A Friend Comes to Visit and Singapore Botanic Gardens

Laura and Amber at Marina Bay

Saturday morning my friend and former roommate from my semester in Utah came to visit!  Amber has been teaching English in Thailand for the past 5 months and had a few weeks after her teaching ended to travel around.  Lucky for me her travels have included a week stay in Singapore!

Food Friday 7 - Century Egg

Well here we are once again recapping what Laura (and friends) ate this past week.  Lucky for you all I did not eat any heads, feet, or organs this week…though I did ingest part of a century egg YUCK!  (google it because if I write it I might get a bit sick).

For this week I want to focus on 3 meals because let’s be honest here, I’m sure you all don’t want to keep hearing about my undying love for xiao long bao (aka steamed dumplings) which I of course enjoyed on Niles last visit to Chinatown, Monday night!

Korean BBQ

Per request of Niles, we enjoyed some Korean BBQ for one of his last dinners in Singapore.  We chose a buffet style restaurant which meant all the delicious beef bulgogi Ethan could possibly eat!  Our grill included: bacon, marinated chicken, beef bulgogi, onion, and garlic.  As they were cooking, we enjoyed some sesame noodles and (not in the picture) some pancake type think?  Think scallion pancake – esk.  Once the meat and veggies were cooked, we took them off the grill and started assembling our lettuce wraps.  My favorite way to chow down was in this order – lettuce, white rice, sauce, meat, and maybe a piece of kimchi.  Yum!

7 Weeks and Goodbye for Now

This Wednesday marked 7 weeks since I landed in Singapore!  It’s incredible how fast time passes by yet I feel like there is still so much more I’d like to do while I’m here.  Looking at my first few blog posts it’s amazing to think of how far I’ve come from the shy, nervous girl in a new country.  Some days it feels like I’ve got the whole Singaporean life down and others I still feel completely new.  I guess it’s a good thing to be comfortable in a place where you are still stretched out of your comfort zone.

Today (Thursday in Singapore time) has been a rainy and surprisingly cool day.  The sad part of me would say that the weather is mimicking my emotions.  This morning I brought Niles to the airport.  For those of you who have been following along, Niles was able to have a nice long stay with me.  In those few weeks we had so many adventures together and I am so very happy that we could share this time with one another.  We’ve been in a relationship for a few years, most of which has been long distance.  His time here with me in Singapore was the most time we’ve spent living that close to one another in almost two years.  I wish I could tell you the secret to keeping a strong relationship with lots of miles in between but there isn’t really much secret to tell.  Some days it’s easy and others feel like it’ll be forever until I see him again.  This morning as I went to work I turned around to kiss him goodbye but he wasn’t there.  This afternoon I’ll arrive back from work and open the door but his smiling face won’t be there to greet me.  It’s tough but I have to keep moving forward.  Each day without him is another day closer to be with him.

All dressed up on the MRT!

Singapore Grand Prix Formula 1 Race and JLo

Sunday started off on the rocks for me.  My stomach had been churning since the bumpy and jolting ride home on the MRT Saturday night.  But Niles and I decided to take it easy Sunday morning and early afternoon as we had big plans later in the day.  When 4pm finally rolled around I was still not feeling my best but trudge downtown and was sure glad I did!

Niles and I excited for the race to start!

For three nights, the roads around the downtown area are completely shutdown to host the qualifying races leading up to the grand prix night race on Sunday.  We got tickets online and our passes were for zone 4 walkabout which meant we had a great area of the city to browse concerts, get food and drink, and an array of options for where we could choose to watch the race.

Chinese Gardens and Dempsey Hill

On Saturday in the late afternoon, Niles, Ethan, and I took the green line farther west than any of us have ever ridden before.  Our destination was the Chinese (and Japanese) Gardens.  Of course once we got off the MRT it was starting to drizzle and none of us had an umbrella.  It wasn’t raining too hard to we continued our walk through the gardens.  On our way to the entrance we saw 3 games of cricket being played.  Bonus points to whoever can tell me the point of the game and how it all works!

