Pre-departure days

I am typing this staring at the last piece of my Vietnamese chicken, my last lunch on a rainy Friday afternoon in Singapore... We are heading back home on Sunday at dawn, today is the last day of B's work and I am at the apartment wrapping up my work before I tackle the Packing Challenge... The last two weeks have really been nothing but a countdown to the departure. We have tried to go out as much as we could and do as much as we could before we leave. Which meant a lot of food extravaganza, for the most part ;). We had to say "good bye" to all our regular dining spots, but at the same time we wanted to squeeze in a few more new places and new flavors. In the quest for the new food, we've discovered a great Korean barbecue place. I had never had Korean food before we went there last Thursday. The whole evening was a great adventure! We ordered two main dishes - something called Bulgogi (a beef dish) and a marinated chicken dish. Everything gets grilled right on your table so they set up quite a scene for these two dishes - with gas burners and everything. We had three people barbecuing the food for us at the table. While they were doing that, we were served an abundance of side dishes, which apparently came with our two meat dishes. And when I say abundance, I mean about ten different vegetable sides, some seaweed soup and kimchi rice. We got full snacking on all those even before our meat was ready!

It was all sooo yummy! After dinner we went on yet another adventure - we tried the famous Singaporean foot reflexology massage. The spa that we went to is mostly famous for the fish tanks - it's a fish spa! Which means that you can soak your feet in a tank where the fish take care of cleaning all the redundant skin and callouses off your feet! So - a fish pedicure... It's wildly popular here and the fish tank section of the spa is actually nicely organized - most tanks are for two people, with computers with internet access sitting on top of a little table, so you can browse the net or read your mail, or blog ;) when you have your feet sucked clean by the fishes. Does it sound appealing? Not to me... I would maybe go there if I was challenged or drunk (or both) or as part of a girls night out. (which is really equivalent to both of the previous conditions together)... 

But for now - no thank you. This is what it looks like, for those interested:

We only tried the foot reflexology massage, which was actually really nice and relaxing (although at times quite painful). I wish we had tried that earlier so I could have more than one session... But maybe I will have a chance to repeat that experience in the future. We shall see. 

On Friday night we tried yet another new place - a Japanese restaurant called Tatsu. 

We tried some delicious katsu dishes (breaded fried pork - Bryan's favorite) they are famous for, as well as a lot of really good sushi...Tetsu was another place we wish we had discovered earlier. But there are SO many good restaurants here that having lived here for three months only allowed us to scratch the surface of all this yummy goodness... I still believe we made the most of the time that we had here, at least as far as trying various foods goes.

Two other things that I discovered in the last two weeks: a fresh coconut water / milk drink which I fell in love with - better late than never ;) and an absolutely delicious Japanese dessert that we found at the food court at the bottom of ION orchard. A company called Gindaco has three stands there and we noticed some time ago that there is aaaalways a line to their stand. Upon first inspection, we determined that they were selling something that looked like fried balls. Balls or no balls, if it's fried Bryan will like it ;). And it seemed like a lot of people liked them because with the plethora of choices available at the Food Opera @ ION Orchard it's really surprising to see a permanent line in front of one of the stalls there. So we have been wanting to try the Fried Japanese Balls for some time. And we actually went and stood in line and bought them one day this week. The balls actually have a real NAME and they are called Takoyaki. They were not my favorite, mainly because it turned out the insides of the balls contained octopus, and I am not very fond of octopuses, unless they are the friendly octopuses that you see in cartoons and not the octopuses that you eat or - even worse - the baby octopuses that they serve here on a stick, hardly fried and still moving, in my biased opinion, with their little eyes staring at you and begging not to eat them. So that's my attitude to octopuses - like it or not - which definitely affected my attitude towards the Japanese balls. However, Mr Gindaco stand also serves Japanese fried noodles which were quite tasty and - that's where we come to the most important part - the dessert fishes. There is a separate dessert stand by Gindaco and there they have several really large baking trays that look like giant sandwich makers with cutouts in the shape of FISH. They pour dough - chocolate or white - into the fish-shaped forms and then they fill ithe inside of the fish with custard or milk or coffee or fresh bananas and then they pour more dough on top and shut the fish trays close and bake the fish. And the fish comes out all hot and yummy crunchy on the outside soft melting goodness on the inside it's like a sweet Belgian waffle with a filling!! My favorite - Coffee Milk Fish. Bryan's favorite - Custard Fish. The first time we tried them (a few days ago! Oh, the wasted weeks when we passed by the fish and never noticed them smiling enticingly from their warm glass case...) we walked a few steps away, had a bite of the fish, ate it and immediately turned around and went back for two more. They are not really big - if THAT counts as an excuse to go back for the seconds of your dessert... By now the nice old lady that seems to live at that stand, making and selling the sweet fishes, is a good friend of ours and a smile of recognition lights up her wrinkled face when we approach. We have been visiting her quite frequently recently and we don't even care  - I know it's hard to believe - that our other Very Good Friends at the Haagen Dazs ice cream stand feel abandoned and betrayed. That's just too bad.

It may not seem obvious, but we actually did make an attempt to do other things than eat in the last two weeks of our Great Singapore Adventure. Two weeks ago we got to hang out with a friend of mine from Poland who does business in Indonesia and is a frequent guest in Singapore. He and a couple of his colleagues flew in on Saturday and we were to meet  them for dinner. Since they had just arrived from Poland I was certain that we would be parting ways not later than 9 pm because they would be exhausted. That only shows that after five years of living away from Poland I somehow forgot what Polish people are like, and that I should never underestimate them and their will to party...We ended up walking all around Singapore and having drinks at a few different bars in two different areas of the city, only to say good night around... 2.30 am... And I honestly think that Bryan and I were more tired and sleepy than any one of them when we were saying our goodbyes. Not to mention definitely more influenced by the alcohol that we drank that night - I think it was the most drinks I've had since my farewell happy hour in Austin... It was a fun night, including a bizarre taxi incident - at Clark Quay we stood in a very long line to a taxi stand to go to the Emerald Hill bars for more drinks and we got picked out of the line by someone who offered us all a cab ride in one taxi for a flat rate. We agreed and followed him to a big limo cab parked around the corner, which we all climbed into only to discover that the driver had rap music blasting out of the speakers and disco lights flashing all around  above our heads in the car ! It was pretty surreal, but a nice touch at the same time. It definitely added to our out-partying-in-Singapore experience...

Last weekend we decided to give Santosa island another shot - we went there once in the very beginning and that was it, so we thought we owed it another visit. We went there with our Irish friends Liam and Christine and their little Baby Lily. To get to Santosa we took a cable car, which was not such a great adventure for me as I really am afraid of heights. But it was definitely a more fun way to get to the island than taking the train... The views from the cable car were great - or so I heard, because I really tried not to look down too much. We walked around Santosa with them, went to see the Festive Walk at the Universal Studios which turned out to be nothing more than another cluster of stores and restaurants - i.e. another mall, this time outside, which was not very appealing during the day. Our friends had to leave early and we decided to stay behind to watch the Lake of Dreams fountain show at 9 pm. To kill time, we walked back to the beach area where somehow - and I still  to this day really don't know how - Bryan persuaded me to get on a skyride up the hill with him and go back down the hill riding a luge!!!! I will not go into the details of how scared I was going up the hill in an open seat that was no different from a ski lift, other than instead of skis we were pulling our luges under our seat. At the top of the hill we got helmets and we got into these two plastic luges, me wearing a much too short a skirt for such an adventure and down the hill we went!!!! This part WAS fun, I have to admit. We chose the jungle trail (the other one was a Dragon one, which we thought would be more for kids.. - the luge being such an adult thing to do, in general...) and we rode down the hill along a 650 metre paved track that went through a jungle-like forest and took us back down to the beach. It was exciting (if a tad scary ;)! After that, we had dinner at a Japanese Ramen place and then went to see the Lake of Dreams spectacle. Which was a little disappointing. I mean the first 10 minutes of it were actually impressive with the fountains and lights and even fire on the water but then it just got plain boring. So we left the fountain show after some 20 minutes and took a cable car (my THIRD time high up in the air suspended on a metal rope in a little cubicle that day! Enough for the next five years, if you ask me) back to Singapore.

And last Sunday we went back to the Botanical Gardens. It turns out that we saw the most interesting part of the Gardens on our first visit, so this time we explored the Ginger Garden and just walked around. B insisted that we also go to the Evolution Garden, which we did, but other than a bunch of stones there was not much there so we left pretty quickly. And that was it as far as sightseeing goes... The one thing we did not do was to go to the Marina Bay Sands hotel / casino combo but maybe we will still have a chance to do that one day...

Tomorrow is our last day here. I am extremely excited to be going back home to Austin although I know that I am going to miss some things that I am leaving behind. I like living in the city where I can walk everywhere - neither of us really misses driving, which is kind of weird. We are definitely going to miss the delicious and diverse Asian food that we have been living on for the past three months. I have discovered so many dishes and flavors that I did not know before - some of them so spicy that they made me cry, most of them delicious. I am even going to miss their weird congee porridge-like dishes. And the noodles, ah, the rice noodles in all their shapes and forms...I am going to miss them too. Our weekend brunch  heavenly light and fluffy pastries from BreadTalk, the out-of-this-world Milk Pans from the Provance Bakery... And don't even get me started on the broken-hearted old lady from the Fish stand who will wait for us to come back for our daily fish and then one day she will realize that we are gone and her daily sale drop is going to become permanent...Singapore is not a bad place to be. I only wish we could bring ALL our friends here. Then living here would be so much more fun! I know Bryan would also need ESPN, burgers and tex-mex to complete this ideal picture. And I could throw in an item or two - like watchable MOVIES at theaters!!! Not to mention someone to go and see those movies with (I miss you Amy!!!). But Austin - we are on our way - towing with us a serious number of pieces of luggage, a lot of yet-unseen photos and stories untold... See you soon! Good bye Asia. I know we will see you again. But for now - thank you for the very encouraging first encounter.

quiet August

Wow, time has just been flying by! We realized yesterday that (if nothing changes) we have just a little over two weeks to go here... And August has really not been a very eventful month for us. Mostly because of B's work - it dominated our lives for the first two weeks of August, as Very Important Things were happening at his work and Very Important People came from all over the world to be a part of these Very Important Days... Which introduced some variety into our lives, I met a lot of new people from B's company and I enjoyed it thoroughly - not every day do I get to sit at a table with people from Japan, China, India, Australia and US (and Poland...) at the same time - so much information to exchange, so much knowledge to gain about culture and places I have never been to.. But also so much practice in understanding various accents of English - I am getting good at it but still have a looong way to go... The sand settled at the end of last week when the last group of people left and we stayed behind... Getting back to our pre-Hectic Two Weeks routines. 

Somewhere around that time B tried Durian for the first time. It was a work thing - a tasting organized by some of his local colleagues, so I did not get to go. The good news is that nobody threw up or fainted! And - as far as I know - everybody present tasted The Fruit. On the day preceding the Tasting I had a long conversation about it with Jenny from B's work - she is Malaysian and she grew up eating durian - allegedly her parents even have a durian tree in their garden. She claimed durian was DIVINE. That's exactly the word she used. Repetitively. DIVINE. To describe something THAT smelly as divine - it really gets you interested. Especially when at the same time you are shown this clip on the phone:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQj-hFfmYkQ

All you keep on thinking is how can something THAT smelly taste SO good? And curiosity is born. So the next day they all went to taste the durian. Luckily for me they also tasted a lot of other fruit, some of which B brought back for me to try. They tried to give him some durian to bring back to the apartment for me to try but he refused flat out. I imagine the smell would linger here for weeks, considering how small a space we have here... As for durian, the only information that, after a lot of nagging, I managed to extract from B, was that it had weird consistency, it smelled even more awful as you got closer to it and that it kind of tasted like a sweet, mushy avocado. It DOES sound DIVINE, doesn't it?... I tried to ask some other people who participated in the tasting for their impressions but to a simple question "did you like it" there was never a simple answer - just a lot of twisting, turning, hand wringing and weird facial expressions followed by non-specific phrases like "well... you know... uummmm... kinda...", until Chris, a very nice guy from Austin was kind enough to whisper "Nobody Really Liked It" into my ear. Will I ever try it? I don't know. I know now of the place where one should go to try it - the place where B and all his work colleagues were taken for the tasting - it's a little store in a strip mall where a truck of durian arrives straight from Malaysia (that's where, allegedly, the best durians come from) every week day at 6 pm so if you are anxiously awaiting the fresh durian during the durian season - that is THE place to go and stand in the line and wait for the King of Fruit to arrive in all its smelly glory, by a truckload. During these pre-tasting and post-tasting conversations in smaller and larger groups we formulated a lot of speculations as to why and how come the locals may indeed love durian, for example: maybe their taste buds get ruined early in childhood... We also tried to come up with a similar food item in the western cuisines that smells god-awful but people LOVE it and simply devour it. But we could not come up with anything (well, I kind of secretly came up with something, but I would NEVER ever admit it out loud for fear of being lynched either by my own husband or by my Louisiana friends back in Austin ;)).

For me, the upside of the durian tasting was the most delicious mango I have ever eaten, a bag of fresh longans and some MANGOSTEENS. Which I absolutely fell in love with. They are hard to peel and B had to show me how to open them (having been taught to do that by the durian and other fruit masters from his work) without spilling the juice all over me - the mangosteen juice stains are supposed to be very hard to remove, and I am not willing to verify if that's true. There is not much FRUIT in the mangosteen fruit but whatever there is tastes sooo good...I have discovered so many delicious fruit varieties here in Singapore! If only for that reason, living here has been worthwhile..

Monday, August 9 was the National Day in Singapore. It's the local independence day so everybody was off and the locals as well as the expats, were celebrating the 45th birthday of Singapore. The big celebration, including a very long and complex parade and an air show, was long sold out. The only thing to watch without the precious ticket was the fireworks, which we were invited to watch at B's friend's from work apartment with a view of most of the Singapore, including the Marina Bay where the fireworks were happening. They were really pretty impressive, synchronized fireworks set off both from the ground level and from the tops of the highest buildings at the Marina Bay. The show lasted a long time, and it was really awe-inspiring. And we got to have a very good view of it from the 23rd floor of an apartment building in the Novena area.

