Shabbat in Singapore

We walked in, and immediate we were comfortable. Though we were around the world (is it considered half-way around the world or actually around the world when you're this far away from home?) these totally random people made food that we are used to, sang prayers/songs that we know (though Matt may not like them), and talked about issues and topics that we're used to/comfortable with. Though I have realized this before, and I suppose I probably felt a similar way in 1998 when I spent Shabbat with the Chabad rabbi and his wife in Venice, this was alarmingly comfortable. The experience could have been intensified since I didn't talk to anyone else all day...

Anyways, the couple was so super nice and smart, and we really enjoyed the evening - they invited us without even knowing anything about us! I had just emailed a bunch of people to get hooked into the Jewish community, and I heard that he had an Ashkenazi minyan that he held once a month, and I emailed to get details. He then invited us for dinner. Unfortunately they and their two kids are moving back to England in two months...They were telling us about some of the challenges they dealt with at the beginning of their stay here, and it was so comforting to hear that other people go through the same adjustments.

There was also a wonderful man that reminded us a lot of Josh Lichtman. He's a volunteer in Thailand at an NGO that works with organic farming. He's funded by American Jewish World Service. He said that his position is up in 2 months (he will have been there for 6 months total), so if anyone's interested, let me know, and I'll get in touch with him. Josh - this is for you, I swear!!

This morning Matt and I woke up and appreciated the clouds by playing tennis. I won 6-4 coming back from 40 love or 40-15 in at least three games!! WHOO HOOOO!!! It was a challenge, for us however, since our tennis court is on the fifth floor of a building, and we ended up losing two balls over the side. The cleaning up in our complex is so intense that the balls were gone by the time we got downstairs after our game!

For all of you Matt lovers out there - I am trying to get him to write in the blog, but he's not so excited by the idea of writing, but he enjoys its existence, so I apologize that none of it is in his voice...

Matt has had a crazy week at work. His direct boss had a baby girl this week, his less-direct boss is away in England/America, and one of the other guys he works with closely is in India. Matt is picking up a lot of slack in the office, so he has worked some long hours and learned a lot. Last night, after a crazy long week of work for him (up at or before 6 everyday! and home at 8:30 at the earliest, and even 11:30 a few nights...) he said that he doesn't mind going to work - he likes what he's doing there, he likes what he's thinking about and enjoys writing what he writes, so that was GREAT news. Oy for him if we move to fricken Singapore and he doesn't even like his job!!!

Happy weekend!!

Splinter

We have made our first friend in Singapore. Our friend's name is Splinter. (We gave it to her). She's a SUPER cute, little cat. I don't like cats, usually, but this one is sort of more dog-like. She comes up and says hi, and she follows us home. She must live somewhere in our complex, though we're not sure where. There are a bunch of cats that live around here - we're pretty sure they don't belong to anyone, and we have no idea where they came from. I thought that maybe it rained cats and dogs one day (in December, during the rainy season, obviously), but where are the dogs?

Anyways, Matt and I both discovered Splinter on our own, and we have enjoyed her everyday. Everyday, that is, up until two days ago. We haven't seen her in two days, and we hope nothing happened to her. The night before her disappearance, I was taking a shower and Matt was on the phone, and Splinter let herself into our apartment! She was apparently in the living room playing with a tag on one of our rugs!! I have to admit that that's cute!

Splinter got her name because though she looks like a cat, she also sort of looks like a rat. We were thinking of famous rats we know, and Splinter came to mind. This is from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. She's actually much cuter than that Splinter.

Let's all give a little prayer that she's okay and that we get to see her again soon!

In other news, I have finished the in-class part and the written exam for scuba certification, so I am in the pool on Sunday morning and then we're going to Malaysia in two weeks for open water certification, and then I'm done!

I started getting in touch with Jews in Singapore, who all seem to be super nice, and we received our first Shabbat dinner invitation, which we will be gladly accepting tonight. I believe this couple is from England, and unfortunately they're returning after two years, in August, but they'll introduce us to other people. Most of the ex-pat Jewish community seems to be in American or Canada for the summer, but they're all sending great email, and I'm looking forward to meeting them at the end of the summer.

I went to the kosher shop yesterday. This is part of the Jewish compound that I was denied from last week, however, I decided to just plow by the guard and walk in. It worked, and the shop is super cute! They have all of these fun Israeli foods, which obviously makes me excited, and I might have to buy little, sour pickles in a can, Israeli green olives and other fun things. They also have kosher wines, which is good news. I had a small anxiety attack a few days ago after we had accepted our Shabbat dinner invitation, because I had no idea what we could bring! We don't have a kosher kitchen, I don't even know where to get kosher foods! I didn't know there was kosher wine anywhere, it's against Shabbat law to bring flowers, because you can't put them in water on Shabbat, chocolates would FOR SURE melt, and I didn't even know if there was an eruv here! (Turns out there obviously isn't, but the religious people are understanding when not-so-religious people bring things). We are saved by the kosher wine.

Why Singapore is Perfect for my mom

This is really an appendix to yesterday's entry.

Singapore is perfect for my mom. While I have thought of this since I got here, she sent me an email suspecting this fact after my "piss" post. This inspired me to share my thoughts with everyone else.

