As you all know, Phil is here in Singapore with us. He found an ingenious way to finagle his fall classes online and is staying with us here, while taking his requisite courses in the US. He had to pay his share of education costs, of course. But the extra curriculars are killer.

Phil just got back from Thailand, where he spent 10 fun filled days with a backpacking group. The group consisted of 9 young people - 3 Aussies, 3 from the UK, one guy from New Zealand, Phil and one Thai tour guide. It was very bare bones - they stayed in a Western Hotel the first and last nights, thus making them Terrorist Extremest Bombing Targets, but only for two of the ten days. The rest of the time they were perfectly safe! I heard the stories, saw the pictures, and my pulse rate and blood pressure are just now coming back to around normal...

His group spent 2 nights on an all night train, where they hung out the windows and took pictures of each other. They had to be quick, tho. There were a lot of trees along the tracks that could hit them if they hung out there for too long. Thank God for Auto Focus!

They hiked to the River Kwai. They took pictures. Their tour guide pointed them to the falls, and told them they had a couple free hours to hike up there. Beautiful! So they did. There they hiked up an additional 900 yards of sheer rock and slid back down said falls in nothing but their skivvies. More pictures.

One free afternoon, young Phil rented himself a motorbike. He fancies himself as having a pretty good sense of direction, so naturally he got lost. Found himself in a little town where exactly one guy spoke english. The guy pointed - pointed! - the direction Phil wanted to go. So he headed back, keeping his eye trained on said direction. Made it back to the train with minutes to spare.

Phil bunjee jumped, rode on the neck of an elephant and spent the weekend in the 'Hill Village' where they ate a meal prepared by a Thailand Hill tribe, drank local booze, and were entertained by Tribal Warriors in traditional dress. One of the girls with the tour was a Camp Counselor and taught them a couple songs of her own. They rode on Tuk Tuks, taxicabs, petticabs and boats. Phil found himself in a restaurant where he was the first American the guy had ever served. He left a photo behind. He met a cab driver who liked him so much he picked him up on his last day, took him to lunch and gave him a lift to the airport for half price. He left a photo with that guy too...

At the moment, Phil is on his way back from a weekend in Kuala Lumpur. He sent me a text at midnight - can he bring home a Swedish guy for a couple nights. The hostels in Singapore are all booked up. He has known him for 3 whole days, and they are old buddies.

We will see them both tonight. I'm sure Phil will come equipped with stories and more pictures...

Happy Haroreen

I hate Halloween. When I was a kid, I loved it - I got too much candy and stayed up later than usual as a little kid; played with eggs and shaving cream and no, nobody ever steps on the Flaming Bag of Poo as a teenager. When I had kids I learned to hate it. They got too much candy and stayed up too late as little kids; played with silly string and toilet paper and no, nobody ever steps on the Flaming Bag of Poo as teens. My favorite part about the idea that we were moving to Asia last summer was that I could dispense with the whole ugly scene.

Ha Ha! That's where I was wrong. Here in the Woodlands of Singapore, a neighorbood I fondly (or not so fondly) refer to as 'Little America' Halloween is quite the experience.

I was warned a couple weeks ago. I needed to prepare myself. People decorate to the hilt. They bring candy back from the States when they take trips there. The rough estimate of candy needs for the two-hour melee is around 3,000 pieces. People admonished me to give out one piece per child.

Naturally I did not have any candy. I looked around at the stores here, but individually wrapped stuff is either nonexistent or prohibitively expensive. We could shut the gate and turn off the lights, but that seemed pretty party pooperish. So we did what any self-respecting unprepared American would do - we headed to Mustafa in Little India. Mustafa is a multi-story shopping mecca where one can meet every imaginable need. The stuff isn't much cheaper, but the variety is impossible to beat. We bought 25 pounds of garden variety wrapped hard candy that an American kid would scoff at. We happily spent $65 on the stuff. We laughed about heading to Little India to buy candy for a pagan American holiday that we were celebrating in Singapore.