Tuesday, August 10 (two days ago) was the first day of the 7th month of the Chinese lunar calendar, which means that for a month now Singapore will be witnessing the Hungry Ghost festivities. It is sort of a Chinese version of the America Halloween - the Chinese believe that during this period spirits are released from hell to visit their relatives here on earth. So everywhere we go we run into some serious meals prepared for the ghosts - in front of restaurants and stores there are tables set up with fruit, smoked  ducks, chickens, rice. Apart from all these offerings, we also witnessed some "hell money" burning on a busy street in the city center! And then there is the smell of incense sticks... they are burnt practically everywhere. We are planning to visit Chinatown in the next few days, since part of the Hungry Ghost festivities are Chinese street operas - we are hoping to catch a glimpse of one of such performances.

Otherwise not much has happened...It appears like we are going back home as scheduled, which means that I will be back in Austin in less than three weeks, at least for some time... We are still hoping to make one more trip out of Singapore but the destination is yet to be determined. Also on the list of things to do - a visit to Holland Village, to the restaurant serving, we've found out, the best Chicken Hor Fun in town. And on the same note - we were told that the ultimate Chicken Rice (a signature Singaporean dish) is served at the Chatterbox restaurant at the Mandarin hotel - just a block down from our apartment. I've had some pretty tasty chicken rice (which basically is a dish of rice cooked in chicken broth, which makes it very flavorful, served with steamed or roasted chicken and chili and garlic sauces) but I want to have the point of reference to be able to tell whether the chicken rice I've had was good or just so-so - and that's why we are going to pay a visit to Chatterbox and try their chicken rice, overpriced or not. I have tried the other "signature" Singaporean dish - chilli crab at two restaurants so far - Jumbo Seafood at Clark Quay and No Signboard Seafood at the Esplanade - and I can say with all certainty that the one at the No Signboard Seafood is waaay better - the sauce is thicker, more flavorful and a bit less spicy - I LIKE. Shocking as it may seem, I have NOT had the Singapore Sling yet... But there are still more than two weeks to go so I am hoping that this may change! And all my observations concerning this famous Singaporean cocktail will be duly reported.      

 

Nameday celebration in Singapore

So it's my nameday. Yes, I know, the whole nameday celebration thing is so weird. Since I moved abroad I have had to explain the whole nameday phenomenon thing many, many times. But whether it's silly or not - it's something I am NOT going to give up, because it's Polish and I am Polish and hey - yet another occasion to get gifts and wishes so why not?... I have been sitting at the computer all day today, listening to the Polish radio Trojka. And all day they have been talking about Annas on the radio. About Anna (Ania) being the most common and the most popular name in Poland. And interviewing people named Anna, and playing songs about Anna, discussing books with Anna in the title and asking random people in the street how many Annas they know. A lot of people share Bryan's frustration - at some point he believed that MOST girls in Poland are named Anna. And DEFINITELY all but a chosen few have names starting with "A". As if we never moved beyond the first letter in the alphabet. Then he met two Polish girls, both of them named Iza (both of them in Austin) and it shook his confidence a little. Well, no matter what anybody thinks, I LIKE my name. And I like the fact that my name has a nameday. And I get to celebrate it. I don't get to celebrate it today - which is the actual Anna's nameday day, because Bryan is working late tonight and I am on duty. But we have celebrated enough over the weekend so I am pretty happy :). 

On Friday we went to dinner and movie. It was the second movie we've seen since we came to Singapore and our second visit to a movie theater here. The first time we went to a Gold Class theater but it's far away, hard to get to, outdated and expensive so we thought  this time we would give a regular movie theater a chance and see if we like it enough to not be bothered with a trip to a Gold Class to the other end of the city. Let me tell you - movie theaters in Singapore - not nice. The whole "going to the movie" experience here - not nice either. The weirdest thing is that Singapore is supposed to have what is referred to as the "movie-going culture". Allegedly seeing movies and going to the movies is a BIG THING to do here. Well, for starters, the selection makes me want to cry out loud - it's so poor. They only play Hollywood big productions here, the American blockbusters, and some Asian class B thriller or horror movies that I have no intention of seeing. And usually they play like  no more than maybe five movies in a given week in the entire city. I was sooo frustrated for the first few weeks. Scanning papers and websites and trying to find just ONE theater that would play something else than Toy Story 3 or the likes of it... No way. So at some point you just give up and patiently make a list of movies to see After We Go Back Home (whenever THAT is going to happen). On Friday we went to see Inception. Rotten Tomatoes said no no no don't go but given a choice of Inception and nothing we chose Inception. The whole premise of the movie was really poor and I am not a fan of Leonardo di Caprio (although these days I don't HATE him as much as I used to) but overall it was good entertainment, good suspense and good cinematography. So I was satisfied. Although the screen was the size of four tvs in our Austin living room put together. And the chairs in the theater looked like our kitchen chairs wrapped in velvet fabric. Not to mention like NO leg room - the theater is OBVIOUSLY designed for non-Western size people, and definitely not for the somewhat oversized Western people whom I won't refer to by names here... As for the symptoms of the Movie Going Culture - yes, the theater was packed. It was packed with teenagers and young adults who did all the things you DON'T want your fellow movie-goers to do. They ate. They drank. They chatted. They texted. They were on the phones. They treated the theater like their own private living room or a party room for that matter. It did get a bit more quiet as the movie started but it was not like they were watching in silence. And then the moment the first credit appeared on the screen they were all UP and noisy and laughing and talking and leaving and I just wanted to get up and do to all of them all the things one goes to jail for.  To add  to the fun of the experience, the theater is in a shopping mall. But of course - where else. Everything in this city is in a shopping mall. The theater does not have bathrooms in the theater area - to go to the bathroom you have to leave the theater area go out into the mall and go to the mall bathrooms. Which I can't even begin to describe what I think about, for fear of smashing the keyboard. As for the confections - the movie theater offers M&Ms or Mentos. And to sweeten the deal - the movie theater is on  the 7th floor of the shopping mall and at some point the mall closes so they turn off all the escalators for the night. So in order to get out of the theater and the mall you have to walk down fourteen flights of escalators. Being on escalator with Singaporians is a torture even when it is turned on and actually working. And I don't even want to mention the whole coughing thing again. They really take it EASY on escalators. Most of them text or do whatever they do with their smart phones when they walk on moving pavements or go on escalators. They walk really slow.  And its really hard to pass by them, because they walk in herds. So all that multiplied times ten when the escalator is not moving and they actually have to use their legs to go down the stairs.  Well... next time we are going back to the Gold Class. Old and far away and expensive as it is, at least it has a bathroom... Unless enough time goes by before another watchable movie plays in Singaporean theaters that I will forget this traumatic experience altogether and maybe give a regular theater at ANOTHER mall a chance...  Enough said. 

