War on Lizards

I had been told by our Malaysian housemate, Lionel, that house lizards are a common pest here. He and the only other male Asian here are both terrified of them. I thought being on the fourth floor we wouldn't have anything to worry about, but it would appear we have a small family living with us. I must admit, the more times I've seen them in our apartment, the more scared of them I've become. When their outside it doesn't bother me at all though.

Luckily Barrett is fearless of these small cute lizards, but he accidentally killed a baby one when he squeezed it a bit too hard as he was trying to take it outside.

Since I knew we had more than one extra roommate, I started researching how to get rid of house lizards. As I was reading different forums, I couldn't help but notice how weird most of the people were who were writing into the forum. They were either so terrified that they wouldn't open a door that had a lizard near it, or talking about how they are trying to train their new pet. Most people were saying they were a good thing because they eat the insects in your house and that their droppings are just proof of all the bugs there were eating for us. I did not buy into it. It reminded me of the releasing of cane toads to eat beetles in Australia which ended up backfiring and has left north western Australia overrun with the massive toads.

Cane Toad

Anyways, as I was wasting time reading all these weird people's posts on the forums, I realized that I was on a forum about house lizards, and thus one of the weirdos. I went down to ask the reception about a place to get something to rid me of the lizards, and she said she would send someone up to our apartment to take care of it. An Indian man arrived with some powders and sprays and killed one with the insecticide while he was here. I was hoping he would just grab it and take it outside, but he did not understand me very well, and I didn't understand much of what he said. Regardless, of the three different lizards I've seen, two are dead, and one large one lives on.

From shark nuggets to fishballs

So we've made it to Singapore. We got here Saturday afternoon and have been pretty busy ever since. For dinner the first night we went to Orchard Road via the MRT (subway system). Orchard Road is like the Vegas Strip, but instead of hotels and casinos, it's mall after mall. Some malls go all the way four stories below ground. We ate at a Japanese place and then walked down the street past all the shopping centers. On Sunday we ate kaya toast, which is a coconut jam of sorts, though it doesn't really taste like coconuts, more just a sweetness.

The food here will be the biggest adjustment. Since our kitchen is not air conditioned and quite abysmal, we will probably be eating out a lot. There's a hawker center across the street which is full of food stalls that have all sorts of street food and drinks at very cheap prices. It is called the Tiong Bahru Market and has a "wet" market that sells raw meat, fish, veggies, and fruits on the ground floor and the food stalls on the second level. You can get a cane juice and meal for three or four dollars. It's all open air eating.

However, I haven't quite found a dish that I'm completely in love with. Most food either has seafood or fish in some strange form, such as fish cakes or balls.

Below is a shark nugget stall.

Yum! Who wouldn't want to eat a dish that looks back at you?

And of course, some fish balls, which has it's own section in he supermarket.

So basically, I've been surviving on rice, cereal, toast, and fruit. Duck is alright, but when I see it with the head on and such, it isn't quite as appetizing.

Roasted Duck

When I do find chicken, it's always dark meat chicken. I know, I know, but dark meat has all the flavor! Well, I grew up in a house where all meat was overcooked and chicken only was flavored by what was on it, rather than the meat itself and therefore that I am a picky American who prefers dried tasteless chicken. Thank you for bearing with me while I rant. More on our apartment and adventures soon!

we temporarily interrupt your scheduled program to bring you an important update.

It's 7 here... I had to hijack my blog back when I saw how many web hits you were getting with your "We road an elephant" post. It appears having that title to your blog post means we are getting tons of hits from india. Our number of hits to the blog went through the roof in the last 24 hours and a high percentage of the views were from that region of the world. I was tempted to title this post "Killing whales  wears me out" or "There is hair in my gorilla soup" to see if we could pick up some interest from other continents....

Joking aside, what I really wanted to do was let trill and barrett know what is going on back home. I had to post here because I didn't know where else they might see my messages..... here goes.

