1. The house, naturally seems emptier since the parents left. The baby having grown up now, shows more visible, adult-like signs of missing guests, once they're gone. Her innocent rant of "No Naneee, No Nanooo" while pointing to their room, "No Mummy, No Papa" when Hubster and I sneak out on her or "No Tita" every Sunday when Janet (our live-in help) takes off for the day, is just heart-warming. With her recently acquired ability to clearly express her emotions, leaving her behind at home, be it for work or pleasure is just not easy on our hearts, anymore. Our only solace in doing so, lies in the knowledge that some years down the line, she will be giving it right back to us, so heck, why not?
2. The upcoming weekend is 4 day long, on account of the Chinese New Year, aka as CNY. If wishes were horses, we would've been spending these four days in Mainland China or atleast in Hongkong, celebrating the arrival of the Year of the Water Snake, with the locals. Until we realised that sporadic travel planning out of Singapore, does not work at this time of the year, due to the exorbitant flight fares and insane mass exodus from the city-state, especially to China. So the next best option was to spend it here in Singapore (where CNY is a big deal too) and see all or most of the city, over the long weekend. (Does'nt take too long to cover this place anyway, that's how small it is).
3. The stay-cation sparked off with us hosting our very first house party, here in Singapore, finally after having lived here for four months already. Figured, we may as well do it this weekend, while we're in town, going by our random travel schedule otherwise. So our in-house party planner (yours truly) got busy - planning the venue and the menu, drawing up the guest list etc and planning the details. (Our guest-list was small - 25 or so, of which some could'nt make it to the event. Hubster joked with me wondering if a few hours would be all it takes for me to whip up a 5 course meal for a group this size, going by the fact that I've catered for party sizes of 50 or more; in the past - some my own, others hosted by close friends/ acquaintances. I must say, I do miss our social circle from back in The States, where the headcount for any of our events, never went south of 50. Besides, cooking for large groups has always been my thing)
4. We decided to start the party at our building's uber-modern poolside lounge and then take it up to the apartment, post 10 pm, which is when the lounge had to be given up (The only flipside of hosting parties in building lounges is that they need to wrap up at some point). At first the thought was to go the pool-party route. We would have to pick between the poolside lounge on the 8th floor or the sky-pool on the 43rd floor of the building. But finally, we settled for the more practical option (the pool-side lounge came attached with a full kitchen) and went with the former. The latter we've kept up our sleeve, for the next party to be hosted, hopefully sometime soon.
In keeping with the typical MD House party spirit, I cooked/ baked/ assembled a small variety of appetizers, dips, main course and desserts, with a little help from my sous-chef Janet and official taster Zoe. (Hubster had already opted out of helping with this one, so it was nice to have Janet help with all the chopping). Drinks were kept simple - beer and wine only. Seemed like we had some sort of foresight on this one, as it turned out that most of our guests did'nt drink much, (Again something we are not used to at all) and we came back home with a lot of left-over beer and wine. The guest-list included friends from all walks of our lives this far; who happen to be living in Singapore presently or in a freaky stroke of luck, were travelling here that very weekend. Some, we were meeting after ages and some others were friends-of-friends, who we had only virtually met, but never in person yet.
The evening was well-spent. We wrapped up from the lounge at 10 pm as decided and brought the party upstairs to the apartment, where our living area and otherwise-under utilised balcony (Usually kept shut to refrain the little one from any access to the pebbles used for landscaping purposes there) lent themselves beautifully to host everyone, for the rest of the night. Somewhere well past midnight, we called it a night!
5. One often tends to compare one's past experiences with the present and this party offered itself up as a perfect example for that, nonetheless.
It brought to the fore, small differences about in-home entertaining in both - NY/ NJ & Singapore. For starters, it was so effortless to host/ organise/ wrap up this party simply because of Janet. Thanks to her, we could finally have an all-adult event, at our own home, with the baby happily having been put to bed at her regular bed-time. (This is the exact opposite of our house parties in The US where the baby stayed up like a good hostess but a bad baby, for as long as she could, interacting with all our guests. That most of the guests were really there for her, is a different story altogether.)
While post-party rituals in The States involved much cleaning/ wrapping up etc (With some help from the nanny/ housekeeper since the last year or so, who would come in the next morning and help out), in Singapore we had no clue when the lounge and the apartment got cleaned up and put-in-place, while we nursed our always-full glasses over conversations with our guests. To Janet, as she confessed to me later, this was the easiest party she's ever helped with, especially as I took up all the cooking/ baking upon myself.
Our guests, most of whom are parents, asked us while RSVP'ing if this was going to be a child-free evening; again not an oft asked query in The States for sure. The social norm here in Singapore, is to leave one's children behind at home and head out for the evening. In the States, we often had to inform our nanny in advance of our weekend plans, if we wanted her to babysit Z. And more often than not, we'd just get her to stay the night, which would relieve us of having to rush home on a deadline. We were probably the only one's we know, who indulged in that practice. Most of our friends/ families with kids, either just stayed in on weekends or were on a strict time-schedule when they did go out, in order to get back home in time to relieve the sitter. And house parties sans-kids were unheard of there. Most house parties we've attended or hosted in the recent past in the US, had children in attendance.
