Quick update and travel plans

Hey all.

Just wanted to let you know that yes, I am still alive. It's been a crazy couple of weeks. Will hopefully start posting again for real, but for now, a quick update:

Research: Going messy and stressful, but going, so it could be worse.

Camera: Finally got a new one, after much hassle.

Highlights of the last few weeks: Went to Bintan (island in Indonesia), Sentosa (island off of Singapore), done hours of karaoke, eaten lots of yummy things like black pepper crab, experienced the dance craze that is Mambo Jambo night at Zouk, saw remote-control-glow-in-the-dark kites, went to Night Fest, saw some friends from undergrad.

EAPSI: only one week left of the program! Still working on analyses and putting together my presentation.

Travel Plans: Here's my current itinerary, posted for prosperity, and so that if I disappear, at least someone will have some idea of which country I'm supposed to last have been in:

July 30th-Aug 4th = Bali, Indonesia

Aug 7th-13th = Java, Indonesia

Aug 13th- 14th = Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Aug 14th - 21st = Laos

Aug 21st- Aug 29th = Cambodia

Aug 29-Aug 31 = Singapore

So excited! So wish I had more time. So hope I make all my flights! =)

Catastrophe!

Ok, so perhaps catastrophe is a bit melodramatic, it's not like I have malaria (knock on wood) or that the borders to Singapore have shut down. But I am not happy about several turns of events in the last couple days.

This last weekend was awesome in many ways, but will be forever marred by the death of my camera. Ok, death is not technically correct. It didn't die. It was kidnapped. ...Actually, it may not have been kidnapped. In truth, I do not know what happened to it. Saturday at 4:30pm, I took 4 pictures of the outside of that National Museum of Singapore. Then, four hours later, I reached for my bag to take some exquisite photos of the night city scape of Singapore from the City Space bar on the 70th floor---photographs that would surely win me a Pulitzer prize in my near future...only to come to the startling realization that my camera was not in my bag. Actually, the realization came about 20 minutes later. The first 20 minutes I was ferociously in denial. Sorting through my bag over and over, emptying the contents, and marveling to myself how my bag was deceptively large to have hidden my camera so thoroughly, and how jealous Miss Poppins would be if she were to ever find out. Even after my bag was turned inside out, I was not convinced. I walked all the way back to the National Museum, talked them into letting me in, even though it was closed. Spoke with the front desk. With security. Checked the corners and the bathrooms.

I still don't know what happened. However, my camera is no longer with me. I blame it on the lack of sleep. And the stress. I *always* lose things when I am sleep deprived and stressed. And I was up until 6am the night before, and am stressed out of my head with research. I am partly mourning, and partly still in denial. The stages of grief take a while to cycle through. That camera was probably the most expensive thing I own. And easily my favorite. Traveling without a camera to document my experiences seems tragically hollow. Traveling solo does not intimate me. But traveling cameraless feels like traveling naked. Or traveling in a dream. With no one else to hold my hand and validate my experiences, I feel so much more alone. Cameras make great company. When I'm all alone I need a camera to witness my life. How else am I supposed to know it's real? How else am I supposed to hold my head up and PROVE that I have seen the world. Without silly, materialistic, tangible pictures, tales of adventure fall from the pedestal of reality into the throngs of mere claims. How different things would have been if Columbus or Ponce de Leon had cameras.

....Ugh. I need to snap out of melodrama mode. But in my defense, it has been much more than just the camera. My laptop hasn't been working, which is frustrating because I can't update the blog, or Skype home, or make travel plans, and I've had to put in LONG hours at the office to make up for not being able to take work home. My phone has been out for the last few days, largely because my pocket dialed some random number and drained my prepaid card. Research has been the biggest clusterf**k I've ever experienced. Set backs, miscommunications, lack of communication, invalid data, lack of funding and every nightmare I could imagine.

Oh, and because my latop hasn't been working, I hadn't downloaded my pictures in weeks, which means that along with, and so much more important than my wonderful camera, I have lost hundreds of memories of the last few weeks.

Ugh.

But today is Monday, and a new week, and to take the advice of Emerson: I have done what I could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in. I will forget them as soon as I can. Today is a new day, and I will *try* to begin it well and serenely, and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with my old nonsense.

