Many languages I appreciate...but don't understand.

My fellow residents of the world,

Sorry it's been so long since I've written. Classes and applications for summer jobs have kept me quite busy here, but I'll try to fill you in. Don't worry, you've been on my mind. In the words of LL Cool J, don't call it a comeback.

I spent most of last week trying to figure out my tutorial schedule and get situated in all of my classes. Usually, students here get to "bid" for their tutorial slots online, but exchange students have to go to the individual offices of each department and apply for tutorial slots at the front desk. As you can imagine, it's pretty time consuming.

For my Gender in Malay Societies class, we're supposed to watch 4 Malay films from different time periods and assess how male protagonists are portrayed vs. female protagonists. What my teacher neglected to tell me, however, was that the films have no English subtitles. I am one of two non-Malay people in the entire class, and the other one is a Chinese girl named Shermaine. Ironically, we decided to watch the movies together; so after about 10 minutes of trying to figure out what was going on, we decided to ask the teacher for another copy of the movies. We'll see what happens.

One of the nice things about Singapore is that if I want to do some reading for my classes, but also want to get out for the day, I can just do my homework by the pool. I went with a few friends, and I was getting a little hot so I decided to jump in. After dunking my head in, however, I realized that instead of chlorination, there was salt. I think they just fill the pool with water from the sea, which makes sense, but was a little surprising.

Later on that week, since I wasn't going out of town for the weekend, I thought I'd go to Shabbat services at the local synagogue. There are three synagogues in Singapore, but only one has services every week (actually, every day), and it's named Magen Avot. After getting sufficiently lost downtown and walking in what I think was a 2 mile-long circle, I finally found Waterloo Street. There was a huge Jewish star on the building and some Hebrew, so I knew I was in the right place.

The Magen Avot community is made up mostly of Middle Eastern Jews who migrated to Singapore centuries ago, and a few new Israelis and Americans thrown in the mix; there are also a few Singaporeans who converted, along with the rabbi who is part of Chabad but from Morocco. It's an eclectic bunch. When I went on Friday night, everyone was speaking Farsi (a lot of the members are Persian) and I couldn't understand a thing. They were rushing to get home for Shabbat dinner, so I didn't really get to meet anyone.

When I came back the next morning, it was very different. There were about 3 times as many people, and I got to stay for lunch. It took them a while to warm up to me, but they politely asked where I was from and what I was doing in Singapore. It wasn't long before the woman sitting next to me at our table was pinching my cheeks and telling me I wasn't eating enough, while simultaneously trying to fix me up with her son and inviting me to go shopping. She made absolutely sure I was coming back next week.

After the food, the singing started. I thought my friends at the U of M Hillel were animated singers, but this group was something else. I didn't recognize a lot of the tunes, since they were Mizrachi, but I was able to clap and drum the table along with everyone else. I also really enjoyed the adorable singing coming from the little yeshiva-bocher in the corner. I think it's a requirement for being a Chabad rabbi's son that you have to sing really loudly and in a high pitched voice. Adorable.

After lunch, I wandered around downtown a little bit, checking out the storefronts and skyscrapers. I eventually found my way into the courtyard of the Raffles Hotel, and saw that the remnants of colonialism were alive and well. Named after Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles who colonized the island for the British empire, this hotel is well known as one of the most historic and fanciest hotels in Singapore; they also invented the Singapore Sling. I walked through the gardens and shops, checked out the lobby, and decided that I really wasn't dressed well enough to be there.

Sunday night was the eve of the lunar new year, so a whole bunch of us planned to go see the celebrations together. Before we left, some Swedish students planned a picnic in West Coast Park that was supposed to be like a Swedish Midsummer Party. They barbequed, planned some games, and taught us a little about Sweden. We had several contests, including trivia about Sweden, a game where you run in circles and then try to run back, a game where you carry a potato with a spoon in your mouth, and a game where you pin a pencil to the back of your pants and try to get it inside a bottle. They also showed us a smorgasbord, with 3 kinds of herring, Swedish caviar and crackers, liquor and sweets. The best part of the evening had to be when they sang us a Swedish drinking song that sounded like a mix between a pirate song and a national anthem. I have it on tape.

After the festivities, we headed down to Marina Bay for Chinese New Year. People were all along the riverfront, and everything was lit up. There were floats of the Chinese zodiac, lit up gardens and bridges, and even a mock set-up of the terra cotta soldiers. All night they had performances by Chinese singers, dancers, acrobats, gymnasts, and other artists. The host spoke mostly in Mandarin, and I didn't really know what was going on, but I've never seen anyone contort themselves or balance themselves the way these performers could, and it was absolutely amazing. At midnight they had a countdown in Mandarin and set off a huge firecracker show.

Chinese new year lasts 15 days, but schools and work are only cancelled for the first two. On Tuesday, as part of the celebrations, the President opened up his palace grounds to the public, so we decided to go. We had to wait in line for a while and go through security, but pretty soon we were allowed into the Istana (Malay for palace). The grounds were gorgeous, with rivers running through and performances and activities set up on the lawns.

Once we got into the actual palace, we weren't allowed to take pictures, but everything was stunning. On display were gifts the president had recieved from foreign dignitaries, and let's just say the gifts from the US weren't looking so great in comparison to the ones from Kuwait. We saw the banquet halls, press hall, sitting rooms and lobbies, and maybe I'm a geek but I thought it was really cool.

