Singapore Wildlife

Nope. Not monkeys.

We have a lizard. He's not all that big, and I guess he eats bugs, but he is living under my bed. I have a fundamental problem with this. I do not wish to cohabit with a lizard. Call it what you will - intolerance, prejudice, hate. Whatever. I want him dead.

The thing about a lizard is that you don't just step on him. If he is in the kitchen, I can shoo him out. But this guy was 3 floors up! I went to the store, asked what to do about a lizard. The guy took me to the lizard repellent section. Section! There were no less than 15 'lizard repellants' that boasted one success level or another, none terribly convincing.

I headed out to my little Wednesday group and decided to ask the locals for advice. Some of these people have lived here for years - surely they could help. They said...

"All food in refrigerator!" "Take out trash every day! No food, no lizards." "Put vegetable oil all around your counters. This will keep them off. Also helps with ants." What you do is build a moat. Water all around, lizards not cross. Also helps with cockroaches." "Crushed cloves of garlic. Spread it around, lizards hate smell. Also helps with rats and mice." Plus the Angel of Death and Vampires, I guess, but I didn't say that...

And, my personal favorite...."Get a dog."

I found all this advice not at all reassuring. I had set out to figure out what to do about one lizard, and was told the pest possibilities were pretty much endless. I figure I will leave the lizard alone. After all, they do eat bugs, don't they?

But if we get rats and mice I'm going back to the US.

The Hash

In an effort to keep its Expats from going off the deep end once they spend thousands to get them to foreign countries, Exxon/Mobil arranges for some little morale-boosting get-acquainted activities. One such activity was a day-long tour of the island by a lovely young girl named Valerie. When Valerie called one day to get an idea of the kinds of things we liked to do so she could tailor our tour for us, I mentioned that I was a runner. She told me to check out Hash.

'Hashers' are a self-described group of 'Drinkers with a Running Problem.' The front page of their site shows a big group of people slogging through a swamp in the middle of a jungle. Seemed intriguing. Also seemed prudent to wait for my old running shoes to arrive from overseas.

Phil and I headed out yesterday for our first Hash. The website directions showed a park near the highway - our cabbie was annoyed by the lack of an address. We walked up to the friendliest group of whackos I have ever seen. The 'Grand Master' was a tall skinny guy who looked like the Cat in the Hat. We met a young Swedish girl who is on stopover here; she is taking a break from riding her bike around the world. She has been at it for 7 months and figures she has 11 months to go. Another guy likes to bike too - his favorite ride was the first checkpoint on Mount Everest. One lady was a walker, another older guy was a run/walker. Some were new at this, some had been doing it for years. Most have hashed in more than one country. We were dubbed Virgins, and spent the next 3 hours getting ribbed for our virginity.

The object of the Hash is to follow a trail laid down by 'Hares.' All the runners in the group are dubbed 'Hounds' and spend the next hour or so following a trail of toilet paper stuck to trees in the jungle - we ran, swam, climbed and got lost a couple times. Phil had to haul an old guy out of a hole he had found himself caught in. We came out of the jungle wet, smelly, and hot; some of us were even bleeding. It was getting dark, and we had to stick together so the monkeys would leave us alone. At the end of the line, we rested, drank a bunch of water, then gathered in a circle where the Cat in the Hat poked fun at most everybody (in rhyme...I am dead on with my nicknames yet again...), everybody sang a little song, and we challenged each other to drink beer that was poured into cups. We called a cab when we were done, but the cabbie took one look at us and drove away - apparently a gathering of more than 3 people is illegal in Singapore, plus we looked like hell and he probably didn't want us in his cab. We hitched a ride with fellow hashers. It was, by far, the most fun I have had since we got here.

Next month is the 'Red Dress Run.' Apparently everyone, men included, puts on a red dress and we run through the streets of the city. I plan to attend. What the heck - I may make a name for myself yet...

The Post Office, Library Cards and M-16s

The last two days in a row, I have actually accomplished a couple things. When one is dealing with life without wheels, one or two things accomplished in a day is noteworthy...

