Chopsticks

you can judge the price of your meal in asia by the chopsticks you eat it on. Cheap meals come with packaged bamboo sticks that although seperate, still need to be rubbed together to remove the slivers. Pricy meals are served with black chopsticks that are heavy plastic and much longer than the bamboo variety.

People over here have mad skills with these tools. I have heard lore that many people can de-shell a pawn (big shrimp) with only chopsticks, and have whitnessed people pass a credit card by only holding the edges from person to person like this

0 (stick head on)

l (card so you can read the numbers)

o (stick head on)

people pick up peanuts one at a time with their chopsticks, this is a very common appetizer. I am fully capable of this activity and do not look like a fool. I also was in a chopstick race to pull out chunks of over cooked tofu from a hotpot, and bested one of my hosts. I was proud to the max. Moments later I promptly failed to remove a large glass noodle from the pot and had my status revoked to beginner. At least im not a noob. Noob is the girl who had a stopover in singapore for 8 hours who we took to dimsum. She had no idea how to pick up nor hold the sticks, in her defense she was black, and ethipoian (maybe?). She struggled with the items, and eventually a housemate commented that it was actually embarassing and that they should now check their friends chopstick skills before taking them in public so that they would not be so embarassing.

In conclusion, please practice eating with chopsticks. This is an important utensil that you will come across at some point in your life, and want to not look like a fool. So go cook a normal dinner then eat it with chopsticks, if you are concerned that you will suck, just eat by candlelight, the things you drop will not be as apparent, and you can blame your suckiness on the lighting.

Sauna

My new roomates like to sauna. this is new to me as I had only done it a handful of times in the states. They call it traning. The weather out in singapore is humid, and it rains about 5 times a week. but only for about 30 minutes each time. So my first sauna was a miserable experience, we go down to the 8th floor wearing only swimsuits and sandals, an interesting elevator ride, since other people besides us are in the elevator are dressed up, oh well its not the first time.

The sauna is a room wih fiber optic lights that changes tones and twinkles, in the deep steam this is very neat and reminds me of the auroraborealis but only in white and yellow (and yes I have never whitnessed the auroraborealis but thats life). the tempature goes to 50. I think thats a lot, the conversions are still not useful. So we turn it on and wait for the tempature to be just right. We enter and the steam is still only at the cieling, and in talking our voices echo. The room gets steadily warmer, and more misty. The sounds become muffled and our voices stop echoing about, the steam fills the room and things get hot.

This is not a regular hot, like man I am sunburned, or ate too much chili sauce on my noodles. This is an all over sweat, that makes you cough, and there is only one problem, the tempature is still rising.  I become concentrated on breathing deeply and slowly (strange with so much water in the air) and drop out of the conversation. Things keep going and I feel as if I am melting. I methorically throw in the towel and say that i cannot handle the heat and am going to take a breather. I untangle my feet from my ball position and place them on the floor only to have them seared by steam shooting out of a jet! sooo hot on the tops of the feet. I dance out of the room committing a huge sauna foul, by swinging the door as wide as it goes very fast. This lets loads of cold air in and the “good” stuff out.

I Stand dripping sweat, steaming in the middle of a tile room, thinking wow that is way to hot. I cannot go back in. I opt for a shower and just wait out the rest of their session.

Since this initial first “sauna-son” my tollerence has improved greatly, today i went for almost 30 minutes at 50. I have noticed that the “traning” has helped me sweat less while walking arround.

Simply awesome

Just imagine with me for a moment. You are as rugged as Chuck Norris, and as LOUD AS BILLY MAYS, (MAY HE REST IN PEACE)!!! and as interesting as this guy. For starters you are a very well rounded individual, and as such you should congratulate yourself. Now delve deeper into your new life and try to exert yourself doing the manliest thing possible which is raking dirt of course, without a shirt on. The familiar rumble of your empty stomach happens upon your ears. This is not just a regular hunger, this is the hunger that causes you to dream of food while you work. As your mind wanders you begin to make parings of interesting things. And today’s paring is a combo of the carnival, and caveman. I have no idea how these things come together but hey its imagination so don’t fight it.

