Pictures from Singapore

Not too much new to report. We spent today exploring Little India and the Arab area. We were hoping to go into a mosque today, but of course it's Friday, the holy day, where Muslims spend most of their time in prayer at the mosque and they don't look favorably on tourists coming in inappropriately dressed, leering and gawking. I guess I can understand that. So we just walked around, tried to find the "wet market" in Little India where there were supposed to be wheelbarrows full of goat heads being pushed around, but alas, we couldn't find it.

My parents seem to be enjoying themselves, and while my dad isn't particularly fond of the big cities, he is having no trouble sampling the cuisine. Singapore has a population of about 4 million people. When I mentioned off-handedly that Kuala Lumpur (where we were going to spend one day) had a population of 22 million, dad balked. OK, so we'll skip it. We were only going there for a break in the travel anyway. Even I feel daunted by the task of trying to navigate and manage the logistics of such a large place. So tonight, we'll ride on a luxury sleeper train to KL, then push on to the tea plantation/mountainous area of the Cameron Highlands in inland Malaysia.

Here are my folks at the airport. To their credit, they weren't prepared or posing for this picture. Keith and I actually thought they looked great for the monstrosity of a journey they undertook!


First thing we did in Singapore, was spend most of the day at the botanical gardens. It was so beautiful.


Within the garden was an area only for orchids. Amazing. Penny - we thought of you often as we walked around here! You will have to make sure to look at all of mom's pictures when she gets back.


Some cool fanning ferns (I don't think that's the latin name for this plant...)


Finally, this is how we probably look 80% of the time. Either waiting to cross a busy street, figuring out where we are and which way to go, deciding who wants to do what and when, or as the case was in this photo, planning the next meal. This is on the edge of Little India.


Next entry....from Malaysia!