I never really thought of myself as "competitive". I mean, in my day to day life I don't really excel to be "better" than anyone else at anything, at least consciously. I do hate to be wrong... but I don't see that as competitive, I just see it as an outward reflection of my inner know-it-all.
However. Put a board game in front of me and suddenly the gloves are off and we need to put our good relationship on hold for the duration of the game. Please don't ask me to help you in any way. Don't think that I will give you the smallest hint and please think twice when you assume I am above cheating. Because I'm not. I view the winning of a board game as a sort of "by any means possible" kind of situation.
Anyways, on Saturday night after having a birthday celebration for Pat (with a Thanksgiving dinner) we decided to play Trivial Pursuit. We ended up with a "team" version of the board game, which we've never played before but I assumed it would be the same as the classic version.
The teams were Jon and I against his mom and brother in law (Pat and Phil). I thought our chances were pretty good - I wouldn't have necessarily bet the farm, but I wasn't afraid either.
They took an early lead. With the exception of a few moments of overly excited chest bumps and high fives, Jon and I spent most of the game catching up. And I think he hates to lose as much as I do, so the pressure was on. A few new categories came up and I swore Pat and Phil would choose the "knitting" subject as Pat is a master knitter, but they didn't and I felt like it was really our chance to get back on top.
The first question on the card was a cinch, something about "unit of measurement for knitting needles" - and actually the second question was super easy too. Anyone that has looked at Chapter One, Page One of any knitting tutorial would know it. It was "what two simple stitches can be used to create hundreds of other stitches?"
"Knit and Purl" I said confidently.
And Jon said "No, it's knit stitch!"
"But that just sounds like one stitch. A "stitch" is not a kind of stitch. I am 100% sure that it is Knit and Purl".
"Dude Allie. It's Knit STITCH."
"KNIT PURL. I AM TELLING YOU IT'S KNIT. FUCKING. PURL."
"Phil" Jon says, taking control of the situation, "Knit. Stitch. Final answer"
"That's incorrect, the answer was Knit Purl." Phil says - obviously gloating.
Now granted, Jon DID learn the basics of knitting, just because he likes to know how to do "stuff", but I was fairly certain that my knitting knowledge exceeded his, and I was POSITIVE my answer was correct. I just couldn't wrap my brain around why on Earth he would be so insistent on something so obviously up my alley.
Anyways, we lost in the end. It just wasn't our night, but also, I think it is plain good manners to let someone win on their birthday.
And finally we said Goodnight....But I couldn't get over the "knit purl" moment. So after everyone went to bed, I asked Jon why in the hell he would even think to disagree with me on something like that and so vehemently. And he said "Dude. When no one was looking I peeked at that card and I swear to god I saw 'Knit Stitch' and there was no way to tell you because I thought they would hear."
And friend, this unexpected answer in my mind was the ONLY excuse I would have accepted. Because in all honesty, I COMPLETELY UNDERSTOOD.
It once again proved that no matter what, we seem to be a good match.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Ending With a Celebration
My brother and his fiancee picked my mom and I up from our hotel in Seoul on Saturday afternoon and we all drove together to the wedding hall. We arrived about four hours early so that everyone could get hair and makeup done with enough time remaining to get dressed and take a few hundred photos. While Se Eun and my mom were busy getting ready I chatted with Sui, one of Se Eun's cousins who was just lovely. She works in marketing for Calvin Klein and spoke English really well, which was of course helpful to the general flow of conversation.
I did not end up taking very many photos of my own AT ALL. Something I regretted almost immediately after. But the situation was so new to us that I wasn't really sure when it was appropriate or what would be coming next. I wish I would have gotten photos of the traditional Korean dresses that the women wore or more photos of my brother in his tuxedo, or even a quick shot of my mom and I all gussied up. But the opportunity never seemed to present itself. I'm hoping that when they get their real wedding photos back they'll send some on and I can share them here with you.
Anyhoo. Weddings in Korea are similar to ones in the US in many ways. The bride wore a white gown, carried a bouquet and was undoubtedly the star of the show. The flow of the ceremony was much the same as it is here, and the reception dinner was quite similar. The differences came in the details. For example, instead of her father giving her away, my mom and Se Eun's mom walked down the aisle holding hands. At the end, they each lit a candle on the front alter and rejoined in the middle, bowed to the guests and sat down.
