Living in Singapore

We've been busy the last couple weeks. Mostly just doing day-to-day living, but we have had some fun weekend activities. On the day to day front, Kahlil's school is going well. His class went to the Zoo and to a play (The Gingerbread Man) - he had fun at both. He had a school picture taken it was his typical Calvin-esque photo. Never ask that kid to smile if you want a good picture of him.

Langston has a couple weeks behind him at Superland pre-school. He is still not happy when he leaves in the morning, but he always has fun when he is there. Langston just takes a while to get use to something and he's getting there with Superland. One of his classmates, Elizabeth, lives in our building too. They get picked up and dropped off together on the school bus. This week I'm going to pickup a couple school t-shirt for Langston and he will be fully integrated!

We spent the day with the Abadilla family last weekend. They are another Corvallis family who just moved to Singapore in January and will be here for about two years. Audry and Theo are a bit older than Kahlil and Langston, but he kids had a GREAT time together at the pool, playing with Legos etc. While we were there Glory and Tom were talking about their spring break plans and I just smiled and nodded my head, not thinking about OUR spring break. (More on this later.) Here are the two families at the Newton Hawker Center (Audry is hiding behind Theo).


The day after the Abidilla's we went to Kahlil's schools Fun Fair. Every class / grade had some sort of booth for fund raising - water balloon toss, bake sale, temporary tattoos, etc. It really made me feel like we were a part of a community in a way that we never were during our time in Ireland.

This past weekend our apartment gave us tickets to see the Gazillion Bubbles show. It was cheesy and fun. There were some cool bubble tricks - smoke in bubbles, reaching inside larger bubbles and pulling out smaller bubbles. Bubbles rained down on us... Jay's hair was a bit of a bubble catcher. And there was a cool laser show at the end. If the show comes to your town, I recommend taking the kids.

On Sunday we went to the Jurong Bird Park. WAY cool! Jay, Kahlil, and my favorite thing was the Lory Loft - it is one of several huge walk-in aviaries. What made the Lory Loft special was that you got to by cups of nectar that the birds would then come eat out of your hand. Kahlil liked it so much he went back for a second cup. Langston preferred the exhibits where you just looked at the birds like the Scarlet Ibis and the pelicans.

Kahlil attended both birthday parties he was invited to... I'll have to do a post on those later.

It hit me two days after the Abadilla visit that Kahlil has spring break too... so I looked it up. It started in a week and it was a two week break! Rookie move! Guess this is training for when we are full time, school-aged kid parents. We quickly put together a trip to Phuket in Thailand for the second week. The first week of spring break is now and we are just kicking around Singapore.

A couple more lovely family photos from the Bird Park:

Your Average $12 Bouquet

A couple random observances on Singapore...

First off, for a country that is nearly on the equator, I expected more people to wear sunglasses. But I have found that most of the people who don eye protection are from the paler side of the skin spectrum and, I assume, not originally from these parts. I guess if you are raised in a country where there is sunshine 365 days a year, your eyes don't mind the shiny fireball in the sky. Us Oregon mushrooms need a little shade.

Second, it is like a game of umbrella quick draw when there is the slightest drizzle of rain. Granted a drizzle can quickly become, what Jay and I have started calling, "Wrath of God Rain". But it is still quite entertaining to see the number, size, and quickness with which the umbrellas emerge. And to be honest, I'm not sure where the umbrellas are stored during sunny weather because I don't usually see people toting them around. Maybe they have 007 umbrellas that fold to the size of a watch or something and when needed they pop up to be the Costco-family size monstrosities I see around.


And finally I want to say goodbye to Bubba. He passed away suddenly this week. We don't know for sure what happened, but it must have been quick. Sunday night Bubba meet Larry and Clairmonde for dinner as usual. When they came over Monday morning he did not show up. As Bubba likes he food, this was rather unusual. After a search Larry found Bubba's body in the green space behind our house.

We were so luck to have Bubba be a part of our lives for 15 years. I still remember the day they pulled the hefty kitten out of the box at the Human Society and he immediately grabbed onto my shoulder. We were there looking for a kitten that had run away from our house. This was not that kitten, but we knew immediately he was 'our' kitten. Bubba came home with us that day.

