Awesome

Today was the long-awaited singaporean gathering at Prof Shih’s villa! I was actually lucky enough, or should I say it was just a great coincidence that on the car ride back to KAUST when I went back to singapore in January, I had to share the car with 2 other singaporeans who were on the same flight.

One was the managing director of the biopolis equivalent in kaust, and the other was his colleague. So the managing director guy told me that there was going to be a gathering, and he asked for my email address so that he could keep me in the loop. When he finally sent the invitation, I told him that I had a singaporean colleague (Tina) as well, and he said I could bring her along.

So after much planning on his side, it was finally set for today!!!! I was crazy excited because:

1) I wanted to see what kind of palace the president lives in (considering the student housing is so nice already and the families/business visitors (like Tina and I) have a freaking townhouse)

2) I wanted to see how many more Singaporeans there are here!

3) FOOD!!!!!

The president lives on the edge of the island district. Its like a super ulu but atas place, where all the houses are not townhouses anymore, they’re like mansions and bungalows – just really really huge standalone houses. We took the shuttle bus and alighted in front of the only grey mansion in kaust. The other houses are all white or like a dark peachy pink colour.

We thought that was the house, but the number did not tally. And the house had some serious gates and fences. And it was made of marble.

Later we found out that this house belongs to the oil minister of saudi arabia. Whuttttt.

The president’s house was just next to it! It was so grand, it’s insane.

WAHHHHHH. Tina and I were DAMN MEGA SUAKU like walking around and oohing and aahing at EVERYTHING even his well kept garden and flowers and some water feature at the front.

HIS MAIN DOOR?!?! OMG!?!! Like hotel lobby ok?

I doubt he drives the car himself because I highly suspect he has a personal driver but it is a freaking CADILLAC. OH MY MY MY.

The gathering was in his garden!

It was crazy windy and crazy cold!!!

OH GOD I cannot imagine living in a house with this as a backyard

The back of the house with his own personal swimming pool

There was also TONS of food. I met this malay family, the ONLY malay muslim and singaporean family in kaust and the wife cooked nasi lemak!!!!! WITH SAMBAL PRAWNS!!!!! Oh I lapped it all up.

Wow I was so grateful to have met this malay family! They were so nice and so warm and I spent forever talking with the wife, Cik Siti. Her husband Pakcik Rindra works in the library doing some computer sciencey thing and she’s a stay at home mom. Her mother also happened to be visiting, so it was really nice, they really took me in as one of their own.

The sun was beginning to set and it was getting dark so I asked her if she was going to do mahgrib prayers. And she was like, “oh yes, we are going home at 730pm to pray, do you want to come?” UHH YES PLEASE!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH ME FOREVER GRATEFUL!!!!

So they invited me into their lovely home, which was not very far away since they also lived in the island district and her husband drives. They had a 4 bedroom house which was incredibly huge. We actually talked a lot about life and they asked me about germany and it was just really really nice to have a feeling of home again. I prayed next to Cik Siti’s mom and while waiting for isyak we also talked a lot and I learnt a lot about them!

Me with Cik Siti (red tuds) and her mom (black tuds), with their twin girls Nazurah and Nabilah! They also have a 3 year old son Matin who is not in the picture and obviously the husband took the picture for us lah.

I was so so thankful I met them! The nenek, being a nenek even gave me a brooch! Before we parted ways (I left with her daughters and husband to go back to the gathering while the ladies stayed one), Cik Siti put like 200 riyals in my hand and said “buat jajan”! I refused it but she insisted, oh God they are really so nice and such sincere people! At that point in time I really wanted to cry already. Seriously I’m turning into an emo person like my mom -__-

I spent quite a long time at their place just talking with them. It is nice being able to speak malay with fellow singaporeans. And they were really the nicest people you could ever meet. I mean, I literally just met them an hour ago but we talked like we’ve known each other for YEARS.

We got back to the gathering and they were already packing up. Tina skillfully packed tons of samosas and epok-epoks. Hehe I can count on her for that!!

We waited around for a while to get a photo with Prof Shih. He was a busy man today and everyday! So when we finally got him, I told him that I was a freshman in NUS when he was still president and that meeting him was really a big deal for me! He just laughed. He is truly someone that we should be proud of as singaporeans! He wasn’t a president’s scholar or any kind of scholar.

In fact, he was a normal student. He wasn’t from Raffles or Hwa Chong or any of the top ranking schools, but he was from neighbourhood schools (monk’s hill primary, beatty sec) and he did not go to university, he went to singapore poly. After that, he managed to go on to Harvard to do a masters and a PhD and he became a professor at Brown University (awesome or what!).

He is truly someone that I look up to. I mean, finally a real singaporean who is so awesome in so many ways. He’s proven that you really don’t need to be a scholarship recipient to be successful. Or heck, you don’t need to be from top schools to be successful! He is among the world’s experts in the field of fracture mechanics.

And he is also really good looking for an old man.

We initially took this picture but upon viewing it, it looked quite haunted and he was like “oh no, lets take it again!”

So we took it at his outdoor pool, where I asked him if he went swimming everyday. He said in all 3 years of living there, he’s never once jumped into the pool!

WHUTTTTTTTTT!

All in all, alhamdulillah for this gathering because I met such great people. Will definitely be keeping in touch with this malay family insyaAllah. The nenek also wanted to know my parents and all – super super sweet.