1. We have new neighbours! Two sets of them actually. It's funny how we learnt of them.
We live in a condominium building where every apartment has it's own exclusive elevator. Naturally this means there is very little interaction between next-door neighbours.
Indeed having your own private elevator that opens into your own private lobby is definitely a lavish, practical perk, as it literally helps cut down the 'door-to-door' distance math. But having your own private elevator, makes you a recluse! It takes away from a prime 'social' attribute of high-density living design - that of perpetuating daily interaction among it's residents, who dwell on the same floor!
There is a rare opportunity to come face-to-face here, between neighbours, since all of us rarely use our 'other' doors, (termed appropriately in the building as the 'yard doors'). These 'yard doors' end up getting used only for ancillary functions - such as to access the common trash chute and take the 'common' elevator in the rare event of a 'private' one that is rendered non-operational due to maintenance/ servicing.
The neighbours that you do end up seeing, are those who live in the same 'vertical' line as you - and thus share your so-called 'private' elevator. When an elevator stops enroute, is also the time, one gets to take a sneak peak into others homes and thank ones own "design-sensitivity". That one was conscious enough to deliberately NOT have ones shoe rack placed, bang in front of the elevator door, thus ensuring for a pleasant sight (one that is NOT full of shoes strewn around) for the once-in-a-blue-moon-neighbour who happens to share your elevator-space sometimes.
Given this 'island-ified' setting of our apartment here, I still managed to befriend two of our next door neighbours - both new tenants in the building. One is a family from Cambodia with the most gorgeous little toddler ever, who was playing outside our 'yard' door one morning. On hearing a baby coo, the nanny and I opened the door to find a cute little baby girl running around with her nanny chasing her. Our little one was in school at the time, or she would've certainly insisted on a play-date right then and there, given her obsession with babies and anything remotely 'cute'.
Our other neighbour - who's 'yard door' opens straight across from ours - turns out to be from Mumbai as well. We met in the classic, quintessential Indian 'TV Serial' style. Her maid had been leaving trash outside her door, not knowing there's a trash chute present a few metres away, from where to dispose the waste from. Our clean-freak of a nanny/ helper couldn't stand the sight of trash bags outside the neighbour's door and insisted I 'reprimand' the new neighbours.
Obliging our dear helper, I willingly marched up to our neighbours back door and rang the bell, hoping to politely resolve the issue. To my pleasant surprise, out came a happy, chirpy young Indian girl, who seemed utterly pleased at the sight of seeing her neighbour (that is me) standing at her door. We got talking and didn't stop for about an hour or so - what with both of us yapping away like we were friends from another life. Having recently moved to the building and to Singapore, from Mumbai, she and her husband are still figuring their way around the neighbourhood/ country.
Since that day, she and I, have been on movie dates, tea-dates, shopping-dates and lunches. Who knew leaving trash around could actually spark quite the amicable note between neighbours!
2. There seems to be setting in a bitter-sweet sensation around these new relationships, given that we know that our days in this city-state are now literally numbered. Soon we will be walking away from life here, as we've known it for a year now. When we were moving here, it was meant to be only for a short duration - of 6 months or so, which kept getting extended until we would've now lived here for a year, before we move out in mid-October. Sitting close to the other side of that year, I now think a year is not enough! It is an incredibly short span of time, an extremely insufficient duration at the end of which one is actually just about starting to live in a new place and experience a new culture. And considering we've spent more than half of that year living outside Singapore, it suddenly feels like we haven't stayed here long enough. We've been saying "Singapore is our base" for months now since we moved here but somewhere subconsciously it magically transformed itself to become one of our 'homes'. A place we've grown to know and gradually accept; a culture and people that have embraced us as much as we have embraced it and most importantly a nest and a lifestyle that is immensely comfortable - just like a 'home' should be! A very high bar has been set by this 'home', something all our future homes will now have to match up to or exceed.
I have read and heard a lot about the inherent 'sense of longing' and 'amiss' that is so much a part of an expat lifestyle, when they 'home-hop' so to speak. But it is now, that I am experiencing it first hand. We still have a few weeks left before we make our next nomadic jump and most of them are full of travel. Yet for the few weeks/ weekends that we are going to be local, we plan to make the most of this base-turned-home. Not something I had thought I would say last year this time, but now I know - We sure are going to miss this place, big time!
3. We met up with some friends to try out an Indian buffet, after ages. This restaurant, called Yantra, like most other Indian restaurants world-wide, has a lavish buffet spread, on weekends. Not one to particularly enjoy buffet spreads any longer (There was a time, in my student days when I could do tremendous justice to buffets) purely on grounds of not being able to do justice to the wide spread, I went along for the husband's sake. Our friends mentioned that the buffet spread had been downsized in the recent past. I would recommend this place highly for an a-la carte experience more than the buffet. Give it a try, if you're looking for a good, Indian fine-dining experience in Singapore.
