More Anything?

10,667 miles

The Gods must have been smiling upon us on this day, because we were upgraded to first class! We have now been spoiled!

I should start off by saying that our flight to Chicago was fine, and we met up with our friend Eric there. We did, however, have a little bit of excitement when we didn't get seats on the first flight to Japan. No biggie as there was a second one leaving an hour later, the only problem was that the second flight would most likely get us to Tokyo too late to make our Singapore connection. The upside was, all four of us scored 1st class for the 13.5 hour jaunt from Chicago to Tokyo. It was wonderful, and I'm sure you can see the excitement in my face in this picture (notice the free champagne!)

As legend has it, the seats do actually recline into a bed! Five course meals, your choice of movies, it was definitely an experience. We luckily arrived in Tokyo 45 minutes early, so we did make our connection to Singapore, now let's hope our bags do the same (don't worry, they did). On the 7.5 hour trip from Tokyo to Singapore we were unfortunately reduced to Business class and it was a let down. It is going to be hard to go back to economy!

We spent two nights in Singapore which does live up to it's reputation as the world's cleanest city. Everything was very lush and tropical, even in the middle of the city. Singapore is very "cosmopolitan" and modern.

The first day we walked around town to check things out. We walked from our hotel to the Singapore Botanic Gardens.

The fragrant V. Mimi Palmer Orchid, my new favorite!

I might add that it was pretty hot considering this is winter in Singapore - I'd guess around 90 deg. - but, I suppose that's what you'd expect from a place that is 1 deg. North of the equator! I (Amber) quite enjoyed the hot, humid weather.

The famous Raffles Hotel where we enjoyed some overpriced Singapore Slings and the singing of the Singaporean Rick James!

More our speed, beers the size of my head at a little backpacker bar in Little India.

A bicyle taxi waiting for a ride on a quiet Singapore morning.

We have arrived in Thailand, speaking of which, I think I better be off to explore...more on that later!