Our second week

Tuesday to Friday was work for Karsten and getting used to Maplewoods for the rest of the family. After Karsten left for work, we hopped into the pool and played on the computer or board games: Uno spin or Autoquartett, a typical German card game. The cards contain the same criteria for each car. All the cards get dealt and hold in a stack. The first person choose one criteria from the card at the top of his stackand hopes to win the other players' top cards through either having the lightest car, the fastest or the biggest etc.

We then had lunch at the cafe next to the pool. The children picked pizza and hot dogs, Katrin had vegetarian mee goreng, a spicy fried noodle and vegetable dish, very tasty. There is also a convenience shop, very small, but with the same prices as the supermarkets. It is open to 9pm, but closed on Mondays. For a quick top up it's great. The size of the whole shop is no bigger than our living room (without the kitchen and dining area). Soon Katrin won't be able to fit in :-)

Here is a picture from the pool area towards our unit. Since the building has 10 levels and we are on level 7, you'll be able to count down from the top to our level. Our unit is on the left hand side of the building, two windows are visible (master bedroom and Esther, David, Yannic and Noah's bedroom), in the nook is another window (Jonas and Michael's bedroom). The rest of the unit faces to the left towards a girl school. The scaffolded building on the very left is part of Coral Court (989 Bukit Timah Road), it's being repainted at the moment. There are three more courts around the pool and all five make up Maplewoods Condominium, but have different street numbers.

Around the pool it's very green, There are three frangipani tree which have different orchids grafted into them.

Friday, 25.11.

 Today was the big day of brain surgery to be performed by Prof. Dr. K. S. on patient D. S.  Or in other words: David's stitches were to come out.








So after work Karsten gathered the supplies and trusted assistant Jonas:

and set to work:

It didn't take long at all and we didn't need to handcuff the patient, he was exceptionally cooperative! Nurse Jonas was a great asset. Karsten enjoys being the medical wizard and said so. To which David replied: "When you are grown up, Papa, you could become a doctor." Oh, from the lips of little ones!! ;-)
So, tomorrow is the big back to pool day for David!






Saturday, 26.11.

Saturday was a busy day. First Jonas and Katrin went shopping, which was a bad idea - everybody was out shopping! First we went to check out "Cold Storage", very similar to Woolworth in having the same slogan: Fresh food people. It has a great variety and lots of Australian/European brands, but also quite dear. They got a mega pack "Merci" chocolate there - which lasted for one and half afternoon teas ;-)
Across the road is a shopping centre which has another supermarket chain "Fair price", the price is a bit less expensive, but still 2 l milk for nearly S$6 is a lot. They have 10 eggs in a carton or 30, we bought twice the 30 egg carton, don't want to go shopping daily ;-) It is interesting to find a lot of American products here, next to European and Australian. The plums are from the US and not too dear, the orange juice is from Florida and with S$8-9 per 2 l very dear. One of those days we will try to hit the wet markets, where local products are sold, especially vegetables, meat and spice.
After an exhausting run through the shop, just too many people everywhere, Jonas and Katrin got outside to catch a taxi at the taxi stand. Well, obviously if there are many people inside the shop there will be quite a few outside as well... So they waited for at least 30 min and got more and more frustrated. The Asian people just waited patiently and helped each other putting the groceries into the taxi or taking the trolleys back etc, whereas mainly the European ordered taxis privately and so jumped the queue. This added to the frustration, since they saw taxis coming, but then somebody from behind took it since they ordered it. Katrin decided to ring the heavenly help line (Psalm 50:15 "Call upon Me in the day of trouble, I will deliver you and you will honour Me."). Jonas was feeling the heat since his Glandular Fever had a new boost and Katrin felt the heat as well. So in the next 10 min the four people ahead of them found a taxi as well as they did. Boy, did it feel good to sit in air conditioning and being driven home. It is just a short way (10 - 15 min by foot), but with a trolley full of groceries, they couldn't have carried it back. What a privilege to own a car!
Meanwhile the other had a great time in the pool:

SAP had a Family Fun Day planned from 4pm onwards on Sentosa Island, an island on the Southern tip of Singapore.
Here is a great map:
http://maps.google.com/maps?client=safari&rls=en&q=singapore+maps&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=0x31da11238a8b9375:0x887869cf52abf5c4,Singapore&ei=EzvSTsbxDISIrAeTz5H1Bg&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CDgQ8gEwAA
Singapore is an island connected with Malaysia through two bridges and there are discussions to build a third bridge or a tunnel.
Back to the Family Fun Day: After much needed rest by some family members it was about time to call two taxis to get to Sentosa. And the rain started, when we looked at the forecast there were thunder storms predicted for the whole afternoon all over Singapore - it's monsoon season! Since the rain was very heavy combine with thunder we were wondering if the whole fun wouldn't be spoiled. We decided to give it a go. But then we had to wait for almost 30 min before we could book one taxi - obvious due to the heavy rain and weekend.... During the week Karsten found it hard to call a taxi between 7 and 9am and after 5pm, so he started to use bus and MRT (Mass Rapid Transport - train), which costs half but takes double the time. If you add the waiting time for a taxi during rush hour (once he waited for more than 30 min.) the public transport method is faster.
So back to the story: We had one taxi when it arrived we had a booking for the second. The first taxi driver wasn't 100% sure where on Sentosa we wanted to go, so he happily waited for the second taxi to come and follow it, he didn't even charge us for the 10 min waiting time.
The Wave House was teeming with people despite the unstable weather. There was kite making, sand bottle filling, colouring in competition and other activities for the children. But there was also - Wave House! - two pools with manmade waves where people could test their surf boarding skills. A third pool was reserved for Zorb. One person hops into a plastic deflated ball which once closed and sealed gets inflated and then into the water. Even Noah did it and had lots of fun.

Jonas was still not feeling a 100% so he declined to do any of the water activities, but had a go at Laser Skirmish where team 'Nano' as we called us achieved a 4th place in the overall competition.

After an exciting afternoon we got home around 9pm.


Sunday, 27.11.

Getting up after such an eventful day was a bit slower, nevertheless we decided to go to church even if we were late (9:25 for a 9am start), but we weren't the only ones coming late, in fact some were even much later than we. The church we picked today is just around the corner in a Methodist's girl school, yes it's a Methodist church ;-) We were warmly welcomed. I guess partly due to being European in a mainly Asian congregation and partly due to having a few more children than the standard 1-2 children here and also due to Asian hospitality! We enjoyed worshipping with fellow believers and decided to come back next Sunday so the children can go to Sunday School and Jonas join the youth service, which all takes place at the same time. It'll be good for Jonas to meet older teenagers, the youth service is attended by 13 to 18 year olds. Many people told us that it is holiday time now, so quite a few people will be going away.

Our First Week

Our Singapore Adventure

Monday and Tuesday were days of packing and wondering if we need more suitcases or will it fit? It did fit!

On Tuesday we had some unplanned surprises:

1. David and Yannic were collecting rocks out of the pool when David came up out of the water at the same time when Yannic jumped in. As in the egg contest one head had to give way: David’s in this case. Thank God he didn’t faint and Karsten was right next to them. So  we tried to steri-strip the wound ourselves, but in the end Karsten took him to our GP. It was around 10:30am. We planned to leave shortly after 11am to have enough time at the airport etc. Well they came back after 4 stitches (5cm long cut) at around11am and we packed the car and drove to our friend Karen, who had offered to drive us to the airport. After a little traffic jam on Centenary Highway we arrived at the airport. We didn’t had to queue and then another shock awaited us: 
2. The airline wanted a written certificate that I was able to fly. We told them that their website didn’t state this and therefore we didn’t have it (Karsten had checked as did my GP). To no avail. So I rang our GP, I knew that my regular GP wouldn’t be in, but maybe the other lady we have been seen so regularly lately. She was not in because she had gone to the Forest Lake branch. I was transferred there but she didn’t start till 2pm... So back to the Jindalee branch to see if any other doctor could fax that certificate. By then Karsten had the brainwave to ring our obstetrician who had seen me with David, Yannic and Noah and at 20weeks with this pregnancy. He quickly faxed the certificate and off we went. I haven’t heard if the airlines’ fax machine broke down that afternoon with all those certificates coming in.....

