Happy 10th birthday to Liam! It’s hard to be the first one to celebrate your birthday in a new country. But, I think he rocked it! Despite it being a rainy day, we went to wild wild wet (which when the locals say it, sounds like “wa wa weee” which we all love). And with the virus scare. We pretty much had the place to ourselves! Liam brought 2 new friends, who are great! Ben is originally from Texas, moved here over the summer and his birthday was on Saturday! Faisal moved here the same time as us, from Saudi Arabia. Faisal’s family also joined us at the water park (including his little sister, Tulip, who is only a bit younger than Avery) which made for a fun day. Ryan and I enjoyed getting to know Faisal’s parents, who are lovely. His dad was born in Louisiana, so American as well as Saudi! Ben’s mom is also great, she and I have a lunch date on Wednesday. I’m looking forward to getting to know her better!

Trick candles…. mean mom!

All three kids have done an amazing job making friends. Kids are very welcoming here due to the transient nature. I hope our kids retain this open and welcoming skill as it will help them forever…

Despite the increasing paranoia about the corona virus (there was a run on toilet paper in the city this weekend. Luckily, I stocked up recently!) we’ve been having a great time. We are of the mind to keep living our life and practice good hygiene. This mostly involves good hand washing. At school, the teachers watch the kids wash their hands. Minimum 20 seconds, don’t forget the nails! This weekend coming up we are booked to go to Malaysia for the weekend. We will see how the week goes. As of today, I think we will still go. Thanks to Ryan’s Greenwich office, we are fully stocked with masks and sanitizer. Everyday brings new information. However, the government here is very open with information (they share every case, where the person lived and where they had been prior to medical care). They also share how many contacts. Right now there are about 900 “contacts” of the existing cases in Singapore. They have contacted and are monitoring 850 of them and working on the remaining 50. The other thing for everyone to know is, unlike a lot of other parts of Asia, healthcare here is first rate. EVERY case here gets seen, tested and treated if necessary. Part of what’s going on in China is their healthcare system is completely overwhelmed. The numbers that are being reported are only the very sickest of the cases. This is a large reason travel in and out of China needed to be restricted. Hopefully Singapore’s transparency and diligence will result in us not having to implement something so extreme. Also to note, our kids school is part of a larger international school company called Cognita. They are monitoring the situation very closely. We have faith they will make the correct decision for the school. Right now, we are happy life is being kept as normal as possible with school open. Also, Ryan’s company is being very supportive. We are able to fly home to the US anytime. Also, we watch American news here. In our opinion, there is a lot of extreme reporting happening in the US. my guess is this is for ratings. Please know life here is still very normal and safe. I still ride the MRT, buses and take grabs. So do the kids. The malls and stores are still very full. Things would have to accelerate pretty dramatically for that to change. Now, onto better things!

Saturday morning, Ella and I had a mother/daughter breakfast at Tiong Bahru Bakery. I love the Tiong Bahru neighborhood. It’s a little funky with lots of really good restaurants, a great hawker center and wet market and best of all, only 4 bus stops away!

Ella and I also went on Saturday to pick up a Bass for her to have at home. I was hoping she would be able to practice at school (there is a bass at school for her to use) and we wouldn’t need one at home. We were spoiled in Fairfield as the district rented us 2 basses, one for at home, one for at school. The rental for the year was $125 per instrument. It’s the secret of the large instrument, it’s cheap in Fairfield! Here, not so much. Music here is a different ball game. The kids that play string instruments here typically follow the Suzuki method and most started playing around Averys age or younger! Liam’s been put in a string group that’s a little above his level and the kids are in 2nd and 3rd grade! Ella’s group is a middle school group. Interestingly, there are very few bass players here. It doesn’t seem to be a focus or encouraged. But, they seem to LOVE having her. Both kids string instructors are lovely and very encouraging. What this all means is they need to up their practicing game as they are feeling a little behind. So on Saturday. Ella and I took a 45 minute MRT ride to pickup a bass. We are “renting” the bass, but what this means is we had to pay the full fee for the bass. We have up to 10 months to return it for a refund that decreases 10% each month of the full rate we paid. Interesting scheme. Basically, we bought a bass. We did take a grab home. Poor driver… I didn’t take any pictures, but the music store was one of the coolest I’ve ever been in. Every type of string instrument you could imagine hanging from the ceiling and all around. They even had some 21 string Chinese instrument that I’ve never seen before. So cool!

