First Post

The last three weeks have been pretty packed but I made some notes so that I would remember what to write about when I finally got time to sit down and do this. I won't go into much depth in this post, I don't have time and there's too much to say!

Starting with the journey here, well I detest long haul flights as I can't sleep on planes but the in-flight entertainment was great and we got through it - David practiced a lot of patience with me in the first few days. Here's us at the airport:

We stayed at the M Hotel which was gorgeous, ate mainly pot noodles and I had a meeting at nine on our first day! Also we had channels like HBO showing the new series of New Girl - yay!

The task at hand was choosing somewhere to live in a country we've never been to and don't know anything about. David sifted through listings online relentlessly and booked us a lot of viewings. We got to see lots of the island that way as we traveled around looking at places. It was so tiring, walking, walking, walking in the heat - which was really hard to bare at first. One place which we were seriously considering was not to far from where we are now, but on the way there I took these pictures:

People were throwing fish into the lake and an eagle swooped down to catch - they were taking pictures, I didn't get one.

We tried eating at a little food stall on our second day - met a lovely local man (the locals are so friendly) and that will be the last time I (knowingly) try spicy food here! Just to be on the safe side, we ate american food for a few days while I recovered - McD's, Subway, KFC...
We went to a great food court - Lau Pa Sat - but weren't brave enough to eat there then, but as it was Chinese New Year, we happened upon this:

As we couldn't decide on a place to live within three days, we had to change hotels, so we made a frugal decision to stay at Hotel 81 Bencoolen:

We weren't expecting such a difference between the hotels but as soon as we arrived, we had a whole new motive to find a flat. I would have paid more just for them to let me clean it, but it was already a rip off. 
That was when we got mosquito bites, and plenty of them. It looked hideous. 
Well, just to get out of that place after one night, we took up the offer of a helpful landlord Khim who gave us a room for a week at 1 Jalan Jelita, Holland Road. That was a nice time, we lived with an old american mystic lady called Linda who had a 7 year old son :/ and some other families.
For some unknown reason, that was when my body clock changed and so did David's, so that I got up early and he laid in. So in those mornings I'd go for lovely walks in the sun. Here's some (pretty rubbish) photos I took:

It's the rainy season here, at least it definitely was when we arrived, and David had never experienced a monsoon before. One struck as we were about to go to the supermarket for the first time. I suggested we wait for it to finish but the bus stop was only about 20m away from our door so we tried running there. I was immediately wetter than I had been in the shower just before we left. I don't think David or I will be trying that again either. 

The first really beautiful day we had, we decided we need a rest from the flat hunting which was so exhausting. We went to the pool, played Yahtzee, studied, sunbathed and swam. Look:

(We may have also got a little pink)

 So after our expedition to the supermarket, we went to the kitchen, eager to cook the pizza and fish fingers we had managed to find. Disappointingly, we hadn't realised that our place didn't have an oven, only a hob. We tried to cook the pizza in a wok with a fruit bowl on top (to keep the heat in obviously) and it seemed to be going well until the smell of burning. It was mainly black. Fish fingers were similarly bad. We were hungry that night. 

Stevey kindly gave us his little laptop, which we use as our 'apple device' to keep iTunes off our other devices, so all our pictures from the last year and a half were on there. While we were still in our temporary accommodation, David decided to get the laptop out, to find that it wasn't there. We'd moved all our stuff so many times and taken so many taxis, it seemed hopeless, but we tried calling Hotel 81 and they actually had it! They went up in our estimations and we picked it up straight away. 

Our second Saturday we found our place, good facilities, good price and easy (if a little long) commute. 

OK I may have taken some of those off the internet - it's the same but a lot easier. I'll take some pictures of our room when it's tidy. There isn't a picture of the lap pool there, but that's where we usually swim as it's near our tower and it's quiet. 

Church! Our ward is american, young families, so no one our age but they are really nice and friendly. 

Here's the building:

Then I started work. The first (6 day) week was overwhelming, more than exhausting and pretty stressful but  by my second week I was in full swing and covering more beds than most of my team really. I was also no longer the newest member of the team - Singapore is crazy like that, if you've been here a month you're practically a veteran. 

Oh - on my first day I went to ICU (scary!! as I haven't worked in so long) and I wore my stethoscope back to front and wondered why I couldn't hear anything in front of my supervisor :S

Luckily she's not my boss and I don't think she told anyone! - I had no idea what was going on my first few days. 

I work in surgical, and cover renal, gynea, ENT, other random stuff and the urology operating theatre. 

There are 170 physios in the hospital and everyone is so nice and friendly. We've had so many invitations for dinner and activities but haven't had time to do any yet. Last night David played football with the male physios and I watched/read. Wish I'd taken a picture now. 

So we've really got into Winnie the Pooh, it's a great way to wind down and learn a life lesson at the same time. 

I think that's all I have time for now but we do have lots of much more interesting things planned for our stay here so I look forward to telling about those.

 

Love to you all x x x

Ps. David's contribution: Loving life out with here with Genny. Playing in the pool, eating out and meeting lots of nice people...it's a BLAST! Works nice and easy and there's plenty of football going on. So far though, what's made me happiest is hearing all about Gen's day and how many people she's helped. Got a few exciting weeks ahead so lots more to report back on soon hopefully :)

 Delicious Pandan cake :)

Temple near Little India where we ate last night (didn't eat at the temple...)

David also wanted me to include this: sorry.