15 Reasons to Visit Singapore

I found this article writing about 15 reasons to visit Singapore and thought it was a nice read!  I'll definitely be looking into some of these! =)

Thanksgiving in Singapore 2010

I've been doing research on where to find Thanksgiving dinners in Singapore and thought I'd just do a quick post on my findings for those who are also craving some holiday zest:

Marriott Hotel
4 Seasons Hotel
($75 per person, only on the 25th)
Dan Ryan's Chicago Grill
($52 per person for a 4-course meal, only on the 25th)
Fullerton Hotel
($58 per person, on the 25th. $158 per person with alcohol for Sunday Brunch)
Brewerkz

And that's as far as I've gotten on my search!  Does anyone else have more tips??  I know some of these places have Sunday Brunch as well...you'll have to call to check it out!

Halloweekend

I do the same thing every year for Halloween:  think and ponder about costumes, forget how quickly it comes up, scramble at the last minute, end up with a lame half-assed attempt at my original idea.

Last year, I was Lady Gaga:

Despite having a plan to be her, I didn't really put the necessary effort into replicating one of her notorious outfits because I know it would be cold in San Francisco, and I can't handle the cold at all.

This year was no different despite being in another country.

Apparently, Hello Kitty wears jeggings and a tshirt.  

I orginally had a whole other outfit that came complete with a red skirt, red suspenders and big yellow buttons, but due to several reasons, it didn't work out as I wanted to dress up Friday night since I thought I wouldn't be able to do so on Saturday.  Apparently, no one dresses up Friday  night, only Saturday.

Mostly everyone (ie girls) wear a cute outfit and animal ears of some sort.  Yup, creativity goes international.

We went to the popular expat club, Attica, at Clarke Quay and it was massively packed to insanity.  Luckily, the guys were able to sneak a table by saying they had reserved it and put their Magnums on the table to claim the spot.  Otherwise, I would have left in an instant as it was a big sweaty room.

Hopefully next year I'll find something more creative...!

Salad in Singapore

It seems that salad falls on my list of foods that are difficult to find (along with tacos, burritos, In N Out, and good Italian).  So when I came across a salad bar today, I got super excited despite the high price tag for veggies.  It reminded me of Sixth College at UCSD, where you could mix your own salad and they tossed it for you with dressing.  So, my craving combined with nostalgia made me buy a compulsive salad that I ended up carrying around with me for the rest of the day.  However, when it came to actually deciding what to put in it, I got a bit overwhelmed and just added everything that I liked:

Edamame
Red Beets
Onions
Mangos
Grapes
Tomatoes
Extra tomatoes
Raisins
Cranberries
Cucumbers

And probably more.  Unfortunately, it didnt end up tasting very good.  I guess there is such thing as too much of a good thing...or maybe its too many good things (at once) for me.

Questions and Answers

I hear a lot of the same phrases time and time again:
"You are crazy."
"Your'e so lucky."
"How are you able to travel for so long?"
"How do you have the money?"
"Where do you stay?"
"What do you do?"
"I wish I could do what you're doing."

I'll address a few of these:

"You are crazy."  

Maybe.  I think, to be more descriptive, I'm being adventurous, risky, and a bit reckless.  Why?  Because life hasn't been going according to plan, so I can't find justification in trying to stick with it.

"You're so lucky."

Yes, I really am.  I am a very lucky lucky girl to be able to have supportive friends, family and amazing opportunities (ie: traveling to Hong Kong, Vietnam, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, China, etc).  To be fair, I've also come across some bad luck.  Examples would be messing up my knee, being sick more often than normal, chipping my tooth, missing two flights, having cancelled flights, etc etc...it's easy to get caught up in the bad luck, but I have to remember all the good, too!

"How are you able to travel for so long?"

"How do you have the money?"

"Where do you stay?"

