More sports

Cross country running last week, swimming sports this week! Someone came up with the ingenious idea to run the swim sports at twilight. No sitting in the blazing sun and the working parents get to come. I'm hoping its becomes an Avondale tradition. Alice came away with two firsts and a second and Felicity got a second in the breaststroke which she was very proud of. We all cheered loudly and the girls' house "Ghana" came in ahead of "Norway" and "Argentina". I believe there was even a protest in the Kindy Kickboard race but diplomatic relations were settled quickly.

A quiet moment...

Time: Tuesday morning, 7:42am
Location: Parents' en-suite
Objective: a few minutes in a warm and relaxing shower, to get ready for the day
The scene:

• Matt - under the shower (objective partially met)
• Lucinda - applying makeup at the mirror (acceptable, it is her bathroom too)
• Alice - standing at the shower door playing Little Donkey on her recorder for dad
• Felicity - next to the basin, talking to everyone and no-one about something
• Buckley - just hanging around, because, you know, the rest of the family was there!

Picnic at night

i-light Festival is on at the moment so we headed down to the promenade for a picnic in the dark with an illuminated garden. It was a good set up - there were blow-up lilo's to sit on which actually make very comfortable picnic rugs. Then we wandered around having a look at all the light installations and stumbled across a dance festival - so the girls showed off their moves for a while. We checked out the mall at that the new Casino where there is a 100m canal that you can hire a boat to float down - lacks the ambiance of Venice though. Matt and I will have to avoid the Casino because Permanent Residents and Singaporeans have to pay $100 just to enter - I guess the plan is for only tourists to lose their money.

Hurrah!

The girls just ran in their cross country and did so well. It's such hot and sweaty work and that's just for people watching the event. Alice came first by a long way in her 2km run and Felicity came third in her 1.5km race. Their faces were so red at the finish line! Our neighbour Harrison came third in his race and it was Felicity's two best friends Ysobel and Eleanor that beat her across the line so it was a very happy day for everyone!

New Discoveries in Pasir Ris

After 18 months in Singapore, you can begin to feel you may have done it all (NB. not in terms of events or festivals because Singapore celebrates everything going around and invents a lot of their own - the trick is finding out about them) but we are always interested to hear about new places to visit. One such place is Pasir Ris Park which we had conflicting reports about - some said it was great, others said it was too busy. Our experience is that it has it all - along a beach ( you can swim if you're game and even camp!), mangrove swamps, flower gardens, mazes, amazing adventure playgrounds, pony rides, bike tracks and canoe hire. We had a brilliant time - on a Saturday afternoon the park seemed pretty empty except for a Youth Group doing some very funny games. We geocached finding three of the four we looked for and hired tandem bikes to make the whole thing more pleasant. The playgrounds were awesome, the cafe was great and I'll think we'll be back!

Cambodia: Tuk Tuks,Temples and Thunderstorms

We are back from Siem Reap, Cambodia and loved it all. Siem Reap was quite beautiful. Vast ancient temples in the jungle, floating villages, friendly people, very friendly children trying to sell things and some great Asian cuisine. A highlight for the girls was catching frogs outside our room every night.

Alice and Felicity were delighted when we were met at the airport by a Tuk Tuk driver and all four of us and our luggage were loaded into the back. We were taken past all the grand hotels, through town, over the canal and down a dirt alley way to a very pleasant guest house called the Golden Banana. (We were upgraded to the superior room because our basic rooms were being renovated). With the girls tucked safely into bed, Matt and I went downstairs by the pool for a drink and a quiet bite to eat. It didn't stay quiet for long as a thunderstorm blew in and then blew all the light out. Matt went and rescued the girls as we didn't like the idea of them being frightened and stumbling around in the pitch black. So it ended up being a midnight feast for all the family.

Next morning we hired a tut tuk and a English-speaking guide name Sim and headed to the temples. We decide not to get templed out and chose to visit just three temples - Ankor Wat, Bayon and the Ta Prohm temple - but you could spend weeks exploring all the temples. They are amazingly well-preserved for being almost a thousand years old and are just magnificient. In the evening we headed for the night market and shopped and bartered, had massages and a lovely dinner which included some rather yummy curry and fish amok which was fish baked in banana leaves.

Our next day we took a tuk tuk and then a boat to visit the floating villages. The senses were whirring as we took in the sights, the smells and the sounds of village life. It was more shopping and massages in the afternoon and in the evening we went to a Cambodian Dance show for dinner which will give the girls inspiration for many performances. Our last day in Siem Reap we took it slow with a lovely morning tea at a French style bakery - the Blue Pumpkin - then some more shopping and lunch at a butterfly garden.

It was only a short holiday but a fantastic one and I agree with Felicity when she reckons Singapore should have tuk tuks instead of taxis. I'd like to be able to say "took a tuk tuk" more often.