Chili Crab

Its 3am and I can't sleep. Last night we went to a french Walmart-ish store called Carrefour. Its huge and well stocked with lots of walmart-esque items. Funny thing is that they still didn't have anything awesome. They had awesome stuff buth nothing distinctly awesome enough to bring home. Well, I kinda wanted the 21 dollar tent which would have been like 16 dollars US money. After that we went to some seafood restaurant called Long Beach. They had some seriosuly crazy seafood but no seahorse. Our waiter and apparently the whole staff understoof about 3 words of english. It was awesome but the family hated it. Scott order something called chili crab and its basically a crap with all of the insides scooped out of the shell and blended up into a gravy of sorts and then poured over the shell and the other parts to make the hugest bowl of mess ever. It was super spicy to me so I only had a teeny portion. I instead had live drunken prawn which was a bowl of monster shrimp, 2 sizes bigger than super jumbo shrimp. They bring a bowl of live prawns to the table, pour a shot of liquor in, swirl them around and then run away and cook them, heads and all. Scotts poor brother is going to starve here. He had a chicken dish and nothing else. He hates scary food.

So let me tell you about the super futuristic state of the art everything here. You buy this card at the gas station (7-11's are everywhere). You insert the little credit card like thing into he card reader in your car. Each car has one. When you go to parking decks, a machine reads the cards and when you leave it automatically deducts the fee. The same thing happens on pay roads. It just magically deducts it and you never have to stop. So in the parking decks they have sensors at each space. If the space is empty there is a green light and if its full there is a red light. Blue is for handicapped. The garage won't open the gate if there are no available spaces. But when one comes up, the gate opens and the signs direct you to the openings!!! Its so cool!

Tomorrow we get up early and meet the luxury coach at 9:30ish to go to Kuala Lumpur. We will ry to see the Petronas towersand the Batu caves. I imagine there will be a good deal of walking around just looking at everything. I probably won't be computerized so I may not be able to update for the next couple of days.

Bye!

Changi village and pulau ubin

Today we went to Changi. Its a tiny ramshackle town area where the boats to Pulau Ubin converge and depart. We ae some vendor booth foods immediately upon arrival. I had some steamed dumpling type things and scott ae some fish and chicken and rice concoction. Everything so far has benn close to delicious if not actually delicious. Scott's brother is one of the most finicky (sp?) people in the world. Seriously, I thought I was bad. But he's making due and not starving to death.
So after some food we caught the ferry to Pulau Ubin. The ferry should have sank. It was a scary number with peely paint and scrapped together benchs. The limit per ferry is 12 passengers and there were 14 at one point. Thats not too many so I was okay with it. It wasn't like those busses in India with goats and chickens and people hanging off of the sides. The exhaust almost killed me though. As its motor struggled along I coughed and coughed. Seriously, the engine sounded like a jackhammer outside of your bedroom window after a hard night of drinking. Pulau Ubin is a small island off Singapore and it is like falling into the 50's apparently. I believe the island is a national park but maybe only parts of it are. We rented bikes along with everyone else and took off on a small adventure. My bosses would be proud that I went mountian biking on vacation and didn' get hurt! Well, we don't know if we have Malaria yet but we did indeed forget bugspray. A lot of tin huts line the paths and everything is rusty and old. Its truly awesome though. We rode all over and made our way to an awesome wetland area. The parents and Lenny Jr opted out of the strenuous climb to get there so Scott and I did it on our own. At the end of a long and gruelling climb there was a tower to look out over the water. Spectacular. Its cool being above the tree line. Then we walked across the path to see the jetty and the welcome center. The welcome center was very well done with informational displays about the wildlife and a big aquarium for rehabilitating injured sealife. The birds around there were crazy too. One sounded like Mariah Carey stuck on a high note but uop in the trees. And maybe it WAS Mariah Carey up in the trees but I couldn't spot her. Fresh coconut milk is gross.
Oh, after the island we went to the Changi prison museum. Apparently the Japanese were real assholes to Singapore during world war II.
Thats all I've got for now. I'm going to rest up before the night adventures.
Claire, to answer your question go to http://www.watertours.com.sg/ to see dragon boats. It should be on there. And Scott said hi.

Where I stay

So, Scott's parents have a nice condo on the 16th floor of a highrise. It has 3 bedrooms and quite the view of the harbor. You can see all the huge ships at port. I don't know anything about ships or I would tell you more, all I know is that they are large to huge in size.
Anyway, where we are staying has a really beautiful pool and a nice gym. The condo itself has its own bomb shelter! Traditionally the bomb shelter also doubles as the servants quarters. Its the size of a small to medium walk-in closet. I can't imagine living in it. But it does have a huge super thick door and could pass as a walk-in cooler. The servants room is right next to the tiny servants bathroom. It doesn't have hot water and the whole room is a shower with the toilet and sink in it.
Everyone takes a while to get ready and so I sit here, dressed and ready to go, watching TV and playing on the computer. Usually on vacaion this is a no-no, but I'll let it slide this time.

Today we plan to go to Changi village, whatever that is, and later to take a dragon boat ride through the harbor to see the big ships up close.

Medicine in Singapore

So, you know how you always think about asia as a place where you don't need prescriptions to get almost any drug you want? Well, thats all lies in Singapore. I am having an allergy attack. The post nasal drip has been consistent since I arrived. First the plane trip sucked all of the moisture out of me and now I have a cough that is irritating me to no end. Oh, I'll just get some Claritin or something- its a city right? Wrong. You need a doctor prescription just to get ibuprofin here! The medicine section of stores is non-existent. Luckily they have ricola so that will have to do. It'll do until I go get some foot reflexology! I may get some acupuncture or acupressure too. This place is teaming with Chinamen that know exactly what to do.

Day 1

We did some sightseeing today. It was rainy all day so that put a damper on things. We did some driving around town and saw some neat things. We went and had lunch at a food court. I ate at the booth next to fish ball soup and got a duck and rice concoction and some wonton-y things. Afterwards, mostly we shopped. We went to this crazy mall, actually all malls are some sort of crazy, but the mall we went to was electronics only. Its HUGE and everywhere are people trying to get you to buy their camera or i-phone or other gadgets. Oh, and in the same mall was the dirty sex toy shop. I didn't go in but I took some pics of gadgets in the window. heheh. We went to an awesome music store where the awesome salesperson taught us all about everything. Seriously. He was super cool and patient and loved teaching us about gongs and guitars and flutes and he let me wear a dragon head and it was awesome. Later we went to a different mall and looked around. The place was filled with incense and the salespeople are much more aggressive than I'm used to. My jet lag caught up and I had to nap after a bit. When i got up we went to dinner. It was a place like Ciao Baby in Alanta where you collect your veggies and noodles and meats and then the sauces and then they cook it for you. It was very pricey but I think it was mostly due to location- it was in a fancy complex that reminds me of the Hard Rock complex in Ft. Lauderdale or Underground in Atlana (but fancy, not seedy). I ae fish balls in my noodle bowl concoction. It was good! Later, after dinner Scott and I went to Chinatown. His brother and father wanted to go see Kung Foo Panda but I didn't fly for 26 hours to go to he movies. So we caught a Trike-shaw, the bicycle rickshaw, and went to chinatown. I think thats where the dirt in Singapore goes. This town is sparkly clean except there. Scott went to a bathroom and someone shat right on the floor in a pile of tissue. Um, sir, they provide a hole with water to take that icky away. Chinatown is like booth after booth of exactly the same stuff. I did smell a Durian fruit though. BLECH! It does smell like wha I imagine a dead 89 year old womans underwear would smell like. Vomit! And people eat that! I'm beat. No more from me.

I made it!

Well, I made it to Singapore, but just barely. See, afer the toruous flight from Chicago to Japan, I decided to sretch out on a bench and get some rest. I wasn't able to sleep on the plane because it was just too cramped. Oh, and they had so many movies for me to watch! Anyway, I stretched out a few rows away from Scott's broher. I thought he knew where I was sitting but he must not have heard me say where I was going. Anyway, I stretched out and resting my eyes turned into full slumber. 45 minues later I woke up with a start and realized I was all alone. I ran to the counter, dizzy and confused with sleep. I even had a sleep stripe/ wrinkle down my face. Scot was there at the counter trying to get them to page me. He thought I was shopping when acually I was snoring away. So I did make it onto the plane.
Speaking of planes, let me tell you that if you ever get the chance to fly Japan airlines, do it! Not only are the flight atendants the cutest thing EVER, the service is phenomenal! We were fed a mysterious concoction of items that were salas, some sort of dumpling-ish thing, a peach custardy thing and a rice and fish entree. hey also brought sooooo many beverages! Teas, coffee, water, soda, the works! I'm really looking forward to eating more weird items and seeing my atendant friends on the way home.
So I'm going to go now. Its 9 am saturday and we're gonna go do fun stuff.

I'm on my way!

I'm in the airport in Chicago. Scott says I should just say O'Hare. So I'm at O'Hare. Don't think I'm fancy- this isn't my computer. I'm using his brother's computer because he IS fancy and not only did he bring a computer- he brought TWO! We take off in 2.5 hours. I wish I could have gone to see Rachel while I was here. So close and yet so far away.