Singapore, Pt. II
May 4, 2012 § 3 Comments
The morning after I landed in Singapore, I went out to have breakfast with CK, his parents and his twin brother. It was Good Friday, so the streets were super crowded with parked cars because the churches didn’t have parking lots, despite being mega-church status (apparently). The breakfast location was an open-air food court-type place, which is quite different from the usual IHOP experience but not unlike what you’d find at Chicagoland’s Diho. CK helped me order a plate of noodles, which came with fried fish and egg.
Typical breakfast in Singapore??
The whole thing was quite tasty but also very oily, which I don’t tolerate very well in the morning. It’s interesting because when I talked to CK about it later, he told me that he has a hard time eating dry food in the morning. I wondered if it’s because I come from northern China, which is known more for its bland fare (dumplings, buns, etc.). I mean, seriously, I could eat a whole loaf of bread in one sitting without any water, but I detest chow mein, deep-fried chicken and bacon.
Anyway. The good thing about the oilier Singaporean food I tried was that I could eat it without stuffing my face — I usually can’t help but gain weight while on vacation. (The constant heat and humidity helped diminish my appetite too. I love Singapore!) CK also bought me a curry puff to snack on. It was really spicy and really tasty, even four hours later.
Curry puff…come back to me!
After breakfast, CK’s brother dropped us off at the nearby MRT station, where we took the subway to Orchard Road, basically Singapore’s supreme shopping destination. It’s like Las Vegas strip if you replaced all the casinos and restaurants and brothels with malls and malls and malls. You can walk half a block out of one mall right into another one. The other amazing thing was that it seemed like half the malls were undergoing renovations or construction of some kind, meaning there will be even more stores. It was pretty overwhelming.
Are You Planning To Step On Us?
May 2, 2012 § Leave a comment
What is it about watching a team come together that is so satisfying? It’s been done again and again in heist movies, secret agent movies, sports movies, Pokémon movies, and it never gets old. (Well, maybe the last one does.) The Avengers is Marvel Studios’ latest production of visual overstimulation, and I think Joss Whedon does a good job of giving the characters a balanced amount of screen time while keeping the film from toppling under the weight of superhero clichés.
As you should already know, Thor‘s jilted adopted brother Loki is leading an evil alien army to conquer Earth. The aliens, of course, are ugly creatures only one step above Power Rangers villains, and we get very little hint of their motive except that Earth is probably a more pleasant place to live than the dank, light-less planet from which they appear to come. I’m not saying that I wanted a half hour of heartfelt alien backstory, and fighting aliens is at least better than casting the Russians, Persians or Chinese as the enemy, but it almost seemed like another installment of the Transformers series.
Things I Might Do
April 30, 2012 § 2 Comments
These are some of the things I would do if I had the resources to do (mostly) whatever I wanted with my life after growing up a bit (without bingeing on the luxuries), ranked in somewhat chronological order. I realize that some of these are frivolous while others are near-impossible (unless the Romneys adopt me, perhaps), but if I had full control over my life, these are some choices I would make. The beautiful thing about life, however, is that we never are fully in control, so it’s safe to say that most of the following will never come true, and I’m OK with that.
1. Lasik surgery
I think I look better with glasses than without, but my eyesight is only getting worse with time, and I don’t want to be blind by the time I’m too old to find my glasses on the nightstand. I’m not sure I’ll have the guts to go through with it, though, because they slice your eye open!!!! It’s too much to handle. I think my blood pressure rises every time I think about it. Still, I see it as an inevitability. If only insurance covered the procedure.
Cost: $4000+
2. Custom-painted car
If I had the option, I would buy a Mini Cooper and get it painted hot pink, probably with a black top and two black stripes down the front. I’ve wanted a Mini since before I was 16 (it is the most popular brand among women, after all), and having a pink one would just be the icing on top of the Barbie cake of my life, if I liked icing. This is risky, though, because I’d worry that my car might get keyed or egged by hateful people. As Taylor Swift put it, people throw rocks at things that shine, and a hot pink Mini shines pretty hard.
Pretty much exactly like this
3. Personal chef
I can keep my house organized and take care of most household things fine, but cooking is something at which I am purely mediocre, and if I could, I would really rather just hire someone to cook dinner for me (and maybe do the dishes ha ha though it seems most of these services are more on the delivery end than in-home) than have to worry about it myself. I’m not a picky eater, so it wouldn’t really be difficult for whomever I hire, as long as they can make authentic Chinese food. I usually do OK making food for myself, but the thought of someday having to make dinner every night for a family (or even myself + husband) is just too much. I don’t think I could handle the pressure. Good thing gender roles are more fluid these days, meaning I won’t be saddled with the full responsibility of it in the future, right? Speaking of kids…
Cost: $11,700/yr for a personal chef AKA deliveries, $55,000/yr for a private chef, cost of groceries not included for either
4. Surrogate
The thought of being pregnant freaks me out and is totally unappealing. It might be weird or taboo to admit this publicly, but oh well. (I still want kids!!) I think it would be awesome to watch my baby grow…in somebody else’s body. Yup. If I could be a seahorse, that would be pretty super. I have a feeling this is the least likely to happen out of all the things on this list (if I can count my future spouse as a personal chef, heh heh) simply due to the astronomical price, which makes me sad.