Yesterday, I went to Giant. Giant is like a Super Walmart without the Super. For the non-picky shopper, they have a 24-hour version of just about everything. 24-hour as in; 'That's about how long it lasts.' This is not your quality merchandise. They deliver non-perishables within a day or so of purchase, tho, so I made the trek. I loaded up my cart with consumable crap, separated the perishables from the non, figured out what I could carry, and went to the service counter and asked for delivery. The lady said 'Youwannafando?' Shit. I said I did. She handed me a bunch of coupons. I asked again. She rolled her eyes and handed me a couple more. Luckily a lady from my neighborhood wandered in and asked me if I wanted a ride. Yay. A success.

Today was Library Card and Post Office day. 2 things in one day is a lot, but I figured the 'youwannafando' thing had worked out so well the day before I would give it a whack. First, the Post Office. I needed to buy stamps and change our address. Stamps - easy. However...I found out that when one enters the country, one logs a permanent address when applying for a green card. Usually this is the address of his or her sponsoring corporation. This is registered with the Ministry of Manpower, or MOM. One cannot officially change this address. MOM does not take kindly to it. I needed to go everywhere I had given our address at the apartment and tell them personally that we have moved, and I guess, ask them not to tell MOM. Fun fact about the Post Office...if stuff sits in the back for too long, they open it up and give it away as prizes. I saw a computer mouse, an external hard drive, a bicycle helmet and a vacuum cleaner. I bet MOM doesn't know about that...

A woman on a mission, I headed to the bank to change our address. First question - 'Do you have your Passport?' I cannot imagine a situation except travel where I would have my passport in my purse. I asked why she couldn't just look up my account - I have my ATM card. She gave me the fish-eyed stare. She said 'Green Card ok.' I gave her the card and the address change, and said - 'Don't tell MOM.'

Next I went to the library. Another fish-eyed stare. The lady said, 'You a foreigner.' No lie. I had to admit it; apparently I look the part. She reached into her bottom drawer, pulled out a form, asked for my Green Card and charged me 50 bucks. When she asked for my address I felt myself break into a sweat. (Fun fact about the library - Singaporeans are free. We foreigners support the program.)

I decided to make a stop at the grocery store. I felt I would have the urgent need for a glass of wine come happy hour, and I am out. I ran into another lady from my neighborhood. Scored a ride home. When entering our neighborhood we saw the police, walking up the street, semi-automatics drawn. We slowed down and asked what was up...'Routine Surveillance,' they said. We stopped at her house and cracked into that wine at just a little before noon.

Don't tell MOM.

Speaking of Mom, mine is 73 today - Happy Birthday MOM!

The Almighty Po

I really thought I was past taking pictures of signs. We've seen a few lately that have given us a chuckle or two - the picture of the toddler squirting the loud train-rider with his bottle, much to the delight of fellow travelers, the silouette of the guy holding a semi-automatic weapon to a trespasser...stuff like that. We have matured, tho, and we stopped photographing them. Until today....

My latest and greatest food discovery is the Po. The po is killer. It is a sweet puffy white breadish thing with filling inside. The choices are pretty much endless as the po can be either savory or sweet. The red bean po, for example, is a lovely desserty thing that melts in your mouth. The chicken po, on the other hand, is a delicious mixture of meat and spices that will pretty much blow your head off. Yum.

Today, in our travels to the Chinese Garden, we stumbled upon this little stand - "Chomp" - that specialized in little snacky food for the weary sightseer. They had a variety of stuff - chicken on a stick, curry puff things and the ever-popular Po. And when we saw the sign, we were sold! Imagine our relief when we noticed that this particular stand, in the middle of a metro station in Singapore, is sensitive to the needs of it's vegetable oil! Yes, you read correctly. These little foodstuffs are fresh, low in fat, high in fiber and the oil they are made with is never abused.

And I thought the Singaporeans ignored PC. I stand corrected.

