Shipwrecked

I just finished our dive video from Bali and am so excited to share it with y'all.  It's amazing to me that we even have this since I never thought I would be able to scuba dive.  I'm extremely claustrophobic and have a crippling fear of sharks! (Let's just say I'm glad that I never ran into any Brunos under the sea.)  I think back to a few (even though there were many) of my freak out moments before starting our scuba certification when I really thought I wouldn't able to do it, but I'm so grateful I did!  It was only through the help of my supportive hubby and tons of "you can do it's," even when I thought "No, I can'ts!"

Our dive in Bali was to the USAT Liberty shipwreck, which is almost always misaddressed as the USS Liberty shipwreck.  It is just a few meters off the coast of Tulamben and is famous for being the most accessible shipwreck dive site in the world.  This allowed us to make our first shore entry and boy are those tanks heavy!  The USAT Liberty was an armed cargo ship, built in 1918, that served during WWII as a supply ship.  After being torpedoed by the I-166 Japanese submarine in 1942, it limped over to Tulamben where it sat beached for many years.  However, in 1963 the ship met it's final demise when volcano Gunung Agung erupted and shook the enormous ship to the bottom of the ocean.  I can't help but think that the villagers of Tulamben were pretty happy to see that behemoth disappeared below the water!  And I'm happy it did too, because what an awesome site to see!

ENJOY!

I love this crazy sea monkey! 

And just wait cause we have lots more monkeys to come...

Bali

McKay and I love to travel and save our money and military leave to do so.  While looking for an apartment we sacrificed the size of our apartment in order to save enough to travel - Best decision we made!  

Some friends and family have been asking us how we like to travel, so here's M&M's travel tips.  We love backpacking and think that it is the way to go when traveling, especially if you want to see a lot.  We also full-heartedly support winging it!  That's not to say that we don't do any planning.  Rather, we create a skeleton for the trip, reserve our first hotel, then stay longer in places we love and leave sooner from places that were not as cool as we thought they would be.  We have also found that hotels are more willing to give you great deals, because they want to fill up their hotel, especially if it is low season, which is when we prefer to travel.

Now....

......to Bali!  

Here we are as millionaires...

in rupiahs! (which is about $100)

The following photos are from our drive up to the very northeast tip of the island, to a town called Tulamben.  The terraced rice paddies were stunning!

When we arrived to our bungalow, it was as though we had been transported to our own little paradise.  Tulamben is an almost non-existent town that is famous only because of the USS Liberty shipwreck, which is just off the coast (it was literally 20 meters from our bungalow).

I just about died when I walked into our bathroom.  This is not uncommon in Bali as many places have their bathrooms outside.

Most people stay in the south of Bali and then take buses up to dive at the shipwreck, but McKay and I were so grateful that we decided to stay in Tulamben, because it really had some of the most beautiful scenery we saw on our whole trip.  

The fresh caught fish for dinner was the perfect close to our day!  Look at that red color!

Singapore Botanic Gardens

With my job as a floral designer and McKay's biology background, we knew we'd have to make a stop at the

Singapore Botanic Gardens!

McKay loves orchids most, "because they are the most developed of all the flowers," so we started with them.  I loved seeing all these plants with my little biologist as he told me all about the different characteristics of each plant and how they had evolved over time - He gets a little twinkle in his eye when he starts explaining these things to me.

Part of the botanic gardens is this enormous park filled with families and runners of all sorts.

Our favorite family to watch was this little one feeding the coy fish.  They were so cute!  (I told you that we like to people watch!  We are kind of creepers, but I'm ok with that.)

The park was perfectly manicured wherever you looked, which is quite an amazing feat considering everything grows a million times faster and wilder in the hot, humid climate of Singapore.  McKay and I wondered how they could possible make everything look so perfect.  This man was the answer - 

Dedication!

We noticed Mr. Monkey Man here cleaning up this tree, but then got a little woozy when we realized how high up he was!!! 

Everything is kind of perfect in this picture!  The smell of the flowers, the hum of the bees, the swan leisurely floating in the background...It really was like heaven on earth!

McKay enjoyed this root system...

...and he proceed to tell me all about it, but what he probably failed to realize was in that moment I fell in love with him just a little bit more.

Singapore

Shortly after we were married, one of our dearest friends, and coincidently the lady that introduced me to McKay's family, in saying goodbye told us that we should come visit her sometime in Singapore.  I'm pretty sure she thought that we would never take her up on the offer, but being as we wanted to go see her and her family anyways, and because of our current love affair with the East, we had no choice but to go!  So after a few e-mails and some awesome flight deals, away we went to the marvelous metropolis of Singapore, where our dear friends awaited us!

   The ONLY down side to traveling to Asia, in our opinion, are the long flights!  However, you always forget about them as soon as you land and see this!  We travelled for nearly 2 days straight and lucked out on our last flight which was completely empty, allowing McKay and I to lie down the whole 7 hour flight!  

Our first impressions of Singapore: C-L-E-A-N!  Even though it was dark out when we arrived, everywhere you looked - Spotless!  This is mostly attributed to their extremely harsh, and somewhat ridiculous laws.  For example, the "importing" of chewing gum into Singapore is banned, except for chewing gum of therapeutic value (which I'm not sure what that is supposed to mean?).  So, when I found the "illegal substance" in my bag I gave it the girl sitting next to me on our flight from LA to Japan.  It was almost a full pack of gum too, so she was excited to accept my gift.  And don't even think about littering in Singapore! - $1000 fine, plus community forced labor!  My favorite part is that if they catch you litter 3 times then you have to wear a sign saying, "I am a litter lout."  I kind of wanted to litter 3 times just to get that sign.

We arrived at 12:30am and went straight to our friend's house and off to bed.  It was so good to see them!  They even treated us to some Australian milk.  Best milk in the world!  Our jet lag allowed us to sleep for only 5 hours, before waking up to this Asian paradise.

 The sound of the birds, coupled with the sun peeking above the horizon was intoxicating!  I can't even tell you how beautiful this house is.  It IS the paragon of feng shui.To pass some of the time, before everyone got up, McKay took an "active" dip in the pool. Later our friend, who is an angel, coiffured us around, taking us to the most luxurious shopping malls that I have ever beheld!You sure wouldn't know that Singapore had 5 million people, because you never see them on the streets.  It's like a ghost town up above.  Simplest explanation: they are all inside these beautiful, and more importantly, air-conditioned shopping centers.  They live like moles, never having to surface for air because the shopping malls are all connect by miles and miles of underground tunnels.In one of the malls we visited there was an entire floor that sold just gold.Even stuff for men too!
Check out these all gold blingin' belts!We also stopped by Little India with our beautiful friend.
And Arab Street as well.Where we got this most delicious meal.Momma Kathleen - this picture's for you!  There are beautiful dishes throughout the world!McKay and I took a boat along the Marina Bay allowing us to see the whole downtown area.The architecture in Singapore is absolutely breath-taking and thoroughly modern.  I loved it!  Below is the Marina Bay Sands, or as our friends like to call it, the Great and Spacious Building.  This three-towered monstrosity has everything!  It is a hotel, casino, shopping mall, museum, entertainment center and pretty much anything else you can think of wrapped up into one...well three buildings...with a modern-day Noah's ark on top (Or at least that is what McKay and I thought it looked like).  Oh, and it even had an ice skating rink.Couldn't resist.After seeing the Marina Bay Sands from the boat in the water,we had to go to the boat in the air!