Soulla in Singapore

Soulla does Asia

Like so many people my age, I have friends scattered around the world. One of my closest friends, is in Singapore for a few months so I and one of our friends who has recently moved back home decided to jump at the opportunity to visit. And so begun my first trip to Asia.

Sentosa

As soon as we arived, my friend got us to put our sundresses on and whisked us off to Sentosa. Sentosa which translates to peace and tranquility in Malay was once known as Pulau Blakang Mati (which in Malay means the "Island Death from Behind". The change in name reflects the change in the island's character quite accurately. Whereas it used to be a military base it is now a green haven packed with luxury hotels and beautiful beach bars. Alcohol and coconut water at one of Sentosa's beach bars was the perfect welcome to Singapore!


Fried Carrot Cake

On our first night we had dinner on the Singapore River. Right opposite us was the  57 floor Marina Bay Sands hotel which is made up of three really tall buildings on the top of which there is a top floor sitting on all three buildings which is shaped like a ship. We sat outside on the river bank enjoying the beautiful views of the tall lit buildings and had chinese food including one of our favourite dishes of the trip called Fried Carrot Cake with oysters. The Carrot cake had nothing to do with carrot cake as we know it and I am not even sure that it had any carrot in it either. From recent researh in wikipedia I have found out that it is made of rice flour and radish. Mixed with oysters and fried in egg. It may sound weird but it was really tasty!

After a huge meal we walked along the river where my friends (who are much more adventurous than I am foodwise and maybe lifewise as well but that's a different subject) insisted we try ice-cream in sliced bread which is a Singapore delicacy! And so we did. Sweetcorn flavoured ice cream no less!! The embankment was great to walk along and reminded me a bit of the London embankment other than the fact that the weather was warm which made our walk much more pleasant. We encountered the Singapore Lion and the Cavanagh bridge and I was impressed by the amounts of people walking aimlessly around at midnight on a Sunday. People just sitting around and drinking coffee reminded me that we were not in London after all. I was already relaxed!

Little India

Three of the most picteresque areas in Singapore are Little India,  Arab Street and China Town each reflecting a segment of Singapore's population. Little India stole my heart, with its Hindu temple and its many little shops selling everything from coconuts to bracelets to kids watches.  We snuck around as if on a treasure hunt each of us trying to find the most exciting buy! I think my friend the shopaholic won the competition by buying flower garlands outside the temple which were meant to be used as offerings by the worshippers but which she will be hanging in her house as lucky charms!

The malls, the bars and the restaurants

According to my friend who lives there, Singaporeans love to eat, drink and shop. In Singapore you can do each of these in style. The malls are enormous and uber modern! The bars are on rooftops with amazing views and beautiful people sipping their cocktails having not one worry in the world and the restaurants make really tasty food! My friend who was having us over made sure we got a range of experiences, she took us to dinner at a hawker which is like a canteen where the food is cheap but very tasty and at the rooftop of the Marina Bay Sands hotel where its not that cheap but still very tasty! Singapore is not very big but I do feel that you get so many options, you get the city vibe and the beach bar, the very modern malls on orchard street but also the traditional Little India and the narrow streets around Arab street. The modern rooftop bars but also the very traditional bar at the Raffles hotel where you can feel like colonialism never ended by munching on whole shelled peanuts. 

For me the highlight of the trip was probably spending time with my girl friends who I do not get to see as much now we have *grown up*.  Then again having them scattered around does help in exploring the world. We only stayed for 4 days but I felt that I was 10 years younger by the time we were boarding our plane. We were off to Dubai where the next friend was waiting..but I will save that for my next post!

Soulla' s Londoners

Rain Rain Go Away..

The last few days its has been pouring in London. With the rain comes the end of sitting outside (what the cold has failed to achieve the rain finishes off in 3 minutes!). For me the start of the crazy unstoppable rain also means my resort to taxis. Whereas I usually have plenty of patience and I am happy to wait for a bus in high heels at two o clock in the morning, once it starts raining I start acting without thinking and pretty soon I am walking ever so fast with my hand stretched out and desperately looking for a taxi!

