very excited

For two reasons.

Firstly,
Here is a youtube for Yaacov Agam's art. It is so intriguing and if you want to, take some time and watch these videos. Or some of them. He explains his idea. He says man started recording experiences using points to draw what he wanted to record. (Cave drawings in the prehistoric caves in Southern France). Then he learned to join the dots, and this line now was movement and kinetic recording. Then the now changes in an instant to a new now. Oh, listen to him talking. It is literally mind bending.

He takes a point (one note on the harp) and draws a line and the harp glides up it a high note. He moves his hand back to starting and the harp glides back to the first note. On a computer screen each coloured  shape has is a note. As you slowly move your finger on the coloured circle, and drag it across the screen, it passes other designs on the screen, the sound mimics your movement. When you interact with other shapes, you have harmony.

Oh watch the videos.

http://www.youtube.com/channel/HCV1LnPizFZO4

The second.

This morning I went to a fabulous lecture on Burma. Thierry Falise, a photo-journalist has spent 25 years in Burma, recording that country's evolution. As we all know, Burma/Myanmar has been going through amazing change. He talked about the political evolution, the cultural evolution. I bought his book Burmese Shadows and came home to plan a trip there. It is not on Tim's list of places to go, and a girlfriend here wants to go. So, check this. I have contacted a travel agent in REGINA to plan the trip. On the computer, of course! Let's hope it works. For Jan/Feb 2014. Anyone out there want to join me/us?

I am also looking at a trip to India. Not on Tim's list. He shows no interest until I start talking about going. Then he perks up a little. Because time is running (planning to leave in April 2014) I have a few, ha, many places to get to. So I will try to put together a trip to India too. A tour, if I  am travelling alone.

I am on an exciting high. Yahoo.

sorry I was tidying up and saw drafts that had not been posted so last one out of sequence

I just have to share with you parts of a wonderful article in a local Expat magazine. It says it all so well.

Does anyone else miss that feeling of putting on tights and boots? Or the weight of a lovely thick quilt, wearing scarves, pretending to "smoke" on those magical frosty mornings, toasting marshmallows on the fire in a cashmere turtleneck at your ski lodge?

Remember that first moment you landed in Singapore? That wide-eyed, ready for adventure feeling? And then that other feeling. That "Oh, wow, it really is really hot here" feeling.

That unrelenting heat envelopes you like a thick fog. Suddenly you are Gretel trapped in the oven with Hansel. You know for sure that one day you will actually melt, just like the Wicked Witch of the West, leaving a pair of flip flops on top of a flesh coloured puddle.

You learn some lessons. Don't run messages at noon. Nighties can also be daywear. Don't bother straightening your hair. Umbrellas on a sunny day don't look so funny any more, and Singapore's obsession with malls makes sense.

You warn your company. It's going to be hot.  Okay, I'll just bring a jacket for the evenings. HA

Weather is no longer the default "we've got nothing to talk about" chat.
"Hasn't it been hot lately?"
"Yes it has."
"They think it will be hot next week, too"
"Yes it will."

I know someday I will be cursing the cold and dreaming of Singapore.

But in the meantime, there is always the cinemas.

(J. note cinemas are kept freezing. You take a sweater abd you are still cold!)

Heading off to I know not where [oops this have been posted a long time ago]

