We pack it all in 24 hours....

- July 28, 2014

Our days are very strange in Singapore. Possibly because it is so small and possibly because there is so much going on and so much that can be done, time just seems to s-t-r-e-t-c-h... It's not like i am complaining. I like it when time stretches. Often i have too few hours in the day, so when the day just goes on and on and on, it is awesome. So the last 24 hours are a great example of what happened.... it all began in the Serangoon Gardens hawker centre...

Pe tan chok for breakfast at the market with Ma

The hawker centre is for some unknown reason,
a self return tray hawker centre which no one returns trays in.
I took this cos i think it shows that at least,
superficially, we do think about halal and non-halal.

Then...Ghin decides he wants to cycle after breakfast

So he cycles

At this point i have to say my sister's husband has this lovely cabin cruiser and since June she had been asking me to go to Nongsa, which is a marina in Batam Indonesia with them on their boat. We'll stay the night, it'll be a blast. Sure, i say. It'll be a blast.

She spent the next two months talking and reminding me about it. We are going to Nongsa this Hari Raya Weekend, etc... the passports, the room, the boat, the passports, the room the ferry... there was some drama about the ferr. My mom refused to go on the boat so she sad she would take the ferry actually she would have preferred not to go at all, but my dad wanted to go... so yeah...whatever...

The day finally arrives when we go to Nongsa, which is this day here i am featuring. We spend the best part of the day waiting to get collected for the boatrip....

Ghin can cycle really well...

The Tavistock Road Park

I have grown up with this park. I began running and jogging when i was 15 years old. I spent many many ours running in this park when it was just a field and some tarmac. I remember the Serangoon Sec students would come down to the park and do their 2.4 km... It was like this for many years. Just a tarmaced path and just men running at the park with some students being forced to do their 2.4 km. In those days it was very unusual to see people do any exercise at all. I was considered very odd by many people for running, swimming and cycling. Especially for a girl. I think my mom and dad put it down to hormones.

Then they redid the park and put in a playground and a much smaller running track. Those trees in the background i remember when they were saplings.... The park has since be redone at least three times and it is being redone again. See if i was redesigning the park, it would be completely biodiversity friendly. There would be non-rubberised playgrounds, but lots of equipment which is natural, that children climb, balance, explore on. There would be swings hanging from trees. There would be ponds with waterlillies and places they can wade in. Lots of plants to encourage insect eating insects. There would be poetry and art and places for people to listen to windchimes and make their own music. It would be a park for the soul. And it would have a proper running track.

Did i EVER think my sons would be playing in this park
when i was running around it as a 15 year old girl?

OK, so we get picked up by my sister... between the last picture and this one, there is a whole set of photos that are missing... the boat pictures. This is because i think, we have lots of opportunities to take pictures of the boat and us... especially in openner waters, cos a lot of the waters around Singapore are surrounded by supertankers and cargo vessels. I mean if you EVER want to know the meaning of small and vulnerable, you need to be a pleasure craft bobbing alongside a supertanker. I have to say that Singaporean boat owners are the equivalent of road warriors in the water. Travelling in the wake of these giants is no joke. Anyhow we are out of the harbour by 15 minutes when it is discovered that the starboard engine ain't feeling its best. So we turn back. My mom is at the ferry terminal waiting for us and so my sister calls her and says, guess what? Steph and the boys are joining you and we won't be going to Nongsa,... so from one end of Singapore, we tak the AYE and then ECP to Tanah Merah. And then we rush to get onto the ferry. That was done in a space of two hours. See i told you, time in Singapore is sorta weird and bendy.

We get collected at the ferry terminal

We wait to get checked in

Here is the poolside, which sort of made it all worth while

The boys

Getting ready for the swim

The view from the room... and the marina where we could see the boat, if it was there

The room was awesome i have to admit!

Slightly impractical all that glaa, but still, hey i'm not complaining!

Giant TVs

The pool from the room

Me with a well deserved glass of white wine

My drinking options are shrinking as i get older. I can only drink wine which is dreadful in most pubs in Ireland. I have discovered i cannot drink Chardonnay (which was all the hotel had) either which always tastes as if there is too much perfume in the water. I can't drink red wine which makes me become all strange and icky. So i think i am now down to two kinds of possible bottles of wine in the entire world.