Singapore Suitcases: Week 41 - Of racial harmony, magnificent Malaysian Rain-forests & the World's largest flower!

1. July 21st, is celebrated as Racial Harmony day in Singapore. The toddler's school sent out a memo stating she needs to be dressed in traditional attire, befitting the 'race' she belongs to. 
The overall intention was to propagate racial co-existence among the kids. Although this did bring up the highly complicated question as to "What really is the daughter's tradition?", given her parents do little or practically nothing to stick to theirs and her being a TCK (third culture kid) doesn't help simplify things either. Yet, it was easier to give these complications a miss. After all Singapore does serve as a great platform to uphold racial harmony, given the daily inter-racial amalgamation opportunities one is faced with here!

The daughter being the only student to fit within the pure 'Of Indian/ SE Asian descent' category in her class, went dressed in the rather stylishly designed 'parkar-polka', (The Maharashtrian equivalent of the chaniya-choli), that had been sent by her Maharashtrian grandma (The M-I-L) from Mumbai, over two years ago. 
This is the last of her Indian traditional entourage that still fits her (Thank the tailor who intelligently stitched it to accommodate a broad range of baby-sizes, although the skirt has happily gone from being full-length to knee-length).
So off to school she went, wearing a scandalously revealing backless-string blouse and the matching skirt, much to the amusement of passers-by enroute. From what I heard and later saw in the pictures sent by the school, her only other classmates, who came traditionally dressed were her Chinese-Singaporean friend Daphne and the adorable l'ill French boy Machalo, while the British & Aussie children just wore their school uniforms. It is unfortunate that there is always at least that one parent who doesn't get the memo/ gets the memo but forgets about it, on these fun school-celebrations, thus responsible for the 'spoilers' in what could have made great photographic memories. 

2. The weekend was spent yet again in Malaysia. We were visiting the country for the second time, having been to Melaka, in West Malaysia, (just North of the border across Singapore), a few weeks ago. Since our Europe/ US travel plans got moved out to late August/ early September, we figured we'd put our weekends to good use and go discover other parts of Asia.

This weekend we went to Kuching - the capital of the Sarawak region of Malaysia, situated on the island of Borneo and on the banks of the Sarawak river. It was originally part of the Sultanate of Brunei before it became a British Colony. Being located in East Malaysia means it is not connected by land to Singapore, unlike Melaka or KL. 

The city gets its name from the Malay word - 'Kucing' literally meaning 'cat'. Among various cultural museums, including a cat museum, Kuching also has an Orangutan-sighting experience in their natural habitat reserves, lush rainforests all around to trek through, the lovely quaint Sarawak river to cruise along or cross the banks of, in order to savour the much-talked-about cake - the Kek Lapis Sarawak and a national park nearby, which is home to the World's largest flower - The Rafflesia.
That in a nutshell, was our weekend itinerary there.

3. Kuching serves as a great weekend retreat from Singapore. Not a very avid tourist spot this one, it largely garners the attention of nature-loving explorers. Unlike the touristy Melaka, which attracts local Malaysian and all other tourists alike on account of being a more urban, UN World Heritage site, Kuching can be found frequented by fewer locals.

The Orangutan feeding at the Semenggoh Wildlife Centre, excites adults and children alike. Small groups of 20-25 visitors are instructed to "hush" while walking through a forest-path to reach the main Orangutan feeding area, where forest-rangers simulate Tarzan-like wild-calls to invite the orangutans to breakfast. The reserve forest can only be visited at 9 am or 3 pm, i.e at the feeding times for the orangutans. Depending on their mood, the orangutans emerge out of nowhere (or not), to grab their bunch of bananas for breakfast. A sighting is not guaranteed, but if one does get to experience it, provides for much thrill and excitement among the crowds. Seeing the orangutans jump, climb, slide down ropes and navigate their way down trees, one branch at a time all the way to the feeding area, to pick up their bananas for breakfast can take a good 20 to 30 minutes. If your group consists of children (or annoying grown-ups) who can't stay hushed up for that long, be prepared to wait longer, since the orangutans may not necessarily oblige with noise around them. Seems like they've been taught well - to eat their meals in complete silence!

The toddler enjoyed this experience, from what we could tell, although she seemed puzzled when the baby orangutan threw his banana-peels all over the place - an act that seemed to defy what she's been taught all along. (She can be a cleanliness-freak at times; mostly a good thing, but comes back to bite me, when we're getting down and dirty with nature-trekking) It was funny when she gushed in horror "Mamma, Mamma Look! Monkey throwing bananas everywhere"
Oh Dear! Seems like we're going to have to teach her the difference soon!

4. Trekking through the rainforest to discover the World's largest flower, in the Gunung Gading National Park is an unforgettable experience. Our guide on the forest-trek was excellent, as she went along taking several stops enroute, to educate us about the natives of the rain-forest. Among them were insects and trees (Yes, even trees) that emanate a fluorescent radiance around them, as a defense mechanism. She mentioned a night-trek through the forest is magical, just for this experience. Apparently one can go torch-less around these trees - that is how bright the light is, that they emit, upon being touched. And you thought that happened only in the movie Avatar! The forest was beautiful - full of lizards and chameleons and parasitic plants, flowers and larger-than-life leaves, trees, roots, creepers and trunks. 

