When in doubt, go to Ikea

Although I had a really good sleep, and had called it a night respectfully early on Saturday, Sunday was still a fairly painful day to be me.

            After finally getting back to sleep in the middle of the night, 7am dawned with a bit of a hangover and a desperate need to do something productive to get me out of the flat. I didn’t really think that I needed to brave a boiling hot gym again, so instead I did what every sane person with free time and a hangover does. I went to Ikea!

            All I really needed to get was a photo frame for a housewarming present I bought Nick before I even moved over to Singapore, but in classic Suzie sytle, that’s not the only thing I came back with. We’ve ended up with strange candle arrangements in the bathroom, a weird decorative bowl on our coffee table, new serving bowls in the kitchen and a shoe rack in the bomb shelter. I suppose I could have just summarised that as “a lot of tatt”. I came back with a lot of tatt, and, thankfully, a frame for the poster that’s been waiting to go up for months.

            The rest of the day was spent in a blur of watching reruns of Gavin and Stacy, cleaning the flat from top to bottom, speaking to my parents to wish my lovely mummy a good Mothers Day, and eating pizza from the amazing Italian just down the road. All in all, I think it was a fairly successful hung-over Sunday. 

Weekend of relative calm

This weekend was a very chilled one, which was just what I needed. Whilst I feel like I handled the jetlag back from American fairly well, there is no denying the fact that by Friday night I was still pretty tired every evening, and a couple of early nights and quiet days were just what the doctor ordered.

Girly coffee session at Real Foods

            Following a fairly intense three hour meeting on Friday night, I made my way over to Marina Bay Sands, where the pop up bar and food stalls were still in place, and where Nick had gathered with Liv, Hans, Jules and Kev for a couple of drinks while the sunset behind the City. It’s such a shame that this market is only temporary, but I have a feeling we’ll be visiting the mother-market next weekend!

            After a glass or two of wine we all went our separate ways, with Hans joining Nick and I for a light dinner on Arab Street (home of some truly delicious hummus and lamb kebabs) before we called it a night so that Nick had time to get packed and ready for his early flight out to Hong Kong the next morning.

            Having failed to set his alarm for the morning, I luckily was awake as early as always, and able to ensure that he was out of the flat and on his way to the airport well before eight am (much to his misery).

BBQ hosts

            That left me with a full weekend free to fill with whatever adventures I liked! I started my day at Tekka Market, braving the smells and the wet floors to gather fruit and veggies for the week. I then hit the gym (the aircon was broken – it was vile!) and the pool before heading out to meet Jules for a coffee and very suspect lumpy yogurt and fruit combination at Real Food.

            After a good girly catch up it was time to make my way to Liv and Flash’s flat where they were holding a leaving BBQ for a boy I don’t think I’ve ever met. From 3pm there was then a lot of drinking, not much eating, and then a lot more drinking. Fairly unsurprisingly, by the time they were all talking about going out dancing, I was more than ready to make my way home. As the rest of the group gathered and prepared themselves for the taxi ride into town, I gathered up my belongings and snuck out of the front door (which is always impossible to open – nightmare for when you’re trying to be subtle!).

            Still, I made it home eventually, and in good time for a mammoth sleep (ignoring the 3am wake up as I had forgotten to turn on the aircon, and then was slowly melting to death in my sleep - not the first time it's happened, and I am pretty sure it won't be the last. There is nothing quite so vile as waking up in a boiling hot room in the middle of the night!). 

It’s a Mans World

When I was working in London, the majority of people working in the online industry were men. Events would be golf and football dominated, and nights out would inevitably end at strip clubs once the boys had managed to shake off any clients or colleagues who might not agree with expensing lap dances, but every now and then you would stumble across a female CEO or Senior Director who was working hard to climb the ladder.

            In Singapore, it seems to be an entirely male dominated work force. There’s two women heading up the region for Google, but from the numerous mixer events and social events I’ve been to, that seems to be pretty much it. There are a handful of much younger women kicking around in the agency world, but there’s no one making waves up at the top level of the main online companies, and having just realised over the past week that there’s no females beyond Director level at my current company, it concerns me.

