SINGAPORE!

        Singapore. I really hadn’t heard much of anything about this country before I signed up for SAS. It completely surprised me. It was nothing like I would have expected a country in that area to be like. Singapore is probably the nicest city I have ever been to. It is amazingly clean, the people are really nice, and there isn’t much of a language barrier.

        The first day in Singapore, Annie, Gina, Eloise, and I headed to Sentosa Island. The island was right across the water from where our ship was docked. We just had to go to a building right outside the ship to take a cable car. The cable car was really cool. It took us right over the ship. None of us had seen our ship from above before. It looked pretty lame compared to the cruise ship next to us though. When we got to Sentosa, we felt like we had just landed in a Disney World for adults. It all had a theme park feel to it. Food stands all over, big colorful buses, and tons of attractions. The first place we went to was Underwater World. It was a huge aquarium. They had all sorts of exhibits that you could actually touch the animals. We saw sting rays, sharks, jelly fish, eels, and even Scuba Steve…at least that’s what we called the guy inside one of the tanks cleaning it. I felt like I was back in 4th grade at SeaWorld in Orlando. After we went through everything, we stopped at the gift shop. We all found these amazing hats. They are just these really cheap baseball caps, but they have a built-in fan in the bill. On the top of the hat there is a small circle solar panel, so whenever you are in direct sunlight, the fan turns on. The hat was the coolest/geekiest thing I have ever bought.

        After the aquarium, we grabbed a bite to eat at a Chinese restaurant and then headed over by the Hard Rock Hotel. It was right outside the Universal Studios Singapore. There were all sorts of stores, so we just walked around for the rest of the afternoon. A little before dinner, we headed back to the ship to change and head to our hotel. We stayed at the Sheraton Towers. It was one of the nicest hotels I have ever been to in my life. There was a black Lamborghini outside if that explains anything. Eloise, Jordan, Travis, Ellie, Meghan, and I stayed there. Eloise had her dad use his Starwood points to get us the Executive Suite. It came with our own butler and everything. We didn’t ever need to leave the room, but that would have defeated the purpose of being in Singapore. The majority of us just snacked around in the Executive Lounge until everyone else met us at the hotel. After we all met up, we headed out for the night. It was Halloween, but since it fell on a Sunday, not a whole lot was going on. We went out for awhile then came back to the hotel.

        The next morning we ordered in breakfast to the room. It was great. They just rolled in a huge table of food right to our bed. After we ate, we got ready and headed out. We went to Orchard Road. There was a subway right outside of the hotel, so we just took that. This is when I learned how dangerous Singapore is. Every subway station is a mall. You get off and you don’t even have to come out of the ground to live. There are huge food courts, supermarkets, and every type of store you would want. It was incredible. We eventually made it out to Orchard and it was even worse up there. It was just a huge road full of stores. We started off at the cheap market. I got some awesome fake asian/nerdy glasses and a watch. I then just ended up walking from store to store with everyone else because it was too expensive to buy much else. I did get to have my first Starbucks of the whole trip. It was amazing. I hadn’t had good tasting coffee in a long time.

        SAS made us get on the ship an hour earlier than normal, so we didn’t have much time to go around the second day. It was definitely not enough time to do what I wanted in Singapore. I still had an amazing time, however. It is a place I want to go back to for sure. I say that I could live in about every country I have been to on the trip, but I can realistically see myself living in Singapore.

        Well, this one is a short one, but there wasn’t much time to write about in Singapore. I get to Japan in day and a half and get to see Mara. I can’t wait and I will be writing about Viet Nam as soon as I get back on the ship after Japan. Until then…see ya!