Welcome to the City of Fire!

So I am in Azerbaijan for the next 6 weeks on my aiesec GCDP internship with Khazar University and Parabank. The photos are taken with my homestay family in Baku, Azerbaijan's capital city. Because of Eurovision this weekend there are more foreigners in the city than usual and live music performances at night. The fountain park where we visited (a very large pedestrian mall) was very clean and pretty. In one of the evening photos you can see Baku's signature flame towers and the last photo is of the Government building.

Bottle Tree Park

We went to my aunt's and uncle's place on Mother's Day to have lunch and call my mum at home. This is the lovely meal they prepared, and afterwards we went to Bottle Tree Village which is named after these trees imported from Australia that look like bottles and hold water inside. I'm not sure what the name of the green fruit is but I was told it has a hard outer-shell but a soft inside which you boil for four hours before drinking. Bottle Tree has many activities available such as fishing, prawn fishing, swan boat rides, toy motorcar racing, educational vegetable-growing, paintball and so on. Unfortunately the lease for the land runs out this year so the whole park may need to be closed down.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

I'm going to Baku soon and since there is no Azerbaijani embassy in Singapore I took a whirlwind trip to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia with my father (who was visiting Singapore at the time). 

plane photo over Malaysia / typical living apartment blocks taken from hotel room / the overflowing rice-bowls fountain outside KL's most famous shopping mall Pavilion (there isn't much to do in KL except shop, eat and party) / My cousin Dominique who lives in KL and took us out to eat / The bird cage decorations and fancy desserts at 'Delicious / view of Petronas towers from the base / street sign on main road / food stalls at Jalan Alor / toads destined for the table / assam Laksa / white fungus

More Exploring Singapore

Huber's Butchery is part of the Dempsey Hill complex and is the go-to for wealthy Singaporeans and expats to purchase premium meat, cheese, and other imported luxuries. You can also have lunch there in the small bistro seated outside.

Dempsey Hill is also home to Long Beach, a seafood restaurant where the diners sit alongside tanks of live seafood. For a full size Alaskan or Canadian air-flown crab, the cost can be up to $1000 SGD. Of course, you do get to choose which one you want.

Chilli Crab is a popular Singaporean dish, served with lots of sauce that can be mopped up with the small bread pieces seen alongside (white is steamed buns, brown fried).

This is my Aunty Evelyn from Perth, visiting Singapore. When you buy cut fruit at stalls you can usually request that they be cut into bite-sized pieces and served on a plate with skewers for sharing.

Rojak is another popular dish in Singapore, with Malaysian and Indonesian as well as Singaporean variations. This one is fruit rojak, made of cucumber, pineapple, bean sprouts, taupok (fluffy, deep-fried tofu) served with a thick sauce of belacan (shrimp paste) sugar chilli lime water, and covered with chopped peanuts. For this particular stall you had to queue for one hour, as it was so popular with locals.

Henderson Waves is one of the bridges that connects the parks along the Southern Ridges in Singapore, and is in the shape of a wave, with the floor and the sides of the bridge following a curve pattern. It's a popular place for picnics and photo shoots, but watch your food because monkeys can come by and snatch it.

This photo at Avatar is basically of the free champagne we scored on the night of the supermoon, because it turns out they had a special DJ in and the usual free drinks for ladies was not running. Complain to the manager = result, but they stiffed us making us drink out of tumblers instead of glasses. You win some you lose some...

Toast Box is a very popular chain eatery done in a white painted cottage interior with quaint knick knacks and so on for decoration. It serves traditional Singaporean food - pictured here is Mee Rebus with Kaya-flavoured cake :)

Hanoi, Vietnam

So April was a very quite month for posting due to it being final assignment/exam season. Plus I went to Hanoi Vietnam (including Halong Bay and Hoa Lu which are in the surrounding areas) for about nine days. Lots of fun but am glad to be back in Singapore!

Hanoi shophouses / St Joseph Cathedral / man herding ducklings at Hoa Lu / on the river at Tam Loc - see that the boatman is rowing using his  feet!