A Chinese Wedding in Singapore

Some months ago, David bought home an envelope addressed to the family. I opened it and found a card that seemed to say HoHo HoHo on it. I asked what that was and he told me to turn it round. Ah, of course, now all was clear. It was something in Chinese writing. But what? It turned out to be an invitation to us all to the wedding of one of David's staff, Wyne, and his girlfriend Jan.


We'd known they were planning a wedding as they'd recently bought an apartment together. Here, if a couple get a place together, they can't live there out of wedlock indefinitely, but have to marry within 3 months. They had moved in and gone through an interesting set of rituals as Jan's mother is very traditional. No sooner had they cleaned the place from top to bottom that the mid autumn festival started and Jan's mother insisted they thrown rice all over the place amongst other rituals.

Finally the day of the wedding arrived. We had been invited to an evening event, a formal (and legal) ceremony with a dinner for about 200 guests. The children had been invited too, but after much deliberation, we decided not to take them as it was a Sunday night and wouldn't finish until after 10pm.

Wyne then invited us to the daytime events which he hoped the children would find fun and interesting, as they were missing out later.

This involved us arriving at Jan's parents house at 9am in the morning, when Wyne arrived with a group of close friends known as "the brothers". He arrived at the bride's parent's house to collect the bride but, as is the custom here, he has to prove himself to get in through the door. This involved performing a number of tasks set by Jan's close friends "the sisters".

On arrival, he offered a large and decorated red envelope (ang pow) of money to the bride's mother. This was taken in, then returned "not enough". Oranges were offered and then the sisters set various tasks that included drinking a cup of vinegar. This was all conducted with much hilarity and increased Ang Pow offerings and finally, after about 20 or 30 minutes he got into the house.


However, this was not the end as further tasks awaited him inside. These included eating a chili sandwich and some other offerings that didn't look too tasty, then he was given a test on Jan. Questions included asking her home phone number (which he failed miserably as he always calls her mobile) and then he was asked her favourite bra colour. He innocently claimed he wouldn't yet know that but one of the brothers said "bra colour? I think we need to discuss" and they went into a giggling huddle. Finally, he had to make a 15 word sentence that told Jan why he wanted to marry her. However, he then had to find the first letter of each word and place them in order - the letters were tiny macaroni letters and I think a number had been removed to make the task harder still! With "assistance" and ideas from the brothers, they finally put something together and after ascertaining which closed door Jan was behind, he said his sentence and the door was eventually opened.

Once they were united, everyone got in their cars and drove off to Wyne's place (30 minutes away) for a tea ceremony there, hosted by his parents. There were photos taken and as we had the only children there (this was a smaller event with about 30 people rather than 200), they were asked to sit on the bed. Apparently this helps with fertility. Adam was then asked to jump up and down and roll about on the bed which he duly did and was photographed - this is to assist the production of a son for them. Unfortunately, Hannah refused to do this solo for the photographer, so having a girl may now be harder for them!



Next was a traditional tea ceremony where the younger generation show respect to various members of the older generation and kneel down and pass them tea to drink. After this Jan changed out of her white dress and into a traditional red and gold chinese style dress. There was a small buffet and then it was all back in the cars and back to Jan's parents place for her family's tea ceremony and another buffet. The whole thing was over by about 2pm and various friends and family had kindly explained the proceedings to us, and expressed surprise that our traditions were so different. At this point, with the traditions done, Wyne and Jan were considered married, however they still needed to do the legal ceremony later.

That evening, we headed back to a far flung country club which turned out to be the wedding capital of Singapore. Numerous function rooms were hosting weddings and we finally found the right function room. We were checked off on the list and we put our wedding gift (an ang pow) into the box and were then let in and given a drink. David found the menu and read it out to me. I thought he was winding me up with some of it, except that I didn't think he would come up with "Braised Sea Cucumber with Fish Maw" or "Marinated Jelly Fish" etc.

We went to admire a spectacular wedding cake only to find it was cardboard. The tradition has come here and they even posed as if cutting it, but they are not big cake eaters, so they don't go to the trouble of a real one!


With everybody sitting down, the bride and groom finally came in and the legal ceremony was conducted, not dissimilar to a short registry office do (although instead of "I do" they both said "yes" which somehow sounded rather odd!).


