Gen and Sienna's wild adventures in Singapore. July 31 - August 20.
This is Gen's third time going to Singapore. This is Sienna's first time going to Singapore. This is their blog/vlog of their trip. They will try to update daily on their adventures and experiences.
Thank you to anyone who reads this. (:
After a pretty restless night Gen and I got up, got ready, and then went to church with her grandparents. They sing a lot here and the church is really beautiful. I had noticed that morning that Gen wasn't being her normal self and she had said she wasn't feeling good and so when we went home for an hour after church she just rested. Then we went out to the country club for lunch. We had hokkien mie, silver fish fried rice, satay, and sweet and sour pork. It was very good. During the meal her grandparents could just notice something was wrong. Since she wasn't feeling well we decided to just stay home for the rest of the day and have a really easy going, restful day. We ended up just watching A Very Potter Musical (which is really really brilliant) and sleeping. It was a very laid back, but very needed day.
This is day 4's post. There really wasn't much for this day.
Sienna and I woke up at 6. Prior to waking up I was tossing and turning. My body was aching and I would wake up really hot or really cold. I also had a huge headache. I really wasn't feeling good. But I still woke up early. I went swimming with Sienna. We ended up going to church with my Lolo and Lola. I took some Ibuprofen. and started feeling okay... but towards the end of the mass I thought I was going to puke and pass out. I survived though. Thank God. Anyways we went back home and I got cold. I took a nap. Sienna woke me up telling me we had to get ready for lunch. I told her I still wasI changed into jeans and we went out for lunch around 11:30am.
We went to one of the places where my Lolo golfs. We had Hokkien Mie, Silver Fish Fried rice, Satay, and sweet and sour pork. It was all delicious. I wasn't feeling well though so I didn't eat much. My Lolo tried giving me more, but I said no thanks. He seemed surprised. I went to the bathroom after because I thought I was going to puke. I didn't though so I came back out to sit down. My Lolo then asked me if I was feeling okay. I said no. He said he could tell since I didn't eat much. Normally I would help finish the food and stuff myself because the food was so good, but since I was sick I couldn't do it. Anyways we went back home and relaxed the whole day.
Sienna and I watched A Very Potter Musical and went to bed.
I was suppose to post two day ago... This post is for two days ago. Which would be day 3 in Singapore.
We started the day waking up at 6. We were hungry so we went to go find some food to eat. We ended up eating toast, spam, and dragon fruit (my favorite food). After we were done eating, my Lolo and Lola were talking to us. After we were done talking, we went swimming. Let me just say I'm a terrible swimmer. I'm a figure skater, so I enjoy frozen water better. Anyways Sienna taught me the butterfly stroke. Honestly I can't do it; Sienna makes it so easy. I love watching her swim...
We showered and got ready to go out around 10am. We went to Bugis St. Some of the shops were still closed so we went to the mall across the street. We got hungry so we were trying to figure out where to eat. We couldn't really tell what we wanted to eat. We walked around the food court area and settled on this Japanese restaurant. Sienna and I ordered this spicy pork noodle soup. The soup was terrible. We spent $10 on bland tasting soup and bones. There was nothing good about this meal. The surprising thing is there were a bunch of people eating there... The food was too gross to finish. We left after paying and went to BreadTalk to get some bread. The bread was so good. I love BreadTalk. Last year that is what my brother and I practically ate whenever we went to places.
We went back home on the MRT. The ride back was really cramped. On top of it being cramped, there were these 2 guys who smelled like fish and BO. It wasn't even a hint of fish and BO, it was like they rolled in it. Sienna had them behind her and they lifted their arms and ughhhh.... I broke out in a coughing fit.... It was TERRIBLE..... After the ride we walked back home and ended up passing out at 3pm. We slept until 6am. Over 12 hours of sleep.... Obviously we are exhausted...
This morning we woke up early again (at 6) which is good because it means that our bodies are hopefully already on the Singapore time schedule. We had a yummy breakfast of toast and dragon-fruit and fried spam that Gens grandma made for use. I had never had spam before but had heard that people hate it and how gross it is, but it really wasn't bad at all. Its just like sausage or something. Her grandparents sat with us when we ate and so we spent a while just talking to them which was nice. Then we decided to go for our morning swim. When we first went down I tried to show Gen how to dive...lets just say frozen water is her forte and diving just isn't her thing (I think it actually scares her a little bit, she wasn't really bad at it). Then I swam some laps while she frolicked in the pool and then tried to teach her how to swim butterfly. She sorta got the kick down but that was the extent of her butterfly swimming attempts. She said that I make it look to easy and when I swim it I look like a mermaid, so I guess that's a good thing for me. :)
Some Shops at Bugis Street
Once we had showered and got ready for the day Gen skyped her family for a bit before we headed out to go shopping. We took the MRT (which is the subway) for the first time in our trip. The cards that they have for it are really cool in my opinion (or I just get amused pretty easily); instead of having a swiper thingy like you use for most credit cards, as you walk you just pass the card over this little sensor thing. Its so neat and so much faster than having to make sure you have the card facing the right way and stuff. When we got on the MRT I thought it was kinda busy, but I guess it can get way more packed (and it can, it was on our way home). We didn't have a space with anything to hold onto so we were just standing and when it took off I sorta stumbled a little bit because I didn't have a wide enough stance. Our first stop was at Bugis Street. They have a humongous street market there, its like at least 3 stories. But when we went the stores weren't really open and there were a lot of people (since it was the weekend) so we decided to leave and go back on a weekday. We did try some sugar cane juice there though which was very good, not super sweet and sugar tasting like I was expecting though.
