Night Safari

One of our favourite attractions in Singapore is the Night Safari. We took my parents and brother here just a few days before Austen was born. Joel went back yesterday with his co-workers as a team building activity and took our camera to capture some of the wildlife.

The first three weeks

Austen is 21 days days old and growing and changing faster than we could have imagined. He's a strong little guy and can turn himself over and can almost hold his head up already. He's a pretty good sleeper, often passing out for 4-5 hour stretches at night (yay!). Here are a few more pictures from his first weeks.

Week three

Week two

Week one

Moving on

With a mixture of excitement and sadness we are officially announcing our next relocation. Arriving and being an alien in a new land is a big part of the expat experience but so is coping with these bittersweet endings to great adventures. More than anything it's the people we will miss the most. We've built such great friendships in our two years here.

Without further ado, I'll reveal our new location...



Venice Beach, CA!

We used to spend a few months of each year there and feel comfortable with the area. Our families are only going to be a 3 hour little flight away. We're happy to say this is a career centre that works much better for both of us and it will also give us both a chance to get back to working on some side projects that were put on hold while in Singapore.

We think baby Austen is going to be thrilled with his beachside playgrounds and more frequent visits with the grandparents. Kopi-o will eventually forgive us and will hopefully get to play outdoors and hunt something more exciting than tiny ants.

Many of you may have heard through the grapevine that this was in the works but it's taken a very long time to finalize all the details so I'm only getting to announce this 4 and a half weeks before our move! Timing-wise we're right down to the wire. Our visas should be ready in three weeks and Austen should have his passport and Singapore dependent's pass within the next two weeks. He had to get a passport photo when he was four days old! I'm sad that he won't get to have any memory of his life here but he does have a pretty cool birth certificate.

Speaking of Austen, he's been getting some really exciting mail these days and I'm a little worried about anyone mailing stuff beyond this point (mail is very slow getting here). Please contact us for a forwarding address if you are doing any mailing.

It's a boy!

Austen

was born at home in Singapore

on March 14th at 7:03 am

7 pounds 15 ounces, 22 inches

The waiting game continues

I know the hits on our blog right now are primarily to look for baby news so I'll update here. We're sitting comfy at 40 weeks, 4 days and trying not to be insanely anxious to meet this little one.

The really cool news is my parents are now in Bali actually staying in our favourite little Inn and exploring one of the most magical areas of the planet. I'm not sure what date they will fly here but it will likely be next week. If you are Facebook friends with my Dad you can see what they are up to!

My brother is also SE Asia bound and should be flying somewhere over the North Pacific right now en route to Hong Kong where he's staying over for a night and then arriving in Singapore in the wee hours of Sunday morning.

A neighbourhood walk

We sometimes forget we live next to this bustling HDB area with all kinds of hidden local culture. This past week we've been wandering down there for meals. There are some excellent cafes and food stalls we never knew were there. It's also one of the oldest HDBs and the vintage bits and pieces are fun to see. Joel loves the old arcade games and derelict kids rides. There are more from our day of wandering on flickr here.

Lion Dance

Lion Dance a video by coach_stacey on Flickr.

This is just a small door-to-door Lion dance that briefly interrupted our lunch this afternoon at The Prata cafe.

Year of the snake

New Years Pineapple Tarts (much like the ones we've been eating)
-photo from Hungrygowhere

Our meringue snake from Da Paolo eaten on NYE

We're on day three on the Lunar New Years festivities celebrating the year of the snake. We've honestly kept pretty close to home the past few days because during New Years everyone in Singapore likes to go out visiting AND the taxi drivers take holidays. On top of those two factors, there have been torrential monsoon rains through every afternoon. A deadly combination.

We have celebrated in our own way. We're had friends visit for meals and have been out for some nice walks and today we finally ventured into the Orchard Rd for some last minute baby things and found that it wasn't that busy down there (I mean yes, it was shoulder to shoulder but one could still draw breath). We also managed to somehow get a table at Din Tai Fung for lunch.

Decor inside Paragon

Video of Thaipusam procession

Video of procession a video by coach_stacey on Flickr.

Thaipusam in Singapore

"Thaipusam is a highly symbolic Hindu festival celebrated by Singapore’s Tamil community. It is an annual procession by Hindu devotees seeking blessings, fulfilling vows and offering thanks. Celebrated in honour of Lord Subrahmanya (also known as Lord Murugan), who represents virtue, youth and power to Hindus and is the destroyer of evil, it is held during the full moon in the 10th Tamil month, called Thai, which falls in mid-January each year."
Source: http://www.yoursingapore.com/content/traveller/en/browse/whats-on/festivals-and-events/thaipusam.html

Sounds pretty tame doesn't it? Well it's a little more than just a procession. Devotees to the faith walk to the temple with elaborate and symbolic things attached to their bodies with temporary piercing. It's a walk of pain and totally fascinating to see. This year Joel went down to little India to photograph the colourful procession.

Warning: The photos do show a lot of skin piercing  If you are faint of heart this might be a good time to go look at something else.

See all our photos here