The Rafflesia is the World's largest flower, a parasitic flowering plant, that is found in the rain forests of SE Asia. It grows upto 3-1/2 to 4 feet in diameter and weighs in a healthy 10 kgs. The life-cycle of an endemic Rafflesia flower, found in Sarawak, Malaysia, is hardly a week-long, within which it blooms, emits a foul, rotten meat-like, odour to attract flies and other insects for pollination and dies a quick charred death, that makes it look burnt and black, eventually.
Protected by the government, this species of flower is vulnerable to deforestation and abuse by some locals, who use it's bud as traditional medicine to help women recover after child-birth. The plant is given a "Totally protected plant" status in Sarawak, which means even an act as simple as touching the flower, let alone plucking/ harming it, comes tagged with a huge monetary fine and is considered against the law. 
To give you a good idea of how large the flower can be, here are a few fabulous pictures I came across, while doing a simple google search. And all those people in those pictures touching the flower, well, not a really good thing to do, you know! The humongous flower is indeed the most beautiful one I have ever seen, to date! 
To quote our forest-ranger guide, "The flower is bigger than your daughter" Yup, no wonder then, she didn't take to it as excitedly as we did, possibly wondering if it was going to eat her up! 

5. Malaysia has acres and acres of thick rain-forest adventures to offer and this trip was our first opportunity at trekking through some of that wilderness. While the toddler seems excited at the prospect of running in the wild, jumping and frolicking her way through fallen leaves, dead wildflowers, scurrying lizards and her balancing acts on loosely strung bridges over brooks, she is still far from being the complete happy-camper that I am hoping she will be, someday. Her innate sense of extreme cleanliness and order in everything around her (I wonder where she gets that from....Ahem!!) works against her enjoying the random vagrancies in nature, I think. She alternates between choosing to gush "Yuchh!!" (Her way of saying "Yuck") on being shown a dead Rafflesia flower for instance, which does appear quite unsightly honestly - black and burnt in appearance, but won't think twice before picking up stray, dead leaves off of the ground to caress her face with, a la diva-style or chasing a chameleon for that matter. 
A first-time rainforest trekker on this trip, she traversed most of the forest path on foot, other than the times when she made the occasional "Mamma/ Papa, pick-up" requests, to ride on our shoulders or arms. Perhaps its time to start planning the camping trip with her soon?

Clearly, the Rain-forest has got to be one of nature's most magnanimous creations; with everything sized XXXL and magnified a gazillion times more than one can ever imagine it to be. To see nature on natural steroids,  is an unbeatable high! The Malaysian Rain-forest is my third or fourth encounter with a rain-forest, yet it will always be a memorable one as it was my daughters initiation into her first. Someday perhaps, when she's old enough to know the difference between an Orangutan throwing banana peels around in his natural habitat and us humans 'littering' around doing the same, is when I hope to re-visit the Sarawak region again, with her!

On that rather hopeful note, I sign off this week's update. Next weekend sees us back again in Malaysia, for a hat-trick, this time to explore yet another facet of this dynamic Asian nation!
Thanks for reading & virtually travelling with me!
Love,
Shweyta

Singapore Suitcases: Week 40 - Of new neighbours, bitter-sweet expat emotions & 'garma garam pooris'!

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

Singapore Suitcases: Week 39 - Of refused professional opportunities, changed itineraries & the curious case of the missing bag of gifts!

1. After what seemed like a rather long back-and-forth exercise, I finally turned down two professional opportunities this week.
I had been in talks with two different firms, both based in Hong Kong, to consult with them, in bidding efforts for Aviation projects in Asia. Unfortunately, in this industry - of Airport Design/ Planning and even Architectural Design in general, there really are few chances of being able to work remotely. While my previous firm in NYC, had made fantastic arrangements for letting me do the same one day a week (I used to work from home on Fridays in NYC), this is not really an option, in most other Architecture/ Urban design firms in the world. Both opportunities did present themselves with exciting prospects, yet they would only be possible if I made Hong Kong my base.
With our current state of flux that entails shuttling between three cities with lots of intermittent travel sprinkled in between, adding another home-city to the mix did not seem feasible at this point. Besides, my counter-offer to them - to base myself out of Singapore or Mumbai (in the near future) and travel to HK for short periods of time (say 2-3 weeks at a stretch) did not work out either. Any other industry and this would have been a win-win for both parties - as I have seen with several friends around here, who base themselves in Singapore, but work for firms all over the world, with frequent travel. Yet, it is in Architecture that we still depend so much on 'team work', thus necessitating a physical presence in the office, every single day! I wonder, how long it will take for us to change that? Or will we ever be able, to change that?
Eventually, I declined both opportunities for lack of being able to move base to a city (Hong Kong), that I've fallen hopelessly in love with and wouldn't mind living in someday. Just a bit outside the radar for now, though!
The good news however is that both the job-offers are sort of open-ended, which means when we are done with our global mobility assignment on behalf of the Hubster's company in mid-2014, we could potentially re-consider the 'next' home-city and try out living in HK, for a bit. Or not. Who knows what the future holds?