I am ready for the pick up, and am going to Sepoi-Sepoi, Lombok, Indonesia. (if you want to google it). An hour flight and a 2 hour drive, to a private villa. My yoga studio has arranged a 5 day yoga retreat. They have done all the leg work.
We will have 2 very optional yoga practices a day. All food and drink is looked after. There is snorkelling, boat to another island, you can go in to Lombok? why? I'll know more in a day.
But I sure am ready.
We have a limo coming! Tim got this HSBC card that offers free limo rides to the airport. So he orders a limo the night before his work, and the car is waiting for him downstairs. He sure uses that perk! So he is taking me to the airport, in a limo, then he'll MRT home. This is life here!
I spoke with my osteo, saying I was confused as to what to do next.... neurologist? physio? different sleeping pills? . He urged me to go to an ENT guy! Well, a day later I had an appointment. No OHIP 3 month wait! The ENT guy said my problem is structural, and has given me a list of things to do to deal with very compromised airwaves. I have always been a light sleeper except in pregnancy and menopause. Guess what. Hormones affect the airwaves, the suppleness of them. So I will teach myself to sleep on my side, head raised up (I sleep on my back with a tiny pillow), take puffers to open the airwaves. Blah blah blah. At any rate, if my sleep improves my "issues" should disappear. I will be happy when I get there. Still plug away on yoga and osteo. My gym work out increases minimally but I am holding my weight (less than I have been since age 30).
We have bought a back up hard drive, and a friend loaded it with a whack of stuff. We have been watching recorded tv and movies. We are working our way through Glee, and saw A Week With Marilyn the other night. It is unbelievable what is on this little "thing". I have written directions so maybe I can watch when Tim is working. The tv leaves me defeated. Maybe I will master this. The tv, as back home, offers maybe 3 channels repeated 16 times, and then serials in Chinese and Thai and Malay. So the choice is awful.
I have ordered tickets for the SSO for Jan to June. One a month. The most unfriendly user form I have come across. No map of the theatre. You fill out your form, having no idea what seats! ??? So I called them and ordered over the phone. But the woman at the other end has such a thick Singlish Chinese/English accent I can't understand her. I just about lost it. But stuck with it because I really want those tickets. I thought I was going to have to go down to the concert hall to order. It's an hour away!
I am having fun gardening. My balcony. I brought seeds back for 4 kinds of tomatoes- cherry, plum, beefsteak, and basil, and cilantro. Cilantro is on life support. I also planted Datura seeds and they have not shown, after about 3 weeks. Maybe they won't. But I do have hope for some tomatoes. I have no idea with this climate, this wind. I'll keep you posted. I also have a 4' gardenia in bloom, that perfumes the balcony. I also have jasmine, bougainvillaea and palms. It is fun. But the pots are so dependant on me. They are planted in the local spoil, sandy clay, and get so much wind on the balcony. But I am having fun.

Culture Vulture

Wow, all days should be like the last three.

Thursday I went to the Paris Opera performance of Falstaff!!! Like Live at the Met in N.A. Singapore Lyric Opera sponsored the showing of Falstaff at the Paris National Opera in a movie theater here. There were 10 of us there! It was just fabulous to see.

I have to say the N.Y. production is much better. Here it was not high definition. Makes a huge difference. The shots are so close up it is great when they are so clear. The quality of singers was great.  Marie-Nicole Lemieux (Canadian- Quebec) was Mrs. Quickly. She was superb. A great singer, a wonderful actor, and a hilarious comedian.

Falstaff is the last opera of Verdi's, taken from the Shakespeare Merry Wives of Windsor. I have to say I was constantly comparing to N.Y productions, and that is a VERY high standard. Just know that those gems in the theaters back where you are, are the best! I don't want to be negative and compare. It was sooo wonderful to see opera. I will devour every performance I can get here. The next production is a ballet set to Mahler's Third Symphony. New to me. I want to see them stuff the orchestra they will need in to the pit!

Friday I went to the symphony. The SSO did Elgar's violin concerto and Also Sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss. The Elgar was good, great soloist but the Strauss was superb. This is a really good orchestra, and the hall is so good acoustically, that it sounded wonderful.

I love that piece. It is very challenging for all players. You can bet passages from this piece are on auditions. Technically very difficult. For the basses, aside from being a mitt full, leaps in to "nose bleed land" (very high on the fingerboard) Strauss wrote solo parts for all the string players. So at one point, the last stand of bass players are playing a SOLO! No one else, just the two bass players at the back of the section. You hardly can know where the sound is coming from. Then the next stand enters, and now the 4 are playing individual lines. Then on through the section and by the end he has added all the string players, and many individual voices, so the texture it magnificent. But for a bass player, particularly at the back of the section to have a solo!! Well!!!

Then, Saturday, a friend asked me to go to an art showing with her. At an amazingly gorgeous posh hotel downtown. On Sentosa Island. Think Toronto Island but wratch it up to megabucks. An artist from Israel, Yaacov Agam. He was 85 yesterday and on his 85th birthday gave a 2 hour talk on his art. It is difficult to describe, but absolutely fabulous. Maybe you can google him and get an explanation of what he does. Suffice to say he deals with time in art. "Now" is so fleeting. So if you look at a piece of his from the extreme left, you see something, then as you walk in front it changes, and to the right, a whole different thing. He uses 3 dimension in the piece and the idea is like a holograph. He calls then Agamographs. His mind is amazing!

