Halloween

Happy Halloween! 

So in case you are wondering, Halloween is not a big thing in Asia. The Chinese are really superstitious and tend to stay away from things involving "bad spirits" and the like. The holiday is not, however, nonexistent... especially here, in Singapore where there are so many foreigners.
To be honest, I am not entirely familiar with how or if Halloween is celebrated in most parts of the world, though it probably does not get as much attention anywhere else as it does in the States. Here, there are Halloween decorations strung up around stores and little costumes for sale. Most of the stuff, however, seems like cheap small items and is no where near the level of decorations you would see in your everyday Walmart.
In general, Singapore does not do Trick-or-Treating, but certain apartment complexes or living areas where there are a lot of Westerners will open up and let their residents wonder freely, gathering their assorted candies.

Last Friday the Marines held another social at the Embassy...a Halloween Party! I signed up!... and I mean, who wouldn't? At the very least, you can get $5 pizza and $5 drinks! Good pizza is a rare and iffy thing here. the pizza they served was from this place called "Canadian Pizza" and it actually tasted okay... though there was a profound lack of pizza sauce. 
The costume contest promised on the invitation (winner drinks free) never happened, but costumes were abundant!  I didn't have many resources to pull from, so I wore a blue dress I have and attached some blue  wings and flowers to myself, decorated my arms and face with little sticky gems and lots of blue make-up and went as a fairy. My friend Heather went as a basket of laundry, and her husband accompanied her as Static Cling. My other friend, Kevin was the Green Lantern. Dexter, who works at the embassy, did not dress up. boooo haha There were a lot of other costumes there too... a Zorro, a Pimp, Cereal Killers, a slutty policewoman, cats, candy corn and so many more. Funnily enough, there was also one guy dressed up as a Mexican. I assumed, being in Asia, that it was really as Asian underneath the sombrero and mustache, but it  turned out to be a real Mexican!... imagine my surprise! lol
Anyway, it was a fun party and we stayed from around 7 until 11 or so. The actual party went on much later, but we all wanted to catch the public transportation home before it all shut down, and so dutifully headed out to catch a bus.

That was all over the weekend of course...what did I do for actual Halloween night, you ask? We made fajitas. haha... not very "halloweeny" I guess, but hey, they tasted good! Actually, my brother also had carved a pumpkin a couple days before (those things don't last long here, but I took a pic before it got ruined... it is the one at the top of the post) and we ended up making some delicious Oreo Ball treats. We tried to decorate them like eye balls, but that part didn't turn out so well. They were very  tasty, though, I assure you!

Happy Deepvali!

So this past week was Deepevali. It is an Indian Holiday, but they got it declared a public holiday here in Singapore! The festival is actually called different things in different places. I always pronounced more like: Depvali, and it is also commonly spelled Diwali. I have never seen or heard it as Deepevali except for here, but if you ask a local Indian, they will insist that is the only way to pronounce it... other Indian friends say differently. Oh well. All I have to say to that is: When in Rome....

So Deepevali is also known as the Festival of Lights... perhaps you have heard of that one? Often times in the US people mistake their Indian neighbor's decorations as an extra early attempt to put up Christmas lights! Not so! During Deepevali there are lights everywhere! They have significance, too. They are supposed to bring good fortune (or something really good, I think) during the next year. I am not really an expert or anything, so I won't go into more detail in case I offend someone!
Anyway, so Deepevali was last Wednesday (although some places, like Bali, haven't celebrated it yet!), but Little India has been decorating for weeks ahead!

So on Tuesday night I headed down to Little India with my family to check out the Deepevali Market. That is this tented market that is set up just before Deepevali each year selling all sort of things. None of that stuff is actually open ON Deepevali, mind you, because that is supposed to be a day spent with your family. Little India was PACKED!! There were people all over the place. They were outside the market, inside the market, hopping, just hanging out...anywhere and everywhere! We checked out the market ourselves, then just walked around the area getting the feel for the holiday. As I said before, the next day, the actual Deepevali Day, is a Public Holiday in Singapore, so nobody had to be up early for work or anything.
Next day... Public Holiday!! Yay!!
I decided to go with my family and check out Istana... the Singaporean equivalent of the White House.

Actually, their President doesn't live at Istana anymore, but there are still official offices and everything there. Istana is usually heavily guarded and closed to the public except for on 5 public holidays a year... this being one of them. A lot of locals will take a picnic and spend the entire day there! We just went to check it out for a couple hours.

While we were there, we also go a free Henna! Afterwords, we ate at this Brazilian place that my parents love and then my mom and I went shopping for most of the rest of the afternoon and got a wok! I am hoping to get to use it tonight when I make dinner... though I am sort of planning on cooking Mexican and not Chinese, but I guess it will work just as well :)

HHN at USS

Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Singapore!

