Driving on the Opposite Side

Happy New Year Friends!

Wow, it has been a LONG time since I have posted... My apologies, but believe me I have a lot of adventures I went on last year worth telling (example: Russia, Japan, Gardens By the Bay...).

In Singapore you drive on the opposite side of a car (right side) then you would in the US (left side). At first I was against getting a car, because I was almost a little scared I would drive on the wrong side and f the road... It's valid, haha. It's funny when you get to a country that drives opposite of what your used to.... In any scenario you start walking to what in your head to the passenger side and then are reminded by the driver wrong side. Haha. It is the same with buses or you name it. It's all opposite. You know what I started doing... Walking towards the car in the middle casually, until I determined the correct side, to show I have adapted, I fooled them... Haha kidding. 

Well, we decided to get one for convenience... It was a good choice, not to mention it's an automatic. When you start out driving, not only are the of confused what side tyre steering wheel is on you turn on your windshield wipers when you're trying to turn on your signal and visa versa. Honestly, I still have this issue to this day on occasion and we have had the car over a year. I have been back to the states twice since we have been here and get confused.

Rest assured, when you drive on the right or left side it feels natural to drive in the correct direction, not to mention Singapore has arrows everywhere showing what direction you need to go in that lane. If there is confusion it's usually in neighborhoods with no one around, but like I said it is rare because the arrows are literally everywhere. 

I do have to add... I enjoy having company in Singapore from the US, because they naturally follow you to the drivers side and of course I ask them, "are you driving?" They figure it out, but it may take a couple of times. 

Hope you enjoyed and again more to come. 

Note: this entry will not have pictures.

Marina Bay

Well, this entry is about one of the most famous hotels in Singapore - Marina Bay Sands. In my opinion, this hotel either looks like a space ship on top of two pillars or a surf board on top of two pillars. It makes me think how wonderful the imagination is in mankind and the determination that was needed to put such amazing buildings together. 

They are known for their infinity pool that is on the very top, appx 55+ stories above. Yea, I'm not meant for heights haha. From that height you see all of Sinagpore - the busiest port (or one of the busiest ports) and the whole city. At night it's gorgeous. Pictures to follow.

Now for the room was on the 40 something floor. It was definitely hight up, yikes. The marble bathroom, slippers, robes, sitting area and more. Oh get this, the fridge has beverages and other items, it has the capability to charge you by just lifting an item off the shelf... Be careful with that one haha. Anyways they were nice.

Well for the pictures, I don't think I could do this place justice with a description. I hope you enjoy this entry, I know it is brief. Hope you have a great day!!!

Inside the Hotel

View of hotel

At night

View from top of Hotel

Another view point

Activities

Hello… I know, I know it has been a LONG time. Glad you are still following me and my adventures.

This entry is about what I was up to during the day before I got a job. It has been nice, because there are a lot of activities for wives (or husbands) when spouses are working or the kiddos are at school.

Before we came to Singapore I really got burnt out on working out for various reasons. Here in Singapore I have no choice but to be mobile, because we made the decision not to get a car when we got here. We walk everywhere, the public transportation system has been fairly convenient and taxis are everywhere. It was an adjustment walking soooo much, but now you don’t really notice how much or how many miles you walk. As mentioned the public transit is convenient and inexpensive, but I will expand that on a different day.

I remember during the summer when I was in the 7^th grade, my sister and I took tennis lessons. It definitely gave us something to do, but honestly I never thought I would play again after that summer. You probably see where I am going with this. They offer tennis classes once a week – Beginner and Advanced.  It was a great time and honestly was one of the avenues to meet people.  There are some very talented people around here when it comes to tennis… I personally have some room to improve, there have been some missed shots/hits. Haha.

Coffee Time happens about once a month and friends/acquaintances I have made, meet up for yogurt, just kidding just making sure your paying attention -  coffee. If you want to go to coffee, heck I am IN… YUM!!! This is nice because even though you may live within a couple of blocks of people… You get to re-connect and catch-up, oh and I can’t forget this is when you typically will meet people. There are Starbucks, Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf (nice to get my Foo Foo coffee fill), Hawker Centers (previous entry about what these are) and more. One of the last ones we went to there was about 12 people, SO FUN!!!!

For a while, I was going to the movies on the Tuesdays (discount days) about once a week during the day. I saw The Other Woman, Grace of Monacco, Walk of Shame and more. We would just get a group together and go. I have always liked going to the movie. The movies are different here then they are in the states, but again we can save that for another day.