So after the initial giggle of a caveman walking arround coney island, its business time, the cave man has a huge hunk of mammoth steak, and needs somewhere to cook it. The first thing he comes across is a candy stand, Cotton candy to be more specific. The cave man deals a practiced blow to the teenager behind the stand, and knocks him to the ground. Caveman next opens the machine, takes out the sugar because he knows diabetis is a serious problem, and smashes in the steak. The machine whines and churns but still produces the fluffy stuff that it was designed to do. The strands are brown color instead of the typical neon hues. Caveman takes his hunting club and inserts it into the basin and begins to spin it arround after a few moments the strands catch and begin to take the form of edible clouds.

After the club is laden with more delicious meat cloud that the man can possibly eat in a week, he grunts with satisfaction and walks away to enjoy his new cullinary delight amongst the wonders of the carnival.

- But in getting back to reality, this meat cloud exists. Today I had the pleasure of eating meat that took a form simmilar to cotton candy. It is called chicken floss. Literally deep fried chicken strings as delicate as cotton candy. This food is awesome. Im sure they have it in the states too, because I have seen it at 99 ranch market. So today make ammends witn your inner caveman as well as your carnival grandmother and go do something manly and chase it with a delicious meat cloud.

The tastes of Singapore

So here is a fun fact, Singapore is a country, the state is also Singapore, and the city is also Singapore. Crazy!

We eat most meals at LPS (lau Pas Sat) this is a known as a hawker center. A hawker center is a glorified place where street vendors can sell their food. Their are probably 100 stalls, all selling whatever makes them happy to eat. There is rice, meat, noodles, veggies, fruit, pasteries, fish, steamed, fried, combo, baked, dried, cold, hot, whatever you want is here. The catch is that often I have no idea what is that they are selling. Most pictures look the same.

A typical menu consists of option 1. Base of rice or with something on top obscured by veggies piled even higher. 2. Base of noodles with something simmilar but still you cannot tell what it is with veggies on top. 3. soup, all you see is color of soup with veggies on top. 4. something completely different that is a toxic yellow and has eyeballs, 5 fried something that looks crunchy in the picture but will be soggy in real life.

So you look at the pictures and then just pick one, they have names but the number is easier to use, seriously though they have names but I dont speak indian, chineese, japaneese, Asian in general, and usually butcher it and have the cook ask what? then I point.

Most of the food is delicious, other times it is major fishy and sucks real bad. After ordering you go to a stall that sells drinks, and can get all sorts of things from a can of beer, soda, fresh squeezed juce, fresh squeezed cane juice (super good), milk tea (no boba), bottled water, and a bunch of things I have not tried yet.

A typicall dinner is less than 5 local money. It looks like monopoly money, and actually has portions of plastic inserted into it that are see through. Yay money with windows! also the paper is super slick, feels like its mostly plastic, but when your hands are moist it sticks quite well.

When you get your food you sit at small tables surrounded by stools, hunch over and slurp it up. The portions are gigantic, and at first I did not finish, only to be reprimanded that it was rude not to finish. So I did, and then wondered how these people stayed so skinny if they all ate the whole thing? oh well i guess MSG just helps keep off the lbs.

In the mail we recieved coupons for delivery from KFC, and McDonnalds. I did give in to eating McDonnalds already but in my defense it was only an ice cream cone, and I eat those in the states, so its not a fail as a tourist. The street vendors sell ice cream sandwiches made with ice cream scooped into a real piece of sandwich bread that has been tiedied and swirled and looke like a bad austin poweres shirt. It makes me laugh how literal they took this, ice cream sandwich, and I think of grandmas boy where the grandma makes the same type of ice cream sandwiches. If you have not seen this movie please go do. Its amazing. Ok enough for now back to work.

Singapore

I have landed in singapore after an incredibly long flight. it is a strange place. the signs are in english and everyodys primary language is also english so the landing was soft. I realized I am a giant over here when we got off the plane. I was standing in line for immigration and was able to see all the way to the front. Its a strange feeling being 8-10 inches taller than most people.

In singapore everything is super efficient. Doors all have buttons you push to open them although they do have handles as well. The tempuature is balmy and hot. I get sweaty from walking only 2 blocks, Most places are air conditioned. The escalators and other people movers slow down when not in use to conserve power, then when somebody steps on them they gradually speed up to normal speed. People work an insane ammount here. The housemates rise and are at their desks by 7:30am they return home somewhere beteween 8 and 10pm.

