Singapore, Round 2

When we visited Singapore in November of 2012, we never in a million years would have guessed we would be back just over a year later.  It was nice to land in Singapore and know a little bit of what to expect this time.  It was even more incredible to be here and not be jet lagged!

The cabs are efficient and one of the only things in Singapore that are cheap.  Our 25 minute ride to the hotel from the airport was under $25.  We checked into The Westin Singapore before 6pm and since it was still crowded for New Year’s we did not get a suite upgrade but had a nice room with big bathroom and closet area where Lizzy slept.

Picking a hotel in Singapore is always difficult because there are so many and none are inexpensive.  Last year we tried The St. Regis, The Grand Hyatt, The W Singapore - Sentosa Cove, the Marina Bay Sands Singapore and the Crowne Plaza Changi Airport.  While we strongly considered the W again since we liked the breakfast so much, it was just too expensive on the dates we were in town and the Westin was only a few months old and it is always fun to try something new.

We ended up using 12,000 Starwood points per night, for a total of 24,000 points for the stay.  We checked out with a $0 bill, which is always nice, but that was only a so-so use of Starwood points since the cash rate was around $335/night before taxes.   When we were booking this trip, we did want to start using up our significant point balances and not just wait for the perfect redemption.  However, in the future we will likely be a bit more discerning with our redemptions as we have found other good uses for these hard to come by Starwood points.

The hotel is in the financial district west of the marina area and about a 10-15 minute walk from the Marina Bay Sands complex.  For a downtown business hotel, the Westin had a surprisingly nice pool area with a beautiful infinity pool on the 32nd floor.  Overall, we thought the design was very nice and quite a beautiful business hotel.

The girls were starting to melt down shortly after we arrived (the reason we don't have any room pictures), and consequently Joe wasn’t in the best of moods, so we tried to grab dinner at the lounge and get the girls to bed.  It wasn’t a great night, but it is hard to blame the girls too much for their behavior.  Joe, on the other hand…

Annie slept with us in the king bed and she is a very mobile sleeper so we didn’t get a great night of sleep.  I woke up before the sun (which is easy to do anywhere but Tokyo) and worked out before the girls woke up. We went to the lounge for breakfast and the girls saw the pool just off the lounge so that meant nothing else would happen until we took them swimming.  Annie had a bit of a scare in the pool but recovered by the next day and had no problem getting back in.

The first of 14 days of restaurant breakfasts

Fruit shooters were a big hit

Joe and Annie with the cargo ships in the background

We walked for 15 minutes to the Marina Bay Sands hotel, casino and shopping complex where we stayed for a night during our 2012 Singapore trip.  We had lunch at Pizzeria Mozza and ordered two pizzas (Margarita and Spicy Salami) and the girls weren’t too interested in them.  Despite living 15 minutes from the original Pizzeria Mozza in Hollywood, the Singapore location is the only one I have been able to convince Joe to go to.  Since living in Tokyo, we've only been eating Dominoes and mediocre pizza from the American Club so Mozza was AMAZING.  At $52.15 for the four of us, it was also by far the most expensive meal we had on the entire trip.  

We walked around the giant, gorgeous mall and the girls really wanted to go on the gondola rides but Joe was too cheap to spend $30 to go on a 6 minute ride.  The girls found a mini “playground” on the way back to the hotel and played on the see-saw and swing for about 30 minutes.  There were some other tourists there who couldn't get enough of Annie and Lizzy and asked if it would be ok to take some pictures with them.  While this is a normal occurrence for us in Tokyo, I started to notice on our vacation that in addition to posing with the girls, these people weren't too shy to hug them, hold their hands and pick them up, which made me a tad bit squeamish. 

This woman took a ton of pictures (and some videos?) of our entire family. And of our family posing with her family. Bizarre

Marina Bay Sands in the background

It was hot and sunny!

After a pathetic excuse for a nap and a failed dinner in the lounge, we headed over to an indoor food garden right next door to our hotel.  The girls ate a salad from subway (meat and cheese for Lizzy, veggies for Annie).  To our delight there was also an Ippudo Express, which is a branch of our favorite Ramen shop in Tokyo!  Lizzy and I then shared a frozen yogurt from Red Mango, which brought back good memories of Pinkberry (tear).  With full bellies we walked back over to the marina area for a night light show on the water which the girls loved and another walk around the shopping area.

Our favorite Tokyo food!

