Two year Singaversary

It’s official, I have been living in Singapore for a full two years today! Sometimes it feels like way longer, and sometimes it feels like hardly any time at all.

I can’t believe that it was just two years ago that I packed up my life in London, threw nearly all my worldly possessions under the road in front of Debbie’s house, and I got on a plane to the other side of the world “just to see” how things would go.

           

Well that was a rather bold move at the time, but I like to think that it was a decision for the very best. Here we are, two years later, happily married and drinking cocktails for brunch in the first restaurant that we went out to dinner at when I first arrived in Singapore. Time flies!

I've arrived!

After arriving at Heathrow a good healthy four hours or so before my flight was due to take off (Team Porter does love to be on time / slightly early you know – I blame dad!), I managed to waste a good few hours working through a couple of essential airport routines – I did a magazine run at WHSmiths, I topped up on emergency plane snacks and ear-popping sweets, I had a huge and entirely unnecessary dinner at Giraffe and then I had a calming gin at the airport bar.

            By this point I had just about managed to persuade myself that there’s no need to cry when your family drops you at the airport, and that when it doubt, gin really does help. Every single time! Finally it was time to fly!

            For some unknown reason my plane was fairly empty, so not only did I get to enjoy the pure comfort of a BA Economy Plus seat (so worth the extra pennies!) I also got the pleasure of an empty seat next to me, which means extra legroom and no fights for the armrest. All in all, it was a pretty good flight – you just have to ignore the fact that it lasted for a tedious 13 hours.

            Rushing through all the gory details – I’ve arrived. The flight was empty, the arrivals hall was totally manageable, Nick was waiting and ready to pick me up as soon as I came through the gates, and I am now sitting in ‘our’ flat, drinking gin on the balcony and about to have a shower ready to start my live in the hot humidity of Singapore. I can’t wait – for the shower that is. The fresh start is exciting too, but at the moment I just want to wash the horrible airplane filth off!

It's go time!

Bags are packed, my room is set straight and my Kindle is charged – it’s go time! I will be leaving for the airport in the next few hours, and I will be touching down in Singapore in less than 24 hours from now.

            Blog updates will (hopefully) be coming thick and fast as the adventures begin, but for now there will be radio silence while I leave one world and get myself set up in another. Wish me luck!

Two weeks to go and progress is being made!

It’s been a long time coming, but my flight to Singapore is now just two weeks away, and I’ve finally made it through each and every round of interview (after five months of background work), and have received a written offer letter! Thank goodness for that!

            This means that, all going well, and assuming that the Singaporean government agrees to sign off my work pass, I will be moving over with a work permit sorted, a job ready to join and a planned training session over in San Fran too (this is the company with London and US offices which is going to be incredibly handy for visiting the family).

            It’s tough to think that in a couple of weeks I will have left my current job and will no longer be responsible for everything I’ve been working so hard to build for the past few years, but hey, I get to start again at the beginning, and whilst that might be slightly stressful, I really hope it will be worth it!

            Now I just have to cross my fingers and hope that the work pass gets approved fairly quickly – I need it sorted to be able to ship my boxes too, so hopefully it will be done and dusted before I move out of the London house! 

Three weeks to go!

Three weeks left – that’s it! In three weeks today I will be packing up the car, hugging the family and boarding a plane (probably in floods of tears and a slghtly drunken haze due to essential pre-flight gingo tongos) to Singapore. To live. For years!

            When I first made the decision to go on my adventure, there was a good four months of build up before Go-Time. There was time to pretend it was never going to happen and that nothing was going to change. There were millions of weekends to think about what I might want to tick off my list and what I might need to do to prepare for the move. Hell, the move wasn’t until “next year” – I had loads of time to play with!

            Now though, Christmas is gone, the New Year has been marked, celebrated and has started in full-speed. And so it’s happening. Soon. In three weeks to be precise – the big move is coming up, and it’s coming up fast. 

            Putting aside the fear and the sadness (which hasn’t gone away, and I am pretty sure it’s not going to for a while), it’s getting incredibly exciting now!

            The flat is looking beautiful and shiny, awaiting my arrival, and I’ve even signed a contract (with the company I’ve been having discussions with for the past four months) so hopefully a work visa will be with me just in the nick of time! It’s all happening, and it’s all suddenly very real.

