Singapore

The Merlion is the symbol of Singapore - half lion, half mermaid, to symbolize the name of the country, Singapore, which means "lion city" and the importance of the ocean in its business development. Here Tim & the girls do their best Merlion impression.

A star is born. This is Tally's favorite pose!

In a cable car crossing into Sentosa, Singapore's vacation island.

Adayla has been costing us this trip, now that she's a "big girl"

At a Chinese New Year's (Spring Festival) celebration

In front of a Hindu Temple in Little India that we went in. No, that's not an American flag in the top-right corner of the picture. Tim really liked the Coke machine in the temple.

Shopping for jewelry in Little India.

In front of the "World's Largest Fountain," the Fountain of Wealth. Unfortunately it wasn't working when we were there - does that mean that our wealth has dried up?

Who needs Western Union? These folks at a Chinese Buddhist temple are burning "spirit money" so that their ancestors can use it in the afterlife.

A Lion Dance that we watched in a mall.

The girls somehow eating durian ice cream - yuck! They wouldn't let Tim throw it away.

The Singapore skyline in the background

Before San Antonio's Riverwalk, there was Singapore. This is a wonderful place to eat!

This is a beautiful country!! If anybody wants to visit Asia, without leaving all the comforts of western life, Singapore is the place to come!

Chinatown? Check. Little India? Check. Tropical paradise 50 miles from the equator? Can get around only speaking English? Great food? Check. Check. Check.

Singapore’s history basically started in 1819 when a British Admiral landed on the island looking for a new shipping port to compete against the Dutch ports in the area. When Sir Raffles landed on the island, there were “1,000 people and 10,000 tigers.” That quickly changed as the British colonized the island and brought in workers from India, China and Malaysia to keep up with the explosive growth that the island experienced. Admiral Raffles realized the importance of keeping their cultures strong, so he established Chinatown and Little India. These areas are now only three subways stops apart, but we thought they were a world apart by the stark contrast in neighborhoods. It was funny to see when we got on the subway in Chinatown, everybody was Chinese. Then when we got off at the Little India station, everybody was Indian!

The official language in Singapore is English, but in various accents. If the Brits had only been able to colonize the entire world, we wouldn’t have to worry about learning foreign languages! Chinese is also widely spoken and Malay is spoken to a lesser extent. As expected, we heard quite a bit of Hindi in Little India, but outside of there we really haven’t seen many Indians.

Singapore is an “extremely” clean and orderly country, with emphasis on “extreme.” Heavy fines are imposed for doing things such as spitting, chewing gum or eating on public property. Obviously littering is also a fine. You must cross the street at a crosswalk if you are within 75 meters of a crosswalk and cars must stop for pedestrians. There are also fines for not flushing a toilet after using it. The fines may seem silly, but the result is a clean and orderly country. It is so nice that everything here is clean. It is so nice not to worry about somebody not stopping for you when you cross the street – they all do it.

Singapore still draws its wealth from shipping and business. It boasts Asia’s highest per capita income. Singapore’s favorite pastimes are shopping and food, and both are phenomenal. Huge, modern high-end shopping malls are everywhere. While the shopping is pricey, the food is cheap – and great! There is such a variety wherever we’ve gone. It’s so nice…

The funny thing is that Singapore is more “Chinese” than Shanghai is. Singapore really celebrates Chinese New Year, and doesn’t turn it into another sales promotion as Shanghai has done. The country basically shut down for three days for Chinese New Year. We also saw three traditional Lion Dances around town today, something that just they just don’t do in Shanghai any more (thanks to Mao Zedong for killing culture and tradition in China). We arrived on the third day of Chinese New Year, thinking nothing of it since Shanghai wasn’t shutting down for the holiday. We were surprised when we went to Chinatown to find that it was more like a ghost town. So that’s why we took the metro from Chinatown to Little India, figuring the Indians probably could care less about Chinese New Year, and we were right, all the shops there were open.

