Viewing: The Singapore Years

Summertime

… and the living is easy.

The first few days of my return to the couchwife life have found me taking it very, very easy. I rolled out of bed at noon on my first non-working Monday, snacked on leftovers while catching up on my stockpile of Gossip Girl episodes, and did a lot of surfing.

Having failed at my attempt to get up early and cook my husband breakfast, I compensated by having dinner up and running by the time he got home — grilled cinnamon and ginger chicken with couscous salad. I can’t remember the last time I did that and it felt wonderful to be wifely again.

Yesterday I swam a few laps at our condo’s bleached-hot, deserted swimming pool. Then I did the groceries, whereupon I found that the deserted supermarket aisles do wonders to alleviate the usual “supermarket-cart rage” that comes upon me on Sunday evenings at Fairprice. In the evening I met up with Bianca and Chi to help Chi put together his Miss Greece costume for a Miss Gay Universe pageant on Saturday. Craziness!

I’m at home and really feeling like it’s summer, what with these long, lazy and unbelievably hot days. I quickly learned that one of the upsides to working full-time is having the aircon on 24/7 at full blast, and not having to pay for it. Still, as I putter around in a constant sheen of sweat, I am almost giddy with gratitude at being home to experience a summer vacation for the first time since graduating from college.

On this summer vacation, I am both child and parent. I’m finding things to fill my own days — overseas trips, exercise, lunches, visits from friends, doctor’s appointments (hello Mommy!) errands and cleaning sprees. My supposed holiday is turning out busier than I expected, but I can’t complain when I see the neat little boxes in my iCal filled entirely with things I want and choose to do.

It’s a big change from the couchwife life of two years ago, when I had just moved here and was still trying to find work. We’re financially in a better position to fund my “summer vacation”, so I don’t feel so guilty about leaving the house and doing things like having lunch with friends or buying tickets to shows I would like to see. There are freelance clients — not to mention new skills and a level of confidence — I have now that I didn’t two years ago.

All in all it’s shaping up to be a good summer. Now if only it wasn’t quite so hot…

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Posted on April 14, 2010
Category: The Singapore Years · Labels:

Restless

Remember il ya from Philo 101? Metaphysical unease: I find myself in that state these days.

It’s manifesting as a form of the Seven-Year Itch. It’s got nothing to do with my marriage (which is what the Seven-Year Itch supposedly is), but with an itch to move on from Singapore. A Three-Year Itch, maybe?

I’m starting my third year here, and our friend Tinus (who lived here for six years before moving to New York, and just moved back) told me that it was about his third year that he seriously started rattling the bars of his cushy, manicured, tropical cage.

Or it could just be wanderlust. I find myself raring to move on to the next phase of my life, which not only means leaving Singapore but also starting a family. Yet I feel the compulsion to have one big adventure, a “last hurrah” before I have a baby and am thus unable (and from what I hear about parenting, unwilling) to travel for a long time. So, I spend an inordinate amount of time looking up hotels and flights and hostels and travel guides. I find myself increasingly unsatisfied at the thought of mini-breaks and weekend getaways, and am hankering for some long-term immersive travel.

Unfortunately, Marlon and I are at different stages in our lives. I’ve just quit my job and am free as a bird, crazed with the prospect of freedom and time, while he just started a new role at work and has yet to make his mark. So while both of us love the idea of long-term travel, the reality is that we’re stuck here for a while. And those mini-breaks and weekend getaways, which don’t appeal to me as much as they used to, will have to hold me in stead for at least six months to a year.

In the meantime, it’s fun to plan. So here I am looking up ryokan in Kyoto, hostels in Istanbul, day trips to Abu Simbel. As they say, libre ang mangarap.

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Posted on April 3, 2010
Category: The Singapore Years, Wanderlust · Labels: , ,

Hostess with the mostest

Marlon and I had one of our favorite couple friends – Susie and Tinus, who just moved back to Lah-Lah Land from New York — over for brunch today. And it got me thinking about entertaining and hosting social occasions at home.
Brunch guests Susie and Mr. T at our table, making mimosas


Part of being a young wife is the newness, fun and confusion of being a hostess. (Not a hoh-stess, but a hoe-stess. Just so we’re clear.) Marlon and I have guests over for lunch or dinner once in a while, and while Marlon does more of the prep work than any husband I’ve ever come across, these social occasions are always supposed to be the wife’s thing — making me, for the first time in my life, a hostess.