The highlight of Friday night happened when we were walking back from the theater. We discovered Emerald Hill. It's a place off Orchard Rd with really nice bars and pubs. Bryan claims he had been there once before but (was it all the beer?) did not realize it was the place and it was on Orchard. We walked by this side street and it was so lively with music and crowded with people that I said hey let's check it out and it turned out it was the Emerald Hill! We walked into a cocktail bar which served martinis at 15 S$ for 2 which is REALLY inexpensive in Singapore - usually a cocktail costs anywhere from 14 Singapore dollars and more. So I had two lycheetinis and they definitely cheered me up. The bar was one of these typical Singaporean bars that I knew they existed but have never been in a bar like that - the special thing about these "traditional" bars is that they serve you peanuts there in big bowls and everybody eats the peanuts by kilograms and just throws the shells anywhere. So the entire floor and bar countertop and tabletops are just COVERED with empty peanut shells. When I first walked in I thought it was part of the decor like the floor was covered with sawdust. That's what it looks like - sawdust. Sawdust everywhere. So I asked Bryan what it was and he explained - it's peanut shells... We did not eat much peanuts but it was still fun to just dump the shells on the floor. I know my brother-in-law would LOVE it there - he LOVES peanuts. So if he ever comes to visit that's where I am taking him to. We left the bar around 1.30 am and walked back to the apartment. That's pretty much the ONLY thing I really love about our apartment - its location. We can literally walk everywhere from here. And walk back from everywhere, too... And even at 1.30 am Orchard Road is alive on a Friday night. There are people walking down the street, and the street itself - this is an amazing sight, actually - the streets are PACKED with cabs. Literally, four lanes of every street are lined with taxis, all of them with the "hired" or "on call" light on, going somewhere. I have not seen so many cabs at the same time ever before. But cabs are the preferred mode of transport here in general, and when the MRT stops running (which definitely is the case at 1.30 am) they are the only mode of transport for all these people leaving movie theaters, bars, pubs and clubs... It really was something else to see all these taxis in the streets with no other cars around. Apparently people take the don't drink and drive rule here very seriously. As they should be. 

On Saturday we had dinner plans with some people from B's work and it was quite a pleasant evening. We went to Clark Quay where we ate, drank and walked around. Everybody seemed to enjoy themselves. For me it was nameday weekend celebration night number two. The only drawback was that I foolishly (but happily) decided to wear one of the New Pairs of Shoes that night. Very pretty Camper shoes but they gave me blisters :(... I will break them though and I will wear them and walk in them for miles on end, blisters or no blisters - I love my Nameday Shoes. But by the time we got back to the apartment, having walked around Clark Quay and then back to the MRT station and through the interchange station and back home, I felt that my feet and my oh-so-nice high platform shoes have melted together and are now ONE and there is simply no way to remove the shoes without tearing some flesh off. I was absolutely convinced as I finally sat down in the apartment on the sad little imitation of a couch that when I take off the shoes my pinkies - at the very least - will not be where they have been for the last thirty six years - they will be still holding on to the oh-so-lovely straps of my beautiful new shoes. It was not very FAR from being true. But no involuntary amputation took place and the only aftereffect was that the next day, on Sunday, when we actually were going to Celebrate with a Nice Dinner, I had to wear flip flops, because with the number of plasters wrapped around my toes I could only fit my feet into some oversized felt boots or flip flops. So I wore flip flops. I wore the flip flops to my Fancy Nameday Dinner at the No Signboard Seafood where B. took me to celebrate my nameday. Even though the whole Nice Dinner thing did not turn out as nice as it was supposed to be (and not only because of me wearing flip flops) we had a very good meal - I got to try the famous Singaporean Chilli Crab. It's basically a crab that is stir fried in a very thick semi-sweet and semi-savory tomato and chilli-based sauce. It's served in a big bowl with a large spoon and some bread to dip in the sauce. As Bryan says - eating the chilli crab is not for the weak of heart - you actually have to dig into the crab, break it and peel the meat off the shell and out of the claws and all the nice and tidy things, as crab eating usually goes... But because it was my nameday (and also because I would NEVER put my hands into that bowl and that spicy sauce - well, unless I was like REALLY starving...) Bryan did all the dirty work for me, and he enjoyed it too. He LOVES the chilli crab. I liked it too, but it was a bit spicy for me. But I would definitely have it again. We also had some good veggie stir-fried noodles to go with the crab. So overall it was a good dinner experience, although I think that the restaurant is just a tad overpriced for what it is. And really - if you charge some 40 - 50 dollars per main course, don't charge me for the pickles that you bring out in the beginning and put on the table together with water, chopsticks and wet napkins (which are also charged for). I have accepted the fact that they charge you for the pickles and wet napkins at the less expensive places (they just try to make some money off you) but in an expensive restaurant they should just try and refrain from charging 3 S$ for stupid little bowl of pickles that no one even WANTS to eat in the first place. But chilli crab was good and we had some nice drinks afterwards at a bar with a funky name 7atenine which me - blondie - could not figure out how to read / interpret that name until Bryan read it out loud to me and then I was like AAAW that's a cool funny name ;). We finished the evening with some ice-cream... And I thought that was it as far as nameday celebrations go... But today - out of the blue - when I was slowly beginning to lose hope - the Parcel arrived from Poland. The Parcel infamously mailed by my Dad (He-Who-Never-Goes-To-Post-Office) some two months ago... Which, judging by the pace at which it got here, must have been traveling first to the eastern border of Poland on a  mailman's bicycle... then on a mule... and on a raft... and then maybe local Malaysian mailmen carried it to Singapore on their heads... or something to that effect... The slowest mail delivery system imaginable, all because my Dad decided that since he actually set his foot in the post office for the first time ever he would introduce some good old work ethics and law and order there. I honestly thought that the parcel would never make it. But it has! Today. I have lots of goodies now sitting at the table and looking at me. And I am looking at them thinking that it's not been such a bad nameday overall. On Saturday one of Bryan's colleagues from work, after hearing the whole nameday story in the context of me trying to tend to my blistered new-shoed feet on a nearby bench suggested that I should Name the shoes I got for my nameday and then celebrate each shoe's nameday and get some more shoes on the Shoe Namedays. How brilliant (if just ever so slightly sarcastic) was that? I LIKE that idea! But until that happens - happy nameday to me. And to all other Annas of the world!

