Mystery Item- Help Identify

Hello friends! I need your assistance. Since I checked into this room over a week ago, there's been a white strappy looking thing plastic wrapped in the bathroom. Tonight I unwrapped it. I have no bloody idea what it is. It's over 3 feet long. Made of a terry cloth material except for the center which is a firm (like really dense cardboard) loofah-covered thing. It has a string loop on each end.

What is it? Why was it in the bathroom?

Please comment if you know/have any ideas what this is used for! I've stayed in my share of hotels and have never seen anything like it. I ask the front desk enough dumb questions, I can't ask if this is worth smuggling home.

It's probably totally obvious in which case, ignore this entire inquiry and use this blog posting as an excuse to check out my very very sexy watch tan.

Bye friends!!

Week with Melissa! (and the reason for 5 blogs at once)

Poor Melissa had to suffer through a whole week of me having a manly, squeaky, raspy, Marge Simpson voice. At some points I couldn't even speak at all. Luckily she had friends from work and Stanford who live in Singapore and were able to show her around.

Tuesday night after work I met up with Melissa and her friends for dinner. They were an exhausted bunch after a full day out exploring. Raymond, a native of Singapore who now works with Melissa at UCSF ordered us quite the spread of all local favorites. The stingray was actually very good!

We were going to karaoke (which I was excited for because I had no voice so I couldn't get suckered into singing) but all of us were pooped so we grabbed a Tiger beer (a popular beer in Singapore) at the nearby bar and called it a night. She had a great crew of friends who hopefully I can see again before I leave!

Wednesday night was just Melissa and I heading out. I took her down to Clark Quay where all the clubs are located. It was still a bit too early to really be popping (Raymond liked how I used the word "popping"). We strolled over to Boat Quay where more bars are but nothing was quite the right match for what we were looking for.

So we ended up MRTing over to Chijmes- an area with bars I had been to before and thought were great. We strolled by the first one and it had a $7 cover fee. We skipped it and went to the next bar. $20 all you can drink!!!!! The special was going from 9 to 11:30pm. We arrived at 10:45. Even with just 45 minutes of drinking we sure got our money's worth. We met some cool guys who after the free drinks stopped led us back to the first bar we passed. The cover was off and girls were drinking for free! Smuggling the free drinks to guys we had quite the dance party. There were hardly any girls in any of the bars despite the free drinks- a factor we guessed was due to a large Muslim and Hindi presence in Singapore....and that it was a Wednesday night. Needless to say, we had our pick of lads to dance with that night and ended up enjoying ourselves till our feet were dead and my voice totally gone.

She braided my hair! I love this girl :)

Paul from Australia, me, Mel, and the happiest little fellow I've ever met!

Thursday- THANKSGIVING! We had a later start due to our previous night's shenanigans. During Wednesday I found out some bummer news- my Singapore boss was not going to give me Friday off so I would no longer be accompanying Melissa to Kuala Lumpur. I had no work to do but my boss insisted I should be there (even though she and everybody else weren't) so I can refile binders to, I kid you not, "make the file cabinet look prettier." Let's just say, I was less than happy about this. Anywho, it ended up meaning that Thursday was going to be my last day with Melissa.

We decided to head out to Kusu Island. It was just a 20 minute ferry ride away and we had heard there were lagoons to swim in and it was supposed to be chill. It ended up being deserted!! I guess weekends it gets popping but on a Thursday afternoon it was dead. It was nice to get out of the hustle and bustle of the city. On the way back our ferry captain had the best kung fu movie I've ever seen playing. It made the trip worth it!

Ferrying over

Peaceful Kusu

Melissa explored the island while I laid on this bench watching boats pass.

I was thinking about Mitch Hedberg jokes, I guess my face reflects my amused thoughts.

Ok- looking normal(er)

We were discussing about how it's awkward posing by yourself. So Melissa does this pretty little stance.

And I do this.

(If you thought Asians threw up peace signs in pictures- that was so last year. Melissa and I had seen a lot of Asians do a pose like this. Sooo cool.)

That night Melissa, Jon (from SBT), and I went to the Night Safari. It was the much hyped about must-do attraction in Singapore. There were awesome fire blowers and eaters at the park entrance and the rest of time you were on a tram looking at animals. It was cool but a little hard to see some of the animals- I guess that should be expected.

Jon, Me, Melissa

Melissa left Friday morning. It was great having her here and having such sweet company :)

Friday I went to work. Grrr. My voice was really terrible at this point but I was still feeling fine. I was not achy or sluggish, I just couldn't speak and my head was congested. I filed all the binders and the meetings I supposedly had (and were the reason my boss required me to come in) were postponed to Monday. So around 10:00am I had no work to do.

At 11:30am the 49ers games was tied (not that I knew this while at work...) I decided I had enough, took leave and went over to the SBT house to catch the losing outcome. They were heading to Johor Bahru, Malaysia, for that day and possibly spend the night. I decided to tag along despite their non-stop jokes about my voice.