Playing Hooky and Getting Eaten Alive

On Monday last week, I decided to play hooky (I always wanted to say that. People don't use that phrase nearly enough). I was waiting on a number of people to get back to me about my project, so I couldn't really do much at work, so I figured, why go?

Don't tell NSF.

Anyway, I decided to check out the Bird Park. It was nearby, and I'd heard it was cool.

I'm really not super into birds or zoos and the like, but I have to admit, it was really really cool. A lot of the habitats were either totally open (clipped wings, perhaps?) Or in really big atrium type things that you could walk through. Which made for some very up close sightings, and some really cool pictures.

The place was huge. Must have taken me 4 hours to walk around it, and I didn't spend all that much time at each place. In fact, I'm not convinced I saw all of it. There were lots of little trails and stuff to go down, and the whole place was really well groomed. Thus the "park" aspect I guess.

(random aside, so I was walking around by myself, so I asked someone to take this pic. Which she did, and then she asked me if she could take her picture with me. So I said sure, and then we had to find someone to take our pic. This could have been the beginning of a very strange and interesting snowball game (you find someone to take your picture, then find someone to take both of your pics, then find someone to take all 3 of your pics...I say we try this sometime)....anyway, her friend came and took our picture. I just thought it was funny. I suppose taking pictures of strangers is no more different than taking pictures of birds. I got asked for my picture a lot in China, but this is the first time it's happened here. I was kind of surprised, since Singapore is pretty darn diverse.

Anyway, back to the park. There were lots of crazy looking birds that I do not remember the names of...

And a rather cool waterfall. The park claims that it is the largest man made waterfall in the world. I've noticed that Singapore is rather big on being the biggest, the tallest, the newest, etc. I think they might have a complex. I guess that makes sense, since they are a tiny island trying to compete against huge western first world countries while being drowned in eastern 3rd world countries.

But my favorite part of the park was the lories. There was this huge atrium of lories that you could walk through, and they had a tree top walk thing, so that you could walk right among them. I got there right at feeding time.

They were not shy.

After the Bird Park, I hit up the Chinese Gardens. They are just a few Metro stops from my apartment, but I'd never checked them out before.

They were absolutely beautiful. I totally fell in love.

Yes. This is me being eaten alive by a bush-dragon. Yes I know I'm a dork. You would have done the same thing.
They did a really good job of making it look like China! Aw Asia, how I love thee!

Since I was feeling so Asian, and since I happened to be walking around in a dress and carrying a very Asian looking umbrella, I decided to try to take the most Asia-st picture ever:

How did I do? I think I got an A. Of course, it would have been more authentic if I had done FOB fingers ( "Fresh Off the Boat" fingers...aka the peace sign that all Asians feel the need to throw up in pictures) but I just couldn't make myself.

I walked around until the sun went down and my camera died. Again, totally in love with this place.

* * * * *

The following night, I got eaten alive a second time. This time by fish. One of the girls from our fellowship found a "Dr Fish" spa and really wanted to check it out, so off we went. For those of you who haven't heard of this, this is when you stick your feet in a pool of water and a bunch of fish come and eat off the dead skin from your feet. Yeah. It's very popular in Asia right now. Apparently some people tried bringing it to the USA but it didn't pass health codes. Go figure.

I am *VERY* ticklish on the bottom of my feet. I have kicked many a person who thought tickling them was a good idea. So I dragged said feet quite a bit when people wanted to do it.I was really kinda afraid I would automatically kick out and squish the fish. How awful would that be?!

But you know me, curiosity WILL kill the Cat, and so either the fish or I was bound to die, so I tried it anyway. (no fish were harmed in the making of this blog)

I squealed, and squeaked and giggled and shuddered until my eyes were pouring water and I could barely breathe. Everyone else got a kick out of my reaction. Maya asked how I got pedicures. I don't. I only got a few pictures, once I calmed down enough that I could take out my camera without worrying about dropping it. Happily, as far as I know, all the fish survived.

I'll try anything once. Not sure if I'll be trying Dr Fish again though. On a scale of relaxing I think it was somewhere between going to the dentist and getting a cavity search. And the results? Nothing different about my feet that I could notice. Besides perhaps being a little wrinkly.