1. It's interesting how a concept like Groupon's can tell you so much about the culture and habits of the place. Having bought a few Groupon's earlier on in NYC (I was really more of a Living Social fan somehow), I signed up here in Singapore too. In hindsight, I shouldn't have been shocked at seeing the site flood my face with everything one can possibly do to change their bodies - from slimming treatments that varied from body detoxes to 'fat-freezing' procedures, face-morphing treatments - from Whitening/ Chemical peeling processes to Botox/ Collagen shots and of course the regular Mani/ Pedi with Acupuncture/ Massages/ Laser Hair Removals....the list is endless!!! I remember seeing 'deals' for these on the NYC Groupon website too, but not as many as one sees here, in Singapore. It sort of makes me wonder - Are Singaporean women blessed with flawless skin and slender bodies naturally or does it take all this to keep them that way? It could be either one of the above or a mix of both, but this Asian city sure is way ahead of the curve, on this whole 'plastic-modification-of-the-self' game and their women are brilliant examples of ageless wonders. What caught my attention further, was how cheap it was to avail of any of these 'treatments' or 'sessions'. Seems like it takes more than tea and a raw diet sometimes!
2. As I mentioned in my previous week's post, the travel itch has turned into an eczema by now. Yikes, I know! So I went ahead and got a few travel plans going, just to make sure our priorities are in the right place on this one.
Whether it is us going someplace or having others come visit us, there's a lot to look forward to in the coming weeks. Plans got made for the second set of Z' grandparents (the in-laws) to visit us in March. They arrive in a few weeks from now. Sis-in-law and her Hubster come in April as does a super fun friend from The UK. The best friend and family are in talks of an Asian adventure soon too, as is another friend from Bombay, in April-May sometime. And Mommy might come visit again at least once more, before we wrap and fold from this place.
The much loved Hindu festival of Holi, comes a few days before Good Friday this year, which is a Public Holiday in Singapore. So a week long trip around then to India is in the works, especially as we get to celebrate Holi with the little one in Mumbai, for the very first time ever. Delhi, Japan, London, NYC (Always a special Yay! on that one) and Malaysia are on the nearer end of the horizon too, while the rest of the globe sits on the far end, always!
3. The big question to be answered sooner rather than later is where should the little one's second birthday be brought in? I've had an idea (and Hubster happily agrees, like he does on everything else, as long as he doesn't need to work on the implementation/ execution of it) and plan to go through with it, until as long as I can. The plan is to bring in the daughter's birthday each year, in a new country.
They say there are about 196 countries in the world. So we have many options here! Besides the world having shrunk off late, makes it super easy to hop countries in no time. Add to that the fact that she is a summer baby. That means that whichever part of the world she goes to school in, there is a big chance she'll be on a summer break(or perhaps a winter break, if we move to the other hemisphere) then. So this should not be a difficult target to achieve, me thinks.
As a friend visiting us from New York this week suggested, in the worst case scenario, if we're living in the US and can't really get out for too long around the daughter's birthday, we can always just hop over to Mexico/ Canada on the day of and come back. If things go well, we'll hopefully never have to do that and can make this 'new-year-in-a new-country' thing happen for our little globe trotter or shall I say globe toddler?
4. I got my shortest crop ever, this week, on a whim. The sultry, muggy weather here just calls for shorter, easier-to-maintain hair. Besides, I found my 'Soul-Stylist', so I just had to go through with this one. I've been lucky enough to have Soul-Stylists in my other two hometowns - NY & Mumbai, so now that I'd found one here in Singapore, I think one can say I've finally settled here. A 'Soul Stylist' in my books is one who inherently knows my hair and more importantly what to do with it. Not everyone is skilled enough to handle thick curls that have a mind of their own and when you find someone who does, he or she is a keeper in my books! Enter David - my Malaysian born, Chinese hairdresser who went to Hair-school in Tokyo and worked in HongKong before moving here, to Singapore a few weeks ago. It was love at first sight - rather first snip! I told him he could do what he wanted and take as much time as he wanted, with my hair. I was his kind of client and he was my kind of stylist. We chatted, drank tea while he cut my curls, one by one. Almost an hour and a half later, the final result was spectacular and as low-maintenance as I always like it to be. Our next project together, probably in a few weeks down the line - is going to be - going back to the red streaks that I had a few months ago. Can't wait!