2. As per the original travel plan, we were to fly to London this week, to bring in the daughter's 2nd birthday there. But as we learnt this week - this was not to be!
As I have mentioned in a few earlier weekly updates, the 'last-minute' planning nature of our trips off late, is thanks to the Hubster's sporadic project status, here in Singapore. Sure enough, the nicely planned vacation, that was to revolve around the baby's three consecutive weekend birthday celebrations, saw an unfortunate change in plan.
Hubster's client made a personal request, asking for his physical presence at the office in Singapore, all the way until the end of August. In a never-before happenstance at his end (as compared to this being an usual occurrence in some of my ex-offices), he had been asked to 'move out' his vacation plan, until after the project deadline (which had moved from July to August, thus causing the change of date in our trip as well). 
While we were both largely disappointed at first, our solace came in the fact that the trip was not canned; merely postponed. Still, it meant moving around a lot of dates and more importantly affecting some major plans that were already in the making - the most important one being - the plan to move base from Singapore to Mumbai. This unfortunate turn of events did however lead to a fortunate realization - that the firm would now be picking the entire tab of our summer trip! Clearly the change in plans did not seem that painful anymore!!
New itineraries were determined almost immediately. Not to be downed by the change in dates of travel and in keeping with the time/ research that our friends in the two cities had vested in the respective party-planning, we've decided to still have the daughter's super-belated birthday celebrations in both cities, in late August - early September respectively. She honestly doesn't care and will most likely think it's another one of those 'monthly birthday' celebrations that her Mommy has gotten her used to all this time anyway. And we still get to take our trip, albeit almost towards the fag end of our stay here in Singapore, which is not that bad somehow! Win-Win!
Time to sing the Holiday Rap soon -
"We are going on a summer holiday. 
If you want to go yo sven. 
We are going to London and New York City 
and we take a little piece of Amsterdam, Right!"
Well, just swap Amsterdam with Wales there, for us and we are good to go!

3. Mid-week, I met up with a friend who co-founded a company called Go! Places a few years ago, to present Asian history, heritage and culture in a fun and more accessible way. In order to veer the company in a newer direction, he has been conducting a research-study, using frequent travelers as his database, to gauge their travel-habits. We had a fun afternoon discussing various aspects of travel, alone and/ or with kids, travel-planning, the factors that tie into why we travel and where we travel to and finally if and how, we freeze our travel memories, once we return from our trips. Do check out his site at the link above and feel free to reach out to him, if you like what you see!

4. Zoe turned Two on Saturday this week (July 13th). Given that our London plans got shelved, we decided to spend the birthday locally, doing what she likes to do, all weekend long. In a nutshell, that meant swimming, eating, running around aimlessly, blowing candles (over and over again) off of cakes, going animal-fish-reptile-bird or human baby spotting (Yep, I know that last one sounds slightly freaky, but we have a big 'baby' lover in the house) and dancing - all weekend long. So that's exactly what we did, the entire weekend.
We also figured we'd put the 'forced-to-stay-local' weekend to good use and go explore Sentosa - an island off of Singapore's mainland, famously known to be Asia's playground, with it's theme parks, beaches and multiple resorts. The Aquarium was our point of interest for the weekend, since it is considered to be the World's largest aquarium, as per the Guinness Book of World Records. We thought it was beautifully designed, but overall the experience fell short of being 'Oh-so-awe-striking' or anything, for any of us. In fact, the three of us loved the ride to and from the island to the mainland more than the actual aquarium - since it involved a cable car. It was nice to see the little one associating this cable-car ride with her past cable-car experience, which was in Hong Kong to get to the Big Buddha on Lantau Island, to give him a 'Hi-five', as she thinks! It was amusing to hear her repeatedly say "We are going to HongKong" as we took the cable car to Sentosa and back. How awesome would it be to have HK just a short cable-car ride away!

5. The weirdest thing occurred this week - weird, considering it occurred here in Singapore - the country with one of the lowest crime rates in the world. Where stealing is a crime; a punishable offence. Where the punishment meted out to perpetrators is so drastic, that 'stealing' is hardly existent here.
Having said the above, to be robbed, in Singapore, is a novel and a unique experience! In fact, if someone loses something in a public place, more often than not, the object-in-question sits right there, untouched, un-stolen, where it was left last by it's rightful owner, waiting to be picked up on his/ her return. I have talked of this in some of my previous posts, but also had a chance to experience my very first case of a 'misplacement mishap' as I term it, over this weekend.
We were meeting friends for brunch at this lovely cafe within the Goodman Arts Centre, called Cafe Melba. Openly spread out over a big patch of green, this cafe is perhaps one of the best semi-outdoor spaces that I have been to, for brunch, here in the city-state. Abuzz with families and kids all over, it was an ordinary Sunday afternoon.
The couple and their son, whom we were meeting, brought Zoe a bag full of wrapped gifts, as a belated birthday gift. As is the norm in Singapore, one parks strollers outside the restaurant and usually leaves behind other bags/ diaper bags/ belongings there too, especially as this is a place where nothing goes amiss, usually. 'Usually' being the operative word there, please make note!

