Singapore at Night - Dec 2005

This is old news to some, but I never did post more pictures of Singapore. Below are several night pictures in the Clark Quay and Boat Quay areas. We had walked down there for dinner and ended up walking for almost an hour trying to find our way back to the hotel. Matt knew where he was going... the rest of us were lost.

Singapore Bridges	Giant "Hokie Bird"
Cityscape at Night	Singapore Celebrates Christmas

Strange Menu at Chili's

I had lunch today at Chili's and saw this menu... anybody else read it as I did? Kinda like that TV show pyramid. "Things that make you go" beer, hot wings, nachos, etc. Anyway, felt I needed to share :)
 

Arrived in Okinawa - 15 Jan 2006

Heard the redskins lost... oh well.

Continuing in the amazing race, another team has split off and has headed to Okinawa! We now have teams in Yokosuka and Okinawa, Japan, and in Singapore! This morning, the Okinawa team, Matt, Katrina, Don, Phil, and Steve, set off from Yokosuka. They traveled by mini-van to the train station where they took a guess and jumped on a train. After 20 minutes and 6 stops, they had gone about 1/6 of the way to the airport. Fortunately they were able to make use (by accident) of a fast forward. At the 6th stop, the train connected to an express. It took them to the 90% mark in about 20 minutes. They managed to get to the airport with plenty of time to eat a light lunch and get to the gate for a 3:00 departure. They arrived into Okinawa at about 5:45p. It was humid and warm in the airport... turns out to be perfect weather to grow orchids. They had THOUSANDS of them all over the place. From there, they took a cab to the hotel... the Grand Mer Okinawa. After about 50 minutes in a cab (3 people shoulder to shoulder in the back seat), they arrived at the hotel. The hotel itself sits up high on a hill overlooking large portions of the island... Given the name, it is likely that you can see the sea :)

The weather is perfect... it's about 65 degrees in the evenings and is supposed to be in the 70's during the day.  The waters are supposed to be tropical... as in Caribbean blue!!  The diving is supposed to be really good here, so I might have to come back when the water is warmer and see for myself.  Anyway, the room at the hotel is about 3 times the size... make that 5 times the size of the tiny rooms in Yokosuka.  I have a huge (by comparison) queen sized bed, small kitchen area, and room to actually put my luggage on the floor.  By the way, my room this past stay in Yoko was the smallest they offer... I had about 2 ft between the bed and walls.  The desk was pretty small and I had to step over my luggage to get to it.  What a pain!  Anyway, I don't have that problem here... also the room is about $65/night here vs.. the $125/night I was paying in Yoko... and the rooms don't smell like an ash tray.  So, things are better here

That's about it from here!


Orchids of Okinawa

Around the world in 40 days!! Start - 03-14 Jan 2006

As the new year starts, I am continuing in the Amazing Race. I am truely on a "race around the world." On January 3rd, I left Colorado Springs. I flew to Dallas, TX, then to Narita, Japan. I will spend two weeks there in Yokosuka, then fly to Okinawa. From there, I will fly to Singapore by way of Tai Pei, Taiwan. After a week in Singapore, I will fly to Rome. After about two weeks in Naples, I will complete the trip around the world! The "race" is whether I can been Neetu... she is flying around the world at the same time, only in the opposite direction. She flew from DC to Newark, then to Singapore direct. I believe her return is Singapore to Korea then back to DC.

The first week in Japan was about the same as always... lots of work. As was tradition, we took the new team members to a resturant that we call "Cook Yourself". It is a place where they bring a bucket of hot coals to the table and you cook your own food... the trick is not to actually get cooked in the process. The place is about 9000 degrees most of the time. On Saturday (6th), we took the new team members up to Kamakura and introducted them to the great buddah. Our new team members include Ahmed (who is trying to learn 1000 more Japanese characters so he can be "literate"), Katrina (a good friend of Gina from England), Brooke (a recent McLean to San Francisco transplant), and Marcel (a former Air Force guy from Hawaii that can bench press a bus!) They are all getting used to the fun of Japan and are quickly getting up to speed.

