Hi Everyone,
I signed up for watercolor classes today! I had discovered the classes searching the Internet; had an email exchange with the director ; and today Randal and I went to see the studio. www.myartspace.com offers intro classes and then some follow-up sessions. I’ll take 6 sessions, each lasting 2 and a half hours. The first one is this Saturday at 10 am. It takes about 40 minutes to get there, so I’ll leave the boat at 8 am just in case! The studio neighborhood seems great for exploring. It looks to be part of Chinatown. To get there we took the Sentosa bus to the HarbourFront MRT stop and took the MRT one stop, to Outram Park on the NE line. There we changed trains and took the EW green line train one stop to the Tanjong Pagar MRT station. “fm tanjong pagar mrt station , walk towards maxwell road and / or tanjong pagar road.we are near maxwell food centre, behind fairfield methodist church.” Those were Kathryn’s direction. It was a 10 minute walk from the MRT station to the wonderful building where MyArtSpace is located on the 4th floor.
When we first walked in I thought, “No way can I take classes with these people; they already know how to paint.” But Angie Chan who runs www.fill-your-walls.com welcomed us (as she was turning on the lights having just arrived herself) and assured me that beginners were truly welcomed and encouraged. Actually MyArtSpace wasn’t open on Wednesdays, but since we were there she called the manager to see if he were coming in. He would be there in 5 minutes! Chankerk, the manager and also one of my future teachers was also very encouraging. He in turn called the director to make sure I was eligible for the price specials (the first 3 people to sign up kind of thing) and I was. He told me how the school works and added up the costs. Not cheap for a “just for fun” artist so I needed to think. Randal and I went downstairs and ate an early lunch at the ArtCafe. Randal said, “Go for it!!” so after lunch I went back upstairs, signed on the dotted line and put our money where my mouth is. I do keep saying I want to take lessons so now here’s my chance.
It will be a lesson in independence for me too. I have to go by myself, meet lots of new people by myself, and I’m not used to that anymore. I especially am not used to traveling around by myself on public transportation. I walked all over JingAn and Bijao in China where I truly couldn’t get lost. But really, it’s pretty easy to get where you are going here too because the MRT makes sense, almost all people speak English and when they give you directions they know what they are talking about. Before we left the Tanjong Pagar MRT station we weren’t sure where to go so got out a map. A Singaporean saw us, volunteered to help and gave us excellent directions. (We had left this morning before Kathryn’s email had arrived.) So it won’t be hard; I’ll just leave myself lots of time. I promise lots of photos from this experience; just didn’t take the time today. I’ll use all of that time I get to classes early to take street photos.
After that we went to the Homely Hardware Supercenter. That’s not a typo, their word for homey is homely. There probably isn’t really a word homey, at least not to describe how comfortable a home is. I think a homey is someone who lives in South Boston, or is that a Southy. Anyway, I though Homely Hardware warranted a few words here. It had taken us several trains and a fairly long walk to get there. It was pouring when we left so flagged a taxi to take us to the MRT. The driver was a several generation Malay, the original inhabitants of Singapore. We talked politics thanks to Randal bringing it up. He was hoping Obama could settle the issues in the Middle East, a very tall order.
Though we were pooped and carrying too much stuff from the hardware store we stopped at VivoCity in Harbourfront to go to Giant Supermarket where you have to put a coin in the slot to get a shopping cart. You get your coin back when you return the cart. Usually we just use those quickie shopping baskets so we don’t buy too much to carry. I took the cart so I could put my backpack with half the hardware stuff in it into the cart. But using a cart meant we bought more than we could easily hand carry. It was mostly fruit and veggies, but other things too. We went out to the taxi stand and it was pouring again. The walk from the marina drop-off point to the boat was a bit soggy, but we’re cruisers so we should be able to do wet. It was almost 5 pm. We were wet, tired and hungry. But we had food and towels and no plans but to sit and sit and sit. We had started the day with a 40 minute walk around Sentosa Cove, fast becoming a daily routine. Yup, we like Singapore.
Ruth Johnson,
Doramac