Selamat Tahun Baru!
Happy New Year everybody!!
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Before the holidays get too far behind us I wanted to do a quick recap/post of my week long break from work and the trip I took... Knowing me if I don't do this now, it'll be May before I post the pics 🤪🤣 So here we go.....
My company gives us a week off for Christmas each year. This year we worked on Christmas eve and our break started on the 25th. We returned to work on January 3rd, so we had a nice week+ off.
In the week leading up to Christmas we had an center wide secret Santa party and potluck! It was so much fun celebrating with my co-workers after all the students left for the evening. And we had soooooo much delicious food to eat!
Holiday Coloring with my small stars
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My housemates and I exchanged small gifts with each other on Christmas eve after work. It was something fun to look forward to while having to work all day.
My gifts from Neo and Kate
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After exchanging gifts I finished my packing and went to bed early as I had a 1:30am alarm set to get to the airport in time! 😳😴
Due to the time difference I was able to facetime my family back home while I was on the way to the airport! They were having a gingerbread house contest and I was the Judge!! The winner "won" a spider-man action figure, so naturally I was biased and Liam won the overall contest 😝
I LOVE Liam's cheeky grin here😍
Hoping to be there for the contest next year!
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Melina and Palesa met me at the airport and we were off!! We had a layover in Kuala Lumpur, but not much was open in the airport due to the early hour and some renovations. We arrived in Singapore right on time around 11:30am and breezed through customs and immigration, got our suitcases and found a cab to drive us to our hotel/airbnb (the place we stayed was a hotel but we booked through airbnb, so I'm not sure what to call it lol).
Arriving into Singapore! Country #33!
It was too early to check in but the clerk let us leave our bags and we ventured out for food! There was a hawker (food) center about 5min walk away and we decided it was a great place to start our adventure! We were told to try "Hainanese Chicken Rice", so that's what we got! It was pretty good, but we decided that maybe we ordered it wrong because it wasn't anything super special 🤷🏻♀️ The big win for me was finding a Pepsi!! hahaha there isn't Pepsi in Indonesia (that I've found) so I was happy to have something other than coke...
After we ate we strolled around the area taking everything in. We found a local creamery and had some delicious ice cream. We also found a little park that was part of a Heritage Trail that seemed interesting and had beautiful flowers! We headed back to the hotel to change/freshen up to explore and get metro cards before our Christmas dinner.
Getting the metro cards was an adventure because the station closest to us didn't sell them, so we had to take the bus a few stops to a more central station. It took longer than we expected but we got the cards and walked out of the station to explore only to find it was pouring rain... So we decided to get a taxi to the restaurant for dinner- it's in a mall so figured we could do some window shopping before our reservation (the bus stop wasn't nearby and the metro didn't go where the dinner location was).. It took forever to get a taxi so by the time we got there it was almost time for our reservation. We sat down to eat and OMG it was DELICIOUS!!
SOOO GOOD! (Also the only pic I took at dinner)
After dinner we caught the bus to Orchard road to go look at the Christmas Lights!
Orchard Road is the bigggggggg shopping area! Every store imaginable was there, and the street was lined with Christmas lights and several bigger Christmas themed displays! The lights were beautiful, but there were SOOOOOO many people. The highlight for me was getting a Chai latte from Starbucks lol! Starbucks in Indonesia has chai tea, but its actual tea bags and doesn't taste the same as the chai lattes from home. So I was very very excited to get a delicious chai as we looked at all the lights. We took the metro back to our hotel and called in a night- we were all exhausted after our early start that morning.
The Christmas lights on Orchard Road
The Chai! 🤪
We all started the day with calls/texts to our families for Christmas as its still Christmas day for them with the time differences. After we finish our call we set out for the day! We start our day at Gardens by the Bay! We stuck to the free parts of the garden, and they were magical!! The super trees were breathtaking! The streams, ponds, flora and fauna were all so pretty! I could have spent the whole day just wondering around the garden. Melina got Chili Crab at the hawker center for lunch, Palesa had fried noodles, and I got Shake Shack (aka another favorite of mine that I was beyond excited to have)!
The super trees were so cool to see!
Melina's Chili Crab- a must have in Singapore
SHAKE SHACK! 😍 - a must have for me haha
After we thoroughly explored the garden we headed over to the Marina Bay Sands hotel to see the view from the observation deck. Being up on the observation deck reminded me of Hong Kong with all the tall buildings. It was cool to see all the areas of Singapore from up above.
Singapore might just be one of my new favorite places
After the observation deck we made our way over to the Merlion statue across the bay. From the Merlion statue we took the bus over to Haji Lane a graffiti/hipster-ish area with lots of shops and restaurants. We sat at one of the restaurants and had a few drinks to let our feet rest for a little while. From Haji lane we made our way over to the closest big mall and had dinner at Nandos (another favorite of mine! and also of Palesa's!!). By the time we dinner it was relatively late and we had been walking around the city all day, so we headed back to our hotel and called it a night.
but notice the crowds on the bridge
Melina, Palesa and I 💛
The Merlion was the #1 thing I wanted to see!
The next morning we got up and packed up our things to get ready to head to the airport. We took the metro from our hotel to the airport which took about an hour. From there we wanted to explore the airport a bit before heading to our gate. We saw the big waterfall in the center of the terminal which was super cool. We grabbed lunch, I got one last chai latte and we headed to our gate for the second part of our trip!
The waterfall at the airport
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Part 2- BALI!! 🌺👙☀️
For me Bali was not nearly as exciting or busy as Singapore, and that's just how I wanted it!!
Melina, Palesa and I stayed at an airbnb in Canggu not far from the beach. Our airbnb was secluded, tropical and had a pool. I didn't really leave our airbnb which was fabulous and spent the majority of my time lounging by the pool. Melina and Palesa ventured out more and met up with some other teachers quite often. We had on big group event which was a wine tasting at one of the Bali wineries. I really enjoyed it and even brought home a bottle of wine. It was truly a relaxing week in Bali which is exactly what I wanted.
Surabaya Teachers crew
Black-sand beach
Beach fun with Palesa and Kego!
Delicious Greek food for my NYE dinner!
New Year's Day by the pool!
(I told you I stayed here for most of the trip🤪)
New year, Same me! Cheers to 2023! 🥳🥳
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Thanks for reading and enjoying my blog posts!!
I hope you have a healthy and happy 2023!!
One of my goals for the year is to blog once a month with whatever has happened that month- lets see if that actually happens! haha
See you all here again soon!!
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Adios for now,
Margaret💛
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Ps. Thanks to everybody who reached out to wish me happy holidays and happy birthday!! Here's to 33 🥳 - May there be many more adventures, passport stamps, laughs and love!
I love this for you Marge. You looked extremely happy💞
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