The Gross Food
Since it was lunch time we went to the food court in the mall across from the street markets and ordered this noodle/pork dish; it was nasty. The dish had no flavor and the pork pieces they gave you were all bone, it was just gross. And it cost me S$10 (which is a lot here in my opinion since I have been eating full meals at other food courts for S$4). It was just bad. And since the people working there can tell we are American from our accents the second we order they bring us forks and spoons since they just assume we can't use chopsticks (the tables here are set with chopsticks when you sit down). We can use chopsticks though so its a little annoying when they assume you can't, especially to Gen since she is Asian. When we left (we didn't eat most of the food it was that blah) we went to Bread Talk to get some bread since the bread there is absolutely amazing!
We then took the MRT to Orchard Road and just looked around the shops and malls there. We went to a lot of ritzy stores that you don't really find near us at all. We went to Jimmy Choo, Prada, Gucci, DKNY, and just nice stores like that. It is insane how much things cost at those places, I can't even afford to breathe in those stores. We then went and found the huge flagship Abercrombie store, its giant. Its three stories and they have way more clothes and styles there, they have everything. And the store has all of these mirrors and like compartments and stuff, its just huge and different than Abercrombies in the US. Then we just wandered around a mall, but everyplace was really busy since it was Sat and our feet were sore and we were tired so we decided to leave. On our way to the MRT I had a green tea pearl drink, it was really good. The MRT was totally packed even though we were leaving before rush hour and there were two guys standing behind me that smelled of fish and BO, it was gross. They stank up the entire space and it was so bad that they made Gen have a coughing fit.
MRT
We got home at 3 and just went to our room and started watching A Very Potter Musical on YouTube. We were planning on just relaxing until 6:30 when we were going to go out for supper with grandparents, only we ended up falling asleep. It was 7 when her grandpa came to see what we were doing and he saw we were passed out and we sorta woke up and he told us how it was fine we could sleep since there was food at home. So we passed out again and slept until 6 in the morning. We slept for over 12 hours. We were totally exhausted, probably just our jet lag catching up with us, but now that we slept for ages we feel much better.
So to start off today I woke up at 3:30am. I had to pee so bad. In the process of trying to get out of the bed (Sienna and I share a bed) I woke Sienna up. After I went to the bathroom, Sienna went too. We both were dozing off till around 6am when we both decided to get up and eat. The funny thing is we both didn't know that we both were dozing; we were trying not to wake each other up... Anyways I woke up and Sienna got up right after me because she wasn't actually sleeping.We were hungry so we ate the rest of the egg prata and chicken curry sauce. Afterwards we Skyped my parents for about 45 minutes. We got ready to go swimming around 7:30am. It was really nice going swimming in the morning with Sienna. I absolutely loved watching her swim. Even though she hasn't swam in 2 and a half years, she still is so graceful and amazing to watch in the water. Anyways we same for about 45 minutes to a hour.We went back up stairs to get ready to go to the Singapore Zoo!
We left the penthouse around 9:30 and arrived at the Singapore Zoo around 10:30. My Lolo was very kind and gave us money to get into the Zoo. We bought tickets to go to to the Singapore Zoo, Night Safari, and Bird Park. After purchasing our tickets we went to grab more food to eat. I was hungry and thought we should eat before we went into the Zoo so we don't die from hunger. We ate a Kaya Toast Meal. This consisted of Kaya and butter spread on toast, two poached eggs, and one cup of Singapore coffee. Sienna didn't really like the texture of the poached eggs, but she loved the Kaya and butter spread on toast and the Singapore coffee. I one the other hand just love the whole Kaya Toast Meal. It feels good to finally eat Kaya toast again! It's one of my favorite breakfast foods here. Once we were finished we went to go into the Zoo. Sienna didn't know that you just leave your trays on the table and someone will come and clean it up. Unlike the states, Singapore food courts have people that clean up after you're done eating. You don't have to clean up your table or anything like that. It's really cool.
We went into the zoo and automatically one of the Singapore Zoo photographers took a few pictures of us. We walked around the opening to see monkeys swinging down from trees and eating their breakfast. Before continuing, I want to explain that the Singapore Zoo is an open zoo. The animals have "cages". These cages are more like open land. Some of the monkeys are swinging from the trees and walking next to you, while some big bird are right next to you too. You will see in the picture what I mean by "Open Zoo".
