Christmas In February and Lions and Tigers and...Mouse Deer

Christmas In February

What a Fabulous day Friday was. We received our air shipment that was packed full of clothes, towels, blankets, sheets, pots, pans, silverware, etc! We can finally move on from sandwiches and paper plates. And to welcome our new cookware to Singapore, Ryan made yummy tacos with his homemade salsa. They were so good! We were also able to get good nights sleep with a full size blanket and flat sheet. In Asia, they don’t use a flat sheet so we were sleeping with little blankets from Ikea that barely covered our feet. We didn’t want to spend a lot on things we knew we had coming so we “roughed it” for a couple of weeks. I also checked the mail for the first time since we've been here and had a sweet Valentine's day card and another wedding card!

On Saturday, our cable and internet were finally hooked up! No more hikes to Starbucks for $4 coffee I don’t drink just to use the internet! And our TV isn’t too bad, we get all of the shows we did back home they just may be a little “old”. We do however get the latest season of American Idol!

So, needless to say, our house is starting to feel like a home. We bought a desk for my computer and we bought a coffee table and TV stand that will be delivered on Wednesday. The rest of our things should arrive by the end of March or beginning of April. They told us to expect at least 45-60 days for it to arrive. But we have enough to get us by until then!

Lions and Tigers and… Mouse Deer, Oh My!

Saturday night we went to the Night Safari with our friends Terry and Kara. The Night Safari is located next to the Singapore Zoo but a totally separate entity. We ate dinner underneath the rain forest and were entertained by tribal dancers. We then did two walking trails before the Creatures of the Night Show and then it was on to see the Tribal Dancers again-this time with fire and the last thing was the tram ride through the jungle. Since we were seeing nocturnal animals we weren’t allowed to use flash photography. I took the best pictures I could. This is a must see when coming to Singapore! There were only a few animals behind glass; the majority was in open areas that had other protective boundaries so they couldn’t escape. A funny story though, we were looking at the Fishing Cat and a Zoo Ambassador told us that 2 of the cats escaped and ate two flamingos the day before!!! Oops.

The Tribal Dancers entertaining us at dinner

These are the mouse deer, Ryan’s favorite. He wants one as a pet.

He even said he would get a bag to carry it in everywhere he goes.

They were pretty neat. They look just like the deer we see at home

just teeny tiny.

These are Indian Gharials, they have bulbous knobs at the end of their nose.

Ryan and I on the suspension bridge. We were sweaty, it was hot!

Creatures of the Night Show

Maggie the Python

The otter is helping to recycle the glass, plastic and aluminum!

Tribal Dancers

One leopard sleeping, the other trying to wake it up!

A video of the Tribal Dancers blowing fire!

Week One

I can’t really say what I expected Singapore to be but it is exactly as I expected. It is clean, safe, hot, humid and busy! There are shops and restaurants everywhere! I can’t even begin to explain the malls here, they are endless and there is no way one person can see all the shops Singapore has to offer. I will post pictures at a later date.

Our first week was good, we both agreed it was a lot easier getting around than we though it would be and a lot of that can be credited to Heather our GPS, my tourist books given as a wedding gift by my mom (Thanks Mom!), and our few friends from Texas/Louisiana that live here. We found 2 pretty awesome grocery stores; we are going to be able to get just about everything we need for just a small fortune. For instance, we paid approx $10 for a box of Apple Jacks and $3 for one can of Rotel….this will definitely take some getting used to. We also paid $13 for a 12 pack of Dr. Pepper but the look on Ryan’s face when I showed him the display was worth every penny! Ryan only drove on the wrong side of the rode once and only threatened to cut off a few (and by a few, I mean at least 10) cars for driving terribly (if you know Ryan, you know bad driving drives him crazy). I am glad that I will not be able to drive over here; I will depend on public transportation.

Our first weekend here was Chinese New Year so everything pretty much shuts down except restaurants. We went down to the river where they had a carnival. We were still so jet lagged that we didn’t last long but were able to get a few pictures of all the decorations (I will have to post pictures later, they are on my other camera and I don't have the USB cord to connect to the computer-it made it in the sea freight on accident). The river area, better known here as Clark Quay (pronounced Key), is a really neat area with tons of restaurants! Almost all the restaurants face the river and have outdoor seating.

We visited the Botanic Gardens and only pictures can describe this place. There were endless plants, trees and flowers, and jogging trails-there is no way in the 2 hours we were there that we saw everything. And we both got pretty excited about the cacti (see picture)! Katy, the turtle pictures are for you…Ryan asked me why I like turtles so much and I said because of Katy, duh! I don’t go anywhere with turtles without taking a picture for you!

I will try to post weekly with pictures and stories! Enjoy and thank you visiting our blog.