Hi Tea

Lawrence and Wayne sharing a joke. Lawrence is one of our E.A. which means he's on the front desk.

This is the group enjoying the food, company and tea.

I did enjoy the food but not the tea. The coffee was great though which made up for having so many teas.

Dinner with Friends

After meeting at Coffee Bean we went along to the next restaurant and negotiated a deal where we got two free bottles of wine, beer at half price and 25% off the dinner price. The wine, beer and company was lovely.

At the end of the evening some of the friends bought a Nemo hat and proceeded to have fun wearing it and making the fish faces.
This is Angela and Gordon.

Sue has put her best face on.

As has Christina.

The evening was fun and were in fits of laughter. We are going to miss our get togethers but will have to arrange it so we all meet up somehow next year.

Nearly the end of the year

Well it is so close to the end of the year and we are both counting down till we hit NZ soil and see our boys. It has been a wonderful year, we have met some lovely people and made some lovely friends.

Yesterday we had a joint staff lunch at Sakura and the meal was superb. It was the last chance to see some of the people before they head away for Christmas.

Saturday we are having our 'in house' end of year drinks and then it is only the Sunday to go and I am having some drinks at the Simei branch before heading to a friends house for some last Christmas drinks.

It is sad to say goodbye to some of the children but we should see them around the centre next year.

Christmas Lights

Yesterday we were having a no spend day so we got on the train and went into Orchard Road to view the Christmas Lights and trees. We had heard they were having snow there as well and we just had to see that.

We got off the train at Dhoby Gaut Station and went into Plaze Singapora and found this Christmas tree outside.


From here we walked along Orchard Road wanting to end up at Tanglin Mall to see the snow. As it was still daylight we realised we would have to go inside the malls to see the decorations. I have added a few on here for you to see the variations. They are absolutely stunning.

This is taken inside Centrepoint Mall. I was travelling up the escalator to take this. The ground floor was selling all sorts of children's toys and had an enchanted castle where children could get their nails painted. The Mall is two along from where I work.

This is at the Heren. Not quite your normal Christmas tree but well worth a look. The entrance ways were wonderful.


Here is the Paragon way of doing Christmas decorations.
The other day we found a pink Christmas tree, well today we found a purple one.


This is the small village before the snow fell. The village is a miniature Gingerbread type house with cooking utensils inside that you peep at through a window and it even had a stable for the horse with a cow out the back.

And look at the snow....beautiful.

From there we walked along the other side of Orchard Road backup to Somerset MRT Station to take the train home.

The Entrance way to Orchard Road.

Wayne standing by the Christmas tree in Ngee Ann City. iIcouldn't fit all the tree in as it is so huge.

Below are just some scenes on our way to the MRT. The long walk was well worth the effort and we came home absolutely amazed and in awe of the lights.

The Great Race

The day arrived and it was a bit cloudy so we thought great it's not going to be too hot for this fun social event of finding our way around Singapore. Well we were wrong, it was very hot and then it also rained.

But we had a great time discovering parts of Singapore we didn't know existed.

We are trying to figure out the cryptic clues for the MRT stations....we needed extra help with this.

Here we are in Lorang 18 (a red light district), where you can get a room for 5 minutes, a short time or all night.

Our team in Buggis....a little quaint village shopping mall well it ain't really that little. The team consisted of Peter Evernden, Judy Scarrot and myself.

On our travels we happened upon a pink Christmas tree. We were so surprised at the colour we had to take a photo. I mean we have seen blue ones, green ones and even red ones but PINK.

Nearly the end of the year

It is now into the middle of November and we are beginning to count down till the end of the year when we will be flying back to NZ and see our boys and extended family.

We have just been told that our apartment is going to be sold and we are having to find somewhere else to rent. We have been looking but rent is becoming more expensive, almost double what it was when we arrived. Where we are living is what they call 'out as far as you can get', yes we are almost in Malaysia and the rent here is as high as anywhere. We think we have found one in Yishun for $600 more than what we are paying here so that will be good. I didn't want to go into an HDB (housing corp type housing) but would have had to think quite seriously about it if this one didn't turn up. It is smaller than what we have now but still has the full condo facilities.

Yesterday we went to pick up an optic mouse that was a give away when we bought a hard drive to store our many photos on. We finally found the place with a bit of help from the taxi driver and then caught the first bus that went past and ended up at Vivocity...this is a huge shopping mall about the size of a city. We had a wander then found a bar with happy hour where you got 1 for 1 drinks of house pours. We spent a couple of hours there before finding our way home. The bus drive took us through parts for Singapore that we had never been into before and it was fascinating.

Today being a Tuesday, we spent the morning, well the middle of the day by the pool reading and then coming back up for a cold drink and snacks. Wednesday tomorrow and we meet up with our new landlords to sign up.

We have now done all the Christmas shopping and are just waiting to pack our bags to go home. Wayne can't wait to be able to get out in the boat to catch some real fish, and I can't wait to eat it. We both can't wait to see the boys as we fly down to Wellington as soon as we arrive in New Zealand and then back up to Auckland where my lovely sister will meet us.

Some mildew we found on the Bintan lookout.