After, the room was plunged into darkness and then loud, dramatic music began. The waiting staff came in with platters and as they walked to each table, lights lit up the way ahead. Finally all the staff and starters had arrived and the lights were back on. We could see again and the food was placed on a lazy susan on the table. It was, certainly beautifully presented, but below I've put in a photo of the menu. Just double click to enlarge it.



All I can say is that whilst some dishes were very nice, like the chicken. Jelly fish is akin to rubber bands and in an attempt to show willing, we both tried things that wouldn't normally be our first choice, and will probably never eat again! I'm so glad the pudding had ice-cream with it though, as I'm not sure I'd have managed much of that without.

Once the meal was finished, Wyne and Jan visited every table for photos and, in Wyne's case, some dubious offerings of drinks, and there were some toasts. The toast is "Yam Sing". Everyone starts a long, drawn out Yam then, suddenly, after 2 or 3 minutes, as if by some magic timing, there is a short Sing and glasses are drained. It went something like "Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa....Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaa....Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaam Sing" and it sort of translates to bottoms up and after a few of these and yet another outfit for Jan, the wedding was over. The bride, groom and parents all made a reception line and greeted everyone on the way out and we filed out with the other guests.


We'd been at a table with the other office staff who had explained various points and been astonished at the differences we found to British weddings. These became apparent when we had no idea was to expect or what was going on at times. However, as the venue was so large, one guest at our table had gone to the wrong function room. She'd been photographed arriving and only when her name wasn't on the guest list as she waited to put her ang pow in the box, did it become apparent that she was at the wrong wedding! At least we didn't make that mistake!



It's certainly an event we won't forget in a hurry and it's always interesting, if slightly daunting at times, to get the opportunity to attend a local traditional event, so we are grateful to Wyne and Jan for inviting us and including us in their day.


This is a photo of the first of the Tea Ceremonies with Wyne, Jan and Wyne's parents.

Made in Taiwan

I think the title of of this entry is how most of us think about Taiwan. However, when I asked David if he had any overdue business trips that we could do in the October half term, he said Taiwan was top of his list.

Like Phuket, it had never been on my original list of must see destinations, but whilst in Borders, I browsed through a couple of travel books and was very surprised to see that it clearly had fabulous scenery and a good few places worth visiting. The more I read, the more interesting it became, so we booked our flights. A Taiwanese friend of Adam's at school was dispatched by his mother with a bunch of tourist brochures and information, so after lots of reading, we planned to spend our week there dividing our time between Taipei and an area of outstanding natural beauty on the east coast, The Taroko Gorge, where we planned to do some walking.

It was hard to know how to pack. David always remembered being hot there and the BBC weather forcast was showing temperatures much hotter than here. But shortly before we were due to go, a Super Typhoon that wreaked havoc in the Philippines parked itself in the sea between the two countries. We waited - should we go, or was it going to arrive in Taiwan when we did? It slowly downgraded itself to a tropical deperssion but didn't move much, so off we went.

The night before we left, David lost his mobile phone, so the first morning was spent trying to buy a local SIM card, so he could contact the office and clients. As the children hadn't learnt useful Mandarin sentences about mobile phones at school, this proved quite challenging - especially as we're not residents. We also found, on arrival, that I'd managed to forget to pack any pants or socks for Hannah. We did manage to do some sight seeing the first day, but spent much of it shopping. There's nothing like trying to find stuff in a city you don't know, when you don't speak the language. Hannah ended up with a couple of pairs of very expensive, designer pants and socks as, on day one, that was all we could find for kids.

We then headed off to the tourist information office at the main station to get train times and book our tickets to the Gorge. On arrival, the staff told us that the typhoon was causing torrential rain on that coast and that many trails in the gorge were closed to due land or mud slides or the risk of them. This didn't sound ideal hiking conditions, after some thought, we abandoned that plan. The TI staff kindly offer to call the hotel I'd already booked and cancel on our behalf. They even negotiated a discount on the cancellation fee for us!

Armed with yet more leaflets and our guide book, we then spent time trying to sort out an alternative destination for those 2 to 3 days. It felt like a return to our back-packing days, but we soon concluded that most places of interest that weren't in the east, would take several hours to get to and from and that there was more than enough in and around Taipei to keep us busy and give us a good variety. Adam was devastated as it meant we didn't go on the train, but when we saw reports of landslides in the local (English language) paper the following morning we felt we'd made the right decision.