Food Friday 6 - Singapore classic

It's that time of the week again, food Friday!  Ok so I need to get more on top of this because technically its Saturday morning in Singapore and for my viewers in the US I've only got 2 more hours left of your Friday.  Time to type fast!

So this past week wasn't full of too many exciting dishes so this week I'm going to stick with just a couple new foods I tried.

                                          

 

Hopefully you've read my Bali posts and saw some of the cool foods I tried there.  I don't want to re-hash  my love of the volcano cooked banana sandwiches or the smooth Luwak coffee so I'll let you all go to those posts on your own.

Let's talk snakeskin fruit!  This fruit grows near the bottom of the tree and is nestled in some pockets of the tree.  Why is it called snakeskin?  Because its outer shell has the same shiny, scaly feeling as actual snakeskin!  For those of you who fear snakes like this blogger, it's a creepy but great way to feel a snake minus the whole venom/constricting stuff to worry about.

Weekend in Bali - Part Three Luwak Coffee

Have I made you fall in love with the sunrise yet?

It was 8am when we finished our hike and had you asked any of us at the time we would have told you it was well into the afternoon.

Our driver guided our tired group into the car where we took a 40 minute drive to a Bali Coffee Plantation.  Though I was tired and did end up taking a few snoozes, it was light out on our car ride so there was so much more to see.  The roads were still bumpy but didn’t bother my stomach.  I learned in the days of early Saturday practice in college that exercise is the greatest medicine.  Niles and Ethan would disagree, though they both made it all the way back to our resort without getting sick.  Driving in Bali is something that will never make my bucket list.  The narrow 2 lane streets have bumps that require cars to come to a complete stop every so often and steep hills that I still am not sure how trucks make it up.  It is definitely a place that “anything goes” as long as  you stay on the left side of the road (most of the time).  Luckily Ardi was a safe, reliable driver and we were in a nice car.

Weekend in Bali Part Two - Volcano Trek

Our big (and only) excursion for our weekend was to do the sunrise trek up Mount Batur.  There are many companies who do this trek but after a bit of research, Bali TrekkingTours.com has the best reviews and so we decided to book with them.  They were extremely accommodating with our last minute booking.  Disclaimer: all these thoughts are my own and I did not receive any compensation for this post or my experience.   

We were picked up at our resort at 1:40AM.  Our driver, Ardi, informed us that it would take 2 hours to get to the starting point of our trek so I figured it’d be a great opportunity to get some more rest.  Well with my unsteady stomach and headache from all the fruity cocktails mixed with winding, bumpy roads of Bali, I didn’t get much sleep and instead wasn’t feeling too excited for this trek.  Luckily the 3 of us made it through the entire trek without getting sick (though I thoroughly suggest not drinking alcohol the night before and getting more sleep than we did).  With not much street lights it was very dark and I couldn’t see much on the drive which was probably a good thing because had I seen the size of what we were climbing I probably would have crawled into a ball and cried hah!

Weekend in Bali - Part 1

Well hello my dear readers!  We are back from our first trip a tad sunburned, but had a great long weekend.

  

Where do I start?  A 4 day weekend in Bali, Indonesia means either one longgggg post or a couple broken out posts.  While I’d love to have your opinions I think it would only prolong me getting out my review of the weekend so I’ve gone ahead and chosen for us.  The verdict- you will get a few different posts recapping various aspects of my Bali weekend.