Our Bintain weekend

I looked at my profile picture as I was logging in and it's official - my man-hair is gone! My hair has grown out and it's back to its normal pre-man-hair length! What a relief. Another thing is that I have already gone TEN weeks since my last hair colour appointment and my roots are just now beginning to show! Every day when I wake up and look in the mirror I say a little thank you to my amazing colourist back home - Rashid who did an incredibly good job matching my natural colour so I don't have to run and have my roots retouched every three weeks. A true master of hair colouring, he is. Laurent also did a good job making sure that I won't have to go and get haircut in Singapore - hence the man-hair style... I will definitely NOT be getting a haircut any time soon :).
Work has gotten a bit slower this week, for the first time since we got here, really. Which is a good thing, I am enjoying a little bit looser schedule and the fact that I can actually leave the apartment and go sit at the swimming pool and read while the maid is cleaning the apartment, rather than dancing around her mop with my hands still glued to the keyboard... I've slept way too late today and I won't even admit here what time I woke up because Bryan may read it and get a heart attack - he was up at 5.45 poor thing to get ready for the first meeting he had at 7 am. I am really glad he got to rest and relax last weekend, because he really is working hard and with the Big Cut-Off / Go-Live (or whatever other weird two-word name it has) Week coming next week his work days are about to get even longer.
Last Friday we left for our second long-weekend trip this summer, to an Indonesian island called Bintan. Bintan is a very popular destination for a weekend trip from Singapore, as it only takes a 40-minute ferry ride to get there. We left on Friday late in the morning and came back to Singapore on Monday evening. To travel there and back we paid a little extra and got Emerald Class tickets for the ferry and we've decided that the additional 50 or so dollars that we spent was the best we've done for ourselves in a long time. Our Emerald Class tickets got us not only nicer, more comfortable seats on the upper deck of the ferry but also, more importantly, priority check-in, priority boarding and then priority immigration and customs clearance in Indonesia. Which is worth any money, really (within reasonable limits, of course ;). The Indonesian government is very clever about earning money off the visiting tourists so every time you enter Indonesia you have to pay 25$ for a one-time visa (multiple-entry visas can only be obtained at the embassy and I don't even have a clue as to how much they are and how hard it is to actually get them). The visa needs to be purchased upon arrival - so first you have to stand in a looong line to buy a visa and then it needs to be placed in your passport, following a Very Thorough examination of the said passport, by the immigration officer. To meet the immigration officer you stand in another long line. And then you wait for your luggage. We avoided all this by getting our Emerald Class tickets - there was a separate booth opened for us and the few other chosen ones and we were on the other side and in Indonesia in no time, with our suitcase already waiting for us. We managed to pack into one medium-size suitcase but after we got back to Singapore we decided that next time - if there is ever a next time in Bintan - we will just take carry-ons with us, that will expedite the process even more... Another thing we needed to make sure before going to Indonesia is that each of us has an actual whole empty page in our passport - the Indonesian visa takes up a whole page and they simply won't let you in if you don't have a free page in your passport. While in our short line, we even considered asking the immigration officer to perhaps put the new visa on top of the old visa that they put in there when we went to Bali - but then we chickened out - all the Indonesian border officers are really serious and scary and so another page of our passports is taken by a big colourful Indonesian visa now. Bryan is running out of pages. But at least he is aware of that - he told me a story of some guys from his work who on the spur of the moment decided to spend a day on the beach away from Singapore. When they got to the ferry terminal one of them realized he forgot his passport. So he went back to the hotel to get it while the other two waited for him at the terminal. When he arrived with his passport the ferry to Bintan, where they were planning to go, was already long gone. They still decided to go somewhere and the only ferry available to them was a ferry to Batam. Batam is really NOT a place you want to go and spend a day in, but they decided to do it anyway. Once they got there, they knew that it's not where they want to be but decided to still go for it and make the most of their Day at the Beach. Two of them went through immigration paid their visas and waited for the third one who was not coming... It turned out that they would not let him in, because he did not have an empty page in his passport so no place to put the giant visa in. On hearing that, the other two guys just turned around and they all got back on the ferry and rode back to Singapore... That must have been fun, right? A funny story to tell, I guess, but I would not want it to happen to me... So anyway - a note to self - before going to Indonesia always check if you have an empty page in the passport and 25 USD per person IN CASH to pay to enter...
That was a long digression...
Our destination was Angsana Resort & Spa. And we spent a really great weekend there. The room was a bit outdated and in need of a remodel but it's Asia so you never know what you can expect. Otherwise everything was really great. Compared to our Conrad resort in Bali, Angsana was a really quiet and relaxing place, a much smaller resort with less to offer as far as entertainment goes but that's what we needed for our low-key weekend away. A really nice, wide and long stretch of beach to walk on, clear water to swim in and beach beds with umbrellas - that's all we needed. On Friday evening we had our couples massage at the spa - the experience was really amazing. The spa facilities are beautiful, we were in an outdoor room overlooking the sea, the therapists were amazing and the whole thing was just a great start for our weekend of relaxation. After the massage they offered us a hot ginger tea with honey (I realized that I LOVE ginger tea - I don't think I had had it before that Friday night!) and some fruitcake and we were just sitting, half laying down, in big wicker armchairs, wrapped in sarongs, breathing in the fresh air of the evening and looking at the evening outline of the palm trees and the beach and the sea, and it really made me feel like I was in my own little paradise. They had difficulties kicking us out ;). After the treatment we went to the room, changed and went to get some dinner - it was a buffet night. We tried so many things! And all the food was really delicious. One of the dishes was Indonesian red snapper - the fish was marinated in Indonesian spices and then grilled wrapped in a banana leaf - it was soo good I kept on going back for more... There was also entertainment provided - a local band who were performing all throughout dinner. Their choice of songs was so completely out of place that it was almost funny - they welcomed us with some old pop country song from the fifties (Bryan recognized it, I didn't) and then they sang everything starting from George Michael's Careless Whispers (which sounded hilarious in their interpretation, as the lead singer had a very nice voice but at the same time a very melodic way of singing, typical for local music, I suppose, and the way they played the tune was also so Asian and so not like the original - just the lyrics were recognizable) ending on Swing Low Sweet Chariot!!! Their set really got me going and I wanted to have a sing-along but Bryan was not really eager. We spent the rest of the evening on the beach with our whisky drinks in hand (this time we made sure we had alcohol with us and we bought a bottle of Ballantine's at the duty free store at the airport so that we didn't have to pay 15 USD per cocktail at the hotel). I sang some more and really missed my sister or my friend Alicja - they are such good singing companions! Bryan still remembers our trip to Masuria when Alicja and me sang all the way from Warsaw to Mrągowo, with Bobi trying to focus on driving and Bryan wishing he had an mp3 player or at least a pair of earplugs with him... It was so much fun - at least for Alicja and me :).
We spent the whole Saturday doing literally nothing. The night before we asked the nice hotel staff to reserve two chairs for us on the beach, which they happily did for us and so on Saturday morning we rolled ourselves out to the beach after a nice big breakfast (buffet again) and stayed on our beach beds pretty much all day, taking breaks to walk on the beach or go swimming. The two chairs next to ours were occupied by an older British couple, two very sun-tanned people who seemed like they lived in the region, completely oblivious to the harmful effects of sun, just sitting there all day out in the sun, reading books. Every hour or so they would get up and take off walking quite briskly to the farthest accessible end of the beach, spend some time there and walk back. After they made a few such walks we realized that she would always carry a little pouch in her hand, and it dawned on us that there was a reason for their little beach trips, other than just getting a little bit of exercise... Aw, who would not want to retire like that?... Mr & Mrs Doper (as we started calling them) of Angsana Resort quickly became our retirement role models ;)
It rained all day on Sunday and it rained hard, too, so everybody stayed indoors, except for a few hard-core Japanese tourists who stayed in the pool in that pouring rain - funny thing about the Japanese, if they are on holiday they apparently MUST do the holiday thing, sun OR rain... As for us, luckily we had more massage treatments scheduled at the spa so we did not complain. Bryan read and napped and relaxed and I... I was sick. I will draw a curtain of silence on the details of my tropical sickness, suffice to say it was some kind of an Indonesian variety of the Montezuma's or Pharaoh's revenge... I was a very miserable bunny for most of the day but it all went away by Monday morning so just a lesson for me to be more careful about eating spicy food? Or using ice cubes in my drinks? Who knows what might have caused that... It did ruin my Sunday relaxation just a little bit, if you can imagine, but overall it was such a nice and relaxing weekend that I will just try and remember the good things about it and erase the unpleasantries from my memory. Monday turned out to be a bright sunny day (isn't it ALWAYS the case? That when you go away somewhere for a weekend it RAINS most of the weekend and then it clears up on the day when you are supposed to go home?...), and we managed to get a bit more sun and beach time before we had to go. Angsana is really a nice resort to go to, the staff is so welcoming and friendly. They all make an effort to greet you by your name, it's really hard to believe! A nice guy at their gift store told us that a major remodeling is planned for September, which is really great news. If we come back to Singapore again we will definitely visit Bintan island for another weekend. The weather there is unpredictable and one can never be sure that it is going to be nice and sunny - it's so close to Singapore that I guess the weather forecasts are the same for Bintan as they are here - 60% chance of rain. every day.. But at the same time even if it is cloudy it's still nice to stay at the beach and at least you don't feel like a shrimp on a skewer frying in the sun... And when it rains - there is THE SPA. And the spa in itself is a good reason to go back there. With the two massages I had last weekend I am now ready to face another month of working hard at this tiny desk, with my wrists hanging off the edge. I will be fine :). And as for Bryan - he already started looking at resorts for our August trip last night. The guys has to have a purpose. And something to look forward to :). I THINK we have given up on the Paradise Beach quest... We are still considering places in Thailand and some Malaysian islands, including Borneo. We will see what he will find - and I am sure he will find something good. And in the meantime - it's Singapore again, babe :). Let's see what else this city has to offer...