I'm just bunching these three together because I can answer all in one go.  Unlike some speculations, I actually saved up my own money for the past year.  I also had a savings account I never touched but kept for several years and inevitably had to tap into when I made the big decision to stay abroad longer.  So savings combined with generous friends who let me stay at their places = stretched budgeting.  Yes, it's scary and risky, especially for someone like me who likes having a solid plan, but money is money and it's something I can make back (I hope).

"What do you do?"

These days, a lot of job hunting.  I also like to aggressively keep in touch with friends back home aka Facebook stalk people.  I also like to eat a lot; I gained weight in Asia.  I take photos, though not enough.  I go out on weekends mostly and try to recruit girls for our group.  I should really do more.

"I wish I could do what you're doing."

You know, I hear this allll the time...and the annoying truth is, you CAN.  I did it; I am doing it, so can anyone else. However, I understand that unlike me, most people have jobs and responsibilities.  I'm just saying that many of these responsible adults hate their jobs and live with a slight regret of never traveling.  If you really wanted to, you could.  As for accommodation, check out www.couchsurfing.org.  It's a great site that is dedicated to connecting people all over the world and safe about it.

I'm trying to stay young and grow up at the same time.

Anyways, the real purpose of this post was to cover this past weekend.  Saturday was pretty important to me because I wanted to take my generous and gracious hosts out as a small thank you for letting me stay with them for so long.  Singapore was actually more of a last minute escape plan, but they have been so good to me to let me stay for such a ridiculous amount of time and help me get back on my feet.

As a quick recap, we went to Lantern, which is this lovely lounge bar a the top of the Fullerton Bay Hotel that has a great view of Marina Bay.  Of course, I didn't take any photos of the actual lounge itself, so I'll have to do that next time.  I reserved a couple bay couches for us and ordered a Rose to chill out before heading to Ku De Ta (again).  Adam has been awesome at getting us in and so I really wanted to take my friends up there before I left Singapore since it's so difficult otherwise.

A different angle of the Sands.

After, we headed to Stereolab and supper at Netwon Hawker Center.  Aaand now I'm too tired to keep typing.  The end.  For now.

F1 Weekend

I've been procrastinating my post on the Grand Prix weekend because...well, I didn't really partake much in it.  I think know why its done at night though; it would be way too hot if done during the day!

There were just massive amounts of people walking around.  It was actually a very pleasant night...probably equal to a warm summer's night in California, but all the bodies created this gross too-close-for-comfort heat.  So we decided to escape to a hotel bar for a couple hours before the preliminaries began.  

Passed a very enthusiastic dude along the way...

We ended up at the Mandarin Oriental...or was it the Mandarin Hotel?  Something like that, there are 3 Mandarin hotels in Singapore.  Turns out there is a sweet lounge that is located right above one of the race track's turns:

So we didn't see Adam Lambert perform (not a huge loss on my end) and ended up watching F1 from an air conditioned lounge with wine, music and soft couches.  Why did we even bother to buy tickets?

We were given these beautiful complimentary h'orderves but I was disappointed to say that they were downright awful!  =( 

Leaving the hotel to catch a taxi to the Sands Hotel was the challenging part.  Since the weekend attracted a huge influx of tourists and most of the area was blocked off and rerouted, finding a taxi to get to where you wanted to go was a hassle.  We waited over a half hour for a taxi at the hotel and even then, it took us ages to get to the Sands (which we could see in plain sight from where we stood!).  

BUT, it was totally worth it because while we were waiting, guess who came out of the hotel and strolled into a waiting taxi that was right in front of me?  Ron Weasley!  Okay, I forget his actual name (I'm awful, I know) but the actor from the Harry Potter movies walked by and I was like, "Hey, it's Ron Weasley!"  I'm not that smooth, what can I say.  At least I didn't ask for a photo.  I have a little bit of pride, somewhat.  The other guys didn't believe me at first but they looked and were like, "Oh hey, it is..."  Obviously, I was the only one impressed.  What can I say, I'm a big fan.