We had a lovely lazy brunch, spread over a couple of hours, perhaps even longer. We were catching up with these friends after a while and finally getting to meet their 5 year old son, who we had last seen as a newborn in NYC. Upon settling the check, when we came out to collect our stroller and the bag of gifts, we found the latter gone, from where we had left it last. (I had placed it next to the stroller, tucked away so efficiently that only someone who intended to take the bag, would be able to do so. A 'room for error' or having taken it 'by mistake' was thus hardly possible.)
With the bag gone missing, we looked around for it all over the place. The waitresses helped too in our futile attempts to recover the missing bag of gifts. It had vanished into thin air, perhaps - considering in Singapore, no one takes anything that does not belong to them!
Since there had been a small baby shower going on, on the table near where the stroller was parked, we presumed that perhaps someone in that party had taken the bag home mistakenly, considering it to be one of the 'baby shower' gifts. But the gifts in this bag were meant for Zoe - who is a 2 year old, so we presumed that they would soon stand out oddly enough, among the other 'newborn' gifts and be returned to the restaurant.
Left with nothing else to do, we took down the contact name of the person who paid the bill, from the baby-shower party and thought we'd try to track him down online. A quick 'google' search of this contact person's name revealed his identity on LinkedIn.
Since then - I have sent out a few emails to him, explaining the situation and hoping that he'll realize his party took home a gift which was not meant for them. No answer - to date!
It remains to be seen, if we'll receive a response at all. The 'case of the missing bag of gifts' remains unsolved. At this point, there is as much a chance, that the bag was stolen, as there is that it was mistakenly taken.

We left the place feeling terrible, since our friend had taken time out to specifically plan the bag of gifts for our daughter, which included a book for me as well as several lovely hand-me-down books from her son, among other wrapped presents.
This incident has served as an eye-opener for us - towards the complacency that people living in Singapore get used to (ourselves included) - of leaving their things around in public places, thinking they wont go amiss, because this place is as safe as it is made out to be. It might be time to take the public announcements more literally, that yell in your face - "Low crime does not mean No crime!"

On that rather helpless note, the week ended! Hoping the next week brings some word back from Mr. Mistakenly-taken-the-bag-and-disappeared! Or we'll just have to believe that even Singapore is not as invincible as it seems!
Until then, stay well!
Love,
Shweyta

Singapore Suitcases: Week 38 - Of my penchant for party-planning; Zoe's first of three birthday parties & all the fun I had planning it!

This week was all about putting together Zoe's first of three birthday parties to be had this year.

1. Zoe's 1 of 3 birthday parties (each one to be held in a different continent/ city/ country) is scheduled for the weekend that's coming up. This one will be in her current home - Singapore.
Party-planning/ event hosting has always been my thing and especially when it comes to any of our (MD House) parties or events, I am always more than glad to take charge. Be it location-scouting, menu-planning, catering all the food, designing and putting together party-related favors - the works - I do everything myself, rarely seeking help from other professional party-planners/ caterers at times - depending on the availability of time to plan the event.
Hubster, on the other hand - is the exact opposite. He hails from the club of 'Outsource task-masters' - the kinds who'd rather hire a event-planner/ order the food/ hire cleaning and wait staff and then show up as a guest at his own party. Nothing wrong with that; after all to each his own, but it's noteworthy to observe how absolutely POLAR our personalities are, when it comes to this aspect!
So naturally, that makes me, the mutually-designated In-house social events manager, who conceptualizes, plans and executes entire events, all by herself. Going solo - in this department works superbly for me, since I get complete creative freedom, with occasional participation from him (upon invitation); to bounce off ideas or pick one of two food options per se. (Actually, it'd be a lie if I said he's never been part of the planning crew. The few times that he has been, especially in the 'cooking/ baking' department - it's been his recipes that have kept people coming back for more! Due to the absolute lack of free-time in his current profile at work, off late, i.e since we've moved to Singapore, he has been more of a guest and less of a host, at our own events!) 
For me too, with a full-time gig, this planning effort would usually have required a lot of extra hours/ nights to be put into it. But with my current freelance professional status - where I get to pick the projects I want to work on, I happily get to be the master of my own schedule, thus having enough time to pursue this party-planning penchant of mine.
Naturally, the daughter's birthdays serve as prime occasions to unleash into full-fledged party-planning. Last year we had a wonderful first birthday celebration for her in Bryant Park in Manhattan at Le Carousel; where we rented out a carousel for a few hours and handed out specially catered/ assembled picnic baskets that doubled up as favours for each guest, which seemed to have been a big hit, going by the guest response/ feedback.
This year, the plan is to take the party across three continents/cities/countries, much in keeping with the little one's nomadic status of life this far - of 'Tri-city living'!. Given our current "trav-a-holic" status quo in life, this is totally do-able. Obviously one of the three cities had to be NYC - our home of choice! Thus the search for an interim city (someplace in Europe - a stop-over city preferably to break her jet-lag) had to be picked. Spain & Turkey battled neck-to-neck on the list, purely since Hubster and I haven't been to either. But then these involved a lot of 'de-touring' considering we will be flying out of Singapore. Thus London, got settled upon since it offers a natural stop-over destination on account of frequent flight connectivity both to Singapore and NYC - our points of origin and destination. And so got picked, the three cities in which Zoe celebrates her birthday this year - Singapore, London and NYC, in that order!
These three parties are to be held over the course of the first three consecutive weekends in July, which would mean Zoe would turn two in London, as that is where we would be, on July 13th - her actual birthday.
Trust my Mom to come up with yet another idea, saying we should wrap up the celebrations by doing one last party in Mumbai, on the last weekend of July - thus making the entire month a big global celebration for the little one! Hubster likes that idea too and so there's no saying Zoe's whimsical parents won't just jump on the plane to Mumbai, to do just that! Considering our current lives are packed with a lot of 'last-minute' itineraries these days, you never know....

