Egads Christmas is here!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS  FROM DUMB AND DUMBER

I know I know, we look dumb and even dumber. But warmest Christmas greetings from very very very far away.

Boy, being here for Christmas really shows us what is important about Christmas. Not that we needed the lesson. It is ALL about family and friends. 

It is Christmas Eve here. It is 70', actually a very nice day. Light overcast so not hot. A lovely breeze. 

We will go to midnight mass at 9 tonight. I think I would like to go for a swim after, just because I have never done that on Christmas Eve before.

Tomorrow we will be part of a pot luck orphans Christmas dinner. Rod and Nancy are hosting. In spite of Rod flying tomorrow!! (a daytime flight needless to say). Nancy will use our oven for roasting the turkey. She doesn't have a big oven. When roasted we will carry it over to their building across the way. There will be anywhere between 8 and 14 for the meal. There will be apps, turkey, dressing, gravy, vegs, desserts. I bought a Christmas Pudding at Marks and Spencers and will make hard sauce. Several couples Jewish, so Christmas Pudding will be a new one for them!

Thought I would show you my beautiful flowers. The top photo is a gorgeous table arrangement from my dear kids. Since that was ten days ago, some flowers have been pulled, red and white roses. But it is still beautiful. The second arrangement is from Heinz and Sylvie. For Christmas. Bless their hearts. (They are the friends who were just visiting)

Our beautiful Christmas tree stands alone. A very few goodies under it, waiting til the kids get here. I think we will do a mini-Christmas when we get to Thailand. 

An update on  my tomato plants. Top plant has about 25 tiny (2" tomatoes on it. See second photo.)

Bottom photo is of my second plant. It has about 40 tomatoes on it. Note the look of fatigue. (Needs watering, Jane!) Because of the stiff breeze it dries out all the time. So having planted the seeds in September, now 3 months later, maybe I will have fresh tomatoes by Easter! HA! Please note my Christmas decoration on the stakes. I am just so creative. 

(And our red Christmas hats are in fact table napkins held on our heads with paper clips, and cotton balls held on with paper clips too. Necessity breeds.)

Don't want to sign off. Again, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. May it be filled with health, and filled with family and friends.

OMG Christmas is coming

I just can not get my head around the fact that Christmas is coming. In 5 days.
I was away in Borneo and came home to a Christmas tree all decorated. I seem to not want to celebrate because it only accentuates that the kids are not here. For me Christmas is kids and family. But Tim wants Christmas, so we are doing Christmas. He got the tree given to him by Norm, our wonderful buddy downstairs. Norm is going home for Christmas, to Montreal, and both Tim and Rod are working one of his days so he has a week off. He had an IKEA tree and boxes of decorations so while I was away Tim put it up and decorated it beautifully. So I guess it follows that we will celebrate Christmas. Actually Rod and Nancy are doing a dinner on the 25th. So we will be a part of that. I will see what unfolds.
I must say, Christmas is everywhere here. Carols played everywhere, lights, poinsettias everywhere, and the stores and malls filled with chutchkas. I was downtown yesterday and you would have thought they were giving everything away. Line up to wait for a change room, line up at the cash to pay. I never am around in the stores for the pre-season crush. I make sure I have it all done way before, and we usually go away.

These photos are all out of order. My computer is misbehaving (still) so I am making do with these that came through. Hopefully my IT team that arrives soon, will help me fix this. So photos jumbled.
Women dressed in various tribal dress outfits

 George, an orang utan at the refuge.

 Our Christmas tree that Tim  put up and decorated. Pretty nice job, eh?

The market and a table of fresh chicken

 Soon to be put up on the table with his kin.