Afterwards, we were able to get up to Ku De Ta (the new venue on top of the Sands Hotel) and see the racetracks from there as well...we probably should have watched it from there if we had known we could have gotten in!

I have to say that I've been pretty lucky to be able to go up to the top of Sands so many times already.

Did you get yours?

Yeee, we picked up our F1 tickets today!  In its own case and err-thang!  I love how it's one of those tickets you can keep as a souvenir, too!

Life by Weekends

Like everyone else, I feel like I've been living life by the weekends.  As I've been living in Singapore (for the most part) for over 3 months, I've been getting into a routine while still discovering new things. 

Friday was fun because we got to go up to the top of the new Sands Hotel and check out the new (and only) bar/lounge up there, Ku De Ta.  Apparently there is a Ku De Ta in Bali, Indonesia that is just absolutely stunning, so we got to check out this new one that had its soft opening this past week.

View of the infinity pool and Ku De Ta.

Interior of Ku De Ta.

View of the pool and city from Ku De Ta.

It was slightly drizzly, hence the clouds and interesting lighting in the photos (and why no one is sitting on those comfy looking couches on the terrace).  It was really amazing to see the top without all the tourists and hotel guests in the pool.  It's the best view of the city, by far.

Continuing my taste for new things, I've concluded that I've seriously lived through life as the worst excuse for a Japanese person.  I've never had this dish, photographed below, which seemed to consist of various vegetables, fish eggs, mochi, etc.  You poured it onto the hot plate and mashed it up until it was cooked and soaked in with the juices.  It was really tasty along with some of the other dishes we had.  Pretty cool, it was owned by Japanese and obviously had great food.  I will get back to what this dish was called as well as the restaurant.

Saturday was with a more familiar feel: China One.  It's a bar in Clarke Quay that has a bunch of pool tables, a dance floor and good music that makes it easy to just stay in the whole night.  It kind of reminds me of Busby's in LA where it has a bit of everything for everyone, has a good location and is just an overall good bet for the night.  

If you can't tell, I made the extra effort this weekend to lug around my SLR so that I can practice my photography.  Low light photography is something I want to master because it's usually my favorite setting.

Despite everyone's doubts, I woke up Sunday (today) DETERMINED to go kayaking.  I think I've been craving to go for over a month now and so me and Ky went out in search of this fabled activity at the MacRitchie Reservoir, which is this huge piece of beautiful jungle right in the middle of Singapore that I was never aware of!  We went kayaking and I did a short hike before my body started shutting down (4 hours of sleep, that's a little impressive, right?).  They have all these really cool (and intense) hiking trails that you can go on including the Treetop Hike, which is this huge suspended bridge that goes over the tops of all the trees.  It looks incredible!  Definitely on my to-do list before leaving Singapore.

Yes, monkeys!  In the middle of the city, there are monkeys!  They are really used to humans, naturally, so they just ignored me as I snapped away at them. 

So that's a recap of most of my weekend, which felt good-tired in the end.  I'll reiterate, again, how people claim that there is nothing to do in Singapore just aren't looking in the right places.  The country is changing so fast, there is always something new or different to check out.  I'm not saying that you're going to like all of it (I'm not a fan of intense hiking or jogging) but I think you can gain an appreciation for trying new things as well as the familiar (Hello, Ku De Ta and China One.).  

Overall, it's come to the point where I'll be pretty disappointed if I leave Singapore next month.  I'm emotionally attached and feel like I've put a lot in.  Returning to California is definitely not a depressing idea, I love the place (duh) and the people; I have everything to gain going back.  But I definitely feel like I've passed a point where I'll be broken hearted if I have to leave this place.  I never expected to find myself in this situation, but then again, who ever does?

Singapore Grand Prix 2010

Just moments ago did I find out that:

I'M GOING TO THE FORMULA ONE RACE!

I had really wanted to purchase tickets earlier, but when I saw the prices, I just accepted that I would have to make the sacrifice so that I could stretch my funds a bit longer.  However, this morning I was surprised with my very own ticket!  I am so excited!  

