WEEKS 36-51 [PART 1]

MATT'S TOP 10 FROM SINGAPORE

Weeks 36-51: November 20, 2011 – March 31, 2012  [PART 1]

Hope everyone is doing well!  Things here in good old Singapore are good – we’ve now made it through rainy season, hot season #2, and are currently in hot season #3.  But I’m not complaining – at least there’s no snow – but it doesn’t sound like the east coast saw much this year either…This week it’s actually one year since we’ve been here.  It’s amazing how quickly time flies.

The most common questions I get here when I talk to people back home are as follows

(in this order):

1. How’s Lisa…(she’s doing great)

2. When are you going to send out another blog…(now that qtr end is over, I actually sat down on Sunday and wrote one…so here you go)

3. When is the next time you’re coming home…(hopefully the first week of June)

4. How are you doing…

So I guess I’m officially back – at least to blogging that is.  Seeing it’s been a while (and to mark our one year anniversary here, I’ve put together a three part blog) - mostly because I had more than 10 things to share with you from the past four months.  Now, try to contain yourselves – I know how exciting this can be with the thought of two more blogs coming in the next couple of weeks – but I just want to set up that it will probably be another 4 months before I get to another one – For those who are asking, I will try to get better…promise…

So for those that are still with me, here’s the latest installment (Part 2 and 3 to come in the next two weeks)…

1.  And the bathroom entertainment continues…

What better way to get back into the swing of this blog thing then with some pictures of some good old fashioned Asia toilets.  Here’s a few of my favorites from over the past few months:

a) Here’s one from the airport bathroom in Cambodia - yup, that’s right – that’s a scented pine tree air freshener like you see in many cars in the US.  Can you imagine what the bathroom smelled like for them to have to put these suckers on the toilets?

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b) In our Hong Kong office:

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c) At the Tokyo Airport:

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d) At the Bali airport in Indonesia – you get to go to the bathroom while looking at the fishes in a giant aquarium:

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e) Speaking of using a bathroom with a view – check out the view from the men’s room bathroom in our Tokyo office.  You have to  hope no one in the next skyscraper is looking over at you…

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f) And two more interesting bathroom signs...the first is from a restaurant in China and the second one from the ferry terminal in Indonesia...

And yes - these are VERY necessary to give directions to people on how to PROPERLY use a bathroom...It's so gross to have to daily use bathrooms (even at our office) where the floor is covered in pee...

More on public bathrooms - I was running the other day in Singapore and I stopped in a public restroom off a running path - inside this older gentleman was standing butt naked with his foot resting on the urinal clipping his toe nails...butt naked - he had just washed himself in the sink...not a homeless person, just an ordinary guy...

 I can't make this stuff up people - even if I wanted to...this blog almost writes itself.


2.  Bali…

It’s pretty amazing to have so many ‘exotic’ places so close to us here.  Bali is actually only a 2 hour plane ride from Singapore making it really easy to go to for a quick weekend trip.  A few weekends ago, Lisa and I took a quick trip to get away from Singapore for a bit. 

a) First and foremost, I have to say that the people of Bali are some of the friendliest in the world.  Outside of the pushy people you find at the tourist traps, the general population is over the top nice.  I think we can all learn a lot from them...

b) One of the most interesting parts of the weekend was our trip to the monkey temple.

I think it has a more formal name, but it’s essentially this temple/tourist trap on the side of an ocean  cliff (with amazing views) that’s infested with monkeys.  They’re everywhere and they are not afraid of humans.  In fact, they will come right up to you and steal anything you have on you – sunglasses, flip flops, cameras, bags.  Pretty much anything they can get their greasy little hands on…and don’t try to take it back from them, because they will literally lunge at you and try to bite you – we saw it happen a number of times during our visit.  The first picture is one of the monkeys chewing on a pair of sunglasses he just stole.  The second picture is the same monkey with a candy bar that one of the guides had to give him in order to get the little thief to drop the sunglasses:

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When we get home we may be getting an elephant (see blog from Weeks 29-35) and we may even be getting a kangaroo (stay tuned for next week's blog), but one thing we will NOT be getting is a monkey…cute looking things but boy do they have a temper –kind of like me as a baby J  Supposedly if you stare at them and make eye contact, they’ll take it as a sign of aggression and will essentially attack and bite you.  On the ride to the temple, I told Lisa I was going to test this theory out –how harmful could a cute little monkey be?  Well let me tell you…after watching the above monkey take a pair of glasses from a lady and then show its teeth and lunge at her when she tried to take them back, I decided that the theory was well enough proven.  Nasty little suckers…it's hard to think they can go from being so cute and innocent (see the little guy clinging on to his mom below) to being so nasty - now I know why they say humans have evolved from monkeys...

