We made it! We landed in Singapore around 8:00am this morning. The 17 hours went by faster than I thought. Mostly because I was able to sleep for about 8.5 hours on the plane. Bren wasn't as fortunate and had a stomach ache :( We got to see the sun rise on the plane though and at one point Bren said "On that side the sky is bright and has turned to daylight and on this side darkness has begun to fade." It was pretty neat to see from 25,000 feet above the earth. Strict laws and penalties was something I'd read about Singapore before coming. Some of these things where confirmed when on the plane we were given cards to fill out for immigration and this was printed on the back:
After getting off the plane we went through immigration and customs--both which were a fairly seamlessly process. We were both excited to see that our two checked suitcases had made it despite the flight delay. Next we got some money out of the ATM and switch out our sim cards for Singtel sim cards to have cell phone service and data while we are here. We were tired and had our large luggage so we decided to Uber to our new living place. Our Uber drive was friendly and shared some "Singapore 101" facts and info with us. Once we arrived at the Anderson Junior College hostel we checked in and were shown to our apartment and home for the next 4.5 months. The space is great and bigger than we both expected. I think it is quite a bit larger than our apartment in Brooklyn. Here are a few pictures of the space:
After we took a brief inventory of what we might need to feel more comfortable in our apartment we ventured out to find lunch, a grocery store, and some household supplies. The neighbor we are living in is very residential, quite, and beautiful. The trees, ferns, vines, flowers and grass are all so green and lively.
Bren and I really enjoyed walking around the shopping mall areas, smelling new foods, and hearing new voices and languages around us. We ate lunch at a Hawker Centre at a Chinese place that was delicious. There were whole, smoked ducks hanging on the counter window--which was a first for me to see while ordering lunch. Bren got roasted duck and white rice and I got noodles with dumplings:
After lunch Bren and I went to the grocery store and got a few essentials to snack on and have at our apartment. Bren pointed out lots of items at the grocery store that he remembered seeing and eating in Japan when he lived in Kagoshima. We were pretty tired and feeling the jet lag by the time we made it back from the grocery store. Bren decided to take a nap around 2:30pm Singapore time and I worked on this blog. I was feeling sleepy so I decided to nap around 4:30pm, but set an alarm for 6:30pm so that we could get up and get dinner and try to not mess up our sleeping schedules here. It was a lost cause though and we must have been very tired because we woke up at 11:30pm! Oops. We were able to fall asleep again, but were pretty much awake and ready to go by 6:30am.
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