Jim and I bought a telehandler and have already been having lots of fun with it. I am embarrassed to show it before its new paint job but I know you will want to see it. The pics are below. We also got a man-basket that Jim and I have already used to trim some trees and what not. Don't feel bad about not being here to enjoy it. I don't think I would want to have barrett go up in the basket anyway (its a man basket) and obviously trillion ... with you being a girl its not really designed with you in mind. On top of that, we got a truss boom which we are going to use like a crane arm with a winch and a crane hook. All in all it's going well and we are having a lot of fun. Only setback has been the really cold rainy weather and my busy work schedule with church and school and what not. Also, of utmost importance... I am now a platinum league starcraft 2 player. Which means when you address me (if you choose to at all) please be respectful of my rank.

Crusoe has been getting bigger and bigger everyday and sleeping less and less every night. Mom seems to be doing pretty well and we are approaching halloween. Leaves are about half off the trees and the woods is bright yellow.

Lastly, Reading your posts on Thailand was really hard for me. I want to be in your shoes so bad and am very very jealous. I keep telling myself not to be. This gives me all the more reason to travel to Nepal or Bhutan and skip Thailand altogether. Not quite as fun once people in my family have been there ahead of me!  However...... Just for good measure..... I need you to do something for me.

Get something and write a note on in and bury it. Leave me a message for me to dig up somewhere it won't get disturbed and give me a few landmarks to find it in the event I find myself following in your footsteps in the next 5 years or so. Maybe even take a picture to help me out!

Keep having fun and talk to you guys soon.

-7

This is a truss boom that we got with it. Jim is repainting it in this pic

Here is the telehandler from the front

We Rode an Elephant!

 We have absolutely loved Ko Lanta. Our resort is picturesque and very lush. No signs of fall here! Our room is on the ground floor and our balcony opens to a garden.The picture below shows the layout of the resort-a garden in the middle, bungalows on either side, and the ocean and pool at the front.

Here is one of the sunsets from the infinity pool. It truly is breath-taking!

Here is our beach. It is practically deserted!

Yesterday, Barrett and I started our morning with a mountain bike ride. This included going through some towns, getting a flat tire, going somewhere in town to have the tire fixed, riding across the Andaman Sea on a ferry, seeing some rice paddies, going through some mangroves, and back on a long boat. It was an amazing way to see some of the variety of Thailand, as well as a great way to build up a ridiculous sweat.

View while crossing from one island to another.

Rice Paddies

Our long boat driver

The afternoon included elephant trekking! It was quite the experience. I should mention that the elephant man (guide? trainer? I can't think of the name for him) did not speak any English what so ever, and when I asked the girl that took us there and worked there if she had ever rode the elephant her eyes got big and she shook her head "no" repeatedly. This is right before I climbed on top of the massive animal, which had a surprisingly large amount of super-course hair. When our 40 year old elephant decided she didn't feel like going, and instead would like to just relax and take in the views, there was little anyone could. The elephant man would yell something in Thai, but thankfully did not use his horrible-looking prodding stick. Anyways, our elephant took us through some pretty steep parts of the jungle for about an hour. We were convinced at first that our bench would just flip completely over with every step the elephant took. After a while we decided we weren't going to die and were able to enjoy the experience and views. Speaking of views, we saw several monkeys! They don't like posing for pictures, but we managed to get one sort of good one. So, riding an elephant is now crossed off the bucket list, which I have yet to write.

Can you see the monkey?

The Many Flights to Thailand

Picking up from where the last post ended, we got to the O’Hare in plenty of time, despite the train's best efforts to make us late (it had some issues and stopped for 20 minutes). Our plane left at 3:20 pm on Friday and was 15 hours in the air. We arrived in Hong Kong at 7:45 pm (which is 7:45 am EST). 

I watched The Amazing Spider Man, To Rome with Love and some quality America’s Next Top Model. We ate two meals, both dinner. I got the chicken curry for the first, and a ziti with asiago cream sauce and asparagus for the second. Barrett and I slept for about 6 hours total. If you wonder why I’m telling so many details, it’s because certain members of my family love to ask questions so they can paint a mental picture of my flight. Also, most of the flight was a constant sunset. It was very cool to see the arctic, though I wouldn't really know because I was nice and gave Barrett the window seat.

