The Police!

This is a great week! We had a short week thanks to Chinese New Year, which we got to experience last night. We also got to go see The Police play at Singapore Indoor Stadium on Monday. The Police aren't a band I'd even think of going to see at home (although I do love so many of their songs) but there's something about being far away from home that any "import" is a big deal (and yes, I know the Police are from the UK and that is not my home either!)

It was a really fun concert, preceded by some more fun beer and pizza's at our friends' place. I didn't get videos or decent photos of my own, because i had read that we couldn't bring cameras into the arena, and you just don't break rules here. Or so I thought. Most people had cameras, and I found this good montage of the show YouTube:



And I learned one very important lesson from the show...Old(er) Sting...Wayyyy more attractive than Young Sting. Who knew?

Chinese New Year photos and a posting about India (that I've been putting off because there's so, so much to write about) to come!

Best. Taxi Ride. Ever.

I have been nothing short of amazed by the service of the taxi drivers here in Singapore (once you're actually in the car. Actually hailing a cab is another, long and frustrating, story.) In contrast to what we experienced in Turkey, and on occasion in the US, they are honest, friendly, helpful, chatty, informed, well-spoken and really interesting. They also (with few exceptions) speak perfect English. Usually I will end up chatting with the driver, sometimes even if I'm just in the mood to stare out the windows and listen to some music.

Today was one of those days. I had just gone all the way to the East of the island to see Chris and 3 friends compete in an all day (11 hours to be exact) group mountain biking race in Tampines. After doing my share of cheering and picture taking (photos to come) I decided to leave and take a bus ride home. Unfortunately, taking a bus from there to our place would likely take 2 hours and my bladder wasn't sure if wanted that long of a ride on the bus. So after a good, long walk to the bus depot, I changed my mind about public transport and hailed and hopped into a taxi. I had about 5 minutes left on the Grey's Anatomy I started watching on my iPod and really wanted to sink into the back seat and focus on George and Izzy's problem, but I had a feeling it wasn't going to happy when I got into the car and in an oddly loud, yet friendly voice, my driver said:

"Lady, where you from?"

Me: The US

Driver: Yes, Yes, where in the US?

Me: (this is a departure, as I normally just say "New York" since everyone knows NY, but it just popped out of my mouth) Connecticut....Near NY

Driver: Ahhhh, Connecticut. Hmmm...Let's see. Greenwich (green-witch)? Cos Cob? Stamford? Westport?

Me: (shocked) Um...Yes, Greenwich (Grenich) How did you know that? Have you been?

Driver: No!!!!! w...w...w...yahoomaps...com

Me: Wow, that's really amazing.

Driver: Let's see...Connecticut. That is I-95 anddddd....Merritt Parkway, yes?

Me: Yes. Wow.

Driver: Now, what does the Merritt Parkway turn into? The Taconic-no, that's not right.

He couldn't come up with the Hutchinson Parkway, but knew right away when I said it. This went on and on - with my College, knowing exactly which highways went by this small town in upstate New York, and continued on with more knowledge of Connecticut. Just by studying maps online. I was shocked and awed for the whole trip home.

After he finished regaling me with tales of Northeast USA roads, we moved on to a conversation about politics in Singapore versus the US (in Singapore, the government is like a 'farm family father. He wants to tell the son what to do all the time, but the son is 42 years old. Sometimes he wants to say "piss off" but he grudgingly says okay to the father', and in the US, we actually tell the "father" to piss off) and the pros and cons of the tight hold the government has on the people (a little less freedom and a lot more safety.)

I didn't get to finish my show, but I had yet another amazing taxi ride in Singapore. I have really learned a lot from the cabbies here!

Oktoberfest and China Part II

Before I continue to update on our China trip, I thought I'd just share a fun story about Oktoberfest. Chris participated in not one, but two competitions! One was eating and drinking, and one was a tag-team Erdinger drinking competition, more of a marathon than a sprint. Chris and 3 of our friends were victorious and won us free drinks for the rest of the night and an Erdinger "Oktoberfest" set, complete with 2 glasses, 4 beers and coupons for free things around Singapore. Here are photos of the victorious group before and after their win!






Now...Onto China...

