Our New *Home*

We've made the move to our new apartment and are loving it!
We love it for a bunch of reasons, but I think the best part is that the whole situation seems more realistic: closer to how we'd expect to live and closer to the experience of local Singaporeans. Sure, it was lovely to 'awaken to a dream on the edge of tranquility' at that condo, but there are more important things than awesome pools and lounge chairs. (Which, yeah, we miss a little)

We've moved into an apartment block in Clementi that was built by the Housing Development Board (called an 'HDB'), meaning it was government-built and sold to a Singaporean at a subsidized price. There are dozens of similar HDB blocks in Clementi, built primarily in the 70s and 80s - though as we see all over Singapore, construction is constant - cranes everywhere all the time! All the necessities for daily life have grown up right alongside the apartments, giving us a taste of true city living that we've just never had - the kind where you can walk three minutes to a grocery store or market or hawker/cafe centre.

So here we go - some pictures, and some things we're digging about Clementi:

Dining room/living room and doors to the porch/entryway

Our apartment is beautiful. It is bright and open, has decent views, came fully furnished (including artwork and knickknacks!) and it safe and secure. We're on the 9th floor and despite how many thousands of people must be living all around us, it is really very quiet. Big kitchen. A piano!

Bedroom - we hooked the extra TV to our computer.
Our Game of Thrones experience was instantly more awesome.

Kitchen - so many cabinets!

Bathroom - the toilet seat
has seashells in it!

Entertainment center - holy cow! Almost everything was left
by the landlord - including the Santa-hatted Johnnie Walker.

Clementi Community Centre

Right across the street (literally, we can see it from our porch) is the Clementi Community Centre. They have a gym (we're thinking about joining) including a nice big basketball court. They also offer all sorts of classes - dance, sports, and probably other stuff too (we see the t'ai chi class out on the basketball court in the morning - it's neat!).

Less than 200m from the apartment, there is nice, paved walking/running/biking path along a canal - from where we enter, you can run 3+ miles in either direction. It is well lit at night and busy enough that I feel comfortable running alone - lots of other runners around too. So Jacob & I have no excuse for not exercising...

and we'll need to, because there are hawkers on the first floors of several of the apartment blocks, along with convenience stores and small groceries stores - and even clinics! Run out of milk? It's a 5 minute errand. Cut off your finger? There is a clinic (in my insurance plan!) across the street!

The MRT and a major bus interchange are an 8-10 minute walk away, making for easy commutes in the morning. (Crowded, to be sure, but easy). There is also the Clementi Mall with a regular Fairprice grocery store and a  'Fairprice Finest' (a slightly classier, better stocked and more expensive version) - both of which are open 24hrs. Oh, and on the top floor of the mall is a public library. Maybe the only way some people would go to the library...accidentally, while trying to shop!

There is also a wet market - meat, fish, produce - behind the mall, so we have lots of options! I went there Saturday morning with my little rolling shopping basket and felt very hip and earthy - though the illusion is a bit shattered by the fact that most of the produce I buy is imported from very far away - like our New York apples! Also, fair warning, parts of the market smell just awful. Best to undertake shopping with a 'kopi peng' (iced coffee) in hand to ward off the smell.

Finally, Clementi is closer to the city than where we lived before, so my commute is now 40-45 minutes, instead of 50-55. And I'm only on the train for about 20 minutes.

All in all, we're really happy with the place we've found - and can't wait to have visitors!!

Oh - for full disclosure, and because this post sounds really rosy - there are a few drawbacks: still no oven, sketchy gas stove that has weird colored flames, some small-medium cockroaches, a few gecko sightings, 9th floor water pressure, and a really loud ac unit outside our bedroom window. But we'll manage, somehow.

And so far - NO ANTS!!!!!!!!! This makes me so very happy!

SingAmerican Thanksgiving

Jacob and I have been so blessed to meet lots of wonderful people through both our jobs. Now that we've moved into a new apartment, we have the chance to actually invite them over! We couldn't think of a better way to celebrate Singamerican Thanksgiving, than by sharing a little of our traditions with our friends here.

