Monsieur and I left the bowling ball bullfrog behind on Clarke Quay as we jumped on a bumboat (a.k.a. junk) to take us up the Singapore River. It was late afternoon grey as our almost empty boat set off from the jetty. Up the green river we went, under the pedestrian Riverwalk bridge and adjacent…
Category: Transport – planes, trains and automobiles
Transport
Malaysia/ Singapore, Part 5: In the Night Zoo
I’m not really a zoo person, but I’d been assured that the Night Safari in Singapore was different. Curious to see for ourselves if it was as animal-friendly as we’d heard, Monsieur and I went back up the road for Johor Bahru to talk with the animals. The park itself was opened in 1994 and…
Malaysia, Part 4: A Cold Bus to Singapore
The morning of our journey to Singapore, we were woken by an orchestra of wake-up calls and alarms, set the night before to ensure that we did not sleep late. With somewhat fragile heads, the legacy of hitting the KL night life the previous evening, we made it to Pudu Raya bus terminal intact. There,…
Hokkaido Highway Blues by Will Ferguson
This is one of the most unusual travel books I’ve ever come across, written by a Canadian teacher of English as a second language, who decides to follow the appearance of the cherry blossom by hitchhiking from one end of Japan to the other. I haven’t yet finished, but can’t resist sharing a couple of…
Terminal 5 in Training
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll know that I’ve been incommunicado for the past few days because I went to Edinburgh for the weekend, which involved departing from (cue the drum roll…) Heathrow’s brand new Terminal 5. Here’s what happened. Left home at 2pm. Caught Heathrow Express to Terminal 5. All went…
Terminal 5
Monsieur flew from Heathrow’s Terminal 5 for the first time yesterday. Being a bit of a plane-spotter, I was keen to hear all about it, so when he called me last night, I got the low-down. It didn’t take very long. “Well, darling, it’s basically a big shopping centre with a runway. It’s as if…
Malaysia, part 1: A Malaysian Initiation
Monsieur and I had two weeks’ holiday at our disposal, so, as you do, we went to Waterstone’s in Notting Hill and stood in the midst of the travel guide section, looking for inspiration. In the end, we restricted ourselves to three guides: Greece, Croatia and Malaysia, which we pored over at home, trying to…
Check in and check out
Monsieur and I booked our flights to Nice many weeks in advance of departure, yet, when we went to the check-in machine at Heathrow, our seats were separated. We had booked a PAIR of tickets at the same time, so why were we seated apart? We found a uniformed helper and explained our plight. “No…
Eurostar Etiquette
Just before Christmas, Monsieur and I collapsed onto a Eurostar train to Paris unaware that we would have free in-carriage entertainment for a good portion of our trip. Soon after the train glided away from the platform, a bilingual girl, no more than 10 years old, had a fight with her little sister as they sat across the…
The London Dunder-ground
One of the pleasures of living in London has to be adventures on the public transport system. I’ve decided to keep a log of how many times I am delayed on the tube and the creative excuses that come over the tannoy… Do check for my updates because you know they’ll be frequent! July 2008:…
Epicurienne 