Tag Archives: Drinks

Singapore

Rooftops and Gardens

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No, not rooftop gardens, though I love those!

This weekend I went to Lantern for dinner and drinks with a friend from school and one of her friends, who also works at school. School is massive so it’s no surprise that I’m still meeting my colleagues! In fact, I’ll probably never actually meet all of them. The teaching staff alone is twice the size of the entire student body of the school I attended as a kid.

Lantern is beautifully set on a hotel rooftop at Marina Bay, so we wined and dined overlooking the skyscrapers of Singapore’s business district, as well as some very fancy hotels. Marina Bay Sands, the casino, is in the distance. Our ferris wheel, the Singapore Flyer, was close by, too!

On Sunday, I visited the Botanic Gardens with the same friend. I’ve been there before with Mitch, but it was great to be back. It’s so beautiful there and it was an absolutely gorgeous day. It’s not sunny all the time here! Really! Just hot. All the time. As usual, the gardens were full of people engaging in some quality outdoor recreation. We passed picnics, birthday parties, runners, bikers, newly weds taking photos, and people playing various sports games. In an age (and a city) where people are so invested in handheld technology, it’s heartwarming to see people enjoying the exact opposite..

So far, my favorite part about Singapore is that there’s something for everyone, and always something new to experience.

Singapore

Lights and music are on my mind.

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Who gets the title reference? Anyone? Anyone? Answer: This song!

On Friday night, I joined two of my friends at the opening of the Night Festival here in Singapore. The Night Festival runs from 7pm-2am Friday and Saturday night for two weekends and consists of free museum admission to the Art Museum, National Museum, Peranakan Museum, and Philatelic Museum (that means stamp collecting!), as well as street performances, installation art having to do with light, dance performances, interactive stage performances, and food and drinks available on streets closed to cars. We were more than a little overwhelmed with options and choices, and largely unfamiliar with the wide area in which the festival was located, but we followed the crowds and the music, bought ourselves some strawberry margarita popsicles, and had a good time!

These drummers wove their way down the street and stopped to play right in front of us! I learned later that they're a group from the UK.
These drummers wove their way down the street and stopped to play right in front of us! I learned later that they’re a group from the UK.

The New Stream Brass Band claims to be a New Orleans-style jazz band, and the word style is key. Growing up in Rochester and attending the Jazz Festival regularly has introduced me to enough jazz to recognize authentic New Orleans jazz. This wasn’t, but the musicians played and sang and got quite a large crowd. They were a lot of fun to watch because they were clearly enjoying them, and the music did remind me of bands of I’ve heard in the past.

New Stream 1

New Stream 2

I couldn’t help but take a picture of the food truck offerings from a truck called Cow. It was painted white with black spots!

Food truck
These prices were so reasonable! We were shocked.

The light installations all involved music or sound in some way, too. There were even fire dancers at one show!

These guitarists were really good!
I completely understand why children are fascinated with mobiles. So were we!
This was just sort of fascinating. The birds looked like they’d been made of wire.
Light show with fire dancers at the Singapore Art Museum
This group’s name is Alchemy – cool, right?
French graphic designers put together this display to celebrate Singapore’s 50th birthday

I got a good laugh at the civility of this festival. No one was walking on the grass to get underneath the giant mobile, but my American friends and I looked around at the lack of barriers or explicit signs, and did just that. People waited at crosswalks to cross the street. Only some streets were blocked off and there were crossing guards with whistles positioned at the streets that were still open to traffic. Even though alcohol was available, very few people were drinking. There was no trash anywhere. No one was climbing trees or light poles for a better view. It was all very, very calm. How strange!

I might go back next weekend to go to the Art Museum. I haven’t been there and this would be a good (read: free) opportunity to see what it has to offer.

Singapore

Week One

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This past week was our first week of school and it was fantastic! I loved meeting the kids, learning about where they’re from (one of my students told me Singapore is his seventh country!), teaching social studies again, getting to know my colleagues better, and starting to feel like I actually have a purpose here.

So far, teaching in Singapore is what I hoped teaching abroad would be when I first moved to Malaysia nearly a year ago. (A lot has happened in a year, eh?) I’m beginning to understand some of the frustrations that returning teachers have with school, and they’re really not a surprise. However, we have books and supplies and materials and technology and a resource budget, so I really can’t complain. Compared to the year I just had, literally anything is better. Furthermore, it’s been so much fun to talk about the relevance of history and the importance of understanding culture in a room full of students from all over the world. In a class of 16, 14 countries were represented. I just can’t get over how darn cool that is, and how exciting it is to hear everything these kids have experienced. They’re so worldly that it’s a little bit scary. And so diverse, from every perspective expect socio-economic; homogeneity there is going to make for some interesting conversations, I suspect.

Equally importantly, I’m feeling very comfortable in Singapore. I think I’ve figured out the least stressful/most productive way to do my grocery shopping, which is a big step toward being a local. It seems more economical to get as much as possible at the very close, very large FairPrice, which is a local supermarket chain, drop everything off at home, and then head to the largest Cold Storage, a grocery store catering to expats of all nationalities. When possible, I’ll pick up my paper goods (toilet paper, tissues, paper towels) at one of the many Chinese shops at the MRT station closest to my apartment; it’s much cheaper that way.

Socially, I’m happy! Of course, I miss Mitch terribly; it’s hard for us to talk on a regular basis because we both start the day early and his has been ending very late. It doesn’t help that I turn my phone off at work, either, so texting during my morning/his evening doesn’t work. Other than the huge element of missing Mitch, though, things are great. Being at such a large school means that I already have multiple social groups with whom to do different things. I’ve learned that meeting at the hawker center closest to school for food and cheap beer is a regular feature of Friday nights, so it’s a lot of fun to see people who I met over orientation but have never seen at school since. Otherwise, I haven’t done a whole lot yet, but it’s been good. Saturday was spent doing some work in a coffee shop with a friend and then having dinner in Little India with a group that she organized – can’t go wrong with garlic naan and aloo gobi!

The real question now, is when will we start to travel?! I’ll bring that up after we get paid. That’s definitely a prerequisite. I’m thinking mid-September might be a good time for a weekend away. Bali, perhaps?

As it’s the beginning of a new school year in a new country and all the students and teachers have returned from the various countries where they all spent their summer break, it should be no surprise that I’m sick. I woke up with a tickle in my throat last Monday that turned into a really terrible cold. I even took sinus medicine! For the first time ever! I felt much better when I woke up on Saturday, and then I got a phone call from Dad and realized that my voice sounded like a squeaky toy. That didn’t stop me from socializing, but waking up this morning with hardly a voice at all did. It was disappointing to turn down kaya toast and pedicures in favor of being a recluse, but it was probably better. At least I didn’t make my lack of voice any worse!

I’m currently drinking (yet another cup of) tea with honey and hoping my voice magically comes back in the morning. I’ll just leave you with a very typical example of a Hindu temple. We passed this one when we were walking in Little India last night:

Little India