And the final end to my travel blog.

INTRODUCTION

Before I arrived in Singapore, I had this vague, grandiose idea that my travel blog would serve as some sort of informal travel guide where I would give restaurant and club recommendations of Singapore, NUS survival tips, travel advice and all sorts of other hokey information that you would find in a travel magazine found in the front pocket of your airline seat. This worked maybe in the beginning when I would drunkenly type in the name of a dance club I just came home from on a blog entry (I believe my first club experience in Singapore was Ministry of Sound) before passing out on my dorm bed.

Over the course of several months, the whole pressure to make the blog so travel-y and informative faded away as it instead became just another personal blog about my life--which HAPPENED to occur in Southeast Asia instead of UCLA. So while you will see many beautiful, panoramic photographs of the beaches of Indonesia or the temples of Thailand that will undoubtedly make your jaws drop, you will also read several banal entries (my taking on a new skin-care regimen, my quarter-life-crisis musings) that have nothing to do with the joys of studying abroad and may be of no interest to you at all.

Upon retrospect, I am glad that I took this approach instead of simply making it a recitation of cool places to see and do. Studying abroad in Singapore isn't just about country-hopping to every tourist trap in Southeast Asia or taking cool pictures to make your friends jealous. It is also a very personal internal journey of reconciling your former attitudes with the sudden onslaught of a completely different cultural and geographical environment, which can bring about very uncomfortable or enlightening (usually both) revelations about yourself and the rest of the world. After a while, it becomes less about the glamor of being in another country and more about simply accepting the new changes as a part of your everyday life.

I have tried to record down as many relevant memories and observations as possible in this travel blog for future reference--not only for myself, but for other people. I could go on and on with a much longer introduction, but for your sake, I have decided to pass along some pearls of wisdom for future students who wish to study abroad in Singapore.

Keep in mind, though, that while there are many things that are written in this blog, there are also many things that are NOT included. One informal blog of one person's purely subjective experiences is certainly not enough to encompass all that there is to studying abroad.


SOME THINGS I WISH I BOUGHT OR KNEW BEFORE I WENT TO SINGAPORE

- This is just me, but I wouldn't bother buying a Singapore travel guide. Singapore is so freaking SMALL and so easy to travel around in, it is impossible to get lost in Singapore. If you want your fill of all the hokey tourist things to do in Singapore, you can easily get the information from other exchange students and locals. (And one important point: make really good local friends! They will show you the best of everything!) Personally, a better investment is Lonely Planet: Southeast Asia on a Shoestring Budget , which will give you highly informative descriptions and ideas on country-hopping all over Southeast Asia, which you WILL be doing. Which brings me to my next point...

- Invest in a good travel backpack. If you are a typical exchange student in Singapore, you will probably visit a minimum of five different countries in Southeast Asia by the time your term is over. Do yourself a favor and get a good travel backpack from REI or something--you'll look more like a hardcore traveler, not to mention be able to carry more stuff on you with maximum space efficiency. Plus, you'll be able to use it for future adventures when you are done with traveling through Southeast Asia and you have the travel bug to conquer the rest of the world. Which brings me to my NEXT point...

- For the love of God, invest in decent hiking shoes. This doesn't apply to you if you plan on sticking to chic urban places and all you want to do is shop, sip tea and explore antique stores. Chances are, though, you are a little bit more adventurous than that and you want to climb ancient temples, trek through forests, rice terraces and rugged mountain peaks. Right? (See this blog entry for what happens when you decide to go hiking with flimsy sandals.) Your rough and dirty nature adventures will be all the more rewarding if you are not worrying about falling flat on your face. Don't even think about buying shoes while you are there because chances are, it will fall apart within a couple of days--which is what happened to my friend while she was traveling with me in Vietnam.

- Bring some photographs, posters and mementos from back home to decorate your new home in Singapore. Because seriously, you are going to need something to decorate your bare dorm room with when you finally arrive to Singapore. And what's more depressing than sleeping in a prison-like room with no decorations when you are lonely, homesick and insecure with yourself for the first few weeks of being away from home?

- Bug spray and sunscreen. Unless you an immortal, you WILL get bitten by mosquitoes a lot. Bring all that anti-itch ointments and bug spray with you. For some reason, sunscreen is ridiculously expensive in Singapore so invest in one of those huge, economy-sized sunscreen bottles that will last you for a good chunk of your stay abroad.