On the way out, we struck gold. Stationed at all times in front of the palace are guards from the Singaporean military, but they're not allowed to move, not even their eyes. I had a field day. We all took pictures with them, tried to amuse the crowds standing nearby, and probably made complete fools of ourselves. Nobody from security seemed to mind, and the guards never said anything about it. They never said anything at all.

I spent the rest of the day hopping from museum to museum, since they all had free admission for Chinese New Year. I had a nice balance of historical art, contemporary art, and displays of artifacts. I went to the Singapore Art Museum, the Asian Civilizations Museum, the Peranakan Museum, and didn't even make it to the National Museum of Singapore. I got to walk along Boat Quay, see City Hall, Supreme Court and the Parliament House, and even stopped by the historic statue of Sir Raffles (see my Blogger profile picture).

After all this, I went to Jie Bin's house for a steamboat dinner (traditional Chinese New Year meal). I must have had 15 different kinds of sweets, a lot of tea, pastries and nuts, and a lot of good conversation. Steamboats are giant pots of broth where everyone puts in different vegetables, fish, tofu, noodles and meat, and when they're cooked, they float and you can take them out to eat with some rice. Jie Bin's mom knew I keep kosher, so she even made me my own separate bowl of broth! She gave us two mandarin oranges to symbolize good wishes, and a red packet of money to symbolize success and prosperity. It was a really nice dinner, and after some drinks and games, I headed home.

The next day, after classes, I went to see a Neil Simon play that was put on by a student acting group. The performance centers at NUS are amazing, and it was hard for me to rush inside and stop myself from admiring the architecture. The play was very cute, and I met up with some friends at Clarke Quay afterward.

Yesterday, I was invited to another steamboat dinner by a friend. I thought it was just a random group of students getting together, but a little while into the evening I found out that it was actually an activity for a student group called "Campus Crusade for Christ", and they call the members "crusaders". I don't think they understood the full historical significance of the word, at least not for Jews. Me, having dinner with crusaders. My Zayde (grandfather) would turn in his grave if he knew.

I was a little uncomfortable, but the people there were really nice and made sure that we had enough to eat. The staff advisor heard that I didn't eat shellfish, so she asked if I was a Jew. After an awkward moment or two, I said yes, and she gave me a polite smile. Like I said, it was a little uncomfortable. It turns out that she applied to Michigan for her MBA, so we were able to carry on a little bit of conversation after that.

We also had a dish where you pour different noodles, vegetables, nuts and crackers into a bowl, and mix it all together. Each of the ingredients symbolizes something, and everytime you pull your chopsticks out to mix, you're supposed to yell a word of good fortune and try to get the food as high as you can into the air. It was really fun, really delicious, and really messy. By the end of the night, we were well-fed and very tired, so we headed back to the dorms and watched a movie.

This weekend, I'll be going to Chingay parade and some concerts, so I'll make sure to update you as soon as I can! Gong xi fa cai!
Until next time,
Lizzy

More Pictures!

Hey everyone,

I just posted another album!  You can view it at:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2515762&l=4686f&id=2253943

Selamat Malam,

Lizzy

Running on empty...and a little fried rice

Hey friends,

Last Monday was somewhat uneventful.  I tried to rearrange my classes and get a few other things in order, and that night a few of us decided to head to Holland Village to check out a bar called Walla Walla.  Joanna's friend Mike said that one of his favorite local bands was playing, so a big group of us checked it out.

The bar was one of the first I've seen that looked pretty American.  When I say that, I mean I didn't feel out of place because I wasn't wearing next year's fashions, but the place was relatively laid back and the drinks weren't outrageously expensive.  The band did covers of college hits from the past 10 years or so, and they were actually pretty good.

The lead singer could imitate the style of almost any singer, and sounded completely American.  Much to our surprise, a few songs into the first set, he started talking to the crowd in an Indian accent.  He'd go back to singing, no accent, and then start talking, and sound like he was straight from Tamil province.  Myself and two girls named Vicki and Shruti just watched in amazement.

The next day I started classes, and before getting to my first lecture I got lost about five times.  I took the bus a few stops past where I should have, walked to the wrong cluster, then to the wrong lecture theater, and finally made it to Nation-Building in Singapore about 20 minutes late.  It was a huge lecture hall, so nobody even noticed, and the Teaching Assistant was just going over the syllabus for the semester.

One of the strange things about students in Singapore is that they are extremely competitive, but don't kiss up to teachers very much.  In this class and several others, the students would carry their own conversations while the professor was teaching, and no one would even pretend to whisper.  But after class, when you rush straight to the library to check out a book on the syllabus, it's already gone.

The assistant then went on to show us slide after slide of statistics about Singapore.  Best place to do business, best Asian country to do banking and finance, best airport in Asia, most degrees per capita in Southeast Asia, highest GDP and GDP per capita in Southeast Asia, best quality of life in Southeast Asia, etc.  After all of this, there was a slide that said in huge letters: BUT...most unhappy people in Southeast Asia, and one of the most unhappy people in the world.

I admit, it definitely caught my attention, and the other students seemed intrigued as well.  With that, the instructor left us hanging and told us that the class would teach us the complex realities of nation-building, and how all of those Singaporean statistics came to be.

