Today is a public holiday in Singapore. Which is a little underwhelming during lockdown, but there it is… Singapore is a bit of a religious melting pot which means we have a lot of public holidays. I’m enjoying learning a little about each religion that’s tied to the holiday.

The Thursday holiday was also well timed as were all burnt out. Home based learning is exhausting and Ryan’s 24-7 work schedule is taking a toll. Hard to complain as we’re so very fortunate but everyone has their struggles.

Avery’s been having a more and more difficult time with home based learning. I find this extra frustrating as I have the time to spend with her to help her. My having the time doesn’t equal her wanting to do the work. I finally contacted her teacher yesterday who was wonderful. We agree that we don’t want the outcome of this to be that she hates school. Her teacher is also concerned that the transition to a new country/school then the pandemic right on the heels of that might be a little too much for our little nugget. I think she might be right. The school has a lot of psychological resources that I think we will be utilizing. I’m struggling right now to set aside the guilt I feel about this. In the mean time we’re going to do more reading together, play more games and bake and worry less about finishing every school task. It’s teacher approved…

I’m also worrying a lot about our physical health during this lockdown. We move less and less each day and are on tech more and more. I’m very much missing a yard and a driveway. I worry about what the long term repercussions will be from this. To that end, I tortured the family (yes we all went, violating the only one adult rule, we haven’t been caught yet) with a walk along the river to the Merlion. Probably about a 4 mile journey round trip. Liam and Avery took scooters. With the masks and the heat, this was an accomplishment. We’re happy to report it’s still there! Here are some pics from the walk.

Art.

It was nice to see that there’s still a world out there. Also so many people were out walking and biking. Almost all people were wearing masks (they’re compulsory here) which is great but it’s sad not to see people’s smiles anymore. There’s a detachment now that’s sad. Hopefully it won’t be for forever.

Our lockdown is in place until June 1st. That feels so far away right now. But they are starting to lay out the plan of what opening up will look like which feels positive. No word on school yet. The last day of the school year is June 11th so they would only go back for a few days. The kids want to go back to see friends but I don’t really care either way. The whole summer looming ahead feels scary right now. We had planned for visitors and traveling. I’m mourning the loss of that. But we have our zoo membership, museum memberships, and cable car membership. Camp mom, here we come!

I’ll close with a few more pics from the last few weeks. Nothing exciting, but that’s true for all of us, right?

There’s not been much to share over the past few weeks. Like a majority of the world, on April 7th we went into a “lockdown”. Originally, this was planned to be until May 4th. This week, the prime minister spoke and extended the lockdown until June 1st with additional restrictions. Though this was expected, it was still heartbreaking. Lockdown in a city is tough. No backyard. No driveway, we cannot use the grounds, playground or pool in our condo complex. We are still allowed out for exercise, but only alone. The “rules” are very unclear if your children are allowed to accompany you. As penalties are stiff here (Monterey fines and the possibility of losing your employment pass are all possibilities) it doesn’t seem worth it. So mostly we stay in. Groceries and easy to get and plentiful. we are lucky. Ryan’s job is busier than ever, the kids home based learning has been excellent and our apartment is very comfortable. We also added Janeth, our “helper” (foreign domestic worker) to our family. Janeth is from the Philippines and has been a FDW for about 10 years. She has a grown daughter of her own. She has our condo super organized, clean and running like a top. She never uses the dishwasher and only infrequently uses the dryer. She’s also an amazing cook. She is appalled by my over stocked “American” pantry and freezer. She can make delicious food out of few ingredients. Needless to say, she is my new favorite person. If we hadn’t already hired her 6 weeks ago, would we still have? Probably not. But we have been very lucky that she has worked out so well so far. She has made me obsolete and since the whole reason to hire her was to give me more “freedom” away from the condo it seems silly now. Though it has made home learning for Avery (and sometimes Liam) much less stressful since I can focus on that. I’d like to say I’m using my time well by exercising and reading more, but that’s not always true. I’m trying to find a schedule and balance and not feel guilty that I’m not vacuuming and doing dishes anymore.

