Sunday, October 24, 2010

Singapore Day 1 (and 2 because I procrastinate) (and 3 because it's Sunday and I don't have an excuse not to)

Day 1:
Really I'm counting more than 24 hours for day one. I was awake (except for a handful of naps) for about 46 hours. It was a long trip. I left SLC a little before 2:00 PM Wednesday and arrived at my hotel at about noon mountain time on Thursday (2:00 AM Friday Singapore time.

I slept for a couple hours then went in to work Friday. I was exhausted, so I don't know how much help I was that day. Hopefully, I can be more effective tomorrow. When I got back to the hotel I felt like sleeping, but I wanted to stay awake to get over jet lag, so I went exploring. 2 subway stops away from my hotel is Little India.



This temple was a few blocks down the street. I went into it and looked around. I always feel uncomfortable taking pictures in other people's holy buildings, so I didn't take any pictures inside.



Another few blocks down was this mosque. I've been told that they start to glare at American's down in this part to Little India, so I turned around and came back to the Hotel.





Day 2:
Saturday I slept in, or tried to at least. I was exhausted when I finally went to bed and slept like a brick until 6:30. When I woke up, I refused to get out of bed that early on a Saturday morning. Luckily, I was able to go back to sleep until about 8:00.

It has been very hazy here lately. Scratch that, everyone says it is hazy, but it is smog. I think of haze as waking up near a lake in the high Uintahs. This "haze" stinks and burns my lungs. There is no haze about it. According to the news, it hasn't been this bad since 2006. Hopefully it will clear out soon.

I decided to go visit the Merlion statue. Come to find out, there is a very big park and theaters/attractions all around the bay.


Here is the statue.


I think I like it better at night.


There are shallow pools and fountains all over the place. I liked this one because those circles are actually windows to the underground parking.

I had to go down a level and get a picture from there too. It's hard to see the ripples from the water in the picture, but I thought it looked cool. This level also has a pool (but none on the lower levels.


Also nearby is a floating soccer field. I don't think I've ever seen one of those. I hope they don't kick too many balls out of bounds. (Sorry about the focus; my camera has started having focus issues).

This is across the bay. You may ask, "Is that a ship on top of those buildings?" Well, thank you for asking. In fact it is a ship up there. That is the Sands hotel and casino. There is also a shopping mall there. They have some cool stores, like the Harley Davidson Shop and the Ferrari Boutique. They also have several stores with ugly clothes and models who look bored or angry. The store names are like Dior, Gucchi, Chanel. I don't know why anyone would waste their money there.

Also in the mall, there happened to be a performance going on. I was amazed at how realistic the animatronics were. They were very detailed and even changed facial expressions. Then a while later I saw why they were so realistic. The very real ladies climbed off the poles and bowed and announced that they would be back in 2 hours. I got video on my cell phone, but I don't know how good it is, and it will have to wait until I'm back home to upload.


I managed to get in some fishing. OK not really "fishing" but I did reel a rod. When you spin the reels on these poles it generates electricity to illuminate the bulbs.
The last thing I did before heading back to the hotel was catch this outdoor concert of a group from Malaysia doing traditional Malay songs and dances.

This was my view on the way home. I kept looking for a bat symbol, but apparently this isn't Metropolis (or at least there was no need for batman tonight).





Day 3 Sunday:
Today I went in search of the Church. In the one building there are 6 wards that meet. I went to the one that started at 9:00, but I guess that the ward that meets at 1:30 is the expat ward, so I'll probably go there next week. It is a beautiful building.



Also, there are a lot of beautiful flowers. I tried to take some pictures of some yesterday, but the camera didn't focus very well on any of them. Today while I was wandering around I found this "tree" that shows some of the flowers I saw and tried to take pictures of.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Bugs

With all the rain our internet radio that sits on our roof has shorted out. I'm posting this from the cell phone, but no house internet means no web browsing, no email, no TV and no house phone. It's amazing what we depend on with a single connection. On a positive note that means that I'm taking a couple minutes to post a couple bug related things that happened today. In church April noticed something on Kayson's head. She picked at it to see what it was and ended up with a headless bug wiggling in her hand. It was headless because it was a tick and the head was lodged in his scalp. Great. The second bug event happened when I was trying to figure out what was happening with our internet connection. I saw a fairly good sized spider with a red hourglass on it. I hate spider despite their markings and this one kept climbing up and down the web when I'd try to go after it. Luckily I had a can of compressed air, so I turned the can upside down and sprayed until it had icicles hanging from it. I knocked it to the ground and smashed it flat. Score 1 me, 0 spiders.