After class, I headed to a Welcome Tea put on by the International Students Office, and was proud to be the only one in the auditorium raising my hand when they asked if anyone knew any type of African dance.  (They were only asking because they wanted us to organize a show, and I'm no expert; I took Congolese Dance for a semester.)  After walking around, my flip-flop broke, so I awkwardly alternated between sliding my way from place to place and going barefoot.

The next day I had class straight from Noon to 6 pm, and got lost again.  Twice.  Class discussions were really enjoyable, although I was pretty intimidated by how much the Singaporean students knew about American foreign policy, especially during past administrations.  The best remark of the day had to come from my Confucianism and Daoism teacher, who said "For the most part, generalizations are useful, until they become useless."

After my Contemporary Issues in Singapore lecture, I headed back to the dorms for dinner with some friends.  It was Ladies' Night again, but this week we decided to try Double O and skip the awkward platform dancers.  We had to show up really early (around 9) to beat the rush, and sat around for a few hours trying to meet other exchange students.  The upstairs of the bar was a club, with several rooms playing different kinds of music.  It'll suffice to say that it was a very fun night.

The next morning was my Gender in Malay Society discussion, and everyone took pity on me for being completely clueless about the NUS academic process.  Some very nice girls from the class showed me the codes for library withdrawals and copying, and promised to let me know when they were watching videos for class.  I spent the rest of the day wandering around campus for a bit, hoping to save myself from further embarrassment upon getting utterly lost.

Friday morning I woke up early to get ready and pack my bags for Borneo.  A group of about 20 exchange students had found really cheap flights to this area of Malaysia, and had researched some great activities and places to see.  We took a bus, a subway, and an airport shuttle before finally reaching the budget terminal and our Tiger Airways flight to Kuching.

We stayed at a hostel called the Borneo B & B, which seemed more like an international collection of college students staying in an old woman's house than it did a bed and breakfast, but the place was nice.  We had to take our shoes off at the door and the owner was really welcoming.  Seven of us shared a room, and everyone on two floors shared a bathroom.

The interesting thing about Borneo is the view of cleanliness.  Most floors are sparkling, since shoes aren't worn indoors and floors are cleaned multiple times daily.  If you look inside a bathroom, however, it's an entirely different story; most of them look like they haven't seen a mop in years, and the lack of a toilet bowl over the whole in the floor has prompted a term of endearment from our group toward restrooms in Borneo: "squatters".

We ate at what seemed like a really fancy restaurant, but our meals were about 10 Ringgit ($3) per person.  Whoever said that you can tell the class of a restaurant by looking at its bathroom has clearly never been to Borneo, and i'll leave the rest to your imagination.  We spent the rest of the night walking around town, looking at local crafts and seeking hangout spots.

We also ran into Kira, Jill, Leo, and Doug, who had arrived a day earlier and already had amazing adventures.  They had gone to a longhouse, a traditional tribal residence in Borneo, and visited the tribal chief.  After some tea and lots of rice wine, he revealed that the tribe used to be headhunters, and he still had headhunting gear from his grandfather.  They got to see the machete used to decapitate opponents, and the basket that their heads were collected in for a victory celebration.  The also got to wear the tribe's traditional dress and jewelry, and try shooting blowdarts through a 7 foot long instrument that had a spike at the end.  He sat with them and told them stories of the tribe, and they said it was an incredible experience.

The next morning we woke up bright and early to catch a city bus to Bako National Park.  The park isn't accessible by road, so you have to buy your tickets and hire a motorboat to take you across a small section of the South China Sea.  A lovely sign warning of crocodiles in the water greeted us on the docks, and pretty soon we were making our way out.

The water was pretty choppy, and was getting increasingly so the farther out we went.  Our little motorboat was looking smaller and smaller next to the waves, and I started getting very nervous about its resistance to capsizing.  Just as the waves were looking larger than the length of the boat, we saw the boat that was originally ahead of us turning back; upon looking closer, we saw that everyone inside was soaking wet.  They told us that their boat had just gone under a wave.

For some reason, everyone else found this quite thrilling, and my white-knuckled grip of the side of the boat only grew more intense.  The driver assured us that our boat was much bigger than theirs, and could handle much bigger waves.  Besides, he reasoned, he was a very experienced boatman, and had successfully gotten through much worse than this.

He could see I was only the verge of a nervous breakdown, so he asked if we should turn around.  Everyone kept replying, oh no, we're fine, let's keep going.  He would ask again, and everyone would reassure him that they weren't worried.  Finally, I saw a wave heading towards us that looked about twice as high as the length of our boat, and in a very loud and resolute voice, I said, "LET'S TURN AROUND."

Upon seeing the wave, nobody really contested, and so we started zipping back to shore.  Once we got in calmer waters, however, I could see that they were regaining confidence.  We met up with other boats who had also turned around, and our little group of daredevils decided that they wanted to give it another go.  I thought I might lose consciousness.

I suggested they drop me back at the docks, but after a long conversation and what must have been some serious brainwashing, I decided to try again.  This time the waves were even bigger, and I had the death grip on the side of the boat.  The news report e-mailed from my mother about an Indonesian ferry sinking flashed through my head, and I started praying pretty hard.  Just when I was about ready to vomit, another boat's motor broke, and everyone decided to turn around again.

