Why am I HERE?!

It's funny to look through this blog and see how it's transformed over the 3+ years that I've been writing. It started out as me standing on a soapbox, ranting about my life and the wonders of the universe, and it has transformed into a travelers blog. Ironically enough, "Why I'm Here..." is still a suitable name for the blog; although, some would argue that I should change it to "Why am I HERE?!".

I started this blog because I was staring at a computer screen all day with no one to talk to. Back then, I really had way too much time on my hands to think about the mysteries of life, and as I go back and read some of my old entries, there's no way that the married, Singaporean Chad today could/would say some of those things. My life and views have changed so much since Oklahoma that it's hard to empathize with the weirdo that once wrote an ode to his coffee. 

Don't get me wrong, I still love my God, my mother, and my coffee, I still cringe at the thought of babies, and I still have the reading (listening) level of an 8th grade girl. But it would be interesting to go back and take some of the same topics that I wrote about in 2009, and write about them in my present frame of mind. The posts wouldn't be near as long or in depth, that's for sure. These days, I never have time to sit and write, but I really have nothing interesting to say anyways, so I guess it doesn't matter.

Anyways, like I said, always moving and no time. 

Tra and I are doing great. She loves her job; Polo has been really good to her in Singapore. I am still always going somewhere new or extreme, and occasionally she will get to join me in my travels for a weekend. We have a melting-pot of friends ranging from Americans, Aussies, Europeans, Indians, and of course, plenty of Asians. This weekend we are going to an Indian/Chinese wedding in Cebu, Philippines, and we will be attired in full Indian formal wear; it's going to be awesome!

Here are a few photos from my recent travels...

You can write on the Great Wall, right?...

Earning brownie points at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing

Hanging out at the Emperor's Summer Palace in Beijing

At a customer dinner in Beijing. These little fellas are still alive and trying to get off their skewers. Bleh! 

In Shanghai with one of my salesman, Harry. He's a happy person.

At a medicine shop in Guangzhou, China - Penis Cervi and Deer Placenta Cream. All natural! 

The beautiful lights of Tokyo, Japan.

Japanese think of everything. A "Flushing Sound" in the public restrooms for the nervous pooh-er. 

Bay view of Vung Tau, Vietnam. A beautiful island off the coast of Ho Chi Minh City. 

In Vietnam, you close your eyes and cross the street. There are very few crosswalks and motorcycles will run you over 

The tallest building in the world; the Burj Khalifa in Dubai

About to do a little cave exploration in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia with the Mrs. 

Monkeys just monkeying around at the caves. Tra wouldn't get close enough to take a pic with them. 

Hanging out on the roof tops of Hong Kong

Jello Needles in the alleys of Hong Kong with Karen and Danny. They're actually the happy couple getting married in Cebu this weekend!

I had to endure a golf tournament in Bali, Indonesia last week for work. Just hideous views. 

I had to listen to this one complain the whole trip as well. Look at that angry face; she has such a tough life. 

Lastly, the golf tournament required us to attend a lavish banquet one evening and get fancy, so we obliged. 

When in China...

One of the coolest parts of my job is how much I get to travel. Since, I cover the entire Far East, I'm pretty much going in and out of every country over here. Well, I recently made a trip to China. I traveled to Hong Kong, Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai.

The first part of the trip was business and the second part was pleasure. The business part of the trip was filled with meetings every single night. That may not sound like it takes a lot of effort but, a traditional Chinese business meeting has many different parts. There is the initial meeting in the office, there is a Chinese dinner (about 15 courses) accompanied by Chinese drinks (a liquor that is somewhere between 50-60% Alcohol), and then, something called "Round 2"; one of the nights we ended up at a BBQ stand where I ate a chicken's foot (terrible) but, normally, it's karaoke. Yup, a bunch of grown men just sitting around singing their hearts out {insert Chinese stereotype joke here}. This may come as a shock to you, but I'm not exactly known for my vocal abilities. However, when the head guy of a Chinese oil company, that's responsible for a $5 million order, wants to hear a boot-wearing-Texan rock out to some Kenny Rogers' "The Gambler," you give him a big YEEHAA!

