Home is....

Remember the quilt, "Home Is" and the saying I appliquéd on it, Home is where ever I'm with you? Well Singapore is home for now so I thought I would tell you about it and our lifestyle now that we are no longer in Galveston.

An afternoon storm.

The view from our window back toward Singapore.

Singapore is a Southeast Asia city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, 85 miles north of the equator. So, yes, I am used to the climate. It is a bit more humid here, it rains everyday for a short time, but as I tell people who complain about Houston and the Gulf area being so humid, it is good for the skin.

Over 5 million people live here which amounts to roughly 19,000 people per square mile. The languages spoken here are English(it was an English colony until 1963) Malay, Chinese and Tamil.

The view looking down from our living room.

As you can imagine, most housing consists of apartment blocks. We live in one in the Jurong West neighborhood. Ours is on the 16th floor with floor to ceiling windows. This was a bit harrowing for me at first, I can't say that I am afraid of heights but the fear of falling from a great height has always been an issue for me. I remember as a child watching one of those old black and white Tarzan movies where Tarzan was battling with some tribesman on the edge of a cliff. I was so scared I pulled a loose tooth out while intensely trying not to fall off or keep Tarzan from falling off. Silly isn't it? More recently my daughter Hannah and her boyfriend Scott and I were watching Tower Heist (silly, also!) and I had to close my eyes and dry the palms of my hands while Ben Stiller and Matthew Broderick tried to get the car into a high-rise window. Hannah just laughs at me.

Anyway, you can see how this might make living here a bit nerve racking. I made the mistake off opening all the windows one day, which was easier than trying to close them. I had to hang out of the window to grab the handle. I think from now on I will just keep the AC on.

Shopping and eating is very easy here. There are malls and shops everywhere and food everywhere. I have fish almost everyday since I arrived. I love fresh fish and at least when you buy fish you know that that is what it is. You can never be sure about chicken, beef and pork. Some people don't like having their meal looking at them while they are eating it but I have no problem with it.

The menus are pictured above each stall.

A local shop.

The local food stalls are called hawkers. Under most of the apartment blocks there are stalls and stalls of hawkers. There are also drug stores, department stores, produce, bakeries, etc. You don't have to go far to find what you need and the people are very friendly.

Fish with chili sauce.

Seeing as how we are so close to Malaysia and Indonesia, we hope to do some weekend runs to visit some beautiful places. I have already picked out some that I want to got to, Sumba, for one looks stunning. The perfect place for a wedding (wink, wink, hint, hint,) or honeymoon. It is in Indonesia about 3 hours from Bali. Martin's birthday is coming up so I was thinking maybe somewhere close, like Bintan. They have a Banyan Tree Resort there that looks amazing. It, too, is in Indonesia but it is only a one hour ferry ride from Singapore.

                                                                         This is a resort in Sumba, Nihiwatu.

 I will let you know what we decide and where we go to visit. I feel blessed to be able to be in this part of the world and to see some amazing things, meet some of the most friendly people in the world and make new friends.

Isn't she precious?!

P.S.
This post was meant for last month but I have had a bit of a learning curve regarding adding photos to my blogs. I actually taught myself how to solve the problem so now I can blog more frequently and add all the pictures I want to. Sorry for the delay. We have actually already celebrated Martin's birthday so I will add a new blog soon with all the photos.