Invasion of the Body Snatchers

I wrote a very clever blog entry last night but I accidentally deleted it and couldn't be bothered to re-write it at the time. I assure you that there was no cursing or ranting & raving...no beating on the keyboard. I accepted my hours' worth of lost effort with great grace.

It looks like another lovely day in Singapore. It is only 7:40 am here and while I have been up for a couple hours catching up on emails, I am just getting ready to start my day and wander about.

We have been busy! There is far less free time than I thought there would be. Yesterday, we went to this place called Fusionopolis which is a collection of buildings housing state-of-the-art research facilities related to the physical sciences, engineering and IT. The Singapore government is recruiting top researchers to come here and their hope is that there will be a lot of cross-pollination of ideas and great things will be developed.

Personally, I think there are difficulties and flaws with the plan--any plan which tries to carefully coordinate and control invention and innovation but it is a pretty cool place.

They wouldn't let us take pictures inside except for in the garden on the 23rd floor but that was pretty amazing.

Last night the boys and I decided to try to recreate our Tuesday night study night and we went to a German restaurant for beer and brats. Normally, it might seem weird to have a German restaurant in an Asian city but downtown Singapore is so western that it is almost difficult to convince yourself that it is not Southern California.

It is such a young country. They are only 44 years old and while it is amazing what they have accomplished in that time, there is a part of me that questions if it is sustainable. I guess I now understand better how the Brits and Europeans feel about us---I am happy that everything seems to be working out but I also think they are being naive to think that they can continue this.

Talking to people around here is a bit like talking to Pod People (Invasion of the Body Snatchers---the old one, not the stupid remake). It is like they have all been brainwashed to believe the exact same message. Everyone one you talk to gives you the exact same facts and figures, the same history, the same examples of success---they all have partaken of the Kool-Aid. But it makes one wonder about the power of the government which can broadcast a single marketing message so effectively to so many people.

OK...enough for now. I am going to get ready and start my day. This morning I am going to go to the Botanical Gardens and wander around. I am taking a bunch of our Carlson undergraduate students who are studying here out for brunch and then after a couple more hours of site-seeing, I am going to come back and work on my capstone for the rest of the day.

Food, Friends, and New Shoes - Greetings from Singapore

Hey Everyone, we had another good day in Singapore. We met with the American Chamber of Commerce and the Singapore Economic Development Board in the morning. Very interesting presentations and it was particularly interesting to get the two viewpoints of doing business in Singapore.

With a break in the mid-day, we set out in search of food.

There is a hawker center about a block away from our hotel which is sort of an outdoor foodcourt with just local vendors. I opted for an Indian lunch and it was delicious and my very filling tray of food came to about $3.80US.

After a tasty lunch I went shopping--first for groceries (no $0.45 beer here!) and...tangerine colored shoes...I couldn't help myself.


Shopping is like a national past-time here. Just judging by the business one passes it seems everyone must be wrapped up in eating, drinking, shopping. Granted one could probably say the same about downtown Minneapolis.

In the afternoon we went out to the National University of Singapore to meet with their group that commercializes the technologies developed at the school. This was particularly interesting to me since my capstone project is to look at some of the factors determining the volume of start-ups spun out of universities. It was really interesting because they haven't been doing this very long so what US universities have been struggling with for 30 years, Singapore has condensed into 5 years.

In the evening we had a group dinner down at Clarke Quay. We had butter crab and all got to wear matching bibs.

I have never had crab (or lobster) where you have to get the meat out of the shell and I must say, a person could starve! Not to worry though, I managed to find more than enough food to sustain life...and then some.


It was 91 degrees and 94% humidity on our first day, but much cooler yesterday. I think it is supposed to be warmer again today.

Greetings from Singapore!

It has been a busy couple days but I am back with a quick update.

I had a really nice final day in Hong Kong with Meredith. We wandered around HK in search of a souvenir from the Rugby 7s for Ian and while we didn't find anything to buy, we were able to steal something!

We went out towards the stadium thinking maybe there would be a gift shop but, alas, there was none. There were, however, a bunch of posters taped to the box office window--on the outside--and we decided that was an open invitation. Normally, I do not condone thievery in any form but desperate times call for desperate measures.

After that we met up with Steve Tobkin, a Carlson alum working for Citi in HK. It was nice to be able to introduce Meredith to Steve since she'll be interning at Citi this spring, and Steve is such a nice and outgoing person that it made for a fun lunch.

