Singapore Day 1

Singapore post here at last! A brief prelude: This trip was sort of hitting three birds with one stone. It was a graduation gift for me and my brother Jiggy, who recently graduated from grade school. It's also a prize for my sister Cait, who, as usual, has received a crapload of medals and awards. It took some time for my parents to save up the money (and then wait for Cebu Pacific to have a seat sale), but yay, the trip was so fun! Thank you, parents.

It was my first time riding in a plane that was so huge. Two aisles, eight people per row, and three sections! The flight was some three hours long, but it didn't really feel that way.

Touchdown, Singapore. Here we are at the Changi Airport, where Mom and Dad made us pose with practically everything, including this little orchid display. 

To cut costs (and to give us some freedom with our itinerary), we didn't hire a travel agency for this trip. We spent a lot of time figuring out where to go, but it was easy enough since Singapore's public transportation system is so well-organized. 

 ^ This is the Changi Airport MRT station. It looks like Platform Nine and Three Quarters (well, not really, but just humor me with this one).

 Dad and his Best Acting skillz. 

Took this picture in a moving train. Singapore taxis are blue!

 Switching lines.

BOOM. Really beautiful train station. I think this was Dhoby Gaut. This is how I imagined London Underground looked like as I was reading Neverwhere! 

Our destination: Bras Basah. Our hotel was near the station.

^ Ugh.

At the hotel at last. We got a nice room at Strand Hotel, big enough to house all five of us comfortably! No squeezing into a queen sized bed. There was space for all. 

Next on our itinerary: walking along Orchard Road. We were on the lookout for a place to eat lunch. 

 We didn't eat here because it was pretty pricey, but the name was worth a picture.

 Cait and I marvelled at these giant Hello Panda boxes. As big as our heads!

Jiggy being Broody McBroodster

 Mom thought it would be cute to take a picture of me with this skeleton doctor. 

Finally, feeling too hot and tired, we resolved to trying the local delicacies at the nearby Seven Eleven. I know right, how adventurous of us. :I 

I love dimsum. I'll never get sick of siomai. Dimsum is awesome anywhere you go, really. (Note: Food in Singapore is expensive. The 7-11 sandwiches that would normally cost around P60 here were worth some P120 in Singapore!)

Eating at Seven Eleven was a bad decision, because a little further down the road we saw a food court-type thing that sold real food at around the same price. This one stall sold amazing-looking dessert.

 Wanting to cool off (and rest our tired feet), we got this "rainbow kachang" for only 1.5 dollah! Kachang is shaved ice that's flavored. It also means "butt" in Hokkien. 

This altar was tucked behind some stalls in the food court. 

We also passed by a McDonald's that sold dessert in Peachy Mango and Green Apple flavors. Looks good.

 Sitting breaaaaaak. It was a hot day. 

En route to Little India! I don't know why but Singapore has this incentive that automatically subtracts 0.50 dollahs from your sixth trip on the MRT if you use the same ticket six times. This was our second trip. 

 Little India! I love the colors! (I don't know who the guy in the picture is or why he's carrying large pieces of cardboard.)

 We stopped at a bakery to look at the food. Everything looked so foreign.

 The bakeshop owner told me this is real silver. What!? And for only one dollah!? (Note: 1 Singaporean dollah = approximately 35 PhP) (On a side note, this pastry is called Badam Burfy. Which sounds like how you would say Madam Murphey with a cold.)

It was sweltering out, so we ducked into this one airconditioned eatery to try some Indian food. One thing you should know about my family is that they (well, except me and mom) very, very rarely try new food. Heck, even sushi creeps them out. So imagine what a milestone it is for Cait, Jiggy, and Dad to be trying this very foreign dish out: fried bread stuffed with potatoes and meat (masala dosa). Not very weird, but hey, baby steps. 

Oh, and a little back story about the dosa: we didn't really know what to order from the Indian menu, because everything sounded... well, Indian. So my mom asked the Indian woman at the next table, who looked like she and her family were enjoying their food, what the name of their order was. She said it was dosa, her favorite thing to order. They were drinking it with watermelon shake. We copied their order and I enjoyed the food greatly. I can't say the same for Dad though. 

 More walking ensued. 

Following our itinerary, we were supposed to go to Arab Street next (this, and Little India, were both my picks). But we were feeling really tired from walking around in the heat, and so we decided to go back to the hotel and rest up. I did get a really nice souvenir for Rap (and for myself): a henna cone, or mehndi. From what I've read, mehndi is traditionally used to make gorgeous designs on the hands of a soon-to-be bride. 

We took the train back to Bras Basah and then stopped at a (different) Seven Eleven for a quick supply run, where I found this:

 Instant Egg. Just add water. @_@

 They also carried Magnum in different flavors.

 Weaving through some construction work to get to the hotel.

That night, we walked from the hotel to the Singapore Flyer, where our camera unfortunately ran out of battery. Hmmm... I wonder why. It's not like we were taking random pictures of things throughout the day... 

         Anyway, that's it for Day 1. Man, writing this took up quite some time, mainly because the pictures take so long to upload. Anyway, it's not like I'm doing anything important now. Caitlin's currently attending the Ateneo Junior Summer Seminar, which is basically a gigantic nerdfest where the top nerds from high schools around the Philippines gather to attend classes and stuff. In the summer. Yep.

         So I'm stuck in the condo, doing yaya duties until my ASMPH TransSum starts in May. It's all right. I'm not so bored yet. I've got my blog to keep me busy. And I'm trying out online POP Pilates with Cassey Ho. This is my second day of trying out pilates and so far it's been fun. I just have to avoid the poses that hurt my elbows and arms. Cassey is so great, I want to gush about her right now but I shall restrain myself because I already feel a little silly for confessing that I'm trying out an online exercise thing.

         Next post: Singapore Day 2!