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!