National Day

We had a bit of a dilemma today..what to do?
Do we stay home and watch the Olympics or do we get on our bikes and enjoy a ride. The bikes won out and we cycled down to Sembawang Park to enjoy some beach and park. The day was hot, how unusual.
We found lots of people utilising the park. There were tents every where and there were people everywhere as well. Large groups of people enjoying their time together. It was wonderful to see all ages and races there on such a lovely day.
This little fella was trying to get his kite flying but unfortunately there wasn't enough wind but he seemed to be having fun doing it.
In the background are some tents and the beach is beyond them. People were swimming and fishing and having fun all at the same time and place.
These young children were organising here drinks. They had about 5 plastic bags filled with drink and were sharing it around.

We are now home and have enjoyed murtabak and prata from the local hawker centre at the big cost of $12 and it was more than enough to feed us both. The National Day Parade is on TV so we are watching that until it is over and then it will be back to the Olympics.

Walk from Raffles to Chinatown

After a yummy lunch with Chris and Juliet we decided to go into Chinatown. We caught the train and got off at Dhoby Ghaut, intending to cross the platform to catch the purple line but instead got off at Raffles so we walked across the roads and around some buildings on our way to Chinatown. These are some of the scenes we saw.
While we walking we found this delightful park and it had some amazing flowers and views of buildings. The temple is one of the oldest temples in Singapore. This road has a shrine, temple and church within walking distance of each other. The next photo shows the shrine building (1835), old shop houses and the new buildings in the background. This photo of the flower was so unexpected. Everything else in the park was green leaves.Statues of a typical Chinese family in the late 1800's to early 1930's depicting a normal family outing. This are use to be water front but has been reclaimed.
We finally found ourselves in Tanjong Pagar and there happened to be a little Irish Bar at the top of the hill. So of course we had to stop for a drink. We were surprised afterwards to find that one of the streets was bar after bar. After talking at work we found out that it is one of the rougher areas to be in.




While waiting for the train at Yishun we took this picture of the flag. Its is Singapore's 43rd birthday and there are signs and flags everywhere.

BBQ at Desaru

We decided to bbq at 150 (about $70) ringgit for the four of us and we couldn't eat it all. We had lamb chops, steak, prawn kebabs, fried rice, bread, and still more food. We could look out onto the beach and look back at the pool. It was such a lovely way to finish the evening.



Relaxing down at the beach.

I took the plunge and put myself under the waterfall and enjoyed it...don't die of shock...I actually swim quite a bit now and am even putting my head under the water.