Learning the ways of the city

It's Friday! The end of my first week as a post-doc! It's been pretty uneventful, except for the fact that I got a MacBook Pro from my new boss, furnished my apartment, and have already had a lot of good times with my old friends in the city. It takes me about 40 mins to get from my house in Outer Sunset to work in Mission Bay (have to cross the entire city). The first day of work, I made the big mistake of literally driving across town using inside roads. I figured it was the best way to get to work because it was the most direct route. Never ever ever drive across the city during traffic hours!!! EVER!!! When I described the experience to my lab, my new co-worker, Tim, suggested a different route where I'd have to head south for a couple of miles, then north on 280. It would add a few extra miles, but at least I wouldn't have the stop-and-go problem with heavy city traffic. The next day, I followed his advice and cut my initial route by 10 mins! I was still getting into pretty bad traffic near San Francisco State University, so today, I tried a different route that would take me south-east on Ocean, then 280 north to Mission Bay. This route let me skip the traffic near SFSU, and get past a busy interstate intersection on 280. I got to work in 30 mins! Whoo hoo! Another thing about the city that I learned (yesterday) is NEVER to take 17th avenue. NEVER EVER! My car cannot handle a hill that steep with a stop sign in the middle! I thought my car was gonna die. And I also realized that no matter how good of a driver I am, I cannot handle steep hills like that. I was shaking by the time it was over. Never again. Third thing about driving in the city I have now realized is how hard it is to find parking. Last night, Kevin, Christy, Jan and I (+my new fellow post-doc who just moved here from Japan) were supposed to meet at Hotei in the Sunset district to have dinner. I could not find parking to save my life. I drove around up to 4-5 blocks radius for at least 20 mins. Christy and Jan were already at the restaurant waiting for me and Kevin. It got so hopeless, Jan jumped into my car to help me locate parking (help from a local is always a good thing when finding parking!). We drove a little further, and eventually Jan spot an open space I would NEVER have seen. Never try to park in a popular part of the city during dinner time. NEVER!

Still love my apartment. Still happy, still lovin' life! Feelin' like the luckiest girl in the world these days! I finally put my vacation pictures onto my computer. I'll upload them when I have some time this weekend. I'll leave you with a few from Bali for today!

The water lily pond I mentioned in one of my posts about Bali. Raw, organic, and so beautiful.

The group of neighborhood boys playing in the pond, also mentioned in my previous Bali post.

Beach we visited, also in previous post. See the hint of black sand?

A small make-shift altar on the beach.

Black sand, black jacket fish, and a memorable boat exit

Good morning! It is the third full day in Bali at 7 am, and I assume my position in front of the ocean with my morning coffee for some peaceful me time. Yesterday was another amazing day with the family that I will never forget. In the morning, we took a boat out 20 mins to the shore of a nearby island to go swimming and hang out. Swam in the ocean all day long!

One of the little girls is up and wants to hang out! I'll have to continue later.

4 days later, back in Singapore...

I haven't had much time to blog since all of my time has been sequestered by the kids! And I wouldn't have it any other way! So I'll make this a quick one bulletting a few interesting things I have observed in Bali thus far:

Rural Balinese women can be quite educated, up to 12th grade. One set of masseuse we met in Bali was a younger group and were hilarious! The young generation spend their spare time at the beach hanging out with their friends.

Bali has 2 active volcanoes on the island. The last eruption was in 1963 (I think) and killed thousands and thousands of people. Because of the volcanic activities on the island, you can find black sandy beaches! They were really quite a sight to see! The black stones get harvested and can be made into concrete. Around Bali, you will find temples or big mansions with black exteriors, black walls, or black statues. The black stone and concrete are very very expensive and strong, and can only be affordable to the very rich.

When going around you will sometimes find a tall, flexible, decorative straw structure swinging and hanging in front of a home. This is a happy announcement, like a wedding in the family. Every family and business will typically also have a small alter in front of the home or the store with a statue of one of the gods. This is to help bless the home or the business with health, happiness, prosperity, etc.

My family tried to catch crabs off the terrace of the vacation home because there were so many of them!! We spent all afternoon taking turns hanging over the railings with a koi pond net, a pool cleaning net, and a string with a prawn tied to the end. All we caught were a single medium size crab and a tiny baby crab. That wasn't gonna feed even the fish in the koi pond! So we let them go. It was really fun to chase the crabs along the wall of the railing though!

The staff at the villa told me that when there are no guests, they fish off of that terrace! They catch these big black jacket fish that are smooth with no scales. The fish has a very thick black skin, hence the name black jacket. Supposed to be really yummy! Sometimes when they can't catch the fish off the railing, they get one of their friends on the boat to go out a bit further and catch the fish with a spear!!!! So cool! You have to fish for black jacket fish only around 7 in the morning, they're not around much longer after that.

