Day 2

After a movie-esque long day, which like in the movies seems to take twice as long as a normal day, the awakening was all too familiar, or at least that is what it felt like, with clear blue skies and THAT jaw dropping skyline city-view of Singapore hitting our retina as soon as our eye-lids popped open. Knackered (or shattered) from the day-that-never-ended we were awoken by the sound of the alarm at 10AM, knowing that we had to check out within the hour.

Seems like we had been there for weeks, but that is what a room looks like after just one night under Kelli’s care…

Too little time to reflect on yesterday’s events and to take it all in, we switched to action-mode and packed up all of our belongings. Bear in mind that the wife only had a suitcase and a half to her name for this new adventure, which must be a new world record for a woman moving to the other side of the world… a container and a half is probably the norm!

So to cut a long story short, we had received the keys to our new apartment the previous day and hopped into a taxi with our belongings to start our new life. First impressions, as they tend to be (or is that just the scepticism pushing its way through my thinning hair?), were not as positive as I would have wanted. The brave wife though was delighted with the new place and so I accepted that the first month would be spent in this apartment and this area (just passed Little India and close to the Woman and Children’s hospital). Let me just specify that the wife’s company had kindly set us up for the first month, giving us the time to try and find THE place we would be spending the next couple/few years in. So as mentioned previously, my first impression was way off. It turned out that this area is actually one of the best and most serene to live in. Here are a few pictures of our current apartment...

Elli delighted at eating her first home-cooked meal on the lovely balcony

Anyway, back to the story. Having moved in, but without basics, like food, we decided to scout the area. It is then that the half-Belgian sceptic part of me (the husband) turned into the more positive half-Irish part of me (it is like a constant Jekyll and Hyde battle going on inside of me, with one trait trumping the other and vice-versa depending on the time and place). We not only found out that there were several malls within walking distance, but also found some very nice food shops and supermarkets, with a great variety of foods. So we don’t even need to miss our staple diet of pasta with sauce…  But that wasn’t even the best part! Having done a load of shopping and knowing that we would have to drag all of the shopping back, including some bulky and heavy water bottles in +30C degree heat, we simply went to the garage and hauled a taxi! About 2.5 euros and 5 minutes later we were bring the food up in the lift, ready to cook our first meal in the country…

After having settled in we thought the next step would be to go off and buy a PC, so that we could connect with the outside world and tell them a bit about us and how things are going. So off we head again to the shopping centre....well the one we seemed to know and we head into the shop we had seen the PC the day before. Unfortunately the guy had just sold the last model, but not to be deterred we paid for one anyway, hoping we could get one at some point... So rather than going home with a PC we ended up with brand new white sheets! Yep strange, I will say it again... no PC, but white sheets! The thing is the wife loves clean, white, crisp sheets like in hotel rooms and so off we went to the local version of the Belgian Inno (or BT for those in Ireland) and ended up with really fancy sheets...Random, yes, but they do feel very comfortable it must be said...

What had slipped our mind during all this shopping for clean sheets was that we were due to go over to Martin's at 16:00...so a little after 18:00 in typical European style we turned up on their doorstep. It has to be said, and we had been warned that it is oh so easy to spend in Singapore...and indeed I now find myself without a penny, so if any of you get a hold of my mother, make sure to let her know I could use some cash...

Back to reality and we ended up going for a great Hong Kongese (is that even a word?) meal courtesy Martin, who subsequently had the bright idea of walking the wrong way up the coast looking for a Belgian bar called Brussels Sprouts, rather than down. We managed to walk off our meal AND loose a few extra pounds...Thanks Martin, looking forward to our next adventures ... ;-)