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Published: September 28th 2008
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Singaporean Reunion
Us and Vanessa and Tony at En Japanese Grill We arrived safely in Singapore where we are staying with our friends Vanessa and Tony Trombino. Cosmina and Vanessa have been friends since junior high in Queens, and she was the matron-of-honor at our wedding. Her husband, Tony, was offered a position here in Singapore, and they have been living here for the last eight months. They and their two adorable sons, Matthew and Adam, love living here in Singapore. For us, it was less of a place to sightsee and more of a place to connect with some good friends and enjoy their company. Considering that, aside from each other, Cosmina and I haven't seen any friends or family in the last 2 1/2 months, we looked forward to this visit a lot.
We arrived at Singapore Airport on September 25 in the evening and hopped a cab to Vanessa and Tony's apartment in the Queens Condo complex in Queenstown, Singapore. It is a beautiful condo development of a few 38-story highrises surrounding several large pools. Vanessa buzzed us up, and after a quick tour of their fifth floor apartment, we went out for a quick bite to eat and a beer before calling it a night.
The
next morning, the kids were at school and the parents were at work, so we had the day to explore the city a little. We had the zoo in mind, but it was pouring rain with some thunderstorming, so we decided to go to a museum that the Trombinos recommended, the Asian Civilizations Museum. We usually aren't museum people, at least not on vacation. We both like going to museums back home in the United States, but while we travel through other countries, going to a museum usually is like wasting a day and not seeing the local culture in action. That's why we reserve our museum-going for rainy days. And since we haven't had many rainy days on this trip (just a couple of days) we haven't seen many of them. Besides diplays in visitor's centers, the only museum we can remember visiting was the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. But today seemed to be a perfect museum day.
We were glad we went, because the museum dealt with all the diverse cultures that make Singapore the unique Asain melting pot that it is. Chinese, Indian, Muslim, Southeast asian and European (particularly British, from Singapore's years as a colony)
Cotton Clouds
En route to Singapore cultures all combine to make up the people of Singapore. The museum had a different section for each of the asian cultures, and another gallery displaying how each culture came to Singapore and the history behind Singapore's development. Our favorite sections included the exhibiton of Mao Zedong as a cult-of-personality figure and displaying some of the communist propaganda pieces, and also the section on Middle Eastern and islamic culture. These included displays of different Qurans and islamic text calligraphy, as well as videos on how artisans and calligraphers work together to produce these amazing works of art.
We then had a late lunch at something known locally as a "hawker center". It is kind of like a really big, cheap mall food court. All the dishes are under 5 singaporean dollars (about US$3.50) -- this is an especially good deal in this otherwise expensive country. Cosmina had a chinese chicken and noodle dish. I ventured toward something new: rice porridge mixed with shredded chicken. It was worth a try, but tasted about as good as it sounds. At least the shaved ice with sweet beans and milk were a delicious desert.
We later met back up with Tony
and Vanessa to join some people from Tony's work for drinks and shared appetizers. Mostly we had a bunch of yakitori-style skewers and some beers. It really hit the spot, and we enjoyed meeting Tony's coworkers who hail from all over the world: Korea, Japan, Phillipines, England, etc. All of them were really nice and interesting to talk to.
We spent the next day exploring the beautiful Singapore Zoo which really exceeded our expectations. We thought that the displays were interesting, relatively interactive, and fun. We especially were surprised by some of the exhibits that let you come close enough to touch the animals (the less threatening ones). In the US, usually the only zoo animals you can come up close to are sheep and llamas. Here we were in a large enclosure (the "biodome") where large flying fox bats flew freely and sloths and lemurs crawl close enough to touch. At one point, we had two bats and a sloth hanging just a foot and a half from us. We could've touched them, but, really who wants to touch a bat. We also got close enough to the lemurs that I touched one's tail. Throughout the park, there
are a couple areas with small monkeys, marmosets, climbing freely through the trees over the pedestrian walkways and posing for pictures, not separated by fences. We also were able to kiss a seal, feed a couple giraffes and get our pictures taken with some orangutans. It was a lot of fun.
We then got to go out with Tony and Vanessa to a restaurant specializing in chili crab called "Jumbo". This is a dish native to Singapore in which a crab or two is steamed and served in a thick spicy chili sauce in a large pan. We all dug in and shared from the pan with some rice and veggies onthe side. Then we hopped over to Ben & Jerry's where we all shared a six-scoop Merlionster. It was a really great night.
We were woken up early this morning by Adam and Matthew who wanted us to go swimming in the pool with them, so Cosmina, Tony, Matthew, Adam and I all went down to the pool for a dip. The kids really had a great time, as did we, and are great swimmers. Then we went out for a family breakfast and came back to
Going For a Swim
Downtown Singapore play more with the kids and talk to our parents on Skype. Tonight we are going to visit "Arab Street" and have some dinner before catching our 9:30 flight to Cairns, Australia. We will really miss being with the Trombinos. They are really nice people and we enjoyed our time here immensely, and for a little bit, we felt like we were back in the States among family.
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Melissa
non-member comment
I bet it is so great to see familiar faces...I am also jealous of the warm weather, it is already so cold here!!!