So we walked around the zoo and took a lot of pictures of the animals. I really wanted to go to the Elephant show. We walked to the place where the elephant show was. We sat in the middle section in the middle seating section. We were waiting for the show to start and I was getting really excited. Elephants are my FAVORITE animal. I absolutely adore them. I was so excited that I was making myself feel kind of sick. I think it was the combination of anticipation of the show and me jumping around like a 6 year old who was thrown into Willy Wonka's Candy Factory. When the show started I started to feel better. I wished I recorded the show... but I was too busy clapping, laughing, and awing at the elephants. They were preforming tricks (sitting, laying down, moving logs, etc...) and were making "jokes" (taking food from the trainers and playing with their hats). It was adorable. After the show if you paid 5 SGD (Singapore Dollars) you could feed the elephants. Being me, it was something I wanted to do again. Last year when I went to Singapore I fed the elephants. I probably pushed Sienna in front of a bunch of people that were coming down to line up to feed the elephants so we could be ahead and be guaranteed food to feed the elephants. Again my inner 6 year old came out and I was so excited to feed the elephants. I took pictures of Sienna when she fed the elephants. Then she took pictures of me when I fed the elephants. I love the feeling of the elephants trunk. I love the texture of its skin ( I know I sound like a freak right now...). Anyways I fed it apples, carrots, and bananas. It cute when the elephants lifted there trunks trying to grab the food. They are absolutely beautiful and graceful animals. I was so so so ecstatic... Not even. I can't even find a word that can explain how I felt.
Snake that was found in the audience
After we walked around and took more pictures and visited the animals. We went to another show called The Rain Forest Fights Back. It was alright. They didn't have many animals come it. It was more of a story trying to explain how we shouldn't cut down rain forest. I think it was aimed more to the little kids, but I didn't care. I wasn't able to see this show last year. They had a huge snake in a container in the audience, which was pretty cool. I got to pet a python. I love the feeling of snakes, but I won't have one as a pet. Only because I can't cuddle with it cause it will kill me...
We walked around the zoo some more looking at more animals when a group of guys on motor scooters ( early to mid-twenties) rode by me and Sienna and said "Beep beep beep. Hey ladies." We just kept walking. it was awkward, but I mean whatever. We never saw them again so that was good.
Kangaroo Feeding Pass
Feeding the Kangaroos
There is a list on the map that tell you the feeding times of some of the animals. Some of the feeding times the trainers will feed the animals and the animals that have a red star next to them can have the public feed them. I honestly was a little nervous about this one. We either were going to feed the giraffes or the kangaroos, but since I fed the giraffes last year, I was like "LETS GO FEED THE KANGAROOS!!!" We were waiting for the people to come by so we could feed the kangaroos. The whole time I was talking to Sienna telling her how much I hoped the kangaroos wouldn't kick me in the face. Eventually when the guy came by with the food there were only 10 passes for people to feed the kangaroos. I jumped and got us pass number 3. The kangaroos seemed to notice it was feeding time. They slowly came out into the open feeding area. Group 1 and 2 went. Then it was our turn. We sat on a rock and had a bowl of food that we held out for the kangaroos to eat. Sienna took some photos of me, I took some photos of Sienna, and the trainer took some photos of us. We were also allowed the pet the kangaroos. I'm just going to say kangaroos are so soft and cute. I passes the bowl over to Sienna since we were almost out of food. She was holding it across me to two of the kangaroos, then the kangaroo closest to her put its paw in the bowl and pulled it towards him so he could finish eating it. It was so funny.
Elephant riding pass
Sienna and I also rode elephants!! It was only 8 SGD per person. We waited in line for about 45 minutes. While we were waiting in like we were watching people getting their pictures taken by people. Whenever someone took a picture, the Asian families would do peace signs. It was adorable. We finally got to ride the elephant. We both were really excited to ride the elephant. I honestly had a hard time getting on and off the elephant. My legs are that long, nor can they really stretch to throw myself onto the back of the elephant... I did end up getting on the elephant. Sienna and I recorded a little bit of the elephant ride. The elephant ride was fun. The ride was a little jerky, but overall I had fun. When we got off I accidently ran into the trainer...
This was the most annoying part of the day. All I can say is we couldn't find the flamingos. We walked around the whole park and couldn't find them. Eventually we went onto this path that goes through part of the forest and found the flamingos. It took us about 30 minutes to 45 minutes to find those flamingos.
Curry puffs and fish balls
We got hungry around 4pm. We ended up getting fish balls and curry puffs. It was delicious. We finished our food and went to the last show of the day. The show was called the Splash Show. It was a show for seals. There was a newly trained seal and a very old seal. They were adorable. They did the cutest tricks. They clapped, did fin balances, spun around, jumped and hit a ball, and other cute seal tricks. One of the cutest parts of the show was when all the kids lined up in front of stage that had a pool in front of it. The seals came by and splashed all the little kids. They were all screaming and laughing and having such a great time. Sienna and I got somewhat wet too. We were in the splash zone so we got some water on us. Not a lot. Those seals were one of the cutest acts I have ever seen though.
Splash Zone Show
It was towards the end of the day and the zoo was closing. So around 5:30 we went to the souvenir show. Sienna and I got mugs. I got a mug. I don't remember what animal was on it. But I almost have all the animals mugs for the Singapore Zoo!!! Sienna and I also got these Forever Friends Stuff Animals. They are so cute. It has two animals hugging each other. We both are planning to take the two animals apart and keeping one of each set (we got two sets since it was buy 1 get one free). This is so we can have a part of each side and it wont be complete unless we make them hug each other again ( idea is kind of like friendship necklaces). We also went to go and see the photos that were taking of us. I got one of me feeding the elephants. Me and Sienna also got a photo of us riding the elephants. Again the photos are so cute (probably because Sienna is in them).