Thus increasingly by the day, this realisation is dawning upon us, that to be able to walk out of the door at any time of the day or night, without any pre-planning, knowing your baby is still going to be safe and well taken-care of, is a huge blessing. And we are extremely thankful for it! And plan to milk it for as long as we can!
6. Once the party was done, the rest of the long weekend was spent playing catch-up, mainly between Hubster and me. Since we dont get to see much of each other inspite of living under the same roof, we find ourselves out of touch with each other's lives sometimes. So the long weekend saw the both of us doing a lot of brunch and dinner dates, all over the city. He took me out to show me the sights of the city he had seen and I had'nt yet. Randomly we strolled into a reflexology place for foot massages one afternoon while discussing where in the world we wanted to live in next.
We also spent a few hours in Chinatown, soaking in the Chinese New Year celebrations and promising to come back to relish the authentic Singaporean Style Chili Crab at another time when our appetites would be more demanding.
7. Zoe's school celebrated Chinese New Year beautifully. All parents were sent a memo to dress the kids in red for the day. On the day of the celebration, we were invited to come participate and feast on the CNY goodies, in the last half hour of class. The teachers had done a great job doing up the school with red traditional decorations and had even baked a few goodies for the kids, themselves. The children had spent the past few hours working on making beautiful CNY cards that depicted spring in full bloom with traditional red motifs that one associates with the celebrations.
Each child was bid goodbye with a small red envelope (called 'hongbao' in Mandarin) with some token amount in it. Teacher Grace, who is Zoe's main teacher, explained that as part of CNY tradition, red envelopes filled with money are handed over by the elders to the young. They are given held between both hands and must be received in the same manner and are not meant to be opened in front of the giver.
Zoe seemed to get it, well atleast partially, as while she did not insist on opening the envelope right there, she did grab it straight out of Teacher Grace's hands like it belonged to her. While Teacher Grace smiled, I figured it was best to scoot with a "Gong Xi Fa Cai" (Mandarin for Happy New Year) to the Teacher. (Although I must confess trying to say even the above, in Mandarin, makes me feel so touristy and out of place, almost a little bit like an American does, when they speak Hindi. Not something I ever felt while trying to pick up Spanish or French words in the past. There's something about Mandarin that is so alien and unfathomable to me, atleast uptil now. Perhaps the daughter will change that someday if and when, she starts speaking it fluently).
The Week thus, ended on a beautiful celebratory note, with us trying to immerse our expat-selves into the local culture here. Finally this was an occasion that felt fit to be celebrated here, as it was of the local people, than being a meaningless Western import.
Wishing all of you a Very Happy Year of the Water Snake or as I've now learnt to say it - Gong Xi Fa Cai!
Until next week,
Shweyta
2. The upcoming weekend is 4 day long, on account of the Chinese New Year, aka as CNY. If wishes were horses, we would've been spending these four days in Mainland China or atleast in Hongkong, celebrating the arrival of the Year of the Water Snake, with the locals. Until we realised that sporadic travel planning out of Singapore, does not work at this time of the year, due to the exorbitant flight fares and insane mass exodus from the city-state, especially to China. So the next best option was to spend it here in Singapore (where CNY is a big deal too) and see all or most of the city, over the long weekend. (Does'nt take too long to cover this place anyway, that's how small it is).
3. The stay-cation sparked off with us hosting our very first house party, here in Singapore, finally after having lived here for four months already. Figured, we may as well do it this weekend, while we're in town, going by our random travel schedule otherwise. So our in-house party planner (yours truly) got busy - planning the venue and the menu, drawing up the guest list etc and planning the details. (Our guest-list was small - 25 or so, of which some could'nt make it to the event. Hubster joked with me wondering if a few hours would be all it takes for me to whip up a 5 course meal for a group this size, going by the fact that I've catered for party sizes of 50 or more; in the past - some my own, others hosted by close friends/ acquaintances. I must say, I do miss our social circle from back in The States, where the headcount for any of our events, never went south of 50. Besides, cooking for large groups has always been my thing)
4. We decided to start the party at our building's uber-modern poolside lounge and then take it up to the apartment, post 10 pm, which is when the lounge had to be given up (The only flipside of hosting parties in building lounges is that they need to wrap up at some point). At first the thought was to go the pool-party route. We would have to pick between the poolside lounge on the 8th floor or the sky-pool on the 43rd floor of the building. But finally, we settled for the more practical option (the pool-side lounge came attached with a full kitchen) and went with the former. The latter we've kept up our sleeve, for the next party to be hosted, hopefully sometime soon.
In keeping with the typical MD House party spirit, I cooked/ baked/ assembled a small variety of appetizers, dips, main course and desserts, with a little help from my sous-chef Janet and official taster Zoe. (Hubster had already opted out of helping with this one, so it was nice to have Janet help with all the chopping). Drinks were kept simple - beer and wine only. Seemed like we had some sort of foresight on this one, as it turned out that most of our guests did'nt drink much, (Again something we are not used to at all) and we came back home with a lot of left-over beer and wine. The guest-list included friends from all walks of our lives this far; who happen to be living in Singapore presently or in a freaky stroke of luck, were travelling here that very weekend. Some, we were meeting after ages and some others were friends-of-friends, who we had only virtually met, but never in person yet.
