Hit the ground running

*I had written a lengthy post earlier. Unfortunately Blogger was having issues and lost my incredible post! And so here I go again.

When ever I go for a run in a new country, it always feels like a time shift has occurred and I hover between two lives: my old life and my new life. I experience instant recall of sights, sounds of where ever I last ran. Only briefly though, as my brain attempts to switch gears and prepare me for my new running location. The two lives I hovered between on my first run here are of course New Zealand and Singapore. My heart fluttered as I could feel myself back in Hagley Park, trees over head, acorns at my feet, cool breeze and the sound of the 4 avenues on one side of me. Switch. Humid stickiness, truck exhaust, different running apparel, slight inclines and smells that aren't necessarily pleasant to the olfactory senses.

All of this happens in seconds. Probably more like split seconds. It is our month long transition condensed into a moment.

I am now going on my 5th run and I of course don't experience this shifting anymore. Just like when we go into the grocery store I don't immediately think of grocery shopping in New Zealand. Just like I don't immediately think of walking into the doors of my old school as I walk into my new school. It is amazing how quickly people adapt. There are of course a few

areas were we could adapt more, i.e. acclimatizing to the heat. I am starting to notice the ever so slight change of degrees in the morning and evening, as opposed to it all just being HOT. When I come running up my last hill and I feel the breeze and I think, "ahhhh...the cool breeze" as opposed to "bleh, hot air!" I don't think Dave has reached the same level of acclimatization yet. He is the PE teacher and is outside for a good portion of the day. I feel like this maintains his body temperature at higher than normal level and he never actually lowers it until he gets the chance to jump into our swimming pool.

It has been a big month of new things! But as I sit here drinking my coffee, glancing over to the rugby on our new tv set up, listening to the laundry out on the back balcony, with a full stomach of eggs and toast, it really doesn't feel much different than anywhere else. I guess once you've moved countries a few times you can fall into your usual routine fairly quickly.

We have had an incredibly smooth transition. We had sorted out our living accommodation before arriving and so upon arriving we did not have to embark on daily searches for a place to live as many teachers did. The school provides 10 days in a hotel (10 days for a couple, 5 days for a single person) and we decided to stay in the hotel for the full 10 days, despite already

having a place to stay. Our hotel was minutes away from Orchard Road which is the main shopping area in Singapore. It was so handy to have that at our door step. We were able to hop on the MRT and easily get to a variety of places from where we were. Plus, other new teachers were at the hotel and so it was good opportunity to meet other new people. There were nearly 60 new teachers arriving at the school for 2011/2012. And as the principal regularly says, it isn't because 60 teachers left. It is because of role growth.

We viewed these 10 days as our holiday. After all we had just finished school and were about to start up a new year. We wanted a little bit of down time. We would venture out for the day early in the morning, and be back for around 5pm pool time which just happened to coincide with Happy Hour. We packed in a lot over those 10 days. Little India, art galleries, movies, shopping, eating, museums, etc. I think we were inadvertently trying to make up for not being able to do many of things in Christchurch. We also knew once school started we wouldn't have as much time to get around to the various tourist attractions. While in tourist mode we wanted to tick off a few of the tourist boxes.

First impressions of Singapore are good. I am amazed at how easy it is. The biggest advantage to being here is the language. Everyone speaks English. Having lived in countries where people don't speak English this was a bit of a shock at first. The ability to stop and ask for directions is a novelty we have generally not experienced. Also, the city is such a mixed city with people from all over the world, you never really feel like you stand out. Unless of course you are wandering around Little India at night among all the migrant laborers. THERE you stand out. Again, blending in is a novelty we have no necessarily had in other countries. Asia Lite and Asia 101 are two expressions often used to describe living in Singapore. I would agree with those statements. However, there are fundamental differences between how people function in Singapore. Their world framework is still very different from ours. This can get easily forgotten and I think at times expat frustration stems from forgetting that we are in fact living in a foreign country.

So now we are all moved in. Work is well underway. Our house still has evidence of us just moved in with various boxes placed sporadically around the apartment. Life is very different from what we were living 4 months ago. We take a bus to school. It takes around 15-20 minutes. Every once in awhile if I have a lot of stuff we grab a taxi. Taxis are a fairly cheap way of getting around, though if you go at peak times you get dinged a few more dollars. We arrive at school at 7:30, school starts at 8:45. My day is quite different because my students go to specialist teachers for PE, Language, Music and Drama. We finish school at 3:15. I try to leave by 5pm. Next term I will be involved with an extra curricular activity which will occur once a week.

We haven't sorted out our eating yet. We usually have lunch at the school canteen. It has a pretty good salad bar and I take that opportunity to stock up on fresh veggies. Slowly we have been doing more cooking at home. Often if we are out we grab food from a hawker's stall which costs us anywhere from $5-$10 for the two of us. As much as I enjoy eating at the hawker's stall I am getting a bit tired of chicken rice and noodles. If I could eat my delicious thai food every day (see photo below) I wouldn't mind. However, my thai lady isn't always open so I can't always eat my delicious thai food. Slowly we are sorting it out.

With all the fresh asian ingredient at our finger tips I'd love to practice making my delicious thai food. We do have have a wet market nearby by (wet markets are what they call fresh markets), but unfortunately it is only open in the mornings. I believe it is open on Saturday mornings but then that means I need to be up early Saturday morning. :-)

It has been a big change but I can probably hear through my words we are happy to be where we are. We miss New Zealand terribly. It has been an odd mix of emotions with being happy to be free of the shaking, but feel sad that our friends are still going through it. There are so many fantastic people we left behind, and the lifestyle we had was one that probably can't be replicated in too many countries. But with that said, I am so excited about having the chance to reconnect with friends in Thailand and Japan. And I am really really looking forward to our visit back to Canada this summer. At the end of the day you have to make decisions that are right for you.