Borneo- Monkey Spotting

We have just returned from a lovely long weekend in Kota Kinabalu in Malaysian Borneo. We had a great time- wasn't the best vacation we have ever had (more about that later) but we really enjoyed ourselves and got to see some very cool things.

My wonderful husband did something VERY kind and generous and indulged my monkey obsession with a trip to the rain forest for some river based monkey hunting (photographically speaking). 

Proboscis Monkey

We originally had planned to visit the world renowned Sepilock Orangutan Rehabilitation Center to catch a glimpse of some playful Orangs in the wild- butttttt, it involved either a 6 hour bus ride, which is clearly not my style, or an early morning plane ride followed by a decently lengthy cab ride, and you are not even guaranteed to see a primate so.... well, it seemed like a lot of work and we decided against it. Maybe another trip. But much to my pleasure, the concierge at Le Meridian offered up a closer alternative for some monkey viewing. The other famous primate of Borneo is the Proboscis Monkey, which is easily identified by their rather prominent nose. Since the friendly monkey pictured above wouldn't do me the pleasure of turning around for a close up, below is a borrowed picture:

 I think they are super cute. So off we went for a river cruise to look for monkeys in the trees. Dave, as you can imagine, was pumped. What the concierge failed to mention was that prior to the advertised river cruise came the exceptionally enjoyable 2.5hr bus ride in to the country side. And by exceptionally enjoyable I mean nearly life ending trip crammed in tiny seats in a bus with no shocks and minimal breaking capability. But despite the bus driver making some questionable passes on the one lane road in to on coming traffic, we survived and arrived at a palm plantation which housed the docks of "Only in Borneo" river cruise company. 

Upon arrival we were treated to some good old fashioned Malaysian hospitality, which mainly included consumption of fried bananas by the tourists while the "guides" took a leisurely ciggy break before embarking on the river portion of the adventure. Eventually, when sufficient nicotine had been consumed, we were told to load the boats. Dave, never one to take safety lightly, took the process of suiting up in his life vest very very seriously. 

After some some commendable effort it was pointed out that the large American man was in fact attempting to wear a child's sized life vest. 

After procuring a more appropriate life vest we were off to brave the wild rivers of Borneo. OK, "wild" is a bit of an exaggeration, but it would be difficult to monkey hunt in white water rapids- so calm seas were just fine with us. 

The monkey spotting got off to a rough start and after five minutes of no monkeys we found our first family of big nosed monkeys hanging out in a tree. Now as much as I would like to brag about spotting said monkeys on my own with my sniper vision- alas, the location of the monkeys was conveniently pointed out to us by the boat in front. 

These rude little monkeys refused to climb down to a better vantage point to enable national geographic quality pictures. 

So the downside of animals in the wild is that they don't always feel inclined to say cheese for the camera. This is actually a cool shot though because the grey monkey in the foreground is a silver leaf monkey, which are apparently quite rare, joined by his orange colored proboscis monkey friends in the back. 

Dave, as you can see, was really super excited about the monkey spotting. 

In addition to the monkeys, which were AWESOME by the way, we were also treated to views of the beautiful Borneo rain forest. 

We did get a little additional treat on the ride home. 

They don't call it a RAIN forest for nothing. While I am usually a bit weary of the commercial motivations of tour guides recommending that you buy items that can be conveniently purchased at their gift shop- the advice to purchase ponchos, for the reasonable price of 5 Ringgit (aprox. US$1.50) was excellent, and we were wise to have heeded their sage advice. As an aside, had the aforementioned ciggy break lasted a few ions less, we likely would have missed the torrential downpour. But, we have little to complain about as our boat was blessed with sufficient draining systems while the boat in front of us was forced to bail water our of the boat in a Tupperware container- no joke. 

When we returned to base camp, we were rewarded with this amazing view:

Borneo is famous for their sunsets and these did not fail to impress.

OK- I cannot help it, here are some more monkeys. 

Sunsets over Borneo

A Trip to the Singapore Post Office

A couple of days ago, we received a note under our door that there was a piece of registered mail from StarHub (our cable company) that we had to pick up from the post office. After seeing it, we spent the first ten minutes discussing how much we missed having a doorman who would collect all of our mail and dry cleaning, open the door for us, and make sure we had it on our way home from work, whatever time that might be.

