Singapore-Malaysia Adventure: Day 3

The second sleeper train from Kuala Lumpur back to Johor Bahru was definitely better than the second-class sleeper we experienced the day before. For one, it was private and therefore meant that we could move around more freely. Two, there was a bathroom and an electrical socket. What is luxury?! Avon, my roomie for the night, and I were glad to have some electricity and a shower at our disposal for the next 6 or so hours. Since our electronics were all out of juice and we still had a full day of picture taking to do, we scheduled 2 hours each for our gadgets, 2 hours for her camera and 2 hours each for my camera and cellphone. Worked out quite well since we were wildly clicking on our cameras by the time we got to Legoland.

One thing that you absolutely must know when you're commuting everywhere is the bus schedule. We had spent a couple of hours at JB Sentral after alighting the train to stuff our backpacks in lockers and grab some breakfast and some free wifi. What we didn't get a hold of was the bus schedule to Legoland, unfortunately. Since we missed the bus to Legoland and we had a schedule to follow (sort of), we hired a cab to take us to Lego land. Since there were five of us and only three were allowed inside one cab, we had to pay more for two cabs instead of the 4 RM (I think) that it would have cost us to get to Legoland by bus. But it was no big deal, just a minor speed bump in our Malaysian adventure. We got to Legoland, didn't we?

Hello, Legoland Malaysia!

Now, Legoland is a theme park. It has rides, it has a store where you can buy all sorts of Lego, and Miniland, where tons of Asian landmarks are displayed, all made out of Lego! 

Check out Lego Kuala Lumpur. Use the people in the background as reference to the size of this creation.

Look! A Lego Singapore! Complete with a mini version of the Merlion. FYI, the boats in the water move as well.

Here are some others that I particularly liked

Taj Mahal in India

The Forbidden City in China

Karaweik Barge in Myanmar

Wat Arun in Thailand

AngkorWat in Cambodia

Last but not the least, Bolinao, Pangasinan in the Philippines. 

 

I was a little surprised by what was presented in Miniland to represent the Philippines. Though Bolinao is a beautiful place (though I haven't been there yet), what happened to the Banawe Rice Terraces or Chocolate Hills in Bohol or the underground river in Palawan or a multitude of other beautiful places in the Philippines? Those places would've looked awesome done in Lego, I think.

Legoland is literally a land of Lego. Lego statues everywhere! Here are my favorites:

It's Einstein!

If you want to see a bird's eye view of Legoland, you must ride The Tower. It looks just like a Lego piece and it rotates so that you can get a 360 degree view of the theme park. Unfortunately, Legoland is still in the process of expanding, I think, so there's a patch of land that's just full-on construction. But it's still nice, though. 

To end our trip to Legoland, we rode Project X. There were lots of other rides that we wanted to try but we were running a little late. Compared to the roller coaster we rode at Universal Studios, Project X was way tamer and less scary. Funny thing was, based on the picture taken of us while on the ride you'd think that Project X was the scariest thing in the world. A lot of scared faces in that picture. 

The original plan was to spend the morning in Johor and get back to Singapore a couple of hours after lunch. No deal. It took us a little while to actually leave Legoland because we didn't know when a bus would arrive to take us back to JB Sentral. We got there, thankfully, and after getting our backpacks and passing through a first round at immigration, got on a bus that would take us through Woodlands (where we'd pass through immigration again) to Kranji station. 

Passing through the border from Malaysia to Singapore wasn't much of an event, one moment you're in Malaysia and the next you're in an MRT station bound for Changi airport. We decided to leave our luggage at the airport before we went to Orchard where we had dinner and met up with Raymund, my and Avon's friend from college. H&M at Orchard Road was our store of choice to partake of the Great Singapore Sale but we only had about an hour and a half to go around and shop because we had the Merlion to see and a flight to catch in a few hours. Having Raymund as our guide helped us a lot since we knew exactly where we were going. Getting around was quicker,  but our legs were starting to give up on us. I guess three days of being on your feet will do that to you. 

Muscle pain and foot blisters were momentarily forgotten when we got to the Merlion park, where the Merlion is found chillin like a villain and spewing out a continuous stream of water out of it's lion mouth. 

I shall name you...Merly!

I was pleased that we visited Merly at nighttime, we got to admire the Singapore skyline alongside the Merlion. 

Taking a photo with the Merlion was the symbolic finish line to our Singapore-Malaysia adventure. Our itinerary was done and the only thing left to do was thank Raymund for seeing us, get on our last MRT ride to Changi airport, check-in, and wait. The waiting turned out to be longer than we expected because our flight was delayed. Good job, Cebu Pac. 

I don't remember anything from the flight back home to Manila. We were all dead asleep throughout the entire plane ride, I think. All I remember is that the day was new when we touched down at NAIA 3 and that my sister was waiting for Avon and me. I was happy to come home to a family, to a bed and to internet after a few days of being away abroad (naks!). I had pasalubong to give out and stories to tell. 

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So that was my Singapore-Malaysia backpacking adventure. I made some new friends and reunited with an old one. I got to experience the hardships that came with not having a strict itinerary nor any real place to stay for the night. I got to see a lot of beautiful things and experienced a different way of life even if it was just for a few days. I learned things about travel that I wouldn't have learned from anywhere else. I've tasted food that I'm sure I'll be searching for when I get hungry. I rode trains and buses and taxi cabs, survived the blazing heat and humidity, took photos, dealt with the unexpected curveballs with spontaneously formulated Plan B and C and D's, and laughed through the bitch fits, all with just a backpack, a sling bag and a water bottle in my hand. 

Cool. :)