He has done painting on buildings. So as you drive by, the painted wall changes colour. What you see in a split moment changes the next second! I was holding my friend's baby and rocking him, standing in front of one piece, and as I rocked back and forth, the piece of art wavered in to different colours.

He has done things on the computer, where you run your finger over the screen and coloured shapes sound a note. As you move your finger over the screen, the colour moves and passing other patterns on the screen, new sounds are made. So you can compose visual art and music, and it will never be the same twice. Not very good descriptions but amazing. Watch for Yaacov Agam coming to an art gallery near you!

Sunday a quiet day off. Mom here, missing her children on Mother's Day. Oh.


Ha, when I went off downtown to the concert, I  grabbed some shoes out of a drawer to wear. Some cheapo H&M but I rarely wear closed shoes, and thought I would dress up for the concert. Got down to the bus, and saw I has a costume malfunction. The shoes were disintegrating on my feet. I guess it had to do with the humidity, but it was pretty funny. Dressed up for the concert and this is the best I can do!

I don't know if you can get the idea, but Agam's art was fantastic.
This one is called Galaxy and the circle is white as the moon, and then as you walk on, it becomes a rainbow.

Tomorrow I go to a lecture on Burma. Culture vulture I am.

Ha, and I thought last week was hot!

I thought it was hot last week! It must be over 100' here. We are at a diving resort on Bunaken Island Indonesia. A 3 1/2 hour flight from Singapore to the north east end of Indonesia. Tim did 6 dives on three trips out. He is amazed at the diversity of fish. He saw giant turtles flying through the water, one big fella sleeping on a shelf of a cliff( underwater of course)

I went snorkelling and I had a guide who was wonderful, pointing out clams, shrimp, lobster, sharks. NO! But the things that were on the bottom lying still I would not have seen. The fish were wonderful. Every colour under the sky. Every size. Beautiful coral. It was really terrific. One of the sites had a huge current. The tides. I didn't go in there. I was the only snorkeller and was intimidated by the tide current.. But the second location one of the boat guys came in with me and that was great. I feel like we are in the middle of nowhere but then we get to these dive sites and there are many boats. I was happy to have a guide, so I wouldn't get run over by another boat!

This place is on Bunaken Island of which most of the island is a national park. The town of Bunaken has a mosque for a very small community of Muslims, and has a very ornate Protestant church. They stand out on the shore when going by on a boat.

It is very distressing to see the litter in the ocean. Plastic plastic and more plastic. Actually it was funny (almost). When coming out of the harbour of Manado to get across to this island, the boat trip was interesting. First to get to the boat, we had to walk across three other boats. I could not have done this a few months ago. After four ins and outs of boats we finally got to the boat we were taking, we took off, and the driver had to gauge where there were lines under water, anchoring other boats tied up, and he would have to lift the propeller over the ropes. About four times. Then we set off and he stood at the back of the boat, looking over the roof of the cabin we were sitting in, going around big litter, standing there steering with his big toe!

All of a sudden the boat lurched to a stop, we were thrown around and he grabbed the handle to turn the motor off. Lifting the propeller, there was a huge plastic woven-like bag wrapped around the prop. So he untangles it AND THROWS IT BACK IN THE WATER! OY.

The resort is on a steep hill. After landing, with the boat getting to within a few feet of the beach, we jumped (me gazelle-like) in to the water and (again I would have had difficulty doing that a few months ago) we walked up steep stairs to our resort. I am a counter, and we were 52 BIG steps up to our cabin, and another 57 to the dining room area. A large space with a roof, open on the sides. With stairs like that you have to think carefully about what you want where, to not have to make a second trip!

Our cabin is like a little old Muskoka cottage. Very creaky wooden floor, bead board walls and ceiling, minimal lighting, single pane windows held open with rusty old hook and eye latches, but then a balcony looking over the ocean - 52 steps below!

