On the road again...

Wow, awesome week. Went to Berkeley, twice. And to Santa Cruz, twice. San Fran once. Frat parties, movies, theatrical plays, beaches, redwood forests, biking in the hills, barbecues; basically I tried to cram in my entire dream California summer vacation into one week, and I was fairly successful.

class QuincyChan

QuincyChan.squeeze(lemons,tribbles);

That's right. I called a method within my class QuincyChan called squeeze. What does he squeeze? Well, the arguments in this case are lemons and tribbles. And Quincy has an infinite supply of lemons growing in his yard. Big, juicy ones. Which he gives out to everyone. And he teaches me Java. Which is great, because I am a total airhead when it comes to Java. And when I get to Texas I will have to prove that I am an expert in the field.

And tomorrow the great journey by automobile towards Houston begins. 20 hours straight drive. Will probably be done in about 2 to 3 days by my Dad and I. I actually look forward to it. Dad is a cool guy, and I can catch up on a lot of sleep in the car.

Alright, I'll see you again when I get to Texas!

Good to be home, all in all...

So I haven't even seen any of my friends yet, going tomorrow to Berkeley to see them. But I'm already very comfortable at home, it's sort of nice not having people calling you all throughout the day trying to do something with you, for once.

It's been great getting back with family especially. Mom is busy as ever at work, but still genuinely pleased to have me home. Natalee had her prom, and it's been good to catch up with her on school... and her thoughts about going to college next year, for which I am able to impart "great" wisdom that she takes in complete seriousness, I'm sure. And Dad is always Dad. Playing a lot of tennis, and always coming home with something new and Singaporean in taste from the market, like a crate of 18 young coconuts that he found on sale (which we take out into the backyard to hack open enthusiastically with a butcher knife), some sugarcane juice, century eggs, even the "baklah" pork jerky, or at least something very similar to it.

I realized that I always miss my family's sense of humor, too. Natalee telling me stories about her high-school bimbos. Mom trying to discreetly tell Dad that the oyster beef has gone bad. Natalee and I singing songs in unison from "Family Guy" (Sooodooomyyyy, hahaha). And Dad coming home from a Jewish wedding, where they made him wear a head-cap yarmulke, and he starts throwing it around with Nat, saying, "Look! Ultimate frisbee!" My family is priceless.

And I've been keeping in touch with my friends back in Singapore. Yay for Skype! Nothing new and exciting from them, but I suppose no news is good news. And I've only been gone for less than a week... admittedly, miss them though.

Oh and hey, why am I blogging now? Isn't the whole Singapore thing over? Can't we call it quits? I've actually grown sort of attached to this blog, I know, it's creepy right? Go out and make a friend, Ryan, stop being such a loner. I would... but actually, I'm sitting here reading books and online manuals on Java... for the summer job. Ugh. I hope this works. Otherwise, find me a professional blogger position somewhere. I can quit this so-called "engineering" then. Kidding, it should be exciting, just not motivated yet.

Ok, back to more "public static void"... how appropriate.

Half a World Away, from my Secret Garden home...

So what am I doing up at 5:30am writing this blog, you might wonder? MAJOR JETLAG. Seriously, I have never had jetlag this badly before. I usually sleep whenever possible, and now I have a really hard time adjusting. I go to bed around 11am my time, which is around 2am in Singapore. Screw me...

The flight back was OK, everyone in Hong Kong was wearing face-masks as part of the swine flu paranoia. I managed to talk with friends on Skype even at the HK airport, yay for free internet again. And when we reached SFO in the afternoon, we flew right over downtown SF with no fog cover, so I saw the Golden Gate, the Bay Bridge, and the city... what a way to be reminded of home.

But bits and pieces of Singapore are definitely still with me. Dad got me some coconut juice, not as good as at home, but definitely good for nostalgia's sake. Holy mango, did I just say "not as good as at home"? I absolutely did not mean to say that... Singapore has grown on me too much. And I brought tons of snack foods and spice mixes with me as well. Food in the US tastes pretty bland after Singapore, must admit. I also told my parents that it felt cold and windy, and they looked out the window to look for the "wind" I was talking about, and then laughed at me like I was crazy. It's actually a heatwave for the Bay Area right now, in the 80s. It actually is very pleasant weather here, I'm just not used to it yet. I'll get out of my long-sleeved shirts and coats once I'm a bit more re-acclimated...

Daren Lam also came to see me the same day I flew back in, he was in the Bay Area for a few days before continuing on to Yellowstone for a few weeks of camping and hiking. He set up his camping hammock in my own backyard in the redwood grove to try it out... it almost felt like I hadn't even left Singapore for a moment with a friend seeing me at home. Plus that hammock is meant for jungles I think, a tent would have done fine here haha. I got to show him my solar panels too, since he was in my Solar Photovoltaics course with me, taught by the one and only Prof. Oruganti.

Another difference that Daren made me realize is how quiet it is here... you go outside and you don't hear so much traffic, people, music, etc. But I think that's just a difference of living in suburbs vs. the city. But still, when I go to sleep, I hear a ringing in my ears because it's so quiet. I'm used to listening to the air-con, a fan, buses, ships, people, etc. As Daren said, he can't fall asleep out here until there's some cars driving by or something to make some noise. Maybe that's another reason I have such a hard time going to sleep.

Ugh... and my summer job is also starting to bear down on me too. I have less than 2 weeks left in California before I head back to Houston to work. I got called the day I cam back, they wanted me to learn Java before I show up for work... oh boy, Java. I have my big book around here somewhere, but hopefully I can just learn online and get Quincy to teach me some. I have this somewhat badly-timed family vacation to Monterey this coming Memorial Day weekend though that I have to do, so hopefully I can see all my friends at home and still learn Java at the same time. Then next next Thursday I drive with Dad all the way to Houston, giving 2 to 3 days for the journey. And once there, I will not even have my own car, since it got crashed a few weeks ago when my aunt was driving it. So I guess I'm walking/metro-ing to work everyday for a while...

Moral of the story, life never slows down. But you're in trouble when it does, I guess. Like I said a long time ago, the jungle's worst enemy: boredom.

Goodbyes in Singapore...

Leon meeting me at Changi Airport


Taxi ride to the airport, along the most beautifully green, clean highway in the world, ECP


Tyler Tan, a friend who is about to do his NS like Subhash is doing now, and who I got to tour around NUS as a "prospy", my home university's code for "future victim"


Gabriel Lim torturing crabs out of their homes... engineers are naturally ruthless


At Sungei Bulo, at the Straits border between Malaysia and Singapore


Church... where I dutifully went every Sunday... ha ah ahah haha, Sorry, Jesus, that wasn't actually funny...


Vesak Day in Geylang





Views from Gabriel's apartment in downtown... breathtaking










My favorite mode of transport around town, with Daren as driver


I conquered Bukit Timah! All 180 meters of it...


So I remember in Bangkok I learned that there is a Demon King, who rules over all the other demons. He is a special demon in that he can change form, into a human for example, and when he becomes extremely agitated, his anger will cause him to suddenly have 12 arms instead of the normal 2. That was me during my last few days in Singapore. The sudden approach of my departure date filled me with such anxiety and rage that I grew 12 arms and used them all to meet and bid my farewells to as many of my Singaporean friends as possible. I think I achieved partial success, but I was busier than ever. I think I slept less than when I did studying for final exams. Leon even told me, "You can't make everyone happy. Just see a few friends and move one", but I refused... everyone should get a chance, they're all too awesome! I'm really actually quite proud of the group of friends I've managed to make while here, they are exceptional ones.

Examples of my excursions: Riding around with Daren Lam again on his motorbike, except this time to Bukit Timah which we hiked up and down, and going to Clementi with him to buy food gifts for home. Going to the club with Gabriel and crew, and to Geylang to see the Vesak Day participants and the prostitutes advertising their wares, as well as eat the good food. Also going with him to his sister's swank apartment in downtown and to Sungei Bulo to see some mangroves and the water-border with Malaysia. Also a restaurant at Suntec followed by hitting the old pubs at Boat Quay with Daxiang and Quek. Walking, eating, and shopping around Chinatown and Orchard with Tyler Tan, visiting a museum there too. Ones who unfortunately I did not get to see include the IFG group (Limmy, Grace, and Joy), and Subhash, who was on some remote island at the time doing something for his national service.

I will go back soon, this is a requirement, for my sake mostly. I will explain in my next post the difficulty I'm having re-adjusting to life back in the US, it's actually harder than I thought, though I remember coming back from Switzerland was a bit of a shock. And even for how small Singapore is, there is much more left that I could have done besides seeing my old friends again. For such a tiny country, Singapore is definitely dense in terms of stuff to do and see. Pulau Ubin, the Airfield and Barracks museums, the Ford Factory, the Changi and National Museums, Arab Street, Little India, Changi Park, and more are all either only barely seen by me or not at all. Dang I actually didn't do that much... alright, I'll look up ticket prices again to go back. How's next week sound, all? =)

Demons and Monkeys in the "City of Angels"

Finally taking some time to sit down and write my blog for one last time on the subject of my glorious adventure to Singapore this semester. Not exactly going in chronological order, I'll just start with my trip to Bangkok, since that is fairly recent. And holy cow that's a ton of pictures... towards the end my camera actually ran out of battery, so you're seeing only about 3/4 of the trip to Bangkok.

I really wish there was no unwritten society rule that tourists are only supposed to take pictures of the touristy stuff, such as in Bangkok the temples, palaces, ruins, etc. I wanted to take pictures of the homeless with pet birds and rabbits on the streets, the lady-boys, the jewelry scammers trapping tourists in their "one in a lifetime sale events", the mysterious policeman who went into a jewelry store and handed over some pieces to the clerk for inspection (stolen?), the old white men walking around with sweet "thai candy" hanging on their arms (both girls and boys)... but I think taking out my camera in these cases would have earned me some unfavorable responses. I should have done it anyway, I'm such a wuss.

But anyway, got some good photos nevertheless to remind me of the town. Kanit Jaimun, a Thai local who lived in California for a while and who also has a really good blog with much better pictures than mine <<http://kanizworld.multiply.com/>>, kindly showed me around some of the city while I was there. I also met some NUS groups while I was there. During the evenings I tended to wander alone, around the dark alleys, the "soi"s, in Silom and Patpong, where most of the foreigners congregate to do the stereotypical tourist activities in Bangkok: massages, buy clothing and jewelry, sex shows (including the infamous "ping pong" show), bars, more sex, more drugs and alcohol, and don't forget, riding a tuk-tuk. I actually liked to pretend I was not a tourist, and since I've been told I could sometimes pass for a Thai, I did my best to wander around appearing as Thai as possible, and even followed some random people just to see where they go and what they do. I wanted to see what kind of human behavior takes place here. Nothing too exciting, I'm pretty jaded at this point I think. Thought about active participation, but decided against it. I just explored the clean, daylight side of Bangkok; I'm such a good boy :)

Anyway I'm very glad I got in touch with a local there, because it made figuring out the local public transport much easier, as well as finding good places to eat and what to order. I had some typical Thai foods, as well as some other great deals like an US$8 all-you-can-eat-within-1hour-and-10min sushi and hotpot buffet. It was a good buffet, with salmon sashimi, lots of meat, fish, clams, etc. A very good deal, never seen a sushi buffet like that in the US, and if one was to exist like that I'm sure it would be at least $30 a head here.

Transport was also unbelievably cheap. The train from Bangkok to Ayuthaya was 2 hours long and only cost about 60 cents, which was also the cost of the meal on the train, which was some egg and meat rice mix that was actually pretty tasty. But it was also raining like hell most of the time, especially at Ayuthaya where you have to walk around a lot to see all the ruins. That's also when my camera ran out of battery... shit. So I took only a few photos of the place. I've had my share of Southeast Asian ruins though, so at least we got that out of my system.

The only form of transport that I had trouble with were the boats. Fortunately those were really cheap too, so I could afford to make a lot of mistakes, which I did. Going up and down the river from Silom to the Old Town was especially confusing. It should only take 1 boat ride to get there, but I ended up getting of about 4 different boats... some of them look like they go down the river but they really just CROSS the river. Oh well I made it in once piece after all.

There's no real story here that I can narrate, so I'm just going to try now to tell you the images in my head at the moment that I remember of Bangkok. There's a fat white lady smoking a cigarette, talking with a fat Thai guy with a Bluetooth in his ear, and they seem to be talking about some nearby sale of something. There's some tall hotels, with balconies overflowing with lush bougainvilleas, overlooking the river, the slums, the temples. The skytrain, the MRT. Pink taxis and tuk-tuks buzzing on the streets. There are some cute Thai girls behind a coconut ice cream stand in Chinatown, from which I bought some ice cream, and flirted with them a bit :) Just a bit! "Hey, how are you... could I get a refill, since I can never get enough coconut here?" Corny stuff like that. There's a sidewalk where some massage girls are sitting on outside a parlor, and an old homeless woman with a sign and a cute little bunny rabbit tied to a string in her hand. There was this old grizzly white man sitting in front of me on the boat, with a young Thai boy-toy in feminine looking clothes sitting next to him (reminded me of Titan haha). Spicy Tom-yam soup (considered very mild by Thai standards) in a big, fancy mall, followed by jelly ice dessert. There's a Ronald McDonald statue outside McDonald's, doing the "wai" gesture to people entering. A man on the train with big, dirty bags and no shoes, who couldn't keep smiling or giggling to himself, and who spent a long time in the bathroom when the conductor came by to check our tickets. A woman in a fancy coat and pants, sitting next to who I assumed was her daughter, in a school uniform and reading a book teaching Chinese. A man outside one of the Ayuthaya ruins, who saw me getting drenched in the rain and pointed to his hat, gesturing that I should get one too. A giant orange millipede on one of the ruins statues, and a huge monitor lizard (at least 2 meters long, and fat) that was swimming down the river and got out of the water to hide in the tall grass while a huge dog barked at it. Eating crispy fried crabs on the floor of my hostel room. Meeting Kanit after he was done with work, still wearing dress shirt and tie, at a nice pizza place where I ate a ton of pizza. The salt stains on the back and shoulders of my shirt from sweating so much in the afternoon heat. Oh yeah and 10 Baht (about 30 cents) for a bubble tea at Victory Monument (the huge roundabout where all the buses go)! That's all I can rack my brain for now.

Oh but before I forget, there was this tour group at the grand-palace that I accidentally followed around thinking it was the free tour that the grounds offered, but was approached eventually by one of the guides to tell me to fuck off because it was a private tour, oops. I joined the free public tour after that, but the private tour was admittedly better. I don't know if the guide actually knew what she was talking about, she could have just been making it all up and none of the foreigners would know any better, but they were good stories. One story was about the demons and monkeys. At the temple you see statues and paintings of demons and monkeys everywhere. They look similar except the demons wear shoes and the monkeys almost always have their mouths open, as if screaming or ready to bite someone. Demons are also usually riding chariots and leading armies. And they are always fighting. Over a woman usually. This is what life is like in the City of Angels.