Book Club, so fun!!! I have never been involved in a book club before and I actually enjoy it, however I need to be better about completing the book. We meet once a month about a book and it RANGES as far as books we read… when we read a book that turns into a motion picture we sometimes have MOVIE NIGHT.

Well, there is a lot more to say, but I need to leave some for a different day. Singapore has been a wonderful experience for me and I look forward to the days to come. The people here are wonderful and I am truly blessed!!! Hope you enjoyed this entry and hopefully I will get better about the time span between them. Take care!

What’s for Dinner?!

To begin, Hawker Centers are AWESOME! It is a food court essentially with a variety of different cuisines. When we first arrived my husband and I at these most days of the week and it was very in expensive. You can get a full plate of food (regular size) for about $ 3.00 to 5.00 Sing which is about $ 2.40 to 4.00 US. Sometimes it is cheaper to eat out (or get it to go) then buying the food and making it yourself. There are some pictures below. Note: these Hawker Centers are everywhere. Oh, they do have a rating system as far as cleanliness; I haven’t seen anything below a ‘B’... I just stick with ‘A’ & ‘B.’

 

plate of food at a Hawker Center

 

 

drink from Hawker Center

avocado, coffee milk - protein drink!?

 

berry shake of some sort

 

take away meal

chicken & rice, green beans

Another meal at a Hawker Center
 

 



 

different view of the same plate of food in the first picture

 

Get this… KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) and McDonalds DELIVERS here! I have never been a big fan of McD’s, but that delivery thing I had to try again and again… I found things I like haha. When you get delivery, the people who deliver typically take a motorbike (haven’t seen a car delivery) and they wear insulated backpacks with your food. They have all sorts of compartments in it. Cool Huh. When you come here you may have to consider trying delivery. Haha.

 

picture from the internet of McDonald's delivery bikes

 

another picture from the internet of the delivery backpack they wear

 

There are some fun sit-down restaurants here too, can’t forget them. Ones by the water, some in random places and on the Ferris Wheel (guess that could be considered by the water). Anyways, I am still trying the restaurants here, so I will have another entry at a later date of my favorites. Till my next entry about I don’t know yet… have a blessed day.



Visitors

Hello Everyone!

Well, this entry is about the little visitors that ‘bless us with their presence.’

I came from Colorado to Singapore. Colorado has a dry climate and there are ants, spiders and other bugs that I feel I don't see very often… but Singapore I feel takes the cake. Being in Singapore there are a lot of bugs, Yuck! I am almost convinced that if I can keep our house clean then I can keep down the bug population. Or there is another option. In our house we have visitors and I am not talking about the bugs, although they do like the bugs and I am glad they do. We have lizards and I like when they come in our house, because they eat the unwanted bugs. Granted there have been several times I walk into a room, they scurry and I kind of scream. Haha. They just catch me off guard. When I find a new lizard I have this habit of naming them, who knows if I am naming the same one over and over and over… you get the point. I have a couple of pictures of a couple that I have gotten on camera.

This is Scampers (he Scampers off when you see him). He seems to enjoy hanging out in our hallway and in our room, hopefully he found some (if not all) bugs and spiders to eat! This is him scampering in our hallway. He’s about 3 inches in size.

 

Scampers in the hallway cruising along

 

Scampers in the hallway cruising along reaching a dead end

 

 

This little guy is Teensy (for Teensy Tiny Tim). He lives in our doorway and guards us from unwanted visitors (bugs). He is about an inch and a half long, hence the name.

 

 

Teensy chilling while I was cleaning

 

Teensy chilling while I was cleaning

 

Other visitors are not as friendly as the little lizards, we do have large ones that showed up when it was dry - didn’t rain for about 45 days, so they were coming out for water. Yikes… don’t worry we steered clear!

 

LARGE lizard - steer clear

 

 LARGE lizard - steer clear

 

Here are some of the monkeys. Yeah, when I first came here I was excited to live near monkeys… they are not so nice. One of the first days of us living here I took out our garbage to the trash bins outside of our house. I come inside and the next thing I know there is a monkey climbing on top of the trash bin, lifting the lid, opening garbage bags and throwing the unwanted items on the grass and street and then eating the desired items. What started as one monkey eventually turned into about 7. I stayed indoors yet again. Haha. Below are some photos of some silly monkeys. 

 

See example - They LOVE trash!!!!

 

Chillin

 

Hanging out

 

Well, that is enough about some of the visitors that have graced us with their presence. Hoped you enjoyed it and have a blessed day!!!

