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Published: September 5th 2008
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Well, we're back home in New Zealand. But we've got a couple of weeks to cover before we continue!
On our last day in the UK we made our way to Heathrow Airport extremely early - our flight was at 10.15pm and we arrived at around 5pm! This was because we weren't sure what sort of traffic we'd encounter on the way and because we still needed to pay for our flight changes and therefore hadn't able to check in online and choose our seats.
Being so early we were able to sort everything out quickly and get half decent seats on the two flights to Singapore. Then there remained nothing but to go through immigration and wait. We said our goodbyes to Lisa and went through. And waited. And waited. And waited. Richard's Ipod and my shiny new Wordoku (Sudoku with letters instead of numbers) book got good workouts. As it turned out our flight was about an hour late leaving, which had me fretting as there was only an hour between our original ETA and our connecting flight in Dubai.
Thank goodness we made up the time in the air and on arrival in Dubai actually
got to experience the 40 degree heat, as work on a new terminal meant we landed a fair way away and had to be shuttled to and from the planes on enormous buses which Emirates made sure had far too many people crammed in at once. Once at the terminal it was a hasty trot to a gate at the other end to board the next flight, 'boarding' consisting of the usual process but instead of an airbridge, a corridor to another bus outside. Dubai Airport still not doing itself any favours in our opinion.
Finally we arrived in Singapore, where the cab driver took a different way to Serangoon Gardens to the one I asked him to. Apparently it is shorter but it was more expensive than usual so just to piss him off I paid him with a hundred dollar note. They should know better than to disregard the requests of People Who Haven't Been To Sleep In A Very Long Time.
We stayed up once we got to the house to watch Nick Willis run his Olympic medal race, which was very exciting, then we hit the sack in a big way and had to
Olympics Closing Ceremony 2
Gold medals all round for this All Black supporter. drag ourselves out of bed late the next morning. That day I walked to the village to pick up something delicious for lunch, as Richard's foot was still bothering him. Just as we finished Kartina rang from work to see if we wanted to go have sushi. Never one to turn down a yummy lunch, even if it's my second, I said yes.
As per usual, we did a lot of eating in Singapore. Pratha and murtabak at our favourite R K Eating House down the road, chicken rice at the famous Pow Sing, satay, roti john, carrot cake, chicken wings and lots more at the market, sushi at Sushi Tei, noodles, dumplings, Malay cakes, traditional ice cream and all the other yummy stuff we love, especially Tita Ana's cooking! Ana is Chris and Kartina's home help and makes the BEST dinners!
Our first weekend we went shopping on the Saturday for materials to make gold medals. With the Olympic closing ceremony the next night it was an excuse for a bit of art and craft with Nadiah and a dress up party. So Sunday was spent making gold medals and Olympic cookies with Nadiah. We had a
Olympic Cookies
From Chefs Aunty and Nadiah. No so popular with the guests. Can't figure out why... huge chicken rice lunch and decorated the cookies with violently coloured icing from tubes. Nadiah was allowed to stay up late to watch the ceremony and was the official make up artist, going large with face paint pens on those brave enough to agree. Vast amounts of pizza were ordered and the sickly cookies made an appearance at the end of the night. Kartina was also celebrating the news the ICC Champions Trophy in Pakistan had been 'postponed', which meant a drastic reduction in her workload and no travel to scary bomb ridden countries in the near future.
We spent most of our days hanging out with Nadiah or just wandering down the road for lunch. Nadiah is quite a handful these days, she is noisy, bossy and all the other things 3 year old girls are. She loved learning new games from Uncle Richard, favourites being The Tickling Game, the Blinking Game and the Clapping Game, all as simple as they sound. She also likes I Spy (using colours) and Hide and Seek.
One night we all went to the Night Safari, except Daddy, because he was in Manila for work. Nadiah loved the fire dancing performance
Mutton Curry
At RK Eating House. Superb beyond words. which was on while we had dinner, standing on her chair, cheering and dancing, which she's very good at. After avoiding the flying squirrel and bat enclosures we jumped on the park tram so she could have a rest and a bit of a sleep before having photos with a snake, a cat and an owl.
On our last Sunday we went to the Bedok Kings (rugby club) Family Day, where dozens of kids went crazy on a covered football pitch, complete with bouncy castle, lolly scramble, apple bobbing, barbecue and goody bags. That night we had planned to go to the delicious seafood restaurant on the East Coast for butter prawns, black pepper crayfish and other delights but we were all so shagged when we got home and had a wine or two we had a late dinner at the market instead. Kartina took Monday and Tuesday off sick, with something similar to my tube-rculosis and we did a bit of shopping and a bit of lunch, including another visit to Sushi Tei, yum, yum. Even Richard enjoys Sushi Tei, although there's no chicken sushi, there's plenty of stuff with prawns!
So as always it was a
Night Safari
Dancing along to the fire dancers. rooly choice trip to Singers, lovely to see everyone, although I'm disappointed I didn't get to see Aunty Bethan and Bump, so next time I'm determined to see Mama Bethan and Bub! Richard still also hasn't met Margie's Chris, so we've decided he is in fact made up and doesn't exist.
So, we finally made it home on Wednesday afternoon, without money, warm clothes or the will to live out of a backpack for another day. Unfortunately we'll be doing it for another few weeks, as the travel isn't over yet! More soon...
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