The Secret Garden

This morning marked a ceremonial day in my visit to Singapore.

Waking up early Sunday morning it soon dawned on me that not only would this be my last weekend spent in the country before returning home, but I was also about to lead my final session as a coach at English Soccer School.
Sadly, it won't be my last early morning in Singapore, but it will be my last one for work purposes!

Today I was working with one of the other coaches, Yoshi. Since my last blog I have moved locations. I was staying in an apartment in the vicinity of Sembawang, but for the last couple of days of my stay I have been 'upgraded' to stay in a condo (or the room of a condo) in a place called Yew Tee. When I first heard coaches discussing the location, I thought that 'UT' was short for something, not I realise it is actually phonetically spelt out!

I arrived here yesterday after bidding goodbye to my former room-mate Abdul who returned to England this morning, but will be kept company by a coach from Japan who is currently in the middle of a 'year-out' of work over in Singapore.

The condo had sort of become a mythical place, as having had it mentioned to me before, I had never actually had a chance to go there. Apart from being told there was a swimming pool and a gym, the details were rather limited. I mentioned in an earlier blog that after having coached in and around the vicinity of several condos I wouldn't have minded being placed in one for the duration of my visit, but in truth it doesn't quite live up to it's hype..... not in this setting anyway.

It is rather good that it does have a swimming pool (except for the fact I have no swimming shorts with me!) and there are other facilities available such as a tennis court and a basketball court, but we are treated to staying in a room within a condo apartment. The combined population of this location is nine, including one three month old baby, who is by far the dominant noise-maker.

The room I am staying in is actually smaller than the room in the apartment I was staying in before, and at least in there I was treated to a desk. In here my suitcase struggles to fit without blocking the door, and if I couldn't swing a cat in my former location then I doubt I'd even be able to fit a Siberian hamster in this place. I digress.....

Deciding that the surroundings aren't exactly idea I decided to spend most of yesterday afternoon out of the condo.
After coaching my last session in the morning, I came back to have a shower and then decided to head out into the city.

My flight leaves here early Wednesday morning meaning that I only have three full days left for exploration before departing. My experiences with sightseeing have been some what varied so I've decided to make the most of my time here now that I am no longer committed to working!

For today I decided to head to the Botanic Gardens of Singapore which is not to far away from the city centre. I find Singapore can be very strange in that way. The imagine that you get of the country is that there are plenty of skyscrapers across the city centre, but then there is also somewhere like the Botanic Gardens park not too far away, it is quite a contrast.

Botanic Gardens has it's own stop on the 'circle line' of the MRT map, and from Yew Tee it requires a few changes to be able to get there. It eventually took me about 45 minutes before arriving, and thankfully the gardens are pretty much just around the corner from where you exit the rail system.

I took plenty of time to study the map, but it seemed to be a few windey inter-connected paths that guide you through, and eventually back around to the beginning. The Garden itself has several sections including a number of sub-gardens and also an orchid garden - the only thing you actually have to pay to see. I walked through the area for about an hour and a half stopping at everything there was to see. These mostly included oddly-shaped trees or brightly coloured flowers.

I did get a rather big surprise when taking my time to stop however though as a bee the size of a small bird flew in my direction. I figured this was not the time to break by duck of having never been stung by a bee!!!

There were some interesting noises developing all around me as you could hear crickets, grasshoppers and various other bugs and creatures humming as you circulated the plant and tree filled paths of the garden. At one point I did see a sign that there had been sightings of monitor lizards in the area, but sadly I didn't manage to catch a glance of any on my visit. Down by a pond I did however catch sight of a few turtles that were swimming around among some fish, but nothing more exciting than that.

After getting to the opposite end of the park I decided against turning round and going back, and instead continued on walking towards the famous Orchard Road area of Singapore which I saw signposted as being relatively close.

My only experiences of Orchard have been go stop off there to catch the bus on the way to a school, but this is the location that houses most of the shopping malls and high priced luxury housing in the country. I decided to visit a couple of shopping locations, and was not only astounded by the sheers size, and number of shops, but also how many people were in them to say it was a Sunday evening.

