a brief stop in civilization

Hi Everyone,

It took some convincing, but we left Singapore this morning.  We arrived in Siem Reap this afternoon and after a great week checking out sights, visiting friends and drinking tap water (Yes, TAP WATER!!), we’re recharged and ready for a new adventure.

Singapore was GREAT! We stayed with our friends Owen and Melissa who are there teaching at an international school. They have the most beautiful condo and it was great to see them.  They were awesome hosts and helped us get around the city, and get us into a few places that the locals love and that we would have never known abouton our own.  We had such a good time with them in Singapore that we’ve threatened to post their condo on Trip Advisor with top ratings. Anyone who know’s these two should book a trip to visit them quickly before their guest room fills up and they start charging!

Singapore is an amazing city, and in the running for coolest city we’ve been to on the trip so far (other front runners include San Francisco and Bangkok).  It feels like the most forward thinking city we’ve been to, by quite a ways…as long as you don’t liter or chew gum and spit it on the streets  For a city/country as small as Singapore that has 5 million people, you’d think you’d feel  claustrophobic everywhere you go, but it couldn’t be further from the truth.  It’s incredibly green everywhere, with tons of parks, wide roads and side-walks, and great transit systems…it actually feels quite a bit more crowded in Calgary, which is either really good for Singapore…or really bad for Calgary.  Maybe a bit of both.

We were able to do quite a bit in Singapore.  Here are some of our stops:

The Singapore Zoo is pretty cool.  They’ve designed it so it’s open concept, which basically means that you can’t really tell that the animals are in a cage until you look a little closer.  They’ve got a lot of animals from tropical regions around the world as well as warmer climates.

A White Tiger at the zoo.

One day we went to Raffles Hotel to get a Singapore Sling from the original bar where it was invented.  It wasn’t that good, and our bill for 2 slings and an appetizer was about $70.  Nice.

Singapore’s downtown and financial districts are really modern and seems like a new building is going up all the time. Here is a view of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel and Casino from across the bay.  It is designed to look like a ship on top of 3 buildings…

And in that ship on the 56th floor is where they have the worlds largest infinity pool.  Pretty cool sight actually. They were kind enough to let us take an elevator to the rough to see the view and the pool…for $40! We couldn’t get any closer than this because we didn’t drop $400+ on a hotel room in the resort.

A view of the financial district.

We also took some really high cable cars over to Santosa Island. It has basically been developed to take money from tourists in a variety of ways (Universal Studios, 4D movies, etc). Here’s where they took our money… The Street Luge. It was fun! Us with our ultra stylish helmets before doing the street luge.

The street luge course.

They had these solar-powered fans around downtown.  With the heat they had there, they are definitely required…and we were there in rainy season!

What’s that you have Ashlyn?  Tap water??  Sweeeeeeeet!!

This is the pool at Owen and Melissa’s condo.  Singapore is so awesome!

We had an amazing time in Singapore and hope to make it back again soon.  It was even better getting to visit some familiar faces for the stop.  Looking forward to seeing what’s in store for us in Cambodia.

Chris and Ashlyn