Short visit to Bangkok August 6-8

Local transport. A cheap, hair-raising and exhaust fume infused ride.

Wat Phra Kaew, the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. The buddha statue (of course, no photos allowed in the temple) is considered one of the most sacred in the country. It's almost impossible to see as it sits encased in glass on a pedestal near the dim ceiling. Hundreds more buddhas are arranged on tiers below. The ceiling and walls of the temple are painted with magnificent gilt murals and repeat design that is breathtaking. One needs to be suitably clothed - as a mark of respect, arms,legs and feet must be covered, and one must not point their feet toward the buddha.

One of the hundreds of statues and icons on the outside of the temple.

Exterior of the temple.


Before you enter a temple you must remove your shoes. At Wat Pra Kaew you are invited to purify yourself by dipping a white lotus in water and sprinkling the water on your head. This reminds me of the Catholic custom of blessing oneself with holy water upon entering a church.

Gilt murals run the length of the walkways surrounding the temple. They were being repainted when I was there. You can see this one is only half done.

Paints, brushes and gold leaf waiting for the artisan to return from lunch.

One of the hundred minor temple buildings in the grounds of Wat Phra Kaew. The Grand Palace (ancient ceremonial home of the Thai King) is right next door, but no photos were allowed inside the palace rooms, and it was raining, so no exteriors, sorry.

The local food in a nearby market was really good.

I've never been heckled to buy fruit before. I was fleeced by an old lady who made me pay twice the going rate for three pieces of durian. It turned out to be really dry and not very good. So I gave her 'The Eye' and a noisome burp before moving on.

The streets between the markets and the pier where I boarded my boat are lined with people selling strange things spread out on mats. Some people are so desperate, they are sellng things they have obviously rummaged out of the trash. One person had an assortment of old crumpled magazines, worn out baby bottles and old shoes to sell.

One man was selling an impressive and nasty-looking collection of knives.

Beautifully arranged slippers made me smile.

And there were many vendors selling religious relics and talismans.

The local coffee man. I had to sneak this as the Thais do not like their photo taken.

Another important temple, Wat Po. This houses the largest reclining buddha in the world. And you thought yours truly had a big head!

The massive reclining buddha statue. You see his toes here. There are sutras inscribed in mother-of-pearl on the soles of his feet.

For a donation of 20 Baht (less than US$1, you may take a small bowl of Thai pennies and drop them into this line of begging bowls. You are supposed to drop them in fours. Clinkclinkclinkclink....clinkclinkclinkclink...the sound of the coins hitting the bowl helps one meditate.



An offering left at the side of the chubby buddha below. This little man is about two inches tall and looks like a Thai Elvis. I should have found him amusing, but he was instead rather creepy.

The buddha -- full.

The offering plate -- empty.

A graceful Goddess of Mercy, draped with pearls and flowers.

Young monks on their way out of the school by Wat Po.

One of the many express boats that take the locals up and down the Chao Phraya. They move incredibly fast.

Wat Arun, or the Temple of Dawn. The exterior decoration is created entirely with ceramic.


View from the top of the temple, looking along the Chao Phraya towards downtown Bangkok.

It only takes 43 steps to get to the top of the temple, but they are very steep.

An old married couple you might know, enjoying a ride on a pontoon boat. The boat deposited them at the fabled Oriental Hotel for a gourmet Thai dinner overlooking the Chao Phraya river.

Trip to the Central Fire Station August 11th

As a post National Day outing, the kids in Sprog1's class went to the Hill Street Fire Station. The Civil Defence unit has an open house every Saturday morning, and the kids (and adults) get a chance to ride the cage up the length of the ladder, spray water out of a hose and climb in and out of an assortment of fire fighting vehicles. It was startling to see the strings of hoses hanging over a third floor balcony to drain. Since they are so heavy, heaving them up there must only be a once a week task.
There is also a very cool Civil Defence Musuem full of old firetrucks and memorabilia from Singapore's early days. There are interactive exhibits where you can put your arms into a Hazmat suit in a wet room and try to turn off a leak in 30 seconds! A popular display was a rescue mission renacting a building collapse (the horrific New World Hotel collapse in 1998). A slab of concrete squishing several mannequins painted with blood, and a mannequin dressed as a firefighter with an axe and dog trying to get them out. The kids really liked crawling under the slab and checking out the blood and gore.
Very cool fire fighting vehicles, including the buggies. Makes sense given Singapore's small congested roads and small parking spaces. They looked very nippy!

