So I landed. 1 flight done, 3 more to go. Minnesota airport was pretty busy and had food for most dietary restrictions. My layover here was 3 hours. I could not access the WiFi. I sat at this place called Shoyu. They had IPADS at every table. You could sit here and order food, drinks and use their iPad for free. That is what I did, though I only used the IPad briefly. I really worked on my journal and got some water.
I went to my gate. Again IPads were on every table. I was in a mini mall, packed with people shopping, grabbing food, or sitting for food. I bought soy milk and hummus with pretzels.... I saved the food to eat it on my flight. I was amazed at how many options there were for dairy free food. I was at my gate amazed at the technology- I then asked this random lady to watch my bag as I went to use the bathroom. The one that was closer to the gate was packed so I went to the bathroom that was at the next gate. I must add this though- I was looking at people, who for the most part, were casually dressed. I look over at Indians and they had a suit on with a tie. It is all about material things and appearance for Indians. Upon returning, my seat was taken, but that was fine because I was about to board.
When I boarded, here was the way it worked.
Lady 1-aisle
Lady 2- center
Me-window
These two elderly ladies were friends on their way to LA to watch a show. Lady 2 was celebrating her birthday. She was so out of it with her stuff, that I kept catching things for her before they fell. Lady 1 just got back from a mission trip to Indian. Lady 2 generally goes to Africa but instead is going to India in October and both ladies are going together to the Phillipines in August. Delightful older ladies, who loved my passion to travel. Sadly, Lady 2 found out when we landed that her family member-I think her son has stage 3 kidney disease. Poor thing. With these two, the trip was more fun, and went faster. We landed in LA.
I texted Beth. Her flight was delayed about 2-2.5 hours. So I asked for the name of the terminal: Tom Brady. What an odd name for a terminal for international fights. Anyways, per Beth's request, I sent her the name of the terminal plus directions on how to get there so that she wouldn't have to deal with that too upon landing. I had to wait till 20:30 before I could get my tickets because Air China desk was closed till 20:30. I got there around 19:30. So, I sat and read. I got my tickets-I had to check-in my bag... :(. I got through security but it was disorganized and a pain; too long. By the time I got done with security, Beth was in line to get her tickets. Little did we know, that this was about to be a disaster. I toured LAX airport. Beth was still stuck in line for her tickets. I was exhausted. So I found these seats and took a nap around 22:30. Luckily I woke up at 23:00. Beth was in security. Our flight was still on time. I asked if she wanted anything-water. So I got her some, and went to our gate. Our gate was empty. They had boarded everyone, early, I guess. They said I could board. I said okay but informed them that a flight had just landed from Colorado and that they are stuck in security and that a group of them are trying to get on this flight. Air China waited. There were three rounds of groups of people, with rush and frustration on their faces as they walked in. Beth was in the last round. She made it! They closed the doors after her. I finished watching one movie and then slept. Air China is awesome. Large blankets, leg space, welcoming people and recliners. An 18 hour flight. The food was fairly decent and I slept most of the way. There was a center seat unoccupied so I used two seats to sleep. The guy at the window seat was going to the Phillipines as he is from there. He said he worked in Singapore for two years and it is nice.
We finally arrived at our last layover- Taipei. Beth and I didn't want to sit so we walked the hallways. We found a place serving samples of tea. So we had some. It was good. We went to our gate. The flight was delayed 20 /30 mines, so we looked up directions to our hotel and I took screen shot 0f the directions. We boarded. This flight had a guy who kept sucking in his snot instead of blowing his nose. I had a center row to myself but the spouse of the snot guy asked if she could share. She would take two seats and I could have two. I said sure. She kept insisting that I maximize the space we both had. I was initially just working on my journal. She eventually moved. That is when I slept, not because she moved but because I had finished reading and writing. The food was not too good, but the snack provided was healthy and yummy. They were very strict about us wearing our seatbelts on this flight.
We finally landed in.....SINGAPORE!!!! 36 hours later! Now at customs they wanted an address of where we would stay, I gave them the hotel name which they accepted. Beth almost forgot we had to pick up our checked bags. We exchanged some money and went on to the metro. We got off at Bugis. We didn't understand the exit signs but got out. It was hot!!! I took off my jacket :O. The pictures were not helping us get to our destination so we found a coffee shop and got on their wifi from outside. Beth used google maps to determine where we had to go, but it wasn't making sense. We should have been at our destination. But it was thundering and we were being rained on. I used my rain coat to protect my day pack. We finally figured it out and got to our hotel. Taz was getting our room key. All three of us soaked.
Now the elevator was crazy. We had to hold down the button until we got to our floor and the door opened... Umm can you say stairs!!!! If you let go of the button the lights shut off an you are stuck.
We all rested a bit initially. When the rain passed, we began to tour. We started with Bugis- a huge market. Beth and Taz got shawl like shirts. We then went to the Gardens by the Bay to see the super tree grove. We saw the light show entertainment that came with it. Just so much fun! We were about to eat at the food court but realized that we had to meet Taz's friend. We went to the Marina Sands and met Shellen. Shellen had couch surfed with Laura- you can meet great people thru couch surfing. The Marina Sands are two skyscrapers with something similar to a ship joining them above. We wanted to go to the bar to get a view but there was a dress code. But, we saw some other folks walk in not following the policy, so we all went. They wanted us to pay for drinks but since no one came to serve us, we took our pictures from the top and left. That place had a cool looking pool too! I would have loved to jump in for a cool off.
Shellen took us to a mall which had an indoor ice ring. We went to the food court which offered an Asian Fusion of food: Korean, Chinese, Malaysian, Indian, etc... We all looked around and got separated. Beth had forgotten her phone and Taz wasn't paying attention to hers but luckily I still found them: Beth's curly hair saved the day Wohooo. I got Dukbokki (Korean) that we all shared. We actually all shared the meals-they got a noodle dish and a rice dish. I tried a bit of the rice dish which had some nicely prepared egg. Taz and I shared water.
Outside of the mall, there was another light show but we only caught the ends of it. We continued to walk towards the Helix. We came across a bike that was flashing in different colors and had music playing...we got closer and saw a robot dancing to the music. The best part was when the Rocky music came on and the robot did push ups.
We got to the Helix bridge. Such awesome architecture. I am glad we saw it at night because we got to see the color variations. We then went to Merlion Park. Here there is a statue of a fish-lion hybrid. It symbolizes Singapore's humble beginnings as a fishing village. The head represents Singapore's original name, Singapora or Lion City (in Malay). I didn't understand how to stand for Taz to take a picture. But once we got it, the picture looked great.
We then walked toward Taz's hostel for the last few nights. It was right in the heart of party city. There were clubs, bars, dancing, noise, etc... It was awesome. Taz got her bag and we kept walking.
We got to the Rainbow Bridge- a bridge of friendships! Hugs!!! This took us to another place to be at night-Clarke Quay. Taz likes this place. There was a bungee jump thing like in Kings Dominion but more like a swing. No one wanted to do it. There was a guy who started to dance next to us... Hahaha. We watched and then decided to go home. En route we saw the light show from
from Marina Sands. We parted ways as Shellen's home was not near us. Taz found a shorter route to our hotel.
We got in and the bottled waters that were placed in the fridge were frozen. Good I can ice down the knees. Time for bed-until tomorrow!!
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