China! Are you hungry?

Exactly one week ago at this time, Matt and I were zipping around Beijing on a motorcycle/side car combo (more on that in the next post) and now I'm here in Singapore blogging about our exciting China adventure. Time is flying these days!

I guess you could say that the trip to China was our "babymoon," you know, that one last BIG trip people like to take before the baby arrives and changes life as they know it? The location was just perfect for more than one reason. For one thing, Matt spent 6 weeks in China back in 2001 and since we started dating (nearly 8 years ago) he's been telling me that he wanted to go back there and share some of his experiences with me. The other thing is that while we originally planned on going to one last beachy location for our big trip, I couldn't get past the thought of being so close to the Great Wall of China (one of the seven wonders of the world!) and never actually going to see it before we move home.

We packed a LOT into our short amount of time there. The trip was incredibly exhausting, but in a good way! We enjoyed our time together...our last trip as a family of 2...reflecting on the past 8 years together...all while excitedly talking about the future. In less than 4 months we'll meet our little boy and we simply can't wait for that day and all of the new and very welcomed changes that will come with it :)

We arrived in Beijing on Friday afternoon. We dropped off our bags at the hotel and headed straight to Wangfujing Market. We were ready for some dinner and heard that we might find some delicious foods there...

The crowds of people must mean good food is close!

Ahhh, a skewer of some type...that looks promising. Wait! Is that squid on a stick? Is a young child eating that?! Hmm...maybe that's not what I'm looking for after all. 

OK, well what about some fruit dipped in glazed honey? Really, doesn't sound bad at all...but we'll save that for dessert.

Now we see it...more skewers! There has to be something good over there to eat, right?

 Snake on a stick? No?

How about some seahorse then?

How about the ever delicious cicada on a stick? Yum?

Grasshopper?

Fine, what about scorpion?

Starfish? No? No takers at all?!

Well, none of that appealed to us either! I assure you we didn't try any of that, nor were we tempted. I must admit, these exotic food choices seem to be more of a tourist trap than anything else. Our tour guide actually told us he's never seen a single local eat any of those and they certainly don't eat scorpions and the like in the countryside. The one exception is silkworm which is apparently enjoyed by both locals and tourists. Not us though!

Matt showing off the market!

Oh and what did we eat? Some tofu and dumplings among other really good (and normal!) foods :)

How did we wash it down?

With this! It's only 46% alcohol...

OK, so maybe I didn't actually try it. And don't worry Mom and Dad...Matt only tried a sip! Our guide wanted to show us how the locals keep warm in the winter. The entire bottle only cost $1!

...and goodnight to the Wangfujing Market!

Rachel in Singapore

August was a busy month for me. As in non-stop (but fun) activity. In fact, the moment I finally stopped moving, I ended up getting the flu which forced me to rest for several days in a row. I'm happy to report that I'm all recovered now and I'll even go as far as saying the sickness was worth it because I had such a fabulous time when Rachel came to visit me here in Singapore!

Rachel is a life long friend. We met and became friends in kindergarten and we haven't looked back since! OK, that is a lie...we have looked back...twice to be exact. A fight in both third grade and fifth grade set our friendship back a tiny bit, but obviously we got over those little arguments ;)

Rachel's first stop was Australia to visit another childhood friend, Jean. Then the two of them flew over to Singapore together and spent a week touring this great city. We packed in a lot of fun in a short amount of time. I'm so glad they came to visit! Who would have thought that when we were all running around the playground together in elementary school that we would one day end up hanging out on the other side of the world? Certainly not me!

Chinatown!

Rachel and I got to spend some quality time together on day 1 while Jean and her husband traveled to Kuala Lumpur with some friends.

Shopping on Orchard Road

Dinner in Chijmes with Rachel, Jean and Jason

Fun at the casino...well, maybe not as much fun as we could have had since we didn't win any money!

This is probably as close to Universal Studios that we'll be since many of the major attractions aren't open and won't be until after we're gone. Not worth the admission price for us!

Sentosa Island

The Mega-Zip at Sentosa. That's Jason, Rachel and Jean coming down the wire!

All smiles after their zip wire fun!

...and if you're going to do the zip wire, you may as well do the flying trapeze too! :)

We rounded out the week in Singapore with trip over to Indonesia to relax on the beach in Bintan. It only takes 45 minutes to get there from Singapore...how could we resist?

Thanks for coming Rachel and Jean!

BALI!

A few weeks ago we packed our bags and headed to Bali for a fun, 4 day get away. It's really about time we went there because everyone I know in Singapore had already been and loved it. It's funny because while we were there I got to thinking that 7 years ago as Matt and I were discussing places to go on our honeymoon, I actually remember one of us mentioning Bali. It was quickly ruled out as 1) we thought it was way too far from the US (and it really is) and 2) it was totally out of our budget at the time. Back then I would have never guessed that we would eventually make it there and be only a 2.5 hour plane ride away!

When we first arrived in Singapore, I naively assumed that all of the surrounding countries would more or less be the same. I couldn't have been more wrong! In fact, each country we've been to has been uniquely different than the next, no matter how close together they are. Bali offered us totally new experiences!