Goodybe to the Water Bed

When John floated the idea that we could do this crazy expat thing and move to Asia, I was less than thrilled. I'm not going to lie - I love my life in Northern Virginia. Great friends, wonderful family and reasons to be grateful from just about every angle. I humored him, tho. He has not been excited about his job for awhile, and after talking it through, a couple years overseas became a reasonable sacrifice. Plus, it seemed like a pretty good way to get rid of our bed.

We are one of the few people in America with a water bed. I hate the damn thing. It is hot, impossible to find sheets for, and since John outweighs me by at least 70 pounds I spend the lion's share of the night clinging to the wooden rail on the side in an effort to keep from rolling into him. John loves it. It is warm, the sheets bother him not one bit and he likes the spoon idea just fine, even after 26 years.

I told him one night in Virginia. over a glass of wine, that we may consider the possibility that the ol' water bed's days were numbered. How about we buy a nice Posturpedic that would suit us both and give up the ghost, I said. After all, we aren't 25 any more. He was obstinately opposed, sure that moving this behemoth would be no problem.

A problem it was. It was damaged in transit. A handyman showed up (without tools. but that is another blog post...) and tried to fix it. There was hammering, sawing and drilling going on in my room. He did the best he could. It seemed sturdy, but in Asia a waterbed is an oddity and they were not equipped to fill it. John and I tried, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, to do the job. Hoses in Singapore are prohibitively expensive and come without ends. The fitting we needed were inadvertantly left on the faucet in Virginia (not by me!) and there was no such replacement here. We shopped. We lamented. We spent a week sleeping on Andrew's bed.

Finally, my dear husband relented. He and Phil carried the waterbed mattress down to the storage area and left it there. We bought a new conventional mattress and put it in the newly repaired bed frame. I bought new sheets and did a little happy dance.

This is the moment when the rubber hits the road. Those of you who are loyal to John can think of him every night as he laments the loss of his old buddy. You can play taps if you want to. Heck, send him a sympathy card. But for all you menopausal women out there who are no stranger to the hot flash, rejoice with me tonight as I spend my second night, in my own room, sleeping on a bed that I may make it through the night in without waking up once...

We moved....

Last Saturday we moved. The movers were scheduled to come at 9:30. They called to apologize - they were coming a little early. We likened them to ants. There were 9 of them - they moved fast, followed each other around, and could lift roughly 10 times their body weight. They had the truck unloaded, everything unpacked and cleaned up and they were out of here in 5 hours.

On Monday, everyone and his brother showed up here. Joo Haut the grocery man. He delivers. He caters to expats. He understands Americans. Can he call every day? The first 3 things I asked for, he said..."Huh?" I said, "Joo, you just tell me if I am speaking Russian." Every day he calls. Every day he says at least once; "Mrs. Nancy, you speaky Russian." 4 days here and I already have a running gag with the grocery guy.

Hong the cable guy came later. He reminded me of Jiminy Cricket with coke bottle glasses, a speech impediment and this nervous twitch eye-blinking thing. He was adorable. Ol' Hong sold me more TV than I ever thought I would consent to.

Three guys with maybe one full set of teeth between them came to fix the water pump. They clanged and banged and shut off my water for 30 minutes that stretched into over an hour. During that hour, apparently as a prank, they became very thirsty and asked me several times for water. Drank all the bottled stuff, and when it was all gone, they turned everything back on.

A handyman showed up to repair the stuff the movers had broken, evidently in their haste to get our crap off their truck. He asked me, oh so politely, if I had any tools. He was apparently unaware he was going to be required to fix anything.

Several light bulbs were burned out in the house. I am no stranger to changing a light bulb, but since the ceilings are 12 feet I can't reach and we didn't bring a ladder. Plus I figured the lights should work...Guess what that guy needed.

I could just go on and on. Suffice it to say we are in, Andrew is happily walking 5 or 6 minutes to school, and I am enduring my loss of the city life. Once I get this place settled I will re-acquaint myself with the city, even if it does require a 30-minute train ride to do it...

Travel, Taylor Style...

