Missing Teeth, Lanterns and Lightening

Well, after several weeks of progressively imcreasing wobbliness, Hannah's first tooth finally fell out. The Singaporean tooth fairy was suitably generous for a first tooth and Adam surprised us the following morning with monetary awareness by trying to work out if $3 was worth more or less than the 2 Euros he got for his first tooth (it fell out in Greece, so the Greek toothfairy paid in Euros, naturally). Fortunately, the value was similar enough that he was suitably pacified.

This was quickly followed a few days later by the second one, so now both bottom middle teeth are missing and the new ones are already on their way up.

Last Saturday night we headed off (slightly toothlessly in Hannah's case) to the Chinese Gardens to see the annual lantern display. We thought this would be a half hour walk around the gardens just after dark then back home, but it turned out to be a bigger event than we'd realised.

Not only were there numerous huge lantern displays, some traditional lifesize scenes, others more closely based around the Hello Kitty characters (being the sponsor for the event), but there were jugglers, acrobats and a gymnastic lady whose joints had no sense of decency about when to stop bending. The children were fascinated seeing it all so close, especially Hannah. There was Chinese Opera (another of those tastes I feel we're unlikely to acquire), Chinese dragons, a short firework display and a small fun fair.

The highlight for the children was the fun fair, where they climbed inside a huge clear plastic ball like a giant beach ball which was then zipped up and pumped full of air before being pushed onto an enormous padding pool with lots of others. By throwing themselves around inside, they manouvered it around the pool bumping into others and generally having a fantastic time. It was certainly an usual but popular form of entertainment.

And the lightening? Well, this morning we were woken early by heavy rain and rumbling thunder. As we got up, the rain got heavier still and, unusually, the monsoon drains flooded across the road as we found ourselves right in the heart of the thunderstorm.

Amazingly, in the space of about 5 minutes, we actually saw two buildings within 150m of us get struck by lighting. Seeing the forked lightening so close and the sparks flying off the lightening conductors was really quite exciting, but did nothing for our enthusiasm to go out in it to catch the school bus. Fortunately, the worst lightening was over 15 minutes later when it was time to leave.

Later, the rain slowed down, the flooding disappeared as if by magic and within half an hour of the rain stopping, the sun was out and the place drying up as if it had never happened. Unfortunately, we didn't quite catch a photo of the lightening.