Buffet

New DIning Experience

On Monday night we were invited to dinner by Mary, who is engaged to our friend Sam.  We were told it was in the new Lotte Mart building.  Lotte Mart is a new 5 story grocery store, not far from our apt.  They have these amazing escalators that hold your shopping cart in place while you go to the next level.  It is similar to a Wal-Mart in that they sell everything you need.  I like it because I can get many western food items there.  The fifth floor has a food court, Vietnamese, Thai, Japanese, Korean, and a cafe, they have cafe's on every street corner here, oh and the famous arcade room that every mall has here, so loud.   We met Sam and Mary on the 5th floor and they took us over to a seperate restaurant that had bar stools around a counter and in front of you was a conveyor belt that held plate after plate of meats, veggies, noodles, seafood etc.  You ordered your hot pot, a pot that comes with a brooth, the choices were, Thai, Chinese, or Japanese.  The only none spicy was Japanese so that is what I ordered.  Also in front of you was a burner set into the counter and you had a knob to control the temperature.  You first put it on high to get it to boil then you add whatever you want from the food that passes before you.  After it cooks for a few minutes you turn it down.  Our friends, Sam and Joseph, the brothers were trying to see how many plates of food they could rack up.  Mind you the amount of food on each plate is maybe a child's portion but they still ended up eating a lot of food.  Those two can put the food away.  They love to help us out so they were constantly pulling off plates as they passed us.  I would then put them back on after I found out what was on them.  They had one flower, not sure what it was but they kept saying it was healthy, I have tasted some of the stuff they say is so healthy and I just can't seem to develop a taste for it.  I always try them out but so far very few appeal. They called this a buffet and the price was an amazingly low $6.00 per person, for all you could eat.  It was a fun evening which we ended by stopping at the bakery back on the first floor and buying some chocolate croissants for Mark to eat the next week.  We love these new experiences.  

The Kids

Moon Festival

The Vietnamese celebrated the Moon Festival from Sept 15 to the 22nd.  It is a time when the harvest is over and they visit family to celebrate.  Someone came up with the idea of making moon cakes, they are round and some have beans in them and well others I am not sure what they have in them..  I tried some but I think it is an acquired taste.  Well two weeks ago a friend who works with street children and teen girls was going around taking names of kids who live on the streets and in the slums to give them a gift for this holiday.  She wanted to bless them and give them something special, the moon cakes were perfect because they are too expensive for them to buy themselves.  She got around 500 names and donations from many and then had a friend make the cakes.  She also bought a carton of milk for them. I was able to go with her on one of her trips to distribute these cakes.  We left around 4 in the afternoon and were suppose to meet around the kids in the park.  We had her cousin and another gal along to help.  As we started to give them out, she started with the names she had gathered, children between 1 and 15 years old, we started drawing a crowd, everyone wanted to have one and she did give a couple to one older very thin lady and some kids whose names she did not have but it was all done in orderly fashion and the kids were so excited. They seem to come in waves.  After finishing at the park we rode over to an empty sidewalk across the street from a family who she helps.  This time we had another 30 or so and many who just wanted to see what was happening.  After calling there names and giving out the cakes she had these paper laterns to give out, she only had 10 of those left from a previous celebration so we waited until most had gone before giving them out.  Finally after several hours we still had some cakes left so as we rode down the rode for home we found some more street kids to give the rest out to.  These were from Cambodia and were so excited to get them.  It was such a blessing for me to be able to go and see these kids, God was sure right when He said give and you shall receive, I received so much joy and love from these little ones. He said," I was hungary and you fed me".

Views of Singapore

Singapore

It was time to make our quarterly trip to Singapore to see my doctor and get refills on my meds. We have no trouble at all going to such a beautiful island.  We left on Thursday afternoon and arrived by dinner.  Singapore is only a two hour flight and then they are one hour ahead of us.  They are working on expanding the airport in Singapore so we were rerouted to the exit by a different direction.  Everything is so neat and orderly there, everything is done by queing up.  In other words you stand in line to wait for the taxi, your turn at the counter, etc.  Because cars are hard to come by on this little island many take either taxi's, buses, which are frequent or the subway as we in the states would call it.  Back to my story, as we qued up for the taxi ride to our friends house, I felt like I was in line for a Disneyland ride, too many people were in line so they had us go up one row and down another.  After 15 minutes we made it to our taxi and then to our friends who only live about 10 minutes from the airport. I can never get enough of the view from their 19th floor flat, and of course we had to take the lift to get up there oh and we had to put our luggage in the boot of the taxi. 

On Friday after my doctor appt our friends picked us up and showed us an area of town where many churches and ministries have opened a restaurant, convalescent home, drug and alchol rehab and are getting ready to open a home for abused and pregnant teens.  They also have a beauty shop, car repair shop and other such businesses that gives people an opportunity to work.  We have a friend who volunteers her time to teach computer skills to some of the people.  This is what the church is all about. 

Saturday afternoon Mark and I took a trip down to the beach where they have hundreds of every kind of restaurant you can imagine, they even have a boat ride down the canal.  Of course it would not be Singapore if you did not have so many different malls to choose from to shop in.  We started in one for me with more girly things and then we headed a few blocks up to the electronics mall.  It was 5 stories and had anything electronic you could want.  Along with the high prices.  The only place that got our money that day was the McDonald's we stopped in for a drink and a place to rest our weary feet.

Saturday night the same friend that volunteers her time took us out for a steamboat dinner. The owner is a good friend of hers and he gave us a lot of attention, I think she brings him a lot of bsiness. He is young but also has several other places in Singapore and even one in Australia.   It was similar to the Japanese style resturant.  She ordered and they brought plates of uncooked fish, beef and seafood and then a brooth that is set on the table and the food cooks right there.  They also have the veggies and mushrooms etc to add to the meal.  It was so good and then she ended the meal with some different desserts.  Oh and the drink was an apple, rose tea.  Very refreshng.  

Sunday we got to attend our frends church.  We always enjoy that and then we had to head back to the airport for our flight home.  Thanks again George and Joyce, we will miss your flat but look forward to your new home.

Goodbyes