10 September, 2007

Well, our final day in Singapore is now officially over! I'm trying to stay awake as long as possible so that I will sleep on the flight from Singapore to Tokyo and try to readjust to US time. I am ready to get home to see the kids!

Today Ryan went into work to do some relocation paperwork and I decided to get a neck and shoulder massage:) I've only had one other one in my life and boy do I wish I could afford to get them twice a week! We've been so busy here that I needed to relax a little bit before we head home. I had breakfast outside this morning and read a book and listened to the rain. It rained a good portion of the day. It seems like most nights here we've seen spectacular thunderstorms off in the distance but we haven't really seen much rain until today. No thunderstorm though:( After breakfast I did some shopping for souvenir's for the twins and Rachel. I decided that Ethan is too little to appreciate anything Singapore so he's going to miss out! After shopping was the massage and than Ryan was back from work.

We decided to re-visit the botanical gardens to take some pictures. The Orchid Garden is SO WORTH going to see. If you click on the pictures below and enlarge them you can see them closer up and the rain drops on them. The perfect time to go is on an overcast, rainy day as the colors really pop! There was a really neat gift shop there that I will have to keep in mind for future gifts!! On our way back to the hotel we walked past the US Embassy - it's actually fairly close to our hotel. I would have liked to take a picture of the outside but there was some activity going on there so we didn't want to stick around. It's a little disconcerting to see police walking the streets with MK 47's (I think that's right?) Not a sight you see in the US very often!

For supper we went back to Clark Quay to take pictures there (we forgot our camera last evening) and we saw that they were set up for the Chinese mooncake festival. I think that they celebrate the moon during this. I didn't post any of those pictures as this will be a long enough post...maybe when we're back home. We also walked down to the famous MerLion statue and took pictures there. Singapore means "Lion City" and legend has it that one of the first people here supposedly saw a creature that was half lion and half mermaid. Believe what you want:)

Anyway, enjoy the pictures below! We are looking forward to being home and seeing everyone again! Please pray that we have safe flights:)

This is a picture of Clark Quay on the Singapore River. The whole area used to be warehouses and they have all been restored and are used as shops and restaurants. It's a very nice area to walk around.

This is one of the boats that we took a boat ride on yesterday.

Fountain in the Orchid Gardens

Some species of orchids in the gardens were bred and named for famous people who have visited the gardens. There is one for Laura Bush but I couldn't find the actual orchid.

I believe this one is named after Nilson Mandela.

There are thousands of different species of orchids in this garden!

This is Swan Lake at the Botanical Gardens. We were pleasantly surprised to actually see swans:) I thought that it was just all about the statue!

For any of you who read Trumpet of the Swan this lake reminded me of that book.

I don't know what these are called but I thought that they were pretty with a palm tree in the background.

This is at the entrance to the Orchid Gardens - it cost S$5.00 to get in per adult which was extremely reasonable.

This is the restaurant that we ate at on Saturday night with Ryan's co-worker Gan and his wife Judy. Gan is from Malaysia and Judy is from Hong Kong.