Hey everybody! Lots of things to do and talk about today! First things first, happy birthday Mom!!! I love you so much and I can’t wait to see you when I get back to the United States. I hope your birthday is unbelievable, so, here’s a card from Mai Chau village in Vietnam!
I just finished visiting Vietnam, so, naturally I’m going to blog about ship life a couple weeks ago and Singapore, haha. Anyway, I’ve written quite a bit about the Sea Olympics and the talent show. If you want to just skip to the part where I talk about Singapore and Jensen then scroll down until you see the lost mathematic functions…
I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned that when we got onto the ship we were divided into different seas. Well, we were; Stephen and I were put in the Baltic Sea. Now, most of the voyage being in a certain sea doesn’t matter other than for organizing everyone on the ship during immigration. However, every voyage hosts an event known as the Sea Olympics. You can imagine for yourself how awesome a day of friendly competition is on a ship in the middle of the Indian Ocean. But…if you don’t want to here’s a short description.
We woke up and attended an opening ceremony in the Union (the auditorium style classroom at the front of the ship). Each of the nine residential seas, and the final sea made up of faculty, staff, and dependent children presented a banner. Then each sea stood up and showcased their pep cheer (ours was finalized about 10 minutes before the competition). Our sea actually had a theme for the Sea Olympics…UFOs. Yup, just google Baltic Sea and you’ll understand. Having a theme for our chant and banner played well with the judges and we took 2nd place in the cheer, and 1st in the banner competition. Since we had already won the Global Studies review competition, the Baltic Sea was clearly in control of the scoreboard when we started actual events. However, the Aegean Sea had traded 1st and 2nd with us in the chant and banner competition. It basically set the tone for the day.
Before I talk more about how events went let me just say, the atmosphere of the Sea Olympics is just like a track meet. People from every sea were checking standings throughout the day and our counselors even put together a display showing which seas were in what position after each event. I got to play my part in the trivia, synchronized swimming, and hula hoop pass relays. In trivia our sea staged a dramatic comeback by tying the Aegean Sea for first despite not being I the top three with five questions left. Then, in synchronized swimming because several groups were docked points for not following the rules we snagged second place over the third place Aegean Sea (right behind us, big surprise right?). The hula hoop pass went poorly, we didn’t place and the Aegean Sea took 1st.
We traded events with the Aegean Sea all day, but just before dinner we hit a string of huge losses and the Aegean Sea won a couple events. With four events left we were down by 50 points with the possibility of scoring 60 at the maximum. Well, would you believe that heading into the final event we had cut the mark to 15 points (not that we knew at the time)? It was awesome…the final was a big Lip Sync dance competition between each sea. The Baltic Sea went first, and any fear of being forgotten during the event quickly went away when we saw what our Lip Sync team cooked up. You would not believe how many songs revolve around aliens, but they used every single one (except the Space Jam theme, that was for Synchro Swim). It was so boss that I can’t describe the routine; we were so excited that after every other sea we gave a standing ovation.
Unfortunately, the Aegean Sea pulled it out…they won Lip Sync and we took 2nd (though some of them did ask aloud how they won that event). The final results showed how much of a two horse race it was: third was the Sea-kers (the faculty, staff, and kids) with 70 points, we were 2nd with 165 points, and the Aegean won with 185 points. So, the Aegean Sea gets to leave the ship first…hopefully, we get off second. Stephen planned his flight home in the afternoon and he’ll cut it close.
Two days later we had another ship-wide event: the Talent Show. If any of you have been looking at other peoples’ blogs then you may have seen blog posts about the SAStreet Boys…and I might have been one of them. My cohorts in crime were Stephen Farley, Anthony Nguyen, Steven Lowy, and Josh Best. Admittedly, I know nothing about the Backstreet Boys (did you know two were from Kentucky?) except that I was a guy named Brian and we sang and danced to the song As Long as You Love Me. Three of our friends (Jira, Sophia, and Melissa) actually came up with the idea, and they called themselves our management team. Those three actually did the name justice, they choreographed our dance. They actually printed out posters and signs on show night, and they handed it all out to the audience. A lot of our female friends and some innocent by-standing girls acted like a group of crazy fan girls while we performed (whoever had the awesome idea to throw their scarf at me was hilarious).
