Showing Brian around Singapore

Calling off the Cambodia trip - while disappointing - has not necessarily been a bad thing. It's given us the chance to chill a little bit (apparently Brian doesn't like to go, go, go on vacation as much as he might lead one to believe, and let's be honest: he's no match for me when it comes to checking things off a list, ha ha). Seriously, it's been nice because it's also given us the chance to see more of Singapore than we would have had time for otherwise.

After returning from Bangkok, we had dinner at one of my favorite restaurants, a Mediterranean place called Al Qasr in Holland Village. Delicious! Then, we started tackling the first of three things Brian really wanted to do in Singapore...



...a trip to O'Bama's Irish Pub. Yes, the one in the nearby shop house I mentioned my first week here and the same one that left the funny F1 flyer. Brian really wanted a t-shirt but all they had were polos, so he just enjoyed his Kilkenny and was satisfied. The bar's slogan was "Change you can drink to."

Yesterday we slept in and bummed around before having lunch at a nearby hawker stand (Brian loves the hawker centers). Then, we embarked on the second thing on his must-see list...



...the Singapore Flyer. Here he is, overlooking the Central Business District and the Marina area. The entire trip only takes about 30 minutes and it was fun for me to see where everything is from a bird's eye view, even though I've done the Flyer once before.


After the Flyer we spent some time doing light shopping in the stretch of never-ending underground malls tracking all the way from the Flyer to the River. Here's Brian along the Singapore River, just before Clarke Quay, where we met Whitney and Josh for dinner and drinks. He'll get the chance to meet the rest of my friends when we're back from Bali on Saturday.

Speaking of which, that's another reason why canceling Cambodia hasn't been all bad. We decided to extend our stay in Bali and will now fly out Tuesday (tomorrow) morning instead of Wednesday. Moving the flight was pretty inexpensive, but when I called our hotel yesterday to add an extra night, I was told that only their equivalent of the Presidential Suite was available - for $950 USD/night. Um, no. I had decided this was a good opportunity to explore the cultural area of Bali called Ubud and began researching hotels off the beach so we could get a different type of experience. This morning Brian called our hotel (the Oberoi) "just to check" and guess what - they had a room at the same rate and we're booked. Yay! Obviously we're really looking forward to it. In fact, Brian has begun researching Bali sports bars so he can watch MLB playoff games in the wee hours of the morning. Hey, if that's his idea of relaxing, that's fine with me as long as it doesn't disrupt my time in the sun!