F1 @ Night

We haven't really walked around a lot - we get sweaty really quickly - so it was a real adventure to just walkabout the Singapore F1 Grand Prix Walkabout Zone 4.  This night circuit runs around Esplanade, Marina Bay, behind SunTec and back to Esplanade - all within walking distance of our office building.  So, this evening, we took our F1 badges and walked up Shenton way, to Esplanade Dr where we could enter the area to enjoy the first practice round of the grand prix, along with the qualifiers for the junior AsiaPac race.

The view fro Esplanade Dr is quite stunning.  The new Marina Bay Sands hotel is dramatically situated across the bay and behind this wacky lotus/flame-looking structure that may open to the public soon - as what, I am still not sure.  The ever-spinning Singapore Flyer is just to the east.

From "Early Fall" in Singapore

The Walkabout Zone was well-designed with lots of beer stands, merchandise booths and food stalls - plus there were regular businesses in Esplanade that had special deals for the occasion.  We got our ear plugs and beer and found a nice platform to view one of the turns.  That kept us busy for about 10 minutes...

From "Early Fall" in Singapore

So we went back to walking around the Esplanade, took some pics, had some dinner, more beer and walked over to the stage where Missy Elliott was going to give a performance.  My only thought throughout the show was that she must be really hot in that sweater and sweat pants... We're not big Missy Elliott fans but she tried to give a good show, and some of her dancers were amazing.

This was our first evening leaving Lizzy at home with Allen, and I gotta say it was quite nice.  We're seriously thinking about making date night official - perhaps, bi-weekly?

Elizabeth is 2-Years Old

These birthdays are way more shocking than my own.  OK, maybe 30 was disorienting, but how the time flies with Elizabeth.  A lot has happened in her first two years, but I can't help feeling like I missed something very important here... Especially since moving here was to satisfy selfish cravings, although I'd like to believe that whatever makes mommy and daddy happy is good for  their children.

Anyways, this year here birthday was celebrated in Israel with her extended family and in Singapore with her daycare class.  We have many, many hopes for her future, but right now I just want to make sure she doesn't grow up to say "can" instead of "yes".

From Birthday Party at MMS

Rosh Hashana in Israel

We spent a week in Israel with my parents and brother and the rest of my extended family who lives there. This was Elizabeth's first time in Israel and meeting most of this part of the family - including my grandparents.  Both Lizzy and I were sick for most of the week but we tried to make the best of it, doing a little touring - Jerusalem, Tel Aviv/Yaffo, beaches - and a lot of eating.  Connie filled up on grilled foie gras and I filled up on my grandma's cooking (and lots and lots of hummus!).

Elizabeth now knows some of her second cousins by name (Schwartz family) and since we've been back has been asking for them.  It's quite sad that we're so far away, but no different being in Singapore or NYC.  Speaking of which, on our return flight (with Turkish Airlines) we had severe delays - our flight was cancelled (supposedly, due to world basketball championships in Istanbul) and we ended up flying back through Bangkok with El Al, and with Singapore Airlines back to Singapore.  Singapore Airlines is our new favorite airline...  Good even in economy...

Anyways, Shana Hadasha Hao! to everyone...

From Israel II

Settling In to Routine Life

We've been mostly busy with unpacking and settling in to life in the new apartment.  My mother left us in the beginning of August, so it's just the 3 of us and Allen, our domestic helper.

