Turns out, women all over the world are pretty much the same when it comes to girls' night: drinking and gabbing go together.
Heather invited me to a girls' night planned by some Exxon wives and gals from the AWA (American Womens' Association) http://www.awasingapore.org/ . The AWA is HUGE - something like 1000 members, 75% are Americans. I guess they often get together at Morton's. Yup - Morton's the steakhouse - same one you can find in NYC only this one was in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. This was a group of about 20 women or so. We drank and munched on steak sandwiches and talked up a storm. You know why we ate steak? Because so many of the women are from Texas! I felt like I was at a college reunion!
These women are actually quite interesting. Some have been here a couiple of years while others have been here for a decade. Most travel back and forth to the States for a month or more at a time. Some have adult children in the States. Only Heather has little children - and me, of course. There are other women who have little kids, but since school is out, they've all headed home for an extended visit.
We talked about all the normal things - you know - who should play Christian Gray in "50 Shades of Gray" and the like, but they also gave me great advice. Schools here rock and the local preschools are great becasue they have Mandarin every day outside of English. I now know where to pick up certain foods and that I can bring in all my spices if I pack them in my suitcase. Cans of Pam cost $10 here, but will most likely be confiscated if you bring them in your luggage. The best place to get a pedicure happens to also be in the building with all the hookers, affectionately known as "four floors of whores."
Every woman has a story about how she got here and what she's doing now. We all seem to get that we're adventuring and alone and so there is this instant comraderie. It's almost like that first week of college when everybody is meeting everybody else - only I was the only freshman. Apparently, Singapore is the world's most social place. One woman was the ladies' dragonboat captain. Others play tennis. Many have dinner parties. I mean - the social activities of these women made my head spin. Partly, that's because they don't have jobs here as it's hard to work. It also helps that we all have helpers to take care of the kids while we have lives.
And oh - I got all sorts of advice about how to co-exist with a helper. Heather doesn't have a helper just now. She made me laugh saying she got tired of having to wear her bra all the time!
We also talked about favorite weekend jaunts. The cool thing about living here is that you can easily travel to - well - all sorts of cool places: Thailand, Australia, Bali, Borneo, Malaysia, India, China - the list goes on and on. We can fly to Bali in 2 hours and stay pretty cheap. I wish Hudson was four because then both kids could go to the inexpensive - often free - kids' clubs and we could have a little adult time to do things like snorkel or visit nature reserves. My assignment from Tom is to try to figure out where we're going in the next couple of weeks. So many options!
After we closed down Mortons, we all piled in cabs to go someplace called 83 Club on Club Street though neither Heather nor I were exactly sure where that is. I THINK it was in Chinatown. All I know is that it was on this quaint little street that made me think a little bit of New Orleans at first glance.
So there we have it - my first night out with the girls. Fun, fun, fun! Tom? He got home late from work as usual and probably watched Food Network Asia - just about the only thing we can watch here unless we get a cable upgrade. I've got to figure out how to watch the next season of "Breaking Bad."