Spent some time mainly window-shopping in places I won't be able to afford to purchase things from anytime soon, and following that I carried on walking, first looking for a crossing point back to the MRT, and then just out of curiosity. It seems like the shops here go on endlessly, and it's a far stretch from the places I have been staying.

This is more of what Singapore is known for, and I can honestly say that I have never seen anything like it before in my life. It reminds me how incredibly lucky I am to be able to visit a country that is as diverse as Singapore.

I headed home at about 7pm just as the sun was setting on another day in the Lion City.

The spell was broken. My uncle learned to laugh, and I learned to cry. The secret garden is always open now. Open, and awake, and alive. If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden. 

The Beach

It feels like I haven't had the chance to produce a blog entry in such a long time. By 'chance' I mean that I haven't actually been doing anything interesting or blog-worthy since my last entry.

The week has been a relatively busy one, I have spent every day out this week coaching in some capacity, and it has given me a great opportunity to try out some new coaching techniques, and also try out a host of new drills I have been able to create.

Today I was given the day off from coaching, and I made the most of this opportunity by having a lie in. Those of you who know me well will be able to vouch that I am never one for spending too much time in bed. I am usually averse from getting up because I took myself to bed at an unholy hour, rather than a lazyness or reluctance to do anything.

With time on my hands I decided to make the most of the opportunity and had agreed with a couple of the coaches that we should finally take that trip to Sentosa Beach that I had been hoping for since visiting there for the last couple of weekends in a row.

The guy I am sharing a room with, Abdul, felt this would be an ideal opportunity to enjoy his last couple of days here before returning to England on Sunday. And with me departing on Wednesday this was a good chance for us all to hang out together for one last time.

We had planned to head to Sentosa after this morning's coaching session, and after postponing our trip until the early afternoon we were invited by a kids that we coach from a local school to come and join them for a game of football.

Since being here I have only had one oppotunity to actually play a game of semi-competetive football, so this chance definitely appealed to me. The kids who invited us were having their usual week-ending match against the year above them, so we joined in on the younger side and probably gave them a massive advantage.

The blazing heat, although quite subtly disguised by clouds, wasn't as much of a factor as I thought it was, although after we'd finished playing I was definitely in need of a shower and a bottle of water.

After refreshing ourselves we decided to head out to HarbourFront in the direction of Sentosa (a journey that is now familar to me) and Abdul, Yoshi and myself agreed to meet one of our friends, Matt at a location not far away from our destination.

The journey took us along a slightly different route to usual and now means that there are only eight stations on the MRT map that I have not passed through or stopped at.

We arrived at HarbourFront Station, and whilst waiting for Matt decided to solve our hunger by taking in a quick snack.

As I had done on both my trips across to the island, we took the Boardwalk which, with the sun going down, was actually quite pleasant.

Having seen all of the attractions available on Sentosa, there wasn't too much to stop and take photos of, and this meant that we arrived at the beach at virtually the perfect time.

The sun was just setting below the water as we nade our way on to the beach. We stopped to take some photos whilst dipping our toes in the water and also kicking the football which we had brought around on the sand.

As late afternoon became evening we placed ourself on the sand to watch darkness descend before getting an ice cream and heading back to the MRT station via the monorail.

What we spent time doing today was relatively simple, but enjoyable. For the first time since I did my first bout of exploring it actually felt like I was in holiday. As I described before, being on Sentosa gives you a totally different feel to being on mainland Singapore, and it was fun to spend time in that environment.

I wouldn't say I'm really a 'beach' person, but I enjoy walking along the sand and also dipping my toes in the water. The beach wasn't anything totally spectacular, but it's in dramatic contrast with the rest of the scenary here so it will made today particularly stand out as an enjoyable experience.

The days are now dwindling down towards my return to the UK, and its hard to believe that I have been here for almost four weeks already.

When I came out to Singapore I was very excited, but also slightly concerned about the challenges that would face me on my return to the Far East. Moving to Korea was such a daunting but enjoyable experience that I was worried that this trip might not quite live up to its billing.

Admittedly it has been much different to what I thought it would be, but Singapore has plenty to offer, and I am so pleased that I got the chance to come out here and experience life here.