Singapore Skyline

Light show at the marina -  used some of the same effects as World of Color at California Adventure

Lizzy's curls agreed with Singapore humidity

We got up the next morning, had breakfast and grabbed a cab to the airport.  This transfer was even cheaper at $18 and we headed to the Air Asia check-in area, got rid of our bags, and headed to our gate.  Luckily, we found a great indoor playground on the way to the gate where the girls played for about 30 minutes. It was by far the most fun they had during our time in Singapore.  In hindsight, it was also the turning point in their behavior.   From this point forward, they were pretty good for the most part.  We couldn't really blame them for their poor behavior on this leg or the trip, as they had just endured a long day of travel from Tokyo not to mention the skipped naps, restless nights, poor eating and lack of kid centered activities.

The most fun part of the girls' trip

Singapore bear had lots of fun on the trip as well

We lost track of time a bit and had to rush to the gate, complicated a bit by Lizzy deciding to fill her diaper on the way.  After a quick change we boarded the Air Asia flight for the hour long flight to Langkawi.

January 2014 Trip Planning

January 2014 Trip Planning

We began planning our trip in July or August, at the height of the brutal Tokyo summer, with somewhere in Southeast Asia as the goal.  Since we had not previously traveled through the area much, we could pick just about anywhere and it would be new and exciting.  We decided to try to get down towards Singapore and Kuala Lumpur to take advantage of some affordable intra-Asia flights on the low cost carriers there.  We also decided to go in 2014 because it would help Joe start re-qualifying for hotel status with Starwood and Hyatt since we were already set for 2013.  As we have said previously, we feel we get significant value from the benefits of hotel status so it is something we will try to maintain.

After much thought, we ended up with the following itinerary:

Singapore for 2 nights

Langkawi, Malaysia for 3 nights

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for 2 nights

Krabi, Thailand for 3 nights

Koh Samui, Thailand for 4 nights

Bangkok for 1 night

We visited Singapore over our 2012 Thanksgiving trip, had a great time, and were excited to go back for a short stay.  A starting point in Singapore also allowed us to fly on the Singapore A380 from NRT – SIN which is about as good as an 8 hour flight in coach can get.

Langkawi is a beautiful beach destination and was picked largely because it had $11 (before fees) flights to Kuala Lumpur.  The flights to get to Langkawi were a bit more expensive than we would have liked, but the flight times were convenient and still under $100 per person. 

We wanted to stay at the Grand Hyatt in Kuala Lumpur because we had heard great things about it, had a Hyatt Diamond suite upgrade certificate we could apply to our paid cash rate, and for an upscale city hotel, it was very reasonably priced.  We had also wanted to see the Petronas Towers and the hotel was said to have amazing views of them.

We picked Krabi because there was a reasonably priced Sheraton there with a lounge, a nice beach and a continuing direct flight to Koh Samui.  There are also numerous direct flights from Tokyo to some of the other more famous Thailand beach locations, so this place made sense since we were already close.

Koh Samui inspired much of the vacation because we had two free weekend nights from a Hilton credit card sign up to use at any Hilton property in the world.  The Conrad Koh Samui is one of the most expensive resorts in the Hilton portfolio, so we were hoping to be able to use our nights there.  Unfortunately, there was only Saturday night available (on our second of the four nights in Koh Samui) so we were forced to book 1 night before and 2 nights after, leading to lots of transfers.  Still, we wanted to see the Conrad so we decided to forge ahead.

Due to the political turmoil going on in Bangkok, we decided it would be smart to avoid heading into the city, so we changed our flight from Bangkok to Tokyo so we would just have a layover in the airport.  Heading home through Thailand also gave us the opportunity to fly on Thai Airways’ A380 which is always exciting.

Overall, we had an incredible trip and a handful of changes, mostly for the better, throughout.  The girls were pretty good considering how many hotel transfers and flights we made them go through.  They were awful in Singapore, but were mostly well behaved for the rest of the time.  We learned a great deal about what makes sense and what doesn’t for us when it comes to traveling and vacation, and will likely make a number of changes for our future trips.

Tokyo to Singapore

Disclaimer: Anything miles/points/money related was written by Joe, anything hilarious added by Mary.

We wanted to minimize our luggage for the trip since we had so many flights and airport trips throughout the two weeks.  We decided on our two rolling carry-on suitcases, a MacLaren stroller, backpacks for Joe, Mary and Annie, a camera bag and one additional small bag for odds and ends.  We also packed a good amount of “leave behind” clothes for the girls and Joe, which made them look homeless many days, but allowed us to decrease our luggage throughout the trip.

