Date Night

One of neatest things about living in Singapore is learning about and mixing with so many different cultures. By law, you have to be tolerant of others religious beliefs. So, even though only about 15% of the population is Christian, they celebrate Christmas and I feel more comfortable and PC here saying Merry Christmas than I did working at Deer Valley Ski Resort in Utah.

The other major religions are Buddhism, Islam, and Hinduism. Besides celebrating and decorating for Christmas, Singapore celebrates something they call "One City, Three Festivals", which includes Hari Raya Aidilfitri for Muslims, the Mid-Autumn Festival for Buddhists, and Deepavali for Hindus. The festivals overlap and take place from August to October.

It starts with Hari Raya, which celebrates Ramadan, the month-long time of fasting for Muslims when they abstain from food and drink from dawn until dusk. Additionally, many Muslims abstain from other "pleasurable activities" during daylight hours (the song "Afternoon Delight" has no meaning during Ramadan--that's Ben's comment. I tried to tell him this is a family blog). This takes place in the Malay quarter or Kampong Glam, which we've visited before. Since we had babysitters available, I met Ben after work a couple weeks ago to head over there for the light-up festival and the start of Ramadan.

We started off the night by breaking our non-fast with some delicious grub. It was a middle-eastern restaurant. We enjoyed some humus and baba ganoush as well as a tasty egyptian salad and some fish and potatoes. Seeing as we permanently abstain from certain "pleasurable activities" we didn't take advantage of the hookah pipe to the right of Ben.

Below are a few pictures of the Sultan Mosque and the area to give you an idea of what it looks like in the evening compared to when we went before in broad daylight. It's quite beautiful. We are excited to attend some of the other activities that will be going on for the three festivals.

I really like the other building in this picture (above). I don't know what it is (hotel?), but it reminds me of the Spider-man movie for some reason.

It's lit up like this for the festival.

Fishy and Sticky Business

Our two oldest nieces, Suzanne and Sarah, are here visiting for the month of August. We're enjoying having them here and showing them around Singapore. I'll be catching up on posts over the next couple of weeks.

We have a fish farm that is just a 10-minute free shuttle ride away. We've never been so we decided it was worth a visit. Fish Spas, where the fish eat the dead skin off your feet, are really popular over here and when I discovered they had one at the fish farm for about 1/3 the price of a normal spa I thought I'd take the girls to see what all the fuss is about.

Samara didn't like it very much and only last about 30 seconds. It is insanely ticklish and we were all screaming when we first put our feet in. I wish we had a video of our screams. I think that is what really scared Samara.



There were also bigger fish that I couldn't stand. It felt like they were going to eat my feet off. Sarah liked them better though and braved both feet in the pool with the bigger fish. Suzanne gets the award for letting the small fish go at her feet for the longest. It was a fun experience, but I don't think I'll do it again too soon. It took me long time to build up the calluses on my feet that they gnawed away at.




There are all sorts of fish for sale at the farm. Take this guy, for example, who cost a mere $6,000. Seemed a bit pricy to me, which is perhaps why when the three girls ganged up on me they were able to talk me into spending $8 on these four little fish.



I must admit it wasn't too hard of a sell. They are pretty cute and it's relaxing to watch them swim around. I'm sure they'll promptly die once the girls leave and aren't here to take care of them. We each picked one out. From left to right their names are Kitty (mine), Flit (Sarah's), Lu lu (Samara's), Gordon (Suzanne's).

While I've been busy exploring Singapore culturally with the girls, Uncle Ben has been teaching them how to evade Singapore's criminal side. He took them up to Johor Bahru, Malaysia (Singapore's Tiajuana) to get all the Avatar DVDs (they brought me home Ugly Betty and I CAN'T WAIT TO watch everything I've missed) and some chewing gum. Problem was they got held up in customs, had to sign a chewing gum log and dispose of it in a special chewing gum garbage can. The DVDs they let slide as "you're allowed a certain number of pirated dvds per trip." We honestly thought you could bring chewing gum in for personal use but that you just couldn't import it or resell it. Apparently not. We've since learned a lot of interesting details about gum. Apparently, on the list given to a person when shipping things, chewing gum is in the same category as dangerous weapons. When we told someone else this they said that a local told them the reason. During the inaugural year of the MRT, someone put their gum in the wrong place on some mechanical/electrical equipment and it shut the whole system down for a day until they figured out what the problem was. It was after this incident they banned chewing gum.