Our Thanksgiving table, post attack. A little blurry -
maybe even the camera was too full to function properly.

Since some of our friends haven't celebrated American-style Thanksgiving, I really wanted to make some of the more traditional dishes. And that is where I ran into a few limitation: no oven, no microwave (yet), and just a few pots/pans/woks. But by getting a little creative - and by asking everyone to bring something to share as well - we ended up with a fantastic feast! We did have some turkey (turkey breast, braised - I tried to sear it first too, but that started a teeny little grease fire...for a brief panicked moment I imagined trying to explain how I burned down the entire apartment block...), mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, rolls, salad - covering the more traditional foods. We also had chicken curry, pasta, watermelon & grapes, veggie & tuna bake, crackers & cheese(s) & sausage,potatoes, rice, curried tofu (and another spicy dish), and authentic Spanish omelettes (cooked on site by Jorge, our resident Spaniard). For dessert we had cream puffs, pumpkin bars, and pandan pudding cake/bars. And there was wine too!

Digging in!

Yes, we also made sure to introduce everyone to the post-meal tummy ache and ensuing food coma. Followed by several rounds of Mario Cart (did I mention Jacob bought a N64 from a friend who is moving away - and now I think we'll never be productive again) - and, of course, doing the dishes. But many hands make light work, and our kitchen was amazingly clean by the time the last people headed home. Thanks friends!

Candid shot - we were too busy eating to take many pics!

Jorge & Zach; deep in discussion
or deep in dessert?

I am so thankful for the chance to get together with new friends and to share food and drink and time together. And I continue to be excited and humbled by the opportunity to live and work here in Singapore. It is fun to be part of such a diverse culture - the 15 of us at dinner came from 7 different countries (India, Sri Lanka, Singapore, China, Spain, Germany and the US) and I don't even know how many languages were represented! Let's just say lots (and no thanks to my puny contribution)!





To cap off the weekend, Zach and I attended a performance of Handel's Messiah, in which Jacob performed. (You know the 'trumpets shall sound' part? Yeah, that was my awesome husband!). Great weekend.

In case it wasn't evident from this post, a quick run down of some of the many things for which I'm thankful:

• Jacob, my partner in crime
• Our families - and the ability to skype with them and be part of celebrations, even from far away. Special shout out to Matias, Violet & Beatrice, the coolest kids around.
• Our new friends in Singapore
• Our 'old' friends all over
• Our new apartment here - loving it!
• The blessing of being able to afford, obtain and enjoy good food and clean drinking water (not to mention wine!)
• My new job, which is engaging and thought-provoking
• All the opportunities Jacob is getting to perform and teach and generally come into his own as a musician. It is a joy to watch him doing what he loves - and doing it so well.
• Travels, both recent and upcoming (maybe getting scuba certified before Christmas!)
• The internet - I'm especially appreciative of it now, after a week of no internet in our apartment - easy to forget how much I depend upon it.
• Not having to own or drive a car. Functional, affordable public transportation.
• Podcasts, specifically from NPR. They make the functional, affordable public transportation rather more pleasant.
• Nintendo 64. Don't judge.
• Game of Thrones, books and TV show. Again, no judging my 'me time.'
• Rainy season - I love the thunderstorms and how the rain makes things slightly cooler. Seems we're always adding to our umbrella collection too, so if you visit, we've got you covered! Ha! Get it?!
• Puns
• You!
• And many more...

Deepavali, Oppa KL Style!!

I'm a little delayed in getting this blog out - but here are the highlights from our quick trip to Kuala Lumpur. Considering it was a 72 hour trip, I'd say we got it done!!

Sunday (Nov 11)
Early (like 3:45am early) in the morning, Jacob and I shrugged on our backpacks (ok, he actually took his trumpet case - the boy, he crazy) and caught a cab to Changi Airport, excited for our 3-day getaway. AirAsia's cheap flights make it possible to get around SE Asia, even on a budget - and safety is at least their 3rd or 4th priority, so you'll likely get where you're going in one piece! Probably...