Today, day 2 here, we went to one of the really nice malls on Orchard Road to get Josie set up on a wireless network for her school studies and then the rest of us left and wandered around the city. The food court there was awesome. Did I mention the food here is great?

Then I ordered this ice cream smoothie with a local fruit, durian. I had no idea what a durian was, but it was advertised in various places we went, so I figure it’s not immersion if I order cookie dough ice cream all the time. Morgan is less daring - she only tries things after I've tried them (call me Mikey from Life cereal). This one bit me, however. This smoothie tasted like strong raw onions. I took one big mouthful and almost gagged. Then I took a second bite to see if it really was that bad. It was. The girls wanted some of my ice cream, but I just wanted to throw it away. They begged, so I gave it to them. They actually ate it. I’m still wincing as I think about that thing – yuck! Morgan just about beat me for letting her try it. I think it helps make the ice cream she likes that much sweeter. After all, you have to taste the bitter to know the sweet, right?

A little White Lie....

So as we are handing our boarding passes to the flight attendant in Phuket, she asks me if I'm pregnant? And then, how far along? It was on my to do list to get a doctor’s note, but I just hadn’t gotten to it. She said you can’t fly after 7 months without a note. I told her I was 30 weeks and she replied 27 weeks was the cut off. Oops, so what to do. As she is trying to figure out what to do with me, she tells me to go ahead and board. We are about the last people on the plane and so another guy heads back to talk to me. He asks me how far I am? Tim confidently says that I'm 26 weeks and doesn't see what all the fuss is about. He said, but you just told her you were 30. No no, next month we'll be 30 weeks, this month (at least today) we're 26 weeks. He was satisfied with the answer, so he brought the pregnancy paperwork for me to sign and we were on our way to Singapore! So you can call me/us liars from now on…

Medical vacations

First class...

... the way flying was meant to be!

Our flight from Bangkok to Phuket was just great. Somehow when we bought our tickets on Thai Air, I missed that they were first-class tickets -- they were cheaper than any of the other tickets we were seeing, so we bought them. We got on the plane, showed the flight attendant our ticket and she pointed that we needed to hang a left into first class. Uh, ok. So we flew first class in a Boeing 777 -- you can see the pictures of us below. I know we should “act like we’ve been there,” you know, act like we were used to flying first class, but these seats were too sweet to not take pictures of. If only wish we could be able to work first-class tickets on our flight back to the States… The girls enjoyed all of their space to play/color in first class, so I (Tim) took the chance to read the newspaper.

After reading about Microsoft's bid for Yahoo, I read an interesting article in the business section about “medical vacations.” Medical vacations are trips people take to beautiful areas of the world, but where medical care is relatively inexpensive, so the “vacation” is paid for by the difference in price of the medical procedures. The most popular procedures are laser-related since they’re close to “dummy proof” – the procedures are performed by the same “smart” equipment as in the U.S. or in Europe, but the labor is much less expensive and that’s where the savings is. The most popular procedures for medical vacations are laser eye surgery, dental work (teeth whitening, porcelain caps, etc) and laser hair removal.

The article mentioned that Thailand was one of the most popular destinations for those procedures. We arrived in Phuket and we were blown away by the number of clinics we saw in the taxi ride to our hotel that offered these various services. I had mentioned to Morgan a couple of weeks ago after taking a picture with Adayla and Tally how I wished my teeth were white like they used to be, how I can tell how non-white (ok, yellow) my teeth had become in pictures next to them. So I thought I’d inform myself about teeth whitening procedures in Phuket. I didn’t want to do a procedure unless it was an accepted method back in the States. I found a procedure called Zoom! that is featured on the TV show Extreme Makeover. It is a popular method, seemed “relatively non-harmful” to teeth, and I figured if the TV show picked it, it must either mean that it’s a good procedure and/or the company has money to buy the promotion on the TV show. The other things I read supported that Zoom! was indeed a very good procedure, so I Googled and found a Zoom! office in Phuket. The average cost of the Zoom! procedure in the States is $1000+, here in Phuket it’s $300. I went ahead and had it done, and we’ve included before and after pics for you to see. I have to say that I’m happy with the results. My fear was that my teeth would either be uneven in color or blotchy, or become unnaturally white. Fortunately neither happened, they turned out just right. I’m writing this not to tell people that I got my teeth whitened, I’m mean really, who cares? I’m writing to let friends know of some other options when they may need/want to do some of these things. For example, if someone back in the States wanted to have this procedure done, they could apply the difference, $700+ in this case, to airfare and hotel expenses and have a great time in Phuket, while getting the same procedure done. We have two American friends back in Shanghai who have had their eyes “lasered” in Shanghai because it is half the price of the same procedure back in the States. Who says doctors and dentists can’t be outsourced? It’s a global economy, and every occupation needs to face that reality – but that’s a different topic for another day. I’ve done my blogging for the day while my girls have slept, now it’s time to go out and have some more fun here! Here are the pics…