After a leisurely afternoon, I headed out to the airport to fly to Singapore and meet up with my group. After boarding us on the plane, there was a delay and we wound up sitting on the plane for 3 hours before they let us push back from the gate. I must admit I was cursing the travel gods who were messing with my travel plans. While I was supposed to arrive at the airport several hours ahead of my group arriving from MN (valuable hours that I was going to dedicate to capstoning), I was starting to worry that I would arrive after them and miss them. Alls well that ends well and I arrive 10 minutes ahead of them and was waiting for them at baggage claim.

Singapore is very clean and very warm.



Our hotel is very nice and it seems very luxurious after the Bridal Tea Hotel in Hong Kong. Plus, the view is much nicer!



We had a nice free day to get our bearings and I used the time to have lunch with one of my all-time favorite alums, Ben Cohen, who is currently living and working for Merrill Lynch here in Singapore. It was delightful to see him and to see him doing so well!



Besides lunch, I wandered around with a few of my fellow students and I---yes, you guessed it---worked on my capstone. I should just stop mentioning it since it is just a constant. Like I don't tell you that I breathed today, I shouldn't bother mentioning that I capstoned.


I cannot tell you how great it is to have the whole group here. We had a little happy hour gathering last night and it was just fun since we all know each other so well by now, and really, for the most part, like each other.


And now I must get ready for our day's meetings. We'll be indoors for most of the morning so I'll have to dress warm--they like their AC here.

Time Flies

I cannot believe how fast these past five days have gone! I am leaving Meredith and Hong Kong this evening to join my classmates in Singapore. I think Meredith will be relieved to see me go if for no other reason than she is tired of being my model for all my photos.

I spent the entire day yesterday pondering my capstone. I would like to say that I spent the entire time---from 4am to 10pm---writing my capstone but that would be misleading. The stupid thing just does not want to be written so I spent the entire day re-reading all of the research materials, taking notes, and thinking. Aackkk! I just want the thing on paper!

My only outings were a trip to the grocery store and bakery for food for brunch, and a quick evening meal with Meredith before she went out with some friends for the evening.

I wound up getting up at 3:30am to start work on this thing again. I am happy to report that I have actually been writing but it still isn't going as quickly as I would like.

On Friday, Meredith took me on the extensive outdoor elevator system to SoHo for brunch and a little shopping before she had to go to class.
Brunch was delicious at a diner-style cafe and we wandered to Cain Street where our distant cousin lives.


We had hoped to meet up with him this week but it didn't work with his schedule. Next we stopped in a variety of wonderful little shops and I got little gifts for people back home and I annoyed Meredith by taking her photo constantly.

Beer Here! Get Your Free Beer Here! (that is meant to sound like Wally-the-beer-man at a Twins' game)

Well...ok, not free but pretty damn cheap. Meredith was telling me that shortly after she arrived here she met an Australian expat who described Hong Kong as a city of 7 million alcoholics clinging to a rock and after finding out what they charge for beer, who can blame them for the alcoholic part? It's hot and humid, and beer is cheaper than water...it's enough to drive a man (woman) to drink.
As an example, I went to the grocery store and I bought this 4-pack of pint-size cans (that's bigger than our standard size cans) for about $1.80 US. That's $0.45 for a pint of beer.

The pricing of things is odd--beer is almost free but coffee is about $4US for a medium Starbucks drip coffee--almost $10US if you want a latte. Food from street vendors is also very inexpensive, and even restaurants seem reasonable. It appears that most other clothing and goods are about what one would expect. Rent/property is ridiculously high.

The entire place seems to be under construction--it's pretty impressive. The I&S Group should open a branch office out here--Chad, you should get working on that. One weird (at least weird to me) thing was that all of their scaffolding is bamboo just lashed together.
It's not just used to get up one or two stories either, I saw a building that was probably about 20 stories with bamboo scaffolding all the way to the top. I wouldn't relish being on the 20th floor of metal scaffolding but I think I would be terrified of being on the 20th floor of bamboo which was merely tied together with plastic strapping.

Home in Hong Kong

I am staying at the Bridal Tea House on Li Tak Street, not to be confused with the Bridal Tea House on Anchor Street just a couple blocks away. Of course, I thought I was booking the other Bridal Tea House Hotel because it is literally right next door to Meredith's apartment. That was the other part of the rough start to this trip--so in case you're keeping track: I had luggage issues, I lost my wallet, and I booked myself in the wrong hotel. I swear to you, I am normally a really good, organized, and competent traveler!