• Of course when you are looking for a taxi desperately it means that half of London is also looking for a cab just as desperately. In which case the following shall happen with mathematical precision:

• No free taxi will be seen in the streets of a city usually packed with cabs;
• You will not be able to get through to any radio taxi booking lines; and
• when you do get through they shall tell you to wait for an hour (in the rain, in heels) until they can send you a cab..

But then the cab does arrive...

And you go in and its warm and dry and above all if you are in London, the cab driver is up for a chat! I remember when I was younger that I was very embarrassed by my dad's tendency to ask any taxi driver a million questions and chat with the cab driver like they have known each other for years. In a way I didn't understand my dad's need to chat for such a long period of time with a person he did not know until three minutes ago.

Fast forward to when I first started working in London..

My employer is kind enough to provide a taxi for its employees to take them home (or out if that's where you choose to go) should an employee need to work after 9:30pm (it used to be 9:00pm pro credit crunch but cost cutting means that it is now considered safe to travel using public transport between 9:00-9:30pm whereas before it was considered a gray area).

After working repeatedly until 12 o'clock in the night and not really talking to anyone other than my co-workers (who are in any case too stressed to have a proper chat) and after enduring one gray day after the other, I found myself looking forward to my long chats with the taxi drivers who take me home. Back before the smoking ban they would even let me have a  sneaky cigarette too and chatting while smoking became even more reminiscent of chatting with friends.

Facts about taxi driver chat

• For the past 10 years taxi drivers have addressed me as young lady (reassuring confirmation that even though the years have passed I am still young! Woo hoo!). The day a taxi driver calls me madam or anything older sounding I will become depressed.
• Within the first two minutes of any discussion the cab driver will ask me where I am from.
• Once I have informed said driver that I am from Cyprus they become very excited. They probably have a house in Pafos. They hate the other Brits in Cyprus though and consider themselves an exception of Brits on holiday. 
•  If they do not have a house in Cyprus they always ask me which part of Cyprus I am from. Amazingly even the taxi drivers in London have become politically correct. It has been years since any taxi driver has asked me whether I am from the Turkish or the Greek part. Almost always they want to have a discussion about the Cypriot problem. Depending on my mood I give my biased/unbiased/sentimental view on the issues.
• The taxi driver is almost certainly going on holiday to an Asian destination within the next two weeks.
• The taxi driver always has kids who have the most qualifications one would be able to imagine (doctor, dancer and volunteer at the Red Cross all in one).
• I always ask where the driver is from. I always ask about their countries and enjoy listening about far away places (my favourite one to date being Kashmir - it sounds magical: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashmir).
• Taxi drivers are usually very into food and ask for good Greek restaurants in London. I never have any good recommendations. My and my friends' kitchens are the only places I have had decent Greek food in London.
• Saturday evening I was driven home by a taxi driver who was a chef at a Greek Restaurant in London. He was Indian. No wonder why Greek restaurants aren't good in London. I did though get a recommendation for good, cheap Indian restaurants in London (http://www.khansrestaurant.com)!

Educating Soulla

So as you can imagine I have had plenty of chats with all sorts of Londoners who had only one thing in common. They were taxi drivers. I have met many people. Found out about lots of faraway countries. Learned about civil wars. Informed the taxi driver population of London about the Cypriot problem and gave out good Greek recipes all in the back of a taxi. I think these London taxi drivers have educated me a little, in addition to saving me from hours of walking in the rain...

Soulla and her balcony

As a student..

I started out living in south London and while I enjoyed stints of living in central London and even Knightsbridge whenever I visited my older cousin A at her flat in the north-western "suburbs" I was always enamoured with her beautiful balcony. It looked out in the neighbours' gardens, on a leafy street and above all had a huge tree right opposite it..

Little did I know..

.. that after A left London, I would be staying in her flat and the beautiful balcony would be MY BALCONY!!! It is not big and it may not  appear to a third person as something extraordinarily special..but to a person living in gloomy grey London for a while now it is like a small haven! 