My Lolo came at 6pm to get us. We were in the car and driving home. I fell asleep because I started getting car sick (it was raining and my Lolo driving was all jerky). We drove to a hawker center to get dinner. I ate BBQ pork on rice. Sienna ate this noodle and soup combo. I forget what it is called. My Lolo had pork and noodle. My Lola had the same thing Sienna had. We also all share a different version of popiah. It was a little more spice then the previous one we ate. Sienna tried barley juice and I had lime juice.
Dinner went by very quickly. We ended up going to the grocery store next door. We got some exotic fruits to eat (dragon fruit, longan, etc..). We also bought Milo ice cream (YUM!!!) and a passion fruit tea juice. After grocery shopping we went home.
We've been blogging and singing the Cho Chang song from A Very Potter Musical. We are ready for bed and will be getting ready for our next adventures. Bugis Street Market!! Get ready for Gen and Sienna! (;
Today Gen and I woke up bright and early. Gen had to pee at like 3am and in the process of getting out of bed she woke me up, then when I had to fall back asleep I couldn't I was just all fidgety. At 6 in the morning we were both up, quite hungry, and totally unable to sleep. So we decided to finish off the egg prata we had for supper (it's soso good) and I was talking about how I couldn't fall back asleep and Gen goes, "really! I couldn't sleep either I just kept moving around and felt so bad because I didn't want to wake you," which was ironic since I was worried that my restlessness was going to wake her up too. While we were eating her grandpa came to say good morning and was surprised on how early we were up.
At the apartment complex that we are staying there is a 25meter pool that opens at 7. So since I really wanted to go swim we went down to the pool for an hour. The water was really nice - not to hot not to cold - and it felt so good/weird to swim again. One thing I noticed was swimming was much more tiring than it used to be. After a 200 (which isn't even what a warm-up was when I did swim team) I was a little tired, this freaked me out but Gen reminded me how she can't swim at all and since I haven't swam in over 2.5 years that wasn't too bad. Then I decided to swim fly to see how that was and it totally killed me. I could only do a 50 and then was like out of breath when I used to be able to swim a 200, it's very sad. I'm determined to swim every-morning though so by the end of the trip I should be in much better shape again. It just feels so nice to be back in the water after such a long time.
When we headed back up the the house at 8 we showered and got ready for the day because we were heading to the Singapore Zoo. I enjoy zoo's but since there really aren't any around where we live I believe the last time I visited a zoo was at the Fort Worth Zoo when we were in Texas - and I haven't been to Texas since like the 1st grade so its been quite a while. Gen was really excited to visit the zoo (it's like her favorite thing to do here) and she and her grandfather were telling me how the animals weren't really caged to much but more in the open and around you. When they said this I was thinking more like big cages and stuff but it was nothing like that. The animals (other than like lions and cheetahs and things that could kill you) are all close by. The orangutans (which I learned means like 'man of the forest' in Malay) and other primates are loose in the tress and swinging above your heads and there are birds and lizards wandering around and the other animals have some just wooden post fences to sorta keep them off of the walkways but they can still come out there and be in front of you. The same sort of concept applies to the dangerous animals too only there are some observing rooms with glass since the open areas have a huge trench the separates you from the animal. The zoo itself if absolutely breathtaking too. It's like walking through a rain-forest and just being in the animals natural habitats because everything there is natural and green, I can't really describe its just so amazing and totally unlike any other zoo I've been to.
My Kaya Toast Breakfast
Anyways, we got to the zoo at 10:30am and bought a zoo pass that gives one entry to the three different zoo's in Singapore (the Singapore Zoo, Nighttime Safari, and the Bird Park) then, since we were hungry again, we went to eat breakfast at one of the little food places at the zoo. We had the kaya toast meal (2 eggs that are sorta poached, coffee, and toast with butter and kaya spread) and it was so good. The eggs were sorta odd because they are like more liquidy I guess and more like a poached egg so the texture was slimier than what I'm used to (it was still good though, especially if you dipped the toast) the toast was amazing and the spread had such a good unique flavor and the coffee was good and I don't even usually like coffee. The coffee here has a sweeter taste to it though and Gen even said since they could tell we were from America she thinks they made it more bitter for us since that's how Americans normally drink it. It was such a great meal though and I will definatly be wanting to have it again sometime!
The zoo has a lot to do rather than just look at animals. There are shows, elephant rides, and times when you can go feed certain animals so Gen and I did quite a few of those things. The first show we saw was the elephant show - it was amazing. Gen actually like made herself sick she was so excited sine elephants are her favorite animal. There were four trainers and their elephants as well as the main speaker for the show. They showed how the elephants have amazing balance and strength and talked about how they command the elephants by talking and certain motions they use. The elephants are able to walk across and turn on pretty narrow tree trunks (which is surprising considering their large size) and can easily grab and move or kick heavy wooden trees and such. They also showed elephants taking and putting on their riders hats and demonstrated how the riders get on and off easily. The tricks and things that the elephants did for the show (and it was at least a 45min show) were so cool. It's amazing the types of things that they are able to teach the elephants and how the elephants can remember and act according to what has been planned. At the end of the show you can also feed the elephants for S$5, so Gen and I each bought a basket of food and got to go out and feed the elephants. There were small bananas, an apple, and carrots in the basket and the elephant would use its trunk to grab the food from your hand and put it in its mouth.
