wo chi gali yutou

Matt and I had our first Mandarin lesson last night, and we actually learned how to say, "I
eat fish head curry," "You eat fish head curry," "He eats fish head curry," etc. The title of this post is the "I" form.

Who would have thunk that we would learn that in the first lesson?!

That's just about all we learned, unfortunately. We learned that there are four tones in Mandarin. We learned two ways to say angry, fanu being more angry than shengqi.

There were about 12 people in our class. It seemed as though they were all Singaporean other than us two and this other Anglo lady. Some of the people were Chinese and embarrassed that they didn't know Mandarin. The Indian lady assumed the Thai dudes were Chinese and couldn't figure out why they wouldn't already know Mandarin.

Other than Chinese...today was my last day of my two month long vacation. I am excited to start work, but I'm nervous. What if I forgot how to go to work everyday? Who's going to clean? Who will cook dinner? Who will shop? Do laundry? We might have to call Maria...

There's apparently a problem with my working papers. It appears that someone applied for a letter of consent to allow me to work back in April. If only I knew, I wouldn't have spent all that time looking for a job! The only problem is that the Office of Manpower said that the company didn't list their name with the application. I think it was probably just a mistake, but it's causing me problems! Now, rather than getting paid, I am volunteering my next three days. That sucks. I mean, I'm so happy to help the world.

Three Little Monkeys

Yesterday Matt and I went for a great walk in East Coast Park - out on the Bedok Jetty (which we would call a pier). Then we went up the park and ended up in Siglap, the area of shops and restaurants near our house. Matt got his hair cut at the barber that is pictured here. :)

BTW, did you see the story in the Sunday Times about emoticons? I'm totally into them.

Anyways, back to our exciting life...Today Matt took a day to hang out with his beautiful wife before her life totally changes and she starts working on Wednesday. We made sure to sleep past the bug guy and made it out of the house at the crack of 12:30. We took the MRT to Braddell, which is farther than I have traveled on the red line in the past (very exciting).

We found some Indian Muslim food. That's really what it's called. And then we got in a cab to go to Mc Ritchie Reservoir Park. This was the first thing in Singapore that has not be super well marked and signed, but we found our way. It's basically a big lake (unclear as of yet if it's natural), and there are great paths and beautiful trees and wildlife around it. Other than Bukit Timah this is the first natural beauty I have seen here. Both Matt and I enjoyed it much more than Bukit Timah. We approached the start of the trail, and we saw a guy sitting on a bench, and he was surrounded by monkeys. That was very much just the beginning. Matt and I estimate that we saw between 30 and 50 monkeys. We saw amazing little slithering things called skinks (not to be confused with skanks). We saw at least 20 turtles and a whole lot of huge lizards. We ended up doing 10 km, and it took us about 2.5 hours. Other than the minor fear I had in the middle as the thunder erupted over and over again, it was so beautiful and way fun. There's also a treetop walk that we'll do sometime, but apparently it's closed on Mondays.

I am posting some pictures, but please click here for the rest.

Knocked Up

Don't get excited. I'm not knocked up - just talking about the movie.

After organizing and re-organizing our stuff yesterday, we realized we don't have enough stuff to fill our home. We have many shelves and drawers, and too many are empty. How do people fill complete houses?

Last night we went to Vivo City, which is - yup - another mall. We met up with Matt's boss for a movie and dinner. He has four kids and a wife who are in the states, so he's left in a quiet house here in Singapore. We went to see Knocked Up. First of all, let me share a bit about the movie experience in Singapore.

1) You have assigned seats. In Israel you get assigned seats too, but there no one sits in their seats. Here, you must sit in your seats.

2) You can get first class movie tickets. You can then sit in more comfortable seats which recline, and you have waiters and waitresses who bring you food. There is much about having the right credit card, the fanciest car, the most expensive...and this fits right in.

3) It's freezing. I don't know if I've mentioned that it's hot here, but it is. When you go in the movie theater, though, you need a jumper, as they would say. It's really cold.

4) There were about 25 minutes of commercials before the movie even started. They even have a commercial about how movie piracy is bad.

Anyways - we loved the movie. Matt and I both thought it was hilarious. It's stupid funny, and it also raises a lot of great issues that we think about often. What makes a good relationship/marriage? What changes in your life when you have kids? Do all of your hopes and dreams really go out the window? Can you tell that Matt and I aren't ready to have kids?

After the movie we went to this hilarious restaurant. Mostly what we talked about is how easy it is to have kids in Singapore, and how it's a great time/place to do it, since there's nothing else to do.

Back to the restaurant. It's called Imperial Herbal, and apparently it's involved in a great debate/business split. It was in a hotel, and the hotel got renovated, and then apparently the restaurant split between the owner and the chef. We went to the owner one (who claim to also have the chef). We actually sat in this hilarious lounge (our table is the one right under the photographer). It's a place that has herbal remedies and weird food. I had soup that is good for my complexion, and we also had some egg whites with dried scallops in a potato basket thing, and we had some tofu and eggplant. It was a pretty funny experience. Matt's boss, Dave is super nice. We had a great time with him.

Bad news for Matt. We realized that you CAN play Settlers of Catan with two people, and it's still pretty fun. It's definitely more based on luck and if your numbers come up, but it scratches my itch to play. Unfortunately for him, I made him play before the movie as well as until two in the morning. We probably shouldn't have opened that door...