My days here are both long and short. I haven’t really found my groove here yet. For me, making friends and finding connections has been slower. I’ve joined the American women’s association and have gone to a few lunches. These women are great and super fun and it’s a great community. They are also mostly 10+ years older than me. Which is fine, but most of their kids are older or grown. They’re just at a different phase of life. I will keep attending events with this group as I enjoy all the women and they are very fun!

Our condo complex seems to be mostly Europeans and Asians and so far people are a little stand-offish. the kids all seem Ella’s age or older or younger than Avery. The older kids are never around and the little kids are always with their helpers. Not a lot of friend making opportunities. I’m almost 💯 sure we are already know as the crazy/loud American family. Oh well. So far our dreams of the kids playing in the pool while we have a beer with their parents has been dashed, but maybe they’re still lurking out there somewhere…

We’re joining the American Club which will probably be a good resource. I played my first tennis clinic on Friday (sooooo hoooottttt) with 2 nice women. But, I’m missing my CT tennis buddies. Before we moved here, I was very smug and felt we wouldn’t need the American club, we can have friends from all nationalities! While this is true, there is something comforting about being around other Americans that I discounted. Americans are basically like labradors retrievers. We’re a little to exuberant but we are very loving once you get to know us..

Until I figure out what I need to do here to find my community, at the advice of the very sage Allison, I’m taking myself on an outing at least once a week. Last week I went to the national museum of Singapore. I loved it. I will take Ryan and the kids back, but it was nice to go on my own and look at what I want, at the pace I want. This is where the above nutmeg pic came from. They have a wonderful exhibit on the 200 year period prior to the British colonization in 1819 by Stamford Raffles. Everything in this museum is beautifully done. They are very adept here at using mixed media. 2 displays really were impactful to me. One was a “movie” that was 180 degrees around you and was animated in a painting kind of way. It was documenting the first European making contact with this area in roughly 1600. it was beautiful and made you feel how it was to be there. The second display I loved was in the regular part of the museum. It was describing the changing times for women in the 1920s and 30s. You stood in between 2 mirrors. On one side, a “traditional” girl or woman would tell you a little blurb about their life. Next, the other mirror would have another girl or woman that was more modern tell a little blurb about her life. Contrasting the different lives women were leading at the time. You moved between 3 sets of these mirrors. So cool.

Sorry for the quiet… I have both a lot to say and many divergent ideas on how to say it. So I guess I’ll just write.

2019-nCoV update: That’s the temporary name for the virus you are supposed to use… currently there are 30 confirmed cases in Singapore which I think makes us the largest outbreak outside of China. One of the cases currently was caught “in community” and doesn’t have any known links to a specific person from Wuhan. That’s concerning and what the government is trying to prevent. Hopefully they can figure out the link. Also a 6 month old baby has gotten the virus here from her parents who waited on someone from Wuhan. That makes me so sad. I hope the baby is ok. Right now Singapore is at code yellow on the DORSCON table

But… the schools are running more at an orange. The more disconcerting thing is that they’re prepping the kids to do their school work remotely. Liam has been bringing home all his work and his iPad all week and Ella today is practicing using a remote classroom on her laptop. The teachers are indicating that they believe a shutdown could happen as soon as Monday. If the mom gossip is to be believed, it could last for a MONTH. Yikes. Currently no groups larger than 40 are allowed. That means no assemblies, no field trips, no parent get togethers. The after school activities are still running as scheduled but we will see how that goes. Things change daily here so it’s hard to know where it’s headed or what we will do if the schools do decide to close. Most of that will depend on what businesses decide to do.

