Advertisement
Published: June 14th 2013
Edit Blog Post
Yesterday morning, I left snowy Urumqi in the morning and arrived in 27 degree Celcius Singapore at about 11:30 pm (I was routed through Beijing, so it took a while!). My flip flops were on before I got off the plane! Annabelle and her husband, Daniel, met me at the airport. It was so good to see her after being pen-pals and then staying in touch via email and facebook for so many years. Rhonda had been in Hong Kong for a few days, and her flight was supposed to arrive a few hours before mine. When I met up with Annabelle and Daniel, I was surprised that Rhonda wasn't with them. They said her flight had been cancelled! Her itinerary had her routed through Manila, Philippines. I knew she didn't have a phone, and I didn't have a phone: all either of us had was Annabelle's number. So I'm thinking "My friend is lost somewhere in this world! How on earth do I find her?" How scary! And then she appeared around the corner! What a mean joke to play on me! ... although, as she pointed out, the first thing I did when I thought her flight was cancelled
was to laugh, so I guess they didn't give me time to get too traumatized!
We made it to our hotel, got some sleep, and then headed out this morning to meet Daniel and Annabelle. We managed to find a Starbucks along the way, and oh how good it was! ... of course, it was overpriced, but I guess not having one in Urumqi made me willing to pay the price! Once we all met up, we walked around downtown got some pictures of the Merlion, saw the super nice, expensive hotel that we (briefly) considered staying at for a night when we were booking hotels (It had a huge pool on the very top in the shape of a ship), and ate lunch at a place over looking Singapore Harbour. Then we spent some time wandering through the free part of Singapore's new "Gardens By the Bay," which was very pretty. Our intent was to visit the Gardens, but at Annabelle's suggestion, Rhonda and I had bought vouchers online for a few places in Singapore, and we thought we could redeem them on site. Our failure to read the fine print ruined our plans, though, since we were
The Marina Bay Sands
On Singapore's Marina Bay, this new hotel features an "infinity pool" at the top. Pretty impressive! told on site that we had to go elsewhere to pick up our tickets. By that point, it was too late to make the trip to pick up our tickets and then return to the Gardens, so we made our way via MRT to Chinatown to pick up our tickets for another day. Then we sat down to enjoy Singaporean coffee (with either evaporated or sweet and condensed milk - it was good!). Rhonda and I were looking for dresses for a wedding we'll attend in Chiang Mai in a few weeks, so the four of us headed clothes shopping. I eventually found my dress, but Rhonda is going to keep looking. We finally sat down at a little Indian hawker stall for supper. I had chicken curry, yellow rice, and onion prada (a flat bread with cooked onions inside). It was all yummy and was just the taste of Singapore I had hoped for! I love curry!
After running around a bit in the rain from shops to malls in search of a few items, we parted ways, and Rhonda and I managed to find our hotel uneventfully and are ready for Sentosa Island tomorrow!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.128s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 9; qc: 54; dbt: 0.0576s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb