Never enough time

Me chewing my "therapeutic" gum. At this point, I thought it was illegal and proceeded to hide it in a napkin.
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So, it's day 3 in Singapore and we spent the morning eating breakfast at the hotel and figuring out our itinerary for the next 7 weeks through Northern Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. We're a little discouraged though because we feel like there isn't enough time to do everything we want to do before we head off to India in early April. I'm sure it will allll work out.

We headed out for a walking tour (guided by ourselves, of course) of the city. Let me just tell you, Singapore is one gorgeous city. The British colonial buildings strewn throughout the mammoth tropical trees is like no other city I've ever seen. They actually have a Cricket field from the Cricket Club smack dab in the middle of the city. They have room for things like this because all of their malls are connected to one another underground. And boy is it easy to get lost in these underground malls (trust me, I know from experience). Kevin and I walked for an hour and a half through the mall and when we finally got above ground our hotel was almost out of sight. Another interesting thing is that a lot of the hotels (such as ours) have direct access to the malls from one of the hotel floors. I understand why they call shopping Singapore's #1 pasttime - it's virtually unavoidable! (Big Joe - we see why the ICSC is here).

Just make sure you get the first round free to soften the blow

Beautiful flowes on trees for the Chinese New Year
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We made our way down to Clarke Quay for lunch. All the restaurants look the same, I think they all use the same pictures in advertising their food. If you're going to eat there, just make sure you get the first round of beer free in order to soften the blow (which they will offer after the 5th time of you saying "No, thanks, we already ate, have a meeting to catch, jumping off a building, bashing my head into a wall, etc.") which we did, and that is why we finally ate. They are relentless. It was a nice relaxing meal by the river and the service was really nice. Our server almost fell into the river taking our picture in order to get a good shot. Now that's what I call quality service.

Clarke Quay
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After lunch, we wandered along the river and around the city. At one point, we stopped at the stand of a man screaming "Ice creeeeaaaaaaaaaaam" at the top of his lungs. He showed us his selections of "yam ice cream" and other flavors and I opted for no ice cream... until I spotted an Indian woman holding a McDonald's ice cream cone. Well, my mission ended us up buying a vanilla cone in McDonald's. The worst part was we had to backtrack and walk past the man who had showed us his "yam ice cream" 5 minutes earlier. Needless to say, I slinked past as far away as I could. It made me feel a little better when I noticed he was drinking out of an extra large McDonald's cup. They love their American food here.

River boats at Clarke Quay
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We're gearing up for a Chinese New Years celebration in China Town tonight. We're going to try to make it an early one as we leave for Chiang Mai tomorrow morning at 4 AM (meaning we miss our last free breakfast - so sad). Being in a big city such as Singapore was a great way to start the trip, but we're dying to live the lives of the small villages we are heading to, volunteering (thanks for all the tips, Danielle) and roughing it a tad bit more than a 5-star hotel in the cleanest city in the world has to offer.

The picture that almost made our server fall into the water.
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Note to self: Gum has now been legalized in SIngapore, only if it is of "therapeutic value." Cotton Candy Bubblicious could be considered therapeutic... right?

Come up with excuses before walking on the Southside of the Singapore River through Clarke Quay. You won't get sucked into a ridiculously overpriced restaurant, although you might end up at Mickey D's.