After a restful day/night at the Simatai Guesthouse, we moved on to hike the portion of the Wall between Simatai and Jinshanling, about 5 km. We had been told by several people that it is difficult and steep at the beginning of the hike and then it calms down, but I didn't get that at all! I felt like I was climbing up stairs and downstairs, and upstairs and downstairs, and...you get the idea. For about 5 hours. It was fun though, and the views were beautiful. I did feel a bit dumb though - we brought Chris' daypack and left our other bags in the car. However, we didn't really measure out how much that would hold, versus what we wanted to bring with us. It ended up that I had to carry a shopping bag (brought from home, but it happened to be a Duty Free bag) on our whole hike - I got some weird looks for that!

This is the scary bridge he had to cross to start our day:



and some of the ups and downs...



We had alot of people following us, trying to get us to buy 'beer, soda, water, postcard, t-shirt?' - all said in rapid succession. But, being used to hawkers from our time in Turkey, we were able to shake them off pretty easily. We had been told that we'd find our next host through his wife, who'd have my name taped up to her stall of 'beer, water, etc...' and we were very unsure about whether or not this was actually going to work out. But sure enough, we walked into the nicest, most 'together' tower we'd seen that day, and there is a woman, smiling like crazy, with my name on her table.






She served us tea, on our 'terrace' where we hung out for the afternoon, looking at the wall in all directions.

Eventually, her husband arrived, at just about sunset, and walked us into town to his home/shop/restaurant for a fabulous dinner!

Some shots from dinner:





After the humongous dinner (including, among many other things, a plate of dumplings for each person!) we took the 20 minute walk by flashlight back up to the watchtower, shared a bottle of wine on our new friends' watchtower and took our walk home along the wall to our home, where Mr. Sun had set up our beds for us and we went to sleep to get up at 6am for sunrise.

After seeing the beautiful sunrise, we walked down to meet our driver to take us into Beijing. We got stuck in a ton of traffic on the way home, but had some time to relax before starting on our whirlwind tour of Bejing and Xi'an...to come...

I meant to post these pictures from the Singapore Zoo...I was lucky enough to get paid to help out on a school field trip here. Pretty much the coolest zoo I have ever seen. In some of these photos, the animals were literally a foot away or less - no bars! Apparently the primates are intimidated by the local monkeys so they stay in their little areas even though there isn't much built to keep them there. These aren't terribly well edited so feel free to fly past the multiple White Tiger shots or the many, many Baboon ones...




We're off to China today, to visit the Great Wall, Beijing and Xi'an and to spend some time with the Emersons! I'll update this with lots of stories and photos when we return!

As promised, here are some initial photos of our new place. Most are from outside, but a few from inside the apartment. More to come...

It has been a busy few weeks, especially with work (even I have been working most days!) but made slightly less busy by both Chris' and my long weekend trips falling through! Note to anyone who needs it: You need a visa to go to India. Who knew?

But we have been doing lots of fun things as well...First of all, Chris took part in an amazing race, called the Coastal Challenge. It looked incredibly tough to me, but Chris had a great (full) day!

Here are some pictures of the finish line (the only place I could watch any part of the race, because the locations were top secret) and Chris and his race partner/co-worker Phil finishing the race, triumphant!



More photos and stories to come soon...

Singapore...the land of little monkeys (though I have yet to encounter one,) lots of heat and MOCHI, the inspiration for the new name of our blog: www.mochimadness.blogspot.com

We have been here now for awhile...Well, Chris for longer than me, but even I've been here for over 2 weeks now. We are absolutely loving it - our condo is great, the school is fabulous and the ease of doing just about anything is amazing! More to come, including photos and mayyyybe even a 360 tour, just like on the real estate sites, if you're lucky and if I'm feeling bored, I mean motivated, but now that we're not in Turkey anymore, we're going to change the name of our blog.

Tonight, I decided it should be Mochi Madness - Mochi (which admittedly doesn't sound appetizing on Wikipedia,) for those of you who have not tried the delectable little treat, is the ice cream dessert that we have been mildly obsessed with since arriving here (and I'll be honest, the obsession actually started at Whole Foods back in Greenwich...) It is single serving, so you don't fill yourself up, easy to eat in it's own little package, and just delicious. Chris actually vetoed the blog name Mochi Madness, but...since I'm the one who actually writes this thing, I decided my vote should count twice...

So, for now, until Chris writes a little something, I mean, gets a second vote, I mean, notices...the new address for our blog is www.mochimadness.blogspot.com - Although, if you're reading this sentence, you're already here :) so, welcome! And go try some Mochi!