After my liver had practically shut down from 4 consecutive nights of business meetings, it was time to do a little sightseeing in Shanghai. Earlier that week, Tara accepted a job in Singapore; Ralph Lauren created a position for her based in Singapore doing similar retail marketing work as her old job. As a celebratory gift to her, I decided to fly her up to Shanghai and spend the weekend touring the area. Ironically, my father-in-law happened to be in Shanghai on business the same time I was scheduled to be there. I didn't tell him that Tara was coming up, so she got to surprise her dad by turning up unannounced. We all enjoyed a very good dinner that evening, and the next day, we actually found a Texas BBQ place that was started by some guys from Austin; giant relief to have a break from the local food.

Tara and I spent the better part of three days exhausting all of the tourist attractions that Shanghai has to offer. From the shopping district, to the temples, to every sky-lounge open to the public, we saw it all. One of the days we took a bullet train to a city just outside of Shanghai called Suzhou. Suzhou is a smaller, touristy town that is known for it's beautiful Chinese gardens. We also found a museum there and an old touristy avenue filled with carnival-like sales booths. Tra and I both agreed that Suzhou was the best sightseeing part of the weekend.

During my time here so far, I've also traveled to Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, back to China, and lastly I had the pleasure(?) to visit India. These trips weren't as note-worthy as my first trip to China. I really like Korea (especially the Korean BBQ - soooo good!); it's actually a beautiful country. Kuala Lumpur reminds me of a dirty, unsafe Singapore. I go in and out of Indonesia and Malaysia with my friends quite often to play golf; really, really awesome golf. And India is ever bit is cool as it sounds; no grass, dirty, cows roaming everywhere, poverty to the extreme, over crowded, very hot. However, being from Texas, I love spicy food, so I actually really enjoyed the food in India.

That's about it. Here's a few of the thousands of photos (I am my mother's son) that we've taken during our travels...

The 58% Alcohol Liquor

Chicken Leg - couldn't get the taste out of my mouth for 2 days 

Texas BBQ place in Shanghai - GOOOO TECH!! 

Life size wax sculpture of Yao

Sky lounge 1 of 20 in Shanghai

Garden outside of the Suzhou museum

Paper cut out of us done on the streets in Suzhou - Our eyes are rounder than that but when in China...

Fancy dinner at another sky lounge in Shanghai

Fashion district

Chinese Garden in Shanghai

Radio tower in Shanghai - Yeah, we went to the top

View from my hotel room in Korea

 Korean BBQ - Stupid good!

Twin Towers in Kuala Lump

Golf in Malaysia

Golf at a different course in Malaysia

Golf in Indonesia

Favorite picture from my travels.... duh.

A Singapore-ian(?) Update

I'm about to start a new series similar to The Proposal Series that will document the events of our wedding. However, by popular demand and before I get started with a wedding series (if I ever get started), I want to give everyone an update on our current adventures.

The Flight

We both got to fly Business Class on our flight from Houston to Singapore so we definitely enjoyed a rare luxury trip. Our seats folded down into beds, so Tara got to sleep the majority of the travel time. Actually, she would have been able to sleep in the luggage compartment; Tara has this ridiculous ability to instantly fall asleep on/in any form of transportation. I can't sleep on an airplane regardless of what class I fly, so I managed to get around 5 hours of total sleep. When we arrived in Singapore, we had a slight problem with our luggage. We checked 7 bags on the plane (2 of them were mine...), and only 3 of them initially came out on the luggage carousel. Long story short, they found 3 of the missing bags at the airport, but they lost one of Tara's big bags. It was delivered to us the next day, so all-in-all, not that bad of an ordeal.

