This week at work I continued to work on some of the same projects from last week. More excitingly, I got to go on a site visit to one of the properties the team is working on. Penelope and I will be continuously visiting the site to monitor the progress of the work being done. The property is one of Singapore’s famous black and white houses from the early 1900’s. They are historically significant protected properties so, there can be no alterations to the exterior and there are a lot of restrictions when remodeling the inside as well. Since it was early on in the process, we just got a feel for the property while the engineers surveyed the structure. I was also able to sit in on some design pitches from some vendors that were competing to do the interior design of a different project. It was really interesting to see how different each design was and how different companies present their plans for the same space.
Friday night, Stella and I were on our own since the rest of our roommates took a trip to Bali. So, we ended up doing a little shopping. I got a new perfume and Stella also did some shopping at Guerlain and Sephora. We then went for dinner. We went to the famous Hawker Center from Crazy Rich Asians. We saw Dylan along the way and he ended up joining us for dinner too. I found that this Hawker Center did not measure up to the Hawker Center by work. There were significantly less options and it was more expensive. However, my food was very good and we had a fun time eating in the open air. We tried Singaporean Carrot Cake for the first time. It is not a dessert like in America, but instead it is a stir fried radish dish either made black (with a sweet black sauce) or white ( just fried with egg). I really liked the black, but the white tasted too much like scrambled eggs.
Since we had Monday off and a long weekend, Stella and I took a trip over to Batam Island. Saturday morning we caught a Ferry over to the Indonesian Island. It was only an hour ride and it amazes me how quickly I could travel from one country to the next. To relax from the stress of going through immigration, Stella and I got lunch at the resort, lounged by the pool and took a nap before getting dinner. After dinner we went for a night swim and got to enjoy the beautiful lights decorating the resort.
On Sunday we got all our beauty treatments. I got a 2-hour massage and it was only $30. Then I got a hair spa and a haircut as well. They cut my hair first then put on a nourishing mask, then they put my hair in a mushroom shaped cap to steam that expanded when it filled up with the vapor. That night we went to a Santorini themed restaurant and sat on a top balcony to eat our dinner.
On Monday, we went to the Grand Batam mall for lunch and did some shopping. We then went to another mall to visit a nail salon that we found online. But they were closed, due to the end of Ramadan. We wandered around the mall trying to find another nail salon, but they were all closed or understaffed, so we went to catch the ferry back early and it was a good thing because the line for check in was incredibly long. Once we got back to Singapore, we were still determined to get our nails done, so we found a nail salon that was open late and went after grabbing a quick dinner. We ended off the night by catching up with the rest of our roommates about our travels before heading to bed.
– Maddie