Samara loves to talk. In fact there's rarely a moment when she's not talking, narrating what's going on, or asking a question just to ask a question. The other day in a taxi we had the following conversation:

S: Mimo, what's he (taxi driver) eating?
M: I don't know Samara.
S: No, mimo what's that guy eating?
M: Samara, I don't know. That's none of our business.
S: Mimo, the taxi driver is eating gum. Everyone including the driver laughs.
M: She caught you, sir. We'll have to turn you in for chewing that gum. Then I told him about getting our gum confiscated in customs. He then confirmed you aren't supposed to bring gum into the country but told us that you can buy it here if you go to a pharmacy and give them all your information including address and IC number (like a social-security number). It's so bizarre. Seriously, what are they going to do if a gum-related problem arises, track everyone down whose information they have and arrest them as suspects? When I have a bad day and want to blame Singapore or its citizens for it I totally chew gum and once I even spit it out on the street. Take that Mr. customs guy but please don't take my Ugly Betty from me.

Happy National Day!

Tomorrow marks 44 years from the day that Singapore seceded from Malaysia. It's a big celebration called National Day. They have a theme each year; this year's is "Come Together". It is amazing to think of how far Singapore has come since its secession from Malaysia and how different the two countries are. There are literally flags everywhere as you can see from the picture. Almost all the buildings are decorated with flags to some degree or another. Samara has been very keen on pointing them out to us and was delighted to have her own flags.

One of these little Buddhas is...

...not like the others.

Summer Fun

We are having a nice summer--not that summer is different from any other season. The weather is pretty predictable around here, like some kind of Groundhog Day--hot, humid, rain at some point, etc. We are keeping busy with our summer reading program trying to catch up, if you will.


This is Samara's favorite book at the moment. It is called "Wide Awake". It really hit home for her the first time we read it. I think we read it 10 times in row. One of her all-time favorite phrases is "I waked up!"


We've also been busy sewing luxurious napkin clothes for all of her pets.


It's not all work though around here. They finished a new playground with water features on top of our mall. It's AWESOME! Samara loves the water play area as she calls it. The locals were out of school in June so it was packed then but now if we go in the morning we pretty much have it all to ourselves.




Samara and Daddy have a new favorite pastime--watching our new Malaysian DVDs together. Ben cried the first time we saw Wall-E in the theaters and pretty much every time they watch it. I get choked up every time Lightning McQueen pushes 'The King' across the finish line. It's very touching!

And what is summer without a few trips to our favorite place, the zoo. Being a 15 minute bus ride from the zoo makes up for living so far from church and the city. I'm pretty sure when the year is over it will have cost us about $2/time. Thank heavens for memberships!


There is a petting zoo, but we'd never stopped by it before. They have the cutest little Falabella ponies. They are about as tall as Samara and she loved petting this one. I had horses growing up and Ben promised someday we'll have some. If I were to have a pet it would be one of these ponies.


Samara kept sticking her head in and asking, "What's your name?" People always ask her what her name is and how old she is. Lately, she'll sometimes just say to someone as soon as they come up to her, "Samaya, I'm two. Bye bye" The other day a lady asked her how old she was so Samara told her and asked, "How many are you?" The lady didn't answer so she asked me, "How old is her?" So I clarified for the lady and said, "She's asking how old you are." The lady said, "I know what she is asking but I'm not going to answer." It was hilarious. She was totally put out that a two year old asked her age.

We also met up at the zoo with one of Samara's friends, David, who is moving. We are so sad they are moving. We thought the days of us being in a transient ward were over once we got out of a student ward but we've lost over 1/3 of our ward since moving here. Samara's friend is the youngest of seven boys and he is the calmest sweetest little boy. His mom and I are in YWs together. She is wonderful. His brothers are just as nice.


They treated her to her first carousal ride and were so sweet. The one just older than David sat next to us on the tram ride and when I looked over and he was holding her hand. When I tried to get Samara to look at me on the carousal ride and asked her "Where's Mommy?!", she very matter of factly said, "You're in the camera, mom."


This is a house near the petting zoo that I've always thought was just a maintenance building. It has these freakishly realistic manikins in it and displays depicting life back in the day. Those are real rats but thank heavens those cockroaches aren't real. David is a month younger than Samara but he's just a 'wee' bit taller.

We finished the day off right with ice cream. The four of them looked so cute sitting in a row with their cones, which gave me a clever idea. I wanted each one of them to stick their head forward so I could focus on him/her. Samara and I sometimes have creative differences. This was one such instance. She wanted to take the shot in a slightly different direction.


Actually, I just got the wrong "pink" ice cream so she wouldn't eat it and wanted WATER instead! She got water and I got two cones. :)

Adventures in Grocery Shopping

Does anyone out there really enjoy grocery shopping? Personally, the only time I enjoyed it was when I was 16 and had just got my license. Before Samara was born Ben and I would wait until the fridge had nothing in it but a bottle of ketchup and week-old leftovers before we would go grocery shopping. When Samara was a baby, I was pretty proud that I kept up on groceries myself with an infant in tow. Then our grocery-shopping day coincided with a friend’s and we’d often run into each other. Marcie had a baby too AND four older kids. I secretly followed them around the store once waiting for any signs of misbehavior or rebellion. I didn’t see any and realized that she was super-human and that I couldn’t yet add grocery provisioner to my resume.

