8/10/2013 - Court Family Adventure - Day 1 in Singapore

Authors Note: The Court family takes Southeast Asia adventure occurred the past few weeks and encompassed Singapore, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand.  It caused the blog to go silent for a few weeks and then I needed a vacation from my vacation, being a travel guide is rewarding, but hard work.  I'm not sure how many posts I'll squeeze out of our travels and travails, but stay tuned over the next 7-10 days.  Otherwise, how else will you find out of if the Court family makes it to Walley World or if cousin Eddie has a guest appearance.  At a minimum, you know we are going to end up having our own roundabout experience, circling an Asian version of Big Ben.

"Problems already?"  I had just gotten off the plane from Penang to Singapore and had an email from my brother saying the trip was off to a rough start.  The family was scheduled to arrive the next day and they were having issues getting out of the state of Wisconsin.  How were they going to make it 10,000 miles if they couldn't make it a few hundred?  Luckily a flight delay in Madison turned into a minor inconvenience and they hopped on a flight in Milwaukee instead.  They were on their way!

Approximately 24 hours later, Sarah and I were back at the airport to greet the weary travellers.  We spotted them walking out of immigration and everyone was still smiling, so we took that to be a good sign.  The bags took awhile and then a 25 minute 'maxi cab ride' later (if you ever have a big group arriving in Singapore, take the maxi cab, $60 to go anywhere on the island) and we had everyone settled into our 1,000 square foot apartment ready for bed.... at 3 AM.  The wake up call would be at 9 AM, we had a full day planned before departing for Cambodia the following afternoon.

6 hours later I think the jet lagged travellers were doing better than their tired hosts.  We started the day off with a pretty standard Saturday morning activity for me - Empress Market for fresh fruit, banana prata and sugar cane juice.  There were some wary looks at first, but everyone pretty quickly agreed that sugar cane juice should be sold by the gallon in the US and that lychees were a great morning snack.  Fully hydrated and full, we were on the bus heading downtown.

First stops, Merlion, Din Tai Fung for lunch, then Marina Bay Sands for the view and a drink.  Luckily on the way to the Merlion we ran into the best deal on the island for what was the first of many $1 ice cream sandwich treats.  Needed to keep the sugar/energy levels high for the day.  Lunch at Din Tai Fung had a little bit for everyone, there are some un-named picky eaters in the group, so we had to keep  our options open.  I wasn't too worried though after the fried rice disappeared in 5 minutes and then Caitlin ordered a red bean paste bun which even I won't eat.

Straight to the top after lunch, had to catch the view of the city.  Plus, what better way to appreciate where you were and seeing Singapore spread out in front of out you while having a drink that (spoiler alert) costs enough to pay for 3 people to have dinner in Bangkok.  That's a comment on both Singapore and Thailand prices.  Keeping with the overpriced, but totally necessary, tourist locations we cruised over to the Raffles Hotel for a Singapore Sling.  The 5 minute drive, however, turned into a 30 minute taxi ride when our route got cut-off by tanks!  Sure enough the National Day rehearsal was going on and we had a good chuckle when our taxi driver pointed out how shiny and new all the equipment was.  Lucky for us they really only get used five times a year (4 rehearsals plus National Day).

The Long Bar at Raffles Hotel is a tourist trap, but the right kind of tourist trap, right down to the colonial fans that keep you cool while eating the smallest peanuts you have seen and having a fruity Singapore Sling in the bar  where they were invented.  One was enough for me, I've stuck with Guinness on every return trip.  We were starting to see some tired eyes at this point, but we had to squeeze a quick dinner in at our favorite restaurant in Little India.  Visiting Singapore is really just dipping your toe into Asia whereas the next day we would be in Cambodia, more like a cannon ball into Asia and someone holding you under water afterwards.  Little India is at least climbing down the first rung of the ladder into the pool.

What we learned at dinner.... more people were on board with dumplings, fried rice and unusual vegetables vs. curries and naan.  It didn't help that we had been eating all day and on the town for going on 12 hours at this point.  It was a quiet MRT ride back to the apartment, 2/3 of the group was napping on the train.  We both thought that meant they had already acclimated given half the locals seem to be sleeping on the subway on a regular basis.  All in all, first day success and with how worn out everyone was, we had hopes they might even sleep through the night.