I Heart Singapore!

We've been on the road for a week and a half and yes! we've been busy! We are now in Manila, the capital of the Philippines. Here are some of the things we did in KL and Singapore.

Kuala Lumpur...

- The Lake Gardens & the Orchid and Hibiscus Garden

- Islamic Art Museum: we saw two beautiful exhibits, one on Islamic architecture and a photography exhibit on Muslims in the UK. The latter was inspiring and thought-provoking.

- Petronas Towers: tallest twin towers in the world and actually really beautiful. The view from the sky bridge is magnificent and even though I'm (Jul) not really afraid of heights, my finger and toes got tingly looking down!

- Fish spa: OMG!! A super fun spa treatment whereyou put your feet in a huge tank and these special fish suck off the dirt and dead skin. VERY ticklish for the first ten minutes, then really nice.

Singapore...

My goodness we were spoiled in Singapore! We were hosted by friends of the family, Barnabas and Hwee Huan, and they were amazing, gracious, and generous hosts. We absolutely LOVED Singapore and decided we could live there when we're rich and famous. Until then, we'll be content with the occasional shopping trip there!

- Singapore Flyer: the biggest ferris wheel in the world, from which we saw all of Singapore and even over to Indonesia! The capsules we sat in were completely closed up so it wasn't scary at all.

- Singapore Zoo & Night Safari: the most amazing zoo we've ever seen and they really know how to do zoo! We were able to see many animals at their feeding time, including white tigers, polar bears (whose favourite food was watermelon!), probiscos monkey, a strange breed of monkey with an abnormally large nose (which serves no other purpose than to sexually attract females), and, of course, white rhinos!

Here are Charlie and Hwee Huan by the orangutans!

The night safari was really interesting, too. We saw a couple shows and took a tram ride around the park to see the nocturnal creatures in their "natural habitat"; well, not really, but they are more free ranging than in the zoo and a little scarier! Charlie was also chosen to participate in the Tribal Dance Performance, which he did very well! At his desperate pleas, I have not included the dance video, but just so you know, I have one :) Here he is performing a different "task".

- Singapore Botanic Gardens & National Orchid Garden: this was definitely a highlight (but, really everything was). The orchids were so beautiful I can't put adequate words to the task. They also have an orchid hybrid program and have named these new orchid after famous people who have visited the garden. So we saw orchids named after Nelson Mandela, Queen Elizabeth, the president of Jordan, and so on... this one is the Margaret Thatcher orchid!

- We ate and ate and ate!! We tried many of the local dishes and, yes, we have now eaten chicken's feet! They call it, more eloquently, phoenix claws, and it was quite tasty, as long as we didn't think too much about what it was. We also had delicious crab by the waterfront one night, along with the most succulent, moist, life-changing chocolate tart of our lives!

- Singapore River Cruise: Barnabas came along one day and took the cruise with us, which he had never done. It was a nice way to end the trip.