Tomorrow will be the start of my last weekend as I slowly count down the days, hours and minutes to my return. I feel that outcome of my experience has been slightly different to what I expect, but it will be another story to tell and another stamp on my passport I'd nothing else!

I am hoping to be able to finish of my trip with some positive experiences of Singaporean life that will allow me to leave with the best memories possible about this island.

And me, I still believe in paradise. But now at least I know it's not some place you can look for, 'cause it's not where you go. It's how you feel for a moment in your life when you're a part of something, and if you find that moment... it lasts forever... 

The Fog

Thankfully there was no early morning coaching going on today, so I was able to get myself a bit of a lie in.

Yesterday evening I was so shattered after the last two early mornings. No matter what time I seem to go to bed, it never seems to make me feel any less tired when I have to get up anytime between 5am and 7am!

Although I still woke up about 9am this morning, I didn't surface out of bed until 10:30 as I was doing my best to rest and recuperate after a busy weekend. I swear I've spent more time travelling and working than I have in bed over these last couple of weeks.

I came across a newspaper this morning which had the number '32' in a large font in the top right corner of the front page. Pretty intrigued by this I read on to discover that this is a new thing that the paper are required to produce due to worries about air pollution in Singapore.

Searching on the Internet I discovered that there had been some talk about forest fires in Indonesia blowing smoke in this direction. As I mentioned in a previous blog, I have barely seen the sun since coming here, and the level of smog in the air had something to do with it. 

Further investigation led me to the PSI reading website which indicates the ambient air quality in the country on behalf of the National Environment Agency. It seems from their readings that these readings are higher in the morning, and they say this is due to "an escalation of hotspot activities in Sumatra and Borneo can be expected during extended periods of dry weather."
This can lead to an occurance of smoke haze in the region, and its dependant on factors such as the proximity of fires, and the strength and direction of prevailing winds.

Although there has been a few days of hazy weather, the score of 32 I saw on the newspaper this morning is still in the region of 0-50 which is classed as good. Anything above 300 and we're in trouble!

Today I was tasked with heading to a new school, or one that I'd never visited before at least. It's a Jewish school based in the centre of Singapore, and we were due there to coach ten kids at an after school club.

First I had to drop our new coach, Will, off in the right place so that he could go to his session. He arrived on Saturday evening, and was preparing to coach for the first time since arriving from Singapore. Unfortunately his sleeping pattern has gone somewhat awry since getting here, and when it came time to depart to catch the MRT he was in a thoroughly deep sleep! 

I eventually managed to wake him up and after throwing on some clothes we eventually got him to Orchard where he needed to go to meet the rest of the coaches for this afternoon's session.
I carried on one further stop to a place called Somerset where I met one of our other coaches who took me on a short walk down the road to our Jewish School.

Now, I'd consider myself to be a pretty open-minded person, and I have found some of the venues that I have been coaching in since coming to Singapore pretty original.
Today's was definitely under the category of 'original' but not quite what I was expecting.

The other coach I was working with, Matt, explained about the kids we would be coaching, and then explained he was going to fetch them. Bear in mind at this point we are stood in the middle of a car park, little did I know that's where we would be taking today's session!

We managed to get through the session without no injuries, but it was a little worrying that we had to stop the session on a couple of occasions so that teachers could reverse out of their parking bays and through the middle of our pitch so they could depart school for the day.

I finally managed to get home at about 6:00pm before getting fed and watered for the evening and then getting another early night ahead of another coaching filled day tomorrow!

You tell your pal, when he thaws out he better have a damn good story. 

Return to Paradise

Sunday evening, and time to reflect on another busy weekend of coaching and early mornings (I much prefer one to the other - not difficult to guess which) it's time to reflect on more than half my time gone by in Singapore.

It feels very much like I have been here for a lot longer than the two weeks and three days since I flew into the country, and already I feel like I am a local with plenty of knowledge about how things work in this part of the world.

Today has involved relatively the same things as last Sunday. First I coached at West Coast Park this morning with my kids for an hour between 9:30 and 10:30. Thankfully I gained the correct information today, and arrived perfectly on time to set up.

The Japanese baseball players we are usually fighting for space with had moved slightly over into our territory this morning, so I had to take back some land by stretching out into their outfield. This morning I had the privilege of coaching eight children before finishing with a little match.

