Awaken to a Dream on the Edge of Tranquility

It can be difficult to find an apartment from abroad, so we were fortunate that we were able to take over Garrett & Mara's apartment situation, since they were leaving right before Jacob arrived.

Condos across the pool from us - it is a BIG place!

Fair warning - this place is pretty ridiculous! The tag line of the condo complex is, as the blog title suggests, 'Awaken to a dream on the edge of tranquility!' (A line best whispered creepily in another persons' ear just as they're waking up). The complex is called Lakeshore Condos and the amenities are awesome. We are pretty far out on the west side of Singapore, but there is an MRT (train) stop right across the street - as well as a beautiful lake complete with running paths and Chinese Gardens. Also, a five minute walk in the other direction brings us to a market, hawker center, and Fair Price (grocery store), putting us within easy reach of groceries. 

Living room

The is a fully furnished 3-bedroom condo on the second floor. It is owned by a Chinese family (living in China), whose daughter, Lena, lives here while attending high school. Kind of funny to have a 16-year-old landlady, but she's pretty mature and handles things well. So Lena has one room, we have one room, and the final room is occupied by another couple: Tanya, a German electrical engineering doctoral student, and Abdullah, a Singaporean police officer (and electrical engineer as well, I think). Quite a mixture! We share a bathroom with Tanya and Abdullah, though there is another tiny half-bathroom (closet sized w/o mirror or shower curtain) when necessary. They are fairly new to the apartment too, but we're all getting along well. And they like to go running in the evening too, so we're planning to join them some evening next week!

Dining room and door to kitchen.

Small but sufficient kitchen - no oven though!

We all share a kitchen, dining room, and living room. There is also a laundry room with a washing machine - though all clothing has to be hung on hangers and then up on poles on the ceiling of the laundry room. It takes awhile for stuff to dry, but there is no where to hang laundry outside, so you just have to plan ahead. Everyone tends to spend most of their time in their rooms, because each room has an air-conditioning unit, making it a haven from the warmer kitchen and living room. Overall it is working well so far - a little bit of adjustment to a more dorm-style living, but really very livable.

Our room isn't huge, but as long as we stay pretty tidy, it definitely works. We've decorated it with plenty of pictures, got some pretty awesome Ikea sheets, and put up some sound proofing foam on the door so Jacob can practice.

Our bedroom (view from door)

(View from desk)

Odd attempt at panorama - our windows look out on the car park, so we generally keep the blinds closed.

View from living room window!

And then you walk out of the condo and you're in paradise. Seriously, it's nuts. The pool area is huge, with multiple hot tubs (and a cold jacuzzi too!), fountains, bubble jets, lounge chairs and umbrellas, palm trees, bridges, and even barbecue areas on sort of islands in the middle of the pool! There are also tennis courts, an indoor gym, rooms that you can rent out for parties, and a 'foot reflexology pathway' (really sharp stones to walk on - ouch!).

We live here?

One of several fountains

Various gazebos with lounge chairs inside! The one to the far right has a grill and tables for barbecues!

Those lounge chair thingies in the water have jets you can turn on, and the raised pool by the barbecue place is the 'cold jacuzzi.' To get to our apartment, we walk along the whole length of the pool.

We're going to stay here at least through mid-November, but as cool as this place is, we'll probably look for another place. It'd be really nice to have somewhere for guests to stay when they visit, and if possible it'd be nice to have or own place. But housing is expensive in Singapore - even renting a single room here costs more than our previous place in Rochester, so we'll have to see what we can manage. Moving a few MRT stops east would also be nice, cutting down on my 50-minute commute and placing Jacob a bit closer to most of the schools he teaches at. But until we move, I can promise you we're going to enjoy the heck out of this place - and in fact, we're going to go swimming right now! Peace!

Aw, he's all tuckered out from our grocery trip
(and the curry puffs we ate!)

A Singapore Moment

Last night, Jacob and I met up at JCube, one of the 5 or 6 malls within a few MRT stops of our apartment. As we were eating dinner, we were struck by the strange variety of cultures we were experiencing - a mix that is both novel and familiar to us.

The scene: eating peri-peri chicken at Nando's (originally a South African restaurant chain) while watching not-so-skilled ice skaters toddle around the indoor rink to the blasting beats of 'Pumped Up Kicks' by Foster the People. In Singapore.

I got an Angry Mango Sandwich, Jacob got Kebabs

Ice skating rink...too funny.

Are we there yet? Yep!

Hello from Singapore!
Yesterday morning (or, your Tuesday night), I finally arrived in Singapore, joining the clever and rather handsome Jacob Dalager, who has been learning his way around for the past 3 weeks - and doing a million things to get our life set up here! He learned to work the public transport, figured out cell phone plans, opened a bank account, started his job, moved us into our condo, found groceries and stores and hawker centers, and made friends. I'm so grateful for (and proud of) his hard work!