2. She may be turning Two this weekend, but what is more important is that we were turning Two ourselves - as her parents. And that being no mean milestone by any standard whatsoever, we went ahead and treated ourselves to a relaxed spa evening, mid-week. Given that we live in Asia, going to the spa, is not really an indulgence anymore, as much as it is a way of life. Yet, this was different, since Hubster and I were going together for a Spa date after what seemed like ages, given our rarely-converging time schedules. Somehow the planets aligned to get us together for this one, that too in the middle of the week!

3. Left upto Zoe, she would go jump in the pool every single day of her life - that is how much she loves being in it! We don't call her a tadpole for nothing! Obviously that meant, that her ideal birthday would be spent in the water.
The infinity pool on our roof was the first choice. But that venue, in all it's glamour and exquisiteness failed to delight the caterer in me, due to the unavailability of an adjoining kitchen/ wine-cellar etc. And an ice-box would have only partially helped, given the heat here. Thus, we decided to move the party downstairs where a wading pool for babies/ toddlers, a regular Olympic sized pool and a jacuzzi tub, with a party room/ outdoor garden-deck and a full-service kitchen would provide for all the party-hosting essentials easily.
The party was to be a short two-hour affair (from 5 pm to 7 pm), considering the limited time-span that kids who are Zoe's age have in general, for anything. Even within the two hours - the idea was to be in the water, swimming/ paddling/ floating whatever - for half the time, followed by a quick change of clothes for everyone, before cake-cutting/ other festivities. The food & drinks were limited to home-made appetizers, juices, wine & beer. I had to carefully craft a menu that would work for both - children & their parents; thereby cutting out the need to cater differently for different age-groups (A parenting policy we've strictly followed with Zoe this far; to have her eat what we eat. Given our constant travel agenda, this helps us tremendously when we're on the road and minimizes baggage too. Besides, who has the patience or the time to cook separate meals for kids everyday?) The venue decoration was minimally simple - with Zoe's favourite balloons and paper flower lanterns, all of which the kids could take back with them at the end, thus causing minimum wastage.

4. The theme for the favours, in keeping with Zoe's year(s) gone by - was of course 'Travel'. Conceptualizing and more importantly researching/ collecting items that would make for appropriate favours is what took me the most time. Often, on my 'market research' trips to put these together, I'd miss NYC, purely on account of the familiarity I have with that city and it's vendors, knowing exactly where to go, when trying to find something. In Singapore, this was not the case. Limited online information, made me do a lot of ground-work on my own - to draw up a valuable resource for myself, of related vendors in the city. In the process of my hunt, I found hidden 'mom & pop' stores, that had no presence on the internet, but worked fantastically for my theme.
(Since, I plan on giving out similarly crafted/ theme favours at Zoe's two other parties in the near future - I will refrain from describing them in detail here, just to keep a small element of 'surprise' alive, for those recipients and their parents)
For now, I am just thrilled that the Singaporean guests and their parents - a big bunch of avid travelers themselves - seem to have found these highly effective, going by their feedback.

5. All the planning paid off and the party turned out well. The guests came, saw and conquered the food like never before. For the first time ever, in the history of our house parties, there were no leftovers! (Not sure if that means that the food was superb or that it was barely enough, but I am going with the former assumption! After all, it couldn't have been 'bad' food for sure, if it all got lapped up this quickly, right?) 
The kids enjoyed the pool/s and it took some persuasion to get most of them out of the water. The cake catered from Awfully Chocolate, was to die-for and had a sweet little pink airplane drawn on it, much to the excitement of the 2 year old and her love for the flying-machine! In the end, we wrapped up the 2 hour long party, about 4 hours later.
The birthday girl had tired herself out with all the swimming/ dancing/ general madness that are so typical of her demeanor, essentially more so, when she is in the company of more than just the three of us (her parents and nanny). Add to it - this turned out to be the evening when she had the maximum amount of sugar ever. We - her parents, let her - not being our usual 'restrictive' selves, since it really was her day! But rest assured, as much as it was 'her' day, it was also the 'only' day she was going to get a taste of this much sugar/ chocolate at a time - mainly because we, her lazy parents would rather curb her intake than have to deal with the aftermath! Although seeing the sugar rush did give us an idea - that we might perhaps be able to use it to our advantage, to reverse her jet-lag in our impending tri-continental itinerary. Holding that thought for now...

