Malaysian Shopping Trip

The Navy Moral Welfare and Recreation plans a trip once a month to try to encourage easy ways for our community to venture outside Singapore.  For August, they offered a one day bus trip to a shopping mall in Malaysia.  Being a timid international traveler I decided this would be an easy safe way for us to explore beyond Singapore.  I still wasn't comfortable doing this alone, so I signed Fred up to join the girls and I on this trip last Saturday.

Malaysia is known for having less expensive goods, so many Singaporeans go there to shop.  The problem is you must go through customs both entering Malaysia and then when coming back to Singapore so there is typically an 1-2 hour delay getting through due to the vast number of people looking for deals.

It's been a long time since I traveled into Mexico from San Diego, but it's just as close going to Malaysia from Singapore.  Right across a causeway.  This is us crossing with the traffic around us.

Once we entered Malaysia they had a typical welcome sign with their leader's picture.

 This is just a picture from the road.  It will always seem strange seeing signs in languages I can't read.

So, at the mall Jen was so excited to get shopping.  We came a cross a store that sold Beats, or I guess we should name them Feets since they were fake beats.  Anyway, after testing them out, they were such a great deal and sounded really good we decided to go ahead and buy them.  Jen and Katie also scored some shoes at great prices and then Fred and Katie got some deals on some books.  In the end I didn't come home with anything but lots of left over Malaysian money but the experience and buying stuff for everyone else was worth the trip.

The highlight for us was finding an Auntie Anne's pretzel in the mall and buying hot American tasting pretzels for $1 (US) each-- can't beat that!

New Car

Our car has arrived!

It's not the car we hope to get at this time in our lives- but when there are only 2 available you can't be too picky.

This is a Hyundai Avante, I believe it's a Spanish name like avante' but Fred enjoys calling it an Avant as in "I Want" a different car.  We had hoped to get a station wagon/mini van type of car while here in Singapore, but availability were this 5 seater sedan or a squished 5 seater hatchback.

If you didn't notice the steering wheel is on the right side, so driving here is opposite the US.  I have taken the car out just around our immediate area (definitely no highways yet) and it's not as hard to drive as I expected.  Basically, you are still driving so that the driver is next to the oncoming traffic. The biggest problem has been looking right when I should be looking left for the cross traffic.  I also keep turning on the windshield wipers when I try to put on the turn signal.  Soon enough I'll be used to it and driving back in the US will seem odd.

I also wanted to give you a little info on buying cars in Singapore.  If you want to buy a car as a Singaporean you need to first obtain a certificate of entitlement  (COE) that allows you to buy a car.  To get this (COE) you can bid on one 2 times a month and the bidding is open for 2 days.  So, it is not a set price and is variable by demand.  Lately, these bids have gone up to $70,000 just to get approval to buy a car!  The Singapore government does this to limit the number of cars on the road and to encourage people to ride mass transit.  To be Singaporean and own a car you must be rich, rich, rich.  Thank goodness they make an exception for us!

Rug Auction

The Navy Ball committee hosted a rug auction this evening and we have a house with big rooms and hard wood floors, sooo guess who had to attend?

The auction was late breaking and not well advertised, so I assumed there wouldn't be too many people there and I was right.  A whopping 10 bidders showed up to bid on 50 rugs.  Now if you hauled all those rugs over and are spending your evening hoping to make some money off 10 government employees you are going to sorely let down.  The first 7 rugs came up and no one even bid on them.  The auctioneer got to the point of saying what will you give me for this rug.  Rug #8 was one I was interested in.  I am a HORRIBLE bargainer.  It totally stresses me out and I am happy hearing a price and deciding yes or know.  Of course since no one was bidding I had to shout out my price- UGH and Yikes.  I did it hoping he would just take it but of course I'm thrifty (really cheap) and it was too low for him.  He countered and it was higher than I wanted so I asked him to set it aside until my husband showed up.

