Singapore

Wow – it sure feels great to get a solid night’s rest finally. Mom is still really battling this cold, which just won’t leave. In fact I have already made an appointment for her at the doctor for Monday, the day we return. Since she wasn’t feeling the greatest this morning I went out to McDonald’s, and I’m not ashamed of it! I think this is the first “fast food” we’ve had in over a month. We both thoroughly enjoyed our egg mcmuffins, and I even tried their jasmine green tea. After our breakfast we did call and talk to dad for a bit. I think he is more than ready for us to get home. Since Sin is such a large city we opted to take the Sin Air Hop On Hop Off bus around the city. We had our boarding passes from the flight so it was a mere SG$6 for an all day pass. The bus picked up right across the street from the hotel, which was perfect. We started off going down by Marina Bay, so we saw the Singapore Flyer up close and personal and then continued on around the city.

 

We did have to alight at the Botanical Gardens to transfer to another bus. Since we were there, we decided to go on in and enjoy the gardens. One thing I was told was to not go during the heat of the day, but that’s exactly when we were there and boy was it hot.

 

We took our time going through and tried to stay in the shade. It is an enormous place, about 74 hectares with the National Orchid Garden taking up 3 hectares. We had heard so much about the orchids that we really wanted to go and see them. 

Turns out they have over 1,000 species of orchids and over 2,000 hybrids. Again, I think I tried to take a picture of each and every one since every one seemed prettier than the last.

 

After a couple of hours in the gardens we had both about melted and decided to get back on the bus. It was also now late afternoon and our breakfast was long gone. Once on the bus we went down the infamous Orchard Row where they have a Louis Vuitton, Prada, a Gucci store every other block. Honestly, there were two LVs within 2 blocks. Unfortunately, Mom would not let me leave the bus.  After a bit we had arrived at the Lau Pa Sat Festival Market, which is a famous hawker center.

 

In case you’re not familiar with hawker centers, they are food stalls with local fare at very inexpensive prices. Since we were there about 3:30, it was pretty empty, but the choices were plentiful. There must have been 75 different stalls with all different types of cuisine.

 

We decided to graze since we weren’t sure what most of the food was. We started with some simple fried rice, which turned out to be amazing. We thought we could use a few more carbs, so we went on to a noodle dish called laksa, which is a curry coconut soup with noodles, tofu, and fish. It’s much tastier than it sounds, but it sure was spicy! We stayed away from the stall called "Pig's Organ Soup". We moved on to some fried items, a spring roll and a bean paste biscuit, again, much better than it sounds. We had to have a little dessert, but honestly, I cannot imagine that anything they had for dessert would have been edible – sweet corn and milk ice anyone? Didn’t think so. Ironically there happened to be a Wendy’s attached, so we went for a sure thing, an Oreo frosty. With it being so warm out, it really hit the spot. As we were leaving, they had opened the various Satay stalls and had closed down the street for the evening. This center is open 24 hours a day and gets very busy a little later in the evenings. We rejoined the bus about 5:30 and continued around the city again. It was nice to go again because you see and hear things you missed the first time. 

Gate to Chinatown

We arrived back to the hotel this evening and decided to relax in our room and just enjoy the view. Hard to believe we start our very long 28-hour trip back to the East Coast tomorrow. Jet lag here we come!