So I thought I was going to have to miss HHN this year, but Singapore hosted one of their own! So exciting! Theirs lasts only two weekends and is much smaller than Orlando's, of course, but I was still really looking forward to it!

I went with my brother, and since we don't have work or classes during the week, we decided to go on the only Thursday the event was offered, hoping it would also be the least crowded day. Oh sweet success, how we enjoyed your succulent taste! To start with, let me out line how the park is laid out. The entrance brings you into their Hollywood area, though some stands have been creatively reconstructed as Bollywood themed instead. The whole park is one circle, so we'll pretend that we are moving in a counterclockwise direction. Next you come to New York, Sci Fi City then Ancient Egypt. After comes the Lost World, the kingdom of Far Far Away and Madagascar. El Fin. During HHN, only Hollywood, NY, Sci Fi City and Ancient Egypt were open. I was slightly disappointed about that, because I had expected that we would be able to go through pretty much the whole park even if some shows were closed down.

 There were only 2 haunted houses in the whole park... only two! I know that sounds pretty bad, but they were both really well done. Also, the park is so much smaller that it would have been hard to fit in as many as there are in Orlando.They had 5 or 6 scare zones total, however. Actually, almost everywhere, with the exception of directly in front of the rides and house entrances, was sort of a scare zone. Their post-apocalyptic NY area was really quite amazing. They also had a circus themed of area... the "carn-evil" in Hollywood, some creepy scientific creations around the Sci Fi zone and Mummys (...Mummies?) rampaging through Egypt.
There were only 4 rides open in the entire park. One was one of those spinney rides... like the tea cups at Disney, but all sciency-themed. Sci Fi city had two roller coasters. Battlestar Galactica: Human and Battlestar Galactica: Cylon. These two reminded me of the Dueling Dragons ride... they were the same theme and everything, but two separate coasters.  Both were really fun and, by a some fluke, we got to ride at the front of one of them during one of our rides! Yesss! The Mummy was also open, and we rode that one more than once as well. It is pretty much the exact same ride as the one in Orlando, except I noticed that in the room with all the fire, the fire is not as hot here! Thank goodness! Take note, Orlando...less fire is okay!
All in all, it took very little time to get through the whole park. We did almost everything there in about an hour and a half. Of course, as I stated earlier, we also managed to pick the least crowded day to go which saved us hours of wait time! After our first time through, we stopped at the Dinner to try our some hotdogs and milkshakes. The hotdogs were okay, though not really American tasting, but the milkshakes were... weird. They must have used some keep type of mixture because they tasted more like Wendy's Frosties... but bad.
We left the park right before midnight (HHN lasts 8-12) and managed to  catch one of the last MRTs home! Score!... then all I had left to do was sit up another hour waiting for my enrollment date to open on my school website so I could register for classes next Spring, but I won't get into that now... that could be a long story.
Anyway, so conclusion? HHN at USS was fun, but definitely not on par with Orlando's. I am rally glad I got to experience it though!

Just Da:ns

Okay, so I've fallen behind in posting... let's just pretend that today is actually the 16th of October, or perhaps even the 17th! If we accept said fact as true, then I would have just participated in the Da:ns festival this weekend!
This is a festival that Singapore puts on once a year down by the bay and is all about dancing!!! Da:ns is pronounced a it like Dance, and I still have no idea why it is not just called the Dance Festival! I only caught the tail end of the festival, but it was still really fun!

On Saturday, the theme was Swing... love it! They had local dance groups come out to demonstrate and teach everyone how to do certain moves. In the end, we ended up learning little routines. They taught the dance extremely fast, though! If we were in the US, I don't think people would have been able to keep up! I like Swing dancing and all, but it was kind of hard to do all their moves. On a whole, I think I liked Sunday night better.
What was the theme for Sunday night, you ask? Hip Hop!!! SO much fun!!!!
First we learned a more typical hip hop routine. The guys that taught it were hilarious, and their moves were much easier to learn and remember than Swing! After that, we learned some Michal Jackson to the tune of Smooth Criminal!!! After the guys, a girl's group came out and taught us some Beyonce!

Besides fun themes like this, there were also a lot of performances of traditional dances that were interesting to watch. They had elaborate get-ups with masks and stuff.

It was awesome that Singapore hosted this event for free all week long! They even had a free bag check area for purses! Even better, the event was along the bay, so every night the buildings lit up around you and you could see the light show going on across the water! Fun weekend!

Here we go again.

