111 Verde View: Our Home in Singapore
This was the
first house that we saw during our househunting
days, and we lived in it for our entire 10 years in
Singapore, where Dale enjoyed his first taste of
teaching at a good international school. Verde View
is a housing estate near the northern end of the
island of Singapore, about an 8 minute drive to
Singapore American School. It had 4 storeys, with 4
bedrooms and a rooftop terrace. The tour that we
recreated no longer works in this security-tight era
of the internet, but we have salvaged some pictures
of the house with which to recreate a partial tour.
Shown here is the
entrance via a small yard that never produced much
of a lawn, owing to how fast the traveler palms
grew, blocking the sun. The pile of shoes come from
a Christmas Party we had for our neighbor Peter Tan
and his (extended!) family. A favorite memory of
that evening was the five-year old delicately
selecting her potato chips from a bowl -- using chop
sticks. Her sister, noticing the brownies at the
end, turned her nose up at the wet, brown
chocolate...until she tasted one (then Dale had to
fight to get his portion)!
The living room
is shown here, featuring a rattan couch and chair
set. The couch and photos we brought with us from
Beirut. Although spacious, it was never the ideal
entertaining venue, as it lacked air conditioning,
and Singapore is always
hot and humid.
On
the side of the room opposite the couch was a well-traveled
rattan bar that was Tracy's from her Jakarta days. It was
shipped back to Texas, and from there to North Carolina (where
we'd met), to later be left in storage until we were able to
ship it back to Southeast Asia, thanks to the generous
shipping allowance of the Singapore American School (following
2 years in Beirut). It has served us well and is a fixture at
our current digs in Kuala Lumpur. Above the bar is the
stairway leading to the next to levels, which consist of four
bedrooms. We used one as a master bedroom, one as a guest
room, one as an office, and one as the film room.
The
dining room was on an elevated platform, a few steps
above the living room. The chairs and table are
teak, and are from Bali, as is the china cabinet.
The wall hanging is an Indonesian batik, a gift to
Tracy from the JIS (Jakarta International School)
English department.
Believe it our not, we had to beg to have
an oven installed in our kitchen -- they are not standard
equipment in kitchens throughout SE Asia. Although it was
small, the kitchen was perfectly functional, and served us
well when we were entertaining. Poniyah, our "pembantu" (Bhasa
Indonesia for "helper") not only did a great job with the
household tasks, but is also an excellent cook, as well. While Tracy loves
to cook, she was more than happy to hand over this aspect of
daily life -- as SAS pretty much "owned" us in terms of time!
From the start, Poniyah made amazing tempura, bee hoon, spring
rolls and Pomfret -- all the Indonesian & Chinese dishes
one could wish for. Since then, she has added homemade pasta,
salads other Western favorites to her repertoire. Life is
good! We adore Poniyah, who's been with us for 17 years, at
this writing.
Climbing the stairs to the second
floor is the master bedroom. It was spacious, with built-in
closets and an ensuite bath. Shown here is the Balinese teak
bed with opium legs. Above it, hangs a Vipula batik from
Tracy's Sri Lanka days. The room has a large east-facing
window with a view of the canal and the forest beyond--very
restful!
Across the hall from the master
bedroom was the office. In addition to the desk that houses
Tracy's desktop Mac, the foldout IKEA couch allows it to
double as a second guest room. The wall hanging is from
Barefoot Galleries in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The office is also
home to the only TV in the house, owing to the existence of
our fabulous film room on the next level. The small rug in
front of the television is from our Syria travels.
On the third floor,
directly above the master bedroom was the main guestroom. It
featured a double bed and an ensuite bath. As with the master,
it had a large window overlooking greenery. It also doubled as
Tracy's massage room. Ahh, a great use for dedicated space!
Across the hall from the guestroom was
our favorite spot, the film room. It featured a 120-inch
pull-down screen, and sound was dampened by both the Sri
Lankan wall hangings and acoustical panels. The result was a
room that had a live end and a dead end, making it ideal both
for movie viewing and musical recording. More information is
available on the separate film room page.
Finally, we arrive at the
fourth storey, the rooftop terrace. The photo to the left is
not our unit, but a similar one taken from a real estate
website. The small thumbnail to the left shows our terrace in
action during a party with our neighbors, the Tan family. For
more of that intercultural event (ha ha), please select this
link: Our
Choa Chu Kang Christmas.
