the WU reborn

singapore photos

ok singapore photos are finally up.  sorry it's taken so long but i've been busy as hell since returning to milwaukee:

thursday was errands including getting eyes tested for new contacts.  tyan made some bang-up spaghetti, before heading off to a late night appointment for her work where she scored some new business. 

friday was jeremy and heidi's wedding.  congratulations guys!  nice ceremony and reception!

saturday was johnny mack's 31st birthday.  he had a hawaiian theme which was fun.  good to see all the peeps!  then i headed over to meet cory at a party, that turned out to be a bachelor party with a poker tournament.  this had to have been the most tame bachelor party i've ever seen.  most people were sober, and no female dancers.  we didn't even go out!  on the upside, i won the tournament, raking in $200.

sunday the fam went to chicago for dimsum, toulouse-lautrec exhibit, and dinner.  food not bad but no comparison to singapore.

today is monday and i have to go to the dry cleaners, the bank, the casino, and a concert.  will post photos of milwaukee when i can.

if you're in milwaukee and want to meet up, shoot me an e-mail at my gmail account.

omg i'm so lazy

quote of the day:

"Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life."

-Terry Pratchett

ok so still no photos from singapore trip this time.  they're sitting in my camera, waiting to leap into action.  me, i'm sitting here in this chair waiting to melt into it.  i'm back in milwaukee, and it feels weird.  tonight i had dinner with tyan and jay and silas at their new house.  they've done a lot of work and it's looking great.  the spaghetti was good too.

tomorrow is jeremy's wedding.  still time to bale out pal!

more photos soon, i promise

xoxo

wk

coming home

some old funny photos that i just got in singapore in the old soo photos album.  more recent ones from the trip coming soon!

the last days in singapore were relaxing and fun.  movies, scanning photos from grandma's photo album (thanks lih-jen), cooking a bit, and visiting relatives.  and of course, eating.  a bunch of us cousins went out for chili crab.  i need to learn how to make that stuff.  so good.

sunday around 4pm singapore time, wailap, melissa, and lih-jen dropped me off at the airport.  we had a bit of starbucks, then said our goodbyes.  i checked in my luggage, including a second bag given to me by my aunt.  she stuffed it with things to bring home for other relatives: slippers, a board game, clothing, grandma's curry powder, and tons of chili belacan (fermented shrimp chili sauce). 

the flight to taipei and the refueling were pretty uneventful.  i watched about 30 minutes of monster in law before i had to turn it off.  so boring.  then i played a little centipede.  singapore airlines has tons of movies on demand and video games, which makes the flights go by faster.  also, i had requested the hindu meal set, so instead of chicken chicken beef, i got curry daal chole, which was tasty.  i got a laugh when i ordered a scotch with one of those meals.  if i fly SQ again i'd probably do the same thing.

my plan for jetlag is what i always do: set my watch for the time where i'll be arriving, and act accordingly.  getting on the plane at 5pm sing time is really 2am vancouver time.  however, i couldn't sleep.  on the flight from taipei to LA though, when i was supposed to be awake, i slept.  this left me wide awake arriving in LA with a nine hour layover. 

i decided to make the best of it and after changing in all my canadian and singaporean dollars for greenbacks, i took a cab to hollywood park casino in inglewood.  the cab ride was $15, and the driver was bitching about how short of a ride it was and how if he was going to work the airport, he needs to get people who want to go downtown instead of the short rides to places like the casino.  i told him i could get out and let him find someone better if he wanted.  he said no, that's ok.  then i suggested we drive around the parking lot a few times to rack up the fare.  he laughed about that. 

the casino spreads a lot of poker games, and i found myself in a $200 buy in 3-5 NL game.  most of the people there are aggressive and loose.  i would raise preflop with AJ, get called by a guy with J9, flop J42 and he would pay me off for all his chips.  i didn't catch any cards, but still managed to make a few hundred before heading back to LAX.

the plane ride from LA to vancouver was cramped and annoying.  baby crying, gurneys smashing into my shoulder, etc.  also, my luggage is lost.  however, it's at the airport now, and nobody is there to answer the phone.  thus, my previously frozen belacan continues to thaw.  i hope it lasts a few more hours.

wednesday i have to make my way to seattle for a flight ot milwaukee.  i'll be there for 3 weeks for 2 weddings and some birthdays.

movies

as singapore is so damned hot and humid, i've been watching a lot of movies in sweet, wonderful air conditioned places.

Amores Perros (Love's a Bitch)  8/10.  I liked this subtitled Mexican film quite a bit.  The same guys later did 21 Grams.  It's a bit like Pulp Fiction in that three different stories are loosely linked to one another and there is a bit of time jumping.  Overall, it showed a realistic, glamourous, but gritty side of life.  In some small ways, it reminded me of City of God.

Dalkomahn insaeng (A Bittersweet Life)  6.5/10.  Korean film, subtitled.  Old school John Woo style film with some great cinematography.  I was highly entertained.

The Cave  3/10.  Nothing new here really.  Monsters in a cave, bad dialogue, diving, and it stars Cole Hauser (think: bad guy from 2 fast 2 furious).  Watch this one only if your date insists on it, and then only if you are too late to see any other movie, and then only if she's very cute.  Otherwise, it's probably not worth it.

Triplets of Belleville  7/10.  Somehow I managed to miss this animated comedy when it was in the theater.  I'm glad that I finally caught it.  Any movie that includes such subtle ironies as The Tour de France + people eating frogs is ok with me.

That's it for now.  Happy viewing!

discovering singapore

i decided to extend my stay here in singapore by about ten days.  originally, i was only going to be here for 96 hours, and frankly i was a dreading the visit.  in addition to coming back under such morbid circumstances, singapore is infamously hot, humid and crowded. 

although i was born here, i've never really spent a lot of time here, and consequently have not built much of a relationship with most of my overseas relatives.  the ones that i have gotten to know were mostly on my mother's side, because she seems closer with her siblings than my father is to his, and also some of them (her sibs) live in north america.

it's difficult to be close or act familiar or familial with people who live 15k miles around the world.  for those of you who know me well, you know that i wear my thought and feelings on my sleeve (unless i'm at a poker table), so i've never been that great at faking interest for an extended period of time.  with a few exceptions, i've really had nothing in common with most of my dad's side, and some of his siblings or people related to them have been quite blunt and unkind in the past, leaving me (of a younger generation) unable to fight back (because of a need to respect elders), and thus alienated.

this trip has been different though.  I've re-met a few of the cousins on my father's side, now as adults, and we've found that we get along quite well.  we've been hanging out watching movies, chatting, shopping, laughing, and of course eating.  i even made dinner for that whole side of the family the other night.  one of my aunties is remarried to a white guy from england, and needless to say he's been having a bit of a hard time with the spicy food, so i decided to make a western dinner, which went over quite well. 

the reaquaintances have been a very nice surprise, and it's left me contemplating how such a good thing could have sprouted from a family tragedy.  what was before about the worst thing i could think of (travelling 26 hours only to hang out with mourning people who have no interest in knowing me and vice versa) has turned into a pleasant vacation.  not much in life surprises me anymore, so this was quite something.  anyway, i'm grateful to have had another chance with them, and i hope that we are able to meet up more often moving forward.  a few of them live in australia, so that's a good excuse for me to visit there, as i've never been.

thankfully, not much else has changed about my impressions of singapore.  i don't know what i would do if they were suddenly hit by a cold front and i didn't need to shower 3x a day.  food is still amazing and ridiculously cheap, and booze is still ridiculously expensive.  about half of the people i speak to here seem content, but a few would like to move elsewhere.  for me, i wouldn't be back except to visit family, but for now that's reason enough.  i'm going to try to make it back annually, and tie a side-trip to a neighboring country each time if possible.

last minute trip

my grandfather is extremely ill, so i am leaving for singapore tomorrow.  i'll be there for a little less than a week.