4. In what has become a non-frequent social night-out, Hubster, Baby and I got invited to dinner, to his colleague's home. Night-outs such as these used to be a weekend norm in NYC, but are not regular occurrences here in Singapore, on account of the following two reasons -
i) Singaporeans and the other residents living here, prefer to meet outside for meals/ drinks as against at someone's home - at Hawker centres, restaurants, bars etc. It could be because culturally Singaporeans do not cook at home, even on regular weekdays (Remember I mentioned, in an earlier weekly update, how 30 out of the 32 apartments I went to see, when we moved here, had only two-stove top surfaces as against four? Long working hours and the easy availability of cheap and good quality meals are possible reasons for this lifestyle pattern)
In fact, every time we've hosted a dinner party at home here and I've cooked, I've been told this is not a common occurrence here. Coming from a social circle of friends, that churns out menus equivalent of feasts even for casual get-togethers' at each others homes in NYC, it did seem odd at first, that no one likes cooking here at home as much. That is why, a regular dinner invitation such as this one, made by Hubster's colleague and his wife, at their home, stands out and thus is highly welcome!
ii) The other reason why this dinner invitation was unique, was because the three of us - Hubster, Baby and I, were going over to someone's place together, for a meal, after what can be appropriately termed as eternity.
Given our 24/7 social support structure here, as per the basic law of child-rearing in this country goes (That's how I jokingly refer to the maid-system here), the little one usually ends up staying at home, when we go out at nights. Not all restaurants are 'happy' seeing a toddler come in to dine with her parents here. Besides, ours would be the only toddler perhaps, seen dining outside with us, at a restaurant, given that the majority prefers to leave their children at home at nights.
This has effectively made us lose practice, on 'handling' a night out with the little one. Of course I thought our toddler would realize she was at someone else's home and thus behave otherwise, considering she's been easy to reason with off late. But clearly, I was expecting a bit much! Thankfully our hosts had an 18 month old as well, so the collective madness that ensued that evening was sort of expected and hence largely overlooked.
Our hostess took us back down memory lane - when she insisted on serving 'garma garam pooris' brought to our plates while we sat shamelessly downing the delicious home-cooked North Indian fare. (Remember the days when your Mom or the hostess who invited your family over, served hot 'pooris' too? To have someone of our generation do the same, in today's day and age is indeed a novelty and a much cherished one, at that.) The evening was blissful and relaxed as were our tummies! Cheers to gracious hostesses and 'garma garam pooris', in that order!
On that note, Week 40 wraps up! Wow, that's about 10 months of writing so far! The clock is ticking and the three upcoming weekends, here on, see us travelling again, so there's a lot to take care of before we fly! Stay well and take care! See you on the other side!
Love,
Shweyta
We live in a condominium building where every apartment has it's own exclusive elevator. Naturally this means there is very little interaction between next-door neighbours.
Indeed having your own private elevator that opens into your own private lobby is definitely a lavish, practical perk, as it literally helps cut down the 'door-to-door' distance math. But having your own private elevator, makes you a recluse! It takes away from a prime 'social' attribute of high-density living design - that of perpetuating daily interaction among it's residents, who dwell on the same floor!
There is a rare opportunity to come face-to-face here, between neighbours, since all of us rarely use our 'other' doors, (termed appropriately in the building as the 'yard doors'). These 'yard doors' end up getting used only for ancillary functions - such as to access the common trash chute and take the 'common' elevator in the rare event of a 'private' one that is rendered non-operational due to maintenance/ servicing.
The neighbours that you do end up seeing, are those who live in the same 'vertical' line as you - and thus share your so-called 'private' elevator. When an elevator stops enroute, is also the time, one gets to take a sneak peak into others homes and thank ones own "design-sensitivity". That one was conscious enough to deliberately NOT have ones shoe rack placed, bang in front of the elevator door, thus ensuring for a pleasant sight (one that is NOT full of shoes strewn around) for the once-in-a-blue-moon-neighbour who happens to share your elevator-space sometimes.
Given this 'island-ified' setting of our apartment here, I still managed to befriend two of our next door neighbours - both new tenants in the building. One is a family from Cambodia with the most gorgeous little toddler ever, who was playing outside our 'yard' door one morning. On hearing a baby coo, the nanny and I opened the door to find a cute little baby girl running around with her nanny chasing her. Our little one was in school at the time, or she would've certainly insisted on a play-date right then and there, given her obsession with babies and anything remotely 'cute'.
Our other neighbour - who's 'yard door' opens straight across from ours - turns out to be from Mumbai as well. We met in the classic, quintessential Indian 'TV Serial' style. Her maid had been leaving trash outside her door, not knowing there's a trash chute present a few metres away, from where to dispose the waste from. Our clean-freak of a nanny/ helper couldn't stand the sight of trash bags outside the neighbour's door and insisted I 'reprimand' the new neighbours.
Obliging our dear helper, I willingly marched up to our neighbours back door and rang the bell, hoping to politely resolve the issue. To my pleasant surprise, out came a happy, chirpy young Indian girl, who seemed utterly pleased at the sight of seeing her neighbour (that is me) standing at her door. We got talking and didn't stop for about an hour or so - what with both of us yapping away like we were friends from another life. Having recently moved to the building and to Singapore, from Mumbai, she and her husband are still figuring their way around the neighbourhood/ country.
