Christmas... really?

It really doesn't feel like Christmas is in a couple of weeks, even though there are enough reminders around the place. Everywhere you go, you hear christmas music, the lights and decorations are everywhere - so I can only put it down to the heat.

I'm as ready as I'll ever be.... all presents bought and everyone has been accounted for. Everything has to be lugged over and back in our suitcases. Z and I leave this saturday morning to celebrate christmas in Brisbane with both our families - under one roof. C will join us on the 23rd December. C's parents, his sister and her children are coming to stay at chez Kellaway. We've done it previously and it works quite well. We'll be 16 for lunch on Christmas Day. C is cooking the famous Martha Stewart Honey baked ham with pears and cranberries.... yum, yum! C's family will stay for 5 days before driving back south during which time we'll swim, eat and swim. Mum and Dad will take C's parents for a couple of day trips.

Z has been asking me if Santa really exists. I can see she wants to believe in him, but she's picked up too many clues that it may not be so ie. how come santa uses the same wrapping paper as us? (stupid mum!). She wrote him a letter very late this year requesting some presents but mostly to let him know we don't have a chimney here or in Brisbane. It was very cute. I suggested Z advise Santa that we'll leave the balcony door open.

On another note - C and I went this morning to have the H1N1 vaccine and as of last week, it has now been approved for children. The child vaccine is in two parts, with two vaccines - each separated by a month. Z's appointment for her first vaccine is for wednesday afternoon.

A voyage of discovery

With some friends, I have been discovering some very unusual and interesting places in Singpore.

'Fairs' are big here - particularly the Christmas Fairs. These are mostly expat stall holders who sell beautiful things at a Fair which is held in the Ballrooms of various hotels in town. They are huge. There are approx. 70 - 80 stall holders selling anything from jewellery to christmas cards, hand made indonesian batik to chinese antiques. It's fun. Have to admit, I've bought a few things - and so has mum! I took mum to a fair the day after they arrived and she came home with bedspread!

With my friend Narelle, who in attempt to show me around Singapore - has discovered some new places herself; we head off the beaten path. Firstly I needed more crockery, so she took me to a warehouse in the back of nowhere, where you had to mix and match your own plates, bowls etc, that is after you scraped off the dust! It was amazing. After a couple of hours, we'd pieced together a really pretty set serving 10 places - I got decorative platters, plates, bowls, side plates. At the cashier, she told us they were closing down, so it was buy one plate, get 3 free! So my dinner set for 10 people cost me $25 SGD (18chf).

Another recent discovering was a place called the Pottery Jungle (and they weren't kidding). This place was in the jungle and while we were looking around the warehouse, we noticed a couple of monkeys also checking out the merchandise. I have never seen so much pottery in all my life. Can't say we liked most of it, but it was pretty interesting. They had plates, bowls, vases (some were taller than me), outdoor pots - you name it. I fell in love with a stool - yep, a stool made of pottery which came home with me. It has a chinese poem carved into it. I like it so much I think I'm going to go back and get another.

Another great find are the Singapore walks. They are guided walks around hot spots of Singapore. With mum and dad, we did the 'Arab area'. Totally fascinating. We saw a building built by a group of chinese billionaires totally for their folly - with a 15 storey high wine cellar where one has to suspend in a harness from the ceiling to get a bottle of wine. We also heard about the early royalty, about the Peranakans (Chinese traders who sheltered in Singapore during the monsoons and married the local Malaysians). Every day of the week you can take a guided tour of a different part of Singapore. I've only done one area, but Dad who enjoyed them so much, has also done the tours of 'Little India' and 'Chinatown'. I must do more.....

Christmas lights

Every year the main shopping hub of Singapore (Orchard Road) is decorated for Christmas. The last time I saw them was over 25 years ago, when a girlfriend and I crazily drove from Singapore to Penang. I'm glad to say the decorations are as spectacular now as they were then. I'm sorry to say my photography doesn't do it justice. Down at Tanglin Mall, I've heard they even make snow for an outdoor display twice per night, every night.

Koh Samui - Thailand.

Over the 3 day long weekend (Hari Raya) and amongst the horror of H1N1, we escaped to Koh Samui, the 3rd largest island off Thailand.

We arrived late thursday night, and stayed until sunday afternoon - it's only a 1.5 hour flight from Singapore. More time to enjoy the beach!