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They’re also little horn dogs – never before in my life have I seen so many monkeys ‘going at it.’  My favorite incident while we were at the temple – Boy monkey walks up to girl monkey, lifts her tail, and then jumps on top of her – right there in front of hundreds of tourists…after 10 seconds (of one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen), boy monkey jumps off girl monkey.  Girl monkey turns around and starts rubbing boy monkey’s back.  I wasn’t sure if I was at a sacred temple or on the set of a cheap 70’s porn movie.  It did give Lisa and I one of the hardest laughs that we had in a while.

Whereas this is now a PG-13 blog, I regretfully (or gratefully) have to inform you that I cannot post any pictures of the above interactions…

But….I guess I can show you the post-back rub photo…

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3. You touch-a my feet, I break-a your face…

One thing I cannot stand is feet – Whereas they have very obvious purposes, I think they are the ugliest things in the world.  Lisa knows better to ask for a foot massage and nobody is allowed anywhere near my feet.

So where am I going with this?

On our recent trip to Bali, Lisa really wanted to get a massage – Personally, I’m not a huge massage person – I don’t find them relaxing and I’m not into complete strangers rubbing me down with substances that I’m told are “all natural” from the Balinese countryside - but I figured that we were in Bali and we should make the most of it…so we went for a couple Balinese massage. 

First of all, the spa at our hotel was amazing – see picture below…

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Unfortunately for me, this is where the niceties ended.  Here’s how the events unfolded:

a) They made us strip down and put on these odd paper underwear – picture below.  You can imagine how well I took to having to put on paper underwear that were 4 sizes too small...

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b) They have you sit in a chair and put your feet in a big empty brass bowl.  Then they tell you to close your eyes – the conversation when they told me to do this went as follows:

Masseuse: “Mr. Matt, please close your eyes.”

Matt: “Ummmm…why”

Masseuse: Thank you…thank you Mr. Matt.”

Matt: “Huh”

Masseuse: “Mr. Matt, this will help you relax.”

Matt: “What are you going to do with my feet in this bowl?”

Masseuse: “Thank you…thank you Mr. Matt”

Matt: “I’m so confused.”

Masseuse: “Thank you…thank you Mr. Matt”

Matt: “I’m sitting here in paper underwear in a closed off room in Bali and we’ve just met – no offense, but I’m not too sure I can relax.”

Masseuse: “It won’t hurt, I promise.  Thank you…thank you Mr. Matt”

After this 30 second exchange, I finally closed my eyes and she starts hitting the side of the bowl with a large stick – similar to a gong…the vibrations from the bowl were supposed to travel up your body and help you relax (personally I’m not sure how) – all it did for me is make me feel like I had to pee.

c)  Next they move you to another chair for a foot scrub and massage –  as I mentioned above, Mr. Matt no like his feet touched.  I’ll spare you the details of this exchange – Strike 2

d) From the foot scrub/massage they bring you in the next room for a full body massage and a body scrub.  The massage was ok, but the body scrub was just weird…

e) From the body scrub they put you in this rose petal bath.  At this point I was just about ready to jump out of my skin and make a run for it – but Lisa was really enjoying it….and they did give you traditional Balinese cakes (which were darn tasty) while you were in the bath – so this made it a bit more tolerable…lesson learned by the Balinese masseuses - when Mr. Matt is unhappy, just feed him cake.

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f) It was then onto a yogurt and honey facial.  I’m still not too sure how having a white substance that smells like sour milk put on your face is relaxing – but I was already this far into it…If I could do the rose and orchid petal bath, I could deal with a bit of yogurt on my face.

g)  Then came the crème de la crème – the prime rib course of the dinner -  the cherry on the top…When they were done with the facial, they dressed you up in a traditional Balinese costume to take your picture.  It was essentially an exercise in mummification.  They take this material and wrap you so tight that you could hardly breathe – and believe me, I’m not exaggerating here.  After they had me dressed up, I needed to cough and I thought my insides were going to implode.

Lisa looked quite beautiful in her costume.  Also, here’s a photo of Lisa with some random guy who they also made dress up.  To protect his identity, I blurred out his face…

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4. More getting ‘lost in translation…’

I love how things get lost in translation here.  Around Bali there are stone statues everywhere.  Many of these statues have pieces of cloth on them covering the bottoms (similar to what a skirt would look like).   When I asked our driver/guide what they were, he told me they were there so people ‘don’t pee on them.’  Hmmm...Lisa and I had no idea how to take this one.

