Singapore and its awesome airport

Yesterday I spent about 2 waking hours in Singapore and 2 at the Singapore airport. I enjoyed my time there, but certainly need to go back!! Jeff and I took the subway to the river and had a traditional Singapore breakfast at Ya Kun Kaya This included some soft boiled eggs, kaya toast (toast with butter and this sweet sauce) and some tea. It was freaking delicious although it was a bit too much butter for my taste. After that we walked around the city for a bit and took some pics. It was hot and we needed to get to the airport, so we went back to Jeff's hotel and checked out. While he was doing that I collected all these flyers of awesome things to do in Singapore! There's one of the world's largest ferris wheels, a toy museum, an art museum that had an Andy Warhol exhibit and a Harry Potter thing, a cool science museum, and this cool luge thing! Not to mention the night safari deal at the zoo that Jeff went to on Saturday night. This place is awesome and I need to go back. Clean, good public transport, safe and they speak English which helps. Pics from Singapore:











If that wasn't enough I might have to say that Singapore may have the most amazing airport EVER! Free foot massages, a garden trail including an outdoor sunflower garden and a butterfly garden, a movie theater that shows free movies all day and all night, a gym, spa, tons of shops. You name it, they've got it. You could definitely live there! I look forward to our return trip's layover. Airport pics:

Quick hello from Singapore

Hi! Jeff is packing and then we're off to see Singapore for a couple hours before we catch our flight to Jakarta. Speaking of flights here is my flight update: 1. I watched The Lorax, Jeff who lives at home, the Best Exoctic Marigold Hotel, Young Adult, and the first Episode of Homeland on the flights. Good stuff. Love those individual TVs!! 2. I sat on the upper deck of the plane. I'm sure it's the same as the main cabin, but it's was cool to be upstairs...on a plane! 3. Food was OK. I didn't feel well on most of the flights...fever, chills, and upset tummy so just the smell of the food was enough to not want to eat. I ate a lot of rolls. I guess it's no surprise that our first objective here in Singapore is to get a yummy breakfast. Jeff liked that they had real silverware. Fancy. 4. I loved the stewardesses outfits! Super cute! I'll take pics on the way home. Overall I was a fan of Singapore Airlines. 5. On the flight from LAX to Tokyo, a small child sitting directly behind me may have been going through an exorcism. My only knowledge of exorcism was when Marlena was possessed on Days of Our Lives. The sounds coming out of this kid were kinda like what Marlena sounded like only live in person directly in my ear for a solid 10 minutes. It was awful. She started doing it as we landed but somehow calmed her self down. Terrible! Maybe that's where my sickness came from. More later...hopefully with pics! Sorry for any typos or missing capital letters. Still figuring out typing on the iPad.

New items i purchased for the big trip

Tomorrow I begin the 25+ hour journey to Indonesia. It's crazy it takes that long, so I had to buy some goodies for my travels.

1. A travel pillow. I like to sleep. A lot. And if I'm going to be on a plane that much I don't want my neck to be broken after trying to find ways to sleep, so while looking for item #2 in Bed, Bath and Beyond I fond the Total Pillow...an As Seen on TV Travel Pillow!! Perfect!!! Here's hoping it works!

2. A $20 20" rolling duffel. I have fit my entire 10 days worth of stuff in here. Awesome.

3. An iPad. Crazy, I know! But, I wanted to blog from abroad and I am giving my presentation at the conference and I didn't want to lug my expensive and somewhat heavy MacBook w/ my entire life on it halfway across the globe. So, after some convincing today I purchased the brand new iPad, a photo adapter, a VGA adapter, and a case cover. I'm still a little stressed about such a large purchase, but I put my presentation on there about an hour ago and it looks pretty amazing. AND it's super easy to edit. So, YAY! I'll let you know how it goes.

This may be my last post for a few days, so enjoy the pics of our accommodations and I'll post as soon as I can about my flights (Houston-LA-Tokyo-Singapore-Jakarta)!! :)

Indonesia in 6 days!!

After many months of planning and thinking, I'm headed to Indonesia next Friday! This will be my first trip to Asia and I couldn't be more excited. I also convinced my great friend, Jeff Nash, to come along on the trip, so he'll be joining me. In fact, he went a week early to do some work in Singapore. So, today I talked to him on Skype even though he was half a world away! Awesome!!


1. Jul 22-25: After 25+ hours of flying I'll arrive in Jakarta on Sunday. Then, it's off to a resort outside of Jakarta where we'll be staying until Wednesday. Now, this is the whole reason for the trip. I'll be attending the 7th International Workshop on Graph Labeling. And, as excited as I am about this trip....I am almost equally excited about this conference. The last time I attended (in Duluth, MN), it was amazing! So many awesome talks on math that I love and understand. So, I'm pretty amped for these three days. Hopefully, Jeff will find fun things to do and post for you all in those three days. Here's our first hotel: Seruni Hotel.


2. Jul 25-26: We'll be leaving the conference on Wednesday around 11 AM (I hope it's mostly over by then because I'd hate to miss awesome math!). We'll fly from Jakarta to Yogyakarta and then head to our hotel inside Borobudur. Borobudur is the largest Buddhist temple in the world. I can't wait to show you pictures! I'm sure it will be amazing. We're doing a 4:30AM sunrise tour so that should be awesome. We'll be staying here: Manohara Hotel.


