Saturday, December 08, 2012

Singapore Suitcases: Week 8 - Of plane-spotting, 'Rest Weeks' & Narcissistic pleasures!

1. Strangely no planes fly in our sky. The sky we view from our apartment balcony, that is. Our sky stretches out all the way to the other end of the city, yet planes are few and far between. Naturally, as Changi is almost at the outskirts of the city. A sheer contrast to our sky in Jersey City, where planes/ copters dotted the horizon so often that the baby's favorite hobby growing up was plane-spotting. She misses doing that now, it seems as she stares up at a blank sky. So we, her parents have come up with the next best solution, to always keep her in a plane, a strategy that seems to have worked out nicely for all of us, what with our incessant travel offlate. Needless to say "airplane" and "airport" are the two most oft repeated words in her vocabulary.

2. The week that could've started on a jet-laggy note, luckily failed to do so. Our flight back from JFK was much shorter, thus easier. The daughter slept throughout the first leg and a warm shower at the Star Alliance Lounge in Frankfurt made sure she was well-rested even on the second one. Landing back in Singapore during the day, only helped blend the two timezones further. I cannot stop raving about Changi Airport's efficiency once again. With every single time that we land here, this airport beats its own past record and gets us out (landed, processed & immigrated) quicker than the last. By the end of our stint in this city-state, I am convinced that what I will miss most about living in Singapore is this airport!

3. The week is an important one; a classical indicator of times to come. It is what we term as the 'Rest Week'. In designing our travels, since we've moved here two months ago, we've made sure to intersperse two consecutive itineraries with a 'Rest Week' in between, (for both ours & the daughter's sanity's sake). A 'Rest Week' is spent locally in Singapore, unpacking, running errands, doing laundry, re-packing etc before we jet-set again to the next destination, at the end of the week. This week was one such, aka known as the week between NYC & Mumbai.

4. Zoe had Holiday Playgroup Classes all week long at her now fave haunt - Happy Kids Club Adventures. A win-win for her and me, as we got our much-needed 'away' time from each other. While I spent my precious few 'alone-time' hours running important errands and checking-off tasks from the insatiable to-do list I seem to have offlate, she happily came home with new art-works every day, that now compete with each other for display-space in her room.

5. It could be their defence mechanism towards the humid & hot climate here in Singapore, but all enclosed spaces (Read mall) feel the need to have their own unique scent. Usually floral, every air-conditioned space here (which virtually means every space here, since they are all air-conditioned), feels the need to dispense into it's re-circulated air, some kind of whiff, that while intelligently warding off body odour can also make one nauseous to the core. Perhaps that explains why half of Asia roams around wearing air-purifying masks.

6.  Happiness can manifest itself in ridiculously narcissistic ways; such as the pleasure one feels when fitting into one's wedding lehenga, 5 years of marriage & 1 C-Section later. The week revealed that while my metabolism could be counted upon for maintenance, it seems to have forgotten how to cause weight loss. So a lot of prodding it, is in order, in the next few weeks.

7. The coming week will witness another first for us; the first time ever that I take a flight with the daughter alone. I decided to bite the bullet on this one and experiment flying solo with her, on the short leg between Singapore - Mumbai, with one of our preferred 'baby-friendly' carriers, Singapore Airlines.  I caved in though, to the lure of flying Business Class, in hopes of extra 'special' treatment. And of course I had my fingers crossed, hoping for a stroke of luck in finding that overtly-fond-of-kids kinda air-hostess who could babysit the daughter inflight. How that one turns out, you ll know in my next week's update.

The next week will be spent in Mumbai, capped with what promises to be a fun reunion weekend at the wedding of two of our fellow villagers from NYC. Looking forward to having the global village descend upon us to take the daughter off of our hands for the entire weekend (Clearly we love delegation as you can tell). It does help that our little attention-hogger cares two hoots who she's hanging out with, friend or a stranger as long as it's playful company. Bringing this little mingler to social events is thus always a win-win-win only because she enjoys herself, constantly entertains everyone around her and keeps her parents scot-free as they get to mingle around without her.

Thats all for this week as its now time for me to go try on some more traditional attire to pack for the wedding. Here's hoping to continue pleasing the inner Narcissus!
Until next week, stay well and take care!
Shweyta

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