So I went off to Borneo. Where is Borneo you say. As did I. It is a very big island to the east of Singapore. Borneo that I learned about in school was filled with tribes at war, dressed in tribal gear, big ear lobes, faces painted, men in loin cloths, women bare breasted. And they were head hunters!!   Do you know they only outlawed head hunting in 1963!!!!!
When I came back from BC friends of ours had already arrived. Heinz and Sylvie, who were our neighbours in TO, then moved to Kelowna and are a little more distant neighbours from us in Vernon, BC. They are on a tour of Asia and came to Singapore for a week and then I went with them to Borneo. MALAYSIA.
Borneo is a big island, and is divided into the Sultanate of Brunei, Malaysia and Indonesia.  We flew to Kuching. A new airport in a city of 300,000. Just on the verge of an economic burst, I think.
Our first hotel was at the beach an hour out of the city, and very weird. We checked in , and saw NO ONE in the hotel. Dining room empty, shops closed, pool empty. I think they were all Muslim and at prayer. Because an hour later the pool was filled with families, swimming in their clothes. I felt very naked in my swimsuit, and was stared at. Actually clothes were allowed in another "family" pool, but not where I was swimming.Very weird. Our room was weird too and too expensive so we headed back to Kuching for 4 nights.
Went to a cultural museum. Interesting. Houses where we would see weaving, carving, how they lived, and then a show of dancing and music. It was very well done. In the trees and the jungle!
We had a car and driver, and did a tour of Kuching. Went to an orang utan rehabilitation centre. It is a terrible practice here of giving baby orang utans as pets. They are adorable. But they grow bigger and no longer wanted as pets. This center takes them and rehabilitates them to return to the jungle. Snow bears are another animal that they give as wee cubs, and then darn it, they grow in to big strong bears. So they take them and rehabilitate them to the wild. They also had crocodiles. No they are not given as pets. But they are studying them.
I did a cooking class which I loved. A trip to the market to suss out fruit, jungle food, identify all sorts of weird and wonderful items, then a class to cook Curry Chickrn, Midin (jungle fiddleheads, and a dessert with sweet corn. I did love the class.
Kuching was very interesting. I am hoping Elizabeth might like to go with me back to Borneo to a different area. You can do home stays, treks into the jungle by boats, hike into the hills to stay with tribal family. We'll see.
So I am beside myself with excitement, the kid are coming. (I think I have mentioned that). Alex and Heidi arrive the 29th. Elizabeth Jan 2. We have planned a trip to Georgetown Malaysia, and to Railay Beach, Krabi, Thailand.  Other than that, what unfolds remains to be seen.
Merry Christmas to all my friends reading this. You are steeped in snow, cold, and surrounded by things familiar. I envy you. I think of you all. And send you wished for love, health, and happiness.
Our Christmas will be very different. I think of it as a busy time, but to actually think of it as Christmas is a stretch. I'll see how I am as the day approaches.

Susan and David , two in my cooking class, from NZ, who taught at Vaughan Collegiate, and Forest Hill Collegiate, two high schools nearest in TO that Alex went to!! Then they moved to Muskoka and taught in Gravenhurst and Bracebridge!!! Did I hear 6' os separation? HA Then we met them on the boat river cruise we took that evening!

 My new best friend, a Borneo tribal dancer

Heinz and Sylvie Boshart, our good friends visiting from Canada.

Sorry for the photos interrupting my flow of writing HA.
I hope to keep track of the next few weeks and keep in touch. I see with company, I don't get to write my posts. Hope you are all being busy with family and friends.

A quick visit, and a very long trip home.

Am sitting in YVR airport waiting for my flight to Narita. Then I hope to catch one of three possibilities to Singapore. But it probably entails an overnight in the airport. Yuck, and cuching cuching. and it will be three days Friday morning out of Kelowna and Singapore Sunday evening. Bleck!
I came back to Canada for an AGM meeting with the strata. My friend Rae picked me up, and I had a great visit with her. And Jean who is renting our place there, had a pot luck evening. It was wonderful to see my ski buddies.What a wonderful group of lively spirits they are. I so look forward to when we are back and are doing the original retirement plan, of 6 months in Muskoka and 6 months skiing in BC.
A friend asked why not do a Skype for the meeting. We are a strata of three. I am president. To Skype 12 hours difference we could have skyped, but to run the meeting would have been tricky. And we already had one member of the three sending a proxy. So it is a helluva long way for a 2 hour meeting, but because it does not break the bank for me to do it, I chose to do the trip.
I have to say hearing Christmas Carols is starting to get to me. Verging on weepy. I had thought I would ignore Christmas and when the kids get to SG celebrate. But there will be nothing left in the stores January to do with Christmas, and the decorations now are all over. I think I am going to find it  harder and harder. Might cave.
Have been cold since Tokyo on the way over to here. I guess there is something to the blood thinning. Now I will go back and have to get used to the heat.