I think my relief was pretty evident by the color returning to my face, and the boat drivers collectively decided that it was too dangerous to take us in high tide.  We would have to wait until closer to noon, when the waves during low tide would be blocked by a mud embankment.  We waited out those few hours with cards, getting-to-know-you games, and snacks we had packed in our bags.

By the time 11 rolled around, the water looked significantly better.  We reached the shore of Bako with little worry on my part, and even got to see a crocodile on the way there (from a safe distance, of course).  We walked along the beach, saw a few monkeys playing around in the trees overhead, and quickly set out on our hiking course.  We were going through complete jungle (or as our Australian friend Lauren called it, the Bush) and made great time.

At the end of one path was a beach that looked straight out of a movie.  If you've ever seen "the Beach" with Leonardo DiCaprio, it looked like that (only, sadly, it was missing Leo).  We stripped down to our bathing suits and jumped in the water, rolling around in the waves like little kids and laughing ecstatically.  After splashing around for a bit, we found a huge rock to climb and took some Survivor-esque photos.

Afterwards, we got back on the trail and kept going.  Over the next little bit, we saw geckos, some really interesting plants and trees, and insects that looked like they were on steroids.  After getting back to the base and having a quick lunch of - you guessed it - fried rice, we took a much more steady boat back and caught the city bus to town.

We spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning up and relaxing until dinner, where we went to celebrate Sam's (one of our travel buddies) birthday.  The restaurant was right on the river, and with the lights all around the city, the view was absolutely gorgeous.  Afterwards, we walked around the area a little more, taking in the beautiful scenery and weather.  We found a hole-in-the-wall bar across from our hostel that was actually a really cool place, and the tables and benches were hand carved from local trees.  We chewed the fat for a bit, and called it a night at a decent hour.

The next morning was an early one yet again, but this time we went to Kubah National Park.  I made the mistake of not eating early enough, and was surprised to find that before we could start the trail we had to hike up a road at a vertical distance of 900 feet.  I was DYING, as was everyone, but we pushed through and finished in a little over a half hour.

Once we finally got to the trail, it didn't get any easier, with a lot of very drastic ups and downs.  I presume that the term "path" was taken pretty lightly by the park ranger, but it let us see some beautiful plant and wildlife.  After about an hour of intense hiking, we finally reached an enormous waterfall and several waterfalls that fell off to the side.  It was absolutely gorgeous, and we immediately, though cautiously, went in the water.

The rocks were very slippery, and people were dropping like flies.  At one point, Jessie turned around and saw Dena lying on her back with her hair in the water.  Apparently she had fallen and hit her knee pretty badly.  It wasn't until later, when she had a bump that looked like a tumor and was bigger than her kneecap, that we understood how hard she had fallen.

In the meantime, we climbed the falls and played under them, while some of the boys decided to climb all the way to the top.  After some time of goofing around, we got back on the trail.  Jeremy took Dena back to the park entrance so her leg could rest, and the rest of us forged ahead.  After some more very intense but very beautiful hiking, we came to a lookout point with a view of a valley, three rivers, and a mountain range.  It was breathtaking.  I tried to take pictures, but it was cloudy, and they just couldn't capture how stunning it really was.

After recovering from the awe we all felt, we looked down to discover that our feet were covered in leeches.  And I mean COVERED.  Jessie had a pretty big freakout, but we eventually got them all off of us (or so Tony thought).  We kept on hiking, and we were going the fastest we had gone all day.  We felt pretty good about ourselves, until we turned a corner and saw that there was no more path.

Gone.  It had been destroyed so much that we didn't even know in what direction to try looking for it.  Apparently there had been a really bad storm recently, and some trees had been knocked over.  These trees that I speak of had trunks that would take about four people holding hands to make a circle around, and about seven of them had fallen in different directions.  At a certain point, we just guessed, and started crawling through brush to try and find something.

We were climbing over and under logs that were absolutely infested with bugs the size of my pinky finger, and we couldn't see more than a few feet in front of us.  This was all on a pretty sharp incline, so at certain points I had to decide between risking a tumble down the hill and into brush, or risking a nasty bite and bug battle by leaning on something for support.  This went on for about 100 meters, and just when I was losing all hope and breaking into hysterics, we saw a clearing.

Screaming with joy and relief, we all fought through the last little bit and came back out onto the other end of the path.  At that point, we only had about 300 meters until the end of the hike altogether, so we used our excitement as energy to finish off the last little bit.  Once we got back to the park headquarters, we sat down for some much needed water and snacks and met up with Jeremy and Dena, whose lump had now flattened but turned dark purple.

We still had about an hour before our cab driver, Jai, was scheduled to pick us up, so we grabbed some lunch.  Guess what they were serving?  FRIED RICE.  We really didn't care, we were starving.

After the ride back, we walked around town a bit before noticing we were covered in mud and smelled like death.  We went back to the hostel to clean up and rest, but as soon as Tony took his shoes off he saw that one of his socks was covered in blood, and a very bloated leech came crawling off of him.  Jessie freaked out once more, and we helped him clean it up.

Dinner that night was delicious, and we felt we had definitely earned it.  We treated ourselves to some shisha (hookah) and Tiger Beer (the local brew) before taking a leisurely stroll around town and along the riverfront.  Some stands were set up with crafts and food, and we had a good time just taking everything in.

