Heya! Singapore has been great and greatly hot … 😓🔥🔥!

When we first got to the airport, I had to hit the loo, so I headed for the men’s room. As I was exiting I spotted a screen that had smiley and frowny faces on it. It went from ‘Excellent’, to ‘Good’, to ‘Average’, to ‘Poor’, and finally ‘Very Poor’ (like this:😄, 😊, 😐, 😪, 😭).

At first I thought it was one of those pain charts like in a doctor’s office, but then I saw little writing saying ‘Please Rate Our Toilets’ and ‘Screen Cleaned Regularly’. I, of course, hit ‘Excellent’ and the screen said ‘Thank you for your feedback’. Later, I started wondering what it would’ve said if my feedback depicted ‘Very Poor’… Mom said that sirens and alarms could have gone off and the cleaning crew probably would have descended from the ceiling with mops, brushes, and soap, cleaning everything in sight … including me. Maybe they would’ve even done it if I rated the bathroom just ‘Good’!!!

Then, just after immigration, there was another ‘Rate Our Service’, and when I, again, hit ‘Excellent’ it asked me what they’re doing well. The options were like ‘Queuing’ and ‘Speed of Passport Check’. I just chose ‘Queuing’ – I didn’t know what else to say. In fact, immigration even was handing out free candy. Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option on the ‘Rate Our Service’. I was sucking on my candy, the AC was rockin’ the place, and dad found out that he had a bank account from 15 years ago that had S$750 in it. While he was getting money out of the ATM I said, “Why can’t all of the world be like this?”😁

Anyway, that day we got some tourist tickets and spent a lot of our time on the MRT. The MRT is the local metro.

For supper, we walked to a hawker center in Chinatown. I visited a Chinese pharmacy, and we also passed a famous Hindu temple on the way.

The next morning, we visited Orchard Road and Emerald Hill, where my parents lived in the 90’s. Unfortunately, their old building was knocked down and new complexes were in their place.

We also visited Raffles Hotel, where Michael Jackson stayed when he was here, in Singapore. And a lot of other celebrities, too, since it is the most famous hotel in Singapore.

For supper, we went to a place for chili crab that my parents used to go to when they lived here. They were happy.

On our second full day here we hopped the Bubble Jet Boat (again using our tourist passes) and headed up the river towards the Merlion, a statue that depicts an animal (50% lion, 50% mermaid) spitting water into the river that surrounded some reclaimed land that now has a GIANT hotel that has a curved boat with a pool in it on the top of three huge glass buildings. This is the Marina Bay Sands hotel.

Then, we ate lunch at a Chinese coffee shop. You might think a coffee shop only has pastries and coffee, but coffee shops have all kinds of food, like beef in oyster sauce and chicken rice. Here in Singapore chicken rice is known as chi-fan instead of khao man gai, like in Thailand. Yyyyyyuuuuuummmm😋!!! After that we headed back to the hotel and swam in the pool! I met some kids from Australia who are on their way to Vietnam.

Then my parents had fish head curry for supper! I That’s another Singapore thing.

Today is our last day in Singapore which means packing, getting to the airport, and swimming in the hotel pool (even though there is a pool in T1 of this airport … hey, this is Singapore!)

Next stop … Sydney! Can’t wait to see some quokkas.