One place that I'd eaten dessert before but never took a picture of was called "Ducky Duck." I liked the name and Ahmed wanted a picture... so, here it is! Also below is a picture from Yokosuka. We were walking to dinner one night and I saw this tower so I grabbed a quick picture with my phone. For those of you that missed it in action at Christmas, I bought a new phone in Singapore. It's the Nokia 6680. It is full of cool features... it has 2 cameras (of good quality), built in tools for office functions, and even software to remote control your computer for presentations. It's been a lot of fun! In fact, it also comes with blogger software... which I need to set up.

Well, I think that's about it for Yokosuka. I'm off to Okinawa in the morning!

Back to Japan	Another trip to Kamakura
Choice Location for Dessert...	Tower in Yokosuka

Christmas 2005

So, this post is a little late... I had a couple of pictures from the flight into Reagan and some nice pictures of Anna from Christmas. I figured I should share them and just never go around to it. Anyway, below are two of my favorites.

Athena and I flew to DC on the 22nd... I was sick and still feeling jet lag from flying back from Singapore (which took about 27 hours). I left the Hilton in Singapore at about 4:30a and arrived back home at about 4:30p (same day). The difference between the two places is 15 hours. Anyway, being back "home" for a few days was good... I slept a lot and was feeling better by Christmas. Athena and I flew home on the 27th and had a few days rest (and the huge steak below). I took off again for Japan on January 3rd. More on that later...

Washington DC from the air

Anna's First Christmas (her daddy's a freak)

Holy COW!!!

Happy New Year!! Russ and I kicked off the new year by trying to eat a cow! We each had the prime rib "special" at The Famous in Colorado Springs. They described it as a 24 oz prime rib. As you can see, it probably was on the order of at least 2 1/2 pounds! My leftovers weighed in at just over 2 lbs. The meal included a nice salad (1/2 head of lettuce). YUMMMMMMMY!!! The girls ate filet mignon... Athena's was a mear 14 ounces! She ate about 1/3 of it and had the rest for lunch today. Well, I'm off to Japan tomorrow morning! Later!!!

A visit to Pike's Peak

Howdy,

I know I promised more details of Singapore... I will!! I thought I should share this first. Russ, Laurie, Laurie's mom, Loki, and I all went up to Pike's Peak yesterday. We never made it to the top due to high winds. We did, however stop and take some neat pictures of the frozen reservoir about 1/3 of the way to the top. Just as we were leaving, I saw a deer running out on the ice. Right on his tail was a coyote. After a very intense fight, the coyote decided he'd had enough and took off. As he was leaving, a bird of some sort decided to attack the coyote... VERY strange!! See pictures below...

The Chase is on!
Deer and Coyote Battle	When Nature Attacks
Coyote Almost Wins!	Coyote retreats

Out of Japan, on to Singapore - 29 Nov - 03 Dec 2005

As I write, I'm sitting on the upper deck of a United Airlines 747 on my way back from Singapore.  The flight so far has gone from Singapore to Narita (Tokyo) then on to LAX.  Time starts to have no meaning after you've been sitting a plane for 18 hours or so.  I promised pictures from Singapore... so far I have not had any time to post any (obviously).  I have to admit that Singapore was a great city to visit and work in.  I spent more money than is allowed, but am bringing back some great tailored suits, lots of gifts, and a new cell phone that will work everywhere that I will be traveling.  If you are interested, look up the Nokia 6680.  It's a great phone that you can't buy in the US.  The US version, 6682 is a sad excuse for a phone that looks neat but won't work in Japan or about 1/2 of the rest of the world.