When we arrived at the Bridal Tea House Hotel--the one next door to Meredith--to check me in at 1:30am, they had no record of my reservation, the guy at the desk spoke no English, and after trying to make us understand Chinese for 10 minutes, he summoned a security guard and indicated that we should follow him. We started to but when it became obvious that the security guard, who also spoke no English, was leading us out the door and down the block we got a bit nervous so we refused to go any farther. I was pretty confident that I wasn't being smuggled into the white slave trade but maybe they wanted Mere--she's young and cute and white--it could happen...

But back to the story...as it turns out he was just trying to lead us to the other Bridal Tea House Hotel, the one where I had actually booked a room. While you would never guess it from the street, the hotel is OK and the room is actually quite nice and far more spacious that one would think. I think it is bigger than Meredith's apartment which she shares with another girl.

I'm using one of the beds as my desk and have all my capstone stuff spread out and it works quite well. It's clean, has free wi-fi, horrible TV on a little flat screen TV tucked in the corner, and a big closet with a mini-fridge and an electric tea kettle. Really, what more could a girl ask for?

Well...a beautiful view, I guess, and I certainly didn't get one here. It is an interesting view, but not what I would call beautiful.

The Big Buddha Lives Up To His Name

I really liked the Tian Tan Buddha Statue and Po Lin Monastery. You would think that with my "Chinese in a Week" book and CD that I could tell you what Tian Tan means--and yet, I cannot. For all I know it means Big Buddha. The books all refer to it as the Big Buddha so I do not feel disrepectful calling it such myself.

He is big. Impressively so.

To get up to the Big Buddha, one takes an aerial cable car for almost 6 kilometers (wouldn't that be about 4 miles?) and that in itself is quite spectacular. I was in a cable car with a Chinese family: Grandparents, daughter and grandson. The little boy was maybe 3 years old and clearly was in an english-speaking school because he knew all sorts of little songs in English and he spoke English amazingly well and with an American accent. He was very funny. His grandparents would say something in Chinese that must have been to quiet him down (he sang very loudly and proudly) and he would respond with "What's the matter?" and then go on in Chinese. When you alight from the gondola you are led to a very tastefully tourisyt village, and then on to the Big Buddha.

The quality of this photo isn't the best. The day was not actually quite this grey, although it was decidedly overcast, but a) it was taken through the gondola glass and b) I had forgotten to reset my camera settings after last night's photo taking at the peak. You can see the Big Guy in the background which gives you a litte scale reference and you can see the gondolas.

I really like this photo of Buddha--I really like Buddha to be honest. There is something wonderfully calm and benevolent about him. It was lovely to see how many people were there to see the statue and monastery because of their devotion and not because they were mere tourists.

The monasterey was much the same. Despite the number of people, despite the tourists, it was calm and welcoming and peaceful.

When I got back from the Buddha, I meant to work of my capstone but I wound up napping. I actually am really interested in my topic but I guess that jetlag was catching up with me. I cannot complain though, I have adjusted to the time change amazingly well...I have struggled more with daylight savings time.

This evening I went to the Temple Street Night Market which was much like any market but not during the day. I did get little gifts for Tara and Margaret, and a suitcase to replace my defective one that I brought. That was the other part of the rough start to this trip--I was having suitcase issues. But now I can rid myself of the horrible purple trunk monstrosity and work with the new basic black, faux "Victorinox" which I successfully haggled down to $38.

I hate haggling. This wasn't so bad since the woman was a bad haggler--she started out telling me that she would give me a discount and then, while I was just pondering if I wanted to bother with dragging the bag back to my hotel tonight, she kept lowering the price. I really cannot claim much credit for my dealing skills since all I did was stand there quietly.

Brand New Day

I was so tired last night that I was literally nodding off as I was posting the picture of Mere and the skyline. Here's a couple more photos. I had my baby tri-pod with me so I was trying to play with exposures. I cannot decide which I like better so here are a couple.

I probably won't see Meredith today since she has a class field trip and then an evening class so I am going to wander off to see the Big Buddha--I'm sure I'll have tons of photos.

Hope all is well at home!

Tonight, the Peak. Tomorrow, Big Buddha.

Mere and I just went up to the Peak tonight and it was a lovely clear night so the views were great. Here is Mere:

It really was spectacular--after taking the tram up and taking lots of pictures, we had a bite to eat and now I am beyond tired and am going to go to bed.

