Home Visit #2

We had our second visit back to the US so we could celebrate Jimmy's mom's 70th birthday.  All of his sisters were in town too so it was the first time they were all together in over 5 years.  It was a great night and we're glad we were able to be there for it.

While in the Bay Area we also went to see the Giants play the Reds (the Reds won!!) and drove down to Monterey.  For the rest of the time we just hung out at Jimmy's mom's house and ate lots of food!!

We also spent a week in Cincinnati.  My sister had a family party so we were all able to enjoy her new house and pool.  It was so great spending the whole day with family but of course it went by too quickly.

I also got to meet my friend Annie's baby, Alison, who is absolutely adorable.

We spent the week hanging out at home, visiting friends and eating as much American food as possible.  We had a great time but the home trip went by way too quickly.  It will probably be at least another year until we come home again but hopefully we'll have some visitors in Singapore!!

Weekend in Phuket

This past weekend we went to Phuket, Thailand with a group of friends.  There were 9 of us so we got an amazing villa.  It was 5 bedrooms and had a great pool.  I think we would have been happy just staying there the whole time!

We weren't on the beach so we rented scooters to get there.  A lot of the shops and restaurants were closed due to the coup in Thailand right now but there was still enough open for us to enjoy our weekend there.  We spent the afternoon hanging out on the beach drinking and swimming in the ocean.  It was nice to have cheap beer for a change!
                   
                                                       
 After being at the beach for a few hours we relaxed at the pool in the villa for awhile before heading back to the beach for dinner.
                                               
                      

                                                           

On Sunday we just relaxed by the pool again all day.  It's nice to be able to reach these beach destinations in less than 2 hours so we can easily make it a weekend trip!  We had a great weekend but we're really excited for this upcoming weekend since we are heading back to the US for our next home leave!

Girls Weekend in Langkawi

I've met some really great girls here and we decided to do a weekend getaway to Langkawi, Malaysia which is a 1.5 hour flight from Singapore.  There were 5 of us that went -  Emma and Antonia are from the UK, Laura is from Australia and Catherine is from Chicago.  When we arrived we had a 5 minute car ride and then about a 15 minute ferry ride.  The resort was on a small island and we had an all inclusive package, which meant we spent lots of time at the swim up pool bar!!  There were beautiful views of other islands and pictures don't really do it justice.  It was nice to just get away and have a relaxing weekend.

                     

  

Easter weekend in Tokyo

Jimmy was in Tokyo for work the week prior to Easter and Good Friday is a holiday in Singapore so we decided to spend the long weekend in Tokyo.  He was going straight from there to Beijing for his next work trip so this was the only way for us to spend a whole weekend together this month since he's been traveling so much.  I was a little bit nervous because I had to take a bus from the airport to the train station close to our hotel to meet him but everything went very smoothly.  Everything at the airport and on the bus was translated to English so there were no issues.  The weather was in the 60s so it was nice to be able to wear jeans and sweatshirts again!  Our room was tiny - it was just enough room for a bed and a desk.  The bathroom faucet swiveled so that the same one was used for both the sink and the shower.  We were barely in the room so that didn't really matter.

                                

We spent Friday night walking around Shinjuku.  We saw a temple and lots of shops nearby.  The first place we stopped to eat at had a machine where you place the order for your food - we ended up going to several like this which was interesting.

 There are also vending machines everywhere in Tokyo.  They even have hot drinks in them which I hadn't seen before.  There were also cigarette vending machines but not as many as the drink vending machines.

We also went to a small restaurant that served yakitori (meat on a stick) and tried whale meat.  It looked and had the consistency of beef but with a seafood flavor.  Jimmy thought he was going to be sick - he didn't like it at all.  I don't think I'd eat it again.  We walked around and saw lots of different bars and arcades.  We went to another restaurant and had Udon noodles which were really good.  All of that food was just on Friday night - we ate quite a bit over the weekend.

Saturday morning we woke up early and went to Tsukiji Fish Market which is the world's largest fish market and is famous for selling fresh fish and having fresh sushi for breakfast.  Some of the restaurant lines were really long but we went to a restaurant with a shorter line.  All of the sushi was really good! I don't usually do the raw sushi but I'll probably try it more in the future now.  When we were done eating we walked around the market - the workers there were driving around carts moving seafood around - I was pretty sure we were going to get run over by one but we made it out safe.

We did a ton of sight seeing so here are a few highlights...

 Tsukiji Hongan-ji temple:

Imperial Palace.  We were able to take pictures from a distance but there are gates up so you can't get any closer than we did.

Tokyo Tower:

Zojoji Temple:

Meiji Shrine:

Shibuyu Crossing (large intersection where all the cars will get red lights and pedestrians flood the street from all sides):

We ate okonomiyaki which is a Japanese pancake.  It is not like an American pancake - this was full of cabbage, seafood and topped with mayonnaise.  The table had a grill on it to keep the food warm which was nice!

We went up Tokyo Sky tree once it was dark and saw all of the city lights. When you are up there you realize how massive the city is.  If we had gone up during the day we could have seen Mt Fuji but it was pretty neat seeing the city at night.

 For our final meal of the day, we decided to try Kobe beef and it was delicious!!  It is ridiculously expensive but we figured we were in Japan, we needed to at least try it!

On Sunday, we went to a Ramen place that was down an alley and had seats for less than 10 people.  We had to walk up a really narrow stairwell to get to it and space was quite scrunched but it was good!

From there we walked around and saw the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building.  We also walked to Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden.  We were both exhausted but really glad we saw as much as we did!