A few hours later, with the birthday girl sound asleep, Hubster and I finally got to put up our feet. With mindless TV playing in the background, red wine chocolate truffles in one hand and a glass of Bordeaux in another, we said 'Cheers' to a job well done, over the past two years! Zoe's main birthday party was behind us.
In the next few days to follow, I will be putting together plans for her two other birthday parties - an ambitious undertaking on my behalf, considering I'd be remotely planning them, but one that I am happy to see through, with a little help from some good friends, a.k.a CPO's - i.e Chief Planning Officers in both cities (London & NYC) who have volunteered to help organize mini-celebrations in their own cities.
Until the next one, thanks for reading and see you on the other side!
Love,
Shweyta

Singapore Suitcases: Week 37 - Of Singaporean hair-salons, Wine-bar eavesdropping & My non-belief in nanny-cams!

1. Singaporean salons offer up a whole new experience. I've often noticed how intricately hair/ beauty salons in different parts of the world (at least wherever I've lived) differ from each other. The difference usually lies in the minute details - such as the magazines they put out for customers to read, the services they offer, the drinks they serve you and even the chit-chat that takes place between clients and their stylists. Salons are one of those few interesting prototypes that offer up a unique platform, to study the micro-culture of a place and it's people.
Hair extensions is a HUGE phenomenon in Singapore. In fact, the mall next-door to us, called Far East Plaza, seems to be the mecca for Singaporean women, who love playing with the length of their hair, every weekend. If done well, some of these 'hair extensions' do add great body to seemingly scanty heads. Yet beware of the wind though! A small breeze is capable of revealing ugly knots at the nape of one's neck which is where the extensions get literally glued/ knotted to. It's probably just me, but imagine carrying around a bunch of knots in your head every single day! Of course considering how big a rage this trend is, here in Singapore, I am probably an exception. But then I am also a hair-type exception here - with my thick curly bob, as compared to the typical straight-thin mane that everyone around here sports, all year long. And in the words of my stylist - "Straight is boring", hence the need for frequent change, perhaps?

2. Singaporean hair salons always serve you hot tea. When I first moved here, I found this a bit odd, but now, 9-1/2 months later (Wow, it's been that long!) can't imagine a hair-salon experience without hot tea somehow. Hubster used to frequent a salon chain in Manhattan that would serve shots of whisky/ rum depending on your mood and I've been served wine/ champagne and machine-coffee/ tea-bag tea before, in other salons. But the infusions served in the local salons here, are freshly brewed, thus offering the perfect sense of calm one looks for, in a salon/ spa experience.
The other odd habit I've adapted from the locals here, is drinking warm water. Every time you ask for a glass of water here - be it in a spa/ salon/ restaurant/ anywhere - 9 out of 10 times you will be served with a glass of lukewarm water. That the Chinese believe in drinking warm water - is a fact known to many. While the West goes all-out with 'ice' to the point that sometimes there is more ice and less water in a glass, the East believes in the exact opposite. Hot water consumption is traditional here and a variety of reasons are cited for it - from it being helpful in digestion to a compulsive need of having to boil water before drinking in China. In fact at some local restaurants here, one may not find any ice at all, thus being left with no option but to glug down glasses of warm water. While Hubster isn't yet a convert, I don't mind the practice  of drinking lukewarm water. It is soothing and makes me want to drink more water, which is a good thing, considering staying hydrated is of the essence in this Asian heat, all year-round.

3. Caught up mid-week, with an ex-lunch bud, only this time we thought we'd meet for drinks instead. I picked Caveau - the neighbourhood wine bar, since it provides for a great place to sit back and chat over plenty of options of wines to choose from. I like wine bars that are quaint, cozy and laid back. Their unassuming nature wins me over.
Conversations at other tables that caught my interest, as I waited for my friend, revolved around 'Sula' wines - probably the most famous wine of Indian origin today. The wine connoisseurs at the neighbouring table seemed disappointed with their wine-tasting session at the Sula Vineyard in Nasik and concluded that India still has a long way to go, when it comes to making good wine. I, on the other hand happen to like the brand. Specifically speaking, I enjoy Sula Dindori Reserve Shiraz - which is rather fragrant and smooth - goes down easily and has lush berry flavours. Clearly not what my neighbours on the next table thought of it, for sure. But if you get a chance, try it out someday for yourself. I try my best to bring back a bottle or two of it, on my visits to India.

4. The Indonesian neighbour upstairs, almost threw a fit, in an elevator-conversation, later this week. She casually inquired if we had resorted to installing a CCTV camera, at home to spy on our nanny/ helper. When I responded saying "Of course not" rather vehemently, she seemed surprised. She couldn't understand my lack of need for doing the same. Her nanny/ helper is Indonesian; one she has brought in from her own country when she was moving here, over a couple of years ago. Clearly, she still doesn't trust the helper enough to want to monitor her 'activities' in the house, when she leaves her daughter at home alone, with the latter. No wonder then, she was aghast when I told her that we'd been leaving our baby at home alone, with a nanny, ever since she was 8 weeks old, in NYC, having never felt the need to resort to 'spying cameras' somehow.

