Home of the Carrick Family Website
Wednesday, October 1st, 2008
It's fall....the days are getting cooler and shorter, the leaves are changing color, kids are looking forward to carving pumpkins and dressing up for Halloween - yeah right - DREAM ON!!!! None of that happening here! I think we've had record temperatures the last few days. When it's not been boiling hot and oppressively humid, it's been pouring rain! Not a pumpkin in sight. The only "halloween" I've seen is at Spotlight - and it's Mardi-gras stuff!!!!
Samantha and I went out with about 10 other women I've met through school and the AWA to watch Mama Mia the Movie. We had a great time and decided that we it's probably something we should do more often as a group. I think the Singaporeans were a little taken aback and tickled at the same time with our vocal efforts!
Friday, October 3rd, 2008
Today is Maxine's 14th birthday! And we're traveling up to Melaka, Malaysia this morning! So, we had to wake her up a little earlier than she would have liked! Her gifts soon put a smile on her face though! She got a bagful of girlie stuff from Sydney - make-up, headbands, jewelry, etc. And she got a pink camera from mom and dad! It's something she's been asking for for ages so I think she was very, very happy to see it! Steven and Samantha bought her a digital photo frame which will work great her new camera and she can download some of her existing photo's onto it too.
Rory has taken the dogs to the kennels while we finish getting ready and then we'll be on our way!
Thursday, October 2nd, 2008
Last night we went to Chinatown to see the lanterns for the Mid-Autumn festival. Everywhere was lit up and decorated so beautifully with large flowers and statues of various Chinese mythical figures. It was so much cooler walkig around at night. Although a few fo the stalls were closed you didn't really miss them since there are so many! As we were about to leave it started to rain and although we were near the front of the taxi queue it took forever to get one (actually we all needed two taxis). Althought we left first, Steven & Sam and the boys got home before us, but the taxi fares were within 10 cents of each other! All depends on the route the taxi takes - ours went through town and traffic!
Sunday, October 5th, 2008
Well, Melaka was interesting, sort of.....
The hotel was awesome, great room, pool and restaurants, pitty it had no beach though :(
On Friday afternoon and evening we all took a walk and tri-shaw ride around the town, stopping off a various "touristy stops" along the way. In order to get anywhere we had to cross a six-lane highway - no kidding - with no crossing, traffic lights, etc. You literally had to lean over into the road, check for cars and more importantly, crazy motorbikes, and then make a mad dash for the other side! Interesting that they didn't mention that in the hotel description!
The whole country is very muslim, which makes for some interesting food choices, and bathrooms stops! We had McDonalds for lunch - figured that at the very least, it would be as "safe" as any other McDonalds we'd ever eaten :), and after having frozen lemonade slushies at a shop where I saw a roach crawling up the icecream container, decided it was probably safer to dine at the hotel! The town of Melaka is touted as a very historic and cultural town and I suppose to some extent it is, but not enough to warrant more than a day visit. Plenty of museums and historic buildings. On Saturday night we walked over to the night market. Oh my! It was soooo packed and soooooo hot and sooooo stinky!!!! As you can probably tell, not my favorite place on earth! The best thing was probably watching the cat cross the six lane highway during rush hour, right in front of us, and surviving!! And the Asian karaoke! Yikes! They should simply not let any of these people near a microphone!!!
Friday, October 10th, 2008
This week has flown by! Steven and family, and our kids, went to Jurong Bird Park, the zoo, and the night zoo this week. Rory and I also went to the night zoo. We all enjoyed some very overpriced Ben and Jerry's while we were there.