I love planning the menu and having friends over, but I have yet to get the hang of this entertaining thing. As a (relatively still) newlywed couple, we always find out just how little we have in the way of proper cutlery and china when it’s time to have people over. 

Our very first dinner guests, David and Phyllis, brought us a bottle of wine when we invited them over one weekend… only for us to discover that we didn’t even have a corkscrew. Marlon had to escape to the kitchen (which is open anyway) and stab at the cork with a bread knife, and we had to fish bits of out of our wineglasses all evening. David presented Marlon with a corkscrew the following Monday. 

Influenced by the Singaporean habit of stocking up on duty-free wine and liquor with every trip to Changi, we have a bottle each of champagne, dessert wine, Baileys and Absolut Tropical in the house… but only one set of all-purpose wine glasses from Ikea. I recently took advantage of a sale at Tang’s to buy serving plates, serving bowls and serving utensils because I realized we couldn’t go any longer plunking the metal pot of the rice cooker down on a trivet on the table, or serving couscous salad out of a scratched-up melamine bowl that Marlon used and abused through his bachelor days. Then when we bought pandesal from Lucky Plaza, I realized we didn’t even have a bread basket to keep the pandesal warm throughout brunch. It seems to never end!

And that’s just lunch or dinner for four people. When Marlon’s boss and his wife decided to bring their little daughter over for dinner, Marlon had to eat off a white plastic plate. Anything far beyond that magic number means paper plates for all — since we only have four pieces of everything.

Then there’s the matter of place settings. For brunch this morning, I had glasses and wine glasses on the table and had no idea if I should keep the tea cups for hot chocolate off the table or just plunk them in there. It’s almost enough to make a girl wish she had gone to finishing school. 

Tablea reveals itself to Susie… amidst our new serving ware from Tang’s!


Thankfully, most of the wives who come over are young wives like me. I haven’t seen anyone raise an eyebrow or make furtive notes on a checklist just yet. And luckily, our friends are pretty chill (and rather nutty). I spend a lot of time rushing back and forth before people come over, but once we’re all seated I wonder if I should even be wondering about how to be a proper hostess. And the champagne starts pouring, our friends start digging in and raving about Marlon’s latest culinary success, and we’re all laughing, there seems to be so much more to life than doing things properly.

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Posted on March 28, 2010
Category: House & Spouse, The Singapore Years · Labels: , , ,

The Temporarily Spouseless Club

This weekend I know of two friends who are, like me, finding ways to while away the time while their spouses are away.

All three of us have been uncharacteristically active on Facebook, documenting our restlessness. Gerwin has been having the same kind of weekend as I am — catching up on stockpiled movies and TV series, doing chores, doing short errand jaunts — in Hong Kong while his wife Charlie and their newborn darling George are in Manila. Tria has been diligently occupying herself with art, music and the company of friends while her husband Peter is in Paris for work.

Unlike Tria, I decided to stay in all weekend. I figured that one of the upsides to Marlon being in Manila over the weekend was that I can stay in bed all day and not feel guilty about it. I am a hundred times more of a sloth than he is and he gets restless if we’re still in bed after 10am. So I usually compromise and rouse myself from my hibernation.

So I gleefully made the bed my base of activities for the whole of Saturday. With the exception of cooking lunch and watching Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros in the TV room, I staunchly parked my ass in bed until about 4 o’clock.

At which time it began to get old. Really old. Which spurred me into a frenzy of activity.

After doing two loads of laundry, washing dishes, cleaning the kitchen, uploading nearly 400 pictures of Bohol to Facebook, reading various blogs,writing a blog post about Cebu, chatting with my mom, watching Food Inc on my laptop, and eating dinner, I was stuck. It seemed I had run out of things to do.

So I (GASP!) exercised. I walked/jogged 5 km, or five laps around the condo. Who would think that boredom/desperation would be my key driver for physical activity?

Today I woke up at 9:30 a.m, went to Mass, did the groceries (remembering to bring my canvas bag!), and had so much time to kill that I took the bus instead of hopping into a cab, and going home, obediently queued for 20 minutes at the taxi stand instead of fast-booking a taxi. Could it be that being single makes me more active, less impatient and more thrifty?

And all the while, I was accompanied by my short-time, temporary spouses — an iPod Shuffle (which I never would have bought on my own! Thanks Ate!) and a good book. These must be the proverbial cards for card-carrying members of the Temporarily Spouseless Club.

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Posted on February 28, 2010
Category: House & Spouse, The Singapore Years · Labels:

Back from business

I’m back from my first ever business trip! While the people closest to me, Marlon and my sister, have been pretty much jetting all over the world on business for many many years, this weekend marks the first time I have had to travel anywhere requiring a passport, in a professional capacity.

