Lie.

Ok. So. I lied. I’m not even half way home yet and here’s another post. THIS one will be the last post….everrrr! (in Asia)

I’m currently sitting in a small hostel room in Hong Kong with all my luggage and wireless internet. The perfect setting for one more wall post that I can categorize as “Singapore” before I officially am back from this Asian adventure (on May 18th).

*I’ll be writing about my travels more when I get home and organize hoards of pictures. It’s been a whirlwind.

My luggage is 46 kg = ? lbs. I’ve converted to the metric system! Not really but I’m too lazy to look it up. If you truly desire to know the weight in pounds I’m sure you will find a way. I was on the brink of having to pay 9 Sing Dollars for every additional kilo over 30 because my the way my flight is structured, I have a 2 day “layover” in HK and my next flight is with a different airline. According to United Airlines, that means my luggage is counted not by allowed pieces (2, which I had) but by weight (allowed 20 kg). Thankfully a nice lady at the airline allowed my baggage to be counted by pieces. Another S$135 saved!

It’s unreal. My brain physically cannot grasp the concept that I’ll be home in less than 4 days. I’m leaving behind a whole other world. A world of McDonald’s vanilla cones. A world of getting more stamps in my passport in 4 months than my parents have gotten in their lives combined. A world of squat toilets, no toilet paper, and a shower toilet combo bathroom. This has been my world for the past 4 months, how can it be that as of Monday it will no longer exist?

goodbye.

Next time you hear from me, I’ll be in America.

I’m leaving for Bangkok in T-minus 2 hours.

Goodbye.

Fever

The swine flu has caused panic throughout the world.

For those of you not at Rice, they sent me this: “The Texas Department of State Health Services has reported 43 cases in Texas, two of which are in Harris County.”

Singapore: “All students sitting for examinations must have their temperatures screened before entering the examination venues.”

and

There are body heat monitor things outside the library and health center screening all who should desire to go to those places.

also

“From Monday, 4 May 2009, all NUS staff as well as student residents of NUS Halls and Residences will be required to monitor their own temperatures on a daily basis. Please record your temperature reading online or via SMS by 10.00 am each day.”

I forgot today.

At the airports I see the same body heat screening machines. The same ones I had seen on the news when I was in the Philippines. Seeing those machines made this “epidemic” much more realistic that just reading about it in the news.

However, I am done with finals. My econometrics final was surprisingly better than my math final.

And tomorrow I’m headed to Bangkok. It’s time for the goodbyes.

World’s Biggest

On an anti-studying adventure Emily and I finally saw some of the iconic Singaporean things. We’ve been here for 4 months and it wasn’t until this week that we’ve: drunk the Singapore Sling, tasted the durian, visited: Raffles Hotel, City Hall, The Esplanade, the Fountain of Wealth, and the “main” Merlion.

I found out that

1. There are 5 Merlions in Singapore (and one was recently struck by lightening).
2. The main Merlion is disappointingly small.
3. Singapore not only has the largest currently running (China’s is not done yet I think?) ferris wheel, it also has the World’s largest fountain: the Fountain of Wealth. Mindblowing no? Such a small country is such a record breaker.

It was not until today that I really recognized how “young” Singapore is. 40 years and counting… There is practically no historic stuff to see here, everything’s “man made” or created for the sole purpose of attracting tourists (Merlion).

Still on the list:

• Arab Quarter + Little India (at least we’ve made it to Chinatown before)
• This one Mexican restaurant in Holland Village
• The lone Taco Bell in Singapore

If there’s still time, we’d like to see Pualu Ubin and go shopping at Bugis. But there’s not time enough. Even a bowl of chicken rice from a hawkercentre is out of reach. (My British texting phone has me writing centre, recognise, etc…) With not even 3 full days left in Singapore, I don’t seem to comprehend the ending. I had a goodbye lunch today, but these things really don’t sink in until I’m gone and missing everything/everyone. I do not look forward to that day.

My plans on how to spend the last 3 days in Singapore?

1. STUDY. get malaria pills.
2. take my second and last final. visit my dad’s office’s Asia location. pack.
3. pack. say goodbye.

Quirks about Singapore:

• ALL the sinks are automatic.
• ALL the bathroom stalls have the exact same kind of lock.
• Big bags and messenger bags are infinitely more popular than backpacks.
• I had list of interesting things, but seem to have misplaced it in my head.
• Seriously, everyone follows the rules. It’s amazing.

Today I seem quite keen on lists.

Sidenote1: Talking to the Europeans seems to fluster my English. They ask me a question about what a word is or how do we say such a thing, and I can’t seem to recall. I guess I either am getting worse at English, or don’t really think about these things. I’m hoping it’s the latter.

Mini–sidenote: I was talking about the Sallyport (that place you walk through during matriculation?) and it literally took me 10+ minutes to think of the word. I just called it an arch. I’m still a little unsure if this is what it’s called. I’m ashamed to say. This is a sign. I’ve been away from Rice for way too long.

Sidenote2: They have the biggest snails I have ever seen here. Compared to the shells I find at home (approximately the size of my fingernail. Not your fingernail, but mine.) these are mindblowing. See for yourself:

Durian

Today was finally the day. The day of durian. Don’t know what it is? Check this out.

Not only did we get the “nicest”/”sweetest” one, I even managed to bargain a little bit. All in all a good day in Chinatown.

I even managed to get it all the way back to PGP. There are signs on the buses and MRT like this one:

But me, ever the rule breaker, decided that of all places to disregard rules, Singapore would definitely be the best choice. It was in a styrafoam box with saran wrap, in 2 plastic bags, and in my zipped up cloth purse. And I could still smell it.Curious about the smell? Check this out.

With the atrocious smell, you’d expect the fruit to be terrible too. And to most it was. But to Sarah and I, it really wasn’t that bad. I was more inimidated by the smell and all I’d heard about it. “It really was not as bad as I thought it would be” (as per Arina). My mother wanted a video of my reaction to eating it the first time, but I think she would be sorely disappointed. I’m glad I’m one of the few who actually didn’t want to rip their mouth off after eating it.

Surprisingly, many of my friends hadn’t tried it yet either. It was a good decision for us to risk it and bring it back. Definitely a memorable experience.

Also, we saw this in Chinatown. It is not really worth making a Facebook album for, but I found it highly entertaining.

Notice anything special about the blue guy?

And seeing this in the Vivocity supermarket really made my happy. What a nice trusting community!

Are you Filipino?

I’m back from the best reading period ever. 10 days in the Philippines is truly not enough, and before I left, I felt like 10 days was too many. The Philippines has, by far, been my favorite country in Southeast Asia. I’ll write more about it later, but for now, see for yourself:

Crunch time.

The impending last week of classes is upon us.

I’ve booked my flight home. Will officially arrive in Dallas the night of May 18th. Interestingly, I’m also leaving HK May 18th. Oh time difference.

Thursday I DID NOT get to see the Jonas Brother’s 3D show, but instead saw Fast & Furious (4). Rad movie, and might I add, Paul Walker is hot.

It’s been inconveniently raining here. Yesterday I went to the bird park, but had to leave after only seeing 3 exhibits because it was raining so hard there was really nothing we could do. With and umbrella, I walked to the bus stop, and was still mostly wet. Especially my shoes. I hate wearing wet sneakers + wet socks.

Had dim sum today. It’s nice once in a while, I suppose. I enjoyed it. But the style of eating confuses my stomach and I’m not a huge fan of Cantonese style foods.

I read other people’s blogs. I feel my writing style is less eloquent, and I think less about how I feel (less on “broader themes and lessons based on specific situations”). But for those who know my “cold-hearted” ways, I suppose this is the best I can do.

JB

And no, I don’t mean Johor Bahru (the city in Malaysia closest to the Singaporean border). At Vivo City (mall) I saw a sign for….wait for it….

the JONAS BROTHERS 3D CONCERT EVENT on APRIL 9. Next week!!!! It was pretty much the greatest thing ever! Haha not really, but I was still excited about it. Now if I could only find someone to come see it with me…

Also, another cute thing I saw…In the women’s bathroom, there was this mini-urinal for kids. I know it’s kind of weird, but if you saw it you’d be amused too. I use the word cute in two ways: a) something actually is cute, like a baby or something, b) i’m really amused by something, like the urinal. Please distinguish.

So have I mentioned bouldering is cool?

Classes:

CAAM 401 (mandatory)

Everything else is still up in the air, but I’m also thinking: CAAM 420, ECON 435, and LPAP 190. Hopefully Chinese and Econometrics will transfer… basically I don’t know what classes I’m going to take, just like I don’t know what I’m going to do this summer. The back up plan? Traveling up Southeast Asia, through China, into Russia, across to Alaska, then back down to Texas. Sounds good, no?

心跳

Dude. Wang Leehom is good motivation/incentive for me to learn Chinese. I tried to read his website in preparation for my Chinese test today. I also listened/watched a lot of music videos with the karaoke subtitles (in Chinese) to practice “reading.” I don’t really know how helpful all that was. I think the biggest help is emailing Wendy in Chinese, and getting replied in Chinese. We feel like FOBs but I pretty sure it’s the most helpful and worth it? Haha. Interestingly, I finally start typing regularly in Chinese after our last test…

I love the clever “心跳” that looks like heart monitor thingy (don’t know what it’s called…Matt? Prashant? Wendy? Do you know?). Seriously, I’m so easily amused.

Saw Gran Torino this past weekend. I don’t know how I feel about it. It wasn’t boring, but I wouldn’t really recommend it. Also saw Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Now I want to see Snatch.

I went bouldering (sp?) today thanks to Audhild! It’s cool, except I’m very much afraid to jump when I reach the top (if I can even get that far). It’s a far drop but there’s a lot of padding so it doesn’t hurt the least bit, but still, it’s far. Reminds me of the days of my youth when I went rock climbing. Fun times man.

Emily showed me this cute, sad-ish video.  This is in response to my texting them and saying that I could see them studying from the window of my room. My “observational skills” at their finest!

Dude, what classes should I take?

Dude, these are isotopes.

Rain.

Hi, sorry it’s been a while, I’ve just been having too much fun. Haha, but not really. So I woke up this morning to the most rain I’ve ever seen. It was cold too! What a difference, I didn’t know what to wear… And I thought Singapore’s rainy season was supposed to be in January, and only Texas is supposed to have ridiculous weather that changes every other hour.

Otherwise, I was in Malacca, Malaysia this weekend. It’s a nice, historic, peaceful city. It was previously occupied by the Dutch, Portuguese, and English, so it’s like Asians living in an European town. It was so peaceful and cozy (as Anja calls it). Not the craziness of KL. I want to find a city like that in America and move there. However, the downside of such a peaceful city was that we saw pretty much everything there was to see in half a day. We got there Saturday a bit after lunch and then we looked for the bus station to buy our ticket back. On the taxi back to the hostel, the taxi driver pointed out the interesting sights, and that was pretty much all there was to see. We went to eat at this recommended place called Nancy’s Kitchen then walked around to see the sights. Half a day is all you really need to see everything. There are a billion museums, but nothing that really stands out. There’s some pretty interesting historic stuff, a ferry that takes you down the river, a ferris wheel, a ride that takes you up really high so you can look out over the city, and a beach that’s not really a tourist attraction.

We met some French guys who are working in Singapore, so it was pretty rad to hang out with them, but even with the four of us, we didn’t do much. We went to Chinatown a lot. They have a night market. The tamest night market I’ve ever seen. It was full of yummy things though. The taxi driver warned us, if we stayed a week, we would’ve definitely gained 5 kilos. Too true, good thing we only stayed 2 days. There was nothing left to do but eat!

Sunday we went shopping. But there is only so much shopping you can do. We went to the movie theater twice to see if there were any good movies out because we couldn’t think of what to do. There aren’t any. We went back to Chinatown. Yay food. We also had the Chicken Rice Balls. Like chicken rice, except the chicken isn’t on top of the rice because the rice is rolled up into balls. It all still tastes the same, aka deeeelicious!

And the hostel? So rad, except for the mosquitoes. We had a waterfall right outside our window. Ah the relaxing sounds of rushing water. And you had to walk through this pond thingy with steps in it. So cool! And they had a pet rabbit named Mr. Playboy.

Earlier that week Emily and I went to the Night Safari because she had a “friend” come visit. It was cool, but not as exciting as it sounds/I pictured. Most of the cool animals (tiger, lion, rhino) were sleeping. And the ones that weren’t were just sitting/lying there. There were a lot of animals, especially deer, but they weren’t lively. I think I’m more interested in animals in the daytime. Good thing we got the 3 park ticket. We still have the zoo and bird park to visit!

Postcards! I’m writing like a billion of them. I want to be sure to send them out before you (people at Rice) leave school, and who knows how the postal system works because it takes forever.

So it seems the blog is a bit boring without pictures, so I’ll try to add some highlights. But if you want to see more pictures, check out facebook. And I only put the interesting ones on facebook, I have a lot more on my computer…