Singapore Snaps

School & Other Adventures

Bryan says:
I am teaching at Anderson Secondary School in Ang Mo Kio and Felicity is at St Margaret's Girls' School in Farrer Road. Secondary schools here cover the same as the Year 7 - 10 span as in Australia, with a (much) tougher workload for students. My school has both express, normal academic and technical streams. There are about 80 on the staff and approx 1200 students. There is another Aussie lady (Jan) on the staff who is my official buddy and Tom an expat New Zealander. I have found everyone to be friendly and supportive.

So far I have 3 English classes , two Sec 3 classes and a Sec 4 which I am sharing with Jan. Class sizes are big with approx 42 in each class. This week I will begin taking a Sec 3 Drama for a couple of weeks, while the regular teacher is doing a PD. I am also helping out with rehearsals for Speech day and next term I will begin a Drama Enrichment programme, as part of an elective programme for the Sec 2 students who do not have any timetabled Drama in their programme.


The school day over here begins at 7.20 with a whole school assembly where students and staff attend flag raising, sing the national anthem and take the pledge. This is followed by notices and sundry announcements, then its off to class. There are 14 x 30 minute periods, all of which run as doubles. Classes are all over by 2.10 and then students either study or attend co-curricular activities.


Second term started off busy as students are gearing up for exams. I have just written my first two exam papers for comprehension and composition (very exacting), as well as helping to put together a performance for speech night, which went off pretty well.


From Felicity
Howdy friends,
Here we are in perpetual summer. Yesterday there was a heavy thunderstorm that seemed to make the foundations shake with its roar. So I quickly put the air conditioner on and cooked a roast dinner. It’s a curious thing to be between cuisines as well as everything else. On the one hand you crave the familiar flavors and then you feel you need to add chili!!! The boys would prefer it if we cooked our usual fare at home, because we do eat out a lot more often than we ever did. It is sooo cheap. But, Bryan seems to have forgotten how to cook anything that isn’t Asian, so it’s up to me to keep the home fires burning so to speak.


Quite often we see a stall selling “western food” at a hawker centre, which is like a big food court. They tend to offer the most ghastly array of crap food known to mankind, served with gravy, chips and rice. Even the kids pass this one by in preference for something more authentic. We often enjoy the Indian and Malay food. We all have mini hawker centres at school instead of a single canteen. Jordan enjoys Terryaki chicken for lunch for just a couple of dollars. This is a vast improvement on the tuck shop. So as well as mastering an understanding of Singlish and the accents our students speak to us with, we are slowly adapting to the ways of Singapore life. Love to all. Please come visit and we will try chili crab together!


From Xavier
Hey all.
Arrived in Singapore safely, its bloody humid and my school is currently under going maintenance which means theirs no air con. I have met this one kid Aimen. He's from Brunei, we play soccer for the same team. He's pretty cool but loses it too quickly (my god I’m funny). My team is OK. We have so many French, many of which are dicks. There’s 1 Aussie called Ollie, he went to Haileybury so I told him we can't be friends. He hangs around with this ‘pom’ called Sam. He's gay. Any way after my long and grueling day at school its good to be able to beat up on a few kids. Jokes. Life in Singapore isn’t as bad as I’m making it out to be, just a little tough.
Cya 4 now Xave xx

From Jordy.

'4E isle H', the lady said elegantly.

'Thank you' mum said as she guided me to our seats.

'Cool! We got TV's.' I quickly sat down with mum, dad and Xave in the middle isle H. I guess by now you're wondering what the heck I am talking about. Well, if you haven't guessed already, I am on the plane towards my new home. SINGAPORE!!! Exciting as it may be, I am still very tired after the big event that happened last night. Some of you may know, but for those who don't, we had a family wedding and I didn't get home till 1.30 in the morning.

So, coming back to the story, I relaxed and pressed back into the seat and closed my eyes and that's where my dream begins. Now, I find myself standing and unwrapping things out of boxes in a strange place called Bishan Park Condo.

'WAKE UP!!!', mum screams as I try and lift my head out of my deep sleep. I turned my head only to find the sky dark and an abandoned street. I was confused until it hit me that school was now on the schedule. It was my first day. I can be anyone I want to be.

'Hey Amir, do you get this homework?, I asked.

'Uh... yep', my friend Amir said.

'Can I borrow your correction tape?' Tian Sen asked. (He is also another friend.)

