Singapore!

After three and a half long months of waiting, I finally got to go see Branden! After several date changes, we finally met up in Singapore last week. We got to spend four and a half days together, which went by much too fast, of course! Singapore is a wonderful city/country. It is a great introduction to Asia, as everything is in English (former British Colony) and it is a melting pot of Asian culture. In Singapore, the Chinese, Malays, Indians and Thais all live in relative harmony. The people are very polite and friendly and the city is very safe. The top things to do are shop and eat...my kind of town! Enjoy the photos!

Enjoying dinner at Blu, a restaurant on the 24th floor of our hotel...great food and a great view!

Little India's version of Pike's Place Market. I think I'll take Pike's Place...I only lasted about 30 minutes in Little India.

The smartest toilet I have ever seen (it was actually in Japan, where I had a layover coming and going)...it had various buttons, including one to release extra air freshener and another to play "loud flushing noises" in case you needed a little extra privacy!

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the squatter toilets! To be fair, I only saw these twice in Singapore, but I wasn't a big fan!

Despite all of the fancy restaurants in Singapore, we found the local haunts to be our favorites. On the East coast of Singapore, there is a Seafood Center consisting of your choice of several seafood restaurants. As the sign says, "if it swims, we have it". The food was memorable and delicious!

Deep-fried lobster covered in "oatmeal" (a sweet cornflake mixture). Sounds crazy but it was so good!

One of the most famous dishes in Singapore, Chilli (their spelling) Crab. It is a whole crab in a sauce of chili, tomato sauce and egg. Not my favorite, but Branden loved it! We both loved the fried rolls (just like a dinner roll, but fried)
served with it.



Singapore has an amazing Botanical Garden. It is very interesting because the rest of the city is a collection of high-rises and modern buildings. Then, right in the middle of it all, is this beautiful garden. The highlight of the park is the Orchid Garden.




Singapore has these crazy places called "Hawker Centers" all over the city. It is a crazy version of our food courts. They are outdoors and have three or four rows of all different food stands. It is very overwhelming (try finding a seat...a sweet couple took pity on us and showed us the ropes!) but once you find something you are brave enough to try, the food is delicious! There are stands for all types of cuisine (we even saw a stand with spaghetti bolognese) and for drinks. The stands are graded based on cleanliness and hygiene, being assigned an A-D. Supposedly, anything A-C is okay, but I stuck with an A. Branden chose the stand with the longest line. Both of us were very pleased with our choices!



Our daily cocktail hour at the beautiful Shangri-La hotel! I told them it was our honeymoon and they upgraded us to this special wing of the hotel. The room was beautiful and we were treated to a complimentary gourmet breakfast each morning, as well as snacks and cocktails from 10-10 each day. The house champagne was Moet White Star...not too shabby! We enjoyed a snack and a couple of cocktails each afternoon.

A fun reminder from the hotel...everyday the carpet in the elevator told you what day it was. "Monday" came too quickly!

Enjoying the beautiful pool! Singapore is just 1 degree off the equator, so between thunderstorms, the temperatures soar! The pool provided much needed relief. That's Branden cooling off.


Chinatown! The best place for buying all sorts of Asian souvenirs, if you can tolerate the pushy shopkeepers. Chinatown is also home to beautiful temples, both Hindu and Buddhist.


Time to go home! The trip went much too quickly, but now we're looking forward to Branden's return home in July!