Here’s a few pictures from our lockdown life. I’m sure it looks both the same and a little different than back home in Fairfield. While we are missing having a separate office and extra space for video game playing, we are making do.

Some final thoughts. It’s really hard to watch this pandemic playing out in the US from half a world away. We see all the news, no media is restricted here (except porn…). It’s hard not to compare how it’s being handled in Asia with how it is in the US. But the further into this we get, the more it seems apparent that the US cannot go down the same path as other nations. Will this possibly cost more American lives? Yep. Is that the price to pay to keep the US intact. Maybe… I don’t pretend to know any more than anyone else. I do believe in science (in fact, it seems crazy to even write that) and I believe there have to be experts. When we discount experts in anything we are saying that education doesn’t matter. I can’t live in that world.

The other thought we discuss regularly is are we glad we are here in Singapore instead of home in the US? The answer is still yes. Our extended family at home in the US is healthy so that hasn’t caused any stress (and hopefully won’t). In general we feel safe and happy here. We miss some things (the yard. The extra space..) but love our view and still feel our life here has future potential. Hopefully that won’t change.

Stay well everyone! 💕

Starting tomorrow (Tuesday, April 7th) Singapore is implementing what they are calling “a circuit breaker”. Our cases have been increasing at an alarming rate and even the super stealthy contact tracers can’t find the source for all the cases. At this point there is concern (probably warranted) that we have community spread. This is a little heartbreaking as Singapore has been working so hard since January to keep the virus in check. It just shows how tricky it is. In the beginning of March, our numbers were really low. Then people began fleeing the rest of the world (looking at you US and UK) to come home to Singapore. This started happening before they completely shut down travel and issuing everyone coming in stay at home notices. It was probably only a few days before they were mandated to quarantine (they’re now put in a hotel for 14 days) but it was enough.

Hopefully our month at home will put it back in check. As of last night we had 1309 cases and 6 deaths. Yesterday was the biggest day yet with 120 new cases. Everyone here who tests positive is hospitalized. They’re currently converting the Singapore expo to be a facility to house people who are positive, but mostly well. Happy to hear they will continue to hospitalize everyone.

I’m not 💯 sure what the circuit breaker will look like. We can still go out for exercise and food. We can get delivery and take away. All of our condo facilities are now closed (no pool 😢). The government is employing “safe distancing ambassadors” to make sure people are complying with the measures. We’re about to see how strict things get here. They’ve gone to distance learning for the local schools, which is Singapore’s pride and joy, so I would guess it will be pretty serious here for the next month to get things under control and the kids back to school ASAP. Not to mention the economy being decimated.

All that said, we’re still taking daily “forced mom marches”. Her are some pics from our more recent adventures.

That’s probably the last of our adventures not close to home for a while. Stay home and stay well everyone…

So it happened… last week we started distance learning. All my family and friends in the US who have been doing this for weeks already have my sympathy. It’s not for the faint of heart. In my children’s defense, both Ella and Liam are almost 💯 self sufficient. But for those in grade 2 and below. Wow. While Avery did a great job and was enthusiastic, she did require me to be with her the whole time. And her teacher really gave her a lot! She wrote an entire book on Thursday! My hat’s also off to both parents trying to work from home and quarterback distance learning. I’m not sure it’s possible.

All in all, the kids school did an amazing job with it. Ella alternates live class days (done via google hangouts) and homework days. Her live class days are pretty full 8:30-3 (with short breaks and An hour and a half lunch). her homework day was pretty short, she was pretty much finished by lunch. I would have loved for Liam to have had more work. He finished between 10:30 and 11:30 each day and then annoyed his sisters. Avery worked pretty solid all 3 days. I was so proud of her. We’re now on spring break until April 13th. Then more distance learning until at least may 5th.

3 exhausting days. Hopefully it will only be for 3 more weeks, but who knows….

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:

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:

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/videos/tv/2020/03/29/exp-gps-0329-loong-on-what-us-can-learn-from-singapore.cnn

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/videos/tv/2020/03/29/exp-gps-0329-loong-on-covid-and-china.cnn

Otherwise, here’s some pics from our limited adventures.

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…

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…

We’ve been getting a few geckos in the condo recently. Last week I woke up to this guy:

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.

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?

Stay well 💕💕💕

You know the NPR show, “This, I Believe”? With social distancing, I’ve been doing a lot of solo walking (like 2-3 hours a day). This gives me a fair amount of thinking time. Scary. Moving to a foreign country coupled with a pandemic hitting at the same time has really allowed for a serious life reflection. So here it is, This, I Believe:

1. Every human is important to at least one other human. Even if you are 💯 alone in the world, you still at one point had a mother who loved you. Love is a constant no matter what nationality or race that you are. To someone, you are their whole world. No one is expendable. Anyone telling you otherwise is telling you a tale. Statistics are just that until they become personal.

2. I truly know nothing of the world. This thought is simultaneously scary and liberating at the same time. And that’s the secret, right? The more you see of the world, the more you realize what’s out there and that you can never see it all or learn it all or understand it. And that’s ok. The flip side is it makes it easy, when you are living in your comfortable little corner of the world to think you do know everything. You’re “educated”, right? But that’s the thing, what makes sense for you, in the context of your life, might make no sense for someone else. At the end of the day all we can do is to try to listen more than we talk, to keep on learning and to be forgiving of both ourselves and others. We are all just trying to do our best on our journey.

Woah, I warned you, too much alone time. I’ll leave you with a few pics from my walking travels. I’ve also learned I can really walk almost everywhere in Singapore. With enough time and a good shower at the end!

The Buddha reminded me. I had my first Asian studies book club this week (on zoom). We read “Nine Lives: In search of the sacred in modern India” by William Dalrymple. It was a beautifully written book made more interesting by the amazingly diverse group of women in my book club. Again, I know so little of the world. But, I can’t wait to keep learning.

Singapore may be an island, but under normal circumstances it’s hyper connected to the outside world. As of tonight at 11:59pm we are disconnected. If you can get a flight out, you may leave but to come back you have to be a Singaporean or deemed “essential”. That coupled with the US raising the travel advisory to a level 4 really is a reminder that we are on an island here and that we are committing to riding this virus out here in Singapore. While we still feel good about this decision, it still feels big. There will most likely be no visitors this summer or travel for the foreseeable future. We are stuck on the island of Singapore. While it is a bit unsettling, at least all 5 of us are together. Many families here are split up all over the world. We have many things to be grateful for.

Besides the restriction of travel, there are more social distancing measures being put into place. All stores have markings where to stand to give space to other patrons. The international school community is in a little bit of flux. Some have shut down early for spring break, some are doing remote learning and some (like ours) are following the MOE guidelines and remaining open with increased social distancing. So far throughout this the SG government has provided clear and decisive guidance. We see no reason not to continue to follow their guidelines. So our kids continue to go to school. Their desks were placed a meter apart today. We’ll see if this works. It feels like Singapore is threading a needle right now. We’ve had an uptick of cases. Mostly Singaporeans fleeing home from elsewhere in the world. But there are a few cases each day that don’t have an immediate source. These are worrying… hopefully the amazing contact tracers keep working their magic so we can live a little bit of life (while appropriately distanced of course!).

Onto the pictures! Avery leaned how to say soup dumpling in Mandarin. It’s “Xiao long bao”. So on Sunday we had dim sum for lunch so she could have some. The soup dumplings were demolished immediately, but I did get a picture of the animal steam buns:

No more AWA walks. They’ve discontinued all activities for social distancing. So I took myself for a walk today. I went with the botanic gardens as I can walk there from home. I feel like I’m becoming a little of an amateur botanist since I’ve walked there so much. It’s always beautiful and I always see something new.

Sorry for the repeat of travels but, like everyone, our world is getting smaller. Wash those haves and stay well!

Update on the Covid19 situation here in SG. Yesterday we had our highest number of cases to date, 47, putting Singapore at 313 cases. Of the 47, 33 of them were picked up at the airport temperature scanner and were residents trying to get home from Europe or the US. Now all entries into Singapore are under a mandatory 14 day quarantine. Since this was just implemented, it’s a little worrying to think there are people who entered prior to the mandatory quarantine that could be walking around. But there is a LOT of pressure socially and from the government to self quarantine so hopefully that’s happening.

The kids school had their first parent test positive yesterday. We all knew this would happen eventually. All we know is the students were asymptomatic and were in the middle school. If they were in your child’s class, they said you would be contacted separately. We didn’t receive any contact, so assuming they were not in Ella’s classes. Our kids are off school today and tomorrow anyway for conferences. A few of the other international schools closed early this week, ahead of their spring breaks. There’s a fair amount of parent pressure for our school to close. So far the school has been sticking with the Ministry of Health guidelines and they are still keeping schools open. We will see what Monday brings.

This morning we had our virtual parent-teacher-child conferences for Liam and Ella. The overall take away from them are they are doing great and have transitioned beautifully into the new school. It was nice to be able to speak with Ella’s teachers and hear how they think she’s doing. It was a big leap for her. Not just moving countries, but also moving to a different academic structure. We wanted her teachers to know we are also looking for any gaps of knowledge she may have. So far if there are any, she seems to have overcome them! So proud of her! Liam too. Not only is he rocking the academics, but his teacher said he has been integral in pulling a student who used to not have anyone to play with at recess into the group. That made my heart happy to hear. She also said he makes her happy to come to work each day. Way to go buddy!!!

This afternoon we walked to the botanic gardens To get some exercise. We are starting to try to limit our public space time a little. Trying not to overreact yet, but just be conscious.

Yesterday I went for a walk with the AWA women at Fort Canning. Fort Canning was originally a Malaysian palace. Then when the British colonized, it was the site if their fort. I took the bus there as I thought it was further away. But I ended up walking home as it was so close. I will definitely take the kids back. Not only beautiful but lots of interesting history.

I hope everyone in the US is hanging in there at home. We’re having a bit of a trial run here. Yesterday, the government tightened up the travel restrictions. Included on the list was Malaysia (remember Legoland?!?). The wording was unclear if it is 14 days if entering the country from last night from Malaysia or retroactive over the past 14 days (which puts us at day 8). Ryan’s HR department has a call into MOH for clarification, but since Malaysia is shutting down their borders as of midnight tonight, there’s a bit of a freak out happening here today (cue toilet paper buying). Hopefully we will have clarification sometime today. We think we are ok as we were not sent an official stay at home notice (they check up on you) but the repercussions here are serious so we would rather err on the side of staying home. They only have one more day of school this week anyway. Thursday and Friday are parent-teacher-child conferences which have all been moved online. Not sure what the long-term outlook is for school yet. The other American school (SAS) is doing a “dry run” on their online learning program this Thursday and Friday. We’ll see how it all plays out… so far today we’ve read, done a little school work, yoga and I made Irish soda bread. I used my Disney fast pass booking skills to get an amazon prime now order in a full system (refresh, refresh, refresh) so St patty’s day celebration with bangers and mash is on!

Yesterday, before the freak out, I went for a walk through the Bukit hills with the AWA group. So pretty and I saw some cool wildlife!

I love going on these walks. It’s nice to meet up and chat with a lovely group of women and it’s also great to explore new areas of the city that I can take the family back to. Bukit Timah nature reserve is definitely on the list! Singapore did a fantastic job of keeping enough park space as they developed the city. The parks have great amenities too. Lots of covered buildings were people do yoga and tai chi, outdoor exercise equipment and yesterday I even saw a reflexology walk. I’m going to have to go back and use that one!