The Singapore Grand Prix is Formula One's first night race...and yes, it's in Singapore of all places!  I saw the lineup for music performances and it looks sick.  I have a Saturday ticket so I'll see Adam Lambert, but Missy Elliot (love her) is performing Friday and Mariah Carey and Sean Kingston are performing Sunday (LOVE THEM).  I heard it's super loud and festive throughout all of Singapore during this time so I'm PUMPED.

Festive Weekend

Singapore is a host to a very diverse population that actually caters to mainly Chinese, Malays and Indians; they officially recognize three languages, three religions and therefore have...several public holidays!  

This past Friday was actually the start of Hari Raya, the end of Ramadan for Muslims.  I loved seeing all family together; apparently, the entire family will dress in the same color scheme together.  I had no idea this was popular and so I asked a vibrant family if I could take their photo.  As usual, I was a bit afraid they would think I was some crazy tourist, but they were actually super enthusiastic by gathering and posing their family, "No, no!  This is the second time we've been asked!"  They also said that since the first day fell on a Friday, they would also dress in different colors on Saturday and Sunday, "Maybe pink tomorrow and then green the day after."

I'm bummed that I didn't have my big camera around to take a better photo, but you get the idea...

I snuck this photo because I felt too embarrassed to ask yet another family.

It is/was also the Mid-Autumn Festival (AKA Moon Festival, Mooncake Festival, Lantern Festival), which is just such a whimsical holiday to me.  I always imagine the holiday how I read about it in a childhood story which was filled with sticky mooncakes, glittering dragonflies, amazing food and charming dance performances.  Instead, Clarke Quay set up all these brightly colored shapes and figures that make references to stories or figures.  One of my favorites was a display of the Monkey King along with the Monk, the Pig, etc.  They're made of soldered, wiry, metal frames and covered in some sort of opaque material that is very waterproof.  

They has these huge floats all along the river and the bridge (which was also swarmed over with a Taiwanese food festival!).  Again, I apologize for the terrible photos but I've been too lazy to lug around the SLR.  Also, I think my lens is acting a bit wonky...

Anyways, there is always something to do here...I often hear people complain that there is "nothing to do in Singapore...it's boring..."  Well, I say that you're not looking hard enough!  I think it's key to have a great group of friends, though.  That, I will admit.  We should always aim to maintain our child-like curiosity in experiencing life.  Otherwise, we'll just end up as old and boring as we fear.

You see this face?

I honestly think that insufficient internet will be my sad, sad demise.  Right now, my internet is so modem its painful for me to sit and watch my browser strain to load its page.

Anyways, I'm currently sitting in a Starbucks feeling like I paid too much for a Java Chip Frapp yet feeling very much at home (as in, the States).  The company often has the media image of a villain yet makes me feel very comforted with its stringent guides in customer service and and upbeat attitude.  For the first time, thank you, Starbucks, for providing comforting smiles and free wifi.

I also found it interesting how McDonald's and Starbucks are located adjacent to each other (as pictured).  I know they say that placing niche markets together ends up stabilizing a consistent sales flow rather than beating each other out in competition (hence, why fast food chains, being located near each other, manage to survive amongst competition), but even so, I guess I'm surprised that these two tolerate each other.  Perhaps Singapore's compactness is what allows this sort of harmony.  If it were a McCafe, however, I don't think it would be quite the same situation.

In other thoughts, I realized I need to brush up on some studying and refresh my math skills.  Things are a bit more exciting as of late, but I don't want to jinx myself by speaking too soon.  Once my anxiety clears and there are actual results, I'll be less cryptic and cease my stream-of-thought entries.  Well, I mean, I'll never quit stream-of-thought, but I'll try to make them more cohesive to include interesting events that are happening.  A post on my recent trip to Thailand will be coming up!

