1. Ever stared at a group of young 20-something Asian girls, being taken a picture of? While you might just overlook their designer handbags and sophisticated outfits, the 'V' sign they make with their fingers is hard to miss. Ever since we've moved to Singapore, I've taken probably 100 or so courtesy pictures for young Asian tourists, mostly women. OK that number might be a slight exaggeration, but considering we live in the middle of everything aka tourist central, I am not far from reaching that count soon. Once, I almost asked a group, what the 'V' sign meant and why would they flash it for a picture, but before I could, they had vamoosed into a mall, and going gaga over the 'Hello Kitty' booth. Oh well!
That's the other fascination I don't really understand here. Grown women, even executives holding high-profile professional jobs, in Asia seem to be riding high on their fascination with 'Hello Kitty'. (I have been driven around by a very smart female real estate agent, during my apartment viewing days here in Singapore, in a car full of 'Hello Kitty' paraphernalia and accessories. Since then I've spotted several cars, all owned by women, being done up similarly.) A lot of people associate this character with a certain subliminal girlish-ness, hence the craze. Yet, it can get difficult to perceive such a woman with serious professionalism, when there are multiple Kitty's peering at you from various vantage points in her office and car, right?
2. It's been 4 weeks since we traveled out of this city-state. Since our last Asian adventure outside of Singapore. I am restless to the core. I don't think I was prepared for this - to stay here longer than a week at a time. Two weeks tops! A month is really stretching it and making me antsy all over! Perhaps because this city is made to be lived in, only to live out of. When one gets used to a life of living from one itinerary to another, it can get pretty monotonous to be stationed in one place for a while.
If only I let go my self-imposed travel principle - of not travelling anywhere with the baby alone, then perhaps I might have hopped a few more lands by now, just baby and me. (Hubster's schedule is pretty packed at work offlate.) But while I have the option of sharing baby-stress on travel, why take the trouble of going through it alone? This is why I can't wait till she turns a little older, and hopefully becomes my lifelong travel mate. I dream of whisking her away - just her and me, into foreign lands, unchartered territories etc.
Having scratched off all the visa-on-arrival or no-visa countries on our list for now, we stand at the brink of planned-travel here on, at least on the visa paperwork aspect of things. Malaysia is next on the bucket-list and the idea of spending Holi in India, (end of March), after ages does seem to tempt us offlate. Crossing our fingers to make that happen!
3. I've never lived in a city-state before. Hence, I find it a bit odd that every flight that one takes from the airport here, has to be an international one.
Living in India, one always has hundreds of other local cities to fly/ drive or take the train to, domestically. Living in the US too, one has huge scope for domestic travel. In both these countries, it was possible to leave the city you lived in, yet not leave the country.
However, in the case of Singapore, the concept of domestic travel is non-existent! To frequent domestic travelers like myself, the idea of a getaway always being international takes some time to digest. Even a short weekend getaway entails leaving the country. Whoa! That alone makes the trip super serious! It's a good thing that the airport here, is designed to make international travel feel so easy, quick & effortless; even better than domestic travel feels, out of some other airports in the world.
My refreshing air-travel break comes in the form of train or bus travel, both of which I've been doing some serious research on for the past week. While inter-country buses are plenty, I've stumbled upon this excellent site - http://www.seat61.com that lists the various train itineraries across the globe, including a train journey from Singapore into Malaysia/ Thailand. So far, since we've always been minimizing our travel time to maximize our vacation time, train travel has taken a backseat. Unless we decide to make the journey into a vacation itself. I've always loved the idea of crossing international borders by rail or road. Perhaps one of these days, we may just pick a train or a bus to cross over this city-state's border!
4. The baby turned all of 19 months this week. Time somehow, is always on a fast forward mode when it comes to children.
In keeping with the Chinese New Year vibes in the air, I decided to bake her, my very first Upside Down Pineapple Cake. The Chinese consider pineapple as an integral aspect of their New Year dessert, as it signifies prosperity. The cake turned out perfect, probably a bit too perfect, as proved by the Hubster-turned-glutton (He's usually a big brownie lover) who decided to lap the entire cake up, piece by piece all week long, for dessert.
The baby is now on top of her game as far as singing the "Happy Birthday" song and blowing out candles goes. I don't have the heart to tell her that a fire of any kind (bomb blasts, forest fires, house on fire, candles lit on the dinner table, even 'diyas' lit on a 'pooja ki thaali' - all seen on random TV channels) does not always call for the "Happy Birthday" song to be sung out loud.
5. The weekend, especially Saturday night was a lot of fun, what with a 'Surprise' Baby Shower party, planned for a friend, who we've known from our NYC days. Organised spectacularly to the last detail, by our common friend, the evening saw us five women, pop-up unannounced at our prego friend's doorstep. While Ms. Prego was completely flabbergasted at our random appearance, her husband was probably thrilled at the prospect of no-more secret planning to be on top of, hence forth. That's the thing about planning surprises; they take up so much more time and effort to plan than regular events. That's what makes them exceptional and totally worth it, in my books.