Click $%^#* to read what I thought about grocery shopping when we first moved to Singapore. Thankfully, the days of climbing stairs and clerks laughing at me because I’d ask for something so absurd as flour are long gone. It got a hundred times better since moving to our condo as there is a grocery store across street at the mall. Samara and I have a good little routine down—she rides over in the backpack, we stop at the one ATM that takes our card to get money since the store doesn’t take our card, she then gets to ride in the cart (which she really enjoys), people rub Samara’s cheeks, she tells them she doesn’t like it and to stop, they don’t understand and think it’s cute she’s talking to them, try to rub them again/talk to her, we try to maneuver past them but the aisles are only wide enough for one cart, we run over a few old ladies’ toes, and finally buy our groceries. We then load the trolley and the backpack up with the groceries, take the shopping cart back to the other side of the store to get our dollar back, disinfect her cheeks and hands, and then she happily walks home along side me eating her newly acquired animal crackers.

Sorry, this post is getting way too long so here’s a picture to keep your attention until the end. Details follow. I think you'll need to click on it to read everything.

This week we added a little excitement to our grocery shopping. First off, Monday (Ben took the day off) we went to Malaysia to buy groceries on someone’s recommendation that they were way cheaper there. The trip isn’t so absurd because we are closer to Johor Barhru (the border city) than we are to our own downtown plus we’d never been there. Let’s just say, maybe with a car this would be worthwhile but for us it was a learning experience. We will NOT be going there again for grocery shopping but will be returning for clothes and DVDs, which are much cheaper—12 DVDs for $25 SGD! It was a (seemingly) legitimate store and big mall. We figure if it were illegal the store wouldn’t be open. ;) It was odd how foreign it felt there and fun to ride in cheap non-metered taxis. That’s how it was in Russia and that’s the way we like it. Oh yes, the ATMs there take our card and we bought gum!

Tuesday, the trip to our store was going normally, until I, not thinking, put the soap next to Samara in the shopping cart. She loves taking the pump in and out of the soap and next thing I knew she was covered in soap. I remained calm and thankfully so did she (she normally HATES having anything sticky or dirty on her, i.e, wants to clean the playground equipment with a wipe if it is wet or dirty before playing on it. She takes after Ben!) We went through the check out line and the checker told me my soap was broken and had gotten on her hands. Apparently, she’s a kindred spirit to Ben and Samara because she left for five minutes to go wash her hands. We started home and passed an escalator. A thought popped in my mind “take that escalator”. I didn’t because it’s a longer route out of the mall. Then we passed the bread store and while I stopped to rearrange the bags, Samara decided it was time for a donut and proceeded to open the strategically placed “at her level” donut bins. I realized this when a man commented, “Your daughter is so clever. She knows how to get the donuts out herself.” I bought the one she’d licked and left the others, figuring her hands were recently disinfected. We then got to the other escalators, which were closed for repair. Then I knew why I’d had that “thought”. We eventually made it home and I had to take a picture.

I’m pretty sure I’m getting closer to adding grocery store provisioner to my resume.

She can't read but...

People universally love to give unsolicited advice about child bearing and child rearing. Whether they think you have too many or too few children, should space them differently, or want to tell you something lame like "you need to relax to solve infertility," people love to get in your business. It's no different here. Shortly after Samara turned two, we were playing at the playground and a lady noticed that Samara wore a diaper still *gasp* and that she wanted to sit on my lap and play with my hair while she drank from her sippy cup *the horror*. The lady was staring while she sat on my lap, so I mentioned, to end the awkward stare, that Samara likes to play with my hair while she drinks as a comfort device. She said, "Hmmm...and she's not potty trained yet either? You must really coddle her." Needless to say, we avoid that lady like the plague.

The other day we were out at the park talking to a woman we'd met before. She asked Samara's age. I told her she turned two in March. She then asked, "So, does she like to read?" I said yes thinking she meant look at books or be read to. She said, "Oh that's great she's already reading on her own." Confused, I replied (thinking "do most kids read at this age?"), "No, she doesn't read by herself yet. She loves books and being read to." She then asked, "So, she's sounding out some words then?" Still confused, I replied, "No, she remembers some of the words if we've read the book before." She finished off with something like, "Oh, that's nice" in a tone of "I'm sorry your child is remedial". So regardless of the fact that Samara can't read, she's got street smarts, which have got to count for something. She can even hail a cab all by her bad self.

I learned she had this skill a few weeks ago when we were walking home from the park and she asked, "Can we take a taxi home?" I said "no" and proceeded to explain why this wasn't cost effective, which I am sure was sinking in and completely understood. In the meantime, she proceeded over to the curb, put out her arm and said, "Mom, I want to ride on taxi. I don't want to walk home. It's too far."