/14 putting in a note that we're arriving after 1am and when we arrived at 2am nobody was around. I rung the doorbell and one of the guests opened the door and let us in. I called the hostel number and the girl that answered said that since the reservation was past midnight, technically check in is at 3pm? Anyway, she invited us to crash on their futons in the common room until someone came in at 9am in the morning to straighten things out.

It's 3am, I've had a really long day, so goodnight