This morning, we set out to find the post office, figure out what in the world our cable company could be sending us by registered mail, and buying stamps (well, that was more of an Erin mission than a we mission).

the good news is, the post office is only a block from our house. The bad news is it took us at least 5 blocks of walking to find it. Finally, we did, and I must say they make the US Post Offices look bad. It was not crowded, we did not have to wait in line, the Air con was blasting and the place was pretty clean.

So, we present our slip to collect our registered letter, somewhat confused and somewhat hoping it was something good. I immediately rip it open and what did we get?

$40 in McDonalds gift certificates.

Wait for it....

no, thats it, just McDonald's gift certificates. What the hell are we supposed to do with $40 in McDonald's gift certificates?

Tea Party in the Singapore Harbour

So this really isn't the kind of blog that strives to discuss matters of social importance. In fact, we mainly strive to blog about things our Mommies want to hear about, post pictures of cool things which attempt to justify why we left our fabulous friends and family in the USA  and occasionally blog out of pure boredom (we are hoping there will be a correlation between increases in friends and decreases in free time to blog- yet to be seen).

BUT- at least this once we shall briefly discuss a topic of political importance. Taxes.

If you know me, you know I hate taxes. Hate them. A little piece of my spirit died every time I saw my pay stub and realized how much money I paid to the government. Living abroad has only made me hate taxes EVEN more. Why? Because despite the fact that I live in Singapore, use their public services and pay their taxes- I still have to share a percentage of my pay check to Uncle Sam. This has become a particular issue in our lives recently because in Singapore there is no income with holding done by employers. None- not a penny. So the task of figuring out how much you owe the government (make that 2 governments) became our problem. Awesome. And having to figure out how many thousands and thousands of dollars I will send to a country that I no longer live in has been a little more than irritating.

And today, in the best newspaper in the world, there was an article on this very problem!!!!!!

New York Times- More Expatriates Give Up Citizenship

Sometimes is like the Times is reading my mind. For those of you who will not be taking the time to read the article- the gist is that expats, not unlike ourselves, are sick and tired of paying boatloads of taxes to a country that they do not live in and do not receive proportional benefits from while also paying taxes to the country they do live in. The only solution for this- renounce your citizenship.

Now before our Moms get all worried- we are not giving up our citizenship. Ever. Ev-er. We both like being US citizens more than we hate taxes. But it is interesting to think that the US is practically the only country in the world that feels entitled to money earned outside of their borders... Seems like there should be a better solution than forcing hard working American citizens to give up their citizenship to avoid taxation with out representation. I would send a note to Obama to suggest this, but it seems like he has his hands full already spreading socialism to the masses. I kid, I kid...(sort of.)

OK- now we will resume with your regularly scheduled blogging about our occasionally interesting lives in Singapore. We are headed to Borneo this weekend- so hopefully as our Starwood hotels tour of Asia continues we can entertain you with stories of monkeys and jungles and beaches, oh my!

Can you hear me now?

One of the few beautiful things about leaving the US was telling Verizon and their crappy overpriced services to stuff it. It was a painful process that involved multiple phone calls, some tears of frustration, possibly some expletives and occasionally yelling things like "I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT THE PEOPLE WHO WORK HERE CAN BE THIS STUPID." But finally, it was over- we were free. Or so we thought.

This month, after not having Verizon cell phones or cable for over a month (woo hoo!), we both received bills. Impossible you say! Impossible! But no, those thirsty vicious bloodsuckers figured out malicious ways to continue to rob us of our hard earned money even after we left the country. (Now this is NOT unlike the US Federal Government- but that is my next post). So the theme of tonight has been "Let's Skype Verizon Night."

Its gone something like this:

Erin: I live in Singapore, I cancelled my phone in March.
Verizon Rep 1: Says here ya owe us 300 dollars.
Erin: That would be difficult considering I dropped your service over a month ago.
Verizon Rep 1: Why did you do that?
Erin: You missed the part about moving to Singapore?

