I miss Giant Eagle

Squeezing in one last post before the month of May ends to make up for the lack of recent activity! It's been two weeks since we've gotten back from our trip to the states and... man. A lot of locals here who go abroad will tell you that they always miss the local cuisine (nasi lemak, mee goreng, chicken rice etc.). I'm a traitor - I miss American food.

Really though, look at the selection we have imported here and tell me you don't miss it too just looking at what America has to offer. Or Ohio's Giant Eagle supermarket anyway.

The love of my life.

I love my snacks, so I'm going to highlight just three kinds of snack food that stood out to me the most by the sheer difference of variety available between the two countries:

Poptarts

Exhibit 1.1: Poptart selection in Ohio USA Giant Eagle

Exhibit 1.2: Poptart selection in Singapore. wat

That's right. One miserable little shelf of poptarts, in only five flavors. That's the most we have here in Singapore. Sure, maybe varying sizes of the different supermarket chains here may carry more variants of the products, but you're never going to get an entire bay of poptarts like the one above in Giant Eagle. I had to stop myself from photographing each and every box cover for the amount of flavors they carried. It was amazing.

Cereals

Some of the cereals in Ohio. I WANT THESE SO BAD.

Singapore's selection. Yay, plain boring cereal!

 ...okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration; we do carry more than just corn flakes. I do wish we had more exciting flavors like those four featured up there though. I would kill to be able to get Reese's Puffs any day I wanted. And for only 3USD! Cereals here are about 4 - 7USD per box (and man are the boxes tiny), and those are just for kid brands. The adult cereals can go for almost 6 - 12USD per box! I'm not paying that much for fibre.

 Chewing / Bubble gum

Ohio. Again, a complete bay dedicated to an entire sub-category of kind-of-food!

If you find these in Singapore, someone's going to jail for it.

Totally serious. Chewing gum is actually banned in Singapore and you may even get fined for just having it on your person. (Michi chewed so much gum nonstop from the instant she landed in Ohio until we got off the plane in Singapore, it was kind of scary.)

I'll let you read up on why it was actually banned and let you be the judge of whether that move was really necessary. Remember to appreciate your local supermarkets!

edit: 12/06/11 - Found the photo we took of our shopping cart! Good times...

Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Keeping History Alive!

During our time in Ohio, Pris and I had pretty full days of visiting family and friends and dealing with the business end of things, which didn't leave as much time as we'd hoped for visiting actual sites. Luckily, we did manage to squeeze in an afternoon at the Natural History Museum, no doubt my favorite in Cleveland, though there's definitely no shortage of other museums in the area. If you have more time than us, you might want to add a few more hours and check out the Art Museum and Botanical Gardens right within a few minutes walk of the Natural History Museum.

The highlights of the museum are always the same for me, so a good 2/3 of our pictures were taken in the dinosaur and animal exhibits, but there are also rooms dedicated to geology, space, gemstones and the like, so you can definitely spend a few hours wandering, very worth the $10USD entrance fee.

(this beauty greets you right at the entrance)

There's one other pretty interesting (and hard to miss) exhibit permanently showing in the museum worth a look at, called the Foucault Pendulum. Used to visibly demonstrate the Earth's rotation, the pendulum makes a complete turn every 36 hours, so if you're willing to stand around a few minutes to watch you'll see a few dominoes falling over which the staff constantly has to put back standing. 

(we're way too restless for that though, so we didn't see anything fall)

Although I may be biased, I'd wager the best exhibit is the dinosaur room, by far. The museum puts up a good show with plenty of life sized models and a few rare artifacts to boot. If you're not interested in the shifting of tectonic plates or soil, this room alone makes the whole trip worth it, and is pretty much the reason we chose this museum as our only stop of the sort, since both Pris and I have a soft spot for old bones.

Alright, the more recent animal room is pretty likely to impress as well. But c'mon, look at that gorgeous beast up there.

(yeah it's nice looking, but there's no t-rex here)

I'm afraid to say we more or less breezed through the rest of the exhibits, because as interesting as natural history is, we just can't spend long looking at soil samples and gemstones.

(a little peace offering to those who do like this stuff)

All in all, it was a nice relaxing way to spend an afternoon considering most of the rest of our trip we barely had time to breathe. Just be thankful we haven't given into the temptation to talk all about all the great US foods we brought back. (...yet.)

The Japanese are insane (in a good way)

Hello again! (If anyone's still reading this?!) We're really sorry we haven't been updating so much as of May! We just got back from our vacation to Michi's hometown in Ohio and then straight back into work and unpacking and all that lovely stuff, so things have been real hectic. We should get regular again starting this June though!

There's so much to blog about but (1) my laptop broke (it's the one with the photoshop program so... no nice pictures anymore until I get it fixed) (2) we have too many pictures, so I'll make a really short post about... Japanese toilets.

...no, seriously. Japanese toilets.

Japanese airport toilets, in any case. We had to make a transit in Narita/Haneda on our way back to Singapore, and with a twelve hour layover there really wasn't much to do but admire the toile-- I'm kidding. But really, look at that toilet. Porcelain white and clean and smelling like cleaning agent, no spills on the floor, nothing. Perfect toilet. Except... what the heck is that thing sticking out on the side, you say? No way, a remote control? For the toilet?

Now with butt, intimate, and fake actions!

Yep, that's what it is. A remote for the toilet, and pressing a button either plays a flushing noise (for the embarassed ladies who don't want others to hear them do their doo-dah), washes your intimate areas, or jettisons your rear end. And let's not forget the stop button to put an end to any of that. There's even a water pressure selector and a volume control! It even comes with instructions for those of us who unfortunately don't have one of these beauties in our homes:

...needless to say, we tried it out. The verdict? Pretty cool to look at and to hear about, but not really that great of a deal and really unnecessary overall. In fact, the bidet and butt-washing functions felt more like someone was gently peeing upwards onto my nether regions with cool, clean water than doing any actual cleansing. Still cool though in any case, I mean, how many people do you know have sat on one of these?

