Bangkok Surprise Visit!

this is what i love about now living so close to home. i can, at the last minute, decide i want to go home and purchase a ticket to fly the next morning. no checked bags. 1hr time difference. a little bit of public transit. and boom bada bing, within 6hrs i am DOOR TO DOOR.

4:30am in a cab to Changi
5:30am checked in
6:10am boarding
7am-9am in flight (but due to time difference its now 8am in Bangkok)
8am-9am visa on arrival (i really need to apply for my longer term tourist visa. to come HOME? haha, sigh. yes to come home, i need a tourist visa).
9am-10am public transit but more of this time was spent waiting a bit on trains and walking through people traffic, not stuck IN traffic. which is great. train from the airport home!

and then the simple surprises :)
on a motorcycle into the soi (street) i see dad in the car on the way to work and wave at him. he is utterly confused... i arrive home and ring the bell and mom greets me with a "huuuhhh?" and Rex with his unusually active tail wagging in the wind. (before he pissed on my chappals!)

and some random pics...

first meal - MAMA PHAK! (that's ramen w veggies for all you non-thais)

KAI YAAAAAAANG - bbq chicken

Som Tam - Papaya Salad

AND Beyond the eating, there's obviously relaxing to be had... 

What the elders do while the sons are away - Mom & Dad playing Words with Friends (against one another). Rex playing Words with himself in his sleep

And that's a wrap.

Yep. We each get our own beds. (you can see Rex, I'm sure ;)

Bak Kut Teh

I think I got the spelling right!

Two of the EAs at the place I interned at decided to take me to a farewell lunch (very sweet of them) and asked me what I have and what I have not tried - or what I like and maybe don't like. I'm not sure if I made a mistake or not, but I said - I'm pretty much open to anything... except beef & octopus (at which point one of my coworkers who was in the elevator when I was posed this question responded with: "octopus? that sounds like a very specific experience has scarred you..." <no comment ;)>)

SO back to the experience... we get out of the elevator and cab it to an area near the riverwalk. I can already see the genuineness of the area from the expression of the cab driver when my coworkers gave him directions. I was ready.

Ready like chopsticks... or chilies in soy sauce...

And so started a very intriguing dining experience - Not so "difficult" as in gizzards or odd edibles or any of that - but somehow the amount of available soup & meat & veggies - something about that. The taste, the setup. Something felt very different from any other place.

OH so what we did eat:

pork. more pork. veggies. fried-dough. rice. more pork.

And as much as I like pork, I've never actually eaten that much pork in any one meal in my life. And it was good - the meat was tender & soft & slid right off the bones. There were massive (whole) pieces of garlic in the soup which was probably the highlight of the soup and the flavors were amazing, but man on man was it a "heavy" meal!

I'm glad I tried this out - and it is quite traditional to say the very least. And my coworkers were sweet enough to pick up the tab. It was definitely a great experience and one I'm glad I tried with the people who knew what they were talking about... otherwise I know I probably could've made some fun mistakes.

That said - this event also made me want to start thinking more seriously about learning Mandarin, especially if I'm going to end up living in Asia (Singapore/HK?)

How is everyone?! My number is now: +65 8374 1423 by the way!

Happy Rakhi to my sisters!

I feel blessed to receive these rakhis year after year, from sisters spread across the globe - I kid you not! Boston, Delhi, Dehradun, Philadelphia, Miami, Toronto, Singapore... all sending their love & best wishes.

First off, I did not receive any of the rakhis on the actual day because I was traveling. So my apologies to you! But then when I did get back from work and came into the office, I had notes from the receptionist, which I thought had to do with something completely different so after a day or so of just meetings & catch up I finally got a chance to see what these notes were - lo & behold they were rakhis! From all over the place! (Granted a couple of them are still in the mail) But I do think that the rest of them all made it here on time and right on the dot!

So I wanted to take a moment to give my gracious thanks, love, and Pranams to my sisters scattered across the globe who not only remembered this auspicious day for the last 28 years (pretty sure they were tied on my hand before I was able to formulate coherent memories), but also went out and purchased really unique rakhis for me!

Happiest of Happy Rakhshabandans to you! You really made it an amazingly auspicious day. I hope to see you all sometime soon...

P.S. I was glowing!

Finally moved in...

This summer has been quite something. I've moved around quite a lot. I will save the details as I am sure it will worry everyone if I start talking about where I was, where I went, how I moved, how much I moved and all that.

And honestly not looking for self-pity or sympathy.

Just wanted to point out - that after leaving Chicago for Bangkok and then Bangkok for Fontainebleau and now Fontainebleau for Singapore I am finally feeling settled in my actual apartment in Singapore where I will be until the end of December. I am quite excited about this. Although the location is slightly "far" from the city, there is a train that takes me right into the city - and from an INSEAD perspective - more importantly directly to the airport!!! I wonder if that's why INSEAD chose this location. Or did the location exacerbate the existing willingness to travel in our students?

Chicken & Egg if you ask me.

And please don't ask me, because then I'll start thinking about Basil Chicken with an Egg on top. And its currently lunch time.

