On The Move…

I’m almost done unpacking. I’m hurrying against the immovable deadline of the social I’m hosting in the suite tomorrow for the Singapore-Malaysia-Indonesia community (and friends). I’m excited.

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Classes started two days ago, and already I’m feeling a touch overtired. Today I managed to fall asleep in a cultural economics class while holding a grande soy green tea latte, leading to the tipping of the cup and having starbucks spill on the upholstered seat and carpet. And then later I dozed off again and drooled on my Barneys COOP shirt. Embarrasing. I really liked that class though, and I shall strongly consider taking it.

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The experience of being a senior is really different. I no longer feel like I have to take any classes, given that I’m essentially done with almost all requirements and electives suddenly seem like a pointless distraction from the central focii of senior year – honors thesis, grad school/job applications, consolidating relationships with friends and faculty. We’ll see what I decide to take in a little bit.

Time to finish a little more unpacking and call it a night.

There’re so many boxes left to open…

Given how many things we lost in the horrendous scramble to pack up the room in June, I’m now calling it “The Great Move-Out Disaster of 2006”.  We lost bathroom accessories, our futon, our new bike, my Madagascan tea… and more.  Tragic.

In other news, I’ve finally started sorting out my pictures, and I’ve put up the best 200 or so on Flickr.  So go see the pictures from Dins World Tour 2006. 

Singing at Sentosa (7 Aug 2006)

Originally uploaded by J Y.

It has been years since I’d last seen the Musical Fountain on Sentosa, so when we first arrived I was initially taken aback by how grand and beautiful the setting was for the Dins’ performance.

From left: Steve, Jon C, Rowan, Colby, Jon W, Evan, Adam, Sam, Ricardo, Jeff, me, Alan

 

Din Bodybuilding…?! (12 Jun 2006)Originally uploaded by J Y.

An international bodybuilding competition was being held in the same arts/performance complex where we were singing in Dublin. Naturally we took the opportunity to fool around on the stage.

From left: Evan, Adam, Sam, Ricardo, Rowan, Jon, Jeff, Steve, me

Roman Holiday (8 Jul 2006)

Originally uploaded by J Y.

We spent a day lounging by the pool at a summer villa outside of Rome that belonged to Marco, our host and president of the Harvard Club of Rome.

From left: Marco, Jeff, me, Donatella (Marco’s mother)

Whew!  Almost done with the summer.  It’s now down to the last couple of days in Singapore, and boy is there a considerable bunch of stuff to get done.  Most of it’s accomplished, or near-accomplished, at least.  The furs are being stitched, the bags are partly packed, the lenses and recordings have been ordered, the dinners have been scheduled.

There are a couple of things that have gone undone, of course.  I read just four of the dozen books I lugged from school, I didn’t get to type up my FW 06/07 (and FW 07/08) style reviews and I never got to peruse The Student Body (not that this is a significant regret, from what I can tell).  Oh well.

Bangkok was both relaxing and enjoyable.  The pre-flight massage I got in the airport was wonderful.  The hotel was familiar and comfortable.  The shopping was good, as always.  The food, however… meh.  It was alright, but I wasn’t inspired by anything other than the rhume I had that last night.

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Just two more days.  I’m looking forward to driving to school from NYC.

And I promise pictures!  Eventually!! 🙂

That’s all folks – the Harvard Din & Tonics World Tour 2006 is officially over. In less than three hours I will be headed to the airport for my second trans-Pacific flight in four days. Which means another day in transit, a day lost to the time-difference and a day lost to jetlag. Nonetheless I’m excited to be home again soon.

Tonight I’ve come away with an overwhelming sense of closure and completion, 11 weeks after we first left Boston at the start of tour. We’ve all come a long way since then: as a group, as individuals, and certainly for me, as an individual within the group. As many people will attest, tour has done wonders for my standing within the group and with the other Dins. Given that I’d never really had time to hang out or get to know these guys really well during the past year (or two years, even), it’s such a joy for me now to look around at what truly are my best friends in the world and know that I have never felt so loved, accepted, appreciated and connected with any other group of people at Harvard. No doubt about it. This is everything I ever dreamed of way back in the day six years ago when I dreamed of having a group of college buddies and dreamed of being a Din. It’s been everything I’d ever dreamed of and hoped for and then so much more.

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Jeff made me cry, which really surprised and moved me. I will miss him so much as he moves away to begin his vetenarian training.

I’m so happy for Sam, who got to have the same wonderful homecoming experience here in San Francisco that I had in Singapore.

Jon said some really lovely things, and that meant a lot to me, to feel like we’ve moved past and beyond our relationship before tour.

I’m not going to mention everyone by name, but I’m thinking fondly of you guys, all of you. Tonight I said just about all of what I wanted to say to each of you, so you should all know how special you are to me. I love you all so, so much!

