Christmas Vacation, Part 1 - Singapore

As this is the first blog of the vacation (but written 12 days into the adventure), let me say that so far this has been a vacation of interesting travel. Getting from place to place has definitely been part of the adventure. And since I am writing this from a covered patio on a Thailand beach during a warm rainstorm, I am happy that we will be here for the next 3 days with no travel! The kids are in the pool, I'm enjoying the view while writing and Mike is napping. Perfect!

(I will attach a photo album of the whole vacation later, we have minimal internet access here).

Our trip started with a delayed flight from Shanghai to Singapore. Before takeoff, someone on the plane had a medical emergency and they had to evacuate her. Luckily we were still in China, so I was able to call a friend who was still in Dalian and ask her to Skype our hotel in Singapore to let them know we might arrive after 11:00pm (when the front desk closed). As we arrived at the hotel at midnight, this was a phone call that averted potential disaster! We loved our hotel – the kids swam everyday in the pool (in fact they have a goal to swim everyday of this vacation – so far so good).

Before we moved to China, we considered an expat assignment in Singapore, so naturally we compared the lifestyle of Singapore to China. After living in China, being an expat in Singapore would be SO easy! They speak English, every kind of food is available, and every kind of shopping is available. However, you'd have to make a lot of money! Singapore is expensive. Very expensive! Our first meal at a Mexican restaurant with 2 kid meals and 1 adult entree and one margarita cost $60 (US).

Because we were curious about what life might be like to be an expat in Singapore (you never know where life will lead you), we took a tour of the Singapore American School. It is a huge school with 3900 students – 10 times as big as the kids' current school! It would be a dream school to attend. After reading so much about it online, it was nice to see it in person.

We stayed at a service apartment right at Clarke Quay – the hotel was situated above a small mall with a Subway, a book store, food court, grocery store, and Japanese crepes. In the Clarke Quay surrounding area were hundreds of restaurants and bars. While there, we ate Mexican, Middle Eastern, Burger King, Subway, frozen yogurt, ice cream, and crepes.

We started our visit with a taste of local life. Mike has kept in touch with classmates from graduate school who are long term expats in Singapore with three children. We went to their apartment in the late afternoon for a swim then they took us to a nearby neighborhood for a delicious Italian dinner. The kids had a great time playing together and Mike and I enjoyed catching up with his classmates.

The heat there tired us out easily so we didn't see a lot of the traditional Singapore sights, but the kids and Mike did go on the Singapore Flyer – the largest ferris wheel in the world. It is 42 stories high and takes 30 minutes to complete a rotation in an air-conditioned capsule large enough for 20 people. We also enjoyed the beautiful Christmas lights on Orchard Road and were able to do a lot of shopping for essentials and Christmas presents. And, as always, we visited the Science Museum (and getting free entry by using the membership card for the southern California museum we bought last Christmas). We also saw Gulliver's Travels.

Overall, Singapore was a great place to visit, but I think it would be more enjoyable to actually live there. While public transportation is easily available, it often took a lot of walking to get to and from the stations we wanted to use. And we often found ourselves waiting in taxi queues for 10-30 minutes. I think if you were a local, you would drive or know how to navigate the system a little bit better.