Also, most people in Korea get married in wedding halls which are sort of a one-stop-shop for all things wedding day. The hair and makeup, the room for the ceremony, the hall for the reception, the food, the flowers and even the corsages and some parts of the outfits were all included in the venue. We were also told by one of my brother's in laws that it is traditional for family of the bride/groom to wear white *lace* gloves and a flower corsage. Of course they said that if we did not want to there was absolutely no pressure, but seeing as it was my brother's day and not ours, we were ready to do whatever was asked of us. I was only momentarily disappointed that the white gloves clashed with my royal blue/black outfit, but I got over it when I channeled a little Madonna/Jackie O. (Yes, what a combo.)
After the ceremony and some food the newlyweds came back in to cut the cake. I was personally excited because I was starved and definitely ready to eat ANYTHING other than seafood. So they cut the cake with the worlds largest knife and after at least thirty minutes I finally catch my brother and I say "So like...When are we going to have cake?" and he said that in fact the cake was not real. I still haven't wrapped my mind around whether the cake was only there for the benefit of the westerners in the audience, or if the cutting of the cake in Korea is more of a symbolic gesture and they actually hate cake. But either way, it was just one more quirky and interesting tidbit of the day.
My brother was very obviously happy and excited to be married to his wife. My mom and I observed that she was the most beautiful girl in the room that day (did I mention they had over 200 guests!?) What I did not expect however, was all of the young women in the room saying that my brother was so handsome. That he looked like a celebrity or a model and that Se Eun must have been having a hard time keeping it together. Funny because you know...It's hard to envision your brother that way, but I'm sure he secretly didn't mind.
I think more than anything it was great to see how much his in laws liked him and how glad they were that he had chosen their daughter (or rather, they chose each other) to marry. They are undoubtedly a great match and I have always wanted a sister, so I feel lucky too.
The next morning they took off for Ko Samui, Thailand and my mom and I packed our three week's worth of clothing and souvenirs and headed for the airport ourselves. It was a long and amazing trip - probably a once in a lifetime opportunity and I think I will be glad that I spent this time with my mom for many years to come.
Small details that didn't make it into the blog while I was away will come along this week as well as an excessively long rant about the perils of jet lag and returning to work the day after you get home. Spoiler: It's a mistake when your body clock is 17 hours ahead. More on that later.
I did not end up taking very many photos of my own AT ALL. Something I regretted almost immediately after. But the situation was so new to us that I wasn't really sure when it was appropriate or what would be coming next. I wish I would have gotten photos of the traditional Korean dresses that the women wore or more photos of my brother in his tuxedo, or even a quick shot of my mom and I all gussied up. But the opportunity never seemed to present itself. I'm hoping that when they get their real wedding photos back they'll send some on and I can share them here with you.
Anyhoo. Weddings in Korea are similar to ones in the US in many ways. The bride wore a white gown, carried a bouquet and was undoubtedly the star of the show. The flow of the ceremony was much the same as it is here, and the reception dinner was quite similar. The differences came in the details. For example, instead of her father giving her away, my mom and Se Eun's mom walked down the aisle holding hands. At the end, they each lit a candle on the front alter and rejoined in the middle, bowed to the guests and sat down.
Also, most people in Korea get married in wedding halls which are sort of a one-stop-shop for all things wedding day. The hair and makeup, the room for the ceremony, the hall for the reception, the food, the flowers and even the corsages and some parts of the outfits were all included in the venue. We were also told by one of my brother's in laws that it is traditional for family of the bride/groom to wear white *lace* gloves and a flower corsage. Of course they said that if we did not want to there was absolutely no pressure, but seeing as it was my brother's day and not ours, we were ready to do whatever was asked of us. I was only momentarily disappointed that the white gloves clashed with my royal blue/black outfit, but I got over it when I channeled a little Madonna/Jackie O. (Yes, what a combo.)
After the ceremony and some food the newlyweds came back in to cut the cake. I was personally excited because I was starved and definitely ready to eat ANYTHING other than seafood. So they cut the cake with the worlds largest knife and after at least thirty minutes I finally catch my brother and I say "So like...When are we going to have cake?" and he said that in fact the cake was not real. I still haven't wrapped my mind around whether the cake was only there for the benefit of the westerners in the audience, or if the cutting of the cake in Korea is more of a symbolic gesture and they actually hate cake. But either way, it was just one more quirky and interesting tidbit of the day.
