Nǐ hǎo!

25.  There are squatter toilets everywhere!  It’s definitely different.  I used my first one this weekend.

26.  A lot of people here really like fair skin.  They think it’s pretty and even have lotions to whiten their skin, but I just want to be tan.

27.  Whenever you buy a drink such as bubble tea (Which I buy almost ever single day.  I love it.), soy milk, smoothies, etc, they either put a handle on the drink or put it in a very small bag.  I think it has something to do with not being able to have food or drinks on the MRT or you will get fined $500.

28.  There are bakeries here at every corner, but it’s hard to find ‘normal’ bread like sandwich bread.  All of the bread here is usually very sweet.

29.  Singapore phone numbers are 8 numbers.  Mine is 94290188.  It’s  programmed in my phone because I don’t know it.  Speaking of my phone, it’s definitely no blackberry.  I miss my qwerty keypad.

30.  People often ask me what America is like and so I ask them what they think it is like.  Every single answer I’ve got is “what we see in the movies”.  A lot of people wonder about our crazy college parties with kegs, red plastic cups, and beer pong.

31.  I think the term “pre-game” is only used in America.  Whenever other people refer to drinking before going out or to an event they use the term “pre-drink”, which does seem to make more sense.

32.  Sense of humor seems to be very different here or maybe it’s just me.

Example-

Professor: Who is a 4th year student?

Everyone but me raises their hand.

Professor: Who is a 3rd year student?

I raise my hand.

Professor: Only you!

Whole class except for me breaks out in laughter.

I just don’t get why that’s funny.

On the other hand (this story might take longer to write than it’s actually worth, but I thought it was hilarious), in my materials science class the professor was teaching us to put a bar over a number if we wanted to show that it was negative.  The slide is below.

You might be wondering like I was, “why is there a sheep on the slide?”  Then I realized when he said “bar,” it sounded like “bah” with his accent.  Sheeps go “bah”, now you get the connection.  Haha.  Well I thought it was funny, but I guess that’s just because of the pronunciation of the word, which is kind of mean.

33.  They really love Hello Kitty in Asia.  You can find it on most anything.  I’ve noticed elephants are quite popular too.

34.  They speak Singlish.  It has a wikipedia page! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singlish_vocabulary But what doesn’t these days?

A word I’ve heard quite often is “chope”- to reserve a seat.  Also, they put “lah” after so many phrases. “I have so much to do, lah.”  ”Want to get some food, lah?”  ”No, lah.”  It doesn’t mean anything.  I don’t get it.

Just a general update:

- I really want Chipotle and/or Panera.  I used to eat one or the other pretty much everyday.

- I am a professional chopstick user and use them for every single meal.

- I shower every day (Thought you’d like to know Mom and Dad)

- The title of this post was inspired by my first class of Chinese today!  It was so much fun!  The title just means “hello”.