Doesn't matter how much time you spend coaching, it appears that children of ages 5-6 love to stand around in bunches and basically kick the ball as hard as they can when it comes towards them. Ironically today's session was about finding space, but that seemed to go completely out of the window when they were like bees around honey wherever the ball went.

After the session this morning we caught the bus back to the MRT station at Jurong East and then made our way back to Sembawang. All these early mornings must have taken their toll on me as I almost instantly fell asleep as soon as I managed to get a seat on the train.

A strange phenomenon seemed to take place this afternoon because as soon as we headed back towards Sembawang the rain came pouring down! Thankfully I had my umbrella in my bag so it wasn't required too much on the journey between the train and the apartment.

I had a quick bit of lunch before heading out to Sentosa island where I had spent most of last Sunday. This weekend I was doing my best to play tour guide to one of the other coaches who hadn't seen the place for himself, but was impressed after seeing some of my photos. Despite one visit there I was able to guide him half way around before having to return back to the apartment and allow him to continue exploring the rest of the island.

Miraculously as I started to get close to Sembawang again, it started raining, and this time the umbrella was a little more necessary than it had been on my original visit.

I've had a fairly quiet evening of being on the computer, as I prepare for my final full week in Singapore.

We have a new coach staying with as at the moment, he is also from England, and I am spending this week taking him to sessions and showing him around whenever I get the opportunity.

I remember when I first moved to Korea, and I was very grateful that I had two great (future) friends to show me around, but unfortunately I wasn't awarded that luxury when I first came here and I had to make my own way around.

I have done my best to try and make him feel welcome, and considering this is his first time in Asia then I'm sure he appreciates the slight bit of wisdom that I can impart on him.

Partly due to the language, the culture and basically everything, I think that Asia is perhaps the most difficult part of the world to 'blend' into. I consider myself to be a chameleon when it comes to visiting new places, and I was able to settle in a little easier here due to previous experiences in the continent. But I know it can be tough when you first come over, and I remember thinking "Wow" when I first saw all the bright lights, ridiculous amount of people EVERYWHERE, and strange smells started to waft from food all around.

I understand that perhaps this is a slightly narrow view of the world as I have never been to South America or the Middle-East, but to me, Asian culture is rapidly different in terms of its whole perspective, and I can understand why people might find it difficult to settle here, particularly if they are not in the right situation.  

Of course I am not suggesting that I am some worldly expert on everything, but these are things that I have picked up on my travels and believe to be the case.

This week, school's have returned, so most of our sessions will be taking place in the afternoon once again. 

Hurrah for lie-ins!

I'm not the best, but I am the most persistent. 

Lockout

Apologies to those avid followers of my blog that I haven't posted a message on here in the last couple of days.

The truth is that I could easily post a blog every day/night about what I have been getting up to in Singapore, but half of the stuff really wouldn't be very interesting! I attempt to make sure that this is a good and riveting read for people (even if it isn't always that way!), but the last couple of days have been truly mundane and I thought I would spare all of you the details.

As you can imagine the weather is still extremely warm over in this part of Asia. We had a brief rainstorm yesterday where I actually thought the sky was going to fall in, but after about half an hour or so it calmed and went back to being balmy again.

There are signs in some of the locations that I have spent time in whilst being here that have warnings about thunder and lightning, but I think they need to amend the sign or make a new one that warns you about wearing flip flops when it has BEEN raining. I almost fell over about five/six times yesterday as I walked to the shop, pretty sure the locals, who were all wearing shoes of course, found it highly entertaining. 

With school holidays still being in effect in Singapore, both Thursday and Friday were relatively quiet days. This morning though it was back to early starts, and setting my alarm clock at uncomfortable times.

One of our regular coaches was away today so I filled in for him at a location called Kembangen which runs four different sessions starting at 8am.

Most of the locations that we do coaching at, thankfully, have a place where we can store all our equipment, but two of them Pebble Bay and Kembangen, both have no storage space due to their 'open field' nature. This means that whenever we travel to either one of these places we have to use our lock-up facility to go and collect things from a storage unit and transport them to the location.

