Monthly Archives: March 2007

Delivery

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I ordered a package from an Indian grocery store the other day. For some reason I had it in my head that they would be the ones who would deliver it. Because their website was all in English, I just assumed that whoever delivered it would be able to converse with me. Not so much. They use the local delivery service Black Cat (that’s what I call it because the truck has a picture of a black cat on it). My neighbor was just telling me about them the other day and how great their service is. And I’ve seen them all over town since we moved in. So…I picked a time that they would deliver – between 10am and 12pm. So at 11:30am the driver calls my cell to make sure that I’m home, which I am. And he struggles to speak English with me and tells me that he’ll be here in three minutes. Sure enough three minutes go by and he’s knocking on my door. And he’s apologizing profusely about his English and that it’s not good and he’s so sorry. And all I can think is, “I’m in YOUR country and you’re apologizing to me because you don’t speak MY language?” Can you even fathom? In the States you have people raving mad because foreigners don’t speak the local language and here he apologizes to ME? I realize that he could have cursed me the minute he got back into his truck, but honestly I doubt it. The culture here is just so different. Amazing.

Construction

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Ahh Japan. The land of construction. You thought where ever you lived was bad? Things are being either built or repaired ALL the time. Since there are TONS and TONS of people crammed into every available space, the Japanese are constantly improving things to fit more in. My neighborhood, for one, is well built up but there are a couple of open spots of land and they are all being built on at once. And they are all conveniently right across the street from me. If you ever feel like listening to four jackhammers, fifteen regular hammers, nine cement trucks, countless people and nail guns going off ALL AT THE SAME TIME….please come over to my house.

When we moved in the house across the street was just getting started. As you can see it’s almost done. I should specify that I live on the corner so I have two across the streets. I think they started on this place four days after we moved in. At least they started the foundation then. They had already broken ground and gotten the space ready to go. Since we’ve been in four months, I’m going to assume that in six to eight months (provided the house two doors down gets started soon) they will be done.

A few weeks ago and two houses down from the one that’s almost done they completely tore down a place. Yesterday a couple of people came out and blessed the land so I can only assume building will start very soon. I didn’t get a picture of them blessing the land because I thought it might be a little tasteless…although I could have done it unnoticed. But, the camera was also downstairs and I was lazy.

Then comes the big pain in my butt. The house directly across the street…and across from my driveway is being built on. So today they had the street blocked off completely because there are five thousand trucks all blocking the street (and my driveway). So getting out was interesting and getting back in was even more fun. They had to move three different trucks to allow me into the driveway. This picture is taken from my hallway window and faces the same way my driveway does. It’s missing the giant red truck that was there earlier, but they had to move that too.

So once I finally am allowed out of the driveway and get two feet past that…the next piece of land is just starting to be built on too. Facing out of my driveway, this picture is just to the left of the last one.

And as you can kinda see…there is still one more plot of land in between those two. So..once it gets purchased then we’ll get to go through this all over again. I always look forward to Sundays because they don’t work on Sunday and it’s the only day it’s actually quiet!

IKEA

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I just have to say that I’m so proud of myself for getting to IKEA. I took the train to Yokohama and then found the shuttle bus to get there. It took some searching, but I did it all by my lonesome! I found a bunch of things I’ve been needing for awhile, most importantly white wine glasses. DJ and I bought really great red wine glasses in Spain and meant to buy white wine glasses too, but we never got around to it. So we were left with just two badly mismatched glasses. I also found pillow cases for the couch pillows (my friend Leah would be so happy – she HATED those pillows with a passion). I’m not into the whole modern look so most of IKEA’s stuff doesn’t work for me, but I love the kitchen stuff. I bought a knife sharpener (sharp knives kick ass!), oil for the cutting board and a few other things. I was bummed that they didn’t have any ramekins, but perhaps on the next trip there they’ll actually be in stock.

Singapore

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I’m back from Singapore! And as they say…it was a “fine” city. That is the official running joke. You’re pretty much not allowed to do anything, although I can say that in the four days I was there, I saw the police all of one time. And they were stuck in traffic. You can be fined for eating, drinking, smoking , riding your bicycle where you’re not supposed to and the kicker…death to drug traffickers. It says it on the customs form when you enter the country in big letters. DEATH to drug traffickers. Gulp. Gave me pause and I’ve never even tried POT. Seriously.

So, I left the house around 10:30am on Friday morning. I took the train to the airport and got in around 2pm. The train had a delay. I’m not sure exactly why because I don’t speak Japanese, but I do know that everyone was annoyed. So getting in I checked in and took the seven hour flight to Singapore. I got in around 1am and found DJ. He took me back to the hotel and we went to bed.

The next morning we headed to Chinatown.
It was really nice and very busy. Along the way we ran into the largest Hindu temple in Singapore called Sri Mariamman Temple.

We were pretty tired after that and the Indian food that we had eaten for lunch. So we decided to rest a bit before going back out to the Chingay Parade. DJ slept for a good three hours and then we were ready. The parade was cool. There were a TON of people and I couldn’t see much through all the heads, but DJ managed to get a few pictures. I got tired quickly because I wasn’t tired while DJ took his nap so we caught a cab back to the hotel and ate at Prego (an Italian restaurant at the hotel).

Sunday we got up and headed down to Clarke Quay. We got lunch at Brewerkz, a local brewery and well, that was what you would expect. The beer was good though! We then wandered around the area and found the Merlion. I guess Singapore is the land of the Merlion so there are many of them.
That night we returned to the area for dinner. We ate at a Persian restaurant called Shiraz. I LOVED it. Thought it was excellent. It was very pretty there at night.

The next morning we got up early and took a boat tour. It was kind of cheezy and there was a constant recording telling you all the tour things, but you couldn’t hear it. So..we ended up on Kusu Island which is a tortoise safe haven. There are turtles in a couple different enclosures. Fun. Then we headed back to the city and wandered over to the Arab Quarter. We found some swarma to eat and although DJ wanted Indian food after that, I was totally full. We shopped and walked around and then headed back over to Clarke Quay for dinner. We found a Mongolian BBQ place that was pretty good and for dessert we wandered over to a place and I got passion fruit sorbet and a glass of champagne.

Then after dessert we figured that we could not leave Singapore without getting a Singapore Sling from the place it was invented…the Long Bar in Raffles Hotel. It was yummy. And that….in short was my time in Singapore!