5. Talking of travel, Saritha (known as Sari to all of us), our super-witty, super fun, mad-on-multiple-levels, member of our super cool NY entourage - 'The Village', is in town, for a family reunion. She was supposed to visit in November but then her plans got moved out to February instead. Luckily, our "stagnation spell" as I've now termed it, yielded us good luck and we got to hang out with her twice, during her short visit here.
She came over Friday evening. Like Santa, she was loaded with gifts for the daughter; some of which were from her and some from the 'other woman' in her life, as far as vying for the daughter's attention goes. In the first year of her life, when she lived in the States, Zoe was the constant object of their affection, the 'rope' in their tug of war, until they made peace with each other and decided that she was totally share-able. Yes, our Village is made up of crazies like these!
Zoe & I took Sari around, giving her a tour of our building and it's pools and gardens. She was after all one of our first friends from the city to visit us here, so had to be shown everything to be able to narrate it bit-by-bit, frame-by-frame to the rest of the troupe there. Too much pressure on this one, sadly!
Sari & Zoe spent the evening bonding with each other over Pictionary, which is Zoe's fave game these days. (I draw while she guesses what it is. Not only has this helped revive my sketching days but also shown me how I am probably not as good a visual communicator as I thought I was).
Once Hubster got back home, we turned the evening into an adults-only night and the three of us stepped out to get dinner. Naturally dinner was to be at an Asian place, since Sari was coming all the way from NYC. So, we picked the Michelin Starred - Din Tai Fung - to take her to. DTF, as it's locally referred to, is a big hit on the Asia-Pacific side of the world. Sadly though, this having been an impromptu plan, they ran out of much of their vegetarian fare, which left Sari - the vegetarian, with few options to pick from. Hubster and I though, were lucky enough to have some of the best shrimp/ pork dumplings in Asia, that evening (DTF had been on the NYTimes' World's top 10 restaurant list as well). There was much catch-up to play that night, with Sari telling us how life was back home and us introducing her to life in this new home.
6. The night even ended on a rather fun note. We took her to the nearest taxi-stand, not being able to pre-order a taxi at our doorstep, due to their peak hour unavailability. As we walked up to the nearest taxi-stand - at the Grand Hyatt next door, we noticed an all-male queue, waiting patiently to get into an underground club's entrance. The club, known as Brix, in the basement of the Grand Hyatt is a high-end club/ lounge extremely popular among expats as a sophisticated pick-up spot. As we waved good-bye to Sari in her cab, Hubster and I walked past the club, to witness a 'pick-up' situation unfold right in front of our eyes. Not that this was the first time either of us was seeing this happen, in our lives, but there's always a strange kick to watching the details of such an event occur right in front of you.
To me this was great grounds to make up a story. The man - a desi guy, must be mid-40's, tall, dark, stood outside blowing smoke-rings upwards while a well-groomed, well-dressed, stylish Asian girl on heels-as-high-as-mountains, looked up at him. In a matter of two minutes, they settled on something, after which he put out his light and walked in the direction of the other hotel in the area - The Marriot. She followed, keeping safe distance, so if you hadn't been staring at them like we were, you wouldn't know that they were together. While I could've easily stalked them longer, Hubster who really isn't party to such stuff, agreed to walk along only until we reached our building, at which point we'd need to take a left. My story could've gotten way more interesting, had the desi guy and his pick-up for the night ended up taking the left as us and walking right into our building. But they just kept going and entered the Marriot Hotel from it's parking lot side, which obviously is the back-entrance of the hotel. That was the last I saw (read: stalked) of them.
Oh well! It was a fun end to the fun evening!
7. Zoe's pre-school was doing a 'Dentists & Nurses' role-play, this week. So while all week long, she came back home with bandages/ gauze tape kinda art works, the Friday was to be the culmination of it all, in the form of a visit to the Dentist's office. Since her medium of instruction in school, is both English and Mandarin, her Teacher - known as Teacher Grace, is always communicating to the kids, in both languages, back to back. It is interesting to watch the kids and her together, for this reason more than anything else.
