Singapore, Singapore

Singapore has been a nice three day stopover that was actually reminiscent of home. We’ve been brushing our teeth with bottled water the past month and Singapore is the only Asian country on this trip with ‘safe enough’ water to use the sink. It doesn’t’ sound like a big deal, but from a comfort perspective it is, trust me. The flight from Siem Reap only took about an hour and a half and once we landed we took a nice 15 minute cab ride to our hotel located in Little India. The sun was going down and we happened to pass a huge light display and asked our driver what it was all about. He said Singapore was celebrating their 50th anniversary of being their own country the following Sunday. Pretty interesting timing for our trip, but we’ll only be here for 3 days so not much of a chance we’ll get caught up in all the hub bub.

When we walked into our hotel room all the lights were making everything white. Then we saw a dial next to the bed that changes the room into any color we want. We got a kick out of showing Tyson various colors (blue, red or green) with crazy lighting streamed throughout the room. So cool! We dropped off our stuff then set off to stroll through Little India in search for somewhere to eat dinner. We really only one type of food as an option…yup that would be Indian food. So we went to a famous restaurant that our hotel recommended just a few blocks away. It’s a place I would consider a hole in the wall in the States, but the garlic naan was to die for. After dinner we headed back to the hotel and went straight to bed. The best part is that Tyson finally has a crib again. Woohoo!

The next morning we had our free pancake breakfast at the hotel and then walked over to the nearby grocery store to pick up a few snacks for Tyson. The store was like five times the size of any store we found in Thailand or Cambodia. It was still about a tenth the size of an average Target in the States, but we found it to have PLENTY of options for the items we’ve been looking for the last few weeks. We even found some of Tyson’s favorite snacks that he had back home. The coolest part is that the seafood is still alive when you buy it. We saw a man picking out his live crab and putting it in his cart. I guess they'll know they're seafood is always fresh. On the way back we walked through Little India and checked out one of the local Indian markets with all kinds of colorful things before heading back to our hotel for Tyson’s nap.

That afternoon we decided the best way to see the city at our own pace was the Hop On Hop Off bus tour. The ticket is for 24 hours so we bought the ticket at 1pm so that we could do two half days instead of one full day. We hopped onto the bus and rode for a few minutes until we came to a large shopping mall. It was a stop that all the routes stopped at so we figured it would be a good place to take a break and walk around. It was way past lunch time so we went straight to the food area. They had a lot of American food places that sounded AMAZING. We stopped at Subway and Popeye’s and loved every bite. It’s been so long since we’ve had American food so we were in heaven. After lunch we were on a mission to find Tyson some new shoes because his only pair were getting way too small. We walked all over the mall and couldn’t find any store that sold shoes in his size. Then finally we walk into an Adidas store and they actually had shoes small enough for Tyson. Score! We let Tyson wear his new shoes out of the store and put his old ones in the stroller (only to be used if we somehow lose one of his new shoes – which could totally happen).

We continued strolling the mall and came to an area that had a bunch of little car rides for kids to play on. Tyson loves sitting in them and pressing buttons. It’s usually sufficient to skip putting money in them and instead just shake them around while he sits in them. He has a blast regardless. We then came across a hair salon. Marshall hadn’t had a haircut in two months (when we were in Munich where he got a VERY Germen hair cut) so it was time to get a fresh cut. The hairdresser was pretty into his craft. He had purple hair and wore tight leather pants and was such an artist that it took him an hour to cut Marshall’s hair. Meanwhile I was chasing Tyson up and down the mall while we waited…and waited. Let’s just say I got some dang good exercise in.

The last bus left the mall at 5:20pm so we jumped on and headed back to the hotel. We were all hungry so we walked down the street a bit from the hotel, but this time the opposite direction of Little India. We found a nice little restaurant that served all kinds of various foods so we stopped there and had a delicious dinner. It was time to call it a night because we wanted to wake up nice and early the next morning to maximize the remaining time on our 24 hour bus pass.

We woke up super early the next morning, had our free breakfast and then headed out the door to catch the bus. After walking about half a mile to the bus stop we realized that the first bus of the day didn’t come for another hour and a half. Dang it! Since we didn’t want to go back and sit at the hotel twiddling our thumbs we said screw it and just walked a few miles to the marina where the iconic Ferris wheel is located. We took a few pics and walked around the site a bit and tried to think of something else we could do. We looked at a map and realized that across the river is huge garden called Gardens by the Bay….and the best part is it was free! We love when we find free entertainment. So we jumped on the bus to ride across the river and get off at the gardens. This place was gorgeous!

As we’re walking through the gardens we come across a huge kid’s water play area with several fountains for kids to run through. We didn’t bring Tyson’s swimsuit or a towel so we walked around it looking for other things for him to do. Luckily right next it was two huge playgrounds. Tyson gets so giddy when he sees a playground. He always says “SLYYY” for slide. He had so much fun going down the big slide with Dada. Next to the playground was a kid’s café so we got Tyson some chicken nuggets and fruit to snack on and he gobbled that right up! We then looked at the clock and realized the bus we wanted to catch left in 10 minutes and we were super far away from the bus stop. We start speed walking through the gardens and took about three wrong turns before finally finding the bridge to cross over the river to get to the bus stop. By the time we got there we were dripping sweat, but still had two minutes to spare. Go us!

We jumped back on the bus and were starving for lunch so we hopped off on Orchard Road where we’re told that all the condos are like $9M a piece. Insane! There were tons of restaurants along this road and since we had American options we decided that Hard Rock Café sounded pretty amazing. When we walked inside the first thing Tyson saw were the balloons they hand out to kids. He kept saying “boon” so they ended up giving him two balloons, one of which he popped in the first five minutes (he loves to bite balloons for some reason). After lunch we went across the street to Starbucks so I could get my frappucino fix. Then the bus pulled up but the driver wouldn’t let me on with my drink and there was no way in heck I was throwing it away so we had to wait 20 minutes for the next bus to come. Well worth waiting. Tyson decided to take his nap while we were waiting and on the bus ride back to the hotel.

We cooled off the hotel room for a few minutes and then wanted to venture back out since this was our last day in Singapore. Our only goal was to get lost and see what we ran into. We came across a huge market that was so busy it was like sardines trying to walk through there. It was nearly impossible to get through with a stroller but we just had to run a few people over in the process. On the other side of the market was a fountain area with other kids playing in it. Once again we didn’t have Tyson’s swimsuit but this time he was too quick and went running in before we could stop him. The fountains would turn on and off and he’d stand right in front of one that turned off and get shot with water when it came on. Everyone standing around was laughing when Tyson got sprayed with water unexpectedly. After he was completely soaked we pulled him out of there and started looking for a dinner place. We ended up having to take him to dinner like that, because we had no change of clothes. People in the restaurant looked at us like we were crazy bringing a soaking wet kid in there. Oh well. Once we were done eating, we headed back to our hotel and on our way back we looked up at the sky and saw skydivers that were dragging red smoke behind him. They were practicing for the big show next weekend. So awesome!

Tomorrow we’ll be taking a two and a half flight to our next destination.

Next stop: Bali, Indonesia