As a rule, traveling with the Taylors generally comes with a story best told over a beer or two. People travel without a hitch every day. Entire families get on a plane or in the car at a point of origin, and pile out at some final destination. I've seen pictures; I know for a fact it can be done. This seems impossible for us. We lose luggage, leave stuff on airport x-ray belts and forget our Sunday Best when attending family weddings. We have had trips where six people took 3 airlines to 2 different airports. We send kids one place and they end up in another. My fondest travel memory involves Jenn and a trip to Nicaragua where she told her dad to drop her off at the wrong airport. We like to call that one the Great Bone of Contention of 2006.

Phil arrived in Singapore on Wednesday. His flight was due to arrive at 11:55pm. We watched on the internet. His plane was early! We knew of one potential hiccup - he was coming into the country knowing he was overstaying his visa, however we know a 5-day trip out will extend it. John left early for the airport armed with a bus ticket to Kuala Lempur to prove he had a trip planned and promised to call as soon as Phil crossed into the country. At 12:45, the phone rang. I heard John's voice. Two words.

"No Phil"

Naturally, I panicked. I went from dozing on the couch to high gear. After a couple minutes of asking silly questions that John could not answer and doing a nice rendition of the Holy Shit Dance, I agreed to call United and try and ascertain our next steps. So I called United. An accomodating and maddeningly calm agent reassured me that she was positive everything was fine, she would check the status of his ticket. Long pause. "It appears," she told me somewhat tentatively, "That your husband boarded the plane in Dulles, but did not get on in Japan. Are you sure he wanted to come home?"

Well. I informed her that I was happily married, of course my husband wants to come home, and anyways we were talking about my son. To this she replied. "Oh. FAA rules prevent me from giving you any information." Then she clammed up. No she could not page, no she did not know how to reach him, no she could not tell me anything else, no she could not help me. A supervisor said all the same stuff.

I called John back and told him to come on home. Phil was stuck in Japan. No flights were going out of there until the next night. I called our older kids and made sure they all had contact information should Phil get ahold of them. I sat at the edge of panic. Jenn wanted to file a missing persons report so we could get ahold of the Embassy in Japan. Matt said he figured that while it was very likely that Phil was in jail on some trumped up charge, he had heard that the Japanese have paper walls, plus Phil had taken a karate class when he was 7, so he could probably bust out in no time.

John came in and while we lamented the situation, Phil called. We had forgotten to give him the address here, so he got delayed at the border. They finally waved him through, but by then John was gone. Our missing son was in a cab at 2am with a cabbie who had just handed him a map and asked him to talk him in. Did we have any beer.

We went out front to wait and pay the cab driver. I have never been so relieved to see one of my kids in my life. We drank our beer and went upstairs to sleep. I took him around the next day and not only was he enthusiastic about his surroundings, he had more stamina than I did.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's entry; "Phil and the Indian Facial."

Such a Deal...

We love the contests here in Singapore. Everywhere we look, there is a reason to shop or buy or sign up. When we go to the grocery store and pay over a certain amount, we get money off of gasoline. Sign up for a credit card, get a t-shirt. Our anniversary dinner came with about 4 dozen vouchers for a $1,000 prize drawing. Need books? Perfect! When shopping at the bookstore, for every $100 spent, loyal shoppers are awarded coupons. Everywhere we look there is an opportunity to win.

Today while we were out and about, we stumbled upon quite the banking display. When opening an account at the OCB, one could win a host of prizes - a trip in the money machine, stuffed toys, undescribable foods (not like 'soooo delicious' - more like 'foods that defy description...') But the clear favorite was the line dancing show. This was the very best offer so far. In order to attract customers, they had a bunch of guys with the classic fu man chu look dancing the Electric Slide in full Western regalia, all the way down to the red snakeskin cowboy boots. They were sliding and dancing and yee hawing and looking like regular Asian cowboys, which I am reasonably sure exist someplace around here. The lucky winner of some kind of drawing won a spin around the stage with these guys. It was all I could do not to sign up...