My brother was very obviously happy and excited to be married to his wife. My mom and I observed that she was the most beautiful girl in the room that day (did I mention they had over 200 guests!?) What I did not expect however, was all of the young women in the room saying that my brother was so handsome. That he looked like a celebrity or a model and that Se Eun must have been having a hard time keeping it together. Funny because you know...It's hard to envision your brother that way, but I'm sure he secretly didn't mind.
I think more than anything it was great to see how much his in laws liked him and how glad they were that he had chosen their daughter (or rather, they chose each other) to marry. They are undoubtedly a great match and I have always wanted a sister, so I feel lucky too.
The next morning they took off for Ko Samui, Thailand and my mom and I packed our three week's worth of clothing and souvenirs and headed for the airport ourselves. It was a long and amazing trip - probably a once in a lifetime opportunity and I think I will be glad that I spent this time with my mom for many years to come.
Small details that didn't make it into the blog while I was away will come along this week as well as an excessively long rant about the perils of jet lag and returning to work the day after you get home. Spoiler: It's a mistake when your body clock is 17 hours ahead. More on that later.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Love Hotel, Seoul Style
Oh people.
What an interesting couple of days it's been.
We got on our flight in Singapore and it was great. Six hours later we arrived in Seoul and there my brother and his fiancee were waiting and it almost felt like we had never gone on our adventure - like it was three weeks ago and we had just arrived from San Francisco.
My mom wanted to take them shopping for some household items, because home feels a lot more like HOME when you have the little things that you need. So they picked up pots and pans, some silver wear, towels etc. I think they were really happy and grateful. After shopping we went out to dinner to a Korean barbecue restaurant that was SO good! I don't even know all of the different things they brought to us, but there were at least six dishes to work with and they all involved using the beef that was cooking on the middle of the table. It was our first real Korean meal and we really enjoyed it - a lot of different flavors to try and the way that it was cooked by us on the table was really fun. A sort of DIY Benihana...but you know...Korean.
After dinner we got our things together and headed towards our hotel. My brother had never heard of it, so he didn't know where it was but eventually we found it. It turned out the hotel was sort of up an alley-way and in a sort of random part of town. Booking hotels online, especially in a city you've never been to before, is always hard because they tend to put the nicest possible pictures of the place on the website. You look at the site and you think "huh. This looks pretty nice, and it's a good price. Lets book it."
Well as I mentioned in my first post from the trip, my brother really has an interesting way of 'not looking on the bright side'. Always has. Sometimes its funny, sometimes totally predictable and sometimes I want to shake the shit out of him and say YOU ARE NOT BEING HELPFUL. This was one of those times because as we pulled up to the hotel he starts saying "Oh my god. This is where you guys are staying?? This is a LOVE hotel! This is where people bring their Chinese prostitutes. I can't believe you guys are staying here."
Knowing him the way we do, we have to take it with a grain of salt. I mean, most everything he says involves some level of extreme exaggeration. You can tell this is happening when five minutes later he is saying things like "Oh well, I'm sure the ROOMS are fine." And frankly we didn't see any prostitutes around and I was starting to feel kind of sick from dinner and I really had to pee and I figured, seriously, he's never heard of this hotel before, how can he possibly know?
So we take our bags out of the car and start heading up the stairs and I kid you not, the biggest fucking RAT scampers from out behind the door and INTO the hotel "foyer".
I gagged a little bit and then I died a quiet little death.
Meantime my brother's fiancee says the Korean equivalent of OH HAIL NO and goes inside with my mom to convince them to give us a refund.
Eventually she was able to cancel the reservation but it turned out that the hotel we were hoping to change to was all booked. We could have spent all night looking around, but there is a Hyatt near my brother's house that they said "always has vacancies." So we headed over there. The only thing was, the Hyatt was pretty expensive, actually as it turned out it was a little more than three times as much as the other hotels we've stayed in on this trip. And fancy. But as my mom is talking to the front desk I slowly want to kill myself my stomach hurts so bad and I'm thinking for the love of god woman, please just book the hotel for at least one night, I'm dying over here.
So she does. Because honestly we just wanted to be done with the whole thing, and hey, who minds luxury all that much?
