The Kiddies have Arrived

The kiddies have arrived (not to be confused with kitties). Matt's cousins who live in Korea arrived last night for a long weekend in Singapore. So far I only got a couple of tired hours with them (I hadn't met them before), but I can tell you that this weekend will be different than most in Singapore. They have twin one and a half year olds. They are super interested in everything - including trash cans, dirty laundry, dusty candles...but they're not that interested in the kitty (who even came in to visit this morning!).

I think we will see our life and Singapore in a whole new light!

I'm excited...

The Singapore Swing

After a super relaxing day of doing nothing (other than shopping, playing tennis, cleaning and swimming), I went to my friend's house last night for a fancy ladies' party. It was really cute - she and her husband made amazing food, and we all got dressed up and ate good food, drank good drinks, and did that all with china, crystal and silver. It doesn't happen too much in Singapore. Usually I'm a hawker stall kind of girl. It was really fun.

After major fears of a hangover, Matt and I got up this morning and met that same friend and her husband (Tenley and Jeff) at this zip line course near our house. When we got there, I saw the kids' course, which I thought was the adult course, and I worried that it would be unreasonably lame, but in fact it turned out to be really fun. There were four or so zip lines, and the rest of it is going through different types of obstacle courses - like walking on wires, logs, swinging on ropes, climbing ladders, etc. I think we all really enjoyed it. I'm not sure I need to go back there, but it was a really fun thing to do on a weekend (we are a bit running low on those in this country...).

Afterwards we went to East Coast Park, walked around a bit, got lunch at the food centre (hawker stalls), and then I was off to facilitate a family Jewish education program at a friend's house. We talked about Shabbat, and I think it went pretty well. We had expected about 20 people, so I planned for that many, but when people started signing up, we saw that there was actually a bigger desire than we thought, so we ended up with FIFTY people. It was total chaos, but we worked through that, and I think our goals were accomplished. Hopefully they liked it.

The cat that we're friends with seems to have a boyfriend. He's always with her, he sort of watches her when she thinks about coming over, and he even was biting her neck and holding her in place at one time (I thought maybe they were going to consummate their relationship, but he just bit her. I feel like she's going to be an irresponsible teenage mother if she gets pregnant. Hopefully she'll make good decisions. Anyways, she's out, and it's 8:30, and I don't know where my kitties are.

Two pictures

Here are two pictures:
Kitty in my hair.
Funny drinks in Bangkok (coffee in a bag, which is how all 'to go' drinks are served in this area of the world - I had iced tea like that this morning - green fanta and street fruit - which isn't really a drink).

Nepal in China

Tonight we went out for Nepalese food in Chinatown with Christian. Chinese New Year is coming up the week after next, and man is there a lot of red. You see rats (it's the year of the rat), red decorations, pork in all forms, and ten different sizes of citrus fruits - all to celebrate the lunar year. Apparently there is some agreement with Disney to use Mickey and Minnie all year for the year of the rat. They made their presence in many a'decorations.

The Nepalese food was good too.

Then we played two player Settlers. It stank. I can't believe I'm writing that, but it actually wasn't fun. Don't tell Matt, though, because I still want to con him into playing it with me.

I can't believe Federer is about to lose (it's the replay obviously).

Networking

Today I got to hear a super senior analyst at Moody's talk about the subprime crisis and where we're heading with it. It was a speech through the Financial Women's Association. It was quite an opportunity for me, since I'm really just doing admin, and I don't get to use my analysis brain too much.

The speech was great. The women I talked to were great. There was one part that was hilarious to me. People went with a whole stack of business cards (called name cards here). They walk around the room, say "hello, I'm X" and hand them a card (with two hands, obviously). Then they go to the next person and do the same. No one really talked, and they all got TONS of name cards. Rather than say where you work and what you do, you're just both silent and look at the other's name card and then move on. I didn't participate (I only had two name cards - I left in a hurry and forgot them!). It was really funny. They call this networking. I call that dealing (cards).

On another note - you must listen to act three of this episode of This American Life (one of my favorite things that exist in the world). I have to say that I only know one person who has crapped in a "public" place on purpose - it was on a ski boat at camp, and I won't say who it is. I love David Sedaris. Seriously - listen to it.

Subwhere?

Yesterday the MRT was shut down east of Bedok (our stop) to the end. It was shut down for seven hours. There were buses that were chartered to help get people to work. Singapore was in an uproar. This morning it was the top story in all of the papers (actually it was second to the fact that the markets TANKED yesterday). This was the worst shut down forever. No one knew what to do.

I thought this was hilarious. This happened in New York all the time. My boss lived in Brooklyn, and there were many many days where she called and said that her line was closed/stopped/slow - something, and she was late to work. Luckily I could walk to work, so I didn't learn much about it, but I KNOW this happens all the time.

I got to work, and I chose the wrong audience to talk about this with. I talked to my Singaporean colleague about how nuts this was that people were in such an uproar. She said, "50,000 people couldn't get to work." I said - yeah, well that happens all the time in NYC. She kept saying, "they had no buses, no taxis, and they had no way to get to work." There were buses, there were taxis (she took one). I think I was just preaching to the wrong choir.

Bouncing Icons and Kitties

You know how when you open an application on a mac the icon bounces? Our friend, the kitty, she loves it. She watches it and gets ready to pounce. She tries to walk on the keyboard.

Last night, my dad and I were ichatting (video chatting), and the kitty was watching him. When his face went off the screen, she was CONFUSED.

She's the cutest kitty in the world (now that Splinter is most likely dead. If Splinter was around, she would be the cutest, and this kitty knows that she's only second to Splinter - hopefully it won't create any weird self-esteem issues).

She's so smart, she even reads the New Yorker.