Have you ever seen a fly wearing a tie?

 Down by the bay. Tuesday was to be an interesting evening. The plan was to meet up with Robyn after work and go on a tour of the marina bay sands followed by an exhilarating game of badminton.  As most days go I didn’t get up to much in the earlier parts of the day.

With that said flash forward to about 6. The two of us met up in the mall part and then headed to the hotel. En route I pulled out my trusty smartphone and decided I wanted to learn more about MBS.  Like it has the world’s longest elevated pool or that it holds 2500 rooms. Not to mention it just looks awesome too. 

After making our way to the lobby, we headed to the Skypark, up here was the renowned pool, 2 restaurants, a club and an overhanging observation deck. Pictures over words, here you go:

Making out way through the hotel after this we stopped at the chairman’s suite. This is a step above the presidential. The crème de la crème. This room was incredible, 4 bedrooms, a private gym with sauna and steam room, pool table, baby grand piano, you name it. And to top it off, a karaoke room!

Time for some good ole fashioned butt kicking on the badminton court. Not quite of course. It was a fun time though. The MBS puts on badminton night for its staff in one of the convention centres when it isn’t booked. I met a number of Robyn’s co-worker friends and had a few awesome games. I still don’t know which is my dominant hand, but like squash I used my left hand.

Feeling hungry after 2 hours of badminton, we grabbed some food in the food hall. I ordered something that sounded disgusting in theory, but I think was a result of poor translation. Ready for it: Chicken and Black fungus rice. It was a chicken dish with black mushrooms, but it was served in this cool bowl with once again too much rice for me.

A fun time and a complete adventure, just what the doctor ordered.

The one two punch. WOW! Over 3000 hits. Thanks Everyone. Enjoy

 Boxing day isn’t a big spectacle in Singapore like it is in Canada. While there are sales they are usually only 10-20%. I think part of this is because of the proximity of Chinese New Year. It is less than a month away and bigger here than Christmas.

Back to the gym today, then the afternoon/evening was planned to hang out with Robyn and do some tourist things. We hopped on the duck tours tour bus and ventured around the city taking in both routes. The one that dug through little India, Chinatown and other cultural areas. The other detoured us through the financial district and colonial areas. There really are some cool buildings here. I think I have said that a few times.  For example there are these 5 buildings that are designed to represent a hand, with a huge fountain in the middle with water flowing in, this represents prosperity and wealth, there is a lot of feng shui in the architecture.

Following our escapade around town. We met up with Zora and her friend at a Mexican restaurant. Her friend interestingly enough spent 2 semesters at Mount Royal, small world eh. I ordered spicy pork lettuce wraps as an appetizer and then corn tacos as my main. I thought this was interesting about the menu.

A few more friends joined us and we headed to a bar, the Pump Room. As you may guess it was a tap house.  The live band had a big love for black-eyed peas and did pretty well at it. I also discovered how I could actually enjoy watching football the way the rest of the world does, struggling to pull my attention away from the television. I officially had my most expensive beer of my life at $18 for a pint; I don’t think I will be returning anytime soon.

Rock Around the Manger

 I left you off at midnight on Christmas Day. The plans for Christmas this year were vastly different than any in my past. And what I thought would be the same turned out to be different. These differences became the same. All said it was entirely new experience, and as much as I miss my friends and family during this time, I think it has taught me to appreciate them even more and to embrace the welcome arms of new friends.

The first difference was that my father or my brother usually wakes me up around 8 am. Today I woke up to an alarm (around the same time though). Dawdling I put on some nice clothes (casual smart as they say in SG) and jetted out on the MRT to find Singapore Indoor stadium, my host for Christmas morning mass.