Jacob was especially excited because for the first time, I had consented to CouchSurf. CouchSurfing is an internet-facilitated community where people can offer their couches (or spare bedrooms...or pent houses) as a free place to stay for travelers. The goal isn't just cheap/free accommodations either, but to connect people across the globe. What better way to get your bearings in a new place than to have a local ally to point out the cool stuff - and you may make some good friends as well!

Those apartments all the way
at the top - with the really big
windows - that's where we were!

Following our taxi/plane/bus/subway trip, we met up with our CS host. It turns out we hit the CS jackpot - not only a nice host family, but one that lived in a 4-story pent house apartment in a downtown high rise with a private pool on the roof. WHAT?! We promised not to describe them too much - they don't want to be overwhelmed by CS requests, but it was pretty awesome. We even got the karaoke room to ourselves!

The panorama is goofy, but this is the view from the roof-top pool Holla!

One of my favorite snacks too!

So we met J & J, our hosts, and we all went out to grab some lunch, followed by a stroll through the Lake Gardens on the west side of KL. Then Jacob and I proceeded to the Bird Park - the World's Largest Free-Flight Walk-In Aviary! And truly, it was awesome. I took about about a hundred pictures. I thought the best part was eating ice cream bars while looking at the Changeable Hawk-Eagle Dark Morph (what?!) - that is until we went to the parrot enclosure! The pictures below explain why...I also have video but no time (or home-based internet) to upload it right now.

This poor bird was so sure he could catch
one of those big fish! No such luck!

Yar! Jacob made a friend!

Yum! I also made a friend.

Then I made a bunch more friends, and got a little freaked out!

Such beautiful, intricate models - and huge!

After a few (hot and sweaty) hours at the bird park, we were relieved to enter the cool calm of the Islamic Art Museum. The museum was really spectacular. My favorite exhibit had over a dozen architectural models of mosques from all over the world. The detail was amazing, and it was fascinating to see the differences across the regions. There were stunning, 400+ year-old Qurans with illuminations of gold, spooky looking knives, daggers and swords, rich fabrics, and all kinds of jewelry and pottery. If you find yourself in KL, it is a must.

From there we walked to Chinatown (only ending up in one construction site) where we were overwhelmed by the rows and rows of stuff for sale. At dinner time we turned down the appealing option of going to Kenny Roger's Roasters (what don't you find in SE Asia?!) in favor a small Thai restaurant/bar filled only with chain smoking locals watching some heart-wrenching Thai music videos. The food was delicious, as was the Myanmar beer. After that, we called it a night and, after taking a chilly dip in the pool (in the rain), we went to bed.

Monday

I won't lie. This breakfast wasn't my fave.

We started the day with breakfast in Kampung Bahru, an interesting part of the city that seems almost rural, despite being right across the highway from the city center and the skyline-dominating Petronas Towers. Breakfast consisted of rice (dyed blue to celebrate Deepavali!) with crushed dried fish, chilis, and some other stuff sprinkled on top, and a fish for Jacob and fried chicken for me. And kopi ping - iced coffee with a generous dollop of sweetened condensed milk and sugar!!





We then went to the Petronas Towers, where the ground floors are dominated by a huge mall and where the Malaysia Philharmonic has its concert hall. Jacob had arranged to take a lesson with one of the MPO trumpet players, so he went off to that and I sat in the gardens behind the towers, staring up at them and enjoying the dancing fountains outside. In the shade, I could almost pretend it was cool!

Apparently, the creators of the special exhibit
were not aware that the term 'Red Indian' is no
longer an acceptable term for Native Americans -
Errrr.........................yeah.

