6 months in Singapore

Yep, today we’ve been in Singapore for 6 months, we made it! Somehow it feels like it’s been longer than that, but at the same time, it doesn’t feel like we’ve been here for long at all.

We’ve settled in nicely and I think it’s now safe to say that we are both enjoying our time here. It’s hot and humid 24/7 x 365, but that’s just something we all have to live with.

Now we just have to make it to the 1st year milestone.

A&K

Talking cats

As you may know, we like cats. Unfortunately we had to leave our two behind when we moved to Singapore (but that’s another story). While browsing YouTube (not at work), I found these two videos, they are truly hilarious.

We found them really funny as our two cats were quite “talkative” and seemed to spend a lot of their time muttering and chirping while wandering around.

You need to watch this video first:

Watch this video next:

Singapore National Day Parade and other news

Not an everyday sight

It may not be an everyday sight, but the frequency is definitely increasing. Preparations have started for the 2009 Singapore National Day Parade in August. I get a great view from my office window of the various military helicopters and the F16 jets doing their rehearsals. It makes work so much more enjoyable.

Unfortunately, we won’t be able to attend the actual parade, as tickets are only for citizens and permanent residents. I guess we’ll just have to watch it on TV.

In other news, Keri and I will be spending 2 weeks in the UK in September. The first week will be for work, in London and the 2nd week, we’re on holiday. So we’re going to try and see our family and friends as much as possible during this time (so you should also make an effort to see us!).

Why the big paws?

A bear walks into a bar and says to the bartender, “I would like a rum and………………………………. a coke.”

The bartender says: “What’s up with the big pause?”

“I don’t know,” the bear says. “I’ve had them all my life”.

It’s been a while since I last posted anything, and since there’s been a few complaints (hey, it means someone could be bothered to read this), I thought I’d take the time to put up some news.

It’s been a busy few weeks and time really seems to be flying, I can’t believe it’s June, halfway through the year. We booked our flights for our “South African Christmas”, really looking forward to that. That’s right, we’ll be in sunny Souf Efrika between the 18th December 2009 and 8th January 2010. Oddly enough, our friends Mike & Jo of Lookatbowen fame will be there at the same time, so we’re really looking forward to catching up with them.

Singapore is currently holding an “Arts Festival” and I’ve been fortunate enough to attend 2 events already. I went to the Da Vinci Exhibition at the Singapore Science Centre – it was pretty good, although some of the “reproductions” of his genius were poorly done. Imagine special class doing woodwork and you’ve got it. (I know it sounds harsh, but if they decide to build some of his contraptions you’d think they would make an effort to do it properly).

Keri and I also watched “The Diamond”, a 15 minute show where a lady did some fancy aerial ballet moves while suspended from a ribbon inside of an inflated see-through tent. It sounds a bit odd, but it was really good. Keri has put up some Facebook photos of it.

As the arts festival closes, they’re having a massive fireworks display with music, etc. It’s called “Crackers” and is “not for the fainthearted” and not suitable for children under the age of 10. It sounds awesome. It’s on this coming weekend and Keri’s invited a group of people to join us. I’m really looking forward to it and I’ll try to take some photo’s using the “fireworks” mode on the camera.

This past weekend, we watched Terminator Salvation in the Golden Village, Gold Class cinema. It was truly an experience and I thoroughly enjoyed myself (no kidding, it’s Terminator). Keri thought it was “OK” and preferred “Star Trek”, so that should be a good baseline for all of you non-Terminator fans.

We’ll be watching a few movies in the upcoming weeks / months as there are a few good ones on the way. (The taking of Pelham 123, Transformers, something called The Proposal, etc).

So that’s my news for now. Sorry there’s no photos for all of you visual types who don’t enjoy reading.

Weekend Recap

I’ve not posted in a while and I thought I’d put up a quick recap of our weekend. I’m not going to be posting purely for the sake of having new content, I’m more in favour of quality as opposed to quantity.

