Singapore Trip: Part 1

So a few months ago Bob and I went to a seminar about a short study abroad opportunity for the engineering students at BYU. It was a three week trip to Singapore. I thought it looked incredible, but I knew it was expensive so I had kind of pushed it our of my mind. But Bob had a different idea. He wanted me to go. I guess in his eyes he felt like I should take an opportunity like this, because who knows when we'll end up having kids--this could be the only chance I ever get to do something like that. I was concerned about the price, but he said we'd figure it out.

And so we have. My group left around 6:00am on Monday morning, May 17th. We flew to San Francisco and then toured a few places. First IDEO (which, the company has changed over the years--it used to be mostly a design firm, but they've gotten into business consulting now, improving the ways companies work).

Then Stanford. Can I just tell you, that school is HUGE!!! Seriously, we were driving through campus for about 30 minutes before we got to the building we were visiting. They've got a sweet machine shop, plus a foundry and welding shop. I failed to take pictures of that, unfortunately. After that we went to see the Zircon company. They're a small business that makes a few tools, mainly stud finders. That's what they're known for. It was really fun and enlightening. And at the end they gave us each a stud finder for free! I know those don't cost a ton, but I don't have one. Well, now I do! And it's their newer design. Sorry Dad, I think mine might be nicer than yours.

Then we flew for 18 hours, stopping over in Tokyo after the first 12 hour flight. I had an aisle seat in the very back of the plane with zero space so I couldn't relax. Then we had a 7 hour flight from Tokyo to Singapore, where there was about an average of one person per row. I was able to finally stretch out and sleep. I think that's the best I've ever slept on an airplane! I suppose the fact that I'd been awake for 28 hours straight helped.

Singapore is beautiful! It's nice and humid, always over 80 degrees (even at night), and there are plants growing everywhere--even on other plants, especially trees. Really, if there's a small space between any building or pavement, they stick some kind of plant there. It's just gorgeous. And the country's national flower is the orchid. I love it here!

It's a clean country, all 30 miles of it. Napkins don't exist here. Neither do mosquitoes. The campus is nice, built mostly on hillsides. Because property is scarce, everything is built up or under ground. The malls here have two or three levels below ground, and the apartment buildings (where everyone lives--houses don't really exist here because the price of land is so high) are like sky scrapers. It's a crazy sight. Outside of each window on the apartment buildings are these bamboo poles which people hang their clothes on to dry. It's very limited space-wise, and also kind of dangerous because if the wet clothes are too heavy or the bamboo stick is too old and rotten, it can break, falling all the way down to the ground level from sometimes 50 floors up or higher. It's crazy!

Here's my room and the view from my window.

Our class is fun. There are students from Penn State, on from Carnegie Mellon, us from BYU, and half of our class is from here at NUS (National University of Singapore). We're working on product design and development, coming up with our own projects. It's really laid back, while really rigorous because we're covering a semester's worth of information in two and a half weeks.

Also, everything here is super cheap! Breakfast for me is under $2.
This morning I ate this:

It's coconut rice, with peanuts and little fried minnows, a different small fish, and some spicy-sweet sauce. It comes wrapped in a big leaf, folded into a little boxy-pouch. It's surprisingly delicious!

Lunch or dinner for me is usually $3. On campus their food area is called a Canteen. It's like the Cougareat on steroids! There aren't any major food chains, but instead just shops of Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and other kinds of food. It's amazing and dirt cheap! I have no idea what I ate yesterday for lunch, but it had rice and what I think was chicken. For dinner yesterday we went to this place called West Coast, where there are just a bunch of little food booths and shops. It's kind of like a bazaar, I guess. I ordered a pretty normal dish for here--fried oysters. It's basically oysters with an egg mixed in, fried in green onions and served with a spicy sauce on the side. It was a tough consistency to swallow--gooey and soft, but there were a few crunchy parts too.

