1 year already

Well, can you believe we are nearing our 1 year anniversary in Singapore already. Time sure flies when you are having fun. Life here is, in a way, like being anywhere, except there are some things that are weird, different or unusual, whatever you want to call them. Some of you have asked me to tell you what it is like here. So here we go...
There are taxi's everywhere, they are really cheap, and with gas prices what they are, its better to take a taxi sometimes. I guess a lot like any major city. Many people don't even have a car. There are a lot of motorcycles and they go where ever they want.
We drive on the opposite side of the street. Its actually not that hard because most of the major streets have dividers in the middle. Hardest is that because of that you are constantly making U-turns to get into the roads on the right. On the roads leading to and going thru the main area's are ERP's. Like a toll road... every car has to have a little box in it with RFID... (connected to you license plate and car tag) you have a credit card in it and you automatically get charged when you use the road... This little credit card also lets you pay for parking. They don't know free parking here. They charge you everywhere you go. When your card is getting low on balance you "top it up" is what they call it. The good thing about parking garages here is that they have a system that tells you how many empty spaces there are left on each floor of the garage. You get this information fed to you on an electronic board when you enter the garage. You then go right to the floor where they have 11 spots open! You may be wondering how do they know what spaces are open…well…that’s the beauty of it…they have little lights above each parking space in the garage. They are either green (if the space is empty) or red (if a car is occupying the space). It reads your RFID and knows your car is there. This info is fed back and tabulated quickly to update the board within seconds. The best part is that you are driving through a packed parking garage and you can immediately find the empty space by spotting the green light above the space…ingenious! (If you don't have your card in right or its empty when you drive on the road they send you a bill ... I actually had this happen once... and also.. I ran over a barrier in a parking garage on the way out and the lady that works there told me to just go on.. we actually got sent the bill b/c my RFID showed them who the car belonged to... bummer huh. 450 dollars later...) In a way its very handy you can always park inside, in a way annoying because you can't just drive up to a store and "run in". By the way... In Singapore, everyone backs into parking spaces. Everywhere you go – there are never any cars that pull forward into to a parking space. I’ve yet to figure out why this is the case. As a side note – I am an excellent backwards parker now!

There are certain grocery stores that carry a lot of Western items. Imported just for all the expats there are here. Singapore also has a great way to ensure that grocery carts get back to the coral…a deposit. When you go to a grocery store and get a cart out of the big line of carts in the front – you have to put a dollar coin in a little slot on the cart and it then is released from the herd of carts and you can use it freely all over the store. When you go to the parking garage to load your car, the only way you will get your dollar back is to take the cart back to the coral and hook it back up to the ‘herd’…and your dollar pops back out! Just like in Europe!

Most people speak English but with a heavy Singaporean accent and most of the time you have no idea what they are saying and you are constantly going "excuse me?". And when they are telling you something that is really important they finish the word with "-la", like... that is really fun-la.

They LOVE kids here, really.. they are so much nicer that the westerners are to children... Kids are treated like royalty, they get candy or food in every store. They especially love blond kids... brings them luck when they touch the hair.. and Thijs being and a boy and blond gets lots of pats on the head. When Colin gets asked about how many kids he has and he starts with I have a 7 year old daughter, there is almost always some sort of high-five-relief when he continues with "and a 3 year old son". Sons are very important here.

They eat chicken with the bones in it (just what I like....NOT). Give a new meaning to the word crunchie. A lot of local restaurants are little simple shops with plastic(!) garden furniture. Nothing fancy... They are called Hawker stands. The food is very very cheap and you can eat a whole meal for about 2 dollars. Now, I would not do that b/c I am too picky and I want to make sure what I am eating was not just walking around the alley behind the restaurant, but Colin is forced to eat a lot of things that he is not sure of what it really is or was. I always tell him he should claim that he is vegetarian and travel with a jar of peanut butter. He does not want to do it though.

Everybody has a cellphone here, but they call them handphones. And they text each other all day long, very contagious and fun.. as I never really did this in the states.
All schools have uniforms.. from preschool on. Education is really really important and the majority of the people send their kids to the states after highschool to complete their education.



We have free roaming monkeys all over the place, like the american squirrel.. very cute to see, but they come into your house to look for food. There are signs everywhere telling you not to feed them and if they catch you feeding them you can get a ticket.

Almost everybody had a helper here but the locals are not a favorite employer. Sometimes their girls don't get any days off, work from early in the day till late at night. They treat them bad and so the word is you have to get a western family, especially American b/c they are the nicest to them, treat them the best and pay them good. We often see the chinese families in restaurants with their helper (to feed the kids, they do this till the kids are about 6, its no mess and its faster!!) but the helper is not allowed to sit with them at the table, she stands next to the table and does not get offered any food!!! Its so sad to see...

Well.. I am sure you have heard enough for now.. I hope you enjoyed that.. see.. its not that different here. You could do it!
Take care and stay well..

Starlight Ball

Natalie and Nikhil

Busting a move

Patiently waiting his turn

How sweet it is

Natalie has been doing ball room dancing at school during music class. April 20th was the big night the kids were going to show off their skills and also they would get a chance to dance with their parents or siblings. They were doing the Cha Cha Cha, Rumba, Waltz, and 2 more, I forgot the names. We had bought some new dancing shoes and a pretty dance dress (there was a dress code for every body) and she was totally excited yet very nervous. Her dance partner was Nikhil. A cute boy who loves to dance. The kids all entered the "ballroom" one couple at the time, stopped for pictures and took their seats. Boys on one side of the room, girls on the other side. When the music started all the boys stood up, ran across the room, found their partner and asked for the dance (SO CUTE TO WATCH!). After they did the dance they sat down and when the music started back up the kids could go and invite one of their parents or siblings to dance with them. Thijs enjoyed it too as you can see by the pictures.