It was nice to get into the hotel, after a while I started to feel better, I waited to catch Jon on Skype for a quick chat while my mom dozed off. And I am not kidding you, as I'm sitting there quietly on my twin bed, our next door neighbors start doing "IT" so loudly there was no ignoring it. And unless they were using a clapper light and they were turning it off and on constantly, there was also a lot of spanking going on. And I die for the third time that day.
Apparently, there are "Love hotels" of many different kinds in this city.
I told my brother this when he picked us up for lunch today. We were meeting his fiancee's family. His fiancee is named Se Eun by the way, pronounced "Say Oon".
We had a very traditional Korean meal which had who knows how many courses. All I know is that the waitresses kept coming and coming and coming with soups and kimchi, and whole fishes and salads and little dishes with things that I did not recognize. There was a lot of seafood which my mom and I don't really eat, but I felt I had to take one for the team and try everything which included some sort of egg pancake with squid tentacles and oysters and who knows what else. It was a really good experience, and I mean no disrespect to them or to Korean food when I say that there were a few times that I literally gagged after taking a bite.
We loved Se Eun's family though. They could not have been more friendly or more perfect in our minds. Which is fitting because we love her too.
And tomorrow she officially becomes part of our family.
What an interesting couple of days it's been.
We got on our flight in Singapore and it was great. Six hours later we arrived in Seoul and there my brother and his fiancee were waiting and it almost felt like we had never gone on our adventure - like it was three weeks ago and we had just arrived from San Francisco.
My mom wanted to take them shopping for some household items, because home feels a lot more like HOME when you have the little things that you need. So they picked up pots and pans, some silver wear, towels etc. I think they were really happy and grateful. After shopping we went out to dinner to a Korean barbecue restaurant that was SO good! I don't even know all of the different things they brought to us, but there were at least six dishes to work with and they all involved using the beef that was cooking on the middle of the table. It was our first real Korean meal and we really enjoyed it - a lot of different flavors to try and the way that it was cooked by us on the table was really fun. A sort of DIY Benihana...but you know...Korean.
After dinner we got our things together and headed towards our hotel. My brother had never heard of it, so he didn't know where it was but eventually we found it. It turned out the hotel was sort of up an alley-way and in a sort of random part of town. Booking hotels online, especially in a city you've never been to before, is always hard because they tend to put the nicest possible pictures of the place on the website. You look at the site and you think "huh. This looks pretty nice, and it's a good price. Lets book it."
Well as I mentioned in my first post from the trip, my brother really has an interesting way of 'not looking on the bright side'. Always has. Sometimes its funny, sometimes totally predictable and sometimes I want to shake the shit out of him and say YOU ARE NOT BEING HELPFUL. This was one of those times because as we pulled up to the hotel he starts saying "Oh my god. This is where you guys are staying?? This is a LOVE hotel! This is where people bring their Chinese prostitutes. I can't believe you guys are staying here."
Knowing him the way we do, we have to take it with a grain of salt. I mean, most everything he says involves some level of extreme exaggeration. You can tell this is happening when five minutes later he is saying things like "Oh well, I'm sure the ROOMS are fine." And frankly we didn't see any prostitutes around and I was starting to feel kind of sick from dinner and I really had to pee and I figured, seriously, he's never heard of this hotel before, how can he possibly know?
So we take our bags out of the car and start heading up the stairs and I kid you not, the biggest fucking RAT scampers from out behind the door and INTO the hotel "foyer".
I gagged a little bit and then I died a quiet little death.
Meantime my brother's fiancee says the Korean equivalent of OH HAIL NO and goes inside with my mom to convince them to give us a refund.
Eventually she was able to cancel the reservation but it turned out that the hotel we were hoping to change to was all booked. We could have spent all night looking around, but there is a Hyatt near my brother's house that they said "always has vacancies." So we headed over there. The only thing was, the Hyatt was pretty expensive, actually as it turned out it was a little more than three times as much as the other hotels we've stayed in on this trip. And fancy. But as my mom is talking to the front desk I slowly want to kill myself my stomach hurts so bad and I'm thinking for the love of god woman, please just book the hotel for at least one night, I'm dying over here.
So she does. Because honestly we just wanted to be done with the whole thing, and hey, who minds luxury all that much?