The one drawback is the heat. There is air con but only from 5:30 p.m. to 10:00 a.m. Nice to sleep by. But during the afternoon, with us getting the full afternoon sun, there is no relief. It is stinking hot. Today I lay on the bed, had a shower and lay there wet, thinking that might help. Nope, only if there is a breeze, or power for the fan. So as of 5:30 when the power comes on all is well.

On the other hand, after enduring the full afternoon sun, we have superb sunsets from the hammock on our deck.

The lounge area is with the dining space. We sit on cushions on the floor. Again I couldn't have done this a few months ago. I can now. It ain't pretty but it doesn't involve a crane to get me up off the floor.

The ocean was glassy water. Not a breeze. No lapping of waves on the shore. And all the boats there had 40 hp engines. It sounded like at the cottage. Not the sound of ocean boats, but small water craft on a small lake. It sounded very Muskoka. With our cabin seeming quite like 4 Oaks cedar lined cottage, it was nostalgic.

Our cabin in the jungle

Capt Tim heading for the deep sea.

Our resort, cabins up the hill to the common area on top of the hill.

 After the heat of the afternoon sun, we were treated to sunsets off our balcony.
Notice how still the ocean. One of the many volcanoes, off in the distance.
It is inactive. What you see are clouds!

Our deck. View out over the ocean. Notice the lovely bead board wood.

 Our boat trip out to the island. Manado, singularly ugly city in the background.
Very adept steering by our driver, until the prop wrapped around litter, and the motor lurched to a standstill. He almost fell out.

Back in Singapore now, back to heat but a BREEZE! Learning what is really important.

Hot Damn Hot!!!

I didn't notice last April that it was so much hotter than the previous three months. But we are now in the hot season. April to July. I actually remember last July as being very cool here. We had Ontario summer weather here, and you in Ontario were experiencing what we have in Singapore most of the year.

It is very hot but more than that it is the humidity. Having been in Saigon, it is as hot as here, but not the humidity of here. On the other hand with this humidity if there is a breeze it really cools things off. Like those fans they have in the Okanagan that spray water in front of their fans. It really does cool the air.

Quick update on my medical saga. I have been without symptoms, i.e.. pain, for 3 months. I am ecstatic. In a way these terrible things that happen have silver linings, and I so appreciate being able to hold a pen, cut vegetables, get out of a chair no hands, climb stairs willingly, the simple pleasures of life. I am so grateful.

So all that I have been doing has paid off. And it really is easy here. Lots of very good modalities close by. I don't know what in my soup of modalities has helped but I will keep up with all of them and hope for continued painlessness. Just the creakies of looming old age.

I was to Saigon with my sister, her husband and grand daughter Cammie. It was so interesting that my impression of the city was so different to the first time. I guess I will have to revisit every where I have been to get the second impression.

I love Vietnam. I love the Vietnamese. They are happy, patient, courteous, forgiving, compassionate, and the list goes on. That country has been sieged for centuries. It was very valuable during the spice trade and  silk trade, it has so much shoreline. It is like a big letter "C" coastline.

I went to the Vietnamese Traditional Medicine Museum. It was fascinating. The lotus flower is their national flower. It is sacred. It grows out of darkness in to light. (It grows any where, in mud along the road.) They use every part of the flower for food and medicine. Stamens, petals, leaves, stem, roots.

There is a similarity to Chinese Traditional Medicine. Yin/yang, meridians, acupuncture. The climate is so good in Vietnam, for growing the herbs used in TM. There is a mountain in North Vietnam called Medicine Mountain.

We did a tour of the Mekong Delta. The source of the Saigon River starts in Burma and travels thousands of miles to the coast. The tour was wonderful. A long drive out to the delta, with a wonderful guide whose English was excellent. Once there we went to a floating village, visited a family of 4 living on a boat with a room about 15X15 for them, huge rice bags to sit on, hammocks to sleep on, children playing with the empty box that ziploc baggies come in, father on the cell phone, the tv on. They were about 100' off shore and a very long extension cord strung on poles in the water to the mainland was their power supply. They feed fish through a hole in the floor of the boat, and after 3 months of feeding the fish are big enough to catch and sell.

