Two years in Singapore

Friday the 15th of October 2010, I wrote a blog post about our arrival in Singapore and posted a hazy picture from our window of the city. Today I'm looking back at the two years and reflecting on all the highlights and themes.

 

The First Year

2010 to 2011 was quite an adventure. While we'd left behind a marvelous life back in California we were not homesick at all and really didn't look back. This first year was all about discovery and adventure. We traveled, Joel especially traveled for his work (in fact was nearly not a resident due to the number of days he'd been away). Highlights were exploring the city, making new friends and taking side trips to Malaysia and Indonesia and hosting my family here in the Summer. At the end of that year we were into our second Monsoon and pretty settled in.

The Second Year

We have a mixed bag of feelings about our second year, 2011-2012. I think a lot of the things we compromised in our lives to be here started to wear thin. We were more annoyed with cultural idiosyncrasies as our adventure had morphed into having to just get on with life. We both started to feel restless with the constant noise of the city and we really yearned for clean air. Taking side trips became of paramount importance. The highlights from this year were our trip to Paris and London for Christmas, Bali again in January, my graduation and our trip to California, our trip to Thailand. For non-travel highlights, in March 2012 we adopted Kopi-o and then in June we found out we were expecting our first baby (due Feb 2013).

The Third Year

What's in store? Well we have more travel of course — at least until they start to kick me off planes. And then travel with our little family of three once he/she is equipped with a passport. There are so many places we still have not crossed off our bucket list. Will it be our final year in South East Asia? I'm not telling! You'll just have to stick around and see. 

Sailing course

photo credit: Diana 

photo credit: Diana

We finally after YEARS of planning took a sailing course. When we were first looking at moving to Singapore we read all about how "crazy about sailing" Singaporeans are. Of course this article was on some sailing site that was trying to sell yachts to Singapore expats. Since arrival we realized that sailing is really not at all a part of local culture at all! Hardly any wonder, this island is not known for having much wind and of course being a very busy shipping port it's a tricky place to navigate. There are some very small Marinas around the island in various states of disrepair (shockingly Raffles Marina is pretty shabby). The new Keppel Bay Marina is small but brand new and it offers some courses onboard their Beneteau 40s. The competent crew course we took went across to Batam and around the island of Singapore on two weekend overnight excursions.

Tang's Wonderful World of Mooncakes

Last year we visited Vivo City mall and did this Moon Cake tasting and market and bought our first Singapore Moon Cakes. Here's that post to compare last year's loot.

This year quite by accident again we were back there for the tail end of the Mid Autumn Festival and decided to go around it again and try something else. I'm always a sucker for just looking at the outrageously expensive packaging on these things. The photos are a little rough, I was shooting from the hip with my iPhone so as not to draw too much attention.

Flower ID

This pungent flower appeared on my walk today. It smells heavenly and looks like it's a parasitic plant feeding off a tree. Anyone have a clue what it is? --UPDATE--Scroll down to see the answer!

We have two winners! Our friends Jennifer and Flora have both identified this as a Cannonball Tree or Couroupita guianensis. It's not a parasite but a tree that carries its fruit close to the trunk. The big round ripe fruit fall and can do some damage hence the connonball reference. 

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Couroupita_guianensis

For Good Luck

Joel helping burn "money" with an enthusiastic Auntie.

The two truths

Our cultural trainer two years ago gave us a talk on "the two truths." It was his way of saying that there are always going to be two answers in Singaporean culture, the absolute truth and the other truth that is protecting someone from losing face. We were aghast, "you mean people will lie to us?" Our trainer smiled and said "well don't call it lying. It's saving face and you'll eventually learn to tell when someone is saving face." He also told us that we needed to learn the ins and outs of indirect communication. What the hell? I couldn't imagine how to use indirect communication in any useful capacity.

What to expect when you're expecting dinner at a restaurant in Singapore

I love watching people the first time they eat out here. The service in European and American style restaurants is anything but what you'd expect. Here are the extremely annoying service issues you'll have to get used to in order to eat out and not go crazy.

1) Hailing. You have to wave at a waiter just like you would in a dive-bar to make your order.

2) Missing drinks. Your drinks might all arrive individually which is awkward but honestly half the time they don't arrive at all and we have to re-order.

3) Lonely Plates. Your food will arrive whenever the cook decides to make it and each dish will come one at a time even if you're paying $150+ per head in a french restaurant and you all ordered mains that are not for sharing. You can try to ask at the beginning for your dishes to come at the same time (snickers) but seriously... good luck with that.

4) Missing waiter. Your server will probably never stop by to do a quality check after your food arrives.

5) Fast Plates. Bussers will take plates away that look nearly finished even if you are still holding your fork and others at the table are still eating.

6) The awkward goodbye. No one will ask you if you would like anything else so you better start hailing again for dessert or the bill

7) The missing billfold. They might take off with your credit card and then leave it by the till for half an hour till someone feels like ringing it in.

Just one of those cardinal sins above would have got me fired on the spot from my restaurant job in Vancouver years ago so it's very hard to not bristle each and every time it happens. Thank goodness the bill comes with a 10% tip included which is the percentage reserved for bad service. They like to set the expectations low. Start with a stiff cocktail and hope it shows up before you get to the lonely plates or the missing waiter stage.

Taking cabs in Singapore is a religious experience

Well it's not exactly divine but it's something the locals revere with a great amount of tradition, rules and respect. If you break the rules it's going to be met with the same level of fury as you'd encounter going into a church in Rome topless.

After two years of taking cabs I've come to also have a great appreciation for the rules but also a lot of sympathy for tourists who arrive and have no idea how the secret system works.

Happy 5th/11th Anniversary to us

We were long past due for a side trip. 11 weeks had passed since our trip to California ended and I have about a six week time limit before I start to feel desperate to get out of Singapore. We both needed fresh air and some peace and quiet.

I booked us a weekend trip to Krabi for our anniversary. It was the easiest side trip we've ever done actually. I booked the flight with Tiger airways which wasn't quite as annoying as it was when I last used their online booking system and I found Amari Vogue Krabi on Trip adviser when I was searching for quiet boutique places to stay.

Our weekend was pretty incredible. The flight was fast and uneventful. Krabi airport is clean and efficient and we were the only plane at the airport when we arrived so getting out of the departures area took 10 minutes and there was our driver right on time. We had a very clean new car that whisked us at Thai speed out to the resort and literally just a couple of hours from the time we'd left our house we were checked in and sipping tea in Thailand. So easy! It actually took a lot less time and hassle then any of our trips to Malaysia which is technically closer. Everyone assumes you need more time to do a Thailand side trip than Malaysia or Bali but really I'd say exactly the opposite.

So Krabi province is gorgeous and we only saw just a teeny little bit on our car rides and beach walks. This is an area that outdoorsy folks go to because of the climbing and parks. Our resort was right next to a big park so it felt very remote as we only had a neighbour on one side and the other mini resorts along here all seem to be very small.

We had very inclement weather but it was nice and cool the whole time with a fresh breeze. So nice to be somewhere less humid and we had no air conditioning on at all. We read books, napped, ate fruit  and sipped fresh squeezed juice and tea. It was a very chill trip and a great way to spend our anniversary.

The foods we miss

We made a bunch of Greek food tonight and started a list of food we've been missing in Singapore lately. This is what we are craving. 

Mexican Food

Greek food

Brunch

Salads 

Bagels and Jewish deli food

Cinnamon buns

Fresh Tortellini, Ravioli and Gnocci

Vegetables with flavour. (What on earth happens to veggies that get shipped here?) 

Berries 

Tart fall apples with the blush still on them