And that was just one toilet cubicle. This is the handicapped washroom. Isn't it the most awesome handicapped washroom you've ever seen?

Purikura/Neoprints in Singapore

Purikura Machines (short for "Purinto Kurabu", or "Print Club" in Japanese) were all the rage a decade ago in most Asian countries, and still prove to be a popular hit with the female Asian youth of today. The Purikura Machine is pretty much a glamorized version of a standard photo booth - it takes your picture, runs it through several filters that will make any camwhore shed rivers of envy, then lets you prettify it with cutesy graphics and cool Engrish phrases before printing them out into ready-to-stick glossy miniature photos (more commonly referred to as "neoprints") that you can share with friends or paste on letters to pen pals.

Here in Singapore, these neoprint machines are normally found in most popular shopping complexes, usually in buildings which have cinema theaters in them. The one we frequent is in Bugis Junction and the shop is often crowded with schoolgirls and women with their unfortunate boyfriends:

...well, except today. Today wasn't as busy. Which was good for us.

 We're both pretty camera-shy people and kinda self-conscious about how we look, but the fun of taking the pictures and decorating them afterward pretty much outweighs whatever confidence barriers we have. This is how a neoprint machine works:

Click for a larger view and more explanations!

It's pretty simple: You go into the booth, insert your coins (normally 11 - 13 SGD), take 5 - 6 shots of yourself and/or your friends; exit the booth, go into the decorating booth, decorate your images, and then collect your photo from the print out station located at the bottom of the side of the machine. You're given about five seconds to pose for each shot, so get ready!

You can choose to mimic the poses the models adapt on-screen or come up with your own poses beforehand. After you've taken your shots, you're allowed to select which few you would like to send for printing. Once that's confirmed, it's on to the decoration!

You even get to choose how many shots you'd like printed! You can't decide exactly WHICH shot gets printed in what size, unfortunately.

The unfortunate thing about Purikura Machines is that every single one of them is in Japanese. There are no translations, no subtitles, and selecting the types of lighting/decoration you want to use involves a lot of guesswork or familiarity with the machines. Most of the machines run on a time limit too before the shots are sent to print, so try to get all your pictures decorated evenly before focusing on any single one. The decorations vary widely depending on the Purikura Machine used, and some of them offer much wider ranges of backgrounds/borders/accessories than others.

If you don't mind showing your face to the world, there's a little board on the far wall that lets you stick up your neoprints for everyone else to see!

It's really all about luck and experimenting if you want to take the "perfect neoprint". For now I'll just take my pleasure in chronicling how long my hair gets with each successive picture we take.

Michi was quite happy with how this set of photos came out, though~

Visiting Sri Mariamman Temple

Sri Mariamman Temple is probably a site Pris and I should have blogged about long ago, as not only it is one of the most popular sites for tourists in Singapore, but it's also about a thirty second walk from my office. Although I've had the chance to walk past this amazing temple twice a day, five times a week for almost a year now, I've never bothered taking the time to really appreciate it until this week.

 (even the entrance is gorgeous)

Fortunately, with our trip to Ohio only about a week away now, Pris and I happened to stop at Chinatown outside of work hours to finish off a little shopping for family and friends. While we were there we thought it might be worthwhile to spend a bit of time inside the temple, definitely one of our better stops!

(it's really okay to enter! don't be one of the dozens of tourists milling around outside without daring to step in, they don't bite!) 

This is actually the oldest Hindu temple in Singapore, and since it became a National Monument in 1973 it's also been one of the most visited sites in the country. The temple itself is open to all, no matter your religion, but everyone is required to follow the Hindu ritual of removing their shoes before entering as a sign of respect. As there is no storage or check in for shoes, they will be left outside the temple entrance, so do make sure you aren't wearing your favorite pair, just in case. Photography and videography is allowed for a small fee (3 SGD for a camera, 6 SGD for video), and it would be well worth your time to purchase the ticket.

 (this is the ticket you get allowing you to take pictures)

As soon as you enter, you are surrounded by beautiful colors and paintings, statues and religious articles. Take all the pictures you'd like, but do be sure you don't pass the ropes sectioning off the area only for those offering prayers.

(we picked a good time, i think we were the only ones taking pics in the temple while visiting)

 The entire ceiling is covered with paintings of Hindu deities. While some of the pictures are definitely a little out of the ordinary, the colors they use are very eye grabbing. The temple is very well maintained as well, you're not likely to come across any faded statues or paintings here.

(you'll need to see these in person to really appreciate them, they're a thousand times more gorgeous when you're staring up at them)

After you've had your fill in the inner part of the temple, you're also free to explore the courtyard. There is a metal gate at the side of the courtyard most tourists stop at and take their pictures from, but I promise you'll get better shots and a much better experience by just going in. The courtyard is surrounded by colorful statues of yet more deities. 

 (as much as i enjoyed the temple, i'm afraid i couldn't name any of these beauties)

  (full view of the courtyard)

If you time yourself properly, you may get lucky enough to wander in during prayer time, as we did. I'd highly recommend stopping in during those times for a chance to see a few traditional outfits and rituals.

 (these guys were part of the ceremony, and nice enough to give us permission to snap a few shots!)

Chinatown overall is a hotspot for temples and other interesting sites in Singapore we'll likely be posting more of soon, but Sri Mariamman Temple in particular is one stop you don't want to miss.

 (if nothing else, it's worth the trip to get a picture of this one. she really wants you to visit)