- A bank account in Singapore. I didn't do this myself, but several of my fellow exchange classmates opened a bank account in Singapore so they didn't have to worry about transaction fees every time they withdrew money from the ATM. I kind of wish I did that myself, because all those small transaction fees of withdrawing money abroad really does add up. Something for people to consider.

- Get Skype. Bug all your friends and family members to get this free internet calling service. Then you can hear their beautiful, wonderful voices from across the other side of the globe. I think all you need is some headset or something like that. I personally did not utilize this myself, but this was a popular tool for people with significant others back home.


THE MORE UNEXPLORED SIDE OF SINGAPORE (The little things.)

So yeah, yeah, by the time you're all settled and comfy, you'll probably go to Sentosa Island, go to all those freaking bars in the Clark Quay region and if you are a lady, you will take advantage of lady's night on Wednesday nights where you get free admission AND free drinks at Double O.

Personally, I didn't care much for the popular tourist attractions, like the zoo, the bird park, and the orchid garden. As for all the popular clubs and bars, you will learn them fast. What I appreciated the most were the lesser-known nooks found either by accident or through a local friend. Here are some favorites:

- Books Actually. A little hole-in-the-wall indie bookstore on the second floor of some building near Chinatown. I only went to this place once maybe a week before I left the country, and I wish I had a chance to explore it more. In addition to having a great collection of books, there are also random quirky things (matchboxes bearing canonical book covers, cool indie magazines, old-school typewriters etc.) that may tickle your smug hipster pretensions. Sometimes they have art openings of local artists, and that always has free food.

- Somewhere on the third or fourth floor of the Esplanade, there is a small music, movie, drama and art library located next to a small indoor cafe. If you go to the very top of the building, you are rewarded with a wonderful view of the Clark Quay bay, where Singaporean high schoolers and couples hang out to enjoy the outdoor air.

- So much freaking good food. Okay, okay, so I said that you don't really need a Singapore travel guide, but you MAY want to invest in a FOOD guide of Singapore once you are at the country. There are so many great places to eat it's unbelievable. I wish I can remember specific locations of places that tickled my fancy the most, but there are so many of them I honestly can't remember. (I do remember three dishes that I absolutely love, though: char kway teow, carrot cake, and fried oyster. You do not know what they are now, but you will once you get there.) So yes. Invest in a good guide. And get a good local friend who will show you all the hot spots. Geylang has some great seafood, like red chili and black pepper crabs, I just don't remember the exact location. Like I said, make a really cool local friend. Speaking of Geylang...

- The prostitution quarters of Geylang. What the hell? Singapore says no littering and spitting, but yes to sex for money? Go figure. Maybe I'm just a shameless voyeur, but I had to see this for myself. Like the random hot eatery spots, I don't remember the specific location of this place, but you should enlist in a local friend to show you. (If you are a female, a MALE friend.) I won't say it was a particularly enjoyable experience, but it definitely was an eye-opener.

- The Buddhist Temple and the Hindu Temple in Bughis. Bughis is one of the central shopping districts of Singapore. It also has a Buddhist Temple and a Hindu Temple right next to each other in midst of all the commercial mayhem. I really like Bughis (not the indoor mall part, but the place where there's all the small vendors), it's a busy, colorful and diverse place. There are always traditional street performers, people trying to sell medicine on loudspeakers and a crowd of people burning incense sticks for good furtune.

- Volunteering at the Communicable Disease Center every Saturday. This isn't so much a place, but an activity, and probably one of the most rewarding activities I did while I was in Singapore. Through Professor Albert Teo (whose office I believe is located where the University Scholars Programme office is on campus), I learned of this opportunity to spend a few hours with AIDS patients and massage their arms and legs with massage oils. Not only do you meet a lot of amazing people outside of NUS, you are also exposed to another side of Singapore that isn't the government-promoted squeaky-clean image of economic prosperity and racial harmony.


AND NOW FOR THE REST OF SOUTHEAST ASIA:

First, I will list all the useful travel resources that you will probably be using when you want to country-hop the rest of Southeast Asia when you've been in Singapore for a month and you realize that you have already seen everything that the tiny country has to offer. .... okay, I'm just kidding. But Singapore really is SMALL.


