Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery

Another early morning beckoned today as our plans for the day had been laid out yesterday evening.

School's in Singapore start their holiday period next week, and yesterday we had double the amount of schools on that we usually do, because today (Friday) is also Teacher's Day! Unlike in Korea where Teacher's Day meant that school children would bring their favourite teacher a present, the reward for the hard working educational staff was half a day off instead.

A little anecdote I forgot to mention yesterday that you may be interested to hear.....
James and I went to Sembawang School yesterday where he does coaching on a Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. We usually visit for dinner, but in the morning James wanted to go and ask one of the teachers about being able to use the gym facilities that are contained within the premises.

We found the teacher we needed at the front area of the school, but he seemed a little pre-occupied by informing some students that it was their duty to "give him five laps of the playground". I presumed this must have been some kind of PE lesson until I noticed that there were a pile of school bags sitting in front of him, and that all the kids were attired in their school uniform.

It turns out that 'doing laps' is actually a form of punishment for children who are late for school here. Depending on how late their are dictates the number of laps they are required to do. Even at 9am, I wouldn't fancy running at least 800m with the temperatures here, let alone in my school uniform, but then again, perhaps you're not late again after being forced to sit and sweat for the rest of the day.

Anyway, due to Teacher's Day, we had no work this morning which gave James and opportunity to fill a request I had asked about for a while which was going over into Johor Baru. Avid followers of my blog will recognize the name of the Malaysia town I mentioned yesterday when I took a trip to Sembawang Park.
We actually had some errands to run Malaysia, but it gave me a great chance to get across the border and see how different (if at all) these two countries are.

There are several ways to travel between Malaysia and Singapore including by car, and by train, but one of the simplest methods is to go by bus, which we did.
Setting off from a stop just across the road, we boarded a bus bound for Malaysia.
Sembawang is about North-North-East of Singapore and the causeway, as it is known, between the two countries runs from the North, so we had a short journey to get there.

The process for travelling to Malaysia is relatively simple. At the border crossing, you alight the bus and go through a standard immigration setting (like in an airport), after your done, you re-board the bus which takes you across the causeway and then to the other side when you get off the bus and continue on your way.
Although there are still some tensions between the two countries, going from Singapore into Malaysia is very easy.
Returning the other way is a little tougher, due to you having to fill in an immigration form if you are not a permanent resident.

Despite the close proximity of the two countries, there are many differences between the two. On the causeway there is a point in the middle where you officially cross the border. At one time you used to be able to make the journey between the two islands on foot, but they moved the immigration department from the middle of the causeway to the start at the Singapore end, meaning an end to photographic opportunities in the no-man's land between both states.

Almost immediately you can see the change between the two places. Having experienced it myself, there are no changes when you cross the border from England to Scotland, but going between these two Asian countries is a touch different. After crossing between and getting my passport stamped (something I'm very much in favour of), you walk up through a shopping area and out into Johor Baru.

As far as I could tell you might as well have stepped from Earth onto Mars, because there were noticeable changes in terms of the people and the surroundings. Malaysia has a strong influx of Indian culture, stronger than in Singapore, and that was evident straight away from the number of restaurants and vendors that were around.

Unlike the clean streets that meet you in Singapore, there was a more 'working class feel' to Malaysia. Roads were being repaired, traders were trying to sell to passers by, and traffic was fighting its way through the crowded streets. It was a bit of a culture shock having spent so much time in Singapore (which ironically is a culture shock from the UK) but it didn't intimidate me despite quite clearly being a foreigner.

We brought a traditional Malay drink which is made from coconut, sugar cane and ice which was harsh on the teeth and rather strangely packed into a plastic bag!
James had some jobs to do so I went for a little walk to take in my surroundings. If I'm not mistaken, overhead cables are illegal in Singapore, and they must have been making up for it in Malaysia as there were so many around the place it was almost unbelievable.

This is the 'real' Asia though - busy, bustling, gritty. The surroundings were unfamiliar and the language was different, but all around is people were going about their business. It was actually a public holiday today, Malaysian independence day, but from the number of people, and traffic milling about you wouldn't know.

We went for dinner in a 'traditional' Indian restaurant, which started the path up to a temple at the summit. Johor Baru isn't a big place, but it still has it's fair share of experiences to be shared with visitors. The restaurant we dined at was rather large, and with plenty of chat going on around us, I didn't pick up on the unique experience I was doing to have.

Ordering chicken, pork, potatoes and various other dishes, we went off to wash out hands, and be given 'plates' which looked like large leaves. After the waiter brought all our food, I looked around and saw that everyone around us was tucking into their dinner with their hands! When in Rome and all that, I did my best to shovel food into my mouth without coming across as an uncultured pig. Then again I was eating with my hands, so what exactly do people expect.

It was a strange sensation to be chowing down without cutlery, and I don't think it will catch on in this country, but it works! The trick is to pick up the food with your finger tips and then pass the food into your mouth with your thumbs. Theoretically you aren't supposed to get food on the palms of your hands, but perhaps I failed that test!