Onto more fun topics. Everyone living in terror of the virus has meant that nothing is crowded!yay for us! Last weekend we went to the Singapore zoo, which was truly amazing! We’re fairly regular Bronx zoo goers and have been to the national zoo in DC. This zoo blows them both away. From their animals to the layout, it is stunning. And we only did the regular zoo, not the night safari or the river safari. Of course we bought a membership for this too, so many more zoo outing for us! I’ll add pics and comment.

Since we bought a membership, we only planned to go for a couple of hours… 6 hours later we left! Many more zoo outing in our future, what a fun and exhausting day!

Well, the Morris’ move to Asia and China decides to spread one of its once a decade viruses… Awesome.

I know there’s panic about the Wuhan corona virus everywhere. Singapore’s on pretty high alert right now. As of this writing, we have 7 confirmed cases. In a country the size of manhattan, that’s largest population is Chinese, there’s cause for concern. And of course it’s during Chinese New Year, where the entire point of the holiday is to spend it with your family (remember all those Chinese residents of Singapore?).

Here’s the good news, all the cases have been people who have come directly from Wuhan. They estimate that since mid January there have been about 2,000 visitors here from Wuhan. They are tracking as many as they can. What this means is as of this minute, there has not been spread of the virus with the community. This is great, hopefully it can stay this way.

This is not to say people here are not totally freaking out. People in Asia as a generality love to wear face masks in public. This is from the typical mask you see a doctor wearing to full fighter pilot style gas masks. A lot of people have the crazy masks because a few times a year Singapore gets “the haze” from burning in Indonesia to build palm oil plantations. Who knows, maybe after one big haze we will all be fighter pilot mask wearers too… right now we are just trying to be really good hand washers. We live in a city of 5+ million and take public transportation everywhere, we should do this anyway.

At the kids school and at offices here, there is a 14 day leave of absence for anyone who has traveled to China in the past 2 weeks. We also had to fill out a form stating all travel from 15-Jan to 31-mar. They also take every kids temp as they enter the school. Over 37.5 C, off to the quarantine with you until your parent picks you up. Yesterday, Avery’s class had only 9 students and Liam’s 16 (out of about 24). Yikes. Maybe we should be freaking out too, who knows….

As an American, when you read about these “wet markets” that sell exotic wildlife if sounds crazy, right? The truth is Asian people, but specifically Chinese people, eat a lot of foods that seem crazy. Why do they do this? It seems that many people of Chinese decent, or Chinese both practice western medicine and eastern (or traditional Chinese medicine). I have only a very small knowledge of this, but they believe that by eating or drinking specific things, you can improve your health.

We have wet markets here. They’re called wet markets because the vendors display their food (produce, meat, fish, etc…) on ice which melts and makes the floor wet. In typical Singapore fashion, they’re highly regulated here. But you will still see live turtles and seafood that I’ve never heard of or seen… I haven’t been doing any shopping at them yet, but I want to. The produce looks very fresh and they are interesting. I haven’t yet because it’s a little intimidating. Most vendors speak very little English and I don’t know what a lot of the food even is! The kids already don’t like them. It took us a while to figure out what the smell was at the wet market. Almost like spoiling food, but it all looks so fresh. We then realized we were smelling durian fruit. Yuck. I’m pretty sure none of us will be brave enough to try that one!

For many reasons, I hope they get a lid on this virus quickly. Selfishly, we’re not sure what to do about traveling. We have a trip to Malaysia planned for February which as of now we’re still planning to take. We’d like to start booking spring break but it’s a little worrisome. We were planning to go to China in June. That’s probably tabled for this year. The fear of the unknown is for real.