The 3,000 number was not an exaggeration. The roads were closed to traffic and the community hired security. The streets looked like Disneyland on a long weekend. We gave out one piece of candy per child and ran out in about 1 1/2 hours. We had a fair number of Americans, but most of these people were local. Everone - including adults - wore costumes and trick or treated. My favorite people were the locals...they were beaming; they seemed to relish this American holiday; and their greeting...instead of the traditional 'trick or treat?' Happy Haroreen!

The World Series

We are rabidAngel fans. We are loyal to a fault when they lose, maddeningly smug when they win and we really wouldn't have it any other way. This year, our team is in the playoffs. Watching any sport besides soccer and golf takes an act of God in Singapore. We do have options...We can watch on the computer - there are a couple of websites that don't kick us off when they see our Singapore IP address. But we have to ignore our virus software's ominous warnings that we can continue watching on these sites if we so choose, but we should be prepared for a visit from the local infantry, anticipate total disk failure, and have a fire extinguisher at the ready. We can try to tune in to the local radio news, but they frankly don't give two hoots about baseball. We can watch blog posts on facebook, but that's not at all gratifying. Luckily for us we have ol' Jiminy Cricket the Cable Guy. He set us up. We now have the Yankee Network and recording options.

The big problem now is the time lag.

We got up Saturday morning to watch the game. It was on at 7:30. We struggled with snacks - We all wanted nachos and beer, and 7AM is a tad early for that. Since the Angels were playing the Yankees, and the Yankees tv network is pretty loyal to its home team, we were annoyed by the color commentary. We struggled with the weather - it was monsooning outside, the a/c was on, and we were in our jammies. We mostly struggled with the fact that the Angels lost.

Game 2 was not aired live. The game went into extra innings, so in an effort to stick with the 3-hour network allotment, the Yankee network felt no compulsion to show the Angel at-bats. We struggled with that. Mostly we struggled with the fact that the Angels lost.

Game 3 was live at 5AM. John set up the recorder. He extracted a solemn vow from me that I would not watch. I further promised that I would not talk to anyone, and if I did I would not let on the outcome of the game. At 8AM, I caught wind that the game was in extra innings. Luckily, John had set it up for an hour past network time. At 8:45AM, my friends called. I made good my promise - I stopped them in their tracks. "Don't tell me anything!" At 5PM, John called. He was working late. At 10PM he got home. I knew nothing, really, but had a pretty good idea the game had gone well. We settled in. We watched until the bottom of 11, tie game, bases loaded, 1 out, Torii Hunter at bat. The tv stopped dead.

Disk full. Evidently you have to erase the stuff you recorded before...

This morning I got up and watched the game highlights on the internet. Oy.

Today we try again - the disk is erased, the recorder is set up and the nachos are ready. But if John works late, I'm firing it up...

It's Polka Time!

When I was a kid, every Sunday morning my dad turned on the most obnoxious polka music one can imagine. He ran through the house, yelling, "It's polka time!" And he and my mom would dance in the living room. I'm not sure whether they enjoyed the music or the vociferous annoyance of their teenage kids more, but at any rate, I promised myself I would NEVER get involved with anything as inane as the polka....

We are involved with a group of Expats who have a gift for finding things to do on this island that confound all expectation about what is available in Southeast Asia. Last night was Oktoberfest. They found a microbrewery here that was celebrating with bier and bratwurst and the joy of dancing along with a live band. A polka band. You really have not lived until you have seen a bunch of 70ish Singaporean men dressed in lederhosen playing polka music. At any rate the bier was flowing, the Yaegermeister shots were coming around, the music was blaring and I still maintain, after all these years, that if you discount the Chicken Dance there are exactly 3 different polka songs. All equally irritating. Although they do go down more easily after a couple of Steins.

So, this post is for dad. You always said never to say never. I did, and now look. God, apparently in an effort to prove you right, plunked me halfway around the globe, dancing the Polka with my husband and a bunch of newly-made friends and having a shamefully good time. I certainly hope you are satisfied...