The evening was well-spent. We wrapped up from the lounge at 10 pm as decided and brought the party upstairs to the apartment, where our living area and otherwise-under utilised balcony (Usually kept shut to refrain the little one from any access to the pebbles used for landscaping purposes there) lent themselves beautifully to host everyone, for the rest of the night. Somewhere well past midnight, we called it a night!
5. One often tends to compare one's past experiences with the present and this party offered itself up as a perfect example for that, nonetheless.
It brought to the fore, small differences about in-home entertaining in both - NY/ NJ & Singapore. For starters, it was so effortless to host/ organise/ wrap up this party simply because of Janet. Thanks to her, we could finally have an all-adult event, at our own home, with the baby happily having been put to bed at her regular bed-time. (This is the exact opposite of our house parties in The US where the baby stayed up like a good hostess but a bad baby, for as long as she could, interacting with all our guests. That most of the guests were really there for her, is a different story altogether.)
While post-party rituals in The States involved much cleaning/ wrapping up etc (With some help from the nanny/ housekeeper since the last year or so, who would come in the next morning and help out), in Singapore we had no clue when the lounge and the apartment got cleaned up and put-in-place, while we nursed our always-full glasses over conversations with our guests. To Janet, as she confessed to me later, this was the easiest party she's ever helped with, especially as I took up all the cooking/ baking upon myself.
Our guests, most of whom are parents, asked us while RSVP'ing if this was going to be a child-free evening; again not an oft asked query in The States for sure. The social norm here in Singapore, is to leave one's children behind at home and head out for the evening. In the States, we often had to inform our nanny in advance of our weekend plans, if we wanted her to babysit Z. And more often than not, we'd just get her to stay the night, which would relieve us of having to rush home on a deadline. We were probably the only one's we know, who indulged in that practice. Most of our friends/ families with kids, either just stayed in on weekends or were on a strict time-schedule when they did go out, in order to get back home in time to relieve the sitter. And house parties sans-kids were unheard of there. Most house parties we've attended or hosted in the recent past in the US, had children in attendance.
Thus increasingly by the day, this realisation is dawning upon us, that to be able to walk out of the door at any time of the day or night, without any pre-planning, knowing your baby is still going to be safe and well taken-care of, is a huge blessing. And we are extremely thankful for it! And plan to milk it for as long as we can!
6. Once the party was done, the rest of the long weekend was spent playing catch-up, mainly between Hubster and me. Since we dont get to see much of each other inspite of living under the same roof, we find ourselves out of touch with each other's lives sometimes. So the long weekend saw the both of us doing a lot of brunch and dinner dates, all over the city. He took me out to show me the sights of the city he had seen and I had'nt yet. Randomly we strolled into a reflexology place for foot massages one afternoon while discussing where in the world we wanted to live in next.
We also spent a few hours in Chinatown, soaking in the Chinese New Year celebrations and promising to come back to relish the authentic Singaporean Style Chili Crab at another time when our appetites would be more demanding.
7. Zoe's school celebrated Chinese New Year beautifully. All parents were sent a memo to dress the kids in red for the day. On the day of the celebration, we were invited to come participate and feast on the CNY goodies, in the last half hour of class. The teachers had done a great job doing up the school with red traditional decorations and had even baked a few goodies for the kids, themselves. The children had spent the past few hours working on making beautiful CNY cards that depicted spring in full bloom with traditional red motifs that one associates with the celebrations.
Each child was bid goodbye with a small red envelope (called 'hongbao' in Mandarin) with some token amount in it. Teacher Grace, who is Zoe's main teacher, explained that as part of CNY tradition, red envelopes filled with money are handed over by the elders to the young. They are given held between both hands and must be received in the same manner and are not meant to be opened in front of the giver.
Zoe seemed to get it, well atleast partially, as while she did not insist on opening the envelope right there, she did grab it straight out of Teacher Grace's hands like it belonged to her. While Teacher Grace smiled, I figured it was best to scoot with a "Gong Xi Fa Cai" (Mandarin for Happy New Year) to the Teacher. (Although I must confess trying to say even the above, in Mandarin, makes me feel so touristy and out of place, almost a little bit like an American does, when they speak Hindi. Not something I ever felt while trying to pick up Spanish or French words in the past. There's something about Mandarin that is so alien and unfathomable to me, atleast uptil now. Perhaps the daughter will change that someday if and when, she starts speaking it fluently).
The Week thus, ended on a beautiful celebratory note, with us trying to immerse our expat-selves into the local culture here. Finally this was an occasion that felt fit to be celebrated here, as it was of the local people, than being a meaningless Western import.
Wishing all of you a Very Happy Year of the Water Snake or as I've now learnt to say it - Gong Xi Fa Cai!
Until next week,
Shweyta
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