New Adventures and New Arrivals

It's almost time to say good-bye to our current visitors. (Matt's already said his goodbyes as he headed off to China last night.) Since arriving 10 days ago, Merilyn and Bruce set out to explore the entire island. Every day a new adventure was planned and they are now experts on our public transport system. On weekends and some evenings the rest of us get to tag along.

We all enjoyed the Night Safari on Thursday night where the presenter at the Creatures of the Night asked for all strong and sexy woman to put there hands. My enthusiastic hand waving meant I was picked to come and hold a python, although there wasn't a lot of competition from Merilyn who was sitting on her hands. Friday night we ate Tapas at Chijmes (a former convent) and then headed to Arab Street for some baklava. On Saturday, we went cycling on Pulau Ubin where we had close encouters with horn-bills, a turtle, a snake, a monitor and some monkeys.

On Saturday evening, Matt and I attended the Avondale Trivia Night dressed as English Soccer hooligans (there was an international theme to the evening) and our rather rowdy table came in third. People with a lot more money than us bidded up to $2,700 for artwork by the kids. We just watched with amusement and made sure we made no sudden hand movements. With Merilyn and Bruce as babysitters we took the opportunity to have a night away and stayed at the gorgeous Goodwood Hotel for a lovely sleep-in and a full breakfast.

It would seem very empty here when Merilyn and Bruce leave tomorrow, except that we now have four new additions to our household to keep us entertained. Alice had two turtles, Splash and Rudolph and Felicity has two hamsters, Milly and Polly.

Water play

It's Monday night, 9:50pm and Merilyn and Bruce are frolicking in the pool.

Yes, I know. Shocking.

This afternoon, we all sucessfully met up at Sentosa island after mum and dad had had an active day. The girls (the small ones this time) enjoyed a swim in the sea while we had pizza at a beach bar - the closest you can get to a tropical beach scene in Singapore. We walked across a bridge (the girls swam across) to the southernmost point of mainland asia. Not quite sure how that works when we were on an island off Sentosa island, off Singapore island. Presumably man-made causeways and bridges have the effect of extending the continent.

Afterwards, we all had fun on the Luge ride (like a toboggan / go cart ride) with Alice and Felicity hairing off at great speed down the hill. We all got safely to the bottom, even Grandma.

Grand times

Merilyn and Bruce (Matt's parents, also known as Grandma and Poppa) arrived late Wednesday night but there was no time for a sleep-in on Thursday. They were needed to attend the very important award ceremony for Alice at School Assembly on Thursday. Alice picked up her Bronze award which is given once you have achieved five merit certificates. It was also Science Spectacular day and Alice performed a static electricity experiment in front of the whole school. (Felicity was also supposed to do an expereiment but her equipment mysteriously went missing which was rather disappointing for her, but she handled it well).

Since arriving Bruce and Merilyn have toured Little India, ate at Newton Hawker Centre, visited the historical and colonial buildings around Singapore CBD, dined at Boat Quay, strolled along Orchard Road, babysat and Merilyn has also been giving the girls revision lessons in knitting. On the weekend we all enjoyed a visit to the Sungei Buloh wetlands where we saw several Monitor lizards and other wildlife amongst the mangroves. We then completely wore ourselves out by spending several hours at the zoo. Today (Sunday) has been more relaxing with a slow morning spent with a neighbourhood stroll and time by the pool. In the late afternoon we went to MacRitchie Reservoir for a jungle walk through the rainforest in the rain.

The trouble with teeth

This week's adventure has been Felicity needing a tooth removed. On Sunday, she complained about having a sore tooth, by Monday morning half her face was swollen. An urgent trip to the dentist (luckily our friend Jacqui was able to recommend one) confirmed that she had an abscess. Felicity enjoyed the fact that she could watch TV while sitting in the dentist's chair. She left with a bottle of antibiotics, intended to reduce the infection (and to reduce the pain when the tooth eventually got taken out). On Tuesday her face was even more swollen, the poor thing, so Lucinda put in another call to the dentist and got an emergency appointment for Wednesday morning.

Today (Wednesday), Felicity paid a short visit to the dentist in the morning, followed by a 5pm appointment to have the tooth removed under anaesthetic. The actual procedure was quick and smooth with Felicity just being very woozy when she arrived home. She's now picking up and we're all looking forward to Poppa and Grandma Bertram arriving late tonight. We hope we don't have too many of these sort of adventures.

Escape to Malaysia

It was National Day long weekend here so we added an extra day and headed to Kuala Lumpur. On arriving in KL it actually reminded us more of Cairo than Singapore. We enjoyed the contrasts. KL does the pristine and glossy malls and big manicured city gardens but there are also the ramshackled huts surrounded by rubbish, lots of street sellers, run-down buildings, broken pavements, entire families riding on the one motorbike and then some more rubbish and dust. The girls were minor celebrities and were dragged into many other tourists photos which they were very good-natured about.

In four days you can see a fair bit so here are just some highlights of our trip.
* admiring the variety of architecture from fantastic skyscrapers to mosques to colonial buildings.

* playing at Sunway Lagoon Water and Amusement Park

* feeding monkeys

* bumping into the Malyasian Prime Minister at Batu Caves

* taking a drive into the countryside to go on a night time boat trip to see fireflies which is nature's version of real live Tinkerbells which light up the riverside trees like Christmas lights.

* hanging out with Paquita and Glenn Kennett and their kids after not seeing them for about 17 years!!

* views from the top of KL Tower which rivalled the views from Paquita and Glenns' apartment

Another great visitor

Great Aunt Tricia dropped by on her way home from a business trip to London. Well technically she's Alice and Felicity's Great Aunt and Matt's aunt and we all think she's great. She landed and immediately offered to babysit the girls. So while Tricia read new story books to the girls, Matt and I headed out to a movie. (See what I mean..pretty great!)

The next day we all went out to brunch with the Shepherd Family and then our family headed to the Botanic Gardens and the Orchid Garden for the afternoon. I could bore you with 30 pictures of beautiful orchids here but I won't (well maybe I'll pop in one). For dinner we had a picnic tea at Macritchie Reservoir. A cheeky monkey tried to steal some food but hadn't taken into account that Tricia is an expert shoe thrower and was able to defend us from the attacker with a well-timed and accurate launch of her sandal. Tricia was up early this morning to catch her Business Class flight on the Airbus A380! Obviously she's a proponent of the saying "getting there is half the fun".

Some little things we've noticed about Singapore

Chopsticks rack in the dishwasher.

In Australia, people ask "Where do you live?" In Singapore, it's "Where do you stay?"

MacDonalds do 24 hour home delivery (no, Mum, I've never used it).

The busker in the underpass just leaves his guitar and amp there while he goes off for a drink and a break. No-one steals it, no-one damages it.

When you see wine on special for $18.90 you buy two bottles because it's so cheap.

Everyone reverses their cars into parking spaces.

Locals have an amazing ability to queue for things - ATMs, restaurants, Luis Vuitton stores. People will stand in line for an hour just to get in to a popular restaurant.