Life at Latitude 10: Latitude 1

After work on Friday, we hopped a cab and jumped on a plane to Singapore. We only had about 36 hours total in the Lion City so we had big plans to make the most of every minute. Those plans were promptly discarded as we realized that you don't run Singapore -- Singapore runs you.

The island at latitude one is such a different pace of life than HCMC. Instead of motorbikes and rickshaws crowding the roads, Ferraris and Bentleys take over. Instead of street stalls selling food for 40 cents a plate, westernized restaurants dominate with $18 appetizers and $12 beers. And, instead of women heading out in their best matching pajama sets, women head out in $2,000 dresses and $800 heels. Despite all these things, we managed to travel in a style that was authentic to who we are. We walked the city, enjoyed Hawker food, saw beautiful sites, met some awesome locals, and sweated more than we ever have in HCMC. Yes, life at latitude 1 was a fun experience ... one we hope we can repeat again in the near future.

We were glad that our breakfast buffet at the hotel was free because the hotel itself cost almost as much as a down-payment on a house!

We stayed in the Colonial district with a ton of original buildings from the time when Singapore was a British colony. This museum used to be a home for boys. Adam wished he had lived in a home like this building.

We walked through Fort Canning Park named after a Brit named Canning. Half the island seems to be named for him. The park was beautiful, green, and ridiculously humid.

Heidi was nervous about this cannon being aimed at modern buildings at the bottom of the hill. Good thing there was a sign stating it was "only for decoration."

One of the coolest finds of the day was that we stumbled into the Singapore Civil Defense (Firefighters and EMT's) free open houses. We were so excited to play on all the equipment. Us and the 25 kids under the age of 5 who were also there.

Adam decided that being a firefighter was nothing like his PlayMobile toys made it out to be.

On our walk around the city, we came across another awesome building (the old Police Station) where the over 900 window shutters were painted vibrant colors.

At the river esplanade we marveled at the clean water that did not smell like raw sewer. Magical.

Then this guy showed up ...

After walking for hours, we found some hawker stalls where we got big bowls of pork-wonton soup and beer for about $5 each. A true bargin. (Note: Heidi was too hungry to have her picture taken!)

We spent some quality time in this H&M where, gasp, we were yelled at for bringing coffee inside. That is a $500 fine in this country. We got over our grumpiness and still purchased some much needed clothes.

Adam enjoyed the spice exhibit at the National Museum. It was free to go on Saturdays from 6-8 pm and for some reason, we were the ONLY people there. Weird. Like other people have something better to do than check out a museum on Saturday night.

We went to Chinatown Hawker stalls for dinner. Adam with his two Baos -- pork and yam. Delicious.

Where our delicious dinner came from. Here we got Singapore fried noodles -- a common staple across SE Asia but these ones were actually from Singapore. Amazing.