House Hunter's International: the Singapore edition

Moving to South Africa definitely took some adjustment after living in the USA. For one thing, after raising our family in much larger houses in New Jersey, we chose to move into a small garden townhouse with a tiny yard in Sandton. Moving to Valley Lodge was an adjustment we welcomed and enjoyed, but it was an adjustment nonetheless. 



But aside from scale, living in Sandton did not require a huge adjustment in terms of lifestyle. We still lived a somewhat suburban lifestyle near the action of Johannesburg (JGB), drove a car to get to where we were going, and did a considerate amount of entertaining and cooking at home.

But like New York, Singapore (SGP) is pretty much all-city which means an adjustment in everyday lifestyle in addition to scale. (For the record, we did look at actual houses with yards and enclosed garages in SGP as well as in JGP - they do exist -  but we have enjoyed care-free apartment living in South Africa with shared amenities such as pools and gyms. And since we are renting short time and not buying in SGP either, we are free to indulge more of our city fantasies and really step outside of our comfort zone, i.e super high-rise apartment living with a view.) But real city living brings with it more adjustments ...

Firstly in SGP everyone has a live-in maid. Neither Vince nor I grew up with a live-in maid nor did we have a live-in nanny or live-in maid when our children were young. While it is true that for all intents and purposes, between her evening dog-sitting and her three days a week cleaning and laundry service, Cecelia has been practically living at Valley Lodge, the fact remains that she still goes home nearby to sleep every night unless we are away. And she never ever cooked for us, did the food-shopping or ran errands for us.

However, the cost of finding a convenient sitter to walk the dogs when we are out of the apartment for the evening or kenneling them for an extended period of time when we are away from Singapore plus the cost of regular maid service once or twice a week totally trumps the cost of just having a live-in to do it all. Besides, many of the apartments we viewed did not even have an oven (!) and none of them had a dishwasher. They all however had a maid's room and bathroom. Sharing a small space with a non-family member will be a major adjustment. Having someone to walk the dogs and run errands however will be awesome!

Second adjustment, we are going to try to live in SGP without a car! Except for the Gautrain and the very limited Rhea Vaya, there really is no mass transportation to speak of in JGP, so everyone has a car. (Our only adjustment since moving to SA was owning one car versus four!) And with the security issues in JBG, walking as a way to get around the city was really not an option. You drive from your secure parking in Sandton to secure parking in JBG. I did walk to my local shopping center, but that is in Sandton, not JBG. They are putting in a Rhea Vaya line in Sandton that will connect to more places in JHB, but unfortunately for us that is too little and way too late.

In addition, cars are much more expensive to lease in SGP and there are zero security issues. Taxis are cheap and for the rest of the time, mass transportation is plentiful. And if you pick your neighborhood correctly, you can simply walk to local shopping centers and restaurants.

Changi Business Park

Luckily one of my favorite shows on the HGTV channel has always been House Hunters International (HHI.) Even before we moved to SA, I watched HHI like most people watch game shows. I played from home.

Now the way HHI works is that the expats-to-be are usually shown three properties in their intended city based on a previously determined wish list. View, space, proximity to work, schools, the beach, town, etc.

Our wish list was pretty simple. A space that is first and foremost dog-friendly; it must have at least two bedrooms and an office space; we would like some storage space; and most importantly, it must have a good location close to the airport and Vince's office and within walking distance to shopping and restaurants. After a few viewings, we quickly eliminated houses as a consideration. Much more space than we either needed or wanted.

Unfortunately that meant we also had to knock storage off of our wish list since the apartments in SGP really do not include the kind of storage and space we enjoyed in JGP. (Darn, I am going to have to do some more paring down of my clothes before we leave SA!) The typical apartment size also means we probably will not be doing much entertaining at home. To compensate, we added a sea view to our wish list. Yay! Back to the ocean at our doorstep!

After dog-friendly, our first consideration on choosing a location for our new neighborhood was proximity to Vince's office and the airport (his second office.) Since they are both co-located in Changi, that was easy. So we concentrated on Katong and the Eastern Corridor, an easy commute by taxi to both with a lively expat and local culture.

After seeing about 20 places altogether in four days, we narrowed it down to the following three apartments.

1. The highrise with killer views of the sea.

Plus side: Very good neighborhood close to amenities like restaurants, buses and shopping. Partially furnished. There is a private entrance from the elevator into a lobby and the living room with views of the water from all the balconies. But the dogs (and we) would have to adjust to using an elevator to get outside for a walk several times a day. And the pool and gym are small so we would have to join a club. (Not too much of a problem really as the Chinese Swimming Club with an abundance of space and amenities is just two doors down.)

wrap around balconies

with sea views

sea views from every window too!

sea view from the small but private balcony off the master bedroom!

2. Valley Lodge II. ground floor apt with wrap-around patio, and convenient green space. On the plus side, this would be so easy to move into and would mean little or no adjustment for the dogs. Open the door and they are outside for a walk. There is a huge pool and gym and a clubhouse. Down-side, not as close to amenities and it doesn't have that "wow!" SGP sea view.

3. Highrise with a view. also close to amenities. It has the most convenient location of all. It has a sea view from the living room's balcony but the apartment does not have a private elevator entrance. And it is completely unfurnished.

nice balcony

nice sea view from the living room

On HHI, the first thing the expats do is eliminate one of the choices. That was easy. #3. So now we are left with essentially what would make us happy (#1) versus what would make the dogs happy (#2).

And speaking of the dogs, here is another adjustment - this time for Lou & Serge though. Unfortunately for our canine heroes, along with other the other indignities of pet relocation, they have to spend at least 30 days in quarantine! While house-hunting in SGP, we decided to stop by and check out Lou & Serge's new temporary housing.

We were pleasantly surprised. Like their local kennel in JBG, the Sembawang Animal Quarantine Station was very roomy, the dogs can share a space, and there is daily recreation. Vince can stop by in December and bring Lou some toys, bring their favorite foods and treats and there is a special area set aside so that Vince can play with them when he visits.

nice and roomy and they can share a space!

there is an air-conditioned sleeping area and a screened in patio

fenced in recreation area for ...

... one on one play

Our decision? Stay tuned for the conclusion of House Hunters International: the Singapore edition ...

Oldupai Gorge

Olduvai Gorge in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in Northern Tanzania is one of the most famous prehistoric sites in the world and touring it was surely a highlight of our visit to Tanzania.

For the record, the correct name of the site is actually Oldupai not Olduvai, but Olduvai was the first name given to the area by the German scientist Prof. Kattwinkel who was an entomologist studying butterflies in the region in the early 20th century. Prof. Kattwinkel made the first discovery of fossilized bones by chance in 1911 while chasing a butterfly in the Ngorongoro highlands. He asked the local villagers for the name of the area and he misheard and recorded it as Olduvai rather than Oldupai. The correct name of the site originated from the dominant wild sisal plant which grows all over the area. Oldupai means "wild sisal" in the Maasai language.

Prof. Kattwinkel brought the prehistoric bones from Olduvai back to Germany for further investigation and the rest, as they say, is history. The discovery was followed by a series of German scientific expeditions to what was then called "Deutch Ostrafrika" and they continued their exploration and collections until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.



Geographically, Oldupai Gorge is located on the western edge of the eastern branch of the Great East African Rift Valley. In 1928, when Tanganyika was under British colonial rule Dr. Louis Leakey, the son of a British missionary born in Kenya, visited the Berlin Museum and saw the massive fossil collections. Three years later in 1931, he conducted his first expedition from Kenya to Tanganyika to investigate the site where the German scientists collected their fossils.

Our first stop on our visit was the little Oldupai Gorge Site Museum. The history and geology of the area as well as the significant finds and research results are all very well documented and displayed there. (There are plans in the works to expand the museum in the very near future.)

oldupai

Based on fossil evidence unearthed here, it is known that various species of hominid have occupied this area for at least three million years.