Fort Canning Park

Hello and welcome to my weekly report from Singapore... It's Sunday evening here and we are struggling with the decision whether to stay up and watch the World Cup Final game (which starts at 2.30 AM!) or rather be functioning and clear-headed tomorrow and for the rest of the working week... We have a very pleasant and relaxing weekend behind us so maybe we will give it a shot and act irresponsibly and at least TRY to stay up... We shall see ;).
Our week was so filled with work that it was not even funny so we really had no plans for the weekend except for the Grand Plan to get some alcohol in our systems as soon as possible on Friday night. We went out to dinner with Bryan's colleague from work, to our good, tested and always welcoming Vietnamese Orange Lantern (the Trainee Waitress there who does not speak a word of English is starting to recognize us - on Friday night she actually SMILED when she saw us and said: TWO ICE WATER? Well, there were three of us but it's a start of a well established relationship right?). After dinner, we got back to the apartment complex and worked on a bottle of Australian Chardonnay that we opened before dinner (me), a bottle of red (Bryan) and some vodka and cranberry juice cocktails (Erin and Jason - our now-regular hang-out-at-the-pool-and-drink-our-sad-expat-asses-away buddies) till well after midnight. So the plan for Friday night got accomplished. I slept very late on Saturday, Bryan went and got his haircut and then, well into the afternoon we decided that since we had no plans for Saturday we should just hang out at the pool. Which we really wanted to do and even attempted to do. We took all our swimming pool paraphernalia with us and got down there and spread our towels out and about fifteen minutes later it started to rain. So we got back to the room. Our alternative plan - in view of absence of any plan, we should just go out and have a nice meal. That's a great plan for a Saturday evening! Especially considering the fact that after we got scared off having NICE meals at NICE restaurants as a result of the very unfortunate PEKING DUCK mishap (which I am not sure if I described here but it was such memorable a rip-off that I don't even feel the need to write it down to remember it) we really have not gone to a restaurant with an intention of having a NICE meal. We just go out to experiment with food and of course satisfy our hunger but not to, you know, spend a pleasant hour or two at a nice restaurant and have food coming and enjoy the whole experience. So we booked a table for 7 pm at a Persian restaurant at Clark Quay that we heard nothing but good things about - SHIRAZ. The rest of the day was spent just waiting for 7 pm to arrive so that we could go and have our nice meal. It was a nice relaxing Saturday, to the extent that we are able to actually relax in this sad little imitation of an apartment. In the evening we headed down to Clark Quay and we had the most wonderful meal at Shiraz. The exciting aspect of the whole dinner thing was also that we hardly ever get to eat anything other than Asian food these days, so we deliberately chose something else for our Special meal. The food was absolutely delicious! We started off with some hummus and the thinnest tenderest crispiest pita bread I have ever tasted and another appetizer that I do not remember the name of but it was a mixture of eggplant lamb meat onions pistachio nuts and lots of other flavorful things grated, mixed together and baked and served warm. It was sooo good! After these two appetizers and an additional serving of the pita bread and some tasting starters that were brought to the table (like cubes of REAL feta cheese that tasted like feta cheese is SUPPOSED to taste, which I ALMOST forgot about in the five years in the US) we were, naturally, full, considering that our stomachs have shrunk significantly since we left the US. But still before us was the main course - a mixed platter of grilled kebabs - chicken, filet mignon, lamb and fish, served with Basmati rice and grilled vegetables. The meats just MELTED in your mouth. This was the best meat that we've had since we left Austin and Bryan had tears in his eyes (well, not really, but almost) when he took the first bite of the beef and sighed from the bottom of his heart "man, I miss steak...". We tumbled out of there after a very satisfactory hour and a half of devouring all that delicious food and, to complete our absolute bliss, we rolled towards Haagen Dazs, where we treated ourselves to the flavor of the month (chocolate caramel brownie) in a cone. Sheer happiness. We strolled around Clark Quay and my beloved hubby even got me a pair of earrings from a jewelry stand where a nice Chinese lady seemed to be picking prices from behind her ear (the price went up about 2 S$ with every pair of earrings I tried), but since they were all acceptable and affordable, I got a pair of beautiful long new earrings. We got on the MRT close to 11 pm and headed back home.
Today, since the No Plans Weekend was still continuing, we decided to explore. The day seemed perfect - sunny, with clear blue sky, for some exploring of the city. We decided we would start off by going to Istana Park, which was supposed to be nearby, and see how far it is to walk to the Dhoby Ghaut MRT station. We have wanted to check that distance for some time now, since Dhoby Ghaut is the interchange station of the MRT where we ALWAYS have to change trains to get WHEREVER we want to get to. Which I personally feel a VERY STRONG dislike towards, as the station is just huuuuge and sooo crowded that when we get off the train to get on another one I just want to close my eyes and get through the station as fast as possible. So I do just that, with my eyes wide open, I march as fast as I can past all the coughing slowly moving MASS of people, willing to just get through to the other side. And it's a long distance to walk. And a few escalators to get on. Just to get, in the end, on another crowded train... Anyway, that's where we wanted to walk to today to see if it's a walkable distance so maybe we don't have to change trains in the future, we can just WALK to Dhoby Ghaut and take a train from there. But first things first - we had brunch/lunch at a tiny but nice place at Orchard Central that serves kaya toast sets. Kaya toasts are grilled slices of bread that are served french toast-style with kaya, which is kind of Asian spread, like a very sweet