"TGIF"

View of Sentosa from Vivo City

So it's Friday morning and Nick doesn't have any work planned over the weekend!! Holding thumbs nothing comes up today so that we can FINALLY have a full weekend together in Singapore. If all goes according to plan we are starting off the weekend with drinks at the Marina Bay Sands Hotel tonight with Alan Lane (who is out from the UK) and Ruhann Du Plessis (who is out from SA). VERY excited to have some peeps around that we know - feels like a normal Friday evening after all! Then the plan is to check out Sentosa Island tomorrow and have a lazy day by the pool on Sunday.

I've been really good this week and have run every day! I don't feel like it today so I won't but the good news is that the kilos are shedding. Nick has lost loads of weight already and we've agreed that at least there are some positives to the stinking heat and not having your own car.



Scatter cushions IKEA

My IKEA discovery last week encouraged me to seek out more shopping establishments in and around this retail City. You cannot believe that it is possible for there to be as many malls as there are. Not only are there a gazillion shopping complexes but each one seems to be linked by what they call a "Link Mall" which are just as impressive. These 'link' malls usually start as you exist the MRT and lead you in which ever direction you want to go. It is truly an underground shopping maze. You can quite literally spend hours underground without ever surfacing for air. I had one of those experiences yesterday. I've begun to feel the need to shed my "tourist" hat and start operating as a resident of this country, all be it temporary resident. I'm sure this has more to do with me needing to feel less "sore thumbish" in the hustle and bustle of the Singapore work week than anything else but it inspired by behaviour yesterday regardless. 

Christmas Shoppe Vivo City



Christmas tree decoration

I decided to blow dry my hair, put some make up on and go shopping at Vivo City, which I was told was a good place to browse for a couple of hours. I found my way there easily on the MRT and 'alighted' only to be confronted by what I think must be one of the biggest malls I have ever seen! It's terrible seeing all these things for the first time on your own. You get all excited and are walking around with a massive grin on your face, camera poised but not quite sure how to capture the  moment.

Then you send a flurry of sms's to your mom and girlfriends who you know would go Banana's at the mere thought of a mall this size and then your breathing starts to get back to normal and you stop behaving like a 

Beautiful flower tree -

complete hill-billy and start actually walking in a straight line again.



Latest purchase - Tangs

  Anyway, the long and short of it was that I spent and entire afternoon in the mall, bought myself 2 pairs of shoes from Tangs, some cute little Christmas decorations from The Christmas Shoppe and had a freezochino and a muffin on my own (which is big for me cause I usually don't sit down in coffee shops and restaurants on my own - but I'm learning. And quite enjoying it actually. It's probably the one thing I was most scared of but I've found it to be quite liberating). The good news is that due to the seamless air conditioned environment, shopping is the one activity in Singapore that will ensure you don't leave frizzy-haired and sweat-sheened.

Bucket of beers - whoops!

Harry's Pub

I had planned to go and see the Titanic Exhibition at the Art Science Museum yesterday afternoon but I ran out of time and decided to join Nick on Raffles Quay for a drink and some dinner after work instead (I'll see the exhibition this evening before we meet Alan and Ruhann). Harry's Pub is strategically located across the road from Nick's office building and we snuck in there at about 6.30pm for a drink as it was pouring with rain and rush hour so commuting at that time would have been a nightmare. We are learning quickly that even if you are seated in an English Pub you still need to point to the menu when ordering. Nick managed to order a bucket of beers (yes, that's 5 beers in a bucket of ice) instead of 1. The ridiculous part is that they had taken all the caps off the beers so we couldn't even send them back! I have never laughed so hard in my life! He emailed the 3 people that he knows in Singapore to come and join us and help drink the beers but unfortunately no one was available. So, we settled in for the long haul, ordered some food and had a fab evening together drinking beer and reflecting over the past 2 and a half weeks.

Monday will be 3 weeks since we go here - I can't believe it! It's gone so quickly and I'm delighted that we are not feeling too homesick. I'm half expecting for the euphoria to wear off at some stage and for the reality that we are here for a further 6 months to set in at some stage but I'm positioning that in my mind as a good thing. My Mum arrives in a month which is too exciting and then I still have Bonnie's visit and M&M's visit to look forward to in March. I've made a new friend in the complex too - her name is Christine and she is also a 'trailer wife' but from Indonesia. We are doing coffee early next week and she says she is keen to learn more about South Africa as she has wanted to visit for a long time but is worried about the crime situation. Not an easy topic to discuss without giving people a history lesson and all the context. One thing is for sure, we take ourselves very seriously in South Africa, especially politically, and it is becoming more and more clear to us that Africa doesn't even register in the minds of those forging ahead in this economy. Again, perhaps its too soon to comment, but I think that South African politicians are pretty light weight when you see what others are achieving else where in the world. Just by way of example, the Singaporean Government wanted to establish their own version of Boston based MIT. Instead of dallying about, they have brought in the MIT management team to establish the Institution and manage its emergence into the market. It's taken a couple of years and the first students are enrolling early next year. Quick, decisive and proactive. It works. The lessons are far too obvious to point out. Far more impressive than quarrelling over "secrecy bills" and un-authorised shopping trips to Europe....