The flight itself was pretty normal, the children watched a few movies, ate and slept. We arrived around 8pm Singapore time (10pm back home), went through passport control which had to be: Jonas on his own, I with Esther and Michael and then at the next checkpoint Karsten with the three youngest. I had the impression the officer who looked after the proper line up was a bit overwhelmed with our numbers ;-)

Our suitcases arrived very quickly, thankfully most of the passengers must have travelled on, there were hardly any people around us. 

The taxi fitted all the suitcases and us, most seat belts didn’t work, I sat at the door and was glad that mine was the only proper one in case the door should swing open.... At the apartment complex Arthur was waiting and showed us our new home explaining a few things and taking Karsten shopping at 10pm in the night - another blessing! For those of you who saw Karate Kid (the most recent version) you will be familiar with the switch for hot water. The kitchen and two of our four bathrooms have such a switch. Apparently there is a small water tank above every unit or bathroom/kitchen and with that switch the heater goes on after a around 5-10 min. hot (really hot) water comes out of the “hot” tap. Poor Jonas was taking cold showers for a few days, he must have missed that detail or just couldn’t be bothered ;-))

The power plugs are different to the Australian ones, but they also have a switch like at home. Bathrooms have no power plug, so we are charging our electric toothbrushes in the bedroom/study.

Our unit is a 4-1 bedroom unit, which means there are four bedrooms and a maid’s room, but that room is so small it would only fit a children’s bed, ehm custom made bed and maybe a shelf and them there is a bathroom next to it, which is a toilet under a sink or so... Next to our front door is a door that leads straight into the kitchen, it’s the maid’s entrance. In our kitchen the fridge is almost in front of that door, so if we were to have a maid, she has to be Esther’s size to squeeze into the kitchen or her bedroom/toilet.

Wednesday, 16.11.

We unpacked our suitcases, went swimming in the huge pool and had a consultant and the landlord’s representative meeting. That meeting took very long, the consultant who looked after our interests must have had lots of German blood in her.... For a little while I feared we had to look for another unit, but in the end we signed the contract and the landlord agreed to fix one of the kitchen cabinets. 

Lunch was a bit of a challenge, there was no pot nor microwave in the kitchen and I was hoping to boil eggs whilst pouring boiling hot water over them, letting them sit in it for a while and then again pouring freshly boiled water over them... after half an hour the eggs were only half cooked. So we settled for salad for lunch.

At 4pm it started to rain for 30min - rainy season. I wonder if it will be like that every afternoon. Karsten and Jonas came back just before the rain, they had gone shopping. Now I have a pot and we finished hard boiling those eggs - we ate them for afternoon tea.

We then had another swim and dinner at an Italian restaurant not far from here, so we walked there and back. It is quite expensive to be able to buy a car, you need a license which costs S$160 000 - just the license without the car. But taxi and bus fares are relatively affordable.

Thursday, 17.11.

We had a 10am appointment at Dr. Yam, an obstetrician I rang from Australia. To get there we booked two taxis, since one taxi only takes 4 passengers. Punctual at 10am we were seen in. After going through all the relevant details and looking over the many pages of my “history”, he wanted to do a scan himself. He then told us, that nearly all Singaporeans find out their baby’s gender and therefore his comments reflect that. So he has to be careful not to give it away in our case... The baby’s weight is apparently on the heavy side (2.1kg, interesting how sure he was on that, no maybe or roughly). My GP warned me that here they don’t use Dopplers to check the baby’s heartbeat but they scan, which seems to be true. The receptionist gave me a bag full of packed milk powder, not for the baby to come but for me! It looks and tasted a bit like formula... hm, I am not sure I’ll be able to drink all those. I tried one just to see, it’s very sugary - vanilla flavour, but I guess not the baby nor I we don’t need the extra calories as it is.

We took another round of taxis to Marina Bay, in the past two year there has been a lot of construction going on. 3 new malls on Orchard Road - how much shopping can one do? And the whole Marina Bay area: A sculpture that looks like a half peeled orange (Marina Bay Sands), a huge shopping centre etc. We walked through the shopping centre, all the top brands in one place. The food court was great, each stalls prepared food from one Asian country, we ate some kind of Chinese food (I forgot which province). The children enjoyed the noodles and the meat, Jonas and Michael loved the dumplings.