It was…strange. Since then, I’ve been asked repeatedly if I’m a SAStreet Boy. No big deal right? But, totally serious we weren’t a big deal. That was the most talented showcase I’ve ever seen. I wish I had a video of all of it; the dancing, singing, instrumentals, comedy skits, monologues, everything! Never once during those three hours was I bored. Here are some lost mathematic functions…
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Okay, so thanks for sticking with me this far (or jumping ahead). Now I’m actually going to talk about Singapore. Most of you probably know that I have a friend living in Singapore while he performs his military obligation there (Shout out Jensen!). His mom, Mrs. Evelyn was nice enough to meet Stephen and me where we docked and then took us to her apartment (thanks again!). Plus, we got to try sugarcane juice and curry puffs, yess!!! The original plan had been to explore Singapore all day and then meet Jensen for about an hour once he got off work.
Good planning (and connections in the right places) was on our side though. Jensen got to meet with us at 11 AM and we went on an adventure for the rest of the day. We basically rode the MRT (the subway system) Jordan, Mason, Jarrod, Caleb, Parker, and Rutti, if any of you are reading this, the man is doing pretty well (other than having teeth pulled). We ate local food at the mall above Jensen’s MRT stop (mmm…the dish with eggs and something else was awesome), walked around the most expensive commercial district I’ve ever been to, the Orchard. It was the Ion Mall if you want to look it up on Google, the building is pretty neat. Plus, I got to see where Jensen worked the first few months back in Singapore (I still can’t believe you knew over 900 flavors of tea dude). Then we headed to Raffles Place and walked to a hotel which has a ship built across the top of its three towers.
There is an observation deck at the top on the 57th floor and we went out to see the city. I’m pretty skittish around heights, so, that was fun. After about ten minutes I was able to stand at the railing and it really wasn’t that bad. I’m considering it my warm-up for the Pearl Tower in Shanghai. That is one of the tallest buildings in the world, and the floor of the observation deck is glass… Singapore is an amazingly modern city though, and it’s very obvious from 57 stories up (as if the subway system throughout the entire island wasn’t an indication). Coming from India, Singapore looked as clean as a dentist’s office, though coming from any other country Singapore might still feel that way. Don’t forget this is the country where chewing gum is banned.
After the towers, we headed down to earth and rode the MRT to Chinatown. We walked around in the drizzle and ate at a local restaurant. One of the dishes was frog legs and it was awesome. Even better, we had steamed rolls with braised pork. I want that the next time I go to a Chinese restaurant in the USA. What are the chances I can find that, does anyone know?
After Chinatown we ended our day at Sentosa, which is the beach front (all imported from Australia of course), resort part of Singapore. We walked there from fairly far out and Jensen showed us the longest fountain in the world. It must have been the best slip-n-slide ever as a kid. We chilled on the beach for about thirty minutes, watched people successfully surf the artificial waves near the beach (we had been hoping for some less seasoned surfers), and capped the day off with a Milo milkshake from McDonald’s. Milo is like Nesquik, only better.
Jensen’s parents met us at the Harbor Front Mall to take us out for one last bite to eat. Do you sense a pattern? Singaporeans’ pastimes are to eat food and shop…maybe they’ll need a good dietitian in a few years. Anyway, we met Jensen’s parents at 7:50 and had decided we needed to be at immigration around 8:00ish. Dr. Goh walked around to different shops ordering food and we had just enough time to try everything once. The food in Singapore was so good (maybe that’s why it’s a national pastime)! After getting a few quick pictures, Jensen, Stephen, and I literally had to run through the mall to reach immigration in time. We said goodbye to Jensen, then headed to the ship (we made back on board with five minutes to spare before we would’ve gotten docked time in the next port).
I know the details aren’t that vivid in parts of this description, but that wasn’t really the important part of the day. It was more about catching up with Jensen and his family. I know God blessed me and my family when He brought you all into my life. Dr. Goh, Mrs. Evelyn, and Jensen thank you so much for your hospitality and love. I can’t wait for you to get back to the States Jensen, it’ll be freakin’ awesome (even if you will be a freshman)! Sometimes you remember who you really are and where you’ve come from, and then it makes you stronger. That’s why it’s an adventure…
Thanks, Jeff!
ReplyDeleteLove you, too, half-way around the world.
Now start heading toward home!
Love, Mom