Homestay weekend

So of course as soon as I told you that I would try to update every other day, I hit a little problem with internet access. I had every intention of updating on Saturday, but the network wasn't allowing anyone on our hall access to the internet. I also tried to call my parents, but I couldn't get my phone card to work. Immediately afterwards on Saturday morning I left for my homestay with an NUS student. But anyway, I just wanted to explain my absence.

Okay, back to Friday. After class I attempted to do my reading and a paper due this week, but I fell asleep after reading two pages. I have to admit, though, it was an excellent nap, my first Singaporean nap ever. Okay, that was meant to be funny, but as usually it's falling flat. We will just fast forward a few more hours to the performance our group attended at the Victoria Theatre near the durian hall. That was quite an experience, to say the least. The play was called Geisha, and it has only three performers: a woman who played both male and female roles, a man who played a geisha (the Japanese women with white painted faces), and another man who played an instrument and sang. The preformance was an unusual and unexpected mixture of modern dance music and traditional Japanese. The lyrics came across a screen above the stage just like subtitles in a movie, so those were very helpful. I think that I enjoyed it as a whole, but it certainly had some parts that left me with a very confused expression. The plot was more or less nonexistent... it just highlighted some of the pressures of a geisha and the continuing degradation of the profession to something around the same level as prostitution.

But anyway. After that most everyone went out because the World Cup is on, and soccer (football, here) is huge everywhere besides the US. All the pubs and bars have it playing, so we wandered around trying to find a good one with a big TV. Some of us ended up eating fries and McFlurries at McDonald's, which was my first fast food since being here, and it was delicious. Ohhh, you don't even understand how good a McFlurry is after walking around in humid heat for a while. I could eat one right now, in fact. After Mickey D's we walked around some more, and Andrew and I just sat by the river and talked about random things, listening to the cheers whenever Costa Rica would score. Well, I think people were pulling for Costa Rica. I'm really not sure.

Then Saturday morning I met my host for the homestay. Another girl, Emily, and I were to stay with the host overnight. She had already emailed us and told us to bring our anime shirts for something she called a cosplay streetfest. Apparently she was really into that and J rock (Japanese rock, come to find out, specifically a guy named Gackt). Well, Carrie (my host) was fun, and we headed off to her mother's flat to drop off our stuff so we wouldn't have to carry it around all day. Her mother's flat was on the other side of the city, about an hour MRT ride from NUS. I can't imagine going all that way every day for class. Not many people live in dorms here, so they commute from home. That's practically the amount of time it would take to drive from Belews Creek to UNC every day, except not as expensive, I don't think. The MRT is cheaper than gas money.

The flat was pretty cool and reminded me of an older mobile home in the US on the inside. They'd had the flat for over twenty years. Carrie had an older brother and a younger sister, both of whom I met yesterday. The sister was extremely shy, I think, and hardly introduced herself, but she seemed really nice. The older brother I met later that night. Basically we went to an MRT stop near hers for a little shopping and some lunch. We had Japanese food, paiku ramen, I think. It was pork and noodles in broth, so that was a nice change from all the chicken and rice I've consumed lately. After that we looked around at yet another mall (I'm seriously shopped out, and I haven't even gotten to cheap KL or Bangkok yet) and went back to her flat to chill for a while. She put in a movie that I'd never heard of, but I really enjoyed it. Battle Royale is the name and it's a Japanese film (I think?) with English subtitles. The cover said it was a cross between A Clockwork Orange and Lord of the Flies, and it really was. I thought it was great. I'll try to look it up at home, because I think Jillian and Alison would enjoy it.

The movie went on while her mother was cooking in the kitchen, and it smelled delicious. She went and bought snacks for us while we watched the movie, and then she went straight to cooking dinner. How much food can a person eat!? Anyway, she fixed some great salmon and some chicken rice, which is salted (heavily salted) chicken over white rice. After Emily and I had eaten about all we could handle, she pointed to a pile of cherry tomatoes on the salmon and motioned for us to eat them. "Don't you like tomato?" she asked. "I got them for you. I thought all Americans like tomatoes." Well, that made me squirm a bit out of sheer guilt, but then she smiled and pointed to the mushrooms. Now, I'm not a mushroom fan, but I ate those things, by golly.