Our workdays are as follows:
Connie and I wake up around 7am, do our morning routine, say goodbye to Lizzy and drive off to work - Connie needs to be in by 8am and the total commute is ~15-20 minutes.  I get my breakfast sandwich packed by Allen and Connie gets breakfast from the Bloomberg kitchen.  We work 10-hour days, including one hour for lunch.  That's the schedule dictated by Bloomberg for all of its Singapore employees.  We eat lunch around 1pm; it is hard to find a place to sit in the hawker centers at 12:30pm.  There are many lunch choices, but for budget and timing reasons we usually opt for one of the hawker centers nearby - our two favorites are M11 @ China Square (air-conditioned) and Hong Lim Complex Temporary Food Centre (not air-conditioned but has some really authentic fare).  We leave work about 6pm and get home by 6:30pm.  We spend some time playing with Lizzy and then we eat dinner (prepared, served, and cleaned up by Allen).  Then we wash Lizzy and start bedtime routine - some play, drink milk, read a couple of books, and get her tucked in.  We do some paperwork (Connie), watch TV, drink a glass of wine or a can of beer, and turn in.  Rinse, repeat.  On Fridays, we might do something after dinner like go to Night Safari or walk about town.  Sometimes, Connie and I will go out after work (so far, only a fantasy).

Weekends:
Allen has only Sunday off, so Saturday she cooks us some breakfast.  Connie may or may not join Lizzy and I depending on how much sleep she feels she has missed over the work week.  We then either go downstairs to enjoy the pool area, or do something more adventurous like riding our bicycles to the beach, fly a kite, drive to Sentosa Island, or go to the Zoo.  We usually get back home for a nap.  Then, we either play and dinner at home (prepared by Allen), or we go do something and eat out.  Sometimes, Allen takes Lizzy out for a walk in the afternoon and we get time to relax or do some house chores or paperwork (Connie) or read and blog (me).
Sundays are similar to Saturdays, except I usually make breakfast.  Sometimes I take Lizzy out on my own in the early weekend mornings with a packed breakfast if mommy is in extraordinary sleep deficit.  We mostly eat what Allen has left for us, or we go out to sample whatever is Singapore has to offer food-wise (like Carl's Jr. drive-through).

From Settling in Singapore

Until her school starts in September, Lizzy spends the days with Allen, playing at home, going for walks and shopping at nearby Kallang Leisure Park, or for a couple of hours at Peek-a-boo (a big indoor playground).

Our routine life here is actually very similar to our life in Brooklyn, where we lived with Connie's parents and they mostly took care of the daily chores at home, and served as a reliable and always-available baby sitter.

Water Place

Hallelujah!

We finally signed a lease on an apartment.  We don't have to move again for 2 years.  Hurray!

Our home in Singapore will be an apartment in the condominium Water Place - which is just outside the city center on the other side of the waterway that turns into the Singapore River and Marina Bay to the West and into the Kallang Basin and Geylang River to the East where our new neighborhood is enveloped by it and by the Singapore Strait.


View Larger Map

The complex houses 7 buildings between 15-20 floors with 4 units on each floor.  It was built in 2004 (not too new, not too old).  Our 3-br + 1 (that's the indication used for maid's quarters) unit is ~1350 sq feet with a master bedroom and a shared bathroom.  The fixtures are fairly modern and the apartment, even without our weathered Swedish furniture feels like an IKEA showroom.

The condo's amenities incude 1 main swimming pool, 2 "fun pools" - one with two floating goals and one with a basketball net - a Jacuzzi, and two children's pools with a water slide and other playful water fixtures.  There are 2 tennis courts, 1 multipurpose court used for soccer and hockey, a small outdoor playground, an even smaller indoor play area, a karaoke room, a reflexology path, and several BBQ pits (some with gas stoves in addition to the grills) and picnic areas.  There's even a nice koi pond and you can get food pellets from the guardhouse to feed the fish!

BBQ pits, tennis courts, and the karaoke room have to be booked in advance and there are associated (symbolic) charges.  The occupants of most apartments are foreigners, and of those about half are Western (and I include Australians and New Zealanders in this group).  That is part of living in a condo versus an HDB, which is, for one reason or another, where most Singaporeans live.