Parents were invited for the Dentist's office visit. I must confess, I was skeptical at first. What was my 19 month old daughter going to even get out of this tour? I thought I'd go along to find out!
The Dentist's office - or the 'Ya ee' as they called him in Mandarin, was gracious enough to welcome us with goodies and drinks, especially for the kids. The 'Ya-ee' came to personally invite us in, had a brief chat welcoming us into his office and introducing us to his staff and nurses. The kids were shown a mini-video showcasing dental hygiene and lessons on oral safety and teeth-brushing in general. Since the tour only comprised of Zoe and her friend Daphne, this was a great one-on-one opportunity for us. The teacher translated the lesson in Mandarin and made sure both the girls practiced their tooth-brushing technique. The Montessori method of education propagates a varied age group in the same class, so while Daphne (3 years of age) could grasp out of understanding, Zoe absorbed from mimicking. The afternoon was hilarious at times, watching her random antics in the doctor's office. The girls got taken to the Dentist's chair and were each given a personal oral-checkup and packed off with small goody bags as well. Parents were advised on oral-hygiene habits that must be instilled in children. The visit ended with Zoe giving out free hugs to everyone around - something she loves doing, especially to strangers much to their shock, annoyance, surprise and pleasure, depending on how they perceive it.
A week later is going to be Chef's Week in her school which will conclude with a Supermarket tour. I think more than Zoe, I am looking forward to this one soon!
8. Hubster and I went on our weekly movie date for 'Kai Po Che' over the weekend. Based on Chetan Bhagat's novel - The three mistakes of my life, this was a fabulous film, with mostly new faces, being seen for the first time on the silverscreen. That itself, brought tremendous freshness to the film. All the three lead actors did a sweet job portraying their characters - which were carefully written and cast well. I plan on reading the book after having watched the film, since usually books are better than the movies they inspire. But in this case, the movie was super, so the book probably will be exceptional, to say the very least, is my guess. Besides, Chetan Bhagat has been one of my faves from the recently-erupted desi-writer clan anyways. I look forward to seeing how his other book - Two States, turns out, in a movie. It is in the works and should be out soon I am told!
That was Week 19! Can't believe it's been 4+ months already here in Singapore. Going per our original plans, this is the halfway mark of our stay in Singapore! But who knows what the future holds. We're taking each day as it comes and doing what we do best - procrastinating all important decisions such as move-out dates to as far as possible, while piling up as many travel itineraries as possible, on this side of the world, before we relocate again!
Thanks for reading and see you next week!
Love,
Shweyta
2. As I mentioned in my previous week's post, the travel itch has turned into an eczema by now. Yikes, I know! So I went ahead and got a few travel plans going, just to make sure our priorities are in the right place on this one.
Whether it is us going someplace or having others come visit us, there's a lot to look forward to in the coming weeks. Plans got made for the second set of Z' grandparents (the in-laws) to visit us in March. They arrive in a few weeks from now. Sis-in-law and her Hubster come in April as does a super fun friend from The UK. The best friend and family are in talks of an Asian adventure soon too, as is another friend from Bombay, in April-May sometime. And Mommy might come visit again at least once more, before we wrap and fold from this place.
The much loved Hindu festival of Holi, comes a few days before Good Friday this year, which is a Public Holiday in Singapore. So a week long trip around then to India is in the works, especially as we get to celebrate Holi with the little one in Mumbai, for the very first time ever. Delhi, Japan, London, NYC (Always a special Yay! on that one) and Malaysia are on the nearer end of the horizon too, while the rest of the globe sits on the far end, always!
3. The big question to be answered sooner rather than later is where should the little one's second birthday be brought in? I've had an idea (and Hubster happily agrees, like he does on everything else, as long as he doesn't need to work on the implementation/ execution of it) and plan to go through with it, until as long as I can. The plan is to bring in the daughter's birthday each year, in a new country.
