Our curry Christmas...

As I'm writing today I have to say I'm not feeling the best. I am covered from head to foot in very itchy mosquito bites (it seems mosquitoes all over the world think I have tasty blood) and I'm feeling a bit sorry for myself that I can't be in Jervis Bay with my friends frolicking on the beach and eating fish and chips. Oh well, at least it is a long weekend in Vientiane (which I intend to use to catch up on sleep and celebrate the New Year!) and I have some great stories to share about my time in Singapore for Christmas :-)
To be honest, I spent most of the week before I left for Singapore counting down the minutes - not the most productive week at work :-) Chris and I left Vientiane early Saturday morning, and swapped for our Singapore Airlines flight in Bangkok - it was pretty good, although I thought Qantas was just as good (so much for being the worlds best airline!) We got to Singapore at 8pm, and were picked up by Adra and her brother Sherman at the airport (Sherman is a very cool dude - we spent most of our time in Singapore cruising around in his fully sick car :-)) You might be thinking - 8pm, might start thinking about bed in an hour or two. Not a chance in Singapore. We went for a cruise down Orchard Rd (which is the main shopping district, and was covered from end to end in elaborate Christmas lights) and then joined up with Adra's parents for dinner at about 11! It's truly a 24 hour society - they don't seem to do sleep very well, and there are many shopping centres open all the time. I didn't have any culture shock - I was just so excited to be back in a Western culture (even if it's a interesting Western-Asian fusion which speaks an abbreviated form of English - good enough for me!)
Consequently, we didn't get out of bed until about 11 the next day. Sherman drove us to Changi Chapel and Museum, where we went for a tour. It was an amazingly depressing and sober experience - even more so because I know my grandfather lived through it. I left a note and a candle in the chapel for him. To tell you an short version of my grandfather's story - after fighting in Malaysia in WWII, he was withdrawn to Singapore and was there when it fell to the Japanese in December 1941. He was one of 40,000 POW's marched to Changi Prison (of which only half survived). After three months there, he was sent to work on the Burma-Thailand Railways (or the Death Railway as it is known - because again, only half of those working on it survived) and spent two years here. Being judged one of the 'fittest', he was placed on a ship to Japan to work in their factories. The boat was torpedoed on the way to Japan by the US, and sunk. The Japanese refused to rescue the POW's, so he was left for dead on a raft with fifteen other POW's. Three days later, when a US submarine rescued him, he was the only one left on his raft. It's a pretty amazing story - because he survived this, I am here today (my mum was born after the war). Next year Amy and I will visit the Death Railway in Thailand :-)
After this, we went to Little India and wandered around in the rain (since its monsoon season in Singapore now). I had my eyebrows threaded (basically plucking your eyebrows but they use a thread instead! Its amazing!) and my hand decorated with henna, and visited a Hindu temple. We wandered around Raffles Hotel for a while (the first hotel in Singapore), had Malaysian stingray for dinner (yummy!!!) and then went for a spot of late night shopping and Christmas performance watching on Orchard Rd.
Christmas Eve saw us at Sentosa, which is an 'recreational island' (basically a big amusement park). It was pretty tacky and touristy, and very expensive :-) The best attractions we went to were the Skyride up the mountain and the Luge back down, and the Butterfly Park. The WWII fort on the southern side of the island promised to be interesting, but was ruined by talking wax dummies. We made our way home in time for midnight mass at Adra's church, and then drank and ate with Adra's family until 3.30 in the morning....I told you they don't like to sleep (as opposed to Laos, where everything is shut by 12)...
Christmas saw us at Adra's uncles house, with a whole lot of Adra's relatives (I've never been to such a big Christmas dinner!) We had curry for lunch and dinner, which was just bizarre on Christmas - but there was a chocolate fountain and piles of fruit, which was fantastic :-) It was a great Christmas, and I'm really glad I was able to share it with Adra - if I was in Vientiane for Christmas, I would have been working!
On Boxing Day, we were so stuffed from three days of running around that we only managed to have breakfast in Adra's suburb and wander around like zombies for a little while before we were on the plane back to Vientiane. I think Chris and I will be taking things a lot easier for the next two months - at least until Julie gets here in March! Travelling requires lots of energy and money, and we're short of both :-)
On Friday night Sunlabob had its New Year party, so work was over by 3 and the party started :-) We had a live Lao band, two cows on a spit and plenty of beer, lao lao and whisky going around. It was fantastic , except the music was so loud we couldn't hear anything else.
Just before I leave, I wanted to share what I learnt in my Lao lesson this week (I am slowly understanding more Lao, but still don't have the confidence to speak it yet). I wanted to know why so many Lao expressions end with the word 'jai' (for example, kawp jai - thank you, and kao jai - I understand, sai jai - I care). My tutor, Toula, told me that jai is actually the word for heart, so the expression 'I understand' actually means 'it enters my heart' and 'I care' actually means 'it is put in my heart'. What an interesting language!!
Its usually this time of year where you think about how far you have come in the last 12 months. This year I've moved into a lovely apartment in Neutral Bay, finished another session of an excruciating Masters degree (only one more to go!), and then moved back out of the lovely apartment to come to a lovely country and fulfil one of my dreams - amongst other things. I hope that the New Year sees Chris and I settle into Vientiane more and find some good friends here - we never realised how amazing our support network was in Australia until we came here and had none. We miss you all more than you realise.
Sabai bpii mai! (Happy New Year!)
Susan