The next day we headed off to Semanggoh Rehabilitation Center to see some orangutangs that had been rescued and were now being cared for in their natural habitat.  You basically just stand on a platform and they eat and swing around you.  There's really nothing separating you from them, but as long as you don't have any food or drink with you (which you're not allowed to have), they maintain a safe distance.  The closest they got to being aggressive was dropping a branch on the platform.

There was an alpha male, a female, and several babies all swinging around, helping each other get food and a good resting spot in the trees.  The babies were adorable, and clung to their mother as she climbed, while the alpha male was enormous and had hair that dragged after him like a train.  It was nice to see them all together, and they seemed pretty happy.

Back in town, I decided to try some Foot Reflexology at a place that looked like they wouldn't try any funny business on me.  Some other people got full body massages, but I was curious about this in particular.  It's really interesting, sometimes painful, but definitely worth the experience.  I couldn't tell exactly what part of my foot was linked to which body part, but there were times when I got a vague feeling in my head or stomach, so I think it worked.  In any case, Johann got offered a happy ending, so we all had a good laugh about that after he told us.

After a bit of shopping, we found a taxi and went to Kuching International Airport to catch our flight.  As we were walking into the bathroom, we passed a handcuffed prisoner being escorted by police.  Later on, I unknowingly walked on a red carpet and almost collided with a security team and some Asian dignitaries that apparently deserved this kind of welcome.  Quite the eclectic airport, if you ask me.

Now I'm back, and ready to start another week of classes.  I'm bummed I won't be able to watch the inauguration with my friends tomorrow, but at least they're broadcasting it here so I'll be able to keep up a little bit.  Next weekend is Chinese New Year, so I'm also really looking forward to that!

Sorry again for the long entry, I promise I'll try harder to write more often and keep them short.  Happy MLK day, everybody.  I hope you made it a meaningful one.

Terimah Kasih,

Lizzy

Pictures!

If you want to see some pictures and don't have a Facebook, you can use this public link to view my album:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2511774&l=bdb10&id=2253943

Sorry they're so late, but it actually took hours to upload the photos to an album.

...and then my ears started bleeding

Hey all,

Sorry it's been so long since my last update, but it's been quite an eventful week here.  I last left you before Ladies' Night at the club.  Quite an interesting experience.

We decided to head to Zouk, where Jie Bin, Riya and some other friends were planning to go.  It was one of the nicest clubs I've ever seen in my life (although I guess I haven't seen that many clubs), and I immediately felt not cool enough to be there.  It was supposed to be Mambo Night, although I guess in Singaporean "Mambo" means "Euro-house and 80s hits".  We sat around, drank, danced a little bit, and generally just enjoyed each other's company.  Until they struck.

The guerilla dancers.  It started with one lone guy on one of the club platforms, dancing awkwardly to what seemed to be a choreographed dance routine in his head.  He got some weird looks, but I didn't really pay much attention.  All of a sudden, I turned around and there were 20 of them, all dancing to the choreographed routine, on different platforms, giving wistful looks to the crowd and winking at each other.

The dance was something you'd expect to see in a cheap exercise video, a lot of arm waving and shoulder pops.  The whole club just stared at them for a few minutes with a mix of awe and disgust, until the camera phones and video cameras started coming out.  They were as proud of themselves as ever, giving each other looks that seemed to indicate, "Yes!  We've conquered the club with our impeccable moves.  They love us."

We all expected some advertisement to come out of the experience, or perhaps that they were dancers hired by the club, but the club employees looked just as dumbfounded by their behavior as the rest of us.  By the time we left several hours later, they were still going.

The next morning, I decided to grab a quick meal at the nearby hawker stand before meeting some friends at the campus pool.  Finding truly vegetarian food in Singapore is somewhat of a challenge, since the Chinese think that vegetarian meals can include seafood.  Hindu food is always a safe bet, so I find myself often at Tamil stands.  I ordered a south Indian vegetarian platter, which looked like an enormous feast (and was only $3).

I ate happily, bouncing from dish to dish on the platter, trying to decipher what vegetables and spices were in each.  Some were sweet, some savory, and all had a bit of kick to them.  Overall, it was incredibly delicious.  One stew had something that looked like a flattened green bean, so I quickly popped it in my mouth and started chewing.  Big mistake.  HUGE mistake.

My entire mouth lit on fire, my nose started running, my eyes welled up and it felt like there was liquid coming out of my ears.  It soon travelled through all my sinuses, and the man at the next table started looking at me, seemingly unsure if he should laugh at me or call an ambulance.  I sucked down my entire glass of water chestnut juice, ate all my roti and naan, and started frantically looking for napkins to wipe my face, now covered in sweat and tears.  As I then learned, hawker stands don't have napkins.  Ever.  You're supposed to bring your own.

After another 10 minutes of ascending through this hell, I finally felt okay.  I found out later that my green bean was, in fact, a chile.  If there was anything in my head that needed to be cleared out up until that point, mission accomplished.

Later on, a group of us decided to check out some other areas of town.  We took the bus down to Holland Village, the area reserved for Westerners during colonialism.  Nowadays it's still a wealthy area (although I think it's majority Chinese, although maybe I'm wrong), and serves as a quaint little shopping village with preserved historic storefronts and landmarks, like a windmill.  

