singapore. in thirty-six hours or less

Amy and I made a last minute trip to Singapore last week. She and Dan were supposed to go but after the army rolled in and Thailand came under military rule, they didn't want to leave their kids (with us). So instead, with 20 hours notice, I took Dan's place. It was a win all around, at least for me. 

What was the motivating factor for me to bring a six month old on a 36 hour trip to a new country?(Besides that I'm always up for going to a new country):

That's a nice solid 10-20 degrees below Bangkok's average right now. 

I've heard Singapore is as hot as Bangkok but it rained the second day we were there and I swear, I didn't sweat at all while walking outside. While I was thinking how refreshing and cool it was, a lady saw me carrying Winston in the ergo, and apologized for the heat. I felt Winston's feet--they were ice cubes. He's a bit of a warm weather fellow. Too bad he doesn't own pants.

So Singapore..

It's an island. Or at least a main island and a bunch of smaller islands. 

They were settled around 200 AD and were members of the neighboring empires, then colonized by the East India Company in 1819. Singapre became part of the British Empire in 1824, they gained their independence in 1963. The population is made up of 70% Chinese, with Malay, Indian and Eurasian minorities. 

My first impression: this is Switzerland in Asia and everyone speaks English. 

It's very clean. No trash, no puddles that smell strange. No Soi dogs. It was like being back in Switzerland or a clean American city. Everything was in English. Minimal traffic.  No abundance of culture. Coming from Bangkok, it was all quite eerie.

Also, you probably can't see this, but they have a Wendy's. 

We stayed on Sentosa Island, because it looks like this. From what I can gather, it's basically like DisneyWorld. A lot of amusement parks and resorts. 

We took the sky tram there and it only took 7 minutes. 

                            

The public transportation was cheap and clean. (I'm pretty sure everyone here has a smart phone). 

The taxis are expensive compared to Bangkok, but still relatively cheap. And, from the looks of this sign, they hold 4 adults or 6-7 (too blurry to tell) small people. 

They are also impossible to catch. 

Winston was a peach. He was pleased as punch to finally get out of the ergo and crawl around. 

 The hotel had random peacocks walking around--probably to eat the popcorn I kept dropping as I tried to multi task and feed Winston and myself at the same time.

 The beach was great. We spent about 5 minutes on it. I decided to come back with the children I have that actually enjoy the beach.

We spent our first day rushing around to appointments and never really eating, I guess Amy  doesn't need to eat every 20 minutes, she is clearly a robot. I woke up and decided that was not going to happen to me today. I stocked up in the morning. If you've been to a hotel breakfast in SE Asia you know how beautiful this plate is. 

This was supposed to be only my first course. I would follow it up with some traditional rice congee, then maybe some more tater tots and another stroll by the cheese table. Breakfast of champions. Unfortunately, Winston didn't cooperate. I did manage to scarf this entire plate down in about 3 minutes. 

We tried some of the local food, (Amy vetoed Wendys) chicken rice and Laksa curry, They were both delicious. It was strange to walk up to a food cart and not worry about how I was going to communicate what I wanted. Speaking the same language really is an incredible advantage.

 My travel buddy. I think I successfully cured him of his favorite thing--being carried by me in the ergo. After two days straight of that, he was happy being on the ground by himself, for a solid ten minutes.

And he slept most the flight home. It's amazing how tiring crying for 40 minutes straight while waiting in line for your exit visa can be. I kept thinking, if I was in Bangkok they would have immediately ushered me to the front of the line and then through to separate security line. 

Home sweet home. 

We're only 27 days from our summer flight back to the US. Twenty-seven is also about how many hours we will spend traveling, one way. Here's to hoping for more sleeping kids. I just got a stomach ache thinking about it. 

I promised Eliot I would bring something back for her if she did her chores. She didn't.  I grabbed this at the airport, anyways. I love picking up books for my kids when I travel. I also love them so much more when I get a chance to travel--even when they don't do their chores and I come home to the after math of a pizza-popcorn-101 Dalmatians party.

(strange, my playroom is usually comletely spotless, I'm not sure what all these toys are doing here.)