A simple update

I'm happy to say I'm finally recovering from a truly miserable few days of mucus, fever, sleeplessness, pain, and discomfort. There should be a global rule that a woman in her ninth month of pregnancy will not have to experience any illness, as she really has enough to deal with just trying to move, sleep, sit, eat. Sunday, the day that C and J arrived, was for most of the day the most miserable day I can remember since being in labor with C. It is just not right to be in pain or discomfort from head to toe for hours on end when you're not even in labor. Finally having my guys with me definitely made me feel better though, and I have been on the road to recovery since their arrival.

Monday morning we took a boat ride on the Singapore River. C, being a typical boy in many respects, loves any sort of transportation vehicle. I am 100% convinced that nature plays a huge role in who boys become versus who girls become, and that it begins very early. One of C's first words was "bus", even though the collection of toys and books at home were an assortment of general, gender neutral baby items and neither J nor I ever thought much about the passing bus on the street, etc. In any case, so C had to that point been on a bus, train, car, motorcycle (we do now live in a city spilling over with motorcycles, so it was inevitable) and airplane, but never a boat. Now he has been on every major form of mechanized transportation vehicle, and his world is complete. We had a very nice ride, admired more of the city, and saw the somewhat famous yet relatively young Merlion statue, the symbol of Singapore. Our boat ride departed from Clarke Quay, a trendy area of town along the river that is brimming with bars and restaurants. Evidently Singaporeans love to eat, so this city is full of good food. At Clarke Quay we saw a Scottish, Moroccan, Cuban, and Mongolian restaurant, to name a few. Unfortunately, neither in Singapore nor Jakarta does there seem to exist an Ethiopian restaurant, much to our dismay. We love Ethiopian food, but it appears that African food just hasn't reached Asia yet, at least not this part of Asia.

This morning we went to Chinatown and walked too much in search of a certain temple and both C and I were dripping by the end of it. Singapore is definitely a humid place. From what I've seen, Singapore also wakes up late. Most of the shops don't seem to open until 11, which is extremely frustrating. I guess if I didn't have a toddler who wakes me up early I might not feel that way - I do love sleeping late and lazy mornings. But that's not the case and to be forced to lose one's morning because nothing is open, when mornings are your most solid block of time because of C's afternoon nap, is frustrating. So anyway, instead of a bustling, vibrant, noisy Chinatown, it was a quiet, mostly closed, clean and not terribly interesting area. As the morning progressed we did start to smell some really wonderful odors wafting from several little Chinese restaurants. Unfortunately we weren't able to stay for lunch, but hopefully we'll be able to return sometime and find out if the food tastes as good as it smells. We did visit a couple temples which were quite striking and made me more interested in visiting China some day. The more interesting temple was Thian Hock Keng Temple. This temple, "the temple of heavenly bliss", used to be located on the shore before land reclamation occurred, and upon landing all boatloads of Chinese visitors and immigrants would come immediately to pay homage to Ma Po Cho, the patron goddess of sailors, for granting them a safe voyage. It was a lovely temple with beautiful and intricate carvings, burning incense and small areas for prayer scattered around the temple. We didn't have much time to explore it, but we're glad we made the long, hot trek to find it.

More Singapore sites to come according to the baby's schedule...