We did a quick walkaround, and soon discovered that we could afford little more than a sock in any of the stores.  After a bit of wandering, we took the MRT (subway) to Chinatown.  This turned out to be a fantastic decision, since the Chinese Lunar New Year (most important day of the Chinese calendar) is coming up in a couple of weeks.  There were lanterns and lights everywhere, and the market was booming with shoppers looking for all the decorations, food, good luck charms and gifts they would need.

As our group kept walking, I couldn't decide whether to stop and take pictures or to marvel at all the things for sale, so I did both (which is probably why I lost the group later on, and had to be found at the closest temple).  I couldn't really eat any of the food or fit into any of the clothes, and I had no idea what the paintings said or meant, but I didn't care.  I just wanted to be in all of the excitement.

One thing I did want to do, however, was get one of the many massages offered all over Chinatown.  I didn't get a chance to since we were moving so fast, but Jie Bin met me later on and informed me that it probably wasn't the best idea in the world.  The myth of "happy endings" is very, very true, and unless you're looking for one, you probably shouldn't get a massage in Chinatown.  In case you're wondering, sex work (prostitution) is legal in Singapore.

We grabbed some delicious dinner, and continued to walk around and admire the brownstone-type storefronts.  Storeowners used to keep their shops on the first floor and live above them, and that look has been preserved, but now they're rented in a more modern division of businesses, having rental spaces split up or posh hotels taking a whole property.

We made our way down to the main street, a wide boulevard with lit up trees and decorations hanging everywhere, while a giant screen in the median played New Year music and illuminated what looked like floats for a parade, but were parked in the grass.  We went up on the bridge to take pictures and look at the scenery, and there were a lot of families sitting up there as well, with kids playing and parents relaxing and enjoying the festivities.

The next morning was orientation.  All of the exchange students were huddled in a lecture hall, and we had to sit through several hours of power points.  The most amusing part of the whole thing was when a representative from the counseling centre spoke, nervously making hilarious jokes about the school that simultaneously endeared us to him and probably made the dean of students less than thrilled.  A group of us quickly made plans to head to Bintan, Indonesia for the weekend: myself, Dana, Jeremy, James, Kira, Dena, Kevin and Tony.

We met in the afternoon and hitched a ride to Vivo City, where we caught a ferry to Batam and went through Indonesian customs.  Getting a visa only requires $10, and you get a nice sticker that takes up a whole page of your passport.  Pretty cool.  We were supposed to catch another ferry from Telaga Punggur through to Tanjung Pinang, but the last one was cancelled.  The security officer at the port offered to take us across in a charger for 2 million rupiah ($1 American = 10,000 rupiah), but we cautiously decided to crash in Batam Center for the night.  Probably a very smart decision on our part.

Of course I was freaking out at this point, but the Lonely Planet guide said that a lot of people end up having to crash here, and the locals are pretty friendly.  That turned out to be true, but almost depressingly so.  We were stared at everywhere we went, with looks of "what are you doing here?" and a prompt offer of a taxi ride, even in stores.  It seemed like nobody believed we could actually want to be here.  A group of little kids ran after us asking for money in the middle of a busy street.

Everyone asked where we were from, and would quickly ignore the Canadians and say "Ah, America?  OBAMA!  OBAMA!  Nooo Bush...OBAMA!"  (Obama grew up for a bit in Indonesia.)  Once certain people got more comfortable with us, ie: the taxi driver, the hostel receptionist, the waitress next door, they were actually very sweet and very helpful.  We spent the night getting to know each other better and explaining our backgrounds, and woke up early to catch the ferry to Bintan.

We caught a taxi to the Traveller's Lodge, a section of the Shady Shack, a lovely beachfront hostel.  We spent the day lazily on the beach, talking, swimming in the sea, walking along the island, and enjoying ourselves.  Lunch was an amazing feast of local favorites, including tempeh, vegetable stew, seafood cakes, rice, seared chicken and more I can't remember.

We went for a walk through town, and everyone we walked past or that drove past us on the road waved and smiled.  Some kids playing nearby giggled and yelled "hello!", and made Jeremy take pictures and videos of them.  A hut on the road was selling cookies and snacks for pennies, so we stocked up.  About 5 kilometers down the shore was the expensive resort section of the island, where wealthy Singaporeans go on vacation.  The island itself is owned by Singapore, and Sing dollars are accepted far more widely than rupiah.

There was nothing but trees for miles, and most people just went for joyrides up and down the road for fun.  There are probably about 20 motorbikes for every car in Batam and Bintan, and safety doesn't seem to be much of a concern.  Helmets are only worn by some, and almost colliding with oncoming traffic in order to pass a car is extremely common (we didn't witness any crashes, but there are many).  I saw one motorbike being driven by a girl who couldn't have been a day past 12, with her friend and two toddlers on the back.  No helmets.

We met a nice couple also staying at the hostel, a Canadian man and a Singaporean woman who had gotten married and lived in Toronto.  They were visiting her family and had decided to get away for the weekend.  We shmoozed with them until dinner, egg and fried rice with some local beer.  The cook (Asep) asked if he could play some music, and we happily danced along to a repeat of the same 4 Indonesian pop songs from what sounded like the 80s.  He called it Pop Dangdut.

