Singapore 2012

This month, I travelled to Singapore for the first time. It is a long flight (about 18 hours plus layover in Japan), but totally worth it. Singapore reminds me a little bit of New York City because of its endless shopping possibilities and the beautiful skyline. It also reminds me a little bit of Las Vegas because people are out and about at all hours (this makes a lot of sense because it is cooler only at night) and because of what I have heard about the island of Sentosa off the coast of Singapore (I didn't have time to actually go there). It is very clean, very safe, most people speak English (so it is easy to communicate), the water is safe and the food is absolutely amazing. The only drawback is that it's really expensive. The hotels in the popular areas are expensive - like staying in Manhattan - and restaurants (other than hawker stalls or food centers) are pretty pricey.

That being said, I mostly ate at the food centers/hawker stalls because this is where the best local food can be had - for about $5 a meal! It is completely safe to eat at the food centers - each food stall is rated online and most are very clean and safe. The food centers reminded me a little bit of food courts in American shopping malls, but each food stall specialized in only 1-2 dishes and the food was much better than eating at a food court in an American shopping mall. I got in the routine of walking around the entire food center to see all the options and either picking what looked best to me or standing in line for the dishes that all the locals were waiting for. One of my favorite meals was from a food stall called JJ Yong Tau Foo in the ION Food Center which served a Chinese noodle soup in which you could pick what you wanted in your soup and they would cook it right in front of you. It was delicious, fresh, and really filling!

Singapore is really small. It only takes about 1 hour to drive from one end to the other. That's smaller than most US cities!! This is why it is extremely expensive to drive a car in Singapore - it is an attempt to limit the number of people driving and causing congestion. I was surprised to learn that in Singapore it costs over S$60,000 for a 10-year driving certificate. Cars cost much more than in the US - like S$200,000-S$300,000. And insurance will cost you about S$1000 per month. This is why most of the cars I saw on the roads in Singapore were nice cars - like BMW, Audi, Mercedes, etc. It seems mostly white collar workers are able to afford to drive a car in Singapore, therefore those who can afford it buy nice cars. Most people take mass transit (bus or train) or a taxi.

Singapore is crowded, but not Thailand-crowded (Thailand will always be by baseline for this until I experience some place even more crowded than Thailand - which I hope never happens, but I digress...). Because of its size, they build UP to accommodate all the people. One of the funniest things for me while I was there was trying to navigate through the shopping centers on Orchard Road. The shopping centers are all interconnected by underpasses and overpasses, nothing is labelled, and depending on which shopping center you are in the connection will be on a different floor. The ION Orchard shopping center was 8 floors (4 above ground, 4 below ground) and every single time I went in, it took me at least 20 minutes to find the place I wanted to go and at least 20 minutes to find my way back out. I suppose it's smart - once they get you in, you are prone to buy more if you can't get out!! I can only laugh at myself for getting lost in the mall - multiple times!

While I was in Singapore, I also had a chance to visit the Botanical Gardens. The Botanical Gardens are free (except the Orchid Garden, which is only a $5 entrance fee). In the gardens, there are all kinds of tropical flowers and plants. One of the coolest parts was the Ginger garden - an entire garden devoted to different types of ginger plants. I learned a lot and got to see beautiful flowers I've never seen before. If I go back to Singapore, I will definitely return to the Botanical Gardens. In fact, if I go back, I already have a list of places I want to see and things to do! Here is a link to my Flickr album from Singapore!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamers818/sets/72157629543567106/

Time spent with old friends is good medicine!

I flew to Burlington, VT this March to visit one of my closest friends, Jess. When I exited the airport in Vermont, the rush of cold air nearly killed me. I thought maybe I had mistakenly boarded a plane to Antarctica! There is one thing I don't miss about New England - that's definitely the weather. Thankfully I packed some thick sweaters and Jess put up with my whining :)

Jess and I took photos @ Lake Champlain, walked the mall, checked out the stores in the downtown area and had some local Vermont beer. I even had one of my faves - Magic Hat #9 - which is actually really expensive in Oregon compared to Vermont. After our day of retail therapy, Jess took me to experience her new hobby - archery! I absolutely LOVED it! Major kudos to Jess for having such a badass hobby! I got an intro lesson and we had targets to shoot. I was so excited - I got a couple bullseyes too! After shooting at the targets and moving them back from 10 to 15 to 20 yards, the trainer set up a tic tac toe board with balloons. It was tons of fun. I could have stayed all day if my arms would have let me. I have a pretty good eye for it too and now she's got me thinking of buying a bow!