Photo journal

The restaurant and pub strip nearby. Great butcher, great Indian restaurant, great gelateria for the kids. Scary 'English' pub that smells a bit mouldy, and not bad Belgian Bar & Tabac...if you like Belgian beer. I don't mind Chimay, but have to really be in the mood for it. There's a menu of about 50 beers, and we are slowly working our way through it. So far I have to say I am quite happy with an ice-cold Tiger (the local brew) than any of our choices.

Nothing like a piece of fried dough topped with curry after a morning run. As Jimmy-the-writer Howard pointed out, nothing like a piece of fried dough with curry to give you the morning runs. Heh heh.

Bukit Timah canal -- usually peaceful but turbid and swirling during monsoon season. Flash floods and torrential rains were an accepted danger before canals were built. Living in the Bukit Timah area which is low lying and prone to flooding, I am grateful for this major canal, part of a network that drains to the waterways of Singapore.

The resident dragon in our garden.

A school bus very different fron the big yellow bus that's an icon in the USA.

Much later in July 2007

Ah, life at the equator....the teeming tropics...teeming with strange
unidentifiable bacteria that is. Hail to the lovely rotavirus that
made me so sick I was either sweating out the chills, doubled over
with stomach cramps or sitting despondently on the throne. Glass
half-full: Lost 8 pounds. Glass half-empty : no dairy products in my
immediate future.

The contingent of 3 sisters, 2 brothers-in-law, 1 nephew and 1
nephew's buddy descended, converged, dissembled and then departed. It
was thrilling to hug my biological sister P. again after 8 years
apart, and to watch her interact with my kids for the first time ever.
That thrill quickly turned to horror as she and my husband sat down to swop notes
on my idosyncrasies, character flaws
and crabbiness. Lies! Infamy! Fabrications!

My family spent 3 weeks wandering around Singapore,shopping, eating,
bickering and trudging up and down Orchard Road in search of a
Starbucks. (There's one on almost every corner). We did have a great
time together, however my mother gratefully saw everyone off after 3
weeks of hoping they would leave earlier.

P., her husband B. and S. and I embarked on a 'Night Safari'.
It's a special attraction at the Singapore Zoo.
http://www.nightsafari.com.sg/
I was awestruck seeing so many nocturnal animals in action. The zoo
keepers like to scare the visitors, and during the animal show we
watched, they 'found' a 15 foot python stretched out under the bench a
bunch of Japanese girls were sitting on. Can you scream in Japanese?
Ha ha ha, very funny.

We walked through a netted aviary that held hundreds of bats. It was
COOL! I was literally so close to a fruit bat that I could have
touched it (ill advised, of course, rabies- fleas etc.). Sensing
chiroptophobia (i had to look that one up), a bat swooped over our
heads and peed on my brother-in-law. P. and I told him that it
was good luck in Asia to be 'blessed' by a flying creature. B's
response : Ha ha ha, very funny.

A different kind of nocturnal creature inhabited Bugis Street in olde
worlde Singapore.

Bugis (pronounced Boo-giss) Street was infamous street in the 60s and
70s. It was where you went for after hours people watching - bars,
transvestites, cross-dressers, local mafia and seedy gambling dens.
The 'girls' who worked the bars (and the streets) were (according to
my Mum, who went to Bugis for the famously good food) breathtakingly
beautiful, and it was sometimes hard to tell they were really boys
unless you glimpsed an adam's apple under the glittering dress or
(dead give-away) a too prominent clavicle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugis,_Singapore

The government swooped in during the '80s, chased away the
undesirables and Bugis became a sanitized and boring place to shop,
eat and wander around. The old markets were razed and an
air-conditioned mall rose in their place. Old buildings were gutted
and only the veneers were kept and painted gaudy colors, while the
insides became thoroughly modern malls - replete with escalators,
Macdonalds, cell phone shops and touristy trinkets.

