A Sense of Identity

This morning we arose at 5:15am and caught a taxi to Kranji War Memorial for the ANZAC Day Dawn Service. In the interests of full disclosure, I must point out that I have never attended a Dawn Service while living in Australia. Something about being an aussie overseas seems to strengthen the sense of being and identifying as an Australian.


The girls wore their school uniforms, identifying them as belonging to Avondale Grammar and allowing us to group together with other Avondale families. The service included a Haka (NZ High Commission was hosting it this year, they alternate with the Australians), bagpipes (played by some very un-Scottish looking asians looking slightly wrong to us wearing tartan!), some speaking/readings, a hymn and national anthems. A couple of students from Avondale laid a wreath.


Thanks to proximity (and obviously inherited good looks) identifying us as the girls' parents, the school uniforms also helped us meet a few other parents from the school. Quite a few other people are also relatively new to Singapore, having been here only 3-4 months. We've found all the expat families to be very friendly and welcoming.

After the dawn service, we headed off to the zoo and used our zoo membership for the first time. It would be hard for anyone else to use our membership as our identity is clearly displayed in the family photo that is printed on the card. The zoo was fantastic and we look forward to going back, but that's a story for another day...