"Walk" An Ode to my Birkenstocks - Singapore Day 2
- shaecaragher
- Aug 14, 2019
- 8 min read
Updated: Nov 4, 2019
Note: this blog post is a bit long, but it’s a roller coaster! enjoy :)
To say today was interesting would be quite the understatement. Let’s just say we were up at 5:40 am and got back to our Air BnB at around 8:30 pm. In those some 15 hours we had many adventures, laughs, and got lost one too many times… it was an experience!
We began the morning by boarding the MRT to go to the ferry… we were off to Indonesia! Just got to Singapore? Why not head off to Indonesia day 2? We went to a small island called Batam. It is only about 1 hour from Singapore by ferry, yet is in a completely different time zone. Our time in Batam was, well, bizarre to say the least. My friend Josh told us about his adventure there last year, and he said, “Get ready for lots of stares” I didn’t quite know what he meant until we arrived in Batam and it seemed like everyone and their mother was staring at Allison and I. We were greeted by the friendliest immigration officer and had a conversation with him that went something like this:
Him: “Welcome to Batam!”
Us: “Thank you so much!”
Him: “You are from America?”
Us: “Yes!”
Him: “Oooo! Barack Obama! Yah!”
Us: *die laughing*
The rest of our time in Batam was quite amusing. We didn’t have any cash, which made getting any form of food a very slim possibility. We finally did find a store that took card, but my card got declined due to “insufficient funds” quite the embarrassing moment I must say! We
walked around a little bit, saw a few sites, and just like that, it was time to head back to Singapore. We boarded the ferry and on the ride back, we just about died from hypothermia. That ferry was cold and I mean COLD cold. As soon as we got off the ferry though, and were struck by the humidity, we were reminded exactly as to why an extremely air conditioned ferry was a necessity.
When we arrived in Singapore and tried to navigate our way through immigration which was surprisingly difficult for us; we stuck out like a sore thumb basically broadcasting, “HELLO WE ARE AMERICANS! WE DON’T KNOW WHAT WE’RE DOING!” as we shuffled through. We however finally made it through and navigated our way to Chinatown via MRT. Can I just say, public transport is quite the gift and I find it quite disappointing that Los Angeles is very much lacking in that area. Anyways, Allison and I, masters of the MRT, arrived in Chinatown without a problem. At this point, we had logged about 5 miles and we would later find out, had 8 more to go. My Birkenstocks carried me through this entire 13 mile journey so to them, I am eternally grateful!
We made our way through Chinatown which was FULL of tourists and a billion different boba stores and dumpling houses. We finally settled on some lemon chicken and chicken curry in a gorgeous open air market area. It was delicious, we were stuffed, but as we were leaving I saw this popsicle place that looked SOO good so I had to get one! (note: very worth it)
We walked by a historic Buddhist temple which was lined with offering baskets, food, dinnerware… it was quite the set up! Then we made our way towards Orchard Road which was 2 miles away. Our time in Orchard Road was, well, I’ll just tell some stories and you can gage what the experience was like.
We walked to Orchard Road which felt SO far away (probably because my Birkenstocks and Allison’s Sam Edelman sandals are not made for long distance travel… but they carried us through so we can’t talk too much crap). We finally did arrive, very parched, very sweaty, and definitely ready to sit down. We were supposed to go to this place where the fish eat the dead skin off your feet, but the prices online and the prices in store were DRASTICALLY different and we’re balling on a budget so that unfortunately didn’t work out. I think the saddest part about it was that we had a super good Instagram caption for it too! “We don’t eat fish, but fish eat us” Kind of morbid, but also animal rights… kind of? So instead we went on a hunt for boba. We found a place that looked amazing. SCORE! We would no longer be so parched. We ordered, pulled out our card, and heard the dreaded, “So sorry, we don’t take that kind of card” Tears welled in Allison’s eyes, my taste buds let out a little cry, it was not our finest moment. I must insert here, that we also did not have cash (our hardest lesson to learn on this trip… we would again be reminded of this later, just you wait!) We walked away defeated but with an ounce of hope to find somewhere that would accept our LOVELY Visa card - money is money right? We walked around a little more until we found some refreshing lemonade and then we were off!
Next stop was a tea kombucha place that Allison had found online. Knowing us, you’ll know how much we love kombucha. Why not ferment some tea and call it a drink, right? It’s delicious! We logged some more miles on our adventure to kombucha-land. We found it, ordered our drink… then yet AGAIN discovered that they do not take card. But this time, we were not defeated. We walked here specifically for this kombucha so this kombucha we were going to get! We found out there was an ATM just around the corner… SCORE! However, after multiple attempts at withdrawing money, our work was fruitless and we left the bank semi-defeated. We sat on the steps, debating what musical number or dance we could perform to collect some money for the kombucha. But then we saw a sign… a literal sign, not metaphorical. sign It said “UOB” I don’t know what the “U" and the “O” are, but the “B” stood for bank so we ran over with hope. Not only did they have an ATM, they had no withdrawal fees and we got cash! We learned our lesson!!! We got our kombucha, basked in the heaven that is fermented tea and relaxed a bit.
