Phuket Thailand

Well, after our less than perfect trip to Tioman Malaysia, I was hesitant to spend the money on another weekend getaway. However I had a number of people in the past 2 weeks tell me how great Thailand is and how I needed to go. So, we decided to go for it.

Dave flew home from China last Friday - after a bit of a scary incident with a blown out engine during take off - but we won't get into that. Then Sat we went back to the airport and flew to Phuket, Thailand and spent a few nights in the Laguna Beach area. This happens to be their low time of year since it's monsoon season. The good part is that I got a great deal on a 5 star hotel (it really was 5 star this time, not like Malaysia). THe not so good part is that we had rain (sometimes a sprinkle, sometimes a monsoon type downpour) everyday. But we managed to have a great time nonetheles.

Kevin and Dave went SCUBA diving! Erik and Adam both got kissed by an elephant!! And we ate like kings and queens for 3 days on prawns and lobster and green curry and jack fruit and you name it. And we played in the waves on the beach and spotted a bunch of jellyfish. It was a blast. Very nice. Very relaxing and LOTS of fun. Oh yea, I almost forgot, we all got to ride on a jetski in the lagoon. The boys loved it and Kevin even dumped Dave off the back of the jetski. The other thing I forgot to mention was the family Thai Massage we did after dinner one night. All six of us got a 30 min massage for 1200 Baht which equals approximately $36. Can't beat that. The only problem is Erik is hooked. He keeps telling me his back is hurting and he needs another massage..... I've created a 7 year old spa monster!!!

We can't believe it, but we're down to just one more weekend in Singapore. Time certainly does fly when you're having fun!!!

The Singapore Flyer

Well, last week while Dave was in China and I was working, the boys went for a ride on the Singapore Flyer!!! (I think Kevin's personal mission to hit all the items featured on the Amazing Race is just about complete now) Like I said, I wasn't there, but here are a few of the pictures. They seemed to have a great time!!!

While they were off having a blast on the Flyer, I was invited to lunch at an authentic Indian Restaurant. "Authentic" means - no plates, the food is exclusively served on a banana leaf. And utensils are optional - I opt'd for the fork. We had prawn curry, chicken curry and ....FISH HEAD curry. And since I was the "guest of honor" I got to eat the fish cheeks (it is actually pretty good as far as fish goes). It was all really good - especially the prawns!!! For dessert it was Durian Ice Cream. I'm practically a local now!

A Temple, A Mosque & A Temple

Ok. I'm REALLY falling behind on my blogging so the text will be short but the pictures will still be fun to share!!! Last weekend, we went back to China town. Since we didn't make it there until late in the day on our first trip, the museum was closed. So we went back last weekend and walked through the Chinese Cultural Museum which outlined how the first Chinese came to Singapore. It was fascinating to see how they lived and the number of people that lived in small little closets. Very interesting and the museum did a great job of making you feel like you were actually looking into the past. Very Cool.

Then we went to the Hindu Temple in China Town. Apparently we timed it just right because there were lots of men with painted faces (some wearing sheets) walking around with incents burning. There was also a man playing a very interesting drum and another with some sort of horn instrument that reminded me of a snake charmer. It was quite fascinating except for two things. First is was so foreign from anything we know, that it was impossible to have any idea what was happening. And second the "music" and the incents got to me after a bit. It was a neat experience, but, what a headache!!!

Next we went to the mosque in China Town. There are rules about what you can and cannot wear. At first we were just going to glance in and leave, but when i started reading that we might be able to get a guided tour from the MIO (mosque information officer) I thought, what the heck, let's at least ask. Well, it turned out he was available and very nice to us, so we put on our "robes" and went inside. We weren't allowed to walk on the praying floor carpet, but we did get to see everything else. Lisa and I even got to check out the Woman's Praying room (no men allowed).

After that, we went to the Buddist Temple. This was my favorite. First of all, it's HUGE. it has 4 stories with a large praying wheel and meditation garden on the top floor. In between the main temple and the top floor are room after room set up like museum exhibits with all different likenesses of Budda. My favorite is the fat belly budda with the big droopy ears and smiling face. The saying goes something like; "hide all your troubles in you belly and put on a smiling face for the rest of the world". Words to live by.....

We had a great dinner in the middle of China Town sitting outside along one of the street vendor allies. THe boys tried fried baby squid - although no one liked it much - and we had a great day.

On Sunday, Dave left for China. He was traveling there for work and got to do the sidecar tour he was so excited about trying.

Lisa and I took the boys to the water amusement park. It was drizzling all day so we figured we might as well be wet. The park was fun and the boys had a great time. I think they would say the highlight was watching the expression on my face when we rode the "slide up". Yikes - it was a fast one for sure!!!

The Boys at the Singapore Zoo

Last week Lisa took the boys to the zoo. They got rained on during the day, but had a great time.