1) As I mentioned - there are bathrooms everywhere. In New York, you are scared to think of what the non-functional bathrooms used to look like in the subway. Here, in the MRT stations, there are bathrooms, and they're pristine! Not only are they everywhere, but they're clean. And they all have soap. And the soap doesn't even smell bad!! Nearly every flusher (as mentioned yesterday) is automatic, so you don't even have to touch anything. My mother always has to go to the bathroom, and now she doesn't have to plan ahead! Plus, she hates touching potentially dirty bathroom parts, and there's just about nothing to touch here.

2) There are Starbucks everywhere. I thought there were a lot in New York (and there ARE!), but they're ALL over the place here too! Upon first count, there appear to be 41. This is a small country, so honestly, that's a lot. My mother loves Starbucks. Her first reaction to our moving here was wondering if there were Starbucks. She loves the coffee (small in a medium cup with a bit of half and half) and she loves the lattes. Though I haven't tried it here, it does seem expensive, but it smells very good. There's a Starbucks in the lobby of Matt's building. There's even a competitive coffee place here - The Coffee Bean, which apparently is run by a Jew (that's all I know about it).

3) All of the electrical outlets have switches, and if you're not using the outlet, you switch it off. So, if you're using the fan, and then you leave, you turn off the fan, you turn off the switch where it's plugged into the multiple plug thingy on the floor, and then you switch off the outlet on the wall. It's a three step process, but it will definitely prevent the totally emergency toaster oven fire, which for some reason my mother has a crazy fear of, and we were always taught to unplug the toaster after use. Here, there's no need to unplug, simply switch it off!

4) It's extremely neat, clean and tidy here. Those are the three adjectives which I see on signs. Obviously there is a major effort to stop littering (which is super illegal), but offices, buses and nearly everything else is just spotless. There is no eating or drinking on the subway, and it's crazy clean. I would even pick something off the floor of the subway and touch it directly with my fingers (which in New York would produce gagging and possibly vomit). My mother always bothered me to put my stuff away, and here she would have no one to bug! It's all away! In addition, my mother hates to find spontaneously sticky objects. I have yet to find a sticky object in Singapore. Don't forget there is literally NO gum in the country, so you will never step in it, sit in it or accidentally touch it.

5) Singapore is smoke-free - for the most part. I almost never smell smoke. Last night Matt and I met at a bar after my scuba class, and there were people smoking there, and it was mildly alarming. Most restaurants either have smoking sections, which really are separated, not like in Michigan where they're right next to each other, or they don't allow smoking at all. Our complex doesn't allow smoking by the pool, and I saw a sign that it's not allowed by law - so there must be some restriction about smoking in public places. My mother certainly does not enjoy smelling cigarette smoke.

There will clearly be another entry with the few things about Singapore that might bother my mom, but for now - MOM, YOU'LL LOVE IT HERE!!!

Welcome to all of Matt's friends and family who received an email about this blog. Please keep in touch with us and let us know what's going on with you!!

The Sweet Smell of Piss

So there isn't so much exciting going on right now. Matt has been working long hours (as usual), and I have been trying to plan for my/our future. Yesterday I applied for many jobs - including some that even interested me! I will wait to find out about all of them. I started contacting people in the Jewish community here, and so far they're super nice! We even have a shabbat dinner invitation for this weekend...

I also begin my SCUBA certification class tonight, and I look forward to that. Though the only time I have dived, which was in the Dominican Republic with Matt two years ago, I had very painful ears and a bloody nose...I really did enjoy it. It's pretty amazing to breathe underwater and see cool stuff. If all goes as planned I will be in the pool this weekend, and then the weekend of the 13th Matt and I will go to Malaysia to dive at an island off the east coast of the mainland.

We're also working on a trip to Thailand for the following weekend for our friend, Veena's wedding. Hopefully that will happen. It's SOO cheap to go! It seems like we will BOTH be able to fly to Bangkok for $187 US!! That's nuts...

Other than planning, not much is going on over here, so I have decided to write about the sweet smell of piss.

When we lived in New York (way back when...), and we would walk around during the summer, we smelled piss. It was hard to find a place that didn't smell at least a little bit like urine. I remember one time walking ten minutes and seven north south blocks and two east west blocks, and the ENTIRE time it smelled like piss. I would sometimes walk deep in Central Park just to get away from the smell. Lord knows that along Central Park West on the park side of the street was some of the worst smelling piss in the city!

Well...I haven't smelled that smell at all in the last two and a half weeks. There is no piss here. There are bathrooms all over the place! Anytime I think maybe I have to go, there's a bathroom, and they're ALWAYS clean! It's really unbelievable. There are bathrooms in pedestrian malls, there are bathrooms on every floor of every mall (and we all know that there are SERIOUS amounts of malls here!), and I would even bet that restaurants are legally obligated to let non-customers use them! It's really nice.

The other thing about bathrooms that I think is interesting is that most bathrooms here have automatic flushers. This isn't the interesting part. There are usually some toilets and some squatters. The squatters are like what Shana and I saw in Turkey and what you see in Sinai - a hole with two foot places to the side. I would bet that squatters were developed before toilets, YET, the squatters have automatic flushers!! If they're going to put in the automatic flushers, why don't they just put in toilets!? (Matt reminds me that some people aren't used to toilets, and they like what they know...fine).