And while we were eating, this random weird Asian guy saw all of us white people and thought we were Australians. He came over to talk to us, and at one point he was talking to my friend Brian who was sitting next to me, and gesturing toward me said how good looking his wife was, then whistled at me. Without time to even respond the guy came over to me, tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Eh, yah husband..?" pointing to Brian, then winked and wiggled his eyebrows at me and left. It took us a second to realize what he was saying because his accent was so hard to decipher, and then we all just cracked up.

After dinner we walked around the shops. We  found some durians and had to try them. They smell pretty rank, especially once they're cut open, but they supposedly taste sweet. The outside is really spiky and sharp, and the inside is this weird yellow, foamy looking mass. they sell them as the fruit itself, and also as just the inside stuff.

Some of the NUS students who were showing us around bought us some to try. I went to pick up a chunk of it, and it just fell apart in a gooey mess. That was unexpected. So I scooped it up and put some in my mouth as I held my breath. It was.....interesting to say the least. It did have an oddly sweet flavor, but the consistency made it hard to swallow. I managed to do so without gagging. Our native friends just laughed at us, then dug right in and ate up all the rest that we couldn't. Maybe I'll try it again later and see if I like it better.

Then we went on a Night Safari. It's basically a zoo of nocturnal animals, so it's only open at night. It was so much fun! We watched an animal show, and one of the guys in our group got to hold a huge python that was bigger around than my waist! We also rode on the tram and got to see all kinds of things--random breeds of deer, a rhino, lions, elephants, as well as some weird animals I've never seen or heard of before. We walked around a bit and saw some leopards and flying squirrels--but these ones were huge! They were the size of big, fluffy house cats. I really enjoyed it.

 Photos of the fried oysters, Angela and I holding durians, and our Night Safari.

The time change here has really been rough on me. I've been forcing myself into it, making myself stay awake, but I can't seem to sleep in much. Yesterday I woke up at 4:15am and couldn't go back to sleep. So I just kept myself busy until the breakfast place opened. Today I woke up at 7:30am. That was nice.

So the trip here is going great. I'm having a blast and really enjoying a different culture and the beautiful country. I think I love traveling. I've always thought I would, but this is just solidifying that idea. It's only been two days, so I can't wait to see what else I get to do while I'm here!

Hosting a baby shower...

So Marissa's baby shower was Thursday last week. I learned a few things from it:

1. I spent way too much money on it. But everything I bought was for her! And baby things are just too cute anyway.

2. Decorating blank onesies with stamps and fabric markers is my favorite baby shower activity.

3. Three boxes worth of cake bites is enough to feed everyone at a BYU football game. But man are they delicious!!

4. Well, this isn't news to me, but doing all of this just reiterated the fact that I'm a total over-achiever, in case you didn't know.

5. I should start a business for party and event planning so I can make a profit on it. Apparently I'm good at it.

Hooded Baby Towel

I'm throwing my first ever baby shower for my cousin, Marissa. She and I were roommates for two years out here in college, then we both served missions, both got married afterward, and now she's expecting her first child. She and her husband were hoping to wait a little while to have kids, maybe three years, but three months into their marriage they got a nice little surprise. It's going to be a boy. She was kind of nervous about letting any of her friends here throw her baby shower. When I found out she was pregnant I immediately asked her if I could throw it for her, to her great relief.

So it's this Thursday. I went out shopping for it yesterday. I spent more money than I should have, but it was fun! And the money I did spend was on mostly good deals. For example, I got four packages of crepe paper streamers, four bags of balloons, paper plates, napkins, prize bags, and a small laundry basket for a game all for $16. I love dollar stores!

Anyway, I also wanted to get her a gift I could wrap. But I was already broke. Then I saw some towels at Costco and thought of that cute little hooded bath towel I had as a kid. I've never made one, but I know they're simple. I called my mom about it just to clarify a couple of things, then ran to Wal-Mart to get a towel I could afford more. I opted for a nice sage-green color, especially because Marissa preferred green for her baby stuff. (Blue and yellow are great too, but she really seems to like green.) I found some cute ribbon to match, then went home and got to work on organizing and planning for Thursday, and finally made the towel.