I love sitting outside..

even though I have to confess that I only finally bought chairs for the balcony a a whole year after I moved into the flat. It is not only that our street is immensely beautiful but that you can watch and feel the changes of the seasons.. in September the huge tree has yellow and brown leaves and is shedding them slowly slowly..in winter when it snows its white, when it is spring my flowers are blooming and the big tree turns yellow with flowers and finally when summer arrives we can finally put out our canvas chairs and sit outside sipping our wine and watching the neighbourhood come to life...

I love feeling part of a neighbourhood.

.I love that I have seen the kids next door built a snowman and that I knew when I saw a tennis ball in our garage that it was theirs..I greatly enjoyed throwing their ball in their back yard and knowing they would be very happy when they found it again..I loved that I knew that the Japanese teenager from down the street would come out in under my balcony every day after the matches finished during the World Cup to kick his football against the neighbour's wall.. I love that I know the route the fox of the neighbourhood follows every night to cross the street..I do love my balcony...

Soulla remembers the magic..

Ten years ago..

By way of background, I first came to London in 2001 to study law at the London School of Economics. The LSE is located in a very central part of London. My first halls of residence were right behind Tate Modern and at the time that area was very quiet. But once you crossed the river to go to class at the LSE (and cross the river we did) you found places full of life like the Covent Garden, Fleet street, St Paul's Cathedral and the Royal courts of justice. Whatever I did I always had a feeling that I was surrounded by history..by places at which important things had happened..in a way it inspired me..walking down the embankment always made me feel like I was part of a fairy tale..like I was walking from or towards some activity which mattered. I can't explain it in more words..it was a feeling of living the moment..

This Sunday

I had not been to the area in a while and therefore when M came up with the idea of heading to Covent Garden for coffee on Sunday afternoon, I jumped at it! Instead of having to take the tube/bus etc.. now we just hopped in the car which we parked near Lincoln's Inn right behind the LSE. Once in the streets of the LSE you could smell the exam fever..people were (just like 7 years ago) sitting in front of the library, having similar looks on their faces, having interesting conversations about not so interesting topics..

Magic..

In any event M is not the kind of person who lingers in the past or who loves strolling down memory lane (obviously I am) and therefore we kept strolling towards Covent Garden instead.

We bought coffee from Starbucks and sat on a pavement to listen pretty bad live music from some old musician. We watched the pigeons and the people (every weirdo in London will find themselves in Covent Garden on a Sunday afternoon). I felt free and worryless for the 20 minutes I sat on a pavement absorbing the little bit of sun which came out on a beautiful afternoon..and then it dawned on me..important things still are happening in this beautiful area. People are learning at a library near by, tourists are enjoying the music in a beautiful paved square, pigeons are annoying people as per usual...this area has some magic in it and no one could convince me otherwise..

When Soulla was just a little girl she asked her mother "What shall I be?"...

Woke up in London this morning...

On some days I wake up in London (my adopted hometown) and I feel like I am now an adult. I have a job, I live with my boyfriend and I have finally lived in one place for more than 12 months (after nine years of moving around London every year). In less than four months I will have lived in London for (oh my god) ten years!!
I must be an adult..I have serious thoughts some times, I have clients (I am a lawyer ekhm!!), I discuss issues with my landlords and I cooked a family meal for my boyfriend's siblings on Sunday. Proper Greek roast lamb no less!!

Oh my god

BUT.. sometimes I am having a smoke and I am laughing with my friends a little bit drunk or am walking down the street with my boyfriend, or I say stuff like "oh my god" and "my boyfriend" once too often or I call my dad to get his advice on how to cook something and how to wash my favourite jeans and I realise that..hmm..am I really an adult??


Mummy

I confess (being rather ashamed of myself) that I have always criticised my mum because sometimes she behaved (not her actions but the way she spoke or her mannerisms) like a child...and now I am thinking..was mum just normal all along? Did she go through the same thoughts I am going through now? It is a bit to deep to discuss with mum..but ..I think that in some ways I may be turning into her!! OH MY GOD!!


Back to London
I think living in London doesn't help the situation. Every-fkn-body in this city behaves like a kid..the girls buy clothes from H&M, the boys buy music from HMV, they all go out, have a drink and pretty soon they do not have a worry in the world. On Sunday evenings everybody moans about having to go to school erm  work on Monday. Each and every one of my 27 year old friends in London.. are NOT thinking of having families but of their "careers"..or that's what they say in any case..and then suddenly they start dating a boy and spending time with his parents and not wanting to do anything other than just be with him...I actually have a friend who has a thirteen year old crush on a boy..how cool!

