Skip to main content

Back again



Well, it seems that it's been a month since I last wrote anything. I guess I've been busy. This month I've gone to working part time after a bit of a battle with the school I work with. It works much better for me to have some of my own time, I'm not quite fully a lady of leisure - but almost.




KL and the Cameron highlands
We've just come back from a weekend in Kuala Lumpur and the Cameron Highlands with our friends Gary and Paul from the UK. A good weekend was had by all. The Cameron highlands is a cool mountainous area three and a half hours north of Kuala Lumpur. It still has lots of buildings from the colonial era, including the wonderfully named 'Ye olde smokehouse' restaurant, which is about as authentic a British pub/restaurant as you will find anywhere in the world!

We busied ourselves touring tea plantations, supping local tea, eating local strawberries and eating roast beef. The weather was cool and everything was distinctly British. Very quaint.

It was great seeing Gaz and Paul again, and it's lovely having the space to have friends to stay here now. They're off to watch the glorious England play in the Ashes in Oz, what a great trip!






Photos - Top: Paul at a tea plantation Middle: Tea grwoing area Botton: Gaz and Paul looking at Petronas towers

My ants nest
Now, you might remember me waxing lyrical about the local weaver ants nest. A couple of weeks ago I was most upset when I noticed that the hedge had been trimmed and the ants nest destroyed. It added to an already bad day! Although I guess it was worse for the few lonely ants huddled under a stray leaf in the pouring rain...


Christmas festivities
Christmas is well under way in Singapore, the decorations have been up for well over a month, the fake snow (foam) is blowing every evening at the local mall, Christmas carols are blaring out of every shop, and the local (Christian-owned) department store has ironically misquoted scripture in 3 foot high letters on the front of their store. Welcome to Christmas in Singapore. I'll try and take some photos soon.


Photo - Top:Chris, Priya, Suwen and Satoko at our Christmas party Below: Our Christmas tree - tiny!



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Buses, bats, bites and other bits

I know I've been writing a lot about Singapore recently, but I guess that's what happens when you've lived in a new culture for a while. I've become very aware of what's around me. I get the bus to and from work every day. It costs around 15p and is fully air-conditione d. Most of the time I get a seat, it's brilliant. Today was a special day - I boarded a bus that was driven by the world's most friendly bus driver. He greeted each passenger and said good bye to everyone who got off. Sadly I was the only person to notice of the 40-50 passengers that recieved this star treatment during my journey. So I gave him a big grin and a wave as I got off the bus. I love how something like that can add an extra smile to your day. I'm currently learning Mandarin (week 2 of a 10 week course). Last week I was convinced that the whole language is a conspiracy to confuse westerners. Today, however, I am thoroughly enjoying the challenge of learning such a dramatically d
Post a Comment
Read more

Friends

I know, I know, it's been a while since I wrote, but life has got very busy recently. We currently have our friend Al French staying with us, he's moving to Hong Kong for a year and he's on a work trip here right now. It's great to see him again, and as always with good friends, it's as if we just saw him last week (in reality the last time we saw him was at our wedding last year). Anyway, as I said, we have been busy. What with Mandarin, Alpha, work and a trip to Malacca I don't seem to have had a free moment in the last three weeks. Malacca was great, it was good to leave Singapore for the weekend. The only downer was returning home to find that our debit card had been skimmed and we'd had money stolen...oh well, it looks like we'll get it back. Malacca had awesome food and it was a fun city to spend a couple of days in. This week I had an interesting experience, I was invited by my friend ZeNee to go to the final results show of Singapore Idol (the
Post a Comment
Read more

Pregnancy and stuff

How is it that my stomach, once almost a taboo subject, has become public property overnight? Often people's first reaction when they find out I'm pregnant is to stroke or pat my (already expanding) tummy! I guess I'll get used to that over the next few months. Here are the scans we have so far. Photos- Top: Scan at 6 weeks Middle: Scan at 8 weeks Bottom: Scan at 12 weeks Weather It's started to warm up and dry up here again after the monsoon. It's lovely to be able to eat breakfast on the balcony in the sun again. The hoards of ants are back, any morsel left untended is soon found and turns black with the tiny creatures. Wedding We went to a wonderful wedding at the Conrad Centennial hotel on Thursday evening. Two of our freinds from church got hitched after 13 years of on-off dating. It was a touching ceremony (during which, to our surprise, the champagne flowed freely). The meal was great - traditional Chinese wedding fayre - jellyfish, prawns, shark's fin so
1 comment
Read more