A Lesson In Dating

Last Saturday was September 20, 2009.  Seemingly a perfectly normal date.  But not at the Singapore Botanic Gardens.  We’ve talked about this park before – it’s really amazing.  But this last weekend, it was more amazing than usual.

First, a quick lesson in date notation in Singapore.  You can read the long story, but the short story is that outside of the US and a few other countries, the common way to write the short form of the date is dd/mm/yyyy (instead of mm/dd/yyyy).  So, July 27, 1970 (a very special day) would be 27/07/1970.  You get the idea.  If you’re keeping up, then you probably just realized that last Sunday was day 20 of month 09 of year 2009.  Yep, you got it 20-09-2009.  Or 2009 2009.

Back to our story.  Right now, the Gardens are celebrating their 150th anniversary.  And last weekend was a three day weekend, due to the celebration of Hari Raya (side note: one of the things we love about Singapore is the thriving coexistence of Muslim, Hindu, Christian, and Buddhism/Taoism – all of them get their proper due in the national holidays here).  And above all, it was 2009 2009.  So all in all, one SPECIAL day here folks.  The Chinese are known as being a very superstitious people, and this moment in time was too good to pass up.

Kirsten happened to be at the Gardens this weekend with the kids and some friends, and came home commenting to me about how many brides she had seen.  Boy was she right.  There were more than 150 brides with their grooms in tow – 168 to be exact.  And they all got married in an hour.  If I’m doing my math right, that’s about 46 seconds per wedding.  Vegas would be proud!

You can check out BBCs full video story of the mass wedding here. 

-Mark

Go Dawgs, via Slingbox

Well, the gods were with me last weekend.  ESPN picked up the UW-LSU game and made it a night game, thus making it a comfortable 10:30 AM Sunday start in Singapore.  And my friend Mike Tuohy had the foresight to plant a Slingbox at his brother’s house in the US, thus allowing him to stream real US TV programming over the Internet half way across the world.  Beauty!

My impressions from the (only slightly grainy) telecast:

• At the risk of tempting another “keep-it-close-in-the-big-opener-then-lose-out-from-there” season, the Dawgs looked pretty darn good.
• The stadium seemed pretty electric, particularly in a first game of the season that I presume is before school starts.  The sideline with Sark and Holt seemed equally electric.
• Jake has touch and he can stay in the pocket – I only saw one really overthrown ball – wow!
• I didn’t realize how much we missed Chris Polk last season. 
• Welcoming back EJ Savannah was genius.
• Young Walker is a little scary at the Free Safety position. 
• Any game this year where we’re down by 2 and in field goal range in the closing seconds, is pretty likely a loss.

Now, the real question is whether we have enough talent (both in players and coaching) to keep us ahead of the inevitable adjustments subsequent teams are going to bring after scouting us out.  Well, that and no plates in #10’s thumb and no slings on #1’s arm.

Shades of Purple Reign?  Okay, probably a little ahead of myself here.

On to Idaho.  Geez we better win – I’m tired of these “one loss shy of the worst ever” discussions.

-Mark

“Disneyland, with the Death Penalty”

I heard this hilarious reference today about Singapore.  It was a lady at work who had heard it from someone else.  She moved over in May, and had experienced this in small ways herself – for example watching re-runs of Friends and having the Joey/Chandler kiss scene edited out.

Well, it turns out there is a whole Wikipedia posting on the matter.  Required reading for those following the blog here.  For those who want to go deeper, I found the original WIRED article here – haven’t yet read it myself.  Here’s a little excerpt…

“There is no slack in Singapore. Imagine an Asian version of Zurich operating as an offshore capsule at the foot of Malaysia; an affluent microcosm whose citizens inhabit something that feels like, well, Disneyland. Disneyland with the death penalty.”

On the news front – we’re pretty sure we’re procured a place to live over here.  Probably moving in this week.  A property called “Sommerville Grandeur” (you can see pictures at the link).  Unlike the name implies, we’ll be enjoying about 60% of the space in our Seattle house at about 2.5 times the rent!  But seriously, we found a pretty cool place that should work out great.  It’s going to be terrific to get our stuff moved in and start feeling a little more permanent.  Obviously, we’ll be posting more on that soon.