Since that day, she and I, have been on movie dates, tea-dates, shopping-dates and lunches. Who knew leaving trash around could actually spark quite the amicable note between neighbours!
2. There seems to be setting in a bitter-sweet sensation around these new relationships, given that we know that our days in this city-state are now literally numbered. Soon we will be walking away from life here, as we've known it for a year now. When we were moving here, it was meant to be only for a short duration - of 6 months or so, which kept getting extended until we would've now lived here for a year, before we move out in mid-October. Sitting close to the other side of that year, I now think a year is not enough! It is an incredibly short span of time, an extremely insufficient duration at the end of which one is actually just about starting to live in a new place and experience a new culture. And considering we've spent more than half of that year living outside Singapore, it suddenly feels like we haven't stayed here long enough. We've been saying "Singapore is our base" for months now since we moved here but somewhere subconsciously it magically transformed itself to become one of our 'homes'. A place we've grown to know and gradually accept; a culture and people that have embraced us as much as we have embraced it and most importantly a nest and a lifestyle that is immensely comfortable - just like a 'home' should be! A very high bar has been set by this 'home', something all our future homes will now have to match up to or exceed.
I have read and heard a lot about the inherent 'sense of longing' and 'amiss' that is so much a part of an expat lifestyle, when they 'home-hop' so to speak. But it is now, that I am experiencing it first hand. We still have a few weeks left before we make our next nomadic jump and most of them are full of travel. Yet for the few weeks/ weekends that we are going to be local, we plan to make the most of this base-turned-home. Not something I had thought I would say last year this time, but now I know - We sure are going to miss this place, big time!
3. We met up with some friends to try out an Indian buffet, after ages. This restaurant, called Yantra, like most other Indian restaurants world-wide, has a lavish buffet spread, on weekends. Not one to particularly enjoy buffet spreads any longer (There was a time, in my student days when I could do tremendous justice to buffets) purely on grounds of not being able to do justice to the wide spread, I went along for the husband's sake. Our friends mentioned that the buffet spread had been downsized in the recent past. I would recommend this place highly for an a-la carte experience more than the buffet. Give it a try, if you're looking for a good, Indian fine-dining experience in Singapore.
4. In what has become a non-frequent social night-out, Hubster, Baby and I got invited to dinner, to his colleague's home. Night-outs such as these used to be a weekend norm in NYC, but are not regular occurrences here in Singapore, on account of the following two reasons -
i) Singaporeans and the other residents living here, prefer to meet outside for meals/ drinks as against at someone's home - at Hawker centres, restaurants, bars etc. It could be because culturally Singaporeans do not cook at home, even on regular weekdays (Remember I mentioned, in an earlier weekly update, how 30 out of the 32 apartments I went to see, when we moved here, had only two-stove top surfaces as against four? Long working hours and the easy availability of cheap and good quality meals are possible reasons for this lifestyle pattern)
In fact, every time we've hosted a dinner party at home here and I've cooked, I've been told this is not a common occurrence here. Coming from a social circle of friends, that churns out menus equivalent of feasts even for casual get-togethers' at each others homes in NYC, it did seem odd at first, that no one likes cooking here at home as much. That is why, a regular dinner invitation such as this one, made by Hubster's colleague and his wife, at their home, stands out and thus is highly welcome!
ii) The other reason why this dinner invitation was unique, was because the three of us - Hubster, Baby and I, were going over to someone's place together, for a meal, after what can be appropriately termed as eternity.
Given our 24/7 social support structure here, as per the basic law of child-rearing in this country goes (That's how I jokingly refer to the maid-system here), the little one usually ends up staying at home, when we go out at nights. Not all restaurants are 'happy' seeing a toddler come in to dine with her parents here. Besides, ours would be the only toddler perhaps, seen dining outside with us, at a restaurant, given that the majority prefers to leave their children at home at nights.
This has effectively made us lose practice, on 'handling' a night out with the little one. Of course I thought our toddler would realize she was at someone else's home and thus behave otherwise, considering she's been easy to reason with off late. But clearly, I was expecting a bit much! Thankfully our hosts had an 18 month old as well, so the collective madness that ensued that evening was sort of expected and hence largely overlooked.
Our hostess took us back down memory lane - when she insisted on serving 'garma garam pooris' brought to our plates while we sat shamelessly downing the delicious home-cooked North Indian fare. (Remember the days when your Mom or the hostess who invited your family over, served hot 'pooris' too? To have someone of our generation do the same, in today's day and age is indeed a novelty and a much cherished one, at that.) The evening was blissful and relaxed as were our tummies! Cheers to gracious hostesses and 'garma garam pooris', in that order!
On that note, Week 40 wraps up! Wow, that's about 10 months of writing so far! The clock is ticking and the three upcoming weekends, here on, see us travelling again, so there's a lot to take care of before we fly! Stay well and take care! See you on the other side!
Love,
Shweyta
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