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!!!!