Wandering through Bugis now, I was astonished to find that it is
quietly schizophrenic. One portion is incredibly clean, full of shops
with orderly merchandise, restaurants with clean seats and menus...but
the other part! It felt like Singapore had returned to its tawdry
roots. A covered street market with aisles of shops so closely
packed, you had no choice but to elbow your way through the crowd or
be paralysed forever by sweaty armpits and Blaring Chinese opera
music. EAR SPLITTINGLY AWFUL - listen at your own risk:

http://www.btinternet.com/~xiangxing/music/BeijingOpera
BOP16HatredSeedsInHeart.mp3

The sights are overwhelming --- mountainous piles of yellowing
t-shirts, too-shiny shoes, jade jewellery heaped on tables. I loved
the piece of torn cardboard relying heavily on the power of the
exclamation mark proclaiming "Extra! Special! One! Time! Sale! Price!"

There were food stalls jammed elbow to elbow, and several very smelly
stalls selling fresh cut fruit on ice and local desserts made from
yam, mango and guava. I also found some odd shops tucked away under
the glare of buzzing neon. Like the Goth clothing shop staffed by a
tiny Chinese girl, her face glittering with multiple piercings. Like
the intriguingly named "CONsex" shop (consensual? conditional?
conceptual?) with windows draped in black velvet, advertising novelty
condoms and 'quality mens and ladies lingery' . The window display
stopped me in my tracks -- there were half a dozen little
penis-shaped toys hopping to 'Putting on the Ritz'. Uh-huh.

Just so you can quote random facts when people pester you about your
knowledge of Singapore, because I know they will.... : - ) , it
might interest you to know that Johnson County is 477 square miles in
area has a population of 500,000. Singapore is 400 square miles in
area, and has a population 4.5 million. The Singapore government
wants the population to grow to 6.5 million in the next 20 years. Holy
elbow room, batman!

Singapore hopped three other cities to become the 14th most expensive
city in the world to live in, and the 5th most expensive city in Asia.
A new studio apartment (out in the suburbs) measuring 650 square
feet costs S$1.2 million or US$800,000. Gas is approximately $3 a
gallon. A new car, let's say a Honda Accord, costs US$65,000, which
includes 150% import duty, a certificate of entitlement which gives
you the right to have a car, and road tax. However you can eat a
really delicious lunch at a food center for US$3. A postage stamp
still costs Singapore 10 cents (about US 6cents). And a visit to a
family physician is capped at S$35(US$23) per consultation. So there
are compensations.

Now, dear artist friends, and parents of aspiring artists, please read
more about Sophie and Wonder Art. She is so passionate about what she
does and teaches art in such a refreshing, experiential way. Here's
one class I love - she evokes for the children the feeling of being a
blind creator as Monet and Matisse were in their later years. Her
English is lyrical -- she calls this 'the adventure of the senses,
leaving sight aside.' The photographs of these very young children
creating so freely with their eyes tightly shut is something to
behold.

http://web.mac.com/sophieandthegang/iWeb/Wonder%20Art/Eyes%20shut%21%20%28clay%29.html

We have been bitten by the dragons...dragon boats, that is! We went
to watch dragon boat races on Sunday and were hooked! Cheering for the
different teams we found that the Candadians had the winning crews and
decided to sign up.
http://www.canadiandragons.sg/ A drummer sits at the stern and taps
out a beat for the paddlers, and someone else stands in the bow
steering the rudder like a gondolier. With 10 people in the boat the
bladework is clean and precise. It looks like hell on the back but
we'll find out as our first practice is this weekend. Their social
calendar looks a little like The Hash House Harriers, whom I used to
run with many years ago. The Hash called themselves "a drinking club
with a running problem".

March, April or thereabouts

I realized my passport was expiring and went off to the Immigration
and Checkpoints Authority last week to renew it. This required a new
photograph, and so, completely unprepared, bad morning hair and no
makeup, I sat in a photo booth and squinted into the lens. When my
photo popped up onscreen, the photographer started Photoshop and
proceeded to scrub out the dark circles under my eyes. She grinned as
she handed the prints to me. All the photographers (5 or 6 of them)
were doing similar touchups for their subjects, young and old. Now
THAT'S service!

