Singapore

On November 5th, Rick and I left home for our loooong trip across the Pacific Ocean.  We left home at 3PM to catch a short flight over to LA.  We had a few hours to get ourselves over to the international terminal, find something to eat and then wait for our departing flight.

Whenever I fly into the Los Angeles Airport I am always surprised that it is not more user friendly......and updated.  It is very old and the walk from the domestic airlines to the international ones does not make sense.  People have to gather their bags at the baggage claim then go OUTSIDE and walk over TWO TERMINALS to get to the International Terminal.  What? Truly, this airport needs to get with the times and install trains, to get from one terminal to the other.  Anyway.......after getting ourselves and our luggage to the international terminal we very easily got checked in and then stopped for a bite to eat. I chose Mexican and Rick chose Panda Express:)

We made it early to our gate and were amazed at the size of our airplane.  We flew with China Southern and it was HUGE!  A double decker with four giant engines not to mention the giant wingspan.  This plane sure held a lot of people!  It was a fifteen hour flight into China, the longest we have ever been on.  It had a three, four, three seat configuration and Rick and I sat in the middle with another couple next to us.  It was a pretty tight squeeze and the lady next to me was a little drunk.  She did not recognize her personal space and kept elbowing me as she repeatedly kept grabbing her back pack off of the floor and searching inside for who knows what.  I think the alcohol also loosened her tongue because she also kept spewing profanities in her endless chatter.  Her husband kept trying to quiet her down (she wasn't extremely loud but I certainly heard her clearly enough) and that seemed to help.  

Our plane left at 10:50 and it did not take long for pretty much everyone on the flight to fade off to sleep....including my next seat neighbor:)  The flight was long but with a few trips around the airplane to stretch our legs we did ok.  We flew into Guangzhou, China.  As we were departing the airplane Rick struck up a conversation with "our seat neighbors" and realized that they were going to be on our same tour with us.  Oh boy!!  We actually got to know them as we progressed on our trip, and they are quite good people.  We developed a bit of a relationship.

After another four hour flight we finally arrived to SINGAPORE.   Our first destination.  After getting checked in to the Orchard Rendezvous Hotel we had the evening to ourselves.  I was super hungry so we made our way on the MRT (metro) over to Chinatown.

Chinatown was pretty cool and the metro dropped us off in the middle of many eating establishments.  They were mostly grab and go type places but it was fun to see some of the different foods available. You know delicious fare like chicken feet, pig snout, spicy beef tripe, pig trotters (feet), pig ears in chili oil, pig liver, and spicy fish head.  It's amazing to me that people actually eat that stuff.

We did find some pretty good food amongst all of the weird stuff.  Luckily the menu had pictures because most the people in Chinatown only spoke Chinese:)  We were able to order egg fried rice, onion noodles (which were my favorite), chicken stir fry, and spicy crispy chicken.  Oh yeah, we ordered some egg drop soup as well.  Well my eyes were definitely bigger than my stomach because after just a few bites I wasn't feeling very well.  I think I waited too long to eat:(  Rick's dish came out first so while I was eating noodles he was enjoying his spicy chicken.  After a bit, my meal came out and I saw all of those red peppers and I thought, "I don't think this is my meal".  After taking a bite of it I knew that it belonged to Rick because it was SPICY!  He gave me the remainder of my meal which I could not have finished anyway, and then he started on his.  It was surely a cultural experience being right there in the thick of Chinatown!

                             These noodles though.....so delish!

                   Doesn't my two day traveling hair look awesome:)

Next, we took the MRT over to Little India.  This was also fun!  The smells of the spices, flowers, and fruits as we passed by the different shops were pretty cool!  We also found a fish market.  (It didn't smell quite as cool:)  These are always a curiosity to us, and we enjoyed looking at all of the "food from under the sea".  There were huge shrimp, shark, eel fish, fish heads, and much more.  

So fascinating!  

The next day we had more free time so we decided to take a taxi over to the Jurong Bird Park.  It was a beautiful park filled with many different species of birds.  

We stopped at a bird show and were delighted by the different birds showcased and their learned behaviors.  One parrot could count to ten in Chinese, Malay, and English.  He also could sing a full verse of happy birthday.  Kinda fun!

This bird is one of my favorites....a toucan.

In the park we also got to go into an area to feed the lorikeets.  We loved this hands on experience!

After the bird park we went back to our hotel for some R & R.  I had a massage while Rick went for a swim.  I found him out napping by the poolside and joined him for a few minutes:)

After getting ready for the evening we had dinner at Modesto, the hotel's Italian restaurant.  Rick had the quattro formaggi gnocchi while I had a wood fired pizza:)

At 6:00 we met with our group to head over to the Garden's By The Bay park.  This is the place where they have the Supertrees that we were excited to see.  They are beautiful manufactured trees built on reclaimed land in the bay and have become quite the tourist attraction.  They were really neat to see after dark when all of the lights came on.  The sky walk had a tremendous view of the city's skyline, and we enjoyed the laser show from the base of the trees.  

The only drawback was that we really should have gotten there earlier.  The place closed at nine, and many of us in the group did not get to see all that we wanted to.... and paid for.  In the park are two big domes.  The one we went into was the "Cloud Dome".  It had a gigantic manmade waterfall as well as mountainous flora.  It was pretty cool!  We had to hurry through it though because it was closing down:(

The other dome was the "Flower Dome" and we did not have time to go inside because it was closed.

As we all met back at the bus the whole group felt bad that we were not able to see all of the exhibits.  We simple did not arrive early enough.  

Even though we only had an evening and a day to see Singapore it was enough to see that it is a MAGNIFICENT CITY!  It is super clean, friendly, and easy to get around.  It is called the garden city for a reason.  There are many gardens and the streets are lined with flowers and foliage.  Singapore sits right on the equator and has year round heat and humidity which makes it so beautiful.

Our only regret is that we did not see more of it!

Next stop....Bali, Indonesia.