Dressed up and Headed to Town

After the terracotta warriors exhibit, dad took a bit of a nap while Jeff played with the boys. It was a happy family afternoon topped off with a long walking tour of the local playgrounds with Ozzy and Sawyer. After a quick fluff and tuck, we were off to downtown for a fancy dinner at Daniel Boulud's new restaurant DB Bistro Moderne located in the shopping center next to the Sands Motel, which has been featured in previous blog updates - the one with the boat on top.

So, in our most casual finery, we slid into a taxi and headed downtown. Even the mall here is a bit intimidating as 16% of Singapore's population consists of those with a net worth of $1 million SGD or greater.

So as we strolled past the Prada, Gucci, Armani, Chanel, et. al. stores for the rich and famous, I felt both a little overwhelmed by all the fashion, but oddly inspired to work just a bit harder for the Yves St. Laurent belt that was calling my name from the display window.

Gucci Display Window - Impressive

The restaurant is very low key and the service was unobtrusive, but spot-on in anticipating our needs. We actually started with an entree that we split and consumed as an appetizer: Wagyu beef (also known as Kobe) with baby carrots and potato frites topped with sauce Bearnaise.  Do I even need to say it?  But OMG that was the most tender beef that has ever passed these lips. We all agreed that if we had to choose either pig or wagyu beef as the only meat we could eat for the rest of our lives, wagyu just may win out. We followed this delectable choice with a few of chef Boulud's signature burgers, while Maryana chose a delicious grilled fois gras - which incidentally is one of my favorite things on earth. The guilt of eating it must add to its deliciousness. But, I digress. The dinner was a hit. I immediately regretted my choice of form fitting dinner attire when I stood up from the table, as we all left fat and happy.

To work off some of the decadence we had consumed, we headed towards the waterfront for a stroll. I know that the Hong Kong harbor is world-famous, but the skyline of Singapore is also quite amazing at night.

Our evening culminated in the nightly sound and light show over the harbor.  I have never seen anything quite like it.  The show was mostly composed of huge sprays of water mist with images projected into them  Sounds pretty simple, but the movement of the water gave the images a blowing, or impressionistic blurring of the edges where the light was refracted into mini rainbows of color. The show ended with Louis Armstrong's What a Wonderful World, which never fails to make me just a bit teary-eyed.

Here is a small video I took that may give you an idea of the show.

The first video shows some of the cool laser effects, the second is part of What a Wonderful World. Enjoy