Hats off to everyone who has ever pulled a surprise party off. I've done so, a few times and the feeling at the end was superlative. Not only is there an evil pleasure in scaring (read:surprising) your friend and capturing his/ her face in that weak moment, but the joy that one feels, if the surprise turns out to be a complete success, is unmatched. So go on, plan that surprise already!
6. Living locally (sans travel for sometime), forces one to explore the everyday, with a more keen eye. To try to see the magic in the mundane. So I decided to peer through the jazzy materialistic side of this city's malls, into it's creative, soulful side. Yup, I hear your skepticism on that; but everything deserves a second chance, doesn't it?
As is common knowledge, Singapore trumps in the architectural design proficiency of retail spaces. As an Architect/ Urban Designer, I appreciate that they do a good job as far as designing this particular 'typology' of spaces - namely Retail/ Malls. From well-planned pedestrian movements, to intelligently placed signage, to tier-ed shopping experiences based on price/ commodity, to simplified circulation facilitated by positioning competitive brands right next to each other - if there's one thing you've got to give to them, it's how well they design their malls.
Over the past months that I've been here, I've spent a few hours walking past all the big label/ big brand stores to find an invisible layer of quaint, quirky, independently owned designer stores (clothes, accessories, shoes, bags, books, stationery, phone covers, everything one can think of) bringing a big sense of relief among the usual boring big brands. These are mostly found within transient nomadic set-ups called as Pop-Up Stores. Shopping at any of these is a more pleasant experience, on the eye (perhaps not always on the pocket though) than at any of the so-called trend-setting branded designer stores.
The young designers, who are almost always present in the store are happy to answer all my questions and a pleasure to chat with. Often they are willing to swap notes on their experiences while going through design school, sometimes locally and at others all over the world. Their energy is infectious, their work often inspiring and their lack of sales-experience (thankfully) relieving!
7. Hubster and I, saw 'Silver Linings Playbook' on Saturday night in the theatre across the street. While all the main actors did a splendid job, we came out wondering what the hoopla was all about. The story was ordinary and certainly did not look Oscar-nomination worthy. It could've been that we went in with a lot of expectations, knowing this film had been nominated in the Best Picture category but at the end, were left wondering why we didn't go see Lincoln instead. That's next on the Hollywood list of movies to catch.
Week 19 brings a visitor all the way from NYC to Singapore, so there's much to look forward then. Also, more travel plans get finalized next week, so Yay to that!
Until then, take care and be well!
Shweyta
That's the other fascination I don't really understand here. Grown women, even executives holding high-profile professional jobs, in Asia seem to be riding high on their fascination with 'Hello Kitty'. (I have been driven around by a very smart female real estate agent, during my apartment viewing days here in Singapore, in a car full of 'Hello Kitty' paraphernalia and accessories. Since then I've spotted several cars, all owned by women, being done up similarly.) A lot of people associate this character with a certain subliminal girlish-ness, hence the craze. Yet, it can get difficult to perceive such a woman with serious professionalism, when there are multiple Kitty's peering at you from various vantage points in her office and car, right?
2. It's been 4 weeks since we traveled out of this city-state. Since our last Asian adventure outside of Singapore. I am restless to the core. I don't think I was prepared for this - to stay here longer than a week at a time. Two weeks tops! A month is really stretching it and making me antsy all over! Perhaps because this city is made to be lived in, only to live out of. When one gets used to a life of living from one itinerary to another, it can get pretty monotonous to be stationed in one place for a while.
If only I let go my self-imposed travel principle - of not travelling anywhere with the baby alone, then perhaps I might have hopped a few more lands by now, just baby and me. (Hubster's schedule is pretty packed at work offlate.) But while I have the option of sharing baby-stress on travel, why take the trouble of going through it alone? This is why I can't wait till she turns a little older, and hopefully becomes my lifelong travel mate. I dream of whisking her away - just her and me, into foreign lands, unchartered territories etc.
Having scratched off all the visa-on-arrival or no-visa countries on our list for now, we stand at the brink of planned-travel here on, at least on the visa paperwork aspect of things. Malaysia is next on the bucket-list and the idea of spending Holi in India, (end of March), after ages does seem to tempt us offlate. Crossing our fingers to make that happen!
3. I've never lived in a city-state before. Hence, I find it a bit odd that every flight that one takes from the airport here, has to be an international one.
Living in India, one always has hundreds of other local cities to fly/ drive or take the train to, domestically. Living in the US too, one has huge scope for domestic travel. In both these countries, it was possible to leave the city you lived in, yet not leave the country.