But more on that - Singapore is an interesting place. I just learned (from this website, which I have yet to validate: http://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living) that Singapore is 33% more expensive than Chicago, 5% more than New York City - and something like 90% more expensive than Bangkok! Housing alone is 155% more expensive in Singapore. And man-oh-man have I had a fun time trying to find housing and moving and... oh wait, we're full circle now. I did not want to get into this..............

Loving the diggs.

Loving the place.

Oh and the food bit - yes - so food in Singapore at the food courts is ridiculously cheap & quite good because the amount of choices blows your mind - you can eat ANYTHING you want. I mean it. Challenge me. I'll find the food. Whatever it is. And if its not there, it'll be there.

I do love the "Western" aisle the most. Fried chicken or chicken wings & random other very KFC friendly stuff :P OH and sausages... ham... toast? mustard. I love walking past that aisle and thinking - oh yeah, there are very many "cuisines" in this world that aren't really "cuisines" in the sense of having a complete selection of choices that are easily sold/marketed in a food court situation. Either too specialized (in very few cases) or just not all that great. And after traveling through Europe quite a bit over the past few months, I have to say, apart from selection of wines & beers I don't know if the "street food" is getting the right publicity in Asia. There are quite a few stalls all over the various cities I visited - Prague, Vienna, Amsterdam - to name a few... good food that could easily find its place in a food court. HMMMMMM... business idea? who knows!

Weekend fast approaching. Work still piled up. Time to get back to it. Miss you all!

get it?

Forest Treetop Adventure!

mah lordie... how did we end up here!?

this morning after semi-finalising random housing situations for INSEAD one of my friends suggested we all get together, meet up, and go to this

http://www.forestadventure.com.sg/

if you know me at all, the slightest hint of stuff like this and i'm in in in!

so first off we had to get there. this place is located in a reservoir - of which there are several in singapore. so we end up on a trek with a cabbie trying to explain to him where we want to go EXCEPT we got one crucial piece of information wrong: the name of the reservoir.

we kept telling the cabbie to go to bedok reservoir park IN macritchie reservoir which is in a completely different place.

the issue is that macritchie has treetop walks - and is located in "midtown"
and bedok has forest adventure (ON treetops) - and is located "east" on the island

needless to say we missed our 1pm appointment while driving back and forth through singapore BUT SOMEHOW (not on purpose) we convinced the cabbie he made the mistake and so our 20-30 minute cab ride only cost us 5 bucks (a 2 minute ride). i now feel bad, reflecting on it... sorry uncle! (what we all call cab drivers in singapore - affection/respect/singlish mixture)


regardless we finally get to bedok and on the way, the new cabbie engages us in lots of interesting discussions around how great the singaporean gov't is for looking out for its own people - the point being that they built their own reservoirs when water was restricted by neighboring countries that thought they could use the scarcity of water in negotiating matters in their favor with singaporeans.

go singapore!

we get to the spot
and the adventure starts!

4 courses
up ladders
onto trees
wearing harnesses
always RED ON - i.e. attaching the safety harness to a red wire on each treetop

and the fun! it was quite rigorous. jumping from one tree to another or walking across floating planks - sometimes i wondered if this would get me one step closer to shaolin :P

and we even ended up "adopting" a 12 year old because her dad sprained his ankle on the first zip line.

OH yeah! after every course you were high above the mountaintops castles made of cloud there sits wonder... oops. sorry that was a song moment.

sorry - after every course you are high up on treetops and you ZIPLINE down to the next stop OVER the reservoir! It is quite something. It isn't like you're necessarily over the reservoir for TOO long but it is easily 10-12 meters off the ground and for a good 30 seconds (or longer) that you zipline - which, on a zipline is quite a while, honestly.

yes, this is what it looks like.

Anyhow, this girl's dad injured his foot & she was quite keen on continuing but did not want to go alone - and was not allowed to as she was only 12... so my friends and i adopted her on our journey through the next 3 sites across the treetops and i have to say - she put us to shame! she was able to do the courses with a lot less energy (at least that's what it looked like) and minimal guidance.

I did, however, become UBER protective as we had basically taken on the responsibility of her safety and fun on a pretty rigorous obstacle course. I tried to be careful not to suffocate her with questions and instructions - basically I would watch but not say anything unless I saw her forget something very specific. Otherwise I let her figure it out and let her enjoy the trail the way she wanted to enjoy it. But man oh man was THAT a workout too! Seriously!

I can only imagine what it is like to be a parent. JESUS. This was just for 2hrs........

Mad respect Yo. Especially to all the parents of girls. Coz us boys get in trouble, break some bones, and get up and run around (sorry to be 'stereotypical' but i'm really just talking about myself in this instance i guess)... girls got all kinds of things you gots to thinks bout YO.

Sorry for gangsta speak. Influence of my current surroundings.

Anyhow, back to treetops - it was funs of ton! and the other thing too. Highly recommend it in a group of good friends (as tensions do rise especially when you're lost in a taxi on the way to the place getting late for your appt thinking it might all be for nothing - oh and when your muscles are cramping up with the random strenuous activities including muscles you wouldn't one any normal day exercise).

Do it!

ouch...