Warm up lunch

It’s just over a month until I move my little life out of London and over to Singapore, and I am starting to get a bit worried about it all. I have to leave my friends and family. Who’s going to look after me when I’m being completely and utterly ridiculous about everything? Do boys understand the importance of Happy Crumble, and can you even stomach happy crumble over in that heat? So many things to consider!

            Luckily, from my last trip over there in the summer I know that there is at least one girl in the little expat circle that I have met already, and that she is going to be more than adequate as a drinking / eating / life sorting buddy. Even better, she’s in London for the month for a mixture of both work and Christmas. Now that’s perfect timing!

            Although Liv’s got plenty of plans to be out of town over Christmas, and has been spending a lot of time catching up with old uni and school friends, as well as her family, after a fair bit of back and forth we finally managed to book in a sneaky lunch.

            Nothing too exciting – just a lovely light lunch at the Whole Foods off Piccadilly, catching up on what’s been going on since I left, what else I need to do to properly prepare myself for the move, all the essentials. It was a lovely, reassuring little catch up, until we bid farewell to each other and she hugged with the words “So, I’ll be seeing you in Singapore next month then!”

            SCARY!

Two months today!

It is exactly two months today until I arrive in Singapore, dragging two bags and probably a lot of teary snotty rags behind me from the plane out into the stunning sunshine and heat.

            Having spoken to Nick this afternoon, it’s all starting to feel a whole lot more real. The flat is now being lived in, the cupboards are full of glasses and plates (our glasses and plates) , the balcony is equipped with furniture and night lanterns (our furniture and lanterns) and the bar in the corner (our bar) is starting to take shape!

           Eeeek!

The life box-up continues

Whilst I don’t have a lot of free time between now and the 23^rd January when I’m due to be flying off to Singapore, I’ve been using the occasional free evening or early weekend morning to get my life packed away and either into storage or ready for shipping.

            It’s been slow and steady progress, but now the dry vault has been emptied and swept ready for use, most of my books have been boxed up and transported down for storage, and a couple of other bits and pieces have been gathered up from around the house and bundled into the vault. Three and a half boxes have been sealed up ready for shipping, and the majority of my wardrobes have been striped of any clothing, shoes or bags that can be either binned or taken to the charity shop.

            I’m working to get myself down to the bear essentials before Christmas so that I can make sure everything is in it’s place by the time I will be teary and confused about life when it gets closer to my time to fly. Not long now! 

Picture perfect

There are a handful of things that I will miss the most when I move to Singapore – my family, my friends, a handful of my favourite haunts in London, and Emsworth.

Missing the view of the sea and the town that I’ve lived in forever and that I’ll be leaving for months on end might seem like a ridiculous thing to worry about, but I really do think it’ll be a bit of a struggle to walk away from.

I know people leave their hometowns all the time, and that they all survive, but there’s something about leaving my particular little corner of the world that makes me ridiculously sad. It’s a very special place!

          Thankfully, I have a very talented friend called Ben who is going to help lessen the pain by painting a series of three small pictures of home for me to pack up in my suitcase and take with me. They will be the first thing that I have bought to add to the little world that myself and Nick will be setting up in the other side of the world, and I am glad that my first addition to our home will be a reminder of the world that I will be running back to as soon as possible.

            Singapore, I’m crazily excited to meet you, but I’m also going to be heartbroken to be leaving so much behind.

There's no place like home!

Having signed off on a letter of intent, and bartered as much as possible on the price, Nick today sent me a video of the little flat that will be ready and waiting for me when I move out to Singapore in a couple of months time!

            Somewhere close to Little India, and in walking distance from a number of the guys I already know out there, our flat looks like it’s going to be pretty much perfect. There’s a kitchen with a tiny oven, a dining area for entertaining, space for an L-shaped sofa which will roll out into a sofa bed for when friends come to stay, with a bedroom joining onto the bathroom, and a balcony with table and chairs for breakfast and brunch’s in the sun. What more could you want? There’s even a pool and a gym one floor down – gone are the days (like this morning) of waking up in the dark, being almost too cold to get out of bed, and then having to trudge through the rain and the wind to get to the pool pre-work.

I think it’s going to be just about ok!