Having a ball

This weekend started at the Night Safari to celebrate Alice's friend Chloe's 8th birthday. We had dinner beforehand watching the fire show which we had not seen before and was great entertainment. Last night Matt and I went to the Australia Day Ball with friends from the condo. It was a great night of dancing and we even bought a chinese cabinet at the silent auction. Today Matt and Alice did some more geo-caching while Felicity and I spent most of the day at the pool.

High Density Hong Kong

Singapore and Melbourne have roughly the same population (~4M) yet Melbourne is spread out and low-rise, while Singapore is more compressed and high rise.  If you think of Melbourne as the size of a basketball, Singapore is like someone has taken the basketball and squeezed it into the size of a tennis ball - everything is a lot closer together.  I have just returned from my first visit to Hong Kong, which I would describe as Singapore's tennis ball squeezed down into a golf ball, but with double the population.  First impressions were of the very large and impressive bridges and tunnels on the way from the airport to Hong Kong island.  The next thing I noticed was the density of the buildings.  High-rise everywhere with hardly a gap between buildings, it made where we live in Singapore feel quite spread out.  Even at 10:30pm Thursday night, the streets and trains were crowded with locals and tourists.

Coming home I had my first ride on an A380.  I have to say that the idea of it was more exciting than the reality - inside it was really just like being on any other plane!

Cover Girl

Alice was chosen for some marketing photos for Avondale Grammar late last year and now we spot her all over the place. She is currently appearing in several ads in popular magazines and also on expat websites. She tells me she was chosen because she wrote a good letter (which she then had to re-write with correct spelling ). Attached is a link to one of the websites where she appears in a banner advertisement http://www.anza.org.sg/

First Day and Dave drops in

The girls first day back at school went smoothly. The new school campus, which was a rundown old building a few months back, is now fitted out and looks fantastic. The new Principal, Mr Coote, also appears very warm, friendly and confident. Dave Enticott arrived last night for three days. We celebrated with chilli crab down at Boat Quay followed by Baklava at Arab Street. This morning we took Dave on the Tree Tops walk at MacRitchie and the monkeys showed up in full force. We have never seen so many and we joked that perhaps we were being ambushed. Not so funny a few minutes later when we made the mistake of unwrapping muesli bars and had two fierce looking monkeys stand in front of us hissing. We quickly hid the food ...then we read the signs about not eating in front of the monkeys.

Back into the Singapore swing of things

We've unpacked, done the washing and just this morning I've finally glimpsed the bottom of the washing basket. Of course, I can't see it now but there was that beautiful moment. The last few days have been about just trying to settle back in and get ready for the new school year. We've enjoyed catching up with the neighbours while swimming and dining by the pool. I had a night out with the condo mums and we caught up with Genna and Marion over lunch on Friday. Saturday we explored Labrador Park while searching for a geocache. The girls were more fascinated by the military relics than one would expect and the park has some fabulous views. Today we went to Little India as Alice wanted Peacock feathers and Felicity wanted some material as the girls are currently into designing and making their own outfits. Their creations are kind of amazing, just not very wearable and tend to fall apart the moment they hit the playground. Tomorrow is the big day. The school has moved to a new campus and we have a new Principal.

The Holidays

Our Holidays in Australia were wonderful fun - almost too good. The kids always had other kids to play and spent wonderful hours playing superheroes, and jungle animals, jumping on the trampoline, going for swims and putting on plays, concerts and fashions shows. We managed lots of catch ups with some good friends, a few sleepovers, outings to the Botanic Gardens for a picnic with the Bertram family, Moonlight Cinema with the Springs, Horse riding with Anna, a theatre perfomance with most of the Day cousins and a couple of pilgrimmages to the shopping mecca that is Southland. Thanks to Tam and Andy for their wonderful hospitality - you have the best resort in Australia. I loved finishing most nights looking up at the stars from the hot spa. That's something we can't manage here in Singapore - even if our spa was heated there's not much chance of stars

We enjoyed a week long trip to Port Arlington with Rohan, Kim and family which was a nice beach holiday during our holiday. On a 44 degree day we went to Geelong to the Waterpark. Best place to be and we had a lot of fun spotting interesting tattoos of which there were an abundance. Kim and I also walked from Drysdale to Queenscliff and back again - a total of 34km. We stopped for coffee and and a window shop in Queenscliff. We were very tempted to buy some things but decided shopping bags would ruin our professional walker look as were decked out with camel backs and fuel belts. Other highlights were swimming out to a shipwreck at Indented Heads and being there to celebrate Zoe's 8th birthday.

Eventually our Summer holidays had to finish - Matt headed back to Singapore ten days before us so were were looking forward to seeing him and Buckley. We said a sad goodbye to the family and boarded the plane. As we were standing in the residents queue at Singapore Immigration, Alice pointed to a "Welcome Home" sign and said "that for us". For the moment anyway.