The next show we saw was one on the rain-forest. It was a cute show but of the three shows we saw it was probably my least favorite. Pretty much it started out with a man who was saying he's going to find the rain-forest, cut it down, build a mall, and become rich and then the main speaker and other rain-forest 'natives' came out and showed some animals that can be found there. We saw spider monkeys, pythons, orangutans and a few other animals and that was about it.
The last show we saw was the Splash show one. It was just two seals in it - an older seal and a little 7month year old seal that's been training. They could do ton's of tricks. The young seal could swim by jumping out of the water and the older one could do that as well as flips. They also will splash on command and can catch frisbees and balance balls and do handstands (or I guess for them it would be fin stands) and can swim and jump to hit a target and such. The cutest thing that they did (in my opinion) was ask for applause. After they were finished with a trick they would go back to their stand on the stage and clap their front flippers at the audience and it was just so adorable. The seal show was super cute and I really enjoyed it.
We also got to ride an elephant. It coast S$8 per person and you were put in a basket on the elephants back with a few other people and you went around for a little ride. Elephants are super wide and when they walk the motion sorta like wobbles you back and forth, but not in a bad way, its actually sorta relaxing. Being on the elephant you are pretty high up but since they are Asian and not African elephants they aren't the largest elephants that you can find. I was really excited to ride the elephant because even before we left for Singapore I had been asking Gen if there was anywhere that we could ride an elephant, it's just something random I've always wanted to do I guess.
The last little event thing that we did was feed the kangaroos. It cost S$5 for one group to feed them so Gen and I went together. You just sit on a rock and hold the bowl of food and they all crowd around you an you can pet them. They are sososo soft! For some reason I thought that they would be coarse but their fur is so nice and fluffy and soft. Gen and I took turns holding the bowl and at one point when I was feeding there there were three crowded around but one kangaroo decided that he wanted more so he like grabbed the bowl with his little paw and pulled it towards him, it was the cutest thing and just made me laugh.
When we weren't doing the shows and stuff we were just wandering around the zoo looking at animals. They have these bus thingies that you can pay to take a tour around the zoo on that drive everywhere and they are like the dang kids train at the mall and will just drive and not honk or avoid you. I legit almost got hit by one. We also had some issues finding the flamingos. Somehow we totally missed them so after we had seen the rest of the zoo we tried to find them. At first we ended up going in a circle then we finally took the right turns and got to them and they were in a place right between the white tiger and gibbon - and we had seen both of those animals. We had absolutely no idea how we completely passed the flamingo exhibit when we were in that exact area but all that mattered was we eventually found it. Walking around the zoo looking for them was not bad though. Since the zoo is so beautiful I could just walk around it forever and since they do have animals that are more free you can constantly be looking for birds or lizards or monkeys somewhere around you.
When the zoo was beginning to close we went to the gift shop for some souvenirs - I got a Singapore zoo mug with an elephant and then Gen got a mug and theses adorable best friend animal stuffed animals for us. We then went to the little photo place they have sine photographers are all over taking your pictures and we got to look at all of ours and we picked the ones we liked best and got some printed and they were nice enough to make us a disk with all of the pictures free of charge. Oh ya, we also had a little snack of curry puffs and fish balls before one of the shows, they were yummy. :)
Fish Soup and a Barley Drink
Popiah
When the zoo closed at 6 (we had spent the entire day there) Gen's grandpa came to get us and since we were all hungry he drove us to this food court where we ate supper. It's sorta weird in a way ordering food and Gen actually did it for me because I can't really understand what some of the people say and since they also aren't used to white people eating at those places I guess I'm the minority but I don't mind because my amazing friend is good at helping me find yummy food. I had this seafood soup thing that was spicy and had fish balls and some minced pork and noodles and stuff, a cold barley drink (which was actually sorta sweet but not too sweet, it was good), and a different type of popiah. Once again all the food was amazing! I can already tell that when the trip is over I'm really going to miss this type of food, its all so tasty and way cheaper than food in the US and you also can see them make it right when you order which is neat. I also had to eat with a fork and spoon again and did much better this time, so I am improving which is good. :) Gen's grandpa also seems very happy that I am willing to try anything (I guess he was worried that the friend Gen brought would be very picky) so we already made some plans for what other meals we are going to try in the future!
It was an awesome second day and tomorrow Gen and I are going out to street markets, which I am excited for. It's time to sleep now though cause I am pretty tired XD
So it's still the same day. We slept until 2:30pm and then got ready and her grandparents took us out. We went to lunch and I got to try some amazing food. I tried chicken curry, popiah, and mei goreng - its all so good. They don't eat with a fork and knife here though, they use a fork and a spoon. So I had to learn a new way to eat. It's really weird eating like that but I think I did okay for my first time and I'm sure the more I eat with spoons and forks I'll get much more used to it. When I finished eating the chicken curry her grandpa said I did good, although I still don't eat that way perfectly. :P
Mei Goreng
Popiah
Then we went and changed our money, got Gen and SD card for her phone, and got our train/bus passes. Then, since we were in a mall (and the malls here are absolutely amazing, they are huge like four story buildings and have tons of stores and are really nice) her grandfather said to meet him in an hour so we went and looked around. We went to a four story Forever 21 and Zara. The cloths here are really nice and Zara has some amazing things but they are expensive. We then went to the mall across the street (ya, there are malls everywhere kinda) to meet her grandpa. He was like "I suppose one hour isn't enough for you" so he gave us another hour and we explored another mall! We went to Mango where we both got some really cute dresses as well as some other stores. The stores in their malls are all really nice and different stores than what we have in NH, their malls also all have different stores rather than just the same exact stores in everyone. We met up again with her grandparents at 7:00 and started going back home. For supper we stopped at a street market to get some egg prata to take home to eat. I've never had egg prata before and didn't know what it was but we got to watch them make it and it's really neat. They have this dough that they make super thin, crack and egg in it, fold it up, and then cook it. The way you eat it is you rip it and then dip it in curry or just pour the curry on top of it. We also had some guava juice (her grandpa had bought us mango, guava, lime, and orange) which was really good as well. We were already really tired, so after supper we did dishes and then went to our room and at 10pm went to bed.
