The South

Where tea is sweet and accents are sweeter; summer starts in April; front porches are wide and words are long; macaroni and cheese is a vegetable; pecan pie is a staple; Y’all is the only proper pronoun; chicken is fried and biscuits come with gravy; everything is darling and someone is always getting their heart blessed. -unknown

Monday, March 30, 2009

Day 4 March 12th

This is the view from where we got to eat breakfast every morning. It was a buffet that had every type of breakfast item, to accommodate all nationalities. Brent and I enjoyed fried rice for breakfast among other things. We booked the two day tour of the city and headed out. This is a picture of the entrance to the presidential palace. The tour guide said that you cannot see the palace because there is a nine hole golf course that you must go through first. This is the Singapore Flyer. The worlds tallest ferris wheel. Each of those cars holds around 30 people! Another view of the Flyer, farther away.
This is the theatre. It consists of two sphere like this. The local people think it looks like a durian fruit.
This is one of the Parliament buildings
This is one of the flats that the residents live in. They are government subsidized housing. This is the cheapest form of housing in the entire country and the minimum to purchase these is around $80,000! I don't see how people afford to live in Singapore.
If you look closely, you can see bamboo poles sticking out from underneath the windows. This is where they hand their clothes to dry after washing them.
This is the U.S. Embassy. I guess it is always good to know where it is when in another country.
This is a thieves market. It is only called that because of the type of people that used to be at these type markets.
This is a hawker center. Years ago, the government decided it wanted to have better control of the street vendors in the country. So they wouldn't allow them to sell things on the streets anymore and instead, these food vendors have set up at centers all over the city. Now, they are all given ratings (like our health food scores) from A to E (I think) with A being the best. We didn't get to stop and eat at one unfortunately.
A mosque. (Which later in our trip, would become the normal part of the landscape, everywhere we went.)
This was the Civilian War Memorial dedicated to the civilians that lost their lives in WWII. It is four pillars which represent the four races: Malaysians, Chinese, Indians, and minorities.
This is not the best picture, but on the left is the old building where the court system operated out of. On the right is the top of the new building that they use. (another building is obstructing the view of the whole thing) It looks like a spaceship! To me this represents Singapore going more and more to the modern look, while trying to get further and further away from the British look. As of right now, the old building is empty, but they are planning on putting a museum in there.
The old courts building closer up.
A Buddhist temple.
This is an area of many restaurants and night life known as Clarke Quay, pronounced "Key". I just think the huge umbrella things are cool!
Everywhere we went, there was greenery and flowers. So beautiful!
Singapore has a problem with running out of space, so much so, that they have begun creating more land by dumping dirt into the sea. The picture below is of the base of two skyscrapers that are literally less than one foot apart. You can kind of tell by looking at the motorcycle in front of them.
This is the stadium where they have a lot of sporting events. The playing surface is floating on the water!
While on a boat tour of the city
A view of Singapore
We had a wonderful day!

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Day 3, March 11th

I did not miss a post. We did not have a day 2.

This was our hotel room in Singapore. It was so wonderful. I forgot to get a picture of the view.We decided to spend the day just walking around and exploring the city. I was amazed by the huge trees that were in the middle of downtown. Here is just an example of one of them.We enjoyed exploring all around our hotel and even found the visitor's center. We asked the lady working there where she recommended eating. She told us to go to "Din Tai Fung" and it was located not far from where we were. We enjoyed pork fried rice and steamed dumplings, and hot green tea. There is no way to compare the food there to the "Asian" food we have in the states. The food there is much lighter tasting and just plain better.Here was some cooks actually rolling out the dough to make the dumplings. They worked extremely fast.Singapore is a very modern city, and everywhere you look, they are building bigger, better, and taller things. Brent and I laughed because there were Starbucks everywhere. We looked in the phone book and there are 60 of them. Here is some information that will blow your mind: Singapore is 267 square miles. Montgomery, Alabama is 155 square miles. So the entire country is not that big and it has 60 Starbucks. That doesn't even count all the other coffee places.That night we went to the Night Safari. You get to take a tram ride through a rain forest and look at all of the animals as close to their natural habitats as possible. Did I mention that there are no fences? The animals have the ability to walk up to the tram, if they wanted to. After we got off the tram, we watched a fire show performed by a tribe. Brent said they were speaking Indonesian. They danced around a lot.

Then they performed with fire. Each time it flashed, it was soooo hot. It was pretty impressive.We had a great time and it was a nice end to our first day in Singapore.

