Some funny things we have noted

I thought you might all enjoy hearing about some things that we have found quite different from the US. None are particularly alarming or difficult, just takes some getting used to.

1. They don't serve food with napkins, in fact finding a paper napkin while eating out is near impossible.  Thus, we were told the first day that everyone carries packets of napkins or tissue with them everywhere. They are not only used after a meal, they quite often become table markers for reserving your seats at a food court when going to get your food.

2. Lines for check out cashiers, getting on the subway, basically anywhere that has a line no one queues in a straight line moving straight back away, you queue from the side.

3. Even thought we all speak English, don't assume you are understood......yesterday at lunch we were trying to get a new high chair for Halie as the one given to us had a broken strap.  Hilarity ensued when first they brought us a barstool (high chair) and then when they finally understood we meant a baby seat, they didn't understand the strap being broken.  It was a belt that was broken :)

4. When walking or going up/down escalators you stand to the left and let passers by go to your right.

Yesterday was a busy day with a full day's activities.  We went to explore Suntec City, the largest shopping mall in Singapore.  It consists of 5 towers, each of 8 floors. It is also home to one of Singapore's largest  tourist destinations the Fountain of Wealth. Legend has you place your right hand in the fountain, make a silent wish and then walk clockwise around the fountain three times.  We all hope to be rich soon!

Clarke Quay in the daytime

The structures overheard are sun shades

While there we also sampled some Singapore sweets, donuts that John saw people queuing for.  They were tasty, albeit extremely sweet!
From Suntec, we headed back down to Clarke Quay (we were there the other night on the failed Chinese lantern attempt) and took a 30 minute Boat Cruise. The views were amazing and it was nice see the city from a different perspective.

The Resort Sands Hotel.  The single largest US investment in Singapore at 40Billion USD! We also learned that it is now the second most expensive hotel in the world, development price, second only to the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. The top floor is a Garden Sky Deck that is open to the public (for a $20SGD price) and also houses the hotel's pool.

Latest update on our housing, we just learned this morning that we will not be able to get out of the temp accomodations as quickly as we had hoped.  My company is not willing to agree to the 8OCT possession date, the soonest they are willing to agree is 15Oct. Not sure how this will affect us getting our place, from the landlord's side they want it rented and are not happy with that date.  We are all nervous that we are going to lose that place and need to start hunting again!  It would really be a shame as we all very much have our hearts set on that space.

Today, our plans are to simply relax. I have an errand to run and we need to appear for our employment/dependant pass appt this afternoon.  Other than that, its a lazy day around the room. Tomorrow is Friday, 1Oct and I officially report to the office.  As I have yet to be to the office I have no idea what to expect.  I am sure a post will occur this weekend with details of my first day and John's adventures whilst I am away.

Shopping - Singapore's National Pasttime

One thing that has been very apparent since we arrived is that there are two primary activities - eating and shopping. I will tackle the food subject on another day when we have experienced more of it (we continue to be sticking to mostly Western establishments or cooking for ourselves). Shopping however, we have spent a good deal of time walking around and I think we have a sense of that.
First off, the developers who designed the shopping concept here really have cornered the market! When I say it's truly a national sport it is. You can't go anywhere without a shopping mall being part of the route. All of the transportation is linked to the shopping malls, you walk through and under the malls in many cases to reach the MRT lines. Aside from ease of access the malls here are much more all encompassing, there are very few free standing shops. Your grocery store, dry cleaners, tailor,drug store, department store and electronic shops are all under one roof! It makes it extremely convenient but also makes shopping something that seems to be done here without much thought. The malls also house your restaurants, hawker food centers and food courts. Basically, if you need something you can find it......in the mall.
In an earlier post it was mentioned how opulent the malls are, we took some sample photos of just one mall for you to get an idea. Keep in mind that right next to this mall is yet another mall, often with the same items. Right outside our hotel, on the same block and probably only 15 stores apart from each other are two Louis Vuitton stores! This continues with almost every recognized store. Hopefully the pictures help to better illustrate what I am describing.

ION Orchard

Ngee Ann Shopping Mall (this is directly next to the ION Mall pictured above, note the Louis Vuitton sign yet again!)

 I am also enclosing a few scenic shots.  It was supposed to be fabulous photos of the Chinese Lantern festival that I was all excited to go see.  In the end, I dragged everyone around for a long time last evening to get lost and find out in the end that the lantern fest ended several days prior! 