before...

...and after

Going for a ride....on an elephant

Another probably not so smart thing we did in Thailand.......I think some random guy buys/finds some elephants, puts up a sign next to the road, ghetto rigs some seat to the top of the elephant, hires an untrained local to be the guide, and dumb foreigners give him money because riding an elephant in Thailand, the home of the elephant, would be fun right?!

(elephants are big, their poop is really big!!)

The guy put Adayla and Josie on one and then Tim, Tally, and me on another. It was not what I would have expected. It was bouncy, really slow (imagine that), and really high off the ground. It made me quite nervous, especially since Tally likes to sit still so well...ha ha. Our seat was tied using his belly and his tail, no safety bar and no seatbelts, just hold on! We hiked up a big hill and back into the woods/jungle for an hour. As we rode uphill the guide rode on top of the elephant's head, but he was unable to do so on the way down because it was so steep. So here we are on top of this very intimidating creature and the guide is just walking close by! Thankfully we didn't do anything to get the elephant mad at us and we escaped unharmed, with no dropped Tallys. (If we hadn't, we just would have disappeared and been dumped in the jungle for sure!)

Phi Phi Island (pronouced pee-pee)

Once we told Adayla we were going to Phi Phi Island, she asked if there is a Poo Poo Island too?? So we started pronouncing it fee-fee island, but you can't use this change with Phuket....

Anyways we woke up way too early and a van picked us up at our hotel. He drove to where the speed boat was waiting. Eventually all the other people showed up and the boat was ready. We boarded, people were smiling and happy....everyone was excited about the adventurous day that was awaiting them. Ten minutes into the boat ride, the story was completely different.

The winds were quite strong and since we were going against the waves, the ride was quite bouncy. It wasn't just bouncy, the boat was rocking pretty good, and there we were with our 3 or 4 local 20-year-olds commanding the boat. We were at the back of the boat and just getting soaked! Soon, many of those same smiling people were grabbing those barf bags and looking quite pale. Tally was loving every minute of it, we bounced and bounced, and she giggled and giggled. I was actually quite scared, this boat could have flipped and there we would have been in the middle of the ocean. Tim was trying to comfort everyone with the song from Gilligans Island....not helpful!

We thought Tally was tired and the bouncing made her sleepy. After about 45 minutes or so, Tally put her head down and started to snuggle. About 10 minutes later, I look down at her, and she had barfed all over. I guess she was just a little sea sick. We cleaned it up and then both girls took a short little nap. What was supposed to take us 45 minutes, took twice as long, and we were ready to get off the boat. Where we arrived, however, was absolutely worth it!

This beach is where the movie "The Beach" was filmed. We haven't seen the movie, but it's obviously a beautiful place to film a movie.

We swam and snorkeled. Well Tim and Josie snorkeled, I tried, but couldn't figure it out. I know, it's not complicated - I just felt uncomfortable with having my face in the water and trying to breathe through the snorkel - oh well. We island hopped for the next couple of hours, passing by some ancient Chinese paintings in a cave and stopped at Monkey Island. There are wild monkeys just hanging out in some trees just feet away from the water. Our guide warned us as we got off the boat to not touch them, as they will bite. Some dumb lady thought a monkey was quite cute so she let one jump on her back. Then the thing hopped off and bit her 3 year little girl who let out a scream. The girl was ok after they washed the blood out of her hair in the nice sea water. Dumb lady!