After eating with our mitts it was time to depart for Singapore. We had to wait ages for a bus at the border crossing and didn't get back to the apartment until about 3pm.
I spent most of the rest of the afternoon carrying on with work, but for dinner I finally decided to have a change from rice and ordered some chips at the Japanese restaurant I went to.
I also had something from my time in Korea called Takoyaki. It is basically like a dough ball with a choice of fillings. The choice was a no-brainier between cheese and ham or octopus.....

Tomorrow it will be back to coaching in the morning, and then hopefully a spare Saturday afternoon to explore some more of the Lion Country.

Why must I be surrounded by frickin' idiots?

Fever Pitch

Much of yesterday was spent concentration on matters off the football field, but today has been much more about 'The Beautiful Game'.

After my little jaunt to Sembawang Park yesterday, I felt like going down there again this morning, with the only difference being the speed that I would be getting there, and also the fact that I was going to remember to take my camera along!

Setting off at 8am, hoping to beat the rather warm Singapore sun, I headed in the direction of the park. I'd definitely consider myself to be a 'fit and healthy' individual, but initially I was pretty skeptical about doing any kind of physical exercise in the humidity I've had to face at certain times during my stay here.

I'm also not so fantastic with the whole 'jogging thing'. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy getting out and doing exercise, and even having not played for two weeks I didn't think that would affect my ability to run too much.

With the help and encouragement of the Nike+ iPod app which acts a bit like a personal trainer, I managed to make my way 3.75kms in a reasonable decent time to arrive at the park.

The route to get there is relatively easy, but with a fair bit of construction being done, it took me some time to get to the location that I managed to make it to yesterday. There was a map as you made your way into the park, but Singaporean cartographers must work differently to european ones as due to following it I ended up wondering off down a few paths and found myself at a shipyard to the left of where I wanted to be.

Recalibrating my personal navigation system I backtracked and tried going in a different direction. Thankfully this proved much more successful and I was able to get to the location that I had visited yesterday.

Whilst getting busy with the camera, I also took a walk out onto a jetting where some men were fishing so that I got a panoramic shot of Johor Baru.

As I mentioned in my previous post, it is quite strange to think that another country is within a short paddle of this small island.

After snapping away I headed back for home, and enjoyed my second shower of the fledgling day. Yesterday was the first time since coming to Singapore that I actually experienced a warm shower. Living in a huge tower block, surrounded by about thirty of the same type buildings, I would guess that its quite difficult to time getting a hot/warm shower, but yesterday I must have worked it out right!

Due to the heat its not exactly been a bad thing that I have been the recepient of cold showers, but it was something that I didn't realise I would miss quite so much.

Freshened up I was readying myself to get on with some work when I was informed that I was going out to coach this afternoon, so the laptop got closed and I headed out to a new location on the east.
Alunied, where I got off the MRT was actually not the location of our session, but it was our first destination to pick up the kit.

Unfortunately not all of the locations we work in and around have storage facilities. As I was about to discover, the place we were going to was actually an open playing field so we ended up having to lug all our equipment out of a storage locker and into a taxi to get to where we were actually coaching.

Despite being about six or seven stops away from it, and this demonstrates the size of the country, we were greeted by the sight of Marina Bay Casino and also the Singapore Flyer in the distance.
The location we were coaching in today was also a first for me as we were coaching in a public space hidden in between rows and rows of condos.

We had two sessions today; one of children who were 3-5 and one of kids who were 6-8. For the first session we only had 4 kids, and for the 2nd we had 7 so it was relatively easy to keep them occupied for their allotted time.

By the time we'd got back to the lockup, it was about 7pm, and I had promised myself that if I got finished on time then I would head a couple of stops over to a place called Lavender where there was an S-League (Singapore Premier League) game going on tonight.

I'd been wanting to go check out a game for a while now, but it seems that there were some weird schedules going on in the Singapore League. Team's don't seem to actually have a home ground, as the team designated for the home game, Tampines, have a stadium out towards the airport, but yet they were playing Home United, in a completely neutral ground.

I managed to navigate my way to the groud after a little bit of time - no need to wonder if backwards signs did me again; yes they did! The Jalan Besar stadium isn't a huge ground, and only has seats on three sides of the stadium. A ticket to watch the 4th place (Home United) against 2nd place (Tampines) set me back only $5 which is about £2.50, and I was treated to an entertaining game which Tampines won 2-0.

It was interesting to watch how Singaporean football is played. I know from the kids that I coach, they don't use their voices very much during the game. Where as English players, even at the amateur level, are quite vocal, Singaporeans have a reluctance to relay even simple information to their team mates which is quite strange. 

The stadium itself holds about 8,000 people, but I would be surprised if there were even 750 people in the ground for the game. There seemed to be a large section of Tampines fans in one location, but there were a few mixed in around the rest of the seats as you could tell from the sporadic cries as their team took, and extended their lead.

