When hubby and I left Japan, we did a stopover in Singapore where we had lived prior to Japan, before returning home to the UK. It was an absolute joy to be back in Singapore. It felt so familiar and comfortable, and best of all communication was easy :o). Singapore has four official languages of which English is one. Although living in Japan was an unforgettable experience, I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy being back in a country where I knew my way around, could order things of a menu without having to resort to a translation app first, and use public transport with such ease that it was as natural as breathing. Oh Singapore, how I missed thee!
The Gateway Building
The Gateway looks two dimensional from certain angles
I vlogged bits of our time in Singapore so that I could share some of the sights and architecture with you. Singapore is a great place for modern, contemporary architecture and is home to some iconic structures. I love The Gateway building which you can see in the photos above. These two structures actually look two dimensional from some angles, almost as though they were made from a thin sheet of paper due to the particularly sharp angles. You can see the first of the three Singapore vlogs below.
As we arrived on the weekend, hubby and I spent some time catching up with my cousin and a couple of our friends. In this particular vlog, we headed out for dinner to the Arab Street area of Singapore where there are lots of colourful shop houses. We had some delicious Turkish food, including this vermicelli dessert that was topped with crushed pistachios and sat in a pool of ever so slightly sweetened cream - yummy! After dinner, we headed to one of Singapore's oldest tea places so that hubby could have his favourite teh tarik - a milky sweet tea made with evaporated/condensed milk that is served in a plastic bag with a straw! The elderly man at this stall has been serving teh tarik for decades and his little stall is always busy.
Vermicelli Dessert
Now no trip to Singapore is complete without a night time visit to the Marina Bay area. This part of Singapore is home to some of it's most iconic buildings and the whole place looks incredible when it is all lit up. I've always felt that Singapore looks particularly beautiful at night, and it's so much easier to enjoy when the temperature and humidity has dropped a little, although I was still a sweaty betty ;o).
Singapore Flyer (ferris wheel), Helix Bridge, ArtScience Museum (white lotus flower shape) & Marina Bay Sands Hotel
Whilst walking off the calories from dessert, we saw that there were numerous Ferrari cars parked outside the iconic Fullerton Hotel (which is a stunning building and used to be the old general post office), and naturally the boys wanted to go take a closer look.
Ferrari on Tour
I hope you enjoyed this little peek into our stop off in Singapore and I hope to have the next post up soon :o).
I hope you’re all keeping well. It certainly has been a
while since I sat down to write a blog post! Life has been all sorts of
craziness these past couple of months but things have finally settled down,
albeit only for a short while ;o).
As you may know, our Japan adventure came to an end in May.
Japan was always going to be a short term thing, and I know some people may
question whether it was actually worth it for just nine months. Moving to a new
country requires a significant investment of time, energy and money but for us
it was totally worth it. Japan is sooo unique and different to anywhere else in
the world that we just couldn’t pass it up when the opportunity arose. Having
visited Japan a few months prior to moving there, I can tell you that living in a
country is a completely different experience to visiting
the country as a tourist.
Mount Fuji
Once we found out that our Japan adventure was coming to an
end, there was one trip that we just had to make, and that was to go see Mount
Fuji. This famous sacred mountain is visible from Yokohama, where we lived, on
a clear day but we just had to go see it closer up. Fuji-San (as it’s known
locally) is surrounded by five lakes to its northern side, and so hubby and I
planned a two day trip to the Fuji Five Lakes. This is what will be coming up
in subsequent blog posts and on my YouTube channel.
Our last sunrise from our Yokohama apartment
We spent most of May in a bit of a whirlwind. We had days
where we were drowning in bubble wrap as we started to pack up our belongings
into shipping boxes, and days where we were rushing around taking in some last
minute sights. I tried to capture as much as I could on my vlogging camera so
that I could continue making videos about Japan once we returned to the UK. My
arthritis riddled body can capture footage more easily than it can edit it into
vlogs so please bear with me.
We also had the challenge of selling all of our furniture that we’d
only recently bought. We soon learnt that Japan does not have a big second hand
market and recycling furniture is a very costly affair. If we hadn’t managed to
sell our furniture, we’d have had to pay a lot of money to have it collected by
a recycling firm. This explains why expats often give their
furniture away for free on the local Craigslist. Luckily for us, we managed to
sell everything, albeit at a fraction of the price we paid, with just a week to
go!
This meant that we then had to spend our last week staying in various
hotels. We spent three nights in Tokyo and used it as an opportunity to visit a
few of the sights (I’m sure there will be a blog post &/or vlog coming soon). The rest of the week was spent in Yokohama liaising with the local authorities and
utility companies to wrap things up before we left.
On our way back to the UK, we stopped off in Singapore for
six days to de-stress as the last couple of weeks in Japan were pretty taxing, and
to catch up with friends. It was sooo good to be in a country where we could
speak the language and get vegetarian and halal food ;o). I did do a bit of
vlogging whilst in Singapore and will post that on my YouTube channel soon.
Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore
The iconic Singapore Merlion
We adjusted to being back in Singapore so easily that it was a
bit like coming home, although I had forgotten just how hot and humid Singapore
was! The heat definitely got to me, as did the stress of the move and
consequently I spent a couple of days on bed rest as my body started to react
to the past few weeks. The six days went by way too quickly and before we knew
it we were on another plane making our way back to the UK.
Cora the Caravan - our current home
We’ve not been back a month yet and already Japan and Singapore
feel like distant memories, more so for me, as hubby has had a trip
back to Singapore for work purposes. It feels strange to be back in the UK
after four years of living in Asia. And what feels even stranger is living in a
caravan…that’s right, hubby and I are currently living in a caravan. Not something I ever
imagined doing but then again, I never imagined living in Japan either ;o).