We ate lunch at a Buddhist Temple before going to the KL tower, a sort of space-needle like tower. Incredibly touristy and rather pricey, but on vacation you gotta do those things! We went up the tower and enjoyed an expansive view of the city, picking out the places we'd already visited and watching the approaching rain. Then it was on to the National Museum. This museum was no where near as...put-together as the Islamic Art Museum, but it was interesting and sort of precious in its own right. The funniest part was maybe how things were labeled as being 'more than 100 years old' or 'probably 80 years old'- how's that for scientific?! The best part was the special exhibit about all sorts of traditional healing and medicine, including everything from dances to trances to acupuncture to leeches to eating dung.

Little India - all decked out for Deepavali!

Festival of Light

The stage, as viewed from the
restaurant balcony

After struggling to catch a taxi in the rain (good thing we had our rain coats - with pit vents!!), we made our way to Brickfields Little India, which was hyping up for the last night of Deepavali celebrations - there was even a big stage set up for a sort of variety show performance. We ate some good curry (we've decided that Indian food ALMOST relieves our cravings for Mexican food) and found that we could watch the stage from the balcony of the restaurant. We also met up with our friend Lisa Deng, a Fulbright scholar in KL (working on Palliative care too!) who I met by chance at a conference at Duke-NUS last month. She also brought her friend, Owen, who had just finished his Fulbright work in Malaysia. I felt acutely aware of how special it was - and how lucky we were - to have the opportunity to meet new people and experience new cultures together. We watched a great Michael Jackson interpreter (who we later met - Jacob shook his glove hand! Michael Magic!!) and heard Gangnam Style at least 5 times - because what says Happy Deepavali better than KPop's biggest hit? That's right - nothing! We strolled the streets, bought some roman candle fireworks and shot them off (yikes!), Lisa and I got henna tattoos on our hands, and then we sat down and had a drink before heading back. From the roof of the apartment we watched fireworks exploding in several places across the city as it got to be midnight.

Tuesday
The next morning we packed up and said goodbye to J&J, stashed most of our luggage in a locker at the sentral station, and took a train up to the Batu Caves. The Caves are a holy site for Hindus, and it was really amazing to be there on a holiday, when hundred of people came to be blessed and to pray. Lisa joined us, so the three of us explored together. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves!

I kind of love his bike shorts..

One of several temples at the base of the caves.

Lisa and me - you can see the steep steps
behind us. Long climb on a hot day!

Whoa - we're actually in a picture together!
Thanks Lisa!

Almost to the top!

Once you went into the cave, you came out into another
area that was open to the sky. The water dripping down
looked so beautiful!

Mmm they loved his feet. They're supposed to eat all the
dead skin off your feet. It really was refreshing. But so hard
to let them nibble between your toes - holy cow!

SUPER tickle-y!

Choco-Banana Crepe!

After climbing up into the caves and coming down, we joined in the free feast that one of the local ministers (gov't guys) was providing in the giant tents. Perfect timing, because just as we were eating, the rains came. I think this was my first glimpse of a monsoon rain - it was so intense! So we bought some coconuts (Jacob braved the rain) and sat back sipping them until the rain let up. We headed back down to KL, where Jacob and I checked out another market, had our feet nibbled by fish, and went to a big mall for a dinner of sushi followed by Japanese crepes for dessert (stuffed with bananas, lychees, chocolate ice cream and whipped cream!).

That evening we took a bus down to the airport (it was pretty far away) and checked into the Tune Hotel (so budget, you have to pay for a towel!) and got to bed early. We got up at 3:45 (again!), navigated to and through the crazy low-cost carrier terminal (laughably confusing). A plane and an MRT ride later, Jacob and I were back in Singapore. We headed straight to work - long day but worth it! If only I'd had a bucket of fish to nibble my feet while I worked!!
Thanks, dear reader, for reading to the end. This was a long one! I'll keep it shorter next time :)

24 Hours in Johor Bahru

Jacob and I, joined by our friend Zach, escaped north of the border this weekend, the Johor Bahru, the Malaysian city just across the Johor Straits. Yap Ling, a musician friend that Jacob originally met when he lived in Sabah, was there with the Malaysian youth orchestra with whom he works, and invited us to come up and meet him for dinner. So on Saturday afternoon, we took a few MRT and bus trips across the causeway, passed through Singapore emigration and Malaysian immigration (complete with fore-finger printing), and arrived in the pouring rain.