David: We live in Singapore
Verizon Rep 2: Can you spell that?

David is now engaged in a battle to the death with Verizon Fios. The current stats are as follows:

Number of minutes on call: 45.34 and counting
Number of Transfers: at least 5
Number of times forced to listen to hold music: 15
Number of Times he has given our account number: 1000
Number of Verizon employees it takes to screw in a light bulb: Unknown, must be over 500
Number of humans of normal intelligence spoken to: Still waiting for the first.

And the war rages on...


UPDATE


After a total of 1:06:35 on the phone with Fios- Dave successfully got all fees waived. All hail the victor!

A Thank You!

A very sincere (and late- sorry) thank you to two dear friends, Matthew and Michael, for sending me these beautiful flowers! You guys are the best- miss you a lot! Come visit!

East Coast Park Awesomeness

During the busy work week filled with subway rides and long periods of time sitting in florescent lighting its a little easy to forget that we live on a tropical island (minus the unrelenting heat- which is a regular reminder we are not  in NY anymore). So yesterday, thanks to our friend Toby, we were reminded that we live in a pretty cool place when we were invited out to the famed East Coast Park to watch some sail boat racing from the beach.

Dave on the walking path- looking for sailboats.

Toby had given us pretty specific instructions on how to get to the beach club, which was conveniently located next to a very famous hawker center- but, as is fairly typical, we had a misunderstanding with our cab driver, who dropped us of no where near where we wanted to be. After a few minutes of walking and seeing NO sailboats in the water (mainly just Asian men in Speedos) and realizing this East Coast park thing is BIG we decided to be resourceful and rented some bikes to help us find our destination.

The friendly bike rental shop. Promising "All Brand New Bikes"

The bikes were a great deal- S$8 for two hours! What was funny about this transaction, besides the lack of helmets, liability waivers and leaving of any monetary deposit- was that the very normal looking bikes you see here are listed at S$6 dollars an hour- but the price we paid for different- but still totally normal looking bikes was S$8 dollars an hour. So maybe the cheaper bikes are small Asians only bikes? Or we just looked like suckers? I don't know, but for less than $US2 it wasn't worth arguing about. So we happily hopped on our rented bikes and away we went in search of sailboats.

The bikes turned out to be an amazingly good idea- not only because we were located pretty far from the sailing, but also because the path along the beach is a great ride and there were lots of interesting things to see along the way. The funniest attraction on the path has to be armies of tiny Asian girls trying to roller blade- very very very unsuccessfully.  The obvious problem with this form of entertainment is there is more often than not someone taking an epic fall right in front of your bike, which happens to have limited breaking and steering abilities. A few near misses later we learned to give a wide berth to any group of adolescent girls on roller blades.  

One cool thing we saw is the Ski 360 park, which is Singapore's only cable operated water skiing park. Instead of being pulled behind boats, there is an elaborate system of cable tows, not unlike a T-Bar ski lift, that pulls the skiers and wake boarders around the lake. 

This is something that is being added to my "must try" list- looked like SO much fun and instead of having to start in the water and be pulled up by the boat (have had multiple fails with this method) you start out on a floating dock- which I hear makes it much easier. The one question I do have is that if you fall down way out in the far side of the lake and drop your cable tow- how do you get back to the doc to start over? 

After some more bike riding we eventually found the sailboats. 

Dave found the sailboats! 

As it turned out, it was less than ideal conditions for the racing of sail boats. But the lack of wind did make for some interesting attempts by the various sailors (mainly Toby) to use alternative methods to propel their boats.

This was our favorite method:

This is the motor boat method of sailing- when there is no wind, create your own power

We hear that officially this is cheating... but I think it deserves points for creativity and effort. Needless to say, although he crossed the finish line (the red buoy) he was disqualified for not actually being in his boat when it happened. 

After cheering on the sailors- we checked out the famous East Coast Park Hawker Stand- apparently home to some of the best sea food in the city. 

 

Little fresh coconut water to cool down. 

Followed by some delicious satay, made by this guy:

We had a fabulous time in the park and are looking forward to spending many more weekends there. We may even give the sailing thing a shot. 