Gosh, He's Handsome in Red!

Wow I love a fundraiser! Why just last year my very dear friend Jane and I raised money for cancer and ran in a half marathon. The fact that we were given an all-expense paid trip to San Francisco for our trouble was just the icing on the cake. We thought that was the trip of our lives. But that was before Singapore.

We have recently joined a group of runners call the Hash House Harriers. This zany group of misfits is friendly, uninhibited, vulgar and surprisingly grounded. They are kind to one another and the guests who swell their ranks from time to time. They mostly run in the jungle every couple weeks or so, and have a little outing afterward. Once a year, though, they go all out.

The Hash House Harriers was founded in Kuala Lempur, Malaysia in the last 20 years or so by a group of bored accountants. (!!! Yeah, I was surprised too....) These guys pulled together a rag-tag group of expats who were looking for friendship, camaraderie, a little endorphin rush and I suspect a higher concentration of folks who spoke decent English. The idea caught on, and became a world wide thing. (Look it up. I guarantee there is a Hash run in your area.) It became a group of people who fit every description. The Singapore group, in an effort to get back to their roots, so to speak, hosts a Red Dress fundraiser every year. They challenge everyone who is willing to run through the streets of Singapore dressed in red. The money raised goes back to Malaysia - this year it was to a group who takes care of people with leprosy. (Yup. It's still around.) We raised just over $10,000 by dressing in red and running down Orchard Rd., into the train station, through the Red Light District in Little India, and back to Orchard. The men wore dresses, and while some seemed quite at home in them and one guy looked a little too much like Hannibel Lechter for comfort, run we did and we had a terrific time.

So now, I guess I can say I've run in a drag race, eh? Something else to add to the Annals of Singapore....

Wednesday - Just One Day After Tuesday.....

We need furniture. The house is different than we had originally imagined and we left too much stuff behind. As they say here on this godforsaken island...'No Worries.' This little mantra not only suggests there may be something to worry about, it pretty much guarantees it.

We have a furniture allowance - the particulars of this are too dry for a blog post, but suffice it to say this complicates matters to the point of complete distraction. If it wasn't to our financial advantage to use it, I would abandon the whole thing.

We did manage to order a little basic set of outdoor stuff and a 'writing desk.' The outdoor stuff is pictured here. It was a smashing success. The writing desk was a whole different animal.

We found this little desk in a store in the city. It was lovely. Smallish, mahogony, pull down surface, nooks crannies...oh happy day. Fit perfectly. The complication came in when we tried to order it. To access our furniture allowance, we need to let the rental company order stuff on our behalf. I gave the business card with the details to a lovely young girl. She called a couple days later - it was on the way.

We got a call from a guy who wanted to work with the desk. He wanted it to be perfect. Perfection! Well! We have never had that! This was a red flag, but I had no idea...At any rate, he needed time. How about he delivers Friday. Since the job of said desk is to cover the modem crap in the corner of the living room Friday was fine.

Thursday he called. Could he deliver Monday. He needed more time. I said sure.

Saturday he called. Could he deliver Tuesday. He needed more time. I said.....ok.

Monday he called. Could he deliver Wednesday. I said I was getting annoyed. He said...'But Wednesday is just one day after Tuesday! Desk needs to be perfect!'

Wednesday they showed up 3 hours late. They had the wrong desk.

Back to the drawing board. Or writing desk. Or whatever.....

Oh and if you are wondering how we managed to get outdoor stuff without a hitch - we paid for it ourselves...

Orchids!

These lovely Orchids can be grown outside. A friend of mine says that if you stick them in a tree, the roots will eventually work their way out of the pot, attach to the trunk, and they will grow on the tree. Lovely. Also low-maintenance...

I put this up today, because I am sure that within the month there will be some sort of aggravation about these things, and I like to document my initial smugness if I can. Makes for good reading later....