Singapore

Singapore...a nice place, kind people, hot and humid weather.  The famous shopping street, Orchard Road, reminded me of any other shopping street in any major city.  Overall, it's an okay place.  Not somewhere I'd ever recommend or a place I need to go back to.  Jason and I both thought we'd like it a lot more than we did. Here is the photo journal (with comments) of our time there.(12/23/2012-12/27/2012)

5 Foot Way Inn, our hostel.
We decided to stay in a hostel in Singapore.  Neither of us had ever stayed in one before, a new adventure.  Singapore is very expensive so a hostel was a good choice in that regard as well.  The cost of the hostel was a lot less than any hotel we could find (and still quite expensive since there are four of us and we were in Singapore).


Usually when you stay in a hostel you rent a single bunk in a dorm style room.  Since there were four of us we just rented the whole room.  We were able to rent a room with a bathroom attached, but usually you use a community bathroom.  The kids took the top bunks.  


 Hostels are used by backpackers and singles, people looking to travel light and cheap, etc.  Part of the appeal of the hostel, aside from the cheap rates, is the home like setting.  There is a kitchen that is available to use day and night, which is stocked with breakfast items in the morning.  The breakfast is simple - cereal, toast, jam and peanut butter.  There is hot coffee and tea.  Anything else you want you can bring yourself and cook there.

 The next pics are all of the kitchen area.  It was a nice balcony that we actually came to look forward to every morning.




Our main form of entertainment in Singapore was simply walking around and looking at things.  There isn't really all that much to do there. We did spend one day at the Singapore Zoo and Night Safari.   We decided to skip the big amusement park and Universal Studios - mainly to save the expense.  It would have been great and had we known that Lily would end up spending the rest of the vacation sick we probably would have gone for it...Anyway, the rest of the pics are just some of the awesome things we saw.

Orchard Street is the famous shopping street in Singapore.  It is filled massive stores, 1000's of small stores, and more malls than I have ever seen in one place.  The shopping wasn't all that exciting - very expensive, but the decor was pretty amazing.  Singapore goes all out for Christmas.


Singapore is quite a melting pot - there are people from all cultures there.  Being so, there is some pretty amazing food.  Here are a few pics of some of the food we had while we were there...



Dinner our first night!  We went for Thai from a little street food court.  Delicious!

Others:


  

One of the things that I liked most about Singapore was the all the religious sites and temples.  I loved being among the varying religions, cultures, and ethnicities.  I heard the call for Islamic prayer time for my first time.  It was beautiful, especially that specific night in that specific setting. Here are some of the pics of the different Temple and Mosques that we saw.
























The panels above were all part of an arch way leading to a mosque.



















Additionally, Singapore has some very colorful and interesting architecture.  Here are a few pics...














Shopping pictures

This is inside one of the malls.  The picture does not represent just how dizzyingly huge this place was.













This place was in Little India and had 2 floors.  The first floor was all raw/fresh foods.  Everything you can imagine.  Walking up and down the isles you were able to watch butchering happening while you tromped through smelly puddles of various animal "juices".  The second floor was mostly traditional clothing.




 Lillian getting her first henna!


The finish product.  It lasted about 5 days.







And finally...random pics.




Lily is trying to look like the Lego man is killing her...

Us having an original Singapore Sling at the famous Raffles Hotel, home of the drink.
Plugs here are different.



At the night Safari.




A fire show at the night safari.  The show was most amusing to me because it was done by 3 guys. 2 looked like this one, very sculpted and nice.  The third was quite chubby.  

This pic is more about the elephant"s butt than Lily.  :) I was amused watching the elephant go in and out of the water. Every time it went it, it curled up it's tail to avoid getting it wet.  As soon as she left the water, the tail went down.

Statue outside the Singapore Art Museum.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Surgery

I started my period when I was 11 years old.  I remember going to the nurses office at school that day because my lower back hurt so badly.  It felt like nothing I had ever felt before, but was a feeling I would become quite familiar with.  Imagine there being a bowling ball inside your body, resting on your tail bone.  It causes pressure just sitting there.  That was a good day.  The bad days were when that bowling ball was being ground into my back - from the inside trying to find a way out.  Later, when laboring with Lily, that same feeling was there.  Lily was upside down and her head was resting on my tailbone.  The contractions that drove it deeper into the bone were killers.  So all those years of imagining my inner bowling ball were not that far off! In those first few years of cycling I would often seek out the hardest surface I could find and just lay on it, trying to flatten my back into it.  Our living room floor usual...
Read more

$$Tokyo$$

If you google the most expensive cities to live in worldwide you'll find Tokyo somewhere in the top 10.  I looked at a few last night and Tokyo was actually in the top 3 on 5 of the lists.  Now, one list claimed that you'd have to shell out $5,000 to get a 2 bedroom apartment in Tokyo.  I'm sure there are plenty of such apartments, but there are also less expensive ones so you can't believe everything you read. But, it is true.  Living here is very expensive.  We rent an 860 ft2 apartment for approximately $1100 a month.  If we want to rent a parking space that is another $115 a month.  Our utilities, including internet but with no cable, are over $400 a month.  All that for utilities and our apartment does not even have central air or heat!  Groceries, gas, train tickets, they all add up too of course.  Groceries vary in price from store to store and season to season, but it is not uncommon to see 4 apples for $6 or a quart of milk fo...
Read more

Parenting is not for the Timid - This is my Biggest and Worst

Parenting brings obstacles and challenges like none that we've ever dealt with before.  My first was when my son was born.  He was the most difficult baby I'd ever come across, and I got to be with him all the time .  I remember how defeated and discouraged I was, and how I thought to myself, "I can't do this.  I can't parent this child, make him happy, stay sane.  I don't even want to".  I didn't know how I was going to get through his infancy and this obstacle felt like the greatest obstacle of my life. We got through it, I got through it.  Time passed and allowed me to forget the depth of the struggle so that when the next challenge arose, that one felt like a new biggest and worst.  The new challenge was now the thing that was going to end all civilized thought in my head.  Again, we got through.  Time and again, challenges, the biggest and worst, have arisen.  Each time I have thought, "How? What am I supposed to do with this...
Read more