The Three Phases in Expat Life (so far...)

I woke up one morning and realized that we had already been here over a month! In some ways that seems unbelievable- it was just yesterday I was packing up 1 Irving and doing last minute shopping in the US- but in other ways it feels like we have been here MUCH longer than a month. I think this is partially to blame for not only the various phases of culture shock that every expat experiences, but also because we can break down our time here in Singapore in three distinct phases based directly on our housing situation:

1) Oh My God- THIS is Corporate Housing? 
OK, so it wasn't a hostel, but it wasn't nice. I was admittedly reduced to tears when we walked in to our less-than-400sq ft-den of darkness upon arrival. It was tiny, it was dark, and hot. And there were no dressers, and no storage space, and the bed was a rock and the couch was too small for any two adults to enjoy and the internet situation sucked.... etc. We did enjoy our first few days as a tourist in a new town, but the utter hate of our corporate housing situation put us (OK- mainly me) in to a FRENZY to look at apartments and find an escape. So we took to apartment searching with gusto. Many viewings, multiple brokers and much stress later- we found our new home- and thus entered stage 2 of life so far.

2) YAY- our apartment ROCKS! 
Moving in to our new apartment was blissful. It was big and clean, had lots of windows, a pool, hot tubs, a gym- the list of amazingness goes on. We were in love. It was such a dramatic step up in life- we couldn't have been happier. Due to logistic problems with our shipment being on a boat in the middle of the ocean when we moved in we resulted to renting furniture until our stuff gets here. This was augmented by the arrival of our 500lbs of air shipment- so in one day we went from terrible corporate housing with the same clothes we had worn for 4 weeks- to a LOAD of our stuff, all new and exciting, and real furniture, and real TV and internet. I busily went about putting away our things, admiring our additional supplies of clothes and towels and pillows. It was happy times. But alas... those times have passed and we have entered in to the 3rd phase..

3) Where the HELL is our Boat????
So the rental-furniture inspired bliss was short lived. We quickly looked around at our sparse furnishings and thought, "wouldn't it be nice if we lived like normal people, with all of our stuff." Our first attempt to remedy these feelings of despair was a trip to the local Ikea. Thats right- there are Ikeas in Singapore- two to be precise. Thank god. So we eagerly (OK- mainly just me on the eager part, Dave was more begrudgingly because he knew he was going to have to build the complicated Swedish furniture) set off for Ikea and supplemented our basic rental furniture with a desk and bookshelves, shelves for the bombshelter and a dresser (which, btw, is still in the box- not that I am complaining...). "We" set off on building the new Ikea goods and for a brief period of time it was so exciting to have new things! It lasted.... oh a few days. Then the we were back in the world of "where is my stuff." We still love our apartment, the pools and hot tubs and the like are amazing- it is like living in a resort. But right now all I want is boxes and boxes of my things. I want to roll around in all of my clothes, and play with all of my kitchen toys, and have a refreshed supply of american toiletries and have a dresser instead of having my clothes in a pile in the floor. We want our couches and we really really really want our amazing King sized bed. Dave wants his TV and his playstation and his new MLB Baseball game that I didn't let him open before we left. (Note: this alone is motivation to get the new dresser built before the boat shows up and I lose my husband in a playstation-withdrawal-fueled marathon of video game playing to make up for all the time lost- aka: productivity in this house is probably going to hit an all time low)
It creeped up on us gradually. One of us would wistfully say "I really wish we had [insert item on boat]" then the next day one of us would say "I wonder where our boat is." Now the real rub is that the view from our living room is of the shipping yard. So all day we watch boats come in, laden with containers with other people's things in them and routinely ask each other "think that is our boat?" We got news from the shipping company that our boat is scheduled to arrive on the 5th of May... and then its in the hands of the Singapore customs agents to determine when we in fact receive our long-lost goods with open arms. So I suppose we sort of know where the hell our boat is... but it would be better if it was right outside our window and we were sitting on our own couches while I write this.

XOXO

Here is a quick picture of our office/guest room with our new Ikea desk- which we love. Still looking for a bed- but we promise that by the time someone comes to visit we will have one =)

English translation can, lah?

