One in 8 Million

Great series - makes me miss New York.

The size of the Statue of Liberty

Can you imagine growing up in Ebbsfleet valley, telling your friends to meet you for a beer under the upper belly near the left front hoof?

It was the best of times...

As a German girl exiled in non-German speaking places I have long gotten used to just smiling and nodding at people quoting TV shows, movies and famous lines by famous dead people. It is thus not unusual for myself to actually start using these phrases myself without being completely clear on the connotation or the source. Then, one day, I often stumble upon the source or true meaning and realize I have been saying profound none sense for years. Why don't my friends ever stop me?

The past few weeks we have been meeting a lot of new people here in the Spore and as the evening progresses we usually pull out the good old India/Nepal stories. Then, as the evening progresses more, fancy usually sums up his feelings about India in a quote that an Indian guy threw at us one fine day as fancy and I were climbing into a rickshaw causing the usual spectacle, loaded heavy with bags, fancy with crutches in his hands due to his post Everst knee situation and me sick and tired of being stared at. The quote is: "Just remember, when it's the worst of times, it's still the best of times". Until now I thought this clever man had made this up, but alas, not so.

He was quoting Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." - am I the only person who did not know that?

So 2004

Blogging is so 2004 according to Wired Magazine. I am not sure that is true, but I certainly am no "oasis of folksy self-expression and clever thought". What can I say, worked till midnight on Friday, went swimming drunkenly post BBQ on Saturday night and then spent Sunday chasing people who manage to look alive and dead all at the same time. Thrilling?

Myanmar

I'm a big fan of not relying on the news and instead finding out about a place myself. However, going to Myanmar is a bit controversial in my head - does it inadvertently support the current government? I don't know. I will try my best to avoid buying anything that does so and pack lots of things to give away. That is if I get a visa. A little visit at the embassy today revealed the customary SE Asian official, who, sitting behind a see-through plastic wall, mumbled something, mostly to himself, that I finally deciphered as: "come back in the morning". Of course there was not another potential tourist anywhere near the counter nor any reason why he could not just accept the heap of papers I had to offer to him or for that matter, why he could not look at me while he mumbled. But I suppose that is a mute point and I will be back tomorrow.

And Then There Was Light

A, originally uploaded by Christiane B.

Our first exciting photo outing: abandoned hotel guarded by a nice old man and a furiously barking, tail wagging, large dog.

Afterwards we went for beer and murtabak, the latter being fantastic for all non-vegetarians.

Aunty Miss Chris

A lot of people we have met here are our age or older and yet I feel like a bit of an elderly aunt watching over a happy bunch of children chirping on the playground. I don't think I have a heck of a lot to show for all the things I have done in my life so far, but I have most certainly done a lot of things.

The people I meet here are experiencing my 2001 at the moment. I don't mean 9/11. I mean the first experience of being on their own, with a job, in a new country, dancing all night, taking taxis everywhere, spending nights sitting up soaking up the feeling of being somewhere totally new and different, living the life of an expat, although I must say even that has declined in quality. An young expat is really like a middle class singaporean who lives in a condo rather than an HDB flat. I think it's high time the cushy imperialist lifestyle has ended, but the point is that being an expat here is really nothing special and not that different from life back home wherever that migh be. Only the weather is better.

My enthusiasm for having conversations revolving around just how different it is to be in Singapore and how special and how lucky we all are to live "abroad" and how this is totally life changing because, wow, it turns out you can't plan every detail of your life ("at least I still got married at 27 as I planned it") is limited. I spent about 3 hrs a day back in 1993 talking to my dear friend from 9th grade about just how different and awesome we were. And I am happy to say it is resolved now. I don't want to navel gaze and discuss our specialness (which of course evaporates just as soon as you set foot in Heathrow or JFK and everyone looks just like you) but rather meet people who through their experiences, whatever those might have been, have actually become more interesting people and don't need to talk about that the whole time.

Maybe I am no longer as open minded to meet new people? Or a bit tired of it? I don't know, but strangely in NY and London (EDIT: and Boston, where I stumbled upon an unexpected gold mine) I have always met really interesting people, and different kinds of interesting people at that, not all are nomads, but artist, writers, thinkers, wine driners, engineers - people who are passionate about what they do. This crew who enjoys dancing in a plastic palace (Clarke Quay) with Asian hookers (oh my dear, how craaaazy is that?) and discussing whether it is daaaangerous to go to Thailand right now (It's NOT) makes me want to go home by midnight and watch pirated movies instead and mildly pat their head "there, there, you'll be fine".