Welcome to The Wedding Travelers!

Wow, it was really strange just now to write our location as Edmonton, rather than exotic places like Singapore, Vietnam or India! But even though Edmonton is a little more tame than some of the places we saw in the last three months, I can't even begin to tell you how glad we are to be home. Our 40 hour journey home was long, arduous, and not totally problem free, but we made it here with all our bags intact, and our sanity more or less in place. We got a great sleep last night, and our bed felt like a huge fluffy cloud compared to the beds we've slept in for the past 3 months. And believe it or not we're feeling good this morning, not really jet-lagged, and have already gotten back to work! You might think we'd give ourselves time off to recoup, but it feels like we've been waiting to get home and get back into the swing of things, and we just couldn't spend a day sitting around doing nothing!

We're going to hook you up with a few videos we took over the past few days. Our cameras didn't really see the light of day after the wedding, so there aren't any photos. But a few neat little videos will be good for you!

First, from the Singapore Changi Airport. After 2 months in India, we felt like we were in some spotlessly clean futuristic utopia when we got to the airport in Singapore. Seriously, we just kept smiling the whole time we were there!

 And then a little video from our landing in Los Angeles. It was in the evening, so we were treated to some beautiful sunset colours.

And finally a video in two parts, since we ran out of memory card space, and I don't know how to splice them together. Here is Rob giving you a little tour of all the goodies we brought back!

 There you go! We've got a bunch of shopping to do here, for some food and some business stuff. But we'll be getting back to this blog soon to add a ton more photos from our trip, and an unbelievable amount of info still needs to go up! So thanks for all the well wishes for a safe trip, and we'll talk to you all soon!

P.S. In the video Rob mentioned my Shootsac, and I figured some people might be wondering what that is! Well, it's an absolutely fantastic little camera bag, perfect for people who, like me, change their lenses a lot when they are shooting. I really really really wished I had brought it along on our trip! I know I'll never be leaving it at home again, no matter where we are going! Anyway, if you're interested you need to check out the website, www.shootsac.com. We love it! 

Category: Adventures

Tags: Airplane, Changi Airport, Singapore, travel

So finally the time had come and we were about to leave Singapore. We were here for only a few days, as this was really only a stop over before we made our way to Vietnam. We’re hitting Singapore up again for a few days on our way home, and at that time I’ll do up a little review of it as a travel destination. But in 100 words or less, Singapore is a great place to start your trip. It is a very gentle introduction to Asia, if you’ve never been before. In fact, let’s call it Asia 101. Safe, clean, bright, fairly modern. A good way to prepare for Vietnam and India!

On our last day we decided to head down to the waterfront area to take some shots. We found ourselves at the Fountain of Wealth, the largest fountain in the world (so they claim). But it looked pretty large to me. There are times throughout the day when they turn off the main fountain so that people can walk out to the little center fountain, wish for something, and walk around three times. I think it’s meant to bring you wealth. We didn’t go out there, as we have all the wealth we need. We are artists after all ☺



We grabbed a quick bite near the fountain. Now I’ll tell you that if you’re a food lover, you’re going to get extremely jealous throughout this trip. So far we’ve had some of the best food of our lives, and it’s only been a few days! We had some dumplings:



A crazy tasty bulgogi beef soup with ramen noodles



And here’s a shot of Rob digging in to some spicy chicken. To die for. Oh, and for anyone thinking of visiting Asia, make sure you’ve learned how to use chopsticks before you come, because many times there isn’t a fork to be seen. I absolutely love using chopsticks, and use them all the time at home, so I came prepared. But I can imagine how tough it would be for someone who never has used them!


Then we just randomly wandered around. Rob grabbed this neat shot of the staircase


This is a shot of the Esplanade (or some like to call it the “big durian”…I’ll explain what a "durian" is later in this post). It’s a performing arts center, and we were really excited to see an ad for Broken Social Scene, one of the absolute best Canadian bands at the moment!



Then of course we had to visit the famous Merlion statue, the symbol of Singapore. There was a small version that Rob named Jorooter.



And the huge one that I named Mermy





The clouds were so amazing, and added such interest to our shots! But yes, we did get rained on, again!



We’re always looking for cool patterns, light, and texture



Here’s a shot of the sign for Merlion park, just in case you thought we made that name up



Rob spotted some amazingly cool trees as we were walking around



This one will make an awesome desktop background, I’ll have to size it up for that!


What we’re going to try to do is a post about the food for every location we were in. Singapore had some of the strangest foods I’ve ever seen…..and smelled…..there were definitely times when I had to promptly do a 180 and walk right back out of a market because I really couldn’t handle the smell! Stuff like fish head soup in a clay pot….tripe and intestine soup….ugh! I definitely was not that adventurous! That’s not to say that there wasn’t good food, but our appetites definitely ran far away from us a couple times when we found one of those smells. This is a quick shot from a night market we wandered through.



And speaking of smells, Singapore is well known for the durian fruit. This is a moment when I wish someone had invented a way to transmit smells over the internet, because this is one that needs to be experienced, not described. Suffice it to say that there are signs on all of the public transport that explicitly say “NO DURIANS”. That’s how pungent they are…they are banned from confined spaces!



Now I know you are all so curious as to what they smell like! I’ve seen them before at Superstore back home in Canada, or any local Chinese market. If you see one, definitely go up and give it a good smell. You certainly won’t forget it! When Rob’s grandparents stayed with us, they would buy durian (they are from Singapore actually!) and the whole entire house would just be filled with that smell…those were good times ☺

This guy was cutting up the durians for people to eat on the street. I did not try it, since I don’t know if I could handle being around the smell for that long. Plus the insides sort of looked like little brains! Rob says the texture is like custard….Perhaps we’ll try it some time on our travels and report the experience back to you ☺



Well, that was about all from our time in Singapore. Didn’t buy much, just walked around and got used to traveling again! It’s been a very long time, and life is so much different when traveling. At home we’d go to bed around 2 AM and wake up around 10 or 11. Here we’re so tired we’re in bed by 10PM and actually woke up today at 7! We take life slow, sit down and just watch people go by and just enjoy taking it easy. I think these 3 months are going to be really fun. We’re so glad so many of you are following along! Make sure to leave a comment if you have a question you’d like us to answer!

Cheers,
Lauren

(P.S. Sorry for the delay in posting this! We're actually in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam right now and the internet in our hotel was down yesterday. But look for a couple awesome posts about this place in the next couple of days. We also did an amazing shoot today, and can't wait to share it! Cheers!)

Category: Adventures

Tags: food, merlion, Singapore, travel

Hey everyone!

Right now we're at the Changi Airport in Singpore waiting to board our flight to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam! Honestly we have NO idea what to expect from Vietnam, but we're incredibly excited.

It will probably be a couple days until we get a post up about our first thoughts of Vietnam, and our last day in Singapore, since I'm not sure how easy it will be to find Internet in HCMC. But keep the comments coming, we really love to read them!

Until later,

Lauren :) 

Category: Adventures

Tags: Changi Airport, Singapore, travel

Yesterday we thought it might be a fantastic idea to make our way to the Singapore Zoo….before I go much further into that I’ll show you a video we made.

Yep, it rained. Nay, it poured. Leopards and hyenas. The nice thing about being nearly on the equator though is that even a torrential downpour still is warm. And since we’re cheap cheap travelers, there was no way we weren’t going to get our money’s worth! So on we ventured, armed with our garbage bag covers for our gear. And I’ll tell you right now it was such a fun time. Except for one thing…

We sort of had a money crisis for an hour.

One travel tip I’ll give you is to make sure you know your credit card pin number BEFORE you get to the other side of the world. Yes, with only 8 Sing Dollars in our pocket, we walzed up to the ATM, and all of  a sudden there was total silence as Rob said

“Um, I think I forgot the PIN number”.

Cut to us, sitting at a little table, with the rain pouring all around on our cell phone with VISA (I really, really don’t want to know how much that call is going to cost us…). And you know what? They clearly didn’t think it was that much of an emergency that we were sitting in a foreign country with absolutely no way to get any money. The only solution they could give us was that they would send a new PIN number to our home address in 5 – 10 business days, or we could find a Western Union in Singapore (um….where????), and they would give us some emergency money. Awesome! Thanks so much for all your assistance!

Those 8 dollars were just mocking us at this point.

So Rob stands up and says he’s going to go try his old Mastercard. He literally has not used the PIN number on this card for three years, back when we went to Europe.

He tells me that as he stood there in the line, he focused all his energy on visualizing that piece of paper that comes in the mail that tells you your PIN number. I’m sure he channeled every bit of luck that ever was wished to us, because as he stepped up to the machine and pressed 4 seemingly random numbers, BAM! Instant money. I still can’t even believe that the guy who can’t remember what I told him 5 minutes ago could pull that little bit of info out of the deep recesses of him mind, but am I ever glad he did.

But anyway, you’re here to see some pictures of the zoo! So after we had some money in our hands, we looked out at the rain and said “What should we do?”. We decided to wait 20 minutes for the rain to slow. And right at the end of that it seemed to have almost stopped, so off we skipped into the gates of the Singapore Zoo. Moments after entering, Rob was put straight to work.



A photographer never rests.

Then we ran along looking for the tigers. We spotted this sign, and off we went.

Yes! Rare white tigers! So incredible. Honestly, seeing these things was worth the full price of admission. And at this point the rain was pretty light, so we were really pumped.



After the tigers everything else was just bonus. We saw pygmy hippos

Some very wet kangaroos. By this point the rain had definitely started up again, and all the animals were looking a bit damp.

The baboons were pretty cool. But by now it was a torrential downpour. I took this shot just a few minutes before we shot that little video you saw.

So we waited it out for a while, and then said “Screw it” and just kept walking. We saw some rhinos

Zebras

And were really pumped to see some giraffes.