It reminds me of this stand-up routine that I heard Seinfeld do. He was talking about chop sticks. He said, it's not like the Chinese haven't heard of the new development of the fork...It's similar, but funnier when he does it.

OH - and HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO JILL AND SARAH!!!! 29 is a biggie... (I should know, I'm almost halfway done!).

INSEAD

Nothing too exciting to write on this day. Pretty crazy that last year today was our wedding. So much has happened in this one year, and somehow we ended up in Singapore. If you would have told me last June 25th that we would be in Singapore this year, I would have laughed. Matt would have cheered.

Today I visited INSEAD. It is one of the top business schools in the world. Matt's friend from SAIS, Veena goes there. She was nice enough to meet me, eat with me, talk to me about the experience and the school and then give me a tour. I totally loved it. I love the doors that the school opens. All MBA programs open lots of doors, but INSEAD opens global doors. Most of their graduates go to countries where they did not grow up. They're trained professionals all over the world, and they're super highly recruited. INSEAD only has about 22% female, so if I can sell myself as a woman (which I can be pretty convincing in that area...), as a person who comes from a non-profit background, and as an American, they might take me for diversity's sake. That's going to be my plan.

Now, I just need to figure out what to do with the next year...

Bukit Timah

This afternoon Matt and I met Christian, Lee Fong, Vi and Vi's sister at Bukit Timah Nature Reserve to hike around a bit. It's an area on the west side of Singapore that apparently has been preserved. It's full of amazing growth - huge, hold, beautiful trees, crazy root systems, Tarzan vines, hills and humidity. We hiked to the highest natural point in Singapore (clearly the buildings are taller), though there are lots of trees, so there isn't a view of the city. It was fun walking around, though it was so hot. We sweat through all of our clothes - yet again.

We then went for super Indian food. It was really really good.

Last night Matt and I went out for dinner for our first anniversary. It's been pretty fun for us to think this weekend about what was happening last year at this time. For example, right now, at 8:30 in the morning in Michigan, I was actually getting my make-up done. We have gone through each event and how amazing it was to have so many people we love with us. We might even watch our wedding video tomorrow. We had really good Italian food, and it was BY FAR our most expensive meal here (other than the chili crabs), and though it was really good when we ate it, I got super sick when we got home. That was definitely my stomach's fault and not the food, since Matt was fine and we ate exactly the same food. Oy - thanks for the genes, dad.

In other good news, we received our first issues of The New Yorker and The Economist - our respective favorite magazines.

Matt's very excited because he learned a new economic analysis tool at work. He is analyzing potential GDP in economies, and this is making him very excited.

Chili Crabs and Kick-my-ass-boxing

Matt and I went out last night for our first chili crab. Not that Matt even tried it, but still. There are a whole bunch of sea food restaurants on the beach by our house at a place called Seafood Centre. We went to the original one - Jumbo. It was eh. I don't think we'll be going out for chili crab again, though it was a bit of fun. We went with a bunch of Matt's friends from SAIS - Christian, Vi, Vi's sister, Marius, Boon Yian and Marius's friend Marcelle (sp?). We ordered four crabs in the end - we had three small ones and one HUGE one. One was black pepper, one was some other kind of saucy red one, and one was ginger. The big one was black pepper. The truth is that it's a lot of work, and it's just not that rewarding. To pick out one square centimeter of meat for five minutes is a waste of time. Now I have tried lobster (Maine last year), shrimp and crab, and I think I'm done with seafood (except for shrimp - they're tasty and not a lot of work - unless you're cooking them! please reference my prawns post). Matt just isn't interested at all, and he says he doesn't like it. We also ate deep friend bread (I think it's called boon), and some rice. Overall it was super expensive and not so worth it, but I'm glad we did it, and the company was super fun. The beer was also tasty. I think that Tiger is an acquired taste, and I'm acquiring it and Matt doesn't really care about good beer.

We also went out to a pub/club in Clark Quay, which seems to be the going-out area. It was surprisingly lots of fun. I'm not a big dancer, and Matt and I don't go OUT so often, but we even danced. Again - the people were quite an integral part of our experience. :)

This morning we had our last "cultural" session about life in Singapore. At nine am Keith came over to our house and taught us the history of Singapore and a bit more about life here. It was helpful and enjoyable.

I then left Matt to go to the Bedok Community Centre - about a 15 - 20 minute walk - for my first kick-boxing class. It seriously kicked my ass. I have never taken any sort of aerobics or dance (since I was little) so the coordination was hard and took my full concentration, and the muscle stuff was SOOOO hard!!! My walk home was at least five more minutes since I had no energy at all! The class was all youngish Chinese ladies - a few older than me, but mostly younger, and one Indian male and me. Pretty funny.

Wherever you go there's always someone Jewish...

Thanks to our crappy Jewish educations, we all know the song. The truth is, though there may be Jews everywhere, they might be difficult to access. I found that there was a Chinese guard between myself and the Jewish community of Singapore.

I'll start with the beginning of my day, because it's funny. I woke up ten minutes after Matt (about 6:15), because he had accidentally pushed snooze and not turned the alarm off. Usually I would just turn the alarm off and go back to sleep, but this was extraordinary, because I woke up to Warren G - in SINGAPORE! If you know what I know, you don't want to step to this. It's the G-Funk era funked up with a gangsta twist...When I was in high school for some weird reason, I memorized the words to that song (with heavy influence from my friend, Chris), so when I heard it, I was excited and it got my brain moving, so I couldn't go back to sleep.