Sadly we already have a bank account, so I was unable to stick my name in the hat. I am happy to report that we did walk away with a free watch, though. All we had to do was buy 2 six-packs of Tiger beer - the local favorite that I would describe as a cross between PBR and Natty Light, except without the full bodied taste.

For those of you who are wondering, Andrew made it home in one piece from Indonesia, none the worse for wear but for a healthy dislike for sand, one new love interest and one woman scorned. Stay tuned.

Happy News!

No, not about Indonesia and the earthquake survivors. The truth is about them is that they were so far away from the thing they did not even know it happened. Anyway, this little tidbit is so much better!

Yesterday, John and I celebrated out 26th wedding anniversary. With Andrew out of town, we took the opportunity to go someplace really special. We headed up to Mount Faber Park, where we had made reservations the eat aboard the 'cable cars.' The cables stretch across the island and take riders on a 25 or so minute loop over the city. A 3-course meal is served during 3 back-to-back rides - at the origin point the courses are changed, and diners set out again. It was lovely.

We checked the map before we left. It seemed simple enough. It was not. We found our way up there, sorta, but we were late...we got within about 100 yards of the restaurant and saw that we could go no further. We figured we'd hoof it, and parked in what looked like a parking space to us. When we got to the desk, we told the guy where we had parked. He grimaced. Then he said - "Well, it might be ok. Are you feeling lucky?" We decided not. He was nice as pie and said to re-park, they'd hold our reservation. So we headed back down, and looped around until we found a space where could park legally.

When we got back, we were ushered into the 'Iconic Toilets." It was quite the ceremony. Big glass doors, bathroom attendant...We did not get it. The guy kept saying..."Yes, yes. You must go in!" Still clueless, we headed inside. The toilet was lovely. I washed my hands and got halfway out before I realized this was the only bathroom break I was going to get. In Singapore, where political correctness is a rare commodity, this guy did not want to say; "Go before you get in the car. We aren't stopping."

The dinner was delicious, the ride was perfect and we had a great time. On the way out, naturally, we were ushered through the gift shop. We saw a sign hanging on the wall that boasted that this Iconic Toilet was voted the Best Toilet in the World in 2007! Wow! I posted it on my facebook page and a friend told me that happynews.com did a feature on it just yesterday. I tried to see it, but the link is no longer available. Darn.

Tsunami!

Young Andrew left yesterday for his Classroom Without Walls experience in Indonesia. This is a very exciting program. The kids spend 3 days at the Loola Resort in Bintan. They have all kinds of scientific and team building activities, they cement their relationships with classmates and since they are in 7th grade, probably fall in and out of love at least twice in the 3-day time period. Also they sleep on the sand and tangle with sand fleas, ticks and whatever else is teeming on the shores of Indonesia. Since our personal effects are still floating somewhere on the Pacific or the Atlantic or heck, the Dead Sea for all I know...Andrew got all new stuff. No makeshift crap, no hand-me-downs. He was thrilled! I waved goodbye to him yesterday when he got on the bus, and walked back upstairs with a woman who has become my good friend here. She was a bit misty-eyed about the whole thing, I was calm and collected. He is my 4th kid, after all. Plus I am too old to freak out over this stuff.

I thought about my friend during the day, and when I knew she was on her way home from work, I sent her a text and invited her up for a cocktail. You know - to calm her jangled nerves. That is, after all, what friends are for...

She came up like a house on fire. Apparently there was an earthquake in Indonesia yesterday. A 7.3! We are both California girls, so we know what '7.3' means... Between the two of us we have the most basic of geographical knowledge, as in none. Luckily, I had hung a world map on the wall when we first got here - it has teeny little writing that is practically illegible. This served to add to our panic. We were sure our kids were buried under a grass hut somewhere in this godforsaken country. We googled and clicked and researched and shared one pair of reading glasses and decided that the kids were at least 700 miles from the epicenter. Whew! I poured us both a double.

We read about the possibility of tsunami too. But I don't think that will hit for at least a couple days...