Wow- so even though we only spent about 10 hours in Singapore, I had a blast and want to go back for sure. Singapore reminded me a lot of Chicago. Its very clean, has lots of trees, is located right on the water, and has a river running through it.  
   I started my day with a Semester at Sea field trip. I went on the Historical Churches, Temples, and Mosque tour. It was really neat, we saw a lot of the city, and so much more. I've never been in a mosque, so it was pretty neat to get to go inside of one. After the mosque we stopped at a Catholic Chuch, finally! first one I got to go in since being away.  We actually caught the tail end of the mass, but even though it was in Filipino I could kind of follow along.  After the Catholic church we went to a beautiful Anglican Cathedral. It was all white with plenty of huge stained glass windows. We then head to a really neat Chinese Temple, which I fount fascinating. The architecture was really amazing, and the entire temple was so decorated. They had a huge bookshelf of free chinese books, so I grabbed a bunch of them for my little brother who takes Chinese (tuck get excited).  Anyway, at that point Maggi, Colleen and I signed out of the trip so we could travel on our own.  We decided we had to go get the famous "Singapore Sling" at the Raffles Hotel.  We bought some tshirts as mementos, and went to Long Bar to try the drink. Although horrifically expensive ($25) we each got a drink, and they were pretty tasty, but we were glad free peanuts came with the table. 
   After our Raffles adventure, we went to Clarke Quay to meet up with Kristin and Laurel. We meet a bunch of our other friends there too, and decided going to the Singapore Hooters would be a grand idea for lunch. It really was a ton of fun, so I back up our choices. (Don't worry brothers, I got you both tshirts). After Hooters, we walked around the river front area and stopped at a little restaurant to have a few drinks. They played all of my favorite music, and I decided right then that I was really having the best day ever... like of my life maybe. Singapore just brought me to peace, maybe because of its beauty, but also maybe because it was such a refresher after India.  Either way, I loved it.  The restaurant we were at was set up next to this really cool slingshot swing thing that a few of our friends did, it was pretty neat.  After that we went to get some ice cream and met up with some different Semester At Sea-ers... and we went to this really weird bar called the clinic. We sat in gold wheel chairs and were served drinks out of IVs... really odd, but an interesting memory. After we wrote our postcards and rushed back to the ship.  We got there with minutes to spare, but a lot of people were late, so we're not sure if dock time will be given to them, but it was really unfair, because immigration took forever.

Anyway- one more day of class, then off to VIETNAM!  I'm really excited for Nam, and have nothing planned yet, but hope to see a lot of things.  After nam we have China and then TAIWAN! I'm a little bummed Japan is now officially off our itinerary, but Taiwan might be pretty cool... no it will be.

Anyway... HAPPY ST. PATTY's DAY!

love you all, and miss you dearly

k