Deepavali in Singapore

Singapore has a significant Indian population, about 9-10% of the residents are of Indian decent.  There is a historic area called Little India full of Indian specialty shops and food.  Most Hindu Indians, and many others just to take part in the festivities, celebrate Deepavali this time of the year.  Deepavali is known as the "festival of lights".  The spiritual meaning behind the celebration is the awareness of inner light.

Being a long term tourist, I had to get to Little India during this celebration to check out the decoration and vendors with their stores jam packed with items to sell to "tourists" like me.  A group of ladies in my neighborhood headed out to check it out.

Little India is just a 45 minute subway train ride away.  In no time we were in a market buying inexpensive shirts and sundresses-- 2 for $10.  There were also some amazingly beautiful dresses that I may need to check out for next year's Navy Ball.

 Now I know where the bargains are!  After a quick lunch at an outside eatery (Hawker stands)- I chose Pad Thai for $3.50 we headed into the heart of Little India and got our cameras out.  

Apparently Welcome doesn't need an "E" on the end.

 Hanging decorations were everywhere and all for sale!

 Hindu figures welcoming you to the tent full of items for sale.

The main drag down Little India was decorated with festival of light symbols that would be illuminated in different colors at nighttime.

Happy Deepavali

Sentosa Island

Sentosa Island is small island located off of Singapore (actually also an island).  It is a resort play space for Singaporeans.  They have carved out 3 beaches to enjoy since Singapore has no natural beachfront.  Singapore is mostly industrial with ports or rocks all around the island.  They imported sand (more like dirt) and have 3 man made beaches that are coved off from the South China Sea.  The water is more a bay than ocean front.  It's totally tropical looking- just wish the sand was soft and the water was crystal clear.

They have built a really cool look out tower so you can get views to Indonesia and some sights back towards the island.  

The South China Sea is also a busy sea transit area and Singapore is a major hub for shipping.  So the view into the ocean is not like anything you've ever seen before.   There are a multitude of container ships out there and then off in the distance is Indonesia with all those towers spewing smoke.  

Sentosa has about 15 different hotels and we've already tried out 2!  We visited the Shangri-La for the girls birthday.  This hotel was beach front with a beautiful pool.

For my birthday we went to Sentosa Resort and Spa.   The was a more quite resort where you could almost forget you had wifi available.

While on this trip we got to see a beautiful peacock with it's feathers displayed.

Sentosa has lots of great restaurants and other fun things to do like zip lines and a street luge.  We did the street luge on a day trip once.  Here's a couple quick photos of that.

Not us- just a stock photo so you could get the idea.  

Riding the chair lift up the hillside.

Hope you enjoyed a little bit of Sentosa being brought to life for you.

Singapore Botanical Gardens

Last weekend we had some free time to do something as a family.  Before the girls and I arrived here, Fred had gone on a jog through the Botanical  Gardens and he really wanted us to see it.  Jen and I were game for it, Katie took a little convincing.  Finally, we persuaded her that missing out on a fun family adventure and a delicious meal out would cause her to feel left out and she'd regret it.  Nothing like planting a few negative thoughts in your child's mind to make them do what you want.

Katie begrudgingly smiled for the camera.

The Botanical Gardens were really pretty and luckily it wasn't too hot of a day (or are we just getting used to the heat and humidity).  There is a paid area to wander through the orchids, which was absolutely worth it.  They had some of the most beautiful orchids here- with the most unique color combinations.

 Jen really enjoyed taking photos of the different shapes and color orchids.  She has been enjoying her art class at school and is looking forward to the photography unit.

 The girls are getting taller each day- I seem to regularly need to order new shorts and shoes for them as they've grown out of most stuff we arrived with.

 This was a neat photo spot with the moss covered cement stools.

Singapore has some amazing beauty, it's just a matter of being willing to sweat it out on your explorations and know there is a shower waiting for you when you arrive home.

Oh yea, the meal we got was pretty good.  Katie got a pesto cream pasta dish, Pam got mussels and linguini, Jen got pancakes (this place was famous for them- good but probably not worth a "famous" description).  Fred got a slider variety- beef, pork, & chicken.  Are you hungry now????