Singapore - Botanical Garden

On Friday mom, dad, and I walked to the Botanical Gardens. Unbeknowist to us, we walked right by the American Embassy.

The Botanical Gardens are quite nice. It has been a long time since I've been through any. We walked through Ginger Gardens, past the Symphany area, we walked through "time", and through the rain forest. I have some great portraits of some really good looking folks. 

Yeap Orange Oakleys. 

These vines were really cool. They grew down. And as you can see a couple are right on top of my face. 

Now sit back and enjoy the rest of the photos. 

These photos bring me up to lunchtime. We had a nice lunch at a cafe in the Gardens. Since I have to go to my Tae Kwon Do class, I will pick up the photos later. We walked back through the Gardens and took a taxi back to the hotel. The last 2 photos of the fountains is where we ate lunch. Actually in the last photo you can see the cafe. 

More later. 

Vacation in Philippines and Singapore - 2

Early the next morning I had to get up and get on a plane to Singapore the main reason for the vacation. I met mom and dad there and before I go any further we had the most awesome time. It was wonderful wonderful wonderful. I arrived in Singapore 1st and managed to get mom and dad a room on the same floor as me. My reservations were made in an odd fashion so I managed to have "executive privileges". When mom and dad checked in they too were offered the same privilege. So most evenings we went upstairs to the Executive Suite and had Happy Hour and then back after dinner for a Night Cap.

The 1st day I was so tired that I napped that afternoon. Thursday mom and dad were still weary from their travels so I did the hop on hop off thing to get a feel for the city. I hopped off at Little India.

I got back on and due to time didn't get back off the bus again - that day. I took photos from the top of the bus. It started to rain which made things a little interesting. 

I took several "videos" and they were taking too long to load so I didn't include them here. But here are some photos of my 1st day in Singapore. 

It is now 4:30 p.m. and time for my walk. I will finish this up throughout the weekend. 

Gwen

Vacation in Philippines and Singapore

Well, I have had technical difficulties with e-mail that hasn't seemed to stop me on the blog...so I start again. 

The last time I was in the Philippines it was in 1988 (23 years ago). When I was there I was in the military and there for 4 months due to 4 Americans being killed right outside the gates of Clark AB the biggest AB in the world...Marcos was just voted out of office in 1986 and Aquino was in power. Americans weren't too welcome and in a couple of years the leases to the 2 military bases (Clark and Cubic Bay) were coming to an end. Even though some times have changed not all. After taking this photo my co-worker/driver mentioned that I needed to keep the camera inside the car or the kids would snatch it from me. 

My co-worker's wife is being treated for breast cancer in China. 1 of the things that has been recommended to her is that be a "vegan"...so they took me to a restaurant where everything that is made is grown there. The food was good.

This is in Tagaytay Province in the Philippines. In this province is the world's smallest active volcano. I'm sorry to say I didn't get any photos because the fog was just too thick and you couldn't see it. We did however stop by Starbucks....YUM. My 1st Starbucks since leaving the continental U.S. 

We then went on to Cavite Province to see the "Shrine" to General Aguinaldo who declared independence again Spain. (History note: on a tour I had on Wednesday the tour guide mentioned that as the Philippines were fighting Spain the US came in at some point and assisted in the defeat. It was at that time the US set up in the Philippines. The US introduced the English language and apparently the toothbrush.)

Here are some photos of the "shrine". 

Hope you have enjoyed a few of the photos from my 1st day of vacation. I want to say this is the 1st vacation I've had since I've moved from Ottawa ON CA through Brunswick GA onto Saipan MP.

Computer Issues

Before I send off a message about the wonderful trip I just got back from I will catch you up on what has been happening.

My loving Apple laptop had a computer meltdown....My hard drive failed. I tend to get more than my fair share of computer outages and I dumb dumb me did not have a battery back-up to save my computer. 1 time while my computer was plugged in I had a power outage and ever since that day...my computer was acting funny.