Before I go...

Tonight I am headed to Canada. I have to go to Vernon for the AGM of our condo. I am president, and we are only three units so one of us has to go, and Tim is busy flying.
I am going to leave at 1 a.m. tonight, and get into Tokyo around 9 tomorrow morning. I will have TWELVE hours to kill in the Narita airport - oh joy - and then get on AC to Vancouver and will arrive before I leave. Because of the dateline. Then I overnight in Vancouver and take a positive space seat to Kelowna the next morning. Because ski season is here, I can not rely on standby. My friend Rae will pick me up, and I will stay with her. She is in another unit of our condo. The meeting is Thursday morning, and Thursday night, Jean, who is renting our place is having a pot luck gathering for me so I can see the ski buddies who are out there already. Friday morning I head back to Singapore. Kelowna/Vancouver/Tokyo /Singapore. I will get back Sunday night.
Our friends Heinz and Sylvie will have arrived Saturday to an empty apartment. Both Tim and I will get back Sunday night. Of course I have to add I HOPE I get back because it is all standby. So many connections to make standby. The price is right but the comfort level suffers.
Medically I have had a good week. I have been told fibromyalgia dips and crests. I want to work very hard and prove their diagnosis wrong. But I had a dip a few weeks ago. Incredible fatigue just hit in a huge wave and I had to go to bed. Then the fascia all stiffened up again. But a week later I am better. Of course what I don't need is days in an airplane. But with lots of yoga, stretching, osteo treatments, massage, I get to feel human. I am determined to get rid of this. By working hard on stretching the fascia. In so many ways I am healthier than ever. Down 30  lbs, and when in a crest, very flexible. I am working out either yoga, stretching/cardio or swimming every day. So it  isn't all bad.
Had a workshop on meditation at my yoga studio. It was great. I love my yoga studio. It has saved my sanity and my body. I am lucky to have it. Both my sanity and the yoga studio!
I went on a tour to Bukit Brown "Brown Hill" A Mr John Brown bought an estate on a hill and when he died it eventually became a cemetery for Singapore. Volunteers, "Brownies", are busy giving tours of the cemetery to raise people's awareness of this incredible jungle in the middle of Singapore. A vast green space with monkeys, lizards, hundreds of century old trees and thousands of birds. The city is taking over a part of it (for now- soon all of it) to put through an expressway. The bodies buried in the cemetery, if not claimed by descendants, will be exhumed, cremated and ashes to the sea. To claim an ancestor, you then have the expense of exhuming them and doing what you wish for them. Very expensive. It is a tragedy.
But you don't speak directly against the government. This is a police state. So they hope enough people will do something (like write in TripAdvisor about this gem of jungle in the center of Singapore), that the government might change their plans. Good luck, but it does make them feel better. (I don't know if it made the news back home but Singapore Transit bus drivers, immigrants , who live in abominable conditions in government housing have gone on strike. 4 have been jailed for speaking out against the government.)
I learned so much about the history of Singapore. The graves were of settlers to the original port of the silk and spice trade, those who fought the Japanese occupation of 1942, those that built up Singapore in it's early days. My iphoto is misbehaving so I can't show you photos  but when it has finished it's detention, I will show you some pics and tell you ALL about it.
I also went to see joss sticks, paper figurines and traditional Chinese crafts. Amazing this: Only the Chinese diaspora has the true traditions of China. Mainland lost all traditions as a result of the Cultural Revolution. Singaporean Chinese are very proud of their practicing ancient Chinese customs. Joss sticks are incense sticks and part of the very important burial rites. Also the paper figurines. You burn effigies of things (a paper car, a paper  iPad. a paper house) and the smoke goes to your dead ancestor. You are wishing that he gets to upgrade in afterlife. So you send him a BIG house, or a BMW, or concubines or.... I saw a 5 story at least 30' high and 15' long being made for somebody who wants to really upgrade his ancestor.
It was lovely happenstance to learn about the cemetery and burial customs, and then see how they make what is part of the rituals.
Christmas is larger than life here. I think I am going to have to do something Christmassy. I wasn't going to. And I have to say when I hear some of the more poignant carols in the malls, I get a little mushy and I think it is going to get harder and harder. The kids don't come til after Christmas so I was going to basically ignore Christmas. In this equatorial Asian culture. But they are doing it up big, so I might relent.
Ta