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It was so great to be able to spend time today with Uncle Kwong, Aunt Jenny, Malcolm and Forrest today, and so exciting to see them at the concert last night, right in the first row! *waves* Hi guys!! Thanks for coming! I’ll see you all again soon in Cambridge and/or Singapore!

And Lu-en! It was really lovely of you to drive for an hour from Stanford through rush-hour traffic to meet me in the city. It meant a lot for me to be able to chat with you and catch up on what you’re doing and hear about the life you’ve made for yourself here in California. Thank you also for the impromptu grad-school advising – I’m definitely going to start getting my act together… soon! 🙂 I can only hope it is not another two years before I see you again… Keep in touch!

Sydney is such a gorgeous city, I almost feel guilty that I’ve done nothing touristy, nor have I really ventured out of the house on my own.  I’ve been put on my own at a lovely homestay, successful American expatriates (Wharton and HBS grads) who left on vacation the day after I arrived, leaving me with the run of their tastefully devorated home, their aging golden retriever, Trooper, and their almost-six daughter, Eloise.  I’ve been getting on great with Claire, the English nanny/PA at my homestay, and I’m perfectly content to laze around reading my book and watching FTV on the plasma-screen in the den.  In many ways it’s been like being on retreat by myself at a spa – I’ve been up before 8am each day, I’ve been to the gym twice with Claire and despite the *huge* Australian servings at restaurants I’ve been eating fairly moderately and healthily.  Fairly.

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It’s surreal how much happens in the world when you’re travelling for over two months and fall out of the loop with the news, your friends and family.  In that time Indonesia has had an earthquake, a tsunami, a volcano eruption, and the world’s worst human death toll from bird flu.  Bombs went off in Mumbai.  A massive terrorist plot was revealed at Heathrow.  America experienced her hottest months and days on record (and suffered a spate of power outages).  Lebanon and Israel went to war, and reached a fragile UN-brokered ceasefire.

And then there are all the personal developments closer to home.  Someone’s changed jobs, others have graduated or begun new courses, new couples have been formed or are coalescing.

All while I wasn’t looking, or paying attention.

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I *am* excited to be starting school again soon.  If only I could scrape together the time to get a whole bunch of different things done…  the stuff for Amy, the stuff for Rebecca.  Looks like the work is all cut out to be done.  Guess I should get a move on…

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PS:  Bali was beautiful, Jakarta managed to turn into a Jon-style Choshi City for me, and Singapore was everything I hoped it would be, and more.  I couldn’t have asked for more.  Thank you, God!  (And Mother, and Janine!)

I’m home!  Actually, truly, physically home!!  It’s a wonderful feeling, and so far the rest of the group really likes the city too, which makes me all warm and fuzzy inside 😀

I know have a Singapore hp number: 8132 8422, so call me 🙂

Come see me sing with the Dins at the Esplanade Recital Studio on 8 Aug at either 7pm or 9pm – tickets are available through Sistic at: http://www.sistic.com.sg/cms/events/index.html?content=392

More updates when I’m not rushing around leading the group etc. etc.

I still *love* tour.

Ok, we’re leaving Kyoto today, in about 90 minutes.  It’s past 5.30am right now, and I’ve recently gotten back from a lovely night out in Kyoto (my only night out in this city, in fact).  Some other Dins met some lovely American/Japanese-American girls at the hot springs they visited today, and these girls in turn took us out on the town and we had a marvellous time clubbing the night away.

As usual, there is really too much to say, and I also need to go pack, shower and potentially take a half hour nap before we leave our very nice hotel here (the Takaragaike Prince Hotel), which somehow has surprisingly few facilities – in particular, no pool, gym or fitness facilities of any kind.  So I will instead leave a bunch of impressions I’ve been meaning to share:

– I love how the Japanese taxicab drivers all have neat, livery-style uniforms, and also that they can open the cab door with the touch of a botton (that even controls how far the door swings open).

– I’ve noticed that the Japanese all use full-sized (ie not compact/collapsible) umbrellas, which are often very fancy, and that every store will have an umbrella rack outside the door.

– I love how the Japanese can often be spotted wearing hats.  Yay headgear!

– I *love*love*love* Japanese supermarkets, which are filled with nothing but cool Japanese products and foodstuffs.  Kawaii!! 🙂

– I’m amused by how much aural stimulation occurs here – almost everything talks to you (bus stops, toilets, vending machines) and prattles on constantly.  This also includes any kind of service/hospitality-related transaction; for instance a cashier ringing you up will give an uninterrupted running commentary which I can only guess (since I don’t speak Japanese) goes something like: “Good morning, I see you are buying a bag of chips.  Let me scan that and tell you the price, which is 200 yen.  As you hand me two hundred yen in cash let me put the chips in a carrier for you, together with your receipt. Thank you very much for your purchase, have a nice day and please shop again with us soon.  Goodbye!”

– I’m very impressed with the French restaurant in the hotel, which has served us our (free!) dinners at place settings of Noritake bone china, Christofle silverware and Schott Zweisel stemware.  Very classy.