Ian talked me off the ledge this morning (evening for all of you)

This morning I went out to the airport to see what I could see. I didn't make poor Meredith go with me since I there wasn't much she could do about the whole thing. After wandering neighborhood for about 40 minutes I finally made it the 5 block distance to the subway station. As it turns out, I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention at 1am when Mere led me back from the airport. But all is well that ends well and I made it out to the airport with no major mishaps.

After wandering bleak back corridors of the airport, I gained nothing really. I filed official reports, talked to the airline, had a Starbucks coffee, and got back on the train to Meredith's neighborhood knowing no more about my wallet than I did when I left the neighborhood.

Just let me just say that Meredith's neighborhood definitely has a local feel to it...and I mean LOCAL. I like it but it has a definite gritty feel to it. I think the street my hotel is on must be the "metal working" street. There are a couple tiny little autobody shops, a metal fabrication sort of shop, and a couple metal scrape shops. These places are tiny--they would be about the size of small newstand at home.

When I got back to the hotel, Mere came over and I used her phone to call the bank to try and get a new ATM and credit card sent to me but of course that is not as easy as they make it sound on the tv commercials. Next I called poor Ian, crying and hyperventilating, and God-bless-him, the first words out of his mouth were "why don't I just send some cash and a credit card with one of your classmates who are leaving on Saturday?"

Why hadn't I thought of that?

Because I am a poor, tired, frantic dumbass with only 5.5 hours of sleep in 48 hours who isn't thinking all that clearly. That's why.

So once Ian solved all my problems, I was able to have a nice lunch with Meredith and a pleasant afternoon of wandering around.

Meredith had told me at lunch about the pet-fish market which I decided to check out this afternoon and it was a delight. There is a 2-block stretch where all the shops sell tropical fish in little bags, ready for you to take home and they are beautiful. I like the blue ones the best but there was one place that had the cutest little pink fish. Some of the places also sold tiny turtles.

Later, I took the ferry across the harbor into HK proper and it was an excellent value for 2.3 HK$ which would be something like $0.45 US$ (I think---you all know how bad I am with math-- but the bottom line is that it was cheap). The weird thing is that the difference between Hong Kong and Kowloon is night and day. Kowloon, which is Mere's side of the harbor is a strange and exotic place where I encountered maybe 6 caucasians in the entire day--and HK could be any major 1st world urban center on the planet.

While I was far more comfortable and at home in HK, I think I like Kowloon better.

It is amazing to me how quickly one becomes accustomed to one's environment--regardless how foreign it may be. I noticed this in NYC last week and here today but when I got off the subway at the Olympic Center station which is the one closest to my hotel, I really felt like I was home!

Complete change of subject...I saw "Slumdog Millionaire" on the plane yesterday and I would definitely recommend it. It was wonderful--definitely worthy of all the praise it has received. And Mary Jo, it has an ending you would be pleased with!

Not the smoothest trip so far...but it can only get better!

I arrived here in Hong Kong tired, but safe and sound. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way I seemed to have parted company with my wallet---my wallet with my driver's license, cash card and credit cards. At least I still have my passport.

I think I must have lost it somewhere in the Hong Kong Airport and Mere and I are going to go back out there in the morning to see what we can find. Mere tried calling but the Lost & Found was officially closed although she was able to leave a message with a human being. If they don't have it in the morning, I set about trying to get replacements fedex-ed asap.

It's 2am here on Wednesday morning (1 pm Tuesday for you all in MN) and with the exception of about 2 hours sleep on the plane, I have been up since 6am on Monday morning so I'm tired and not coping well. Actually, I crying.

Mere-mere has been wonderful. She's amazing! Here she is, looking lovely, picking me up at the airport (we had not yet figured out that I was sans wallet).

Everything will be better when I have had some sleep. Love you all, talk to you soon. Treetie

I might have to rethink the google ads thing...

I checked in on the blog today and I thought I had stumbled upon the wrong blog. At the top of the page was a color photo of "Bridget's Sexiest Beaches" from www.travelchannel.com. It took me a second to realize it was an ad and not someone taking over my site.

I am about to travel though. I leave tomorrow for my 3-week adventure to Southeast Asia! I am really excited but sad about not seeing Ian for almost a month. We did not plan our travel schedules very well this spring and so he just got back yesterday after a week in Costa Rica, I leave tomorrow for 3 weeks and just before I return, he leaves for Argentina. In 5 weeks we'll have seen each other only 40 hours!

