fuchsia fragments

Think the air con / hot weather / air con temperature fluctuation finally caught up to me and I was hit pretty hard for a few days with a cold that really knocked me out. Was home from Monday afternoon until Thursday and although I knew I'd be fine, my colleagues were genuinely concerned with a few of them offering to drop by with food, medication and company. Didn't expect that!

So a couple of them did come by on Wednesday evening and took me out to dinner (knowing that I don't cook here). It was nice but they were pretty mean and said I looked like crap :( Embodying the 'tell it like it is' mindset...

Got asked some funny questions like 'do I have a buddy here?' (someone who will check up on me if i go AWOL). Do I know where the doctor is? What's the emergency number?.... slightly aghast to admit that I don't know!

Got a busy busy week coming up and having to prepare for it feels like going back to uni again. I have been studiously reviewing case studies and writing notes... it is so tiring! Today was also the first full Sunday I spent at all without going anywhere, not even a walk along the river.

I've been in Singapore for just shy of 4 weeks now and it's been a relatively easy transition so far. My colleagues (and friends) have been pretty supportive from offering to help me move in, go shopping with me, go out for lunch and set up bank accounts etc.

Setting up a bank account here without a new place is a bit of a nightmare and a catch-22. I need a bank account to be able to put down a security deposit and bond but I can't set up a bank account without an address! And to top it off, had issues with my name since all my Australian bank accounts had first name + last name but passport and EP had first name + middle name + last name.

Work hiccups included not being able to download my emails (which turned out to be stored locally on my old laptop). Luckily I was able to get my laptop written off in oz and have it sent here or I might have cried... that's over 3 years worth of emails! Plus my laptop was so much better than the one they gave me here... haha.

I found a place within the first 3 weeks of arriving which was awesome. In the area I was looking in, within my budget and reasonably sized. I was so excited to go to IKEA on Friday evening to get things for my new place!!! Another thing I'm grateful for: my jetsetting parents for spending a few days here and doing all the heavy lifting and transporting all my stuff (and I managed to bring a LOT) to the new apartment while I went to work. Seriously would have taken me all weekend without them.

Bought some appliances today and most things are cheaper here but the sales people really try to push you towards one direction to the point it gets annoying!

We had a Design Thinking workshop yesterday followed by Japanese-Spanish fusion at a local restaurant which was very pretty. The food was good too but not Spanish (pretty sure my Spanish friend would be mortified. The drinks were good if you can overlook that the Sangria was lemonade, red wine and cinnamon. But their version of the whiskey highball was good as it had the added taste of gin. I really am liking gin at the moment.

Dinner was great but we went for "one more drink" (i.e., sit at a bar until the last train) around the corner. And as we weren't prepared and weren't planning to stick around the area since we always go to Roppongi, we kind of had to find any place that well, had a table available. Who would have thought that this would be difficult at 10 PM on a Tuesday evening? Anyway, we managed to stumble into a place after our third try (actually, there was a guy standing around who told us to go to his awesome place... talk about managing to get customers - he was good!).

At this stage, it really was supposed to be ONE MORE DRINK. But then about 20 minutes later, this group of around 10 office ladies and guys sat down at the next table and they were noisy. And the funniest thing ever, one of the girls sat down and it was kind of next to my boss (but on the next table) and preceded to tell him how handsome he was. HAHAHAHAHA.

So we bought them a round of drinks and some of them decided to show their gratitude by showing everyone how awesome their drinking skills were (they were probably my age or a little bit older). You really had to be there - it was so much fun and have not laughed so much in months. Literally like drinking with the locals and it was great! Could not believe how loud they can get especially because it is always so so quiet in the office!