Waiting for the rest of the herd...

So now here I am in the big bright Hong Kong International Airport (this is the 3rd, and certainly not the last, time I've been here for this trip), waiting for Dad and Nat to get in from Singapore in about an hour. Yay for free Wifi! I think they give us free Wifi here just so we can go online to vote for HKG as the best airport in the world, as the many billboards and posters around here encourage us to do. It certainly isn't bad, very convenient and well run. I just got here early because I flew from Phuket with a layover in Bangkok rather than all the way back down to Singapore as Dad and Nat are doing.

And wow it looks like Quincy Chan got into NUS for study abroad next semester! UC Berkeley makes study abroad much more competive than it is at Rice, so this is no small achievement for him. Now I just hope I find a way to be able to visit Singapore again while he's there, and we can have another grand adventure to another part of Southeast Asia. If only he applied last semester so he could be here the same time as me... but considering he just transferred to Cal last semester he probably had enough on his hands.

So I'll wrap up this post with last words on Thailand. Yesterday we went into Phuket City, where we saw a little more of the local life. It was very dirty, with cockroaches everywhere on the streets near the sewer holes, and they wern't skittish or shy when you walked near them, just enjoying themselves out in the open. Road traffic was definitely heavy, with lots of mopeds as well. When we were there the police were attempting to enforce the helmet law on those on mopeds, but considering almost every other rider didn't have a helmet, they could only stop so many people. Food was also a lot cheaper there compared to vendors at or near the resort, about 2 to 5 times cheaper. That night for dinner we went on a small motorboat out to a fish-farm, where they had set up a quaint little seafood restaurant on a floating island of just wooden planks, with these netted ponds everywhere where they kept the seafood for sale, so we could just walk around and look at what they had to offer. We got a few crabs, eels, and a big fish, which they caught and cooked for us. It was pretty good, but we ordered way too much.

And before you know it, the next day it was time to leave : ( I was getting pretty used to living at the beachside villa myself, but it's time to move on.

Phuket, Thailand

Last week my Dad and sister came to see me in Singapore, so I gave myself an excuse to ditch classes and work and show them around town as best I could. Natalee, my sister, was sick for two days so unfortunately she didn't see as much, but at least Dad got to do what he likes best about traveling: eating the local food. That and the Botanical Gardens, the Night Zoo, Chinatown, and more sightseeing, all of which I've already done but don't mind seeing again. Dad was also actually very well equipped to know Cantonese, as a surprisingly large number of hawkers and storekeepers spoke it, much more than I thought. So with Dad ordering we certainly didn't get anything that was bad, and never went hungry. You can never understate my Dad's way with Chinese food; going to Chinatown with him is like going from bottom-of-the-barrel, tourist-class goods & services to 1st-class, ultra-attentive pampering with the finest and freshest ingredients. It's as if there's some unspoken rule that if any of the waiters or chefs dares to disappoint Dad, they'll be gunned down in the night on their way home by a secret, Cantonese food-critic mafia. Reminds me that I really need to one time just follow my Dad into the kitchen for a month straight to learn his cooking skills; then I'll at least be making progress on my own.

OK, and so now we're in Thailand. Again, with Dad, we arrived in style. Somewhat by accident this time, though. We are staying in a beach resort on Phuket Island, and after being driven from the airport in a private Mercedes with comfortable amenities, we were informed at reception that the two hotel rooms we had originally reserved for ourselves and Auntie Sandra, who was coming in later from Shanghai, were unfortunately unavailable, so they were going to upgrade us to our own beachside villa with a private pool for no extra cost. Holy... cow... Talk about ultimate luxury, this place is swank. It's three stories, with very nice bedrooms in the basement floor where it's cooler, a spacious living room and kitchen with big screen LCD TV on the first floor, and a private outdoor pool and patio on the top floor. There's a total of like 5 balconies, with nice views of the lagoon. I'll put up pictures later, not taking photos on my own this trip, letting Natalee do all the work since she has to do it anyway for her Digital Photo class back at school. My advice to people who want to visit resorts anywhere in the world, bring a lot of people with you. More likely than not, the resort will make some little mistake in the reservation, and either give you the whole package for free or upgrade you to something really awesome. This also happened to me just this past Thanksgiving actually, when I went with 7 other family members to a resort on the Rio Grande, and they gave us the whole stay for free because they forgot to make all of our rooms connecting.

