Ohnolah!

Thunderstorms

I love the thunderstorms in Singapore -- they are spectacular and never fail to impress me.  The tropical warmth, the darkening of the sky, the wipping winds that come right before the rain sets in, the dramatic lightning and the deep rumble of thunder....and then the torrential rainfall that you just don't want to get caught in unless you want to get drenched...and umbrellas little are of little use.

A couple of weekends ago, I caught this shot of a storm brewing in the distance -- and I love the contrast of the dark sky and the sun still shining on the white buildings.

 

It's raining a lot today....we're getting into the rainy season, and the best thing about that, aside from the rain, is the cooler temps!

Pink freighter

There was this hot-pink freighter in the Singapore harbor for a few weeks -- it left late last week, took off to somewhere else with cargo -- but before it went, I took a shot of it, in the late afternoon from the 37th floor of Suntec.  It was a spectacular freighter, completely painted pink, except for the red hull.  I've never seen anything like it....and I wonder where it was from.  So cool.... 

  

F1 night in Singapore...bright lights and fantastic views

The F1 night race in Singapore came and went, creating a few challenges on the transportation front to and from work as roads around the business district in Marina Bay were increasingly barricaded off to get fitted with the strong lights that were to illuminate the race track for the first ever night-time competition.  The race also created much excitement in Singapore and surely got a lot of press -- off- and on-line, here and abroad.  We spent the race night at a friend's house in great company and with a stunning view of central Singapore from the 26th floor....(it's not a terribly clear photo, but gives a fantastic view of all the lights....):

 

The Singapore Flyer changes color....a great backdrop for the National grand stand and the Esplanade performance center -- the two oval-shaped buildings in the foreground.  The brightly-illuminated lights across the picture is the race track on the Esplanade Bridge crossing the river. 

Once the race started, the loud noise of the cars made the whole scene quite exhilirating.  It was a great setup -- the sights and sounds from afar and the live tv transmission projected onto the white wall in the apartment...

  

The Swissotel Stamford was another great vantage point for race-lovers...and then there's the space station government offices that always crack me up!

   

It was a fun night...and spectacular promotion for Singapore.

Back to a routine

Time's flying by and I somehow have 'forgotten' all about this blog.  I have to decide whether or not to continue.  I'll give one last try :-)

The boys are back in school -- E in 6th grade and with that beginning Middle School, and A in 4th grade.  It's been good to settle back into a routine after a summer of traveling far and wide.  Back-to-school-nights are done with, and we've got a pretty good idea of the setup for the year ahead in terms of class schedule, curriculum, class mates, etc.  Middle School is a big change, with a changing schedule every day, a locker to put all your stuff between classes, and a number of electives.  I hope E will find it interesting and find his way in this new environment.

Work has been very busy, and now with 09 planning setting in fast and furiously, the next couple of weeks promise to be intense.  The Southeast Asia division is doing well, and I really like my peers -- a varied group of people from all over....Singapore, Canada, the US, the Philippines, Sweden, Vietnam, Taiwan.  I love this environment and it's partly what drew me to this job in the first place -- the in-country experience, of course, but also the opportunity to work with a diverse group of people.  We have fun...and we disagree...but we get along and that's what matters.

I'm fitting in some knitting, too!  I finished the boys' blankets -- the mohair seed stitch one for A and the Pi blanket for E.  They love their handmade gifts, and that makes me happy.  I just finished the Stora Dimun Shawl from Cheryl Oberle's book in a dove blue Kauni yarn -- I still need to block it and then I'll see what it really looks like.  A Feather and Fan shawl from the same Oberle book is now 'back in business' after hibernating -- I'm knitting it in an unspun Icelandic wool in black and dark grey and this one is for me!

Below a summer memory of picking raspberries in the woods behind my little house in Sweden -- so lovely, so fun, such a good time with the boys....and my mom!

The raspberries and blueberries we gathered we delicious with locally-made vanilla ice-cream -- true summer food.  We had a lovely week in Sweden at the tail-end of the trip, before heading to New York, a big contrast indeed.  I wonder when I'll go back -- E seriously stated that next summer, he wants to spend one month in Sweden.....implying that too much travel and too many plane rides were probably too much for one summer....better to stay put in one place for a little while.