Briefcases
...and then there's the rest of us, in the long term relationship, started dating as kids and very scared of the day when we will wake up and oh my god we shan't be kids any more.. I think it will just happen one day..I will wake up with wrinkles, serious intentions of doing serious things and I will be the owner of a brief case (as a kid I always thought that people carrying around brief cases do serious and important things with their lives...).

It's all a joke to me at the moment. I don't know what I want from life, from my career, from anything...all I want is to be happy, to read books to sit in the sun and to smoke..surely that's not what a person with a briefcase does!!


In any event, off I go to have dinner with the girls..another of my friends is leaving London to go home to Cyprus and presumably become an adult...I wonder whether she will be buying a briefcase as soon as she gets there..

Soulla in the park

Nice?

Last weekend was not a "nice" weekend as Londoners would say. Londoners would define a weekend as "nice" if it were sunny, flip-flopy and warm. Last weekend (and eventhough it was the second weekend of May) had nothing to do with such definition. The jumpers came back (yes I had optimistically put them in a corner), the scarfs came out and the flip flops stayed were they belong (in Cyprus)!

Nice!!

However, I had a very nice weekend. I got off work and met M at Les Providores for wine and tapas. We had important discussions about why Greece is falling apart, about how much we will miss our friends who are leaving London and about what we want to  be when we grow up! On Saturday we saw some of the the friends who are leaving London, we got drunk had a few good laughs and (I) kept thinking how much I would miss them! On Sunday we went for a walk in Hampstead Heath and then met up with little cousin (who is not so little and who recently got engaged) for more drinks and laughs. We then stayed home for a nice home cooked meal. I love cooking on a Sunday. It makes me feel like I am home and in control and I can do whatever I want with the coming week. (Note: The fact that I am still at work at 9 o clock waiting for someone to comment on my document speaks othewise but nevertheless..)

In any case, I had fun, I laughed, I saw my friends, I cooked, I went to the park, I got drunk and I spent time with my boyfriend. What else could a girl want.. a romantic bridge in the middle of my neighbourhood's park? I got that too!!

Soulla and the UK

I also followed the elections quite closely being very excited about something I know very little about. Just as I feel that my life is in desperate need of change, I think that the UK feels it too! Its not that I have anything against the current government it is just that I need the ability to hope for something better..so Soulla and the UK for the moment remain optimistic!

Soulla does London in Spring

Spring

 

Fine! Assuming that spring comes to London in March is possibly very optimistic. The very definition of spring is very different in London than where I grew up. I assume that in general, spring means flowers. In Cyprus of course it also means bright sunny days with brisker evenings. But back to London. Yesterday I got my first daffodil..

Gardening?

I admit to not being as good at gardening as I would like to be. I also admit to only having a balcony with a few pots on it rather than a garden (i.e. the real thing). I furthermore admit that its actually my dad who plants the pots on my balcony when he visits twice a year and that thereafter I take turns with my Bulgarian cleaner (who is equally excited that we got a daffodil) to water those pots twice a week.

Whatever the case might be..

..I got a daffodil on the second of March and that can be nothing other than spring announcing its arrival!

Soulla says Bienvenue Printemps

and I dream of long sunny days. I dream of more daffodils and even some pansies! I dream of my street becoming leafy and green again and enjoying long walks in Primrose hill!

Spring Plans

I decide that this year I will explore Hampstead Heath (http://www.hampsteadheath.net/)!! Because (a) its such a springy thing to do; (b)it is very close to where I live and finally (c) it is such an important landmark of London which after ten years of living here I am yet to explore!

Spring welcomed and springy plans made I feel my task here is done!

Soulla in the Snow

Waiting for the Snow..

The BBC has been predicting heavy snow for most of this week since last Wednesday. Londoners have been checking the weather forecast a minimum of twice a day (I have been checking it every hour). Then, yesterday evening the warnings about snow started coming in. BBC was warning us, work send us an email asking us to "make every effort to come into work but only if it is safe" and I saw at least three facebook statuses of people announcing they were waiting for the snow. We all got off work crossing our fingers and hoping that we might be snowed in today!

