Our Travel Blog

From the family that brought you Tiger Balm... Haw Par Villa!

We started our day attempting to find a place that serves breakfast and is actually open at LATE breakfast time.... like 10am. Finally found 3 or 4 places, and decided on one across the street. We walked over there and guess what? It wasn't opening until noon. So we walked around to I am... and sat for 20 minutes until they opened at 11. We enjoyed some pizza then wandered around with our leftovers. We came across a mannequin that had an unnerving resemblance (note the creeped out look on my face). Then we went back to the apartment and waited out some of the extreme mid day sun.

I opened an Etsy shop, so you should definitely go and check that out. And favorite my shop, and share my shop, and talk about my shop, and maybe even buy something from my shop. JessieRaePhotography (clicky clicky!) on Etsy!

 

We waited around until about 4p to finally head over the Haw Par Villa. The mid day sun was extremely hot that day, and I was still feeling pretty sick. Our Uber driver picked us up and when we told him we were going to Haw Par Villa he laughed. He said he would not recommend this park to everyone, but it's worth seeing. He also said "never take your kids there." (The first thing we saw when we arrived was kids!). During our drive he also told us where to go if we wanted to buy a $3 shovel or mop, and neighborhoods to go to for certain things, and to avoid for certain things.

I don't think I can do Haw Par Villa any justice by talking about it... so I will probably just let the photos speak for themselves. I actually brought along my DSLR for this trip, so there are a lot of photos.

First off... these plaques were about halfway through the park, but it's the story of the park. We didn't stand there and read them at the time because it was so hot (and to be honest, we still haven't read them), but I thought I would share with you so you can get the complete story. Open the images and expand for reading size!

Here are all the shots from our phone cameras. Nothing too too weird here. 

Find out what Chinese zodiac animal you are (if you don't already know) and read a little about yourself! Jessie is an ox and Jess is a dog.

And now for some really weird stuff...

It's a relatively large park (jam packed with crazy), and it was still extremely hot outside even by the time we finished, so we were exhausted. We called an Uber and had him drop us off across the street so we could grab some schawarma before coming back up to the apartment for the night. Here are some meat tornados for your viewing pleasure.

I think it was just about sundown by the time we were getting settled in. We watched some tv and Jess noticed flashing emergency vehicle lights in the distance. I was about to head to bed fairly early (10:30pm), when I stood up and noticed the lights weren't just emergency vehicles.

...that happened. The next day we were overcome with heat exhaustion and my continuing illness, so it was an easy day spent mostly indoors binge watching Fuller House (mostly Jessie, but Jess did watch a couple). ;) But it restored some of our energy for the upcoming week. We will try to post a full week recap so we can get caught up again!

Jess is working on a video project from Haw Par... there will be a special blog update when that is complete.

You've been waiting a whole week?

Hi guys... just me, Jessie, this time. Sorry it's been a while... Jess has been working every day, and I'm still sick. Just finishing up our second full week here and I feel like garbage... can't get rid of this awful cough. I'm waking up through the night with coughing fits that last 10-30 minutes, or I just can't get back to sleep at all.

So this is just a quick recap of the week, Tuesday through Friday. Not much happened... obviously all we've done again is eat. So we ended our last post on Monday... we attempted to go to the embassy to finish up paperwork to get a long term visitor's visa for me (to go along with insurance, so I can maybe go to a doctor). They were closed so we had to go back Tuesday morning. Jess had a phone meeting that morning that he took care of at the apartment, then we took an Uber over to the embassy.

Pretty intense security to get through there, two checkpoints. And surprise... the employees working both checkpoints don't speak English very well at all. Made for a very "welcoming" and confusing situation. But we got through, there wasn't a wait, and it was all very quick and simple. The visa has been approved, we're just waiting on some sort of official document now. And Jess is now officially responsible for me in this country.

Took another Uber over to Suntec City... we got a woman driver! We were just talking about how we had only ever had 3 other women drivers in the entire time we've been using uber, and we got another. She got to us in about 2 minutes after calling her, and she boasted about how "quick" she is.

I had been craving sushi for days, and every time I want to go somewhere here they are either not open, or not serving food, despite the internet saying otherwise. We went back to Sushi Goshin at Suntec... just as slow as before, but the sushi and the prices are good.

I walked Jess back to his office before going to Giant for dinner supplies, and we stopped at Tuk Tuk Cha on the way. Fantastic Thai tea and coffee... I'm going to miss the places like this when we go back home. Having milk tea so accessible is a dream come true.