Home to Singapore and family left. I have been doing yoga yoga yoga. I love the way I feel after a class so I am doing as many as I can. That I can do 2 a day speaks to how little else I have in my life. But I kind of look at getting back in shape, and getting in better shape that when I moved here, and keeping this fibromyalgia at bay as a full time job. A photo of tonight's class follows. I'm the one on top!

I met with a personal trainer today and will add that to my soup of modalities. I told her my goal is to do a half marathon (power walking) for my 70th birthday. There. If I say it publicly I will be shamed in to following through. HA.

Yoga tonight. That's me on top. Nancy, below, survived to then crush me.

 My room mate in Saigon Cammie Cammaroomie

 Banana crepe. Oily deliciousness. For breakfast!

Mekong Delta Sanpan ride in the backwaters.

                                             



 Gord is tall. Our guide Tina is short!

After lunch siesta

The gang in Saigon
Me, our guide Tina, sister Judy, Camaroomie, Gord

Good night, friends.

next trip - Manado

Manado, ahah, and where is Manado you might ask.

I did too. I looked it up. It is at the northern tip of Indonesia, and hopefully a wonderful dive location. Tim has a lifetime licence for scuba diving (PADI) and I really wanted him to get some great diving in this incredible diving part of the world. So he found Manada, and we are booked for early May. For 5 days. The hotels are pretty basic, because divers are gone all day and come back exhausted to sleep long for the next days' dive.

I will not be diving. I had a blood clot in my lung years ago, and have lost the desire to dive. I am sure glad I had done it, though, because it is pretty amazing. I am assuming there will be snorkelling. I find to go out on a boat on the water all day in the sun unpleasant, so I hope for snorkelling off shore.

At any rate, I will bring a good book, and my yoga mat, and "make do" HA. In the sun at the ocean! In Indonesia! This trip will be early May.

Judy and Gord and Cammie just got back from Thailand. They had ablest. This has been good for them to come here and go off by themselves too. Today they have gone to the zoo. Singapore Zoo is really well done. No cages, only moats. Beautiful specimens of each animal. The climate is natural for all those lions, tigers, elephants and hippos that we see in zoos in N.A.

Tomorrow we leave for Vietnam. A 3 hour flight to Ho Chi Min City. H.C.M.C. or still called Saigon, too. It will be interesting to see Judy's reaction. She taught English as a second language when Canada was accepting the thousands of boat people from Vietnam. She has many lifelong friends from those days. And then Cammie who knows little of the American War, as it is referred to here, will have an untainted view.

I must saw I was moved deeply by the war museums in Saigon. I was so upset in one, I had to leave because I thought I would be sick. I was barely holding back tears. They show man's inhumanity to man. They do not spare telling a gruesome story. But it doesn't just have recoeds of the American atrocities. It tells the story of the Vietnames atrocities too. And portrays the frustration the Anmericans had of actually finding the enemy. The Chu Chi tunnels are still there and you see how the Viet Cong lived underground by day, in the tunnels, and came out at night to fight back to the Americans.

Below are some photos.

We went for a walk out the pier that we can see from our balcony. It was a hot but windy day. The pier was filled with fishermen. Some catching good sized fish, maybe 12"  long. And many were catching tiny little 2" silver fish that would be bait for someone else. This guy had a big one, that was taking him forever to reel in. You can see the ships in the channel in the background.

Tim on the computer helping Gord and Jude book the Thailand leg of their visit.

The two twins. Jude and I were out today to my little lady who does alterations for me. She speaks very little English, but another customer was there and she did speak some English. So she translated. She got that we were sisters but could not get that we were twins, and would not accept that the translation was accurate. Sisters yes, twins no. Well. And all these years we thought we were!

I didn't tell you about Cammie. She is a charming effervescent 12 year old. A highland dancer and she dances, and leaps, and twirls, and does point ALL the time. So we were on the balcony, sliding doors open. Lots of wind. So I shut one side of the glass doors. As Cammie lept, gazelle-like to the kitchen, time froze for me as I saw what was going to happen. And it did. She went right full face in to the glass. She had a sore bridge of the nose for days. I think you can see the print of her forehead, nose, lips, and chin, on the glass door. It was awful. Poor dear.

Till next time!