We went to Sentosa today. It's a small island off the south of Singapore. It's a man-made island and basically considered the "playground" of Singapore. The beaches were very nice and there was plenty of parking and shade. We spent the whole time under a huge tree in complete shade. Still, I managed to get soooo sunburned! I'm sporting some very noticable raccoon eyes and crimson cheeks! I'm taking it easy and trying to recover while Rory's taking everyone out for supper at the nearby shopping center.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Maxine has gone off to Sentosa again today with her 8th grade buddies for a beach party. Rory has taken Sydney to practise her bowling and to get a haircut and I'm beading in front of the TV, staying out of public until my face returns to a somewhat normal skintone! Of course, there's laundry to do dishes to wash, but who wants to do that! CSI Miami looks much more interesting. Somewhat fed up with beading and scrapbooking I started to think about other projects I could do that would involve me getting out the house and meeting people. Which in turn started me thinking of things I wished I brought with, and things I know I'll miss when we leave, as well as the things I know I'll never miss!!!! So for those who are interested, here goes:
Things I wish I brought to Singapore:
My friends!
Our garden
Beading magazines - they're about S$16 an issue here.
Silver findings and supplies for beading
All my serving dishes
Baking and cooking supplies and utensils
Table cloths
Clothing
Shoes
More bedding
More towels
Bathing suits for the kids
My nail technician!
Stock of deodorant
Sunscreen
Red meat!
a Tex-Mex restaurant!
Things I already know I'm going to miss when we leave!
Easy walking distance to no less than 20 restaurants!
Furniture styles.
Availability of craft lessons.
Tall ceilings in our house, and the big light rooms.
Taxis
Proximity to numerous vacation spots and countries.
School uniforms
Things I'm not going to miss:
Heat and Humidity
Strange local foods and smells
Traffic
Not being able to plant a beautiful garden
Having to visit at least 5 different stores to get everything you need
Squishing 20 people into an elevator
Icky restrooms
Building and construction everywhere
Re-runs of CSI series 1, 2 and 3!!!
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Maxine won her soccer game this week! Tomorrow they play the American School, and both Max and Syd have another game on Tuesday. Not sure who they're playing. We didn't really do anything exciting this week - just routine stuff.
Tomorrow I'm getting my hair cut and colored - so we'll see how that goes! I'm sick to death of people telling me they pay only $25 at the American Club to have theirs done! You have to be a club member to use the salon and I've really had to bite my tongue when I've wanted to blurt out that in fact their $20,000 annual fee to the American Club seriously negates any savings they made on hair styling!!!! On Friday I'm going to Little India for a walking tour. Oh, and I have Bunco on Tuesday! Yippeee! This week the kids have a "United Nations Week" at school. The families are encouraged to bring a food item from their country, so I'm making South African mini milk tarts. I haven't made them in years so I'm hoping they turn out okay. I figured the kids wouldn't have a clue what they were supposed to taste like anyway!
Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008
Last night played bunco! We had 16 players seated at 4 tables!! It was quite a crowd but a lot of fun. I wish we played for prizes and not just money. At the end of the evening everyone got their prize money and left! I'm used to hanging around and chatting for an hour or two after playing! We also played all four rounds!!! Good grief - I was exhausted at the end of the evening! I'm hosting in February and there's no way we'll play four rounds - much more important things like dessert, coffee and gossip!!
Thursday, October 23rd, 2008
Today the kids had a "United Nations" celebration at school. Each family was encouraged to bring in a plate of food from their home country. We chose to take some South African Milk Tartlets since there was already a bunch of American food being made. It was an amazing morning - so much wonderful food from 33 different countries! There was a good selection from all over the world - Canada and USA, UK, most of the European countries, Korea, China, Singapore, Japan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, India, and a I'm sure many others that I'm missing. It was a long morning in the outside cafeteria, from 8:30 to 12:30, but our table was well situated between two ceiling fans! Thank Heavens!!!
Tomorrow I'm going on a walking tour of Little India - I'm hoping for another cool morning!
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Magically, it hasn't rained at all this weekend! For the last week or two it has rained every day for a least a couple of hours, but more often, large thunderstorms throughout the day with constant drizzle the remaining hours!