The next day, the weather was still cool and mostly wet so we spent another morning shopping for warmer clothes for all of us. Sometimes nice items were made less appealing by oddly translated phrases on them, such as "Pink Poke" or, on a children's top "JUNIOR COWer"??? We also found, at a night market, a selection of cheaper pants and socks to add to Hannah's collection, although she hated the style of the pants has stated quite categorically that she will never, ever wear them again, because they look like boxer shorts!

We visited temples, night markets, museums, a former gold mining and now scenic tourist area, an area of hot springs and paddled in a river that was like a hot bath. The kids enjoyed several visits to a restaurant near the hotel where you choose your food and cook it in a pot of soup on your table. We caught an old, local branch line train (the Pingxi line) along a lovely wooded gorge and visited some waterfalls. As is a tradition in these particular villages, we set off a lantern after first writing our wishes on it. See the video clip of this event.

Sometimes, the highlights weren't what we expected - in a Ceramics museum in a town outside Taipei, the children joined in a children's ceramics workshop and made bowls - the whole thing was conducted in Mandarin and although they didn't understand anything much, it didn't stop them having fun! We went to the Science Centre, a great place for children, but arrived after the ticket desk closed due to a mistake in our guide book. A member of staff kindly let us in for free and took us to some of the best bits and we had the exhibitions (all very hands on) to ourselves!

Whilst we tried to negotiate our way to the scenic Pingxi branch line (using 2 trains to get there), a platform attendant, in answer to us asking him if he spoke English, told us "no English, but sing" then, much to our surprise he launched into a loud rendition of a song in English. We (and a few nearby Taiwanese) applauded at the end, as we felt we should, whereupon he then started on Swing Low, Sweet Charriot! Fortunately, at this point, the train arrived and some kindly locals ensured we didn't miss it.

Finally, right at the end of the week, the weather improved and the clouds cleared and we finally made it up Taipei 101. At the time of writing, it is still the tallest building in the world.

Here it is, towering above Taipei at dusk.

Our memories of Taipei will be mixed between the wonderful people - surely some of the most friendly and delightful anywhere - and the impressive temples and stunning scenery. While other memories will be of the everyday architecture - the buildings that the vast majority of people live in. Here the architecture goes seriously downhill in design, if not, apparently, in price! Grey, functional and unloved, rather like many of China's less appealing buldings put up in the communist era.

And the food - not all of it was to our taste, but we had many good meals there, but so often whilst walking around, there would be an overwhelming stench of something from the street stalls that smelt very seriously off. We discovered this was known as "stinky tofu". I have no idea what is done to it, but it could be seen boiling in some noxious, dark liquid - the idea that anybody could bring themselves to eat it defies belief, but presumably people do. To anyone who has smelt the durian fruit in Asia and likened it to bad drains etc, stinky tofu makes durian smell positively delicious!

A feeling of de-ja vu....

Just how fast can a year go by?


In September, as I walked to our local "wet market" through the local housing estate, the offerings of food were out again to appease the hungry ghosts, along with the incense sticks. Along with the offerings were old oil drums placed where people could use them to burn the special "paper money" for their ancestors in Heaven and Hell. This is so they can pay their fines in Hell for their wrong doings in life and get to Heaven, or simply to have funds in Heaven. It seems that even in Heaven, there is no such things as a free lunch.




I can't believe it was a year ago that we witnessed this all for the first time and went to the annual lantern display at the Chinese Gardens. For the lantern festival, our condo again had a party. As last year, they held, amongst other things, a national costume competition for the children.



Hannah had wanted to join in last year but, being British, we don't really have a national costume (and we don't even have a kilt here to pretend to be Scottish). But then we had a brainwave - there was nothing in the rules that stated you had to wear your own national costume and Hannah has a lovely flamenco dress we bought on our last visit to Spain.




So that was it - we changed nationality for the night and Hannah put on her dress and we pinned her hair into a bun and put a flower in it too. She looked very pretty, but did have some tough competition from lovely kimonos, chinese dresses and a couple of very pretty Indian costumes. Each child paraded one by one down a ramp by the pool (a sort of catwalk). She didn't win but many people complimented her outfit. Here she is by the pool with her lantern.




