A long due travel post. I will try to recollect anything that is left in my memory.
Last year summer, we decided to go to India as a family unlike the previous year when M and I took turns. So, we thought it would be a good opportunity to plan the first international family trip en route to India. We started the plan with Italy, moved to Dubai and finally settled with Singapore. Dream big and settle with reality 🙂 🙂
Good side was we had extended family and friends at Singapore. A friend helped with visa processing and cousin opened her doors for stay. A special mention to cousin’s husband who prepared a detailed excel sheet for us to answer all our silly queries and helped with local itinerary and flight bookings. We would hop on to a call every other day to go over the details as the travel was getting closer. He made us totally feel at home and comfortable. Not everyone knows or follows this genuine art to make others feel comfortable.
The best part was all that chit chat the cousin’s husband, M and I had every night. After having dinner and settling kids, we will sit down around 10pm to plan for next day and talk everything but plan until 1 am or 2am. The cousin with a 2 year old baby in hand and a 7 month baby in tummy will be half asleep on the other room pleading us to retire soon. We were never out of topic. He even spent the whole night with us in Singapore airport from 7pm to 5am talking non stop with couple of doses of kopi/tea during our return journey to US. The plan was for him to just come and meet us in the airport to exchange luggage but he ended up staying to chit chat till it was time for us to board the next flight to US.
This is what I call as the highlight of the trip and made this vacation more memorable to me..
- Stay with cousin family, cooking with them
- dinner with a school friend who helped us with Visa. We saw each other after almost 20 years!
- lunch at my BFF home. Seeing her after 12 years!
- dinner at an extended family Akka’s home
- impromptu evening visit to M’s school buddy’s home
- family time not worrying about errands to run, train to catch or mundane tasks to complete
It was a trip filled with fun and laughter besides the customary visit to all top tourist attractions to take pictures and check from the list.
Day by day itinerary in next part..
Between my littles and me 