Today we went to see Dannette's school. It seems nice and I think she will enjoy it. The only disappointing thing right now is that they cannot secure busing for her yet so John will need to escort her to and from school each day. That is quite an undertaking with Halie as it was slightly over 40 minutes by MRT each way! We are hoping to locate a more direct method before next Monday.
No new news on our permanent housing, the last we heard all was well and the paperwork was being processed. For now, we all just continue to hope it goes smoothly and we can get into our new space as soon as possible. The service apartment we are staying in is fine but it's crowded and we all need some space and our things!

I love this shot! She looks so much like John.

One final note, we are all on Halie alert as she took two steps for Dannette over the weekend and a step for John the following day! Looks like she is going to be walking soon enough. For now, we just enjoy her attempts.
Well that's all for now, Halie is in bed and we have a bit of downtime before bed. Good night, will write more soon!

Sentosa Island - Asia's Playground

The Merlion - National Symbol of Singapore

Today arrived with absolutely nothing preplanned on the itinerary. Faced with spending a beautiful day in this very cramped hotel/apartment, we all agreed on the need to get out and explore. It wound up being a great day!
We decided to explore a part of S'pore we had not yet seen, Sentosa Island. It is one of the many islands that comprise the country and has been turned into an attraction meca. Think Orlando on overdrive! The island houses Universal Studios, three of S'pores main beaches, zip lines, luge tracks, cable cars, nature preserves, shopping, restaurants, three enormous hotels and a very large casino!
Our adventure began with another ride on the MRT subway system. This is definitely getting easier each time we use it. Due to the size of the island it is actually a rather small system in comparison to London, New York or Chicago so I anticipate us getting it mastered rather quickly.
A quick jaunt on a monorail takes us over the water from the HarborFront directly onto Sentosa. We began our outing with finding the most recognized symbol of Singapore, the Merlion. As you can see from the photo above, he looms quite large over the area. Continue walking behind the giant statue and you enter the Merlion walk, a beautiful walking path that takes you to the edge of the island where you can view the ocean. While walking, the path is decorated with mosaic interpretations of water creatures. Water runs through the creatures while music and chimes play to add to the enchanted feel.

Merlion Walk

After the Merlion walk, we ventured over to Resorts World. This is similar in concept to Disney's Pleasure Island except much calmer.  It was actually near empty when we were there. They have a great store called Candylicious that was more candy than I have ever seen in my life! I wish I could show you pics but the store had signs all over forbidding photos to be taken as the candy is quite shy :) Not much to say about this area but I will enclose some pics.

Lake of Dreams

Chinese Lantern Statue

We move all the way to Singapore and a little bit of Chicago came with us! Dannette and I were so excited to see this. If you haven't had Garrett's popcorn before, you don't know what you have been missing!

After some lunch at Chili's we headed back home.  The sun is very strong and its easy to get overheated and tired much more quickly than we are used to.
On an entertaining note, Halie appears to be the star of Singapore.  She has charmed more people than I can even begin to count.  It is not uncommon for complete strangers, men included, to tickle her feet or touch her fingers while riding the subway or even come up to us in shops. Most are fascinated by her curly hair, something not often seen naturally in Asian cultures. Halie seems to be enjoying all the attention, she is very interested in what is going on around her and reaches out to touch others or tries to get them to hold her.  She is definitely the least introverted of all of us!!!
In general, babies are very well taken care of here.  Every place we have been has a very nice changing area with feeding rooms.  As with everything else here, it is all sparkling clean! On the MRT everyone rises from their seats to offer anyone carrying a child a seat.  Yesterday, I watched in amazement as a teenage boy rose from his seat and asked John to be seated as he was holding Halie! Everyone here seems very respectful of rules and that is one of them, seats on the MRT are reserved for anyone with a child, pregnant women, the aged and the injured.
Our day is nearing to an end and yours is just beginning, I hope you all have a Sunday that was as nice as ours. I close with two pics that John caught of Halie and I that I quite like.  Its so rare as you know that I like photographs of myself that I figured I should include it. 

One final note, please feel free to use the comment section if there are topics that interest you and would like us to write/photograph more about.  Tomorrow I plan to blog about the shopping malls that John referred to in our last blog.  We took some great photos today to illustrate the opulence.