 

 

Museum Tour Entry 2

Asian Civilizations Museum

Hello! The Asian Civilizations Museum was an activity that I thoroughly enjoyed and would definitely recommend if you were to visit this country. I luckily went on a tour of this museum and had a great guide… hopefully I can remember everything she taught/told me along the way and not get things mixed up. Heads up I went to 3 museums within a week, so I might be on overload haha.

As mentioned I went to the Asian Civilizations Museum in Singapore. The focus of this museum is on the artifacts and cultures of people originating from Southeast/South/West Asia and China. What I am going to do is start placing my photos with a synopsis of what that photo is… now to proceed.

 

 

This is a statue of Buddha while he is mediating. It is said that while he was meditating he had reached enlightenment, because while he was mediating a terrible storm began and he didn’t even notice. A cobra noticed Buddha in the midst of enlightenment and saw that he was not disturbed or even acknowledging the storm. The cobra lifted him off the ground (see the coils under Buddha) and created a covering over his head, so he would be safe and not disturbed during his mediation.

 

 

This is an imprint of Buddha’s foot.

 

 

This is a picture of a Buddha on the right and what is possibly considered a monk on the left. A lot of people (myself included until this tour) consider the figure on the left to be Buddha…well, to be considered Buddha you have to reach the state of enlightenment which causes the ‘bump’ to form on the head. If you look at the figure to the right you will see the ‘bump’ on his (Buddha’s) head and the first photo above reflects the same thing. Note: some people think that when Buddha returns he will look like the figure/monk on the left… you can see where the happy Buddha figure comes from. Cool Huh?!

 

 

In this picture is one of the first productions of a verse from the Qur’an. This was written on parchment (animal skin) and considered the most expensive material available at that time… fun fact you read it from right to left.

 

This eloquent box on top of a stand is where the Qur’an was held. Theses boxes would be decorated elaborately, considering that the Qur’an is sacred… Note the stand is to lift the box off the floor, so it does not make contact with the ground below it.

 

This is an artist’s artistic way of studying/writing a verse from the Qur’an.

There was a lot more that I saw during this visit and would say that I completely recommend this museum. As mentioned, I do know of a guide who would do a fabulous job guiding you! And I can tell you I did not do the museum justice. Maybe I will have to go again and do another entry down the road…Take care and thank you for reading!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Museum Tour Entry 1

Malay Heritage Center

 

So this was one of my outings in the last two weeks. I had a great time going, however if I were to visit Singapore this is probably not one of the things I visit. Singapore has a lot of museums and sites to see that I would consider before this one... there is a lot to see here.

 

This is the Malay Heritage Center that is a museum (as you probably picked up on that) among other things.  For example some fun activities that the Malay Heritage Centre conducts are movie nights on the open terrace (area in front of the building in the picture above), puts on plays, has Malay game afternoon for the kiddos and more.

 

Now for some pictures from the museum and small captions.

 

 

A Malay Sultans ceremonial belt buckle & seal

(19th century)

 

Medallion

(19th century)

 

Medallion

(19th century)

These hats belong to Javanese merchant who settled in the 19th Century and lived in the Gedung Kuning (The Yellow Mansion - picture further down)

 

 

Jewelry

 

1. top left - Chinese coins (between 17th - 19th centuries) 

2. top right - Dutch East India Company coins (between 1760 - 1820)

3. bottom left - recovered coins with Jawi inscriptions (between 18th - 20th centuries)

4. Earthen "coins" with fine lines (around 14th century)

 

 

 

Gedung Kuning (the Yellow Mansion)

Note: this building serves as a restaurant

 

You may have noticed a lot of the pictures above represent items from the 19th century, Singapore became the Republic of Singapore in 1965, thus being a new country. The 'modern' Singapore was founded around 1819 as a British colony, became apart of Japan from 1942-1945, was apart of Malaysia from 1962-1965, and as mentioned became the Republic of Singapore in 1965. Considering the history and the geographical Singapore is somewhat of a melting pot of many different cultures. It has a make up of the following ethnic cultures (this information is from 2010):

Chinese 74.1%

Malay 13.4%

Indian 9.2%

Others 3.3%

During my time here and as time progresses, I look forward to seeing this country continue to mold itself as the Republic of Singapore.

 

Below are a couple of places that we walked by during the course of this outing.

 

 

beautiful Mosque near Arab Street

 

beautiful Mosque near Arab Street

 

a fun shop along near Arab Street

 

 

pretty glass bead necklaces

 

stone necklaces that are shaped and painted



 

stone necklaces that are shaped and painted again

 

Thank you for reading my blog... Take Care, Dana

 

Some information in this entry was from Wikipedia