I spent the last six days in Kuala Lumpur on a shoot for a long-running project. The team that flew down was composed of me, James, Jerrold, Mike and Leang — a producer, director, assistant director/editor, graphic designer and director of photography, respectively. We each got our own rooms in a surprisingly decent hotel: the Dorsett Regency right smack in the middle of Bukit Bintang in downtown KL. For $70/night, the hotel wasn’t bad at all! The location couldn’t be beat, and it was a dead ringer for the pre-renovation Manila Pen.
The whole experience of being away on business seemed slightly surreal to me. It was like I had momentarily stepped out of reality into something that was pretending to be my life, but was distinctly separate from it. Shooting on location all day and coming home to an empty hotel room simply nothing to do with my “real” life. It wasn’t an unpleasant experience, and I even feel grateful that my days were so full and I was so tired there wasn’t much room for loneliness.
But I felt like being away had hit the “pause” button on something inside me (my ability to be fully present? To fully enjoy an experience?) and I was just waiting for the time when I could… unpause myself.
Still, it feels good to be sent to another country because of something that I can do, and do reasonably well. (Let’s hope it’s a good sign of more travels to come, hmm?) I enjoyed spending time with my team (it’s James’ last shoot before he leave the company) and my sister and her friends. I also enjoyed the “me” time in the cushy hotel room, and shoe shopping in Sungei Wang, the Greenhills/Tutuban Mall of Kuala Lumpur. And of course completing a successful shoot always gives me a high.
But now I’m back home, cocooned in the arms of my Bulgari-scented husband (he knows I love it so he wore it to the airport!), in the comfort of my very own home, and in the spotty affections of my tempestuous cat. And no professional high can beat that.
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Posted on February 7, 2010
Category: The Singapore Years, Wanderlust · Labels: , , ,

A fitting farewell

Jessica Zafra is all about the irony, so it was indeed ironic that she posted a photo of my office on her blog on the very weekend that it ceases to be my office.
It’s a perfectly timed goodbye to the old place, from one of my favorite writers and bloggers no less. 
Also this weekend, I inquired about a pair of earrings displayed on Rajo Laurel’s blog and he was kind enough to send me a personal reply. It seems to be Pinoy celebrity blogger week around here!
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Posted on January 30, 2010
Category: The Singapore Years · Labels:

Goodbye Oxley Road

The company I work for is moving to a new office this weekend. With Lilian gone and James leaving soon, moving out of the house on Oxley Road feels like an end of an era, a farewell to the “old” company. I wonder what the new one (both the house and the company) will be like.
I admit I had my doubts about it at first, but I could see the potential. My love for old houses soon won out. With some minor improvements and a fresh lick of paint, the beauty of this pre-war house (which is considered ancient in Singapore) began to shine through. I began to fall in love with its airiness, high ceilings and the abundance of natural light, which I will miss.
The main workroom for me, the interns and the boys (designers). The light fixtures are vintage and come with the house. The floors are polished cement. It always fills me with pride to hear the reactions of clients and visitors who step into our office for the first time. People just love it.
We used to have clients who would come over for meetings more often than usual just to escape the tedium of their own offices. Everybody would rave about how beautiful it was, how we must love working here, how it doesn’t feel like an office at all, how they would love to work here, what a bomb we must be paying for a place like this (it rents for substantially less than people might suspect). I couldn’t agree more. Even when I have to come to work on Saturday, the house is a consolation. It never feels like work. I sometimes find myself calling it “the house”, not the office.
Our head office in London hates it. I think they just don’t understand the culture and how aspirational this kind of place is for people in the region. Thus the move.
We painted these murals using the company motif (fish) and color (blue) last January when the economy was down — business was so slow that we had nothing else to do. It was a brilliant idea of Lilian’s — it was fun and kept us busy until work started to roll in.
When we first moved in, I made sure to get a desk beside the window for the sunshine and the greenery.
Speaking of greenery, there is so much of it around. I will miss it. Here’s the second floor hallway where Jerrold likes to have his coffee and smoke with James.
Right across from us is the yoga studio. Sometimes when I feel stressed I come up here and look out into the green and the neighborhood.
Or I go into the backyard and take a breather. More recently I’ve developed the habit of having lunch outside even though most people find it too warm out. I’ll miss the backyard too.
It’s a perfect place for barbecues, which we do quite often.
Barbecues seem to be one of the national pastimes of Singapore, right after shopping and queuing for something.
We had the last official barbecue last night and I still smell like liempo.
I’ll even miss the kitchen, which is too small to fit more than three people at a time and reminds me of a hobbit kitchen.
I’ll miss the neighborhood and stepping out into this sunshiny, quiet street (which enjoys special protection, considering Lee Kwan Yew lives on the same street). I’ll also miss the five-minute walk to Orchard Road — goodbye Uniqlo megastore, long decompressing lunches, quick decompressing shopping escapes, Mang Kiko’s lechon. I’m sure Chinatown is pretty happening as well, but well Orchard is different.
Goodbye, 55 Oxley Road. You were a lovely home to all of us. Too bad we only knew you for a year and a half.
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Posted on January 30, 2010
Category: The Singapore Years · Labels: ,