They say there are about 196 countries in the world. So we have many options here! Besides the world having shrunk off late, makes it super easy to hop countries in no time. Add to that the fact that she is a summer baby. That means that whichever part of the world she goes to school in, there is a big chance she'll be on a summer break(or perhaps a winter break, if we move to the other hemisphere) then. So this should not be a difficult target to achieve, me thinks.
As a friend visiting us from New York this week suggested, in the worst case scenario, if we're living in the US and can't really get out for too long around the daughter's birthday, we can always just hop over to Mexico/ Canada on the day of and come back. If things go well, we'll hopefully never have to do that and can make this 'new-year-in-a new-country' thing happen for our little globe trotter or shall I say globe toddler?
4. I got my shortest crop ever, this week, on a whim. The sultry, muggy weather here just calls for shorter, easier-to-maintain hair. Besides, I found my 'Soul-Stylist', so I just had to go through with this one. I've been lucky enough to have Soul-Stylists in my other two hometowns - NY & Mumbai, so now that I'd found one here in Singapore, I think one can say I've finally settled here. A 'Soul Stylist' in my books is one who inherently knows my hair and more importantly what to do with it. Not everyone is skilled enough to handle thick curls that have a mind of their own and when you find someone who does, he or she is a keeper in my books! Enter David - my Malaysian born, Chinese hairdresser who went to Hair-school in Tokyo and worked in HongKong before moving here, to Singapore a few weeks ago. It was love at first sight - rather first snip! I told him he could do what he wanted and take as much time as he wanted, with my hair. I was his kind of client and he was my kind of stylist. We chatted, drank tea while he cut my curls, one by one. Almost an hour and a half later, the final result was spectacular and as low-maintenance as I always like it to be. Our next project together, probably in a few weeks down the line - is going to be - going back to the red streaks that I had a few months ago. Can't wait!
5. Talking of travel, Saritha (known as Sari to all of us), our super-witty, super fun, mad-on-multiple-levels, member of our super cool NY entourage - 'The Village', is in town, for a family reunion. She was supposed to visit in November but then her plans got moved out to February instead. Luckily, our "stagnation spell" as I've now termed it, yielded us good luck and we got to hang out with her twice, during her short visit here.
She came over Friday evening. Like Santa, she was loaded with gifts for the daughter; some of which were from her and some from the 'other woman' in her life, as far as vying for the daughter's attention goes. In the first year of her life, when she lived in the States, Zoe was the constant object of their affection, the 'rope' in their tug of war, until they made peace with each other and decided that she was totally share-able. Yes, our Village is made up of crazies like these!
Zoe & I took Sari around, giving her a tour of our building and it's pools and gardens. She was after all one of our first friends from the city to visit us here, so had to be shown everything to be able to narrate it bit-by-bit, frame-by-frame to the rest of the troupe there. Too much pressure on this one, sadly!
Sari & Zoe spent the evening bonding with each other over Pictionary, which is Zoe's fave game these days. (I draw while she guesses what it is. Not only has this helped revive my sketching days but also shown me how I am probably not as good a visual communicator as I thought I was).
Once Hubster got back home, we turned the evening into an adults-only night and the three of us stepped out to get dinner. Naturally dinner was to be at an Asian place, since Sari was coming all the way from NYC. So, we picked the Michelin Starred - Din Tai Fung - to take her to. DTF, as it's locally referred to, is a big hit on the Asia-Pacific side of the world. Sadly though, this having been an impromptu plan, they ran out of much of their vegetarian fare, which left Sari - the vegetarian, with few options to pick from. Hubster and I though, were lucky enough to have some of the best shrimp/ pork dumplings in Asia, that evening (DTF had been on the NYTimes' World's top 10 restaurant list as well). There was much catch-up to play that night, with Sari telling us how life was back home and us introducing her to life in this new home.
6. The night even ended on a rather fun note. We took her to the nearest taxi-stand, not being able to pre-order a taxi at our doorstep, due to their peak hour unavailability. As we walked up to the nearest taxi-stand - at the Grand Hyatt next door, we noticed an all-male queue, waiting patiently to get into an underground club's entrance. The club, known as Brix, in the basement of the Grand Hyatt is a high-end club/ lounge extremely popular among expats as a sophisticated pick-up spot. As we waved good-bye to Sari in her cab, Hubster and I walked past the club, to witness a 'pick-up' situation unfold right in front of our eyes. Not that this was the first time either of us was seeing this happen, in our lives, but there's always a strange kick to watching the details of such an event occur right in front of you.
