Top 5 Restaurants to eat at in Virginia

In about a week we will be coming back to Virginia for a long visit.  We often talk about some of the things we miss most.  For me the biggest thing is simply parking right in front of the store/restaurant you want to go into.  Because Singapore is a small densely populated area, ever place has a parking garage that you must pay for.  Going out to eat becomes more involved when you have to park in a garage and walk around a mall to get to the restaurant.  We end up eating at home more than we have ever have.

So the big conversation is where we want to eat.  What food have we missed.

Number 1 Sweet Ginger.  This is a Japanese restaurant so you are probably wondering why I am missing Japanese when I'm in an Asian country.  US Asian food is sooo much better- at least to my taste buds.  We all love sushi and Sweet Ginger has some of the best.  In Singapore they must love mayonnaise because it's in globs on their sushi- YUCK.  Even when we were in Japan the sushi was weird- lots of raw chewy octopus- no thank you.  Give me my americanized California roll with avocado (here they use scrambled egg- avocados' are too expensive).  Sweet Ginger better get ready for repeat Kacher visit for their yummy bento boxes and for dessert asian donuts with ice cream (not a true Asian dessert).

Number 2 is Chipotle, or really any good mexican food.  My home cooked mexican is the best we've had here and honestly it's not that great.  At one "mexican" restaurant we had burritos and they looked mexican but tasted indian.  My meal had stewed tomatoes over it - I think maybe it was supposed to be the salsa?

Number 3 Church Street Pizza.  YUM is all I can say for New York style thin crust floppy cheese pizza that takes two hands to hold or you have to fold it in half.  Definitely not getting that in Singapore.  Our best pizza place is a gourmet place from Australia.  Good high end pizza topped with all sorts of creative combinations for the bargain price of $25 or more each.

Number 4 Italian Gourmet or Potbelly's actually any good sandwich shop other than Subway.  If your idea of a good sandwich is at Subway- fine there are plenty of them here in Singapore.  But having grown up with a brother who owns a deli and has perfected sandwich making, Subway doesn't make the cut.  In fact, I may need to drive to Leesburg just for one of his Deli South sandwiches.

Number 5 Tied between Clydes and Costal Flats. Both of these restaurants have good food and for our family they seem to be our celebratory go to places.  I have fond memories of birthday or holiday get togethers when no one wanted to cook and it would just be so much more fun to eat out.

Family, Friends, & Food- looking forward to some good time in Virginia.

Mother's Day in Bangkok

I was given the ultimate Mother's Day gift this year- a trip to Bangkok with some moms.  Finding a time where husbands are all home and can watch kids for 3 days isn't easy to come across in the military.  So when this opportunity came up I jumped on it.  If you read Traveling with Kids you know my girls are little pooped out from airplane trips (great places are close to Singapore- but you must fly). Fred travels a lot for work, so girls weekends are my golden opportunity to see another place.

Bangkok was on my list of places to see- a major city, amazing statues and temples but also there is great shopping in Thailand.  Stuff that would cost US$8 in Singapore is US$3 or less in Thailand. You can get beautiful blue and white Chinese pottery for US$1.  With all this great shopping to be had all 5 ladies each packed an extra duffle bag.

This time of year is very hot in Bangkok.  Being used to the hot temperatures in Singapore, we thought we'd be ok, however we were mistaken.  Singapore is usually overcast and fairly cloudy.  Thailand has clear skies and is sunny.  That sunshine shinning through with temps in the upper 90's gets you really sweaty.

Our tour of Bangkok stated off with a beer to take on a long-boat ride through the city canals.  This was a great way to get a quick view of canal living.  Some homes were rickety and should basically be condemned while others we beautiful wood vacation homes.  Like many areas there is a big disparity in wealth and it seems when you own something you keep it forever.  The main canal that runs through the city is also used as a way to get from one end of town to the other quickly. You are able to see temples and even the Grand Palace from the boat ride.   

Along the boat ride we had a one man floating market saddle up to our boat.  His boat was filled with little trinkets and souvenirs to bring home. a couple little elephants were purchased and will be added to our ever growing collections. Our long-boat dropped us off at Chinatown for our shopping outing.  We came across a great jewelry shop where nothing was over US$3!  YAY.

