Friday, November 11, 2011

The Re-education of jslik

With my friends visit, I was re-educated on the latest American fads in pop culture.  Boy, I've been out of the states for too long!

First lesson was learning about Tebowing, which is to get down on a knee and start praying even when everyone else is doing something different.

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At the hawker center

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On the escalator (with the paparazzi following you)

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On the MRT train

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At the MRT station

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In the middle of a crosswalk on Orchard Rd.

My second lesson was about Planking, which is to lie face down in an unusual location.

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At the hawker center

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On a see-saw

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At the rooftop garden at Orchard Central

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At the Gaudi-inspired park on Sentosa

Finally, my last lesson was of a different culture - FOB culture.  When were at the top of the Marina Bay Sands checking out the pool, there were a couple of FOBs from China doing strange poses for their pictures.  The funniest one was where one had a friend take a picture from behind of her doing a yoga pose (all while in a bathing suit and standing in the infinity pool).  So, we decided to introduce - FOB Yoga-ing:

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at the top of the Marina Bay Sands

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At the Gaudi-inspired park on Sentosa

*Note that I am standing on this little pillar while doing this yoga pose.  Bonus points for increased difficulty level.  I love my crazy friends!

Jersey in Singapore

This week marks the beginning of a month filled with fun.  I've got visitors rotating in and out for the month of November.  To kick things off, a few of my friends made a two day pit stop in Singapore.  We were able to see most of Singapore in 48 hours.

First stop was for food of course.  We went to La Pau Sat, a hawker center downtown to fill up our bellies.
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After eating, we trekked up to Orchard Road to do some window shopping and goofing around.

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After that, we checked out the old shophouses in Emerald Hill.  Then, we wandered over to Little India and lost ourselves in the 24-hour-shopping mecca, Mustafa.  One of my friends commented that Mustafa was like Amazon - you can buy anything and everything in that place.  After all that walking, we finally took a break to chill by the Singapore River in Clarke Quay

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Refreshed, we walked over to Boat Quay and bargained for our dinner....the winning restaurant gave us two free rounds of drinks (which we subsequently paid for in the rather pricey food).

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Camera Wars!

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N getting ready to dig into the chili crap....I mean crab.  I hadn't really noticed before (a sign that I've been here too long), but to my friends' American ears, chili crab with a Singaporean accent sounds like chili crap.

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Posing with the black pepper crab

After dinner, we wandered over to Marina Bay to catch the night scenery.  Through some connections, we were able to get up to the top of the Marina Bay Sands and check out the infinity pool at the top....all at no cost!  Usually it costs $20 to get up to the observation deck, but even then, you can only see the pool.  Only hotel guests (and their guests) have access to the actual pool.   

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View from the pool

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In the middle of the pool, there's a walkway that you can walk on to get some cool pictures of Marina Bay.  So, I actually got to step into the pool and take some awesome pictures.

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Infinity pool myth debunked: You will not fall to your death if you go over the edge of the infinity pool.  There's a ledge on the other side that you can't see when you're looking at the pool from afar.  So, no worries, you'll be fine if you jump over the ledge.

After a long day of sightseeing, we headed home to get some shut eye and gear up for day two of sightseeing.  Once again, we started with lunch at a hawker center - Maxwell Road Food Court.

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Munching on some cockles

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N in the middle of the heavenly "Fried Banana Experience".  Yes, it is really that good.

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Caught in the act - J enjoying some Tian Tian Chicken Rice, which by the way, 
is endorsed by Anthony Bourdain.

After lunch, we headed over to Vivocity and did a little shopping before we crossed over to Sentosa Island.

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The guys modeling some down jackets at Uniqlo....I can't believe they even sell down jackets here...
If you look closely, you can see that they are replicating some of the modeling poses on the
wall behind them.

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Hanging out on Sentosa

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We walked around Sentosa, checking out the sights.  Then made our way over to the beaches and crossed this little bridge to the Southernmost Point of Continental Asia.

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You can check out the rest of the pics in my flickr album.  It was so nice to see some familiar faces from home.  There's just something different about friends from home.  There's a comfort level created through years of friendship that's hard to find when you move every 3 years.  It's hard to believe, but I've been out of the states for a little over a year now!  Wish they could've stayed longer, but I've got my hands full since my mom flew in a couple of days ago, right on the tail end of my friends' visit.  So the month of fun continues!

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

The Other Side of the World

A few things that happen when you live on the other side of the world....

Last week, we celebrated a friend's birthday party with a surprise bowling party.  I got my friend a nice serving plate and dipping sauce bowl but couldn't find a box for it.  I scrounged around and found a nice bag (I do have to admit, it was from a restaurant, but it was really pretty and a good quality bag) and wrapped up the plates in some blank newsprint to protect it.  Admittedly, it looked a bit lame, but no worries, I added some pretty pink tissue paper and the present was presentable.  I left the present with one of my friends so that those who were going early to set up at the bowling alley could put it with the rest of the presents.  The surprise went successfully and my friend was very happy, but when I got to the bowling alley, I noticed that my present was not among the others.  Instead, it was tucked off to the side with the extra party supplies.  Then, I looked over at the bouquet of flowers that my friend got

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hmmm that tissue paper looks very similar to my tissue paper...because it is my tissue paper!  Of course this left my present looking like a bunch of garbage

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it appears that there is actually some garbage thrown in there!

Apparently my friends (who are Singaporean), didn't know my present was an actual present.  I asked them about it and they said the tissue paper was just lying on the top, not wrapping anything so they thought that it was just extra paper.  I guess it's not the custom in Singapore to stuff useless tissue paper in a gift bag to make it look pretty (I suppose they do have a point).  They felt pretty bad about it, but I thought it was ridiculously funny.  We all got a good laugh out of that one!

In other news, our water heater is out (again) and we're on day 4 of cold showers.  No matter how hot it is outside, a cold shower is still pretty darn cold.

On Saturday, Andy watched game 7 of the World Series via.....Skype.  Oh the marvels of modern technology.  We usually talk to my in-laws on Skype on our Saturday morning, their Friday night.  This weekend, that happened to be while they were watching Game 7 of the World Series.  Andy was dying to watch the Rangers, but none of our channels were showing the game.  So, my in-laws worked a little magic and set up their webcam right in front of the TV so we could watch via Skype.

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Too bad the Rangers lost...I guess we'll be Skyping into Thanksgiving dinner next!