To Mom

I’ve really screwed up this whole blog thing. I intended to keep everyone up to date on the “goings ons” in Singapore and my travels but I’ve just found it easier, it seems, to post Instagram and Facebooks stories. I wish I could just sit down and write out blogs like you come up with worksheets and tasks for the kids for your kindergarten class but it seams I didn’t inherit that creative talent.

Today on Mothers day I wanted to talk about one of the most important people in my life - you, and your visit to Singapore in July 2023. You ( and dad, of course ) have always been there for me - from the very start, through the thick and the thin - and definitely made me who I am today. I share a lot in common with you and I consider myself to be a momma’s boi through and through ( sorry dad ). You taught me patience, compassion, how to love, and - of course - my ABCs. You taught me not to be afraid and that I can “do hard things.”

When I told you I was thinking about moving to Singapore you were immediately supportive, but I could tell you were definitely sad I’d be moving to the other side of world and probably a bit concerned about the living conditions in Asia. I assured you Singapore was one of the most western countries in Asia but from the get-go you still wanted to come visit me in Singapore as any great mother would. haha. And as a teacher you have plenty of time off in the summer so a trip for you is easier than most…but as you know that’s not necessarily true.

I had just moved to Singapore at the beginning of June ( gosh almost a year ago at this point - my how time flies ) and you planned to come visit me in July after I’d gotten some time to settle in a bit. To be honest I wasn’t sure if a month to settle in and get my feet wet would be enough time to be able to properly show you around, but I was able to find a place to stay relatively ease and was moved in by mid-may. I was more or less “done with the chaos” by the time you arrived so the timeline worked out rather nicely and I so looked forward to seeing you. This blog is for you to recap our adventures on your first visit to Singapore! Happy Mothers Day!

As an aside for the other readers -

I was “done with the chaos” but in my mom’s case that wasn’t true. Trying to get anywhere outside of the United States from St Louis, Missouri usually mean’s you’ll have one additional connecting flight than if you left from a major population center like Chicago to Singapore. In my mom’s case she was supposed to arrive in Singapore on July 3rd via St Louis ( STL ) -> Denver ( DEN ) -> San Fransisco ( SFO ) -> Singapore ( SIN ) on United Airlines ( UA ) but the trouble started right off the bat in STL with a delayed flight to DEN. Now it’s been a while since this happened so I don’t remember all the nitty gritty details but basically this was around the time there was a onslaught of delays and cancellations for quite a few of the major airlines for seemingly no reason. Anyway, her original itinerary had plenty of time at each layover - like greater than two hours. However, the flight in STL was delayed so much she was going to miss her connecting flight in DEN to SFO…BUT UA didn’t flag this or do anything about it upfront!! What a load of crap and shit customer service. I took it upon myself to re-book mum on a later flight out of DEN to SFO which still left enough time to catch the flight to Singapore. At this point everything seemed OK, we had averted a crisis with missing the connecting in SFO, right? At least that’s what I thought…WRONG, the flight I re-booked out of Denver also got delayed significantly and it was the last flights out of Denver to the west coast that night. This meant my mom spent the night at the Denver airport. United’s plan was to put her on the same itinerary but just delayed a day - meaning she wouldn’t get to Singapore until a full 24 hours after she was originally scheduled ( the whole trip takes approximately 24 hours on a normally on it’s own ). This was unacceptable as United was clearly at fault for both of the delays and missed connections. It’s at this point I spent a “plane” load of time on the phone with UA customer support yelling at them to rebook her via an alternate route which would see her arrive sooner. They would tell me there’s no alternate routes. I would find an alternate route and then they’d tell me all the planes are fully booked and there’s no seats left. Turns out - there was. I could book them myself on their own portal ( !! ) - bet they weren’t expecting me to check that! After I called them on their bullshit and informed them that all the itineraries we had discussed had were plenty of seats available and even going so far as to list the available seat numbers ( 6A, etc. ), miraculously the seats were suddenly available and she was rebooked out of DEN to Los Angeles ( LAX ), and from LAX to SIN on Singapore Airlines instead of United.

This ended up working out a bit better, as all she had to do was wait in the Denver airport for the flight to LAX which was a shorter wait then then flights to SFO. Mom said the wait in Denver was awful because people would just loudly talk on their phones or have their tablets out with the volume all the way up - it’s appalling sometimes how disrespectful people are nowadays.

Even thought all of this sucked, it ended up working out a bit better for Mom on the long flight from LAX to SIN as she was flying in Singapore Airlines economy class which is miles better than United Economy, so that was nice. Anwyay…

You eventually finally landed safely in Singapore on July 4th after much debacle and I met you at the airport! But what didn’t meet us was your luggage ( !! ) which still went the delayed route via SFO. You were stuck without your luggage for a whole day until the airlines could deliver it to my apartment in Singapore which wasn’t ideal. But at this point it didn’t matter, you had arrived safely which is all we could really ask for even if it was roughly a day later than planned!

Seeing you at the Airport!

My hair was awful but you looked great!

July 4th

We started your first day in Singapore in the wee hours of the morning waiting around for your luggage to arrive. The UA app was gaslighting us that it would arrive around the same time. We needed up deciding on getting some breakfast and had some Kaya toast at the airport spot with some runny eggs as well. You didn’t seem too enthused about the runny egg but I think you need up liking the Kaya butter toast. This is a regional and local breakfast item in Singapore and I eat it probably more than I should given the amount of butter they put in those things.

I don’t think I actually have any pictures of the toast, but this is where we were sitting!

