Langkawi Preview

We had a great trip- possibly the BEST weekend trip we've taken since we have been in Asia. And, it was epic timing, because it apparently rained for 48hrs straight in Singapore. I am rushing to get packed for a business trip to Manila, so no time for much posting, but wanted to share these first pics!

Chinatown Festivities Part II

Don't worry, there was plenty more crazy CNY fun to document in Chinatown. The whole first post was just material from one tent! To be honest, this is probably as spirited as I have seen the normally subdued Singaporeans. They don't get too worked up about much, but there is certainly a festive spirit in the air, which is nice to experience. There was certainly no such warm feeling of celebration and community during Christmas- just a lot of neon lights and the occasional modern interpretation of a Christmas tree, which is nothing compared to the onslaught of CNY decor that hits you from every angle in Chinatown (and most of the rest of the island).

So I am not sure how to describe this...dance? It was dancers, attached to these bendy poles, doing some very beautiful movement, with the lovely Chinese temple in the background. Dave's first comment was something to the effect of "how do you start your kids balancing on a pole?" While I share his confusion about the origins of the practice, it was really beautiful. Of course it was also not super easy to get a good picture of it and I wasn't smart enough to think a video would be a better idea. 

So while I remain confused on what exactly we were watching, I was very impressed. It was graceful and lovely and ostensibly related in at least some tangential way to Chinese New Year? 

Eh- who cares, it was cool. 

After the dance-thingie, it was back to the markets, where there was endless CNY items to be gawked at. The sea of red is almost overwhelming! 

You know how I love strange fruit....and these guys really fascinated me. They are basically massive green grapefruits (they call them pomelos, but I am pretty sure its the same thing, and at the minimum in the same family). Unclear what benefit is derived from them being suspended in little red harnesses, but they look luscious. Unfortunately I have a hard enough time finishing a whole normal sized grapefruit for breakfast, so I am not sure I am willing to spend S$10 dollars on one of these suckers. But I am tempted.... 

And these are..... no clue. None. And no one at the both spoke (or wanted to speak) enough English to enlighten me. Any guesses? 

OK- its past my bedtime, and we have a busy busy busy few days coming up, so more later! XoXo

Chinatown Festivities Part I

Since we will be away for the actual Chinese New Year action (and basically every day until then) my goal for this week was to take time to wander around Chinatown and take some pictures of all the amazing celebrations! I convinced Dave and friends K. and S. to come along for the adventure.

Yup, nothing like a giant inflatable Chinese man to celebrate the Lunar New Year. I told my friend J. in the US that I would bring her home one, it would look great in hear front yard. 

First stop on the tour was a very red tent selling some very red CNY decorations. Lots of them. 

Anyone need a GIANT paper pineapple? 

No? OK- how about a spinning golden pineapple with a bunny inside for the low low price of $34.80? 

Come on, I make you special deal. 

Bunnies, bunnies everywhere. 

I am thinking that next year's CNY decorations (Year of the Dragon coming right up) or last years (See ya later Year of the Tiger) were probably cooler than this year's mascot. 

Who can resist buying 12 mini red plastic lanterns for only 2 dollars! Such a steal! 

The next adventure in the tour was to watch some auction action. 

No clue how much things were going for, but it was heated. 

Here's a little video action:

Dave found the real prize- the beer tent. That's right, "Celebrate Togetherness with Tiger"

OK- I reallllly wanted one of these guys. I rarely get too excited about trinkets, but I do love me some Elephants. Unfortunately the guy started the bartering at S$150 and seeing as I had a beer in one hand and a rather expensive camera in the other, I figured my negotiating position was pretty low, so I had to pass. Maybe next time elephant friends, you'd look super on my desk. 

Island Getaway Coming Right Up

Not only did I have a great tennis lesson last night (lets just be clear that "great" does not describe my playing skills- only the experience) which is clearly a strong part of my Only In Singapore initiative (how many of you in the US were playing tennis outside in shorts last night?)- but because we were feeling adventurous, we booked a mini-getaway to to Langkawi this weekend (because its really difficult to randomly fly to Malaysia on a weekend from the US)!

Langkawi- as you can see from this very detailed map, is a little island off North Western Malaysia, near the border with Thailand. It is consistently described as one of the best places for beach vacay's in SE Asia, so we were super pumped to find crazy cheap tickets and thanks to a ever growing collection of Starwood Points, we will be continuing our tour of the Shearaton's of Asia. Seriously, we have been to so many Starwood properties in this side of the world, Starwood should put us on the payroll. 

Oh yea- looking forward to a little bit of this.....! 

