The Big Easy — By Diane

Singapore First week impressions…

Wow is all I can say.  Look how our Asian journey has begun.  We’ve been here a week yesterday and the only scary thing I can say is that work starts tomorrow!  That’s going to be interesting, for both of us.  This will in fact be the first time since we’ve known each other (15 yrs!) that we haven’t worked together, so that’s a BIG change in itself. Our apartment has exceeded every possible expectation we had. We even have our own bathrooms which may prove pivotal to years of happiness here, no doubt! 

So Singapore is…startlingly clean…almost incomprehensibly efficient and oh-so-easy. 

Surely life in Vieques prepared us for almost anything and we keep wondering how much of our first impressions are based on Vieques as a back-drop.  But, can anyone imagine that in five short days we have managed all of the following:  bank accounts and ATM cards; picture ID’s for our housing complex; WiFi in our apt.; full cable set-up, a cell phone, a landline; figured out the bus and underground and bought passes; had a TV, rice cooker, printer and fan delivered; bought a used fridge from a neighbor and had it delivered for $15; had another fridge removed; hired someone to iron everything we brought with us; bought two tables and two office chairs from another neighbor; explored our neighborhood, got rid of an old receiver and pillows and a bunch of cardboard boxes; and managed to get Pizza Hut to deliver to our door one exhausted night?   (Our printer was delivered twice, about four hours apart and we told them about the mistake.  They really wanted us to keep  the 2^nd one but we double checked that we had only purchased one so they took it back.  Someone called the next day to ask if we got our printer and to re-confirm why we turned down the delivery!) 

So that all sounds pretty mundane but you have to realize where we are and just how amazing it is to have accomplished so much, with so much ease.  The people have been truly accommodating and just plain patient.  Sometimes, in shops and eateries, they fall over each other to help you – it can be kind of humorous.  We’re just shocked by the service we’ve seen. We said to each other at least five times this week that a few years from now it’s going to be really difficult to go back to the US and suffer through commonly apathetic and inattentive service.

So Singapore is just bursting onto our senses this week… the food choices are beyond comprehension.  Think of everything you know and all foods you’ve ever tried and then simply double it.  Or triple it.  The grocery stores are making me giggle.  The mushroom selection is hard to imagine, I even saw gift packs of mushrooms for the upcoming Chinese New Year!  Fruits and veggies are abundant and inexpensive.  There are so many things I’ve never seen or heard of and have no idea how to use that we just can’t wait to start experimenting with it all.  And there is more Western food than we could require in all of our time here.  We’ve already seen great Australian cheeses and meats and all things British and American.  Chili sauce is everywhere and some restaurants stake their reputations on it.  When you ask for noodles with something, they ask you what kind – yellow, white, thin, fat etc.  Think sweet sauce, hot sauce, fish sauce, coconut sauce.  Think Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Japanese and 5 kinds of Chinese food, on offer, almost everywhere you turn.  Singapore is a culinary carnival, chock full of all the colors and characters you’re expecting to see!  I have thought of so many people in our lives and how this non-stop food fest would excite, impress and tantalize so many of you. 

And then there are the massages.   I had a 40 minute, $22 reflexology foot massage that I will swear was a life altering experience.  Who needs pedicures when your entire body gets affected by tiny Asian hands?  This lady kept giggling at my large and tough feet, saying I must walk a lot.  In the meantime, she was kneading me into a new future with every whimper and groan in my repertoire.  It was so good we went back for more 5 days later and this time, the guy who was massaging Michael actually got up on the table and walked on him!  He says it was the best massage he’s ever had – the guy’s feet were like super-strong hands.

Oh yeah, it’s quirky here too.  Our apt. has no hot water in the bathroom sinks or the kitchen sink or the laundry. They really don’t believe in making anything easy on the maid. And because it’s the tropics, the cold water isn’t really all that cold so everybody just makes do.  And it’s not a place to make substitutions. They like the way things are offered and “customization” when it comes to menus or other things for sale, just isn’t a good idea.  I think that’s why it’s so efficient – they figure out the best or most accommodating way to offer things and then it’s a one-size-fits-all approach. It works, especially for my mentality, because I think the “me generation” has ruined much of what’s great about America. 