            This Friday, three hours of my day were spent at a council meeting for online advertising. The purpose of the meeting was to arrange, nominate and coordinate committees for specific areas of the industry. I’m not sure how it happened – although I am fairly sure that I can blame being massively outnumbered by clueless boys who think that talking loudly makes them right, but I somehow walked out of the session as Vice-Chair of the biggest committee going. Well, I suppose that’s a start…

Lighten up!

With Nick signing off his tenth big deal of the month yesterday afternoon, March has panned out to be his biggest month ever! Whilst most normal people would take this opportunity to cancel their lame midweek plans and go out to celebrate, I failed once again in my role of “supportive girlfriend”, sticking to my guns and forcing him along to a sustainable light festival that was happening just outside of Marina Bay Sands – how exciting does that sound!

            As per usual, we arrived two hours early, and in this case it was before it had even got dark, so we had some time to spare before we would be able to see the lights. Rather than going to one of the lovely restaurants along the edge of the marina, I then forced Nick to go and try out the pop-up market that has been set up just for this week of the light festival. He was fairly hesitant at first, but luckily for me, that turned out to be a great decision.

            Having wandered around the market, it became very clear that this was not your standard street food market – you could buy a roast lamb to feed your entire family, burgers were made out of Wagyu beef and the drinks ranged from locally brewed beer to freshly mixed cocktails. It was all very lovely, and very “Singapore”!

Waiting for sunset

After doing a full loop of all the treats on offer, we ended up nudging towards the cheese and wine stand, stocking up on four cheeses and a selection of cold cut meats, with a very lovely white wine on the side. With wine and cheese in hand, we then settled in for a few hours, watching the sun set over the city. We were joined for an hour or so by a couple of Nicks work friends who happened to be wandering past and decided that they needed oysters and lamb cutlets for dinner. In the end, we passed four hours just soaking up the evening heat, chatting nonsense, and enjoying being back to normal after my fortnight in the States. 

            Once it was well and truly dark, and with a couple of glass of wine consumed, we decided it was time to actually go and look at some art. We cherry picked the most fun and interactive exhibits from the 50 or so on offer, and we had a great time! I’ve been waiting for Singapore to offer me something more than just good food and lots of sun, and I finally feel like we filled an evening with something a little bit different. I loved it! 

            A couple of my favourite exhibits were the most fun to picture too. "Cloud" was a cluster of lightbulbs, each operated by a long thin chain that created the effect of raining cloud with fabulous texture. So pretty:  

"Cloud"

I also had a lot of love for the field of "Giant Dandelions". You have to love a good photo op!

Wishing on a dandelion head!

Back to reality

It’s good to be back in Singapore again. Not only am I finally back on a slightly more normal routine for both work and my free time, but it’s good to be back in a world where there are people I know around me, and I don’t have to spend every waking moment (quite literally thanks to our company’s enthusiasm for room sharing) meeting as many new people as I physically can.

            Yesterday morning I walked into my local coffee shop and the server immediately asked me if I had been anywhere nice on holiday. Then today when I wandered in I met with someone I know and we had a nice chat while my coffee was made up and handed over without me actually having to place an order.

            Last night was spent adjusting to the time difference, doing some laundry and then going for a long swim to try and make me tired enough to be sleepy at the right time. This panned out pretty well so far, but I am still having a massive enthusiasm dip this afternoon, so I think I need one more night of the same sort of pattern.

            As an extra little treat I met up with Nick for lunch today too. He’s having a bumper month at work, so to make the most of a slightly lull in the market today he made his way slightly closer to my office and we met for an amazing Vietnamese for lunch in a local café. Pho all round – healthy and massively filling!

            Tonight I will be heading out to Aqua Spin before heading home for a Skype session with Tanya and Eileen, who will pretend to be on a very important work call whilst we talk nonsense at each other. Fingers crossed that will be the final push to get me 100% back on track for this time zone. I’m impressed with how painless the change of time zone was, but even the slight afternoon haze is more than I want to have to deal with.