Whew–what a busy time it’s been since our return from India! We are terrible bloggers–sorry for the delay. And thanks for checking back:). Now, on with the update! Happy Meal visited us, the Candeto family came, we’ve been to Thailand, celebrated two birthdays, been to Indonesia and are generally trying to keep up with the busy day to day lifestyle in Singapore since you have last hear from us. Instead of boring you with an incredibly LONG blog entry on all of these things, I’m going to spilt them up over several entries. This entry: Happy Meal aka Mizzle aka Flid aka John McDaniel’s trip to Singapore!
Flid arrived around midnight one evening after John and I had gone to see Shakespeare in the Park–a delightful rendition of “Much Ado About Nothing” with local soap opera stars. It was a wonderful show and we had wonderful weather. After the show, I was off to the airport to pick up Flid (John was not feeling well and ended up heading home). Rev and I met at the airport only to realize that neither of us had Flid’s flight number and there were two flights originating in Tokyo at the same time on the same airline. However, these two flights were arriving at different terminals in the Singapore airport! So, Rev went to one terminal and I went to the other to see who could have the first “Flid sighting.” Rev won and I was off to greet Flid via sky train. It had been almost a year since we had last seen Flid, so this was a joyous reunion! The first thing he said to me after his 30 plus hours of traveling was “my butt feels like a flotation device.” Some things never change:).
Flid stayed with us in our 250 square foot one room apartment! Fitting three people into that small space proved to be quite interesting, but we’re all such great friends it worked out fine! Flid slept on our pull-out couch and we were hopping all around each other when we were all in the apartment!!! He was such a good sport. Hopefully, we’ll have a larger place the next time he comes to visit and more optimal visiting conditions!
Turtle Face looking at the turtle
The next morning, well afternoon–Flid slept until about 12 or 1pm every single day–we went off on an adventure to the Turtle Museum! For those of you who don’t know, Singapore hosts the world’s largest collection of turtles, both living and in statue form. Before we could do this I took Flid to a Singapore “coffee shop” which is a type of hawker centre where there is very little coffee actually served. There we got some chicken rice and Flid got a taste for what most menus around here have to offer with items such as pigs organ soup, chicken foot soup, and other wonderful parts of animals that can be consumed. After Flid’s first meal here (I must admit, I’m not sure if taking him to such a local place so early was such a good idea:), we were off to the Turtle Museum!!! The museum is literally a tiny building with lots and lots of aquariums with turtles floating around in them.
Flid the Turtle God
We saw creepy snake turtles, turtles with pig snouts, and turtles that will worship you if you give them food. After viewing a turtle who was supposedly over 100 years old, we left the museum and headed to Holland Village (an expat hangout) for a sushi dinner and some Ice Kachang. Ice Kachang, or as we lovingly call it “blended clown,” is a dessert that is a snow cone on top of black beans, grass jelly, and jelly beans, then topped with cream corn. It’s as delicious as it sounds!
Flid nervously eyeing his spoonful of Ice Kachang (that's melted a bit)
The next afternoon–mind you, Happy Meal was sleeping until then–we set off to explore the city and two of the main cultural quarters of the town. Our first stop was the Arab Quarter where we looked at the mosque, did a bit of souvenir shopping and met John for lunch at a delicous Middle Eastern restaurant. Next, we headed to Chinatown where Flid spent most of his money (there are so many beautiful presents to buy!) and we explored the Buddhist Temple and went in the Buddhist museum. I must say, images of Religion 12 all came flooding back while we explored the exhibits! In fact, we had done a project together on Buddhism for that class–we found out that we were exceedingly accurate with our presentation…haha:). For the rest of the afternoon, we wandered around the city until we met Rev and John for dinner at a hawker centre near the Singapore River where we introduced Flid to delicious Sting Ray and Flid and John ordered cockles in honor of Molly Malone.
Cockles in honor of Molly Malone
The rest of the week seemed to go by in a blur. One day, Flid and I did the zoo AND the night safari (I think Flid slept until almost 2pm the next day) and another day we intended to go to Little India, but I went the wrong way when we got off of the MRT and we ended up back in the Central Business District. That day, we did a lot of walking. One of the best part of Flid’s visit was the chance to catch up with him–I feel like we’ve missed so much since we’ve been over here!!!!
The Saturday of Flid’s visit was Revant’s birthday! So, after Flid got up, we went to the Asian Civilizations Museum (a really cool museum that takes Asia country by country and displays artifacts of historical significance) and walked around until John could manage to get off of work (he had to work that Saturday…). Once John was able to meet us, we visited an Ice Cream Uncle just ouside the museum. Typically, ice cream is quite expensive in Singapore, but not if you can find an Ice Cream Uncle! They charge only one dollar and cut off a small block of ice cream for you then put it between two wafers. John got mango ice cream. I got chocolate chip. Flid got red bean.:) He was so adventurous with his ice cream decision! He said it tasted like strawberry…it certainly looked like it!
This picture pretty much sums up the evening...
After this we headed over to Clarke Quay to Rev’s birthday dinner! Rev had chosen a Mexican restaurant (Singapore only has Mexican “fine dining”–none of the cheap Mexican that we all know is far superior to all other Mexican food) over looking the Singapore river. Even though it wasn’t cheap Mexican, it was good:). We hadn’t had Mexican food in about six months. It was a wonderful evening with lots of fabulous pictures including a photoshoot on the bridge over the river!!!!:) Just a note of how awesome Rev is: the morning after his birthday he biked something like 60km at 5:45 am. We were all extremely impressed.
Happy Birthday, Revie!!!!!
The next day, sadly, was Flid’s last day in the ‘pore. His visit flew by as quickly as this entry makes it seem. We went to church, had a nice lunch, then went swimming in the pool at our condo before seeing Flid off at the airport. We are so thankful that he was able to come over here and really appreciate him taking all of time and making all of the effort to make the trip happen!!!!! Flid–come back soon–or go to wherever we end up next!!!!
Three days after Flid left, Steve, John’s little brother came over for a visit. John’s family followed shortly thereafter. Check out the next entry to hear all about our adventures in Singapore and in Thailand!
John and CB's Most Excellent Adventure 