Well here we are. Things are coming along with getting settled. Here is from where I am writing to you. I’ve set up the desk in this little nook.
It wasn’t the smoothest transition, and I thought it was going to be a bad omen for our start to our new home.
We were waiting in the lobby at the Fraser for the driver from the Embassy to come take us to Parc Stevens. We arrived in Sinagpore with four bags but accumulated quite a bit of “stuff” along the way. I was trying to be really good about not buy things til we moved in but when you see something, you know you have to pick it up right then. And I found a shop that was having a going-out-of-business sale. How can you resist when things are up to 70% off!!! I’m a woman after all.
After about an hour and several calls to the Embassy with no luck, Mick found out that the two people in his office he was trying to reach, AND the driver were all out sick. This info didn’t reach Mick. Earlier in the week the concierge had called to let us know that the Fraser would provide us free transport to wherever we were moving. I originally declined but then after this little fiasco we asked if they would indeed give us that perk. So we did indeed move in on time.
So now just like moving into any new place, there are lots of little things you need to start up a new home. Our first shopping cart 
Reminiscence of running to the store when there’s snow in the forecast
Ok on to fun things… Tiger Brewery Tour
The Embassy put together a tour of the Tiger Brewery. We loaded onto the bus with our box meal because the food at the brewery is not up to par and expensive. We had to eat on the bus to the brewery, no outside food allowed. The tour took about 40 minutes. Our guide, Michael was very knowledgeabe, albeit he didn’t look quite old enough to drink the beer himself, but talked really really fast.
It was voted “positively the best beer in the world” by The Washingtonian Magazine in 1988. It’s actually quite funny to know that most Singaporeans don’t care for Tiger beer because they find it bitter. So what they’ve done is developed a new cold brew for people who don’t like Tiger beer. The beer served at zero degrees. Do you know why they came up with this? At zero degrees, when you take the first sip it is so cold that it will numb your tongue and you won’t taste the bitterness! Ingenious eh? I actually like Tiger and don’t find it bitter. They can 40,000 cans of beer in one hour!
They actually brew six different beers. Tiger (of course), ABC, the original brew; Anchor, Heineken, Guinness (which is actually a blended beer; half of it is made here, then blended with the other half which comes from Ireland!), and Baron’s Strong Brew (this is my favorite).
Then it’s off to the Tiger Tavern to taste all their beers. We had about two hours in the tavern, but ended up staying longer. No surprise here I had the cold brew, which was fine. I didn’t notice it being much different. I tried the Guinness Blend but didn’t like it. It wasn’t rich like the Guinness Stout. My all time favorite is the Baron’s Strong Brew. Very crisp and clean, just a hint of sweetness.
After Michael and two other bartenders served us our first round, Michael announced that he would open the gift shop! It’s located right there in the tavern, how convenient 
I had to check it out, otherwise my Femme Card would be revoked I bought two Tiger Beer etched pilsner glasses, They had logo stuff of all the beers. I may have to get a Baron’s beer mug the next time I go
IKEA
Did you know the first Ikea (which they pronounce Eke-a here) outside of Sweden was built in Singapore back in the 70’s? I thought that was a cool piece of trivia. Though, this is not the original site of the store. This store is quite small really and there is a second Ikea but it’s way outside of the city. Even the taxi drivers tell us it’s an expensive ride. So we’ll have to wait until we get our car to make a pilgrimmage to the BIG Ikea. I found most things I needed here.
Star Hub (think Comcast)
Is our cable tv, cell phone, and internet provider. We were connected to the internet on Sat when the technician came to put in the modem and router. But that was not long lived. We checked our email and then went out for the day. When we got home Mick went on line to finish booking our Christmas vacation trip to Krabe, Thailand. After that I went to get on so I could put this post out but we were dead in the water. The technician came out this morning to see what the problem could be and ended up replacing the modem. So I have my fingers crossed that we won’t have any more problems and I can continue to keep up my blog.
By the way, this is so cool, but frustrating at times… all outlets have on/off switches so when not in use you can turn it off, or turn off the appliance that is plugged into the outlet when you’re not using it. Even extension cords have this feature. All my kitchen appliances have on/off switches. Well my cell phone was running down so I plugged it in to recharge. After leaving it all day, I came home to unplug it and found it was dead. I was complaining to Mick that there was something wrong with my phone. Later he mentioned that I was recharging my phone with the outlet OFF so, duh, all I did was run down my battery until it was completely dead!
This week I’m going to start quilting classes In the mean time, we’ll keep exploring, eating and reporting our finds.