I had a doctors appointment this morning. Apparently you can buy your medications at the office - forget the whole pharmacy thing. It was a totally fine experience, and I particularly enjoyed being weighed and only weighing 62. It's a lot less than 140.

I checked out the American Club this morning. It was a beautiful building filled with Americans, American opportunities, American food and air conditioning. It's only seventy million dollars to join plus thirty thousand per month. Okay, it's not that much, but it's probably not where we're going to spend our money. I did, however, join the American Women's Association of Singapore and I hope to meet nice people through that.

It was only about 92 degrees and sunny, so I thought it was a good idea to take a walk to the end of Orchard Road (the shopping area). I nearly passed out and died, but before I did that, and about a half hour or more after I started walking, I found some sort of Jewish community building. There was a guard outside, so I spoke to him and asked if there was someone I could talk to about the Jewish community of Singapore. He said come back for Shabbat on Friday night at 9:30 or Saturday morning at 9. I was standing in the hot sun (with my sumbrella of course, but still!), and I told him nicely that I had just moved here, and I wouldn't be able to come this week for services, but I would really love to talk to someone about the Jewish community here and what opportunities there are. He said "why don't you come back another time." "What day is good," I ask. "Any day is good," says he. "Well if any day is good, then how are Fridays?" I ask. "Fridays are fine." "Well, it's Friday right now - can I please meet with someone?" "They're very busy in there. Please come back on Sunday." "What would be a good time on Sunday?" I ask. "You can come for services at 7:30 am." "I'm not going to come back here on Sunday morning at 7:30. Can I PLEASE speak to someone inside?!" At this point I had sweat running down my body, I felt like I was going to pass out, I also was on the edge of tears. PLEASE JUST LET ME TALK TO SOMEONE JEWISH!!!! He kept saying no, and I said that I want to get on their mailing lists and learn about the community, and I need to talk to someone inside TODAY. He took my ID, called up, and then I went up and met with the Rabbi's wife. I literally have NO idea why it took so much effort to get in there, but once I did it was really nice. She was very nice and told me that there are community meals on Shabbat, there are schools for kids, and it seems to be a nice community. Hopefully we will be able to make it there for services one week, and maybe we'll even meet some people.

In my quest to try new foods here I finally tried prawns and noodles - which seems to be a favorite here and a logical next step after talking to a chabad rabbi's wife. It was really gross. I didn't even eat half of it. That's a first for me. Yuck.

Still no dengue, and I applied for my first job.

Resumes, Meetings and Jobs OH MY! and Dengue

This morning I met with someone who is part of our relocation package to Singapore. He let me know that resumes here are three to four pages, including what people did in high school. They include your birthday, marital status, a picture and much else. I worked for days to reduce my resume to one page to apply for jobs from America, and meanwhile, I just spent the last three hours including experiences such as Otzma, other volunteer programs, my internships in graduate school, and other random information about myself. He said that it is definitely not a help for me that most (really all, but I'm giving myself some credit) of my experience is in the Jewish community. He was helping me take the word "Jewish" out of my resume - though it was hard when the names of organizations that I worked for include that word (Jewish Coalition for Service, Agency for Jewish Education, Jewish Academy of Metro Detroit...). Oy. He was toying with the idea of me taking that word out anyways...hmmm...

He also said that less than 10% of people here have a college degree, so he said that most people won't know what to do with the fact that I have a Masters, and they will probably just be intimidated and think that I'll expect lots of money and will just ignore me as a candidate...hmmm...

Other than my crazy fear or not getting a job, my latest fear is Dengue Fever. Apparently it is an epidemic in Singapore with hundreds of cases being reported each week. It is passed by crazy scary looking mosquitoes, and apparently they breed and bite during this time of the year (each year). Last night, I seemed to find many bugs in our room, and I do fear that one of them will have the Dengue. I am pretty sure they don't, and you far away in America or Israel or wherever don't know that my fear isn't super rational, but still.

The First of Many Unexciting Days

Though I will still be sure to do one fun/adventurous thing per day, the excitement will slowly wane...I have begun my job hunt. Though I thought I would be okay to relax for a few weeks and start looking in July, I did wake up on Monday morning and freak out that I had an entire week and no job. Thus the hung begins...

In other unexciting news, Matt and I went to the bank today, just to add me to the account, and it took an entire hour. In Singapore, the capital of efficiency, it took over a half hour just to put in the new information, and then obviously the wait just to see a bank specialist...

We did check out a dive shop here, and I believe I will get SCUBA certified in the next couple of weeks.

Unfortunately I had to go back to Mustafa Centre - the crazy store with everything in Little India. Our alarm clock we bought worked for exactly 24 hours. Luckily when I brought it back, even the sample they had on display didn't work, so I got a new one - this time a Sony.

If anyone has any job leads, let me know!!

Our Apartment

People have been curious to see our apartment. Our apartment isn't perfectly set up yet (nothing on the walls), and it's not so neat, but here are the pictures...
Our living room, our dining room, our foyer room (right, Jer?), our kitchen and laundry room, our third bedroom, our second bedroom, our master bedroom and one of our THREE bathrooms.
I can't believe we have the following:
a dining room, a laundry room (or laundry at all), a third bedroom, a second bathroom, 2 extra bathrooms.

