Syonan Jinja

Yesterday was another great geocaching adventure with Andy.  This time the target was Syonan Jinja, the ruins of a Japanese Shinto Shrine built during the World War 2 occupation and then destroyed by the British.  The cache is called Yamashita's Gold and has a reputation of being a more difficult and epic cache in Singapore.  We set off from the entrance of the tree top walk about 8:40 and spent just over 3 hours getting in and out.  The trail was fairly easy to follow and it wasn't quite as tough as we'd feared, although I would still not want to be finding my way out in fading light.  It also helped our confidence that we met another large group of walkers, who had done the walk before. Happily for me (unhappily for Alice and Andrew) we didn't see any blue Coral Snakes or Spitting Black Cobras, as reported by some previous cachers.

The ruins themselves were pretty amazing and much larger than I had expected.  The original shrine looked across Macritchie Resevoir (roughly in center of Singapore) to what is now a golf course but the jungle has all grown back now.  We could clearly see the broad platform at the bottom (see 1943 photo below) and then climbed the stone steps up the hill.  At the top was a basin for washing and more stone ruins.  While we could occasionally hear the golfers across the water, traffic in the distance and fighter jets overhead, we were still standing in a pretty isolated part of Singapore, surrounded by jungle.  It was very cool.

Catching Up

We enjoyed catching up with a few friends on Singapore's recent National Day. Our balcony proved to be a good viewing platform for the fireworks and it was nice to have some friends over and wave the flag. This weekend our friend Paul stayed for a few nights. We took him for a fish spa and up the top of Marina Bays Sands for a drink and to see the view. Andrew is also staying with us for the week, but he's gone today to Hong Kong but will be back Thursday. It's been fun hearing the news from home.

Malacca Moments

Last weekend we went on a Malaysian excursion to Malacca with Bruce and Merilyn. This has been a trip we have wanted to do for a long time and it was fun exploring a new place. Malacca is rich in both history and colour with a lively market street and loads of museums. As an important port in the past it has been run by Sultans, then the Portuguese, then the Dutch then the British who have all left their mark on the place. We'll even forgive it for having an obvious lack of safe footpaths because the dodge the traffic game does give the place character. Bruce did manage to score some battle wounds on his leg for failing to negotiate a big hole in the pavement but I suspect that 1 in every 6 tourists to Malacca could probably tell a similar story.

We enjoyed rickshaws rides, markets, massages, museums and the younger Bertrams went to a waterpark while the more mature ones went on a tour of a private Peranakan museum. Now we are back home and we had to say good bye to Grandma and Poppa last night. It's been fun having them join us in the tropics for a while.

Today I put the girls back on a bus to Malaysia for their school camp so the house is unusually quiet...

Time for fun

The kids are back at school, Merilyn and Bruce are staying but very independent visitors and so I find myself with some time on my hands. I am officially "in-between" jobs after declining my latest contract at the Australian High Commission due to an ambiguous tax situation for locally-employed Australians. If the Australian Tax Office and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade can come to a satisfactory resolution I may return to my job but in the meantime Matt says I can be his trophy wife while I ponder returning to writing.

The girls have enjoyed knitting and recorder trios with Merilyn and swims in the pool with Bruce and the adults have enjoyed a few games of Ticket to Ride in the evenings. We have explored a few attractions that Merilyn and Bruce missed last time they were here or didn't exist. We went to Sentosa on Thursday to explore Fort Siloso and met Matt for dinner there. We all enjoyed a walk from Mt Faber along Henderson Waves on Saturday before viewing some of the National Day fireworks rehearsal from our balcony in the evening. Yes they practice the fireworks every Saturday for about a month. We went to the new Art Science Museum on Sunday followed by a picnic dinner in the Botanical Gardens. The Shipwreck exhibition at the Museum was a highlight which featured the cargo of a shipwrecked 9th Century Arabic trade ship. It had rested undisturbed on the ocean floor, near an Indonesian Island, for about 1100 years until it was discovered in 1998.

Signs in Chinglish

Many signs in China were perplexing. In fact we were disappointed when we came across signs that were in perfect English. Where's the fun in that?

Tales from China

China may evoke images of crowded cities, smog and taxi drivers who can't understand any English but for us China will now also mean a field of wild flowers, picturesque villages, dramatic limestone cliffs, breath-taking architecture and a culture of tradition and meaning. Just back from 11 days in China and we loved it! An online travel agency helped book everything for us so that in each of the four locations we chose to explore (Beijing, Xi'an, Guilin and Li Jiang) a tour guide and driver would meet us at the airport or train station. This took the stress out of not being able to speak Mandarin and meant we could pack more in because we had our own mini bus to take us directly to places and pick us up the moment we were ready to move on. The tour guides were also a wealth of information about local customs and ancient history.

Highlights included

* the beautifully preserved buildings and grounds of the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven and the Summer Palace in Beijing

* a walk on the Great Wall of China (Mutianyu section) which exceeded our extremely high expectations

* an acrobatics show, a kung-fu show and a most amazing musical "impressions" show in an outdoor theatre with the limestone cliffs and the Li River making an impressive backdrop

* Taking a sleeper train from Beijing to Xi'an

* Busy market streets and haggling with friendly traders

* the girls practicing their Mandarin and adding to their vocab

* The terracotta army in Xi'an guarding an emperor's tomb which were only discovered by a local farmer in 1974

* a river cruise and then cycling through the Li River Countryside

* swapping holiday photos by phone with the Bearsleys on their Aussie road trip at roughly 11am and 7pm each day, including the Bearsleys and their Chinese house guest at the Walls of China (Lake Mungo, NSW) and the Bertrams spotting exotic kangaroos at a zoo in Guilin

* the ancient hilltown of Li Jiang where flowers and lanterns decorated the cobbled streets

* spotting any animal whether they be stray dogs, water buffalo, beetles or Giant Pandas

* chairlift rides up to the top of Mountains and a toboggan ride down again

* trying some new food like bamboo and yak's milk cheese