Apartment Pics

Here are pics of my "serviced apartment"!


When you walk into the place, the bedroom is immediately on your right.












With the bedroom on the right, straight ahead is a small flight of stairs down to the rest of the apartment.




Once you go downstairs, there is a large room with sliding blinds that cover a wall of windows/private balcony. There's a pull out couch if anyone wants to come visit!






On the opposite side of the room, there is a dining table and a desk. Through this room, you can get to the kitchenette and the bathroom.







A small kitchen with a fridge/freezer, stovetop, sink, microwave, and toaster.






Then there is the bathroom. This room needs the most work...in case you can't tell from the checkered tile everywhere! The shower curtain is about 2 inches too short so I tend to flood the bathroom floor everytime I shower :)

Happy Birthday!

Today is mine and David's birthday! So...happy birthday, Dave! (And to me...hehe)

Lantern Festival at the Chinese Gardens

Happy Birthday, Goo Ma! Hope you are having a great time in New York!

Here are some pictures from last Friday night (September 7th) when I went to the Chinese Gardens to check out the Lantern Festival that was going on as part of the Mid-Autumn Festival. This year's festival is trying to get into the Guiness World Book or Records for the most marine-themed lanterns in an event. 45 professional lantern makers from China spent the entire month of August in Singapore manually constructing them.

After work Friday night, I was so tired but I made myself go just so I could get out in Singapore. It was about a 20 minute subway ride and then a straight walk from the station right into the gardens. It was $12 to get in and I got a free hand-held lantern out of the deal! It was so humid out, but it was a nice walk around the gardens.







A giant moon cake lantern and a statue of Mulan!!!

Earth Tremor Poster

Indonesia has had a couple more earthquakes since the 1st one Wednesday night...today we all got this email talking about what we can do during tremors felt in Singapore. I thought it was pretty amusing! Its hard to see but the cartoons are pretty funny...at least for a topic like this :)

(Click on the poster to enlarge it to read the fun facts!)

My first earthquake evacuation

A 8.2-magnitude earthquake struck in the Indian Ocean off Indonesia's Sumatra Island tonight. http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/09/12/indonesia.quake/index.html

I have to admit that if no one told me, I don't think I would have known. I was at work (on the 3rd floor) and then headed up to the 21st floor for a meeting. When I was in the elevator, I remember it rattling a little and I thought "Great, it's going to break" but then forgot all about it. I was alone setting up for my conference call when I heard someone running toward the room. One of the gentlemen I was supposed to be meeting with, Keng Yeow, ran in and said "Jennifer, can you please come with me downstairs right now? There is an emergency. There was an earthquake."

I have to say that of all the people I had to meet I could have had a meeting with, I'm glad it was with these 3 gentlemen. When they felt the tremors (they were more noticable on their higher floor) they tried calling me to tell me to evacuate. When they couldn't reach me at my desk, Keng Yeow went back upstairs to get me and make sure I was safe.

Anyways, long story short...Singapore had some tremors but everything is safe here. Now I'm off to bed :) Good night!

Oh, and its also Tim's birthday today. Happy birthday!

The Great Duck Race

Today was the 2007 Singapore Duck Race...it also happens to be Ryan's birthday too. Happy birthday, Ryan! :)

I went and picked up a few things at the grocery store last night, so after having a hearty bowl of Frosted Flakes for breakfast, I headed out to Clarke Quay (pronounced "key") to catch the 7th running of the Singapore rubber duckies. Clarke Quay is a riverside village filled with shops, restaurants, and nighttime hotspots:

For the duck race, 10,000 rubber ducks were put up for adoption to raise money for various charities around Singapore. At 1pm, the ducks were dumped out of 2 trucks and into the Singapore river. (I havent been able to shrink videos yet, but once I figure out how...I'll post a video of them being emptied out into the water.)

Other Singapore Sightings

Here are some more pictures from my first week or so:




Top Left: Noodle soup that cost me $4 (Singapore) which is about $3 (US). Not a bad deal! One major difference in food courts here is that the food stalls just sell food. If you want to get a drink with your meal, you have to go to a separate drink stall. Some places actually have people walking around to take drink orders and you pay them when they come back to your table with your drink.

Top Right & Bottom Left: My first weekend here, I went and had dim sum at the Raffles Hotel (which invented the Singapore Sling cocktail) with Boon (a new friend here in Singapore that I met through a co-worker in Houston.) They had an extensive dim sum menu, but since I was feeling a bit under the weather, Boon ordered his favorites and I just snacked along. The food was good, but it was all stuff that I had had back home as well.

We got on the topic of durians...a fruit native to Southeast Asia. Before leaving to come to Singapore, I had watched an episode of "Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern" on the Travel Channel. For those of you who haven't seen the show, Andrew travels the world on a quest to find the world's most bizarre foods. This man has tried everything and when the Travel Channel asked him to list his top 10 worst tasting bizarre foods...durian is on the top of his list.

It's hard to explain what exactly is so bad about durian. It actually doesn't TASTE that bad...once you get past the smell of it. It doesn't taste like it smells. It's creamy and doesn't actually taste like much (compared to how it smells.) You can literally sniff it blocks away. I can't exactly relate the smell to anything...its just horrible. There are actually signs in cabs and in the subways banning durians.

People here love it though. There are durian candies, durian ice cream, and even durian crepes (The picture of what we had for dessert at dim sum) For the record, I tried 3 bites and couldn't get myself to finish the rest of it.

Bottom Right: An iced milk tea, but it comes with it's own carrier! When you get drinks to go, most places give you this plastic wrapper that lets you carry the drink while walking so you dont have to worry about spilling! The US needs these :)

Singapore so far...

I've been in Singapore now for almost 2 weeks and I figured it was time I started posting some stuff! I hope to keep this updated regularly, but for now...here are some tidbits from my first few weeks here:

Apparently the Singaporian way of eating at any food court is to:

1. Look around to find an empty seat

2. Place an item on the table to claim
the seat as yours (packs of tissues are a local favorite!)

3. Go order your food

4. Come back to your seat with your
meal

As a side note, this picture was taken at a Burger King right next to the office...I was very excited to find it! There are only so many meals consisting of rice and noodles that a girl can take before a Whopper has to come into the picture!

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On my way to work, I came across a banner for the National Lion Dance Championships that was starting that night.

The lion dance is a traditional Chinese dance where performers mimic a lion's movements in a lion costume. The pair of dancers, forming the back and front legs mimic the motions of the animal as they move between platforms of varying elevations. The dance is traditionally accompanied by gongs, drums and firecrackers, representing good luck.

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The corner of Orchard and Scotts Road on my morning walk to the MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) Station. My place is about a 5 minute walk to the subway and then its a 4 stop ride to the office:

A view of the corner that I get dropped off at in the morning if I take a taxi to work. I actually work in the building behind and to the right of where I'm standing to take the picture. Past the building in the picture is the Singapore river:

Outside the Raffles MRT Station which is about half a block from my office. The bottom floors are filled with shops and food with offices above. During the day, this plaza is packed with people just as the rest of Central Business District (CBD) is:

A section of Orchard Road at night. The 'food republic' is the main dining area at the Wisma Atria building. Orchard is famous for it's shopping and is a frequent stop for me on my way home. How convenient for me that my subway stop happens to land me in the center of shopping and food!



A part of Bugis Street at night. Said to be "the largest street-shopping location in Singapore". Surrounding Bugis, there are indoor shopping malls as well. I have a feeling my stay in Singapore will revolve heavily around shopping and eatting!