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.