We went for lunch to meet Mr. Boss (actual name- and its funny because he is the boss) and had a beer while we waited for the prefered table to open. Beer is insanely expensive. perhaps 10 singapore dollars for one glass. Its so expensive the dury free shop only sold 3 cans per pack. we sat down at the table and it was worth the wait. The table was situated on a very busy sidewalk corner inbeteween 2 huge shopping epicenters. I ate this noodle dish called Mi-Gor-ang. it was amazing like most of the food I have eaten out here. I watched the people walk by and here are my observations.

Girls look way better than back home. All are skinny, mostly fashionable, all wear high heels, makup is a must and they put some effort into it, also accessories are critical nobody mismatches handbag with pumps or scarf with sunglasses. Mr Boss best stated this when he noted that “the women look like all women should”.  The guys all wore dark fitted trowsers, and a light collared shirt tucked in unbottened 2 buttons from the collar, with the sleves rolled up. The shoes were all black leather dress shoes, and a nice belt.

I currently stay at this place called “the Sail” we live on the 19th floor. when I look out the window I can see about 8 high rise buildings being constructed. workers build these bad boys 24 hours a day. their are always cranes going, lights flashing, and cement pouring. I also have a great view of the bay where container ships park/ load-unload. The appartment is sweet. It has great ammenities like gym on the 8th floor, huge pools (one shallow one for kids, one long one for laps, one for exercizing, one spa, one steam room) trahs schutes, and other things that suprise me all the time.

I am currently under the employment of a medical travel company doing websites, design work, and basic technology consulting. I might get to help with a CRM solution, and also about infinity more things that are technology oriented. I will tell you all about that in a short bit. Now its back to work.

Great day

It was a great day and it started like this.

Beach at 10:00 lubed up and surfing straight away. I suck at surfing so we came back in 45 minutes later to play with the other kids who came along. we bodysurfed, and laughed, and splashed for quite some time.

smashed on an eipc lunch of fluff sandwiches, grapes, watermellon, whitecranpeach juice, as well as cheezeits. at this point raincheck showed up and we all talked, laughed, and decided we needed more water in our life.

Out we strike into the sea, which is now a lighter blue since the sun burned through the clouds. the waves are small, but powerful, and the crouds are nonexistant. soon a lifeguard swims out to us to tell us how powerful the ripcurrents are, and we are like yea duh, we started at tower 10 and now are at 6 and well its only been 15 minutes…

we listen to their recomendations/commands to return to shore, but then we think, common really? I swam for 4 years in HS and then recreationally in college and hit the pool once every week in grad school. The other people arround me have simmilar skills, and nobody is a weak or even moderate swimmer. So i started thinking who is allowed to play and swim wherever they want? this is just not fair, but whatever i really dont want to piss off lifeguards since they have a hard job.

eventually we return to the towels to tan for a quick bit then head home.

once home we jump on bikes and head over to winco from the pimps manor to gather the supplies to make BBQ chicken pizza. We decide its a great adventure so we take a photo every 3 minutes, and decide to make a photoessay out of the whole event. The ride there is smooth and uneventful. we pick the finest ingredients the store has to offer which is not that fine by any standard but they sure are cheap…

We ride back and almost get hit by a black lady making a left turn from a right lane on a stopsign. her windows are down and I shout “Really, Really” in a sarcastic tone mocking her inteligence with every fiber of my being. she still makes the turn and then stops a few feet later, puts her nasty face out of the window, and shouts “I will run your bitch ass over.” I smile and ride on, thinking if she hits me im screwed, so why worry. Then my thoughts shift to am I really a bitch ass, probably not i decide, i chuckle and think about how worked up she is about the situation. and we were clearly there first, we are not as fast as cars, so she is an idot (spelling intentional) with no class and in all honesty is a bitch ass.

we take some photos and ride across a bridge, and arrive to the manor. we cook and make delicious BBQ chicken pizza out of fresh dough with toppings like roasted garlic, motzerella, bbq chicken, daves insanity hot sauce, sweet baby rays mosquite honey sauce, and red onions. Its delicious. We get all giggly at the table because the food is soo good, and we had some helpings of arbor mist (we keep it classy!).

after dinner is done we clean and then go play tennis. we have 5 people, and 4 rackets so we play odd man out. if you suck you rotate out, of the losing team. this proves well and good in theory but the arbor mist is making out athlieic prowess misty, and we strike out often. But the non drinkers are good sports about it and we have a great time. we all played in sandals and nobody got hurt.

