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 Hour

Yesterday I attended a "Happy Hour at the Marine House" event.
There are about a dozen young Marines that live at the US Embassy, and they have this event once a month. There is food for $8 and drinks for $5 (an amazing price, by the way!). The event is invitation only, though not necessarily for the sake of exclusivity, but more because of the fact that you ave to be on the list to get into the Embassy. My mom, on her tour of the Embassy last week, had been informed that, though many were invited, it was often a younger crowd that showed up, so naturally, she sent her 21 and 18 year old instead.
Unfortunately, this tip was wrong. The majority of people there were probably about the same age as my parents and most, though not all, seemed to work at the Embassy.
*sigh* oh well. We ate our subs and drank our drinks, and were about to leave, when a girl started talking to us. Her name was Heather, and we instantly became friends. Later, I was introduced to someone else named Kevin. They are both on some sort of work study type of scholarship thing for 9 months.
We headed out of the Embassy and down towards Orchard where we walked around and grabbed some more food.

We tried two desserts... Ice Kachang and Cheng Tng. They were both pretty good, actually. Singaporeans (or really, just Asians in general from what I can tell) put all of this weird stuff into their desserts, like beans and such, so sometimes they look a little unappetizing.
Ice Kachang, pictured left, had beans and small red jello cubes in the bottom of the bowl, then a pile of shaved ice, and then a mango sauce with mango chunks in it.  The ice was colored red, brown and green. The whole thing was a lot sweeter than I thought it would be, and actually tasted good with the mango, which I have not always been a fan of in the past.

The Cheng Tng, pictured below, had all sort of...stuff, for lack of any actual knowledge of what it all was. One top of the stuff, they put shaved ice, and then the filled the bowl up with some brown sugary liquid. The ice melted pretty quickly, so it is mostly gone in this pic. We ordered it because the guy in front of us got it and said it was his favorite. It actually had sort of a caramelized taste to it.

After, we hopped on a bus down to Clarke Quay to see the night scene going on down there. We mostly just hung around, but I hope to go back and do some actually clubbing or something.
A fun night  all around, I think. :)