Now about Thailand. Phuket (pronouced "poo-ket", not "F**K-it!") itself is definitely a tourist-claimed area, with hordes of sunburned, usually older Caucasians roaming around. It's like Cancun or some Mexican/Caribbean resort place except the food and culture is Thai. And good Thai food, not the American crap back home. Thai food is actually my least favorite food back in the US, and here it's one of my favorites so far on this entire Southeast Asia trip. The food is actually spicy, but the spiciness is not the main attraction, it still tastes good. Thai restaurants in the US I think usually forget that last requirement. The beaches here are also very nice, and every so often you'll see a baby elephant just walking down the beach with it's owner, cute. We went elephant riding of course, snorkeling, and other sightseeing outings. There was a monkey that we saw that was trained to pick coconuts from the trees; I need a monkey like that. My newfound beverage obsession if I've not mentioned this earlier is coconut. A chilled, young coconut is perhaps the most refreshing drink in the world.

I've not had much chance to become familiar with local Thai culture on this trip, since we are in tourist town basically. All I know is that they greet each other with the "wai" gesture, and their language, like Japanese, has different spoken forms for men and women. They also have pictures of their King everywhere, although I hear the government is not very stable. The national sport is also Thai boxing, all the locals usually have their TVs tuned to a channel showing one of these matches. The locals are also living a very different lifestyle of course compared to the tourists. When you leave the well-guarded resort for excursions into town, you see lots of trash and thatched huts, little children running on the streets and water buffalo everywhere. One of those classic images of poverty that I remember in particular from this trip is a little boy running up a dirt hill with a piece of plastic trash in his hand tied to a string that he flew like a kite. Although it's not about Thailand, if you don't know much about poverty in Asia I highly recommend "Slumdog Millionaire", in fact I think I overheard it just won the Oscar for Best Picture. It was a a great story.

Overall this has just been a very relaxing trip for me, so much so that I've not even begun studying for my midterms which come this following week... such a bad idea to have this recess break BEFORE the tests, but that's just one stroke of bad luck for me. The rest is life on a beach...

I got bageled and beared today...

Wow today turned out unexpectedly very good. I was predicting a glum, lonely Valentine's Day... this is the first V-day I've been officially unattached to anyone for...hmm... since freshman year of high school! I'm not saying I recommend this way of life, as you can tell from just glancing over my last post if you can even stand the stench of my cheesiness... it's even worse than the local durian.

So in the morning I played tennis today, and I was actually "bageled" on one set (this is a term we used in my high school tennis team a lot, means you lose a set 0-6, named because the "0" looks like a bagel, and the most popular snack food for our team was bagels). So it was a good match... still looking to lose an entire match, but that was a tough game, thanks Shaffi : )

After that, I had lunch with Yaliang and his girlfriend. We went to Holland Village, where unfortunately the BBQ fish shop I recommended for them was closed, so we went to Crystal Jade instead, the local Shanghainese style chain-restaurant. It was very nice, if not a bit expensive, but as always I had interesting conversations with Yaliang, including the Chinese vs. American perspective of the Dalai Lama, and whether or not President Leebron took a big risk in inviting him to give a lecture at Rice. Which reminds me, I had another very interesting political convo with another native Singaporean, but I've forgotten it... all I remember is at lunch one day I was eating with this British girl who sung a bit of the British national anthem for us, and I was laughing so hard when I heard it, because it sounded so unbelievably ridiculous. "Knavish tricks"? "Confound their politics"? Hahah... If I was drinking my bubble tea at the time I think not only would tea and milk come out of my nose, but whole tapioca balls as well. Hilarious...

Ok and after lunch I had a Valentine's Day dinner with the IFG group, along with my "date", Subhash. The IFG group is a very cool group of people, with some very friendly Singaporean hosts, and a cool exchange group as well. Many of those exchange students are Indian or Pakistani, and they kind of remind me of Jaimeet except extremely, and I mean EXTREMELY, passionate when playing games like charades or Mafia. The version of Mafia we played that night, compliments of Subhash, was "Bears", where you have bears who kill villagers rather than mafia. And the students there were the most intense group of students I have ever seen play, especially this Indian and Pakistani guy... it was fun; my voice is nearly gone from yelling at people so much trying to convince them I was not a bear... I'M A FREAKIN MEDIC, PEOPLE! DON'T KILL ME!!! We also tried games like "Ping Pong", and "Aliens"... the other students often have their own interpretations of what the rules for each game should be, due in bit to the language confusion, but that only makes it even more amusing.