Well, after dinner Carrie had promised to volunteer for the DramaCentre at the National Library by passing out programs for a play at eight, so we went along with her to help out (though mostly we wandered around the 14-story library trying to find a good view from which to take pictures). Needless to say, I have a lot of blurry pictures taken through windows, some with the flash in my face because I forgot to turn it off. I would show you an example, but I deleted them all in embarrasement of my poor photography ability.

So then we took off on the MRT for the fifth time that day, this time going to Boat Quay to meet her brother and a friend at a bar to watch England play in the World Cup. (I can't believe, by the way, that they won from a free kick scored off of the opposing team member's head in the third minute of the game. Not another goal scored in the next eighty-seven minutes!) It was fun to watch, but OH man, the bar was a Chinese karaoke bar. (They pronounce it "kare-okay" instead of "kary-oky" like we do.) Now, I'm not big on loud karaoke, but this was extremely loud and entirely in Chinese except for a random line or two in every other song that was in English. For instance, one song was in Chinese except for a line that said "forever love" over and over. At any rate, it was an experience. I'm not sure I'll go back there any time soon, but the evening wasn't all that bad. Emily and I were both exhausted, so that made it worse, but then Carrie's brother sang a couple of songs. He's not a bad singer at all. Trust me, one guy that sang a few songs wasn't quite so good. I didn't need to understand the language to understand that.

So we got back to her flat around 1 am, and lo and behold her mother and younger sister were still up and her mother was still trying to get us to eat! So, after a helping of chocolate cake and something else we were finally off to get some much needed sleep, since Ms Chia had asked us if we wanted to accompany her to church in the morning. Carrie had a bit of a sore throat and was losing her voice, so she stayed home.

We got up around 9:15 and went to shower, but the shower wasn't like a shower at home. It was more of a five by five foot room with both a squatter toilet and a shower together, with the sink thrown in too. The shower was one of the detatchable head kind, which was a relief after having showers under short shower heads for two weeks. Having above average height at home means being taller than most of the Singaporean population. But I've commented on that before, I'm sure.

Let's see, where was I? Ah yes. Shower, then breakfast. She fixed this bean dumpling, um, thing for us to share, and it was great. I really loved it, but as soon as I took my first bite I realized it tasted very similar to something I'd had at home. After a few minutes of pondering I came to the conclusion that it tastes just like very sweet oatmeal, except dumpling-style. I remember not being fond of oatmeal when I was younger, but maybe my taste buds are changing. Or maybe it's just a texture issue. At any rate, it was good. We also had some amazingly good coffee (I'm not usually a coffee person, either) with chocolate in it. Basically it was cocoa coffee and I loved it... then Emily and I were informed that the mixture can only be bought through Ms Chia's company and not in any store. I'm determined to find some somewhere, though. I can already sense the beginning of a long relationship with this type of coffee. She was gracious enough to give each of us a package of our own, so I have a starting place for my search. Maybe I'll see some in KL next weekend.

Okay, I know, enough on the food. Moving on. The three of us went to church, and she had told me the night before that the church was Methodist when I asked her the denomination, but I must have misunderstood her. This was not a Methodist church. She claimed it wasn't charismatic, either, but I'm pretty sure this church qualified. The church service was two hours, from 10:45 am to 12:45, and the first 45 minutes consisted of everyone standing and singing praise songs. Now, there's nothing wrong with that, but Emily and I both stood there wondering how on earth they could stand for that long without wanting to at least sit down and sing. I say all this jokingly, though, because it really was an enjoyable service. The sermon was long as well, but engaging enough not to seem that way. It was such a change to go from this type of church from the more traditional Methodist church last Sunday. Ha. At the beginning, we'd signed in on the guest list and then they read off the guests' names at the beginning of the sermon portion of the service. "Emily and Janice? Emily and Janice, will you stand up?" ...I should work on my handwriting, I guess. Maybe he read it as "Jannis"... I don't know. Hehe. I would think it was stranger if my name hadn't been mixed up with Janice's while handing around Christmas presents before. Maybe it's the cursive?

