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Our first stop today was the Singapore sports medicine office which was located inside a mall. Singapore is very well-known for its shopping malls…they are everywhere. We quickly exchanged braces (Giff had purchased one for me yesterday but it was too big) and strapped mine on me. It felt much more stable to have the support around my ankle but wasn’t so fun to get on and off.
We walked through the mall a bit, looking at the various stores but were hungry and looking for lunch. We found a place and only waited a few minutes before being seated. They handed us 2 menus the way a sushi restaurant would…one was for dim sum and we had a pencil to fill in the quantity of what we wanted, and the other was a la carte menu.
We weren’t really sure of what we were ordering but picked a variety of things to try. The a la carte menu had a multi-course set menu at a set price so we also ordered one of those. We had fun eating each thing delivered to our table…we had steamed dumplings full of wild mushrooms, crispy shrimp, noodles, soup etc. Most of it was very good and the tea we ordered came out with the herbs inside-no tea bag and it was sitting on a little candle to stay hot. Giff decided to order the shark fin soup which is illegal in many countries but considered a (rare luxury) here. It is controversial because many poachers kill these sharks only to use their fins and waste the rest. The soup itself was kind of a strange consistency…a bit slimy and the fin didn’t have so much taste but more of a strange consistency. We tried it this one time but won’t do it again due to the animal cruelty. For dessert, we tried something we have only put on our body topically but never eaten. It was aloe vera…they served it on ice with a lemon flavored liquid. It was refreshing…it wasn’t something I would crave but was a nice light ending to the meal and is also very healthy.
After walking through the large mall a bit more, we saw it was pouring rain outside. We waited in line for quite a while and then went back to our place. I put my foot up and we lazied around the rest of the evening.
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Published by Giff Kabat
I grew up in Ohio as a kid, so of course I went to college at “THE” Ohio State University. I graduated in 2001 with a major in business finance. A month after graduation, I moved out to California with my college girlfriend (whom I married in 2005)…and started my career in sales (industrial sales for 5 years…then moved into medical laser sales for 4 years).
In 2009 I was 31 years old. I had a great job, a new house, and a beautiful wife. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any better…my wife and I found out we were going to have a baby. Everything was going according to plan…and I couldn’t have scripted a better life for myself.
Then in the same year…everything changed. My wife, Brandey, called me when I was on my way to work and told me over the phone, something I never thought could be possible in a million years. My beautiful 30-year old pregnant wife was just told that she had breast cancer. At that moment, everything stopped all at once. I immediately went to her…and learned of our new plan…which began with her needing surgery immediately…and the rest we would find out later.
The day we returned from the hospital after Brandey’s surgery…my father died. He had been battling an aggressive cancer of his own…and although he was the one person I wanted to speak with about Brandey having cancer…I never told him. My sister, Brooke, had just gotten married a few months ago, and although he was weak, he was able to walk his little girl down the aisle of her wedding. On the night before my sister’s wedding, Brandey and I told him that we were pregnant and about to make him a grandfather. It made no sense to tell him that everything had changed for us…so he died in peace knowing everything was “the way it should be” for his only 2 children.
2010 was the worst year of my life. We had lost our baby…and for 12 months I watched my wife fight cancer with multiple surgeries, chemotherapy, radiation treatments, and drug therapy. It was a difficult year for us…but we made it. When you go through something like this in life, you learn a lot about yourself and the people around you. I was amazed at the strength and courage of my wife…and how many good people there are in this world. I will be forever grateful for the ones who never ceased to amaze me with their kindness during this hard time. Family, friends, and sometimes complete strangers…helped us make it through this. I am, and will always be especially grateful to my mother, who was with my dad at the very end, when I couldn’t be there, and when things were at their worst. She has been so supportive throughout all of this, and without her everything would have been so much harder for me.
It’s 2011 now…and the plan we have for our life this year…is to make it the best year of our lives. Brandey is officially in remission from breast cancer and she has a 95% chance the cancer will never come back. Besides the love that I have for my wife and family, the loves of my life are food, wine, and adventure travel. My wife and I love traveling to new places, seeing natural wonders, and meeting new people from different parts of the world. So for the next 400 days…we’ve decided to travel the world…and celebrate our lives. There are so many things I took for granted in life that I will never take for granted again. My father worked for over 30 years at the same job with the same company…rarely took time off…and died at 64 years old right after his retirement. For me, this trip is a combination of a tribute to him, along with wanting to spend the time of my life with the “love of my life.”
* The only thing I will miss while we are gone is our family and friends (who we hope will meet us somewhere throughout our trip) and especially our 3 little kitties we left with my mom in Ohio to catsit for the next 400 days. I will also miss watching “American Football” over the weekend…but I’ll do my best to check the scores in the middle of the night.
GIFF
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Spinning Around The World 
You can buy Aloe water and it surprising is refreshing!
Wow! Aloe Vera can be used for detoxing and/or gentle assistance with BM’s (if ya know what I mean…!!!). That’s so cool they served it as a desert….and at the end of a meal. Eastern medicine is soooo cool!