I looked up some DIY instructions online just for some tips, and there was one lady who made a pleat in the back. I really liked it so I did it as well. You can see it in the bottom left photo. I also have some nice thin brown ribbon that matched the striped ribbon I bought, so I used it as well. I love how it turned out, especially the top left photo--you can see the detail of the ribbon.

Then I folded and wrapped it up nicely with some more brown ribbon (bottom right photo). It's a simple project, but I really like how it turned out. I hope Marissa does too.

Our Hobby Room/Office

So our first little apartment has been a fun place to live. It's old and poorly kept up by the landlord, complete with bad repairs, no repairs, and tons of ghetto-rigged repairs. Some of the latter are from us, I'll be honest, but we're not about to spend a ton of money to fix up a place we don't own. I think we've done pretty well with it though. Even with the low ceilings, pipes and ducts everywhere, horrible white walls, and ridiculous layout, it's still cozy, comfortable, and best of all it feels like home.

Jennie Ray was living with us for a few months while she got on her feet here. She just needed to get out of Clarksville, and I've been in those shoes before. I also know how hard it can be to start off on your own for the first time. With that in mind, we let her stay with us until she got more established here in Utah. We had a spare bedroom, so why not? Granted, when we moved into this place we hadn't planned on having her live here so we had to changed our move-in and set-up plans. But that was totally fine, aside from being more crowded in our bedroom.

Well, she moved out and into her first apartment, which she loves, along with her fun roommates. So Bob and I got our spare room back. So we moved forward with our original plans for it. Now it's back to being an office/hobby & project room. Here's some pictures (although they're already outdated because there's more on the bookshelves and I have a mess of fabrics, scissors, thread, hot glue gun, etc. on my table):

 The view down the hall as you walk in.

Here's my little side of the room.

And here's the view from where I sit. 

Not too bad, eh? I love it. It's helped me relax more and keep my sanity. I think I've needed a place like this my whole life, and now I finally have space for it. 

And now, I'm going to get back to using this room for what it's meant to be used for.

Journal Cover

I'm heading to Singapore for a three week study abroad class in less than 10 days. Dr. Todd, the professor heading up the whole trip gave each of the 8 students going these navy blue journals to write down notes, thoughts, epiphanies, and anything else during our travels. I didn't like how the front looked because 1) it was bland, and 2) they all look the same. I like to stand out and be unique. So I pulled out some scraps of paper I had laying around and came up with this:

I also sealed it using about 5 coats of Mod Podge, taking care to make sure the edges of all the paper were sealed to the cover. I did the label separate from the rest of it though. I used this really nice textured, fuzzy mulberry-like paper. I wanted to keep that, so after the final sealing coat had dried on the cover, I coated the back of the label with Mod Podge and glued it on.

 So now I like my Singapore journal much more. I actually want to carry it around with me and write in it.

Fabric Flowers

So with my new hobby/project room, I've started making things. I posted some pictures on Facebook, but I thought I'd put some up here too. I suppose I just really want to document all of this because I'm really pleased with most of it. So I'm going to be posting lots of blogs of things I'm making. I'm also going to try and catch up on posting past projects, so there might be several posts by me, all in a row.

Last night I couldn't sleep. So I finally got up and went into my project room and sat down at my desk. It's funny how I remember having so many ideas of things I wanted to make, and now that I have a place to do all of that I can't remember any of them. Luckily something came to me.

I've recently seen some cute headbands and barrettes with fabric flowers on them. I thought they looked simple enough, so I tried it. I cut out some paper patterns and they worked perfectly--first try! That doesn't happen very often. So here they are:

The red one on the top right was the first one I made. They just got better from there. I finished the edges with Mod Podge so they won't fray.

Now I just need to figure out where to get a bunch of headbands or barrettes.