Trip to Singapore and City Crafter Challenge Blog 378 ~ Pick One!

I spent most of August on the road, 2 trips to San Francisco, and then Utah and Colorado, Iowa and finally Singapore.

This trip to Singapore, we flew the newest direct flight from San Francisco.

   

If you fly often, you would agree with me that Singapore is one of the best airline in the world, just look at the meals they served on the flight to Singapore.

and this is just economy class, I flew a few first class seats with other airlines before and the food not even quite as good.

we picked our food from a menu that has two different entrée, I usually go for Asian and DH of course like his western. In between meals, you can ask for anything you want from the sneak menu, the items includes wrap, muffins, fresh fruits to cookies, chips and nuts.

food is big on my list, we visited a few of my favorite local food center, and Randy has became a food snob like me, I won't blame him, after numerous visits to Singapore, he is now spoilt just like many other Singaporean.

we also visited The National Gallery for Yayoi Kusama's exhibit.....

It is simply AMAZING, if you have a chance anywhere in the world to see her work, you MUST GO DO IT! Pictures just don't do justice for her work.

The infinity room is the highlight of this exhibit, I get this from the internet because we were given only 20 seconds in the room, I decided to absorb as much in this short 20 seconds instead of taking picture, so I don't have any picture in that room.

you can find a lot of Yayoi Kusama's work online.

The very famous Raffles Hotel in Singapore is closed for renovation, so we didn't get to see the inside this time, we did it every trip, just for the taste of old Singapore.

new thing I see in Singapore this trip is the 30 cars display building, looks just like matchbox cars....

just like other trips to Singapore, we took public transport everywhere, sometimes to places we want to go, sometimes just from terminal to terminal, doing sightseeing on the top of a double decker bus...

I dare to say there is no place in the world run public transportation as good as Singapore, we can take bus anywhere, hop off the bus and have covered walk ways that leads to either train stations (MRT is what we called in Singapore, like subways in NYC), shopping mall, food center, government service center, and to your home if you stay in one of those government housing (I would say 90-95% of Singaporean stay in government housing high rise buildings) Yes, we all do in Singapore, stay in government housing, but I mind you, I can sell my house in Vegas and still can't effort one of those units. That is why they said Singapore is one of the most expensive city in the world, but if you are Singaporean, you will get a big sum subsidized by the government, yes, if you work hard you will have your own place in Singapore, the government takes good care of you.

What makes DH really angry about his own country is everything else in Singapore he enjoyed, he sees that there is no way USA can catch up, like the public transportation for example, we got a translink card, for bus and train (subway), I top up 20 SGD dollar (17 US$) every trip, you just tap in and out when you use the system, we spent about 20 each for the whole entire trip, some trips are as low as 22 cents, where can you find in this world, in a fully air conditioned, brand new buses. Even if we take cab once in a while, it is less than 10 Singapore dollars. At the bus stops, you have  electronic board to see how many more minutes your bus is arriving, and now I even have an app on my phone that tells you that, we would wait in our hotel room until we see that the bus will be there in 5 minutes then we started walking out of our room to the bus stop right in front of the hotel, how convenient!

If that is not enough, besides being the world best airport that has a huge sunflowers garden, shopping mall bigger than many other towns elsewhere, a swimming pool with huge water slide, free movies with recliner chairs while you wait for your flight, I need to tell you that it took me less than a minute to pass through custom, even DH is not a Singapore citizen and hold a US passport, it took him less than 5 minutes too, and it is not a small airport, Singapore airport handles 58.7 millions visitors each year!

The more Randy goes to Singapore, the more depressed he is with his own country. Health care is one, his doctor make mistakes again and again with his prescription order, the drug store did the same, and he witness me trying to get into a doctor's clinic here with numerous phone calls and lots of tears and still getting nowhere, I did all my medical in Singapore once a year, he always bug me to get my appointment early and then he witnessed me making 4 phone calls in 30 minutes a few days before we leave and get all my 4 medical appointments all set up, and then he would go to the clinic or hospital with me, and in less than an hour I get everything including taking my prescription at the same location of the doctor's office. This trip here, I had a skin condition that is pretty urgent, I've seen two doctors here and paid close to two hundred US dollars even we have insurance, the last one gave me a tube of cream to collect at CVS pharmacy, it was 95 US$ when I went to collect and I refused to do it, I rather wait till I go back to Singapore, so first thing I do in Singapore is to go see doctor for this,  guess how much is my bill, doctor's visit and medication cream before government subsidized is over 50 Singapore dollar, and after subsidized, I paid 19.40 Singapore dollar, which is like 16 US$, after two application, my skin is all clear. That makes DH really really sick, and said, I WANT TO MOVE TO SINGAPORE!!!!

OK, I would shut up and stop bragging about my country, oh yes, it is the cleanest city in the world, crime rate is close to zero, no guns, hardly any corruption, and policeman are as friendly as your friends! Ok, I'll stop! LOL!

We took a river boat this trip, watch the light, water, laser show by the Marina Sands resort.

we had a family get-together over the weekend, here's a picture of my mom, brother and sister...

we also went to East Coast Park for a walk....

saw someone glam-ping there....

and then eat more.... especially seafood.....

I grew up eating seafood like this, just few hours fresh from the sea and become a seafood snob, DH laughed at me when I complained about fish we get from the tank in the Asian supermarket here aren't fresh, no, they are NOT, they are "kept" fish grow up in a tank, fresh seafood are those fresh from the sea, they taste different! Let alone frozen fish, Yikes!

I put on at less 2 to 3 pounds by the time I get back to SF to see my babies...

and he can't wait to go home with me as well!

an hour after our 15 hours flight, we drove another 9 hours from SF back to Vegas!

It is HOME SWEET HOME!

Ahhhhhh..... I probably not going to travel for a while!

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This week at City Crafter Challenge Blog

The theme is PICK ONE!

   

We want you to pick one of the above as your background for your project.

I pick the pink/orange splash for mine.

I used a few of my ink pad on the acrylic stamp block, and then spray some water, place the watercolor paper on top to get the result for the background, let it dry before I stamp the sentiment and glue some sequins on it.

there were some ink left on the acrylic block, so I spray more water and get a lighter color version....

well, it is not exactly the color the challenge asked for but I don't like to waste anything, especially precious inks, LOL!

Come join in the fun at

City Crafter Challenge Blog