This day was amazing, a perfect farewell to california and friends just in time to head out to the orient.

Slacker city

Yep I suck at keeping this thing updated but well you get busy living or get busy dying. needless to say I got busy living and did not have time to write. I did amazing things like read in Em’s wedding, and took a vacation to Santa Barbara to cook for some friends, and play a board game, also I continued to hang out with raincheck, and even managed to be social in the process, finished selling my soul to an internship for free, and managed to prep for Singapore and will leave Friday (tomorrow). I will be back in 2 months, and am excited to go.

Many reasons keep me excited- not being at home with my parents, being somewhere new, seeing my favorite ginger, vacation, my insatiable yellow fever, the possibility of beign hit with a stick for chewing gum/grafiti/spitting, new foods, customs, languages, and everything that is travel.

I will miss my friends, family, and other things like climbing rake rocks with my friends, riding my bike, driving,  my pumpkin patch, and california summer weather.

Declaration

I have tried to write a new style of gushy, lovedovey style for the last few posts. It was a stretch. I really don’t like the results, but read if for yourself. From here on in, it will be back to my old style of straight up storytelling, with brutal comments and scathing inner dialogues.

enjoy the comming adventures that spare the romantic details in place of bla bla bla. feel free to comment them in yourselves in the comment sections.

Raincheck (part 4)

At the base of the stairs is now myself, raincheck, friend, boy who almost fought on rainchecks behalf, and a few other people. The other people take the dog outside, and the other 2 say some wispers (mostly about us) smile big then leave. Now it is just raincheck and myself. She asks if she can walk me to my car, I accept. Once outside the air is cool and moist. We walk to my car and she comments on how dirty it is. I dont much feel like discussing how i dont like to clean the outside, so I let it ride. She draws in the dirt and I think to myself well now im going to see that every time I get in and out of my car for a long while since I dont wash it except every time I get an oil change, but oh well.

The conversation slows and she looks at me with the beautifu soft eyes that are drained of their vibrance because of the harsh yellow glow spread by calcium streetlights. She speaks in just above a wisper, “I would like to use that raincheck now”, and places her arms arround my neck. My skin goosebumps with anticipation I smile and our faces move towards eachother until I can feel the warmpth coming from her lips.  We kiss. The kiss starts slow, just with the lips. then the tempo increases and our tongues dance. she bites my lip and pulls (and enjoyment shoots through my brain leaving a brilliant white leftover that only knows the moment and cannot live for anything but now). We breathe as one person, perfectly in time, with quiet kisses in the yellow orange colorless world that accosts my eyes as I open them. (I don’t want to tell too much detail but I am sure you get the picture, this this continues for a bit)

After another break in the action, I hug her close and whisper my goodnight, she replies thanks, goodnight. we part and she takes 2 steps backward our eyes still locked then turns toward the house. one step more, and she pauses, piviots and leaps toward me with a grace of a dancer. Her posture is perfect, I take a mental photo and know i will be falling alseep thinking of her like this tonight. Her hair flowing backwards, arms extened for ballance, leg muscles pulling her lightly colored jeans taught. she lands softly and extends her neck as she bends at the hips to lean forward and kisses me one final time with no hands. Like a soft high five of the lips. I smile inwardly realizing that in fact I too  wanted one lass kiss, but decided to let it go. Now she had taken the initiaive and in doing so made my evening.

I drive home thinking about the last moments, her taste still on my lips mingled with the strong chemical minty flavor of her breath. I park and began to reply to the myraid of texts i recieved while driving, but then realize that a phone call might just save my thumbs from carpeltunnel, and allow me to make it to bed faser. I telleconference my friends who were asking for details, along with all the dirt. I tell a far inferior tale to them and consider it practice for the one I am writing now. I know i should not kiss and tell, but it is just so fun.