Friday, March 27, 2009

Day 1, March 9th

We flew out of Montgomery to Memphis early in the morning. This was a picture of the sunrise, while we were already in the air.
The Memphis airport was pretty nice, and Brent and I got to enjoy Back Yard Burger (which they don't have in Montgomery anymore) for breakfast! We then flew on to Minneapolis. There were some very low lying clouds, and when we finally descended out of them, we saw snow everywhere!We had a few hours to kill while at the Minneapolis airport, so we went to Chili's and kept getting tickled listening to every one's accent. I am sure they thought the same thing of us.
We boarded the plane to go to Tokyo. We were in two of the four middle seats. A friend of the two girls sitting next to us came back to them and said there were two empty seats by her, so the two sitting by us left, and Brent and I ended up with all four seats to ourselves. It made the loooooong flight a little better. Brent and I took a sleep aid at one point in the flight, but realized later that we shouldn't have done that. We still couldn't sleep, and now we were miserable. But I guess you learn as you go.
Airplane food!
Brent looks like he is concentrating on his food.Over AlaskaWe finally made it after twelve hours to Tokyo. I think Brent and I were so dazed that we didn't know what time or even day it was. We found out that it was around 5:00 p.m. Tuesday afternoon. I think we both fell asleep waiting on the flight to Singapore. Luckily the flight wasn't full, so Brent moved to the set of seats behind me so that we could spread out for the 8 hour flight. (this was blurry, but I had to include it) We arrived in Singapore at 2:00 early Wednesday morning. I got to experience my first taxi ride on the way to the hotel, for a long awaited sleeeeeep.

Update

Just an update...
We made it home safe and sound on Tuesday night. Our luggage made it home safe and sound on Thursday. We were stuck in Seattle which made us come home a day later than we intended to, but I guess that is just all part of it.

This weekend I am going to start putting pictures of our trip on here.

Now if someone will volunteer to come wash all of the clothes in the luggage, life would be complete!

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Selamat Malam!

Which means good evening, from Jakarta. Brent and I and his dad are at an internet cafe in Jakarta. We flew from Lampung this morning and the flight only took about 30 minutes. We had a nice visit in Lampung and got to meet all of the students at the bible school there. Everyone is so friendly!
We spent the afternoon today shopping in one of the malls here. I bought two shirts. They were 150,000 and 100,000 rupiah. That is about $13.00 and $9.00! I have found some great bargains here!
We are going in the morning to visit Jakarta International School where Brent spent his high-school days. I can't wait to see it. Then we will go and do some more shopping! Can you do too much shopping?
As much fun as I am having, I am also counting the days until I can see the boys again. I know they are doing well. Melany has sent me an email each day of what they are doing and what they want to tell me. I laugh because Brooks' always are like: "I love you mommy and daddy, and I miss you." Then Reese says, "My head hurts, and I have a boo-boo." He also has said, "I miss you mommy, and I have nothing to say to daddy." How funny!!!
I hope to update everyone from Bali in a couple of days before we start the 24 hour journey home. The flights are wonderful, I just don't do well when I get that tired. (Does crying because you can't figure out how to open the bathroom door on the plane count as too tired?)
Take care everyone!

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Greetings from Singapore!

Brent and I are doing great over here in Singapore. It is Friday morning at 11:00, so it is late Thursday night for you guys. We went on 3 tours yesterday, and I have lots of pictures to share with you when I get back. Singapore is a beautiful country! It is the cleanest place ever!!! I would recommend coming here to anyone!!!
We leave tomorrow to go to Jakarta and then on to Bali next week.
We are going to the Botanical Gardens and the History Museum today, and then on to the chocolate buffet at the Fulerton Hotel tonight. (THAT'S RIGHT-CHOCOLATE!)
I will catch up with everyone later! We are paying for the Internet by the minute, so I don't have time to check every one's blogs, and it is killing me!!!

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Leaving on a jet plane....

Brent and I are leaving on our trip tommorrow. I will try and post some updates while we are there.
This is all so new to me....as far as going to another country. The customs, people, and sights are going to be a lot to take in! I cannot wait to see what awaits us on the other side of the world. I am excited about getting some quality time with my husband, and getting to experience what was at one time such a huge part of his life. But I have to admit, I already miss the boys, even though they are in the next room right now. They are excited about the change in their routine so I know they will be fine. Now, if I can just tell my emotions that, I will be doing good.



"Strong and content I travel the open road." -Walt Whitman

Friday, March 6, 2009

I found this quote on a blog the other day, and immediately thought of this picture:



And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter and the sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.
Kahlil Gibran (1883 - 1931)

I love my girls!!!

Tuesday, March 3, 2009