Although I haven't been out and done a great deal today, it was nice to get to go back to Sembawang Park (camera in hand) and also to see a local football match.

My international travel to date has clearly served me well as I seem to have very few troubles navigating from one place to another as I do my best to see all that I can in Singapore. 

Why is it that adults aren't supposed to go mad about anything? You gotta keep a lid on it. And if you don't then people are apparently entitled to say what they like. "You haven't grown up. You're a moron. Your conversation is trivial and boorish. You can't express your emotional needs. You can't relate to your children." And you die, lonely and miserable. But you know, what the hell, every cloud has a silver lining. 

Walking Tall

After yesterday's exertions I was treated to a day away from coaching.

I'd hardly describe it as a day off though, as I still managed to get plenty of things done (perhaps more than I would have achieved if I'd gone out and coached!)

Managed to get a good night's sleep in compared with last night which helped tremendously, and when I woke up the temperature had remained relatively cool overnight so I didn't wake up praising the Lord for air conditioning.
Thankfully, due to the climate, most of the indoor locations in Singapore are air conditioned; shops, shopping malls, buses, everything allows people a bit of a break from the sun.
The problem I find with it is, as relieving as it can be to avoid the heat and humidity for a while, when you go back into the sun, you have got used to cold air coming your way that you can be overly reliant on A/C to cool you down.

No sign of the rain today which had been falling in the past couple of days. Pretty much every night I have been here, there's been a group of men playing basketball on a court just below my apartment window, and it must have been damp the last couple of nights because they were nowhere in sight.

This morning's first task was go get on with a bit of work that I had been provided by James. We're attempting to make progress with a coaching website, and it seems this has become my responsibility! Thankfully all I'm required to do is decide what needs changing and then delegate onto someone else who actually makes the changes!

After looking through that I moved into my next task which was looking at a program which allows you to create sports coaching drills in 3D format and also convert them into video form. When it comes to this sort of thing, I am pretty "old school" at the moment as all I do is grab some crayolas and draw out in colour the placement of the cones and how the drill will work.
This program is something you can use online to illustrate and share your ideas with other people..... let's just say it's also a pretty good tool for "developing" new ideas too!

Needing a break from all this work malarkey I went out for some dinner and came back refreshed to get some other things done.
I had promised myself a break today to go and be adventurous so at about 5.30pm when it was a bit cooler I headed out towards Sembawang Park for a walk.

Although most illustrations and online sources would have you believe that Singapore is just skyscrapers and apartment blocks, it is actually surprisingly full of green spaces. Sembawang, in particular, is very green and there are plenty of open spaces. The park is around a forty five minute walk away from the house, but thankfully it wasn't so hot that it made going out for such a long time uncomfortable.

The route to the park from my apartment block is relatively simple. Going towards the MRT station in a northerly direction you follow the road until you get to a crossroads and then head left until you reach Sembawang Park. Unfortunately, and disappointingly I forgot to take my camera with me on my latest foray out, but what I saw along the way was quite unique.

For only the second time (yesterday being the first) I actually saw a house...... well a bungalow! But still some residence at street level isn't something you find here very often I have discovered! This era of the town is mostly former British colonial housing so it looks slightly different to the concrete jungle that surrounds you almost everywhere you go.

As you continue walking down the road, there a lot of new constructions being finished in a more modern style, but these don't go in keeping with the modern or colonial housing. In truth they look like something you'd expect to see in a luxury holiday village in Spain or southern France.

Around this area it is also more common to see westerners. We western folk are a bit of a rare breed around this parts, the more you get into central Singapore, the larger the number becomes, but out here towards the north part of the country there is a shipyard which brings in sailors and families from different parts of the globe.

Saldy much of Sembawang Park is currently under construction, but as we continued to walk down towards the water, you are greeted by two sights; One, possibly the smallest and narrowest beach on the planet, and two, Malaysia.
Those of you who have observed a map will realise that there isn't much distance between the two countries, and beyond the small body of water (easily swimable) lies the city of Johor Bahru which is the link point between Malaysia and Singapore. Further to the east, there is a bridge or causeway which allows you to cross between the two countries, but from the park parts of the city are visible.

At one time you used to be able to hoof it across the border but now you have to be in transit using some kind of vehicle. It was pretty strange to see another country at such close proximity, although it looked like another part of the same island because the shipyard blocks your view.

From there I headed back to the apartment for the evening, went out to get some dinner and then prepared myself for, hopefully, another busy day or travelling and new sights tomorrow!

"You know what my new favorite sound is going to be? The sound of you screaming like a bitch!"

Child's Play

Today has been a relatively long one, partly due to going to bed late last night, and partly due to an inability to sleep properly last night.

Thankfully I was able to have a bit of a lie in this morning though, which made a real difference compared with getting up at 7am yesterday.