Come to find out, there are larger statues where they put these cloths on the base so people don’t feel the need to go to the bathroom on them – but in the majority of the cases, the cloth is there for religious reasons…

It boggles my mind how free people are in a number of Asian countries to just use the street for a bathroom…

Here’s a couple other pictures from Bali:

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5. Now that's one strong head....
Ok - last thing about Bali, I promise.  Check out these ladies walking around carrying things in baskets on their heads.  Odd that we didn't see any men carrying anything during our entire trip.  It actually made me mad in a few instances - especially with the ladies that were carrying bricks on their heads as a bunch of guys (who were also working on the same construction project) were standing there watching them.

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6.  Chinese New Year – bigger than Christmas here…

I had heard about Chinese New Year – but experiencing it is a whole other thing.  To the Asian culture, Chinese New Year is like a combination of Christmas and New Year’s in the States – lots of family time, parties, fireworks, and huge street celebrations.

In Chinese astrology, this is the year for the dragon.  So what does this mean?  At first I thought it was just a reason to decorate the entire city of Singapore with a bunch of dragons (and when I say a bunch of dragons, I mean dragons everywhere – it’s like Christmas trees in the US at Christmas time).  However, to the Chinese the dragon is a symbol of power and wealth and is the imperial symbol (the sign of the emperor) – it’s also the only animal of the Chinese zodiac year that is not real (somebody told me this and I actually had to look it up because I didn’t believe it – but it’s true)

Now for the interesting part – having a baby in the year of the dragon is considered to be lucky.  So much so that here in Asia, during years of the dragon, there are baby booms – go ‘Google’ it – it’s crazy how many publications actually have written articles about this year’s baby boom here in Asia.  Even the Wall Street Journal has an article about it (and NO mom, nothing here to report…)


7. Speaking of Christmas...
This was definitely an odd one for me - being away from home for the first time at Christmas in my 34 years on this planet...and also the first year where we didn't have a real life size Christmas tree...

We improvised though - courtesy of our 'friends' at IKEA.  We settled on a nice 'Charlie Brown Christmas Tree' which we found on the second shelf of Aisle 42...it did bring a little Christmas spirit to our time away from home...

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8.  Lo Hei…one of my favorite parts of Chinese New Year…

Besides the two extra holiday days off we got from work, one of my favorite parts of Chinese New Year here was Lo Hei.

Loosely translated, Lo Hei means ‘Prosperity Toss.’  Personally, I like to call it  ‘tossing the salad’ (keep your minds clean).  Lo Hei is most popular here in Singapore and Malaysia and consists of eating a salad (Yusheg) made up of strips of raw fish, shredded vegetables and a number of different sauces and add-ins.  As a tradition, families and friends get together with all the ingredients in the middle of the table and then toss the salad while calling out Lo Hei.  They say that the higher you toss the salad, the better luck and prosperity you’ll have in the coming year.

The first time I was invited to one of these lunches during Chinese New Year, I had no idea what to expect – but let me say it made for some great entertainment.  Nothing like seeing a group of 10 adults at a table throwing their food in the air and having it generally be accepted by everyone at the table…add a few beers and some rice wine to the lunch and you can just imagine how fun it could be!

9. Sky Lanterns…another one of my favorite parts of Chinese New Year…

Let’s go to my good friends at Wikipedia for a definition of a sky lanterns:

“Sky Lanterns,” also known as Kongming Lanterns or Chinese lanterns, are airborne paper lanterns that are best known as a tradition found in some Asian cultures. They are constructed from oiled rice paper on a bamboo frame, and contain a small candle.  When lit, the flame heats the air inside the lantern, thus lowering its density causing the lantern to rise into the air. The sky lantern is only airborne for as long as the flame stays alight, after which the lantern sinks back to the ground.”

We have a big open field below our apartment balcony here in Singapore and during Chinese New Year, people would light these lanterns for good luck.  Very cool sight to see…

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10.  Never mind black cats and walking under ladders- superstitions are far more strange here…

Oh the superstitions – try getting a haircut over here during Chinese New Year.  I went to my normal place and they told me that it was going to be $10 extra whereas it was bad luck to get a haircut during the two week celebration.  Also, you’re not supposed to sweep during Chinese New Year for the fear that you will “sweep good fortune away.”  And my favorite… Shoe shopping is restricted on the first day because "shoes" is a homonym for "rough" in Cantonese.

Also, giving oranges/tangerines to people during Chinese New Year is a sign to wish each other abundant happiness and prosperity during the coming year.  I think had enough oranges on my work desk to make a full quart of freshly squeezed orange juice…

Part 2 coming next week...Until then, hope everyone is doing well!