We stayed at a great resort right on the beach. The rooms were connected by boardwalks and nestled amongst the tropical gardens and jungle. At the entrance to the resort, you were smack-bang in the centre of the busy touristy shopping area and at the other end of the property you were on the beach. Perfect!

The weather was perfect - warm, not too hot, a cool ocean breeze and no rain.

Typically we'd spend most of the day on a lounge reading a book and alternating swims between the pool and the ocean. Zoe just stayed in the water the whole time. We'd then venture out of the resort for a spot of late afternoon shopping, returning for dinner at the resort. We ate dinner by candelight on the beach both nights. It was lovely.

We treated ourselves on saturday to some pampering - well sort of. Z and I had a pedicure and our nails painted, while C had a Thai massage to relieve some of his stress. Z and I had a few giggles watching C being bent into positions his body hasn't been in since birth, by a tiny slip of a thai girl. He's still in pain two days later. Z also had some beads and braids put in her hair. They look really cute.

We also bought our fair share of 'Lacoste' and 'Ralph Lauren' shirts. Hey - for about 4CHF a shirt, who wouldn't!

It was a nice break. We're now ready to face the lead up to Christmas!

A touch of reality.

A touch of the 'unreal' has invaded our little world.

Last tuesday evening, we were told of the death of a 5 year old child from Maternelle. The reason for death was unknown but on safety concerns the Maternelle school would be closed until further notice. Maternelle and the first two grades of Elementaire are on the same campus but at opposite ends of the property. Elementaire would stay open (ie. Zoe's class). I sent Zoe to school wednesday, but later discovered 6 from her class were missing that day.

Within 24 hours, it was confirmed the child had tested positive to H1N1, but it was not known if this was the cause of death.
I decided not to send Zoe to school on thursday; I was not prepared to take the risk, and as friday was a public holiday it made sense to keep her home as a precaution. It turned out most parents thought like me, and kept their children away from school.

Today is monday - the first day back to school after the 3 day break. We have been updated over the break. The Singapore Ministry of Health and the French Embassy are also heavily involved.

This is the procedure in place.

The school is effectively in a lock-down. Only one entrance into each of the two campus' is open. At each entrance a testing station is in place.

Every morning, every parent has to take their children's temperatures and record it on a form.
On presentation of this 'temperature form', the smaller children will be admitted onto the school grounds. They will then be tested again in the classroom before class by health inspectors.

Parents who wish to enter the school grounds, teachers and older students must undergo a temperature test at the school gate before admitttance.
Any child with a fever, cough, cold or muscular aches will be not permitted to school. Any child with any of these symptoms will not be permitted back to school without a medical certificate.

The Maternelle is still closed until further notice.

The Embassy and Lycee have arranged a seminar wednesday evening for the parents of the primary school and a prominent doctor to talk about H1N1.

From what I'm hearing, this poor little fellow was not well over the weekend with cold-like symptoms, but went to school on monday. During the day he collapsed and was sent by ambulance from school to hospital where he died that night.

I think I have now read most of the literature available on the internet about H1N1, and I'm still not sure what to do, or what I should do to protect my family. There have been 19 deaths due to H1N1 in Singapore. Craig trys to calm me by telling me that there are far more deaths from normal flu than H1N1, but it doesn't help. It's the fact that it's like russian roulette, you may get it, you may not and if you get it, you may die or you may not.

Monsoon season - Singapore style.

First, some statistics. Singapore is the most lightning struck country in the world. Every house and building has a lightning conductor built in. A friend of mine living in Singapore for 18 months, has had their house struck by lightening twice.

Since late October, I've noticed a change in the weather patterns here.... normally that would sound like a dumb thing to say after living here for 4 months, but here in Singapore the weather forecast is always the same - storms and 27 - 32 degrees, add or minus a degree. That's because it's sunny for 11 out of 12 hours of the day, and one hour of seasonal rain or tropical storm....
But since the October school holidays, it's been more and more overcast, and slightly cooler, and the rain lasts longer. That was until this week.
In the last 3 days, we've had two of the most ferocious storms I can remember. The lightning flashes come so fast and often, you can't count them - and the thunder - I reckon I've jumped right off my seat on more than one occasion. The storms pass right over you - you see the flash of lightning, and immediately the thunder crashes and reverberates around you - you can feel the vibrations in the floor (we live on the 3rd floor!). It's deafening. The storm can stay directly over you for up to 10 minutes. And the rain - boy, your visibility is reduced to metres as it falls so heavily. It's like a curtain.

