Singapore Sling - Week 3 - Alan

Our second week in Singapore was pretty much normal. We did wonder down to Clarke Quay, Singapore's Cockle Bay, with the hope of devouring our favourite satay, but alas, the modernisation of the area has forced out the hawkers...so we settled for a restaurant.

Week 3, and Alan's in Manila, Hanna's in Semarang, Indonesia. I can't really say that I saw much in Manila, apart from the drive to and from the airport, I think I saw a good 500m worth of the city. My hotel was on the Ayala Triangle, in the CBD district of Makati. The office was also on the triangle.



The hotel was nice, the foyer huge, but the security at every door, and the brochures explaining how to keep yourself safe, provided on check-in were a bit daunting. I managed to walk to my office (sorry that the photos are such low resolution, blame Motorola for that...), and enjoyed weaving between traffic to cross the road. I tried to get a photo of the Jeepneys, but I've had to settle for one I've downloaded.


The Manila office is strangely similar to the Sydney and Singapore office...in the world of corporate identity, its sad to travel across the world to be in the same surroundings wherever you go. The one interesting inclusion in the office was this bank of lockers in the kitchen. Obviously the idea of an architect, as the keys for all but a couple of the lockers were still in the doors...


So now I'm back in Singapore, and have just agreed to extend my contract here.

Hopefully, in the next few days, we'll have an update from Hanna's week with her family, (and hopefully some pictures of her home town and our niece and nephew).

Until then...

Alan

 

Singapore Sling - Week 1

So, we safely arrived in our new home of Singapore. After spending our first night in a hotel near the office, we headed to our new home.

The apartment's in a heritage building, part of Singapore's Kreta Ayer area. We're on the doorstep of chinatown, and a slow 5 minute walk to the MRT (that includes waiting at the lights to cross the street!

Inside, the apartment's a decent size, plenty big enough for the two of us, and is of a standard we've become accustomed to. Polished timber floor, nice built ins, leather couch, and timber furniture.


The kitchen is not quite big enough to cook, but more reason for us to eat out every night at some of the dozens of restaurants and food stalls within a stones throw.


Other than that, there's not really much to say really. We spent our first weekend shopping, and watched a Thai movie (which I am still not sure whether it was horror or comedy).

We're liking it here, and have quickly adjusted to the fact that one of the only two tv channels we can watch is chinese (and happens to be the channel we're watching now!).

My new office is a 15 minute walk from home, and has go small but friendly team. The task at hand seems challenging, and I feel like I could achieve a lot in the time I'm here, so I'm very positive about the move.

We're considering now whether to extend our stay here to twelve months, giving us time to save some more before heading the expensive London and Europe.

Well, we'll sign off there, we're not big bloggers, but we'll try to at least post our pics from weekends away when we get around to having them!

Love Alan & Hanna