For now, we are all good and have really clean hands, hopefully that’s how we stay! 💕

So many times since arriving here I’ve had the feeling that we’re living at Disney world. Ironically there isn’t a Disney park in Singapore (there is a universal which might be why). Liam’s comment on no Disney is “that is such a miss by Disney”. Maybe the feeling is because we just took our first (and possibly only) trip to Disney this past August (some unplanned foreshadowing of the daily heat we now live in). Maybe it’s condo life with 24/7 access to a beautiful pool and hot tub.. maybe it’s the nightly laser light show that’s visible from our balcony? I think what I am really feeling is we are living in a city that we are still tourists in. I’m super happy that we are trying to make our most of our time here and enjoying all that Singapore has to offer.

Each night at 8pm (and Friday & Saturday at 8,9&10pm) there is a music choreographed master light show from the bay and the top of marina bay sands. We saw it one night after having dinner at marina bay with the music. We were on the back side of it (ideal viewing is from the Merlion) but it was still pretty great. We also can see it lasers on the top of marina bay sands every night at 8pm. Avery and I like to watch together.

Maybe it’s living so close up to Botanic Garden which is such a beautiful oasis…

Maybe it’s living only 20 minutes from the “resort area” of Singapore. We’ve been down to Sentosa every weekend so far. It’s pretty amazing. First weekend was the above pictures at the water park. The next weekend was to watch the Singapore Open golf tournament. Not the kids favorite reason to go to Sentosa, but a nice day out. Finally last weekend we made it to the beach! People generally poo poo Singapore’s beaches, but I have to tell you, they were not to shabby..

Maybe it’s the nightly fireworks display we can see from our balcony for 10 days over Chinese New Year. We tried going down to marina bay sands to see it, but it was hot and crowded and our balcony is so peaceful, so balcony it is!

I think it’s really because we still feel like tourists. We’re starting to run out of steam and need some lazy days, but maybe those can be from the beach….😉

Happy New Year! Chinese or Lunar New Year in Asia is a BIG DEAL. Since we moved here, decorations have been popping up all over town.

Our first weekend here we saw some acrobats and drummers on our way home from the water park in Sentosa.

There are celebrations for a month! On Thursday the kids celebrated in school. We were told they could dress up if they wanted. The dresses are call cheongsam (traditional Chinese dress). None of the kids were sure they wanted to wear them (I was all in, they are adorable, cultural appropriation at its finest). Avery was the easiest, Mrs Sapna said they all dress up. Bought a cute dress at the tanglin mall one day while picking up groceries. Done! Liam and Ella were much more difficult. I spoke with Liam’s teacher who said the boys were usually 50/50 on dressing up. I didn’t have anyone to ask for Ella and middle school kids are so fickle… one of her friend said she was, the other wasn’t. Hmm. Finally the night before, they both decided they wanted to wear them. Off to great world city mall we went (where I had seen clothes for them at a pop up market a few days before). Liam ended up with a super cute, navy linen (which he loved, said it felt like PJs). Ella was adult sized!?! She chose a traditional red floral print. So cute!

Ella was already nervous. She wore her sweatshirt over top (at bus pickup it’s already about 80 degrees..). We got to our bus stop, and not one kid was dressed up. Horrors. At the last minute, one of the other 4th grade girls came running up in her dress. Still not ok. Ella had packed her uniform in her backpack just in case. Mom fail…

Parents were invited to attend the assemblies which I planned to go, but I was so confused about when they were. Some. Immunizations said 9, some said 10:30. Ella kept saying block 2 (whatever that means!). I left the house at 8:20 and figured I would just head up and grab a coffee and see.

I arrived exactly at 9, and sure enough there was an assembly. I will back track at this point. While sitting in the gym I had an epiphany. Part of my general confusion since the kids started school was, in my mind, they’re all at the same school. Which is true. But, they are each in a different sub school (lower elementary, upper elementary, middle). Each of these has a separate administration and are housed in separate buildings. Think 2 Burr’s and 1 Tomlinson. So while many things are the same, a lot of the scheduling is different.