We went out to eat lunch at a nearby hawker stand after church, and all of this is in the same community of Bedok, near her HDB flat. Carrie joined us there, and we tried some interesting food. It was hard to figure out what was in the food, since most of the people working in the booths didn't understand/speak English well at all. It was an interesting contrast from the more popular inner city hawker stands where English-speakers frequent quite regularly. A storm was coming up by this point, so we hurried to the MRT station with our bags to catch the train to the Somerset stop near Orchard Road to go to what Carrie had called the cosplay streetfest.

Ha. Costume play indeed. She'd told us to wear our anime shirts, but Emily and I have very little knowledge of anime. All I know is based on my limited exposure to Final Fantasy and video games like that. Carrie's favorite is Bleach, but I was (and still am) clueless as to what exactly anime that is. I don't recall seeing it before. Anyway, all three of us were running through the rain to get to the tents outside the youth centre downtown. When we got there, I was shocked by what I saw. When Carrie said costume, she meant costume. These outfits were more elaborate than I'd ever expected, like something off of Franklin street on Halloween, except gothic. Think bride of Frankenstein crossed with, uh, Little Bo Peep. If that's possible.




































How awesome are these costumes? I didn't even get some girls with crazy hair, and there were tons more just like these guys. I mean, check out the last picture on the right. Look at the guy's eye! I pretty much stalked him for half an hour before asking him to take a picture with me. There was another girl that had bright red eyes, too, but I could only put in but so many pictures. Then Emily and I were just standing around with Carrie and a random girl came up with a notepad and pen and asked how we liked it. I mean, okay, random. Music is blaring (J rock, of course, and I mean blaring), and this girl keeps asking us questions, like where we're from and why we're there and what the exchange program is. So finally we ask who she's with, because by this point she has taken down several lines of notes, and she says the Straits Times. The Times! I was expecting a university paper, not the biggest newspaper in the region! So, I'm half expecting me to be in the Saturday paper completely misquoted and saying tons of stuff about anime when I have no idea whatsoever what I'm talking about. I told Carrie that's what I get for being noticeably not Asian and being noticeably not dressed up at all. At least I had on grey and black, not lime green and pink prep colors like Emily (she stuck out like a sore thumb, and probably more so because I'm not really sure why a sore thumb would stick out anyway).

Oh my. By this point, we're listening to the bands come up, and there's finally this group from Indonesia that comes on stage. Well, earlier I had commented to Emily about the guy's pants when he was in the audience area. I had no idea he would be performing. Yes, you don't even need to ask: I got pictures.

Haha. And check out the girl's outfit. Very unique. Plus, the guy on the left has the coollest hat ever. I think the highlight was when they got on stage. Actually, in all seriousness, the guitar players were both good, and so was the drummer. The girl had her moments, but she was so shy! Her voice was not amazing, but it wasn't bad. It was definitely unique, I'll give her that.

Okay, let's see what else I can find to show you.

This is Carrie and her mother outside the hawker/shopping center complex. Her mother was adorable, dressed up completely in purple. (By the way, and I'll probably talk about this later, but Singaporeans are very fashion conscious. It puts me to shame, not that that's hard or anything, but still.) I really enjoyed spending the weekend with them, and I think it gave me a serious look into where and how people live, and how similar it is in some ways to back home. The food's just different, that's all. (And not to be random, but the plugs are different too. You need adapters for Singaporean-bought appliances. I got a hair dryer here and I still need an adapter. Weird.)

And here's one last picture for today's dose of Singapore culture at its best:

Hopefully you can click on the picture an zoom in more, because I wouldn't want you to miss out on the appetizing selections on the menu (spine meat soup, pig's liver soup, etc). That's how all hawker stands are, though, with pictures galore. Some things I would rather go my whole life without seeing in a picture above the table where I'm eating. But that's just me.

Okay then, I think I've typed and loaded photos for an hour longer than I intended, and I still haven't done my reading for tomorrow, not that it surprises you. By this point, you've probably realized that I procrastinate. What better way to do so than writing in my blog?