Getting to Bali

Friday morning our crew headed to Changi Airport and arrived with plenty of time to grab a coffee and find our gate.  Well unfortunately our flight was delayed by an hour, which turned into us not actually leaving the ground until an hour and 30+ minutes after our initial departure time.  But no worries, we were headed for paradise!  We took a budget airline which means no drink service or snacks.  Not a huge deal as our flight was only 2.5 hours.  Upon landing in Bali (make note it looks like you’re going to land in the ocean but you don’t), we were greeted with a 45 minute wait to get through customs!  Once through customs and getting our visitor visa, we started the hunt for our driver.  We were greeted by TONS of other resort driver services and I immediately became overwhelmed with the amount of people around shouting at us, pointing, trying to get our attention.  Due to our flight being delayed our driver was not waiting for us.  We found our way to the information booth where they would call our for our hotel to get our drivers attention.  While we were waiting taxi drivers kept coming up to us and offering to drive.  Most got the point and walked away, but one was INCREDIBLY pushy.  Uncomfortable, annoyed Laura + persistent taxi driver = MAD, rude, you’re messing with the wrong person Laura.  I repeatedly told this guy to leave us alone and tried to ignore him but he just didn’t get it.  Thankfully our resort driver showed up, an hour later, and took us to our resort.

Food Friday (Thursday) 5

Here we go again!  Let’s take a look at what Laura ate this past week. Also I apologize for the earlier than Friday post as I will be headed out on my first trip Friday so you'll have to deal with these yummy eats until I get back!

In the same nut-free fashion, Niles and I made our own stir-fry noodles.  Nothing too fancy here, we used Chinese la mian noodles and spinach noodles.  I have to say I’m digging the whole fried egg on top style that Singapore has introduced me too.  Great way to get an added bit of protein!

A Brewerkz Sort of Weekend

This weekend was definitely the most low-key weekend I’ve had since being in Singapore, which I happily accepted.  It’s hard not getting overwhelmed with wanting to see everything and make sure to check off everything from those “best things to do in Singapore” or “things you must do before leaving Singapore” lists.  While 6 months seems like plenty of time to get things done, it also goes by SO quickly, as I’ve learned from previous rotations.  I spent the last 6 months exploring the Midwest (shout out to my Indy friends) and I feel as if there is so much more I could have done!

This weekend started out with our gang of three having a few things on our list to check off.  While some of them didn’t make our final itinerary, I feel like we had a great weekend anyway!

Food Friday 4 - No Nuts Please!

It’s that time of the week again…Food Friday!

I know that most of my readers have probably come to dread this weekly post but I promise you this week doesn’t contain any stomach churning items.  My goal each week is to capture some of my daily meals plus try 1 new thing each week.  I have stuck to my goal so far and lucky for both of us, my new food was something that my fellow westerners would enjoy as well.

                      

    

Chinatown Mid Autumn Mooncake Festival

On a side note- you probably know that my boyfriend is visiting Singapore right now.  While I am so very happy to have him around, his food allergies have made eating a sometimes stressful event.  My boyfriend is allergic to peanuts and tree nuts.  This isn’t such a big deal in the states as it’s a common allergy and people are very much aware of how to handle it.  But the nut allergy hasn’t really hit Asia yet.  As eating out is a common (and cheaper) pastime in Singapore I asked my coworkers to write Chinese on a piece of paper that we could carry around.  This is what they came up with:

An Afternoon on Sentosa Island

Sunday fun-day had our gang of three, Niles+Ethan+Me, headed to Singapore’s Sentosa Island.  This island is just to the south west of Singapore and offers a few beaches, attractions such as Universal Studio and an aquarium, as well as plenty of restaurants/bars.  It took us about an hour via public transportation to arrive which was too bad considering we didn’t have to deal with parking or any long queues.

 

Just the Way You Look Tonight - Marina Bay Sands

One of the iconic buildings in Singapore is Marina Bay Sands, three towers that hold a massive boat atop.  This building is like no other in the world and it truly a unique and incredible sight that never ceases to amaze me.  And while seeing the building from around the bay is stunning to see, the real special view is from the 57^th floor on the “boat deck”.

Friday night Niles, Ethan, and I had reservations at the Chocolate and Cheese Bar