Weekend Update

Hello friends and family... greetings from Singapore! I hope that everyone had a great weekend. Sorry this post is a bit delayed – work has really been picking up this week. I’m not sure who all is reading my blog and keeping up with my adventures (besides M&D) so if you feel so inclined, leave a comment at the end of any post – I would love to hear from you, even if it’s just to pop in and say hello! Or if you prefer to read anonymously, that's ok too :)

I’ve been gone from the U.S. for 2 weeks now and have gotten settled into my new temporary home quite nicely. I’ve pretty much embraced everything... except the Asian food. Of course there are some great Asian restaurants, but I’m talking about the hawker centres which are the only options at lunch. Hawker centres are open-air food centres with lots of different stalls selling inexpensive food. I have tried to like this food... I usually go over, walk around, look at the pictures, scan the options usually lined up in pans behind the counter – but when I don’t recognize what something is and when there are dead chickens hanging above my head to dry and when it’s 90 degrees out, and all the smells and the fermented fish paste, ginger, and curry... by the time it hits my mouth, my lips are already puckered back in disgust. Not to mention that they do not have chicken breasts in this country. The women on the project and I joke that there must be lots of chickens running around without breasts because seriously – the only chicken meat we can find is dark meat. No worries though, I have plenty of oatmeal to get me through the work day!

Aaaanyway, onto the weekend happenings.

If you’ve been keeping up with my blog, you know that the weekend before last was mainly devoted to all things super touristy... city tour and heritage tour all over the island, botanic gardens, shopping on Orchard Road, checking out Chinatown, Little India, etc. Not going to lie, this weekend was a little more focused on – ahem – partying. Friday night, a bunch of us went out in Boat Quay.

Boat Quay (again, pronounced “Key”) is basically a very laid-back version of Clark Quay. So if Clark Quay is Dallas than Boat Quay would be... Fort Worth (only within walking distance of course). So we started with drinks at the hotel, headed over to Boat Quay, had a few drinks near the water at a pub, went to a Hindi dance bar (this was a very bizarre experience) and finally ended up at Clark Quay which is my favorite spot – expats everywhere, really cool bars & clubs, just an awesome scene.

Saturday.

Had to work, but only from 10-3. Everyone strolled into the office around 10:30... very relaxed day. I don’t think I did anything productive except order lunch for the group haha (to my credit, I didn’t have much to do anyway). Got back to my hotel and took a lovely nap before dinner/drinks with some colleagues. It just ended up being 3 of us because a lot of people were going to Indonesia on Sunday. I considered it, but many of them were going to play golf and the only other thing to do really was to sit on the beach or sit by the pool, and tanning in the sun is not so much on my to-do list. I would like to go to Bali, but it’s much further (not just a fairy ride away like where the other guys were going). It was tempting for the cool Indonesian stamp in my passport though. So anyway, those that were not going to Indonesia went out pretty hard on Saturday night. We were going to do dinner at SupperClub, but it started down-pouring so instead we skipped dinner and just started drinking at (one of ) the hotel bars (always an excellent choice). It finally stopped pouring, giving us enough time to get to Clark Quay – went to an awesome club called Attica – then from there, went to SupperClub (turns into a super posh club at night), then finished off the night with some live music at a place near the hotel called Chijmes. And no night would be complete without some late late night food so we enjoyed some greasy appetizers before heading home at... well... let’s just say the bars are open well past 2am here. And I have some fun colleagues!


SupperClub



Sunday.

There’s the cutest little Asian girl on my team. She’s probably 80 pounds, originally from Malaysia, works out of the San Francisco Deloitte office, and has an adorable personality. She and I decided to check out this cool mall in the area called Vivocity. We spent the afternoon shopping, and then it pretty much poured rain the rest of the day. Good thing I decided not to do the Night Safari which I was originally thinking I would do Sunday night! So it was monsoon weather for the rest of the evening which was kind of nice because it gave me a chance to just chill – actually I went and sat in the sauna for awhile!

At the mall - I got a "creamy beetroot smoothy." It was actually quite tasty!


My view from my hotel room - monsoon weather

Oh I also got a Singapore cellphone! My number is... shoot, I don’t even know. I have it written down somewhere... so if you get a call from a Singapore number (country code +65), answer it! It’s probably me.