Weekend in Dar es Salaam

Dear all

This is my first contribution to the blog! Suddenly feel very 'free' because Nick has just left for Algeria this afternoon *sniff*. Since Win is finally hard at work at her applications right now, I have decided to do my part and give an update on what we have been up to this weekend!

I think the past few days has been a really interesting time of getting to know CHIA WIN LING. Never realised that there's so many things I don't know about her! Then I realised that she's been away for 8 years!! So for those of you who have not had that much opportunity to catch up with her over the past 8 years, here are some new observations on WIN LING.

1) Win has a bad sleep deficit. I tortured her by making her wake up early on the 2nd day in Dar - so that she could get to the bank to pay for her US visa without getting stuck in traffic (it was a small suffering to avoid a big one aka 长痛不如短痛 and when I say 长 I really mean 长). Subsequently, on the 3rd, 4th and 5th day, she woke up at 11am every morning and still managed to concuss completely while taking afternoon naps, eg, yesterday when it was time to go for dinner, she did not stir despite me banging and shouting and calling for 15 minutes- I really almost panicked!

2) Win paints. Did you guys know that! She did this really amazing acrylic painting of tulips (??? or some sort of similar long-stemmed flower) against a blue sky, and it's the picture on her credit card now!

3) On a related note to 2), yesterday, we went to visit the Tinga Tinga art bazaar and Win bought 2 maasai oil-canvas paintings for S$25! It was a good deal! (She will provide photos of the same in her next post).

4) Win cooks! Well duh. She did a porkchop marinade for dinner on Thursday which was simply yumm! I also found out that in New York she cooks lunch for one whole week at one go and brings lunchbox to work every day. So healthy and thrifty! She also eats alot of Korean food in New York! (So much that she practically scoffed at my dish choice yesterday when we went Korean!)

5) Despite her happening-ness in the food area, she obviously does not watch alot of movies, because she has not watched The Blind Side - for which Sandra Bullock won Best Actress. So Nick and me and Win watched it together last night! Nice, heart-warming feel-good show.

6) Win is also a photographer (actually I already knew that and I'm sure most of you did too). As expected, she has been snapping away and we had to make a few stops so that she could take pics! Yesterday evening before the sun set we played with the dogs in the garden and enjoyed the seabreeze. Win took many 'blissful family' pictures of our dogs and of Nick and me! I felt very happy because Nick and I since coming to Africa have very few photos of ourselves together!

7) Win is also a singer (which we ALL know already actually but I just have to put this in because I need it to relate to this next point la sorry). We are now practising to sing Pokerface (the awesome Glee version) - unfortunately, level of difficulty for said song is 10000x 爱情电影.

8) Win (as we had discussed today while talking about her essay where she is supposed to be talking about her interests) is basically well-versed in the ARTS, as she dances, sings, paints and takes photos! The following conversation then ensued between us: -

R: "Wow you've got it all covered - performing arts, aesthetic arts, only literary arts don't have!"

W: "Yeah, although I do write, on my blog."

R: "Do you have a personal blog?" (because I'd never heard of its existence)

W: "Nope. I'm too lazy."

R: "So by your blog do you mean The Great Tanzanian Adventure??" ?!!!!!

(And yes, she did mean that).

9) Win did an internship with Credit Suisse in 2005 (?) where they flew her from the US to Singapore on SQ business class! Ahh the good ol days before the credit crisis.

10) Lastly, Win has been away from Singapore for TOO long. The other day she was trying to describe the place she'd always go for lunch when she did her internship with Credit Suisse, and she was like, "Err... it was at that big building! Sunset???" She meant Suntec.