Dinner

Melanie was very excited about visiting the Food Hawkers. Singapore has two national pastimes: shopping and eating. The hawkers are "fast food" street vendors. Here is dinner we picked up from three vendors on food street at the chinatown night market: with Tiger beer, chrysanthemum tea, peanut soup, and kwae tong (don't ask as I couldn't tell you except that it had egg and noodles).
After three days of hawkers and dim sum, she's ready for some sit down restaurants. We're going out with the district manager for Alfred publishing tonight and current birthday plans call for dinner at Raffles tomorrow - a 19th century hotel remnant of the British Empire which also hosts the "Long bar" - birthplace of the Singapore Sling.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

A new direction for Hickeys

It is time that Hickey's focus on expanding it import business. I'll let you know how the negotiations go but I'm notsure they can go by UPS..
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Singapore

Capitalism at its finest. Here is the view from our room:

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Musings

We saw a great British movie on the way to Singapore, "Run Fat boy, run"
I found my reaction to the incident in Israel I had an hour + a half for lunch that day + planned to eat fast + shop In fact I found out at lunch At that time we heard it was a bomb + I thought they're not going to stop me I'm going shopping I'd have a fit if the boys did that
Driving to Cairo we passed many shepards + their goats Strangely all the Shepards were named Zack If you want to know what this means ask Zack to do his impressions
So on the Cairo tour we met this whiny DDS from Long Island age about 29 He said he was Catholic It drove me crazy because I kept thinking" this kid has to be Jewish" when the bus left us off in Israel he made a point of coming over to us + saying he was Jewish but never admits it in Muslim countries That means I don't stereotype I'm just right
Lastly tomorrow David and I are going for a special pedicure where fish eat the dead skin off your feet I'm guessing Sarah won't be trying this next
M
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Again

David Zimet

A job well done

As most of you already know, the impetus for the trip was that .Melanie had submitted abstracts and was accepted to talk a conferences in both Israel and Singapore. What were the odds to be accepted by both and to have them only a week apart.
So besides playing tourist .Melanie was preparing her talk. The conferences apparently had some amazing speakers: it was so much fun to see her come back so charged from a session. It has also been fascinating to learn of the different place and roles talk en by nursing in different countries. I got to chat with a couple that live 60k down the road from Debra and Nils and who tried valiantly to correct my pronunciation of Smollenstenar.
.Melanies talk was Thus day am and apparently was well received. She certainly got a big enough screen!
David Zimet

Tour guide humor

As much as I've improved with typing all this with two thumbs on the phone, it is still a bit slow so forgive us if we give up trying to keep the blog strictly chronological.
So stepping back to Cairo, we had a driver and a guide who were both great. Melanie already commented on the driving, which really is too intense to put in words. Having a guide was also incredibly helpful.
The first day in Egypt we went to the Cairo Museum which in itself was an amazing experience. Earlier on the blog I posted a picture of .our guide Muhammad and I standing in front of the oldest synagogue in Cairo. This in turn was next to an ancient Coptic church. The story of the church was that Mary, Joseph, and Jesus hid in the cellar of the church after they fled from Nazareth. The current building I think dated from the 6th century and included icons dating back before the 12th century and stands over the catacombs where they hid.
The Synagogue is reputedly next to where Moses was found floating in the basket. Besides touring the building, we got to go up on the bima and look at the Torah Scroll as well as examine the other art of the place. It is also reputedly the only synagogue in existence with a tomb in it. The tomb is of the man who bought the property for the synagogue. I will bring home some pictures I bought from the place! Including a picture of some art from the walls. In one, the word for
God written in Hebrew, when turned upside down spells Allah in Arabic.
So anyway, on the next day, while touring the Sphinx, Muhammad was telling us how the area had been Americanized, and sure enough across the street fro$ the Sphinx was a Pizza Hut and a KFC. He went on to explains the in Cairo, KFC was translated as Chicken, Cat, and Camel
At one point a Chinese woman was walking and talking with us. Muhammad
asked how to tell the difference between Chinese and Japanese tourists: Chinese have one camera, Japanese have two.
We also got to see a demonstration of papyrus making and visit a Egyptian essence (of flowers) shop complete with Egyptian hospitality.
My thumbs are tired.
David Zimet