Stoked to be in Singapore - even at 6am!

In addition, Jacob planned a great first day for us together in Singapore. Which I will relate to you now!

On Monday afternoon, after 2 great weeks at home with my family and days of tough goodbyes, I boarded a 15-hour flight to Hong Kong (I had three seats to myself and guess what? Cathay Pacific serves wine!) and then took another 4 hour flight to Singapore, arriving at 4:50 in the morning on Wednesday. Immigration and customs were easy and quick, and by the time Jacob arrive at 6am, I'd changed my money and made my first purchase in Singapore Dollars (SG$) - coffee from Starbucks. [For those who are curious, the 1 SG$ = .80 US$, and my coffee cost about SG$3]

Of course, it was wonderful to be reunited with Jacob, and also surreal to realize that we were finally together, here, in Singapore after so many month of planning (and uncertainty). We took a taxi to our condo - which I will document at a later time - where we ate breakfast and met our 3 housemates. After a quick shower and a brief nap, I set off with Jacob to shadow him on a day of teaching. We hopped on the MRT (mass rapid transit - more on these later too!), followed by a bus, to the International Community School, where Jacob teaches group trumpet and trombone lessons on Mondays and the brass section of band on Wednesdays (same kids). They are all young kids - 4th or 5th grade - and mostly beginners. But they are getting the basics, and I enjoyed watching Jacob teach - and try to play trombone.


Next, we went to a nearby hawker center for lunch with Pablo, the woodwinds teacher. Hawker centers are big food courts with roofs and but no walls, often with several corridors of small food stalls offering different specialities. Jacob and Pablo have found a place that makes excellent duck, so we had duck and rice, along with a plate of vegetables from another stand, and 100 Plus, a grapefruity soda (a favorite of Jacob's) from yet another stall that serves only drinks. You grab a
table wherever you can find space and when

Eating curried rice and Kangkung, a spinach-y veggie

you're done, you leave your plates and they are bussed by workers. Hawkers from the drink stalls will even come over to you (if they see you don't have drinks yet) and take your order/try to sell you something, so it is almost like a mix of restaurant and foodcourt...and I like it! We found ourselves wondering why they don't really have places like this in the states...


 Next, we took a cab to one of Jacob's students houses. Normally he teaches at schools, but this student has autism and does better in his home environment, so Jacob goes to their house. It's a reeeally awesome home (holy cow - it should be on 'dream home' boards on Pinterest) and the family is very nice. His mother was eager to talk to us and made me tea and let me sit and read in their living room while Jacob taught - and then insisted I borrow the book I started. Afterwards, their driver (yep, they have a driver) was taking the daughter to swimming so he dropped us off at the Botanical Gardens on the way.

Giant Fern

Bonsai!

Monitor Lizard (we think)

We walked around the beautiful gardens - open to the public and really quiet spectacular. I don't believe I've mentioned it yet (!), but it is hot here (duh). And humid - today had a high of 88 and humidity around 70% and tonight it will only drop to 76 degrees. In terms of fauna, we saw turtles, swans, fish, and a monitor lizard, while the flora included ginger plants, banana trees, a bondai tree garden, ferns with GIANT leaves and probably a million other species. As in most tropical places, the plant leaves can grow to be just huge. We didn't go this time, but there is an orchid exhibit which is supposed to be great!

We took another taxi to the Singapore American School, where Jacob taught a few more lessons, and then we took the MRT home. And I didn't sleep the whole time! I did take a brief nap before dinner though. Jacob had arranged to meet his friends Freddie and Sophie for dinner at a Taiwanese dumpling restaurant in a mall one MRT stop away. I will mention I was blown away by the mall - it wasn't so much it size (though it was pretty huge) but how packed it was at 8pm on a Wednesday night! Craziness. The dumplings were fantastic and from where we sat, we could see the chefs preparing everything, including rolling out tiny circle of dough and stuffing and closing the dumplings. Too cool! We finished the meal with red bean and yam buns - which are desserts! Both had spongy outer dough layers and were filled with sweet pastes made from beans or yams. Yum.

The dumplings and buns are steamed in the wooden baskets.

We returned home and I was finally allowed to go to sleep! Great first day - and if the bed has springs that sort of stick out from the mattress, they were no match for my tiredness! (And actually, our landlord is working on fixing that...) So there you have it - and only about half of this post was about food! More to come later...

jD visits Taiwan!

Sorry it took my so long to get this update up. I've arrived in Singapore about 2 1/2 weeks ago, and things are going quite well with the exception of Hannah still being in the US. Teaching is good, I've made some friends, and I've found opportunities to play. But more about that later.

I was in Taiwan about on my way to Singapore. I had a 10-hour layover and decided to make the most of my time. Here's a vlog I made about it: