| The pool at the Tans apartment lit up at night | Nighttime view of the intersection outside the Tans’ window | Getting in some tennis | The master | After tennis, still some time for the playground | Many of the public playgrounds include fitness equipment, such as this stair-climbing machine |
| Innaias takes a turn | Directing traffic? | Guinness and the steps | Flynn loves being sweaty | Just hangin’ around | Flynn jumps down |
| Guinness too | Innaias seems right at home | A climbing wall just his speed | Picking his route carefully | Just hanging out at the apartment | Zonked |
| Innaias seems very relaxed | Guinness and his duck | Flynn loves sleeping all wrapped up | The first week we were there, it rained nearly non-stop | The low clouds made for some really pretty skyline views | Note the green building-top sign on the right. It says “Capital Tower”, but it would wind up turned off for most of our visit. |
| I missed the trip down to Chinatown with everyone else to see the lights, so Albert took me in the car later | In case you can’t tell, the new year is the Year of the Rabbit | It’s hard to tell from this picture, but this is one of many LED-covered trees that were all over the city | The rest of the family pooh-poohed the lights in Chinatown, but I found them much more festive than the lights on Orchard Road | On Orchard Road, it’s lit up all the time anyway, and it was hard to find anything that was clearly Chinese New Year-specific | The ION Orchard being case in point |
| Innaias came with us. He really was more enthusiastic than he looks here. ☺ | More playground time | Fancy see-saw | Nothing wrong with a little geography during recess | Just in case the real palm trees disappear for some reason | Coconut palm |
| That looks dangerous | Driving the bulldozer | What’s inside? | Now they know! | The kids really enjoyed the pool, in spite of it often been cool, rainy, or both | Rest assured Innaias, your daddy isn’t the only pasty white guy in Singapore ☺ |
| The kids also really enjoyed the spigots in the shallow area | Lots of splashing going on | Even the deepest area of the pool is shallow enough for Flynn to stand | Debra too | Discussing swimming technique | The boys always enjoy helping Kong peel eggs for deviling |
| Flynn is smiling on the inside | Innaias’s stuffies take five while he poses with Kong | Many important birthdays happen in February, including Debra’s | And this year is a very special one | Happy FORTIETH birthday Deb! | Uncle Tony joined us for the quiet celebration |
| In Little India, there is the hawker centre at KK Market (aka Tekka Market, aka Tekka Centre) | Our first trip to the place this visit, many stalls were closed, including the Tans’ favorite roti prata man | The Chinese food stalls were closed for Chinese New Year, but there was still plenty of great Muslim food to be had | The walkway between the newer shopping mall and the carpark is actually a good vantage point | You can see the bustle and tradition of Little India on one side | And then see the big city simply by turning around |
| Rinsing off at the pool | Capital Tower still has their sign lit this evening | Debra and the kids play in the pool | Our Panasonic camera broke (for the third time!) just a week before our trip. The zoom on the Canon we got to replace it is quite nice (compare this with the previous shot, taken from the same location ☺ ) | Among the many people we wanted to see while we were in Singapore were our friend John and his wife Smitha (who we only met for the first time this trip) | A view from the Tans’ apartment of a nice sunny morning |
| It’s much more scenic if one crops out the neighboring high-rises though | The apartment building actually has their own modest playground | Innaias runs with the football | But apparently thinks better of it and turns back around | Some sort of hoist for toys? | Amazing! |
| In the background can be seen a defining characteristic of Singapore: the never-ending construction of buildings | Albert knows all the best tennis courts | Flynn refining his footwork | Guinness shows his stuff | Innaias explores the possibilities | Teaming up |
| Tracking the ball | Collector | We have been keeping an eye out for the lion dancers. Last time it seemed they were everywhere, but this visit we haven’t been in the right places, it seems. | So you can imagine the excitement when we saw this group unloading downstairs | The fact that we could see them crowded around the elevator is not a good sign | In fact, they were performing at the taller, fancier apartment building across the street. Buh-ball. :( |
| That didn’t stop us from standing around the window to watch though! | With the new camera, the whole visit I spent refining my “nighttime city lights” techniques (granted, if I’d just have gotten a tripod, no technique would have been necessary ☺ ) | A few blocks from the apartment building, there’s this ruin | Apparently it was an old traditional villa-style house that burned down | While trying a different route to the MRT station, I finally got around to taking some pictures | We were meeting Tony and some of his friends for lunch at a fancy Chinese restaurant downtown, the Wah Lok at the Carlton Hotel |