I guess I should get back to updating the team's progress... ala Amazing Race.  After splitting into two factions for Thanksgiving, the end of November found our teams reuniting in Yokosuka for the start of a whirl-wind three weeks of fun, adventure, pain, stress, and much hard work.  After a week of long days full of productive meetings, several nights searching for some real food in Japan, and more than my share of near accidents with Japanese on bikes, I headed to Tokyo.  A guest star on our show, Danielle, had arranged for some of the team to spend a night at the Navy's hotel in Tokyo, the New Sanno Hotel.  Compared to the New Yokosuka, the New Sanno is a four-star hotel!  As you may notice, the Japanese are very fond of adjectives.  They don't necessarily need to go with things, for example, an old hotel might get a face lift and be called the "New Yokosuka Hotel".  Anyway, the hotel is pretty close to Roppongi.  Best described by William Gibson as a part of Tokyo that was new 30 years ago.  It now has the warn gritty feel of over-used, acid-washed concrete mixed with loud bars and crowds of people milling from place to place.  As our small band of misfits (Danielle, Matt, Erin, and I) wandered the streets of Roppongi, we found a number of interesting bars and clubs with such unique names as "The Gaspanic Bar".  We were also harassed by many of the local bar owners who would constantly beg us to come in.  During our experience, one of our merry band (to be left unnamed) discovered the bizarre effects of a distilled beverage known as Absinth.  I personally had heard of Absinth while in Prague.  It has a long history of causing blindness and death in those that drink too much.  Although it smells like licorice (or anise) it apparently tastes like a mixture of battery acid, sugar, and the carbon dust that comes out of some diesel engines.  The effect takes a few minutes but gives the imbiber a feeling of euphoria and mellow happiness.  For the next few hours, for them, everything was "cool". 

I seem to have gotten out of the habit of keeping score while in Japan, so here's a new list:

• $6 bottles of water purchased in Roppongi: 4
• Number of times the absinth drinker said "cool": 42
• Japanese women with Jennifer Aniston haircuts: 17
• Strange Cuban men named Lazlo who accidentally showed us his butt: 1
• Pictures of above mentioned butt that Danielle took: 2
• Number of strange men on the street in Roppongi asking to "hug" Danielle: 2

The next day (actually later the same day... we got back to the hotel around 4:00a) Matt and I were headed to the airport where we met up with Neetu.  We all flew to Singapore where the adventure continued.  I think it took about three days to get the smell of Roppongi off my clothes.

 

The Singapore Team, as they will now be known, arrived into Changi Airport in Singapore at a few minutes before midnight.  After wandering around cluelessly for about 20 minutes, they found the exit.  Their task for the night was to find a cab and get to the Hilton as quickly as possible.  Upon securing what looked to be a very old Toyota Crown taxi cab, the crew loaded their luggage into the trunk.  As I may have mentioned, we don't travel light... fortunately, the driver had some bungee cords to secure the trunk lid.

 

More on Singapore in the next post....

 

 

Ahhh... the green glow of Absinth

Singapore - Week 2

Hey,

Just thought I'd drop a quick post for you. I've been in Singapore for about 10 days. The temperature is about 88 each day with 80% or more humidity. We had a tropical rain here a few days ago. I have lots of pictures to post and plenty of stories about the strange things I've seen here. I've been busy working, shopping, and eating, so have not had time to post. I'm sitting in the Terror Club after lunch, so had a few minutes.

See most of you at Christmas!

hello out west

I completely forgot about this blog. So how is everyone? How is the western side of the US?
Nothing much new here. School as usual takes up my life as does Master Chorale. This year as my second year in the group, they asked me to be section leader of the sopranos which means that I take notes at rehearsals and send emails to sopranos telling them what they need to fix. I also get to hear the reauditions and decide if people can stay in the group each year. It's a big responsibility. They also asked me to be in a smaller chamber group that is singing a Mozart Opera with the National Symphony Orchestra in February. Now we have wedding planning to add to the list but we are mostly done there. I just need to find a cake that doesn't have milk in it (!) and flowers. And deciding music is driving us bonkers...something that is so important to me is awfully hard to choose. We have a wedding webpage, and I'll send the link out as soon as it is finished. We need to put a few more pictures up.

We are going down to Sarasota for Christmas because Jeff stayed here for Thanksgiving. Next year we'll stay here for Christmas. Other than that, not much news. I hope that you all are doing well.


Meredith