- Lonely Planet, in addition to making great travel books, has its own website. While the book version is a lot more informative, the website can be a useful tool for giving a condensed version of the sights you want to see and the lodgings you should stay at.

- Jetstar is a budget airline for traveling cheaply in Southeast Asia. So is Tiger Airways and Air Asia. Chances are you will be using those three airlines the most when you are purchasing tickets to country-hop.

- The U.S. Government website on travel alerts. Southeast Asia, undeniably, has a lot of cool things. Like jungles, monkeys, temples, floating markets and motorbikes. That, and there's also civil unrest, terrorist attacks, typhoons, illegal sex slavery, bloodless military coups... well, you get the point. If you want to be a responsible and safe traveler, check up on travel alerts often.

A FEW BLOG HIGHLIGHTS OF SOUTHEAST ASIA

- How durian looks like a jaundiced penis and other observations of Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia.

- The beaches of Bintan Indonesia are absolutely gorgeous.

- Melaka, the historical town in Malaysia, that kind of makes you feel like you're in San Diego or Mexico, but kind of not.

- How you can shoot guns in Cambodia and all sorts of other crazy things that you probably won't do elsewhere.

- The ridiculous, ridiculous, ridiculous crowds of people of Hong Kong.

- Talking to a Buddhist Monk, riding an elephant, and visiting a lot of cool temples in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

- Thailand just had a bloodless military coup but I still went to Thailand anyway and I even took a shameless picture of myself posing next to an army tank parked in front of the capitol building.

- A long rant on how Singaporean law just doesn't make sense.

- I never had a chance to write a blog entry about this experience, but if you do have the chance, go visit Tiomann, Malaysia, where you can go snorkeling and see some really, really pretty and colorful fish.

People always ask me what my favorite countries to visit were, and I always say Cambodia, with a close second being Hong Kong and Vietnam.

There is plenty more in this blog, of course. You're just going to have to find them for yourself.


AND SOME CLOSING REMARKS

Everyone has their own personal style of traveling, but asides from having a very rough itinerary of knowing what city I was in for x number of days, I mostly winged it once I got there (with the help of a very beat-up Lonely Planet travel guide). Personally, I think it's more fun that way, and there is nothing like the exhilaration of an unexpected experience due to a chance conversation with another traveler or local.

Studying abroad is a life-changing experience. It's completely different from traveling abroad because visiting a place and living at the place are two very different experiences. I can give you another lengthy essay on why this is so, but rather than hear it from me, you should go out there and see for yourself.

So what are you waiting for? Life is short. College is even shorter. Who really has a chance to do this kind of thing when they have a stable job or are married with kids? Do yourself a favor and get out there already. Think of all those blank pages in your passport just waiting to be filled.

On a very final note, get yourself a travel blog. If you're not going to remember your experiences, who's going to do it for you?

- YS

And we are home at last.

Friends ask me if it's been hard returning to the States after being away for so long. And my answer usually is no, not really. After five months of romping through Southeast Asia, I have yet to kill myself from driving on the wrong side of the road, although returning to a regular diet of Instant Mac and Carl's Jr. will probably give me a very American heart attack very soon.

And no, it's not so much that I have a hard time readjusting, but more like I have a hard time trying to get over the feeling that I had a lobotomy between the day I left and the day I came back. Now that I am far removed from the people and places that defined my stay in Singapore, I almost disbelieve all the very Southeast Asian experiences that I have experienced the last several months, whether it was riding an elephant in Thailand or scaling the temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Surely it was all the imaginings of a coma-induced dream while mischievous little gnomes left exotic-looking stamps in my passport and pierced my nose in my unconscious sleep. And then as a parting gift, left me a pair of very wicked boots from Hong Kong as an apology for fucking with my head.

This makes more sense to me, of course.

And while I do still regret that I did not have a chance to embark upon a mini-adventure to another country all by myself, coming home makes me realize one of the benefits of having at least one more traveling companion with you: there is at least one other person out there who will remind you that yes, it really did happen. Unless the person gets a lobotomy.

