Our first priority over the past few days has been apartment hunting.  We looked at about eight places before settling on one this morning.  And as Prescott says, we’re going to be moving into Melrose Place.  It’s a huge, brand new condo called the Hillier; it’s in the very green area of Hillview, and it’s crazy-fancy (for us, anyway).  I’m a little embarrassed to report that the first floor boasts shops including a Starbucks and a Dean & Deluca.  It has five different pools (including a giant jacuzzi, a huge infinity lap pool, and an aqua fitness pool).

The whole place feels a little over the top, but there’s so much greenery around that we’ll feel like we’re out of the city and breathing fresh air.  And if we want to go walking in the jungle, the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve is just a five minute walk away (we took a stroll there and saw two very large lizards).  The apartment is only 807 square feet, but it’s really well designed, so it feels much bigger.  Pictures to come once we actually get around to moving in (which will be about a week — the builders still need to go through the punch list and the owner needs to add lighting fixtures and curtains).

Otherwise, we’ve done a lot of walking.  We spent last night at the new Gardens by the Bay, a $1 billion development on reclaimed land that feels half like a botanic garden and half like DisneyWorld.  It’s best known for it’s Supertrees, which are actually chimney vents for burned waste material.  They’re remarkably strange and beautiful, with plants growing almost all the way up to the top.

Singapore is definitely working on incurring a huge lighting bill.  Here are the Singapore Flyer and the Helix Bridge at night:

And here are the ArtScience Museum and the Marina Bay Sands Hotel.  If you haven’t heard me talk about the Marina Bay Sands, it’s top on my list of things to do in Singapore: it has the highest and largest infinity pool in the world (it’s up on that cantilevered disc at the very top on the left).  The only catch is that you have to stay in the hotel to use the pool, and the hotel is currently running $625 a night, so we’re going to wait for that price to go down before we (literally) take the plunge.