When I attempted to walk off the plane in Hong Kong, my body was not happy with me. My feet were swollen (stretching my nice shoes as a result) and my knees felt like I was four times my current age. Walking around an airport never felt so good. The Hong Kong airport has a massive mall in the middle. Our favorite shop was a candy/strange dried foods store. They had dried duck tongue and dried chicken kidney, just to name a few. Hong Kong is also where I realized that my concern of having the right clothes along so I would "fit in" was a foolish notion. I'm white and Barrett is taller than basically everyone else in Asia. I don't know why I hadn't given this much thought before hand.

After a two hour layover we took a plane to Bangkok, about a three hour flight. We then had to go through customs, where they literally said nothing to us. They pointed at a camera to take our pictures, looked at our passports and typed some stuff into their computers, and sent us on our way. After collecting our bags we took about 20 minutes to find our airport transfer to the hotel. We finally got to the hotel around 1:30 am. For $20, our hotel was very nice. Being messed up with the time difference, we only slept for about 2.5 hours. At 6 am, we headed back to the airport for our final plane ride to Krabi,Thailand. 

Thailand is beautiful and looks just like all the pictures I've seen of it. We were picked up from the airport by our hotel shuttle, a deluxe van complete with dragon decals on the ceiling. It was a two hour trip, complete with two ferry rides, to the island of Ko Lanta. At our resort, we were greeted with leis and some weird juice. During check in it began to pour, but after 5 minutes or so, it subsided. The resort if FAB-u-lous. More pics and stories to come!

On the ferry! Funny story, I had pink eye in both eyes at this point and didn't even realize.

 One last thing. If you could pray that my pink eyes (yes, I have it in both eyes) go away, that would be great. I think I had it for most of the trip here and didn't realize it because I hadn't slept in long enough increments. It's not too bad, but I would love for it to go away.

Mega Bust

Allow this post to be an anti-plug for Mega Bus. I should have known something would go wrong. Mega Bus can turn into Mega Bust far too easily. My bus, which was supposed to leave at 10:50 from the corner of Nationwide Blvd and High St was 3 hours and 50 minutes late. That’s right, it left at 2:40 in the morning. After freezing in the cold for a while, at 11:07 pm, I got someone to look up the customer service number. Unfortunately, the customer service ends at 11 pm. Fantastic.

Someone else got an emergency number and was told that the bus was delayed. Knowing it was delayed wasn’t enough. I wanted details. So I called and asked some questions.

Where was the bus? “I don’t know.” What’s wrong with the bus? “It’s having issues.” What kind of issues? “We’re sending another mechanic because the first one couldn’t fix it.” What is the time estimate? “We don’t know. It might get canceled. But don’t worry, we’ll give you a full reimbursement.”  What?! A reimbursement doesn’t get me to Chicago. Are you telling me there’s no back-up plan for when this sort of thing happens? What about sending another bus? “We can’t seem to find one that would be there in a timely manner.” Timely manner was out the window 2 hours ago. “I can take you name and number and call you with updates.” Yes, that would be nice.

I thus became the person with the info to which everyone asked questions and expressed their displeasure.  When I tried to call back after another hour of waiting, no one ever answered. Someone else told me their mom had called and waited on hold for over 45 minutes. 

As the hours passed, some people gave up and booked plane tickets for the following morning.  There were about 40 survivors who waited it out. When the bus finally came, it was like everyone was a pre-teen and catching sight of the Justin Bieber tour bus. Everyone screamed and ran for the bus. It was so nice to finally feel warmth. Someone had been nice enough to give me a coat and people were wearing socks on their hands to keep warm. We’d waited in a small hall that led to a sky-walk that was not heated for the majority of the wait.

The bus got to Chicago only about 3 hours late, miraculously. Barrett’s bus had gotten in a few minutes early around 6 am. Finally reunited!!! We got breakfast at Yolk, a favorite from last time we were in Chicago, and enjoyed our last America meal for a while. I'll leave you with a picture of the copious amounts of food we ordered. I was somewhat embarrassed that mine came out on two plates, but in all fairness, Barrett ate most of the second plate and neither of us could finish our meals.

My eggs, bacon, sausage, and nutella and fruit crepes.