--



Snapshot of me and Toubi from Vietnam. We are waiting for the bus to take us back from Halong Bay to Hanoi. We are sick of waiting. Traveling, when it is not glamorous or culturally enriching, is a lot of boring waiting. Our director gave us the command to look pissed off and annoyed. I look like I am trying to look like I am pissed off but I am not completely convinced of my own pissed-offness. Toubi, on the other hand, looks very cute when she is pissed off. This is because she grew up in Japan. You can't see it from here, but the back of her head has a hot pink anime vein throbbing in cute anger.

Not so long ago, I said that I would write about my ten-day adventure in Vietnam. I'll do my best, even though it's wholly possible that it didn't really happen.

--

While the glitzy-glitz shoppergasm of Hong Kong would have been a very fine way of concluding my adventures outside of Singapore, I wanted my last trip in Southeast Asia to be rugged, rough and a little dirty. Just like me.

So there was no money or time to look or act pretty in Vietnam, especially if you are planning on cramming as much as possible from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City in a matter of ten days. Toubi and I lived the hard-knock life of the grungy, penny-pinching backpacker and for the most part, it was fun. We trekked up three-hour mountain hikes, wore the same clothes for three days straight, slept on very uncomfortable sleeper trains and ate a lot of street food for less than a dollar. On one particularly uneventful night, we amused ourselves watching Jurassic Park on Satelite TV after a failed attempt on another channel to enjoy Mrs. Doubtfire dubbed entirely in Vietnamese. We both probably risked death when we hopped on the back of a motorbike and realized, while tearing through the very dark streets of Cat Ba Island, that our motorist reeked slightly of alcohol. I'm not sure what I risked when I ate a barely hatched duck fetus from a street vendor in Hoi Am, but thank God it was dark and I couldn't really see what the hell I was eating.

I am going to try to go in chronological order, but I already know that I will be leaving a lot of things out. I am going to focus on the little things. We love the little things the most.

--

Hanoi



I really enjoyed Hanoi. Toubi and I loitered mostly in the Old Town District near the lake, which is where all the cheap guesthouses and travel cafes are located. If I had come up here by myself with more time, I would have spent a majority of my hours hanging out at a cafe and people-watching all the cool Hanoi kids coming in and out of the streets on their bad-ass little motorbikes.

One of my favorite sights in Hanoi was visiting the Ho Chi Minh Masoleum. This is because you get to see Ho Chi Minh in all his dead, embalmed glory, bathed in a warm orange glow as though he is peacefully sleeping, guarded by four Vietnamese men smartly decked in their best military regalia. Never mind that Uncle Ho actually wanted to be cremated after he died; we can't always get what we want, right?

I'm not sure which was worse: the fact that I kept imagining Uncle Ho rising from the dead as a Commie vampire while creepy instrumental organ music started playing in the background, or thinking that the four Vietnamese army men guarding his corpse looked kind of hot.

I know, I feel dirty, too.

--

Sapa





Sapa is north of Hanoi, and it takes a good long train ride to get there. People go to Sapa to look at rice terraces and the village people still living their traditional village life in the mountains. When we went there, it was very cold.



Ky, our 26-year-old tour guide, was a badass in every sense of the word. Even though he originally hails from one of the many hill tribes living in Northern Vietnam, he showed up on our first day wearing a cowboy hat, a button-down shirt, well-tailored pants and dress shoes--and strutted through the winding mountain paths like he owned the whole place.

Ky was the very personification of jauntiness. If Ky lived somewhere else instead of a secluded mountain village, he would have been the life of every party. Even with his limited English skills, he was always quick to crack a joke or poke fun at our group, which was made up of me, Toubi and two Canadian college buddies in the middle of a seven-month global adventure.

On our last day, Ky lead us on a grueling three-hour hike through rice terraces and slippery mud paths to his house up in the mountains, where his sister cooked us food and he served us shots of his homemade rice wine. The one stereo in his house (and possibly the entire village) blasted Backstreet Boys music. It was a surreal moment. While the other village people stood outside his house to stare curiously at us, Ky fed us, showed pictures of his two-year-old son and gave us each a Sapa-grown cigarette to smoke. Although none of us were hardly regular smokers at all, listening to "Hotel California" while sitting in a small village house in the mountains of Northern Vietnam somehow compelled all of us us to uncharacteristically smoke one whole cigarette in the most uncoollest way possible because none of us knew how the hell to smoke cigarettes while looking cool. We felt like guests of a very bizarre, intimate party.

Before Ky left us back at the hotel, he fixed his cowboy hat, kissed his fingers and raised them in a jaunty salute as he walked out the door and into the mountain mist. All we could do was shake our heads in amazement as he disappeared from our lives forever.

"Crazy motherfucker," one of the Canadians said under his breath. None of us disagreed.





--

Halong Bay





Halong Bay is another popular tourist destination in Northern Vietnam if you want to see scenic natural things and spend a lot of time on a boat.

Coming here made me realize that I've been neglecting the nature girl in me all my life. As much as I am prepared to join the future urban yuppies of America, I realize that I really do enjoy the mountain hikes, the kayaking and the general soaking in of nature-ness.

I really want to do rugged, nature-related things in the States now. That, and actually start exercising so I can handle doing rugged, nature-related things without dying of exhaustion. I am such a weak oyster. :(



--

Hoi Am.





Hoi Am is a cute little town right in the center of Vietnam. I think one of my favorite activities there was biking through the town and trying not to get run over by a motorbiker. According to Toubi, I don't look very natural when I am biking. The fact that my bicycle chain came off about four times did not help much, either.

At Hoi Am, we also took a half-day trip to see the temple ruins at My Son. Now I feel like a jerk for saying this, but after going to Angkor Wat--the largest religious monument in the world--all subsequent religious temple ruins feel rather anticlimactic.

This, however, did not stop me from taking fun pictures of me and Toubi angering the gods.









--

Saigon

And then we concluded our trip in Saigon, otherwise known as Ho Chi Minh City. I am not exactly sure which name is used more.

I may have left Vietnam with a lighter wallet, but I may possibly have a greater love for Uncle Ho. No, I'm just kidding. But say what you want about the communists; love 'em or hate 'em, they make pretty cool posters.







--

And a little less than five months later, this travel blog draws to a close. I've been spending time with my family, my friends and my dog (!!!!!!!) Just yesterday, I spent a lovely night with one of my best friends riding through my neighborhood admiring the hokey Christmas decorations of less lazy folk. My near future adventures will be more geographically contained, but I have complete faith that they will still be fantastic, nonetheless.

And we leave you, ladies and gentlemen, with the final memories of Singapore. Going to the capital of Kitsch that is the 24 / 7 outlet mall in Little India, where you can buy a Merlion lighter that plays an instrumental version of "My Heart Will Go On." Hanging in Orchard Road where you can buy an ice cream sandwich--literally, because in Singapore, you eat your ice cream encased in actual bread! Going to a tiny art opening at an indie bookstore tucked away near Chinatown called BooksActually, where you can satisfy your smug literary needs by buying little matchbooks bearing canonical book covers.

Someone has to remember them, after all.








The End.

My emoticon is smiling right now.

There is still much to write about.

But for the time being:


1.) I am finally home, and
2.) I want to see you. Yes, you, dear non-creepy reader-friend whom I've met at least once in my lifetime. No, not the douchebag behind you. YOU, for godssake! Don't look away now and pretend you don't know me. I have your phone number. I know where you live. I never forget a face and I never forget the specific scent of a human being. Hey, why are you walking away? Come back to me! You still owe me money, you stupid jerk!

I am happy to be here.

And very belatedly..

Happy birthday KAY!!!!! Ouchi ni kaetara zettai asobu kara ne!

--

Being in Southeast Asia makes me think of all the people back home. When I was in Cambodia, I thought of Kim. When I was in the Philippines, I thought of the left vertical half of Robbie. Everytime I heard about Myanmar, I kept thinking how the Burmese government should give Conroy a medal of honor for being a DDR Champion and showing that the Burmese can triumph over anything. Now that I am in Vietnam, I am reminded of all the Vietnamese friends I have back home. Okay, so there's .... way too many of you to list. Be proud, my Viet friends. You have effectively infiltrated my social circle.

Six days, friends.

Hong Kong.

Perhaps eons ago, the islands of Singapore and Hong Kong were born from the same volcano before the tectonic shifts of the earth gently nudged them apart and made them what they are today. Singapore and Hong Kong, separated by a three-hour plane ride across the Pacific Ocean, are both small, wealthy, densely-packed countries with a history of British occupation, a very undeniably Chinese culture and a well-earned reputation for fulfilling every gluttonous shopaholic's wildest dreams.

