Halloween or is it?

Well we have officially lived in our new place just over a week now and starting to settle in.

Today is Halloween but you wouldn't know it here in Singapore as it's sunny, hot, humid and very difficult to spot a trick or treater anywhere.  I did search out a restaurant called Dan Ryan's Chicago Bar and Grill that is supposed to be a nod to American traditions and they are doing a Halloween dinner tonight.  So we will be going to dine with the ghouls and goblins for Halie's First Halloween.  Costumes are rare to see here and even more obscure are costumes for little ones.  So I have pieced together a "giraffe" costume.  It really just consists of a brown pair of pants and onesie with a giraffe headband that I found in the dollar store here that fits little kids.  It won't be the elaborate first Halloween costume I had hoped for but at least we will have some pictures to show her when she gets older.  There is a neighborhood up to the north that is sort of "Little America" by the Singapore American School that has a neighborhood where apparently the whole world seems to go trick or treating and I had originally planned for us to do that.  However, my luck with planning events of late has not been so good (read the blog on Chinatown and keep reading to hear about last night's adventure) so I am feeling a bit gun shy about heading and hour or so north by public transit for something that could possibly be hard to find or disappointing.

On to last nights adventures.  I have been wanting to go see this event called iLight.  It's the first of its kind in Singapore and consists of 21 outdoor light sculptures around the Marina Waterfront.  Once again, the best laid plans...... should have known when things started out badly.  We had planned to head out around 5pm which should have given us plenty of time to get down towards that area, have dinner, find the event and be there right about the time they turn on the lights at 7:30pm.  This should have hopefully been easy and get Halie back home into bed by 9pm at the latest.  We couldn't end up leaving until 6pm as Dannette had a friend over whose helper was very late (supposed to be here at 4:30pm).  She was not answering her cell phone and turns out we learn at 515pm she is in a cab VERY lost.  Long story short, she didn't get picked up until right about 6pm.  Traffic was pretty heavy and we got down to the area and walked to the place we had planned for dinner, Paulaner brew house.  Nice place, great atmosphere......90 minutes into our dinner we still had no FOOD!  Turns out the waiter was so worried about serving our appetizer before our mains that he only put the app order in and NEVER ordered out entrees!!!!!  Food was good but was spoiled by waiting so long as once we complained the food arrived in about 4 minutes.  One difference here, complaining gets you nothing.  In the US that meal should have been free or very very discounted.  In Singapore, we got two free sodas and a scoop of ice cream with a side of VERY tired Halie to go. But wait, the adventures don't stop there.  A lovely irritating part of Singapore is that signage is poor.  The same area may be called about ten different things by different people.  Case in point, last night the signage for the iLight stated Marina Bay Waterfront.  The articles all referred to the Marina Promenade.  Google maps didn't seem to recognize either of those names.  In the end four very tired and worn out people found the area.  We looked at two exhibits and grew weary.  The display was interesting but VERY spread out.  Had we gotten there early enough it would have been a lengthy stroll around the entire waterfront that would have likely taken an hour.  We were all in agreement that it was time to give in and go home.  After sitting through what seemed like a great deal of traffic, we finally made it home right at 10pm.  Needless to say, not a very enjoyable evening was had by all.

Let's hope tonights dinner has some promise.  Or I will be permanently evicted from ever making plans again. Fingers crossed the food is good as this is also one of the few places that supposedly serves a real Thanksgiving dinner here.

No pics for now as Halie is asleep and I don't want to get up to get the camera and disturb her.  Her nap is key to the success of this evening.  I wanted to get a post up though as I know many of you watch for the posts religiously.  Pics to come later tonight hopefully.