It's not very often that you come home from work and hear your kids tell you, "Mom!!! I rode an ELEPHANT today!!!"

The animals are up close and personal. The boys even got a "kiss" from the seal. The spider is NOT a zoo animal, although he's big enough to be one!!! We took a bunch of pictures of the spider because we were SO amazed with how BIG it was. That same spider was stationed on that large web on the over pass we took on our walk to dinner each night. It was hanging out there for a couple of weeks and they boys would say "hello" to him each night as we passed by. I think the last rain storm or the public works staff finally took him down. Let's just stay I'm glad he was outside. It wouldn't have been nearly as entertaining if we ran into him in our apartment.

I'll try to get the highlights from our weekend up on the blog soon. We went back to Chinatown and had a great time. More soon.....

Marina Sands Hotel & Casino

Saturday we decided to head over to the Marina Sands Hotel & Casino. In Singapore they refer to it as a "Resort" instead of a Casino. In fact the Singapore government doesn't want any of their citizens to end up with a gambling problem so Singapore citizens and residents have to pay $100 Sing Dollars to enter the Casino (oops. Resort). But foreigners (like us) can go in for free!!! They like to take the tourists money!!! But we didn't go in the Casino, we just hung out at the hotel.

However on the way to the hotel, we happened upon the rehersal for the Singaporean's National Day (Aug 9th). We had to wait to cross the street until the military vehicle parade passed by. Dave took lots of pictures. More on this later....

CHECK OUT THIS BUILDING!!!! This is the coolest building I've ever seen. We stayed in tower 3 on Sat night which allowed us to head up to the SkyPark. The SkyPark is on the top of the building, 57 stories up! That's pretty cool itself, but the INFINITY POOL was AWESOME!!! We just stood at the edge of the pool for the longest time staring out at the view. We could see the huge shipping port to the left, then all the high rise buildings across the island and then all they way to the Marina Barage on the other side of the island. It was incredible....

And then just when you think you've taken in all the views up there, a helicopter comes flying over head....and 8 (8 is a significant number in Chinese culture) guys jump out! We watch them float down doing tricks and spinning around and landing safely in the central stadium where the National Day activities will all take place. The last one was carrying the Singapore flag and when he landed the place erupted in applase. Very cool...

Next we walked over to the Marina area for dinner. We ended up on a roof top outside Italian restaurant for pizza and calamari. Nice scenery and comfortable weather and then....the rehearsal started again. This time it was 5 fighter jets flying in perfect formation and breaking off for straight up and straight down dive meanouvers.......TWICE!!! The kids had to cover their ears because they were so close that it was really loud, but it was definitely neat to see.

And then, just when you think the rehearsals are all finished....the fireworks begain!!! The folks at the hotel told us it was a "small" practice display. Well, if that was practice, I can't imagine the real thing. Let's just say that even though we're going to miss the official National Day, we've pretty much seen the highlights with all the rehearsals we've been able to catch over the past few weeks. I know I probably sounds like a broken record by now, but it was an INCREDIBLE day!!!

Sunday we went to the Hard Rock Cafe on Orchard Road. The boys loved watching the 80's MTV videos on the Big Screen and Dave and I felt like we were having a High School flashback. What a weekend!!!!

The Fountain of Wealth

This past weekend we ventured out again. In fact, there's so much to write about, I'm going to have to split it up. Friday night we went to dinner at Clarke Quay. It's a riverwalk type of area with restaurants of all shapes and varieties. Since we've been eating a LOT of "Chicken Rice", we decided to try mexican. We had a great dinner sitting outside along the river with a pitcher of margaritas (although they were frozen - Dave still enjoyed them). Mexican food in Singapore was pretty similar to US Mexican food except there's very little cheese. Funny thing was, we didn't even notice it while we were eating.

Next stop was the Fountain of Wealth. The Guiness Book named it the World's Largest Fountain and if you touch the water, and walk around the fountain 3 times it's supposed to bring you wealth. In addition, a few times per night, they show a short laser show that's projected on the water screen of the fountain. We even got our family name into the show!!!

Not a bad start to the weekend huh???

5 Things I've Learned in Singapore

1. Coke Light is NOT the same as Diet Coke

2. Carrot Cake doesn't actually have carrots in it - and - it's not actually a cake

3. Getting a taxi on a Friday evening is a challenge, and getting one on a rainy Friday is close to impossible!!!

4. The tiolet hose IS in fact used for what you think it is.....

5. Cash is KING, credit cards are NOT priceless

Tioman Island Malaysia

I knew this was going to happen. I'm already almost a week behind the action on my blogging. Lots of busy and long days trying to cover both ends of the time zone overlaps with the folks back home at work. But it's the weekend again and so I better catch up and tell you all what we did LAST weekend!!!