On Friday I went on a walking tour through Little India. Deepavali celebrations are under way so it was packed with plenty of children's tours too. They've just finished exams here at the local schools, so they tend to go on field trips - Little India being one of them. It wasn't too bad though. I think the drizzle kept a lot of the tourists away. We started the tour at the Tekka Market, which is very much like the enclosed pavilions at Canton, except there's also a "wet market" - a section where they sell meat, fish and vegetables. Vendors are cutting up huge chunks of meat on stainless steel slabs, boxes and boxes of fresh veggies everywhere and long troughs of fresh fish on ice line the aisles. We took a very fast walk though there, after taking a very deep breath - the smell is just unbearable! After that we walked through the streets of Little India, visited a Hindu temple, as well as some other interesting stores and buildings. I found the temple very interesting, after haven driven by so many of them, so often, it was nice to be able to see inside. Many of the streets were lined with vendors selling brightly colored flower garlands. Some are made of silk flowers, but most, during Deepavali, are made from real flowers which are imported due to the large demand. It turns the streets into a magnificent array of colors and fragrance. We visited a goldsmith to see the different styles of gold jewelry, made in intricate Indian design, from 20 carat gold. Nothing less than 20 carat so it tends to be very yellow, almost fake looking. Apparently it's because 9 carat, etc. is too blended with other metals and cannot be melted thus rendering it basically worthless, when gold was traded years ago. Also, it's believed that the brighter yellow tone looks better with the Indian complexion. We stopped at a corner stall for some vegetable donut type snack - tasted very much like a hush puppy. We also had some ginger tea which was delicious! The lady that runs the tours must be in her eighties, at least, and has lived in Singapore her entire life. She knows so many of the locals and can remember how streets looked years ago. It's fascinating to hear all she has to say about the history of the places we visited. I didn't stay for the lunch, which was traditional Indian fare, eaten with your right hand, literally - no utensils. Couldn't face that - plus, I had to be at the school - convenient excuse! I had volunteered to help tally up the Scholastic book orders so had to get to the school to pick up those. Only got five orders so didn't take more than ten minutes!
Last night I took Rory and the kids for a stroll around Little India, before I forget all the information I learned. Sydney had also been on a field trip there last week and had visited many of the same places so we compared notes throughout the evening. It was incredibly packed, but just amazing to walk through all the street stalls at night, with all the streets lit up, and decorative garlands and ornaments hanging above your heads. It was a hectic evening but a lot of fun. We took a taxi so we wouldn't have to find parking or make our way back to the car when we were ready to go home - one of the great benefits of taxis!!!
The kids are off school on Monday and Tuesday. They're very fortunate that they get days off school for many of the different religious holidays, Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Malay…..the next one is December 8th, and then Christmas, and then a week for Chinese New Year at the end of January!
Tuesday, October 28th, 2008
Not far from our house there's a water park that we've driven by many times. It always looked interesting but we've never made our way there - well today we did! The kids were off school so they each invited a friend and we went for a few hours this morning. It's by no means as big as water parks in Texas, but it was good for a few hours of entertainment. There's a lazy river with a long tunnel that they pump full of mist every now and again so you can't see inside - lots of kids seemed to like that! There were also three tunnel slides and a few other attractions. It's only about 10 minutes away from our house so I think we might spend some more time up there, perhaps in the evenings since it's open till 10pm. We got some KFC for lunch and then came home for a much needed afternoon nap! Luckily the rain stayed away!
Thursday, 30th October 2008
The girls are going to the schools Halloween "function" tonight. It's not a "dance" but it's the closest thing they've got to it, so they're calling it a dance! It's organized by the student council and seems to be very well supported! Tomorrow night the elementary school campus is holding a Halloween Tailgating party. They've sold over 900 tickets - yikes!! We will NOT be going!!! maxine is going to a friends house and they'll do some trick or treating around the American homes in the area, and Sydney doesn't have any plans right now. She's very dissapointed that Halloween is not really a big deal here. Apparently, up near the American school, in Woodlands, a lot of the houses are decorated and they give out candy. But, that's where EVERYONE goes to trick or treat! According to other kids it's just jam-packed with kids! There's NO way she's going to be wandering around the neighborhoods, where she doesn't know where she is, or the people who live in the houses, or the other kids wandering around!!! Rory said we'll get some scary movies to watch since Maxine won't be here, and she's the one who can't handle them. Syd LOVES scary movies! Looks like I'll have to stock up on popcorn this year instead of candy!!