7 Month Festival

Out in the "Heartlands" (basically, not the center of Singapore but where most locals live out in), there has been a noticeable bustling-about that even foreigners like myself would be curious about.  Loud, abrasive music and people shouting along with strung lights and candles being bit around...

Apparently, it's that time of year when the ghosts come out.  Grace has this slight "thing" where she can see ghosts and, to be honest, I'm not sure if I want to know if they're around!  I've been wanting to take some photos lately just to mention it but I am very intimidated to do so...is it allowed?  Is it disrespectful?  Why are people staring at me?

I think part of my apprehension is due to the fact that there's also been a funeral being conducted downstairs of my building.  Funerals here are a week long process where they set up tables and alters with photos of the deceased.  They put up banners and decorations while serving food for people who come and go.  It confused me because to my blind eyes, it seemed like a more jovial, colorful celebration rather than the somber ones (in all black) I'm used to in the States.

Anyways, Grace and Ky were pretty appalled when I tried explaining my confusion of whether I could take photos, so I waited until I was walking home with them last night to take the "correct" photos of the 7 Months celebration, which consisted of traditional opera shows and even modern performances of song and dance.

Look at that audience!  I hope I don't see any ghosts!

Sentosa Weekend

This past weekend, we went to Sentosa again.  The weather was absolutely.  Perfect.  It's quite an ordeal to get to where we want to go, but once you're there: tropical drinks, loud music, pretty sunsets, and lounge chairs. 

Grace being graceful.  And photogenic!

 I'd also like to point out: proof that I've gained weight (see: belly fat).  Insert dismay. 

Also, for those who have seen the old Sentosa laser show (EAP 2006, do you remember?): they redid it, as you can see in this terrible photo, but it's still the same cheesy laser animations.  I thought Sentosa was being rebuilt as a classy sort of joint, but it's still a bit gaudy with Resort World.  Am I the only one who thinks this?

Tough Guy on the MRT

I saw this man on the MRT and was immediately intimidated.  Wouldn't you be?  All the details of his outfit seemed so big and heavy: large chains, large watch, heavy boots...and I love those round sunglasses! I timidly asked him if I could take his picture and, to my surprise, he broke into an almost shy smile!  "Me?"  he said, "Is it for a magazine?"  I laughed and said no...just for my blog!

Everyday

I'm not sure if there is holiday that is associated with her outfit (correct me if I'm wrong...it seemed a bit more "dressy" than most saris)...is it Ramadan?  I took this photo on Friday, August 6th, I believe.  She was buying these really pretty flowers that were all strung together.  Maybe someone can explain it all to me?  I just loved the colors and fabrics of her outfit along with the flowers in her hair.

Singapore's Sands Hotel

When Alva and Crystal were here, I was super excited because it gave me a great reason to take them to the new Sands Hotel.  It's this surreal looking hotel that has this giant boat/surfboard sitting on top of three sleek buildings.  It looks photoshopped into the scenery, really.

(Photo not by me)

It was built by the same Sands in Las Vegas and is apparently the world's most expensive casino (another "World's Most/Greatest/etc." for Singapore to add to its list*).  

It's pretty cool, seriously, and it finally opened up to the public in the past few weeks.  It costs $20 to go up to the top, but for a one time thing, I guess it's worth it just to say I've gone...so here's what my $20 got me a view of:

The Esplanade are those two shiny, spikey looking mounds in the upper right.  We also call them "The Durians."

Overlooking the ships and sea...lots of construction always going on in Singapore.

The incredible view from the infinity pool (that is only allowed for guests).  The photo doesn't do it justice; it really is a sight to behold!

The walkway between the Skypark and the Pool Area.

Nighttime view.  I really wonder what they are building down there?!  That blossom-looking thing...

All the tourists...

The Singapore Flyer is that giant, massive ferris wheel on the left.  It takes probably an hour to make one full circle.  They advertise it as a sort of location to throw birthdays and proposals...that sort of thing.

Welcome to the family of Singapore Sights, Sands!