Captain's Ball

I had a good, but busy, day at work. I was invited to stay after and play with my Singapore colleagues in a competitive game of Captains ball. Essentially it is ultimate Frisbee except that the frisbee is always live even if it hits the ground, it is played in a tennis court, and to score a goal you have to throw the frisbee to your goalie at the opposite end of the court. We played 2 games, one with a frisbee and one with a volley ball. It was a fun game that was mildly competitive but surprisingly team oriented and nice to the opposition, wow! I think I was guilty of fouling more than most, but the refs seemed to give me a beginners grace. I didn't let on that I always play sports that way! ;)

It was great fun to be included, I appeared to be the only non-Singaporean in attendance. We all wore matching T-Shirts and there was lots of emphasis on working together. Everyone were painfully good sports, I really had to shape up. I do enjoy this respectful culture though, it could really rub off (although I wouldn't hold your breath!).

The picture is of our winning team after the two competitions. We soundly beat Dry Etch, much to everyone's pleasure. I was told I did a good job, but I think the main thing I accomplished was a lot of sweating in the humid air.

Map of Singapore

Here is a link to an interactive map of Singapore. I am staying in the south just west of the city. I am working in the north directly across from Johor Baharu in the Woodlands industrial park. You may note that the actual city of Singapore is only a small portion of the island. There is also a surprising amount of green space!

http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?formtype=address&country=SG&addtohistory=&city

Also of interest is a wiki entry on Singapore

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore

And perhaps the most important link is the only remaining original rainforest preserved in Singapore. Scroll down the page for some great pictures of some of the rainforest's flora and fauna.

http://ecologyasia.com/html-loc/bukit-timah.htm

Singlish and Driving

Today was all about learning how to interpret Singlish and driving on the wrong side of the car/road. Singlish is basically an English dialect, with words borrowed from Malay and Chinese, as well as unusual uses of english words. For instance, to add additional funds to a parking card is to "top on" the card. An overpass on an expressway is a "fly over," and a roundabout is called a "circus." Many of the words make sense, some of the novelties are British holdovers from what I understand.

Another fascinating oddity was the way I observed several conversations. One person would be speaking in Chinese, while the other person would respond in English. Sometimes the person speaking in English would switch to Chinese, and so on. Clearly most are very fluent in both languages and seem to be able to easily hold a conversation in two different languages, impressive!

The Singaporean's are very disciplined, as they will quickly point out. I received some teasing from several locals for parking my car "head in," instead of backing in to the parking spot. When I commented that either way, you have to drive backwards once, they said that no one desires to be different from the norm. I tried to explain the concept of a fish going upstream but they just smiled and shook their heads.

For lunch I ate at a "coffee shop." A coffee shop is a food court with out air conditioning. If it has air conditioning it is called a: food court. I had my local colleagues order for me and enjoyed a South Indian chicken curry rice dish, followed by a cold ice drink with milo heavily sprinkled over the top (anyone remember milo from when they were kids?).

Driving was an adventure. I have driven on the left before, but the steering wheel was still on the left. In this case the steering wheel is on the right, so my brain was all screwed up! Needles to say, I made it the 30 KM or so to work from my hotel without major incident. Traffic was surprisingly reasonable, probably due to the cost prohibitive nature of owning a car in Singapore. I was excited to find out that my rental car can cross the border into Malaysia for only a small fee, so that will definitely be part of my weekends!

Well, it is 9:00 PM here and I think I will turn in. For those of you reading this please leave me comments if you are so inclined, I always appreciate them!

Ken

*Hopefully I will have some cool pics up tomorrow, so stay tuned!

Arrival

Well, the trip over was surprisingly quick for a 22 hour flight! I was surprised to see that the flights path covered an arc over the great lakes, above Alaska, and across the Bering straight until we reached our midway point in Tokyo, Japan. Arriving in Singapore at 12:20 a.m. local time, everything went amazingly smooth. The Singapore people pride themselves on efficiency and it really shows!

The taxi drive in showed some really unusual trees that I am anxious to see in daylight. I woke up to a strange sounding bird in the distance. Singapore has a small portion of original jungle that has been protected, complete with primates and trees many hundreds of years old, sweet
!

I am preparing to grab a cab and go pick up my car in a bit, so that's it for now!

Ken

B-Day Thoughts

On the day of my hallowed birthday, I though I would reflect on the BEST birthday present I have every received! Now you might be thinking of a Sony Playstation, or perhaps that first rifle years ago, but I have something even better in mind: The 2006 Mid-Term Elections! Wooo hoo, what a wonderful gift! And lest you think me facetious, this truly is a uplifting and tremendously exciting day for me. After years of watching a beautiful country take hawkish stance after hawkish stance, alienating ourselves from even our closest allies, it is wonderful to see the power in our Government re-balanced. Of course I will be deeply disappointed if the Dems use this as a chance to engage in witch hunts, something I strongly hope they avoid. My hope is that a more reasonable and sensitive government will emerge. Are the Democrats that much better in the end, I'm not absolutely sure yet. But I am sure that an imbalance of power in a Governmental system is NEVER a good thing, so this has got to help some!

For any friends or family members who might be miffed at my words above, gimme a break - it's my B-Day for goodness sake!!