1 of the guys I work with was going to Guam, so I asked him to pass it to a co-worker in Guam. The guy in Guam took it to the Apple repair place. The only thing I ended up paying for was the shipment of my computer back to me. Thankfully my computer was under warranty.

Now that I have it back I've been having some technical difficulties. I'm hoping once I change from cable internet to DSL, I will be able to get all the technical issues taken care of.

Gwen

Out of Order

Up until this last time my blog was going in the order I had taken pictures. This time that didn't happen. Oh well, what can I say, maybe I was delirious. I'm still behind but I think that is the way of island life. Things just kind of move along. It doesn't matter if time passes you by.

It is now just after the New Year. Both Christmas and New Years were passed in a low key kindof fashion. If being on Saipan has taught me anything - it is not too rush anywhere. So I don't. Except to work. I like to be on time.

Yesterday, I went to Managaha and then to a Philippine 18th birthday celebration (which will come later) so I had decided that I wanted to take today easy. I just finished coming from the restaurant my friend works at.

Just after my birthday this friend (Liu Yan a.ka. Sarah) asked if I could take her and 2 friends to Bonsai Cliff, Groto, Bird Island and Suicide Cliff. I, of course, agreed. Here are some of the pictures we got that day. (The 1s that have been posted before will not be inlcuded.)
This is Liu Yan - the 1st person I met on the island. It's too bad she has to work all the time. We don't get to hang out all that much. In this photo we are on top of Bird Island. The Chinese and the locals love to give the "peace sign". I do believe it means something else here though. I've asked but have forgotten.

The girl is a co-worker of Liu Yan. I think her name is Wen (which is the short version) and her boyfriend. This is close to the "Last Command Post". 

The steps to the Last Command Post and some sort of gun from the WWII era. 

Here we are inside the Last Command Post. 

The island people here are very superstitious. If they find any type of artifact, they leave it where it is. They don't want to disturb any spirits. Just like some of the waters around the island. They say, if you make too much noise you can get swallowed up by the waters. 1 such place is Grotto (which I didn't know because there is lots of noise down there.)

This is the 4 of us from Bird Island. In an earlier blog entry all have seen Bird Island before. So no reason to re-post. 

This was the 1st time I've been to Suicide Cliff. Here are some photos from the top. 

I was surprised to find this cacti all the way out here on this humid island. So of course I had to take a photo of it. 

Suicide Cliff concluded our tour. I hope you enjoyed it. This month we have another 3 day weekend. Hopefully I'll be able to do another update then. 

Hope everyone had a good and safe holiday season. 

Gwen

Now the Differences between Guam / Saipan

With everything where there are similarities there are also differences. There are more hotels; the 1st time I stayed at a Westin, the 2nd time I stayed at a Hilton - neither hotel is on Saipan.

Guam has 2 regular type malls, where Saipan has none. Well ok, we have 1 that is closed up...

This is the outlet mall. I can't believe in the 2 times I was in Guam I didn't get a picture of the regular mall. Oh well, sorry about that. 

On 1 of my walks around my hotel (Westin), I found some interesting sites. A small fountain and a mural. What I didn't know - was there was a water park across the street from my hotel and I didn't even bring my swimsuit.

Not sure why but I was fascinated with this mural. There were 2 more on the other side of the building as well. 

This just seems peaceful. This is outside the Outback Restaurant that was across the street from the Westin. Since Outback seems to have heavy meals, I wasn't all that interested, plus my co-worker from Guam had taken me from 1 party to the next and by the time I had time to myself I was tired of food. Saipan likes to eat and BBQ as well. As a matter of fact, this Sunday is a co-worker's Uncle's sister's birthday and we will be BBQing. 

Japanese tourist come here - not sure why...but on Guam there the Japanese tourist are big but to have weddings. Here are several wedding chapels. The wedding chapels are all apart of each hotel.

Hope you have enjoyed a brief tour of Guam. Since I went back right after Thanksgiving there is more to come.