Working backward… on Sunday we had a too short visit from my college friend, Kristen and her kids as they make their way back to the US from East Timor. She timed it perfectly. I think if she had been a day later, we would not have been able to see her. Our kids got to swim together, take a walk by the river and have dinner before they headed back to their hotel for an early flight. So bittersweet when they left…

Back to Saturday… I dragged the family to east coast park to ride bikes since I had enjoyed my ride on Tuesday so much.

Stay well my friends!!! 💕💕💕

It really feels like a Friday the 13th this time. First off, my condolences to all on the school closures. While it is for the best, having a never ending spring break is daunting to say the least.

Last night the Singaporean prime minister addressed the nation. He advised calm but to be prepared for further restrictions. He was measured and comforting. He also delivered the speech 3 times, in English, Chinese and Malay. He continued the mantra that we are all in this together. It was comforting. (https://www.gov.sg/article/pm-lee-hsien-loong-on-the-covid-19-situation-in-singapore-12-mar). In the last 24 hours, Singapore’s added some additional travel restrictions (mandatory quarantines for travelers from Europe) and some “suggested” quarantines for other Asian countries (including Malaysia, glad we’re not going to legoland this weekend!). US isn’t on the list yet. Ryan’s still going into the office, but they are suggesting increased social distancing. We’ll see how long school continues for us. Luckily they have all the pieces in place for distance learning and since I’ve had almost 2 months to marinate on it, hopefully I’m ready. Looks like all travel for the foreseeable future is tabled.

The good news is there’s tons to do outdoors here. On Thursday, I met up with a group of women to do the MacRitchie reservoir loop, including the treetop walk. 15k later… it was great to be outdoors, chat with some interesting and nice women and get some exercise. Saw a bunch of monkeys and monitors, but luckily no snakes. The excitement for the day was way back on the loop, there were about 10ish police officers that were routing us around a certain area. there were 2 tarps, one big and one small. I was hoping it was a training exercise, but we later read it was a death of “unnatural” causes. Guessing a suicide since it was next to a tower. So sad.

Thursday I also had to sign up online for Liam and Ella’s conferences. I’m happy to report it’s the same annoyance it is in Fairfield. After many server crashes, I at least got the same day. Liam in the am and Ella 11-12 (10 minutes per class). They are parent-teacher-child conferences here. We had Avery’s this week on Wednesday and I love having the kid included. We’ll see how it goes with the bigger kids.

Today I went to the kids school to pay for Ella’s music lesson (a bummer, their string groups are free, but lessons you have to pay for)…this brings up an interesting conundrum about Singapore. It’s like opposite land from the US. Here if something’s run by the government, it runs like a top. Private industry, you never know… take the kids school. Some things, like lunch, I can pay for online using a credit card. Other things, you have to pay directly from a bank account. So far, we haven’t opened a local bank account (we actually did just give in and open one, hiring our helper was the breaking point for this) so to pay, we either need to do a bank transfer which takes a few days or physically go to the school and pay by credit card. This is true for many things, not just at the school. For some reason online payments with credit cards are difficult here and they tend to use mostly banking cards. Strange but annoying. That and figuring out how to get a “passion” card are conundrums for me. I think a passion card is a discount card (for groceries, etc). They always ask me for it at the store and make a strange noise when I say I don’t have one. Rumor has it I have to go to my community center to get one. Have to figure out where that is first..

Onto the weekend. We’re not social distancing well as Liam’s having a sleepover. If we survive that, hopefully I’ll torture the family with some kind of outdoor activity tomorrow. On Sunday, I’m anxiously awaiting a visit from my college friend, Kristen as she and her family make their way from their home in East Timor back to the US for good. Luckily they’re not connecting through Europe! I haven’t seen her in a couple of years so I’m excited to spend some time with her and her family!

Lastly, I’ll leave you with some condo art. In Singapore, they feel a good condo complex has to have some kind of art. Our complex has very pedestrian “people at play” sculptures. A lot of the others are modern art. here’s a few I’ve snapped in my travels.

Also water features are important, I’ll have to get some pics of good ones. Have a great and healthy weekend!!!