The Oldupai Gorge contains an important multi-layered geological stratigraphy which constitutes classical sites in the study of the evolution of Early Man, animals, plants and artifacts. The succession of layers in the Oldupai Gorge were divided by Prof. Hans Reck in 1914 into a basal series of basalt flows and mappable units termed Bed I to V were applied.







The sub-divisions and nomenclature of Reck are still principally in use today with some minor additions and modifications made by the American Prof. Richard Hay in 1976.

During his early tenure at Oldupai, Leakey found ample evidence demonstrating that ancient hominids had occupied the site, but lacking for financial backing, his investigations went slowly and frustratingly refused to yield any truly ancient fossilized hominid remains.

The pay-off came in 1959 when Mary Leakey - Louis's wife and a more than accomplished archaeologist in her own right - discovered a heavy fossilized cranium whose jawbone displayed unambiguous human affinities but was clearly unlike any other fossil documented at the time. Nutcracker Man. It was a critical landmark in the history of paleontology.
Nutcracker Man was later designated as Australopithecus boisei (now usually known as Paranthropus boisei.)









This important breakthrough shot the Leakeys' work to international prominence and with proper funding at their disposal, a series of exciting new discoveries followed. The first fossilized remains of Homo habilis, a direct ancestor of modern man and in 1976, at the nearby site of Laetoli, Mary discovered footprints created more than three million years ago by a party of early hominins that had walked through a bed of freshly deposited volcanic ash - still the most ancient hominin footprints ever found.

There are also plans in the works to build a museum to showcase the Laetoli footprints in situ!

Nutcracker Man

After we made our way through the museum on our own, we hired a local guide to take us down to the actual archaeological site where the discoveries were made.

Vince puts a notch in his pocket knife handle using an ancient stone tool

The place was literally littered with fossilized animal bones,and plants as well as stone tools. We were encouraged to place our findings on the Nutcracker Man marker which has now become a sort of shrine.

Back to our roots!

Oldupai Gorge is still a very active archaeological dig site. Currently, there is an expedition being conducted by American archaeologists from Indiana University, UC Berkeley and my Graduate School alma mater, Rutgers University (MS 1979, MBA 1984)!








 Back at Valley Lodge, my shrine:

bead skull from Maropeng and a sisal basket filled with mementos from Tanzania

The Patron Saint of Archaeology

St. Helena of Constantinople, the mother of Emperor Constantine, is the Patron Saint of Archaeologists. (Constantine was the Christian convert who put the "Holy" in Holy Roman Empire!) Due to her spiritual motivation, she was probably one of the first people ever to have embarked upon archaeological fieldwork.

the first archaeological dig?

Helena undertook a trip to Palestine during 326 to 328 AD. This was with the express intention of recovering the relics of Christianity, a burgeoning religion she had adopted and, later, to which her son would convert, setting in motion the Christianisation of most of Europe and beyond. Helena’s trip was probably the first archaeological mission in history.

After distributing largesse to the poor and needy along her route – this was a time when such charity was a cornerstone of the new religion – she turned her attention to fieldwork. According to legendary accounts, Helena was moved by the Holy Spirit to dig in Jerusalem, whereupon she found wood from three crosses. Some sources say that she immediately knew which one was the cross upon which Jesus was crucified by the plaque affixed upon it, declaring him King of the Jews. Another source says that she took all tree crosses to a sick woman and, touching her with each in turn, identified the holy cross upon the woman’s miraculous recovery.

my sister and I touching the Reliquary of the True Cross in Israel

Helena also found part of Christ’s tunic, the rope with which he was lashed to the cross, and also the nails that went through Christ’s hands and feet (but not his body as, according to scripture, this ascended to heaven). She sent one of the nails to her son who made it into a horse bridle, so honoring the prophecy linking the nails to “the bells of horses”. 

