Friday funtimes

Friday, finally! My brain has been playing cruel tricks on me this week, well since Wednesday when I had to wake up at the crack of dawn for a call with the US that was cancelled once I was already in the office and waiting on the line for the organiser to join. Nightmare.

For the past few days I’ve woken up with that fabulous, lazy, cosy, what-shall-we-do-today Saturday vibe, only to be repeatedly slammed back to earth with a bump when I realise that there is still more work to be done. I never used to get this before – it’s only started since I’ve lived here. Perhaps it’s because I don’t force myself to get up at the crack of dawn to go swimming anymore, or maybe it’s the warm sunshine that starts streaming through the windows from early on in the day, making me think it’s later than it really is. The sun puts me straight into holiday mode – dangerous when it’s going to be like this every day for the foreseeable future, very dangerous!

Either way, it’s not a great way to start the day during the week, especially when my Saturday morning sleep will be disrupted by Nick pack up and heading off to the airport at the crack of dawn! Still, when I realised that it was at least Friday, if not Saturday this morning, that was good enough for me!

Having met up with a couple of clients for meetings over the past few weeks, I lucked out by finding an ex-Londoner who, like me, missed the London client-lunch-Friday tradition, where you leave the office at one and you don’t return until the following Monday. Sadly, with numerous meetings in the diary, I couldn’t get out until around four, but as soon as I was done with work I was out the door and over to Club Street for a couple of drinks in the sun.

Club Street does exactly what it says on the tin – the road is lined with bars and clubs, and from seven each Friday and Saturday evening they close off the road so that drinkers at all of the bars can mingle and mix in the fresh air out on the street. It’s a bit mental there sometimes, but it’s a great spot to spend a few hours recovering from work on a Friday night.

Following a few drinks with the client (and absolutely no chat about work) I crossed from the bar I was in to the one directly opposite, where a group was starting to gather for Flash’s birthday drinks.

The group grew slowly from five girls up to around twenty people, mostly men, mostly horribly drunk – it was great fun! Sadly, with my laptop under my arm and Nick at home feeling rotten, I didn’t actually stay out much past eleven, but as I was sneaking out the back door, not mentioning to anyone that I was planning to disappear, it looked like the night was just about to kick off. I think it’s probably for the best that I missed out on the rest of that adventure. 

Another victory for my chopstick skills

I’ve been working on it for a couple of weeks now, and I am please to announce that I’m coming on in leaps and bounds when it comes to chopstick control!

One of the guys that I work with has taken me under his wing when it comes to scary food introductions – he’s not going to rest until he’s forced a “pig organ soup” down my throat (and yes, that really is as vile as it sounds – it’s lumpy, with entire chunks of organ in it that you’re supposed to chew on and enjoy) and has taught me the intricate process of eating an entire chicken foot properly – apparently it’s pretty chewy, and all that’s supposed to come out of your mouth at the end of the ordeal is a very small selection of bones. I am really not looking forward to that particular lesson.  

To be honest, I think it’s going to take me a good few years (or a good many gins) to build up the bravery for either of those options – I had a chicken foot in my soup on the very first meal I shared with my work team and they took pity on me then – I really hope that level of understanding will last for a bit longer!

On a positive, whilst I do my best to learn the scary food ropes, I get to benefit from the gentle introduction to the fear, which means a great many very tasty dishes are coming my way, and I am very much enjoying the education!

Today was bah kut teh day, which seems to be a pretty perfect Friday lunch treat.  We had to head out of the office ready to eat at noon because the place we wanted to try gets so busy that you can end up queuing for at least an hour just to get a table.

Bah kut teh is basically a pork rib soup, served in a very tasty herb and garlic broth, with rich, salted veggies and weird dumpling things on the side. The flavour was great, but working out how to eat entire, fairly sizeable pork ribs with chopsticks when you’re not supposed to pick them up with your fingers is quite a challenge. I got there eventually, but it was definitely another close call on the mass-spillage drama.

Still, I made it, and now I get to look forward to the next treat. I really hope he’s not in a rush to reach the organ soup…that’s the stuff of nightmares right there! 

PS it's dinnertime

Although my one-month marker was technically on Monday, Nick had requested my company at a little dinner this week to officially celebrate the fact that I haven’t left already, so last night we had a very delicious dinner at a lovely restaurant called PS Café on Dempsey Hill.

            Tucked away on the edge of a selection of restaurants, this beautiful glass and wood café opens out onto a tropical forest, and as we had some of the best seats in the house, facing out into the wildlife, we got to enjoy the fluttering of bats and birds while we watched the sun set with our gin and tonics.

