Okay, well now the archives are a little messed up after the time change, but the main posts seem to be working okay. Anyway, I don't think I told everyone about the trip Paul and I decided on for Christmas and New Year's break. We are going to Singapore and Malaysia. We have a direct flight out of Osaka airport on the 21st. We arrive in Singapore that evening and we'll go home at 11:50 pm on January 6th. We have a night flight and arrive back in Osaka around 7:00 am on the 7th. School starts the 8th, so we have all day to get home and get situated.

We finally chose Singapore/Malaysia because it is pretty safe and fairly inexpensive (Malaysia is very cheap). Almost everyone I know is going to Thailand for the holidays, so we decided to be different. There's always time for Thailand later. We thought about Taiwan and Vietnam too, but ruled both of those out. I've been looking up inexpensive nice hotels in Malaysia, because there are a bunch with a great rates, even for the holidays. I figured out we can stay at a 5 star hotel in Kuala Lumpur for about $23 each per night from the 24-27. It's really a stellar deal, I think. We can get a nice hotel for about $12 each there. I can't even imagine what true budget accomodations would be priced. Since we can afford it, I think we'll probably stay somewhere nice for Christmas evening and day, and probably around New Year's too. Singapore is almost twice as expensive, so I doubt we'll be staying at such a nice hotel there. there are reasonable rates on cheap hotels though. I doubt we'll be in Singapore too long since it is quite small and city-like.

One of the students in my Japanese class is from Malaysia. She said it is quite nice there and that it's always warm. Since Japanese winters are supposed to be pretty rough (wet and little heating indoors), I figure we'll appreciate the change of climate. I'm going to try to tap her for information about where we should go that might be a little off the beaten path. I think we'll visit the major cities, like Kuala Lampur, but we really like natural things better. I am quite interested in seeing the Petronas Towers, however. They are the tallest buildings in the world, and I would love to add them to my "Brian taller than X building" picture collection. I think going to the top of them would be awesome too since I'm sure you can see quite a long ways.

Malaysia is divided into two parts: Peninsular Malaysia and Malaysian Borneo. Singapore is connected to Peninsular Malaysia, which is where most of the major cities are. However, in Malaysian Borneo, there is one of the largest national parks in the world, with the second tallest mountain in the world, I think. Anyway, it sounds cool, but I haven't looked into how much the flight between lands would cost yet to see if it is do-able.

Our ticket to Singapore was 80000 yen each, which is about 650 dollars. Not too bad for the holidays, but the girl from Malaysia said it was normally about half that, so I guess it's not that good after all. I'll keep you posted as we put together more of a plan. I ordered the Lonely Planet guide to Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei from amazon.co.jp. They have fairly good prices there on English language books, and free shipping if your order is over $12, so it is a good deal. I think the guide will come in the next week or so.