We went to the Bedok Wet Market this morning, which is the wet market by our house. It has tons of fruits and vegetables as well as seafood, meat, chicken, Eddie Bower clothes, hawker stalls and just about everything else. We got a huge bag of rambutan for $2 (sing). We got lots of other fruits too.

Then we saw Splinter!!! It was the first time I have seen her in a week and a half! I missed her. We played for a while.

My mom just got back from Mexico - visiting with our cousins there. She and all of her first cousins had a great time. I can't wait to hear about it.

Landlords

After playing tennis (I won 6-2, 4-2, and then we had to stop, because our hour was up) this morning, and then making yummy omelettes, our landlords came over. It was hilarious.

They are a super nice couple. They used to live in this apartment, but it seems as though she didn't like how far she had to walk to get places - Singaporeans hate walking - so they moved a few minutes away. She had so much energy and was giving me tons of advice.

She told me to relax about how some of the furniture isn't in perfect condition. They won't charge us for it.

She told me to go to the air con at the club house to read the newpaper or a book (then I don't have to waste my own air con). This reminded me a lot of my grandparents and their place in Florida.

She told me about some of the churches in the area, and she had literally never heard of a Jew. She could not comprehend stopping at the end of the Old Testament. Not believing in Jesus?? WHAT??!!

She told me about renting the multi-purpose room at the clubhouse for our parties. I don't think we know more than ten people in Singapore. I'm pretty sure they can fit in our apartment.

She invited us over for dinner, and her husband invited us out for seafood at the beach.

They were hilarious.

It's raining for the fifth day in a row (at least). I love rain here. Yay.

Unreasonably Disheveled

It's been raining all day. I actually love rain in Singapore, because it means that it's not outrageously hot. But...I can't understand that when it does rain - why I am always disheveled, and no one else is!?

I am always slipping all over the place (nearly fell twice today), wet and uncomfortable, and generally internally bitchy. On the MRT today, my umbrella was dripping all over the floor. It was POURING outside. Maybe 8% of the people in the train had umbrellas, and they were all dry! There were no other drops of water on the floor of the train. I don't understand!

Also, when it's sunny, why is it that I'm always sweating my ass off, and everyone else just goes about their business? By the time I get to the MRT, I want to chop off my hair, strip off my clothes, and jump into a cold pool. Obviously people can see all the sweat dripping down my back. Why does no one else have it? How do all of these ladies have long, heavy hair, and they all wear it down everyday!?

I think that in New York it's okay to look disheveled. No one really looks at you. No matter how disheveled I looked in New York, I still looked like one of the most normal people on the Subway. There is always someone lookin' a little worse. In Singapore this is not the case. Everyone is well dressed. There's never that smelly guy. No one even lights up a cigarette on the subway - EVER. I don't know if those people exist in Singapore. Maybe they all live far off the MRT lines.

In addition to my observations of my maiming of the train, I also spotted a goiter. I'm really almost sure it was a goiter. I saw one in my science book in Mrs. Parker's biology class in 9th grade. It was my first live goiter. I figured this guy has some sort of high blood pressure and therefore can't have ANY salt, and apparently nothing else has iodine in it.

My last observation on the train was a woman who had a constantly disapproving look, and it really looked a lot like the look my Bubby used to have. She was just looking at everyone and disapproving about something they were doing/wearing/thinking.

The Oven is Arriving

When I got to Singapore there were a lot of new things. I came in a cab that drove on the other side of the road, to a new complex, in a new (HOT) place...it was all new. When I came into our apartment for the first time, it actually looked really comfortable to me. The furniture was okay, the bathrooms were big and complete, there was a lot of natural light. All in all, I was very fine. When I went to see the kitchen for the first time, however, I looked around, and I asked Matt, "Where is the oven?" He said, "Hm. I don't know. I guess I didn't look for one."

Apparently most Chinese people don't use ovens, since just about everything is fried, so most Chinese kitchens don't have ovens. Hm...

We had decided to keep a vegetarian kitchen while we were here. This choice was confirmed by my earlier prawn experience. I guessed that most of the baking I did was probably chicken, so we would be fine. We probably would be fine...if we wanted to do without roasted potatoes, crispy tofu, banana bread, pies, kugels and lasagna. Turns out we're not so interested. We miss them. We bought a small oven, and it's on it's way to its new home in our kitchen.

Yesterday I finished an amazing book that my brother suggested to me. It's called A Fine Balance, and I HIGHLY suggest it. The characters were so colo(u)rful, and the book is able to be interpreted on so many different levels. It makes me want to go to India, and it makes me never want to go to India.

Last night we went to dinner with Arkadi - the guy who we met on the diving trip who sent us the pictures. We're planning our next dive trip. We'll have to figure it out well, since he doesn't get vacation days, and I start my job on Wednesday and don't have a ton of vacation days...It will probably be in northern Malaysia, and island in Thailand, Bali or the Philippines. I don't think we can lose between those choices.

Today a woman from the Jewish community was nice enough to have me and another woman who's new to the community over for a visit. She told us a bit about the community and ways we can get involved. Sounds like wonderful people and good stuff going on - but not too much. Then I met Matt for lunch and we had AMAZING Indian food at a food market by his work. Then I went to get diving advice from the dive shop. They're so nice.

Pictures from our trip to Malaysia

We forgot our camera when we went to Pulau Dayang two weekends ago. Our friend, Arkadi sent us his pictures. I am uploading a few here, but to see the rest, please click here.