On Saturday morning, we took an Uber to Orchard Road, which has been described as one of the more "touristy" areas of Singapore. Lots and lots of high-end shopping. We ended up going to Din Tai Fung (surprised?) for lunch at the first restaurant that Jess visited when he was here last year. We ordered crab and pork soup dumplings, which came with a cute lil' crab dough thing. We also sat next to the Doublemint twins.
Exploring some more of Orchard Street, we ventured toward ION Orchard, an eight (?) level mall, hoping to find a store with a specific type of hair dye. On the way, we stopped into the least glitzy mall we've seen so far, with lots of "tourist" shops, tchotchkes, electronics, chocolate, phone cases, etc. You name it, this place probably had a shop/stall for it.
We made our way to ION, somewhat confused as to how the place was laid out: it had something like 4 or 5 upper floors, and another 4 underground floors. Huge mall! Jessie got a delicious lychee milk tea at a place called "Each A Cup." While the store that supposedly had the hair dye was missing, Jess found a long sleeve button-down shirt more appropriate to the Singapore weather. Continuing to walk around, Jessie spotted essentially a Singapore Whole Foods, complete with a ton of white people and overpriced food! We purchased a few items, including steak and potatoes for Sunday's dinner.
We got a cab home and the cabbie was the chattiest Singaporean native we've met so far. He told us all about the history of the country, where the various "old" industries were, how little money he needed to eat "three square meals a day," etc. He rolled his eyes several times at comments Jessie made, and called her "lady" at least three times. He was awesome.
We went to the pool, and Jess took a quick swim in the rain. Back to the room, made some margaritas with the "seedless lemons Thailand" that Jessie found (they were limes), and we went to a place across the street called "The Lab" (which seemed to have a "Breaking Bad" theme) for a... Heisenburger.
We managed to catch more fireworks from the room, but better pictures this time as it wasn't raining!
Sunday morning, Jessie woke up and was almost positive she's sick :(. We headed to Bugis Junction (don't let the name fool you, it's ANOTHER mall), to check out Singapore's take on a local Virginia favorite, BonChon. It was cooked better than either of the VA locations, but wasn't sauced as much so the flavor wasn't quite as good. Sad times! Surprisingly, they also didn't have kimchi-coleslaw, it was regular 'ol boring American coleslaw.
Upstairs at Bugis (Boo-ghees), we went to a store called 77th street due to our neverending quest for hair dye, and found a selection of the brand Jessie uses! Unfortunately, her suspicious were right, and they only sold a few different shades of red and one shade of blue. Feeling defeated, we hunted down somewhere that sold creme brulee in the mall, and found a place called "Everything With Fries" that sold an "Orange Kaya Pisang Creme Brulee," which was, well, orange in color, with pieces of banana inside, and served with buttered croutons on top. We had no idea what was going on with it, but it was satisfying enough.
On a hunt for tsum tsums for Jessie's sister and her family, we found two toy stores at Bugis: the first that sold "collectibles" and lots of adult nerdy figurines, the other appeared to be a mini-flea market where people could rent cubbies to sell "toys" (in the loosest definition, as there were tons of phone cases, USB cables, stickers, and other similar items).
At home, Jess used the stove for the first time to cook a steak for dinner. Not having a handle on the range and its temperature settings, the steaks ended up not as crusty as we're used to, but was still cooked well. We microwaved potatoes (in our microwave / convection / "grill"(?) oven), for a somewhat unsatisfying meal.
We finished the evening by facetiming with Jessie's mother, niece, and nephew.
Monday
Yup, Jessie's sick -- probably leftover from before we left home. Jess went to work on Monday, and Jessie met up with him for lunch and a trip to the US embassy! We took a cab to Tanglin Mall (another one!), and had Nando's Peri-Peri for lunch. It was very similar to what we have back home, but they had potato wedges (delicious), but they were lacking the salad Jessie usually orders.
For some reason, Tanglin mall is full of toy stores and white women with tiny babies.
We completed lunch with a salted caramel macaron and a "super black" and hazelnut gelato. Delicious.
The whole reason for this trip was to visit the US Embassy for a visa related task, but by the time we got there (3:05pm), we were told the visa people had left at 3! Five minutes too late, despite them being open until 5:15pm!
We got a cab back to the room (for Jessie), and the office (for Jess). After work, Jess walked home, then went down to the gym (for the first time in two weeks), for some squats and incline walking.
Afterrward, Jessie was dead set on getting sushi, but the place she chose was unfortunately closed on Mondays. We went to "Vatos Urban Tacos" instead, and it was delicious! We started with chips and guac, then had galbi tacos, pork belly tacos, and fried baja fish tacos. Jessie ordered a mojito that included cilantro as an ingredient, not noticing the cilantro on the menu (and she hates cilantro!). Jess originally ordered a beer, but after asking what the GIANT JUG on the table next to us was, decided to order one of those. It was a Makgeolita, which is made with makgeolli, a Korean rice wine. Everything was incredibly tasty (with the exception of Jessie's mojito! (Jess drank and liked it).