3. Jul 26-28: After the sunrise tour, it's off to the airport to catch a flight to Denpasar, Bali. From there we'll take a car to the coast and a boat to Nusa Lembongan. We'll be staying two nights on the beach at The Point Resort. I hope it will be a nice peaceful, relaxing time. 


4. Jul 28-30: Then, it's off to Ubud to spend two nights on the island of Bali--complete with cooking class and an adventure tour. This is also home to the most amazing place to stay ever: Udang House. Yes, that's a shrimp pond floor! Awesome!


I can't wait to share pics and stories with you all!

Some more pics

Here are some other pics from the trip. Hope you enjoy. It's time for me to go to sleep. I hope the curtains keep out the stupid sunlight that likes to come in the windows at 5:15AM. Ridiculous!!

Us with our duck!

Our hotel in NYC

Mom w/ her favorite morning show peeps

In Rockefeller Center

Lee Greenwood

Mom w/ her Elvis scarf

Look how close Kelly was to us!

Good pic of the Met

Mom went to see her favorite morning show peeps

Old lighthouse in Stonington  

Our hotel in Boston

Many historic people are buried here.

Mom in Boston's North End

Last stop: Providence

Our tip has come to an end and this post is about our last stop: Providence. We arrived here yesterday morning around 10:30AM. It was raining and pretty much rained all day. After dropping our luggage at the hotel, we tried to venture out despite the rain. We made it across the bridge to the Providence Athenaeum. This is the 4th oldest lending library in the nation and was super cute. We had fun exploring the little building and looking at the card catalog that is still in use!

After the library we grabbed lunch and watched a movie at the Cable Car Cinema and Cafe. The movie was a documentary about young ballet dancers called First Position. It was great...at least I thought so. And, the movie theater was fun. We sat in a cool loveseat w/ cupholders. Fun.

We made it back to the hotel and thought we might try going out to the Culinary Arts Museum. We made it to the bus stop and the sideways rain started. We gave up on that adventure as no bus came after 15 minutes and the rain was ridiculous. So, we went back to the hotel and I did laundry so I'd have stuff to wear at the workshop I'm attending this week in Providence.

After laundry/rest time, the rain had let up a bit so we decided to venture to the nearby 3 story shopping mall. We had dinner at Union Station Brewery which was nice and then had fun looking around the mall. I even bought some shirts at JcPenney. Fun times.

Today, we decided to explore Providence for real since the rain kinda stopped us from doing so yesterday. Well, there's just not much to explore. Or maybe that's because we've been in NYC and Boston. Or maybe it's because it's a ghost town downtown. Or maybe we need a car to explore this place. But, for what we saw it's not that great. We walked down Benefit Street and saw the First Baptist Church in America and some cute houses. Then, we got on a bus and explored the Culinary Arts Museum. That was fun. Then, we went to Thayer Street (near Brown University) and had a yummy calzone for lunch at Mike's and looked at some fun stores. Poor mom missed a curb and fell flat on the ground. It scared me to death, but she was OK. Just a bloody knee. We got some band-aids and she was good as new. A trooper! Then, we headed over to Federal Hill and realized it was just a whole bunch of restaurants. Boring. But, we did get some yummy cranberry and pistachio cookies at a bakery. Yum.

Overall a chill day, but think we would have enjoyed another day in Boston or exploring the mansions in Newport more. Next time we'll know. Oh and I picked up state #35. I didn't take many pics here in Providence, but I'll post what I have.

Our last train ride

A card catalog?!

Mom feels at home in the libary

First Baptist Church in Providence

Day 2 in Boston

A beautiful day in Boston yesterday! We woke early and started out on the Freedom Trail. We enjoyed seeing all the historic sites and different neighborhoods. We really like the North End...mom thought it looked like Europe. We also stopped at Mike's Pastries and had some cannolis. We made it to the USS Constitution (Old Ironsides) and then took the water ferry back to Boston. We walked around the Downtown Crossing area for lunch and then headed to the hotel for a little rest--too much walking! We had a Groupon for high tea at a restaurant across the street so we did that around 3:30. After tea, we headed to the Science Museum to see the show Fractals Rock! It was beautiful! Too bad all those pretty pictures, soothing music, and reclined chairs made me want to sleep. Good thing mom woke me up!

After the planetarium show, mom headed to the hotel to rest up and I met up w/ my good friend Ben from high school. He saw I was in Boston on Facebook and so we decided to meet up for dinner on Friday night. We had 14 years of catching up to do. Lots to talk about. We had dinner in Chinatown, drinks at the top of the Prudential Tower, and then took a bus out to Cambridge to see a bit of MIT and Harvard. Had drinks at Charlies and then headed back to Back Bay. I decided to get to sleep around 11:30 because I was crazy tired and wanted to enjoy today. But, I'm sure Ben and I could have partied it up in Boston for many more hours. Good times.

Some pics:

John Hancock's grave...we saw many others. 

Marker for first public school in US 

Mike's.

Mom in the Old North Church

USS Constitution 

View from top of Prudential Tower