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Published: December 3rd 2006
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Singapore is a far cry from Japan. I'm still digesting what happened in Japan. I didn't realize how terribly different it is from my life until I got to Singapore and people were a bit more like I remembered them to be. People holding hands, talking on the metro, wearing colorful clothing...shorts even! In Japan Dallas wore shorts one day and people literally stopped, pointed and laughed at him. I know that I exaggerate, but I am not lying about this. They would point and giggle. It was so crazy. It might have something to do with the fact that he looks like a homeless guy too. Japan was a wonderful experience, but it was a very odd culture. The people are really not open at all...they are helpful and kind, but they are not ones to laugh with and have deep conversation with. The fashion scene in Tokyo is over the top. People are SO into clothes. People work so hard too. They put in 12 or more hours at the office, six days a week. It was depressing to ride on the metro in total silence and see the people falling asleep and staring blankly. I feel like we
really saw the under belly of Japan because we stayed with the locals and we learned about the culture from their perspective. It is actually far more immoral than I would have guessed...I mean really bad. But, they are good at covering it up. Alright, enough Japan bashing. I truly did like the place. I would go back for sure. A wonderful place, but strange nonetheless.
As for Singapore, we recieved a warm welcome! English is the primary language here...along with Chinese, Malay, and Hindi. It's quite a melting pot. You can travel from one end of the country to the other in one hour by train. It is VERY small. When we arrived we took a train...much, much simpler to figure out than Japan...to Starbucks where we met Leo, our host. He took us back to his condo and Dallas and I were in awe of the place. It feels like we are staying at a resort...three bedroom condo, beautiful view, downtown, HUGE pool, sauna, gym, the works. Leo bought us dinner than we went back to his place and watched Amazing Race.
Singapore is very developed. There are pockets of serious culture in Little India and
China town, but for the most part it is very westernized. The entire country feels like Disneyland. It is a beautiful place really. We went to Sentosa island the first day where there are tons of things to do...we went to the butterfly garden and Dallas was in bug heaven. I mean, bugs are to Dallas what plants are to Becky. I liked the butterfly garden too, but I don't think it meant as much to me as it did to him. Then we went to the orchid garden...that I loved. On Sentosa they have man made beaches that are actually quite nice, but they are right in the path of a bunch of ships, so it's not the tropical isle that we hope to find in Malaysia.
Last night we went out with Leo and some of his friends and this chick Fanny (later Dallas told me that her last name was Pac...and I believed him because she has chinese heritage so it seemed realistic, but then I realized that would make her name be Fanny Pack, and then he started to laugh at me...side note, Dallas is a huge liar and he is constantly trying to trick
me like that. unfortunately, I am very gullible.) Fanny ordered all this Malay and Singaporean food for us to try...I ate baby squids and sting ray. They were actually delicious.
This morning we visited Singapore Baptist Church. We figure we'll hit the Asia Baptist circuit. It was really good. It was very traditional and it was mostly chinese people so it was all in english and mandarin. It was interesting to hear from a chinese pastor. It was very right on though. He spoke on Psalm 90. We sang some hymns in mandarin...but I just followed along...and took communion with them. It was a great experience. After church they had lunch for everyone so we joined them and the pastor ate with us. It was fantastic. I told him that I studied biblical counselings, and he said, "Oh, Jay Adams?" What?? He knew exactly what biblical counseling was and he talked about the book Competent to Counsel. What a great thing! They were so insightful. I think Dallas and I were both challenged by our conversation with these two older Singaporean men.
Then today we went to the famous Singapore zoo and Night Safari. It was SO fun!
A monkey ran by my head, I almost got hit in the face with a bat, I bonded with a tiny rainforest barking deer and we pet lemurs. WOW! They really don't do zoos here like they do in the states. They use "psychological barriers" so the animals look like they can come out and touch you...which I guess they could if they were smarter. It was hands down the best zoo I have ever been to. Monkeys would just be wandering around and you could touch them. Dallas kept telling me that he was an (insert animal name here) whisperer. I mean every exhibit we went to, "Oh, I'm a jaguar whisperer. I'll get this jaguar to get up and walk around." Then he would stare at it. Then he said he was a baby whisperer because all the babies whose attention I wanted to get would end up paying more attention to giant, bearded homeless looking guy than they would to me. And the thing about going to the zoo with jungle boy is that every cool animal we saw, he'd be like, "Yeah, I had one of those once." or, "I rode my neighbor's Tepir once." Truth
be told, he is a wealth of jungle animal knowledge.
Dallas said he wanted to write a rebuttle to my blog that said he shot down my Christmas idea because I was painting him out to be some sort of Christmas hating monster. So now whenever he says anything stupid/mean I say, "I'm blogging about this." But I can't remember any of those things at this point. We talked today about going our separate ways in Malaysia for a few days because he wants to spend days and days in the jungle and I really don't think I want to. I was afraid of the yelping/howling deer in the safe and tame forests of Japan, the jungle is going to FREAK me out. I don't want to get leaches and I don't want to run into a venomous viper. Every amazing/cool/dangerous animal I see in the zoos at home and the zoos here are animals that come from the Malaysian jungles and I just don't know what I'll do if I'm spending the night in the jungle and I have to listen to the hoots and hollers of a predator looking for its prey. No, I don't want to
see a Jaguar in it's natural habitat. I don't want to catch vipers either. I don't even want to catch big beetles. So, I told Dallas that he could go to the jungle and I won't mind sleeping on the beach all day while I wait for him to come back...hopefully in one piece.
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Niffer Doodle
non-member comment
Really, don't call me that.
Hey, take me to that zoo! I can whisper things to animals. Maybe they'd like to hear what I whisper, maybe they wouldn't. You don't know. For that matter, neither do I. I keep wanting to hear more and more about you. I love hearing about your trip, but I just want to hear about you and how you're doing. I got a fish. I named it Fish Face. I hope you weren't planning on naming any of your kids Fish Face because I took the name already. Love you.