Day 2 in Singapore: Arrival and Adjusting

 After we got to Patrice's house, she gave us a tour and showed us our rooms for our stay. We each have our own room and bathroom, which is super nice! Their house is three stories and fairly close to the American School that their son Elliott attends. I will post more pictures of their house later since it was dark when we got here. :0) Patrice had recently visited Japan, so she brought back a few souvenirs for us, as well as a couple of things from Singapore as well.

Yummy panda cookies! 

Once we got settled in, we showered and got ready to go for the day. Patrice said it's best that we keep going as long as we can so our bodies can adjust to the 13 hour time change. After we showered and got ready, we caught a cab to the MRT station to get on the metro that would take us to Orchard Rd.

Orchard Road has a number of shopping areas and malls, so we mainly just window shopped and walked around the area. We didn't do any actual shopping though because everything is so expensive here! You'll probably notice in some of the pictures that there are a lot of high rises in Singapore. Most of the population here live in high rise apartments and they are everywhere. 

Crossing under the street to the other side.

Tiniest McDonald's I have ever seen!

Inside one of the mall areas... lots of levels!

Singapore Starbs!!

 We ate lunch at a little restaurant called Din Tai Fung. It had a lot of tasty Chinses food, specializing in dumplings.

Tasty cucumber dish.

Feast!

Restaurant workers making the dumplings.

 After lunch, we came back to Patrice's house and walked to the grocery store to pick up a few things for dinner tonight.

Campbell's soup in Singapore!

Unbelievable ice cream prices!

Well I am exhausted and am about to take a little nap! We are cooking dinner tonight and probably going to bed early to get ready for a busy day in China town tomorrow!

Day 1: Off to Singapore We Go!

So my bags are packed and we were off to the airport on June 5 to catch our flight to Singapore. I am traveling with one of my best friends from work. Kacey and I started working at Clear Lake Intermediate 4 years ago teaching 8th grade science together. I can't tell you how much of a blessing she has been in my life. There is no way I would have made it through these last four years without her, she is awesome! Last year our department head, Patrice, moved from the states to Singapore because her husband was transferred to a different position for Exxon. Patrice has always been such a huge support at school and another really special person in both our lives so we decided to go and visit her this summer! We will be in Singapore for about 10 ten days so here are some of the highlights so far!

Bags are packed!

Kacey's mom and brother dropped us off Bush Intercontinental for our flight! We checked our bags in and went through security. Had some interesting conversations in the security line... couple of women thought we were going to Cancun haha... we really could't figure out why except that we are young!

Pre-24 hour travel period haha... hair looks good and all smiles!

We boarded our flight from Houston to Moscow, which was about 11 hours. The plane was huge and the staff was extremely nice. The flight attendants were all dressed in really cute dresses and from Singapore obviously. One of the stewards, Zulkarnaine, gave us a lot of good information about what to do in Singapore. We sat by a guy from Russia named Igor, on the first flight who was a geologist and oil refining engineer. He was super nice and spoke English really well. He was very curious about what it was like to be a teacher in the United States and was very well traveled himself. It was really interesting to talk to him. Once we landed in Moscow, we had about an hour between our flights. We got off and went through security and then got back on again after they cleaned the plane and refueled. From Moscow to Singapore it was about 10 hours. 

BIG PLANE!

So one of the interesting things on our flights... warm washcloths at the beginning and end of each flight. We were a little confused about this at first haha!

One of our yummy airline treats. I love how everything is in Russian!

Love the in-flight tv and movie entertainment!

Yeah... long long long long long long flights!

About half way through haha... 

This yogurt was AWESOME! So yummy!

One of our sweet flight attendants.

Getting off the plane in Singapore at about 5:30 a.m. our time.

They had immaculate bathrooms at the Singapore airport! We thought this was hilarious!

And there were trees in the airport!

WE MADE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Taxi to bring us back to Patrice's house!

So after 22 hours of flying and about 24 hours of total travel, we finally made it into Singapore. We are super excited to be here and are definitely tired! It is a weird feeling to be eating at random times and being awake when you should be asleep! More to come on our adventures! See ya!