We had spaghetti for dinner, so I went to Giant to grab the necessities... noodles, sauce, chips and queso (YES they have some of our gross American snacks... it was a necessity)... however, their garlic powder was $9! I almost bought Garlic Bread Sprinkle... but it seemed to hold a very singular purpose, Jess probably wouldn't have been thrilled. Oh yea! And I dyed my hair that night... the ONLY tube of hair dye I brought with me... yikes!

A sort of storm rolled in Wednesday, late morning. The dark clouds moved quickly... these photos were over the course of about 20 minutes, at most.

The rain cleared up by early evening and I met Jess at Suntec once he was done with work. We walked around trying to figure out what the eat... sometimes when there are too many food options it's just as bad as not having any options. We finally decided on Paulaner Brauhaus, and it was a great choice. I had pork schnitzel with a mushroom cream sauce, it was amazing with the super salty fries, and Jess had some really good currywurst. We had a dark beer and a hefeweizen that were both pretty good, but pricy like most of the alcohol around here!

We also went back over to Giant for I don't even remember what, but we got a picture of the seedless lemons sign, and I guess Jess liked the "old man" sign on the bathroom stall. Back at the apartment building we met a British couple in the "lift." We had known that there was supposedly a 7-Eleven in this building, but couldn't find it. This guy mentioned using "the other lift that comes out by the 7-Eleven" so after taking our groceries back to the room we went on an adventure. A week after arriving, we finally found the 7-Eleven, and another mini mart in our apartment building. Check out the cigarette warning labels (ahem, mom... I'll get a better shot of these for you!).

I had a fit of a night with this cough, and Jess appeased me by going to the pool early Thursday morning before work. Woke up with a sore throat, sore neck/shoulders from the hard bed, and a headache. Poolside 7-9am is the most comfortable place and time of day here, so it really made me feel better.

Jess left for work and I wandered around craving a bagel. Once again, a place that claimed to have what I wanted, claimed to not serve food when I showed up. I sat outside drinking an iced latte and watching lots and lots of Asian tourists taking pictures of themselves in front of the painted buildings. I gave up on finding a unique place for a bagel and ended up at a Starbucks, which was really good enough. I also really wanted a sweet tea. She had to special brew iced black tea for me, then verified that I wanted it sweet. She watched in horror as I added additional simple syrup to it myself at the fixin's bar. But it was so so good.

Almost forgot what we did Thursday. We met up with Ravi, who is a friend of a friend of Jess'. He treated us to a great Indian dinner at Muthu's Curry. He ordered and explained what everything is, and how things are typically eaten. He and Jess talked about infosec stuff, since that's the field they're both in, and then we had a deliciously sugary sticky sweet dessert before we left. I thought he called it Grub Yum, which is what I'll be calling it from now on, but it's actually called Gulab Jamun.

Friday I met Jess out at Suntec for a later lunch. We checked out Shihlin Taiwan Street Snacks on the recommendation of one of his coworkers. Cash only, little English, very tasty. On a second visit we won't need the "happy box" because I didn't even want to look at the tofu, and the rice wasn't really necessary, but the chicken was crispy and tasty. We also ordered sweet plum potato fries and they were deeeelicious. (The meat tornados are from the kebab place next door!). On my way home I grabbed a few donuts from Jco Donuts, and Jess sent me a picture of these yummy looking ice cream cups on his way home... if it wasn't SO hot here I wouldn't have insisted that he brought me one.

Friday night we walked around Arab Street trying to figure out what we wanted for dinner. We had decided on I Am... but they were packed, with a line down the block by the time we got there. We walked past Going Om, which was empty except for one couple sitting outside, and I thought a salad sounded good so we went in. It was dark and comfortable, though it was a little hot that night. I ordered the Avocado salad, and it was the best most refreshing salad I've ever had in my life. At least in the moment... I'm going to have to have it again. Their drinks were okay, but definitely not worth ordering another for the price.

After dinner we headed back in the direction of our apartment. But I suggested we stop at CAD Cafe, which is where I did *not* had a bagel the other day, but they had a great beer selection that I wanted to show Jess. Turns out, their beer selection is fantastically priced given the prices of extremely mediocre alcohol here. So we were happy with this place. We sat outside and had two beers each. The employee came out and chatted with us for a bit, since diverse beer isn't really a thing here, he was interested in our thoughts on their selection and hearing about what we have at home.

It was also enjoyable watching the crowd and listening to the bizarre selection of music being played across the street.

I wrapped up the evening with a foreign decongestant. I've now taken 3 and I don't think it's doing anything. Recognizable ingredients, but perhaps not the dosages I'm used to... they didn't seem to have any 12 or 24 hour meds, so taking something that only lasts 2-4 hours isn't helping me much through the night.

Weekend updates coming soon... we had an adventure. A very scary adventure...

Overflowing weekend update - we did a whole lot of nothing because half of us feels like garbage

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).

It actually rained today. A lot.

Since we've been here the forecast has been consistently a chance of rain all day, every day. Prior to today we had one sun shower, for about ten minutes. Today it actually did what it was supposed to do. It cooled things off (77 degrees actually felt like 77!), but also made things much more humid. All the inside areas today were very wet feeling. And it was finally confirmed that the hall in our apartment building is open to the outside! (...because it's raining into our building).

Jess had an important meeting this morning and apparently crushed it. So much so that the guy stayed longer than scheduled, and he was treated to coffee. Thankfully he wasn't also treated to lunch as planned because that would have ruined our daily routine. ;) So I headed out around noon to meet him for lunch. Thankfully the rain had stopped for the time. We walked around the mall so I could show Jess my knowledge of the bizarre layout (I think i've figured it out!). I made him go with me to take pictures of the arcade machines filled with Tsum Tsums so I didn't look like a creeper. They have car Tsum Tsums!? Now I am obsessed with trying to find a toy store that actually sells plush toys.

We walked through 3 different food courts before kind of deciding to have Din Tai Fung again. The wait was 30 minutes, so we went to our back up option next door... sushi. They had tablets at each table for ordering, with pictures of all the menu items. Everything was really nicely priced and the sushi was really good for the cost. It will definitely be worth another visit, though they didn't have as many roll options as we've seen at other places. We also ordered a Sour Sop, which is a juice that's rumored to cure cancer. Yum!

We parted ways and I went on a search for a squeeze bottle (for simple syrup), a jigger, a cocktail shaker, a juicer, a towel, a pillow case, and some citrus. The limes were labeled as "seedless lemon Thailand". I walked back to the apartment and it started raining again just as I got to the door.

Jess left work a little late and it was raining lightly on his walk. We decided on Pho for dinner since this is the coolest day we've had so far. We went to Mrs Pho just down the street. Jess ordered pho, which wasn't as flavorful as what we're used to at home. I had a vermicelli bowl which was also fairly basic, but had great flavors. We ordered "green mango with chili & salt" because neither of us had any idea what that was. Turns out... it's green mango with chili and salt, and it was really good. Jess ordered a salty lemonade and drank it quickly. I had a vietnamese coffee which is delicious, but did not go well with my food, so we ordered Mrs Pho's summer tea which was right up my alley! Very close to a southern sweet tea. The restaurant itself was very narrow and packed though, and the cashier apologized to Jess for the space being so "tiny."

By the time we finished dinner it was pouring, so obviously it was the perfect time for a walk. I decided we should try a place that has gelato cocktails, which according to Google Maps was supposed to be right around the corner. We got to the point on the map before realizing it was marked wrong, but it was only a couple more blocks up and across the street. Like everything else here, it's not very far, and it was worth the wet walk!

The walk back was quick, but still very wet. The rain drops here are huge (judging from the two rains we've now witnessed). Also, it turns out that the air here is so humid you don't actually realize how much you're sweating or how wet you are from the rain until you get inside to a dryer environment. I really thought my feet were completely dry, but my socks were soaked through by the time we got back to the room.

We stopped in the hall to take a picture of the atrium with the rain coming in. We both mentioned how glad we are to not be living on the floor that is now a swimming pool. Not really sure why that level is offset from the others.

We made it back inside and got cleaned up and settled in just in time to hear fireworks across the way. The view from our huge windows just keeps getting better and better.

Now Jess is playing video games (Grim Fandango) and drinking a Tiger beer, and I'm enjoying a Sweet Touch (a Taiwanese lychee beer that's fairly low in alcohol but tasty). It looks like a 20-95% chance of rain for the rest of the weekend, so we'll need to research rainy day activities. We've almost overcome the extreme jet lag so it's time to explore more than a 10 minute walking radius!

All we do is eat

So it's been a few days since our last post. We keep saying "we'll post it tonight," but by the time we get settled back into our room and transfer photos to the computer we are so tired. I'm convinced that life in Singapore is just made up of a lot of walking between coffee shops and restaurants. Because of that we are in a constant state of full and exhausted.

This is Jessie's view in the morning after Jess leaves for work. Pictured is our boxed milk with a sell by date of December 2016, sold unrefrigerated.

Jessie wasn't feeling well on Tuesday so she stayed home and had a really lousy sandwich while Jess went to Din Tai Fung again. But thankfully she was feeling better by the time Jess was off work and she met him at the office to take a cab to Clark Quay. After taking care of Jess' employment pass, we went to Jumbo seafood for Chili Crab and Black Pepper Crab. Nevermind the price (not listed on the menu), the crabs were pretty good. Though as a Maryland girl, Jessie was missing the Old Bay.

Being days after the fact I almost forgot to mention that we had what seemed like tornado force winds. Hair and bibs and napkins blowing everywhere, and very difficult to manage with extremely saucy hands. Jessie ended up with Black Pepper sauce in her hair.

After dinner we walked around Clark Quay. Definitely more places worth checking out on a less blustery day. Before catching an Uber back to the apartment we popped into another mall and had some Beard Papa's (omg desfiesijdvldjg cream puffs).

It must have been an early bedtime that night because neither of us can remember doing anything once we got back. This may have been the night Jessie fell asleep while Jess was playing video games. We've been real party animals over here.

By Wednesday we were rested and feeling more optimistic about things again. We met up for lunch at Bali Thai in Suntec City Mall. Once again...yuuummmm. So many lunch options makes it really easy and difficult at the same time... at least we have time to try lots of things.

Jess went back to work while Jessie went on a mission for a less fluffy pillow to sleep on (the fluffiness of these hotel pillows aren't giving me any neck support... so much tension in my back!).
The bathrooms here are ...unique? confusing? Some have been really nice. A few have been not so nice and not air conditioned. And every now and then we come across one like below.

We decided on an American restaurant for dinner since Jessie had been craving mac and cheese (Thanks for posting that food video, Cayla!). Unsure of what Singapore considers a Southern American restaurant, we were really pleasantly surprised. The mac and cheese ranked pretty high on the best scale.

Mosque prayer had started by the time we were walking back. You can hear it for blocks in any direction (woke up to it at 6am the other day). Pretty interesting to see and hear every day.
Oh yea... and we have a tiny fridge full of TIger beer.

Today Jessie woke up feeling so much better after sleeping on a stiff, not at all comfortable pillow (terrible how that works... the fluffy one is so much more comfortable, but really bad on my neck). Jess recorded his walk to work, and might redo it. Maybe we'll post a video sometime soon. Jessie walked to Suntec later in the afternoon to meet him for lunch again. With so many delicious options it's difficult to eat in.

We found a place just outside his office building called Alt Pizza. Third pizza we've had here and the best by far. Also some really amazingly delicious "artichoke spinach" dip. Jess was surprised to find Modern Times beer (a not very large brewery outside of San Diego, CA) on the menu. PIcked up info on their loyalty app, so it's likely to be a frequent lunch spot (Jess was eyeing up the burgers).

After Jess went back to work, Jessie explored the mall some more while texting him a play by play. This mall is configured in such a weird way. This might have to be a (very long) video because I can't even explain how weird it is.

We decided on Mexican food when Jess got off work. Piedra Negra is just across the street and has a pretty good looking menu (and nicely priced cocktails for the area). Their queso fundido was delicious, but not like what we have at home. Jess' burrito was served with "criss cross" fries, and Jessie's fish tacos were good, but fairly bland, and the sauce with them was really good! The ambiance in the place was interesting and definitely worth a few photos. Jess' margarita was ok, but Jessie's mojito was so good Jess ended up ordering one as well.

We walked around a little more after dinner because we keep noticing new things each time. It's also helpful to walk around at dinner time since most of the restaurants have open fronts. This way we can see and smell things that people have ordered and plan our future dinners accordingly. ;)

We've been wanting to go to the pool the past few days, but we're not waking up early enough to go in the morning, and the whole pool is shaded by the evening. The water was really cold the first day we tried, so I think we'll be wanting the sun when we go again. For now we're having a glass of Angel's Envy bourbon and making it another early bedtime.