After our little dance party, we sat on a bench by the water, talking and watching the waves roll in.  Jeremy proudly caught a crab, and Asep brought us an Indonesian dessert of fruit in peanut sauce, which we quickly discovered also contained chile.  From the little English he spoke, he was able to teach us the Indonesian words for different colors, body parts and expressions.  He also laughed hysterically upon discovering that when white people go in the sun, they turn red.  He hung out with us for a while until we went to bed.

The next morning was a breakfast of some more egg and fried rice, and we headed back to catch the ferry.  While we waited between ferries, we decided to grab lunch at the mall in Batam Center.  They were having a modeling competition that somehow involved huge recliner chairs, and we shamefully resigned to eating pizza instead of the mysterious local food, although we were able to get a ridiculous amount of food for about $4 per person.  The next ferry had a television playing Indonesian soap operas, so we all picked a character and "translated" what they were saying.  I laughed so hard, I cried.

Once we got back, I quickly cleaned up and went with Joanna to meet Jie Bin and Suvi at Clarke Quay.  This area is the nightlife playground of the rich, but it is absolutely gorgeous.  Everything is situated on the river, which is lit up by steps that change colors every few seconds.  The clubs along the water are made to look like beachside houses, and the bridge lights up as well.  If you walk under a bunch of colored canopies, there is a giant fountain and luxuriously hip bars and clubs.

We went to Bellini Grande, a dance club, where Jie Bin's Russian teacher was having her birthday party.  There were several other Russian businessmen there, in varying degrees of creepy.  One wouldn't stop staring at Joanna with his eyebrows raised, one never spoke to us, while another was actually quite nice and made fun of everyone else so we'd feel more comfortable.

We soon found out that the bottle of tequila they were drinking was roughly $200, and I felt very young and very out of place.  The birthday girl was also a champion ballroom dancer, so she whisked away the creeper to dance to the live salsa band.  Relieved, we bid farewell to everyone and went to sit on the river and burst out laughing.  I may not be rich and fabulous, but at least I have my head on straight.

Again, sorry for the length.  I'll try to write more frequent, and therefore shorter, entries from now on.  I'll be posting the pictures on Facebook, so if you have any trouble viewing them or you don't have a facebook, let me know.

Until next time,

Lizzy

Oh Tokyo, I hardly knew thee...

My dearest companions and adoring fans (jokes, jokes),

I have arrived safely in Singapore and have pretty much figured my life out here, finally.  I have a nice (but small) room, working internet and phone lines, a cell phone for local calls, and a solid group of people I'll regularly be hanging out with.  Although these all sound like simple things, trust me, they were quite difficult to attain.

The flight over was long but not terrible.  From Detroit to Tokyo I didn't have one of those small headsets where I could choose what I wanted to watch, so out of the many things played, I stayed awake for Flight of the Conchords and the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (the risque edition).  I then had about a 3 hour layover in Tokyo.  Words cannot describe the hilarity.

First of all, advertisements were in English, but in some sort of provocative yet confusing version of English.  For instance, a bottle of water said "Power my beauty" while another was named Pocari Sweat.  I passed time with some green tea flavored Kit Kats and a television in the public lounge that alternated between news reports and Japanese pop music videos.  The latter was more enjoyable.

Even funnier were the shops in the airport.  Did you know that in Japan, bumper stickers are called "auto graffiti"?  Neither did I.  There were also far too many apostrophes everywhere, packages saying "Pin's" and "Shoe's".  One of the shops had a sign outside that said Drug on one line and Watch on the next.  Does this mean that they're on the watch for drug use in the store?  Do they sell drugs and watches?  Are they doing a drug demonstration and they want you to watch?  Unclear.  I took several pictures to document it.

The flight from Tokyo to Singapore had the nicer TVs, but some pretty bad turbulence.  My stomach rebelled, and to put it bluntly, my kosher meal from Borenstein's catering in Jamaca, New York came right back up.  I got to watch Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist (great movie, in case you haven't seen it), and talk with the lovely woman next to me.  She was a citizen of Singapore, of Indian descent, who had grown up Hindu but converted to Christianity.  She was very maternal, and even gave me her home phone number in case I needed anything while I was here.

After spending 23 hours on airplanes and in airports, I finally touched down in Singapore.  My meet-and-greet buddy from the university, Jie Bin (pronounced Tsiye Ben), helped me get settled into my dorm and took me for some late night (this was now 2 in the morning) food at a nearby hawker stand.

Singapore has many nicknames, including "Disneyland with the Death Penalty", "the nanny state", "the land of stairs and slopes", etc., but none have struck me quite as much as "the food capital of the world".  This couldn't be more true.  My first taste was a banana and cheese prata, a sort of south Indian sweet pancake, and some lychee juice.  Much too delicious for my waistline.

Jie Bin introduced me to her friend, Riya, who incidentally has the exact same taste in music as me.  She told me that although concerts are expensive on the island, a lot of good indie acts make their way over.  In just the next week they'll be hosting the Ting Tings, Bloc Party, and some other acts, and she recently got to see Broken Social Scene front row center.  I told her to hook a sister up.

I spent most of the next day wandering around campus like a lost puppy.  Much like the Hebrew University campus and much unlike the U of M campus, the roads are circular and curvy and very hard to navigate.  Luckily for me, the bus lines are very easy to figure out, stop very frequently, and most importantly, have some awesome air conditioning.  In case I haven't mentioned, it's currently 95 degrees, sunny and incredibly humid.