Neither of us are get lagged which is good. We are already used to Singapore time and are able to sleep when it's night here, I think the reason we adapted so quickly is partly because of the fact we went so long (36hours) without sleeping so we were tired already at night here and found it easy to fall asleep according to their time zone.
Traveling to Singapore took us 36 hours, so needless to say by the end of our trip here I was extremely exhausted. We started out in Boston where we got on our first flight to LAX at 7:00. This plane ride was only 6 hours and I thought it felt super long (until our next 20 hour flight, then 6 hours was nothing) but Virgin Airlines has personal TV's for everyone flying so I got to watch the Olympics! :D
Our next stop was LAX. Now the LAX airport isn't very impressive (in my opinion), there aren't good signs for getting to terminals and once you go through security that have no shops, no restaurants, not really anything to do while you wait for your flight. Anyways....when we hopped off the plane at LAX we had to get to Terminal B, only there were no signs on how to...it turned out that we had to completely leave the terminal we were in so that we could walk to the separate terminal that LAX has for international flights. Once we were there we checked to see if our flight and it had been delayed an hour, so started looking through the rows of airline ticket booths so that we could find ours, of course out of all the rows we found the one we needed last and our booths were closed till 12:15 so we had sushi and chinese food for lunch and played lots of cards while we waited. When we got back to the Singapore Airlines booth there was a huge line even though we were 15 minutes early. Luckily there was a separate line with no people in it that we got to use since we had checked our suitcases in Boston. So we gave the guy our passports and boarding passes from our old flight so that we could take the luggage numbers and everything so that we could get our new boarding passes that would take us to Singapore; only they hadn't printed my luggage number on my ticket in Boston. This number I guess is important because the guy was asking me tons of questions and saying how I would need to get it. Now this really worried me since my only fear when I travel is that if I check a bag the airlines will lose it. Eventually the guy told me that when we got to our terminal if we talked to the people there they should be able to find my luggage number. So we went through security again and found our terminal, which was boarding for a flight to Korea, and then started our around 6 hour wait. I was still worrying about my luggage, so the second the Korean flight had boarded and the terminal was empty Gen and I moved to sit right next to it so that the second somebody came we could sort out my luggage number issues. The first people to get to the terminal couldn't do anything, they were just there to set up for the flight (because when you board one of the huge international airplanes it's much different and way more organized). Then we got kicked out of sitting near the terminal because of "security reasons" and were moved to a huge sitting area in the next room. So we sat on the floor and decided to play cards to pass time. We played mao and gin and that egyptian rat game until we got too tired. Gen was lying on the floor talking to her dad and I was sitting all crunched up zoning out since we had been up since 2AM ET. We still had about 3 hours until our plane boarded and so her dad recommended that we had some coffee or something to help us stay awake until we at least boarded the flight. So we road those awesome walking runways thingies trying to find somewhere to get some food and caffeine at, but since LAX doesn't have much of anything once you pass through security there was only a small convenience store to go to, so we got some Mt. Dew; it was probably the most yummy Mt. Dew I've ever had. When we went back to the waiting area we checked again to see if there was anyone who could help with the luggage thing; there wasn't. So we sat and waited some more and talked to this very nice Japanese lady. Then we went again to check if there was anyone who could help us at the terminal and there finally was! All the lady had to do was write my luggage number on my ticket and she told me that my bags were already on the plane. Overall it took like 2 minutes to resolve the luggage number issue, it was way simpler than I was expecting since the first guy we saw to get our boarding passes seemed very worried and sorta freaked when I didn't have a number. Then we waited some more. And had a snack. And had to move where we were sitting again. And waited. And then they finally started boarding the plane. We were flying Singapore Airlines the the plane is a two level plane. So the way the have you board is suits, families with children, handicapped, upper deck and then main deck. When you go through line to board they check your passport and boarding pass and then walking to the plane they have people standing to randomly choose and questing people about their flight. Luckily neither Gen or I fell victim to the questioners.
