Hey hey hey.
Tuesday, March 22, 2006
it ain't easy wearing a dragon costume in 90 degree weather, you know
This weekend meant one thing: road trip! I do love a good road trip (especially when I'm not driving, particularly because they drive on the left side of the road here). We really embraced the whole no-car lifestyle in China, where driving requires a special license (your American one is no good there!). But here in Singapore, you just head on down to Hertz and they hook you up with a little red Ford Focus and off you can go, over the bridge and up into Malaysia, which is exactly what we did.
Our destination was Malacca (or, as the kids sometimes write it, Melaka), a little Chinese seaside town about halfway between here and Kuala Lumpur. We shopped, we ate (some amazing local Chinese-Malaysian food and some incredible mangos), we had ourselves a little bit of a drama (which always makes for good stories). Good times, good times.
I've been rushing around a lot as I'm off to India this afternoon. I'll be gone for three weeks, which didn't seem that crazy when I planned out my schedule but now seems like a ridiculously long time to be gone. Mike took me out to -- wait for it -- the Hard Rock Cafe for my goodbye dinner. This may seem a little odd, especially as we'd never even gone to the Hard Rock when we were in Beijing (although Mike spent about five minutes passionately arguing that we had, and it turned out he was remembering our one venture to Beijing's TGI Fridays. They're all kind of the same, no?).
But I digress. I picked the Hard Rock because they were widely promoting the fact that they were the only restaurant in Singapore to serve American beef, and for two weeks only. Trust me, when all you ever get is (oh yeah, I'll say it) weird Australian beef, you start to crave a big fat American cheeseburger. Plus, I'm going to India, where most people don't eat beef. (Not even McDonald's serves it.) It seemed fitting. So off we went, and of course, they only had American steaks and no hamburgers. So I settled for a Pig Sandwich and listened to the Indonesian cover band sing Rod Stewart and eventually declared the Hard Rock Cafe very, very [tongues out, now] "pflllbtt".
malacca was full of pretty old buildings...
and the most ridiculous selection of intensely decorated pedicabs i've ever seen. we're talking plastic flowers *everywhere.* naturally, i loved it.
i became slightly obsessed with the floral pedicabs.
malaysia is also home to the proton, the only locally made (i.e., pretty crappy but somewhat affordable) automobile.
serving all your dragon costume needs since 1982.
at malaysian funerals, you burn paper replicas of the deceased's worldly possesions to ensure comfort in the afterlife. whole shops specialize in these paper products, from logo purses to calculators to motorcycles to... irons?
malacca is all about the tiles
a parade -- led by the carts! -- came rolling through on saturday night
then we had a nice dinner overlooking a picturesque river. all sorts of fun things floated by.
on to the night market, full of fun foods
hmmmmm.
malacca's most popular evening entertainment is a giant karaoke stage in the center of town. i was thisclose to performing "billie jean."
as you can see, the crowd was really into it. thank you, malacca!
i would love to live in a building that looks like a birthday cake
while we were sleeping, someone took a club to our windshield. this was most unfortunate though (hopefully) covered by insurance.
still, mike had to take a trip to the police station-slash-bamboo hut bistro.
while waiting, colin and i did get to hang out with more carts though.
the surly look does not work when you are sitting in a cart covered with pink plasic flower arrangements.
on the way home, we stopped at a rest-stop, where you can find a wide variety of meats
and eggplant!
see you soon...
One last thing: Happy birthday mom!
Thursday, March 16, 2006
So sorry for the silence. The overwhelming majority of my time these days is being spent working here:
Or sometimes, for a change of scenery, here:
just picture me hunched over either of these spots with a constant supply of caffeine, and you'll have a pretty good sense of my daily schedule
Mike dragged me outside on Sunday to get some fresh air (and also, I think, so I'd stop muttering to myself all the time) and we went to Sentosa, which is a little resort island off the southern coast of Singapore. It is full of palm trees and beaches and mojitos that can be had while watching the activity. And also a luge ride -- basically little carts you can ride down a long, windy hill. We thought it couldn't possibly be as fun as the luge at the Great Wall (a ridiculous but awesome tourist attraction at the Mutianyu section). We were wrong! You can actually get quite a lot of speed in those little carts, and they make you wear a helmet so that -- unlike in China -- you actually feel like you might be okay if something should happen. Mike declared I looked "ridiculous" in my helmet (see for yourself at right), but I think what he really meant to say was "super-cute and very safety-minded."