We were mostly packed by December 30^th in case there were any last minute things we needed to take care of and we were up and ready to leave around 7:30am on New Year’s day.  We had pre-packed the car and loaded up the girls, who ate breakfast in the car.  We made it to Narita in only 50 minutes as there was almost no traffic on the holiday morning.

In one of the best decisions of the trip, we had arranged airport parking with a company through Tokyo American Club.  We provided them our flight information a week prior, gave the parking company a call when we were 10 minutes from the gate, and someone met us at the departure terminal to take our car and park it for us.  They would also come pick us up at the gate upon our return, which was great since we were coming in on a redeye.  The parking cost was only 9,680 Yen, which is about $92.  In a city where everything is so expensive, this is one of the best deals out there.

We arrived at Narita with plenty of time for a stop in the ANA Lounge Business Class Lounge.  There were some good food offerings and despite eating breakfast in the car, Annie and Lizzy devoured huge portions of yakisoba noodles.  In addition to the serve yourself spread which consisted of salads, yogurts, sandwiches, sushi and a few other things, there was also a walk up window where you could order various made to order noodle and curry dishes.

Airport lounge chicken curry: surprisingly delicious!

Carbo loading

Yakisoba noodles, which Annie calls Kyoto Noodles" since she once had them there

Getting ready to board!

We were kind of dreading the long haul flights in the week prior to the trip, so Joe changed some things around and put Annie and me in business class and he stayed in coach with Lizzy.  Joe and I had flown on the Singapore A380 in business class for our pre-move trip and it was amazing, so that completely changed my outlook on the trip down to Singapore.  We went from sort of dreading the 8-hour flight to looking forward to it.  Keeping Annie and Lizzy apart on a plane makes it significantly easier, so Joe was happy about the scenario as well.  The NRT – SIN coach tickets were 15,000 miles each and even though the business class tickets were 36,000 each, the miles were well spent because of how much better business class is on the Singapore A380.  

Annie loved the seat and all the attention from the flight attendants.  She received a small Singapore Airlines bear, which she named Annie (the name of every single thing she has ever named) and had it with her for every moment of the rest of the trip.  She and Lizzy also received small activity packs with colored pencils and paper and that kept Annie busy for the first hour plus of the flight.  When the flight attendants came around taking drink orders before takeoff , I thought it was so cute when Annie politely asked for a milk.  She also requested an apple juice "for later." :)  Her class had just completed a unit on airplane travel so Annie had lots of knowledge to share with me - as we ascended she told me "The control tower is watching us, mommy!" She also mentioned a few times that the pilots fly the plane from the cockpit.

Very much into "rules" lately, Annie was hesitant to do anything until I did it first. She would ask, "Are YOU going to put your tray up? Are YOU going to put your slippers on? Are YOU going to listen to your headphones?" It was very sweet and reminded me of myself at age 13 on my very first commercial flight with Amanda (Columbus to Tampa).  I vividly remember being so excited/nervous and asking her what drink she was going to order and then ordering the same thing for myself. It was ginger ale. :)

The flight attendants are called "Singapore Girls" and are they are the cutest!!

A little bubbly for Mommy!

Busy with her activities: sticky notes and Crayola color wonder pages

Appetizer and a happy little girl

Kids' snack box

We were able to pre-order our meals online using Singapore's "Book the Cook" feature. Annie ordered spaghetti with chicken meatballs

Dinner and a movie... doesn't get much better

Annie had to bring her Avengers Pez and her 787 Dreamliner toy planes

I ordered the vegetarian meal because airplane mean generally grosses me out

Mozarella salad

Risotto

Tried to get her to take a nap but she was too excited

The Singapore Girls even brought Annie some mini-sized slippers

Lizzy and Joe sat on the small coach section on the upper deck and did pretty well.  Lizzy was a handful while we waited for the flight to get in the air, but once she got her movies and food, she was pretty good.  She only needed one diaper change and fell asleep about 7 hours into the flight and slept for about 90 minutes through landing.  We had a meal, watched all of the Little Mermaid movies and did some coloring.  All in all, she was kind of annoying but overall well behaved. 

We moved through customs quickly, grabbed our luggage, got a cab, and headed to the Westin Singapore. 

Kurisumasu

Ku-li-su-ma-su: Japanese pronunciation of Christmas.

We had a nice, quiet first Christmas in Tokyo.  Despite all the lights, trees and decorations around the city, Christmas is not an observed holiday for Japanese people.  Christmas Eve has become an informal romantic holiday for young couples, and many go out for nice dinners.  We were warned not to eat out at any fancy restaurants that night with our kids (ha!). Christmas Day is a normal working day, although many people celebrate by ordering a special dinner of fried chicken from KFC. Really.

Christmas trees, while not hard to come by, are extremely expensive. I used to think $80 sounded like a lot for a real tree, but we would have gladly paid that this year. A small live tree cost well over double that in Tokyo.  They sell reasonably priced live trees at Ikea, but when Joe's assistant called to order one for us, they insisted that we come choose a specific tree.  They couldn't fathom us not personally choosing a tree, a very Japanese sentiment. In the end we just got a small fake tree from a local store.  Annie really wanted a big one but once we had ours lit up and decorated she seemed OK with it. Next year we have promised ourselves to make it up to her!

One thing we particularly enjoyed during the month of December were all the phenomenal lights (they call them Illuminations here) put up in our neighborhood. At least a few nights when Joe was either working late or out town the girls and I went to Starbucks for a treat then took a walk to see the lights.

Right out our back door!

Starbucks

Christmas magic!

Joe took some time off around Christmas and we had a nice time just lazing around.  On Christmas Eve we signed up to have Santa pay us a visit to our apartment, arranged by the building management company.  The girls acted completely nonchalant when the bell rang and they saw Santa standing at our front door, like it was just a normal occurrence.  

Knock knock... it's Santa!

Showing Santa their ornaments

Santa gave each of the girls a small gift that I had dropped off at the front desk he and took a few pictures with them.  When Joe asked the girls to tell Santa one thing they might like for Christmas, Santa looked worried that he didn't them in his bag. We explained to Santa that maybe he could bring those gifts when he came back that night.

After the (non) excitement of Santa's visit, we did some cookie decorating and Joe took the girls up to the roof to burn off some energy.  It was a beautiful day!

Getting some fresh air on the roof garden

We attended 4pm mass at the Franciscan Chapel Center which is about a 10 or 15 minute walk from our apartment. Lizzy fell asleep almost immediately and slept through the entire mass, and Annie fell asleep on the bike ride home.  We had planned on seeing some lights and maybe grabbing dinner somewhere easy after mass but seeing how tired Annie was we decided to order pizza which Joe picked up on the way home. After dinner the girls exchanged "sister gifts" because Annie couldn't wait one second longer to give Lizzy the present she had gotten for her, a wooden bead necklace.  She was even nice enough to open it for her and offered to wear it so Lizzy could see how it worked. :)  It was so sweet seeing the girls exchange gifts and I think I would like to make this a Christmas Eve tradition in our family.

Annie opening Lizzy's present for her, so thoughtful

Sweet sisters hugging

Annie started asking at that point if it was time to go to bed, because she knew she had to get to sleep so Santa could come! We spent Christmas morning watching the girls open their gifts - they didn't get too many and seemed very happy and grateful for what they received. Joe and I had so much fun watching them open the gifts and seeing their reactions.  We actually kind of wished we would have gotten them more things, despite making a real effort to keep it low key. They recieved matching scooters, a Melissa and Doug cupcake set, a doctor kit, a Brio train set, and some little odds and ends like art supplies and coloring books. Surprisingly they did ok with the shared gifts.  When Annie opened the cupcake set (which she did not ask for and has never seen anywhere), she said "A cupcake set! I've wanted this for my entire life!!"

Annie came out fully dressed, Lizzy came out naked

Doctor kit was a big hit!

Making some cupcakes

"A train set! We didn't even ask for this!"

New train set in action!

Lizzy + Marker = Trouble

Christmas dinner, yum!

We then had a nice morning/afternoon playing with all our new toys and watching some Christmas movies. Our niegbors invited us over for Christmas dinner where we enjoyed a honeybaked ham and some traditional sides.  All in all it was a laid back and relaxing day.  I know people always talk about how fun the holidays are with kids, and it's really true. Annie really enjoyed all the little things we did during the month building up to Christmas: crafts, paper chain, cookie decorating, gingerbread house making etc. I can only imagine that next year will be even better because Lizzy will really "get it" by then. Can't wait!!

Cookie decorating party with our neighbors

Lizzy lost interest after putting a spoonful of sprinkles on one cookie (And a spoonful into her mouth).

Annie worked diligently for over an hour on these cookies!

Annie's masterpieces

Mommy's little elves unwrapping the kisses

Peanut butter blossoms, just like Grandma Susie's!

"Gingerbread House" made out of graham crackers

Homemade salt dough ornaments, craftiest thing I've ever made