Johor tends to be perceived as much more dangerous than Singapore, though to be honest, probably most places are! However, we found everyone helpful and had no issues whatsoever - in fact, we were pretty overwhelmed by some of the hospitality we received.

Our first task was to locate Jomi Homestay, where Jacob and I had booked a room for less than US$15, and Zach really scored with a bed in the common room for under US$5. Not luxurious, but I didn't see any bugs, and I think we all got at least a little sleep so...win!

The entrance to Jomi Homestay - and the breakfast nook.

Our delux private room - note the snowmen on the curtain!

Just laughing with the girls!

We then met up with Ling at the hotel where him and the orchestra were staying. The youth orchestra is completely sponsored by the Malaysian government and travels throughout the different Malaysian states giving concerts. Neat program! We came just as they were sitting down to dinner at the hotel, and we were immediately asked to join them. The buffet included fried baby squid (love!) and Ais Kecang, a dessert made of shaved ice topped with your choice of various syrups, jelly/jello cubes, lychees, red beans and sweet corn. Um...what? I can't say I was a fan, though looking at the dish below, how could you not want it?

Can you guess which is Ling and which is Zach?

Ais kacang - YUM-O!

On short notice, the youth orchestra had been asked to go north to the town of Batu Pahat to perform at an Arts Festival. Again, we were invited to come along, so we hopped in the van (following the kid's bus) and began the trek north. The 'hour+' trip actually ended up taking more like 2.5 hours, but we were lucky - on the way, we got to watch the movie 'Arena' - with a character called 'Death Dealer,' at least 10 brutal fights to the death, and Samuel L. Jackson, what's NOT to love?

We arrived at Batu Pahat and were treated to a really fantastic concert of cultural music and dance. The whole concert was so well coordinated - the lighting, sound, and performances were so enjoyable. I think our favorite was the little boy who sang two songs, much to the delight of all the middle-aged women. We heard later that he had won last year's Malaysia's Youth Idol!

Unfortunately, the Youth Orchestra had been invited to play before the arts concert, not after, so that didn't end up working out. However, we all got a great show, and then the three of us were invited to come eat with some of the VIPs in attendance - some local leaders and the Minister of Culture. So we downed hospitality meal #2! Oofda.

The van ride home was a little trying for me - the road in Malaysia are not as smooth as could be wished and the movie - the Expendables - wasn't helping me either. But fortunately we made it back without any unpleasantness! We thanked Ling and caught a taxi back to Jomi, where we hit the hay - and slept as best we could between some rather rude frogs outside our window, and a blaring radio in one of the other rooms!

In the morning, we rose late and sat out drinking tea and talking to a man we dubbed Canada Bob, a retired Canadian man who has been traveling for the last few years and plans to spend another 18 months of so in South East Asia - cool nomad.

We then walked a ways to the city center, which was pretty sleepy on a Sunday morning. We ate lunch at one of the few open restaurants before walking around and checking out a Mosque, a Sikh Temple and a Hindu Temple. So neat to see these all within blocks of each other. We found the Bazar, which was in full preparation mode for Deepavali (Diwali), the Indian festival coming up next week. After more strolling and some sunburn, we made our way back to the bus terminal and (after waiting an oddly long time for a bus) returned to Singapore. Our new city is great in so many ways, but Singapore has been so cleaned up and re- and re-rebuilt that sometimes it can feel a bit sterile. It was fun to get out for a day and see some different sites, meet some new people, and have a bit of an adventure.

This artwork is made out of little grains or sand/rice/rock - painstakingly made and stunning! And it was just in a mall - we saw others as well. They are celebrating Deepavali.

Top of the Hindu temple

Pretty stunning entrance.

Sights of the market.

Tons of flower necklaces being made and sold.

Pretty! 

Stayed tuned for next weekend - we're going to Kuala Lumpur for Deepavali!