Fred and the girls showed up and while a few less expensive rugs were up for auction, Fred jumped right in and finally some rugs are selling.  By the end of the evening it's time for the big ones (which we need for these big rooms). Of course we know these will be higher priced, but luckily a guy showed up who is really smart about rugs and sits with us so he gives us some good guidance of what they are worth.  In the end we bought the signature rug of the evening and got it for a pretty good deal and then also remember that's Singapore dollars, so now it's a bargain in US dollars.  Fred decides he's having fun and asks the auctioneer to come back to the other rug I liked and he bargains a bit and settles on a deal.  I think I am going to need to bring Fred on all my shopping trips that might involve bargaining.

Obviously, an auction is designed for the seller to make money, but with 10 people there it was just individuals bargaining in front of each other.  At one point the auctioneer started high and worked his way down until our neighbor bought a rug for $100.

Buying the featured rug of the evening set us up as the big spenders of the night and we ended up coming home with 3 rugs and 1 tapestry.  See our beautiful new rugs in the pictures below.

Singapore American School (SAS)

6:15 ALARMS- SCHOOL HAS STARTED

Yes, school has already begun in Singapore.  Actually, it came at a good time.  Katie and Jen were getting a little restless and they were ready for some structure to their days.  They were both up bright and early and ready to catch their luxury coach bus at 7AM.  

The girls wear blue shorts with a white collar shirt.  They can add a plain blue sweat jacket if they are chilly- only in the classroom or on the bus.  No need for that sweatshirt walking to classes.  

This is their luxury bus.  No expense spared for those wanting the life and luxury of being American. 

This is the entrance to the middle school.  All the lockers and hallways are covered outside and then you go into the classrooms.  There are 300 students in each grade.  For the middle school they are broken down into 3 teams (Katie and Jen are on C team) this means they have their core classes with the same teachers on the 3rd floor.  Their electives can be anywhere throughout the middle school.  

Jen is taking Choir and Art for her electives this semester.  Katie is taking Cooking and IT Media (creating computerized comics).  They have a really impressive computer graphics program here.  

SO onto the how the first few days have been- GREAT!  The girls have come home happy each day. Middle school can be such a stressful time in kids lives.  Meeting new kids, finding friends, and managing lunchtime.  Luckily here all 300 kids eat at once (CHOAS) but that means Katie and Jen get to sit together.  They were lucky enough to have run into 2 other girls that they met at the newcomers orientation and all 4 of them sat together.  

These first few days the girls spent most of their time at school learning how to set up stuff on their school issued MacBook Air.  They all use a google account to track school work, homework, keep class blogs.  It's so amazing.  Luckily, I've been doing this blog for a bit and together I could help them work on creating a neat layout.  

They love their math teacher, he creates You Tube videos with classroom tutorials.  He has over 2000 videos.

I am totally impressed with how tech savvy this school is and am so excited for the girls to teach me all they learn!

Singapore or Florida where to live?

Fred likes to play these hypothetical games to figure out what I am thinking.  He often has me rank stuff 1-10 to know where I stand.  So the other evening he says if we could leave Singapore and move, would you go to Japan?- "No" definitely no, why would I want to go to another foreign country that doesn't even speak English (plus I've hear base housing is small there).

Then he asks what about moving to San Diego? ("YES"), Norfolk? ("yes"), Florida?- and I paused.  This scared me at first- would I really stay here rather than move to Florida?  I love visiting Florida- Disney, Universal, great beaches, but I've never wanted to live there- hot and afternoon rain (sounds like Singapore).  So why did I pause?  Our house in Singapore is really nice, it's all set up, I wouldn't want to go through a move again so soon, but I'm also feeling relatively comfortable.  We know our way around our area, the people are nice, we have a pool and restaurant club to hang out at.  The girls school looks amazing.  Our little military community is relatively easy to live in and very American.  If I want to enter the reality of living in Singapore I walk down a set of steps to leave our community and from there we can ride the train to explore a foreign area.

