still in singapore

hello! i'm still in singapore til thursday i think. foo and i have been trying to figure out what the next move would be. options were australia, new zealand, southeast asia, home. we just didn't know what order to do it in. our return tickets to the US are for late november, but it is an option to move the ticket dates closer and come home sooner. which isn't a terrible option. i know it seems like it would be ridiculous to end traveling before i have to, but after a full year of not having my own space or a stable routine, it's seeming like an appealing option. but then i thought about it more and decided that i would probably regret it my whole life if i didn't take this opportunity to travel and explore, because chances are it will only get more difficult to do as i get older. and right now it's winter in new zealand. so we're going to explore southeast asia for a month or two, then head to australia and new zealand, then home right before thanksgiving.
so for the past two weeks, we've been hanging out in singapore. it's pretty hot. we went bowling with foo's cousins, which was super fun. we've been having this dessert at a place in chinatown called Traditional Desserts. it's basically my favorite thing ever. it's flavored ice, shaved into a giant mountain with toppings on it. i think we get it like 3 times per week. soooo good.

the family has a maid named grace who is from the Philippines. (lots of families here have maids from other countries) she lives here and works all day, everyday. she's about my age and so i've been chatting with her. she has a five year old son who lives with her mom at home, and she hasn't seen him for a year and a half. she gets off work one sunday per month. i've never had a maid (well, we had theresa, but that's for 3 hours every other week.) and so i have had a bit of a hard time having one. mostly i feel really sad because she doesn't have an opportunity to have any real emotional connection with anyone. she left her whole life a year and a half ago, and while she gets paid here, which she couldn't at home because there was no work, she also gave up a life. she's only a maid here. not a friend or a mom or a daughter or anything. and i have a hard time with a week of no friends. she's going on a year and a half. so anyway, i try to be extra friendly to her. on her last sunday off work, foo and i took her out for the day. super fun. plus i don't think she gets to have fun days ever. so we met her and took her out to dim sum (like chinese tapas) for lunch. then we walked around chinatown and ate some traditional desserts. then we took her to see a movie. we saw ghosts of girlfriends past, which was surprisingly not terrible. i think she had a fun day.

yesterday was my birthday! foo and i didn't tell anyone because for my birthday i really wanted to just hang out with her. it seems like we'd get to hangout all the time, but somehow there is always someone who needs to do something with us. since it was my birthday, i got to be the boss. and we got traditional desserts for breakfast. normally we would get real lunch because foo really needs 'real food', but instead we went to a movie and had popcorn for lunch, because i didn't want to spoil my snack with lunch. then we went computer shopping, i think we're going to buy a cheap laptop for traveling. planning travel things is soooo much easier with a computer, rather than sitting in internet cafes for hours. after that we went to dinner at this cute little place called naive. not sure why they called it that, it seems like a poor choice. but it was a vegetarian restaurant which is so nice. i really prefer not picking meat out of my food. it was delicious. then foo's whole family started sending her text messages like 'why you did not tell me its kittie/kathie/kate's birthday? you goodfornothing!' no one knows my name. well, everyone sort of knows it. i am called several variations of my name. so anyway, we made it home at 10pm or so, and her aunty lai ngan made me a birthday cake! it was so nice! so the family sang me happy birthday and we ate delicious cake. her aunty lai ngan runs a cake baking business out of the home. yessss! then they said that at swensen's (which is like the denny's of singapore) they give out free ice cream on your birthday! so it was 11pm by then, so we hurried and got ready and headed to swensen's. i got my free ice cream! it was called firetruck or fireengine or something. it was three scoops of ice cream (vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry) and a half a banana and three cherries and whipped cream. and a candle! so that was very exciting.

oh yes, travel plans: so we're heading around southeast asia first, doing super last-minute planning. i think we'll head by bus or train to thailand, and we're going to vietnam, cambodia, laos, malaysia, and indonesia. i have to apply for visas in most of these places, so i should probably get on that. foo doesn't because she has a singaporean passport. i'm always more expensive when we travel.
then in early september i think we'll head to australia and new zealand and hike and work on farms and explore. then home for thanksgiving, and i think i'll move to chicago around then.
that's about it for now.
love
katie