Happy 2016

Hi,

Just wanted to check in and say ‘hi’, wishing you a great start of 2016 and hope you’re doing well.

Breakfast 1st of January

We’re still doing our cat sit in Singapore and have one week left. In the past few days we’ve been doing a bit of touring, we’ve celebrated a quiet New Year’s Eve in the apartment, and started this new year with quite a bit of rain in this shopping-obsessed city.

By the Singapore river

In a week’s time we’re leaving to get some more beach life, and this time we’re trying out Sri Lanka for the first time in our lives! What we’ve heard is that there’s some really good diving and surfing there, and of course we want to see some of the tea plants, and the cultural history. But mostly we look forward to sunshine and chillaxin’.

Bronson the cat, chillaxin'

Ok, we’ll be back again soon. Take care and have fun!

// Wivan and Anders

Board games on New Years Eve

View from Marina Bay Sands 57th floor

Posing in Gardens by the bay

Cartoon café

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Full on city life in Singapore

Mix between water, green and buildings

Our first outing in Singapore was a nice walk by the river close to where we stay to get some lunch and withdrawl money.

Noodle soup with pork, coffee and water

The close-by food stall market was closed, so we went to a little local restaurant and didn’t really know how the picture-menu worked… We ended up choosing food by asking what the people around us had, and ordered that. We had was noodles, pork, water and sweet coffee.

The menu

Then we went to a big westernized shopping mall, got a little overwhelmed by the full-on city experience with big shops, Christmas decorations and sales-offers.

Huge shopping mall

The place we’re staying at is very modern and comfortable, we have a kitchen (!), a washing maschine, a pool on the area and super fancy cafées on the bottom floor.

Flowers in the city

What seems to be nice with this city is the mix of green areas, the river and ocean, walking paths, city life and different food places.

Bronson the cat

Something we enjoy a lot is to have shifts in our life: city life and beach life, simple food and well-made reataurant dinners, lots of people and time alone, living in modern places and staying someplace more simple.

Tonight we’re taking it easy and tomorrow; we’ll see what happens!

Stay cool!
// Anders and Wivan

And so this happened…

Putting up an extra fence

Did we write about all the upsides of house sitting the other day? Today was a not-so-much upside when Anders woke up to the sound of a very upset rooster and noise of the sheep a little too close…

Preparations for extra fence

Three of the sheep had escaped and ran around in the garden… Not smart enough to keep quiet though.

So Anders got out their food/snack and had them follow him back in on the right side of the fence, and then started mending while I was out shopping.

A lot of work to secure the fence

So we’ve spent a big part of the day putting up an extra fence outside the previous one, and to make sure the electric fence is back on track. Sheep are known to be escape artists, so we really don’t want to have them out again.

Tomatoes in all shapes and colors

A very nice surprise today was the visit of a former host + dog from a former house sit in the area. Lovely to see them again, and on Saturday we’re invited for dinner! It truly is something special to get back to places and people we know since before.

Ciao for now!
//Wivan

Shopping in Flores, part 2

Oh yes, this will be a series of posts, because to us who grew up and have lived so many years in a country where the regular supermarkets are extremely well equipped, being here on the small island Flores is teaching us a lot.

Anders likes to drink orange juice, but as we wrote the other day, the boat with fresh ingredients only come in twice per month and all stores don’t carry all types of foods or drinks. But, we did find one sort in the small supermarket near our place. It’s a tree-pack with a straw attached to each of them:-)

Um Bongo

And when it comes to coffee, it seems very difficult to find grounded coffee. Either we find four different sorts of whole beans, or we find fifteen different kinds of Nescafé. Wivan now thinks it’s a fun mission to keep looking in different supermarkets to see if she can find grounded coffee, otherwise we will switch back to Nescafé which used to be our fix before the Bialetti moka maker we bring along.

Bialetti moka maker

So what do we learn from this? To adjust and adapt to our current situation. And know what?! It works fine!

// Anders and Wivan

Shopping in Flores, part 1

First day we got here, the neighbor that picked us up at the airport told us that we could go shopping for food in a new supermarket in the largest village, Santa Cruz, where the airport is. She told us that it’s a store that usually has fruits and vegetables. We didn’t really understand her thoughtfulness until later.

Backpacks in the back of the open truck we got a ride in

After a quick round in the store, back in the car, she told us that fruits and vegetables usually are sold out in the first couple of days after arriving to the island by boat. And the delivery boat only comes every 15 days… Therefore it’s a bit of a luxury to be able to shop at the new supermarket where they make sure to keep the shelves as full as possible all the time.

Empty shelves in one of our local supermarkets

Apparently people stock up on fruits, yoghurt and vegetables during the first few days of fresh food in the stores. Then it’s potatoes, bananas, maybe some lemons, onions, carrots and garlic left. Sometimes also cabbage. Things that are grown locally or that stays fresh for longer periods of time.

This is what one of the supermarkets looked like when we went in the first time. They have a huge variety of things in stock, on a rather small area.

We’re gonna be experts in how to cook banana, onions, potatoes and garlic by the end of our stay!

Shoes, styling gel, plastic bags, sanitary pads…

Anyway, we were lucky to get some tangerines, yoghurt and a green pepper that first day! Now we don’t really know when the boat will come back with more…

// Anders & Wivan

Gearing up

Lately we’ve written about packing and what things to bring or not to bring on a journey. For us the challenging part is that we don’t know exactly where we will go in the long run, or what climates we will encounter.

Trying out new shoes

So when thinking of this we have heard from others, tested ourselves and realized that layer on layer will be the thing for us. Meaning we won’t bring as many designated clothes but rather basic stuff that goes well together, and that can be worn in different situations and weather.

Shopping for boots

Since we now see how much stuff we already have, we’re a bit cautious not to get too much new clothes. But, we have worn out our old jackets and boots so yesterday we went shopping for some new gear. We go for good quality that will sustain and things that we really like and can see ourselves in for a long time.

Playing at the store

We also got a 100% wool sweater each. Wool is cool since it can stay fresh for a long time even without washing up, as long as one ventilates the clothes every once in a while.