So stay tuned for some *hopefully* lovely pictures from Langkawi- and keep your fingers crossed for good weather for us! 

Fortune Filet anyone?

I think I thought that perhaps crazy holiday-themed marketing schemes to get people to feel compelled to buy random items that would otherwise be completely unrelated to the actual holiday you are celebrating because "you are in the holiday spirit" was mainly an Americanism. Turns out, its not. You would be shocked the things that are being Chinese New Year'ed.

My personal favorite is the following:

So I cut off the picture a little bit at the top, but you get the idea- this "flaky, golden brown abundance" is actually a double McFish, undoubtedly with special sauce. But doesn't the fancy advertising make you feel all Chinese New Years-y and spirited? Its so red, and bright, and well, it sort of implies that you will get DOUBLE FORTUNE- which, who doesn't want double fortune, even if it is being delivered to you in the form of fried fish burgers????

A little digging on this subject has informed me that this lucky sandwich can be purchased for the low price of S$5.00 a la carte. Not surprisingly, I am not the only person in the blog-o-sphere that found these delights noteworthy.  Since I am not sure on the rules of linking to other people's blogs, particularly people that you don't know, I will be unable to share the rather interesting pictures that were taken of the Double Fortune Fillet dining experience. But I did find two very important facts about this tasty treat. 1) It replaced the so-called "Prosperity Burger" which I can only imagine was the Singapore-ized version of the Big Mac, and 2) there is indeed special Chinese New Year-ized sauce, the inspiring sounding "tangy sesame mayo sauce." Being that I am not much of a McDonalds fan (except when well inebriated and in need of a breaky sandy to cure the vodka-induced-malaise) so its unlikely that I will be giving this one a shot. 

However, we may indeed give the following CNY treat a try:

Oh yes- this is the Fortune Pizza. Which is shaped like a Chinese coin...which is one of the main symbols of prosperity....which people are totally in to at Chinese New Years. Total marketing home run. 

I have to admit, it looks pretty cool.... but let me tell you what is IN this creation.

Double stuffed crust with three cheese mix, topped with diced BBQ chicken strips, pineapples, sliced mushrooms, on a cool lime mayonnaise base... and, the final touch....the pizza and crust are liberally sprinkled with sesame seeds and corn flakes. 

To be fair, despite the fact that this monster easily has 1000 calories a serving, they really had me interested....right up until the lime mayo. Ick- who wants mayo on a pizza. I have a particularly mayo-phobic friend in the US who I know would probably straight gag if I even suggested she eat pizza with mayo as an essential ingredient.  I don't know- I am not usually one to let something as innocuous as mayo stand in-between me and an important cultural experience...so we may have to suck it up and order one this week. Will let you know how it goes.....

Remain Vigilant....

Scene 1: Phone Call
Erin calls the Counsel on her deal to let him know that a bomb just went off in a bus in Manila right near the hotel they are staying at next week.

Counsel remains calm, suggests we include a Risk Factor in the disclosure. (For the non-lawyers, Risk Factor = cautionary language in an offering document telling the potential investor of all the bad things that could happen that would make thier investment into utter crap, ie: things sometimes blow up in the country of the issuer and that may make people not want to buy your bonds from you when you want to sell them)

Erin is thinking, a Risk Factor- a bloody Risk Factor? Wtf, I am concerned about my freaking life and you want to add in disclosure???? Erin is concerned that Counsel's main concern is how this is going to effect potential deal- not about Erin's potential bodily injury.....

Scene 2: Emails:


1) From Counsel to Client:


Dear Client XXXX:
As discussed earlier, from our side, it will be Erin and I attending the meeting in Manila next week.


Kind regards,
XXXXX


P.S. just heard news there was a bombing in Makati city about an hour ago - see below. We may need to monitor travel advice to the area. We're going to have to update our risk factors now.


2) From Sr. Banker at Client to Counsel:


What ?? Serious ??

I am sitting on plane about to take off to manila ..


3) From Jr. Banker to All


Copying in XXXX, the associate in our team who is Filipino and says this is very common, nothing to worry about!

Just need to remain vigilant


4) From Sr. Banker to All:


Remain vigilant is just a nice way of saying 'pls don't sh+t your pants'


5) From Jr. Banker to All:


Yo just don’t take any buses

Seriously, this is my life.

(Chinese) New Year Resolutions

Well, I never quite got around to finalizing my New Years resolutions this year....and since New Years Eve has come and gone.....and in the spirit of living in Asia, I have decided to have Chinese New Years resolutions instead. In addition to those resolutions that I have every year (losing weight, getting in shape, being more grateful for my loved-ones) I have decided to also come up with some concrete and hopefully achievable goals.

