Singapore: Haw Par Villa

Before leaving the US, I researched quirky sites to visit in Singapore. One such place kept popping up over & over again: Haw Par Villa.  Haw Par Villa is a Chinese sculpture garden based on Chinese mythology. It was built by the makers of the world famous Tiger Balm. 

Haw Par Villa was mostly deserted when Matty & I visited. We saw maybe 25-30 people there. This place was not only quirky, but kind of scary. You'll see what I mean in a minute.☺

Entrance to the sculpture garden.☺

Information about Har Par Villa & it's founders.

Famous tiger car owned by Boon Haw

 

Heed the warning!
 The ten courts of hell was SCARY!

 

 

We were happy there were English translations for the ten courts of hell. I tried my best to get photos of the translations. Make sure you read them before looking at the photos. It will explain a lot.

 

WARNING: The photos are GRAPHIC & VERY GORY! Skip this post if you are squeamish!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The rest of the park was full of interesting sculptures as well. Some had English translations, others did not. We were left perplexed by some sculptures that we saw. Like this these:

 What does this mean?

 

Statue of Liberty is here because....?

This pond was very pretty & full of turtles.

 

When we were ready to go, a couple stopped Matty & asked if they could have their photo taken with him. 

 

This sign was at the exit. I don't know who would want to break into Haw Par Villa at night! It's scary enough during broad daylight. 

I am very happy we were able to visit Haw Par Villa. It is by far, the quirkiest attraction I have ever seen in my life.☺

Singapore: Dinner with Friends

What a difference a nap makes! We woke up from our nap, got dressed (in our own clothes, thankfully!) & headed down to the lobby to wait for a cocktail before meeting Omid's coworkers.

 

Happy & well rested.
Fun fact: one glass of Tiger Beer + one glass of wine = $38! No joke!

We met up with Valen, Chery & Jeffrey at a seafood restaurant called Ban Leong Wah Hoe. The food was amazing! We tried black pepper crab which was even MORE delicious than the chili crab.

Words cannot even describe how delicious this was.

Valen & Cheryl ordered some prawn paste chicken wings. The best chicken I have ever tasted! We also had laksa noodles, whole frogs (which made me sad, as I love frogs), braised vegetables & lots more.

 

I was so full, I thought I would burst. Then Valen announced that we were heading to an Indian restaurant for roti prata.  I had read all about the Indian bread, but never tried it before. Very exciting, plus it's fun to say: roti prata, roti prata, roti prata.☺

The gang!
Omid's coworkers from left to right: Valen, Cheryl & Jeffrey

Roti prata with a spicy sauce.

Omid & I ordered a honey + butter prata. YUMMERS!

Matty chose prata with chocolate sauce & sprinkles.☺

By this time, we were lapsing into a food coma. Sleep beckoned! Jeffrey graciously drove us home, as Omid needed to go to work the next morning. 

 

Coming up next: Haw Par Villa & the Ten Courts of Hell.

Singapore: Shangri La Hotel & Nassim Road

Sunrise our second day.

 

 

View from our hotel (to the right).
I love the lush foliage mixed right in with the city.

View from our hotel (to the left).

A quick note about our hotel: I LOVED IT! I didn't take any photos of the inside or the grounds as I knew I wouldn't be able to capture the elegance of it all. It's an absolutely gorgeous hotel! Click on this link to take a virtual tour.

 

 

 

This is Johnny, the Shangri La concierge. Such a nice guy!
He helped us a lot. If we weren't asking him questions about this & that, Johnny
made it a point to always come over & asked us what we had done/or were about to do.

 

For breakfast on our 2nd day, we decided to go to the Wisma Atria hawker center for breakfast. 

Fun fact: A hawker center is a food court with LOTS of different restaurants to choose from. They are in every shopping mall & all over the city. It's the most economical way to eat in Singapore. The three of us were able to eat breakfast for about $8; while lunch & dinner averaged between $10-15...for ALL 3 of us!

 

We left our hotel & walked to the Wisma Atria. Look what we found on the way!