This next picture is from the tsunami in 2004 at one of areas of Phi Phi Island where we stopped. On the right you can see the tsunami waves that are just arriving, while the beach on the left is still calm and blue.

We ate lunch at another little island and picked up some more fruit drinks. We again loaded the boat for the last island where we were supposed to spend a few hours relaxing. About 30 minutes into the ride, one of the three engines quit, and the genius design of the boat didn't allow the boat to run on two engines, so we were "stranded". Thankfully the guy was able to radio another company boat who was already at the island waiting for their group. This boat arrived 20 minutes later and we had to hop onto the other boat. We arrived and we able to hang out for awhile. Again, it was worth the trouble because it was quite a view! The water was so amazingly clear. Who needed to snorkel anyway, you could just stand and look down to see lots of fish! Unfortunately all the places we went were amazingly beautiful, because we would go on another such boat ride to see some of the Earth's most beautiful scenery!

Fun day, but I was happy to make it back to our hotel!

Phuket (pronounced poo-ket)

Here we are in Phuket, Thailand enjoying the sun and the beach! Phuket is an island just off the mainland in the southwest. There are multiple beaches on the island, we are staying in Patong - the most popular of all the beaches. The town is lively with people from literally all over the world here, every kind of food is available, lots of shopping, and of course plenty of sand. The girls have loved the ocean. Adayla wears her little floating swimming suit and will bob around and "swim" by herself. Tally makes you hold her, but throws a fit if you go back to the chairs. It has been so relaxing to just hang out together.

A few things that Bangkok is known for are apparently true throughout the entire country. You see many western guys with their hookup for the night in the evenings wandering around. Many times some of them are quite old with a very young gal. I even saw a sign outside a hotel that said if you are the only person staying in your room, they won't charge you more for an overnight guest and even serve them breakfast in the morning. And then I guess because the girls are busy with the foreigners, the men here have decided to become girls too. "Ladyboys" can be seen here as well in their high heels and make-up. Fortunately those folks are the minority, and Phuket is an enjoyable, family-friendly place to visit. So if any of you are looking to get away....HIGHLY recommended!




The tsunami in 2004 hit Patong and here is a picture right after, but now you have all these signs along the beach to escape....pretty scary!

Five things from Bangkok

Wandering the alleys of Bangkok......



1. The Tuk Tuks – cheap taxis which Adayla calls the tricky motorcyles and loves to ride

2. The Grand Palace with the Emerald Buddha Temple - definitely the place to see here

3. The food!!

4. The river taxi

5. The boat ride on the canals

Bangkok definitely isn't Shanghai, duh, but it is kind of fun for us to compare cities and countries. China also has many Buddhist temples, but the government has done a good job in making these temples just for show, and you get a sense that few people who do go aren't very sincere in their worshipping. We read that 90% of the Thai are practicing Buddhists and they take it very seriously. Temples are all over Bangkok and the most random places have these small shrines set up (gas stations, building entrances, where ever). Many of the shrines have a Strawberry Fanta with a straw in them. Not sure why, but I will update you when I find out.)

The food is great here and everywhere. We have tried so many good things! Most importantly they like sweet things and COLD drinks. Tim loves curry dishes, especially green curry chicken. I’m happy with Pad Thai. We have had so many fresh fruit slush drinks, they are very good with great fresh fruit, and very cheap! We are really going to miss those when we leave!
So to briefly explain the above: The little Tuk-Tuks were just fun to ride, the girls just giggled and giggled every time we rode in one. It is really safe I am sure to put five people in the back of this vehicle a little bigger than a golf cart and weave in and out of traffic, what the heck! One travel book we read said for a real kick, split up into two Tuk-Tuks, pick a destination on the other side of the city, and offer a bonus to the Tuk-Tuk driver who gets there first. These drivers are crazy enough without such an incentive, I can only imagine the ride with the incentive.