Raincheck (part 3)

Saturday I went to an art exhibit. I was dissapointed in a big way. I attended a ceramic gallery, and all the works on display were by a so called master of illusion. His clame to fame was that he made amazing works that resembled other thigs and were designed to fool you so you think it is not made out of clay and glaze.

well this artist was in fact good, however his compositions were terrible, he made paintbrushes, erasers, chalkboards, chalk erasers, corkboards, and loads of other clasroom stuff. The majority of his work was set in a series of clasrooom styles. he had pictures of dinosaurs on coarkboards, or finger paintings of cavemen, and scribbles, or doodles. pretty much artistically uninspiring. he used his sikll to recreate childrens kindergarden works out of clay! what a waste of tallent if you aske me. Nobody would want to have these displayed in their homes except teachers, and there is no way a teacher is going to pay $6,500 for a fake coarkboard, dino fingerpainting, and eraser composition made of clay. teachers have access to these for free… rediculous. I was dissapointed that he had wasted so much of his own time, as well as mine. Good thing I had plans afterward otherwise things might have gotten dicey as i continued to be surrounded by such things.

I left and headed out to play a poker game over at Yellowfeather drive. It was a 5 dollar buy in and the characters at the table were very interesting. 2 were super serious wearing dark sunglasses, and hoodies. Another was drinking a boot full of beer clearly in his mind getting better at poker by the second, an aZn housemate who did not know the rules of poker, the host with the most was busy throwing a party, and keeping guests happy and ultimately distracted but still managed to play a great game, and a girl who nicknamed everybody church style, with attribute, animal, then the persons name which all started with the same letter (example: Smelly Snake Sarah) and she managed to name the table in about 2 minutes and remember them all night long and use the to address people.

The game was enjoyable, and after about 2 hours I lost, I was not the first out! yay me! After losing I changed tables to a game of kinds cup. As i sat at the table and joined in 2 girls who I had not met before were suddenly all about me. throwing me looks, and batting their eyes. I decided they were drunk, and I was new so obviously things were about to get interesting. I pulled a card and got to make a rule, I enstated the “Goulag” a rule where everytime you break a rule you have to go put your nose in the corner and be in time out until somebody replaces you. the first to the corner is one of the drunk girls who was giving me eyes earlier, she is happy to have my attention and follow my instructions, Bam to the corner. she whines several times about how lonely it is in the corner, and nobody cares. her face gets more and more depressed. She eventually swaps out with her friend and things are going great. the goulag is awesome! and makes everybody but the person in timeout laugh very hard. The game ends and the girls who got sent to the goulag the most are super wasted, and one looks seriously sad, I think she took it personal, I appologise and try to make ammends, but come to find out her boyfriend is being mean, and not answering her calls. (insert sarcasm- because i think its terrible whenevery boyfriends are sleeping not taking calls, she agrees) she goes upstairs to cry and her friend goes to help her out. Bam that simple no more super drunk girls trying for my attention.

later in the evening, things get spicy when Raincheck girl shows up. I was not expecting her to be present but what can you do. When it rains it pours (ooooooouch i need better lines) I spend some time ignoring her, and talking to other people in the same room. Whatever.

Later in the evening things really heat up when some drama goes down. This guy is toutching rainchecks face, he is the current boyfriend of one of rainchecks best girlfriends. She says stop, then a guy who lives at the house backs her up, and says loudly. She said stop, so take your hands off her. The guy says oh yea what are you going to do about it? Resident says i will kick you out of this house after I beat you a bit. The guy says something close to prove it. people get involved and jump inbeteween the two, and he gets kicked out, and the girl leaves too. Things simmer for a bit then return to normal.

I hide a friends keys since she is not ok to drive and we spend some time determining she is drunk by doing ballance acts, as well as just messing with her. bla bla bla night goes on give the keys back she leaves.

I decide its time for me to go and begin saying goodbyes. As I am doing this, the girl that introduced raincheck to me says very slowly with all the seriousness a drunk person can muster: “Stay right here, and whatever you do dont leave, raincheck told me not to let you leave without saying goodbye to her.” I wait at the bottom of the stairs, get distracted by the dog who is eating a sock, chase the dog, help get the sock. then return to the stairs where their are now many people gathered.