It was nice to get into the hotel, after a while I started to feel better, I waited to catch Jon on Skype for a quick chat while my mom dozed off. And I am not kidding you, as I'm sitting there quietly on my twin bed, our next door neighbors start doing "IT" so loudly there was no ignoring it. And unless they were using a clapper light and they were turning it off and on constantly, there was also a lot of spanking going on. And I die for the third time that day.
Apparently, there are "Love hotels" of many different kinds in this city.
I told my brother this when he picked us up for lunch today. We were meeting his fiancee's family. His fiancee is named Se Eun by the way, pronounced "Say Oon".
We had a very traditional Korean meal which had who knows how many courses. All I know is that the waitresses kept coming and coming and coming with soups and kimchi, and whole fishes and salads and little dishes with things that I did not recognize. There was a lot of seafood which my mom and I don't really eat, but I felt I had to take one for the team and try everything which included some sort of egg pancake with squid tentacles and oysters and who knows what else. It was a really good experience, and I mean no disrespect to them or to Korean food when I say that there were a few times that I literally gagged after taking a bite.
We loved Se Eun's family though. They could not have been more friendly or more perfect in our minds. Which is fitting because we love her too.
And tomorrow she officially becomes part of our family.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Singapore on Foot
We had a plan when we got up this morning. First up the Asian Civilizations Museum, then Raffles Hotel for a Singapore Sling and a Shirley Temple and finally a trip to the orchid gardens for some peace and tranquility on our last day here in Singapore.
So we set off, on foot, I with my camera and map, my mom with a scratchy throat but a good attitude. It was a bit of a walk, I mean farther than we would walk anywhere at home, but sometimes it seems like a long walk is a whole hell of a lot easier than figuring out the public transportation system. And so we went.
I saw a lot of cool buildings and colors on the way...
We finally got to where our map said the Asian Civilizations Museum was, in fact, theoretically it was right by the Singapore Art Museum and the National Singapore Museum and that seemed to make sense. But alas it was no where to be found. Our whole time here I have attributed my navigational skills to an infallible map that ultimately, and apparently, led us astray. It was okay though. It was hot as hell (what else is new?) and we were ready to sit down for a drink. As we made our way towards Raffles Hotel it started POURING rain. Like major downpour that would have California freeways STOPPED.
And then about 75 seconds later the rain stopped and we kept walking.
Raffles Hotel opened in 1887 and is named after Singapore's "founder" Sir Stamford Raffles. It's colonial style and Asian-British charm draws in tourists from all over the world. Almost everyone visits the Long Bar where the Singapore Sling was invented - there are peanut shells all over the ground, but the wood and vintage details make the ambiance perfect. As it turns out the hotel has a ton of interesting history (which you can read here, if you like.)
After our drinks we thought we'd head to the gardens, but alas the public transportation issue sort of appeared again. Yes, we could see the stop names on the subway map, but we couldn't really be sure if they were anywhere near where we wanted to go and add in a bus transfer somewhere and you've pretty much lost us. We both figured we didn't care enough about the gardens to shlep all the way over there, so instead we did a little shopping and kept on walking.
I read online that Singapore has the world's largest Ferris Wheel. Actually we saw it when we drove in from the airport and it's huge. Although "ferris wheel" is apparently too puerile a word for this thing and so they call it "The Singapore Flyer - the World's largest OBSERVATION WHEEL." Anyway. I really wanted to get a few photos of this thing, so I tried to steer us towards it.
On the way we found ourselves on the marina which had TONS of construction going on. I counted well over fifty cranes all along the bay's shoreline. I knew from our cab ride from the airport that one thing under construction was a new and fancy casino:
After a few moments of doubt and agreeing that we were both totally drained from the heat and all of the walking, we saw the Singapore Flyer peering over the treeline and we headed over there. I had no intention of going on it. Seriously, I just wanted one sweet photo. Please people, that is just too high and too scary.
But my mom said that dammit if we were walking all the way over there we were going to get on it whether I liked it or not.
I didn't like it. But I agreed. And I also paid for the tickets so that I wouldn't feel bad for staring at my feet the entire time. Come on! It's like 42 stories high! You can see Indonesia and Malaysia from the top!
I looked at the floor for a good portion of the time. Palms sweating, audio guide attached to my ear for distractionary purposes. My mom, bless her brave soul wandered about the cabin and took some photos for me. I took some too, but when I looked out the windows, I made sure to look any way BUT DOWN.
