Ode to Joy: Kids Visit at Last!

When we were planning our move to Singapore more than two years ago, I had our upcoming Christmases planned out. For the first one, the kids would visit for a few days and then we would head across the causeway to explore Malaysia. For the second, we would meet in New Zealand.

The pandemic quashed those plans, as borders across Asia closed to visitors. The kids couldn’t even come to Singapore.

Until this recent Christmas, that is.

In October, Singapore introduced Vaccinated Travel Lane (VTL) flights, which allows quarantine-free travel for vaccinated travellers from select countries. Because we have discovered how much there is to see and do on this tiny island, we were happy to stay put and have Leo and Siri visit us for ten glorious days of sightseeing, family time, and experiencing our lives here.

Still, travel is a complicated affair. When the VTL flights were first announced, people rushed to to book vacations and trips to see loved ones. Shortly after, as media reports of Omicron gathered momentum, we held our breath in anticipation that borders would again shut.

Thankfully, this has not been the case.

The government has kept borders open thus far, as it maintains a commitment to living with COVID. A lengthy testing regime for those arriving on VTL flights has been added, and quarantine requirements for those arriving on non-VTL flights continues. Anyone travelling to Singapore must submit their vaccination credentials in advance, test negative for COVID nine times during any given trip, and use TraceTogether, Singapore’s national digital contact tracing app, which is mandatory to visit just about anywhere on the island: restaurants, shopping malls, cinemas, places of worship, tourist attractions, you name it.

The daily testing had me on pins and needles, as there were plenty of stories of people either testing positive on or shortly after arrival, or identified as sitting in close proximity to someone on the airplane who had. Early on, these folks were taken to the National Centre for Infectious Diseases for quarantine — not a place anyone would choose to spend precious vacation time. (Now that more is known about Omicron, they can quarantine at home.)

Despite the rigamarole, we made the most of our time. The cooler early mornings took us on a different workout adventure, either at our condo gym or tennis courts, or running at some of our favourite outdoor areas: Pandan Reservoir, Queenstown track, West Coast Park, Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, East Coast Park, MacRitchie Reservoir, and the Green Corridor. A few times they joined the Weakenderz, Tom’s running group, challenging those north of forty to keep pace with the twenty-somethings.

Exercise out of the way, we settled into sightseeing. A bumboat cruise introduced them to the colonial buildings along the Singapore River and the fancy modern buildings around Marina Bay. We bicycled a 30km loop, starting near Holland Village to Alexandra Canal, past Robertson, Clarke and Boat Quays, across Esplanade Bridge to the iconic Merlion and around Marina Bay, across the Marina Barrage bridge, past the National Stadium and along the Kallang River, on part of the Singapore Grand Prix Formula One racecourse, past the Asian Civilisations Museum and back to where we started.

Other sightseeing included the Singapore Zoo; the heritage neighbourhoods of Kampong Gelam (where I am a docent with Friends of the Museums), Little India, and Chinatown; Gardens by the Bay; the National Orchid Garden; and a lazy afternoon aboard a yacht around Hantu Island.

For Christmas we attended Free Community Church (FCC), which has been our spiritual home, and watched The Royal Tenenbaums at The Projector, a funky arthouse cinema where we sipped beer and munched popcorn with Singapore’s Doc Martens-wearing crowd.

We dined with friends (and St. Olaf classmate) Pauli and Tzung Mei and their family; enjoyed old school Chinese food with Patrick (who took us under his wing from day one of our arrival); met Ate Lez for a hawker centre meal (“ate” means “older sister” in Tagalog; her sister in Seattle introduced us when we moved, and Lez has looked after us ever since!); spent a day drinking mimosas and hanging in the pool with our friends David and Melinda and their boys; and introduced them to some of our neighbours. And they accompanied me on my weekly rounds at Empress Road Market, where they met my favourite fruit seller and discussed sourdough starter during an impromptu tour of Brera Bakery.

And of course, with gusto we satisfied our appetites! We ate at two hawker centres (Newton Food Centre, featured in Crazy Rich Asians, and Lau Pa Sat, home of the famous Satay Street), had Singapore Slings at the Raffles Hotel Long Bar, happy hour at C’est La Vie atop Marina Bay Sands Hotel, Peking Duck at Spring Court, Indian food at Samy’s Curry (where Leo lamented, “It makes me sad to think I won’t eat here again”), Japanese food at Sushi Airways (indeed the interior resembles an airplane cabin), and traditional English Christmas faire at The English House.

Thanks to our friends Danielle and Steve, who let us decamp at their spacious home while they were in Europe, we all felt like we were on holiday, with lots of space to relax, pool, bicycles and car — a real treat, as we don’t have one.

Although it was not like our usual cozy, wintry Christmases, we kept our important traditions of playing games, eating Tom’s homemade cinnamon rolls, having “snack platter” on Christmas Day (those more refined might call it a charcuterie and cheese board, but this name has stuck since the kids were little), spending time reflecting on the past year and our hopes for this new one, and taking a cleansing open water dip on New Year’s Day (dubbed the “sun bear” plunge versus the “polar bear” variety we have typically done).

The time ended much too soon, and we still think of things we wished we had done with them. But given the toll the past two years has taken, we recognise the time we had as a gift.

May 2022 bring you health and more cherished time with friends and family. Happy New Year!

Bopping around Singapore

Tropical Family Christmas Album 2021

Foodie’s Delight

Otters!

Singapore’s otters have received much press. They are cute, but read this account and you will keep your distance. We caught them in action at East Coast Park on New Year’s Day.

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