 Omid's sister, Arezou, had taken this very picture about 15 years ago & gave it to Nas. Nas was so excited there was a street with her name on it (albeit spelled a bit differently). It was fun to finally see it for myself. I hope Naseem will get to visit & have her photo taken right next to it in the near future.☺

And a little further down the road, Omid showed us this sign.☺

 

Jeffrey had told us we should try something called 'kaya toast.' We really wanted to try it, so that was on our agenda for breakfast. Kaya is a egg, coconut & pandan jam. Pandan is a vanilla flavored herb.  It sounded interesting & tasted amazing! It was love at first bite for me.☺

Kaya soft bun on the left, traditional kaya toast on the right.

Kaya jam made such an impression on me, I purchased 5 jars right away.☺

Jars of happiness.☺

After breakfast, we headed back to the hotel. Omid & Matty wanted to swim, as it was about 95* & very humid. I loved being hot, but they didn't enjoy it as much.

 

 

After cooling off, we were all extremely tired again. Jet lag had set in & it was time for a nap. Omid's coworkers wanted to take us out to dinner, so we had to rest up. No more falling asleep while sightseeing!  Stay tuned for part three!

Singapore: Raffles Hotel & Harbor Front/Esplanade

We have been home for exactly 24 hours now. Singapore - WOW! What an experience!!! I will not hesitate the next time Omid asks me to go there with him. I am 100% positive that I could live AND thrive there. The climate alone is exactly what I love!! 95* everyday! The weather was pure bliss & I was in heaven. ☺

 

Here's what we did the first day: Besides obsessing about my lost luggage, we had to go shopping for clothes for all three of us. This isn't easy for people of our size. There is really only 'Asian' size in Singapore. I was an XL. That was very hard for me to comprehend. It was very difficult to find clothes that fit me. Not all stores sell XL for women there. :(  After finding a skirt & three shirts (that's ALL I could find in my size), we decided the next stop would be the Raffles Hotel for a Singapore Sling! The Raffles Hotel is where the famous drink was invented.

 

Ingredients list for Singapore Sling.
You read the price right: $26!!!
Alcohol is extremely expensive there. We only had a few glasses of wine &/or beer, as I thought $20 for a glass of wine was ridiculous! Especially if I knew the brand & the bottle cost $13 here in WA.
 

This drink tasted like pink bubblegum. Not one of my favorite flavors. But...it was worth the ambience inside the Raffles Long Bar. It was like we stepped back in time. Super neat.



Please excuse the jet lag & just focus on the pretty drink.☺

After I slurped down my drink, we walked around the hotel. Absolutely beautiful!

This is the front of the hotel. Very British in the architecture. Loved it!

 Wherever we travelled in Singapore (even just to the supermarket) the flowers/foliage were simply stunning.

Such interesting & pretty flowers.

"Fan' style palm tree.
 

 

We headed back to our beautiful hotel, the Shangri La, changed into our XL clothes & waited for Omid's coworker, Jeffrey to pick us up & take us to dinner.

Happy!

YO!

 

I neglected to get any photos of Jeffrey this night. Too bad. He was super nice & took us to the Glutton Bay Hawker Center for dinner. We had Singapore's most famous dish, Chili Crab for dinner. I also forgot to get any photos of our dinner!!! SO MAD! We also had the BEST satay I've EVER had at this hawker center. Matty agrees with me!☺

 

After dinner, we walked around the esplanade. Check out this casino. It's called the Marina Bay Sands. A hotel, casino & mall in one.  The top looks like a cruise ship & I'm not sure why.

This building is the Esplande Theaters on the Bay & is shaped like the famous Singapore fruit, durian.

I tried my best to avoid tasting the durian but did. It tastes like natural gas smells. NO JOKE!

 

 

The merlion is the symbol of Singapore. It's on money, chocolate, everything!
It was undergoing maintenance so we were unable to get up close & personal.
 

Jeffrey continued to take us all over the harbour front & esplanade. We walked under roads/bridges & I took these two shots. I thought they were very aesthetic.

The vines attached to this tree tell how old the tree is. The longer the vine,

the older the tree.

See how tired we are? We were dying! We had so much more planned for the evening, but
I could not keep my eyes open. So. Tired.

After we took this photo, Jeffrey took us back to our hotel.

Thank you Jeffrey for being our tour guide!☺

Singapore - We Made It!

We finally made it! With flight delays (on all three flights) it actually took us 27 hours to get here from Portland.   Here is a photo of Matty & I right before leaving PDX.

Happy travelers!

Our plane in Portland was delayed for an hour, which made making our connecting flight tight. Matty & I said our goodbyes to Omid in Portland before leaving as he was in the rear of the plane & we sat in the front. We made it to San Francisco with a half hour to spare....only to sit on the tarmac for 25 minutes. We pushed our way through to first class & were the 3rd & 4th people off the plane. We ran for our lives & made it to our connecting flight with ONE minute to spare. It was just like we were on The Amazing Race - but boy was it stressful!

Once on the plane to Hong Kong, we find out our flight is delayed again by an hour. I was actually happy about this because I thought for sure it meant our luggage would also make the flight. Not so! But more about that later.

Our flight finally took off and it took us almost 14 hours to get to Hong Kong. There were two very good movies (& two bad) on the way over. If you can, please watch The Best Ever Marigold Hotel for the Beautiful & Elderly. LOVED THAT MOVIE! So good! Also, a new movie with Eddie Murphy called A Thousand Words. Also good. The ones that I disliked were The Avengers (except for the lines Robert Downey Jr had) & Mirror Mirror.

We arrived in Hong Kong & were surprised to see a beautiful,but small mountain on one side & a harbor + mountain on the other. It was really beautiful after watching the Pacific Ocean under us for so long.

We once again boarded our plane & were delayed for another hour on the ground. Once we were airborne, I was so happy. We were really looking forward to seeing Omid. With all our flight delays, we knew he would beat us to Singapore.

We arrived at 2:00 a.m. Singapore time, went through customs/immigration & found our luggage never left San Francisco. What!? The same thing happened to Omid, but Singpore Airlines gave him $125.00 on the spot to purchase clothes & toiletries (his bag also arrived less than 12 hours later!).

When I filed our claim at the airport, I got nothing but the assurance that our luggage would arrive late Tuesday night, with delivery Wednesday morning. I was so close to crying I was so tired. I told the agent that was unacceptable & they needed to make this right. We finally got out to where Omid was, made it to our hotel at 3:30 a.m. We called United  Airlines in the States & talked to them once more. They said Matty & I could purchase some clothes & toiletries & fax the receipts in to them by 5 p.m. the next day & United would pay for the items. Whew! 

So to  make a long story short - we slept for a few hours, got up purchased a few items & faxed the receipts to United. When I called once more to check on my bag status, I was told again it would not arrive until Tuesday night. Omid gave the concierge all my info regarding the lost luggage & asked him if there was anyone he could call to expedite our luggage, please do. Well, what do you know....my bag arrived via Singapore airlines yesterday morning (Monday)! Matty & I were overjoyed!!

Reunited with our suitcase!

Moral of the story: everything will work out okay in the end!

Singapore or Bust!

In 2.5 days, I am flying to Singapore! So excited!! Matty is tagging along with me. Omid will be there too, but he'll be working & we'll meet up with him for dinner most nights. Nas is unable to come with us and that makes us very sad. We'll miss you Nas!!♥

Fun facts:
*It will take us 23 hours to get there.
*Omid has been travelling to Singapore for 17+ years.
*Chewing gum has been banned since 1996. I actually like that law. I really dislike stepping in gum!
*Spitting, littering & jaywalking are all illegal & you will be arrested if caught.
*Mandatory death penalty for most narcotics use.
*My sister in law, Arezou, used to live/work in Singapore.

I have been researching 'fun & interesting' sites to visit on our trip. I am SO excited & have been looking forward to this trip for weeks! I have to say...I have the BEST husband for surprising me with this trip! Thank you Omidjoon! I love you lots!♥ 
Bonus: I found this great packing tip on Pinterest. It worked great (yes, I am already packed!). Definitely using this tip from now on.☺