All the children were given prizes though - and those (mostly under 10) who were in the national costume got a soft toy desktop mobile phone holder. Just what ever 7 year old needs! However, we found a use for it and it now holds her aircon remote control for her bedroom.



Another year and another UN Day at school too. The lack of an English national costume reared its head again, so it was necessary to find a theme. This year, the parents who kindly organised the England kids came up with the theme of the British seaside. The children were asked to dress in shorts and T-shirts or swim stuff with a as much red and white as possible, to go with the St Georges flags they would all be carrying.



At our condo, waiting for the school bus, our two looked very undressed as the two Japanese girls were in gorgeous kimonos and the young Indian twins were in very colourful punjabi suits. The other family who are British Indian had decided to be Indian as well this year rather than English, so again, they looked much more dressed up. But when the parade started, the English group looked very colourful and, fortunately, far better than we'd anticipated.




Then it was the whirl around the classrooms visiting as many "countries" as possible and tasting lots of traditional foods followed by the concert. This year, there were some chairs for adults and I was pretty pleased to have gone into the hall early enough to ensure I had one. This was a huge improvement on last year during which the concert was lovely but we all had very numb bums from sitting on the floor for so long by the end of it.



I can't believe that our original plan had us returning to the UK around now. It's gone by in a flash and we're far from ready to leave. Somehow, I have a feeling that before we know it, we'll be doing all this again and that feeling of de-ja vu will return in no time.

"I went somewhere really unusual today......"

There's something about Singapore that means we are frequently going to places that we can only describe as odd or usual. Whether it be the strange market/shopping centre set in the old grandstand at the former (horse) race course, Turf City, where the children do a number of classes, or the strange restaurant and furniture shop mix in the old army barracks amongst the trees at Dempsey, there's always somewhere or something different here.



At the end of August, whilst we were out shopping for all the new uniform and stationery bits that the children needed for school, we also had a shopping list of dance shoes and items from Hannah's new dance school where she does a ballet, jazz and tap class. So we headed off for a shopping centre called Golden Landmark, which was on my list of suggested places from the dance school.



It was located just by Singapore's biggest mosque and next to some roads of lovely old "shophouses" (traditional terraced houses). I found the entrance to the carpark and noted as we drove down the ramp that the sign told me the the lower level was full. It was small and quite cramped so I followed signs to "more parking". We found ourselves in a queue wondering what the delay was for the 20 or so spaces it said were free. Then Adam saw a sign which said Car Lift.



"No," I said "it can't be a lift for cars, it's one of those Singlish expressions that sounds odd to us".



But this is Singapore, where there is always something different and it was a car lift. As we moved forward one car at a time, we realised we were in the queue for it. When our turn came, we drove up to a post and I pressed a button. The lift came down and a large garage style door rolled up. Amongst much excitement in the car, we drove in and I then wound down the window and pressed the up button. The door came down and up we went, from the basement to the 4th floor where we were able to find a parking space.



Inside the shopping centre had a masses of tiny premises that seemed to be a miriad of tailors, recruitment consultants and travel agents offering trips to Mecca. However, at the centre was the most magnificently over the top art deco lift which served the shopping floors and then went up the lobby of a hotel above. We finally found our shop and got the clothes and shoes before the excitement of going back down in the car lift.


Well, the children are well into their first term of this school year and here they are in the new uniform. Adam is now in his final year of juniors and they wear the senior uniform (don't know why) and he is back in long trousers on a regular basis for the first time since we arrived. Hannah is in the junior uniform (almost the same but the dresses don't have pleats).





With everyone back at school, Hannah finally had her birthday party as she wanted to share it with a friend who was 8 this month. They went to "Build a Bear". This is a shop where the children pick a teddy and with lots of games and fun, then get it stuffed, put hearts in, name it (and get a birth certificate) and then choose an outfit. We (the mums) set a strict budget and then the staff did a wonderful entertaining job for the next hour or so. It was then off for a pizza and birthday cake and lots of little girls and one boy went home with a new teddy.

All in all, it seemed to be a big success and here they are having fun.