I spent most of the morning working on some things for English Soccer Schools, a few ideas for a website that needs creating, and I have been put in charge of pretty much all the writing that needs putting on there due to my journalism 'skills' (I knew that degree would come in handy one day!)

It felt relatively cool this morning again, but at least it wasn't raining. After last night's shower, I think I had more than enough wet weather. Perhaps I brought some of the English climate with me!

I was due to do some coaching this afternoon in a place called Tanah Mehah which is heading back towards the airport on the East of Singapore. To say this is a relatively small country it still takes a while to traverse the land on the MRT.
The journey of about an hour allowed me to listen to come music and people watch as I made my way from the north.

Today's journey had me taking a new route across the country using three different lines, and stopping at more stations that had previously not been visited.

Once I got to my location I was meant to be meeting up with another coach, but decided I first needed to get some energy in me for a busy afternoon of four coaching sessions ahead.

I have been doing my best since I keep here to try and avoid 'westernised' food outlets, but often when you need a snack or a sandwich they can be the best place to head. Like many other Asian countries, 7Eleven has invaded from the US so I managed to pick myself up something to eat.

Attempting to keep it relatively simple I went for a sandwich which contained the strange combination of egg and cheese..... Even more oddly the woman behind the counter asked me if I wanted it heating up.... each to their own.

Anyway, after meeting Coach Matt, we began a ten minute walk to a place called Kew.
Just like the similarly named location in the UK, it's fair to say that Kew is a relatively wealthy place. On the way, Matt explained that we would actually be teaching a number of residents from a block of condos in this area. Each session was of different lengths, starting off from 3 and going all the way until 11.

The area we would be using for these sessions was a small piece of public land in between all the condos that we were able to set up on and use for our sessions.
Working with children of such a young age, reminded me of the days of working at schools across Nottinghamshire, so I felt relatively comfortable about doing it. But after working on Sunday in a public park, and today in somebody's garden it felt a bit weird!

Typically just as we'd finished setting up, the rain started to fall with increasing rapidity, and we contemplated running for cover, Singapore-style.

As kids started to turn up, it eased a little, but decided if it became any heavier then we would go inside to a function room.

The first group of children we were working with were mostly aged three. The session was only twenty minutes, and involved very little football as the kids spent most of their time being distracted by things going on around them or by clinging to their parents. That was over before we knew it.

The rain then decided it was going to come on a bit stronger so we headed up to a room, which wasn't an ideal space, but allowed us to play a few games with the next group of kids we had who were aged between 5 and 6. Having worked with only four children before we were faced with 9, not all of whom liked the change of scenery. The room was relatively small and extremely echoey so after a while my ears started to ring from the loud din of kids running around and their parents conversing in the background!

Back outside for the third session we were at least able to have some more room, but for the 7 and 8 year old session we had only 4 kids so we had plenty of time to do lots of different things. The fourth and final group we had was also only containing three groups, but at 9 and 10, we were able to go through a lot more individual skills, and having started work during the day with children much their junior, it made a nice change!

Having spent most of my time concentrating on the sessions, I had little time to worry about the fact that it had been raining for the last half an hour, so the walk back to the MRT station mostly consisted of willing my clothes to dry!

I bid Matt farewell when changing from the East-West Line to the Circle line and set about heading home to get some dinner. Although I had coached for only three hours today, I was still feeling pretty tired. It seems to take a lot of concentration to work with younger children, and using my voice all the time soon gives me a sore throat. That combined with the heat seems to affect me pretty badly some days, and I have to say that this is the most tired I have felt since arriving in Singapore.

Currently I am working on a few articles and pieces of writing about my time here, and I think even days like today, when I don't get out much, I learn a few new things, and experience life as a Singaporean.
I think that if I came on holiday to Singapore as a tourist my experiences of the country would be very different.

Most people consider Singapore to be a financial superpower with plenty of skyscrapers. I think that there is certainly a lot more to any place than you see from the exterior or when you look on the Internet, but Singapore, more so than some of the other locations I've visited, is like that. I feel more like I am in the 'real' heart of the country, and I hope that my time spent here will be valuable in the future. 

A busy day should mean an early night, and I plan to get up early in the morning to get some work done so that I can have the afternoon to myself. I haven't decided where abouts to go, but I feel in need of a break from computers, websites and football is much needed!

Chucky: We're friends 'til the end, remember?  

Andy: This is the end, friend.

Rain Man

After staying up to watch for Premier League action live on Singaporean television late last night, it was somewhat or a struggle to get out of bed this morning.

Football, with me being involved in it directly, in this country, appears to consume the watching public's attention in terms of sports anyway. Just as many Asian countries such as Korea, Thailand and Japan, Singapore's audiences are treated to English football pretty much on demand.

The Mio Sports channel (cable broadcaster in Singapore) caters for all fans needs showing live coverage of every game, and due to the laws which govern the coverage of football back in England, Singapore is actually a step ahead because they also get the pick of live games shown on a Saturday afternoon, a choice which isn't available to us Brits.