Ok what else... I can't blog enough to keep up with the news. I got a haircut this week, which was one of the most intense haircuts I've ever gotten... when I was in Switzerland I remember I thought I had the weirdest haircut, it was with a very effeminite Filipino guy who worked in the back store-room of a local grocery store; it was the cheapest I could find in all of Zurich and it was still $25. And now, I went to some place that was about $10 but not only did he cut my hair he gave me a head massage and cleaned out my ears, which was a very weird feeling. Maybe he thought I was going deaf because I kept asking him to repeat whatever he was trying to say to me in his strong accent. But at least my hair is short again now, my head was getting so hot all the time from too much hair. And of course everyone gives me that comment... "Oh, you cut your hair..." No, duh. I'm trying to think of something witty to say next time someone asks me that, still processing on that one...

I've also lately been getting the comment, both personally and referring to this blog, that I can write pretty effectively. To those who think so, thanks, I try my best. Technically I am an engineer in training, but writing has always been a hobby of mine. Ever since I was pretty young I liked to write because I started off as a really shy kid, not talking much to strangers and only with close friends. I still tend to be shy sometimes, so writing is how I keep myself from having thoughts building up in my brain to boiling point. As for the somewhat cynical, blatant style, it was not always so. In middle school I remember my schoolmates used to say my writing was very girly, being full of adjectives and intense descriptions, and my English teacher even brought me to the principal's office once because she thought I was plagiarizing my essays from some story novel written primarily for girls. Understandibly, this bothered me, so I changed my style a bit. I wrote about political issues starting in high school, and man did that get me in a lot of trouble, but it was fun haha. I still remember reading the front page of our school newspaper featuring an article about my impeachment from the class presidency, and I thought, shit, I can write an article more interesting than that. Then it evolved into cynical critique, which I think all writers must hit at least some point in their career. I don't like too much cynicism though, that's just emo, or it reminds me of Zeno Yeates, who I think writes extremely well but sometimes it seems his personal life is heavily influenced by the habit. As of now, my writing is probably a mix of a lot of things, but I think my writing style is still much harsher than my normal conversation and speaking style. Of course it's easy to write like this when you don't have to face your audience directly. But no, I would never write for a career... nor would I give it up for anything in the world.

One thing that has not matured about me at all is my taste in music... haha I've liked techno for as long as I can remember, nobody will ever convince me to give up that. Although I have learned to keep track of what Alec Swafford likes these days, I remember hearing stuff in his room last year like Angels & Airwaves and the Killers and liking them all, which is rare for me since I usually hate rock. But techno is still the majority.

ZZzzz falling asleep now... I want to go to Pulau Ubin tomorrow, this is the 2nd weekend now that I've considered going, but I need to study... or I'll never have much time to study before I go traveling with family over the recess week. And I have midterms continuously right after the break: one on each day for Monday, Tues, Weds, Thurs... it's gonna be no fun : (

Wish me luck!

Hey you, if you're still following my blog, here's to you!

So if you're not still in lab working your tush off, or in the ballroom dancing until your feet fall off, or in your overheated little room studying your eyes out... or maybe, just maybe, still reading this blog, because your heart aches... well, thanks. This is the best I could do from S'pore, please pardon me, my favorite : )

Everything I've ever made for you had at least something to do with Totoro...


Now that cold-hearted douche on the left is leaving her for Europe... What next? Singapore?!


(San Jose Aeroporto)
Guy on the left: "Hey, sorry I couldn't chat longer, but I gotta go to Rice now, yeah, because I'm a freakin' intellectual!"
Girl on the right: "Oh, ok... Rice... that's a nice school. Have you heard of Harvard?"


Dizzy?


Happy V-day!
Ry

Let's check in with Mr. Pei, reporting live from the Equator of the Blogosphere...

I released Prince George, the huge tarantula-like spider that I kept for a while. He wasn't eating and seemed to be getting weaker, so I let him go in the grass near my building. By the way, that was a really weird religious rant that some dude left on my blog on that last post... you'll have to pardon my confused, immature friend. But it's OK I doubt few people actually read this blog regularly, one of the advantages of blogging vs. FB.

My daily routine has become much more routine since I got here, as I've pretty much settled into life in Singapore, a sign that I should consider traveling somewhere soon just to spice things up. But besides being more comfortable with how things are run around here, I've also stabilized more due to the realization that I probably need to start working for school... it's not entirely vacation. Midterms are coming up, and before I assumed that, hey, no big deal, I'll just pass my classes and everything will be A-OK. Oh wait, what about grad school? Ah poopers. If I ever want to try my luck with Stanford or MIT, I will certainly need to get good grades while here since they will want to see my transcript from all schools attended for.

Research activity has also increased since I first talked to my new supervisor, Prof. Choi, who I mention earlier for being especially kind in helping me settle my courses and offering me a position in his lab. I'm currently working with another undergraduate, Gabriel Lim, a really cool guy whose life's motto is like mine, "Work hard, play hard", except he's much better at it than I am. He's a real expert in his work, but he also goes to clubs and plays sports actively. He's showing me the ropes in the microfabrication lab, and he seems very glad to have me working with him on his equivalent of a senior design project so that's good. He was also in Europe working for the summer by coincidence, doing research at TUM, which is in the other big -ich city (Munich). Oh and another really strange coincidence, this Prof. Choi was also Yaliang's senior project adviser... I'm just hitting it with all the right people these days.

Outside of work, did fun stuff over the weekend. I think I talked about everything but Sunday in the last post. Sunday was when I went with Rachel et al to Sentosa for my second time, this time to see the Underwater World. My camera doesn't take good aquarium pics so I didn't even bother taking out my camera much, but fortunately Rachel's does so I'm going to use her photos on FB for future reference, as well as just these two that I took which show basically how amazingly interactive this particular aquarium is.



Unlike Monterey, which is memorable for having huge exhibits with very true-to-nature environments, Underwater World emphasizes letting you come face to face, or flipper to fin, with all their animals. Above you can see the world's longest traveling aquarium-tube thing, and a little girl feeding the fish in one tank through one of the ingeniously designed access ports. There were also many petting tanks for rays, sharks, etc. Like a typical Asian, I couldn't help but wonder what each of them tasted like as I touched them, but I managed to refrain from sneaking any of them out in my pockets. There was also a nice dolphin show, featuring pink dolphins, as well as those ugly pink apes (migrating from England or the US for the winter months) who stripped off all their clothes to go swimming with the dolphins during the show. Another law that Ryan humbly suggests to the Singapore government for consideration; restrictions against fat, old, and sunburned Caucasians from exposing anything more than than their faces in public... so gross.

That evening we had hotpot, or "steamboat" as it's called around here. Pretty fun, although I will admit that perhaps if Singapore ever has the right weather for eating hotpot, then we are all probably very screwed. Afterwards our kind hosts talked with us about their experiences traveling to Western countries, especially in Europe, where they encountered a large number of guys who hit on them (you know, that epidemic in the West called yellow fever, which I myself probably cannot test for negative). They were funny stories, but by the end I was starting to think that they were just bragging about being young, Asian females who could make so many guys lives miserable. So here I would say in defense of those pink apes, you can toy with them all you want, but make the most of your time because as you approach your metamorphosis into an old Asian lady, when driving they won't even want to share the road with you.

Just talking about that makes me scared of becoming old. What will happen when I can no longer travel the world? When I become slow and start wearing velcro shoes and slippers? Hopefully I won't be rotting somewhere wishing I was able to just go back to places like Zurich and Singapore to relive my youth... omg, what if I even start to miss Houston *gag* if I live elsewhere? OK I'm stopping here before I go into another rant.

Yesterday was the last day of the Lunar New Year's (I've learned to say "Lunar" rather than "Chinese" to be more politically correct, since a lot of other SoutheastAsian nationalities celebrate it as well). I had the last day's dinner with Yaliang and his girlfriend at his apartment. Right now he's taking night-time webcast courses from MIT for his master's, so hardcore. I also learned that last night was the fullest, brightest that the moon has ever been for the last 52 years, and it certainly was very bright.

OK, got to get to work for once. My regards to Mommy, this weekend was her birthday. Haha I still remember missing my flight from Houston last year to get home for her 50th... what a mess I am, need to get in shape in terms of my timeliness, starting NOW.