Day 46

Hello friends and family! Hope all is well with you guys! I am still doing well just very busy with work sorry but here is the update on my life for the past week. Um Tuesday the American student as in me, Jubi, and Rachel went out for an American breakfast. We went to Wild Honey in Orchard which is one of the main shopping centers in the area. I had a breakfast burrito, I know this is mexican but still it was delicious and much needed. Rachel had the same thing, while Jubi had like an eggs benedict but it was on french toast that was stuffed with cheese and ham. Jubi and I went window shopping for a little bit and then we were so caught up with the idea about going to Australia that we came straight home and did research for almost the entire day. Wednesday was my day off as well and I did not do too much. I relaxed by the pool and read the Help. Jubi had me realize that we are underground for almost the entire day besides going to work and coming back so I figured it would be a good idea to actually relax outside for once which was nice. Friday we had Mexican! The restaurant was in an area where many expats go and there were so many places to eat there. Pretty much any type of food you could think of was in this like 5 block radius on top of shopping. It was a great place to people watch and we had about six of us that went from work.Other than that I have been working like crazy and finally one of the coworkers I work for has backed off on things like putting in pastry cream in a piping bag. However, he thinks the other trainee is crazy because apparently she is stubborn so now he always he telling me good job or coming up and asking me if I like working with him. All I want to say is no but how do you say that so I just mmhmm and finish what I was doing. At least the trainee and I find ways to make us smile and just enjoy the day! Here are a few pictures of the food above. Oh yesterday I was able to make more ice cream as in putting popsicle sticks in squares of ice cream it was so nice. I was in the freezer for an hour I believe and if it was not for my hands being so cold I could have stayed in there forever. Sunday is my only off day this week so Saturday I believe we are trying to get some people from work to go out again. Hopefully we will go bowling soon!!

Day 38

Well Saturday was so crazy I went to pretty much every where in Singapore kind of. I started out in Bedok which is about an hour away on the train from where I am staying. Jubi started to come with me but she is still under the weather so I just went out with one of the girl's from orientation. The day started out with getting breakfast which was boiled eggs, prata and kuay. The eggs are boiled but are soupy so I was supposed to drink it. This was the weirdest thing ever like it tasted not too bad because you put soy sauce and pepper in it but the texture was more slimy than oysters and I could not get past it. The prata is toast and like a sort of jelly I believe and then the kuay is an Indian bread kinda looks similar to naan. A curry was given with it which of course was a little spicy for me but when i dipped it in sugar as well it was delicious! The uncle of the restaurant gave us the royal treatment and cracked the boiled eggs for us. Yvonne told me normally you have to do it yourself but for some reason he wanted to do it for us. We had many instances where uncles wanted to be nice to me it kept the day interesting. After this I went back to Yvonne's HDB flat which is similar to our studios but no where near as nice. It was nice to go there because Yvonne shared with me her photos from when she was younger and I met her grandmother. After that we went to a wet market. It is called a wet market because there is fresh fish here and like fresh meat and chicken. There are stands that are for the malaysians because they have certain was their food needs to be prepared than how we have our food prepared. Then we went and had lunch and I tried bean curd. This is a dessert and is done two different ways, one way is putting the dessert in a sugar syrup which was not my favorite. They have a new way that makes the bean curd sweeter, this is similar to tapioca I believe. I also had some sticky rice with something on top but I forget but that was really good and I had a drink made with sugar cane. While we were eating one of the uncles at the hawker centre came up and started talking to Yvonne and had her translate what he was saying to me. She just kept laughing because this normally does not happen and she thinks it is because the area we were in not to many ang mo (white skinned) people are in the area. On the way back to the train from lunch another uncle was trying to give his corgi to me for free. I was so confused because I was not sure if he was serious or not and I wanted to cry because he was like I cannot feed my dog anymore and I need someone to take it home. After this we headed to the haw par villa. This is a an not run by the government and is owned by two brothers created in 1937. There are statues everywhere and apparently the people here believe the statues come to life at night because of the spirit in the area. Of course I was told this while I was entering the place so I kept thinking the statues were moving even though it was during the middle of the day. I learned so much while I was there it was a very cool experience! Then we went to the tea art near Chinatown. On the way there we passed the wedding photo places. Here couples spend thousands of dollars to take pictures in different dresses. Yvonne said some couples would rather have this than a dinner at their reception. The tea art was so much fun, the auntie showed us the proper way to drink and make the tea which was cool because this is normally in a lesson that they provide for like thirty dollars or something like that. For some reason we kept getting the royal treatment where ever we went it was funny. I told Yvonne that whenever she wanted the royal treatment she should have me come with so that she can get the treatment too. It was so nice to talk to someone else and experience their culture and she is willing to take me out soon again so I am looking forward to it. Today at work was intense. I was so frustrated all day due to being treated like a baby and someone that has never been in the kitchen. The person that we had watching out for us is normally not in charge of us and he decided that we needed to learn how to wrap things in seran wrap and how to put pastry cream in a bag. He is lazy and pulls us away from what we are doing so that he does not have to either clean or put away something. It was a very stressful day and tomorrow he is still in charge of us and then I am by myself on Saturday with him so hopefully it will not be too bad! The other team members kept laughing at me whenever I said I was going to this location and I guess they could really tell I was pissed today because everytime I saw them they always had a smirk come on. This department I am learning patience and working with people you cannot stand :). Above are some of the pictures from my day out around the town enjoy :D.

