SINGAPORE!

March 16, 2011

I set off in the morning with a large group of friends. We began our day in the Singapore Botanical gardens. The weather was so pleasant and the botanical gardens were beautiful. We spent the morning walking around the paths exploring different areas of the garden. It was perfect!

We then caught a few taxi cabs and moved our location to Orchard Road. A little over 3km long, Orchard Road is filled with tons and tons of shopping and food.

Kelly, Grant, Andrew and I ended up in a cab together and spent the rest of the day exploring Singapore! Great group of people!

We decided to try out one of the famous Hawker food centers for lunch. They are paradise for a food connoisseur like myself. There are food stalls everywhere with all types of food! The concept is genius- You find a table and then order from as many stalls as you like and they deliver the food straight to the table. We all went a little crazy and ordered tons of food for everyone to try. My personal favorite was the fried carrot cake. They also had incredible fruit juices that would have sent Brad Williams to heaven. I had the soursop juice. DELISH!

We spent a good amount of time at the Hawker Food center testing all different types of food and people watching. 

(note the sweet authentic Indian henna on my hand)

After we ate so much we could barely move, we hobbled to a taxi and headed back to Orchard street to check out the shopping. I don’t really care much for shopping myself…hahahahhahaha ok I lie… THE SHOPPING WAS INCREDIBLE. I practiced as much self control as I could muster, but purchased a few things that I really “needed.”  

We met up with the rest of our group on Orchard Road and tried some more food and the famous Singapore Sling. In my opinion, it is a very overpriced Shirley temple. BUT. When in Singapore!

Grant, Andrew, Kelly, and myself (the original crew) headed back to the waterfront to see the Singapore flyer and the Marina Bay sands hotel. The Singapore flyer is the largest observation wheel in the world, and the Marina Bay sands hotel is a new 76 floor hotel with an infinity pool at the top! Pretty cool!!! We ate dinner on the water front where we could see the beautiful sights of Singapore across the water. One word to describe it- lovely J

Unfortunately, after dinner it was time to head back to the boat. L Nobody wanted to leave (a consistent theme in each port).

It is such a shame that we only had one day in Singapore! On the other hand, it was so expensive and there was so much shopping, it may have been a good thing we pulled away around 11pm.

I have never visited a country as clean as Singapore. It is hard to believe we were just in India a few short days ago. What a drastic contrast!! There was no trash on the side walks anywhere! The taxi cabs were so clean. Even the bathrooms at the mall were spotless and stocked with plenty of amenities. The people of Singapore are very proud of their country and they should be! It was one of the nicest places I have ever visited.  

I can’t believe we are already leaving Singapore. I feel like I just boarded the MV Explorer yesterday. This semester is flying by way too fast! I want it to slow down. I want to go back and re-visit every country multiple times. I may transfer my permanent residence to the MV Explorer and become a permanent global citizen. Who knows? JK fam. I would miss yall wayyyy too much! XOXO