It's been two weeks! Remember me?

It seems like ages and it is.
We had company for 4 days. John and Dixie, ski buddies from Silver Star, who live in Brockville, retired teacher and retired nurse. Every two years they take a big trip. To SE Asia. This year Vietnam and Bali . They factored in a visit to us in between. They had been to Singapore before and had seen a lot of the sights.

So I took them to the recently opened Garden By The Bay. It really is phenomenal. The government wanted to have, available to anyone, an oasis of green in the heart of the city. So free to all, an amazing garden; plants, trees, outdoor art from all over the world. Then you pay to go in two greenhouses- HUGE greenhouses- one plants and flowers from countries with similar climate; Mexico, Africa, Central America. Beautiful specimens. And a cloud garden, misted, with a 5 story waterfall, and plants that grow in heavy jungle environment. It is breathtaking. Singapore really does "big" well. It is wonderful.

We went to The Affordable Art Fair. Artists, and art galleries, from around the world, come and show art between $100 and $10,000. A huge pavilion showed thousands of pieces of  just amazing art. So varied, so creative, so good, and so many. I wish that I were rich so I could buy some of the incredible art. But then we would have to buy some empty walls to display it. Hmmm......

Tim and I then went to Nikoi for 5 days. Nikoi Island is in the South China Sea, off the east coast of Bintam, which is an island just east of Singapore. By the way, I thought Singapore was the tip of the Malaysian Peninsula, but it is an island at the tip of the Malaysian peninsula. OOPS. I just learned that.

Gordie Wade recommended we look into Nikoi. He had heard about it when he was travelling to Singapore on business. It is only 5 years old. Some business men bought this island and built a weekend getaway from Singapore. It has morphed in to a very select hotel resort.

A small island, surrounded by fine white coral powder sand. A hill in the middle that is heavy jungle, and little villas dotted along the shore. It is like very fancy camping. Your own "cabin" in the woods, down a sand path in the jungle. A house, with a ground floor open living space, open walls to the views, and upstairs a bedroom with open walls. A mosquito net keeps you from being eaten alive. Actually I didn't get one bite the 4 days there. They are very careful about the mosquitoes, but not with fogging. They plant lemon grass along all the paths, light coils under our beds at night. We used bug juice in the evening for dinner.

They offer prescribed meals at prescribed times. They post the menu the day before, and ask if any problems with what is being served. Prawns, red snapper, tenderloin, chicken. Not fine dining, but good food, fresh, and determined by what is fresh and available at the market. We were very happy with the food. Nice small servings, and a delicious dessert with lunch and dinner. They have a dining area for adults, and a dining area for families with kids. And that is a good thing!

They are making the smallest footprint possible. The buildings are built of wood washed up on the shore. They collect their rain water, compost waste, no AC but ceiling fans, torches to light the paths at night, no tv or phones.

But this  makes no sense to me. We were 1' from the equator and yet the sea water was cooler, and the air temp more moderate than here in Singapore. Go figure! I was lucky, it was overcast ( we are in monsoon season) because I forgot my sunglasses. And we had a ripper of a storm go through as we were packing out of our cabin. It passed through and that is a good thing because we had a boat ride to get home just hours later.

At mealtime, they have swept the dining room floor (beautiful white sand) into gorgeous designs. The toilet is in the middle of the bathroom, and the tp hangs by chains from the ceiling! In front of our cabin, we had a giant sand lawn with a bed on a swing, a big lounger under a shade grass roof, and steps to the ocean. It really was lovely. Very different to any other paradise we have visited here. We are collecting paradises like hockey cards!?

