Kate and Dave in Singapore

Although the Phamily blog has been around for some time now I shall take my maiden voyage into blogging. Kate and I went and visited wonderful Auntie Debbie over Christmas and New Years.

Even though Kate and I saw Roku, Fiona and Sam F. under unfavorable circumstances at the passing of Auntie Ann directly before leaving, we got some good travel advice from them and headed the next day to Singapore.

To Singapore is an understatement; we headed to Minneapolis. We got stuck there for two days, the first night a blizzard shut down the airport then the second night a de-icer boom hit the plane’s engine and the airplane became inoperable. Two days off our 12 day visit…fabulous.

The trip overall was grand. Debbie’s Bangladeshi men were wonderful. Delwar would guilt us when we left to eat street food versus the cumin/turmeric laden food, sometimes with many little boney fishes that are quite unpleasant to eat (we were all asked if our mother’s taught us how to eat when we did not eat the crunchy heads). On Christmas and New Year we all went and served meals to other displaced workers, which was rewarding. Sadly for us but exciting for him, Moinul was able to return home while we were there.

New Years night was a little bit of a blunder when the Singapore Gestapo shut down Mount Faber because of the mob and potential fire hazard. We then stood in the walkway at the apartment and proceeded to watch a rather small firework display lasting only about 5 minutes on Mount Faber.

As a cause of the delay into Singapore, Kate and I were unable to take two multi-night side trips and settled on Malacca for two nights. Pulau Ubin is a great side trip with bike rentals and good seafood. Inochi and a friend came along to the island. Inochi had been volunteering at an animal rescue center in Thailand and returned midway through our vacation.

The trip gave us a taste of hot, humid Singapore and we can't wait to return for more adventurous side trips.