All in all I would say that I'm mostly happy that I went on the Singapore Flyer so that I could A. Blog about it, B. Brag about it and C. Never fucking do it again!!
We grabbed a cab back to Little India and decided to have a late lunch/early dinner. We hit up the same place we ate at yesterday, because hey, why mess with a good thing? It was delicious again.
Anyway. I've loved Singapore. I think one of the best parts about this trip is that every city we have visited has been vastly different from the one before - even if they were in the same country. Singapore has been no exception, in fact if anything, Singapore seems to be many different cities all packed into one.
Tomorrow it is back to Seoul for my brother's wedding, which I'm looking forward to. And then back home again.
Sigh.
Oh Asia. What a whirlwind it's been.
So we set off, on foot, I with my camera and map, my mom with a scratchy throat but a good attitude. It was a bit of a walk, I mean farther than we would walk anywhere at home, but sometimes it seems like a long walk is a whole hell of a lot easier than figuring out the public transportation system. And so we went.
I saw a lot of cool buildings and colors on the way...
We finally got to where our map said the Asian Civilizations Museum was, in fact, theoretically it was right by the Singapore Art Museum and the National Singapore Museum and that seemed to make sense. But alas it was no where to be found. Our whole time here I have attributed my navigational skills to an infallible map that ultimately, and apparently, led us astray. It was okay though. It was hot as hell (what else is new?) and we were ready to sit down for a drink. As we made our way towards Raffles Hotel it started POURING rain. Like major downpour that would have California freeways STOPPED.
And then about 75 seconds later the rain stopped and we kept walking.
Raffles Hotel opened in 1887 and is named after Singapore's "founder" Sir Stamford Raffles. It's colonial style and Asian-British charm draws in tourists from all over the world. Almost everyone visits the Long Bar where the Singapore Sling was invented - there are peanut shells all over the ground, but the wood and vintage details make the ambiance perfect. As it turns out the hotel has a ton of interesting history (which you can read here, if you like.)
After our drinks we thought we'd head to the gardens, but alas the public transportation issue sort of appeared again. Yes, we could see the stop names on the subway map, but we couldn't really be sure if they were anywhere near where we wanted to go and add in a bus transfer somewhere and you've pretty much lost us. We both figured we didn't care enough about the gardens to shlep all the way over there, so instead we did a little shopping and kept on walking.
I read online that Singapore has the world's largest Ferris Wheel. Actually we saw it when we drove in from the airport and it's huge. Although "ferris wheel" is apparently too puerile a word for this thing and so they call it "The Singapore Flyer - the World's largest OBSERVATION WHEEL." Anyway. I really wanted to get a few photos of this thing, so I tried to steer us towards it.
On the way we found ourselves on the marina which had TONS of construction going on. I counted well over fifty cranes all along the bay's shoreline. I knew from our cab ride from the airport that one thing under construction was a new and fancy casino:
After a few moments of doubt and agreeing that we were both totally drained from the heat and all of the walking, we saw the Singapore Flyer peering over the treeline and we headed over there. I had no intention of going on it. Seriously, I just wanted one sweet photo. Please people, that is just too high and too scary.
But my mom said that dammit if we were walking all the way over there we were going to get on it whether I liked it or not.
I didn't like it. But I agreed. And I also paid for the tickets so that I wouldn't feel bad for staring at my feet the entire time. Come on! It's like 42 stories high! You can see Indonesia and Malaysia from the top!
I looked at the floor for a good portion of the time. Palms sweating, audio guide attached to my ear for distractionary purposes. My mom, bless her brave soul wandered about the cabin and took some photos for me. I took some too, but when I looked out the windows, I made sure to look any way BUT DOWN.
All in all I would say that I'm mostly happy that I went on the Singapore Flyer so that I could A. Blog about it, B. Brag about it and C. Never fucking do it again!!
We grabbed a cab back to Little India and decided to have a late lunch/early dinner. We hit up the same place we ate at yesterday, because hey, why mess with a good thing? It was delicious again.
Anyway. I've loved Singapore. I think one of the best parts about this trip is that every city we have visited has been vastly different from the one before - even if they were in the same country. Singapore has been no exception, in fact if anything, Singapore seems to be many different cities all packed into one.