Yesterday's storm was a doozy... It hit about 1.30pm and boy was I glad to be at home at the time. The rain was so dense you couldn't see past the balcony. Our balcony flooded within 10 minutes. Shortly after I received a phone call from the condo office asking me to move my car as soon as I could, as the basement was flooding fast.
When I got downstairs, I had to wade in water about 10cms deep, but was able to move the car to the next level up. The storm boomed and crashed all around for about 40 minutes, then slowly moved on. The rain continued but lessened.
At 4pm while still raining I went to the front of our condo to wait for Zoe's school bus to arrive, and was met by total carnage. There were cars strewn across the middle of the road, with other cars trying to drive around them in both directions and people were everywhere. Someone said the major road (our road runs off) was closed and flooded (it's a 4 lane road). The adjacent condo's basement had totally flooded, and pumping trucks were being brought in to pump out the water. Some cars had been able to get out, and were now parking on the road, around the strewn cars and the cars trying to drive down the road. Chaos. Tow trucks were brought in to remove the cars stranded by the water.
45 minutes late, Zoe's school bus arrives from the opposite direction... by this time I was quite a nervous wreck.
The carnage in our road continues today. The pump trucks were pumping all night to remove the flood waters from the basement of the adjacent condo and cars were being towed out from the basement today. It has totally blocked our road. And guess what - it's just started raining again.

Halloween 2009 - Singapore style

There was evidence that Halloween was celebrated in Singpore by way of the paraphenalia on sale in the supermarkets, the Night Safari (Night Zoo) was having Halloween themed weekend nights in October, the French Association held a Halloween themed party for kids in mid-october, and the Disney TV channel here was advertising scary themed shows on sunday 31st october.

We had no plans to do anything - that was until we received a knock on the door, and an invitation to join some families for some Halloween festivities by the pool on sunday afternoon.

Z was very excited, as she had missed celebrating Halloween the past two years with having her tonsills out and travelling.

We were one of 4 families - Swiss-Italian, French, South African and us, with their children and maids. It was fun - the kids swam and played games together. Although we'd all seen each other in the pool from time to time, we hadn't introduced ourselves - so it was good to finally break the ice. As the time passed, the clouds were building for a storm (a daily occurence here), but the sky was turning from grey to black and green... and just as our pizza's arrived, the heavens opened... and boy it was a 'doozy'. We were huddled under the shelter by the pool eating pizza and drinking red wine in a torrential downpour with lightening and thunder all around us. We all thought it was quite appropriate for Halloween. The kids were amazing - if they were scared,they sure didn't show it. At 7pm more children from the apartments joined us in costume and then all the children accompanied by the 3 maids set off to go 'trick or treating' around several of the apartments. We returned to our respective apartments to await the knock on the door.

It was a really fun night for Z as well as us.

Borneo and the Orang Utans

Wow, wow, wow. Great holiday. We packed a lot into 4 days. We flew just over 2 hours from Singapore to Kota Kinabalu (capital of Sabbah, on the island of Borneo, Malaysia), then drove almost an hour to the Shangri-la resort. Talk about in the middle of nowhere....The resort was fantastic. You can do as much or as little as you wanted. You know me - I had our whole vacation planned within an hour of arriving.. well, not really.

On the first day, Z played 'ranger for a day' (which turned out to be for an hour and a half ) in the Wildlife reserve attached to the hotel and got up close to the Orang Utans with the guides.

The outdoor pool area was the central focus of the resort and where we spent most of our time when at the resort. We camped on comfy lounges under palm trees and relaxed. Z spent HOURS every day in the pool. I read two books. C got to play golf - twice. On Friday, we took the hotel shuttle back into Kota Kinabalu to did some exploring around the town.

On Saturday, we took a boat trip out to a remote island and got to snorkle over coral and cute fish - Z's first time snorkelling and she loved it. She even got to ride a pony - an activity organised by the 'kiddy club'. She also discovered malaysian satays.... one day she ate satay for breakfast, lunch and then at dinner time. Needless to say, she's getting into the asian food.