Being so busy with the Olympics this summer, I haven't really spent much of my time keeping up with the new football season, and my desire to expand my pallet as it were into pretty much every sport going, and not just football, it has been quite difficult to build the usual excitement around the new season.

After coming back from watching the local team's match last night I had gone of for dinner and then come back to do a few jobs whilst multi-tasking as usual.

By the time the second of the two matches had been shown last night, it was almost 1am so this perhaps led to my body's desire to stay in bed for a bit longer this morning.

For some bizzare reason, I have found myself waking up ten or so minutes before my actual alarm clock goes off. This strange phenomenon, for those of you who don't experience this, is is extremely irritating, particularly as you fight for every minute up to the alarm clock, and hoping by some miracle, or the intervention of Bernard's Watch (its a tv show) that you get some good quality rest before getting up.

Sadly this is never usually the case!

With my alarm clock ringing in my ears at about 7:15 I prepared myself for a day in which I wasn't actually sure what was in store for me.

Originally I was meant to be coaching in the morning, and then going to a meeting with James at an international school. But on a spur of the moment plans changed in order to make it easy for me to get a few more of the jobs on my very long to-do list, as well as also providing me with an excellent opportunity to get out and explore some more of Singapore.

I spent some time on the computer completing daily tasks such as replying to emails and messages that I've received overnight, and then I also did some pieces of work and research for English Soccer Schools that I had been asked to complete.

At about 11:30 I went out to get some dinner at a little restaurant near Sembawang Bus Terminal, which is round the corner from the MRT station. I've been there a couple of times, and after a few experiences the set-up of this type of Singaporean restaurant is becomming familiar.

Usually you start off with a portion of rice on your plate and then have to make a choice what else you would like with meat, fish and vegetables on offer. I consider my diet to be too full of vegies already so I make sure to steer clear of them wherever possible!

For each portion of animal, vegertable or mineral that you have, you're charged an individual price for and then up on the wall it let's you know the price for the combination of 1 meat - 2 veg and so on. Things are usually about $1 with fish being a bit priceier and rice being $0.60. The sub total of today's lunch with a drink was $3.40 which often makes me consider how badly we're getting ripped off back at home.

Just as I headed back home the heavens decided to open, and with the sky being pretty dark all around me I thought it best to remain inside for a bit before making a decision about what to do next.

As I've mentioned, Singapore is what you decide to make of it. Any map will show you that it isn't a vast space to explore, and there aren't so many 'sights' so to speak of. Doesn't mean there isn't plenty to do however, just means that it takes a bit more effort to find things.

Luckily thanks to the very kind staff at Forest Town School I have an excellent book about most of South East Asia, and that plus wikitravel.org will help me to make the most of my stay.

Considering the current weather predicament I thought that perhaps an indoor activity would be best so I considered heading to the shopper's paradise of Orchard for the afternoon.

It felt rather depressing packing an umbrella into my bag as I set off, but in a choice between dodging the weather and staying in or going out, there's no question which activity would be the winner.

The rain seemed to be a bit more prolonged than usual this time around though. The sky looked plenty-full of rain which was pouring down around me as I set off to the MRT Station.

I eventually made it to the station without being completely drenched, and set about reloading my EZ Pass card which was getting low after yesterday's expeditions.

Making my way through the station, I almost contemplated putting a jumper on (which I'd taken out of my suitcase for the first time) as for once it actually felt quite cold outside. I guess that would be the case for someone wearing only shorts and a t-shirt though.

I made my way to the platform and waited for the train.

My experiences with the subway system in Singapore have been plentiful already even in my short stay. As previously mentioned in my one of my early blogs the MRT is air conditioned, pretty spacious and almost pleasurable to ride.

The atmosphere in board is very different to that back home in London. Perhaps because of the rigorous cleanliness applied to each train and station, or perhaps because of the efficiency that they seem to arrive with.

On average a train will arrive every four minutes or so, and due to the size of the country, I'm pretty sure you could get from one end to the other in a couple of hours.

The lines cover pretty much every location with only about five tracks running, mostly named after their route: North-South, Circle, East-West etc...)

Going to Orchard is a relatively journey to make from where I am staying as it involves riding only one line (north-south) and to get there the train makes about ten stops.

After I got to Bioshan (an above ground station) I noticed that the weather had brightened up a bit so I continued on with one of my 'outside-good weather' contingency plans which was go continue on past Orchard and head to a station called Harbor View.

Harbour View is one of the most southerly stations on the MRT map, and is close an island just south of the mainland called Sentosa. My limited knowledge of Sentosa makes it seem a bit of a childhood paradise as there are both beaches and a Universal Studios resort contained there.

From Harbour View station you can walk to a place called Mount Faher (not actually a mountain, as it is only 116m of elevation) where I would be able to climb to the top of a hill and get a good panoramic view of the city.

A common problem with exiting a station in Singapore is that the metro station is usually underground shopping mall and has more exits than are necessary. As you make your way through the maze-like structure there aren't too many maps until you reach an exit (only then to realise you've exitied at the wrong place.)

Although I didn't quite end up where I intended, I decided to walk around the outside of the station I had just traversed my way through. This would also allow me to walk past Sentosa Way which is the main route in and out of the island.

After about ten minutes of walking, the sky was looking decidedly grey again, and very shortly it began to absolutely tip it down with rain. "Not much point hanging out in the rain I though", as I hoisted up my London 2012 Gamesmaker umbrella and headed for shelter.

Most likely due to the heat here, I find that the pace of life can vary drastically. A stereotypical view of life in the city is one of business and a constant need to meet deadlines in the high pressure economic world. Where I'm staying however, things couldn't be more different. Unless they're inside a shopping mall trying to pick up a bargain, Singaporean's usually saunter around without a care in the world.

Until it rains.

Then you really see rushing and panicing as they all search desperately for an umbrella or go running for cover if they have failed to anticipate a brief rain shower. Sadly for those hopeful Singaporeans without an umbrella, this turned out to be a heavy rainstorm which lasted well into the evening.

Undeterred by the fact that I was now inside a freezing cold air conditioned building with wet clothes I decided to make the most of my time. I thought about going back to Orchard to visit one of the shopping malls there, but instead I settled for going to the 'ViVo Center' which is a big mall in the middle of Harbour Front.

My tourist ways make me an ideal target for these shopping malls as to kill time I went into pretty much any shop of interest! The first shop I happened to go into was something I'd never seen before which was a National Geographic shop. It looked pretty royal from the outside, and sold a wide range of things including Nat Geo issues, clothes, pictures, postcards and just about anything to do with animals and our planet.

I spent a good forty five minutes wandering around this reasonably sized store, intrigued by almost everything that they sold! Sadly everything was much out of my price range! I spent a good few hours wondering around the shops. 

Malls here, and generally in fact are so massive that they create plenty of problems for the eager shopper. Rather than being in a straight line, most of the ones here have branching paths with stores which wind and disappear off into places that I have no idea to get back out from. Thankfully to bookend each floor there are usually a bunch of restaurants, but not wanting to miss out on everything I still had to explore each and every square inch of the building.

It's a shame it was so miserable outside actually, because the mall also had open air sections at each end which look over into Sentosa. It's tough to see because of how murky it was, but there was a good view of the cable cars travelling across from the hill I was going to climb up.

A few hours of shopping soon had me drained and I decided to head back. I decided to take a slightly different route going back than I did something. In less than a week here I have probably visited or been through every station on the MRT map!

Once at home, I did a few tasks to do with work. At the moment James is developing an academy program which I've come up with some ideas for, and my big task is to attempt to find a name for it. I decided to give up after a few hours of failing to find the creative juices to come up with something clever, and started on this blog entry instead (probably part of the reason my eyes are so strained and my creativity is feeling limited.)

Tonight's dinner consisted of some noodles and chicken from a vendor at the top of our nearby shopping plaza, and after failing to decide between getting an ice cream and a drink, I brought a beautifully tasting vanilla smoothy which went down even better with a kit-kat I had picked up from a Singaporean dollar shop the other night!

A satisfying end to another enjoyable day :)

Ray, you're never gonna solve it. It's not a riddle because Who *is* on first base. That's a joke, Ray, it's comedy, but when you do it you're not funny. You're like the comedy of Abbott and Abbott.

Fear Dot Com

Third time lucky!

I've now corrected the link I had previously posted to guide you to my pictures. Something to do with it not being a public album so it wouldn't work.

The link on the previous post has been changed, and just for good measure, it's also here ----> https://picasaweb.google.com/104228618046790547470/Singapore?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Hopefully we'll have no more issues!

Joseph Stalin said that the death of one person is a tragedy. The death of a million, a statistic. 

The Lives of Others

No time for lazy Sunday mornings in Singapore today!

I was up first thing to go with James to coach at one of his soccer schools in a place called Clementi, which is about forty minutes away from where I live. Getting there involved a new method of transport for me as today I was required to travel by taxi.

Due to the standard of English in Singapore, communicating with a driver to where you would like to go is relatively simple. After getting off at the tube station we walked to the nearest taxi rank to hail a cab to take us to a place called West Coast Park.
As the name would suggest it is on the west coast of the island, and where as since I have been here, we have been teaching at school's or in school locations, today's session was run in a very different place.

West Coast Park is basically a public park in which Singaporean's choose to participate in a number of recreational activities. Looking for a place to set up we decided to set up in between two sets of baseball games which looked to be getting under way.

This kind of thing would of course never happen in England as some busy member of park staff would probably come and show off and tell you that you couldn't play there without paying.                                                   
Whilst waiting for the kids to come along I went for a quick walk around the fringes of the park to see what I could see as the backdrop looked very surreal with the green space of a park containing a shipping yard in the foreground and construction of a skyscraper in the background.

The session started about 9:30am and we had five children, plus two more who's parents happened to be wondering around, and decided to come and spend some of their morning with us. The children were really well behaved, very respectful and most of all hilarious. It always makes me smile when kids of the age we were looking after (under six) dribble the ball around because even a size three is almost up to their knees!

They tried really hard though and we had a fun little game at the end which they seemed to enjoy.

Rather than taking a taxi to get ourselves back to the MRT station we decided to go via a bus. Unfortunately we were waiting rather a long time for the bus to come along, very un-Asian.
Standing there waiting for the bus to show really made me realise how the warmth of Singapore really is very energy sapping. Even just standing still makes you feel tired. Thankfully transport systems themselves are well air conditioned, but the bus stops certainly aren't. It's amazing how warm it can be, even without the sun shining!
I do my best to stay hydrated as best as possible, but its very common that I will drink an entire bottle of water in one swig quite comfortably!

Most of the time in our apartment we have some kind of fan on, and usually I sleep with the air conditioning on because it would be too uncomfortable without it.

Finally the bus came along and we were able to get into the cool air for a while. We rode it all the way to Jurong East Station and then boarded the MRT back in the direction of Sembawang.

When we got back to the apartment I had a quick shower and then sat and read my book for a bit. Since I arrived here I have spent far too much time (quite alot of it on this blog) on my laptop! I felt like doing a few different things so I had a break and did something else. 

It also occurred to me that since I have been in Singapore I have yet to have a warm shower! Not that I have missed it though as the cold water has been a nice relaxing and cooling feeling! Hot water is available but usually when I have to have one of my two showers a day, I am showering to help cool me down as well as do my bit for hygiene. 

Once again when we got back to the flat we had a bit of a downpour, something which has become common place over the last couple of days. The rain never lasts very long, but it soaks you if you get stuck out in it. Asians usually don't enjoy the rain too much, and an umbrella is common place whenever the wet stuff starts coming down.
For that reason I decided to stay in for a little while. James had mentioned that there was a local amateur game going on at the school around the corner that he had been asked to go and watch and possibly offer some coaching too.

As readers of this blog will know, I am a fairly keen footballer, and I have made it my ambition if I stay here long term to make sure that I am still involved in the game in more than a coaching capacity. We stayed and watched the match, I introduced myself to a couple of the players, a few of whom are from England, but mostly they hail from other European countries as well as a few natives. 

After watching the game we headed out for some dinner to a new location about a ten minute walk from where we live. I haven't really done very well since coming here with knowing dishes that I am eating, but tonight I had a bit of a meat buffet by eating sweet and sour pork, chicken and pork satay and chicken wings with rice.

Today hasn't been the most spectacular of days but I have enjoyed the activities contained within it as usual. On my recent journeys on the subway, I have been doing my best to take in the scenery around me and one thing that definitely stands out, despite my experiences in Korea, has been about the tremendous amounts of tower block housing that exists in this country.
It really is amazing how many people (approx. 5m) in such a small space. Literally everywhere you look is block after block of flat, ten or fifteen stories high and in the middle of about twenty others just like it.

Other observation concerns the cost of living in Singapore. I had learned when I first came here that life is meant to be relatively expensive, particularly when compared with the rest of Asia. That is not something that I have noticed to be honest as pretty much each and every meal I have brought here has been under $6 (£3). It all depends where you go for food I guess. I usually end up going to a food court type of set up, commonly known as a Hawker centre, which sells a variety of food at low prices.

If your a shopaholic with little will-power than I guess life could be extremely expensive as your drawn into almost every store that lines each and every one of the streets here.

Not sure quite yet what tomorrow will hold, but probably more coaching, and if possible more exploring of my surroundings. I have speculated with a couple of options, and if you check back each and every day then you will know exactly what I have got myself into!

An innocent prisoner will become more angry by the hour due to the injustice suffered. He will shout and rage. A guilty prisoner becomes more calm and quiet. Or he cries. He knows he's there for a reason. The best way to establish guilt or innocence is non-stop interrogation. 

The Net

Apparently the Picasa link at the bottom of the page doesn't want to work, when I click on it I just get an error. 

So for the time being you can follow this link https://picasaweb.google.com/104228618046790547470/Singapore?authuser=0&feat=directlink to look at as many of my glorious photos as you like.

Here one just for good measure....

Devlin: What were you trying to do? Save the world? Angela: No. Not the world, just myself. 

Confessions of a Shopaholic

With another enjoyable day in Singapore behind me, it's time for some reflection on events in the last 24 hours.

Despite being faced with the task of getting up extremely early in the morning for today's session, I was looking forward to working in a different venue, with a bunch of fresh faces and differing needs. When my alarm went off at 6am, the only bonus was that the other two coaches that stayed here last night had to be up and out of the house by 5am. 

Obviously without too much schadenfreude we headed out towards a school I would later discover was in a place called Bukit Batok at a venue on the grounds of an international school. Once again it required an MRT (subway) and bus combination which is becoming much easier thanks to the purchasing of a travel card I purchased yesterday morninng.

It's a bit like a Singaporean Oyster card, though I imagine the fairs are slightly cheaper here than in London. It looks something like this ------> 

Anyway, this makes it much easier to get on an off the subway and bus without having to by a ticket each time and significantly reduces the fare. The average journey seems to cost about $2.00 on the MRT and about $0.80 on the bus which is pretty good. It cost me $12.00 but came with $7.00 loaded on (which lasted all of about two days!)

In today's session we coached two different sessions. One for kids under six, and the second one for kids under nine. What's good is that most of the parents tend to stick around and watch this child's session, and often they get to join in with some of the games that we play. Each kid is given a kit and a football by English soccer school and then they bring it with them each week. Thankfully each child has their name on the back of their shirt, so it's relatively easy to work out who is who! Name retention is one of my strengths and this certainly aids it.

After putting everything away, I planned to have some dinner and then head out, but unfortunately the weather had other ideas. We were about due a bit of rain anyway as it hasn't poured down since the day after I arrived, but just as I stepped in the shower and turned on the tap, the Man up there did exactly the same thing. 

Rain showers in the summer are common. They don't last very long and it increases the humidity somewhat as it is still warm whilst its raining.

It comes down a fair bit so you don't quite get steaming pavements, but it doesn't change the climate too much.

The rain lasted about twenty minutes so after shower number two of the day, I headed out to get some dinner and then James suggested I hop on a bus into the city.

I had been looking forward to getting my tourist on ever since arriving and today presented an ideal opportunity with us finishing relatively early. Fully prepared with camera and guidebook at the ready I stepped onto a bus and into the great abyss. I didn't have a grand plan of what to do, but I did just generally want to walk about and see a few of the major sights.

Singapore isn't blessed with wonderful monuments, tremendous architecture or sun-kissed beaches, but it does have some interesting places to go.

I decided to concentrate my journey in the south-east of the island, and after a 45 minute or so, bus ride I got off at Orchard - the shoppers paradise, before setting out in the direction of Marina Bay which is well known as it hosts the Singapore Grand Prix.

It still baffles me how much English signage is around, and how many people here can actually speak English. Most of the voices I hear seem to be of Chinese or Malay descent, but there's also plenty of the Queen's language being spoken too. It's also not uncommon to see a western person strolling around on the metro or when your walking down the street.

As I have mentioned previously, Singapore's big past time is shopping which means that malls or centres to practice such an activity are plentiful. Walking away from the Orchard area of the city, I found little in the way of intriguing features and mainly just came across lines and lines of traffic. Along the way I did manage to find another couple of the subway stations further along the line before eventually I came to a set of skyscrapers to the East which make up part of the booming business district in this country.

Heading in their direction I also came across another building which was familiar to me which was the Esplanades or concert hall. It's a big shimmery building that kind of looks like a honeycomb from the outside. 

It's hard to capture exactly how good it looks from street level, but from up above and also in dark it looks pretty impressive - as does the rest of Singapore's skyline.

I carried on walking towards the Esplanade and found myself located on the waterfront exactly opposite the skyscrapers that I had previously seen. There was a great view from almost sea level from there, and it is a stereotypical scene you'd expect to see in a city like Hong Kong or Shanghai.

 The rather snazzy looking building on the right hand side is Marina Bay casino where all the high rollers of the city like to spend their time. The picture on the left is of the skyscrapers on display with a 'duck tour' boat in the foreground. If you enlarge the picture you can see the Mer-lion fountain which is one of Singapore's more bizarre pieces of art!

From there I headed back towards Marina Square which is a huge shopping centre with wall-to-wall shops. It is staggering the amount of shops in the place to be honest. Four floors of lengthy corridors of shops and restaurant that would frighten a few people I know with an aversion to shopping.

Pretty much everything you need could be found under one roof, and I decided to do a bit of browsing before heading back home. On my way I found a couple of interesting little outlets..... one is my idea of hell, and apparently located next door is my idea of heaven.

I managed to escape from the corridors of either for the time being  before heading back towards Sembawang for the evening.

I had an extremely enjoyable day out in Singapore, and hope to be able to do more exploring in the near future.

This country seems like it still has so much to offer, and I held back on my sightseeing due to the fact that I have further scheduling to see other things in mind in the near future!

Graham Bloomwood: Life is like a swap meet. You never know when great riches... are going to turn up unexpectedly. 

24 Hour Photo

Good news! 

I have finally managed to get round to taking some pictures and linked them directly to my blog.

If you scroll down to the very bottom post I have made, just below there should be a slideshow of all my latest images. If you click on them, they will open up in a larger format, and if you click 'view my gallery' that should bring up everything that I have taken so far!

Enjoy :)

Sy Parrish: The things you're most afraid of have already happened.