At last the snow came last night

Then at 10 o' clock yesterday evening the snow started at last heavy big snowflakes covered my neighbourhood in no time! I was jumping up and down like a child. M even saw the fox crossing the road and leaving its footsteps behind which I then stared at for at least five minutes.

The dream of being snowed in was drawing closer! We put the heating on and added an extra blanket to our bed to prepare for the heavy winter. We did all this being tremendously excited about the snow. I find snow magical. Not having snow more than a dozen time (seeing as I am from Cyprus - the island of 360 days of sun a year) I just become mesmerised by it..I fall in love with it every time..

To go back to the being snowed in part though, we woke up to white surroundings and switched on the radio wishing for the good news: has London been brought to a halt?

Don't stop me now..

You see last January, for the first time of my eight years in London, for one day and one day only, Londoners did not go to work as the heaviest snow in twenty years covered London.

Do not get me wrong other exciting things did happen which stopped us working for maybe ..hmm....half an hour? A whale was trapped in the London Thames (I was working in Canary Wharf at the time and we kept looking out of the window to seethe whale), England won something or other (I did not care much it is obvious) and I was here during the hottest summer of London when shops and offices were ordered to stop their air conditioning because they were causing power cuts (really!?).

But, none of these ever managed to stop Londoners from going to work! Not even the London bombs did stop Londoners from going to work. That is how determined people are in this city to work! Personally it scares me but what can you say? This is the culture and as we say in Greek once you have joined the dance you have to dance to it.

So anyway..that is why I fell in love with snow day last year. People did not go to work, kids did not go to school..instead they came out on the street and threw snow at each other..it was great! For the first time in London I felt like I had real neighbours. Watching parents play with their kids in the street made me feel so happy for some crazy reason..

It did not happen this year..

So this year each and every Londoner (and especially me) yearned for a repeat...Unfortunately, the tube and buses worked just fine and we all came in and even did our work..but even the anticipation of the snow and the magic and the not leaving the house for a day has put a smile on people's faces and for me that's more than enough! In any case, the snow hasn't stopped yet!

Tomorrow may turn out to be a snowed-in day after all!

Soulla wishes you a Happy New Year

Soulla in 2009..

The last year has not been the easiest. Nothing especially bad has happened to me for which I thank God! But I think I might have had to grow up and look at things from a more mature perspective.

Leaving the student behind..

I think that since I left university I have been behaving as a big kid! Living as a student who has just left university but is still not a proper adult. I confess that six year later other than in relation to my job I do not have many responsibilities. I and my friends have mostly avoided those..

Real Life?

But this year things were different. The credit crunch caught up with us..not that it had any economic implications for me or even anyone I know but it made us reconsider things. Stop taking things for granted. I find myself and generally people of my generation very much protected from "bad things". Unlike many of our parents we have never wanted for anything. Someone always had our backs. And suddenly, we had to stop in our tracks and think, understand even that not everything is up for grabs. Sometimes you actually had to fight to get things which for so many years you believed you were entitled to..

Entitlement?

And London is definitely a place where people think they are entitled to things. I work hard or I am smart and educated and therefore I am entitled to a good job, good money. I am a nice person and therefore I am entitled to a happy, good life..Is that right though? In the big scheme of things why are you entitled to a good job, good money? Because your parents could afford your education? Because your parents cared to educate you, had the time to look after you and make you into a nice person? In any event are you 100% sure you really are a nice person?

Maybe we are not entitled to as much as we think are and therefore, in my head I have understood how grateful I should be that I actually do have a good job, I have found the man I love (and oh my god he loves me back), my family and friends are all happy and mostly healthy..I know now that I am happy even if sometimes I actually forget I am..

Soulla in 2010..

I have found that pulling the carpet under my feet has made me understand how much I liked standing on that carpet and therefore whatever the case may be I really think that 2010 will definitely be a good year. A year for me to enjoy all the difficult realisations I had to make in 2009!

Καλή χρονιά!!