We spent our first two nights in Ubud, then traveled to Tulamben (known for its dive sites and more specifically, the Liberty shipwreck) and then spent our final night and day in Sanur. This time around, I didn't have to do hardly any of the planning because we went there with the Castello family and Amanda was kind enough to work out all of the major details. She really planned a great trip and we had so much fun traveling together!

Let's move on to the more exciting part of the post...the pictures!

On our very first morning, we biked through Ubud which gave us a real feel for what local life was like...

I have never seen (or heard!) more roosters in my entire life. They were everywhere in Bali.

Roosters are the very reason I'm sure that I could never live on a farm. They sure are annoying at 4 a.m.!

So as our biking group continously checked out the roosters, a few of our guides thought it would be fun to let us watch some angry roosters fight. OK, my first thought was to walk away because even though I'm not crazy for roosters or anything, the last thing I wanted to watch was one of them kiling the other! However, we were assured that it wasn't a "real" rooster fight (apparently those involve blades and the loosing rooster dying within minutes) and these two would do nothing but peck at each other...which ended up being true, thankfully!

Well, even though they didn't kill each other, it sure looked like they wanted to...

Stone statues like this one are present all throughout Bali.

As our bike ride went on, we finally came to what I was most excited about seeing in Bali - the rice fields! To be honest, I was expecting to see fields of rice in Vietnam, but we never really did. I know they exist in Vietnam in areas outside of the places we traveled, but at least going to Bali allowed me to see the fields...and they looked just like I had imagined!

(...and for the few that may be wondering, that's me with an [almost] 5 months pregnant belly. I can't really hide it anymore!)

The people of Bali were so friendly! These folks happily waved and smiled at me as I snapped their picture!

A path along the rice fields. The day could not have been more beautiful than it was!

Never ending fields of rice!

The bike tour ended with a home cooked meal at the house of the man who owns Banyan Tree Bike Tours (I highly recommend them should you ever find yourself in Bali). I would have taken pictures of the meal, but I was far too busy inhaling all of the delicious food they gave us! :)

We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing by the pool and goofing off at the resort...

The hotel grounds.

The next day we departed Ubud fairly early to make it to our next destination, Tulamben. As I mentioned above, Tulamben is mostly a dive town. Since diving and pregnancy don't mix, I decided to snorkel and Matt was super sweet and decided to do that with me rather than dive (which I'm sure he would have had even more fun doing). We still saw a ton of fish and even managed to snorkel over the shipwreck which was really cool! Unfortunately, I failed to take out my camera the entire time we were in Tulamben so I didn't get a single picture from our day and night there. Guess we'll have to go back some day!

After we left Tulamben, we headed to Sanur to spend our final night and day relaxing. We stayed at a beautiful resort and as soon as we arrived, Matt and decided we weren't going to do anything else the rest of the time except relax by the pool and beach! It was the perfect decision for us! :)

Lunch by the beach...is there really a better place to eat?

The water was extremely shallow which I guess provides a perfect opportunity for the locals to fish in waist-deep water.

Now I said we went to Bali with the Castellos, but I bet you were starting to think I made that up, huh? Well, here is the ONLY proof I have that we were there together - the kids playing in the sand and Matt and Jason chatting in the distance :)

And I'll leave you with one last picture from our fabulous trip...

...the best looking guy in Bali! :)

Cousins in Singapore

If you've been reading the blog for a little while then you know that back in April we traveled to Vietnam and met my dad's family for the very first time. The family members included my cousins, Hung and Ngan. They were both so sweet and we knew right away that we wanted to be sure and have another opportunity to get to know them better. So on our last day in Vietnam we asked them to please consider our offer to bring them over to Singapore for a weekend to see a new country and spend time with us. We're so glad they accepted! They visited us here a few weeks ago and we spent 3 fun-filled days getting to know more about them. It's so great to have "new" family members!

We took them all around Singapore showing them all of the usual hot spots, but I must say, the weekend seemed to be more about food than anything else! There were so many new things we wanted to introduce them to...local cuisine like chili crab and American cuisine like trips to McDonalds and Chilis :) They most certainly didn't go hungry while they were here. In fact, I'm pretty sure they returned to Vietnam a few pounds heavier ;) Hopefully, it was all worth the fun we had together.

Thanks for coming to see us in Singapore, Hung and Ngan! We hope we'll be able to spend time with you again...maybe next time in the US! :)

Our first lunch together...steamed pork dumplings!

Strolling along Orchard Road

Ngan and Matt on the river taxi

Hung and Matt enjoying some local chili crab

Marina Bay after dinner

Ngan, Matt, Hung and the Merlion :)

Breakfast at McDonald's. Ngan had never even heard of McDonald's before...which Matt thought was refreshing, haha!

Walking through Clarke Quay

On the cable car to Sentosa - their first time being on one!

Underwater World

Dinner at Chilis. They asked us to order for them so we chose ribs for Hung and a hamburger for Ngan. They liked the food (or at least we think they did), but they couldn't get over the American sized portions! There's a reason we're so much bigger than them... ;)

At the Marina Bay Sands Casino

View from the sky bridge at the MBS hotel

Up in the sky garden

Me and my love :)

The end to a very fun weekend!