Schnuffy Love Wins Again!

We cheat at pub quiz. It's the only way we can win. We justified it this week since one of the answers that Margaret looked up on her Blackberry we actually got wrong so somehow that makes it all even. I contribute nothing to the team--I'm not even good enough with my Blackberry to be able to cheat effectively. Now...if only Cosgrove (the Trivia Master) would ask questions about some of my favorite topics like the plague or scurvy or some other disease...

Obsessed with kitchens lately...

We have decided to remodel/renovate our kitchen and I have become obsess with the whole process. I love our little 1948 story and a half because it's built like a fortress, it's just the right size for the two of us and Schnuffy-the-Devil-Cat, and it's cute. The downside is that the layout is pretty small and closed off. Our plan is to knock down the wall between the kitchen and the dining room and replace it with a counter so that everything is nice and open.

The tragically small kitchen will remain tragically small but it should feel airier and at the very least the cook (me) will not be completely cut off from the rest of the house. Also, currently we hardly ever use the dining room and we're hoping this will get us to use that space.

I love the IKEA design software that allows you to design your kitchen, change cabinets, put in new appliances and view it all in 3-D. HGTV-Pro also has a similar program but I think I like IKEA's better.

Going Commercial

I'm trying out AdSense on my little blog---maybe I can make some money. I need to figure out to get some good groups advertising on my site. I do have a rough idea of how AdSense and AdWords work so perhaps if I mention how much I like Target stores their ads will start to appear on my blog.

Christmas at Ken and Mary Jo's

Here are some photos from this past Christmas at Ken and Mary Jo's house. Greg, Ian, and I went out for a chilly little walk on Christmas Eve Day...it looks a bit Fargo-esque.

Frozen Pipes!

You have to love winter in Minnesota! We are well into a sub-zero cold snap and that means that I am on frozen pipe watch. After the pipe burst and subsequent house-flooding of January 2004 (almost 7,000 gallons of water streamed out of a tiny rupture in a pipe in the upstairs bath and destroyed the entire house), we are a bit paranoid about freezing pipes.

This time, the problem isn't the upstairs bath; however, this time the trouble is with the main floor bath which is just a clear indication of the extreme cold that we are suffering through.

Here's a photo of the offending pipe--to the uninitiated it might not look like much but to the trained eye you can see that it is the cold-water feed into the toilet tank (and a good photo, I might add). The grey pipe is the problem.

Ahhh...back to work. I am working from home this morning to make sure that there is no rupturing!

Performance Reviews

What a worthless waste of time! Seriously, I don't know that anything good has ever come of one. The whole process is just job-justification for the HR department and a complete and utter waste of time for the rest of us. And I don't say this because I anticipate a bad review and I'm just whining---quite the opposite. I anticipate a very good review (and I'm just whining).

The Aged and Improved Me

See...here's what I'm talking about.

News Flash: I am not as young as I used to be

Yes, it is true...I am getting older. I recently had my professional work photo taken and despite the fact that they took several shots, from different angles, sadly, they all made me look like a woman in my 40's. I guess I should be happy that they didn't make me look like I was in my 50's.

Smith River, Montana

Ian and I just returned from a trip to Montana to raft down a 60 mile stretch of the Smith River. To be honest, while I always thought it sounded like a cool thing to do, I had a couple reservations because I am not a real outdoorsy sort of girl and I had never really been camping before. I am so glad we went! It was wonderful and amazingly beautiful and I have become a bit enthralled with flyfishing.

We were lucky in that our friends planned everything, from getting the access permits, to planning, procuring, and packing the food, to supplying the rafts and gear. We simply needed to show up with tent, sleeping bags, and clothes. The meals were wonderful and not the beans and wienies I had been expecting. We had spaghetti and homemade meatballs, beef stroganof, and sweet and sour chicken. For appetizers we had smoked salmon, cheese and crackers, washed down with wine, beer, and G&T's. Not really roughing it when it came to food.

On the other hand, the plumbing facilities left a little to be desired. On the plus side, latrines had been provided at each campsite. On the not-so-plus side, the latrines consisted of a toilet over a stinky pit. At our last campsite, the mosquitos were so bad around the latrine that there was no escaping at least one bite while one had their backside exposed.

Bathroom facilities aside--it was a wonderful trip and incredibly beautiful! I would go again tomorrow if I had the chance.