Jersey in Singapore

This week marks the beginning of a month filled with fun.  I've got visitors rotating in and out for the month of November.  To kick things off, a few of my friends made a two day pit stop in Singapore.  We were able to see most of Singapore in 48 hours.

First stop was for food of course.  We went to La Pau Sat, a hawker center downtown to fill up our bellies.

After eating, we trekked up to Orchard Road to do some window shopping and goofing around.

After that, we checked out the old shophouses in Emerald Hill.  Then, we wandered over to Little India and lost ourselves in the 24-hour-shopping mecca, Mustafa.  One of my friends commented that Mustafa was like Amazon - you can buy anything and everything in that place.  After all that walking, we finally took a break to chill by the Singapore River in Clarke Quay

Refreshed, we walked over to Boat Quay and bargained for our dinner....the winning restaurant gave us two free rounds of drinks (which we subsequently paid for in the rather pricey food).

Camera Wars!

N getting ready to dig into the chili crap....I mean crab.  I hadn't really noticed before (a sign that I've been here too long), but to my friends' American ears, chili crab with a Singaporean accent sounds like chili crap.

Posing with the black pepper crab

After dinner, we wandered over to Marina Bay to catch the night scenery.  Through some connections, we were able to get up to the top of the Marina Bay Sands and check out the infinity pool at the top....all at no cost!  Usually it costs $20 to get up to the observation deck, but even then, you can only see the pool.  Only hotel guests (and their guests) have access to the actual pool.   

View from the pool

In the middle of the pool, there's a walkway that you can walk on to get some cool pictures of Marina Bay.  So, I actually got to step into the pool and take some awesome pictures.

Infinity pool myth debunked: You will not fall to your death if you go over the edge of the infinity pool.  There's a ledge on the other side that you can't see when you're looking at the pool from afar.  So, no worries, you'll be fine if you jump over the ledge.

After a long day of sightseeing, we headed home to get some shut eye and gear up for day two of sightseeing.  Once again, we started with lunch at a hawker center - Maxwell Road Food Court.

Munching on some cockles

N in the middle of the heavenly "Fried Banana Experience".  Yes, it is really that good.

Caught in the act - J enjoying some Tian Tian Chicken Rice, which by the way, 

is endorsed by Anthony Bourdain.

After lunch, we headed over to Vivocity and did a little shopping before we crossed over to Sentosa Island.

The guys modeling some down jackets at Uniqlo....I can't believe they even sell down jackets here...
If you look closely, you can see that they are replicating some of the modeling poses on the
wall behind them.

Hanging out on Sentosa

We walked around Sentosa, checking out the sights.  Then made our way over to the beaches and crossed this little bridge to the Southernmost Point of Continental Asia.

You can check out the rest of the pics in my flickr album.  It was so nice to see some familiar faces from home.  There's just something different about friends from home.  There's a comfort level created through years of friendship that's hard to find when you move every 3 years.  It's hard to believe, but I've been out of the states for a little over a year now!  Wish they could've stayed longer, but I've got my hands full since my mom flew in a couple of days ago, right on the tail end of my friends' visit.  So the month of fun continues!