Hello Friend!

Welcome to my first ever blog post. I have been in Singapore for almost exactly five weeks now, so please forgive me if my initial posts are slightly out-of-order and delayed. Starting a blog was one of the many many things that I should have done BEFORE I left home. (Other things include cleaning up my room and talking to the transcript people!) In the interest of chronology, this first post is going to mostly consist of my email update that I sent out a couple of weeks ago, interspersed with a few pictures. Look for new information in post #2! And if you don't get my email updates but you want them, please let me know.

The following update was written Wednesday, June 17th.

I left the good old US of A on Tuesday, June 2. I was supposed to leave on Monday, but I found out late Saturday night that I had lost my passport. Yes, you read that sentence correctly. Lost, like, for real. Like, I think I threw it away when I moved out of my house in Norman with all the perparation and finesse of a typhoon. Anywho, I'm lucky I live in a big city. I took the train to the emergency passport office in downtown Chicago at 7:30 AM, and, several hundred dollars in plane flight changes and passport fees later, walked out the door with a new passport at 3:30.

Anyway, I left Tuesday night. I flew the first leg of my flight, 8 hours, on Virgin Atlantic, which is a pretty sweet airline. Then I landed in Heathrow (London) and actually had to go through immigration, traipse through half of the airport with all of my earthy possessions, and re-check in for my second flight through Singapore Airlines. However, there was a problem; I had a one way ticket, because I'm not sure when I am coming back. However, I also don't have a visa, because you don't need one if you're gonna be there less than 90 days, and I'll have my work permit by then. Problem is, they wouldn't let me in without a visa if I didn't have a return ticket. So I had to buy one. Ugh. (It's refundable, no worries.) Anyway, after I bought a ticket and printed out my itinerary, which involved a lot more traipsing around with my luggage, I got re-checked in. The actually flight was great; Singapore airlines is the best I've ever flown on. 12 hours felt like 6-8. Probably because I slept for 4 of those hours...plus the seat next to me was empty which was great.

I arrived in Singapore at 7:45 AM on Thursday morning, Singapore time. That's 6:45 PM Wednesday night Central time. Total trip length from door to door--28.5 hours. Not that bad.




Me on the plane at the start of my journey, around 6 PM Tuesday night.

London! And me. This is right outside the airport during my layover. I actually sat outside for about 20 minutes and ws thinking about hanging out longer before I checked in for my second flight. I'm glad I didn't or I might not have had enough time!

I basically slept all day Thursday, June 4. Friday, some friends from the Chinese church in Oklahoma (Edmond) were in town visiting on their way to Malaysia and we had to take them around. We went to Sentosa, which is like a beach/theme park/general tourist place in Singapore. It's a little tiny island right off the coast. Then after that we went to the Bird Park. This would have been an amazing day, except that it was about a billion degrees outside and I was super jet-lagged. Basically, from after lunch until dinner I was just a tired, hot, headachy, jet-laggy mess, although I held it together pretty well. And the pictures are pretty! That night we had a HUGE dinner and I fell asleep in the car on the way home. The Lau's, the family who was visiting who travelled around with us all day.

Dan and I on the beach. Actually, Singapore's beaches aren't very good at all--this sand is imported!

We're underneath a dome and there are fish swimming around. Too bad it just looks blurry...

At the bird show I got to be a volunteer! Yay toucans! Their feet are really warm, that's all I really remember about holding them.

Huge buffet a-la-carte dinner. (What that means is, you get a menu and you can order anything you want off of it for one flat fee! Pretty sweet.) Dan's parents are in the center from with the Lau's on either end. The back left is Lisa, Dan's cousin who was visiting from Melbourne, and the three Lau kids.


After that, the next week and a half was very uneventful. It consisted of me slowly de-jetlagging and hanging out with Dan, his parents, and a few of his friends in multiple restaurants, shopping malls, and movie theatres. We drove everywhere, which was pretty sweet, except for the fact that now I still don't know how to use the buses. The one thing I did accomplish was to meet my future boss as well as the people in charge of processing all my work permit stuff, and harass people at OU all week until I could get my transcripts and completion statements express mailed to me.

Swensen's, an American-themed restaurant. (I had a craving for a hot fudge sundae.)

The best ice cream ever that you can't get in the states. That swirly stuff on the end is flavoring, like rasperry or grape or green apple, etc. It tastes AWESOME and they had it in CHina but not in the US and I am super excited that they have it here. (Although it doesn't really make up for the fact that you can't get Pandora or Hulu here...)

This last Monday, June 15, Dan started his National Service Basic Military Training. This is a picture of him that morning waiting for the shuttle bus--and also the last extant picture of him with hair. His dad and I went with him--they have this whole program for parents on the first day so that they don't freak out--and it looked pretty nice. Waaaay nicer and friendlier than US Basic Training. Then we left, and that was that. He's allowed to call at night, but not for very long.

Meanwhile, I've been looking at flats online, hovering around the mailbox waiting for my transcripts, and sleeping and reading a lot. I'm slowly working through a to-do list--the proof is that "Set up Email Update List" and "Write email update" were two of the Things To Do. Haha! I also cleaned up my room, went to look at some apartments last night, and sent several other informative but relatively verbose emails to several other people, many of which were important. I also made Friend Blind Date plans for Saturday, so that will be fun!

End of copy of update email.

The pictures here are just a few of many, and I will be uploading those into more complete albums soon and getting them to you. I will most likely be updating to Facebook, but never fear, you can still view Facebook photos if you are not a member. I will give you the links in email updates or on this site. Some are already posted now, so if you're my Facebook friend, please enjoy!

Stay tuned to find out what I really do all day with Dan gone and no job and very few friends. Spoiler alert: it's not that interesting, but I'll do what I can to make it fun to read! :)