Fish Balls, Tanglin Village and the Botanic Gardens

This morning I got on the MRT (subway) and took it from Bedok to Queenstown (you can see the map if you're interested). I got off and realized it was 12:30 and should probably eat lunch, since I tried yesterday at 2pm and most of the food stalls were closed. I went to the closest hawker center and got in line at the stall where the line was the longest. I figured I would eat whatever everyone was excited about. I don't know how to call any of the food, and I couldn't read the menu (Chinese), but everyone was getting some combination of noodles and fish balls. I just asked for what the guy had ordered in front of me. I got some spicy sauce with egg-looking noodles and some scallions in one bowl, and then I got clear soup with a bunch of little fish balls. They're sort of a mixture of matzah balls and gefilte fish in that they are balls of fish and they go in soup, but they were much tougher and sort of rubbery. It was good, but not the best food I have ever had. I'm getting pretty good with chopsticks, though...

I then walked for many house. This included a visit to a super expensive organic grocery store with everything imported from Europe or the US, and a whole bunch of furniture stores. I saw a great rug store, and it inspired me. Maybe we should replace our $5 IKEA rug in our living room? I also walked along a road called Sweetenham Road, which had the biggest and fanciest homes I have seen in Singapore. Whoa.

I wound my way to the Botanic Gardens (is there a difference between Botanic Gardens and Botanical Gardens?). Of course it was super built and manicured, but it was really nice to get out of the city. I saw turtles with really long necks (see picture), swans, pretty trees with large roots (see picture) and some nice flowers. I was EXHAUSTED by the end (it's just a little hot here, and the sumbrella helps a bit, but come on!), so I took a double decker bus home.

Katong Laksa, Chicken Rice, Mmmm

Yesterday we had our first proper Sunday since I got here. Matt slept until 11 and then we went to the wet market near our house. Matt got a great haircut from a Chinese man who spoke about three words of English. It really looks good! Then our friend Christian came over and had brunch and with him and Matt's other friend, Boon Yian, got to play Settlers of Catan, which if you know me is my favorite thing in the world to do.

Boon Yian grew up here, so between her and Christian (who has spent a lot of time here), they were able to take me and Matt on a great food tour of the Katong area, which is about a five minute drive towards town from our apartment. We ate Laksa at a place that was apparently written up by the NY Times (though I can't find the article). Laksa is a sort of soup which tastes a bit like plain soup, a bit like curry, and definitely has tastes of coconut. It also has hot chili in it, which clearly made me cough like an American eating spicy Asian food. It also has noodles and shrimp, and sometimes bloody mussel type things (we didn't get those). We sat down and didn't know we ordered, and then the Laksa and some fish paste stuff in banana leaves appeared in front of us. Luckily it was good. We also tried lime juice, which seems to be the juice of choice here. It's a sweet, light, super refreshing juice.

After our hors d’œuvre (which I didn't know wasn't our whole meal), we went down the street for chicken rice. They make rice in chicken broth, so it's tasty, and the chicken was also super tasty. Matt had deep fried tofu with chicken rice. Chicken and rice, which includes the chicken rice, is another meal of choice here. Matt tried barley juice at this place - who knew you could drink your grains? (other than beer, of course...)

Today I joined the Bedok Community Center, which has a bunch of classes. I think I will take a Conversational Mandarin class as well as a kick-boxing class. I wandered slowly through the supermarket, as I like to do, and I walked all over our area. I ended up eating lunch at the hawkers by our house, which I don't love as much, since they only seem to have Chinese food, which to me isn't as tasty as the Indian, Malaysian, Indonesian flavors that also exist here. I also found a tailor and some cheese, which are both exciting events.

Sentosa Land

When Walt Sentosa set foot on Singapore, he knew he had found a great location for his nature-like theme park. Walt, a distant maternal cousin of Walt Disney, saw all of the potential in a small island to the south of the mainland, protecting its port.

Matt and I went with a couple Justin and Emma to Sentosa yesterday. Matt knows Justin because they both went to SAIS (grad school), and Justin's girlfriend is Emma, a woman from Indonesia whom Matt enjoyed speaking Bahasa with. You can take the MRT (subway) to a mall, of course, and then transfer to another train that goes right to Sentosa. (If you go to maps.google.com and type in "Sentosa, Singapore" you can see exactly where it is). It's sort of Mackinac Island mixed with Disney World (no fudge shops, no middle-Americans, no rides, but plenty of bikes, few cars, and people feeling like they're on vacation). We went to the beach stop and walked around a bit. Yet again, we could have a beautiful beach if there weren't about 150 ships in immediate sight. In order to make Sentosa beautiful, they have imported white sand and palm trees, so it almost looks like the beautiful beaches we saw in the Dominican Republic, except there are a million ships, and it's all imported! Luckily, though, that doesn't seem to bother anyone. On a super cloudy day (thank god for clouds!) there were still hundreds of people playing volleyball, playing on the beach, eating, swimming, having general family fun. We ate pizza and then walked over to Fort Siloso, which had amazing history. It was built in the 1880s as a British fort, and had a great part in the Japanese take-over of Singapore from 1942 to 1945. I won't give a history lesson, but when picking colonialists, it appeared that the British were way less brutal than the Japanese, so when the British got it back in 1945 (thanks (?) to the US bombing of Japan) people actually seemed pretty pleased. It was a super interesting fort. You can see Matt and Justin standing near the "12 Pound Gun" which sits at the far west of the island and would shoot vessels coming into Singapore's port.