The Grand Palace was home to the king for many years. On the grounds there is a temple built to house Thailand's most sacred Buddhist artifact, a small green jade Buddha (it was originally thought to be emerald, hence the name Emerald Buddha). He sits on top of all sorts of fancy things, and the current king of Thailand actually changes its clothes three times a year depending on the season. Anyways you can go inside, but you have to take your shoes off. Then as we were walking in, Tim snaps of picture of this sign. We all wondered what it meant.

Then we go in and I realize that what was meant by not pointing your feet towards the Buddha statue was that you must kneel so as to point your feet away from the statue. There were about 100 people, both foreigners and locals, inside kneeling so that their feet didn't face the Buddha. Tim sits down and stretches out....until the guard immediately came over and yelled at Tim, letting him know that was not okay.

Meanwhile, I look over at Adayla and she is immitating all the Thai people. She has her hands put together and is bowing up and down to the floor on her knees. I did my best not to bust out in a giggle, but I had to tell her we don't do that. She quit and then a helpful Thai lady on her way out showed her how to do it again. Then as we were leaving, people take a white rose and dip it into water and then touch someone else's head. I am not sure what this means, but there was this guy beating another guy with this flower, he just kept hitting him. Tally wandered close by and he was able to get her on the head a couple of times. All very interesting....

Lastly we took a boat through the side canals of Bangkok. Homes on stilts at the water's edge. It was fascinating. Many people sat out and waved. The girls loved it. This is also home to the famous Bangkok "Floating Markets," where vendors in their boats sell their products to you in your boat. Again, since people in Bangkok used to live on the river, this is how business was done and is still done to some extent. After an hour of navigating the canals, we were just thankful we arrived safely back to the dock. In the middle of the ride, Tim said I hope this isn't the part where they take us hostage and nobody even knows we are missing. Those were the highlights of our days in Bangkok, along with the below story of Tim speaking with the Germans on the river taxi.


Tim took this picture on the river taxi. He liked it because of the sign in the top of the picture that reserves an area for monks on the river taxi. We saw lots of monks throughout the day. Bangkok is an interesting contradiction - one the one hand you have a very religious population, with lots of temples, monks, and practising worshippers. On the other hand, Bangkok is widely known as the wildest place for "night life." We saw multiple ads for "special" of "full service" massages. Besides the prostitution, there are many "Ladyboys" that are quite creepy to see. They are guys, in various stages of operations in their transformation to become women. Many of them you couldn't quite tell if it was a guy or a girl you were looking at - the big give away, however, was the feet. You can't help but wonder if perhaps the religion actually fosters such behavior, as reincarnation basically believes "if at first you don't succeed, try try again." So what's the point in trying for "zen" if you can do it in the next life, or the life after that?


Being in Bangkok, Tim looked up a song from the 1980's (yes, he's old and remembers the 80's!). After looking up the song "One Night in Bangkok" and being in Bangkok, he understood what was meant by the lyrics he sang as a 10-year-old. Here are some of the lyrics:


One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble
Not much between despair and ecstasy
One night in Bangkok and the tough guys tumble
Can't be too careful with your company
I can feel the devil walking next to me


Siam's gonna be the witness
To the ultimate test of cerebral fitness
This grips me more than would a
Muddy old river or Reclining Buddha (we liked the river, and the Reclining Buddha)
(Here we are at the "world's largest reclining Buddha" - it depicts Buddha entering Zen)


continuing with the song...

One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster
The bars are temples but the pearls ain't free
You'll find a god in every golden cloister
And if you're lucky then the god's a she (he was talking about Ladyboys - that was 20 years ago)
I can feel an angel sliding up to me

Looking back, that song has a whole new meaning now...

Here are some other pictures from Bangkok:

Tally set herself apart as the daring one - she has no fear of water, which gives us some fear!

Tim happily waiting for a traditional Thai massage! Yes, this is a "legit" Thai massage!!

