Living like Rock Stars

It's not so pretty right now. I eventually fell asleep only to wake up sweating around noon. It still hurts my head to be upright and between the three of us, we're living like rock stars.

We're waiting on a staff of maids and butlers to make our beds and do our laundry. In the meantime, my girl has squeezed into a toddler shirt and leggings she fished out of the donation bag. I'm sweating in a bathrobe with Froot Loop Cereal Straws in the pockets.

We're also waiting on a chef to prepare something that isn't eaten straight out of a bag with our bare hands. We're running low on BBQ chips and juice boxes. The girl has managed to make herself some ramen and Crystal Light. I tried to eat some pea pods but between my clogged head and desire for something delicious, it was like eating green twigs--tough, bitter, and the chewing was giving me a headache.

We also need staff to unpack our bags. And go to the grocery store--we need foil and milk badly. And to clean out our microwave--ugh, what did we do in there?! And to give my neck a rubdown--from my brief recollection, I think my football picks are going down the toilet.

Maybe it's time for another sleeping phase...wake me when the staff arrives...

Back...and sick

It's 2:30am, Sunday morning.

We got back into LAX around 9:30pm, Thursday. After baggage claim, customs, catching the shuttle to Long Term parking, driving down the 405, and a visit to Jack in the Box, we got home around 12:30am.

Unfortunately on our last day in Singapore Thursday morning, I woke up with a sore throat and got increasingly congested since then. Traveling on a packed airplane only made the experience more awesome.

I went to work the next morning, Friday, in hopes of getting my body back on Pacific time, and also to catch up on a slower-paced Friday than try to hit the ground running on a Monday. I was useless. It was like putting a zombie mannequin at my desk. My head felt full of glue from my cold and my eyes wanted to shut for the day around noon.

Oh and I killed about a month of Weight Watchers. I'm back up to 156.

Anyhoo, being sick, I not only am ignoring my WW points, but also I've been passing out at will for the last 36 hours. I'm currently in my waking phase. I've caught up on some Naruto, watched 2 hours of "Ace of Cakes" (thank you, Food Channel), and now watching how the earth was made on the History Channel.

I should be making a list of things to do, among them: laundry (LOTS of it), downloading pictures (hundreds of them), grocery shopping (all of it), and cleaning and organizing, etc.

The problem of course is being sick that my head hurts being upright. It's all I can do to stay conscious through football games as I lay on the couch, shoving handfuls of chocolate chips in my mouth and drinking Diet Coke Plus for sustenance.

Ooooo...I feel a sleeping phase coming on...

Welcome to the Jungle: Night Safari!

I finally took off my glasses and became Super Tourist. We kicked it off with the Night Safari at the Singapore Zoo (yes, we napped first) on Sunday night. It's this really cool exhibit apart from the rest of the Zoo where you can walk trails and/or ride a tram and watch animals active at night. It's entirely cageless, with cleverly hidden moats. I tried taking pictures without flash but since I didn't geek-tech out with a tripod, I didn't get many decent pictures. (I haven't been able to download any pictures yet, I know!)

The exhibits with all the animals are dynamite. It's amazing to observe these animals hunting around or just chillaxing by the creek. Though part of me wanted to point out that some of these animals (e.g., elephants) are not naturally nocturnally active and I was uncomfortable that some have been put on an artificial night shift for the sake of our amusement. My discomfort is less PETA, more inauthenticity. Though I have to admit that one of my favorite parts of the night was when an elephant was just standing by the side of the road as our tram slowly cruised by, less than a yard away (when we passed, we saw the trainer standing by its side).

The best part of the night was the "Creatures of the Night" show in the amphitheatre, where Velina volunteered and was chosen to show how a civet has such keen sense of smell by hiding a grape in one of her two closed hands. The civet tapped a hand and Velina opened the hand (quickly, quickly! open your hand! urged the trainer) and revealed the grape. Velina was rewarded with a coupon for a free scoop of ice cream at the Ben and Jerry's, which given the concession prices at the zoo, was worth its weight in gold.

By the way, civets are these small rainforest cats that are internationally famous for pooping out the most expensive coffee in the world, Kopi Luwak. Apparently they swallow the coffee cherries whole and their stomach enzymes break down the natural bitterness but still leave the coffee beans intact. Apparently a genius "connoisseur" dug through a civet's excrement, saw the beans and said, I'm going to brew a cup of coffee from these beans that just came out of a civet's butt. And then with a sigh of relief, Wow, this is actually a dynamite cup of coffee--so glad I washed those beans.

I highly recommend the Night Safari, though there are some caveats. As I alluded to above, the prices for food is outrageous, like Disneyland-level. Burgers, Indian food, noodles are about $20 each so I would suggest you eat well before you arrive. On top of that I suggest bringing your own water bottles. For a country that is hot and humid all year round, I can't believe there are no water fountains and the vendors do not give you cups of water with your meal, you have to BUY a bottle of water. The outrageous prices apply to bottles of water as well, so I only bought one for the three of us to share--I didn't have time to fill out the application for a second mortgage to purchase another bottle. Also, the walking trails are awesome but the layout is designed so you have to backtrack through the same trail when you're done to get back to the main entrance where the tram is--so bring water to keep yourself hydrated from the redundant walking.

