The Rest of Week 1

Hmm... Well, in hindsight, it wasn't that long a week. Just took a bit of time to get used to the routine here in Singapore. So I'm only going to touch on the highhlights, rather than drone on, and on, and on, and ... *zzzzzzzz*

Tuesday:
Aiyah! Morning Rush! My alarm got me up at 0650 - had to rapidly go use the bathroom, then get changed before rushing downstairs to the cafe for brekkie. Bolting down my breakfast by 0735, I rushed to the train stop within 5 minutes and able to catch a smooth trip to get to this remote place: Parkway East Hospital. Spent the working day helping out, observing the doctor, and also bouncing back into the CBD to Mount Elizabeth Hospital, where Eagle Eye Centre hosts their third Clinic.

Lunch: I was 'attached' (shadowing) Ryan the Optom today, so we were early in transferring from Parkway East Hospital to Mount Elizabeth. So we headed over to Lucky Plaza - one of the eateries rather than the foodcourt. This 'smashed beef' set is one of the specialties of this Indo-Malay place... accompanied with this 'happy soda': milk, pink syrup and a dash of Sprite.

Dinner tonight was at Ngee Ann City. This shopping centre along Orchard Rd has a major Japanese influence, with the Takashimaya department store occupying most of the mall. The food court underneath is much the same - reminds me of Sogo back in HK, with a huge food hall dominated by Japanese cuisine shops.

Tonight for me, dinner was from the Malay stall - Roti Prata was sold out, so I settled for this Nasi Lemak. With one of my favourites to wash it down: Teh Tarik!

Wednesday: the day of chicken!
Work is now becoming a comfortable routine, assisting the Optom or sitting in with the Ophthalmologist. Least to say... routines are boring.

Breakfast this morning from the Cafe: Beef Ham. "Salty and meaty" sums up the essence of this morning's mystery meat - I still prefer Monday's Chicken editions (of bacon and ham).
Today I started at location 3 (Mount Elizabeth Hospital), which translates as "a morning to luxuriously devour my breakfast until 8.15, before strolling 5 mins down the road to work"!

Lunch today was after I bounced over to location 2 (Parkway East Hospital): chicken rice from the Hospital Canteen. I kid you not: that lump of chicken breast was THIS huge: two fists wide... even larger than a KFC breast!

Dinner tonight was close to home, at the Lucky Plaza foodcourt. There's a vast range of food... but I felt it was time to reacquaint myself with a classic - Hainan chicken rice. Not bad, but I've had better back home... but what can you expect for S$3.50? So I deliberately made room for dessert: Grass jelly with lychees :)

No photos though: too hungry!

Thursday:
A fairly routine day today, so skipping all of that.
After work however, I learned the Others had headed over to Little India. How to get there... Not knowing the bus system here makes it hard. Fortunately for me, my new friend Amelia pointed out a more direct way to scoot over without having to take the MRT.

Met up with the others at Mustafa Center: it's a massive, six-storey department store that has everything! The Others had the afternoon off to get there early, explore and do some shopping too!
Dinner tonight: Curry. Not a surprise, given we were in the Indian quarter, after all!

That's pretty much it: after dinner we walked around and explored some more. We also walked past Tekka Centre - a massive hawker food spot... albeit everything was closed by this time.

Friday
Started on the East side today... and sleeping in didn't help, making me skip breakfast. I managed to survive though: bringing one of my Nescafè Coffee-in-a-can, and purchasing a few bean cakes from this stall at Eunos Station.

Lunch: this parcel of Chicken rice lunch from hawker stall opposite the Hospital.

Was late being dismissed from work today, causing a few delays whilst heading home I missed the connecting train twice, and quite crowded and noisy too - unable to hear my friend on a Viber call back to Sydney.

Dinner tonight: at Din Tai Fung at Paragon centre. Sydney has a few - World Square and Westfield Centrepoint, to name a couple... but this Singapore one has a large selection on the menu according to Eva. So we picked, we sat, we ate... and we surprised ourselves with how much we could eat. The others forgot that I didn't eat pork: so 30 dumplings and a lot of dishes were ordered on arrival. Twenty minutes later, there was still 18 dumplings, not much of the other dishes, and "full" stomachs already. Miracle Man Andy saved the day though, as we watched dumpling after dumpling slowly disappear from the tabletop!

After dinner, we went for another stroll - through Lucky Plaza first, then over to Ngee Ann City again. Highlight: Ngee Ann City is having a MASSIVE toy sale, spread across their grand Exhibition area!

And that's a wrap for week 1. Overall I've settled in fairly well, and no major disasters :P

Catch my weekend blog , coming soon!