We took a hike to the back of the island (to another bar and several pools) and took a path over the hill. Very steep, wet and slippery in sandals. But I felt like Jane looking for my Tarzan. HA There are resident lizards. I think they are called monitor lizards. We had sightings of some about 12-18" long. And then one day I stepped out of our cabin to be staring at the big daddy. I do not exaggerate- 6 feet long. He kindly posed for a picture, (I had to run back for my phone) and then he slithered off in to the jungle. Whooppee.

Tim was fascinated talking to two fellows who work there. One guy is studying the mosquitoes, tracking what genus, where they feed, where their habitat, to deal with them naturally. He puts empty coconut with some water in them to collect larvae to study them. The another guy, the handyman, who has to fix things that need fixing without the support of the DIY store down the road.

 Garden By The Bay in the greenhouse. Singapore does a lot of interactive stuff with kids- a tree filled with colourful birds

Outdoor "living trees" These will eventually be filled with vines, they are just beginning to be covered. They are huge - 50' high?

The Affordable Art Fair. Dixie and I being framed.

A notice on the ferry to Bintam. NO JOSTLING!!!!

 Our bathroom - note the tp on a chain, and buddha watching over you when you are in the bathroom!

 Our bed, with a ceiling fan inside our net. Just perfect. Who needs AC?

 One of the pools.The islands are made up of very recent, soft round rocks. Tim says they are recent, not ice age like our Canadian rocks.

Big Daddy Monitor Lizard, impatient with my scurrying to get the camera, and took off a second too soon.

I am going on, and not beginning to do justice to this holiday. It was a wonderful experience, and I hope to talk the kids into a few days there when they come in January. It is truly unique. Thank you Gordie for the great recommendation.

photos first- oops!

Well, I put the photos in first and now I can't write anything above here, to explain them. So here goes
Singapore has many delights. One is that we need no screens. Our sliding door open 7 feet each, and it is like an arch between rooms, the LR and the deck, the DR and the deck. It really is lovely. One thing is though, that when you travel you have to remember bug juice. We are in the tropics, but in Singapore they fog for mosquitoes. Every Tuesday! No bugs. Rarely frogs, crickets, worms, butterflies, moths, and of course mosquitoes. They fog to prevent dengue fever, but unfortunately much else is fogged too.
But the little geckos survive. That is a gecko on our LR wall. We live on the 23rd floor! I can hope he is here because the fog does not come up this high. Adventurous little geckos! He is about 6" tip to tail. I always jump, but it is because they are unexpected, and they dart. Like seeing mice.

Five photos of Little India. It is Diwali now. (Also called DeePAvali) Eight days of celebration. It is a Hindu and Jain Festival. Kind of like New Years. Festival of Lights. They celebrate their rich culture and history, of the stories of Ramayana, Lord Rahmen, Lord Krishna, Lukshima, Good over Evil, Light over Darkness, Wisdom over Ignorance. They have many traditions: a ritual bath before sunrise, families together, exchanging sweets, decorating their house with light, candles, mandalas of coloured rice. The one time of the year that firecrackers are allowed in Singapore. Those yellow bottles
are cow's urine! You buy it (?) and sprinkle it around your house(!?). Remember cows are holy. (I do not have India on the top of my list of places to visit. I just can't get my head around cow paddies everywhere, in the Indian heat!)

We have company coming this week. John and Dixie Logie. They are ski buddies that we met at Silver Star. They live in Brockville. They come next Thursday, having been in Vietnam for two weeks. After four days with us, they are going to Bali for two weeks. It is exciting.

We leave (a day before the Logies leave- they will have to find their way around for their last day) Monday for Nikoi, Indonesia. Gordie Wade said a buddy of his who travelled here a lot, said it was super. It sure looks great. A private island!!  We take a one hour ferry from Sg to Batam, Indonesia, then they pick you up and we go another hour in their boat to get to the island. It is monsoon season and windy. I hope I remember to take along my Gravol!