I think in reality it is perfectly fine living here if you don't think about how far way from America you are- literally on the other side of the world.  The difficulty of not seeing family and friends makes this hard, but the military community makes it easy.  Having our own stuff here makes it comfortable.

I still don't really know the answer to that question- it's only two years here, it will go by fast, and be an experience living here that will broaden who we are.  These are all great things, but Florida is only a long drive or quick flight to see family and friends.  Hmm?

Jen's Room

My new bedroom in Singapore is really big and colorful.  Since my room is so big it has open space, which I can use to display things that I could never display before.  Additionally, I got a chair and rug to use in my new room.  It’s nice and peaceful having high ceilings, they make the room feel so much larger and open. I've hung a lantern and a monkey stuffed animal from my light fixtures.  We bought curtains to hang in my windows that look out into the hallways. Before leaving Virginia we bought lots of posters to put on our walls.  I also bought these cool circle wall stickers at the Lakevale Garage sale with Morgan and Anna.  I put the circles around a matching palm tree poster over my bed.  I also have the Coca Cola puzzle we made here hanging on my wall.  Overall, I love my new room and it’s one of the highlights of living in Singapore.

Meeting New Friends

I LOVE my friends back in the US, but you need people to hang out with where ever you are.  I was lucky to know a few people before I even arrived here.  I had met Fred's boss's wife before and she has been super helpful getting us settled in.  She drove me to the food store for my super large trip to stock up the fridge with all the stuff I threw out 40 days ago.  It was so great to load all the groceries in a car and unload in my driveway.

I started going to a spinning class they offered for the month of July at a gym right near my home. I met 4 really nice ladies there. Kinda bummed it was only offered for one month, but we are all going to petition the director to set it up as a permanent exercise class.

The community does a monthly coffee so I went this past week with 2 other women from spinning and a neighbor who has kids around the girls age.  I met another 7 or so spouses who I haven't seen around the community yet.

It is way easier to meet people in a small community.  There are about 50 families that live in the neighborhood, so when someone is new everyone notices an unfamiliar face.  At the pool people come up to the girls and I asking if we are new here.  Most people live here 2-3 years, so the faces change out  and everyone welcomes the new folks quickly because before you know it you or they will be heading out of here.

Soon enough it will be our turn to leave and reunite with our U.S. friends but it's always great to add new friends, now even throughout the world, to our ever growing friendships.

Katie's Bedroom by Katie

Hi, this is Katie.  I really like my new bedroom.  It is SO big.  Because of the size I can fit all my stuff and still have a good amount of room to walk through.  One thing I also like about my room is that you can control the temperature for only that room, so if I wake up in the middle of the night and I’m really hot or cold I don’t have to walk far to change the temperature and I won’t disturb anyone else by changing it.

  It was fun unpacking and get all my stuff situated except for my clothes.  I have a lot and at first I didn’t know where to put them and I didn’t want to organize them, but eventually I did and it wasn’t as bad as I thought.

Once I got all of my stuff into my bedroom it was also fun to decorate.  I had a lot of posters back in Virginia and I had gotten more before we moved, but we weren’t expecting an extra window.  I got to hang up all of my posters except for one of my Hunger Games posters.  I’m happy with the way my room turned out; basically everything is in a good easy to reach spot.

I like the way my beds are set up.  Back in Virginia I use my top bunk to sleep on and my bottom for reading and relaxing.  Having two beds is also good for sleepovers.  Now I use my bed with the green and blue comforter to sleep in and the other as a relaxing reading bed, which I often use like a couch and play my electronics on. 

           Right now I use my desk for drawing, but when school starts in 8 days I’m going to use it for homework, too.  I was going to get a new relaxing chair for my bedroom like Jen is, but then my mom thought of an idea to get a nice office chair for my desk.  People here have been really nice and they have offered to take us to Ikea where I got my office chair and Jen is ordering a chair for her bedroom. 

Even though my new bedroom is bigger and cool.  I still like my old my old bedroom a lot and I won’t be unhappy when I come back to it.