Thankful

Last weekend was my big shoot for a project I’ve been working on for over four months. It was the cause of many sleepless nights, working Saturdays, and elevated heart rates for me. It was my first time to be production manager on a project after Lilian left, on no less than a three-day multiple location shoot.In the month before the shoot, my mind was filled with all the things that could possibly go wrong. Would we get our shoot insurance in time?  Would this sixth round of casting finally be the last? Was rainy season in Singapore reallyover? Why wasn’t one of the talents answering my calls and texts? What potential crises could come up and how would I respond? (What a vague question, huh? This is the one that drove me up the wall.)Then I had a breakthrough. And the oddest thing happened — the two final weeks leading up to the shoot were the most relaxed I had had in months. We had pre-production meetings within the team where we realized we barely had anything to discuss. The final PPM with the client was a breeze. We finished packing up all the production stuff — drinks, snacks, props — and loaded them into the van at lunchtime the day before the shoot, and not at the last minute or in the dead of night. I even had time to print all the permits and release forms, neatly print each talent’s name on payment vouchers and put their fees into separate (recycled) envelopes.

Then I realized four months of pre-production might have been like going into long, painful and drawn-out labor, but without all those months of pre-work, I might have died trying to pull off a shebang like this at the last minute.

And so we shot. Yes, sh*t happened — a few things went missing, the usual client this-and-that, even the bane of my existence as a PM: overtime (for each hour of which, everyone on the crew charges me 1.5x their hourly rate! Gak!). Yet each day, after shooting wrapped for the day, I felt only two overwhelming things. Fatigue, and gratitude.

I was thankful for… 

… the beautiful, sunny weather and clear blue skies on all three days of the shoot — even when we were shooting indoors. The day after we wrapped, it began to rain daily.

… the amazing performances of our talents. Our death-defying skateboarder had all of us applauding after takes. Despite literally skateboarding from 9 to 5, he was smiling the entire time.

… the patience and sense of humor of our extras. They poked fun at each other wearing the compulsory, client-required safety gear, which they said they hadn’t worn since they were 10. They had some mad skills too.

… the energy, enthusiasm, good looks and stellar performances of our cast. Every one of these kids was a winner. We had only one non-teen and you couldn’t tell she was a day over 16. For me, she stole the show.

… the kindness of our clients. They had typical client concerns, but nothing we couldn’t handle and always delivered in the most pleasant and constructive manner. On the whole I couldn’t have asked for better.

… the caring presence of my favorite makeup auntie, Doris. She pampers all the talents, looks after everyone on set and goes beyond the call of duty every time. She even mirrors all the directors’ instructions just outside frame, because she believes it will help the talents. She’s so cute.

… my colleagues. I really felt everyone supporting me. They always know what to do and I felt we all worked really well together.

… the generosity of Joan, who owns the yoga centre next door. She allowed us to shoot in her beautiful ground floor studio with nary a second thought. She arrived on set to find a maelstrom of cables, shoes (we had to take them off to avoid damaging her flawless parquet), equipment and furniture and was totally Zen about it. I guess 30 years of yoga does wonders for your equilibrium. Without her, I don’t know what I would have done. Her yoga space transformed perfectly into a home jamming setup, with ample space for the crew and equipment.
…  the support of the hubby. Marlon massaged my feet after the shoot, treated me to a lovely dinner at Original Sin in Holland Village (I’m sure it was lovely, although I was so tired I can barely recall tasting anything), and even came over to lift heavy furniture and help dress up the set. James joked that next time we should introduce him as our art director.

More than anything, I’m thankful that it’s done! A milestone in my career safely tucked into the folds of my experience. Now, on to the next!

