Headed Home

After the wedding of the century, it's time to head home! It was extra tough to leave this time (because I'm finally not jetlagged or heatsick unlike Thailand) because Singapore may be one of the most beautiful places I've ever visited. I want to say it's like a scenic, tropical New York, but somehow that doesn't even do it justice because this is so different. I definitely need to come back.

These orchids at the Changhi Airport were (a) completely real, and (b) actually bigger than the palm of my hand. Singapore is like a city tucked into a fragrant garden, with flowers cascading everywhere.

We flew back through Hong Kong, then another long haul 13 hour plane ride to the east coast, then a quick night in a hotel, then back to Detroit for me. I'll miss you Singapore, but I bet I'll be back.

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Vivian gets Married!

Have you ever had one of those moments or days where you look around and think "I need to record every second of this"? Well, today was one of those days! I wish I could could replay it in my head again and again- and I wasn't even the one getting married!

After our morning sightseeing, getting rained on, and transferring hotels, we really had to hustle to check into out next hotel to get dressed and ready. I was super excited to wear my dress because I had looked EVERYWHERE for something appropriate for this wedding and was excited for this dress to see the light of day! It was a purple neoprene number from Marciano- hopefully I'll have a chance to pull this out again sometime because I love it!

So why did we really fly ALL THIS WAY? Our college roommate Vivian was getting married!

Me and the bride! Us at 21 in a club in Ann Arbor, clubbing as undergrads! We look like such babies right? I had no idea my life would still change so much! (And I'm sure it still will!)

Us now pushing 30 at her wedding at the Cappella Hotel on the Sentosa Island in Singapore, possibly one of the most beautiful places on earth. She had two wedding dresses! I died at how beautiful her wedding was and how amazing she looked.

College reunion- this was the crew from Michigan with the Bride & Groom!

Ok, so I'm completely weirded out because when I looked at this picture later I was so surprised to see four women who look so put together and...adult? It literally took my breath away to see how great everyone looks and realize all the work that has brought us here. From clubbing in Ann Arbor, to graduate school, to building careers, to dating here and there, visiting each other at our starter apartments, one of the best parts of growing up is seeing your friends grow up too.

Us dancing away at the end of the night. Was the dress shopping, passport renewal, visa research, hotel and itinerary planning, 15 hour flight, jet lag, airport running, and constant hangover worth it? YES OF COURSE YES

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A Floral Fantasy

Upon arrival at the Marina Sands, we had this amazing view from the hotel of the bay and all the ships coming in. We had a view of these beautiful garden attractions with a bunch of spaceship looking things and big clam shell greenhouses.

Since we spent most of our free day before at the pool (no regrets), we decided to spend the morning before the wedding doing an attraction. Man, our day was busy! Julia had to wake up insanely early (3am!) and take a taxi to the wedding venue to get ready for her bridesmaid duties.

We got up, packed bags, checked out, and grabbed some Starbucks for a taste of home, and headed off to the spaceship trees to stop and smell the orchids. (We are in Singapore, after all.)

(Hey, they got a lot closer with my name than most US places!)

It looks some kind of jungle out of a movie, except everything is controlled chaos. Beautifully manicured chaos. The spaceship-looking towers are actually some kind of hydration system for the park.

Gardens by the Bay is a conservatory under several domes that contains acres and acres of greenery and amazing flowers. It takes quite a while to get through. You should be prepared for a LOT of walking! (We were not.)

As we were leaving to go back to the Marina Sands to grab luggage and head to our next hotel it poured down rain and we got absolutely soaked! We even bought rain ponchos for the walk but they did nothing to stop the downpour we got caught in on the way back to the hotel. I actually think I got soaked down to my underwear and ruined my shoes, I got so wet (notice I posted no pictures of that to spare everyone).

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Bachelorette Fête at the Four Seasons

We had to hit the ground running! We got to our hotel, ran out to grab some lunch with a friend at a cafeteria (because real estate is at such a premium in Singapore, a lot of shopping and restaurants are in multi-story malls). No drive thrus here!

Then we all ran back home and got dressed for the Bachelorette party! It was dinner and drinks at a restaurant in the Four Seasons Singapore.

Singapore is...shall we say, a more polite place? So us American girls making the trip knew we needed to spice up the Bachelorette party! We packed a literal bachelorette party into our suitcases for the bride and patiently hauled it all the way from NYC (in my case, Detroit). Everyone was pretty surprised when we pulled out our gifts!

 One gift that was not impressive to some was this giant inflatable penis we brought! (Although all of us girls loved it!) We actually took it to a fancy bar afterward and the bar refused to let us bring it in! They made us check the penis with their coat check like it was a coat, can you believe it? They gave us a ticket for it and everything!

"Excuse me, Ma'am I'm here to claim that penis over there!"

It was absolutely absurd, but it happened.

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Singapore, We have Arrived!

We are officially in Singapore! After a brief flight from Phuket on what I would call "the Spirit Airlines of Asia," an Airline called Scoot Air, we are officially here and ready for the wedding (Unless it's really really cheap I would not recommend it- or just pack your own food and drink in your bag, like Spirit Air in the US! Lesson learned!)

We came here ready to PARTY! So we stopped in duty free to pick up some provisions for the bachelorette party and for relaxing by the hotel pool (we may have gotten carried away and yes we did buy all of this!). We spent so long shopping in duty free after immigration that our luggage was in unclaimed, thank god we were able to find it or else our trip would have gone downhill fast!

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