Tuesday 11-Feb

Still being new here, each day brings new adventures. Today was no different. This morning after the kids got on the bus, I decided instead of going to the gym, to take a walk in the botanic garden. This was partly because I slipped at the water park on Sunday and my back is a little sore. I didn’t think a Peloton boot camp was the best plan.

I hopped on bus 75 to Tanglin then switched to the 174. The second bus took forever to come. Upon reflection, I probably should have just walked. The bus was a double decker and Avery would have been happy, I sat up top. I got off in Bukit Timah, walked over to the gardens. It was packed! Tons of people walking, doing yoga, Thai chi, boot camps, anything you could think of! I might need to find one of these groups!

It was baby bird morning at the botanic gardens!

Baby black swans

It was a beautiful, sweaty morning. I walked all the way back down to the Tanglin gate, including a little back track into the rainforest, which I had never been able to do before because of weather. It was very beautiful in there and so many ENORMOUS trees. They have so many special trees in the garden. Many are donated by other nations and some are preserved by the government because they are rare and endangered. You could come to the gardens 100 times and see something new each time. I love that about it. It was about 9:30 at this point and since I hadn’t had breakfast I stopped at a cafe we had been to in the garden near the tanglin gate

Map of the gardens. Started walking in the upper right and ended in the lower left.

I love this little cafe. I got the kaya toast set and an avocado milk. Kaya toast is a Singaporean thing. It’s toast with butter and kaya spread (made of coconut and pandan). I love it. Typically you have it with a Kopi (Singaporean coffee, strong coffee with condensed milk) and soft boiled eggs which you dip the toast into. They don’t offer the eggs here which is too bad as I love that. Yummy special treat.

After breakfast, I planned to walk home, but I wanted to try a new way. I walked through the neighborhood instead of the main roads. First this I discovered was the Chinese embassy. I hustled quickly by that. Lots of masked people walking in and out.

I was about to turn on the road to head home, when I noticed a big green space across the street. I decided to investigate.

I followed along the path (saying a silent prayer there are no critters). After passing tons of beautiful homes, I came out in a parking lot and when I looked back I could just see the top of our condo

I followed the road for a bit and ended up in a neighborhood called Dempsey hill

Dempsey hill is filled with cute restaurants and shops. I wandered around a bit and got a little lost. Somehow I ended up behind a restaurant on a boardwalk. Then it happened. I have no pictorial evidence but there was a long, thin, bright green snake slithering out of the jungle onto the boardwalk. Obviously I screamed and ran. Then there was not one but two lizards on the boardwalk. After I collected myself and got out of there, I looked up my snake friend.

Only mildly venomous 😳

Well I got that out of the way.

After that I checked out a few more shops and saw a antique Chinese cabinet I might be interested in for the condo. Have to think on that one.

It was noon at this point. I hopped on a bus home (bus 75!) To change for my American women’s association tennis evaluation. But, just then the sky’s opened up. No tennis today. I puttered around the condo for the afternoon until the kids came home.

Rain waiting for Avery’s bus. It REALLY rains here. The gutters are about 3 feet deep and they fill right up when it rains. Luckily it cleared up before I had to walk to get Liam off the late bus. The kids took a rainy swim but had to get out when the thunder and lightening came back.

We wrapped up the day by locking ourself out of the condo. I knew it would happen. Unfortunately they are replacing our intercoms, So we couldn’t get in that way. Luckily Ryan was on his way home so we only had to wait about a half hour.

Since I’m keeping this blog partly as a journal for our lives here, I might try to do more of these daily updates. We’ll see if I can maintain 😉