House hunting complete (we hope)

The last two days have been quite busy viewing properties in some of the most central districts in the City. In total we viewed 11 properties and were scheduled to view 15 but once we found our dream home we were done.
Singapore housing is quite different than what we are accustomed to in the States. Most Singaporeans live in housing developments subsidized by the government, called HDBs, and are typically high rise buildings, although some of the earlier HDB buildings are smaller low rise buildings. With all of the expats here the demand is high for in city living so developers have created very large high rise condominium resorts to house everyone. Most come with full facilities like swimming pool, childrens pool, BBQ area, playground and fitness center.
We also looked at a few semi detached homes or cluster homes (read town or row houses) but they tended to a bit farther out and without facilities so we have opted for condo living. I have to say though that it won't be hard. The place we have selected is brand new, we will be the first tenant in the unit. The development itself is so in demand right now the entire 250+ units sold out in under 36 hours! Our unit is four bedrooms with a wet and dry kitchen ( I had no idea what that was but it's basically two kitchens, one that you can seal off by glass doors to do your aromatic cooking that you don't want permeating the whole house). The master bedroom is very large and Dannette will have a spacious bedroom with attached bath. Halie and the fourth bedroom will have the third hall bath to share. It also comes with a maids room just off the kitchen/ laundry area. We need to await final word on which of the two available units we get but our preference is the one on the 33rd floor that you will see in the pics.  As each unit is individually owned it comes down to which owner is willing to meet the corporate leasing terms including price.

View from 24th story Gym and Sky Deck

Pool Area

Children's Pool

Great Room that opens to kitchen

Full Kitchen (Dry)

Master Suite with peekaboo window to tub. Tub offers a stunning view!

View from one of the balconies at the unit

I thought you also might enjoy some of John's wit and analysis of our first few days here.  I close with a snippet of an email John sent out  to some people about S'pore:

"I can tell you a couple things about being in singapore for the few days i've been here.
1) It's humid like you can't believe. imagine the devil in a sauna in August, smoking a cigarette...

2) Car washes actually have people that wash cars.  it looks like everyone has a job no matter how menial.

3) Cleanest metropolis you can imagine, haven't seen a police officer yet and people spend alot of time outside.

4) People eat and shop like crazy, tomorrow i'm going to take some pictures of the shopping malls they are outrageously high end.

5) i'm going to lose ALOT of weight, ordering from the menu is an adventure.  Yesterday I ordered pineapple fried rice, hoping! I say again HOPING to get some fried rice that tasted like pineapple.  It had shrimp, squid, some brown meat that i have no clue what it was and cuttle fish.  Now i'm scared to order by menu, we were all freaked yesterday of what we had for lunch so we ate pancakes for dinner last night roflmao.  I better get used to asian food or ill be 130lbs when i get back, ive already lost a good amount of weight.

6) Holy Mother of God the housing that they are showing us is unreal.  We saw a property today that rents for 16k SGD a month that's about 14k USD.  The basement parking facility was literally cleaner than a doctors office in the states. It had 9 cars (yes I counted) in the basement, with no car costing less than 80k USD, mind you the cost to buy a car in singapore is is 5x+ more than in the US.  So the yellow 224k Lamborghini Galardo in the basement cost close to 800k in SGD.

7) But the place we chose is its worth 4.5 million dollars (us), we haven't locked it down but we hope the paperwork moves quickly and we can be in it in 2 weeks.  Living in this hotel like living facility really sucks.  The Condo is called Sky 11 and I attached some pictures to show everyone because, the Stubblefields will never again, more than likely, live somewhere worth 4.5 million dollars ever again.
 
Hope you all are well!  We continue to miss you all!

Our first full day

Good morning to all of you, it is approximately 10pm here and we have just finished our first full day in Singapore. We arrived to our temporary home at the Orchard Parksuites shortly after 2am. After just a few hours of sleep we were up and going for a full day orientation to the city.
Our guide, Angie, and our driver, Tom, kept us awake and engaged all day as we were introduced to life in S'pore. Our day began with a driving tour of Dempsey Hill, a former army barracks converted into a shopping and restaurant area that features many cuisines. From there we drove outside the City Centre to see the future location of the new Lakeview Campus for the Canadian International School as well as driving by the current location at Jurong East. We will officially tour the school next Tuesday but for now driving past to see it allowed us to see how nice it looks and the beautiful surroundings.
Up next a side trip to the Singapore Botanic Gardens. This beautiful setting is free and covers acres of grounds with waterfalls, ponds and walking trails. Seeing bananas grow freely was very interesting. Halie enjoyed watching Dannette feed the swans, turtles and giant koi that populate the water areas.

