Despite almost being late for our flight, we made it with enough time to grab a pretzel from Auntie Anne's and line up for boarding.
The first flight was 14 hours long. Thankfully, the plane was almost empty! We got two rows of 3 seats to ourselves at one point, and each managed to get a few hours of sleep thanks to our pal Benadryl! Jessie spent most of the flight watching Supernatural, and Jess played video games and watched Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Thanks, pirated tv shows! The food was edible, but we definitely felt awful the next day.
We landed in Japan at about dinner time with a 1.5 hour layover. We booked it past the Ultraman photo op, in a quest for sushi before our flight. Success! Sushi Kyotatsu to the rescue! "OMG so good arglebargleblrr" -Jessie. Afterward, we hung out in the United Lounge for just long enough to drink a coffee before having to line up to get back on the metal tube we had just spent so much time in.
Seven hours later, despite thinking we'd be detained, caned, or killed ("DEATH TO DRUG TRAFFICKERS" on their customs declaration form), there was barely a customs check when we landed in Singapore. Our driver took us to our serviced apartment at about 2am in a van that had seatbelts and seats sized for infants.
The building hallways between the front desk and our room aren't air conditioned, so that was an unpleasant first experience. At this point, it's 3am and we're wondering what we've gotten ourselves into. We check all the cabinets and find that we have two forks, two spoons, two water glasses, and two wine glasses. No plates (we found them the next morning, along with a teapot and some coffee/tea mugs). One pot, one pan. The couch sounds like a whoopie cushion. After eating probably the worst room service "caesar" salad and "pepperoni" "pizza," we pass out.
The next morning, the view from our room is incredible. Lush, green, and water.
Being hungry (and not wanting to tempt fate with more room service), we set out for coffee and lunch! We headed across the street to an area that has a New Orleans vibe (not quite sure what this neighborhood is called), had an iced coffee at a place called "Le Frenchie," walked around a little bit and headed to Suntec City for lunch.
Suntec City is a giant office complex / mall / hotel / dining area / labyrinth, which also happens to be where Jess' office will be while we're here. We walked around in circles for about an hour, looking at all of the directories for the place we were trying to go to lunch. We finally found appropriate directions and ended up almost exactly where we entered the mall in the first place. Had we turned right instead of left, we would have been there in 20 seconds instead of 60 minutes. That said, we found a grocery store and a really cute kitchen store that does cooking classes that smelled SO GOOD.
For lunch, we had dim sum at Din Tai Fung. We ended up ordering way too much food, but ate it all. Xiao long bao, pork and shrimp shumai, some chili wonton thing, dates with gelatinous rice cake, spicy cucumber, and delicious jasmine tea.
The walk back to the room was much quicker than our trek to lunch. Jessie spent a good amount of time deleting Ally McBeal and Star Trek recordings from 2014 on the DVR and putting in a new recording schedule. While putting away our purchases we found plates and bowls.
Jess took a few minutes to try to figure out how to un-whoopie cushion our couch, while Jessie researched local honey in Singapore. Turns out they don't really have bees and people don't understand honey.
After a reboot, we ventured back out for dinner. By this time Jessie is feeling much sicker than when we even left our house in Herndon, so it was a quicker adventure than we hoped. We did find that the neighborhood across the street is even more New Orleans-y at night (music, DJs, tons of food, outdoor tables). After getting out of the crowded area we found a much more mellow spot called Laffio with a great looking menu (Potty Mess, anyone? no, really... that's the name of the dessert we had served in a flower pot with a tiny shovel instead of a spoon). We met the owner, Doreen, who gave us her phone number so we can text her if we need directions or have any questions about the area.
Oh yea... and there's a cat cafe.