Little India

We took the plunge and visited Little India last night as we were told that it is beautifully lit up at night at this time of the year. Well it certainly was but we were not prepared for the amount of people that were there. When we looked around we realised that most of the people were male Indians. There were only a handful of females around and most of them were European or Chinese. After going past the temple we were hit with a droning sound and it was all the men talking in their little groups...the noise was deafening...probably like being in a beehive. I did try one of their sweets and decided that they weren't for me..they weren't very sweet and they tasted like milk powder. Maybe I should bring some home for people to try...what do you think?

Bintan

Well we finally got away to this little bit of paradise. People had been telling us how nice it was and now we do believe them. We went over by ferry on the Monday morning...the ferry platform was rocking before we even got onto the ferry and that was rocking and we weren't even moving but no I did not get sea sick, just a little nauseous. We went over with Juliet and Chris, and Peter and Judy.

Our units were sea view and they really were. You looked out the door to the sea and it was so beautiful. I even had a swim as they told me the water was warm and it was. We played cards with the others, had dinner at the restaurant and then played cards again. We all departed to our separate units for a goods night sleep so we could explore a bit in the morning. Well that was the plan only they forgot to tell our hot water cylinder that. I woke up about 3 am thinking "gosh that is heavy rain", but when I opened the bathroom door for the toilet I was getting a shower in hot water...the pipe had burst. We contacted the management and they shifted us to another unit which was even closer to the beach.

This is the view from our unit onto the beach...the first unit.

Wayne is helping Juliet to drag the raft to the water...they were pretending to be on 'survivor'.

The crabs make the most amazing patterns on the sand. This is just one of the many we saw and they only make them at low tide and then they get washed away. We are not sure why they do this but the art work was amazing.

We had a meal at this restaurant...it is a seafood one and the food was simply delicious...although I didn't eat the crab...it was black pepper and they did say it was lovely.
This is the group photo of us

We had a corner table and were watching planes, ships and the lights from other islands.
And to think this was just a 45 minute ferry ride from Singapore.

Visitors

We even got Bruce to have a Singapore Sling....yeah right...but he did have a taste.
We visited the Chinese Lantern Festival and were absolutely amazed at the lanterns.  We were each given a free lantern with a lighted candle inside.
Then it was off to Phuket for a weekend catchup with Sue and Bruce. We were able to smell and see real sea as the wind was whipping along the beach and creating lovely sea smells.

Here is Erin, Timothy and Heidi at Raffles Hotel where the adults are enjoying a Singapore Sling. It is the place to have one but only one of us really enjoyed the Singapore Sling.
We visited a local hawker centre for dinner...at Clarke Quay where we each chose what we wanted to eat and Rob had some Thai food that was still cooking on a small burner when he brought it back to the table. He even mastered the chopsticks with some help from an elderly lady sitting at the beside him
After doing a boat crusie up the river Timothy was interested in the policemen on the river walk. We are still amazed at the weaponry they wear here. The first time we saw it was quite a shock, it was at the airport and they had much more on them than these two lovely guys have.

One of the highlights for visitors is how we hang our laundry out. Living in a condo we are lucky to have some space outside to hang our lanudry and we use poles and rather large pegs. The washing can go outside over the balcony which is a drop of 11 floors or can go up inside the laundry area. It is quite an art to hanging the washing and the poles up.

We visited Chinatown and had satay and beer and lime juice. Dot has just spied the crabs in a tank. People buy the live crab and it is cooked for them.

Wayne and Malcolm bouhgt an MP3 player each and they just couldn't wait to get them open and listen to them. It has been good though as Wayne now listens to his on the train and I am left to people watch.

Work Dinner

These are our workmates, from the back - Judy, Lawrence, Carolyn, Michelle, Tim, Peter and sitting down is Wayne, me, Maz, and Helen. Lou had not arrived in time for the photo. The meal was lovely...we had a smorgasboard dinner and I found some yummy roast beef and had a big helping of it. They have spot prizes and I won a nights accommodation at a local hotel and Wayne won a digital camera (pity he had just bought himself one). We had our meal in Royal Plaza Hotel just off Orchard Raod.

Wayne's Birthday

We started the day for Wayne with poached eggs on toast for breakfast and then minimal housework before off to the National Museum. It has just been done up and the building itself was beautiful. Wow what a treasure this was. We went into two exhibitions. The first was William Farquar's drawings...such a talented guy and the detail was incredible. The next exhibit was about the local food and we were fascinated. Wayne and I then walked down to Lau Pa Sat from there which took us about 30 mintues so we just had to stop and have a cold drink on the way.

We met a few friends for drinks and dinner. A great night and a great feed of satay and stir fried rice.

Singapore Experience

Well, we have been in Singapore for 9 months now and are loving every bit of it. Who would have thought that we would be doing this now?

I did not know what to expect from Singapore except that it would be hot and humid. We are close to the equator after all. But it was the rush of heat as we stepped out of the airport at 1.45 in the morning that really shook us. Thankfully Morris was there waiting for us. He took us to our hotel and we were amazed at the trees, lights, vehicles and much more. We went straight to bed and got up in time for a cooked breakfast. We then went for a walk around the area only to be told that we were too early for shopping. This being 9.30 am. Shops don't open till around 11 am. especially in the malls and there are lots of those.

I was not prepared for the greenery that abounds in this city. Trees are everywhere as are orchids and they are beautiful. So many colours, shapes and sizes.

We found an appartment only we couldn't move into it for 10 days after our stay at the hotel so we stayed on had were pampered. (We did enjoy that.)

Please check out Waynes blog http://kopu.blogspot.com/ which he has done for the whole year.