in singapore!

dearest everyone,
i'm in singapore now! i got here on the 14th of may. i've been slacking a bit on the blog so i'll try to get you all caught up.

i left st charles on wednesday at 6am or so, and took 4 very long flights to get here. first to denver, then seattle, then to tokyo and finally singapore. folks seem pretty worried about the swine flu. when we landed in tokyo, we had to sit on the plane for an extra 20 mins or so while some japanese health officials came to collect health surveys and take our temperatures with thermal cameras. there were 8 or 10 of them, all wearing goggles and masks and some sort of paper robes. i passed the test i suppose, so on to singapore. where i got my temp taken with more thermal cameras.

i got in right before midnight on thursday the 14th, and let me tell you the singapore airport is wonderful! i got off the plane and went to stand in a line maybe 4 people deep, which took about 10 minutes, maybe less. that was customs. which i didn't realize because it took so little time. then when i got to the baggage carousel, my luggage arrived within about a minute. and i walked through the line of 'nothing to declare' and that was it, i was in singapore! and was met with the hottest nighttime weather ever and lots of humidity. it was a bit of a shock. like breathing super-hydraded air. nancy foo picked me up and guess what: folks drive on the left side of the road. not a thing i thought about. but it makes me panic everytime we turn because i feel like i'm going to turn into oncoming traffic.

we went to a place called a hawker center for breakfast the next day. a hawker center is like a big outdoor foodcourt, with lots of stalls selling different kinds of food. all wonderful. i had soymilk which was just made so it was still warm. and noodles and carrot cake (not the carrot cake you're thinking of...this one's salty and does not actually involve carrots. i think it has turnips) and some other food, all wonderful. and get this: super super cheap! each plate of food you order costs maybe 2 singapore dollars ($1USD = 1.5-ish sing dollars). it is, in fact, cheaper to buy all your food at the hawker center than to cook for yourself at home. amazing. i wouldn't be able to eat there without someone who is chinese though. i wouldn't know what anything is. and i wouldn't know what is good. anyway, thank goodness for chinese food and chinese people.

there is a wet market by the hawker center, and that's got raw meat and produce and such. we bought amazing fruits! after eating fruits here, i feel totally uninterested in 'western fruits'. i don't know how i ever choked down an apple, because this stuff is sooooo much better. thus far i've tried rambutan, which is reddish and sort of hairy, luku-something which is also wonderful, and mangosteen which is my new favourite fruit of all time. get this: in the US you can only get mangosteen at super special supermarkets and it's like $60/lb or something ridiculous. here, it's like $2/kilo. i'm not quite sure how to describe it because it's so different than anything i've had before.

one of nancyfoo's cousins told me that they (chinese people, i suppose) show love through food. and my goodness do i feel loved. susan west came to visit a week ago, and we took a bus to malaysia. KL is the city we went to (kuala lumpur) and we stayed with her auntie dilly. we got massages and foot reflexology (which hurt a lot, in a good way i think. based upon the intensity of pain i'd say all my organs need a little tlc). we went up into the petronas towers, which are two identical towers that are veryveryvery tall and have a bridge between them on the 30-somethingth or 40-somethingth floor. inside is a huge shopping center and lots of food.
one night we went and had fancy dinner at a place called noble house with foo's aunt's father-in-law, who it seems is a very very important man in malaysia. he has a title which i think is 'datuk'. i thought she kept calling him doctor ng, but no, it was datuk. i'm not sure how you get this title, but i think it involves having a good deal of money. he owns a timber company. anyway, there are lots of rules about how to act that i, as a white girl, don't know. so foo sat next to datuk ng, which is a very important seat. and being in that seat, you have to eat all the food put in front of you, which is a huge amount. i sat next to foo, so i was able to eat less. but i guess the idea is that you eat to show the host that you like the food and that you appreciate it. seems ok until the 4th or 5th course of the meal, then it gets harder. but he was very very nice and made sure i had actual vegetarian food, which no one else does. i have been ordered several 'vegetarian' dishes full of shrimp and fish and chicken. seriously. so i had noodles and tofu and veggies, all good. everyone else had several more courses than that.

moving on, we came back to singapore and have been eating a lot. lots and lots. fruit and noodles and rice and ice cream. susan had to buy gifts for her family (16 of them...) so we headed to chinatown. chinatown singapore is the cleanest chinatown i've seen. it's pristine. lots of stuff to buy and lots of food. i think it seemed a bit watered-down and touristy, but it's still really neat. also, by looking at someone, foo can tell if they're from singapore or mainland china.
we also went to little india, which is considerably grittier. we went to a vegetarian restaurant, where you eat food with your hands. that is a skill. i had no idea. it takes some practice to be good at eating with your fingers. you eat only with your right hand, and sort of much the rice and curry sauce and vegetables with your fingers, then pick up a bit so the food is sitting on your fingers (hands are palms-up) and then sort of push the food into your mouth using your thumb. i need way more practice at that.

there's so much more to write about! i'll write about the family in the next post.

oh also, the most important thing i've learned here so far: if you don't want to eat anymore, leave food on your plate. i'm used to finishing up what's in my glass or on my plate when i'm finished eating. and the host can offer more food, but i just say no. not here, oh no. the second my plate is empty i get served more food, because it is assumed that i am still hungry if i have finished everything on my plate. this is a hard lesson to learn. i could have eaten more than i thought was physically possible, and if i forget to leave food on my plate, i get more. lots more. and as it turns out, it is impossible to say 'no' to a chinese woman. so if i finish eating and my plate is empty, i just put a little more food on my plate and leave it there, which seems like a huge waste but is so very worth it to avoid being practically force-fed more very delicious food.

so, so far, the food is delicious and the weather is very very hot. i think i could get used to singapore...