It was immediately apparent to me that this church was much different than what I was used to at home. The venue was the dead give away, but the people with signs outside, the queue was easily 500 people deep, and the stadium was mostly full. So no pews just stadium seats. The lights went down, fog machines bellowed, lasers started shooting and the bass was thumping. Wait a sec? Concert or church, the first hour of the service was a dance warm-up for everyone, rock and light versions of Christmas carols and a play with a prodigal son (daughter actually) type message. I was doing fine until one of the songs “Gloria In Excelsios deo” or Glory to god in the highest, this reminded me of singing with the family and in our Ukrainian church when I was younger. I officially missed home, was homesick or whatever you may decide to call it.

Sermon finally started around 11:30, I found this part much more to my interest. Apparently I am very traditional, although this wasn’t presented how I am used to. A PowerPoint with different quotes was provided and the priest (not sure if that’s what you call this guy), dumbed down greatly parts of scripture. I think this is good to help people understand, but it directs interpretation. What I like is that the way I hear or read the bible (which isn’t very often these days) is interpreted by myself and I can generate my own beliefs. I had to leave church early in order to meet up with the family on Christmas Eve. 1 pm on the 25^th for me was 10 pm for my family on the 24^th.

It was wonderful to see Ben, Christina, Dad and Mom on their Christmas Eve, I just missed caroling with them. They were all in a bright cheerful mood and it helped pick me up as well. The gift mom picked up for my little nephew Leo was a toy guitar. Leo is always smiling he is so cheerful, and to here about this 20 month old rocking out and dancing is exciting, I asked Krista if she could share with me a video of it. As they were heading to bed, we planned to chat again when they woke up in the morning. Following our normal tradition, I would open gifts with them, this time on Skype. 

I killed the afternoon away with walking and some TV shows, I decided to take the day off the gym. At 11 pm my time, mom messaged me to say they were awake. JOY! Christmas is here. It felt more like Christmas that evening than it had all day. I sat in the middle of the room as they each opened their stockings, I asked questions about the lip balm Christina had received, and the little things everyone received from Santa.

Next up I was carried to the living room and sat in a chair so I could see everyone. My “neck” was a little sore, so I needed help turning my head when each person was opening their gifts. This was probably one of my highlights to Christmas, to see and hear the excitement of everyone as they opened their gifts and spread holiday love.

Overall, Christmas was good, despite being so many KM (just over 13 000) away from family. I know that friends here have been very good to me, and I want to thank all of you. 

Noeliniz kutlu olsun

I though I would share this song as well. Bonus points for who can comment on what video I first heard this song. Hint: Its something I miss during winter other than family.

Onto the 24^th of December. I will catch up to real time eventually. Although it’s probably a good thing that I am keeping myself busy from usually 3 pm on every day and don’t have time to always write. Before 3 I totally could, but I have been watching TV shows and I also downloaded this awesome game.

The game is called Civilization V. Essentially you create a civilization and take it from 2000 BC to 2050 AD. There are a number of ways you can win, either through Diplomacy, Technology, Science or Destruction.  It takes several hours to complete a game so I have only finished one. The game randomly selected me as Germany, so naturally I took over the entire world with Panzer and Air Raids. 

For Christmas Eve I didn’t really have plans and was getting worried, but a conversation with Bernie yielded fantastic results. Along with Bernie, my other friend Robyn and one of Bernie’s friends Patricia joined us for dinner. For my family Christmas Eve dinner is a big event; our Ukrainian heritage yields a spectacle of dishes (we aim for 13), with no meat (only fish) and 2 soups. The eve of Christmas we also sing carols in both English and Ukrainian and we each open one gift. The event is very family oriented and I truly appreciated it.

Before hand Robyn and I had a few beer then headed to Nabins, a Turkish restaurant in town. Located a few blocks from Arab Street. Singapore has very distinct regions like Arab Street, little India, and Chinatown. The decor here was cool, couches and low tables, curtains over all the walls. The food was awesome as well.