The end of the year....

The school year is drawing to a close and summer is coming -- and this time of year brings with it school end-of-year shows and activities, extra-many birthday parties for 'summer' kids, and goodbye parties for other expats who are either returning back to their home country or heading onwards to a new assignment in another part of the world.

We had a birthday party for A. and his favorite friends from school.....9 boys for 4 hours.  It was fun, and between water gun fights in the pool, playing tag, and, of course, lots of goodies and cake, the time went by quickly.....A. had a great time.  I don't have any 'blog' pictures...too many faces :-)

The Art Show at the boys' school was inspiring and very well put together.  Art by the students was displayed in one large show room and throughout the school as well...here's the main 'gallery':

A visiting artist from New York came in to work with grades 3, 4 and 5 to create tiles...each student created one, and they have now been hung as a permanent installation at the school....so cool...and fun to look at...

The colors, shapes, composition....I really enjoyed looking at these....

The boys have really enjoyed their art classes.  The art, music, and PE programs were a big plus this year and an upgrade from our public school system experience in California, even given that we were in a good school there with decent facilities.  The art facilities and teachers at the Singapore school are wondeful and I'm happy that we have this opportunity to enjoy them.  Music has been very good, too; E. is playing the violin for the second year, and A. has discovered that he's got a pretty good voice for singing....

Anyhow, despite the challenges of getting up early to catch a 7am bus and not getting back home until 3:45pm in the afternoon, the school experience has been good and the boys are happy.  They've made good friends, too, and the school has proven much more 'international' than I initially thought it would be --- and that's a good thing.  Naturally, there are always rough patches and things to 'manage through' - but the boys are learning and are exposed to many ideas and ways of doing things that I hope will be useful in the future.

OK, that's it for now....

Tuesday morning sky

6:30am view from the balcony of our apartment in downtown Singapore....while the coffee was brewing and the boys were waking up....

 Changed by blog design back to the original template; I like it better, more simple. 

Flora and Fauna..at the zoo

Work has been really busy and so has our social schedule, so to speak.  It's a short week since this past Mondy was a holiday -- Vesak Day -- in celebration of Buddha's birthday and his, much later, ascension to nirvana.  We went to the Singapore Zoo which always proves to be fun and interesting, even after having visited several times by now.  Lots to explore, many different animals to see, lovely surroundings to walk in, and places for the kids to play and run around.  The Zoo is one of Singapore's key attractions as well, so it's usually always quite crowded, especially on weekends and holidays.  I caught a picture of this lovely guy...a grand old orangutan...he looks so nice....but lonely and not so happy?

The zoo has lots and lots of greenery, adding to the feeling of walking around in a tropical landscape...there is also an orchid garden, albeit quite small, and a section featuring plants and flowers indigenous to Singapore and Southeast Asia.  I found this beauty there.....it's a kind of ginger, and what I've found on the web indicates a "torch ginger", but I'm pretty sure that's not what the sign said.  Anyhow, striking all the same...

On our way out, I spotted this cool flower...I don't know its name, but it starts out like this:

and ends up like this:

How cool is THAT?

Lovely day, hot and humid as always, but somehow, it didn't feel that bad on Monday :-)

Tordenvejr!

The bubble of hot, humid and stuffy weather that Singapore has been living in over the last couple of weeks finally burst last night in a spectacular thunder storm.  I woke up with a start in the middle of the night as the room lit up completely and was followed moments later by a giant roar of thunder.  The lightning was very close, I could hear the electricity sparks in the air -- the lightning strike and the thunder were almost simultaneous.  The fact that we're in the middle of tall buildings make the thunder even louder as it ricochets off the cement and glass walls.  I got out of bed to have a look, and even though you expect the next lightning strike any second, it is still startling when it actually  happens. 