jam. The set comes with two SOFT BOILED eggs that are to be eaten with soy sauce... It's an interesting combination and the first time we got these at a Toast Box place I had to watch people around me to determine what to do with these soft boiled eggs? So I learned then that they skillfully crack them open by hitting them with a small spoon and breaking them in half, spill them out onto a small bowl, pour some SOY sauce on them and eat them. I did the same. Bryan said he would not touch such eggs to save his life and I, at this point in time, would eat a raw egg if it was presented to me, because we don't get to eat eggs very often these days. So now it goes as follows - Bryan eats the toast and I eat the eggs. Our brunch cost about 4 USD ;) - which counterbalanced nicely the quite expensive dinner we had last night. After a short stop for the brunch kaya toast set we headed out and towards Istana Park. It turned out to be a tiny strip of green surrounded by skyscrapers, nothing like what we imagined. The only nice thing about it was a reflection pool and a tiny little pond where we found a friendly turtle sunning on a stone, completely oblivious to humans moving around, staring at it and taking pictures. Having checked Istana Park off our list of places to see, we also determined that Dhoby Ghaut station was just a stone throw away from there. So mission was accomplished - we knew then that we could walk the distance from our apartment building to the interchange station any time. But since the walking actually felt good, we continued to walk. Down to Fort Canning Park - a much bigger park, actually the biggest inner city park in Singapore, where they have concerts and such, just like Zilker Park in Austin, or the Cytadela Park in Poznań (which the Fort Canning Park reminded me of very vividly, as they both have very steep and high stairs that you need to climb in order to get to the park). We walked around the park for a long long time . There are a lot of interesting things to see in the Fort Canning Park. There is a sculpture garden with quite a few metal, concrete and wooden structures. There are heritage trees, some of them really impressive - one that looked like the tree of life or whatever it was called in Avatar... On little information boards along the walking path you can read a chronological account of Singapore's history. The most interesting and definitely entertaining piece of information was a description of how Singapore became a British territory. Once the British ascertained their ruling over a section of the island over the Dutch, they - as the board informs - CONVINCED the sultan to give them the remaining part of the island. Which he happily AGREED TO. It actually made me laugh out loud. I imagined the British going over to the sultan, knocking on his door and asking him - could you please give us the rest of the island, because the Dutch have already conceded their part? And the sultan was like - sure, no problem, since you are asking nicely... Another interesting thing we saw at the Park was the Time Ball. The story is that in the times before watches and clocks were common, in order to synchronize time and to introduce some order in the city life, once a day the British lifted the time ball at exactly 12:55 and let it drop at exactly 1:00 pm from a mast at the highest point of the park, where the entire city could see it. The time ball is not in use any more, but the structure still looks cool and impressive. After a good bit of walking around, we found our way to the other side of the park, which turned out to be a bridge away from Clark Quay. That was quite a walk, close to 2 hours on our feet, so we decided to reward ourselves with some ice cold beer at Brewerkz. Which was just what we needed after a good few hours spent walking around in the heat. Let me say at this point that I will never let anyone tell me that it's HOT in Singapore. Trust me, it is NOT really hot here, compared to Austin. It's hot but it's bearable. It's really not too bad. It rains very often and that keeps the temperature down. The only problem is that on the days when it's not too hot and it's overcast and pleasant to be outside and walk around, there is always a chance of getting SOAKED with rain. Because when it rains here it does not joke around - it RAINS HARD, it pours down. So taking a chance on the non-sunny day to get out and go walking in a park or explore the city - a brave thing to do, because it WILL, inevitably, RAIN. On the other hand, when the day is nice and sunny, like today, it is HOT. I remember just a few days of such heat here, one was when we walked around Chinatown a few weekends ago, one was today and there were a few other. When it's HOT it's HOT. But I always keep telling myself that in mid-July I would not be enjoying walking around in Austin because it's scorching hot in Austin. So here we just suck it up and walk around, telling ourselves - it would be WORSE in Austin. And the prospect of sitting down and enjoying a beer really helps ;). We hanged out at Brewerkz for some time, then we got some dinner and then, crazy as it seems, we decided to WALK back to the hotel. As if walking TO Clark Quay was not enough. It was a good two mile walk back and my battery almost died just a few blocks away from the apartment building. Even the Energizer Bunny battery dies at some point ;)... But somehow we managed to walk back all the way to the apartment, where we crawled up the stairs, changed into swimsuits and went back out to finish the day in the swimming pool. That felt so good! Bryan was ambitious enough to do laps, I was just enjoying the jacuzzi and the general bliss of being in the water after a day on my feet. Overall, our No-Plan weekend turned into a wonderful relaxing weekend spent outside discovering yet another aspect of this new temporary home of ours - that Singapore, or at least the section of it that is of any interest to us - can be explored without a car or even MRT - you can get everywhere just by walking. Yet another thing I will miss in Austin, when we get back. We are officially half way through our planned stay here, with as many weeks behind us as we have still to go. This coming Friday we are off to Bintan! I really hope this four-day work week will go by in a blink and we will soon be on a beach again! Wishful thinking, but sometimes the right attitude helps just a little bit to get through the week... I hope it's going to work this time :).