While they were packing they were blasting Selena Gomez's "Love you Like a Love Song" I guess the manlier the deployment, the more girly the house anthem. Last year it was Miley Cyrus's "Party in the USA." They didn't want "evidence" of our innocent trip, so nobody took pictures. I ended up getting a $20 mani/pedi with one of the guys. I guess those guys go with their wives to get pampered a lot. Everything is really cheap there so the boys did a lot of shopping for their wives and themselves. I didn't end up buying anything but I did carry some of the 66 discounted/pirated DVDs back across the border for one of the guys. We went to a bar, they didn't give us a bottle opener, but luckily one of the guys uses his wedding band to open bottles. His wife hates this. I thought it was super cool. We hopped around all day, negotiating cab fares and hitting bars. The final bar we went to wanted us to leave our bags by the front door so we wouldn't video anything inside. I was nervous about what was coming but nothing fazes these boys anymore. They've been deployed so many times now they've seen it all. We promised we wouldn't film anything and headed in. The place was empty except for about 30 hookers/strippers sitting around. We shot pool for awhile. I went pee in the traditional toilet (which I'm a master at now) in the women's restroom- while a dozen hookers were putting their make-up on. Yeah, I felt right at home.

Around 11:30pm, two of the guys decided they wanted to head back to Singapore. I had completely lost my voice at this point so I decided to leave too. So we left a man behind ( I guess navy boys don't care about leaving their friend behind in clubs...). It turned out to being a really fun day! Those guys are truly awesome!

Today I woke up and couldn't speak. I decided to finally go to my coworker's doctor whose office was right by the Hilton. I had no idea how it was going to work, if I was going to be able to get an appointment, if enough of my voice still existed to be able to communicate to the doctor, etc.

I filled out the patient waiting form and was told I had a 30-45 minute wait. After about an hour I was called to the doctor. There were no nurses, the doctor just had a desk and and a normal chair next to it. There was no hospital bed. He used some fancy word for phlegm, told me that my allergies had gotten so bad that my throat was now infected (not strep thankfully) and that I can't talk for a few days. $130 and 5 different types of medicine later, I was back in my hotel room popping pills.

No childproof pill bottles- just plastic baggies.

Since I can't talk and just fester solo in my hotel room, I decided to blog.....hence the reason for my 5 posts today. Please make sure to catch all the Bali highlights.

Stay healthy my friends!

The Real Bali

My other 3 blogs highlighted the touristy things we did while in Bali. This shows more of the third world side of Bali. It probably was not as bad as I'm making it sound, but it was quite a contrast from the clean, safe, sterile Singapore. Even at a gorgeous resort hotel we still had to brush our teeth with bottled water. Even while bartering with people, their currency is so inflated we'd be negotiating over pennies. Melissa paid $12 for an hour long massage with 2 masseuses working on her. Made Dodi ( a legit driver who drove the crew of Eat Pray Love around) didn't even make $5/hr. Unlike Hawaii and the Cayman Islands, when you left the hotel- things got iffy fast. Never did I feel unsafe, for Made always dropped us off right in front of where we needed to be and often escorted us through the mobs, but you can tell there's probably some crime. All hotels search the cars for bombs prior to pulling up to the porte-cochere.

Probably the biggest shocker of all, was the lack of helmets on kids! Most people used a motorbike to get around and you'd see whole families of 4 crammed onto one bike. It was terrifying seeing them dart through traffic jams and whip around, with a small baby just sitting there without a helmet. Some kids rode in front sof the driver while standing on the running boards, some were tucked in between both parents. Some moms sat side-saddle while holding a baby and having a toddler sitting between her and her husband. I couldn't even believe it.

Side saddle- carrying one baby while having one in front of her

Day 3 in Bali

The final day we spent the morning at the pool before our required 1:30pm check-out. Made was busy so his cousin, Michael, drove us around before dropping us off at the airport. We went to a very fancy hotel, Ulu Watu followed by 2 beaches (one that was in Eat Pray Love), went to a great local handicraft store to get some souvenirs and then flew out! I'm sorry I don't remember the beaches names right now- I'll have to ask Melissa when I get my voice back (more to post about this later).

Fancy remote hotel

Fancy hotel

Fancy shmancy

Ulu Watu

Ulu Watu- I had to get a loner sarong because my knees showed. There  was also a crazy monkey problem there. Melissa heeded Michael's advice at first and did not wear her sunglasses because they monkeys could steal them. I risked it and thought I'd just pop the critter if it got within sunglass stealing distance. We did see a monkey steal a flip flop and tease the tourist while up in the tree waving it.

It was a gazillion degrees. 

Nice views from the top

Quite a fun little trek through caves down to this platform. Many surfers were out.

Eat Pray Love beach

Ulu Watu

Michael- about a half dozen people or so asked to take photos of us. This is one returning the favor. Not many 6 foot tall white girls in this part of Bali. (and tssk tssk my sexy knee poking thru the fabric- such a trouble maker)

Went down that sketchy staircase that had no handrails

Beach side town 

This gingham fabric was everywhere- the white and black colors being good and bad.

During our tour around Ulu Watu, Melissa had gotten ahead so Michael and I were talking. He told me I didn't look American, I look Australian. I asked if that was a good thing. He said "Ohhhh yaaaah." Later on that night we flew back on Royal Dutch Airlines. Melissa and I sat in adjacent aisle seats. When the stewardess got to Melissa, she asked her drink order in English. She asked me in Dutch. Apparently I don't look American...maybe I should become an American spy? Maybe I already am? Shhhh!