However, in the case of Singapore, the concept of domestic travel is non-existent! To frequent domestic travelers like myself, the idea of a getaway always being international takes some time to digest. Even a short weekend getaway entails leaving the country. Whoa! That alone makes the trip super serious! It's a good thing that the airport here, is designed to make international travel feel so easy, quick & effortless; even better than domestic travel feels, out of some other airports in the world.
My refreshing air-travel break comes in the form of train or bus travel, both of which I've been doing some serious research on for the past week. While inter-country buses are plenty, I've stumbled upon this excellent site - http://www.seat61.com that lists the various train itineraries across the globe, including a train journey from Singapore into Malaysia/ Thailand. So far, since we've always been minimizing our travel time to maximize our vacation time, train travel has taken a backseat. Unless we decide to make the journey into a vacation itself. I've always loved the idea of crossing international borders by rail or road. Perhaps one of these days, we may just pick a train or a bus to cross over this city-state's border!
4. The baby turned all of 19 months this week. Time somehow, is always on a fast forward mode when it comes to children.
In keeping with the Chinese New Year vibes in the air, I decided to bake her, my very first Upside Down Pineapple Cake. The Chinese consider pineapple as an integral aspect of their New Year dessert, as it signifies prosperity. The cake turned out perfect, probably a bit too perfect, as proved by the Hubster-turned-glutton (He's usually a big brownie lover) who decided to lap the entire cake up, piece by piece all week long, for dessert.
The baby is now on top of her game as far as singing the "Happy Birthday" song and blowing out candles goes. I don't have the heart to tell her that a fire of any kind (bomb blasts, forest fires, house on fire, candles lit on the dinner table, even 'diyas' lit on a 'pooja ki thaali' - all seen on random TV channels) does not always call for the "Happy Birthday" song to be sung out loud.
5. The weekend, especially Saturday night was a lot of fun, what with a 'Surprise' Baby Shower party, planned for a friend, who we've known from our NYC days. Organised spectacularly to the last detail, by our common friend, the evening saw us five women, pop-up unannounced at our prego friend's doorstep. While Ms. Prego was completely flabbergasted at our random appearance, her husband was probably thrilled at the prospect of no-more secret planning to be on top of, hence forth. That's the thing about planning surprises; they take up so much more time and effort to plan than regular events. That's what makes them exceptional and totally worth it, in my books.
Hats off to everyone who has ever pulled a surprise party off. I've done so, a few times and the feeling at the end was superlative. Not only is there an evil pleasure in scaring (read:surprising) your friend and capturing his/ her face in that weak moment, but the joy that one feels, if the surprise turns out to be a complete success, is unmatched. So go on, plan that surprise already!
6. Living locally (sans travel for sometime), forces one to explore the everyday, with a more keen eye. To try to see the magic in the mundane. So I decided to peer through the jazzy materialistic side of this city's malls, into it's creative, soulful side. Yup, I hear your skepticism on that; but everything deserves a second chance, doesn't it?
As is common knowledge, Singapore trumps in the architectural design proficiency of retail spaces. As an Architect/ Urban Designer, I appreciate that they do a good job as far as designing this particular 'typology' of spaces - namely Retail/ Malls. From well-planned pedestrian movements, to intelligently placed signage, to tier-ed shopping experiences based on price/ commodity, to simplified circulation facilitated by positioning competitive brands right next to each other - if there's one thing you've got to give to them, it's how well they design their malls.
Over the past months that I've been here, I've spent a few hours walking past all the big label/ big brand stores to find an invisible layer of quaint, quirky, independently owned designer stores (clothes, accessories, shoes, bags, books, stationery, phone covers, everything one can think of) bringing a big sense of relief among the usual boring big brands. These are mostly found within transient nomadic set-ups called as Pop-Up Stores. Shopping at any of these is a more pleasant experience, on the eye (perhaps not always on the pocket though) than at any of the so-called trend-setting branded designer stores.
The young designers, who are almost always present in the store are happy to answer all my questions and a pleasure to chat with. Often they are willing to swap notes on their experiences while going through design school, sometimes locally and at others all over the world. Their energy is infectious, their work often inspiring and their lack of sales-experience (thankfully) relieving!
7. Hubster and I, saw 'Silver Linings Playbook' on Saturday night in the theatre across the street. While all the main actors did a splendid job, we came out wondering what the hoopla was all about. The story was ordinary and certainly did not look Oscar-nomination worthy. It could've been that we went in with a lot of expectations, knowing this film had been nominated in the Best Picture category but at the end, were left wondering why we didn't go see Lincoln instead. That's next on the Hollywood list of movies to catch.
Week 19 brings a visitor all the way from NYC to Singapore, so there's much to look forward then. Also, more travel plans get finalized next week, so Yay to that!
Until then, take care and be well!
Shweyta
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