To me this was great grounds to make up a story. The man - a desi guy, must be mid-40's, tall, dark, stood outside blowing smoke-rings upwards while a well-groomed, well-dressed, stylish Asian girl on heels-as-high-as-mountains, looked up at him. In a matter of two minutes, they settled on something, after which he put out his light and walked in the direction of the other hotel in the area - The Marriot. She followed, keeping safe distance, so if you hadn't been staring at them like we were, you wouldn't know that they were together. While I could've easily stalked them longer, Hubster who really isn't party to such stuff, agreed to walk along only until we reached our building, at which point we'd need to take a left. My story could've gotten way more interesting, had the desi guy and his pick-up for the night ended up taking the left as us and walking right into our building. But they just kept going and entered the Marriot Hotel from it's parking lot side, which obviously is the back-entrance of the hotel. That was the last I saw (read: stalked) of them.
Oh well! It was a fun end to the fun evening!
7. Zoe's pre-school was doing a 'Dentists & Nurses' role-play, this week. So while all week long, she came back home with bandages/ gauze tape kinda art works, the Friday was to be the culmination of it all, in the form of a visit to the Dentist's office. Since her medium of instruction in school, is both English and Mandarin, her Teacher - known as Teacher Grace, is always communicating to the kids, in both languages, back to back. It is interesting to watch the kids and her together, for this reason more than anything else.
Parents were invited for the Dentist's office visit. I must confess, I was skeptical at first. What was my 19 month old daughter going to even get out of this tour? I thought I'd go along to find out!
The Dentist's office - or the 'Ya ee' as they called him in Mandarin, was gracious enough to welcome us with goodies and drinks, especially for the kids. The 'Ya-ee' came to personally invite us in, had a brief chat welcoming us into his office and introducing us to his staff and nurses. The kids were shown a mini-video showcasing dental hygiene and lessons on oral safety and teeth-brushing in general. Since the tour only comprised of Zoe and her friend Daphne, this was a great one-on-one opportunity for us. The teacher translated the lesson in Mandarin and made sure both the girls practiced their tooth-brushing technique. The Montessori method of education propagates a varied age group in the same class, so while Daphne (3 years of age) could grasp out of understanding, Zoe absorbed from mimicking. The afternoon was hilarious at times, watching her random antics in the doctor's office. The girls got taken to the Dentist's chair and were each given a personal oral-checkup and packed off with small goody bags as well. Parents were advised on oral-hygiene habits that must be instilled in children. The visit ended with Zoe giving out free hugs to everyone around - something she loves doing, especially to strangers much to their shock, annoyance, surprise and pleasure, depending on how they perceive it.
A week later is going to be Chef's Week in her school which will conclude with a Supermarket tour. I think more than Zoe, I am looking forward to this one soon!
8. Hubster and I went on our weekly movie date for 'Kai Po Che' over the weekend. Based on Chetan Bhagat's novel - The three mistakes of my life, this was a fabulous film, with mostly new faces, being seen for the first time on the silverscreen. That itself, brought tremendous freshness to the film. All the three lead actors did a sweet job portraying their characters - which were carefully written and cast well. I plan on reading the book after having watched the film, since usually books are better than the movies they inspire. But in this case, the movie was super, so the book probably will be exceptional, to say the very least, is my guess. Besides, Chetan Bhagat has been one of my faves from the recently-erupted desi-writer clan anyways. I look forward to seeing how his other book - Two States, turns out, in a movie. It is in the works and should be out soon I am told!
That was Week 19! Can't believe it's been 4+ months already here in Singapore. Going per our original plans, this is the halfway mark of our stay in Singapore! But who knows what the future holds. We're taking each day as it comes and doing what we do best - procrastinating all important decisions such as move-out dates to as far as possible, while piling up as many travel itineraries as possible, on this side of the world, before we relocate again!
Thanks for reading and see you next week!
Love,
Shweyta
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