Monday, December 10, 2007

The Big Splash

It has happened three times in the past two days that I have gone out and said, "wow - it's only drizzling. Thank goodness" and then it starts to POUR. When it pours here, it's not like in other places where it lightens up. It just keeps pouring. They do have some pretty amazing drainage systems at work here, but I was a victim of the big splash.

You may recognize it from the beginning of Sex and the City where the bus drives by and totally splashes Carrie? Well, she looks super cute in her little white too-too. Not me. I'm in work-out clothes, but it's damaging to the soul. The water went in my ear, covered my glasses, potentially hurt my ipod, totally made my butt and whole backside soaked. If this happened in New York, I probably would have ran home and jumped in the shower without touching anything. I remember once I stepped in a puddle at 96th and Broadway, and I felt disgusting the rest of the day and washed my shoe thoroughly. In Singapore, it's so clean, it was like taking a shower! Other than the water all over my body, I could come home and forget the shower I had planned on!

Not too much going on here. We had a very busy weekend. Went to a Jewish community dinner for Shabbat and Hanukkah on Friday night. It was super nice. We love that community. We got to hang out with a friend from Matt's who was in from NYC. We played at least 10 games of Settlers on Saturday (but I only won one). We played five of them with my friend Tenley whom I met at my first job here. She and her husband are here with the US Navy. They live out in Sembawang, which was a $35 cab ride away. If you go to google maps and put in Sembawang, Singapore, you'll see that it's basically in Malaysia. It looks TOTALLY different than the rest of Singapore. They live in a house that was built by the British in the 30s and they used it for the British military until they left Singapore. Then, the Japanese used these houses when they invaded in the 40s, and now they're used by a bunch of anglo military families. It was such a cool house!! Gorgeous high ceilings, wood floor, mango smell outside because there are TONS of mangoes all over the place. We hope to go out there during the day sometime to see more (though the cost of transport was rough!!). We had such a great time with them. We also really liked their dog.

Sunday we had a nice time at a Hanukkah party of a young couple in the Jewish community. Then we met up with a bunch of Matt's grad school friends. Vinny, who is originally from Jakarta, went to high school in Singapore and now lives in DC (and went to grad school with Matt) came in yesterday, and we got to hang out with her for a bit. She's staying with us until tonight when she will go to see her family.

It's still pouring. Since my work permit hasn't come through yet, I think I will have to watch the basketball game that's on TV (Boston College and Maryland from days ago I'm sure) and the newest Grey's Anatomy (downloading right now). Rough day. :)

1 comment:

Matt and Melanie Hildebrandt said...

Matt told me that "The Big Splash" was the name of a water park in Singapore that he used to come to as a child when his family lived in Indonesia. Apparently it was right near where we live now!