It was so great to visit Jess for a few days. I miss her terribly already. Check out the album on Flickr from my trip! http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamers818/sets/72157629177430018/

Vegas Vacation 2012

For the first time in many years, Rob and I had a chance to go on vacation together. What better place to celebrate his birthday than Las Vegas!! It is one of our favorite places. Since I have so many Delta miles from travel last year, we booked through Delta Vacations. We got upgraded seats on direct round-trip flights to Vegas and due to my medallion status, we were able to skip the lines for airport security and boarding. We got a great deal for the Paris Hotel, which is directly across from the Bellagio fountains in the center of the strip. Since the booking was only for a standard room, we tried the "complementary upgrade" trick (in which you pass a $20 or $50 in between your licence and credit card to the check-in person) and it worked!! We got a "complementary upgrade" to the 21st floor facing the Paris tower and the Bellagio fountains. It ended up being one of the coolest parts of the vacation - we could watch the fountains from our room any time we wanted!

We did a TON of walking as usual. We strolled through the Bellagio conservatory to see the 2012 Chinese new year "Year of the Dragon" display. We did a Venetian gondola ride and we were serenaded - I highly recommend it! We watched the Mirage volcano, the Sirens of Ti show (which is admittedly not as good in the cooler months than the summer) and we went to Fremont street to watch the light show. Fremont street is so full of lights it is like DAY in the middle of the night. And there's great people-watching there. It was just plain awesome. Rob has always wanted to see David Copperfield and I have never been to a magic show, so we got tickets and that was fun too - he's very entertaining. He made a car appear on the stage right before our eyes! A big highlight for me was learning how to play Craps. I watched Rob the first day then decided to try it on the night of the show. I was there for 3 hours and was up $150, then we cashed out and went to the show. It was so much fun that we went back to the Craps table after the show - and ended up losing it all!! I'm not disappointed though, it was all money from our change bin we've collected for this very purpose. It was fun to learn and I'll definitely play next time.

Here is a link to our 2012 Vegas photo album! http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamers818/sets/72157629177315376/

Visit to the Philippines

This year I had the pleasure of visiting the Philippines for 1 week. I went to Muntinlupa City, which is just south of Manila on the island of Luzon. I travelled there for work so I didn’t have the opportunity to see very much, but my co-worker Jeever took me on a drive one afternoon to a town called Tagaytay City. Tagaytay City is on the top of a large hill (approximately 2400 ft). On the way to Tagaytay, we passed pineapple plantations, Jeepneys (more on that later) full of people, rows and rows of fruit stands and a motorcycle with a sidecar filled to the brim with bananas. Tagaytay is somewhat economically depressed, but people there make their living off of fruit crops, hand-crafted wooden furnature and selling Philippino coffee. Amazingly, there is a Starbucks built right at the top point in Tagaytay. After getting our coffees, I followed Jeever to the back, where there was an outdoor sitting area and a panoramic view of the Taal Volcano. We were offered a boat ride across the lake to the volcano crater (1500 PhPs for our group, or a special price of 4500 PhPs for our group in which the seller would make 1500 and my friend Jeever would make 1500 – how nice!) We declined, but I don’t blame the guy for trying. On the way back from Starbucks, we stopped at a fruit stand where I bought a bundle of mangosteens. A mangosteen has a semi-hard purple shell. When you press on the sides, it pops open so you can pick out white pods of sweet/tangy fruit. It tasted a lot like a sweet plum – in pod form!

Although I didn’t go to downtown Manila, I was told the traffic is much like the traffic in Bangkok. In the Philippines, people can catch rides in Jeepneys. Jeepneys are adapted from US military jeeps which were left in the Philippines after WWII. They transformed them into jeep-like buses and they’re used to transport people, produce, and livestock. They’re painted bright and shiny colors and sometimes I saw people hanging off the back! Overall the traffic was not bad in Muntinlupa. In fact, it was a better commute than I have at home! It was not completely safe for me to roam around by myself (mostly because I am about a foot taller than everyone else and I stick out like a sore thumb as a western woman). People thought I was a movie star. I hear there are famous resorts on other parts of the island. If I ever come back for longer than a week, I will bring Rob and we’ll go to a beach resort! All in all, it was a nice trip – a good break from the overcast, cold winter at home. There’s nothing like a little sunshine and warmth in January!!

Here is a link to my Philippines photo album on Flickrr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamers818/sets/72157629160631207/