Singapore Trip

Hello all again! 

Well, Ryan and I have just returned from our first weekend getaway and we had a great time. One of Ryan's friends lives in Singapore and invited us down to attend ZoukOut with him. For those who don't know what ZoukOut is (don't worry, I didn't know either at first) it is a dance music festival held on a local beach in Singapore. Think of it as Summerfest, but in sand, in a hotter climate, with more people and it goes till sunrise.

Ryan and I flew to Singapore Thursday night, enjoying our first international trip in the business class section. Who knew you could enjoy an airplane ride so much? 

Ready for take-off

During the day on Friday Ryan and I went to check out the Singapore Zoo. I had read online it was a must-see and that there was a panda attraction currently going on. One of my bucket list items while over here was to see pandas, so I was very excited. The zoo was the best we had ever seen. Every time we came around a corner we were amazed by the next animal we saw. The habitats were large and well kept for the animals. The one scary thing to me was that there wasn't a lot of barriers between the visitors and the animals. At one point there were orangutans sitting in trees directly above us! Unfortunately we didn't have a lot of time to look around but we did manage to check out the whole park, plus the pandas! The pandas are currently on loan from China, so it is a special exhibit you have to reserve a time slot for. It was defiantly worth the wait, though Ryan thinks he will be able to get me much closer to some pandas elsewhere. 

White tiger

White Tiger, sponsored by Tiger beer...very appropriate

Parks here rent out motorized scooters for anybody...facilitating laziness one theme park at a time

We love any scooter sign...and I loved the fact they banned them in areas and made people actually walk

Driving in the outback

Ryan thought it was appropriate I pose next to the falling person sign

Red panda

Panda #1 being lazy while eating himself out of the bamboo that is covering him

Panda #2 being even more lazy eating the bush while face down on the ground...too much work to hold your head up

Chimpanzee habitat

Always use the buddy system when entering a rhino habitat

Lion den

Giraffes

Saturday we headed to a hawker stand for some local Singapore food and looked around the city. A hawker stand is basically an outdoor food court for street food vendors.

The aftermath of lunch

We then walked around Maria Bay where there is a floating soccer field, dance club and Louis Vuitton store along with the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. Ryan stayed there on his previous trip. The top portion of the hotel is an infinity pool on the 57th floor!

Marina Bay

Each one of those white balls has wishes for the new year written on them by visitors.

After a dip in the pool and a quick nap, we headed to ZoukOut. We hung out in Universal Studios for dinner and drinks, saw some great fireworks at their nightly show and then headed to the beach.

Fireworks and 'crane dance' at Universal Studios

Knife Party DJ set

Calvin Harris

We had a great time at ZoukOut, though it did get a little hot and crowded for my taste. Defiantly hard to push through crowds with a broken arm but I didn't want to miss out. We stayed till early morning (5 a.m.) but didn't manage to see the sunrise. We had a great time on our first weekend trip and looking forward to more to come!

PS- Had another doctor appointment today and was told my arm is healing well but I still need 3 more weeks in the brace. Thank you for all the well wishes and thoughts for my recovery. Guess no sledding for me on all that new snow we see has hit the Midwest!