Honestly, I don't understand the need of wanting to spy on one's baby's nanny. It is strange in fact, if one feels the need to do so, in my books. After all it is one's own baby that we are talking about here! The very fact that you pick someone to leave behind at home alone with your baby, means that you must trust the 'picked-person' per se, right? If there is even a small iota of doubt, why would you leave your child alone with them? Like any other relationship then, the one between the employer and the nanny too, warrants it's fair share of 'trust' bestowed upon it. And it works based purely on that, one would think.
Besides, there are a lot of other ways/ signs of telling what must go on, when the baby and nanny are alone at home, by themselves, every day. Babies themselves are big barometers of that and will tell you in their own ways, if they are happy or not, with their sitters/ nannies.
Seeing our baby bond with her nanny and watching them develop a special relationship of their own, is something that has been a tremendous source of joy for me, over the past two years of our daughter's life. To a parent, just the observation of this special relationship is clue enough, to know if the nanny/ sitter is a good one or not. Spying on them, is like telling them, "We trust you, but not completely, so we are going to make sure you have this camera lurking over your head, so that you do your job properly."
Wouldn't it be ridiculous if you were constantly spied upon at your job?

5. With a week left to go before the baby's birthday party, here in Singapore, there's a lot to get done, in all departments. I've finally figured the big-items of the party, sent out the invites, got an approximate head-count of the guests and come close to picking one of two venues, to host it in. So we are more or less in business, as far as the event is concerned. Next week, I pick this planning up a whole-new notch, with trying to make sense of this city's vendors and figuring out how easy/ complicated it is, to throw a good party here!
Stay tuned and Thanks for reading!
Love,
Shweyta

Singapore Suitcases: Week 36 - Of the Haze, Unaccompanied Asian minor commuters & wishful travel-document ideas for Indians!

1. A phenomenon called - the SG Haze, took over our lives this week. We woke up on Monday morning, to a skyline that looked blurry in the foreground and had turned invisible in the background. Nothing new I thought, as having lived on higher floors for a few years now, I was used to the dynamism that skylines bring to dwellers of higher altitudes. They (the skylines) usually have their own mood swings, if you ask me. There are days of spectacular clarity, when they reveal the furthest speck of a car driving up the George Washington Bridge in NYC and then there are those, when you can't even spot the neighbours dog doing his usual rounds, 35 storeys below, as in Singapore.
This Haze - was a new issue, one we hadn't encountered so far!

Haze is described as an atmospheric phenomenon in which dust, smoke and other dry particles obscure the clarity of the sky. Known to most of us as Smog, everything appears blurry - as though one is wearing glasses, the lens of which are really dusty. Singaporean social media enthusiasts decided to make a field-day, or rather week out of the situation (Check out the #sghaze series of tweets here). The government on the other hand was under high pressure to tackle the situation.
Essentially, what was happening was Indonesia was burning it's forests (The illegal burning of forests and other land on Indonesia's Sumatra island, to the west of Singapore, to clear space for palm oil plantations is what caused the blanket of haze over Singapore). June through September is considered a dry season in Singapore and although the haze appears intermittently every year during these months, this week was the highest ever level that it has reached here.
The PSI - Pollutant Standard Index of the city-state soared all week long, until it reached it's all-time high of 401 on Friday. (A normal/ healthy PSI index is within the range of 51 - 100). Out came the masks that Asians are so famously known for and the entire city looked like gangs of aliens walking around, with N95 masks. (Any other mask wouldn't really help in keeping the small smog particles out of the respiratory system). Naturally most neighbourhood pharmacies ran out of supply and by the weekend, people could be seen wearing anything they could find, to filter the polluted air being inhaled.

Our building concierge gave me a piece of her mind, when she saw me walking around without a mask. In fact, she practically yelled at me when she heard I'd sent the little one for her regular garden visit, as usual early that morning. To my credit, it didn't really seem hazardous that morning. Besides one experiences a pleasant drop in temperature and fresh air, within the Singapore Botanical garden, on account of the lush greenery, thanks to the microclimate. So the mask seemed unnecessary. Of course the fact that the daughter would not let it sit still over her nose, was another reason I didn't bother getting her one.
Yet this haze was determined to get bad. Hubster and I joked over the phone (He still in Hyderabad, not knowing what the fuss was all about) said this sounds like early mornings in his native village while I equated this to early mornings in Mumbai, when you'd walk past a BMC sweeper burning the trash collection from last night. Yes, I know that's equally hazardous as well and that prevention is better than cure. But as it turned out, we (Daughter and I) saw this first spell of haze without masks! We did try to limit ourselves from stepping 'outdoors' by a tad bit, although that would pose a big problem for the little one, who is hard to be kept indoors beyond a point. To make matters worse, my Sunday dragon boating session got cancelled and we (the entire team) were all asked to drink lots of water and train indoors if possible.

For once, Singapore's superbly crafted underground series of tunnels/ network helped us out.
The entire city-state hoped that 'winds of change' would quite literally sweep away this haze from Singapore to it's other neighbour Malaysia. Third World problems these - nicely being "passed around the parcel" from one neighbour to another. News came in, that if the haze didn't wane soon enough then 'cloud-seeding' would take place to create artificial rain. This would further enhance the citizen's woes, all of whom were now preparing to steer clear of this 'acid rain' especially as it is considered extremely harmful for the skin. (Trust Singaporeans to care for their skin, above everything else for sure!) In the meantime, news came in of an Indonesian minister making Singaporeans angry by going on record to say that they are being childish in complaining about the haze. All in all, the week seemed to start out clear but then got blurry as we headed into the weekend. There are hopes that next week will be better if the wind directions change. Until then, all we can do is wait and watch the show from our balconies or laptops!

2. Hubster came back later during the week. Again, I seemed more excited at his return than the daughter, who still pointed at the Ipad and insisted on "Seeing Papa" virtually, even though 'Papa' was now physically, standing right next to her. Not her fault, she has seen the Ipad for the very first time in her life, only recently, when we had her 'skype' with 'Papa' last week. It has been kept under wraps until now - the first two years of her life. I plan to use it as my 'trump card' during the next long international flight. I am hoping with the discovery of a whole new world in it, she'll keep herself busy and us lesser busy by not having to run behind her in the airplane aisles. Wishful thinking that, I know!

3. Hubster brought back 3 kgs of Biryani (Yes, you read that right! 2 kgs of chicken biryani and 1 kg of mutton biryani) from Paradise in Hyderabad. This place is considered by many, the Mecca of Hyderabadi Biryani, so naturally he got tonnes of Brownie points, or shall I say 'Biryani' points. As all good foodies would, we decided to share the loot with our fellow-biryani lovers and so an impromptu potluck dinner got planned that weekend. Over kababs, Biryani and ice cream we spent a night chatting away with one another, in a typical 'life's-small-pleasures' kinda situation.

4. Something you tend to notice right away, when you use the public transport system in Asia is how school-going children travel alone in trains and buses here. I remember seeing and experiencing this myself in Mumbai, while growing up there (albeit limitedly since my school was very close to my home). But it is in cities like Singapore and Hong Kong where this demographic of the urban public-transport user, really hits you! It could have to do with the fact that Singapore is considered a highly safe (read surveillance-d) city, but if you ever get a chance to use the MRT here, you'll notice how many 'unaccompanied minors' ride the train everyday. By 'unaccompanied minors' I mean, school-going kids, as young as 6-7 years of age and above! The kids travel alone or in small groups, matter-of-fact-ly boarding and alighting the train, from one point to another, with their SMRT passes dangling from their necks.
Coming from the West, this fact naturally hits you in your face - There a sight like this one, would be hard to come by. Firstly, not many schools insisted on uniforms, so a group of 'school-going kids' per se did not stand out as easily in a crowd, as they do here. Secondly, whenever groups of school-going kids did board the train with you, they were always accompanied by at least a couple of teachers.
In both Singapore and in Hong Kong too, I have been noticing young, fearless school kids using the trains, to go to and/ or return from school every day. I find this initiative - of letting your young children take the public transport by themselves, to be an incredible lesson in independence. Naturally, based on the individual comfort level of each parent, the age at which one is willing to start off their child with the practice of commuting alone, does differ. (I also happen to know some parents who could not get themselves to have their kids use public transport, even until their children reached their early 20's). But whenever the child is ready, setting them out on their own to navigate themselves through their cities, to find their way away from and back home, in my books, is a fabulous way to initiate them into the real-world, something I can't wait to do with my little one myself! I hope she'll be ready sooner than later for it.

5. Now that Hubster is back and there are no foreseeable travel plans in the immediate future, we decided to part ways with our passports finally, by submitting them to the UK VFS for our British visas.
Funnily, visa processing times are anywhere between 10-15 business days, since the passports get sent out to Manila in The Philippines for visa stamping. That would also mean that we'd have to stay put for that long, in Singapore. No wonder then, the passport-card idea came to mind!
What if we all had passport-cards, as the US issues to it's citizens? Our daughter has one - the passport card, it is called. Basically, it is a credit-card sized passport, that enables her to travel locally within the country or re-enter it from Canada, Mexico, The Caribbean islands and Bermuda. Although it is not eligible for air-travel, at least she's not stuck in the country, when her passport-book is sitting in a consulate, awaiting a visa stamp!
What if all Indians had two passports - one to send from one consulate to another, to accumulate visas (considering we need one for most corners of the world that we'd like to go to) and the other to use as a 'travel document' purely, so that you don't need to be stuck in a place, while you're being issued a visa for another? That would surely make our lives easier and travel plans simpler, wouldn't it? After all, why penalize me for wanting to take a random trip to Cambodia this weekend, just because the UK Consulate won't process Tourist visas within Singapore? Why can't we be legally allowed to be globally mobile?

On that note, this week get's done! Next week onwards, the toddler's birthday party-planning takes priority over everything else - my fave part of this time of the year! Stay tuned for updates!
Love,
Shweyta