So, it is that time of week again: the one where we have to clean the apartment before the maid comes. Yay!!! *sarcasm*
But before I bore you with that, let me recount the details of the weekend. On Saturday I met some friends, Heather  and Clayton, at the Botanical Gardens. The Gardens are huge, and a really popular place to hang out. We walked around some and checked out the Ginger Garden, but then spent the rest of the late afternoon relaxing by one of the ponds with a bit of wine until dark had fallen. The gardens were beautiful and have a section that is like a rain forest!...can't wait  to go back and see that part!
Afterward, we headed over the Holland Village via the MRT...which brings me to the most exciting news of all... The Orange Line is open for business!!! Yay!!!! There was party stuff going on as the Singaporeans celebrated, and a stage with a live band was set up outside of Holland. We ate at the Hawker Center and enjoyed the last couple of songs played by the group before the show ended, then chilled with some Frolik (the yummy froyo, pineapple flavored today). By now the group had managed to become 5: myself, Heather, Kevin, Dexter and Annie. I think I might have already mentioned this a few posts ago, but Heather, Kevin and Annie are all here on a Fulbright Scholarship program. They are doing some kind of work-study deal for 9 months. Annie and Kevin have already started theirs, but Heather has quite begun hers yet. Dexter is here doing an internship with the US Embassy.
Anyway, we pretty much just hung out at a bar in the Holland area for a while before heading home. Of course, about 10 minutes before we all were leaving, the weather  decided to storm. Typical Singapore. Luckily, since I live around Holland Village, I only had a short walk through the downpour...and of course I had my umbrella.
Sunday was sort of a lazy day. My throat has been mothering me some, so I just worked on some school work (the stuff I had procrastinated on earlier  in the week), ate at our usual Mexican place for lunch, and ended up watching Thor with the family that night...which I actually enjoyed more than I thought I would, though I think I prefer Iron Man and Captain America more.

So back to today.... cleaning! I really dislike how every week we have to make it a big deal to clean the apartment before Jane (the maid) even gets here! On top of that, she likes to text my Mom  about what time she thinks she will show up, but my Mom doesn't hear her phone go off half the time! Last week Jane didn't show up until almost 1 and didn't leave until right after 6!!! How am I supposed to make dinner when she is taking up the whole kitchen with the ironing board and mop and stuff? I wish this whole Maid stuff wasn't so ingrained in the Singapore culture!

*sigh* anyway...with that mini-rant out of the way, I really don't have much ore to add. No plans yet for this week or the weekend coming up, but I will be sure to fill you in as we go along!

Living it Up

Last night I spent some time at Clarke Quay at the clubs! Awesome time!!... let me start from a little earlier, though.

So I met  up with a few people around 7. The plan?... to go up in the Marina Bay Tower thing... the building that looks like a boat. (<----- THAT one on the left!) Unfortunately, the weather was kind of yucky yesterday, so we decided not to pay the $20 required to go up it.  Instead we headed out to eat...at a Hawker Center of course (yay cheap food!!!) then over to Clarke Quay. At first, we just sort of hung around and relaxed/people-watched (an unbelievably amusing activity in Singapore) on a bridge area, but after a while, and by then our number had increased to 7 total, we headed over to the bar/club area.

First stop: Yellow Jello. One of the guys in our group, a local, insisted on buying this drink...The Graveyard, it is called, for everyone. I declined, not being much into alcohol, and also not liking carbonation. This drink has 6 things combined together, but the primary drink is Guinness. Well... let me say that first of all, the drink was black when it arrived, and they had this straw in all the glasses that were black crosses. I tasted one... it tasted like licorice. Aka nastiness. Ewww...so glad I did not get my own! Now Yellow Jello had this band playing...they had the most amazing playlist ever... Michael Jackson, Coldplay, Van Halen, Ke$ha, the Killers...to be honest, I don't really remember all the music we heard, but they had some good stuff, I promise you!
What next you ask? Well it was on to the Rupee Room for us!
Soooo much fun! It was $20 to get in, but that was the only downer!...and that did get you one free drink, so that was nice :) Anyway, bollywood-styled awesomeness ensued. You could hardly even tell when one song ended and the next started. One minute, they were blasting T-Pain, the next it somehow merged into a Indian pop-song or something. The people there were awesome. There weren't just Indians, or anything, but they would show us their awesome dance moves and we would all join in. So much fun, really!

So around 2, we all headed out to queue up for a taxi home (the MRTs stop running much earlier). I think it took me about 30 minutes when I got home, maybe less, to change, brush my teeth and fall into bed! This morning I woke up (and yes, it was still morning! Though not for long) and my entire family was gone :(  Haha, but that is okay, I know they went over to Sentosa, this magical island full of wonders, for an outrigger  race that my brother is doing to day.
In other news... today is the opening of the Orange MRT line!!! Holla!!!! You have no idea how awesome that is!!! Now I have to walk 2 minutes to get to an MRT instead of 10!!! Here, that is huge!