Afterwards, we took a stroll round the shopping centre and found yet another of those strange things. It was a shop called "Baby Swim Contest" or something similar and in the window were a row of overgrown sinks. Parents took in their babies and undressed them while the sinks were filled with water. When all the babies were ready and the sinks full, each baby had a rubber ring put round its neck (it had a sort of flap to hold it comfortably in place) and then, all at the same time as each other, the babies were all put in the sinks.



The babies waggled their arms and legs, looking happy, meanwhile a lady then wondered along with a clipboard, noting goodness only knows what, while a large crowd gathered outside looking through the windows saying"ahh, so cute!". As this is a difficult thing to describe, we've done our best to take a picture of the babies in the sinks.




So, could this be a new business venture for somebody? I can see it now on Dragons Den!!!

Kissing Elephants

After our whirlwind tour of the UK, we arrived back and battled another bout of jetlag. Personally, I always find it much harder coming this way as I'm not a morning person at the best of times, but when the body clock is adrift 7 hours in the wrong direction, doing anything before lunch is a major challenge.





The following week the children were booked into a morning tennis camp each day which started at 9am, so that soon had us back in the time zone. They both had fun and I had a chance to get out and buy birthday presents for them without them tagging along. I also had my first trip into a Singaporean hospital for a minor, in and out in one day, thing. Admission was the trickiest bit - I don't know why it didn't occur to me to take my passport with me to hospital.......



The following week, there was a long weekend here courtesy of a public holiday for National Day. Here, public holidays happen on whatever day is the appropiate date so they don't always make a weekend longer as they can be any old day of the week, therefore we thought we'd make the most of this one. David has also been working extremely hard and very long hours, so we thought he needed a little rest.



We'd been told that a group of resorts called "Laguna" in Phuket was great for families, with kids clubs, spas and lots of restaurants etc. I'd managed to get a particularly good deal as August is low season there, in other words, the monsoon season.



It turned out to be a group of resorts along a 3km stretch of beach. The glitziest and most expensive resorts are right on the beach with others behind (were were further back overlooking a golf course). There are shuttle buses that run between them and even a shuttle ferry that plies the lagoons, so Adam was in transport heaven.



As it turned out, it was all so convenient that we didn't actually leave the resort for several days. Then David got itchy feet and felt the need to escape. That evening, we headed for the entrance and the bunch of restaurants, bars, shops and estate agents that lined the road outside. We chose a restaurant that looked busy and promptly had a lousy meal. Ok, so maybe promptly was the wrong word.



It took ages for the food to arrive and of our 5 dishes ordered, 3 were wrong. Hannah was asleep by the time her food arrived and when it did finally get to us, in dribs and drabs, it wasn't very tasty. However, the owner was profoundly apologetic, explained that it was their opening night and offered us a free ride home in the restaurant's minibus. I can't help but wonder if they're still in business.




Early in the stay we had some very unsettled weather and rain - well it was the monsoon season. This is Adam and David on the beach in the wind. As you can see, the waves are huge and the red flags are all up and I don't think they came down once during the whole 5 days!



For me, having lived in the tropics for about 1½ years now and being fully aware that cloud cover doesn't mean no suncream as the rays still get through, I didn't expect to get caught out. However, I actually got sunburnt walking on the beach when this picture was taken. and that's a first, getting sunburnt when there's rain in the air.




Despite the weather, the children had heaps of fun in the hotel pool and on the waterslide inbetween the showers along with some fun activities in the kids club giving us time to visit the spa. We also ate around at the various hotels in the group and at one, each afternoon a couple of young elephants wandered through the gardens with their handlers. People could stroke and pat them and so the children went up. The handler told one of them to kiss Adam. This involved the elephant putting its trunk around his neck, and then blowing whatever comes out of elephant trunks (elephant snot?) on his cheek. It's all very tickly and a little wet and smelly (I know, I've been kissed). Unfortunately, as the elephant put it's trunk on Adam's face he chose that moment to turn to us and tell us how tickly it was. This was a bad move as the elephant "kissed" him when his mouth was open.

Apart from kissing elephants, Adam also got a chance to try scuba diving in the pool, which he really enjoyed. Not many fish but still a great experience for him. Here he is waving to us.

