I thought they spoke English here!

            Hello from the little island on the equator!  Adjusting has become easier with time.  We find ourselves falling into a routine and even getting use to the smothering air.  What is still difficult to understand is their English!  While many speak English well, it's the people running stores or restaurants we ask to repeat.  We’ve done quite a lot of things since we’ve last wrote! 

            This week we’ve been able to visit “The Bugis Market”.  It’s like the market in Australia, with tons of booths crammed together all trying to sell you their goodies.  The difference between this and Australia is that here, of course, they try to lure in their booth and trap you.  In Australia it was laid back and easy, here you feel like you’re fighting them to get away.  They begin picking things out for you and motioning you to try things on.   We made it out alive, and with a few souvenirs.  They do have good bargains there!

            Still, I am struck by how the shopping is extravagant here.   Malls eight stories high – how can one even get an idea of what to buy when there is so much?  And I’m surprised the majority of the Asian population is tiny and petite – because their eating style is not as healthy as I assumed it was. 



Mall in Singapore.  You can't even see all the stories!



            We were privileged to be invited to dinner by one of our Dad’s work friends, who knows the cuisine very well here.  We went to a Chinese Restaurant called Boon Tong Kee.  We allowed him and his wife to order the entire dinner for us.  Crazy can describe some of the food!  For appetizers we had a variety of things.  Normal things included a little pork on a stick, and then some roasted peanuts.  There was some cauliflower in a sweet, tangy sauce, and then my favorite (not really): A Hundred Year Old Egg.  This was an egg soaked in ammonia and then readied and served.  It tasted… bitter and not appealing, but I can say I’ve tried it.   Dad’s friend also ordered a Water Chestnut for Brooke to try; it’s like very sweet water with a chestnut flavoring, as the name says.  

The restaurant we went to

            For dinner, we enjoyed rice with a little ginger and other spices.  The meats included Pig Trotter (pig’s leg), Roasted Chicken, Steamed Chicken, Steamed and Fried Fish.  To my surprise, they were all very good!  Our host was tactful enough to order ‘safe’ food we’d be willing to eat.  Even though it was strange, it was good, and all very authentic.  I tried Sweet Plum Sauce, which is in reality a salt, so where the name came from I don’t know, but it was good.  It was amusing when Mom put what she thought was some kind of a lime sauce on her bite – which turned out to be Wasabi. People eat around eight to nine o clock here, sometimes later, and eat well into the night.  Very different from the USA.  It was funny to hear Dad's friend joke about how the USA was a wayward colony who drives on the wrong side of the road and has no royalty.  Anyway, during this evening we were also able to try Mangosteen, a dark purple fruit with a white fruit inside.  It’s very sweet, but strange to look at.  We also learned about Dariens, these are fruits that smell rather bad from the outside but are sweet on the inside.  We haven’t tried one yet. 

This is a mangosteen!

             Singapore looks normal from the top, but must have an entire underground city on the bottom.  You can go underground to catch the MRT (like a subway), or to take an underpass to get to the building across the street, and find malls and shops and walkways leading you to all these different places.  It’s weird to walk or drive around and know there’s a whole other life beneath you. There isn’t a huge traffic problem here because getting a car isn’t as easy as it seems.  Because of the limited space on this small island one must go through all these papers and procedures to get a car.  The drivers are very patient too.  Have you ever thought that with the driver’s seat on the other side of the car, they control the stick shift or things like that with their left hands?  I wonder if there are more left handed people here.

            We went to a few museums, and it’s been fascinating learning about their histories and seeing their lifestyle.  We learned about Peranakans and their weddings, which last 12 days and involve many gifts and symbols.  Here, dragons, phoenixes and butterflies are good, happy symbols.  We saw all these artifacts of the Chinese and their kinds of clothing here, like kebayas and sarongs.

            We decided, (Mom, Brooke, and I), to take the MRT (subway) downtown for an experience.  It was hard and frustrating, because here they don’t have an abundance of signs like back home.  We had to constantly go back to a lady at a counter to understand how to buy a ticket or what to do.  Here, you buy a ticket and they give you a plastic card in return.  This is your ticket.  You scan it, and are able to get on the MRT.  Once you’ve reached your destination, you have to scan your way out.  This makes sure you got off at the right stop.  You can return your card and they give you a dollar back.  It was interesting, but a pain since we didn’t quite know what we were doing. 

            Later, we went to Chinatown.  It wasn’t as bad as I though it’d be regarding their pushiness to sell things.  It was actually pleasant!  There were many good deals here, and it was all authentic and Chinese.  There were all these cute lanterns above and Chinese food aromas in the air.  They sold all the typical souvenir things, and then Chinese dolls, CDs, clothes and expensive jewelry.   Around this area we also saw a Hindu/Buddhists temple.  While tourists could go and look around, people were also going to perform their rituals, so we got to watch people light their lamps and worship.  It was remarkable and fun to watch.  We weren’t aloud to wear our shoes in there, and while we were inside it began to downpour rain and our shoes were wet.  They have large thunderstorms here, cracking and booming.  I’ve enjoyed listening to them at night in the safety of my bed.   Anyway, Chinatown was quite an experience, and hopefully we’ll go back!

            What was awesome was going up the Marina Bay Sands Hotel, commonly known as the boat hotel.  It’s 56 stories high and looks like three towers with a long boat on top.  We went to the top and could see almost all of Singapore.  It’s much, much larger than I anticipated, with endless buildings in all directions.  It’s very developed!  In the other direction of the city was the ocean, where ships dominated the view.  We also saw some Islands of Indonesia out there. 

It's so cool looking!

            What also captured our attention was the pool up there.  Tourists could only go to the observation deck, we weren't allowed to do much up there, but we could see the residences’ pool.  It’s the most mesmerizing and terrifying pool I’ve ever seen!  The pool is on top of this boat, on the top of the building, and goes straight to the very edge, so you can lean over the pool and practically lean over the edge of the building.  I got nervous just staring at it.  You could feel like you’re swimming right off the edge of the hotel.  I found that just incredible.  Terrifying, but incredible.



Isn't that crazy?! That's the edge of the pool, at the edge of the building.

Picture Status:  Five.  Let me explain this.  The people here seem very awed by us.  By that, I mean that we have had five groups of people approach us and ask to take a picture with us.  We were appalled when it first happened.  We thought they were asking us to take a picture of them, but suddenly they were beside us posing, and we hastily smiled at the camera.  Five times this has happened, and we are shocked that people find the appearance of tall, fair skinned, light haired Americans so amazing.  Still, it’s been quite amusing.  

~Kristen