'Sure thing I said happily. What ....huh...? How did I get this far in my dream, from unwrapping things in a strange place to talking to randoms that my mind tells me are my friends?

"Damn it! Someone must have hit the fast forward button.'

'What the heck are you talking about?' Berwyn questioned. (Berwyn is another friend.)
'Er, nothing.' I said, confused and disorientated.

I'll have to stop here or pause, as I have a bucket load of HARD homework to do. Here it doesn't seem like I have paused it seems like I have pressed down continually on fast forward. Every day goes as fast as it takes to click some fingers. But for now I keep dreaming and it goes on and on forever. I am missing you all extremely!

Bryan's Durian adventure
One of my 'great fun' adventures has been with the infamous Durian. I was in a supermarket and began chatting to a guy selling it in the fruit & veggie section in take away packs, 3 for $20. You can smell it when you first walk into the place. The smell is virtually the stuff of legend and folk tale, but honestly, I don't really mind it at all. When I confessed I had never tried it, he offered me three for twelve and, yep, I took it. How long can you live in Asia and not try Durian?

So the next installment was, as I was heading through the checkout and the lady on the cash register begins asking me all these apparently irrelevant and prying questions like: 'Are you driving a car' - to which I answer no - and - 'Are you taking bus?' 'What's it to you lady?? Yeah, I'm catching the bus.' 'OK, OK I pack it good for you. ' she says. And she begins putting the Durian inside one bag inside another bag inside another bag, explaining to me as she goes, that Durian is banned on public transport in Singapore! I suggest I'll just put it into my school bag and beging unzipping the bag, at which point the woman next in line who has been watching the circus of the ignorant Westerner buying the Durian, screams 'No! No! Stink out your bag. Must carry.' So off I go to smuggle my contraband Durain home on the bus, like a naughty school boy. A successful mission.

The most fun, however, was bringing the Durian home to Felicity and the boys and cracking open one of the packets on the dining room table after dinner. I really enjoyed that. I munched on the Durian and they fled, screaming (to the TV). They complained about the Durian for days, and of course they wouldn't go near it so that meant the three packets lasted for quite a while, as I was the only one eating it. Let me tell you that Durain actually goes well with mango on your cornflakes. Not that I could get anyone else to contemplate the concept. So, now that I have tried Durian and I have quite enjoyed it, I will be moving on to Durian icecream and other Durian deserts that I see long lines of Singaporeans queuing up for at various stalls around the place. And of course, bringing the odd pack or two home for the family to enjoy!!!

Setting up in Singapore

Setting Up & Settling In

We have been in Singapore for one month now, and we are all slowly acclimatising to the heat. Some days better than others, but we definitely know how to keep to the shade, linger in a breeze and make a dive for an air-conditioned shopping mall, even if we are not in consumer mode.

Our first week was spent downtown at the Bencoolen Hotel in, you guessed it, Bencoolen Street. Breakfast was served at tables out on the street - a nice touch. I enjoyed the salted fish and green pandan bread. After our arrival, we attended meetings at the Mininsty and some introductory workshops on curriculum at the Teachers' Network. In between times, it was a mad dash to look for and nab an apartment. We viewed at about 12 - 14 apartments in all, in a range of locations where one or other of us were going to be teaching or near to where the boys' would be attending school.

Looking at apartments, it was hard not to let that surprised, shocked look creep across the face as the agent enthusiastically told you how this particular apartment was 'soooo spacious', when you felt you were looking at a shoebox, for small sized feet at that. We saw some places with fabulous resort style facilities, snaking pools with stunning, landscaped gardens and even waterfalls; others with great panoramic skyline views, a HUDC on Braddel Hill which is a converted HDB (Govt housing in which most Singaporeans live) and which I quite liked, but Felicity and our female agent said there was something funny about the shower design in bathroom which would make it difficult for me to shower and which completely passed me by. I must have been too busy looking at the view. We even inspected one luxury condo with with three marble bathrooms that seemed bigger than the pocket handkerchief bedrooms. Over designed? A tad. Definately not for us.