At the end of our stay the weather improved and we took a day trip by speedboat to various places. This was a great last day and we went snorkelling in one place and were taken by canoe into various caves and mangroves around the limestone karst formations in that area. The scenery was spectacular and we finished at the "James Bond" island, from "Man with the Golden Gun". For anyone who, like me, can't distinguish one film from another by title, it had Roger Moore in and the island was a tall pointy, limestone thing sticking out of the sea.

By the time we got back home it was nearly Hannah's birthday. Adam also had a birthday bowling trip with 4 friends (it would have been more but some were away). It was slightly sad as 3 were leaving to return to the UK and the other is changing schools this term, but they all had fun and no tears. However, Adam chose a hazelnut birthday cake which we took along in a cool bag, first to the bowling centre and then the restaurant. The boys all took one look at the nuts and declined to have a slice, so we ended up taking the whole thing home with us again!




As the day before was Hannah's birthday, we had two cakes to eat that weekend. It was so tough! Here she is blowing out her candles. A few days later we went for high tea at the Marriott and had interesting slightly odd food selection. Lots of cakes as expected, but instead of cucumber sandwiches and scones, there were laksa curries and chickens feet. Yum.



Before we knew it, with a few more day trips and playdates, our 8 weeks were almost over and it was time to stock on up school uniforms and stationery. Now they're back at school and I can't believe it's September. Where does the time go? I'm sure Christmas will be along in just a week or so.

Catching Up

I know it's been ages since I last posted and as I was finally adding pictures into the Year of the Ox entry, I realised that I had never done an update on The Spring Soiree, which was back in March.

All junior and senior children in the school were invited to audition to take place in the annual concert, the Spring Soiree, and a small number of the Year 2 infants auditioned too. Much to our surprise, both Adam and Hannah decided to audition to sing a solo and, having seen Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat in London last December, they both chose songs from that.

Auditions were done and they were both told to practice at home. They learnt the words and practiced and finally, the big day arrived. To be honest, we never imaged that Hannah would actually have the courage to sing a solo in front of so many parents and children and even as she stood on the stage with the music teacher playing the introduction on the piano, we waited with baited breath to see if she would actually go through with it. She did, and what's more she later accompanied Adam in the harmonies to his song and we breathed a sigh of relief when they had both finished. Hannah was the youngest performer in the whole concert too.

Well, since then, our car had it's 3rd birthday in May. This was celebrated by the need for a new tax disc and its first safety inspection, much like an MOT. Needless to say,the system here is different which caused some confusion in trying to make arrangements. Finally, it became apparent that here the test is performed in a goverment testing centre, rather than the garage I'd been trying to book it into, so I drove off to our nearest centre. I drove in and paid cash for the test. I was given a bottle of water to drink and told to sit at the far end. The car was driven down a track, inspected over a pit, the wheels rolled on rollers, things checked and turned on and off and after about 10 minutes it arrived at the other end. I was told it had passed, given a print out of a certificate from a huge printer at the end of the track and that was it. Done. Quite impressive, less than 15 minutes from arrival to departure and nice that the mechanics doing the test have no vested interest in finding faults to repair!

This was all done in time for a long weekend over a public holiday when we drove into Malaysia and up to Melacca for the weekend. Driving in Malaysia stopped me complaining about drivers here for 4 whole weeks after we returned. It definitely comes under the heading "an experience".

Our first interesting encounter was as we drove through a toll booth and onto a 3 lane highway. The first thing we saw was a man strolling down the fast lane with a strimmer, cutting the grass down the centre. No warnings signs, no cones, no lights, he wasn't even wearing a brightly coloured jacket! Not a job I'd choose to do. We then encountered Malaysian lane discipline. It would appear that the speed limited of 110kph is treated my most drivers as a minimum speed limit and all lanes are available for overtaking - including the hard shoulder (that was a surprise, I can say). As for the idea of leaving a gap between cars - forget it. If you try and leave gap, somebody (or half a dozen people) just fill it, usually by weaving madly in and out of the traffic at break neck speed.

We finally arrived in Melacca and, as it's an old, small town and our hotel was tall, modern and in the centre, we hadn't invested in a map as, according to David's colleagues at work - "you can't get lost". We soon proved that wrong and found ourselves on the wrong side of a larger town than we expected. We tried to follow signs and and asked directions as we trailed slowly across the old centre which was never designed for large numbers of cars, eventually arriving at the hotel much later than expected.

