Look-See Lah

our singapore adventure began this week...

husband and i spent the week on a look-see trip i.e. finding a flat.

guess what? we found one Day 1 of our search. we were efficient. and we knew what we wanted.

before that, the look see began with a singapore tour. valerie, our guide, was friendly and took us first to east coast for coffee, then little arab for jalan-jalan (walk-walk!), to little india for mustafa window shopping, holland village for parissilk appliance window shopping and to other not so touristy places in singapore -- you know, the kinds of places you need to know once you start living in the country a.k.a. stuff I didn't read in my "Living in Singapore" book! the tour started 9:30am and ended at 4:30, it was amazing (husby's pronounciation : a-mai-zing) how big Singapore can be!

day 1 of house search with daniel kang, our uber-groovy realtor, went really well. as i said, we found the flat we loved right away. it's called the cassandra at pasir panjang. not the grooviest name but definitely better than living in bukit batok :) the flat is ultra-zen with gorgeous dark wood finishings. flat already comes with everything we need to move in tomorrow - couch, dining set, kitchen stuff, 5 split aircons and owner is even willing to throw in a flat TV! oh and it comes with 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms (with a bathtub!) and a really lovely study/nook area. plus the customary "bomb shelter room" which doubles as storage room. what's also good is that it's not a high density condo, it only has 20 units which means only 20 neighbors to deal with. it's also a bus ride away from Vivo City - the biggest mall in SG :)

after that, we did nothing but eat. hey, it's an all-expenses paid trip for two so might as well enjoy. nothing ridiculously expensive though, mostly friday-dates type of restos. top of the list : din-tai-fung with their addictive dumplings and noodles, thai bistro with their to-die-for curry softshell crab, lulu with the "flaming" prawn skewers and of course nibbling on kaya toast (ala Singaporean pandecoco!)

also lazed around at kinokuniya which drove husby crazy with its ultra wide variety of books and did the customary lucky plaza visit. yup, we did not pass up the chance to taste the pinoy dishes in kabayan pinoy restaurant and their delicious sapin-sapin. beside it was a pinoy grocery complete with Yes magazine, chocnut, lorins patis, knorr seasoning, lala fish cracker and mang tomas lechon sauce - all of my guilty pleasures!!!

if the look-see is an indication of the life we're going to have in singapore, then i think we'll do great here. fingers crossed.