We all took a tour into the nature reserve to see the Orang Utans - at that time they had 7 little orphans. The rangers care for them and prepare them for their release back into the wild. We watched 3 Orang utans interact for close to 45 minutes. It was absolutely amazing to see them up close.

Z lists as one of the highlights of the trip as 'eating Teppan-yaki'. We ate in the Teppan-yaki restaurant one night and Z just loved Gary - the Teppan-yaki chef's antics. He was quite a character.

All in all - a great short break.

Mosiac class.

Singapore is great for kids activities... you name it - you can find it close by. I was excited (and knew Z would be too) to find a mosiac shop which runs classes in our local shopping centre. So - I signed Z up to 3 projects which she can do over a 3 month period. She had done mosiac last year at school and really enjoyed it.

The first project the children do is to choose a design, trace it into a board then mosiac it; which the children complete over 3 sessions of 2 hours. This is her masterpiece. She also made the heart design as she finished her project early. She can't wait to go back to start her 2nd project - she's tossing up whether to make a set of 4 coasters or decorate a box....

Exploring

Last weekend we planned two trips to explore new areas of Singapore. Saturday we set off to East Coast Park - Singapore's largest. It runs along the east coast of the island beside the sea. It was pretty wierd to see hundreds of tankers and ships anchored in a long queue formation some 200 metres off the coast. They were empty and waiting to enter the port.
Along the sea, the entire length of the park are bikeways and walkways. There were even places where you could camp. About every 200 metres facilities where you can eat, drink, have your own BBQ, hire bikes or rollerblades etc. I had stored away a two wheel scooter (which I planned to keep until christmas), which Z had been longing for - so we caved in and gave it to her so she could take it to the Park.

We had a nice day - walked a few kilometres and stopped for 'butter and garlic crab' for lunch, before heading back to the car. When we got back to the car, C realised the keys were no longer in his pocket.... so he walked back to the restaurant to look for them. No luck - so he called the leasing company who provided another set within 30 mins of the call... Bad end to a nice day.

On sunday, we headed down to Raffles Hotel to explore the heritage area of Singapore. We walked in and around Raffles, and enjoyed the hotel museum. We checked out the famous Long Bar, with peanut shells all over the floor, but at 10am, it was a bit early for a Singapore sling... another time! From the hotel, we took 1 of 2 heritage marked walks you can do... although to say we did half of one walk is stretching it. The heat of the day, with little breeze and the heat off the bitumen road and sidewalk was just too much - so we detoured and went shopping. I now know why there are SO many shopping centres and why besides eating, the national pastime is shopping! Anyway, we bought C a birthday pressie (noise reduction headphones for the plane & his music) , so it was worthwhile. I definately want to do these walks - just have to find a day when it's cooler (ha!).

Mooncake Festival

Last saturday, we joined the Association Francaise de Singapour for an outing to celebrate the Chinese mooncake festival. Although the festival runs for 3 weeks, most celebrations occured last weekend as a result of the moon appearing it's largest in the sky for the year. By the way, mooncakes in french are called 'gateau de lune'. Everywhere in Singapore you can buy and try mooncakes at the moment. All the hotels chefs sell their variation of mooncakes made by their chefs- from the traditional - lotus, egg, red bean to exotic - chocolate, passionfruit, nuts etc.

Their history goes something along the lines that they were used by revolutionaries to hide notes inside the cakes to amass the people against the Mongolian rulers of China at the time. It worked, and they overthrew the Monguls. Nowdays however, there are no notes inside the mooncakes.

Anyway, getting back to our tour. We met with the group at the Chinese gardens and had a brief history of the most famous chinese figures (whose statues appear in the gardens). The gardens were so pretty - decorated with lanterns. We were also able to taste 4 different mooncakes - Lotus, red bean, nut, and passionfruit. Can't say we love them; I think it's the texture that we didn't like. They are quite pastey and heavy. We liked the flavour of the lotus, nut and the passionfruit mooncakes- but the traditional red bean was a taste to be acquired.....

Z tried them all - and was a great little helper, serving the mooncakes for tasting.

Now, I have to tell you to score brownie points - the entire event was in french!

Home away from Home.

Our apartment is great - I have no complaints. It's perfect for us, but it's a bit stark for a little girls room. We brought with us Z's favourite toys - the playmobil, her barbies, english and french books, games, etc. Some friends gave Z some little things to remind her of them and home.