For myself, is it possible not to order shish kebab? And falafel as and appetizer. In the spirit of the holidays we all shared our meals together over a bottle of wine and some great conversation. When Christmas officially happened, it’s a big cheers and Merry Christmas. To me this was more reminiscent to NYE than Christmas Eve, but when in Rome.  

I tried an arabic coffee with Cinnamon in.

I called the night relatively early around 1 am, to head home and sleep before church in the morning and a test shoot in the afternoon. 

Rain on the parade

 Thursday was rather uneventful, so much so I can’t even remember what I did. Friday was a fun day though. Guess what I did in the morning? If you said gym and pool you are only half right. Rain again dampened (no pun intended) my pool intentions. 

I stuck around the house for a while with the intention of helping Ning (the hired help) make chili sauce. You all know my love for spicy food, I wanted to learn how to make it for myself in the future. But after 2 hours of waiting I began to get stir crazy, so I went and found my favourite gluten free store, Brown Rice Paradise. While there I picked up some brown rice English muffins, and replenished my clif bar supply. On my way home I stopped by the local grocer and picked up my fruit, carrots and some eggs. I find it rather interesting, that in Singapore the eggs are not kept in the fridge like back home. That beckoned my to question which is better? I mean half the world does it one way and the other half opposite. After pondering for a bit, I gave up and hard boiled all 10 eggs (yes they come in packs of 10), then tossed em in the fridge. Done like dinner? Breakfast actually, I have started eating 2 eggs every morning for breakfast, helps keep me full and give a decent shot of protein to start the day.

Rounding 3^rd and heading home I stopped by a travel agent to check out the sweet last minute deals, or so I thought.  Krabi, Thailand was looking like where I wanted to go. Flights were 300 and then hotel another 900. For 4 days, no thanks. Christmas season shoots the prices up outrageously there. I think it would be best to keep an eye out for deals. Apparently you can get round trip flights for around 100 and 4 nights for about the same.

After getting home the BBQ that my land lords were having was about to get started. Despite rains most of the day, it lifted around 6 o’clock.  I met a ton of new people and tried lots of food. I think that this was the first time it was evident to me that I was a minority. Everyone was great and nice to me, but it took me a little while to feel comfortable. For dinner we all had small amounts of everything; stingray, beef, chicken, pork, mussels, sambal rice, bee hoon, you name it. 

Wait until the happy ending

 Wednesday started out as most days’ do, gym and pool. Scratch that pool; it has been cold and rainy so much lately. And by cold I do mean 29 degrees. With the cloudiness it somehow makes the pool less enticing. This combined with getting used to the heat too.  I don’t sweat as much as when I first came here, I glisten. For me that has become a huge difference. Except for the gym, this was an insane abs day. And Sean T kicked my butt again, although I am starting to find it easier. Awesome!

This was a Christmas lunch day at the agency. A great opportunity to meet some new friends (notice the trend throughout every blog) and maybe network a bit with the industry. When I arrived there were probably about 15 people there. After a quick run to the food table (I hadn’t eaten since finishing at the gym), I sat down and chatted with one of the other models. She is here from Brazil by way of Milan. We chatted about maybe heading to Malaysia with her and her boyfriend for a few days over these holidays. 

I met a number of gentlemen who work in advertising. One of them was great storyteller. There are those people that you meet that can captivate you with a story and this guy was just that. He shared with us a 10 epic story about his search for these paintings that first he couldn’t afford, then finally bought them only to have them left in a cab. The story was incredibly long winded but a great one at that.

Afternoon turned into evening and I decided to grab some more food, this time chatting about hotel/real estate in SE Asia. I also ended up meeting 2 more photographers, grabbed their cards and discussed a test shoot. I really hope to develop a nice strong book.

And here is another one for you guys.

Play the game already!

 I am going to write a few short ones today so I can help catch everyone up on my life. It’s Saturday already and the last thing I wrote about was Monday. I promise to make it worth your while though.

