Hello blog. Remember me? It's been so long.

My mother once said something to me after a long stretch of not hearing from one another, (for no particular reason, just busy).  She said, "Don't worry, I know you're doing ok when I don't hear from you."  I could think of so many things she could have said to me for not calling regularly, but instead she was sweet and never tried to toss any guilt my direction. 

So I'm here today to tell you all we are doing fine, albeit missing everyone back home this time of year.  We're happy to have some of our own personal Christmas decorations this year.  For the first 2 years here in Singapore we have been living on rented furnishings and could only bring over a small fraction of our things.  None of which were holiday decorations because things like toys, books, computers and my kitchen knives took priority.  When Rob agreed to stay another 2 years, we were able to get into our storage this summer and ship about half of what we own over here.  We did not bring everything because the remaining half is stuff that would be in our garage or our yard (shop tools, patio furniture).  With condo living we have traded these things in for a swimming pool and a tennis court! 

The first year in Singapore, I purchased a 3-ft plastic tree and a set of ornaments from Ikea.  It was the year they did everything in red and heart shaped so our tree looked more like a valentine. Now we are reminded of the joy in small things and grateful for the decorations that were given as gifts over the years.  It has been a delight to pull them out and think of those that gave them to us.  And of course the handmade ornaments made at school by the girls. Those are precious.  I love pulling those out of the box.  There is even a decoration I made when I was a kid in the 80's.  I've included a picture.  You might wonder how is this a Christmas decoration??  Santa in his younger years?  No, this is a stuffed image of my father mounted to the top of a jar.  Who remembers porch people?  I made this out of nylons and stuffing.  Each year we would pull this out around the holidays and fill the jar with roasted peanuts (his favorite).

A tradition Rob and I started long ago before we were married, was to collect an ornament from places we've traveled.  We quickly realized how hard it was to find ornaments in Asia, especially places like Vietnam and China.  A big surprise was not being able to find a single ornament in Hong Kong Disneyland last year.  Thank goodness for key chains that can be converted.  However, we can find many things Western over here when it comes to Christmas.  They even decorate their malls in ways I have never seen.  You can even order a traditional turkey dinner from just about every grocery store.  Now if I could just find some egg nog and real mistletoe.

We hope you are ringing in the season with the love of family and enjoying your own yuletide traditions.

Happy Birthday Rob!!

The Lion King in the Lion City

Friends and family near and far, I hope you had a nice Mother's day.  My brood treated me to a show at Singapore's newest theatre venue in Marina Bay Sands.  We saw their inaugural event, The Lion King.  How definitive as the name Singapore comes from the Malay name "Singapura", which means Lion City.  The show was incredible, dynamically creative and innovative.  We all loved it very much.  It's wonderful to see how our most beloved Disney movie was adapted for the Theatre.  The story line and music remains a class act, and I love that Rob and I can can get just as much enjoyment out of the show as our kids.  Parrish was especially intrigued by the young boy playing young Simba, whom looked to be about her age.  LONG LIVE musical theatre!

 

Jingoism, egoism and Ray the Hippie

I think the last time I used jingoism or egoism in a sentence was in college history class, or perhaps a philosophy class. I think I was writing something on aggressive forms of nationalism. Hmmmm, must have been a political science class now that I think of it. Why bring this up? Just reflecting on how crazy things have been for the last decade and these two words came to mind for describing it. One thing is for sure, I wont be doing any dancing in the street, having a celebratory drink or fist pumping over a dead guy. How tacky and embarrassing. The reaction I prefer to this news is a shrug. Or at most, relief, not elation like we just won a gold medal or our favorite team just won the world series.

Ok, hopefully I can switch your gears now that I got that off my shoulders........time to exercise your sense of humor with more John Paragon. I promise, more Asian adventure updates coming soon. But for now, meet Ray the Hippie....

Mixed emotions....

In my last post I was inspired to inject some humor into your lives and share with you some old comedy I found particularly funny.......however this post takes a 180 turn I'm afraid. More humor later, just have my mind elsewhere at the moment.

American travelers outside the US or living abroad are being advised to be very aware there could be anti-American demonstrations that could break out at any time. Especially in countries that have had terrorist activity. Pakistan and Afghanistan are obvious candidates, but I keep thinking of how close we are to Indonesia and the Philippines.