So, now that we're settled, we thought we'd show you Z's room and some of her favourite things. PS - Lucy the Zebra is now up there with her favourites Simba and Arial.

The Lycee

I'm finding it amazing that the Lycee Francais is such a big school, yet it seems to function really well, nothing seems to fall through the cracks. (yet).
I am constantly updated about important happenings at the school via email! Yep email. And it works both ways - when notifying the school a child is sick, or if you have any questions, or what to make a rendez-vous with someone - you do it via email! It's so modern, organised and not very french :)
And take a look at this! This is a link to the website of Z's class at school. Throughout the year, it will be updated with photos of their activites etc. And they've only been at school less than one month and already it's updated!

http://www.lyceefrancais.edu.sg/elementaire/classes-09-10/ce1/ce1b.htm

Next week, Z will start her chosen A.C.S (extra curricular activity). She chose just one - mini-tennis. It will be run in the modern air conditioned gymnasium at school. These activites aren't compulsory and are run on the 1/2 days of school (wed's and fri's and each afternoon after school).
So far, I'm really impressed.

It's a small world.

I met a fellow Aussie at a coffee morning, and after a short while, we discovered that we were the same age, lived less than 1 km away from each other growing up in Brisbane, went to the same primary school (and therefore in the same class) and then we both went on to private schools where his school were invited to our school dances and visa versa. And I didn't know him.....
And then I got talking with a lovely english lady only to find she calls herself Swiss, and that she lives in Nyon with her husband and children. They're in Singapore for two more years.

There's the little girl from Z's jazz class in Plan-les-Ouates who has just moved to Singapore for 3 years, who we met at the school.

For the hat trick - we all know who C's employer is.... well, would you believe his brother is now living in Singapore (C has worked with him in Gva), and their daughter not only goes to the french school, but is in Z's class. We have a get together with them in two weeks time.
It's a very small world and you never know who you're going to bump in to..................

Hari Raya weekend

Boy -did we make some mistakes this weekend. Firstly, it was a 3 day weekend, with monday being celebrated for Hari Raya (signifies the end of Ramadam - the muslim fasting month). I did a bit of reading, and decided to go visit the Malay part of town to experience the festivites. We found it alright, along with the other 5 million inhabitants of the island.. it was hot, crowded and not really our scene. So, we decided to go back to explore Little India. I so love it here - it's very interesting with British and Indian architecture side by side. It's fun just to wander and get lost among the alleys and arcades. You can find everything from food sellers, to spice sellers, fortune tellers to henna tattoo artists. So wander we did for a couple of hours before meeting up with one of C's colleague's from work (who is here sans famille) at Newton Circus. Newton Circus is a giant hawker centre that's very popular with tourists and locals. The food is absolutely fabulous and so fresh.... predominately the stalls sell seafood, although you can get ANY type of food here you like. We ate garlic king prawns (these prawns were almost the size of a small lobster!) and had chilli mud crab (messy but SO delicious). Little Z hasn't acquired the taste of chilli crab yet, but likes the garlic prawns. She loves the satays and singapore noodles but she's starting to like chilli .... she tried her father's laksa the other day, and liked it.

Sunday

We slept in, then headed down to the harbourfront to think about going over to Sentosa island. From here, you can take the monorail over to Sentosa Island (a touristic place predominately for children with aquariums, pink humpback dolphin shows, rides and attractions). Again, I swear the other 5 million inhabitants decided to do the same thing. The place was SO crowded and we're really not good with crowds, so we came home and spent the afternoon lazing around the pool.

Monday

We've learned our lesson and decided to stay home for the day.

Future note to self: On public holidays either don't go out, or leave Singapore!

Our first visitor

Last thursday we had our first visitor - Stephane from Geneva. Stephane was arriving on wednesday morning, and leaving late thursday night - do you believe it! It was great seeing him and catching up. He caught a taxi here early evening, and we walked down to our local - a small hawker centre about 5oo metres away. We just LOVE the food there - as did Stephane. For $40 we ate like kings.. Stuffed chicken wings, spring rolls, crumbed calamari, red curry and dal makhari, chicken rice, rice and drinks. It was so good. We took a doggy bag home.

