Mary Beth's Singapore Visit Post
MBA and the Merlion
I arrived from Boise on the United BOI-SFO-HKG-SIN route. All went well, except for there was no video on the San Francisco to Hong Kong flight, which of course was the longest leg of the whole trip. Fortunately I was well prepared with things to amuse myself during the long flight. Sandy and Steve picked me up at the new Terminal 3 at Singapore Airport. It is a beautiful new terminal although in my groggy and grubby state I really could not appreciate it!
Sandy and Steve's apartment is gorgeous. They have a great view of Singapore, and the pool is very nice as well. The guest setup is better than any high end resort. Not only does a guest have a bedroom with separate bath, but you also get your own PC! I think this is Steve's evil plan to get people to write guest entries on his blog :-) but it also has been useful for keeping up with my personal email and backing up my pictures.
Saturday morning Sandy and I went on her standard one hour exercise walk, which prepared us for the feast that is the eggs benedict at the Marriott Hotel on Orchard Road. This is a fabulous place to eat breakfast...unknown to me, at first, coffees did not get free refills and I managed to drink over 17 dollars (Sing) of coffee! We headed to Lucky Plaza for the obligatory picture and then headed towards home. We were caught in a torrential downpower afterward and it stayed rainy for the rest of Saturday, so I just knitted and took a nap. For dinner we went to Cha Cha Cha in the Holland Village area and had Mexican food...
CBD and the Singapore River
On Sunday, after another exercise trek with Sandy, Steve took me on his standard walking tour. We saw a ton of landmarks, including the Merlion, the Esplanade (otherwise known as the "durian" building), the Raffles Hotel, and more. I was thoroughly worn out by the end of the tour! That evening we met Rich and Kristen Forcier for dinner at Clark Quay. We ate at a hot stone place, which was lots of fun. Your food arrives raw and then you cook it on a hot rock (duh!) It was absolutely delicious.
Prior to meeting Rich and Kristen, it was wine-thirty at the Lieske household. I had stashed in my luggage (along with Macaroni and Cheese and Yarn....don't ask!) a *fabulous* bottle of chardonnay that I purchased from Erickson's Fine Wines in Boise before heading to Singapore. Singapore only lets you bring in essentially one bottle of wine per person, so I knew I needed to make it a good one! As usual, Brian's wine recommendation was excellent!
On Monday Sandy took off from work. My feet were messed up from the walking on Sunday so we took it easy and just had lunch at a deli and did a little shopping. I cooked chicken parmesan for the whole crew on Monday night. It was the easiest thing I could think of to cook that I thought I could find the ingredients for. I think it went over well, though I am sure Steve was not thrilled at the clean up involved.
MBA chats with the Buddha
Tuesday Steve and I headed out to Sim Lim Square. This is a huge electronics mall. I wanted to see if any of the products I am responsible for at work were there. I struck out on that mission, but it was amazing to see all of the shops and the different stuff that was available. This would be the place to go if you wanted to build your own PC and were willing to sort through everything to get the parts that you wanted. And also had time for a gazillion trips. And could actually cart all of the stuff home!
We then headed to Bugis Street and saw a bunch of little shops and of course I had to get my picture taken by the Buddha (you can't see it but there's a slot in his tummy for donations!)
Wednesday Steve and I headed to the book stores. I bought a lot of books and managed to zoom through several of them already. We also ate at Hard Rock Cafe, which was quite good. We got caught in a little rain so we just HAD to stop and have a Tiger beer (or two...or more) at a bar at the entrance to Emerald Hill, which is a back road up to Sandy and Steve's apartment that has houses in the older style (Chinese Baroque). These are worth quite a bit of money and definitely you can see the value in most of the houses.
Arty picture of the Esplanade
Thursday Sandy had an all night meeting, so she rested up and then the three of us went to BrewWerkz, a local brewery for lunch. It was cocktail hour somewhere in the world, so I decided I needed to try the local beer sampler. All of the beers were good, but I would say the IPA was quite good in particular. After lunch, we toured the Asian Civilizations Museum. None of us had been there before and it was quite interesting. In particular, Sandy and I admired the various textiles from the different cultures in Southeast Asia.
Afterwards, I needed to rest up as Steve and I headed to the Night Safari. This is cool...a special zoo that is only open at night. We saw lions and tigers and hippos and a rhino and lots of smaller animals, and they were all awake. Very interesting....we started with the animal show and then took the tram to the first stop. We then hopped off of the tram ride and started to walk around the park. We then hopped back on the tram, finished the rest of the narrated guided tour, and then did another short foot trail before stopping at Ben and Jerry's for a quick snack before heading back to the apartment. This is a unique Singapore attraction and well worth the price of admission
Friday Sandy took off from work. We indulged in a little shopping after a quick lunch at a deli; we ended up at a quilt shop (twice!) and Sandy of course bought some shoes. We also had to go to the US Embassy to take care of some legal documents for Steve and Sandy and Rich and Kristen Forcier. I was a witness for the legal documents but it was interesting to see even a small part of the embassy.
Dinner on Friday was at Dan Ryan's and was excellent. I had a really good New Zealand fillet and of course Sandy and I had to split molten lava cake for dessert.
Somehow, this Singapore trip is not so good for my diet!
Additional pictures
Not-so-arty picture of the Esplanade