            Once it was full dark (it does that pretty early out here) we made our way through a fabulous, homemade style dinner whilst enjoying a great breeze and the quiet of the forest, despite the fact that the place was packed out. It was made all the better when the incredibly friendly waiter brought us over a cooling glass of light red wine – this is something that I’ve only learnt since I’ve been out here; a bottle of red should always live in the fridge as it makes for a fabulous hot weather treat!

Dinner was delicious – there was bread and hummus to start, moussaka for me and the lasagne on my dreams for Nick (think lasagne, with a layer of veggies cooked on top of it, then a layer of meatballs and sauce, then one more layer of pasta and cheese, all baked together – the next time I make lasagne, I’m making it that way!).

            As a final challenge there was then an entirely unnecessary pudding to round it all off. Nick had a three tier chocolate brownie, fudge, marshmallow and chocolate sauce mountain, and I had about three portions of orange drizzle cake in one giant slice. Unsurprisingly, neither of us made it through more than half of our cake, but it was well worth the effort! I do love good cake. If any of the girls make it out here on a visit, I’m most definitely going to be taking them here for a coffee and tea session during the day – it’s too good not to!

A rare quiet night

Whilst my life in Singapore is no where near as hectic as my London life, I have found myself with things to keep me entertained and occupied pretty much every night since I arrived in Singapore. Dinners, cinema trips, house shopping and trying out new places can be quite a time consuming game, so I’m actually quite happy to have a my weekly AquaSpin classes now booked in as standard.

Whilst it can be annoying to be obliged to be at a class every week without fail, it does force me into good behaviour for at least one night of the week.  Every little helps I suppose, and I’ve got to start somewhere…

            Very irritatingly, it wasn’t until way too late that I realised I had left my sensible swimming costume at the spin pool after last weeks session, so this week saw me trying to keep it together in a fairly inappropriate bikini – I suppose it was half funny, once I got past the struggles of trying to keep everything together and give the work out my best effort too. It was an all girl class, which helped, but the female instructor clearly noticed my difficulties at the start of the session and insisted on laughing along with me the whole way through. She’s a nice girl!

            Once the class was done and I made my way home and tried to aid my recovery with a healthy (lazy – sometimes scrambled eggs is all I have the energy for) dinner it was time to Skype with Tanya and Eileen – two of my old work buddies! From the corner of the coffee shop where they were having their lunch we spent some time catching up on what’s been happening for the past few weeks, how things are developing and what the new boy is like (yuck!).

With family internet issues and a distinct lack of Skype connections amongst my other friends this was actually my first Skype home since I’ve been here – it’s weird to think it’s been a full month, and yet only a month since I was last back there. I kept asking the girls is there was anyone new there, if anyone had left and what other gossip there was, completely ignoring the fact that a month is no time at all and it takes well over a month to either recruit new staff, or for old staff to work their notice periods. Time really does fly! I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like to speak to family and the uni girls, but hopefully we’ll get time to chat soon!

March is already set to pass in the blink of an eye (with two weeks booked out with a San Francisco trip) and a couple of weekends with mini-adventures lined up, so it’s going to be summer and time for a week back at home before I know it. 

One month down

Amazingly, yesterday marked my one-month anniversary in Singapore! Admittedly I have spent the majority of my time here being on holiday in other countries, but I’m now a month down and finally feeling like I’ve settled in pretty well.

            To celebrate this, and the fact that I am still here and haven’t yet gone running home to safety, last night we ordered salad wraps and took them to watch The Lego Movie. That’s right, it was the only kids film that we could find!

Nick was heartbroken when he didn’t have time to see the new Robocop at the cinema, so now he’s very keen to make up for it with The Lego Movie – he has got a bit of a thing about Lego. This is comedy because it’s geekie, but also super helpful as it makes for a very easy present for Christmas and birthdays! The store assistants always assume that I’m buying presents for nephews or friends children, but it helps keep my shopping trips simple, so I’m certainly not complaining!

            Having been warned by pretty much every girl in Singapore who has ever braved the cinema here, I was aware that it was going to be near freezing in there, especially when compared with the outside world, so after work I rushed home to layer up (it was the first time I have worn jeans since I landed a month ago) and then to meet Nick at the posh cinema on Orchard Road.

            There are some really amazing cinemas here, where you get duvets and three course meals served to your own LazyBoy chairs whilst you watch the film. I’ve yet to experience one of these super special ones (apparently there’s not that sort of demand for people watching kids films), but we did get to enjoy a mini-sofa seat, which was quite fun. Also, the film was great, with a fair few laugh out loud moments too. All in all, it was a pretty great way to spend a Monday night, and we got a little bit of popcorn to add some extra sugary fun to the whole experience too – double whammy!