Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to you all! (or, at least to those of you who celebrate Christmas). As I mentioned in my last posting, Christmas is alive & well in Singapore. There are even more decorations up now, and Christmas music is being played in every mall and out on Orchard Road. There is a huge tree out in front of Tanglin mall, with all of the gifts from the Twelve Days of Christmas song hung as ornaments. And, during a 30 minute period during the evenings, they have snow machines blowing snow out for all the kids to play in. I saw tons of people gathering for it, but I was in a taxi – I didn’t get a chance to see if it was real snow. I’ll have to check on that.

Work has also put up tons of Christmas decorations, including a tree in the lobby. We’re even going to have a Christmas party this Friday, complete with a Secret Santa gift exchange.

I am also happy to report that I didn’t miss out on another American holiday – Thanksgiving! I was worried that I may not be able to find any turkey (other than the turkey sub at Subway), but one of my co-workers did a little digging & found a Thanksgiving dinner. Two of my co-workers came along for their first Thanksgiving dinner ever.

We made reservations at this restaurant, and showed up on time. But, we wound up waiting 45 minutes anyway. Finally, we got our seat, and ordered the Thanksgiving special. A few minutes later, they came out & told us that they had run out of Turkey! They asked if we wanted something else, and we said no. We just got up & left. I bet they wished they hadn’t poured that wine.

Fortunately, there was a plan B. There’s a microbrew called Brewwerks down at Clark Quay (a super fun collection of restaurants & bars along the Singapore river). They were having a Thanksgiving buffet too. So, we high-tailed it down there, and had a great meal. They had both turkey and ham, as well as a couple kinds of pie, so it worked out even better than the first place. My friends seemed to enjoy their first Thanksgiving too.

Last weekend, I went to ZoukOut – a 12 hour long dance festival on Sentosa. Normally I’m not a huge dance club guy, but this was an event that couldn’t be missed. Zouk is one of the biggest dance clubs in Singapore, and for this festival, they took over several hundred yards of beach from 8pm to 8am. There were 5 stages going all night, as well as lots & lots of drink & food stands. It was pretty commercialized – even Intel had a booth there.

I wandered around, checking out the various stages, until 2am – when the act that I came for started. DJ Jazzy Jeff! No, the Fresh Prince wasn’t there, and he didn’t play Parents Just Don’t Understand. But, it was cool to see him. And, since I was alone by that time (my friends got tired & left at 1:30), I was able to work my way up through the crowd, until I was about 20 yards from him.

After that, I was getting kind of tired, but I had to try the trampolines. They had several set up, with bungee cord harnesses. So, I bounced around for a little bit & did a few flips. It was really tiring! I’m definitely not a gymnast. So, I decided to head home around 4am. Getting home was a challenge. I got off of Sentosa with little problem, but then getting a taxi home was a major pain. Heh... taxis.

Well, it’s a little less than 3 weeks until I fly back into US airspace. I’m looking forward to seeing many of you. For those of you in Texas, California, Arizona, London, or wherever… please book your tickets to Minneapolis now. :-)

p.s. - Mom & Dad - This is what I want for Christmas!