Our drive home was all along Bukit Timah Road, it’s one of the longest roads in Singapore, 25km, extending from the city centre to the North West towards Johor Bahur in Malaysia. Bukit Timah means “tin hill” even though there is no tin here. But around 150 years ago 200 people were killed along here by tigers, jungle live!

Friday, 18.11.

The morning was filled with waiting for a courier with paper works for our visas, swimming and online shopping. Our consultant from Wednesday gave me a website for groceries, she recommended the meat as the meat in the shops is very expensive. Well it wasn’t particular cheap there either. I also found some German yoghurt. It’s quite interesting where all those food items come from, spices from the US, meat from Australia, yoghurt from German, cream cheese from Denmark etc.

In the afternoon we walked to the nearest McDonalds, only 10 minutes away, we got there just before it poured down. So much for raining every day at the same time, it didn’t rain at all yesterday and today at around 2:30ish. Opposite Maccas there is a shopping centre with a supermarket “Fair Price”, well that can be debated. But apparently it’s cheaper than “Cold Storage” which is under McDonalds. The vegetable section is filled with Asian greens, I bought some Kai-lan (which crossed with broccoli made broccolini, they belong to the same group), some Pak Choi (Chinese cabbage, celery like) and some Chye sim (which is similar to kai-lan, I found that out after some Internet research, I guess I have to go shopping with an iPad to know what I am buying and how to cook it or with what. I had the impression Oyster Sauce is quite handy with all those greens...). 

Milk is also very expensive (2l fresh milk from Thailand costs S$ 5.50, the other milk is even dearer, also the Australian one ;-)). I wonder what we can do with our little calves here. Pasta sauce was on special 2 normal jars for over S$6, normally one costs S$4. Flour is expensive too. I guess the best way is to go to the wet markets. They are open in the mornings, I’ll have to find out more...

We got home in two taxis again since we had all our shopping to take along.

Saturday, 19.11.

Today our airfreight boxes arrived, the kitchenware arrived plus some toys, stationary, all things computer (yes, I did see Karsten from time to time emerging from the study and not tangled up in cables) and very importantly the Xbox, I mean the medication/First Aid stuff;-) After unpacking and organising we went for a swim, how did you guess? My grocery order arrived too - Australian steak for dinner. We never had such tender and fine meat back home, even Cha Cha Char (for non-Brisbanesider, it’s one of the best steak restaurants in Brisbane) can’t compete with it. I stir fried Kai-lan and Pak Choi in Soya sauce and Sweet sauce, it tasted yummy.

Sunday, 20.11.

Turned out the Free Evangelical Church close to McDonalds has move a few years ago and is now 20min drive away. We wanted to find a church close by, so that we don’t have to rely on taxis on a Sunday. There is a Methodist School next to us, maybe we’ll visit them next week, 11am seemed too close to lunch (hungry children can’t listen well) and we were too late for the 9am service.

Well, so Karsten read us Noah’s story, he had it on his heart for a while. Noah had to start anew as do we at the moment. The world he knew had changed sharply, they were 8 people and God guided them ;-) 

Monday, 21.11.

We need to get a special document (employment card or dependent card) to be able to stay here in Singapore, so we went to the Ministry of Manpower in the city in our “normal” formation: 2 taxis ;-) Once we have those cards we are able to buy SIM cards for our mobiles. It’s interesting that we could open a bank account just with the invitation letter which is valid for 3 months or until we get the proper card but it’s not possible to buy a mobile plan.... Welcome to HiTech!

Maplewood Condominium was build around 15years ago and has 697 units!!! They are situated around a big pool and a little pool, there are also BBQs and lots of greenery. Apparently there are mainly families living here. Two other mums I talked to (one German, one Danish) said they have been living here for 9 and 11 years. There is a gym, tennis and squash courts and a little play ground. 

During the week we are the only ones using the pool till about 3ish when the children start coming home from school. On the weekend there were more people in the pool, but by far not crowded. We heard a lot about the various laws and penalties but so far it is not as strict as I imagined it. The children have been jumping into the pool even though it’s not allowed but so far nobody said anything not even the security guard walking around occasionally.

When Karsten took a taxi to work today the fare cost S$12 but on the way back after 6pm it cost S$22 due to rush hour traffic and a higher rate during that time. So we hope to see him come home earlier ;-)