On Sunday we hopped on a prop plane out of the small airport (Seletar) in Singapore. We flew to Tioman Island Malaysia on what was probably the oldest plane and the craziest landing I've ever experienced. But we all survived and were taken to our hotel on this open air bus from the 1950's. Our "5 Star Hotel" (apparently that is NOT an international rating system for hotels world wide) was again probably built in the 50's with not many upgrades since then. We (ok, I admit it....I) couldn't stay in the room they assigned us, so I got hooked in for another 1000 richots (the Malaysian currency; 1000 richots ~ $333 USD) for the upgrade. Which in my opinion was WELL worth it!!! The new room was nice and comfortable so all was good.

We played at the beach and the pool the next day until our snorkeling trip that afternoon. Again, the Malaysians are not so much for service and convienence for their tourism guests so we had a few challenges finding the right size snorkeling gear for Erik and Adam and then hauling all our stuff down to the boat (I think it was from WWII) using a crumbling, cracking cement staircase down to the boat launch. Not so good with the creature comforts by any stretch of the imagination.

But the snorkeling was great. The water is crystal clear and we saw lots of colorful fish and tons of coral and on the last site Dave & Kevin and Lisa saw sharks and turtles. I hung out at the boat that time with Erik & Adam because they were snorkeled out (although they did great for most of the time and really enjoyed it). Another boat went by and threw over a big chunk of bread nearby us. So me and the boys got to watch the fish feeding frenzy. It was really neat!!!

So all in all, I would say it was a good trip. The "resort" was a disappointment, but the beach and the water and the scenery were definitely AWESOME. But let's just say we were all happy to be back in Singapore on the 3rd day. It's amazing how much it felt like "home" when we got back. I guess we're not quite that adventurous when it comes to traveling.

Keep the notes and comments coming we LOVE to hear from everyone back home. Enjoy the Corvallis HEAT!!!

Tekka Market, Little India and Chinatown

Week 2 has been great again. The boys ventured out to the Secret World War 2 caves with Lisa during the week. They said it was neat but a little scary. They also went back to Sentosa and went up in the Merlion and saw dolphin show at the aquarium. Friday night we took them to see Toy Story 3 in 3D because it was raining so hard we had to find an indoor activity. There are assigned seats in the movie theatre in Singapore. And you can enjoy your movie while eating; salted popcorn, sweet popcorn or a cup of corn with a spoon (not popped)!! We've learned that getting a taxi at 4pm on a rainy Friday afternoon is a challenge. I was lucky enough to be invited to share a cab with a co-worker from Ireland that was here in Singapore for the week. If he hadn't offered to share, I think I would still be standing there!!

Our Saturday adventure consisted of the Tekka Market. Apparently they call it a wet market because the floor is always wet. Since they sell meat there, they are always hosing down the floor. Hence the name "Wet Market"...interesting huh??? The quantity and variety of stuff they have there is just incredible. Tekka Market is in Little India so while we were there we did a brief tour of the Hindu Temple and stood outside the Muslim Mosque and took pictures. And if all that wasn't enough, we finished up the day at Chinatown. We didn't get there early enough to tour the Budist Temples or the Chinese Cultural Museum so we'll definitely need to head back another time.

Sunday we flew to Tioman Malaysia for a weekend getaway and snorkeling!!! More on that in my next post....

Love to everyone at home. We miss you all....

More Pictures from Singapore!!

Here's a few more pictures to share with everyone. You'll see me and Erik on the Zip Line and ithe video will be on facebook.... (be prepared for a few screams -- but the good kind!!!).

Here's the Marina Sands Casino (or as they call it in Singapore - "RESORT"). The building is incredible. Rumor has it the construction cost was something around S$8B. Even with the exchange rate, that's a lot of money!!! And here's the boys with the Singapore Flyer in the background.

We've met our neighbors -- THE MONKEYS!!! We were here for over a week and never saw a single one. THe boys and Lisa went walking up the hill into the nature reserve and got these pictures. The monkeys were everywhere once they climbed up the hill. After a few days of teasing the boys and telling them that we didn't believe the monkies actually existed.....they were righ outside our door when we got into our morning taxi. it's incredible. they're every where!!! The condo guards were trying to chase them away with a water gun. Very funny.

I've also included a few photos of the condo where we are staying. it's a lot smaller than home but very nice and we're ALL getting spoiled with going out to dinner every night. It costs $2.50 for chicken and rice dinner at the food stalls. Can't beat that! However I paid $14 for four tomatos at the grocery store last week!!! The kitchen is small but functional and the boys are all sharing 1 room but they're not spending much time there, so it's working out just fine.

THis weekend we're headed to Timoan Malaysia for a snorkeling trip. We should have LOTS of good pictures when we get back. Happy 4th of July to everyone at home!!!