Another rainy day

Hey everyone! It's another rainy Thursday in Singapore, but I don't mind. The rain makes the air cooler and gives me an excuse to take an afternoon off from doing something out in the city. I wish I could transport a little home, because I have a feeling we need it there.

Speaking of home, I just want to thank everyone who's reading this. I guess I don't realize exactly how many people do read it, but my mother assures me that people have mentioned it to her. I hope it has been living up to expectations. I've found that updating every other day fits my schedule best, so I think I'll try to keep that pattern. If I miss a post, my apologies in advance.

So what's been happening the past couple of days? To be honest, nothing too exciting. At least, nothing all that new. Everything is exciting here, in a way, since it's just so different from home. First things first: I've been told that our grad student has purchased a large can of ant killer, so that is a relief. They've actually been better today, so maybe they'll be gone soon. Everyone else in the block seems to be having similar pest problems. My next door neighbor has a newt in her room that seems to have taken up permanent residence under her cabinet, but then again, I have a newt at home to keep me company. (Speaking of which, I forgot to clean its bowl before I left...sorry Mom.)

I think I left off in the last blog before I went to the dinner with UNC alum. That was an interesting experience, I must admit. The restaurant was called a hot pot restaurant, which is similar to fondue in that you cook your own food in boiling broth in front of you. I just searched for a picture on my friends' facebook sites, but no luck. I'll see if I can find some later to add in. This food looked less than appealing, to say it mildly. No lie. I mean, it was a nice restaurant, and it didn't taste all that bad, it just wasn't what I felt like eating. There weren't many vegetables at all, just some slices of meat. It was all-you-can-eat, so they would bring you just about anything off of the menu, so we ordered mussels, ox tongue, chicken and mushroom balls, and some other stuff. Needless to say, the mussels were not my scene, and neither was the ox tongue (though the table next to us stole it before we could try it, no idea why). I did eat the chicken and mushroom balls, as well as prawn (with the shells and eyes still attached, no less). Oh wait, I mean, I shelled it first. I didn't actually eat the eyes. That would be weird. I'm just saying that it's quite bizarre to eat while there are bulging eyes staring back up at you.

Blech.

Anyway, after moderatly filling ourselves with this food, we set off to explore the mall in which the restaurant was located. Yes, a mall. Everything is located in a mall in Singapore, it seems. This place is called Suntec and houses the largest fountain in the world. I really wish I had pictures, but I plan to go back because they have a laser (light?) show every evening. We could see bits of it while eating just outside the fountain, but not the whole of it. The fountain isn't exactly what I pictured beforehand, but neither is anything else in this country/city. At any rate, it's the largest in the world. Speaking of largest, I don't know if I mentioned this, but when I went to the bird park I saw the largest manmade waterfall in the world.

Singaporeans and their water. And.....speaking of that. (I'm in a tangential mood, sorry.) The water here is called recycled water, which is exactly what it sounds like. They recycle the water and bottle it. So there, Mom and Dad, that's what I'm drinking. And you were worried about tap water. Ha. At least they do it out of necessity: Singapore has a limited supply of fresh water, and the desalination plant can only do so much. I think I heard that they have to ship some in from surrounding countries as well, which drives up the prices of bottled water. It's about a dollar for a bottle, which is out of proportion with the typical prices of food and drinks.

It seems that Singaporeans import significant amounts of their culture and liftestyles, creating their own blend, much like the Singlish I mentioned in the last post. Elements of this importation and assumption of foreign culture are everywhere. Movies are mostly American, Japanese, Korean, or Chinese. Water comes from here and other countries as well. Even language comes from everywhere. The people themselves are mostly not indigenous to the country, at least, not in the sense of more than a couple of centuries, if even that long. Many of the beautiful trees and plants and flowers have been imported here from Indonesia and surrounding nations. A quantifiable percentage of the city has been built on reclaimed land, meaning that Singapore had to buy actual dirt from Malaysia and dredge up some of its own from the harbor to extend the reach of the tiny island. Beach Road is, for that reason, no longer along the beach. The beach (at least, the edge of the island) is much farther away because the city kept adding on land, 8,000 football fields' worth of it. I don't know about you, but that sounds like a lot to me.

Now... where was I? Oh yes, the dinner at Suntec and seeing the fountain. We slipped into BreakTalk, a wonderful smelling bakery chain here, and some people bought a few items to supplement their meals. We also stopped by an Auntie Anne's (they have them, yes!) for pretzels. Actually, they have chocolate mint pretzels here. And a waffle shop. (Oh, there's a waffle vendor here at NUS, but they don't open until 12pm. Weird. I guess waffles aren't much of a breakfast food here.)