So here we go, the 2011 Chinese New Year's resolutions....

• Master 1 new challenging yoga pose each month. I love yoga, and its not because I am particularly gifted at it. Quite the opposite, in the land of the petite Asian woman, I am often the biggest and least flexible person in my class. When I first joined my yoga studio here in Singapore, I found the experience to be very disheartening and a little bit embarrassing and often couldn't summon up the courage to go to classes and try new things. But I have accepted that I may never be as bendy as some ladies (and gentlemen) in my classes, but I love the peace and serenity it brings to my day and the feeling of accomplishment I get when I can push past my edge and work out a new asana. The poses I'd like to work on this year include bow, half moon, wheel, head stand and eventually the splits. I went to yoga 5 days in a row this week so I think I am on my way! I'll let you know how it goes. Ommmm. 
• Run a 2:30 Half Marathon. A few cocktails in on NYE I may have blurted out that I'd like to run a full marathon in 2011...but I have reconsidered and decided that I want to focus on improving my 1/2 marathon time first. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to run a full marathon- but any idiot can get out there and finish in 7 or 8 hours. I want to be confident enough with my running to know I can finish in a normal time before I give it a go. So for now I am going to focus on speeding up my 1/2 time and blowing my first 1/2 time right out of the water. My running buddy K. and I have signed up for another one in a few months, so its high time to get to training. With the help of my Garmin, who I have named Speedy, I see no reason why we cannot make some dramatic improvement on our last times. 
• Do as many "OIS" events as possible. I may occasionally (ok, ok, frequently) gripe about Singapore, but the truth is that living here is a really unique experience and provides us with the opportunity to do a world of things that simply wouldn't be possible in New York. The crazy sunny weather means that you can be outside virtually all the time (if you can handle the heat), the city is small so you can get from point A to point B very quickly and a lot of things are pretty affordable. So far my OIS events have included starting to take tennis lessons with my friends (how often am I going to have tennis courts in my apartment building?), signing up for golf lessons one morning a week (seriously, affordable golf courses IN the city that I can go to before work? pretty cool), running off to Little India in the middle of the day to witness Thaipusam and running outside in the middle of January. We know we are not going to be here forever so we should really try to get the most out of the time we have on this little island nation. 

So there we have it, a few little fun goals to work on this year. Wish me luck! And good luck to all of you on your New Years resos too! 

Rule Following and the Lack Thereof

Singaporeans have many admirable attributes. Their ability to follow rules and basic standards of common decency on public transit is however not one of them. The MRT has such promise to be a pleasant experience. It is modern, fast, inexpensive and spotlessly clean. It is also the absolute bane of my existence. The 5-10 minutes that I am commuting each day are easily the worst minutes of my entire day thanks to the unbelievable demonstrations of ineptitude that plague the experience. Seriously, is it that difficult to understand that you cannot get ON the train, until the people on the train get OFF, and that its not a good idea to stand RIGHT in front of the doors when they open? Really, its confusing? It apparently is because despite impossible to misinterpret signs on the floor, the doors and audio announcements to get the f&c* out of the freaking way when the train comes, people simply cannot manage to do so.

I could write a novel about how much I hate riding the MRT. Instead I will do some cathartic blog ranting about it, complete with pictures of how dumb people can be. 

No, that amazingly large bright yellow line and arrow on the ground is not clear in its intention? Don't worry, it actually also comes with clear written instructions on the walls, in multiple languages, to stay the hell back behind the line. 

More demonstrations of incredible stupidity. Not a single person can follow the basic rules of mass transit. 

The woman ahead of me looked particularly stupid, so I got my blackberry camera ready to snap an action shot of her incredibly dumb but predictable decision to push her way on to the train while people were trying to get off. Cannot argue with cold hard evidence of lack of common sense. 

One thing I can be thankful for is that they no longer play the particularly nerve grating jingle sung by these lovely ladies about "the train is coming, the train is coming, please start queing- looooove your ride!" 

If I got to make a marketing jingle for the train it would say something like this "hey you !*&%@$@s, don't be a moron- stay behind the &^*@#! line when the #$&!^(*&^ train comes." 

Oh man, Singapore- you can be a pretty great place, but you also have that special way of absolutely destroying a girl's faith in the basic intelligence of the human race. 

Chinese New Year at the Office

Chinese New Year fever has hit my office. The fervor with which they have decorated the office makes me think that the sort of weak Christmas decorations we had was just a dress rehearsal for the main event. I think all of the CNY traditions are pretty cool. Every business in town is decked out in red and displaying the oh so ubiquitous orange tree. I have to admit that I know very little about the holiday but its been learn a bit and excited to try to take in some of the festivities in the next few weeks. 

