Singapore in retrospect, KL now!

Hi all-

This one might have to be shorter than I would like.

We are now in Kuala Lampur which is very nice. We are staying at a beautiful serviced apartment just a 5 minute walk from the Petronas towers ... more on this later

Ah Singapore ... I woke up missing your breakfast already. In the parts of Asia we are going to be in, they don't really differentiate too much between breakfasts and other meals so you pretty much have the same options all day. The hotel we stayed at in Singapore was really kinda in a residential area. Most people eat out for a lot of meals so there were a ton of dining options on the street where we stayed. All were on the first floor of the buildings and just open air so when they opened for the day, they just rolled up their garage door and were ready for business. There were two we particularly enjoyed. One served prawn nee which is a noodle soup with prawns in it and one had a variety of choices. We generally stuck to chicken or duck and noodles or rice.

I'll have to let Kathryn on here later to update the trip to Sentosa Island on Friday. They did go on the long zip line over the ocean and all loved it. There was an extremely long wait and it was so expensive though. They also went to an aquarium which they also loved and got to pet sharks. This was when I had Cori at the hospital.

Yesterday, Saturday, we all went to breakfast and then Chuck took Cori back to the hotel to rest for a little while while Kathryn, Chase, Caitlin and I went to Chinatown. It was super interesting! I'm glad we didn't take Cori because it was so hot and it was an assault on the senses. The smell alone will not soon be forgotten. We didn't buy much - Caitlin bought a little elephant and I bought Cori the coolest little monkey water whistle. That was while she was sick and I would do anything to make her feel better. Now the whistle seems so loud and annoying! The funniest thing happened when we bought the whistle. The guy selling them was of course blowing one which is how we even knew they existed. It was a great marketing ploy because we went straight over to check it out. When we got there he filled one with water from a little bowl and handed it to Kathryn insisting that she blow on it. I immediately started laughing knowing how sicked out she probably felt about that. She blew on it and we all laughed. That, however, was not the whistle we wanted so we showed him the monkey one we wanted. He dumped the water out of the one Kathryn just blew in back into the bowl and filled up the monkey one once again insisting that she blew on it. I was dying laughing at that time and bought that one.

The best parts of Chinatown were the Hindu mosque and the Buddhist temple. We went into the Hindu mosque first. It was all open air and hot on Caitlin's feet since she wasn't wearing socks. We had to pay $3 per camera, which I expected, to photograph anything, but it was worth it. They were getting ready for some sort of ceremony/celebration that evening. I'll really just have to post pictures as words can't describe it. I will say that it was so foreign to us that it almost seemed a little bit scary. I feel funny saying that because I know there is nothing scary there, but it's just so far removed from anything we've ever experienced...

The Buddhist temple was super cool too. It was several stories high and had different things on different floors. Kathryn and I both had on tank tops so we had to wear a pillowcase thing around our shoulders to go in. On the ground floor was the main worship area. It was all red and gold and had 100 buddhas lining each wall. There was a museum of sorts on one of the upper floors that told the story of Buddha and we enjoyed it. We also got to bathe a buddha there. I offered to let Caitlin and Chase get a candle or flower and get a blessing from the monk, but they both declined. Chase said he thought he would laugh when the monk hit him on the head with the sticks ... it was a little humorous from the outside looking at it. There weren't many people there so we got to wander around pretty much at will.

Saturday night was a little bit of a bust. We went to the night safari at the zoo. It was super cool, but Cori's belly was hurting a little bit and it was SO CROWDED so we decided to leave after only the tram ride and dinner...and spending over $200

Sunday we walked to breakfast and then packed up to go to Kuala Lampur (KL). It was an extremely short flight and we were greeted by a driver arranged by my friend Scott.

Well, someone else is waiting to use the computer and I have to go get ready for the day ... more later about last night in KL.

hope everyone is well!

Love, Kristen