Once there, we had an enjoyable couple of days although exploring the old China Town area was hardwork due to the lack of pavements and excess of traffic and large monsoon drains. Somehow it seemed even hotter than Singapore, but we managed to get to the main places of interest including a tour in a lovely cycle rickshaw. As you can see, we put Adam work!

At least the return journey saw lighter traffic and we didn't get lost. Nor did we have a queue at the border crossing this time (outbound saw us queueing for 1½ hours to get into Malaysia), and all in all, this took about 3 hours off the journey time!

Somehow, the rest of last term seemed to whizz by. David has been very busy work but has been getting out to play tennis with an expat group most weeks. He's also started playing with the British Club as we've recently joined it. This was something we'd been discussing so we visited the club on its open day. They were doing a prize draw of a years membership and, to resolve our should we, shouldn't we join dilemna, we won the prize!!! We have since attended the new members cocktail evening and then won a prize for two adults to have a free Sunday Champagne Brunch. If they check their records, I fear that we may be banned from entering any other draws.

Other than that, we seem to have filled our time with a whole range of things. Adam was in the school's annual musical production, along with the other juniors and seniors which this year was Mary Poppins. There were school trips and parents evenings and I played tennis matches and trained with the team I'm a member of in a league here. There was also a trip to the UK for myself and the children to plan, book and organise.

Once term ended, after a few days the children and I headed for the UK and spent two weeks catching up with family and some friends. Unfortunately, the heatwave we'd seen whilst watching Wimbledon ended the day before we arrived. But the children saw many of their old school friends and relatives and I caught up with a few friends too. After a slow crawl round the M25 at rush hour with road works, followed by 1½ hours up the M1, I found British driving so considerate and good. Now what does that tell you about driving in Malaysia?

And - big news.......Adam is now 10! It was his birthday just after we got back and here he is blowing out the candles on his cake.

Something nasty in the washing machine!!!

I've referred, in other posts, to many of the pleasures of living in the tropics - the beaches, hot weather, great holiday destinations, the cultural experiences etc., but I haven't mentioned one of the more dubious pleasures - the creepy crawlies.



The thing about tropical creepy crawlies is that they are, for the most part, enormous. We don't always know if something huge, that has just flown in, stings, bites or is harmless and then, of course, there are ...... the cockroaches. Tropical sized, naturally.



Obviously, we see them around, they're part of living here. They will frequently do their best to off-set the pleasures of a lovely holiday by taking up residence in the entrance to our bin shoot whilst we are away, whilst things are quiet in there. If we go away for more than a few days, it's normal to open the bin shoot and find a large, browny black one lurking on the other side of the door in a sort of "yeah, what you looking at?" kind of pose. Usually a few slams of the door and some spray will, these days, deter them, but we did once have a very persistent on that took a good couple of weeks to get rid of. On that occasion, I waged full scale war, regularly creeping up to the shoot, armed with a tin of spray, ready to launch another attack. Sorry, no pictures of that!



We see them sometimes around outside, in the car park, on the tennis court, near the bins or foodcourts etc. They happen and, by Asian standards, whilst they're big here, we see far fewer than in many other countries in the region.


However, image my horror when I returned from the hairdressers this morning, having left a load washing, to find a large dead one lying upside down inside the washing machine at the bottom of the door, in full view through the glass. It had to be removed - by me, and that was a whole lot less pleasant than just seeing one scuttling by.



The question is, how did it get there. Was it lurking in the folds of the sofa throws that I'd just bundled in and, only a few minutes before, had been sitting on? Was it hiding amongst the laundry piled in the basket that I had just picked up and pushed in? Had it flown into the machine whilst it was empty and been sitting in there when I'd been stuffing the laundry inside? (Things do fly in as the window of our utility area because, as is typical here, it has no glass, so is open to the elements and insects).



Ummm. I think maybe it's best not to dwell on this too much, and hope I don't get the pleasure of removing too many more..... strangely, the fact that it was big is a probably a good thing, as it is more likely that it did just fly in to the machine or laundry basket. Apparently, the ones to watch are the babies - that can mean a nest and well, we really don't want to go there!!!