Sickness

I got sick the day before we were supposed to board the plane, and I was miserable the entire 24 hour flight. During our layover in Russia, we went to the airport doctor to get me some medicine; flu like symptoms. The doctor could speak English about as good as Tara and I can speak Russian. I wish there was a camera documenting our attempts to express what was ailing me and our requests for some sort of medicine. All three of us were laughing at our lack of communication abilities and our resolve to use the "international-grunting" gesture to express our need for something. Luckily, Caveman for my symptoms translates the same in every language, and we were able to get me some flu medicine.

Jet Lag

The time difference between Singapore and Texas is 14 hours (For example: 8 am in Dallas would be 10 pm in Singapore). This creates a stellar case of jet lag due to the fact that your body thinks that it should be awake when the time zone is telling you to sleep. At this point, I am learning to master my jet lag by forcing myself to stay awake longer on the day that I land. Tara struggled a bit with it, but she still handled it better than I did on my first try (I missed an important conference call with the President and Vice President of my company because I fell asleep at 5 pm).

Tara's Reaction 

As expected, Tra loves Singapore. She is in awe of the architecture/city/greenery/weather/etc. Out of all these, she is most fascinated by the weather; Tara loves warm weather and hates being cold (which is weird because I'm pretty sure that her body temperature stays about 10 degrees cooler than the average person). Singapore stays around a constant 80 degrees 365 days a year with high humidity. It rains every day, and it's sunny everyday. She still hasn't seen many parts of the island, but we are staying active enough to keep her interest peaked. I'm preparing myself for the day that we run out of new things to do and her homesickness sets in (I'm not good with crying people; apparently laughing at them is not a good way to console).

Job(s)

My job is going really well, and I am still enjoying it. My official title is the Far East Sales and Operations Manager. My territory extends north to Korea, west to India, south to Australia/New Zealand, east to the Philippines, and everything in-between. It has been insanely busy since I've been back because of the weeks I took off for the holidays and the wedding. Tara had a good informative interview with Ralph Lauren the other day, so we are eager to see how that pans out. Regardless, she is determined to get a job here; with her qualifications and personality, it won't be hard for her to find work in Singapore.

Living

While I was at work this past week, Tra was going around with a realtor to find us a place to live. After a few days of looking she narrowed it down to a few different locations, and we decided on a place together. The apartment is brand new and convenient for her to shop and use public transportation since she won't have a vehicle here. We are currently, living in a temporary apartment while they put the finishing touches on our place. It won't be completely finished by time we move in, but it will be livable. Chinese New Year is coming up next week, and during that time (15 days!), the majority of Asia shuts down. We are hoping that they get most of the apartment ready before this time because whatever is unfinished will be delayed until after the holidays.

Shopping

The other night, we were going to meet up with some of my friends, and Tara started freaking out because she didn't have anything to wear. I don't know if you caught my subtle hint earlier to how many bags Tara packed (5.. and she used up some room in my suitcases as well), but she definitely had more than enough space to throw in some sort of a dress. To spite her (because it's what I do), I demanded suggested that we go shopping the next day to get her a few dresses appropriate for the Singapore climate/atmosphere. Sounds like a nice gesture, right?! I may have failed to mention that shopping in Singapore can be the most frustrating experience of your life. There is a mall on EVERY street corner (that sounds like an exaggeration, but it's really not). Also, every mall has the exact same stores. Also, every mall is at least 5 stories tall/deep (oh yeah, they go underground as well as up). Also, every mall is packed with people. Let's just say that after that day, Tara doesn't have much desire to go shopping around here for a while... Although, we didn't buy anything so I'm not sure who won this battle.

...

Anyways, that about does it; I'll update more as time goes on. I hope to get some free time (and motivation) soon to start the wedding blogs. She did tell me that our wedding pictures just came in, so I look forward to sharing those with everyone.

Summary

We are happy. Singapore is awesome. God is great. Life is good.