So I read the chatty you did with JW. I don't know if I can leave up my internet, but I will do my best. Chatty boomba. Anyways, what have I been doing the last few days? I have been reading lots of reports about shipyards and about marketing strategies for the language school project. I am only writing in English because the rest of my audience wouldn't be able to understand.
So what else? I'm going to Malaysia this week, to Kuala Lumpur (the capital) to meet up with the office there to talk more about ship yards. Friday night I went out to dinner with a Spanish guy who grew up in Switzerland (therefore, suiza, therefore speaks French fluently also - German, Italian and English all very well also). Sickening. Then yesterday, being Saturday, I went to the Asian Civilisations Museum to check out this "Viet Nam! From Myth to Modernity". It wasn't anything spectacular, to be honest. It was a lot of old civilisations (civilizations) that used to live in Vietnam and how the Chinese were blah blah blah to the Vietnamese but put aside all the differences for the War (which, the Vietnamese call the "american war" now).
There was also a resident artist: Le Quoc Viet. I felt sort of bad for him because he only spoke Vietnamese (and later I found out, Mandarin) and had no one to talk to, so I started to talk to him. You should look up some of his works - they're kinda interesting. He even knows chu nho (reading Chinese characters with Vietnamese words) because he learned in the But Tap Pagoda (where his aunt taught classes, I think). My Vietnamese is so poor, but I did end up talking to him for about two hours. He's a really nice person, and he gave me one of his books for free and autographed it. He lived in New York and Vermont for a while too, but his English is not so fluent. Yesterday was also his last day at the museum - so I picked a good time to go!
I took one picture with flash (which was OK because it wasn't in the gallery - gorgeous mother of pearl table:
There were some really cool Malay royalty wedding outfits. That was really impressive to me to see hand-embroidered things for royalty to wear. The weddings are very intricate and neat. I like one of the customs: the mother of the bride spends 20-30 years to make (or buy, depending on how much money the family has) a bedspread. It signifies the last bedspread that a mother will buy for her daughter (now that the daughter is getting married). I really liked the bride's room because it's all flow flow nice nice. Sweet and comfortable. Very fem.
I was very disappointed that the lighting is so weak inside the museum. Of course, no flash photography so none of the pictures actually turned out decent. You know how much I adore Thai things though, so I just had to take a picture of the headdresses. The scary masks aren't really my thing at all. :p
I didn't know anything about the ancient civilisations of Vietnam (the Cham/Champa) but maybe if you have spare time you should take a look. I came home and kinda felt terrible (maybe my feet were killing me) so I ended up taking it easy the rest of the afternoon and sleeping a lot. I watch all the chinese channels here right now because the english channel is the badminton championships in singapore. soooooooo boring. so drama it is! i'm trying to DL princess hours right now too and Coffee Prince. :p because I have nothing better to do, but the DL takes sooooo long.
Brass/Wood Instruments, from Thailand (I think)
Next week, I'm going to a Singaporean wedding in the Botanic Gardens (which also houses the National Orchid Conservatory or something like that). Usually, weddings are under HDB blocks (which are huge government-built flats all around Singapore) so luckily it's somewhere as nice as the Botanic Gardens here. I'm finally going to wear that pink Armani Exchange dress that I have yet to wear!! I also need to buy a white belt or gold one. I haven't decided yet - whichever I see first, I suppose.My legs are getting better. The bites don't itch anymore, but they sure are ugly. It's been nearly two weeks, and they're just now getting better.
So at the office, I am always eating. It is kinda good and kinda not good because no one else eats as much as me. I mean, I am the youngest here....but I'm always kinda a snacky snack person. So right now I have some Rold Gold Pretzels, some lemon gumdrop things (I detest gumdrops, but they're called Lakerol), a case of Sprite, and a box of Frosted Flakes. I am such a fatty boomba, according to FM. :p
I also bought a book: The Rough Guide to Singapore. I think that this the best one available in the bookstore (thought a bit pricey), so I hope that I will be able to go around Singapore looking at things it mentions in the book.
Things in Singapore are a bit mundane. The national pastime is: shopping. Because I have started to do what you do (save), I have nothing to do really. I think I'm going to use this opportunity to start reading books again. I have to figure out how to use the National library though once I get my employment pass (should be very soon, as you know!). The food is super cheap (though Viet told me that a bowl of pho in VN is like $1USD. Which is totally awesome). Clubbing is really not my thing at all. I don't like noisy places - I just like conversation. Most people think that I speak Chinese (so I'm thinking about starting some computer software or something to learn a bit), and it's a bit cute (from the old people at least). The metro system here is so much less than the French system. The reliance on buses versus more metros is sort of disappointing, but the metros and buses prohibit food/drink - so they are ridiculously clean!
I'm supposed to be reading a bunch of reports today (Sunday), so I will start soon. I just got off the phone with Mama. :)
I miss you loads, baby.
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