CA again

I'm at the airport again getting ready to board a flight back to California for my home leave trip. Flying into LAX I'll spend almost a week in San Diego in and out of the office and a few days in Sacramento visiting family. It turns out the whole family will be in Sac at Nathan and Michelle's that weekend so it will be good to see everyone.

Year of the Ox

Lunar New Year is coming up next week, 26th, and we have Monday and Tuesday as public holidays. This will be the year of the ox. Being born in the year of the horse I have another not so great chinese horoscope this year... good thing I don't really beive them unless they say I'll have a good year.

two years in singapore

Time has really gotten away from me the last two months and now it's already just over two years and one month since I moved to Singapore with now, less than a year's time to finish my original contract. It really seems like time is running out and though I've been lucky enough to see a lot of the region this year there are still a lot of places I'd like to see.

Over the year I took quite a few trips:

Indonesia - to Bali twice, Jakarta and Cianjur on central Java, Lombok and Gili Trawangan, and Batam

Malaysia - Penang

Scotland - Tain, Edinburgh, Inverness and Loch Ness

London - England

Spain - Barcelona

Thailand - Bangkok twice and Phuket

Philippines - Boracay and Manilla

Cambodia - Phnom Penh

USA - San Diego, LA and Visalia, CA; Sedona, AZ; Portland and Corvallis, OR;

plus a few other places... Actually, looking at this makes me wonder when I had the time to take these trips. Pretty much every holiday weekend, and many others, I took advantage of it and got out of Singapore.

The places I'd still want to go this coming year? Vietnam, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, back to Java, Japan, Hong Kong... ... too many to even start listing out

After living here for two years in many ways this feels like home but in many other ways it feels like just a temporary place to live... not really knowing where my home is since I have no family in the last town I lived in - San Diego for 9 years and also no house or apartment there. Like some say, home is where you lay you head (or hang your hat?!) but there is also something to say for living near family to make it feel more like home, too. It was nice to spend a lot of time with so much family over the holiday time this year. I think living here on the terms of a contract makes it feel temporary as well; maybe if i didn't have a contract and were just working here I would feel differently since it's a similar situation to when I lived in San Diego... it's just a different country.

For many people Singapore is a very transitional place in that they come to work on contracts or are stationed here but can be pulled at any time by their company to move back. Being a person in this situation as well, it's difficult to feel fully integrated knowing your contract will be coming up and many of the people you meet and friends you make might leave at any given time as well. Nevertheless I’ve made some very good friends over the last few years- some of which are still here and some of which have already moved on from Singapore.

Singapore itself is a very interesting city. It really has a lot of layers and faces to it. You could just as easily spend hundreds of dollars at a trendy restaurant or just a few for a meal from a street hawker and be satisfied with either. There are some malls with more than two Starbuck’s coffee shops inside while across the street you could get a stronger cup of local coffee for less than a dollar at open air shop. Walking down many streets and areas in the city, things are so new and orderly there is no sense of history or feeling that you’re in Asia compared to some other capital cities like Bangkok, Delhi or Jakarta. It’s really easy to see only this part of Singapore, too, but there are other neighborhoods not as sterile and orderly where it becomes much more clear that you are a foreigner and different no matter how much you try to assimilate… the language barrier (while normally not a problem in Singapore can be much more apparent in some places) being only part of it. And still, there are some things I doubt I’ll ever understand or be accepted into - the least of which are the seemingly endless amounts of karaoke lounges!

This coming year should be interesting as I decide what to do next after December – one thing for sure is I know the time will go fast. Too fast.

ankle watch

I'd never say Singapore is a fashion center of the world but in general, though I would say people dress nicer here than in San Diego - especially girls. Just walking down the street, seeing girls wearing dresses is common and even more are wearing high heels. I saw a girl last night wearing a watch on her ankle and it literally took me two double takes to believe it after first noticing. She was wearing some kind of black dress, heels and this watch on her ankle- black and chunky like and old black Casio with a rubber strap not fancy like a piece of jewelry. I've never seen this, but more, I've never even thought of this before even though I've seen other cross over accessories like toe rings and ankle bracelets, socks with individual sections for each toe (like gloves) and even a sweat sock on Britney Spears' forearm during a half time show.

It seemed possible I was behind the times and had completely missed a new trend especially since I'd been out of Singapore for the last three and a half weeks so after I retuned home I did a quick search on google and found a lot of hits for "ankle watch" but many were for sports fan sites tracking players' sprained ankles. There was one link to a spoof news article announcing Paris Hiltons new line of ankle watches, one that made references to ankle watches as accessories in the early 20the century (but no pictures), one thread on a forum where a guy wanted to know where he could buy an ankle watch for his mistress's 25th birthday- most of the responses either said he was an idiot or thought he was joking about it, and a flickr page of a small collection of ankle watch photos. I didn't find any sites that would sell an ankle watch and ebay returned zero results for "ankle watch" postings. So it seems the easiest way to get an ankle watch is to just make you own like that girl I saw on the street (just to see, I did try to put my watch around my ankle and the strap is too small). I kind of doubt this is really a growing trend.

back home

After three and a half weeks I've made it back to Singapore after being in Visalia with family since mid December. That's a long time and lot has happened- some good and some not so good, some very happy times and some very sad times as well including Christmas and New Year's, my sister and her husband's wedding anniverary, seeing my niece and watching her behaviour transfrom from eating so much sugar over the course of three weeks, finding out I'll be an uncle by summertime, seeing all my aunts and uncles, cousin and grandfather, my dad's birthday and for those of you who follow his blog you will know what else I'm talking about. Most of all it was good to spend time with so much family- I don't even know how long it's been since we were able to spend so much time together with everyone there.

Visalia is a lot smaller and quieter than Singapore and after being away for three and half weeks I'm feeling a little overwhelmed at being back in this crowded, noisy city. I took a walk tonight to get dinner and there really are people just all over the place. I was also surprised to feel a little uncomfortable or consious about being caucasian surrounded by asians. I think these were feelings I had after first moving here and they should go away again quickly after I get used to this city life.