I particularly like these little hats- which are everywhere and in every fashion, from illuminated to edible. Wikipedia has failed me in finding an explanation for the hats so I will have to remember to ask my Secretary on Monday. 

This is our dragon friend. He has recently been joined by another dragon friend. I am telling you, every day I walk in the office there is a new decoration. Either the secretaries are going a little overboard or in honor of the upcoming year of the Rabbit, the Dragons are getting busy overnight. 

More Thaipusam- Part II

The most amazing part of all the piercing to me is that there is no blood and no obvious pain. My friend J. took a video on her iPhone of them actually piercing a young man's cheek and tongue at the temple and he doesn't even flinch! No tears, no screaming, totally calm. I am very impressed by the amount of self control it takes to let your friend or family member stick a rather wide metal stake through your face and not show any reaction. Ouch.

Getting a little spear adjustment. Look at the large spears going through his skin on his stomach. That pole is attached to the elaborate canopy he is carrying over his head and he is supporting the weight almost exclusively through the piles through his skin. 

Good shot of the tongue/cheek piercing combo. 

Some women taking part in the ritual. 

Check out at the look sheer concentration and determination on his face. Meanwhile the bar that is piercing his cheek is massive. 

We came back at night and caught the tail end of the festival, which included this terrifyingly massive kavadi. Most of them are about 3-4 feet over the head of its wearer, but this one was more like 10. The poor man had just started his route and was already really exhausted and was being physically supported by his friends and family to support the massive weight on his body. 

More Thaipusam

I have so many pictures of this amazing event, you will have to bear with me while I share them all. My apologies to those who have a weak stomach, this is not for the faint of heart! Besides the obvious shock value of the piercings and hooks, it was also a pretty impressive to see people so dedicated to their religious beliefs. And it was certainly a family event, each devotee was surrounded by his friends and family who were often drumming, chanting and singing to help push him along the route. 

So here is your brief education on the festival courtesy of wikipedia....

Thaipusam (தைப்பூசம்) is a Hindu festival celebrated mostly by the Tamil community on the full moon in the Tamil month of Thai. 

Generally, Hindus take a vow to offer a kavadi to idol for the purpose of tiding over or averting a great calamity. For instance, if the devotee's son is laid up with a fatal disease, he would pray to Shanmuga to grant the boy a lease of life in return for which the devotee would take a vow to dedicate a kavadi to Him.

Devotees prepare for the celebration by cleansing themselves through prayer and fasting approx-48 days before Thaipusam. Kavadi-bearers have to perform elaborate ceremonies at the time of assuming the kavadi and at the time of offering it to Murugan. The kavadi-bearer observes celibacy and take only pure, Satvik food, once a day, while continuously thinking of God.

On the day of the festival, devotees will shave their heads and undertake a pilgrimage along a set route while engaging in various acts of devotion, notably carrying various types of kavadi (burdens). At its simplest this may entail carrying a pot of milk, but mortification of the flesh by piercing the skin, tongue or cheeks with vel skewers is also common.

The simplest kavadi is a semicircular decorated canopy supported by a wooden rod that is carried on the shoulders, to the temple. In addition, some have a small spear through their tongue, or a spear through the cheeks. The spear pierced through his tongue or cheeks reminds him constantly of Lord Murugan. It also prevents him from speaking and gives great power of endurance. Other types of kavadi involve hooks stuck into the back and either pulled by another walking behind or being hung from a decorated bullock cart or more recently a tractor, with the point of incisions of the hooks varying the level of pain. The greater the pain the more god-earned merit. It is claimed that devotees are able to enter a trance, feel no pain, do not bleed from their wounds and have no scars left behind.

OK- now that we all have the basics down, lets move on to the pictures. 

He is pulling an alter on wheels behind him attached to the ropes. Just in case he was not feeling enough pain, his friends are also tugging on the ropes. 

Learning the ropes by carrying a large offering. 

 If you look closely you can see that his mouth is closed shut by one spike going through his tongue and one through his cheeks.

Yes, those are limes hanging from his pack by fish hooks. 

This guy is really going for broke, he is not only wearing the spears but is also dragging a shrine behind him attached to hooks in his back. 

The cheek piercing really looks uncomfortable. 

They may not be piercing themselves with hundreds of spears, but it was a hot day, and they walk a really long way to the Temple, barefoot on hot cement, with their arms over their head the whole way. Looks like hard work to me.