We thought it might be fun to ride a tuk tuk back to the hotel a driver claimed all 5 of us could smooch in.  Sitting on a hump or the floor would have been ok for 10-15 minutes but with Friday evening traffic it got quite cramped for the 40 minute ride.  Lesson learned, but it was fun- kind of, well at least memorable.

The next day we headed to the floating markets near Bangkok.  It was about 1 1/2 hour van ride away, and we passed tons of sea salt fields.  Did you know that Thailand farms sea salt?  - Now you do!

The floating market was really unusual.  People live all along the canals and have long-boats to go up and down to canal front shops to do buy things.  Our tour guide told us now the floating market is basically for tourists now, but in the old days this is how they would shop and barter.  Along the canal people have shops either on the cement or actually in a boat.  You pull your boat up alongside and make your purchases.  The most surprising thing was seeing food being cooked and sold right on a boat.  An older lady would have her propane tank on her boat, fired up a gas flame, cooking some famous Thai meal and selling it for a $1.  I kept wondering how many boats have burned down with an open flame on a wooden boat.  

After shopping off the boat, we headed inside to the store fronts.  Here's a picture of me working a deal for some Adidas gym bags for Katie and Jen.  With language and accent barriers you basically pass a calculator back and forth say, yes, no, or too high until you reach an agreement.  My friend, Rose, had her currency converter handy so I could get my quick currency conversions helping me get the price I wanted.  I'm not a great bargainer, but our tour guide told us pay 50-60% less than whatever they first offered.  The thing I like most about shopping in Thailand verse some other Asian areas, is they are nice.  You say no, not interested, they leave you alone.  They seem to almost enjoy the bargaining and hey if the price you want is too low they won't sell.  

After a long day of shopping we stopped in a fish spa.  This has been something I thought I should try someday, so why not now while it's super inexpensive.  If I didn't like it (and guess from that photo) I only wasted US$6.  What did I really think- here's the deal- having little fish nibble on your skin is very ticklish and feels mildly disturbing since you know what is happening.  I got a little wigged out when the 5 inch fish started nibbling (biting) on my feet.  I decided I must have a lot of dead skin since it basically looked like I had black boots on.  About every 2 minutes I couldn't handle it and had to pull my feet out for a break.  Eventually, I got smart and decided to only put my heals in.  I'm not ticklish there and need the most dead skin removed there (desperately in need of a pedicure- which is more my speed).  In the end my feet were very soft and lots of dead skin was gone, but once in my life is enough.

 Our last day was temple sight seeing day.  I think we hit almost all the major places on this 100 degree day and then had planned to head straight to an airport.  Yup, we will smell great!  Our tour guide took us to see the Reclining Buddha.  This statue was huge- probably 40 feet high and 150 feet long.  Originally it was outside and then they built a temple around it to preserve it better.

Another buddha we saw was the solid 18 karat Golden Buddha.  I believe our tour guide told us there are 400 buddha statues in Bangkok- obviously some more famous than others.  This one was discovered to be solid gold when while they were moving it, it dropped, cracked, and they could see it simply wasn't gold flake covering metal, it was solid gold through.

Our tour continued with visits to Wat Pho and the Grand Palace.  There were so many beautiful temples and structures all around.  The ornate designs were covered in gold and colored glass.  

The end of a sweaty touristy day and terrific trip shopping and sight seeing in Bangkok had concluded in a nice air-conditioned airport.   Good thing, there were duty free stores with perfume counters.

Traveling with kids

The other day our family was talking about some of the great experiences we have had in Singapore.  I have felt it's been an amazing opportunity to see so many things we would never have the opportunity to do if we were living in the U.S.  I mentioned we have done a fair amount of traveling and Jen said, "We haven't been that many places."  The list isn't huge, but pretty extensive for 9 months-  Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, Thailand- and many of these places more than once!  Jen proceeds to say, "I thought the best traveling we ever did was going to Epcot."  This is so typically what a kid thinks!  The benefit of Epcot was you see about 10 countries in one day- all countries have neat gift shops and there is no dealing with airplane rides, a kids fantasy, but not reality.  I thought about what we have done on most of our trips, and we do plan them to cater to our girl's desires.  All trips must include shopping, good food, and a pool.  They might see a neat sight or a pretty beach, but that's not what they care about.  Sight-seeing and scenery is boring to them.

I was reminded of a sermon I heard where the pastor talked about taking his kids to Disneyland and trying to make every kids fantasy happen and when he got them to Disneyland the 5 year old boy sat down and said he wanted to go back to the hotel and swim in the pool.  It's amazing how different kids are from adults- scenery, historical buildings, and landmarks are the last things they want to do.  But we drag our kids to give them experiences---would you want to see this in real life!

Pattaya Thailand

We tried our first attempt at meeting Fred on a business trip.  He was going to be Pattaya Thailand for the weekend without much to do.  He had been there before and said the hotel he stays at is really beautiful.  We decided to give it a try and come visit him.

Being rookie travelers we hadn't thought through some thing fully.  I bought tickets to Bangkok and then we would be taking a car service the 1 1/2 hour drive to the beach resort.  I hadn't realized there were actually 2 airports in Bangkok and I had picked to fly into the airport that was an additional 30 minutes further from Pattaya.  So our car trip would be almost as long as our flight.

Mistake number two- we opted to fly up on Sat AM and then drive over to a beach resort Sat afternoon during the hottest time of the year (hello beach traffic).  That 2 hour drive ended up being 3 3/4 hours long- Longer than the flight to Bangkok.  So we arrived frustrated but that beautiful hotel and pool soaked away the stress of the day.

We had a wonderful buffet dinner at the hotel afterwards and all the pain of getting here was forgotten.  

The next morning we had planned to drag the girls to see a golden budda in Thailand- there are tons everywhere there.  However, it was going to be the hottest day of the year so we thought sweating to see a gold statue and take a few photos might cause a rebellion and I would never be able to drag the girls to see anything different again.  We know we will have an opportunity to get back to Thailand so the budda would wait and we decided to do what every almost 13year old girl wants to do- go shopping.  We ended up at a really nice, cool mall that had over 300 stores!  Turns out we have one child that loves to shop and one not so much, so Fred and Katie decided to take in a movie while Jen and I continued to plow through the stores.  We got some really great bargains!!!  

Post shopping we had a hot pot meal, basically asian fondue.  With full bellies we (st)rolled home and relaxed the night away.  

If one shopping outing wasn't enough, we had a small mall attached to our hotel that had two must sees. There was an Auntie Ann's Pretzel stand and a Dairy Queen.  We don't have either of these in Singapore so we HAD to stop by.  Just to make you all crazy with envy of how cheap things are in Thailand- $1.00 pretzels and $.65 double dip cones!

Singapore is so expensive these great deals make traveling totally worth it!

By the way, we did end up seeing the beach, but preferred the pool for swimming.

Not sure if we will actually be back here- that car ride after the flight was really tough, but now that we know what mistakes not to make, if the right opportunity comes up we might just have to come here again and see the golden budda in Pattaya.

Malaysian Pottery Shopping

Recently, I joined a group of ladies on a Malaysian Pottery trip.  I had heard about this great pottery place about an hour away in Malaysia that had dishes, pots, dish sets, you name it they had it -even some spoode items.  My last experience going to Malaysia on a bus wasn't great- I had been stopped while coming back into Singapore and my bags searched, so that incident put me on edge going through customs at the border crossing.  A friend drove this time and wow it was so much easier when you just sit in a car, hand over passports,  have your trunk opened, and drive away.  No body or bag scanners!

So we loaded up on some great items.  Here on some photos of things I bought.

 Chinese vase- have no clue what it says- probably from a closed down restaurant, but love the ship picture.

These plates are definitely from a closed down restaurant, Uncle K's Kopitan.  These would have been from a coffee shop.  

Finally, something familiar- blue serving bowls from Dansk.  We all got some of these- $3 each!  

Group of ladies and our stash of bags.  I'm sure we will be back!