In his younger days he was a bit stubborn and, despite his size, was quite athletic. His given name was Kepler, but he outgrew that name and became Bubba. He didn't always have the best personal hygiene. He had beautiful green eyes which were impossible to capture on film. He was terrified of balls... we don't know why. He was little brother to Copernicus and Curie. He was big brother to Ray, Egon, and Venkman. In his later days he spent a lot of time sleeping, often with Ray, in the sun or near a heater vent. He REALLY liked food and would sneak bits of 'kitten food' whenever he had the chance. He was not an in-your-face cat. Rather he would hang back and wait for a quite moment to slide up next to you for a scratch behind the ear. And when he did ask you for a pet, you were happy to give it because he was such a special boy.

We will all miss Bubba.

Soft Star around the world

There is a shop here in Singapore that sells Soft Star Shoes. The other day Mom, Langston, and I went to Love for Earth to check it out. It took us a while to get there - it is quite far from the area of the city we are familiar with. We had to ride a bus I've never been on before and we were on it for LOTS of stops. But we got off at the right place and after a bit of walking, found the store.

The mom of one of Kahlil's classmates called the posted hours of Singaporean stores a guideline... not really something you should count on.

I looked up Love for Earth on-line and they have a posted opening time of noon (which is already pretty late by US standards). We got there at 11:59 - the lights are out and it's obvious no one is there. Well, they aren't suppose to open until noon so no big deal. So we do a loop around the shopping center and come back around 12:20 - the lights are out and no one is home. We're hungry so we decide to go eat in the cafe upstairs. After a lovely lunch we go back to Love for Earth around 1 - lights are ON but nobody is home. Apparently the proprietor had opened shop then stepped out for lunch. At that point we had to get going to make it home to meet Kahlil's bus. So we snapped a couple quick pictures and headed home. I'll try again in a couple weeks.

Here is the Love for Earth store. These were actually more like stalls in this shopping center... maybe 15 feet by 30 feet.

And right in the front window are Soft Star Shoes!

Guess who's going to pre-school?

Last week Mom, Langston and I visited two day care locations looking for a place that Langston could spend mornings meeting new friends and I could get a little work done uninterrupted.

The first place we went to was... interesting. It was very quiet even though there were several kids there. The administrator showed me the group Langston would be in - there were two kids and the teacher was 'helping' them to finger paint. She would take their hand, dip their fingers in the paint, move their fingers over the paper, wipe their hand, and start again with the next color. There was very little left to chance. Mom also noticed that several of the kids paintings on the walls were all exactly alike; there was no coloring outside the lines or any individual personality showing through. There were very few toys and the toys that were there were meant for very specific motor skills - nothing for imagination or fun.

Langston was not impressed. He stayed by my side the entire time and was not interested in talking to the administrator the couple of times she tried to engage him.

After this visit, I started looking on-line for nanny services as I was sure the daycare center idea was a bad one. I was pretty dubious about the second visit I had already scheduled for the next day. But, I figured, at worst the second school would just confirm that I need to find a part time nanny.

Boy was I surprised when we walked into Superland Montessori! Miss May took us on a tour and we were thrilled with what we saw. There were tons of kids having a great time - it was loud with laughter, play, and the occasional disagreement. There was a large play area in the center of the facility that had lots of fun moving toys, slides, playhouses, etc. Along the edge of the play area are several small classrooms. One of the smaller rooms is a music room with lots of instruments. As we walked by one of the other rooms I saw toddlers with aprons on spraying colored water at paper. In another room some older kids were doing Montessori motor skills.

While I was on the tour, Mom and Miss Isabella played with Langston and he was quite content. Langston was not at all happy about leaving. A very good sign.

Needless to say, Langston is enrolling at Superland. We went back this week so I could fill out paper work and Langston could spend a little more time getting use to the environment. This time Mom left Langston alone with Miss Isabella. He again had a great time and was reluctant to leave. And in the short time we were away, Miss Isabella observed and noted several of Langston's personality traits. This gave me lots of confidence that she is very capable of helping Langston transition smoothly to the new setting.

Langston starts school on Monday. And, if all goes as planned, he will start riding the bus on Thursday.

Here Langston is in one of the cars in the play area.