Cairnhill Crest

Hello again! I know it has been a while since we have written. We have pretty much been in vacation mode for a while. And, the big news is that we have moved into our "permanent" residence at Cairnhill Crest (mandarin speakers pronounce this cane-hill). Cairnhill is just a few blocks away from the Orchard Road shopping district. We chose Cairnhill over a few beautiful places on the shore line, but farther away from the city, including Ryan's work at Marina Bay. Now, Ryan is just four stops away on the MRT. Of course, that is after he walks to the MRT station at Somerset (.58 km or .36 mile for those of you NOT on the metric system). It really is more than that though, because once you get to the MRT station, it can be almost as far to get to the train deck. So, we do a lot of walking here.




So, the apartment. You can visit the link to Cairnhill Crest here to read about the facilities and such. The girls love the swimming. There are three pools: the kids pool, with squirting fountains and a small water slide, a regular pool that is about 4 ft deep (no deep ends in newer pools here in Sg- law since the 2005 or so), and another pool that has a table and chairs in it (but no food and drink are allowed- go figure?), a bridge that goes over it, and a jacuzzi (with no heat). The girls love the pool with the bridge. They play all sorts of things in that pool. Their favorites are shark families and sushi chefs (they use the leaves from the area to "cook"- even though none of them like sushi!).

There is also a fitness center which McKenna has been enjoying and a Chinese pond with coy and turtles. We have names all of the turtles: Myrtle, Big Guy, Little Guy, Tiny, and Curdle. The girls love to go down and feed them bread. Chloe had Tiny eating out of her hand the other day!

So, the view itself, looking out is not great. Right across from us is a building under construction. The thing is that just about anywhere you are in Sg, there is construction of some sort. When a building gets old here, they tear it down and build a new one, and they are constantly adding on to the MRT (subway). Our first serviced apt was right next to an MRT construction site. There, they work 24 hours a day. It is loud and you hear clink clink clink right as you are trying to go to sleep. This construction, is not on such a timeline. So, they only work business hours and are quiet at night.

 We do have a bit of a view. To the left of the construction, we can see the historic district and Orchard Road in the distance. This picture shows the block out the back of the complex. It is a historic district. I LOVE walking through it each day. I will have to get closer pictures of some of the homes. They have terracotta roofs, some have gates, and they are all decorated differently with tiles and/or plants. So, we walk through these quaint streets and then by a few restaurants in the same style. Finally, POP, we are on Orchard Road with the hustle and bustle of malls, shops, and restaurants. On O.R. there are so many businesses from fruit stands, to electronics shops, to Cartier, Gucci, and Prada. At night, we can see O.R. from our apt. Being able to see the lights of the city at night was one of my must have's for an apt.

So, inside the apartment is nothing like our home. At home, we have carpet and low ceilings in most rooms. I thought my house was light, but this apartment is much lighter than our home.

This is our front door. Everyone takes their shoes off outside and leaves them in the entry. There are two apts per floor, and we have our own elevator lobby shared with the family across the hall. *They are wonderful by the way! Somi and Shareem an Indian couple from Washington D.C. have two kids- daughter-6 and Son- 3.* Security is wonderful! You can't get to our floor unless you have a key card for our floor.

We enter into the living room/dining room. The living room is to the right coming in, with the line of windows (the windows are doors.) The whole wall opens up to the balcony outside. The floor is marble...and I LOVE THAT! It keeps everything so clean! It would never work in MN in the winter without in-floor heating, but I sure love it here in my home by the equator. It looks terribly dark in these pictures because it is cloudy and the sun is going down. Usually, it is much brighter!

         

 The Master Bedroom: The hallway leading to the bedroom has three built in closets two with drawers and one with a rod. The window wall is split. Half is a door leading to a balcony and the other half is the wonderful deep-sill window that is in the rest of the apt.

The funny thing about the bedroom is that it has a sliding "window" to the master bath. So, evidently, while I am bathing, I can talk to Ryan while he is still in bed. The whole bathroom is marble!! (Well, except the tub.) The floor is black. In Sg, bathrooms, kitchens, and utility rooms are hard rooms that you step down into (about two inches) because they have drains in the floors of the rooms to catch water- brilliant for cleaning and the area right outside showers. The "thing" on the wall is a plug in for razors and a built-in hair dryer. The showers also have all been the kind with a hose that you can take down and spray with--love that! (Even our bathtub has one of those. They are wonderful for washing feet--after a city walk in sandals--and children's hair!)

Next down the hall on the left is the bomb shelter. Yes, it is a safe room required in all Sg homes since 9-11. In our home, however, it is the suitcase storage room.

This is our home school room. It has two desks, and will have a book shelf soon. It also boasts the great huge window area where the girls can use as a reading/work area with natural light.

This is one of the girls' rooms. Currently, all three are sleeping in fleece sleeping bags on two twin beds pushed together. We are anxiously waiting for our shipment from the U.S. to arrive with all of our bed linens, towels, toys, games, and home schooling supplies.

The girls use their window sills for play areas. We had to get them to move their American Girl dolls out the the sun. No tanning allowed for McKenna (the doll) or Felicity!








These little sets were a hit! They are puzzles of rooms that the girls put together. Then, they have little characters to play with the rooms as doll houses. We bought all four sets. Here are three of them.

This is McKenna's clothes' room. No one currently sleeps here.

  The Kitchen is an "L." The image to the right is the door from the main hallway. It looks like all of this is pantry, but in reality, the two left cabinets house the electrical and utilities.

To the left, the picture captures the view as we enter the kitchen. The cabinets in the last picture are on the left. We have all of the basic appliances including microwave, oven, gas stove, and dishwasher. 

Behind the kitchen is the laundry/garbage.

I really like that I can completely get rid of the garbage immediately. This handy silver contraption in the wall discards the garbage right out of our house....no bags, no mess, no packing into a can.

 

Finally...we enter what, in Sg., is termed the maid's quarters. A little, tiny room at the back of the house with a little, tiny bathroom with shower built-in. We keep our shopping cart in there and our pool bag in the sink.

So, there you have it- our new home!

It is now completely dark here. My family is down swimming, enjoying the cooler outdoor weather in darkness. (It really is not that much cooler, but at least the sun is gone.) Now that we will be starting school, we will be writing more.

I have really been on vacation and haven't been on the girls to write much either! I've read eight books since we arrived. I have NEVER had the time to do that! The girls have been reading a lot too, and we just started our first book together since we got here. We are reading, The Evolution of Capurnia Tate, and really enjoying it! We did not bring nearly enough books along with us, and so we have hit quite a few book stores. Sg. books are EXPENSIVE (like $18-25 for a kids book). I just met another mom at our home school sports day, and she introduced me to Book Depository out of the UK. It is similar to Amazon, but has free international shipping, and the book prices are more reasonable. Once our shipment gets here, we will be set for a while for books, but we will be using that site as we need to order. 

Màn Zǒu, (pronounced: mad zo- long o)

(Take Care!)

Traci