On Thursday's we can manage to squeeze both coaches and all the equipment in a taxi, but for today we had a bit of a strange system.
There were actually five coaches who were working at the sessions today, and three of the guys went straight there due to where they are living.

Me, and my room mate Abdul had to get up at 5am to get ready to head to the lock-up and then unload all the stuff into a taxi ready for transporting to the location at Kembangen.
As we were carrying so much, Abdul went in the taxi leaving me to re-board the train, and then go a few stops further to meet him and the rest of the coaches.

This morning we encountered a slight problem at the lock-up as we noticed that an extra padlock was attached to our storage space. We had the code for one and not the other, and after a quick consultation with James, Abdul found some packaging for three padlocks that had been attached to three different doors around the area.

This was either an elaborate wind-up or a horrendous case of mistaken identity by the owner of the padlocks, and it meant that we were required to deploy force (kicking the door down!) to get into our storage locker.
A few heavily placed kicks here and then eventually saw a panel of the door come off, and after some careful movement, we eventually managed to squeeze all the things we needed out of a small gap that we had made, and then went out separate ways to be re-united at Kembangen.

Compared with some of the other locations that I have coached during my two weeks in Singapore, Kembangen was a relatively straightforward field.
It's right next to the MRT and has a bit of a park next to it which allows the children to play on before or after their session.

I was designated as the 'organiser' of the session, so I basically went round doing the odd jobs like doing the registers, checking things were ok, hanging out trophies, water, sweets and generally being a dogsbody whilst everyone else coached!

It's not a role that I particularly minded doing to be honest, and things seemed to run smoothly, but with the heat, and having got up at an unholy time this morning, I have spent most of the rest of the day feeling pretty tired.

Today's session means I have visited all-bar-one of the soccer schools that we run, and it has been good to see a variety of locations across the island and throughout the age ranges.

Each group of children that you spend time coaching obviously requires a different set of skills, but overall I would have to say that the kids here seem to be well enough trained to listen, follow instructions and act on the things that you have told them.

Singapore seems to be relatively crazy about football, even if the S-League and National team don't live up to the standard of interest there is in the game, but I think there are certainly plenty of opportunities to develop the programs that ESS runs. 

Myself personally I have just enjoyed getting back into coaching, and working around young people again. I have my complaints every now and then about the behaviour of the minority of kids I've ever come across in my life. But with football, if they were choosing to spend their Saturday morning's at lessons then they are obviously pretty interested in improving, and also having fun!

Tomorrow will unfortunately once again be an early morning, when I will be heading off to West Coast Park for my session with 5-6 year olds, but after that I am hoping to spend the day enjoying some freedom and perhaps getting out and doing some sightseeing.

Don't get me wrong. It's a dream vacation. I mean, I load up. I go into space. I get inside the maximum-security nuthouse. Save the President's daughter, if she's not dead already. Get past all the psychos who've just woken up. I'm thrilled that you would think of me.

Ladybugs

The lie-ins didn't last long this week as this morning I had to be up bright and breezy to go to a match with one of the teams that we have been coaching.

Myself and another guy from England have been working with a girl's football team at a secondary school during our stay in Singapore, and today they were playing a friendly match against a team from a junior college.

Had to leave the house 'nice' and early, and it was still depressingly dark outside when we arrived at the MRT Station. We weren't actually having to travel that far on the metro network, but we did have to change twice and use three different lines (there's only four available!) The college we were playing at was in a place called Kovan which is just down the road from Serangoon which is the location that the college is named after.

Funnily enough, despite being told we had to be at the location for 7:45am, the team didn't arrive until 8:30am so we were panicing slightly that we were in the wrong place. Turns out we were mis-informed (that seems to be happening a lot these days!)

I had volunteered to referee the game whilst the other coach would prepare the team, sort the substitutions out and do the warm-up, I definitely think he got the better end of the deal.
Although I haven't spent many an hour playing, watching and talking about football, officiating my favourite sport is not something I have endured a great deal of time being involved in.

I'm not one to berate officials when I am playing as from the few times when I have had to do it, usually in kids games as well, I've found if very difficult! Referees have my sympathy (most of the time!) Thankfully I wasn't needing to make too many decisions during the game although there were a few handballs that I let both teams get away with.

Pretty sure that I did more running than either of the two teams put together, and after being up so early in the morning I was well and truly tired. The girls lost the game 4-2, but to say they were 0-4 down at the start of the second half they did really well to come back and at least claim some pride against a team who were are least two years older than them.

Heading back on the MRT I think I must have dozed off and woke up just in time to get of the train in the right place, but after a shower and some dinner I felt a lot more refreshed.

The rest of the afternoon was spent on the computer looking at and drawing up some session plans that I had managed to 'borrow' from various sources, and then this evening I was out again to actually play football myself this time.

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I had been in touch with a team of expatriate players who play fixtures in and around the area. I'd been in contact with the manager a few days ago and he had mentioned that they were training this evening between 8-10pm at a Futsal Centre in Woodlands which is very close to Sembawang.

Needless to say it was an enjoyable experience having not played for such a long time, and despite the heat I actually felt OK, a bit sweaty, but the two hours run around did me some good I reckon.Was nice to get out into the fresh air and actually kick the ball around after spending so much of my time here, either instructing people on how to play football or watching it at S-League games.

Seems strange that it is now two weeks since I left England to head to Singapore. Which also means that I am halfway through my time here. In some ways it has gone remarkably fast, but in others it has also gone quite slowly.

So far most of it has been an enjoyable experience. I am loving being immersed in a new and vastly different culture, it makes a change to constantly be too hot rather than too cold, and it's a nice change being in a foreign country where the locals speak the same language as me! I can definitely say when I return to England that my time in Singapore was well spent regardless of the outcome of whether I end up staying here long-term or not.

I have learned so much whilst being back in Asia, and I would definitely consider spending some time in Singapore again in the future!

No, he's not a stranger. He's just strange. 

Goal!

Having spent the last couple of days being forced to get out of bed early, it was nice to be able to have a lie in this morning!

I certainly made the most of the spare time making up for three early mornings in a row but reading for a little while (something I haven't done enough of this trip) and then eventually dragging myself into the shower at about 11:15. Let's be honest, if it wasn't for coming to Singapore, that's what I would have been doing with myself everyday anyway!!!!

After refreshing myself with yet another cold shower (.... got tricked this morning because when I went to wash my face the water was hot, but when I got in the shower, it was back to being freezing again!) I spent some time on the computer doing a few tasks that had been requested of me.

Finally got round to going to the post office too, to get some stamps for the postcards that I've had written for about a week. It cost me $5.00 (£2.50) for ten stamps, which is about what you pay for a single stamp in England these days! Those will be winging their way to you via the efficient Singapore postal service!

I've done my best to avoid Western food wherever possible whilst being in this country so far, but today I couldn't resist and went into McDonalds! I guess this doesn't really count as being a typical "foreigner" as this was after I had already eaten my lunch, and I needed to finish it off by getting a McFlurry.

It's surprising to me how long it has taken me to get an ice cream since coming to Singapore as it is perhaps my most favourite food in the whole wide world! I must definitely increase my ice cream consumption! Perhaps that's why I have been feeling so tired these days!

This evening we got the chance to go and watch an S-League game between two local teams in the top division of Singaporean football. I say top division loosely, as from my previous experience with the game last week, there aren't any Singaporean Lionel Messi's coming through at the moment!

The two teams playing were Gomback United and Young Lions; the 9th and 10th best teams in the country on current league positions. Young Lions are a team made up of players under the age of 21, and it showed in the early stages as they seemed a touch nervous to be playing against slightly more experienced opponents.

Before the match, James introduced me to the owner, head coach and team manager of Gomback United so I had a rooting interest in them winning the game. They didn't disappoint with a slightly dodgy 1-0 win that didn't do much to entertain us, but at least it was an opportunity to get out of the house!

The first game that I went to see last Thursday was of a much higher standard, though I can't complain too much as the tickets were complementary!

Tomorrow it will be back to coaching (well refereeing for me) and then onto training with a team of expatriates in the evening. I haven't yet decided whether I will be coach or player coach!

The only one who can tell me I'm not good enough is you. And even then I may not agree with you.