I am sad that my Singapore adventure has now come to an end. Wish I could’ve stayed a little longer to explore the city a bit more. However, I did manage to visit many of the tourist attractions in 2.5 days, such as:

• the Marina Bay Sands 
• Little India
• Raffles Place (downtown financial district)
• Orchard St. (AKA: shopping heaven)
• Sentosa (Singapore’s only beach)
• Bay of Gardens (Singapore’s newest attraction and mosquitoes lair)
• China Town
• Singapore Flyer
• Maxwell Food Court
• & Marina Bay Casino

I love Singapore a lot a lot! It is like the New York City of Asia with much nicer, friendlier, and more professional people.

There are a lot of shopping malls and centers selling luxurious brand name items. Like literally on that one block of Orchard Street you can find multiple Louis Vuittons’, Hermes, and more.

However, the one thing that I love about Singapore is not their shopping, but their transportation system!!! It is so EFFICIENT, easy-to-access, fast, cost-effective, and leads to almost every mall in the city. three words: well-thought-out. 

The other thing that I love about Singapore is their modern architectural designs, which I find it very inspirational. It is art in a structured form. If I had a professional camera, I would be taking pictures of it all day!

I also got to try the “must-eat” items: frog porridge, Hainanese style chicken with rice, herbal black beef stew, chilli crab, and the waffle sandwich ice cream (which I miss :( ). They were all really good but my favorites are the Hainanese Chicken w/ rice and of course the waffle sandwich ice cream.

What made this trip interesting is that it was my first time staying in a hostel. I met some interesting people from all-over the world and made some new friends from France, Europe, Russia, and Australia. On my last night in Singapore, I had a jam session with some of the new friends I made, which is recorded and will be posted on YouTube shortly. 

I also had my first rain bath. The story is that I was eating frog porridge in Geylang, also known as the Red Light District, and as I was walking back to the MRT station(public transportation), it started to pour hard within a matter of minutes!!! Yes, very unpredictable weather. That was probably the only thing I dislike… is the weather. 

For those that don’t know, Singapore is a small island country made up of 4 different ethnic groups: Chinese, Indian, Malaysian (these three ethnicity making up most of the country) and Indonesian. Singapore cost-of-living is almost equivalent to living in the U.S. $1 USD = Approx. 1.22 SGD. I am guessing people who live in Singapore is pretty well-off and are addicted to shopping because majority of the population holds some type of luxury brand name purse/wallet. 

Overall, this was a amazing trip. I had a lot of fun exploring the city, trying new foods, and meeting new people. If I ever have a chance to live here, I’d move in a heart beat. =)

Lily Tran

*Photos by: Lily Tran

I finally had some time today to finish up editing the video for Open Invitation. All I can say is that the guys and myself had a really fun time shooting it. Keep in mind that this is not the official music video. Since I am traveling for a whole month, I wanted to bring something along to work on… the truth behind it all is that I know I’m going to miss these guys… >.<

I recorded this video using two iPhone 4 and edited it with iMovie taking about 4.5 hours. The idea of shooting in a moving vehicle came to me while driving home with Veno from the mixing session of Open Invitation. At first, I just wanted to record us being goofy, with it turning out to be a pretty fun idea for a simple video shoot. This was a low budget shoot, and I do really mean low budget! The only props that we actually bought are the chicken nuggets from McDonalds, the Burger King crown, and post-its for the pink and green shots. The good thing is that we enjoyed ourselves, had a lot of good hard laughs, and that we know you’ll enjoy it too. 

If you have not checked us out yet, be sure to do so on facebook at www.facebook.com/soulfulobsession, and on YouTube at www.youtube.com/soulful4music. You can download the single “Open Invitation” for free at www.soulfulobsession.bandcamp.com. There is only a limited amount available for free so be sure to download before it runs out.

I hope you enjoy the video. Please comment, rate, and subscribe if you enjoyed watching it. Thanks so much.

<3 Lily

So far, my trip to Vietnam has truly been an adventure. I’ve been exploring many different cities, foods, fashion boutiques and most importantly, cafes! I had a chance to meet makeup guru Michelle Phan at the Diamond Plaza and was randomly selected out of 200 people to get a makeover, which was pretty awesome. I also met some magazine industry people that invited me to be a part of their camera and video team shooting for fashion, entertainment, and product branding events. David, my photographer friend who lives out here in Saigon, and I will be working on some additional projects together. 

I have a really good feeling that I am going to have a blast out here in Vietnam. Starting today, I will be writing in my Tumblr blog as much as possible to keep you updated on all interesting and exciting happenings! 

Lily

My friend DJ Marcade’s tight mix!