Well, it happened. We are officially “remote learning”. For how long we don’t know. They have had a plan in place since January so now is go time. Today was a staff development day to tie up loose ends. Tomorrow is go time. We have school Tuesday-Thursday then Friday we are on spring break until April 13th. They have not made any announcements about where school will be then. As the Prime Minister said, Singapore has put up its dikes. We’re now seeing if there are any leaked. Crossing my fingers. We are still having a fair uptick in cases due to citizens returning from over seas. Here’s where we are at as of last night:
Discharged to isolation means they are still testing positive for Covid19 but no longer have any symptoms. Patients can’t be officially discharged until they test negative in 3 consecutive tests.
Unsettlingly, there was a positive case confirmed in our condo complex today. Not in our direct building but still unsettling. We’ve really been trying to limit our time in the outside world. I haven’t been to an actual grocery store since early last week. Amazon prime now has been serving me well with a quick trip to the wet market last Thursday for produce. Ryan’s mostly working from home (he goes into the office once or twice a week for a few hours). We’re lucky he can walk. I haven’t taken the MRT in about 2 weeks and I only took the bus once last week. It’s sad that we are so confined but I’m not complaining since we’re still allowed out and about, with 1 meter distance!
Another interesting thing about living here is we get American news as well as Singaporean news (we read the straights times) and Asian news (read and watch CNA from time to time). It’s interesting to read the different perspectives. Singapore’s prime minister was on CNN this Sunday morning. It was an interesting interview if curious:
Otherwise, here’s some pics from our limited adventures.
Sitting on the steps of ION mall. This is normally packed with people basically day and night. I was completely alone on Friday at 9:30am. Surreal, especially as “Dance Monkey” was blaring from the speakers.
Over the weekend we were pretty quiet. Had “take away” for dinner Friday night instead of our usual meal out. Saturday we took a mom forced march. Back to the botanic gardens. A few pics…
Perks of being alone…Back to the ginger garden.
Sunday we stayed home all day except for a swim in the pool. We cooked and baked and started a 2000 piece puzzle. We hope to finish before we move back to the US…
She has a swimsuit on I swear!Making progress. I need my New Years buddies to come in and help me out though..
We’ve been getting a few geckos in the condo recently. Last week I woke up to this guy:
Luckily Liam will get rid of them for me. They are quick! This one was captured and released. One scooted under the fridge before we could get it. Last night there was one in our bedroom. It went under our dresser. Ryan tried to tell me it couldn’t climb up the bed. But it can climb up 20 stories of a condo building? 🤔 we also have a bird that’s visiting our wet kitchen frequently. My neighbor upstairs said one came all the way into the main kitchen. Might have to keep the door shut. Ahhh critters.
Today we went to Bukit Timah Nature Preserve for our outing. This is a little bit of a trek from our condo. We took a grab (like Uber) instead of the bus or MRT.
Ready for their forced mom march. Climbed to the highest point in Singapore. Took about 20 minutes with lots of stops…Some pretty steep stairs. We came down them and went up the longer, less steep way. On the stairs heading down. Next we took the cave trail. They believe these caves were built by the Japanese during the occupation to secretly store supplies. The were also some monkeys out in front doing some, ahem, “monkey business”. View of the city. Looking down toward where we live. Sounds of the Rain Forest. The high pitch squeal you here are the cicadas. So loud!!!Hiding in a big tree A taxidermy pangolin in the nature preserve center. There are a few wild pangolins left here in Singapore but sightings are very rare. Taxidermy tiger. It’s hard to imagine these used to roam free in Singapore…Found a fun play area. Only kids there!Zip line! They had to scare away a monitor lizard to ride. Saw a caluga! It’s a difficult to see lump on the center tree a little over halfway up. Kids were excited. Next walked by an old granite quarry. Water was full of turtles and fish.
On our grab ride home, our driver told us to make a mixture of coconut oil and garlic to ward off mosquitoes. He also eats raw garlic every day to ward off Covid19. You never know, maybe he’s onto something?
After our outing we came home and learned some life skills. Our condo here has 6 toilets. Mama needs some help!Did our homework and made sure our online learning was ready to go! Liam also had a live dry land training with his swim team for 30 minutes. Worked great!Ended the night with a beautiful Singapore sunset. Might be a crazy world, but it’s still beautiful…
Finally, like Fairfield is doing, tonight Singapore clapped at 8pm for all the medical workers, first responders, shop workers, delivery people and just general Singapore pride. The video was from a neighbors condo who lives lower than us. It was very fun and awesome to see people clapping not just from our complex but from all the complexes we could see. #SGUnited!From our condo.
Nutmeggers in Singapore 
Your pictures are so gorgeous. Stay well and healthy!
LikeLiked by 1 person