The Singapore Airlines plane is the biggest, best plane I have ever been on. There are many more seats and it's much more spacious and everyone had a TV to watch movies and play games on. The flight attendants (who are really pretty) also hamd out hot towels, the menu for the flight, blankets pillows, headphones, and airport socks. Oh and we also had a footrest. It was very fancy. :P
We got our first meal soon after the plane was in the air. I was nervous to try airplane food because I've heard horror stories of how nasty plane food is. Ours was very good though, we both chose the Japanese version (there is Japanese and International, the international is more American style food). Then we just had to pass time until the flight was over. I watched the Avengers and the Lucky One and we talked to the other person in our row, who happened to be a teenager from Singapore. On huge international flights they also have all the windows get shut and turn off overhead lights so that people will sleep and begin to get used to the time changes and stuff, sadly I couldn't fall asleep. The time changes were so weird though. While flying to Japan it felt like it should be dark out and it was late in our time (ET) but it was light out outside for the majority of our 20 hour flight. It was just so weird since we had been traveling already for over/close to 24 hours and the whole time we had been traveling it was light out outside.
We got a second meal close to the end of the flight, Gen and I ate the Japanese version again, and then we began our descent into Japan. It was around 7:00 in Japan at the time and so finally it was beginning to get dark. The Japanese airport is very nice; it's simple but not boring. We had to first go through security again before we could go to the gate to re-board the plane. When my bag went through a security guard at the end asked if she could look through it, I was like 'ya sure' and wondering what it was that would make her want to since it had already gone through 2 other security checks without any issues. It turned out that they thought the pens that I had in the bag were knives or scissors or something, so she just pulled them out and few of my electronics chords, scanned the bag again, apologized for having to do that and then I was through. The way the security guards acted, especially when the apologized for looking through my bad and such, really surprised me since whenever I've traveled in the states the guards usually don't seem to really care if they do have to go through something or invade someones privacy at all. We then had an hour wait before we could re-board our plane, so we looked at the Japanese store that was in our area of the airport and watched some of the Olympics since they had it playing on one of the huge TV's they have set up everywhere. On another one of the TVs they were playing music clips from different Asian bands and stuff (it was all in Japanese so I had no idea what it was) but then all of a sudden Justin Bieber was playing and I found that kind of funny/sad how he was the only American artist that I saw them like advertise on that channel.
When we boarded the plane again we went through the same process of before and were handed all of the airline goodies and then ate soon once we were in the air. I was so excited for this flight since it was our last one and we would finally be in Singapore and it was all just so surreal since for month now we had been counting down to our trip. And even though we had already had a very long day on airplanes and at airports we were both pumped for the flight because it was only 6 hours (super short once you've sat through a 20 hour flight). I was reall tired on this flight since I hadn't been able to sleep on any of our other planes and had even started dozing off in the Japanese airport, so luckily I was able to sleep for at least half of our 6 hour plane ride to Singapore - which made the ride go by faster. When we touched down in Singapore it was around 2:30 in the morning, we had landed early. We went through immigration - which was waywayway easier than I thought it would be, they just compared your passport to the immigration card that you had filled out and then stamped them and you were good. We proceed to just grab our bags and go through customs. Well we didn't really go through customs actually since we just had cloths and stuff in our luggage so we just walked out to find Gen's grandpa. He was already there when we were out and so I met him and we talked a little and then went out to find a taxi to take us home. For the taxi ride I was just staring outside because it is just so beautiful in Singapore. They have so many plants and just beautiful landscaping and architecture and such, its just amazing. We got to his house in like 30ish minutes. Here people mainly live in apartments and so for where he lives on the ground level there is just a beautiful like lobbyish area I guess you could say. It's not really a lobby though cause there no desk and person like at hotels but its just a really nice area where the elevators are. So you then just take an elevator up to your floor and there are two homes on each floor. Gens grandpa has an amazing house. He likes art and so there is a lot of paintings and sculptors and such everywhere, its a really beautiful and spacious house. Gen grandma was awake when we got to the house and so I got to meet her and then he showed us to the room we would be staying in. Our room is amazing and it has tons of art and china and glass and such and we have our own little sitting area in the room, our own bathroom, and a beautiful view of Singapore and the pool. Her grandparents were very nice and talked to us while we ate some yummy bread and they made sure that we made and felt at home here. I really do feel at home here already which is very nice since I wasn't sure how it would be living at a different place with a different culture and such, but it really is homey here.
When we went to our room for the night we unpacked all of our stuff and finally got to shower and freshen up and then at like 6 we went to sleep for the first time in around 38 hours.
This entry will have everything that we did in our first day in Singapore.
Sienna woke me up around 2:30pm (still the same day we arrived at Singapore). We got ready and went to my Lolo. My Lolo, Lola (Grandmother), Sienna, and I went to get lunch. We had some Malay food. It consisted of Popiah (Side dish), Chicken Rice (Lola's lunch), Chicken Curry (Lolo's and Sienna's lunch) and Mei Goreng (My lunch). After me and Sienna went to exchange our money to Singapore Dollars (SGD), get a sim card for my phone, and get our MRT cards (Public Transportation cards).
After Sienna and I walked around one of the malls on Orchard Road. We looked in Zara and Forever21. It was 4 floors of awesome. We didn't buy anything in those stores, but were planning to go back to get some things. We went to go meet up with my grandfather at a different mall on Orchard Road. He told us to look around this mall. We went into a dress shop that had all these homecoming, wedding, prom, and special event dresses. Me and Sienna tried on a few dresses but didn't buy anything. We walked around and look at a department store. After we went to a store called Mango. We tried on some dresses. They were so cute! I bought a cute tube dress that was blue, pink, and brown. I love this dress!! I can dress it up and dress it down. Also it really flatters my body. I also bought this peach dress that had straps and a flower design on the of the straps and across the front. Sienna bought this cute dress that is a pretty pink.