The comparisons, however, end there. Hong Kong is Singapore on steroids and crystal meth. Hong Kong, land of Bruce Lee and beautiful cinema, is mean, crowded, noisy, flashy, gaudy, busy and just plain glorious. The easiest comparison is to describe Hong Kong as the New York City of Asia, but that wouldn't do justice to the fact that it is only in Hong Kong where you can see the world's largest sitting Buddha, go bicycling along the river front, take a picture next to a statue of Bruce Lee, eat a lot of dim sum and do a lot of fabulous shopping all in one breath.

Not surprisingly, I have fallen in love with Hong Kong and once I download "Cantonese Language Skills" into my brain Matrix-style, I can easily see myself living there.







In most public places, people move in clusters, either as individuals or in small groups, with enough physical distance between them to mark the separation of social relationship.

In Hong Kong, that is not the case. People in Hong Kong move collectively together in a big fucking sea of humanity and if you want to go the other way, well, you're screwed. A telling example of this is just how big the crosswalks in Hong Kong are:



Yeah, see that big expanse of yellow lines? That's not enough to contain the masses of people who are restless to cross the street because in Hong Kong, everyone is constantly on the move.

--

One of my favorite activities in Hong Kong was wandering the busy streets all by myself. I took pictures of all the flashy signs, avoided getting trampled over and most of all, enjoyed people-watching all the hip and stylish youth looking painfully good with the right amount of disaffected urban ennui.

Don't ask me why, but being alone in the midst of a busy city gave me a peace of mind. Something about the surrounding chaos let me forget all the present troubles of the things that I should and shouldn't be worrying about.

--

P.S. For Arthi:



One of my favorite purchases from H.K., photograph courtesy of Zineng.

I am convinced that these boots have magical powers, that every time I wear them they will somehow start revolutions, find the cure for cancer and topple evil empires. If not that, at least make me feel really stylish. These boots, if they could talk, would shove brass knuckles against your cheeks and whisper with thinly veiled menance, "I'm gonna mess you up."

Either that, or "Damn, I look good."

The broke and the restless.

I still need to write about Hong Kong; two art exhibition openings; the land of Kitschity Kitsch that is Mustafa, the twenty-four-hour mall in Little India; and whatever else.

--

Lately, I think about what I am going to do with myself when I get home and I get into a state of mini-panic. I will no longer be in a constant state of travel. No more new passport stamps, no more dog-eared copies of Lonely Planet, no more waking up barely coherent at four in the morning and throwing three days worth of clothes in my backpack a full half hour before crawling out of my room to take the taxi to the airport. I should get a straitjacket for myself to make sure that I don't punch someone in the face out of belligerent boredom.

So there we have it. The small germ of wanderlust that has always been circulating within my bloodstream has blossomed into a permanent fever. Once you get a small sampling of the world, there really is no turning back. Pyramids? Africa? Spain? Turkey? I don't know how and when, but I will find a way to get there. Eat my way through countries. Follow where the monkeys go.

Meanwhile, I figure that I should amuse myself with future mini-adventures within the country. After all, being abroad makes me realize that I am far from seeing all the grand and glorious things that Americana has to offer. Asides from touring the usual suspects (Grand Canyon, Chicago, New York, etc.), I really like the idea of driving many hours just to see and experience something that may or may not be ridiculous by other people's standards. Such as the Annual Garlic Festival. Or the World's Biggest Yarnball. Or heck, just for a really good steak. I like steak.

--

I leave tomorrow afternoon for Vietnam. Ten days from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City. If you don't ever hear from me again, it means that I have decided at the last minute that my true life calling is wandering the countryside painting communist propaganda posters and eating pho. PHO' SHO.

December is awesome.

Happy December!

I might have left my heart in Hong Kong. And by heart, I really mean life savings. Damnit! More details to come, friends!

In thirteen days, I will lay my head back down to the ample bosom of the sleazy, trashy, Botox-happy bitch-goddess that is Los Angeles. Tito's Taco or Pink's Hot Dog pilgrimage, anyone? Care to pencil in a lunch date where you watch me wolf down an In-N-Out Burger for the first time in five months with hysterical tears of joy streaming down my face? Museum-romping? Boba-cafe-with-wireless-internet-loitering? Really, friends, I am giddy to see all of you again!