We then headed to my place and then I went into work while you napped and got settled in at my walk up apartment. We met for dinner at the Lau Pa Sat hawker center in the central business district near my work and enjoyed some dim sum and beef fried rice but that’s not really what you were craving - it was ice cream haha. I think the heat caught up with you quickly. We ended the night by walking around the Marina Bay Sands complex enjoying the laser/water show and checking out the Apple Store nearby.

July 5th

I had just moved into my apartment a few weeks prior and it was pretty bare as I had bought most of the furniture off the previous tenant and there wasn’t any decorations. The day before you had explored the market nearby while I was at work and noticed the flower shop on the corner there. We went back in the morning and bought a vase and picked out some flowers to put in the middle of my dining room table. I think they died pretty soon after but it looked nice while they were healthy!

My main goal for the day was to show you some more of the local food and neat places in Singapore but I think your luggage also arrived that day, which was a major blessing. We ventured to Esplanade mall via the Mass Rapid Transit ( MRT - which I was excited to show you as I love trains ) where we ate lunch at YGF Mala Tang which you now frequently get cravings for ( sorry haha ) and refer to as ‘spicy soup.’ We both made a mess of ourselves and got way too much in our bows - we discussed we should have shared.

We ended the day checking out the Chjimes church area which was revamped into an assortment of bars and restaurants and had a display going on. We managed to snap a photo of a Lamborghini for Trenton even! I think we ended up walking quite a bit each day, but this was definitely one of the lighter days in walking.

July 6th

On Thursday we did a boat load of walking as we explored the gardens by the bay complex. We took the Thompson East Coast Line ( TEL ) MRT train from my place and walked all around Gardens by the Bay stopping to see the Flower Dome and Cloud Forests. Despite going here many times before, I still enjoy walking through because the theme changes frequently in the Flower Dome - this time it was Roses! We also explored the Sky Trees to get a good view of Marina Bay Sands ( MBS ) and the coast. I probably mentioned some nerdy shit about the ventilation shafts for the all the tunnels you can see from the top of the sky trees…haha.

We rounded out the day by grabbing some of my favorite - Korean Barbecue ( KBBQ ) where they cook the meat right in front of you on a charcoal grill. Think you really enjoyed this as well and we ended up feasting and having a few Korean drinks as well. You got out of your comfort zone a bit with the food in Singapore overall but I think you were surprised how much you liked.

July 7th

You very much wanted to see some wild monkeys and keep up the active theme so we journeyed quite a ways on the TEL to Windsor Nature Park where we completed the Sky Tree Top Walk. I think this walk is really great but I had forgotten exactly how many steps there were which you were not happy with me for. But you persevered through it and we ended up getting to see quite a few different animals and getting some great photos on the tree top walk. It is really incredible how much cooler under the Jungle canopy it is!

We rewarded ourselves with a fancy dinner atop the MBS complex at Lavo, an Italian restaurant, which ended up being pretty mediocre but the views are pretty good. We enjoyed seeing Gardens by the Bay from a different angle than the way we saw it before. Then we food coma.

July 8th

Pretty sure it was very hot this day and this probably wasn’t the best choice for that weather but what can you do - it’s Singapore! On Saturday we ventured to Sentosa island which is home to many beach clubs, Universal, some food trucks, and more. We explored the island a bit, had some drinks at the bikini bar, and discovered there was an upcoming GrillFest which I later went to. I wanted to show you the views from the Cable car but you weren’t too keen on the height. You were definitely scared but you did it and conquered some of that fear!

We took the cable car to Mt. Faber and waited way too long for some freshly squeezed juices but we got some good photos.

Finally, and I think this was a bit of a flop, we went to the night safari at the Zoo but chose to take the tram instead of walking around the park ourselves ( it was my first time ) which was okay as we got so see some of the wildlife but we had to deal with screaming children and long lines. I think it would have been a more authentic experience if we walked around ourselves - something we can do next time around!

Think we slept really well this night as it was a super long day.

July 9th

This was your last full day and of course you wanted to go shopping for some ornaments - a great tradition we’ve had as a family since forever. I thought Bugis might be a good place to find these as it’s a large market and has lots of shops but turns out souvenir ornaments aren’t really a thing in July or at all? I’m still keeping an eye out for some now but they’ve proven very difficult to find. Bugis was also not really a great choice as it was really crowded and cramped - sorry :/

On this day I introduced you to Hotpot at Haidilao which you loved haha. We ordered the noodle that come with the guy doing tricks with the noodles. Though I think he may have dropped one and had to start over on the second noodle. We rounded out the night by taking the MRT back home and getting some selfies with the Havelock MRT stop near my place.

July 10th

During the night safari I was able to upgrade your return trip back to the US to business class despite you telling me not too :giggle: as I wanted to treat you and felt bad your journey to Singapore was so shitty. On the 10th we went to the airport early in the morning and I saw you off. You cried, and it was hard for me not to too…I mean I cried too.

Your journey back was much better and you sent plenty of pictures of you enjoying business class to San Diego :)

I’m sorry mom it took so long for me to write about our adventures but it was truly so much fun to show you around my new home. We also got to explore a bit of new territory together as well which was so much fun. You had few issues with the heat and after leaving Singapore I think you were much less stressed about my whole move and knew I could be happy here. You also came at just the right time to help make my apartment feel like home and just when I was needing to see some family.

As it turns out, you and the entire family will be visiting me again in July this year around the same time! I’m so excited to have everyone come out and to show you around again. I’ve met some pretty amazing people over the last year and maybe the person - I can wait to share them with you.