The tongues on these guys are crazy. They are very agile, and are used pretty much like a hand to grasp leaves.

Lions

And we walked into a little enclosure where these tiny little things were running around free. They literally would come within a foot of you to check you out. They were so curious.

I am very glad these ones weren’t running around free. This is a cottonmouth snake.

Rob really likes the lighting and texture on this one.

Even though we were thoroughly drenched we still had so much fun.

We also checked out the night safari, where you can go and check our animals while they are awake at night. We hopped on the little tram and rode through the park in the pitch black. It was really neat, but we don’t have much to show for it, since it was, well, dark. I was able to grab this shot of the flamingoes


So that was our day! We made our way home and promptly passed out on our bed. But all in all it was a fantastic time, rain and all.

Category: Adventures

Tags: giraffe, rain, Singapore, singapore zoo, white tiger, wildlife

Hello everyone! We’re writing to you from hot hot Singapore. As you saw from the last post, we left a very cold and snowy climate. Here it’s about 30 degrees, with about 90 – 100 % humidity. It’s been a very huge change, that’s for sure! All of the locals are wearing jeans and some of them are even wearing long sleeved shirts. We’re dying of heat in our tank tops. But I think we’ll get used to it…hopefully! Luckily our hotel room has Air Con, so we’re able to adjust slowly.

Now to get to Singapore from Edmonton we did about 24 hours of flying time, between three flights. It was certainly a very long trip, but I guess one has to be grateful for that. If it was easy to get to this side of the world, everyone would be here, and it would become a tourist trap. At the moment it’s very strange to be such a hugely visible minority. White people are rare, that’s for sure! But it’s not too bad, we’re used to being some of the only white people at the weddings we shoot, so it’s not a huge shock.

I’ll share a few pictures we’ve taken so far with you. Here’s a shot of our plane that took us to Singapore…



Haha, that’d be terrifying!! No, this is the plane that took us from Edmonton to Calgary. Thankfully that was only a 50 minute flight, because this thing was loud and bumpy. The landing was definitely anything but smooth.

From Calgary we flew to LAX. Our flight was a bit late getting there, but we didn’t think it was such a big deal. As we stepped out into the airport we asked the airline representative where to go to connect to our flight to Singapore. As we were standing with her, another couple stepped up saying they were going to Singapore as well. The lady gave us the most ridiculous instructions (go straight, then go down one flight, follow the flow of traffic, and then go left). Um…..this airport is huge! Those directions certainly didn’t help us, but at the time we thought it must be pretty easy. Well, the other couple takes off at a sprint. We stood there, a bit confused. Did they think this was the amazing race? Our flight wasn’t leaving for an hour, we thought we were totally fine.

Coming from the Edmonton International Airport, where there were hardly any people at all, into LAX which was a zoo was crazy. We were walking through this huge place, and were thoroughly lost. We ended up having to ask about 3 more staff where on earth we were going. And I’ll tell you right now the directions weren’t so great from any of them. But we did finally make our way to the Singapore Airlines check-in. And there were NO other passengers there. Weird, thought us. Well the flight attendants who checked us in seemed to feel like the situation was pretty urgent, so they rushed us to the express lane for security. At this point we were certainly getting a bit worried, since this “express” lane moved about as slow as molasses on a winter day in Edmonton. We got through security, grabbed our ridiculously heavy camera bags, and checked out which gate we had to get to.

It just wouldn’t be traveling if it that gate wasn’t as far away as Siberia.

But as you may have guessed, we did make it to the gate just in time to queue for boarding and all was fine.

Take off. 4 movies, many naps, 3 crazy delicious meals, 1 refuel in Taipei, and finally we got to Singapore.

We’ve taken things pretty slow here so far, but today we’re planning on hitting up the zoo which should make for some really cool pictures! I’ll show you a few that we took so far. Nothing too intense, since we were letting ourselves slowly get into the groove, but I hope you guys enjoy them anyway!

A quick shot from the airport in Taipei, Taiwan. I loved the fact that there was a Beef Noodle stand. I love noodles... 

Rob strolling through the Taipei airport. Note the casual smile? That is because we weren't sprinting to try to catch our plane! He certainly did not look this relaxed in LAX. 

Don't you just love seeing how different things can be around the world? I got so excited to see this pop machine with tons of drinks I had never heard of!

A shopping tower here in Singapore, close to our hotel. We like to think it is "our" tower...Simpson Lim....Sim Lim... 

Last night we made our way to Orchard Road, which is the big shopping area in Singapore. If you've ever been to Paris, this place really reminded me of the Champs Elysee, but bigger.....This is a shot of one of the big malls. I think this one had a Tiffany's, a Cartier, a Bvlgari, a Hermes...and those were just the ones we recognized! 

And to round it all out here’s a nice little video to show you the crazy, opulent life of a world traveler. Try not to weep from jealousy, though I know it will be hard ;)

More later everyone!

Lauren

Category: Adventures

Tags: Airplane, orchard road, Singapore, travel