| Nope. No pictures from lunch. But there’s another of the burned-down house, taken on the way home from the MRT station. | I took the alternate route, then met up with Debra and the boys (who obviously stopped at Mr. Bean on their way through the hospital) | Crossing the street | Albert was minding his own business, driving home one day, when a man driving this Honda plowed into him | Not too bad, all things considered. Frankly, it’s amazing there aren’t more of these accidents. | With the rainy weather, nice, cloudless evenings for a really good sunset just weren’t happening |
| So you can imagine my excitement when there finally was one. If you look carefully, you can see the new Marina Sands looming on the left behind the other buildings. | A trip to Singapore is not complete without chili crab, which we found at the “foodpark” | I took the kids to run around while the Tans finished their meal | We also caught up with Debra’s cousin Ramesh and his wife June | Aunt Corinne getting hugs | Hanging out with Kong |
| Houses of cards | Another birthday, this time Albert’s | The birthday cakes come from a bakery at Thomson Centre that the Tans really like | No candles, just serving | Many evenings, while looking out at the city at night, we saw low-flying lights soaring around. Turns out, it was people like this guy, with LED-lit “powered kites”. | We liked the kites so much, we wound up buying one ourselves. Guinness is holding the case for the remote control while Debra has the bag with the kite itself, as we pose riverside at Clarke Quay |
| Guinness snuggles with baby turtle (an Underwater World gift store item) | We met up for Tony one day, to spend more time with him, starting with lunch at a hawker centre near his apartment | Then we went back to his place to check up on his fish, which he had just started stocking our previous visit to Singapore | His apartment is right next to a nice public park, and has a great view (though there are fewer trees these days, as you can tell from the stumps) | The interior of the apartment is also very nice | In the hall between the kitchen and master bedroom, he keeps a large comic collection, which the kids are very interested to see ☺ |
| One of the nicer features of the apartment is that the wall defining that hallway can be slid all the way open, making the living room much larger | The kids really enjoyed playing with the cushions | Innaias climbs up | We got to spend a little more time with Ramesh and June, who live a short walk from the Orchard Road MRT station. These Jetsons-inspired towers came into view as we headed down the tree-lined street to their place. | We enjoyed some delicious chicken-rice takeout from one of their favorite places | Note all the Coca Cola products in the previous picture and this one. That’s where June works. ☺ |
| I speak practically no Chinese and can read none, but I’m told that my pronunciation of the pinyin printed in the kids’ books is excellent ☺ | Guinness shows off his well-organized bag to Kong | The kids found these X-Men bags at a neighborhood household goods/hardware store, at the Whampoa market (also where the best chicken-rice in the Tans’ neighborhood is found) | Flynn having some fun programming with Scratch | Another of the important birthdays in February is Debra’s Auntie Tjoe | Caroline looks on as Auntie Tjoe blows out her candles |
| Debra’s cousin Robert came over with his family and brought the cake and other goodies with them | The cake | Auntie, Uncle and Caroline ready to serve. Uncle is sometimes referred to as “Uncle downstairs” because for some time, the extended family occupied a single apartment building, where he and his family lived downstairs | Once again, Innaias has been worn out. That happened a lot on this trip. ☺ | Debra and Flynn wound up pretty beat too | On Balestier Road, a block from the Tans’ apartment, there are some photo-worthy buildings, such as this historic “Singapore Eclectic” shophouse |
| A nearby plaque explains the historic significance of the “eclectic”-style architecture, including “Door Gods” of Sikh warriors rather than the traditional Chinese | Right across the street is this restaurant, which happens to be the original location for Boon Tong Kee. We never did get to try to food, but the neon is wonderful. | Just a block in the other direction is this well-lit New Orchid Hotel, with this popular bah kut teh restaurant on the ground floor | Sadly, the eighteen-storey building does not permit roof-top access, for the best views, but from a window at the top of the stairwell, there’s a nice view to the northwest, including the historic shop on Balestier | We wanted to get one last visit with Tony before the end of our trip. He recommended this excellent Indonesian restaurant, just a block from where the whole family used to live. | The food was as good as it looks (though only Tony liked the fried beef lung…it’s an acquired taste, we suppose) |
| This is the apartment that Betty’s family owned long ago, where Debra grew up. It still has a restaurant downstairs, and residential apartments on the upper floors. | A quick family photo across the street…note Flynn attempting to escape from the shot | The neighborhood, like all in Singapore, continues to be developed, so it remains to be seen how much longer the apartment building will still be there | From the lunch and nostalgic visit to the old family home, we walked toward Clarke Quay to get some advice about the powered kite we bought and which didn’t work properly when we tried it before meeting up with Tony | Along the way is this beautiful Hindu temple, the main destination for the Thaipusam festival | The temple’s side entrance, where the kids discovered some chickens wandering around |