Anyway, time to head to bed.  The stress of finding a place has left me open to a little cold that slipped in.  Vitamin C, liquids, and rest for me.

-Mark

21 Day Party

Jackson: Mark has never been outside Seattle for more than 20 days.  So this is his 21 day party.  We went on the biggest Ferris wheel in the whole wide world.  We had a lot of fun.

The Ferris Wheel is actually called the Singapore Flyer.  It’s 165m high (541 feet!), 5m higher than the London Eye.  Here are a couple of pictures of the Flyer, one looking out towards the ocean (or the shipping lane as I like to call it), one looking back toward the city with a nice sunset.

We picked a nice evening to go, and even waited a few extra minutes to try and time the sunset a little better.  Here is our sunset picture from the top.

Here’s a picture back towards the city, when we’re at the top of the ride.  You can see the “pod” in front of us, which is the enclosed car you actually ride in.  Apparently you don’t go in those rickety swingy Ferris wheel cars when you’re going over 500 feet into the sky.

Here are Cameron and Jackson, inside the car, shooting pretty much straight down, through the main hub of the wheel.  If you look close, you can see just how far that 500+ feet would be to fall!

  

Of course, the full family pic…

Afterwards, we had dinner at a sports bar inside the Flyer atrium.  We ate outside (the evenings here are often the perfect temperature), and the kids ran around on the deck of the restaurant and played, while the adults drank Australian wine and Tiger beers. 

We napped this photo in front of a Formula One race car.  They are just opening up a new exhibit in the atrium on F1 racing.  F1 racing is big here because Singapore has the only night race on the Formula One circuit, and were told it’s quite the big affair – the track goes right though a piece of downtown.  We’re hoping to catch a piece of the race, possibly from the Microsoft building where I believe we will have a view.  By the way, that’s Kate and Ryan Tuohy with Cameron, our compadres (along with their mom Elizabeth) on the 21 day party.

 

So that’s it.  A simple affair, but a major milestone.  21 days and counting, and things are going great for the Jewett’s in Singapore.

-Mark and Jackson

Zippy Lizards, Stinky Coconuts, and Dead Ducks

Week two in Singapore has brought us the beginnings of daily routine, but we are still enthralled by the simple things.

We love geckos.  These nimble little minxes love heat and bright light, and one can easily spot them at nighttime around any wall lamp.  They are about three to eight inches long and scurry faster than greased lightening.  We have counted 500 zillion so far.

Food at a hawker center is tasty nums.  Hawker centers, big open-air food courts, are everywhere.  For $3 Singapore dollars, you can get a big plate of  whatever Asian food you fancy, and with at least 20 different stands per hawker center, you’ve got plenty of options.  Remember to bring your small packet of kleenex—if you place it on a table, you’ve officially reserved it!

 

Jackson loves “hot hor fun,” a spicy yet tasty chicken dish.   Gotta love the name.

Cameron enjoys thirst-quenching Limonata, an excellent accompaniment to flavored rice.

We have unlocked the mystery of the stinky coconut tree.  Disguising itself as a coconut, the cannonball fruit tricks hapless victims by releasing an odor akin to a mixture of dead cat and sewer water.  At first glance, it is a lovely  ornamental fruit hanging from a palm tree.  Pick it, and picker beware.  This fuzzy nut will change the smell of your hallway for days.   Trust me.

Beach water in Singapore is warm enough for bathing, which is why the beaches display “No Nude Bathing!” signs, we believe.

Jackson was thinking that if there was no nude bathing allowed, then perhaps a semi-nude, self-made tubby would suffice.

Just a little “Shark” display Mark whipped up in his free time.  Okay.  Just kidding.

The phrase, “He’s a dead duck,” really applies in some cases.  Actually, it always applies at hawker centers. 

    Now, as we enter the start of Singapore week three, we will continue to look for the simple joys in life, hoping that what we take away from this experience will be the many things that made us smile, learn, and grow. 

Later, skaters.  –Kirsten