In other news, on Friday night (like good Jews) we went out for Indian food and went back to Mustafa's (see here) and made quite a night out of it - not necessarily on purpose. We went to buy some appliances: two more fans (did I mention that it gets hot here?), a dvd player, a clock radio, a phone, tennis racket, the essentials...Well, in Mustafa's, you decide on which appliance you want, they give you a slip with the information about it on it, you pay for it and then you go back and get the appliance. Well, Mustafa's is HUGE, and there are many floors and tons of stairs, escalators, lifts, etc., and it's really impossible to know your way around (particularly on your second time in the store!). We were in the electronics section, and then we wandered away and went through the store for about an hour, and then all of the sudden we came across another electonics section which seemed to know nothing about the first or how to get there! The same happened with the sports section - we found a tennis racket, and then about an hour later found another sports section with TONS more rackets, and they all sort of looked the same, but it wasn't the same place, and the guy there had no idea how to get to the other one! By 11:00 we were both pretty tired, and we had to find our way back to pick up all of our booty. It took a while and was challenging, but Matt's directional ability prevailed, and we were okay.

Last night we went out with an amazing couple. We had a great time. Matt knows the woman from work, and she's working here with Treasury, and her family has been here six months. They were super interesting and nice, and we hope to see them again.

Most importantly, they have Alfonso Mangos (see here) in Little India, and they're good.

One more thing...why did the peacock cross the road?

Caps for Sale! Caps for Sale! Fifty Cents a Cap...

Turns out that there are no caps for sale here. Though it's about a million degrees here (I was trying to figure out how to put weather on this blog...but today it is cool, and it "feels like 97" according to weather.com), and there is so much sun, and we're pretty much on the equator, NO one wears hats! Sunday I was looking for a new hat, since my Michigan one started falling apart :( and I literally couldn't find one in any store. I asked my tour lady on Tuesday about this, and she said that they all just have umbrellas - I'll call them sumbrellas. They're great, since they cover your shoulders AND head in the crazy sun, and they also protect you in the rain (which happens about every other day). When in Singapore, do as the Singaporeans...

Yesterday I went to the wet market by our house - it was amazing, and there were all of these nice Aunties there helping me decide what to buy to put in my stir fry. I think that all of the vegetables and the tofu together didn't come to $5, which is about $3.50 American.

I then went to meet Matt for lunch. We ate some great Indonesian food from the hawker stands by his work. Here's a picture of Matt in front of his building, and then there's a picture looking up his building (it's 52 stories!!).

Though it was really hot, I made a stupid decision and ended up walking 4 miles (see google pedometer which apparently works in Singapore!!) through Chinatown, Clark Quay, which seems to be an upscale eaty/shoppy area, through Fort Canning Park, and up to Orchard Road - the shopping area. It was hot, but luckily I had my sumbrella.

Today, after the Cavs lost and I talked to Jill, Jo and Mike (not related events), I took the free shuttle from our MRT (subway) stop to IKEA. Pretty exciting. Now we have dishes...if Matt likes them. :)

On view today: Clark Quay (the place with the fountain), Orchard Road (with all the people), a bunch of dragons and Chinese Lanterns in Chinatown, a SUPER speed hand dryer in a bathroom (yes - I took a picture in a bathroom).

Confirmed Beach: Swim at your own risk

So I "explored" the idea of the beach nearby yesterday. I thought it would be a bit of a walk, or maybe I would get lost. Turns out if you go down our street, you literally hit the beach in about 7 or so minutes (just two intersections away!). At first that made me really excited. I loved the idea of romantic walks on the beach, picnic dinner on the beach, swimming, running along the path in the morning, etc. Once I got closer, though, I saw HUNDREDS of ships in the distance. When I say distance, I mean not so far away - you can totally see the ships, and there are really hundreds. Apparently Singapore is the second busiest port in the world (next to Hong Kong), and I think that every ship must have to go by the East Coast Park beach...The ships cut out the idea beautiful views in our walks and picnics.

When I looked at the water, it sort of had an iridescent glow. That cuts out swimming. The entire beach was super manicured. There are barb-q pits where you can pay to use it, there are picnic benches, planted trees, grass, and other planned "natural" things. There was also a place to rent bikes and rollerblades - think the path along the lake in Chicago. Near our house as well there is a food centre. This has about 40 stalls of food/drink. There is basically any food you would ever want (here), including prawns and noodles, which seems to be very popular, lots of different soups, Malaysian food, chili crabs, which I think is the national food here, and also there are drink stands where they make fresh fruit juice right in front of you. In New York that costs you about $4, and here $1 (remember, I'm cheap - I love $1 drinks!).

I walked down the path a bit and even saw a reservoir area where they have wake boarding, but it's not from a boat - it's from a cable that goes in a circle above the skiiers - kind of like a chair lift. Cool idea! The beach is definitely a good place to read, people watch or just relax. If we could only get rid of all of those boats...