Talk to any taxi-driver, food stall server, shop-keeper...actually any
Singaporean man or woman in the street about politics right now, and
you will be locked in a debate for hours! The reason is the current
fury over Singapore ministers getting a hefty pay hike. Starting
salaries are 1.2million and senior ministers earn well over 3 million
a year. Full story :
http://news.asiaone.com/a1news/20070405_story12_1.html

The argument the government uses is that they need to pay high
salaries to attract the Singapore intelligentsia. They say they have
to actively persuade doctors, lawyers and other high-fliers to give up
their lucrative practices with the lure of high pay. When pressed,
the minister making the announcement said that if the people were
unhappy with this, they needed 'a dose of incompetent government' to
shut them up! He added that if we did not make this pay adjustment,
our security would be at risk and our women would end up as maids in
other countries! And of course the Filipino and Indonesian
goverments, many of whose women DO work in Singapore as maids, are
infuriated by the implication of ineptitude. The daily paper (usually
a govt mouthpiece) is full of angry letters from readers! It's great!

Those who live here like to call Singapore 'the little red dot',
because that is what you see on a world map when you try to locate it.
In fact, the dot usually is bigger than the island! But the
self-importance the government confers upon itself in world and
regional affairs is often disproportionate to its size. Unlike the
US where no one can ignore the giant's sneeze!

Some things make us both chuckle and flinch. I can speak the
Singapore lingo (Singlish) with aplomb. And switch to Received
Pronounciation immediately as needed (you've all heard me speak like
this!) In order to get good service at a local coffeeshop, I use
Singlish. In order to get good service in a hotel restaurant, I use
RP. But for my tall, fair-skinned, Causasian husband there is no disguise!
A local hardware store charged him $8 for a plug that I had bought for $1.80
before. A bottle of Tiger beer at an outdoor cafe varies from $5 to
$9 depending on the color blindness of the server!
http://www.tigerbeer.com/index.html#

That said, people love children here, no matter their race. Sprog1 has
started swimming lessons at the Chinese High School nearby. Before
the first lesson, as we were registering at the reception desk, an
unsmiling, swarthy Chinese man who had been watching us disappeared
into the back room. He reappeared with little snack sized bags of M&Ms
(the universal treat!) and handed them to Sprog and the other kids
milling around. Of course Sprog received the treat with shrieks of delight,
the other kids (Chinese mostly) without expression. The man (still no
smiles) nodded briefly at the Thank Yous and Xie Xies (Thank you in
Mandarin) and returned to the desk. I assume he was overwhelmed by
inner joy, because there was no visible evidence otherwise.

At the drycleaners (Bishan Famous Drycleaner Service) a short walk
from our house, the lady who took our drop-off was distantly amused by
the children. As we were leaving she spontaneously reached behind her
desk and pulled out these amazing Hello Kitty dolls dressed in
traditional Korean clothes for both Sprogs. Of course, again, loud
American shrieks of delight responded to with polite Singaporean
smiles and nods.

The monsoon rain every day fills the canals and drains up in minutes.
The view of Bukit Timah canal from the road is fairly peaceful after a
night of rain. Before canals were built, Bukit Timah, the district we
live in, would flood regularly. Some canals drain directly to the
sea, and the water level in them rises and falls with the tides.

After our morning run, S. and I sometimes grab breakfast at the
Adam Road Food Center. Breakfast du jour is usually a plate of
prata with curry sauce. Prata is a fried bread made of flour and
ghee, and fried in more ghee. We prefer not to think about the calories per serving.

Our humble abode is a two-storey (bedrooms upstairs) with a small
garden to the front and side. Behind the house, I've mentioned the
construction. We'velearned it will be two years before construction of the 500 room,
7 storey student hostel is complete. The noise is really horrible, but
the mosquito problem due to the rain collecting in the site is much
more insiduous. There was a Dengue outbreak not long ago, and we are
quite nervous due to the kids being outside so much. DEET is our
friend right now.

To the front of the house and unlike the US, are the trash cans out on the curb.
Trash is picked up every morning, even Sunday. A once a week pickup is
not practical given how quickly things rot here because of the heat.

Because of the thick trees in our neighborhood, the birdsong around
our house is incredible in the early mornings and at dusk. Lots of
birdcalls and songs from mynahs, orioles, finches, cockatoos and
others I can't identify. In the afternoons, a flock of screeching wild
white cockatoos tear through the sky towards the nearby reservior.
At night, the cello-like reverberating call of the nightjar.

Arrival in Singapore - January 2007

Well, greetings from Singapore! The weather has been great, no more than 75
degrees every day due to the heavy rains. Very bearable and
thankfully the kids have adjusted well to the climate. The AC in the
master bedroom is not working (bloody landlord is ignoring us) so it's
a little sweaty for me and the hoseband, but the kids are OK.