So after a busy weekend, Royal Wedding....the killing of Bin Laden, I'm sitting here trying to figure out my thoughts. I've gone from a celebratory feeling of love that the royal wedding inspired, to a feeling of concern. Although I am glad Bin Laden is gone, I just wonder if he's more dangerous dead?? As I do internet searches on the motivations for the terrorist activities that have occurred in this region in the recent past, I am trying to figure out if my initial feelings have merit. My husband works in Malaysia (questionable security and corruption) and Parrish goes to an International "American" school. I just don't want either of them to leave the house tomorrow or this week! Too extreme?

Ramone Azteca

Rob just introduced me to an 80's comedy routine by John Paragon that aired on Showtime way back. I can't stop laughing so had to share.

Be prepared to enjoy the next 7 minutes of your life....or most offensive.....

Book Week

Last Friday, Parrish was to dress as her favorite book character to cap off a week full of activities organized by the school librarian.

This year it was Scooby Doo. Can you hear my audible sigh? I kept asking Parrish, "don't you want to be a princess again and just wear one of your dress-up costumes?" I know what you're thinking....."common mom! Where's your fun?" It's just incredibly un-motivating to try and find stuff to put a costume together in Singapore because finding costumes or finding material to make costumes is difficult at best as the selection is very limited. Although Halloween seems to be getting more popular so maybe that will change in the future. But luckily we found a set of boys brown pajamas and a craft store with the right colors of felt to make dog ears, a tail, spots and scooby's collar. At the end of the day I realized one important forgotten prop........scooby snacks! Oh well, it got the point across and it was fun to have a free dress day for the kids as they normally wear uniforms.

Guinness Book of World Records

I've been very lackluster about updating our blog. We've had an interesting start to 2011 and I will update you all soon. But while I had a moment, I just had to share these pictures. A friend of mine ran into this scene a few days ago. Hundreds of Singaporean's gathered together to get into the GBWR for most people applying face mask.


This is quintessential Singaporean at it's finest!! They had to have over 828 people to win. I have yet to find out if they did it.

Travelogue - playing catch-up - India Part 1

We've started off the year with a packed schedule thinking the next 7 months would be the last we would spend in Asia before returning to the US. Even though we knew our travel plans would make for a hectic couple of months, the prospect of the adventures we were about to take were too hard to resist.

From Jan 27th to Feb 7th, our family set off for India and Nepal traveling with one of Rob's work colleagues. We decided to explore what is called the Golden Triangle of India, which is in Northern India and consists of the cities New Delhi, Jaipur and Agra (home of the Taj Mahal). The latter part of our trip would consist of a 3-day side trip to Kathmandu and few day stopover in Mumbai (based on avail itineraries to get us from Nepal back to Singapore). Our side trip to Nepal gave us a glimpse of the Himalayas and more understanding of what it means to practice Buddhism.

We saw some truly amazing ancient and historical sites, had fantastic weather, stayed in wonderful hotels with great service, and took in some truly unique cultural experiences. On the flip side, there was a yang with our yin (or yin with our yang?). We all got sick at some point during the trip. With the exception of myself and Sabrina, our party dropped like flies one after the other on one particular afternoon starting with Parrish. However, we were soon to follow. The origins of whatever we consumed or breathed in that made us sick was really hard to know. Was is the breakfast at our hotel? Lunch at the cafe? Was a utensil we ate with washed with bad water? Was it airborn? We navigated each day following trying to rest and still take advantage of the typical tourist sights. After all, this was our trip to India! Most likely our only trip. Unfortunately, it is the norm to get sick in India and we knew this, but despite our precautions, our Delhi belly was apparently inevitable.

Experiencing the poverty conditions in India by being among the massive amounts of people living this way was mind-boggling. The traffic, the begging, and the pushiness of street vendors were all things that we were very happy to leave behind. When you experience this kind of poverty where people are using the road side as a toilet, milk producing cows are eating from the trash dumped on the street, and you see kids clothed in dirt from head to toe. Empathy takes on a deeper meaning.

Here is the beginning of a few pictures to highlight the regions we visited.

Jaipur -