PSA's in Singapore

As I posted last year, a lot of the public service posters are done like cartoons. To me, they are too funny! 

Most of them are regarding public transportation...see below

Hanoi Vietnam

 This was the view from a restaurant, The Gourmet Corner, we ate at on the 12th floor of a hotel. It was decadent meal with lovely views.

 

Vickie and Kevin

 

M and I

 

 Me being very excited about the Budweiser - first US beer I had in a while. 

 

 Kevin making fun of me - LOL!

 The scooters were everywhere, but this was an awfully fancy one- with a Louie Vuitton seat cover. 

 The mini temple in a clothing store. A lot of places had these - with drinks, food, fresh fruit, flowers, and incense...

 Vickie on our spiral staircase.

One of the lakes in Hanoi...

 An interesting building...

 This was a night market that we ran into...got our Same Same but Different Shirts there :)

 This is beer alley with lots of bars and restaurants - a good mix of locals and tourists. Very fun. This was on our last night, and I warmed up to the place by then.

All the local places had these very tiny tables and stools to sit at. It is funny to see giant westerners sitting at these small stools.

This band was amazing!! I couldn't find out their name, they didn't have any recordings. The lead violinist was mind-blowing. They played classical and pop music - not singer, with the lead violin, a guitar, and a guy playing some sort of hand drum...

The general scene...I think Vickie got some better videos.  Maybe I'll get a hold of them and post some more clips. This is really the general scene at Watch Out - the bar that the band was playing.

The catch all...

Well sometimes you see and experience many things that can't be categorized in a tidy blog post. So this one will be my catch all blog post from our time around Singapore...

The cost of a very small bottle of Vodka- $72.00 Sing, which is about $56.00 USD.

Random panda outside mall.

Charcoal toothbrushes - have to ask my Mom about the effectiveness of these bad boys. They were for sale at our grocery store. 

Jackie Chan shampoo- can't believe I didn't purchase this! 

Green tea listerine..

My students giving me thank you cards and whatnot- these were lovely surprises!

In case you were wondering about the prevalence of McDonald's in Singapore- not only so they have tons of stores, they deliver, and have huge bus ads...

You can also be a VIP member of the drive through....

Oh- a post about Singapore can't be complete without construction. It is literally everywhere. These sites are outside our hotel room- and they worked 24/7- just lovely :-/

This isn't the best picture, but along my runs- I would see the daily meeting of one construction site- 100s of workers sitting cross- legged on the ground listening to their boss via a bullhorn. It was surreal to me for some reason.

Another crime alert sign - Singapore is so safe - this seems to be the worse crime I have ever heard of around there.

All the yumminess from around Southeast Asia

Don't think I forgot to write about the food! There is so much delicious food around here, I decided to save it for one post (although I did write about the street food festival already).

This is LingZhi, a completely vegetarian Asian restaurant. Vickie and I were in heaven and managed to eat there twice (of course - without the meat eatin' men).

Everything was so delish! And they served shelled boiled peanuts as an appetizer with spicy chili sauce. 

In this picture, the top left corner is tofu stuffed eggplant hot pot that you eat over the buns. The right top is vegetarian braised duck. The bottom picture includes our appetizers- a tofu salad, dumplings, a vegetarian pork-stuffed bun, and the boiled peanuts. Vickie and I had to be rolled out if there- haha!

Our second trip included - top left- breaded edamame tofu (crispy on outside- silky on inside). Top right was our vegetarian satay and a casserole-type fish with cheese, cabbage, and wild yam (link to name). On the bottom are the fabulous boiled peanuts again.

This is my favorite food in Singapore (although above might rival it). This is from Spize. I have written about it before, but here's a quick description. They serve all types of food, but hands down one of the best dishes in Singapore is the murtabak. I get the vegetable one filled with carrots, okra, cauliflower, beans, potatos- all cooked in a fantastic sauce and wrapped in a delicious think pancake (sort of like a crepe). M gets the chicken and cheese one. Both come with a spicy curry sauce for dipping.  

The jucies are also fresh and amazing. I get lime (but you'll remember from past posts- it's not a US or Key lime- it's much smaller and sweeter). M gets carrot juice. 