Velina and I filled Monday and Tuesday to the brim with attractions and activities--more adventures to come...

Darn this jet lag

Currently, we're jet lag's b!tch.

We collectively woke up around 2am, our first night here, whispering, what time is it?, we need to sleep more, and were able to pass out until a more respectable 5am. We had an awesome breakfast buffet in our hotel that deserves its own post with pictures and then went on a short bus tour that hit the National Orchid Garden at the Botanical gardens, a mineral and precious stone factory, Mount Faber, Chinatown, and Little India, where we grabbed lunch at the "Fodor's Choice" Banana Leaf Apolo.

Though we didn't have their reknowned Fish Head Curry, Paul and the girl loved the Chicken Tikka and Cheese Naan. I had the "vegetarian meal". It was amazing. You get this huge banana leaf with a huge mound of rice and about 12 sides of curries, vegetables, and sauces. It was unbelievable. Spicy, delicious, and a ridiculous value at about 4 US dollars, I don't who was thrilled more: the Cheap Bastard in me or the Fat one.

We got to our hotel room and passed out again for about 2 hours. We woke up to a phone call from housekeeping saying they wanted to clean our room. We went to the pool for a spell and by the time we got back and showered it was after 6pm. We're right next door to the Ngee Ann City mall with the famed Takashimaya flagship store and an amazing food court in the basement. We grabbed dinner there last night and we got more snacks and cream puffs there tonight. We were aiming to go to the Night Safari but totally collapsed into a Pringles and Beard Papa coma. Ugh, not pretty.

It is Sunday at about 4am. Today my goal is breaking the chains of jet lag.

Greetings from Singapore!

Has anyone ever flown out of LAX for 1:45am flight? It's the closest to an unsavory New York experience I've had here in SoCal. For some reason, the international terminal chooses to conserve its lightbulb usage and rely a lot on the neon glow from the commercial signs. The only food available was from a McDonald's where asking for a grilled Chicken wrap for your old man gets you a deep-fried crispy one after waiting about 15 minutes for it (that's where you ask your old man's coronary valves to take one for team rather than make your old lady go through another maddening wait). The night crew employees were on break around us, some drinking McDonald's coffee and others taking a cat nap.

The tableau of us eating deep-fried fast food surrounded by slumped over unconscious bodies bathed in a blue neon reminded me of the NYC Port Authority bus terminal on 42nd Street. I was half-expecting my pimp to yell for me to get back to my corner.

We eventually boarded the plane and in the next 18 hours we probably slept about 5 hours. We flew Cathay Pacific which has a new seat system where your chair doesn't recline, the bottom of the seat slides forward instead. It's not very comfortable because the top of your spine just arcs forward with your head dangling down so you end up looking like a comma. On the plus side, this means the seat in front of you doesn't lean down into you or your tray. Given that we each had a movie screen it was nice that your view wasn't affected, especially considering we were awake and watching movies for 14 hours. I saw Kung Fu Panda, What Happens in Vegas (what a surprise ending--kidding!), and Iron Man (yes, again--Tony Stark, grr, baby!), and I almost got through nearly all the episodes of 30 Rock they had available. I briefly regretted wasting my time sleeping when I should have seen them all.

Anyhoo, we arrived safe and sound in Singapore. And promptly passed out for 5 hours.

Latchkey Kid

After a bit of back and forth, analyzing pros and cons, my girl is going through the familiar rite of passage as a latchkey kid. She's doing it twice a week and so far it's been fine, though she's not as efficient with tasks as she would be if she were supervised. I wouldn't have done it if she showed any sign of being uncomfortable and I was surprised she was actually eager to do it. I got a feeling she's going to be snacking and will want to watch tv while doing homework.

Sigh. Just like her old lady.

But of course, I'm aiming her to be a lot more productive than me. Keeping my fingers crossed.

I'm bringing Dynamite Back

Every once in a while I try to reintroduce a word from the past into current lexicon. Last spring, I tried to bring "foxy" back. Honestly, it wasn't my first attempt. But at my age (over 24) and considering a lot of my conversations are with a 9-year-old, I just don't get that many opportunities to use the word "foxy". And I would feel downright icky applying that word to my girl--hey you look totally foxy in those jeans, sweetie! Ewww, right?

So I've decided I'm bringing "dynamite" back. So handy. That salsa is dynamite! These sneakers are dynamite! That movie is dynamite! You did a dynamite job on the bike, sweetie!

See what I mean? It's a word the whole family can use!

I'm not afraid to go it alone, but it would be really helpful if more folks would start using it. I invite everyone to slip it into their conversation, oh, let's start with once a week for now. It's a great opportunity to bring this awesome word back. Who's with me?

Dynamite.