One of the dresses I tried on
We went to meet up with my Lolo again and we went to get dinner. He dropped us off this street restaurant and we order 6 egg prata to bring home to eat. At this point we were exhausted. We ate at home, did the dishes, folded our laundry, and went to our room to relax. Now I'm in my room blogging. Since I'm done now I'm going to be going to bed. The next entry will be about the Singapore Zoo (We are going there tomorrow!!).
I was too tired to post an entry yesterday since I was up for about 48 hours straight. So this entry will have everything from the moment Sienna and I left, to arriving in Singapore.
I slacked very much with packing for this trip. I didn't pack many clothes. I brought one luggage with my clothes, make up, lotion, hygienic stuff, and a extra luggage inside of it. Sienna showed up at my house around 3:50. I was eating when she came. Her mom was the one who dropped her off. Her mother seemed really excited about the trip. We put our luggage in the car and said goodbye to Sienna's mom. My parents brought Sienna and I to the Logan Airport around 4:10am. We arrived around 5am and went to get our boarding passes from Virgin America. My parents waited with us till the security check was open for me and Sienna to go to the gate. When we were waiting to go through security we said goodbye to my parents. As we were saying our goodbyes, my parents were reminding us of the things we had to do at each airport.
After going through Boston's security, we waited to board the airplane. Virgin America was taking us to LAX. I've never taking Virgin America so I had no clue what to expect on the plane. I was really surprised with the plane. It had a TV on it and wifi. Sienna and I got to our seats and ended up watching the Olympics, Vangaurd documentaries, and documentaries on E! the whole way to LAX.
We arrived at LAX and had to find where to go for international flights. We asked around and eventually got to the building where the international flights were. We ate lunch there since the place were we needed to get our boarding passes from wasn't open till12:15. We ate sushi (California roll) and some Panda Express. After lunch we played cards till 12. At 12 we went to get our boarding passes. The line to Singapore Airlines was huge, but we went through the internet check-in line because it was short, and we didn't have any bags to check in. I went first and got my boarding pass. When it was Sienna's turn to get her boarding pass, we found out that the people from Virgin America didn't put her baggage numbers on her Virgin America ticket. The guy who was giving us our ticket told us to go to the gate and ask them to look up the baggage numbers and write it down on her tickets. After she got her boarding pass for Singapore Airlines, we went through security and had around 4 hours to kill (our flight had a 1 hour delay). So we found our gate and waited. There was this annoy group of people waiting too (I think they were part of a church group). They were going to Thailand or something like that. It was a group of about 20... I was laying in a corner while Sienna was sitting. We were tired and just wanted to get on the plane. Our bodies were also confused with time since now we were 3 hours behind... felt like a time warp. While we were waiting this adorable Japanese lady (around her 60s) came up to Sienna and I and started talking to us. She talked to us about Japan and how she loves it there. She also talked about her child she visits in the US and how she misses her husband in Japan. After waiting for what felt like forever, it was time to board Singapore Airlines.
I honestly really don't like the LAX airport. It was big. Big airports are nice... but if they don't have signs telling people where things are or where to go, then they aren't that awesome. Also once you go through airport security there, they don't have many places where you can get food and eat. It really wasn't that great...
We boarding Singapore Airlines. This plane was amazing! The plane was huge. It was a double decker plane. We were in Economy Class. Our seats had chargers for phones and computer. We had a TV that had free movies, games and TV shows. The movies were recent movies too (Hunger Games, Avengers, etc...) We also had foot rests. It was great. The seats were really wide too. Since it was a full flight Sienna and I had another person sitting with us. We saw the person and at first thought he was a 23 year old snob. He was wearing a nice suit, had a expensive watch, nice Iphone, Louise Vuitton carry on, and a macbook. We didn't really talk. Then eventually the guy and us started talking. We found out he was 18 and was going back to Singapore after visiting some colleges in the US. He was really nice and fun to talk to. He talked about his friends and girlfriend. Also his fun adventures in the US and about the school he wanted to go to in college.
We had a one hour layover in Japan in the Narita Airport. We waited in the airport and just watched the Olympics... well Sienna napped towards the end. We boarded the plane again and were on our 6 and a half hour flight to Singapore! We were so excited! The best part about this plane ride was we all napped the majority of the time. We were up for probably the last hour and half of the trip.
When we landed in Singapore about 20 minutes early (2:50amish), both Sienna and I were so excited! When we got off the plane was said our goodbyes to the guy and headed to immigration. We breezed by it and went to get our luggage, went through customs and started looking for my Lolo (Grandfather). I spotted my Lolo and started walking toward him. He noticed me and came over and hugged me. We got a taxi to bring us to his place (his car wouldn't start). Sienna was admiring Singapore from the window of the taxi. It was awesome seeing how happy she was. I was so excited to be sharing this trip and adventure with such a great friend.
We got to my Lolo's place and started to unpack. After we unpacked, we showered, brushed our teeth, and got ready for bed. It felt so great to be clean. It's nice to feel clean and exhausted than dirty and exhausted. We went to bed around 5:30.
That was pretty much the whole plane ride to Singapore. It was long, fun, and exhausting. Totally worth it to have this great adventure with Sienna!