We saw this condominium in our first day of apartment hunting.  We liked it immediately, although at the time we felt it was too remote from public transportation - less of an issue now that we're addicted to having a car.  The apartment we are now moving into is also bigger than the one we saw originally; we actually ended up viewing ~8 in total once we decided on this neighborhood - there is quite a high turnaround in this expat-friendly area.  The surroundings are very family-oriented, have more of a feel of a suburb and not so gritty like the city center.  The complex is also a scenic stroll and foot bridge away from Kallang Leisure Center and the Indoor Stadium where there is good shopping and entertainment and some nice waterside restaurants - along with the nearest subway (MRT) station.

Heritage View - More Temporary Housing

We have been trying very hard to find suitable accommodations, but as you can read in past entries we have some issues with at least the available units that we can afford.  The new buildings have very, very small apartments and we hate paying a premium to live in small cages.  Units in old buildings are often in disrepair or lack some of the nicer amenities you can find in the newer buildings like a pool area with water slides, or a covered parking lot.

Anyways, now we have been kicked out of our corporate apartment because they are fully booked.  So we moved to another corporate apartment provided by LMB Housing Services (Heritage View codominium) a bit further from work but still in the center of the city.  Commute is pretty good, but the shopping nearby is limited.  This area is near some big campuses (INSEAD and Singapore Polytechnic) so lots of young students live here.  The apartment is spacious, the pool is nice, and we don't have to find cardboard boxes to live in - for a while I was having trouble finding temporary accommodations; maybe it's the Singapore Super Sale, or the Youth Olympics but hotels and corporate apartments are largely booked solid until end of July.  Anyways, the A/C's work - so no complaints.

From Settling in Singapore

And now our helper can start living with us.

Help, The

This weekend we went to shop for a live-in maid.  This is something I've been both dreading and looking forward to.  The idea of affordable and convenient maid/nanny services was one of the original appeals of life in Singapore.  But the idea of finding a suitable person to look after Lizzy and live in our home haunted me.  It's like shopping for a new member of the family.

The process, it turns out, is quite simple.  First you find one or more maid agencies - there are many, many to choose from and we just went with a colleague's recommendation.  There are a few malls in the center of the city who have entire floors dedicated to housing such agencies, which broker contracts between migrant domestic workers - mostly Filipino, Indonesian, and Malay women between the ages of 18 and 50 years old - and, well, people like us.  The one we used was in Far East Shopping Centre on Orchard Rd.  You call the agency up and briefly describe your specific needs and they send you over some resumes to review.  You book an appointment to interview the maids you're interested in.  You agree on pay and some other logistics with the maid you choose.  You sign a contract, the agency takes a finder's fee, and the maid moves in - most homes and condo apartments have an extra small bedroom and 1/2-3/4 bathroom suitable to house a maid near the kitchen.  Oh, yeah, you also have to do an online course in how to be a maid's employer - covering your responsibilities toward the employee as mandated by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM).  You also register the migrant worker with MOM, which begins levying a monthly tax from you for providing your maid a work permit.  Finally, you have to get health insurance for your new employee and the agency helps you take care of that as well...

At least that's the technical description.  The actual experience is a bit more colorful.  One discomforting element in the process is that when you walk around the mall looking for your agency you pass through many other agencies and the place starts feeling like a market for legalized human trafficking.  The migrant workers have to find a job within a few weeks of entering or losing their previous employment arrangement or else they face expulsion from the country.  Many of them seem to be on their last day before their work permits run out, as they bring their suitcases to the agency where they sit the entire day waiting for their chance to get picked to be someone's maid.  It is nerve-racking.  The rules of engagement also made for an uncomfortable interviewing setup - chairs arranged just outside the agency's office in the middle of one of the mall's corridors, other maids-to-be and shoppers milling about.

We picked "Allen", who is from the Philippines but has been working as a maid for 20 years in Singapore, China and even, briefly, in the USA.  The reason we liked her on paper was that she was older, educated, and had no children of her own for us to feel sad about... The reason we liked her in person was that she spoke very good English, she seemed quite intelligent (college-educated even), and Lizzy took a shine to her from the get-go.

We don't have a place for her to live with us yet, as we are in a small corporate apartment, so for now she commutes to work - and we're getting used to having the help.