Matt and I went to a dinner for the Economic Society of Singapore. The President of the NY Fed (where Matt worked before we moved here) spoke. He spoke about the Asian economies ten years after the financial crises. He spoke in words that even I could understand, and we both enjoyed it. It was a Chinese banquet, and there were about 15 different courses. All in all it was a good night, with really nice/funny people at our table and even intellectual stimulation.

While I had my exciting day at the beach, Matt was finishing a piece that will be published in a JP Morgan periodical. Hurray for finishing!!

For your viewing pleasure: the beach (check out all of the ships!), the food court on the beach, the wake boarding pool, downtown Singapore from the beach.

The Great Singapore Tour

So, apparently every year between the end of May and sometime in July there exists "the Great Singapore Sale." All stores have a sale for that period of time. I have never heard of something like this, but it's great - lots of people are shopping (they tell me it's more than normal, though there are SO many malls, they have to support someone!), and the economy is moving.

Today (one-day-only, 10 to 4), I had the Great Singapore Tour. I got picked up at 10 by a wonderful woman named Yvonne, and I got taken around. I had heard but had seen no proof that we're near the beach. Jill was even noticing that on GoogleMaps, but that wasn't proof enough for me. We are! We're really close to the water. I will have to explore that on foot in the next few days.

They took me to an area that has buses only on weekends and most restaurants and pubs are only open on weekends. Apparently on weekends people also set up tents near the beach. You can stay for up to five days for free. It's sort of a weird place to camp, but I guess that Singapore is small, so choices are limited. There were SO many ships in the sea nearby, so I'm not sure about swimming, but it's so close, I might have to try. We then went to the mall (obviously).

Then we drove down by the water and saw Matt's building. Where there's a harbo(u)r here, they're actually building land and making it into a fresh water reservoir. Apparently the whole CBD and southern part of the island is artificial land anyways. We saw that in Cape Town and the west side of Manhattan - pretty cool that they can do that. We then went to a mall (clearly).

We went to Chinatown and saw an Indian Temple and saw lots of little shops. We went to Little India and saw a "wet market." It was filled with fruits and vegetables (most of which I have never seen before!), meat and fish. We also went to Mustafa's. They seriously have everything. First I saw electronics...okay...then TONS of gold jewelry...then groceries? including Honey Nut Cheerios - and everything else - then beauty products, including alcohol-less perfume for Muslims! How cool! They have sports equipment, shoes, clothes, seriously everything. I will be going back there (for days!!).

She showed me some ex-pat areas of Singapore - sort of looked like California - big, beautiful houses, small hills and greenness. We then went to a mall to see an ex-pat grocery store (in a mall).

Then we went to Suntec City, where Matt and I went on Saturday night. Apparently it has the biggest fountain in the world. I think that another country could grab that title quickly - it wasn't that big. We of course went in the mall and had lunch. You can eat for SO cheap here. I'm tempted to just order something without knowing at all what it is. I only did that with one dish today (Indian food) - it was some green vegetable that could be okra, bean or something else. In this mall, I was cold for my first time since I got to Singapore.

We then went to Esplanade, which looks a lot like Epcot Center. It's theaters, but of course, it's a mall also (I have NEVER seen so many malls!). There's even a library in it.

Yvonne and the driver then took me back to Bedok, where we live, and she showed me a third supermarket which I hadn't seen before, and she also showed me a shopping center closer to our apartment. It's full of food stalls, a wet market and tons of little shops. It's like a little shuk (for you people who know Israel), and I am very happy about it. I went back to buy soya milk, and it was cheap. I love cheap, in case you don't know me so well.

While I was doing all of this, Matt was working. He is enjoying work, enjoying the people that he works with, and he even has been complimented by his boss. What he writes actually gets read, and though he leaves for work at 6:30 am, he's doing okay.

In case you were wondering, I pulled the heads off of 20 prawns. Some goop came out of it. It was really gross for the first few dudes, but then I got used to it. Scary that you can get used to pulling the heads off of (dead) animals. I don't think I'll be doing that again soon.

The soup was really good, though.

Bug Spray and Prawns

Small update from yesterday...Matt and I had lunch with our friend Christian and Lifong (still don't know how to spell her name - I should probably ask). We had Mexican food. Considering how much farther Singapore is from Mexico than New York, I was pretty impressed! Matt then took me to Orchard Road. It is crazy. I had heard (on the welcome to Singapore video they played before we landed here on the airplane...) that Singaporeans love to shop and eat, and I really think that's all they do! There were SO many malls and stores. There was everything from Tiffany's to department stores to tailors to drug stores. There were even at least three Starbucks, Borders, Gap and probably other familiar things. There were so many people. Did I mention that it was hot in Singapore?

We then went to the grocery store. It's like Chinatown, but it's indoors and much less hectic. I can't quite recognize anything, yet it all looks sort of familiar. Matt keeps saying that Singapore is like Chinatown in Florida. We relaxed and ate Israeli salad for dinner.

So - this is my first "normal" day in S'pore. I.e. Matt went to work this morning, and I had no idea what the hell I was going to do. Luckily there was a (pretty pathetic except for the last three minutes) basketball game to watch, and I got to talk to various family members and friends. At some point a very loud machine went by, and I went out of the bedroom to see what it was. I saw a whole lot of smokey stuff, so I shut the door. Then, five minutes later, I heard it again and it happened to go by ALL of the windows of our apartment, so the smokey stuff was filling my apartment (like I couldn't quite see - seriously filling the apartment!). I quickly shut windows and turned on the a/c. Matt later told me that was some dude spraying for bugs, and that it probably wasn't the best idea to breathe it. Oops.