I had no clue where I was going, so I asked a guy at the bus stop which bus to take to the Multi-Purpose Sports Hall.  He was taking the same bus, so he got off at my stop, walked me to the building, and made sure I knew where I was.  Once there, he just smiled and went back to his business.  No sneaky ulterior motives whatsoever.  Everyone here is that nice; you think they'd get annoyed by the foreigners, but they just smile and show you where to go.

I met a lovely girl from Java Island, Indonesia, named Dinna.  We both showed up to registration a day early and decided to spend a bit of the day wandering together.  The campus is really beautiful, and very modern.  If a student here calls a building old, it means it was built in the 1980s.  We made our way to a 7-Eleven, where they supposedly sell NETS CashCards (a kind of debit card needed for registration, printing, copying, etc.), but they were all out by the time we got there.  Instead, I just chuckled at the Slurpee machines and hotdog cookers situated right next to the dumpling cookers and mochi cases.  A 7-Eleven in Singapore.  Really.  Right outside, there was a Subway and another place selling Coney Dogs.  I swelled with Detroit pride.

The electricity in my room wasn't working, so I had a maintenance guy come check everything out.  This was definitely a culture lesson.  I'm starting to learn how incredibly loudly I, and all Americans, speak.  He took off his shoes before coming in my room, and wouldn't point directly at me (something you're really not supposed to do to people here).  He kept asking if I was comfortable with him being in my room and offered to go outside on several occasions.  He ended up staying for about an hour while I made sure everything worked, and he let me use his phone to call the office.  Nicest guy ever.  Apparently, American power strips don't work in Singapore, and you really shouldn't try.  Nothing like a loud "pop!" and some sparks to get the point across.

Later that night, Jie Bin's friend picked us up to take us to Vivo City, the newest mall in Singapore, for some dinner and a movie.  Malls in Singapore are quite different from American malls.  First of all, it's considered quite normal to go to the mall food court (a collection of hawker stands) just to eat, as if going out to a restaurant, and not do anything else at the mall.  There's also a kind of park outside where people walk around and kids play, and Vivo City even has an ampitheater in its park.  It's on the southern tip of the island, and it overlooks the water and Sentosa, a nearby island resort.

At this point there were about 8 of us, including me, Jie Bin, her guy friends, Riya, a guy from Texas named Ricky and a Romanian girl from Toronto named Joanna.  We decided to pool our money and buy a bunch of food to share.  Very good decision.  I don't know how many countries were sampled on that table, but it was delicious.  Jie Bin was great at making sure I didn't eat anything that wasn't kosher, and tried to get me to try a Century Egg until I informed her that horse urine probably isn't kosher.  If you're curious, google "Century Egg".

After the movie, we went to a discount store for some odds and ends and great peoplewatching.  We set plans for tonight to go to a local club (Wednesday nights in Singapore are ladies' nights, and at some places you can get free admission and free drinks).

Let me pause here to randomly list things that are illegal in Singapore:

Spitting

Selling gum

Littering

Jaywalking

Possessing pornography

Being gay

Eating on public transportation vehicles

Swearing in public

Openly criticizing the government is a huge no-no, and most of the aforementioned crimes carry with them a hefty fine, or in some cases, a cane.  That's right, corporal punishment is alive and well here.  Drug trafficking is an automatic death penalty for certain amounts, and Singapore boasts one of the world's highest death sentences per capita.  It also has the lowest crime rates.  Go figure.

This morning was registration, a painstaking process that took 3 hours and involved a lot of walking back and forth across campus.  On a cooler note, they took my electronic thumbprint.  I felt like a criminal, only a lot less apprehensive of my future.  I also got to meet a whole bunch of exchange students from Holland, Norway, Australia, Canada, China, and other places.  I even ran into Dana Mendelson, a Montreal friend from Camp Ramah that I haven't seen in about 4 years.  When you're Jewish, you can't escape the tribe anywhere.  Not even Singapore.

We hung out for the rest of the day, along with a friend of hers and Joanna.  Later on, Jie Bin came and took me to Clementi Road to get a phone.  It sort of reminded me of the shuk (bazaar) in Jerusalem, only much cleaner and more polite.  The guy selling me the phone even stopped me from buying one that wasn't working properly.  I never would have noticed if he hadn't pointed it out.

Clementi Road and other areas of the city are under construction, and Jie Bin had mixed feelings about it.  On the one hand, she sees it as good for the economy and appearance of the city.  On the other hand, she watches her childhood memories get replaced by something shinier and newer, and knows people's neighborhoods are involved in the process.  Overall, though, nobody's too upset about it.

I even got my first taste of public transit.  It was deliciously air conditioned.  I also learned a fun fact about Singapore: people love to gamble.  There was a massive line at the gambling pools, and upon activating my phone, I found at least 10 lotto and gambling numbers automatically programmed into it along with my voicemail and balance check.  I spent a while trying to figure out who "Horseracing" was.

That's all for now.  Keep checking back for more updates on my new life here, and I'll try not to disappoint.  As soon as I figure this all out, I'll upload some pictures so you can see the beautiful landscapes here and attach some faces (and foods) to names.  Let me know if this was too long or detailed; I don't want to bore anyone.  Now that I'm in Singapore, I'll have to practice something I'm definitely not accustomed to doing: biting my tongue.

Love,

Lizzy