this neck of the woods

On a recent tip from Maryline, and in a bid to actually venture outside our apartment this weekend, Dave and I headed off to the Singapore Botanic Gardens – specifically, the National Orchid Garden.

If you don’t like orchids, look away now.. it’s about to become unbearable for you :)

We’ve had our first visitors here in Singapore for the past few days, in the form of two wonderful friends. We took one day to spend at the zoo, which turned out to be really awesome! We’d heard great things about it, and it didn’t disappoint. We even stayed for the Night Safari, where you can walk and/or take the tram around a different part of the zoo at night. It was actually a really different experience that I would highly recommend to anyone coming over. We even got to see a pack of wolves howling at the moon, it was fabulous! The normal zoo is also pretty cool, with the certain animals allowed to roam around free.. we had monkeys and lemurs jumping from tree to tree right above our heads!

Helloooo! I have some exciting stuff to share with you today :)

While it may appear that I’ve dropped off the radar these past few weeks, I’ve actually been a busy bee creating a new blog and identity for my new business, Fellow Fellow!

I’ve had a lot of questions about what I’ll be doing while we’re in Singapore and I can now tell you that, along with the blog, I’ll be screen printing and handmaking products to sell online. A bit like this neck of the woods, but different products – and full time. It’s not yet 100% settled that I will be working for myself full-time (waiting for the paperwork!), so until then I thought I’d get the Fellow Fellow blog underway. So come on over and say hi! :)

At this stage, I still plan to use this blog to post about more personal experiences in Singapore, however most of the focus will now go to Fellow Fellow. Hope to see you over there soon!

Not far from our apartment is the Pasir Panjang Wholesale Centre, so yesterday we went exploring to see what we cold find there. It’s a huge place that sells fruits, vegetables, and dried goods that have come straight off the boat, and was a really great experience! We didn’t buy anything this time, but I plan to go back again. I must admit that I didn’t feel completely comfortable being there – we were getting some strange looks at times (which may have something to do with the giant camera I was carying around), but pushed on to find some really interesting fruits and veg that we’ve never seen before.. totally worth it!

We’ve arrived back in Singapore, and have moved into our new apartment :)

We’re still waiting for our shipment from Germany to arrive (and still will be for a while) so we’ve been sleeping on air mattresses on the floor of our completely empty and echo-y apartment! During the days we’ve been busy organising all the essential things like Internet connections, bank accounts, and visas.. and have been having fun trying to work out the bus systems, exploring some really cool areas of town, and filling up on delicious Ice Lemon Tea!

There’s nothing quite like being home :)

Our flight to Australia wasn’t a very comfortable one, with lots of turbulence for what seemed like hours.. but somewhere between all that, Dave managed to snap some photos of our changing landscape as we went over our beloved country..

It’s been 3 weeks and one day since my last post, and I feel so lazy!! I’m sorry! In actuality we’ve been a bit busy, so I hope you’ll forgive me!

Here’s what we’ve been up to these past three weeks:

- we packed up our German apartment (which seemed to take weeks.. we had so much stuff!)
- had movers come in and pack our stuff into their truck ready for shipping (be safe little elephant!), leaving us with only 2 bags each for the next two months!
- cleaned, cleaned, cleaned
- said very sad goodbyes to our amazing friends :(
- flew to Singapore
- looked at about 15 apartments over two days
- signed the lease on an apartment (it’s a very fast process in Singapore!)
- flew to Australia for a short holiday.. and that’s where we are now, catching up with family and friends!

It’s been really happy and really sad at the same time, and I’m not sure it’s really sunk in yet that we aren’t going back to Germany! Now that the stress is off about finding an apartment in Singapore though, we’re really excited to go back and start exploring our new home!

Not only have they endured the last (almost) 3 years listening to me kill their language, they’ve taught me so much about what it is to be German, the traditions, culture and country. And today, they surprised me with the most amazing going away gift.. oh, he’s such a handsome fellow! I really couldn’t believe my eyes! And to make him extra special, he’s even been signed by my four colleagues. A beautiful gift from amazing friends *sniff sniff*