It’s a marvelously casual country, the tropical heat just makes it so.  If you’re dressed up, you must be going somewhere other than Singapore! They’re very discreet about their cell phones, though everyone has one and uses them constantly.  There seems to be a respect for others around you that permeates the culture.  They line up for everything, in an orderly way.  They bow and smile and exude joy for a $2 tip.  They ask for permission to use YOUR cell phone number, knowing it will cost YOU minutes.  Shopping is a national sport.  No kidding.  I don’t know how else to say it.  They shop with vengeance and fortitude that I’ve never observed anywhere.  More than 50% of the population is myopic by age 12 so this is THE best place to buy glasses.  There are multiple opticians in every shopping mall and that’s top of my list once the first paycheck arrives.  Mostly, I’ve noticed the lack of stress and pretension. They’re here no doubt, but I just haven’t seen either in any noticeable amounts. 

I saw a floor neighbor yesterday who shouted and smiled across to me “Welcome to Singapore.  I hope you will enjoy your stay here.  Welcome to Singapore.  Good luck to you. I hope you will be happy here.”  What a warm and wonderful greeting from an old Chinese man and his almost older dog. I hope he’s prophetic.    

Well, the sun is setting so there’s just a little more time to take a glass of wine down into the garden and ponder all that’s happened this week.  Who knows what this next one will bring – but we’re damned excited to find out!

Singapore Dreaming — By Mike

Sitting in the food court at the mall across the street from our hotel on our first night here in Singapore couldn’t have felt more like a dream – in the literal sense of the word.  Everyone around us looked different than us, yet somehow similar to each other.  The food on offer came in a variety of shocking colors and textures and featured such things as “fried intestine” and “bee hoon.”  The language being softly clucked around us simply didn’t fit in my ears the right way.  I had no chance of determining where one word ended and another began.  I felt floaty, displaced, other.  

The sense of strangeness I felt as I ordered and then ate a relatively safe bowl of broth and dumplings was no doubt a product of serious jet lag (although the Singapore Air flight was absolutely perfect with seats that folded down into full beds) mixed with a mighty blend of medicines I had received from a doctor earlier that day to treat a cold that had morphed into bronchitis.

But the soup was delicious, the people were all polite and smiley and the medicine had actually halted my pushy cough.  Things were getting better by the minute.

And they would continue to do so. 

This city has really impressed us – especially coming on the heels of our time in the Caribbean.  Everything here just works.  People do what they say they’re going to do, show up when they’re supposed to and are generally efficient, positive and pleasant.  They go out of their way to help you, whether it’s finding out where the nearest bus stop is or telling you at the bank that it’s a better idea to change your money out with the street exchange people because the rate is better.  There’s an expression locals use here which is “can.”  It means “yes, I can (or you can) do that” and it’s often repeated very fast like “cancancan.”  In part, it really sums up the spirit of the people we’ve encountered here.

The weather so far is superb – every day is around 85, there’s a breeze, it rains but doesn’t last long.  The apartment we were so lucky in getting is amazing – huge, open, breezy, great flow.  The condo complex has a huge pool, decent Thai restaurant, small grocery store, gym and billiards room and – best of all – easy access to reliable, inexpensive buses right out our front gates.

So far, we’ve focused on setting up house and exploring our little corner of the city.  There’s a great neighborhood we can walk to with a few bars, shops and restaurants and across the street via an under-road tunnel is East Coast park – a great place for biking, walking, rollerblading and, of course, eating.  We ate over there last night and, on our way back home after the sun had set, the lights of the multitude of ships out on the water actually looked like a full city skyline.

Food is EVERYWHERE here and truly a passion in Singapore.  That suits us fine.  Every meal we’ve had has been full of fire and spice.  And, for the most part, it’s cheap, cheap, cheap!

While we’re looking forward to learning more about our new home city in the next few weeks, we’ve also just booked a trip to Krabi in Thailand for the Chinese New Year Holiday in early February.  We’re staying on Railay Beach which you can see here.

Diane starts work tomorrow and I start my life of leisure – uh, I mean of job-hunting.  So we’ll have more updates soon, lah?