Thursday, December 17, 2009

Lessons Learned

After a long two days of travel, it was crazy to wake up in my parent's ultra modern apartment halfway around the world. Karli woke up around 8:30 and my mom was nice enough to get her up and feed her breakfast while we tried to catch up on sleep a bit. By 9:15 Chad and I were eager to get up and get going. We finally got the real tour of my parent's apartment and we were much more coherent this morning. What a place! I feel like I'm in either a super fancy Manhattan apartment or the Cullen's house (Yes, that was a Twilight reference). The apartment has marble and wood floors, a floating staircase, concrete walls, and absolutely gorgeous views. There's even a room off of the balcony where people house their "helpers" or live in maids/cooks/child-caretakers/ironers, but my parents don't have one of those...yet. Here are a few pictures of the view from their balcony that spans their entire front room and kitchen.



We're excited to use this hot tub soon. Sounds wierd to be excited for a hot tub in Singapore, because when you step outside, you immediately begin sweating and it's super hot... kind of like you're getting in a hot tub. I'm still excited though.

So here are a few things we had to learn...immediately:
1. How to flush the toilet
2. How to turn on the heater for the shower so you can have hot water
3. How to turn on each outlet before using anything electric

After we had lessons on how to function in Singapore, Karli and I took a nap. Chad was too cool to take a nap and spent some time with his technology. Chad made some new bff's on the plane and they told him that the easiest way to not get jet-lagged was to make yourself wake up each morning and go do stuff. They also mentioned that taking a few short naps throughout the first couple days was a good idea. I slept for about an hour...but poor Karli thought it was night time and I had to wake her up from a dead sleep after 5 hours. After all, it was her body's midnight.

We then headed to the market via the MRT (Metro Rapid Transit). My parents don't have a car here and travel by MRT and taxis. My mom seems totally at home rushing around the station amongst all of her Asian countrymen, it's quite the sight! We went to the market located one stop away in a mall. All of the little markets are in malls, totally wierd, but it works. My mom has this funky little fold up shopping cart with wheels that she takes with her to the store. Pretty nifty. After the market we went to get dinner at a shop that might possibly be Chad's favorite thing so far in Singapore. It's called Bread Talk and they serve all kinds of sweet and savory breads. Chad's favorites were the Cheese Boats and the Fried Chicken rolls. Delicious!
We will definitely be going back.

Here are a few more things we learned today:
1. There are a LOT of people in this small country
2. There is no such thing as personal space in Singapore, especially on the MRT
3. Asian people love to touch Karli's face
4. You walk on the LEFT side of traffic (I totally looked like the ignorant American at the train station when I tried to walk on the right side of the people traffic)
5. Apparently eggs don't have to be refrigerated...still not sold on this

We were pretty exhausted after our first day in Singapore and went to bed around 9PM. Check out these gorgeous views from our bedroom. Not too shabby.



2 comments:

Holly said...

I love these posts! Thanks for taking the time to do them! What a awesome experience. And I love the views from your parent's apartment! I totally was not jealous of you when I was thinking about the traveling and jet-lag, etc...but now after seeing these pictures and hearing about your experiences, the jealousy is setting in. Maybe Chad WILL find a great job in Singapore and we'll just have to come visit?! :)

Holly said...

P.S. Happy Anniversary! today? yesterday? Not sure about the time difference, but happy anniversary whenever it is/was!