And would I outsource the already-outsourced pregnancy (ie. out of the country, to save money) or be a helicopter biological mother? What kinds of people become surrogates, anyway? Would I be able to find a smart, healthy young lady? I’d like to hire a white woman just to be absolutely sure that it’s my baby that comes out. LOL
Cost: $100,000
5. Adopt
Kind of goes along with the previous one, but more compelling. Ever since I can remember, I’ve wanted to adopt a child (probably a girl) from Asia (probably China). I was a bit deterred after learning that some people steal babies to sell to adoption-seekers, which is absolutely appalling. There are already so many unwanted children in the world and you’re going to steal a baby that somebody is already taking care of to sell to an unsuspecting couple?! WTF!
Anyway, my heart goes out to the orphans of the world, and I’d love to do my part to provide a home for one someday. Also, as someone who ranks overpopulation as one of the World’s Most Pressing Problems Of Today, I think it would be great if people could adopt the children that have already been born instead of senselessly procreating like there’s no tomorrow, which there won’t be once this planet’s resources dry up and everyone has to move to Mars.
Cost: $20,000-30,000
6. Mr. Duker
This one is kind of bizarre, but my favorite band director once told us (in middle school) that someday if we got rich, he would really appreciate it if we could help fund him to take a trip to outer space because he really wanted to go. I wrote it down in my notebook and haven’t forgotten, for some reason. Since then, Mr. Duker has gotten married and had at least one baby, so I’m not sure if he’d be down for a trip outside the atmosphere, but if I could, I would happily send him to space and back, for all the good times in band class.
Cost: $200,000?
Space travel is free if you're nyan cat
On Etiquette, Or The Lack Thereof
April 19, 2012 § 4 Comments
This is something that I’ve seen more than a few times in my life, and most of the time it’s (sadly) been in China or perpetrated by Chinese people. Sigh. I hate to post a rant about my own people, but this is just embarrassing and most of all RUDE!
I went to another press event this afternoon — it was a very intimate affair, with only seven media people and about just as many of the brand’s employees flitting about. We were tucked in the corner of the cosmetics department behind the counter of the brand whose launch we were attending, seated in folding chairs almost elbow-to-elbow. It was scheduled to start at 2PM but didn’t begin until around 2:30, which is an issue in itself, but I’m slowly getting used to this delayed timekeeping. (The only thing that worries me is that I’m not sure if I make a good impression by showing up on time — and first — or if I just look like a huge n00b. But mother would be proud.)
Once the event was ready to begin, the general manager started her welcoming spiel and was half a sentence in until she noticed that two of the attendees were still on their phones, so she paused to let them finish. One of them quickly ended her conversation, while the other literally kept going for a full minute while the rest of us waited. I was like, are you serious?? Do you not see us sitting here waiting for you? (Cue dramatic eye-rolling from me.) She wasn’t speaking loudly or anything, but obviously they wanted everyone’s full attention before beginning. After all, there were only seven of us in the audience.
As the event went on, we got to watch a demonstration of one of the brand’s new facials, conducted by one of their professional international trainers who had a British accent. About five minutes into it, as the therapist was explaining the process, the lady sitting next to me received a phone call and actually picked it up. I was flabbergasted. Like, who is so important that you can’t miss one call? (I wouldn’t know because both these women spoke Cantonese into their phones.) Do you not know that there’s this thing called texting that allows you to communicate with other people without blatantly disrupting what’s going on around you?!
She carried on her conversation quietly, but since she was sitting right next to me, I was distracted both by her talking and my ire, so I just side-eyed her as demeaningly as I could without appearing unprofessional. There aren’t many other options for reacting to this situation.
This is seriously a problem, guys. I remember during class one time at HKU, a girl actually picked up the phone during the lecture (it was in a regular-sized classroom) and ducked behind her laptop so as not to be noticed. (I might have blogged about this before.) I was shocked. I mean, these people can’t all have a relative on his deathbed, right?? Or a friend flying in from overseas who is calling from a pay phone? Those are the only acceptable scenarios I can come up with.
Anyway, I might just be particularly sensitive about this. I even hate it when I’m with a friend and she constantly checks her phone or texts someone without telling me what she’s doing. Like, are you with me or are you with your phone?? Can you give it a rest or at least let me know what’s going on that’s so interesting over there? Ugh. People and their phones need to learn some manners.
auradis 