First Day

Woke up around 7 AM today after talking to parents for a while late at night (and this morning too).

FM and I went to Orchard Rd, which is the equivalent of Champs-Elysees - a big road full of nice shops. We walked around for a bit, and I bought a phone card. I'll be buying a real phone line once the work permit is complete! Hooray hooray!

So he also told me that I'm going to be working on two projects: one in Dubai (factory) and one in Singapore (school). I'm so excited about the upcoming weeks! These first two weeks are to settle into Singapore, etc. I bought a pair of slip on heels today because my new Pumas were giving me blisters :(. Then those heels gave me blisters on other places. OH great...

We also looked at Chinatown, the financial district (formerly the European district) Little India, the Arab district (+ Malay), "hawkers" and a "typical Singaporean neighborhood." Hawkers are like a set of street vendors clumped together to form a food court-like atmosphere. I got to try some fresh squeezed sugar cane juice. So for lunch I had beef udon (yum!) and for dinner I had "Spaghetti Vongole with White Wine Sauce" at this EXCELLENT restaurant named "Fabbrica," which is owned by FM's aunt and uncle. Basically, it was spaghetti with clams. so good!

We also swam a little bit in FM's pool and played pool (I got slaughtered) in the Bark Cafe.

After dinner (with two friends of FM), we went to a hawkers place (which is definitely more lively during the evening hours) and I had blueberry longan. Everyone wanted to hear me speaking Vietnamese ("The cat ran up the tree and ate a mango.") Ridiculous. It was a lot of fun just learning more about Singapore and its unofficial language "Singlish." They told me to end almost everything with "lah" or questions with "mah" (Chinese influence). I tried it out, but I usually end the sentence and then use 'lah' as an afterthought. Which apparently is hilarious. :p

It is so hard to believe that I'm in Asia right now. I thought I would be a lot more shell-shocked, but actually, it just feels like Chinatown in LA right now for me. I mean, yes, there are a LOT of Asians everywhere (!) but blah Chinatown has the same effect for me. The only difference is the huge population of Malay people here (and Indian).

The flight here was all right. When traveling from IND to O'Hare, I sat next to a Purdue electrical engineer graduate who works for an acoustics company. From O'Hare to Tokyo, I sat next to a guy who was about to start his 2 year obligation to the Korean army. He was nice (from U of Wisconsin-Madison). It was nice to sit next to someone that is my age for the 13 hour flight. Everything went so smoothly, except that I was upset because I couldn't fall asleep.

On the ride to Singapore, I fell asleep on and off. It was better, but kinda worse at the same time. I arrived and went right through Immigration, got a cab and got to FM's house. I was exhausted but wildly excited. :)

The weather today was gorgeous. I suppose it was about 85-90 degrees out (I haven't made the switch over to celsius yet, but the kg rule of thumb seems pretty simple to me) with no rain at all. There seems to be a perpetual breeze, so it was such nice weather. I thought that everyone would wear sunglasses, but this is obviously not the case. I will try not to take this weather for granted because I know that it rains excessively in Singapore.

It was so cool to see all the "historic" places (because Singapore used to be a British colony) because I am such a sucker for architecture. There is also random patches of trees (where there are packs of wild dogs and MONKEYS!). I love monkeys! :) FM says that sometimes they will be on the road and try to stare you down. I don't know if a monkey can distinguish "you" from the entire car's entity, but I'll take his word for it :).

Sorry this is all out of order, but my memory happens to be a jumbled mess. For breakfast, I was sort of disappointed because everyone raves how much better the fruit is here, but the apple I had this morning was sub-par. I also had jam and peanut butter on multi-grain toast and Milo, which is a chocolate-milk like drink here (for energy?). Oh yes, during a short trip around, FM took me to a French restaurant, and I had raspberry sorbet and a rasberry fruit tart (delicious!!!!). They had all sorts of jam there - date, fig, mango, green tomato lemon (yes, that is one flavor), and the usual ones like strawberry and banana. I'm not a big currant/marmalade/jam person, but this was quite a treat. It was also fun because this French couple's very young daughter was chewing on a bracelet and apparently having lots of fun going at it. This is how I judge restaurnts (this one named Hiedard); if it is French and French people go there, that is good enough for me. The little girl was a drooling mess, but seeing her smile the entire time just made her so much more lovable.

Tomorrow is a new day!