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Posted on January 23, 2010
Category: The Singapore Years · Labels: ,

Getting there

I had to stay late at work tonight to finish a Powerpoint presentation for a meeting tomorrow. I didn’t mind at all, because I am just so glad to be reaching a huge milestone in a project that I’ve been working on for the past four or five months.

It’s the final pre-production meeting (PPM), one last run-through and final approval of all my casting, location, wardrobe and other troubles before the actual shoot next week. Getting to this point means that everything has been approved by The Powers That Be and that the shoot will push through as scheduled. Trust me, even after pre-production has been going on for 4-5 months, there’s never a guarantee that it will push through. Parang tour diba? Wala kang guarantee until nakasakay ka na sa eroplano. Or at least that’s what officers tell the trainees to scare them, haha.

There was a time I felt as it we would never get to the final PPM! Clients always have a right to refuse anything we present (a right they love to use, more often than not) and it seemed like we had run into a wall of “no no no no no absolutely not” at one point. Thankfully now the last few loose ends are being tied up, and all I have to worry about is getting through my very first shoot as producer and line producer (without Lilian, I might add, who leaves Yeti-sized shoes to fill).

It’s a three day shoot with multiple locations, so it was giving me sleepless nights just worrying about organizing the logistics and making sure sh*t doesn’t happen. Funny, I used to see the titles “producer” and “line producer” in film credits and wonder what it meant. Now I know it means planning for sh*t, making sh*t happen according to plan and making sure sh*t doesn’t happen. 

The price we pay for learning things, huh?

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Posted on January 6, 2010
Category: The Singapore Years · Labels:

Just the two of us

When I was a little brat, the only thing I hated about the holidays was the inevitable deluge of visitors. What seemed like an endless parade of vans would disgorge relations or family friends from out of town, who descended upon our family as their holiday treat.

I especially hated when this happened on Christmas Day because it meant we couldn’t open the gifts until every last visitor went away. Seeing that giant pile of unopened gifts winking at you until five or six in the evening on Christmas Day was just pure torture. Then of course there was all the noise (which we Pinoys find necessary to make holidays “masaya“) and fawning and pinching that comes with all those people. My mom still has pictures of little bratty me clinging to her and refusing to talk to people. One look at my squelched-up tampo face and you can practically hear me begging her to just send all these people away.

Eventually either I got used to it or the number of holiday crashers dwindled (Christmas visitors, of course, being directly proportional to size of house and family income), but soon enough I got old enough to not want quiet holidays so badly.

Twenty-odd years later I finally, surprisingly get my wish.

Marlon and I had been thinking of heading down to Marina Bay for the New Year’s Eve countdown, the only place where fireworks are legal in this country. But I hadn’t been feeling well and the thought of massive crowds, an epic trek home by bus, or squabbling with half of Singapore to get a taxi afterwards struck me dumb with fear. So I stayed at home and rested. Which was… really, really nice.

Marlon and I cooked dinner together, which is something that always relaxes me and cheers me up. Our first Media Noche was simple — we broiled salmon steaks in wine and butter, then baked them with a glaze of mustard and brown sugar.

While the fish was in the oven, I slipped into a nice long dress that I normally don’t wear out, and spritzed on some perfume. Marlon put on a red t-shirt with a Chinese character on it that he hoped meant something like good fortune.

With ten minutes till midnight, the part of me that is secretly waiting to transform into my mother kicked in. I went into a table-setting frenzy, faint parental admonitions about making everything clean and shiny and fancy to welcome the new year echoing in my subconscious.

We cleared the dining table of the junk it manages to accumulate every so often to make space for some cream-colored hybrid carnations that Marlon had bought for me the day before. I set out strawberries in a bowl, lit a handful of tealights from Ikea, and turned off all the lights except for the Christmas tree and a paper floor lamp. Et voila!

We filled our glasses with sparkling wine (do you know you can’t call it champagne unless it’s from Champagne, France?) and clinked them at midnight, toasting to more adventures in the coming year. We said grace before dinner, thanking God for our blessings and asking him to make the new year kinder to those burned and scarred by the year that was. We dug into our salmon steaks in the candlelight, marveling at the fact that we had never had a candlelit dinner at home before.
And I realized it was the first time that I was welcoming new year without my family — and as much as I missed them, that it was okay. Because this is also my family now.
Just the two of us (oh alright — and the cat)… until further notice.
Have a blessed and fulfilling New Year, everyone!
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Posted on January 2, 2010
Category: House & Spouse, The Singapore Years · Labels: