Thaipusam

A few weeks ago I got to watch a festival called Thaipusam here in Singapore. I'm not very good at explaining it, so I will refer you to wikipedia for that part: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaipusam

Here are a few pictures of the festival:



Sorry, not very much to this one. Just putting up some new pictures before I leave for the week. It's our recess week -aka spring break- here. Tomorrow I am headed off to Vietnam with a group of 8 other friends :) So, there should be more pictures hopefully when I return. My batteries are fully charged and ready to go.

Here's the mail that never fails, it makes me wanna wag my tail, when it comes I wanna wail maaaaiil

Thanks for all my letters and packages :) It has been very exciting. Below are a few pictures to share my excitement (sorry it's not all, haven't had my camera around for everything).

Here was my first package! It was a great treat that my parents sent. Inside was filled with napkins (they don't like those over here), movies to keep me entertained (I've already started watching Scruff- the movie on top), and Cindy contributed some delicious snacks to keep me alive (yay easy mac- I've already had 2 of them so far).

Today I received my second package for valentines day from my parents. The hearts on the left say 'e-mail me.' I was amused but a little sad. On the right is me struggling to open said package. I remember talking to my mom after the first mail experience and I shared with her that it was really difficult to open it with all the tape since I don't have any scissors, well apparently that transfers in her mind to "maybe I should make the next one even more ridiculously tougher to open." Thanks. So I thought I would share me with my key working hard. Don't worry, once I finally made it, it was worth it :) Goodies from cookies to a stuffed pink puppy.

I soon realized the puppy was just an organic 'Save Our Planet' trick...

Enjoying some amazing cookies

I also got a card from Erin today! Two things of mail in one day, life can't get much better than that. The cute puppy with the pink boa was in my package, and Erin sent the yellow puppy card.

Thanks a lot to everyone!!

Tanjung Pinang, Indonesia

This weekend the group went to an Indonesian island named Bintan. We have such rough lives here laying by the pool in between classes, so it was nice to sit by the beach and relax.

Welcome to the beach!

We got to stay on a shack on the beach. It was great not traveling anywhere - just wake up and nap in the sand. The picture on the left is part of the hut we stayed in. There were four separate rooms of two. My room is the one over the water :) The picture on the right is the view out of my window. It was great falling asleep at night listening to the water under us.

Here is my roommate for the trip, Stephanie, showing
off our sleeping(left) and shower(right) arrangements. We had a luxury room- most the others didn't even have a shower head, just the bucket and a scoop. It was nice, the water wasn't even too cold.