Phene's at Sea 2011

Mar 16, 2011 Today we were in Singapore and it was AMAZING! The city is beautiful and so built up, the buildings are all so different from each other and going from India to there it was definitely a shocker. We only had one day in Singapore so I wanted to get in as much as I could. I did an SAS trip in the morning called Historical Temples Churches and Mosques, which was really interesting. There’s such a huge mix of people in Singapore, they call it a mini melting pot. Our guide, Casey (a man) was hilarious, he laughed after every comment he made so it was pretty entertaining. I broke off from the group at about 12:30 to meet up with Meredith, Jenna, Margaret, Cassie, and Kelly at the famous Raffles Hotel. A drink called the Singapore Sling was invented at this hotel, and we all purchased one for a whopping $25 dollars. Not sure it was worth it but hey, you’re only in Singapore once, right? It was pretty delicious though; it has gin, DOM, cherry liquor, grenadine, orange juice, and soda…or something like that. I have it all written down but I’m currently in class pretending to take notes so I can’t very well whip out my scribblings on alcoholic mixtures- that will have to wait. We also ordered some traditional Singaporean-Indian food and a burger for us all to split and ate our little hearts out. The Raffles Hotel is FANCY, I’m talking top of the line here, so guess how much my lunch was? $95 dollars…what a way to start out the day. I’m sorry to say that pretty much set the tone for the day. We left Raffles and meant to be heading to this huge Ferris wheel in the bay, we thought would be fun to see the city from the top. On the way there we had to walk through a mall that had the cutest shops, so of course being 6 girls we stopped for about 2 hours. I got some really cute things, mid-voyage wardrobe update anyone? After we convinced ourselves to stop shopping we found a 7-11 in the bottom level of the mall and bought some wine, some little baby bottles of vodka and some juice. After our experience at Raffles we were over the $20 drinks so we figured that would be best. As we were walking out we decided that since our little shopping detour had taken so long we better just skip the Ferris wheel and head straight to the big finale- The Marina Bay Sands Hotel. You should all look this place up, because it is amazing. It was completed last year and is three high-rise towers with a boat the size of a cruise ship planted right on top. If you’re not a guest of the hotel (like us) you pay $20 to get to the 76th floor, which is the boat. When you get up there you can see for MILES on every side, and the best part? There’s an infinity pool that stretches for most of the length of one side of the boat. We happily took some chairs (which we weren’t supposed to take) and made up our drinks with sodas purchased from the bar. It was amazing. Just sitting up there with great friends, sipping on drinks and admiring the impeding sunset. Of course when our drinks were gone we decided to order a round of shots. We went up to the bar and I ordered one vodka shot and a sprite to chase it with. Guess how much….30 smacks. Of course that’s what happens when you’re house vodka is Grey Goose. It was ridiculous, so that was the end of my buying drinks there. We sat up there for about 3 hours and then had to leave, sadly, to rush back to the ship to avoid dock time. When we got back to the cruise terminal there were a few cruises that were about to leave so the place was packed. We were running like insane people trying to find the SAS line and when we did, we accidently cut because we couldn’t tell where the line ended. People were so feisty, everyone was yelling at each other. Not my scene, I was so stressed out. When we were waiting to go through security, Meredith leaned over to take a picture with this funny Asian cut out man holding a sign that said “Bon Voyage” and this chick flipped out on her. She ran over and goes “You are American, right?” and then ripped Mere a new one about taking pictures in that area. We all just kind of giggled it off and made it through security, and when we were finished we took off running through the terminal. It was the funniest thing that’s ever happened to me- we’re sprinting down the left side of this hallway in which there is a huge line of Asians waiting to get on their ship on the left. As we were running, all of them were cheering us on, waving their arms and whistling. It was like running a marathon and reaching the end with so many people cheering. It was great. We made it with 6 minutes to spare to avoid dock time! We were pretty thrilled so we went up to the 7th deck to order celebratory chicken ceasar salads and big waters. We watched the ship pull out of Singapore talking about our days. It’s sad that we only spent like 8 hours there- there’s SO many things to do and it’s a great place, but on the other hand I know I would’ve spent way too much money had I stayed there any longer. Vietnam and Cambodia next!