Spring is in the Air

After our safari adventure Saturday night, we spent Sunday morning on a different kind of pursuit. We loaded up the family for a trip to the neighborhood IKEA in search of a few more items for the household. I found everything on my list and we were happy to discover the arrival of outdoor furniture at the store. While our weather never changes, we're learning that retailers don't necessarily cater to us. We have to wait for everyone else's warm weather to get the goods. We have a "rooftop terrace" with a jacuzzi tub just outside the master bedroom upstairs and while it's nice to have a private outdoor area to ourselves, it's pretty ugly. We have the building's water storage tanks lining two sides of the terrace and there's not much we can do about that sight. So, doing something with that area of the condo was low on our priority list. Then we spotted the reasonably-priced patio furniture at IKEA...

We bought two chairs, a small table and an outdoor rug for starters. Brian promptly assembled the furniture and suddenly I had a full-blown case of spring fever. I could hardly wait to decorate that terrace so we could spend more time out there. Pretty odd since the weather has only changed by a few degrees since we arrived. Basically hot vs. hotter.

Tuesday afternoon I made another trip to the flower market with Elizabeth to buy greenery for our new living area. I finally get to experience the joy of living in the tropics where I can buy flowering plants that can survive year-round. I brought home 6 potted plants and if I can keep them alive, I'll likely buy another 6 in the near future. After all, I need to divert attention to something more attractive than those storage tanks, right? I'm glad I took the camera to the market because Elizabeth enjoyed the pond at the place where we were shopping. It was stocked with fish that kept her entertained while I loaded up plants. The terrace definitely looks better now.

The missing piece is the grill. I didn't realize how much we used the grill at home until I started cooking over here. The condo complex has numerous gas grills we could use but it costs us a refundable deposit of $200 plus a $50 usage fee each time. For that, we should just invest in our own. The problem is that like everything else here, they're insanely priced. I keep looking at the SAS newsletter in hopes that some expat family moving home will sell theirs but so far no luck. Brian is traveling to Las Vegas in early May for a few days so if all else fails, he plans to buy one there and make it checked luggage on the plane. I'm delighted for him to hang out with IBM folks for a few days if it gets us a grill and some items from the local Target store! Expat living does strange things to people.

In other news, I'm showing Delia how to prepare some meals for us so that she can fix dinner a couple nights each week. She's eager to learn how to cook Western food and since I know it will help her with future employers, it's a win-win situation. She chops food better than me so it's been nice to have her help in the kitchen. So far we've made tacos, quiche and a few seafood dishes. I shared my pico de gallo recipe with her last week since she promised she wouldn't leave us to work at a Mexican restaurant. Elizabeth continues to enjoy the role of Mommy's helper in the kitchen as well. When I bake anything, she's always by my side stirring and tasting the product. She helped me make guacamole this week and told everyone that she made "holy guacamole" (thanks to the SkippyJon Jones book). I love cooking with a 3-year old!

Brian has had work events almost every night this week so we haven't seen him much. I dined out with my expat girlfriends Tuesday night at Peony Jade, a restaurant near us that I had been to once before with Brian. We ordered completely different dishes and they were all delicious so it's officially a good restaurant. One dessert item caught our attention. It was described as "Bird's Nest with Rock Sugar & Red Dates" or something along those lines. Odd description but what caught my eye was the price - $60. We inquired about the cost of the dessert and was informed that it is quite a rare menu item because the birds nests are hard to find. Yes, they are REAL nests. She explained that it's a particular kind of nest that is edible and the Chinese believe there are powerful medicinal benefits to eating them. If it was chocolate-covered, I would have been more tempted. Needless to say, we opted to spend our money on the known benefits of red wine rather than eating a nest. It's likely that I'll get talked into ordering it at some point though, just for the experience.

My fellow Texan friend Karen introduced me to a great shopping mall this week and I can hardly wait to return. It's called Vivo City and it's an easy ride on the subway from our condo. I saw several stores that I hadn't found elsewhere in Singapore and it has a nice selection of children's stores. So many of the malls here were built like hospitals are in the States. I get the impression that they just kept adding onto them with no clear idea of how to connect the parts, so I end up having problems finding the right bank of elevators (they call them "lifts") to get to the desired location, etc. Add a stroller into the mix and it gets downright irritating. Thankfully this Vivo City mall seems better planned. It's located right next to the cruise ship terminal so they likely placed it there to cater to those visitors. I'm happy to throw some Sing dollars their way.

It's hard to believe we're already approaching another weekend. Monday is Brian's birthday so we can look forward to starting the festivities this weekend. His gifts will be in bags with tissue paper because one store had no boxes and the next store charged $8 per gift box. Like I said before, everything is more expensive here. I'll share more news about the birthday boy following the weekend :)