Then the man working at the kombucha place, gave us a dinner recommendation called Afuri; It’s a Japanese ramen place that is very well known in Japan and just opened here. We looked up the menu, it apparently had gluten free noodles, so we decided why not go? Ladies and gentlemen… here is where the real adventure starts!
Afuri was on our way home (very convenient) so we excitedly headed that direction. We had already looked up the menu and decided what we wanted (we’re Type A, can you tell?) and we were ready for our bodies to be filled with ramen deliciousness. After some good old talking and walking, we arrived at what looked like that ramen place. We got SO excited. We confidently went inside, got seated, and opened the menu. It looked nothing like what we saw online so we were a bit confused. Maybe they have a special menu at a certain hour of the night? Maybe their menu is seasonal? Then we actually looked at the name of the restaurant (an important factor) and realized that this was a completely different restaurant! Wow! Definitely a shining moment for us. We couldn’t just walk out of the place, that felt so awkward and rude so we had to find some excuse. I realized the fact that I couldn’t eat gluten was the most perfect excuse. A waiter came over to the table to take our order and I asked her if the noodles had gluten in them. She looked at me like I was a crazy person. So I started to say wheat or flour and even white powdery stuff, and when I said flour she started laughing. She was probably thinking, “Why would this girl think we put flowers in our ramen noodles?” I felt awful because I was not doing the most prime job communicating. The ladies next to us were from Australia and tried to help me out. Eventually she called over another waiter, who still didn’t know what we were talking about so I just said, “I’m so sorry, I’m allergic” and we left. While walking out there was a picture of the ramen noodles and a bowl of flour right next to it, so thankfully I dodged a bullet on that one! We then set off to find the right ramen place.
This next part would take about an hour. We could not, for the LIFE of us, find this ramen place. It must be some secret society, I thought. We walked around every place that was near the address we saw online. We kind of walked into some government building, we walked further down the street then back the other way. We were taking random escalators that looked promising, then revealed a dead end. Where on EARTH was this ramen place! Finally we found a website that said, “Afuri is located in the basement of Funan Mall” Mind you, Funan mall is located 3 blocks away from Afuri’s address online. We started walking the opposite way of home, stopping once in the wrong mall, and then finally. We saw the sign. FUNAN MALL in big, bold, bright, gold letters. How could we have missed this? We found the basement escalator and felt so much excitement. We walked around until finally, “Afuri” Then, our hearts sank. There was a line as long as Russia. But after all that work, we couldn’t NOT go. We got in line and the woman was so kind and ended up getting us a table after only 10 or so minutes. I flipped through the menu, but there was no sign of gluten free noodles. I asked the waitress if they had gluten free noodles and gave me the same look the previous waitress had that said, “Ummmm, seriously?” I then realized, the website we were looking at was the Afuri located in Portland, Oregon and it dawned on us that Portland would obviously be the place to get the gluten free goods. Allison however, did get ramen and she said it was the best ramen she had EVER had so all in all? WORTH IT!
We finally did get home after logging about 13 or so miles and 25,000 steps. I would like to thank Birkenstocks, although your shoes aren’t the most supportive for a 13 mile walking trip, they made it, stayed strong, and didn’t give up. I would also like to thank Google Maps for dealing with us yelling at it because it led us astray so many times, but then we realized we were actually heading the wrong way.
According to Allison, “Oh boy *laughs subtly* Let me try to remember yesterday (seriously how can you forget). Oh - Indonesia. Indonesia was… let me think of the word *pauses for 5 minutes* unusual. It ummmm, well I felt famous, personally, even though I’m not (thank you for that note, Allison) It was not expected but I did feel loved. I felt loved. I would say the rest of the day was chaos. If I were to give it one word, I would give it the word “walk.” I would say, ummm, I realized how kind Shae was, especially for the 3 hour detour to find the ramen. I realized how much I loved her. I realized how selfless she is (SEE DAD, I’M NICE!) and it was the first time I realized, ‘I’m going to miss this girl’ The fish spa thing was disappointing. A few disappointments throughout the day, but it was a pretty good day. *sighs* Yah, the money thing was rough. I always wonder, is a converter a lithium battery" (you ok, Allison?)
I again, would like to apologize for the length of this blog post but there were some interesting stories and adventures and random moments. Thank you for coming on this journey with us (except you got to skip all the walking :/)
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