The flight over was far far better than we could have imagined. The
worst parts were getting through security in LAX. That really
sucked even with two adults (me and my mother in law)
wrangling the three kids. We had a car seat, two strollers, carryons,
a baby in a sling, and had to declare all our liquids and gels, take off our shoes, shed our
jackets, take baby out of sling, etc etc. So quite a pain.

I am in love with Singapore Airlines. It rocks.
The executive economy is the way business class used to be and it is
fannnnntastic. Heaps of leg room, comfy and wide seats, a SNACK BAR
in the back of the plane, super clean toilets, and very attentive and
cheerful flight crew.

There's a video panel in the back of each seat so you have movies on
demand, games, etc etc. And the 17 hours is spaced out really well --
once you take off, they feed you dinner, turn out the lights and you
can sleep for about 8 to 10 hours. Then they wake you up, feed you a
snack, you watch a movie, eat breakfast, and then you've arrived.

S. had arrived 5 days earlier in order to get keys to our house and
buy beds, furniture, appliances, stock the fridge, etc. and was waiting
at the airport at 6am Singapore time (10p your time) on Wednesday for us.
It was great beyond words to see him again. The kids were over him like white on rice.

The house is big by Singaporean standards, a two story duplex with a
nice yard and tall ceilings. It doesn't feel cramped and we've
settled in nicely. Only drawback is that the green space behind the
house has been taken over by construction. There is a junior college
behind us and we had thought a quiet park. But now new dorms are
being built. Pile drivers, bulldozers, shouting construction workers,
etc. One drawback of shopping for a house via the internet is that
you can't see the environs. But the noise is intermittent and we are
trying to live with it.

That said, I think we will be happy here. We are in a pleasant area with
great restaurants. A pizzeria, a gelateria, an English pub, a
Japanese restaurant, a seafood restaurant, an Asian fusion restaurant,
a drycleaners, pet shop, fish market, an Indian restaurant, a wine shop, a
Swiss butchery (gourmet meat and sausage) and more, and more.

So far we have eaten at the pizzeria (mediocre) and the gelateria (quite good).
We've had spectacular meals in other places -- just incredibly fresh fruit and
vegetables, great Chinese and Malay food, Italian artisan bread,
Buddist vegetarian food. Sadly there is a Starbucks on almost every
block in the city, so the local cafes have suffered. But thankfully in
our 'hood there is a local joint like the one I was a regular at when
I lived here before. Gap toothed and taciturn Chinese waiters. Good
noodles made to a family secret. Patrons slurping coffe out of chipped
saucers. Taxi drivers with their sandals off and feet up on the chairs
as they shovel food into their mouths. And local coffee so strong you
have to arm wrestle it out of the cup.

It's hard to get to know your neighbors here. In such a crowded city people
are jealous of their privacy. But I figure with kids, it's only a
matter of time before we are sucked pell mell into the vortex of play dates and birthday
parties, so I'm not worried about making new friends.

My mother and brother have visited several times and 'Uncle Mike' is
a huge hit with the girls. He is a colonel in the air force and has gone
from a burger eating, chain smoking, stressed out heart attack
candidate, to a hard bodied, organic food eating, workout crazy health nut.
Does turning 40 do that to you?

My mother is frail but well. Her memory is starting to go. This is
the first time in her life she will experience her grandkids growing
up in her lap. All the others have lived in the UK or Oz, so I am
happy about that. I will see my beloved cousin this weekend and his
wife and kids. Good friends live down the street from us. It feels
good to be back!

The kids started school on Tuesday, and they absolutely love it. It's a
local Montessori with wonderful teachers in a green setting. They have
really missed the company of children these past three weeks and have already
made friends with the kids in their classes.

Singapore is a huge culture shock for the kids. For me
it's coming home, for them it's all strange andnew.
Sprog 1 had a hard time getting used to the songs during line
time, the kids sing in Mandarin too, and she cried as she was not
able to understand the words. But she is intrigued by it now,
and we are all going to learn Mandarin together. Sprog 2 has struggled
with the jetlag and is still gettin very tired through the day. Sprog 3
was waking up quite a bit at night, but fingers crossed everyone has
settled into a routine, and things can only get better.

I can't say I miss the 20 degree weather you are all experiencing. We watch CNN
and Fox News and the snow and ice are hard to comprehend when it's so warm here.
But without a doubt, we all miss our friends and family in KC.