So the guidebooks warn you about a little problem called "Singlish." In our first weeks here we really didn't encounter too many problems understanding people and were delighted that it really was true that everyone speaks English. I think its only when you start to listen more closely, or say, have to listen more closely in a business meeting that you realize these people may *think* they speak English, but its a far cry from what you and I speak. Singlish is the result of the melding of cultures and languages in Singapore over the years- various Chinese dialects, Bahasa Malay and Indonesian, Indian dialects and colonial English- the result is mind boggling.

Entire books have been published on Singlish and how the unassuming western English speaker can navigate the never ceasing ran of "lah" that everyone says. What is funniest about Singlish to me is that its not say exclusively working class people or young people or recent immigrants who speak this way, its everyone. Educated professionals routinely say "can, lah" in meetings which, depending on context either means "can you do it?" or "yes, I can do it."

Here is an except from my business meeting.

Erin: In paragraph 2, it should be the mall is ON the street, not IN the street.
Singapore Business Man 1: No, thats wrong
Erin: No, I am pretty sure that something is located ON a street, and IN an area. But here its a street
Singapore Business Man 1: No, mall IN street can lah.

A battle I fully lost.

Another situation that created great confusion until recently was purchasing food. They ask you, what I now understand to be "take-away or stay here lah" but until about two days ago sounded more like "tks#jsxhajshjsu%$#&*hhsdks&shsh%a,  lah" which would prompt me to repeat my order again, thinking they didn't get it. So it would go like this:

Erin: Large Almond Soya Milk please
Mr. Bean Worker: "takeawaycarrierneedlah?"
Erin: Umm, no? Large Almond Soya Milk
Mr. Bean Worker "youneedcarrierfordrink"
Erin: (baffled look, just wants milk)
Mr. Bean Worker: (shoves milk drink in bag and thrusts it and straw at confused american)

Now, while I still don't always understand, I just assume that the follow up question to my food order is going to be related to carrying away and related carrying away instruments (its an elaborate process really) so I avoid this whole conversation by adding, "take-away" to the end of every order, whether I really wanted to or not.

What I can say is that the average Singapore never ceases to amaze me by effortlessly switching between Chinese and English, or Tamil and English, or Bahasa... you get the idea. Practically everyone here is multilingual and use both or multiple languages in the same day or in a 10-minute span of time. My friendly (ok- not really friendly) Mr. Bean workers quickly take my order in English and then take the next order in Mandarin and the following order in Singlish. Its impressive.

The speaking of Singlish and attempts to stifle it are quite controversial here.  One blogger writes:
Singlish, Singapore’s brand of colloquial English, is accepted by some as an essential marker of Singaporean identity but deplored by others as a variety of English that puts Singapore and Singaporeans at a disadvantage because of its lack of international intelligibility.

In 2000, the Singapore government, started the "Speak Good English" campaign to encourage people to drop the use of the hard to understand language. As you can imagine, it wasn't met with enthusiasm... and as someone living here 10 years later I doubt it has made a difference.

So since Singlish is apparently here to stay, us westerners are just going to be forced to consult a good-old Singlish-English dictionary when in doubt.

Rugby and Guiness....in Dave's Words

Erin gave you some of the highlights from Saturday's Rugby-fest, but I thought I would add my two cents. First of all, not only was the Guiness flowing, but the finals was very good, close game. Despite the general lack of size of the players, Singapore managed to play with the Sri Lankan side for quite a while. In fact, the Sri Lankan side scored on the last play of the game to win.

More importantly, I still dont understand the game. There is a lot of running and tackling, and you can't throw the ball forward. It reminds me a lot of football, without the forward pass, and every play is a lot less organized. They only have so many tries before they have to either punt or kick the equivalent of a field goal. However, the best is the out of bounds play, where they have a soccer throw-in type play. The best part is that they lift each other in the air to try and win the throw in. Its like a cross between cheerleading soccer and football all at once.

Oh, and there are apparently a lot of Aussie guys in Singapore who used to be good enough to play professional rugby at home, but they blew out a knee. They can usually be found close to the Guiness tent while their kids are chucking a rugby ball around nearby.