"Zwei Frauen" - Two Women or Two Wives?

Here we are in Bangkok, Thailand (Morgan, 2 girls, Josie, and me - yes, sometimes I (Tim) do some of the blogging). Josie joined us the day after we arrived in Bangkok and will be with us for our three-week trip thanks to some very cheap airline tickets. If you have any intentions of travelling in Asia, check out http://www.airasia.com/ for great deals on tickets. They're the "Southwest Airlines" of Asia, but cheaper. Josie is crashing with us in our hotel room, but we will let her "pay" some by babysitting! So it should work out well, we have an extra set of hands to help a bit and she gets to join us in seeing some amazing places!

So we had just boarded a very full river taxi (150 people or so on the boat). Bangkok was built along the river, and these ferries (see pics below) are a very cheap and convenient way to get around in the city. It's also a beautiful way to see the city - 200 years ago only Buddhist temples and palaces were built on the land, the people actually lived on the river on bamboo rafts. We'll show some pics of our trip to the "floating markets" later.

Morgan had noticed a few seats way in the front and so the five of us headed that way. We were speaking our nice American English as we were getting everybody settled and the strollers put away. There were two retired German couples across the aisle on my left, and a Chinese family sitting on my right. I was getting a kick out of listening to both conversations and understanding them both!

The Chinese conversation paused for a moment, so I went back to listening to the German conversation. They were talking about "zwei Frauen," which means two women. Then something clicked in my mind, that the word "Frau" not only means "woman," but also "wife!" They weren't just talking about the two women, they were talking about me and my two wives!!

I was shocked, I didn't know what to do/say, so I just looked at them and started talking to them:
Me: Entschildigung, Sie haben zwei Frauen gesagt, nicht wahr?
Lady: I'm sorry, I don't understand what you're saying.
Me: Ich habe gehoert, Sie haben ueber zwei Frauen gesprochen, denken Sie dass ich zwei Frauen habe?
Lady: (Shocked) Nein, das haben wir nicht gedacht, wir haben ueber verschiedene zwei Frauen gesprochen.
Me: (just looking at them, smiling, because I caught them)
Man: (starts laughing) Wir haben das doch gedacht, dass Sie mit Ihrem zwein Frauen und zwei Kindern sind!

Basically, I asked the lady in German hey, you were just talking about having two wives and she thinking that I was just another typical American who can't speak a foreign language so she can talk about me, was thinking I was speaking in English and didn't understand what I said to her.

So I said it again, but this time telling her that I knew that they thought I had two wives. She realized that I not only spoke German, but spoke pretty dang well, and her eyes got so big, it was classic! She then tried to make up a story to cover herself by saying “No, we were talking about two others,” but her husband just laughed and said, yup, that's what we thought - it looked like you were there with your two wives and two children. I then had a conversation with them explaining who everybody was. They probably still didn't believe me because Adayla looks like a little Josie, but whatever, it was really funny - they got busted!

After that conversation, the Chinese family on my right moved in closer to make room for other passengers, so I started a conversation with them by having Adayla speak Chinese with them. That then launched a fun little conversation with them, but meanwhile I was still listening for the Germans to see if there were going to say anything about Adayla looking like Josie - they didn't, but they did notice that I was speaking Chinese with this family and remarked that I not only spoke German but also Chinese (had they said Japanese I would have corrected them!). For a couple minutes there I actually felt like I could speak three languages, and that was fun. Maybe in another year and a half I actually feel that I do in fact speak Chinese, but now, even after a year and a half of intensely learning the language I often feel intimidated by the language.

What would have been really funny is if I had told the German folks that I learned my German while on a Mormon mission, but I think they would have told all their friends back in Germany that they saw a Mormon with two wives in Bangkok - it was probably better that I didn't mention that part!! At least they can tell their friends in Germany that they met an American in Bangkok who can actually speak a couple of foreign languages.

We unfortunately don't have pictures from that particular time on the river taxi, but here are a couple of picture of us on the river taxi: