Splinter

We have made our first friend in Singapore. Our friend's name is Splinter. (We gave it to her). She's a SUPER cute, little cat. I don't like cats, usually, but this one is sort of more dog-like. She comes up and says hi, and she follows us home. She must live somewhere in our complex, though we're not sure where. There are a bunch of cats that live around here - we're pretty sure they don't belong to anyone, and we have no idea where they came from. I thought that maybe it rained cats and dogs one day (in December, during the rainy season, obviously), but where are the dogs?

Anyways, Matt and I both discovered Splinter on our own, and we have enjoyed her everyday. Everyday, that is, up until two days ago. We haven't seen her in two days, and we hope nothing happened to her. The night before her disappearance, I was taking a shower and Matt was on the phone, and Splinter let herself into our apartment! She was apparently in the living room playing with a tag on one of our rugs!! I have to admit that that's cute!

Splinter got her name because though she looks like a cat, she also sort of looks like a rat. We were thinking of famous rats we know, and Splinter came to mind. This is from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. She's actually much cuter than that Splinter.

Let's all give a little prayer that she's okay and that we get to see her again soon!

In other news, I have finished the in-class part and the written exam for scuba certification, so I am in the pool on Sunday morning and then we're going to Malaysia in two weeks for open water certification, and then I'm done!

I started getting in touch with Jews in Singapore, who all seem to be super nice, and we received our first Shabbat dinner invitation, which we will be gladly accepting tonight. I believe this couple is from England, and unfortunately they're returning after two years, in August, but they'll introduce us to other people. Most of the ex-pat Jewish community seems to be in American or Canada for the summer, but they're all sending great email, and I'm looking forward to meeting them at the end of the summer.

I went to the kosher shop yesterday. This is part of the Jewish compound that I was denied from last week, however, I decided to just plow by the guard and walk in. It worked, and the shop is super cute! They have all of these fun Israeli foods, which obviously makes me excited, and I might have to buy little, sour pickles in a can, Israeli green olives and other fun things. They also have kosher wines, which is good news. I had a small anxiety attack a few days ago after we had accepted our Shabbat dinner invitation, because I had no idea what we could bring! We don't have a kosher kitchen, I don't even know where to get kosher foods! I didn't know there was kosher wine anywhere, it's against Shabbat law to bring flowers, because you can't put them in water on Shabbat, chocolates would FOR SURE melt, and I didn't even know if there was an eruv here! (Turns out there obviously isn't, but the religious people are understanding when not-so-religious people bring things). We are saved by the kosher wine.