Back We Go

I haven’t yet really discussed our stint in Singapore, quite simply because I haven’t had a moment to, and any moments I have had to write have been – as you can see and as a friend rightly noticed – used as some sort of therapy to get through my Australian Sehnsucht. It really was different going home with a baby …

Tja, as the Germans say.

The other reason I haven’t delved into Singapore quite yet, is because we are going back. Singapore – deliciously hot, sweaty, tropical Singapore with its labyrinth of glossy shopping malls and fascinatingly mixed heritage, is the current, temporary home of my parents. Which means it has gone from the airport I have transited through the most in the world, to a place I believe I will become quite familiar with. The six days we spent there on our way home from Australia gave us a taste of Singapore’s curious cultural mishmash; its Chinatown, Little India and Arab Street, its gargantuan and oddly soulless Marina Bay Sands hotel that is all part of this Biggest and Highest and Largest in the World complex it shares with Dubai, and its seeming utter obsession with shopping. So. Many. Malls. It felt like we were permanently in a mall, which can be a good thing when one needs air conditioning or respite from sudden tropical downpours, but can also be completely disorienting.

Taiyaki – delicious Japanese sweet breads filled with red bean.

Tomorrow, die Lüdde and I are leaving poor Papa in the southern snow and heading back to Singapore, ostensibly to visit Nana and Pa, and celebrate my 30th birthday with my parents, but really to cunningly escape the Worst Month of the Year. Our bags are not packed, and thus not ready to go, but they will be once Oma comes around to keep an eye on the small fry.

So, over the next few weeks, I suspect there will be plenty of Singapore on the blog. I plan on appropriating my mother’s DSLR and getting back behind the lens of something other than my iPhone. (I used to take pictures, I used to love taking pictures, until some arsehole climbed a wall and broke into my room on Santorini and stole my DSLR.) Chinese New Year is happening while we are there, which will be fantastic. And there are endless curries and Taiyaki to eat.

See you all there.

PS: I had to go back into my archives to find examples of photos I took while travelling in 2010. I then got sucked into my own back-story. Isn’t it the weirdest when you find things you wrote years ago? The way you described a long haul flight, or rationalised your Santorini lust, or confessed to falling in love with London. Twenty-five year old me, on a big, solo world adventure, en route to what has become the biggest adventure of all; Germany. Ha. Life, huh?

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