Singapore Botanic Gardens

Following our walk, we were shown many necessities such as the medical centres, hospitals, grocery markets and money changing stations. We learned to navigate the MRT subway system and even took a quick ride. They are not kidding when they say Singapore is clean! The subway was immaculate!!
To wrap up our day Angie took us to a local place for lunch where we dined on chicken and rice, a Singaporean staple. We learned that food is often shared family style and enjoyed having a local with us to make suggestions. Finally, with a quick tour through Chinatown to a see the Lantern Festival decorations. It was bright and amazingly colorful. We hope to get a chance to take the river cruise to see the Lanterns lit from the river.
By then we were all exhausted and needed a long nap. We dragged ourselves out of bed around 7pm and ventured out on our own to find an ATM (quite a challenge to find one for your specific bank) and then a bite to eat. I confess we were all over stimulated by then and went for the American staple of TGI Fridays :)
Tomorrow is our first full day of house hunting which we are all really looking forward to. The city is also abuzz right now as the Formula1 races are this weekend here in Singapore. It's a very large street race circuit and concert featuring Lady Gaga, Adam Lamber and Daughtry!
I think we are all doing our best to adjust quickly but recognizing it is very different than Chicago! Enjoy the pics, that's all for now. Good night!

An evening down Orchard Road, right outside our housing

A few interesting facts about Singapore

Since today was fairly quiet I thought I would dedicate today's entry to information about the country we are moving to. These are some of the most common questions I receive about the country so I thought that would be the best place to start.
1. Singapore is a tropical rainforest climate with average daily temps ranging from 71-93F with an average daily humidity of 90% in the mornings and 60% in the afternoons
2. May and June are the warmest months with November and December making up the wettest monsoon months.
3. Local currency is the Singapore dollar which currently trades at about $1.36 to the US dollar.
4. 42% of the population consists of foreigners.
5. Singapore is the second most densely populated country in the world next to Monaco.
6. The recognized national languages of Singapore are English, Malay, Mandarin Chinese and Tamil.
7. The main religion is Buddhism practiced by 42% of the population followed by 14% each of Islam, no religion and Christianity.
8. Singapore is rated as having the best Quality of Life in Asia and the 11th best in the world based on e Economist Quality of Life Index.
That should answer most questions I hear often. For those interested in seeing more of Singapore without leaving home, be sure to check out the Top Chef season finale that aired on Bravo as it is filmed entirely in Singapore or you can watch an older episode of the Amazing Race on Youtube that was filmed there as well!
Well that's all for now, the next entry will hopefully be from our stopover in Hong Kong if WiFi is available, otherwise next entry.......Singapore!

Move Complete

Today was the third and final day of the move. The house is now empty and ready to be cleaned for the new tenant who will be occupying the house while we are away. 

Today's part of the move went very quickly as the only thing left for today was to wrap, inventory and load the items going to Singapore in "the can".  "The can" as the movers affectionately call it, is the 40 foot sea container provided to us to get the bulk of our household items to Singapore.

The container will now be placed onto a freight train where it will makes its way to the West Coast before boarding a boat that will float it to Singapore.  In approximately 6 weeks we should be ready to move into our permanent housing and our things will arrive.

The rest of the weekend is dedicated to saying goodbye to family and relaxing a bit before the long flight that lies ahead.

It's Moving Day

The time has arrived and we officially have begun the week long journey to get ourselves and our mass amounts of stuff to Singapore. It all began this morning when 5 men arrived wanting to tear through our house and inventory and wrap 1200 lbs or our most immediate needs upon arrival.  These things are shipped via air and should arrive in approximately 21 days. Anything we need sooner than that will be coming on the flight with us.
The packing went smoothly and wrapped up shortly after 1pm. They will be back tomorrow to fill the truck with everything remaining here in long term storage.
As the house is in complete chaos, we have relocated up the street to a hotel. I am sure by Monday we will all be ready to get out of here, it is cozy but very nice.
My car has been sold and we are officially carless.  We do have a rental until we leave which helps tremendously.
We are all exhausted and getting ready for an early night (well at least early for John and Dannette, early for me would be 7pm). Onto yet another day. I am sure we will have more updates soon.  For now, enjoy the pics of the chaos !

Down to my last day in the office

The final countdown continues and I am now at my last day of work. My office is packed and my going away party is tomorrow. I am so exhausted I don't really have much time to write.