Anyway, that was the extent of our evening Tuesday. Yesterday we had class and went to the Housing Development Board building in Singapore to hear about the government housing policies. (Again, in a city building that was a mall of sorts with stores and vendors and everything. Singaporeans are obsessed with shopping, food, and movies, I've been told, and it's so true.)

The HDB was interesting to hear, because they have model flats on display and we could walk around to look at them. Clearly they were models, because they were very nice. Too nice, if you ask me. The most common is a four bedroom flat, but they also had a five bedroom on display. The displays and presentation we saw on video were all flashy, like any other advertising for a product. While I admit that this government project seems to be successful, at least on the surface, it also has come with its own costs. But I've already talked about housing in Singapore, so it isn't necessary for me to do it again.

After we came back around four, JJ, Andrew, Katie, Rea, and I set out for Orchard Road for some quick, goal-oriented shopping. I needed a gift for my homestay host, in particular, so we decided to go to Borders. Thanks to the graciousness of the Great Singapore Sale, they had some good deals, but I decided on this colored mug for my host. I hope she likes it. I know I liked it, though I have no particular use for one. We hung out there for a little while, and I tried to teach myself some Mandarin in thirty minutes. Basically, I just remember how to say okay (pronounced "how") and thank you ("syeh syeh" I think) and I/me ("wor" I think). Clearly, I didn't teach myself very much, nor with any type of precision.

Professor Gold said he would hold lessons in Mandarin and Thai next week for anyone interested. I'm fascinated by Chinese, since its written language seems so far removed from its spoken language, but that's my own language background distorting my perceptions. It is an extremely difficult one to learn, nevertheless, though I suppose I only need to know how to say and understand a few phrases. I'll leave the written language for later. And also, I've learned how to recognize the word Allah in drawings. Unfortunately, that's the extent of my multilingual experience. I can't recognize any Indian or Malay words. Except on DANGER signs they have dengan or something similar, but I don't know what language that is. At least I know it, right? I think it's Malay. Progress has been made, at any rate.

Hmm. What else. After class today I had something new at the Muslim food stand, called mee rubus, I believe. It's noodles in a peanut oil-based sauce. A little spicy, but not bad. I enjoyed it. The Muslim stands have their own receptacles for dirty dishes since they cannot be mixed with the same dishes used in preparation and serving of pork. And there's plenty of pork at the Chinese and other stands. On the sign for the stand, it says "halal" referring to the way the meat was prepared. (I think the blood has to be drained from a slaughtered animal, though I am not completely sure exactly what the religious rites require.) Basically, it was a new experience. I didn't enjoy it as much as the Chinese food, but it was nice to have a change. Next I want to try Indian food, but I may leave that for next week.

This afternoon has been very chill, so that's been nice. I like to relax and just hang out. Rebekah and I watched the fourth Harry Potter movie on her laptop in the air conditioned lounge after lunch, and we finished a little while ago. I think in a few I'll go get some dinner with some other people and then maybe go next door to an American style restaurant to have dessert and watch some of the French Open. Several people here are big tennis fans, and although my knowledge of the sport is limited, I wouldn't mind watching some. (Yay, right, Meagan?)

Well, just so you guys get to see some good visuals, these are some random pictures from the past week and a half...


















Above pictures and lower right were all taken on Orchard Road. These places are just enormous. Even Borders was in its own mall with a huge food court. (Ah, great food too. I had fried fish soup. Mmm.) The lower left picture is HarbourFront, one of my stops on way to church Sunday morning.

























I thought this particular mosque was really cool. It's near Arab Quarter, if I remember correctly.













Sorry, I'm not too sure exactly what this building houses, but I love the color and architecture of it. It might be the national library, but I don't really know. It's in the area of the national library.








So this is me, obviously, with the financial district as a background. Cool, eh? Well, there's a small story behind this picture. I'm walking around Sunday afternoon and this guy (in his late twenties, thirties) asks me if I can take a picture of him. Sure, you know, no problem. So I take it and he looks at it and says, "Oh." I thought, oh? So I asked him if it was okay and he said no, he'd like for me to take it again. So I did, and I don't think he liked that one either but he just smiled politely and nodded. Then he motioned to my camera and offered to take a picture of me. At this point, I don't know what to say, whether he's asking me to be polite or if he genuinely wouldn't mind. But it's a picture, you know. Whatever. No big deal. He takes four pictures of me. Granted, his camera was fancier and I assumed he was more of a photographer than I am, but I mean, four? All four of them look fine to me, but he was into changing the angle and the sunlight and all this stuff. No wonder he wasn't satisfied with my picture. I didn't treat him like a model. But anyway, he told me he was from California on business for a couple of weeks. Bah. Tourists! Hm. That was a joke. Anyway, then I found five dollars. Or make it ten. Ha.

Well, that's all for now. Enough of my rambling for the day. Love to all of you!