Some random foods around Singapore - top left is Indian food from Little India. Top right is from a hawker stand in Vivo city - Thunder Tea Rice - it was really good. Bottom left is from a Vietnamese chain, and bottom right was Indian food for breakfast at Fraser Suites. 

This place is ridiculous and a chain in Singapore called Porn (yes- you read that right- it's not a typo. It is Thai food and as you can see, their logo is an elephant bottom and the catch phrase is sexy Thai food. Honestly, M and I weren't too impressed with the food.  

This was the crazy Indian restaurant in Little India, The Jungle Tandoor. It was probably the most touristy place and was coverd in decorations of safari- the servers even wore safari outfits. A little over-the-top, and we actually went their by mistake, which I know is hard to believe- as it is just as crazy from the outside. M thought the upstairs was a different restaurant that may have been connected. But it's all okay, because the food was good anyways!

Here are some yummy treats from our breakfast bar at Fusionopolis. The top is yellow watermelon. For some reason, I really loved it- it was slightly more flavorful and sweeter than red watermelon. 

The aloe vera yogurt was a pleasant surprise for me. They have drinks with aloe vera, and I have never been brace enough to try them- as I usually run aloe on my skin after a sunburn- haha! The yogurt had a pleasant taste- somewhat tangy and slightly flowery or herby. It's actually proving hard to describe. 

Last year, I tried to eat as much Asian food as I could...but wound up losing the taste for it the last week here and didnt eat it for 6 months back in the States. This time- we had a lot of western food- including Mexican, Italian, and pizza. These pictures are from the chain Senor Taco. I love how the placemat at the bottom tells you how to eat a taco- ahh Singapore (although Vickie and I had to ask how to eat some of the food at LingZhi...). The top is a picture of the "salsa." Actually Cafe Iguna and El Patio are better Mexican restaurants over here. Top left- trying to give you some idea of the prices- over $20 for a burrito!!

This is our desserts from 2am Dessert Bar- you guessed it- they serve dessert and cocktails until 2am. The desserts (and cocktails) are expensive- my pairing (a dessert and a Syrah) was $39.00 sing. They were pretty creative and delicious though.

Top left are Kevin's Bengiets - a little denser than the ones you would find in New Orleans, but nice. Top right was M's dessert and probably the most interesting of the four- they were flavored like popcorn but with the consistency of custard (we think). There was also an amazing mango sorbet as a pallet cleanser in between the salty and sweet "popcorn."

Up next, on the bottom left, we have my dessert (chocolate- of course!). It was chocolate mousse with a caramel center resting on chocolate "dirt." The sorbet on the side tasted exactly like gin. Last is Vickie's chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream. 

Kevin had a great time talking with the chef about scotch and even tried several ones he's never heard of- we were in agreement that the ...was great- nice and peaty. The chef treated us really great- and was from Chicago. 

 

These are some interesting foods that I saw around Singapore. The top left are ready-made sausages from 7-11. The top right is a mashed potato machine!!! A mashed potato machine (like a frozen yogurt machine) - also 7-11.  The bottom left are some fun flavors of Lays potato chips -swiss cheese, seaweed, and basil chicken Doritos. The bottom right are actually Auntie Anne's pretzels except with fun Asian flavors like seaweed and sweet chili. I didn't get to try one- I should have though. 

These are some of our foods from Cambodia. Anchor was the Cambodian beer. The top right is some sort of meat dish. The bottom left was the veggie dish Vickie and I split, and the bottom left is how they wrapped up our sandwiches for our picnic - in a banana leaf :)

I think I posted this already, but this was our dinner from the hotel in Cambodia - The Sojourn.  The top left is our wine being chilled with a bouquet of flowers. Top right is Kevin's fancy dish (the prettiest), I think it was a shrimp dish. Bottom left is a veggie curry, and the bottom right are M's scallops.
 

Vietnam = chaotic

I am about to give you a very honest post- hope you still love me in the end :)

Vietnam has been an experience for me. M has been here before, so he may have been better prepared. We arrived in Hanoi, had a shuttle take us to our hotel in the old quarter, and set off to see Hanoi. The original plan was to leave the following day for a three day cruise of Ha Long Bay (a world heritage wonder of the world). The cruise was booked and paid for.