The major events of the day are the dependent passes for John, Dannette and Halie have been approved (this allows them to stay in the country longer than a regular tourist) and we received our temporary housing. If you are interested, here is the link to where we will be staying http://www.fareasthospitality.com/sr/orchardparksuites Be sure to check out the gallery of photos and the virtual tours to get a good idea of what it will look like. Definitely appears we will be well taken care of. Next major steps should be we should start to receive links to potential permanent housing options. I can't wait to see those.

Continuing our Final preparations

My week of vacation turned out to be anything but relaxing. It was productive though which is a good thing considering how much we have going on. We areue in the last four nights of sleeping in our own beds for at least the next 6 weeks.  The hotel has been booked and we begin staying up the street at a Marriott on Wednesday.  My final day in the office will be this Tuesday as the rest of the week will be dedicated to staying at the house with the movers.
Moving is definitely different this time.  We don't pack a thing as the moving company takes care of all of that. In certain cases they even outsource some of our packing to "experts" for a specific item.  For instance, they have a separate company coming in that is dedicated to packing up our glass dining table top and the glass shelving on one of our entertainment centers! You would think movers would be equipped to pack everything, apparently not.
The good bye parties have started, John is out with his work this evening, my work is having a luncheon on Tuesday. John's family had a party for us last weekend and we celebrate with my family this coming Saturday. I am looking forward to being done with all the preparation and getting to spend some time relaxing.
The best news of the week has to be that all of our animals have temporary homes for the two years while we are away. Saying goodbye to them is going to be tough, but made easier knowing that we will have them back again.  We begin our goodbyes to the animals tomorrow as Dietrich goes off to his new home.  He has a great family and I think he is going to really enjoy being with them.  I can't thank our friends enough who have so generously stepped up and helped us with them!
Big projects for this week, sell my car and pack up/ship out.  This is it!  We are almost on our way. No turning back now : )

Employment Pass Arrives!

S'pore was not on holiday this past Monday (they don't celebrate Labor Day so next year I will be working while all of you are relaxing) and thus my employment pass was able to be approved.
As mentioned in the prior post, the employment pass is what everything hinged on so today was an extremely busy day. 
The movers have now been confirmed, they will arrive beginning next Wednesday 9/15 and are scheduled to pack us over the next three days (9/15-9/17).  This means that we will be relocating to a hotel beginning on Wednesday 9/15 and that will truly be when I think it will hit all of us that we are leaving.

I was also able to book our airline tickets today.  We officially depart just after noon on Monday 20Sept (I need to get used to typing the dates correctly as I won't be able to get away with the odd American way of dating things any longer).  Our flight will be as "direct" as you can get to S'pore.  We will travel business class with 4 seats to Hong Kong.  In Hong Kong, we will deplane for about 3 hours to stretch our legs while they refuel and then depart for our final destination in S'pore arriving Tuesday night just before midnight.  In total this is the fastest way to get there with the total airport to airport time taking just under 19 hours!

The rest of the day was packed with getting our new PO box set up, taking Dannette to the oral surgeon and answering emails from the different persons working on our move.

Up tomorrow is starting the cancellation calls for phone, cell phones, etc What fun my vacation is turning out to be.  Who ever said I don't know how to have a good time. Thats all for now, I am exhausted and want to go watch some American TV!

And so it begins........................

September has officially begun and with it begins the biggest adventure our family has ever embarked on. For those of you not already following the recent developments of our lives, we are relocating to Singapore later this month. 
I can't tell you the exact date because we don't know.  It hinges on the arrival of my employment pass and it should arrive any day now.  Once it arrives, we are full steam ahead and our tickets will be booked.
To give everyone a sense of what the past few weeks has been like, I can only describe it as extremely organized chaos. We are being well taken care of by my company. That being said, well taken care of also means being taken care of by at least 10 individuals who have each been assigned to a small piece of our large move. We have contacts for everything, someone responsible for packing our house here, another responsible for finding us a home in S'pore, a realtor to rent our home here, language instructors, cross cultural trainers, a global banker, tax consultation......you get the idea, the list goes on and on.
The good news is things are moving along and we are all starting to get excited and I think a bit anxious. Trying to imagine that in a few weeks time we will be half way around the world where we know no one except the four of us is pretty overwhelming. We are all looking forward to the adventure and the opportunity.
Latest progress is Dannette officially has been accepted to the Canadian International School so she will be able to begin school as soon as we get settled.

We plan to do our best to keep this blog up to date, it should be a great piece of memories to look back on for us.