My stories on Bali would not be complete if I didn't tell you about our adventurous day at the shore I started to 4 days ago. So we took a motorboat out to another part of the island where there was supposed to be a beautiful white sandy beach. We had so much fun playing in the ocean! I was in the water all day with the kids and one of my cousins. The water is PERFECT in southeast Asia! But i think the water is better in Bali than in Vung Tau, Vietnam, when I was there 2 years ago. The temperature of Bali water is a bit cooler and muuuuuch more clear! Theres nothing like the feeling of swimming in the ocean and floating with the waves...I have always loved it since I was young. Anyway, around 4 pm we started to head back to the villa. The water was starting to get quite choppy. Once we got closer to the villa, the boat was basically swaying harshly from side to side. The little girls (except my 5 year old niece who was totally passed out in my arms!) were screaming because they were scared the boat was gonna flip! So the boatmen tried to land the boat in the small sandy beach where they originally picked us up, but because it was high tide, the landing strip was no longer there! They circled around and tried to land us in 3 other places but the water was too choppy and the tide was too high for them to get to shore. Then we heard: "there's only one way out: we have to swim to shore!!!" imagine the reaction of a group of 5 little kids!! Screaming and crying followed that announcement! One of the boatmen, and the husbands jumped into the water, "kids first!! Kids first!" like it's the sinking of the Titanic!! The water came up to their shoulders and the kids reluctantly jumped into the water and onto their dads' shoulders and were taken to shore. I jumped into the water in my long summer dress because I thought this was the coolest funnest way to end our day at the beach! They were all yelling if I was okay, but I had already swam halfway to shore! My cousin had avoided getting wet all day at the beach but all that effort was useless because she now had to jump into the ocean to exit the boat!! Lol!! The 10 of us were drenched in water when we had to walk through a rural village for 10 mins to get back to our villa, like a bunch of escaping refugees! Lets just say that that was the most adventurous end to a nice day at the beach most of us have ever experienced!

Ok I should go, my cousin is having a big luncheon at the house with her Tai-tai friends In about an hr so I should probably get out of bed. Is tai-tai a derogatory word? Why do ppl laugh whenever I repeat it? Tai-tais are rich Singaporean housewives.

So much for a quick blog! Until next time.

Bali: the swank and the raw

It is the start of my second full day in Bali with my cousin and her husband, my nieces Annabelle, Elisa and Elody, and my cousin's best friend Yvonne's family. There's no doubt that it is amazing here, along with beautiful, hot, humid, the family time and the activities have been memorable and irreplacable. But my favorite times during this trip have been the mornings, at around 7 am when I wake up before everyone else, sit on the terrace of our vacation home facing the ocean, and have my morning cup of french press coffee. I have never experienced such peacefulness, from my direct view of the ocean, to the sound of the crashing waves and the birds in the background, to the warm taste of freshly made local coffee. During this time of my day, I reflect on my experience thus far on this trip, remembering the people I have recently lost and gained in my life, and how long I've waited for this particular trip to visit and spend time with my Singaporean family. So, this seems to be the perfect time to write.

I got to Singapore on Monday afternoon around 11:30 am and was picked up by my cousin chi Thuan and her little girls, Elisa and Elody. This was my first time meeting my nieces in person, although we Skype on a somewhat regular basis and the girls send me pictures they have drawn of me (not very flattering, but oh so fricken adorable). That night, we met up with my other cousin's family (chi Thao, anh WeeHann, their kids Annabelle, Lucas and Isabelle), whose kids I had met almost 5 years ago when I visited our family in France. Had a great dinner, and somehow convinced anh WeeHann to let Annabelle come with us to Bali the following morning! What a great night!

We flew out the next morning from Singapore to Bali for our 5-day long family vacation. It was a 3 hour flight, with a 1.5 hr shuttle ride from the airport to the vacation home in a more remote area of Bali, away from the hussle bussle of the typical tourist areas. Let me tell you, so far I have seen 2 sides of Bali --both of which I love and are so interesting! The first is the swank of Bali --what I mean is luxury living. We stopped during the car ride at a spa resort to have lunch and it was one of the most beautiful outdoor restaurant I have ever seen with the lush settings and tables in a courtyard connected to their own white sand beach. The scenery was gorgeous and very different from immediately outside the spa where the locals are riding around in their motorbikes among traffic, trash, and run down shacks for homes and businesses. When we got to the vacation villa, I am talking some serious.fricken.swank. There is no other way to describe it, especially for someone like myself who has been a student for most of my life and grew up in a less privileged home. This villa is of open concept, directly facing the ocean with an infinity pool. The villa comes with staff and a driver --all in a beautiful setting. My cousins have worked very hard to build their success from the ground up and from what I have learned about Asians in Asia so far is that they are a true example of working hard and playing hard. Singaporeans work normally 10-12 hours a day (their regular work day is 8-7 --traffic jam happens around 7:30 pm in Singapore). But when they go on vacation, they spoil themselves and their family --rightfully so because they absolutely earned it! Money is not a real object when Singaporeans go on vacation --they have worked so incredibly hard to earn that time off, and for them, it's worth it to spare the stress of money and just have fun. I really like that.

The second side of Bali that I love is the raw, organic, nature of rural Bali --the real Bali. Yesterday, we all went for a walk outside the compound and I witness one of the most beautiful things. There's a tiny water lilly pond about a quarter mile from where we were staying. It sits in front of a temple, and behind a small primary local school. It isn't at all fancy, it is in fact quite a dirty little lagoon --mirky water with plenty of algae to color the pond green and brown. At the far end was a group of 5 boys swimming and playing in the pond. They are dark, skinny, look like a bunch of neighborhood kids who were having the time of their lives. These kids' families probably see less money in a month than a kid in the USA have to eat lunch everyday. But they were so happy, so content, having so much fun. From what I could see, it didn't matter what status, what money, what level of education their had --they live a simple life having the essentials like enough food to eat, friends and family, a roof over their heads and that was enough. What do we, as Americans, have to always complain about? Why the stress? Don't we have more than enough? Isn't it enough to live, eat, laugh, cry, and be with the people we love and who love us? How can it ever be not enough?

Anyway, gotta go --time for breakfast and head out for the day. Family is all up and the kids are about to get reaaaal hyper!!! There's plenty more I've got to say, maybe tomorrow morning during my coffee.