Today, we are home. In Canada. In Newfoundland. With an 8 week old baby.
Our last few weeks in Singapore were fantastic. My folks made a visit so we did the touristy things that tourists do in Singapore... double decker bus tour (amazingly, I already knew almost everything the guide was telling the tourists about Singapore!), shopping, $26 Singapore Slings from Raffles Hotel (where the sling was invented), East Coast Park, brunches, restaurants, walks along waterfronts to see the crazy number of ships in the harbour, etc., etc. Jet lagged and sweating, my folks lapped it all up while my daughter and I enjoyed showing them where we lived for the past year. We realized how much we had learned about the culture, government, people, and place. We realized we would miss Singapore when we left the place we spent a year of our life. We realized how lucky we were to have the experience and to be able to show it to my parents. My mom drank Kopi and my dad got invited to play that Chinese game that looks something like checkers with the uncles in our community.
My daughter went home with my folks and Terry, baby and I spent the last 2 1/2 weeks saying good-bye to a wonderful country and great friends. One of my favorite cafes is called Going Om. It's laid back, has inspirational quotes painted on the walls, boasts live entertainment (jazz the night we were there), serves great fruit drinks (as well as alcohol:), AND has meditations upstairs! I didn't know this until my last visit there! I bought a Going Om t-shirt and met the owner. I guess he liked me because he gave me a free Going Om key chain when I told him I was moving back to Canada. If you visit Singapore, make sure you visit Going Om - it's located around Arab Street (also my favorite area of Singapore).
Terry and I rented a car a couple of times during our last days. We saw a part of the city that was concrete. Hundreds of HBDs lined the streets. Indeed they were grey, but the buildings in Singapore usually have some color. Each one had yellow or green or pink or blue painted onto the grey. It could be to brighten up the area, or maybe to determine which one is yours because they all look the same. Thousands of people will live in this new area called Punggol, and a beach area is being made. The area has a beautiful walk way and you can watch the sun set from a wharf. Singapore has a way of creating communities.
We finally visited The Divine wine bar. It was pretty awesome. Ceilings were about eight floors high and decorated ornately with brass. Paintings were the height of the walls and the furniture was extravagant. The wine angels (waitresses) fly on a harness to retrieve a bottle of wine. I'd like to have a masquerade ball there.
We spent our final days doing some of our favorite things... drinking fresh juices, eating from our local food courts (making sure we had black pepper crab, laksa - for Terry, steamboat, satay, pancake, kopi, lime juice, authentic Indian food, and other of our favorite dishes and snacks). The one thing I did not try was durian - a smelly fruit that is so smelly it is illegal to have in some places. We did, however, try many fruits that you cannot find here in Canada. We also hung out by our pool, walked the reflexology circle (this is not my favorite thing to do!), and roamed parks. We managed to get in some new things too... drove through Kellang, where men dress as women, and I found a Sai Baba Centre! I guess you can't experience everything in one year.
Saying good-bye was bittersweet, as I expected. We'd made some good friends. And we'd fallen in love with some aspects of our life. But we were also happy to be 'going om'.
We've been back in Canada for three weeks. And we all have very fond memories of Singapore. We miss the daily sunshine, but love the fresh air Newfoundland gives us. We miss the many varieties of restaurants, but love our home cookin'. We miss our friends and acquaintances, but love being around family. And this is how it is for an expat. Life is exciting but home is home.
A new adventure has begun. And a new blog will begin. I'll send the URL soon.
We'll have more adventures overseas, I'm sure. But for now, we've gone om.
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