The process was all about weighing up and attempting to balance: facilities, space, proximity to amenities, travel to/from two workplaces and two schools. Trying to get something to meet all those criteria was no mean feat, especially as we had no real idea where we were. The mounting hotel bill at Bencoolen, however, kept us (especially me) on our toes and out there looking. We eventually decided on a place in Bishan - which I'll tell you all about soon. After making our decision, we checked out of the 'Ben' on Sat morning and moved, with stacks of luggage, over to a backpacker place for the weekend - 'Sleepy Sam's' in Bussorah St. We gave up the refrigerator air con for fan style dorm rooms in an old shop house in Kampong Glam, the Malay Quarter. The four of us squeezed onto the veranda with matresses on the floor, a tiny area, one floor up overlooking the street, no windows only lovely, old wooden shutters.

Sleepy Sam's is a friendly place full of backpackers and the area around is fantastically atmospheric. We were awoken at 5am each morning by the call to prayer from 'Sultan Masjid' a huge mosque topped with golden domes and surrounded by minarets, about 50 meters up the street. Young Xave - always on the case - announced at breakfast, "Was there a party? I heard all these people singing in the middle of the night." We explored Arab Street, Felicity & I getting a tour of four Persian carpet shops from a very silken-tongued Iranian salesman. Nice carpets too. Special price -just for us. On Sunday afternoon, we ventured across the Rochor Canal into 'Little India' checked out a couple of Hindu Temples and ate some sensational South Indian vegetarian food, served on banana leaves. At one point Felicity asked me, 'Do you notice anything?' This time I got it right, she was the only female in there. As it turned out, we weren't committing any cultural faux pas, its just that there is a large, Indian male workforce in Singapore and heaps of them converge on Little India on Sunday afternoons. Probably their only day off.

The apartment we have settled on is in Bishan, in the central area of the island, called the 'heartland' cos bucket loads of people live here, now including us. We are up the top end of Bishan, almost in Ang Mo Kio, which is a very busy and highly populated area with many blocks of HDB flats, all with shops and hawker centres in the void decks underneath them. On the map we are kind of half way between my and Felicity's school, but in fact as it has turned out we are much closer to mine.

Our apartment is a condominium or private flat. These all come with a range of facilities and ours has a 25m pool, two tennis courts, squash court, gym and barbecue facilities. Whilst the block we have chosen is an older style place (new is sought after), it is quite spacious and the apartment has a second living area where we have housed the computer and set up our skype deck. Eventually we may put in a couch for the boys and another TV.

We realised our good fortune when we began to explore, the HDB blocks across the road and discovered two or three local hawker centres, a variety of shops and a wet market. Good food and cheaper shopping. Works for me. The other bonus is that we can take full advantage of Singapore's networked, reliable and efficient transport system, just outside our back gate. (Am I working for the govt or what?) All we have to do is head out and each of us can catch a bus, virtually to the door of our school. Xave, Jordy and Felicity often get to travel on air con double deckers and I have a choice of 4 different buses to get me to and from work. And if you think the buses are good, try the trains. The carriages stop at exactly the same place each time and if the platform info says the train will be arriving in one minute then it arrives in one minute and not a second later. In the month we've been here I don't think we've had to wait longer than 6 minutes for a train and only a few minutes longer for a bus.

Getting out of our back gate to the bus stop, we walk through Bishan Park. Just out the gate on a pole is a sigh which reads 'Do not feed the monkeys, it interferes with their natural habits and makes them aggressive to humans', with suitably amusing graphics. We though it must have been from a time long gone, until Xave had a day off school early on and, out walking in the park, came across a whole tribe of macaques playing on the lawn. Bishan Park is a long thin park that runs for a few kilometres. It has walking and cycling tracks, landscaped ponds, various stone and other wooden bridges, a lotus pond, playing fields, squirrels and much more. It is a total joy to have on our doorstep. In the morning, especially on weekends, it is a hive of activity with joggers, cyclists, rollerbladers and locals practising various Eastern forms - Tai Chi, Qi Gong etc. In the cool of early morning or evening its great for a stroll or ride.

A bit further away, but really just down the road a little are McRitchie and Pierce Resevoir Parks. Flick, Jordy & I went out for an inadvertent 10k walk there a couple of Sundays ago. Its a full on jungle park, with monkeys scampering through trees, butterflies and horse-sized flying insects buzzing around. We found a great tree top walk that takes you through the top of the jungle canopy - a bit like the Otway Fly. Very hot and sweaty, but verdant and exotically tropical. Plants with giant sized leaves and paths winding through the canopy so you walk in the shade and not out in the sun. We'll definitely be going there again. There's much more to tell as life here begins to unfold, but that will do for the first installment.