Stars in our eyes

Been quite busy recently and haven't managed to do many updates here. Alice and Felicity are almost at the end of first term and are doing well at school.

In the recent family concert, Alice performed two recorder duets with her Irish friend Colm and Felicity did her first violin solo. Both Alice and Felicity represented Avondale at the recent International Schools Championship. Alice won a third for High Jump and Felicity only just missed out in the High Jump in her age group, coming fourth. Today at the Final Assembly for Term 1, Alice won two Phoenix Awards for Excellence - one for PE and one for Mandarin Writing. She is so quick and neat with her Mandarin characters which is peculiar because the same cannot be said for her usual handwriting. At the same assembly, Felicity performed in a play with her Speech and Drama Group. She is loving this activity and enjoys being on stage. Okay, that’s enough bragging about our talented kiddies who obviously take after their parentsJ

In just over a week we are moving. Not looking forward to all that packing and unpacking and the inevitable trip to Ikea for bits and pieces but we are excited about the new area we are moving to. We’ll miss not seeing quite so much of all our lovely Condo friends. I had a night out with all the Ladies from Newton Gems last night which was a little farewell for me but they promised to invite me back for all the Girls’ Nights Out so I hope to stay in touch.

Images from India

India was a different place to visit.  The training was being held at a hotel near the office in Gurgaon, which is a satellite city of Delhi.  Think of it like being in Geelong.  Gurgaon has been "developed" in the last 10 years or so from farmlands into an IT and business hub, as an alternative to Bangalore.  It is home to many shiny glass and steel office buildings and shopping malls, there to service the thousands of call center workers and IT staff.  Outside the privately developed malls, however, are pot-holed roads, dust, dirt, crowds and noise.  It was the epitome of contrasts/juxtaposition between old and new, rich and poor.  I personally found my first experiences of India interesting, but not particularly endearing.  The traffic was definitely crazy with constant honking of horns and no real adherence to concepts such as lanes or indicators.

Andy was also in Gurgaon with us for a few days and it's always fun to hang out with him.  Although he did lead one of my team members astray by taking him out Geocaching all day Wednesday.  I also had to educate my team member that, for future reference, if you're going to sneak off from work and go geocaching with Andy, don't ask your boss' permission!  I of course gave him my approval, hopeful that Andy might help him loosen up a little.

I did enjoy a visit on our last day to the Red Fort in Delhi which is a 400 year old army fort and palace. It was very beautiful in the setting sun.  Getting there was a challenge, given that first, we told our driver we wanted to go to the "Old Fort" (a different fort) and it gradually became apparent that we were heading somewhere else.  Then the driver stopped several times to ask for directions before heading in the wrong direction down a narrow street around a large mosque.  It was definitely the scenic route, as the street front shops progressed from live chickens in cages, to large fish on boards (with buzzing flies) and goats heads, and then to car parts and workshops for cars, auto rickshaws, bikes and motorbikes.  It was crowded and somewhat chaotic.

After a quick tour of the Red Fort with my colleagues Wai Chee, Mok and Michelle, we headed to a market spot called Dilli Hatt (more wrong turns and the driver calling his boss for directions) where we enjoyed some cheap and tasty Indian naan bread and curries before heading to the airport and back to Singapore.

Just passing through

At 6am this morning I returned home from my first work-sponsored trip to Melbourne.  I spent the week delivering an "onboarding" training class to new hires who have joined the HP Software team, teaching them about our software solutions.  It was great to catch up with some family while in Melbourne although I was quite busy with work dinners on three of my six nights.  For the start of March, Melbourne was very green and it was definitely on the cold side.  I was quite happy to walk out of the airport this morning back into the heat and humidity of Singapore.  I think I'm definitely a warm-weather person.  Tomorrow afternoon I head off for my first trip to India.  I am heading to Delhi where we are running our onboarding class again.  I'm looking forward to experiencing a new and exotic location and adding to my count of countries visited.

High on life

It's our 15th wedding anniversary tomorrow but Matt's skipped town so we celebrated early. We had a night in a funky little hotel in our new neighbourhood of Tiong Bahru. We dined at Stellar Restaurant which had amazing food and also magnificent views from the rooftop bar. The kids went to our friends, the Fittlers, for a sleepover and apparently had a junior masterchef competition and watched Sound of Music - so I think we all had a fun night.

In the morning Cynthia brought the girls over to Tiong Bahru and we all went to look at the apartment. Mostly I think we are excited, a little nervous about where everything will go but I presume we will have some creative solutions. Did lots of measuring so hopefully we can work out what goes where.

Matt left for Australia on Saturday night and the girls and I went for a walk around MacRitchie on Sunday. This time MacRitchie wasn't flooded so it only took 3 hours to do the 11km rather than 5 hours like last time. The girls made me take before and after pictures of them at the walk but I think they look pretty fresh in both. We treated ourselves to massages for our tired legs and we are already planning our next long walk.