Unwittingly, Helena also sparked the cult of relics and thousands of pieces of the true cross were to find their way across Europe, most with rather dubious pedigree. There is still a Reliquary of the True Cross at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

Helena died a little after her return from Palestine in 330 AD with her son at her side. She was buried in the Mausoleum of Helena, just outside Rome, and, what is claimed as her sarcophagus, now lies in the Vatican Museum.

a stained glass window in the Community of St. Helen's church

I knew all this of course, being a good Catholic school girl and having visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and the Vatican Museum in Rome in person. And my parish church for 25 years in Westfield, NJ was named in honor of St. Helen. My son Alex's Confirmation name - the additional name one takes upon being confirmed a Roman Catholic - is even "Constantine." But my fellow SH2015 Gaza Gray excavators did not. They had sought the blessing of St. Helen before beginning to dig in Kruger National Park, but they did not know why she was acknowledged as the Patron Saint of Archaeologists. 

But after finding not one but two skeletons at the site, it was clear that someone was looking out for our little archaeological expedition. Blessed be St. Helena of Constantinople!

my St. Helen charm for SH2015 in RSA!

 

I Married Adventure!

my GWM Facebook profile picture (a.k.a Osa Johnson)

I first became aware of the name "Osa Johnson" at the Kips Bay Decorator Showhouse in Manhattan many years ago. The KBDS is an annual fundraising event that benefits the Kips Bay Boys and Girls Club in New York and a spring visit to it was part of my annual calendar for about 25 years.

One of the designers that year decorated a room as a "pilot's study"with an imaginary explorer / adventurer as his muse. And in the room on a coffee table he placed a zebra print-covered book entitled I MARRIED Adventure by Osa Johnson. Great title! I was intrigued. "Who was this Osa Johnson?" I wondered.


Later I found first edition copies of both I MARRIED Adventure and Osa's giraffe print-covered book FOUR YEARS IN PARADISE in a vintage bookstore somewhere. I immediately purchased them and used them as a style element in my own downstairs study at home in New Jersey. The book covers looked great alongside my globes, vintage destination label-covered leather suitcases, trunks, and hatboxes, Maasai shields, spears and framed beaded jewelry, Australian boomerangs, Amazonian tangas, Venetian masks and other travel-related details and souvenirs that decorated the room.

Shamefully, I didn't read the books. But I did read the author's biography inside. I found out that Osa Johnson was a documentary filmmaker who traveled extensively to Africa with her husband Martin ... and she was from southeastern Kansas!

When my husband and I decided to move to South Africa in 2012 for his work, "I MARRIED Adventure" became the unofficial mantra of our great migration to Joburg and Osa became my muse. My blog page designer even used Osa's picture on my blog masthead (look up ⬆) and I similarly use her image as my GWM Facebook profile picture.

Flash forward to July 2015. During my month-long stay in the USA I took a 3338 mile road trip to visit family and friends starting from Denver, Colorado through New Mexico to Marfa and Austin, Texas through Oklahoma to Kansas City, Kansas and then back to Denver. That was an adventure!

Oklahoma-Kansas border

As it turns out I would be driving fairly close to Chanute, Kansas which is the home of the Martin & Osa Johnson Safari Museum.

Well worth a stop, the Safari Museum tells the story of Martin and Osa, their meeting and marriage and their life-long adventures as film makers, lecturers, photographers, explorers, naturalists, authors and native Kansans.

I found out that Martin's boyhood idol was Jack London and when he was about 17, he answered a call to assist London on an around the world sea voyage to the South Sea Islands and Africa. Unfortunately, the trip was scuttled in Borneo due to disease and mechanical problems. But by then Martin had contracted the travel bug. He went back to Kansas, married Osa and convinced her to continue the voyage without Jack London. The rest as they say is history.

Although not a member of  The Explorers Club, Martin was a member of the Adventurers Club, an extant club of about the same age, also founded in New York, with a scientific mission.

galleries of artifacts from their travel through the South Sea islands and Africa

Osa wore zebra-skin pumps!

vintage editions for sale at the museum

and a gift shop! I bought a mug and ...

... a couple of cushions that I used to decorate my niece's South African-themed birthday party.
They will look swell at home in Joburg!

The museum showed a History Channel-produced documentary about the life of Osa and Martin and many of the documentaries they produced were available to watch as well. Now I definitely have to read her books!