Tuesday I met up with Mel to get my long lost umbrella. We met at yet another mall in Singapore, there is literally thousands of malls and they have an average 4.7368 floors to them. Each one looks pretty much the same and they all have the same stores with slightly varying stock and prices. 

The two of us grabbed a tea, and sat down to chat. Our conversation was great, talking about difference in immune systems and what we do to prevent the spread. In Asia, people that are sick will wear a mask, to prevent the spreading to others. Duh! This seems like such a simple measure of prevention. Us Canadians can learn a thing or two. Mel also gave me a hard time for not hitting up my landlord who works as a professional photographer to do a test shoot. For those of you that don’t know test shoots are done as a trade. My time for your time and we both get to build our book and experience. I noted that, and while I don’t want to tread onto my home life with work like that I took note. I need to play the game. Working on my appearance more was the other advice, dress stylish (as much as I can), and style your hair. Young padwon, lots to learn there is.

Later in the evening Clemens was having a social gathering (party if you must). For me there is a fine line between the two, but I like to look at them this was as it encourages me to meet new friends. I met a guy who is heading to Whistler for a week (so jealous), a number of German guys and girls (one guys name was Thore, pretty awesome I must say). And most importantly with Mel’s advice fresh in my head I met a photographer. We discussed the opportunity of a test shoot and exchanged numbers.

Pow short and sweet!  

And as I know most of you have never seen any of my book I thought I would share some of those pictures as I haven't been taking any lately. 

Are you ready to Evolve?

 Where I left you off I had a great time hanging out with a bunch of new friends, talking MMA, Hockey, NFL and a little about Singapore. Monday I didn’t have much on the schedule, but once again try and find something new, something great to do.

I had my regular meeting on Mondays at the agency. We talked a little about traveling over the holidays, where might be a good place to go and what you might be able to do. Rafa texted me shortly after I left the agency, so I decided to wait around for him, but first lunch.

Uh-oh, I have become a little boring. I loved that Pad Thai so much last time I had it; I was craving it and ordered it again. It’s so good with fresh seafood, fresh vegetables and the crushed peanut and limejuice, oh so good. Lately I have been wanted to have Laksa again. I also compiled a list of the foods I would like to try while here. Thank you Wikipedia, I will create a separate post specifically for this.

The genius I am forgot my umbrella in Mel’s car last week so I was umbrella-less for the day. And I stayed inside the hawker centre for close to an hour and a half waiting out the rain.  Ready to give up I ducked from one awning to the next darting my way through Chinatown on my adventure to Evolve.

With Barbara in hand (trustee google maps) I made it to Evolve. Evolve MMA is a local MMA gym here that is a pretty big deal. They have BJJ, Muay Thai and Boxing all taught there and it is considered the premiere MMA centre in Asia. Who wouldn’t check it out with the resume they have online. The facility was amazing; with over 20 coaches there, this place is designed to pump out athletes. The class schedule looked amazing as well. Now if it is a reasonable price why not train there right? Well for $500 a month, I think I could spend my money on better things for me right now. As much as I would truly love to train here and I know I would see big benefit $500 is outrageous for me as a model, I wouldn’t have considered paying that much in Calgary either.  I hummed and hawed and furrowed my brow, then paced a little bit. I just can’t pay that much. Maybe if I were making 10 000 a month.

After my one on one internal conversation I met up with Rafa. He was getting hungry so we stopped by the Chinatown Hawker. I have not been as good with water lately and was feeling a little dehydrated, so I took the advice that the nice Indian woman gave me a few weeks ago and I ordered myself up a coconut. All $2 well spent to have a man takes a machete, chop the top off and hand me a spoon and a straw.  

Shortly after, Rafa and I parted ways. I feel like I got up to more that day, I think I hit the gym and went for a run. Even at 9 pm you still sweat like its going out of style. 

I am also just having a conversation with a my future sister. Now I technically a day late because I am in Singapore, but its still her birthday in Canada, so Happy Birthday Christina!