This weekend, we're off to Malacca, Malaysia which means two things. 1) Furniture! (I might just get that dining room table yet.) 2) I'll finally be able to take a stab at New Year's Resolution #2, which is to try to make the number of countries I've visited the same number as my age (an idea stolen from Sally). I've actually been five countries so far this year, but none have been new to me until now. After Saturday, I'll have 20 down, and only 8 to go... (Well, 9 to go after June.) Still, I think it can be done. Goals are fun!
Visa permitting, I'm headed to India on Wednesday. It's not new either, but I'm really looking forward to going back. Anyone want to put in requests for pretty tablecloths or fun scarves?
how cool are these trees?
a bionic tree!
have i mentioned that sentosa is home to the original merlion? you can climb up and check out the views from inside his big cement-y mouth. i managed to resist.
there was a pirate bridge...
which takes you to the Southernmost Point of the Asia Continent. which makes no sense, because singapore is an island. and sentosa is another island off of singapore. however, far be it from me to spoil their fun.
the kids love to hang out and nap in the little public huts. they also love to gather there and sing loudly together. we heard several passionate group renditions of chinese pop ballads and also a somewhat funny one to "my humps." songs about the booty, it seems, have a global appeal.
all kinds of ships are anchored off the coast
the pirate bridge from above. arrrrrrrr....
up, up, up in the chairlift...
...and when you get to the top, you take the luge carts down (that's the end of the track way down there)
and then you take a cable car back into singapore, which provides some very nice views of shipping containers. and, okay, the skyline.
Friday, March 10, 2006
in bangkok: i love how even ronald mcdonald (despite how creepy he sort of is) gets posed in the traditional thai greeting gesture
Hey! All I've really got time for today is one new picture. So here it is. (Yay!) ...And now, back to work.
Thursday, March 9, 2006
your thought of the day...
Wednesday, March 8, 2006
i know that it is wrong to keep baby elephants as pets, but it makes me so happy to be walking down the street and find one standing there.
You'll forgive, I hope, the general exhaustion that's accompanying this entry. I just got back from Bangkok last night -- a very tiring trip, though I did manage to squeeze in some fun (especially after I moved out of my first extremely shady hotel that had a "massage parlor" in the lobby. I'd share more, but I'd hate to alarm my mom any further, especially with her birthday coming up and all.) I do love Bangkok, with all its amazing local fashion designers, rampant creative energy, and delicious food. (I do not love the constant need for taxi drivers to try and rip you off, and the inescapable hordes of middle-aged white men and their teenage Thai girlfriends, but on the whole, I do find it sort of delightfully sketchy.) Still, even though this trip brought with it some amazing finds (an incredible chair from the weekend market, a great frame for my beloved office wall, an entire warehouse full of mid-century modern furniture (!!!!)), I am very, very glad to be home.
And that's it. That's all I have in me today. Enjoy the pictures.
yes, it most certainly is.
bangkok is home to skyscrapers and shantytowns, right underneath them.
and a ridiculous amount of traffic.
and coconuts!
a little artistic fun with all those brakelights
selling flowers, making a living
the reclining buddha is now under construction
we took pete and sara over to see the grand palace
along with several tour groups. love the hats!
looooove the grand palace. you just don't see architecture like this everyday.
you're badgers! you're badgers!
soup in a baggie, to go.
yum?
just a tray of honeycomb, of course.
possibly most favorite public sign ever.
this girl was playing the recorder for spare change at the weekend market. i was so tempted to request "hot cross buns".
And now, a small photo essay entitled Public Displays of Affection for the King of Thailand. (Subtitle: Apparently, there is no law requiring the pictures be attractive.) Discuss.
oh, just one more of the elephant. how can you not smile?
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