Now by chance, Stephane and C frequently find themselves travelling to the same overseas destination at the same time. To date, they have eaten in Geneva, New York and Singapore. As fate will have it, tonight both Stephane and C are going to be in Shanghai, and have made arrangements to again meet for dinner. Amazing huh.

Sunday at the Zoo

This has to be the best Zoo I've ever seen. What a fab day. We were there when the gates opened at 8.30am, and watched the animals eating their breakfast and saw the elephants taking a bath! We then headed to the central restaurant to enjoy a 'Jungle breakfast with wildlife'.. ie Orangutans, marmosets and a huge python. It was fantastic to see them so closely. Our breaky was pretty good too. The Zoo is beautifully laid out within the rainforest, on the edge of a large reservoir. We watched a few shows, then visited 'kidzworld' - the best kids waterpark to cool down, before seeing a few more animals. Z had a brilliant day. Her favourites were the orangutans, zebras, elephants, leopard.... quite a lot of the animals actually. About 3.30pm the heavens opened, as it tends to do in the tropics, so we decided to call it a day.We were hot and pooped. What a brilliant day. We'll be back to explore the rest of the zoo we missed.... and then there's the Night Safari to experience!

Now Me

Ok, the big C is happy in his work, and the little Z is settled... now me....
We've joined the AFS Association Francaise de Singapour - and I went along to the 'welcome' seminar. There must have been about 3oo people. We were addressed by the French Ambassador to Singapore, the French Consul, the head of Alliance Francaise, and the Head of the Lycee Francaise. The club is huge and there are obviously SO many french here. I've signed us (the family) up to a cultural walk through Chinatown and a visit to a local bakery to taste the famous mooncakes. Not sure the family's as excited about it as me...
The following day I went along to a coffee morning with mum's from the Lycee. There were about 40 parents there. I met some really interesting and nice people from Japan, France, Canada and Australia. It was fantasic to hear their stories on how they happened to be in Singapore and their connection to the Lycee. Really, really interesting. So - I'm getting out there!

THE activities

My first two weeks have been occupied with enrolling Z into after school activities. This is tough... firstly it's the FINDING then CHECKING and TRIALING.

We've had great success with signing Z up for 'Little Athletics'. It's run by the Aussie and NZ club and it's pretty amazing. It's on a friday evening for 2 hours. 2 weeks into the program and she's competing weekly (based on her age) 300 metres, 100 metres, hurdles, shotput, discus and long jump. While Z competes, I have been assigned to 'raking the triple jump pit' for the season. I'm really impressed with the organisation and Z loves it.

We're still in trialing mode with a music school for violin lessons, and a swim class.

Her school offers activities after school and on wed. and fri. afternoons, so Z's chosen Mini Tennis. We're waiting to hear if she gets in.

As a parent I'm finding it really difficult to balance the opportunity for Z to participate in great activities we can't easily do in France, and not overload the poor child... And Z wants to try it all!

First Day of School

How it works.

The school hours are 8.15am to 3.15pm Monday, Tuesday and Thursday and 8.15am to 12.15am Wednesday and Friday. It's compulsory for the children to eat lunch at school - at the canteen. A phenomenon particular to schools in Singapore is that children are taken to and from school (door to door!) by bus. It's fantastic. Z's picked up at 7.33am at the gate each morning, and arrives home at 4.10pm or 1.10pm, depending on the day.

Z's first day of school was Wednesday 3rd September. C was in Geneva, so Z and I caught a taxi to school. We arrived in plenty of time, and checked out the bulletin board for her details.

There are 7 classes of CE1 this year and Z is in CE1B with 23 classmates, and her teachers name is Sylvie. Her class is on the top floor of a 3 floor building. It was clean and modern and we were warmly welcomed by Sylvie. Z chose her desk (in the front row), sat down behind her desk and said goodbye to me. I wasn't ready to cut the strings, so hung around for another 5 minutes before I realised I'd better go...

Z decided that morning, she wanted to catch the school bus home, rather than me coming to pick her up from school on the first day. I was really proud of her making this decision. Her logic was that on day 1, she'd be new just like all the other kids finding their way.

At 1.12pm, on Wednesday Z came home on the bus. She was very happy. She liked her teacher, made a friend in Malaka (another new girl who was seated beside her in class) and was happy that I'd bought all the right things for class!