9 September, 2007

Actually I'm going to back up to yesterday, Saturday. In the am we slept in for the first time since arriving here and than spent what was left of our time at IKEA looking at furniture. It's not really my style - pretty modern. Shirley, the realtor, took us around to more places. We have a fairly good idea of what is available here and won't make a final decision until after we move here in January. We found a 4 bedroom by SAS that we really like but it will go fast and won't be available by the time we get here. It sounds like those apartments don't come up very often either. We'll make the decision also when we get here whether we will live closer to the school or closer to Ryan's work. The school is kind of in the middle of nowhere (1/2 hour to shops, bike trails, etc.) and if we live closer to downtown I could walk to most anywhere I'd want to go. One other area we looked in is called Bukit Timah (Boo-ket Teema) which literally stands for "Tin Mountain"...it's a Malay word.

We ended our day yesterday with a visit to the Singapore Botanical Gardens with another one of Ryan's co-workers and his wife. We walked to the inside of the gardens and ate at a restaurant that was enclosed in glass and was surrounded by jungle. I ate a VERY tasty steak and Ryan had some kind of shrimp and pasta. The gardens are gorgeous and we'd like to go back tomorrow and take pictures if we can.

This brings us to today. Today we didn't have anything on our schedule except to be tourists. We went to Vivo City - a new, huge mall - and than from there we took a tram out to Sentosa Island. It's pretty commercial but it will be fun for the twins' to go. We saw a dolphin show while we were there and viewed pink dolphins. They claim that they can't be viewed anywhere else in the world. While there we also went to the southern most tip of Continental Asia. After Sentosa we found a GAP - it's so much more expensive here - about $50 US for a dress in Kait's size. I think that we will be stocking up on clothes in the US. We complain about the prices there but we keep hearing that it's cheaper there than a lot of other area's of the world.

From Sentosa we decided to try the MRT (subway) to get back. We were very impressed as they were the cleanest, brightest, most organized subway either of us has seen. They are also cheap compared to taking a taxi or driving a car. They also go most anywhere on the island. We stopped by a Border's for some books on Singapore before heading back to the hotel to freshen up. For supper we decided to try out Clark Quay (pronounced Clark Key.) WoW!! What an excellent decision. We have heard that it's popular with Westerner's and now we know why. It is located along the Singapore river by the downtown and offers fantastic views and restaurants. We ate at a Mexican restaurant that reminded us a lot of our honeymoon. There were three men playing guitars and singing Spanish songs - the best part was that they were all Asian men:) Only in Singapore!! After supper we took a boat ride of the river on a boat low to the water with Chinese lanterns hanging along it's perimeter. It's a unique way to see Singapore although it was a bit loud!

One thing that I'd like to note that we've seen here that you won't see in the US...around the corner of our hotel is a table set up with a worship area for Buddhists. We had seen several of these before someone explained what they were.

A few words that are different here:

Lift = Elevator
Rubbish = trash
Flat = apartment/condo
Give Way = Yield
Fly Over = Overpass

There are more but I can't think of them at this late hour of 9:35pm:)

Everywhere you go there are "Taxi Queue's". The taxi's here are very organized with lines for people so no one goes out of turn. You can't just hail a taxi from any street corner. You can book a taxi by calling a central number for about US $1.64 and thus avoid the Queue's. Taxi are fairly cheap and the most we've spent on a taxi so far has been US$7.85.

The most we've paid for a coke and snacks was S$27.00 - about US$17.71. I think that we were taken:) There weren't any prices listed at the hotel gift shop so we ended up paying much more than if we had gone down the the 7-11!!