The Singapore Flyer

It's been over a week since I last posted anything here... I am trying to remember if the past week has really been that insignificant... And the truth may be just that... We have gone out and found new places to eat, if that counts - I tried Japanese KATSU dishes for the first time - Bryan's favourite, naturally, since it's FRIED breaded pork or chicken or seafood... Served with a quite yummy cabbage salad and a special dipping sauce. I liked it, I did not love it - you know, it was fried chicken, it tasted like chicken. Over all, we had a lot of Japanese food last week - we discovered Tonkichi (the place that serves the katsu) and another Japanese restaurant - Watami at the ION Orchard. Watami offers what they call "modern" Japanese cuisine, based on the so-called "ishakuya" dining concept - i.e. a bar serving a wide variety of drinks and cocktails but also a lot of dishes. There we tasted several things, including hot pot scallops with butter and mushrooms, and I also tried SHOCHU for the first time. Shochu is stronger than sake (25% alcohol) and it is distilled. It's no vodka for my Polish pallet but it was as close to it as you can get in a Japanese restaurant and I was quite happy.
Saturday, the 3rd was the day when we had our 4th of July celebration. We've planned it for some time - we bought tickets to the Singapore Flyer and we were also going to attend the 4th of July party organized by the AAS - American Association of Singapore. Unfortunately, it rained pretty much all day, which really messed up with our plans. We went out with another American couple from our building - Erin and Jason from Idaho, their two kids and another family of a guy who works with Jason. The other family turned out to be Polish! A Polish guy named Greg (Grzegorz), his Polish wife Mag (Gosia) and their two little girls. How weird is that? I think it's even more weird for poor Jason who came to work in Singapore and here he met new friends most of whom are Polish... He admitted he had never known a Polish person before (I was so sad for him - living a life without a Polish person in it is like... oh well, you know ;). The best part of the day was that we got to hang out with other living, breathing, English-speaking human beings! It was a lot of fun. We went to Brewerkz - it WAS our 4th of July celebration so we decided we deserved Western food. They ALL had BURGERS - I was the only one who had a sandwich - as close to a burger as I need to get. We had a very leisurely lunch and then we went to the Singapore Flyer. The flyer itself is really nice, great organization and infrastructure and everything, but the sights were not very impressive. I will say that to Singapore's credit - it was overcast and daytime so everything around looked pretty much gray. Maybe we should have taken the tour at night when all the lights are on in the marina and the city looks beautiful. Because it does not have much to offer as far as actually admiring landmarks from the top of the Flyer goes - it's certainly no London eye or Eiffel tower. All you can see is skyscrapers on top of even more skyscrapers. The only cool thing is the proximity of the casino building with the Boat on top. This is going to be our next destination. I don't want to discredit the Flyer or anything but I would like to do it again maybe in the evening. An interesting thing is that they turn the Flyer cabins into a mini-restaurant for private celebrations, offering what they refer to as the world's first full butler sky dining. It's 200 S$ per couple and you are served two courses during two rotations of the Wheel (each rotation lasts half an hour) and then a dessert in the VIP lounge. We did NOT do that, but it sounds interesting.
After our Singapore Flyer flight we went to get more drinks and then, having said good bye to the Polish family - it was time for their girls to get back to the hotel - we went with Erin, Jason and the boys to get some Taiwanese dumplings - my favorite xiao long bao :). It was fun to teach the boys use chopsticks - they learnt very quick! We all enjoyed the dumplings, followed by ice-cream at Haagen Dazs. We never made it to the AAS celebrations, as it was raining and we did not feel the fireworks in the rain would be much of an attraction. Instead, we sent the boys to sleep and came back up to our room, where we drank wine and watched Germany kick Argentina's ass in the World Cup quarterfinals. It was a fun day spent in a great company of fellow Expats.

A Sunday at Botanical Gardens

Today Bryan had to work till almost 3 pm - he was on the phone talking incomprehensible things, so I decided to use my Sunday wisely and went and got a pedicure. This was quite an experience, I have to say, as when I arrived at the Snails spa in the Mandarin Gallery, they put me in a chair and offered me a MENU of services, which included, among others, a hot SAKE bath for feet or a CAVIAR feet rub... I settled for a more modest lemongrass and honey relaxing pedicure, and still had to cough out close to the US price for a deluxe pedicure... Well, but they did a very good job and I did not have to sit around in the apartment, on my computer char - as Bryan is occupying the couch with a telephone at his ear and a computer on his lap - and listen to him utter clusters of sounds in a language that I could only refer to as the language of Routing... After he got done with his calls we decided to go to the Botanical Gardens. Another must-do in Singapore, according to my guidebooks. I am really trying to be diligent here, and enthusiastic, regardless of our sad excursion to another must-see - the sad Chinatown as of yesterday.
The Botanical Gardens of Singapore turned out to be all one could imagine and MORE. It's a beautiful, enormous park... There are walking trails everywhere and huge tembusu and kapok trees that go up as high as 30 metres and have giant roots that spread out above the ground. We did not manage to see all of the Gardens today, naturally. But we will be happily going back there. Today we spent most of our time in the National Orchid Garden. It's breathtakingly beautiful and hosts over 3,000 orchid species and hybrids in gorgeous surroundings of the most luscious greenery I have ever seen. We walked around for hours, taking pictures and admiring the nature. We still have to go back to visit the Ginger Garden and many more things. It was a true escape from the hectic busy big-city Singapore and a well-deserved relaxing day for both of us. Afterward we had dinner at our favorite Vietnamese restaurant - the Orange Lantern, and now we are watching Germany vs. England. Would I prefer to be in Bali? Sure, but it's been a weekend I cannot complain about. Even more so because Bryan has just booked our next long-weekend trip: to Angsana Resort on Bitan. Yay :).
As for other note-worthy things that happened last weekend: first of all, on Friday we went to have sushi at a Japanese restaurant at ION Orchard (Itacho sushi restaurant). The sushi was really yummy, although the overpriced and allegedly out-of-this-world Blue Fin Tuna did not really stand up to our expectations. Otherwise - delicious food and not overpriced. We will definitely go back there. And as for the learning experience - we were told there (there was an instructional video shown on a screen and information printed on your plate mats!) that traditionally sushi is eaten by hand and if you want to use soy sauce you should only dip the fish in the soy sauce, never the rice side (if eating nigiri sushi) and then you put it in your mouth - i have to say it - upside down, i.e. fish facing downwards. Try doing that using chopsticks. Dip the fish in the soy sauce and NOT the rice and try putting it into your mouth like that. Bryan tried, of course, I did not even bother. As long as the rice does not fall apart on me I am going to keep dipping it in the sauce and be happy. I have survived all these years apparently eating sushi the wrong way... but I think I don't really care. It was, however, an educational visit to a sushi place :).
And as for the weirdest thing that happened to us this weekend - we were stopped in the middle of the street by three young girls wrapped in fabric from head to toe, in a very traditional Muslim way, and asked if they could take a photo with us. Not if we could take a photo of them, if they could take a photo WITH us. We sheepishly agreed, caught by surprise, so they took turns taking pictures with us. That was REALLY weird. I do realize that we are blond, bigger and taller than them and not wrapped in fabric, but seriously - why would you like to stop strangers in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but a busy road behind you and take pictures WITH them? That immediately got to the top of my list of weird things people do here.
The coughing is still at the top of the Things I Hate the Most About People in Singapore list. People here cough. Wherever you are, be it an escalator, an elevator, a train, a store, a pedestrian crossing - there is ALWAYS someone passing by, walking behind you and COUGHING right on you. I think since they are forbidden, by law, to spit, they take revenge by coughing. I am soon going to develop a phobia. Every time someone coughs on me, I think Bird Flu. I think SARS. I think EBOLA virus and all other epidemic diseases that I live in serious fear of contracting... No wonder that diseases spread so quickly in Asia, since people constantly COUGH at each other here... I think that it is certainly related to their love of AC and them blasting the AC at the lowest temperatures acceptable to a human body without the risk of freezing right there and then... Then they get congested infected and they COUGH. I just wish they would not cough on me.
That was a random stream of thought but sometimes these need to be written down, too. Just in case I do get seriously sick, at least someone can read here that I actually predicted that I may be exposed to some serious health hazard every time I am in a crowded place here. Surprisingly, no one coughed on me at the Botanical Gardens. There, the air is clean, full of oxygen and not cooled to the limits. The Gardens will see a lot of me in the coming months of our stay here. BTW, more pictures from the Gardens (and Chinatown) at: http://gallery.me.com/anna.boyet#100037