Day 34

Today was not too bad! It was not too eventful except they had burgers and hot dogs at the cafeteria for all the expats so that was exciting. One of the Chefs that I work with up in the Chocolate Bar I also see him for the new department I was in so that is fun, he always gives me a hard time but it is fun. I will miss these people so much it is not funny. The heat I will not miss at all and the food is okay but boy can I use some really good American food so if anyone wants to send me something it should be a chinese translator and american snacks like goldfish! :D However the burger was not as delicious as the ones in the states but hey it was still nice. I did not see any fireworks though and they are illegal here to get so I did not try to find anything. It was just me and one of the head guys of my department today so we were busy! I mentioned an idea of having chocolate chip and cranberry scones and we are still in the process of making them and hopefully they will be baked off tomorrow. It will be very busy this week though there will only be 2 out of 4 of us working this entire week and we have over 3000 cupcakes to make so this will be fun!!! Saturday though is something to look forward to though we are going out with one of the girels form orientation and she is taking us out to do things locals do here so I am excited so two long days of work and then a day of relaxation except the relaxation part. The above picture is my view of where I go for work except in the morning since now I am doing the morning shift, pretty insane! :)

Day 31

Saturday was a very eventful day unlike today. Jubi, Rachel and I went to Gardens by the bay which are some of the pictures posted above. We had a late start for the day because it decided it was going to rain on our parade, so we did not start our day until a little after one.We went down to work first because Jubi had an issue with her paycheck so Chef was like you guys are here on your day off get out of here haha. We went to the Harry Potter exhibition and Andy Warhol exhibition and it was amazing!!! I wish I could have taken pictures in the places because it was awesome. In the Harry Potter exhibition they had all the costumes and props and it was just cool remembering the movie and seeing the props. I did not want to get anything from the gift store but I caved on a coffee mug that said Dobby is a free elf! :D The Andy Warhol exhibition was very interesting and had I believe most of his works and each pictured said what he used to make it which was crazy learning how he made some of his artwork. The Garden by the Bay is insane! Anyone that goes there could spend all day there, there is so much to look at and really pretty flowers. There is a Chinese, Malay, and Indian Gardens and then a Meadow and more with two indoor forest in AirCon. After that we went and ate dinner at a hawker centre in Chinatown. It was already dark outside so we decided to just eat and head home. We all had chicken rice of course, it is something that your stomach will always be happy with. I however am really craving stingray and I seem to keep forgetting to look places up. Hopefully I will find time soon to go and walk around Chinatown and get some postcards. Since we were exhausted from being outside and walking so much Jubi and I came back and took an hour nap before we headed out to the club. They dress casual here for clubs but not too casual. However casual is not the same thing here as the states so we were very confused and we decided on just doing our best to dress right. When we got to the club not too many people were there but after a while people came in and we had a blast! We went with a few people from work and stayed there until 4:30. I did not realize what time it was until the club was over. There was also a cop raid in the middle of dancing, apparently they do this just to make sure everyone is 18 plus, but this took about 45 minutes and you could not move from the area you were in once the raid started. It was not too much of a big deal besides the music having to stop and a few random people getting asked for IDs and stuff. So today the plan was to go to Sentosa however this did not happen. Jubi and I did not wake up till about 2:30 in the afternoon and figured it would be a waste of money to go to Sentosa for half a day since there is so much to do there. Instead we just hung out with Rachel and got some food at a hawker centre and went in the pool. After swimming we were still hungry so we ended up at McDonald's again, sorry. We were going to delivery however it would take about an hour and a half. Tomorrow is a new department in In room dining and work starts at ten so hopefully my body will get me up tomorrow. Well goodnight everyone ttyl.