Time is flying. It is November, and Sg is hyping up for Christmas. It just doesn't make sense in this heat, to see Christmas trees, and hear Christmas music. OMG The arrangements of the old favourites! Where did they find them. There sure is no Mormon Tabernacle Choir. It is all electric and kitchy.

I went to hear Handel's Messiah last week. It was wonderful The orchestra is good, the soloists were good ( they had a counter-tenor singing the alto solos). I have played it at least a million times (?!) and recorded it many times, but had never gone. I just loved it. Some (not many) stood for the Hallelulia
Chorus. How British! I wonder if they do Messiah every year. It is almost cult in TO. The TSO plays it 5 times a week, with sing along performances. The people in the audience brings their score, and sing along with the choruses. I saw a few scores in the audience. We stood for the chorus, and didn't Tim start to singalong !!!! OMG. I just about croaked. Him singing anything is VERY sketchy, but in the concert hall? alone? I died.

From the grave, I sign off.

sweet nothings

Well, I just downloaded some photos so I will tack them on.
I said sweet nothings because I have not flown off to any paradise.

We just had 5 days off. We. HA. Tim! But we didn't go anywhere. Tim was to go diving and get his certificate (a certification for life, no more renewing) It didn't work out. I was planning on going  somewhere myself. But I took my passport in to get a new one. No passport- no out of the country! I am going through pages like you wouldn't believe. Most trips take a visa and they take a page. Although my passport does not expire til June 2015, I will run out of pages within months. So I went down, turned in my passport and will get a 48 page one.

The number of times I have had to give out my passport number, I wonder how I will handle that. Of course I am also identified everywhere with my dependant's pass, and with my thumb prints. Big brother SG has you coming and going. Literally!

I set myself up on the patio to write this blog. A storm is coming in. Thunder that rolls for 7 seconds (I'm counting) and lightening reflecting off all the high rise buildings. But I chickened out. My computer was wiggling in the wind. I decided to set up back in the LR and just watch it from inside. This seems to be one of those storms that is always on our weather forecast for Singapore. WoW here comes the rain.

I have started some tomato plants. And basil. I tried cilantro but it didn't take. Nor did my datura seeds. I really wanted datura. My friend Sylvie had some at her poolside. The flower comes out at night and is very perfumed. On our balcony they would be gorgeous. But I will have to settle for gardenias and jasmine. IF I can get them to keep flowering.

I have waxed on about the BBC. I love the world news. Hearing about the Middle East, Africa, Europe. Not all USA. A documentary on "hair" How important the dead cells we call hair are. To lose it is immense- chemo, slavery, adulterers, collaborators in the War. The US Air Force shaves the heads of their recruits, to make them all equal, to shed their individuality, - what they call "Break and Build". Yuck! I heard a one hour tale with Thomas Kinneally and Michael Igniateff on "guilt". Humans are unique in feeling guilt. How the American Political System is stripped of guilt, because there is no direct contact, and so you can say anything, true or not, and not feel guilt. I listen to their foreign correspondents give a 2 minute little documentary. I read a book of a collection of these reports. Now I listen to some in real time. I love it! Well these days it is all US election. Very interesting coverage, but it makes me realize how the US directly affects the rest of the world.

We went to the Botanic Gardens on the weekend. 97 acres in the heard of Singapore, beautifully landscaped with trees, plants, butterflies (I guess they don't fog there). Orchids, orchids orchids.

 Chopin playing at the top of the hill. At the bottom you see the outdoor concert hall for the SSO.

 My tomato plants- I have three pots like this. Maybe some will make it through. They sure got a drenching in this rain.

Probably the last we see of the basil. They are floating in water and have been hammered by the rain., and are lying limp against the pot's edge.

Singapore tv news had footage of drivers receiving speeding tickets! Can you imagine that at home? You'd run out of time and tape. Right up there with the signs posted in the community to report a stolen bicycle- any witnesses?  We have a sign in our lobby reporting vandalism, and people with information are encouraged to report to the office, and their identity will be held confidential. Rats, come forward! A penalty for someone was 12 years in jail and 12 stokes of the cane!

Ah Singapore!