Back to CNY! Liam’s assembly was first. It was awesome! The Chinese language teachers ran the assembly. They had a student group sing in mandarin first. The the acrobats came. Chinese New Year is the lunar new year or the spring festival. Each year has a zodiac animal associated with it. This year coming is the year of the rat. Sounds kind of gross to me, but they manage to make it look like a really cute mouse. In mandarin, Avery’s learning a very cute song about all the different zodiac animals.

So the first thing at the assembly is the lion. Liam was so excited to see lion dances. The lion is 2 acrobats, one small one in the front, the larger in the back. They wear a very elaborate costume that might be scary, except you can kind of see the acrobats in it so you know it’s really just people. I took a ton of videos..

The lion dances are a big deal, they are everywhere here and all over Asia. I’m not 💯 sure how they tie into CNY other than they are performed during celebrations. We still need to go see some others but I guess they are used as competitions between martial arts schools and the stunts get more and more elaborate. They were pretty tame here, but they did climb a pole! They also let the kids pet them which was cute.

There was also a dragon! I didn’t know it, but Avery told me later, that the dragon chases a pearl (the gold ball) and that’s how it knows where it’s going. Thanks Avery!

There was also a red lion, which I didn’t think was as fun as the yellow, but Avery said it was her favorite. Probably because it was when the kids got to dance as well.

After Liam’s assembly, Avery had hers. The same. I stayed for about half. Both she and Liam had huge smiles on their faces the whole time! Ella’s was after Averys. 3 schools…

There is a lot of mythology and superstition associated with CNY. You are supposed to clean your home prior to CNY and get rid of any clutter. The number 8 is also lucky. There is a tradition of giving Hong bao or red packets for CNY. These contain money or chocolate coins. The money should be new crisp bills and in a denomination of 8. I think the bus auntie is waiting for hers… Our kids think they are getting packets with $88 in them. Hmmmm.

The kids can explain it better, but a lot of the celebrations stem around a mythical beast called Nian. In ancient Chinese lore, The Nian needed to be scared away in the spring so the crops could be planted. The Nian was scared of the color red and loud noises. This explains the explosion of red everywhere and our wonderful nightly fireworks display over marina bay sands for the next 10 nights!!!

So far we haven’t ventured out yet for any of the big local celebrations, and I think China town is too much for us, we’ll wait to go that until after the holiday. Ryan and the kids have a lovely 4 day weekend for the holiday. We might brave the crowds at the river hongbao celebration one night this weekend and next weekend we might buy tickets for the Chingay parade. Right now, we’re enjoying the tourist areas being quiet (CNY is also a time for family gatherings, so not at the sights!) and a much needed long weekend. Originally I was sad we hadn’t planned to travel this weekend but now I’m happy. We’re all exhausted and there’s still so much of Singapore to see!

Happy Lunar New Year to all! 🧧 🧨 🎇 🌝

We all survived the first week of school! Actually, I think we more than survived, dare I say, they thrived?!? I’ll add an update for each kid…

Avery – we knew going into the move that the transition would most likely be hardest on Avery. We were correct. I met briefly with her new teacher (Mrs Sapna, many teachers here go by their first name…). Sapna immediately picked up on Avery being a perfectionist. If she doesn’t know how to do something, she gets very upset. Needless to say she was spending a lot of time the first week in tears. Ironically at home she was happy, chattering about school and excited to get on the bus. She has made a few new friends, the girls in her class seem very sweet. There is a birthday party coming up this weekend which she is excited for. Academically, I think she’s ok. Sapna said she reads well but struggles in phonics. Not surprising since they don’t really teach phonics at home. Hopefully the emphasis on that here will be of benefit. She also has nightly homework (mostly reading, a little math). It’s a lot of reading and we’re struggling to do it early enough in the evening so she’s not too tired. It’s hard to have a good afternoon routine when it always feels like summer. For now, at school she knows she can always go to Mrs Sapna for a hug and that seems to be enough. Oh! And I forgot! Avery tried our for the school play. She was VERY scared to go try. But I am so proud of her for doing it. She didn’t make it (they were very sweet about it and she was totally ok with it). The good news is that not being in the play means she can take her much anticipated parkour class.