My first day in Hanoi was rough on me. I really struggled with the chaos. There were tons of people, and it was really hot. They have so many scooters and motorcycles, it was overwhelming! They honk constantly, and I had a hard time enjoying myself as we walked around exploring. I am already a jumpy person, and random frequent loud honking- and I was in a constant state of anxiety. A scooter even hit Vickie on the last day - she was fine though.

I think you can see my uneasiness in this picture....

This video is showing the subdued Hanoi because less people were out in the pouring rain. The first day we got there, the traffic was at least twice as heavy...


We got up super early on the day our cruise was to pick us up- and no shuttle! We finally asked the front desk, and they told us everything was cancelled because a huge storm. The only reason we were in Vietnam to see a wonder of the world- Ha Long Bay! Needless to say, I was devastated! I did not handle the situation well...thank goodness I was with people who love me. I was so upset, and I had very little sleep the night before. We thought of leaving Vietnam all together, because I had so much trouble the day before. We weren't planning on spending five days in Hanoi. We looked at flying to Thailand, Malaysia, and even Australia. We decided to stay in Hanoi, but we didn't even have a hotel room! We only booked two nights in Hanoi- the day we got here and the night before we were leaving. 

The hotel (Hanoi Ruby Elegance) we stayed at our first night found us another hotel and scheduled a day tour to the  "Ha Long Bay" of the land. Despite my utter freak out, the hotel staff was amazing. They even repeatedly apologized for the weather! In fact, the hotel (Hanoi City Palace) we moved to was also amazing. The staff at both places were so accommodating and awesome. I would highly recommend either hotel.

I am not proud of how I felt or acted that day. It may have been akin to a pouty five  year old.  I didn't like Hanoi at all- I wanted to take a relaxing cruise on Ha Long Bay. I was having extreme culture shock- probably the worst I have experienced in my travels around the world. This was the biggest Asian city I visited outside of Singapore. I didn't take to it well right away. 

So on a couple of hours of sleep and after packing our bags and changing hotels, we set off for our day tour. It was supposed to be a one and a half hour drive into the country side. On our way, we stopped at a lacquer shop where they still make lacquer goods by hand (most is done by machine now-a-days). It was pretty neat seeing them make the pictures. Of course the idea is to get the tourists to buy stuff, which we did.

 They made eggshell paintings with actual eggshells. Some of them are burnt a little to  change their colors. They also break them into a bunch of different sizes.

 This guy may not have been happy about my picture-taking...

They cut mother-of-pearl into such detail - even these tiny butterflies...

After driving another two hours at least, we made it to the "Ha Long Bay" of the land. It's name is Hoa Lu- Tam Coc. There are tons of limestone mountains, and it was the ancient capital of Vietnam. It included a boat trip on little row boats down a "river," through caves and passing by the beautiful limestone peaks.

 Vickie, Kevin, and the tour guide setting out...M and I were in another boat

 This guy was dredging. It did not look like a fun job.

 Our boat driver changed at least four times, and also did several pick up and drop offs of stuff along the way. This was one of the drop off points...

 There were lots of caves that we traveled through...

Posting this video was almost the death of me - but on the bright side, I used iMovie for the first time.
Also, I thought it was really cool how the rowers of these boats used their legs instead of their hands - you can see another boat rower and then briefly ours at the end of the clip doing this.

This was at the very end of a long trip down the river, and all these ladies were waiting to sell us food and goods...they are under the rock because the rain was about to let loose...

 Here's my half of an umbrella...unfortunately,  I wasn't offered this unitl I was already soaking wet...and it didn't work so great...

 Not sure if this picture does the rain justice. It was intense...

 Water Buffalo!!

We were supposed to go on a bicycle tour through the countryside, but due to the thunderstorm, we just drove straight back to the hotel. The boat M and I were on didn't have umbrellas (okay- there was one that was offered more than 2/3 of the way into the storm), we road three hours home soaking wet. Not the most fun I have ever had. 

Well, I will post some more of our exploits around Hanoi. I did finally adjust to the city, and I grew to enjoy it. Our last night in Hanoi was an amazing experience- stay tuned to learn more about it!