Got up around 7 and as there was no breakfast I had a few biscuits and the last banana. After showering and packing I had to wake up Gan (who lived there) to return the locker key and get my 5RM back before leaving. I stopped for breakfast, 3RM Nasi goreng with a tea for 1.50 and I got some food for later for 1RM. It was hot already and I was wearing my new shoes where the grip started coming off, luckily I had my insulation tape and stuck it back down. The city mall was closed until 10 do I had to go round but that meant I could buy a juice and superglue from a local shop before getting to customs which I think is the same place for entry and exit. There was no queues but my passport had moved and as I found it a huge group came and lined up so I did have to queue a little bit. I went down and got a bus ticket for 3.30RM, 3 times as cheap as the Singapore one but the bus didn't come. A Singaporean who was in the British army talked to me for a while before he gave up and went for another bus. I got a message from Tiong to say he couldn't make dinner as we had arranged to meet later. The bus eventually came and again passport control at Singapore was slow and by the time I got to the hostel it was 11.30. I checked in and left some things then headed to see some small government type museum galleries I'd read in a booklet in the hostel last night. First up was the land transport department which had a few interesting stats as well as sone details behind the car tax. Next was the Inland revenue which went through the history including how as Raffles wanted it to be a freeport they made money taxing gambling and drugs. They also only introduced GST (like VAT) in the 70's and its only 7%. I left and went to the police heritage place but you need an appointment to go in so I carried on and came to a heritage area named after an American who'd bought lots of land but not done so well. There was a Chinese house museum with tours starting at 2pm that day. I said I'd be back tomorrow for the 3pm tour and went to the Myanmar temple next door which was ok but fairly empty. There were still a few things I'd pinned on my map so I headed across a main road where there was a nice park with terrapins in the lake. They swam away as I tried to take a picture. There was a lot of sports places here, swimming pools and arenas and I came to a library where a plaque in front said the area hosted some Asian games back in the 70's. The area was since turned into a living community and I found some cheap food in the local giant supermarket. I went back to the library where I found that membership is around $50 per year and the place was busy. They also seemed to have a lot of books. I was in the travel section which had new versions of lonely planet and several copies of each. There was even one for the whole planet. I did a bit of research and thought of staying but I read in the Singapore section that there are free concerts and cheap or free museums on Friday so I went back to get internet and check them out. Turned out there was free Fridays at the art museum which was not too far away so I went there and wore my new superglued shoes. There was a group of 14 in front of me which was annoying and then it turned out they had a temporary exhibition on so there were no free tickets. I had a look at the civil defense museum (fire brigade) but they were shut and opened at 10, the philantrophic museum was closed and only had stamps and the Perankanan museum was half price but still $5 as the internet had the full price listed wrong. I went back to the hostel and did some more research and decided that East Timor and Papua new guinea were not going to happen so the plan is now Borneo followed by the Philippines and then Vietnam. I had some food and used the internet before going to bed.
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