Liam – honestly, he has been such a trooper during this whole move. He’s always up for an adventure and generally complains the least. Continuing his streak with always getting the best teachers, his teacher, Ms Christou seems absolutely amazing. She invited all the new families to meet with her on Friday afternoon and gave us all the info and more! I love her already and so does Liam. Liam is loving having a block schedule with more time to learn. He is enjoying mandarin and learning about Chinese New Year. He also loves his UOI or unit of inquiry. This unit they’re discussing energy. The teacher also uses whatever their UOI topic is in math and language arts. For his homework this week he has to write a science fiction story about what would happen if the sun went dark. I can’t wait to see what he writes! Liam also has his very first orchestra audition. They are VERY serious about music here. Most of the kids begin as toddlers with Suzuki lessons. So I was very proud of Liam for standing up proudly, playing his scale and twinkle, twinkle. The instructor gave great feedback, saying that despite his lack of experience, his tone leads them to believe with a little hard work, he will progress quickly. They placed him not in the beginner group but 2 groups up. Hopefully he is ready for the challenge!

Liam also tried out for the swim team on Friday! He’s always enjoyed summer swimming at BRYC but has never been keen to swim all year round. I think the nice facilities here coupled with the extreme heat have made him change his mind, which Ryan and I are so excited about. He will be on the developmental team. They like them to practice 4 days a week, but we are going to try for 3 days. Coupled with one day of soccer and one orchestra, he will have something everyday after school and a swim practice either on Friday or on Saturday or Sunday. We’ll see how it goes, but I’m so proud of him for trying!

Ella – this move was also a complete unknown for us with her. As most people know, she has been struggling with some pretty severe anxiety for a long time now. The change was scary for all of us. While the week was not 100% bump free, all in all, I think she did amazing. Every morning instead of homeroom here, they have advisory. Her group is made up of students that have all moved here this year. They have a teacher who’s job it is to make sure they are doing ok. All middle and high school students here have advisory. They also discuss social issues. This week they are discussing bullying with names. With calling names or making fun of someone’s name. I love this acknowledgement that kids this age need someone to ask them everyday if they are ok. Not just happen to notice, but to actually sit down with them and check in. It’s awesome. Ella also received her long awaited iPhone. I’m happy to report she’s busy WhatsApp’ing away to 2 new friends, Vanessa and Cory. Both are American and in her advisory group (both moved here at the beginning of the year). She has a third potential friend, an Israeli girl named, Maya. Hopefully these friendships progress to the meeting up outside of school phase but either way, I’m so happy she’s making friends! School seems to be going well, though I have less contact with it since it’s all on the computer. Ella also tried out for the orchestra (also having a month off) and was placed in a group that is so excited to have a bass player. There are very few bass players here. We still have to figure out an instrument for her to practice on, but one step at a time!

Such a beautiful bass!

Erin & Ryan – how are we doing here? Hectic. Now that the kids are in school I thought it might calm down. But I’m still waiting. Between being stuck in the condo waiting for deliveries/service people and the never ending grocery shopping (starting to get the hang of that) the days go by in a blink. It also take me about 45 minutes to get to the kids school which I’ve been coming up more than I anticipated (in fact I’m sitting at school writing this!). Figuring out their after school activities and transport has proven frustrating. Making friends has also proven slower than anticipated. I know that I need to get involved to make friends, but that feels a bit far away as I’m still struggling with the day to day. Had a totally frustrating day yesterday where I accomplished nothing. Cried the whole way home from the kids school on the MRT. Good news is it’s a teachable moment for the kids. This is hard for all of us. Ryan’s working a lot, those extra hours he gained from the short commute have been sucked up by the 24 hour work cycle of maintains his position in the US. We knew what it would be but it’s still hard. All in all life here is pretty great, it’s just that sometimes it’s not home. Life’s not all the post-able moments. But, I take heart that the routine will settle in and soon this will feel at least a little like home.