I visited Siglap (part of it is pictured to the left), which is a shopping area near us - great restaurants and cute stores. I ate holy hot Thai soup, and then I got ingredients for a soup that I want to make. The recipe calls for prawns. As anyone reading this might know - I have eaten kosher in my home for many many years, and have been venturing out and trying new things. I have not yet cooked with anything like this. It took me a good three minutes in the store to decide whether or not to buy the prawns. This was also due to the fact that they all have arms, legs, eyes, heads, etc. I just looked up how to clean them and decapitate them. We'll see if I'm actually able to do that. Not that they're not already dead, but seriously - ripping the head off of something!? Oy. Zichronam livracha.


For today - we have a few pictures of our complex. The first one is the entrance to Casafina (our complex), and the second is obviously our pool. Our apartment is on the other side of the pool from this picture, and we face the outside of the complex (not the pool). More pictures of inside to come (once it is presentable I'll invite you inside!).

Matt gets his life delivered to him in Singapore

Sorry for the great delay in posting new material. I was all over the place, and found myself unable to actually work on this until I got to Asia - weird mental blockage, and Matt hasn't had non-JPMorgan-sanctioned internet access until I got here.

Not-So-Brief Update:
Matt has been working for four weeks now - he is actually doing very similar work to what he did at the bank. He enjoys the people he's working with and the work he's doing. He has been working long hours, which I super hope will not continue from now on. He was living with a dude, and that dude was super interesting, but he moved into our apartment last weekend (thank god). When Matt is awake, we will hopefully hear more details from him.

Melanie had a SUPER-FUN good-bye party in NYC on Tuesday (click here for pictures), moved out of their apartment on Thursday the 31st, and had 5 wonderful days in Toronto mostly with Shana, Daniel and Jer. She also had great visits with Tamara and Ami. (switch to first person) Toronto was fun to mostly relax and just enjoy being with people I like, but we also did some fun stuff. Shana and I walked a good part of the city, we got to see Daniel in a bail hearing in Old City Hall (just like the movies!), had a great bar-b-q with Shana's sister, Mara and Jer - Oberon included, went to the Distillery District, ate hilarious Pakistani food (okay the food wasn't hilarious, but the place was), went gay dancing with Jer's super hot friends, ate Alfonso Mangos, made a super amazing dinner, saw a movie, ate sushi and relaxed.

I got back to NYC on Tuesday for a whopping two days - got to hang with Eli and Damian, at shakshuka with Becca, interviewed for a job with Moody's (update coming soon, hopefully), hung with Liba and Adin, played settlers, went to breakfast with Erin, went to the NY Transit Museum (TOTALLY recommended - take the free tour when you go!), walked across Central Park with Eli and Nina, saw Navit and said goodbye to NYC. :(

Everyone should fly business class. Okay - that doesn't make economic/capitalist sense, but holy shnikes!! I got to the airport, didn't have to wait in line, the turned their head to my extra .8 KG, I got access to the business lounge (free drinks, food, computer access, and basketball on tv!), and the service, seats and food were just outstanding. I flew Singapore Air, which is one of the best in the world. The seats were so big and went totally flat, so that when I was sleeping, I was curled up on my side, and it was nicer than my bed! I got to watch movies on demand, watched tv shows, read (with the option of two different reading lights!), ate many-course meals on real plates with real silver, had the option for drinks and snacks at any point and was just super comfortable. It was the first time in my life where I was sort of disappointed when the flight was over. I think I could have stayed there for about three days, and seriously not minded.

Matt surprised me at the airport, which was super nice, since it was about 6:00 in the morning! The second I stepped outside the airport, though, I realized I was in for problems. I don't think I have caught my breath since. It is soooooooo fricken hot here. I know that you're supposed to get used to it, but apparently that takes more than 24 hours. :) It's muggy, in the 90s, sunny as hell and doesn't have the greatest of all breezes. Whoa.

We got to our apartment - I'll write about that another day - but it's super great. It's a bit of a step up from our 400 sq ft in Manhattan...We got to take a swim, got all of our stuff delivered by three nice men, cleaned up a bit and relaxed.

I know one person in Singapore - Matt's friend, Christian from grad school. We decided to take a walk to dinner, and as we're leaving our place, we hear someone yell our names! Christian and his fiancee LiFong (sp?) were driving by! It was quite a coincidence. We ate Indian fast food for dinner - it wasn't the freshest food ever, but having pretty good Indian food in five minutes was pretty funny. We then took the bus to a HUGE mall called Suntek City. It is HUGE and FULL of people. It was a few too many stimuli for my just arriving and being tired as hell. We got a bunch of housey stuff - mop, broom, garbages, etc.

Somehow I managed to sleep through the night (with only one hour hiatus for a few backgammon games at 2 in the morning). We're heading downtown to have brunch with Christian and LiFong (sp?again!) and then explore downtown. All I have to say is that I hope that we can explore from indoors (air conditioning!). It's unreasonably hot. I think I'm actually going to jump in the pool right now to cool down my body!

Please email and keep in touch, and know that I/we will be updating this regularly now.