In the safety of our tall building and plenty of safe guards in lightening conductors all around, I can savour these thunderstorms; whereas if we were living in a small wooden house somewhere, they would be cause of great concern and worry.  I love these massive, spectacular thunderstorms that so clearly - and loudly - display the sheer power of nature.  It's one of the aspects of living in the tropics that I do really like.  That is, when I don't have to get out and about when the torrential downpour is at its highest....

The storm brought loads of heavy rain, tropical rainstorm-style.  As a result, this morning is a cool 25 degrees with a wonderfully refreshing breeze.  It almost felt "cold", a very, very unusual feeling...I'm loving the break from the heat.

I took this picture last year on the 53rd floor of the Swissotel Stamford, a thunderstorm brewing.

Finished!

I finished the Leaf Lace Shawl in the autumn-coloured Kauni yarn a couple of weekends ago, and it's been blocked.  I like the way it turned out...the colours shift quite nicely, even though I was debating while knitting the shawl whether to just have the self-striping yarn colouring take its natural course or to intervene and break and rejoin the yarn to have more dark colors in the middle -- I chose the former, and I think it worked out well.  I wore it at work last week :-)

I'm working on two main projects, and have put everything else on hold -- for a change, I'm trying to not get distracted by a new project until the two at hand are done.  The boys each 'ordered' a blanket....so I'm knitting one for A. in Mountain Colors Mohair in Goldrush -- a rectangle in seed stich with a to-be-defined border -- and another for E. in Mountain Colors 4/8 wool in the Mystic Lake colorway -- based on EZ's Pi Shawl pattern, so it'll be one large circle...I'm hoping both will turn out well.  It's a lot of work...but the Pi pattern is so straight-forward that I can take it with me to the movies and knit in the almost-dark.  OK, it's extreme, I realize, but one's gotta do what one's gotta do to finish... What's the rush?  I'd like to finish by the time school is out -- that's the at the beginning of June -- so the boys can bring the blankets on the upcoming on summer vacation (which, at this planning stage, will involve several long flights). 

We went to Ah Teng's bakery for breakfast this morning -- the cafe is located in Raffles Hotel and is always a nice outing.  The pastries are delicious, coffee is good, and there's dim sum as well.  E. is doing a report on Singapore historical sites, so a visit to Raffles is one of the places he selected to visit.  We're working on that project for most of the rest of the day....

Time is flying by, and I've been neglecting the blog entirely. 

This week is a short week due to the May 1st holiday -- very civilized to have off on labour day...certainly didn't have that privilege in the US.  It was A's birthday, and we celebrated it with presents, a movie (Ironman), dinner (Peking duck and other goodies) and cake....it was really nice.  A friend of mine who also has a May 1 birthday came over, too, and we all went out for dinner.  A. had a good time...can't believe he just turned 9!

Earlier in the week I was back in Ho Chi Minh City for business meetings.  With new product launches, press briefings, lunch with the team there, and planning sessions, it was very busy.  But I did manage to carve out time to savour a couple of wonderful meals -- Vietnamese food is high on my list of being some of the best in the world. 

The week before that I was in Seoul, also for business.  This was a short trip -- less than 48 hrs on the ground.  It takes about 6.5 hours to travel from Singapore to Seoul; I took the overnight up on a Wednesday to attend phone meetings in the morning and to make sure I had a little extra time to spend with two very good friends who live in Seoul.  This was the biggest treat -- seeing both of them -- one for tea and one for dinner :-)  And, I did manage just a little bit of shopping -- one of my favorite clothing stores is in Seoul (isai).  As you can probably tell, I'm quite enchanted with Seoul -- I've had some really nice times in this city over the years, and always love to go back.

A couple of pics -- first, a lovely tea house in Insadong where I met up with my friend Nick:

and, after a tasty bulgogi dinner over a hot fire (Korean food is, in humble my opinion, under appreciated), my friend Jaiy introduced me to his newly-opened side business -- a bar called "Click":

...this, needless to say and in best Korean tradition, went on quite late.

Looking forward to the weekend now....I'll need to make some significant progress on our summer plans to not run into too many sold-out flights and high-priced options...arghhh!!