Tomorrow it is back to Seoul for my brother's wedding, which I'm looking forward to. And then back home again.
Sigh.
Oh Asia. What a whirlwind it's been.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Little India and Arab Street
We slept in more than usual today after coming in to Singapore late last night. Our hotel, as I mentioned, is itty bitty, teeny weeny (not pictured here) - smaller than my freshmen dorm room in Chico NO JOKE. But the internet is free and we get HBO, what more could we possibly need?
We are right smack in the middle of Little India and just as our guidebook says, it really does feel like we are in India itself. From the people to the saris and Punjabi suits to the temples and stores around.
It's pretty neat. While we did some shopping today my mom picked up a few long Indian shirts and I got a scarf that I love. We also stopped into an Indian crafts shop and were tempted by everything they had in stock.
And lastly for Little India today, we popped into a nearby Indian restaurant for dinner tonight and it was delicious. As I think about it, I'm pretty sure the only Indian food I've ever had was one chicken dish from a restaurant in San Francisco that also delivered pizza. Needless to say the food tonight was a bit more authentic and I'm glad we ate where we did.
After cruising around Little India this afternoon we made our way down Rochor Canal Road, up Victoria street and over to Arab Street.
Arab street has an enormous number of fabric and embellishment shops from silk to stores completely dedicated to ribbons. We also heard the prayers from the Sultan Mosque playing over the loudspeakers as we meandered through the shops. It was a colorful and interesting place to spend the afternoon.
I'm thinking tomorrow we will see some more classically Singapore sights like the Raffles Hotel and Museum and the orchid and botanical gardens for example. Stay tuned for that.
It is Tuesday and we are going to head back home this coming Sunday. In hindsight I'm not sure where the time went! Arriving in Singapore means we have visited seven cities, five countries, taken nine flights and had twelve stamps and two visas on our passports (so far!)
I guess when I put it that way, it's easy to see where the time went. What an amazing and interesting trip it has been. And yet still more to come. ;)
Phuket to Singapore via Kuala Lumpur
Our time in Phuket was relaxing and a nice change up from the hustle and bustle of the big cities. We spent a lot of time lounging by our hotel's pool which overlooked the Andaman Sea - a perfect turquoise blue body of water that, at night, lit up with the glow of simple fishing boats in the distance. One day at low tide we went across the street to the beach and walked out as far we could go on the rocks and checked out the tide pools. It was pretty neat.
Every evening around 6pm it rained and our last night there had some intense thunder and lightning, but regardless of how hard it stormed it always cleared up within the hour. It was a really beautiful place. Today, before we left for the airport we took a quick trip to Patong Beach which is where the major tourist action is. It really had a sort of Cancun vibe and we were glad that our hotel was tucked away near Kamala Beach where it was more peaceful. All in all I would definitely recommend a trip to Phuket.
We made it to Singapore this evening...Actually it is about midnight and we spent most of the late afternoon and evening traveling. We had a short layover before a connecting flight in Kuala Lumpur which was kind of neat. Our hotel room here is teeny tiny! But we are excited to get out and see the city for the next two full days. So far everything that you hear about Singapore being the cleanest city ever is completely true - even down to the grooming of plants and trees, its pretty incredible. When I mentioned this to our cab driver he said, very practically, "Well. Yes, this is where we are living it is good to make a habit of keeping it nice."
Hm. Certainly makes sense to me.
Every evening around 6pm it rained and our last night there had some intense thunder and lightning, but regardless of how hard it stormed it always cleared up within the hour. It was a really beautiful place. Today, before we left for the airport we took a quick trip to Patong Beach which is where the major tourist action is. It really had a sort of Cancun vibe and we were glad that our hotel was tucked away near Kamala Beach where it was more peaceful. All in all I would definitely recommend a trip to Phuket.
We made it to Singapore this evening...Actually it is about midnight and we spent most of the late afternoon and evening traveling. We had a short layover before a connecting flight in Kuala Lumpur which was kind of neat. Our hotel room here is teeny tiny! But we are excited to get out and see the city for the next two full days. So far everything that you hear about Singapore being the cleanest city ever is completely true - even down to the grooming of plants and trees, its pretty incredible. When I mentioned this to our cab driver he said, very practically, "Well. Yes, this is where we are living it is good to make a habit of keeping it nice."
Hm. Certainly makes sense to me.
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