School Holiday – Act One

Though I love teaching and living here, there are moments when I want things to be easier. I want people to know when I’m cracking a joke. I want to not break into a sweat immediately after showering. I want students to ask me questions besides whether or not I know Gangnam Style. I want to not stall a car at a stoplight with 20 people behind me. I want to buy a block of real cheese and eat my feelings.

In other words, the first long school holiday could not have come at a better or more prodigious time. On the day of my departure, I literally ran from the school office …

First Stop – Singapore

Too true, weird cat Irving statue. Too true.

I had heard from another ETA that his first visit to Singapore after living in Indonesia was, like mine, an enjoyable experience full of efficiency, Western comforts, and traffic signs. His second visit, however, was less magical. Not so for me. From the moment I walked through customs, where they offer you mints, and immediately on to an MRT train to the bed and breakfast, I felt at ease and more in control than I have in two months. I feel the same way in NYC. I guess I’m a city kid at heart.

Meeting me in Singapore was one of my best friends from high school, Katie (she prefers Katharine, but she doesn’t read this, so … Katie, it is). She had flown in a few days before me to do some hotel/attraction inspections for work, so I met her at our bed and breakfast.* After catching up and scarfing down a third of the bag of chocolate chip cookies her mom  made me, we set off to explore and find dinner. After walking along the quays, one of which sports busts of Ho Chi Minh and Nehru, Katie and I had pizza for dinner. Pork covered pizza. Delicious.

With only one full day in Singapore, Katie and I started out pretty early the next morning. What follows is the short version of what we did and saw:

·     Fort Canning Park

·     Chinatown - with coffee and kaya butter toast

·     Tiong Bahru - visited this kind of old school, kind of  hipsterish neighborhood, and its resident book store, Books Actually

·     Little India - attempted to see a temple, but were thwarted by floor tiles too hot to walk on; inhaled some masala dosa instead

·     Botanic Gardens – walked through the park in early evening, which offered a nice reprieve from the heat coming off the pavement

·     Gelato – why not?

·     Cendol – why not? having discussed this tasty little Malaysian dessert with our host, she offered to take us to a restaurant she knew that served it

Fort Canning

Botanical Gardens

Sunset at Botanical Gardens

Stuffed to the brim, Katie and I packed up our gear and got ready for an early flight to Phnom Penh ...

*A note on the bed and breakfast we stayed in - Hotels in Singapore are expensive. Hostels in Singapore are clean and decently priced, but I don’t like sleeping in a room with people I don’t know. I just don’t, okay? Bed and breakfasts, like the one I found on Airbnb (which is a great service, by the way), are a nice middle ground.

The b&b was in a residential neighborhood of Singapore, near an MRT station. The house was absolutely stunning with a small, outside garden, a rooftop deck, recycling, composting, and three cats. If you were to ask me if that last part had anything to do with why I booked there, I wouldn’t deny it. The room itself was large and extremely comfortable, with huge windows, an overhead fan, an iPad, and A/C. The bathroom included a shower that did not sit over the toilet. Huzzah!

Part of the bed and breakfast booking included breakfast. Duh. It was marvelous. Not only did our host prepare quite the spread – fresh baked croissants and pains au chocolat, fruit smoothies, homemade lattes, scrambled eggs – but also she anticipated my need for pork products, specifically bacon.