A large part of the weekend was spent in front of a screen (the cinema and our TV). I did manage to spend a few hours in the sun at the pool even though we’ve had a lot of cloudy / partly cloudy weather lately (especially on the weekends). It’s still hot and it’s going to get hotter as the months roll on.

Flights for our “Christmas in South Africa” holiday have been purchased, we fly out of Singapore on the 18th December and return on the 8th January – I am REALLY looking forward to this holiday. I used 40,000 Virgin Atlantic Airmiles to pay for the internal flight (Johannesburg to East London, Return), so we only had to pay R340 (£24) in tax. For all of the sceptics out there, airmiles do pay off, you should join a frequent flyer programme.

We watched the new Star Trek movie this weekend and I have to say that I was very impressed and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Now for some of you who know me, you know that I enjoy Star Trek in all of it’s various guises. Well I can honestly say, that even if you are not a “trekkie” or have never seen ST before, you would enjoy this film. It was an interesting viewpoint on the whole ST saga, as it’s showing “the beginning” of their journey. I won’t comment any further, as I don’t like to hear too much about a movie before seeing it, so I’ll do my reviews in the same way. (Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Star Trek and was not compensated to provide my opinion on this matter).

We have also finally made our way through most of the TV series that we are watching. (in no particular order: LOST, SmallVille, 24, Heroes). I may have left some out of the list. It’s good to see some of them winding down and some of them finishing with a bang. In the case of 24, I think Jack Bauer has popped his last cap as he seems to be slowly and painfully dying from a fictional biologically engineered weapon. (I think there are still 3 episodes of 24 left, so he may still make it).  At least with these TV series ending, we should have more free time on the weekends. I know it’s quite sad that such an amount of time is spent watching TV, but when we’ve been diligently following the series for so long that it’s only fitting that we see them through to conclusion. Also, some of them are really good

On sunday, Keri and I decided to bake some chocolate covered crunchies (thanks to my mom for the recipe). They came out quite well, just the way that I like them. (Still soft), Keri prefers them crunchier (hence the name I guess). We will experiment with the recipe, as the oats are quite large and not cooked through. If I remember correctly, South African “Jungle Oats” are slightly smaller than the oats we bought in Singapore.

Coffee and a crunchie

Sorry about the poor image quality, I took the photo using my phone, while at work this morning.

Singapore Flight Simulator

For my 30th birthday, Keri gave me a voucher to fly a Boeing 737-800 at the Singapore Flight Experience. It was really fantastic, albeit very realistic.

Years of playing flight sim PC games really paid off, as I didn’t have any problems flying and the instructor was fairly impressed with my ability. (Keri and I made it out alive).

The most enjoyable part of the flight was the take-off at the new Hong Kong airport and landing between the buildings at the notorious old Hong Kong airpot (Kai Tak).

I have a 1 hour DVD of the flight, I’ll try and take out some choice footage and compile a video to upload later.

Keri took some photo’s at the end of the session. Please excuse the awfully cheesy pilot’s hat, the instructor insisted!

Safe landing at Kai Tak airport

Lots of switches and instruments

Captain Andrew (Dorky hat) and Flight Attendent Keri Meyer (Trolley Dolly)

Cinema in style

As part of last week’s long weekend, Keri and I treated ourselves to the “ultimate cinema experience”. We bought tickets to see the new X-Men Origins: Wolverine film. These were not ordinary cinema tickets, they were “Gold Class” cinema tickets. I hear you asking Gold Class, well it’s a bit like flying first class instead of being crammed into economy with 300 other unhappy, noisy people.

The cinema has 28 seats, not ordinary seats, simply amazing, full-sized, electric recliners with a fleece blanket. The seats are in pairs with a table inbetween, for drinks and snacks. The table has a bright green buttom (not unlike the XBOX 360 circle), when pressed, a waiter mysteriously appears to bring you food and drinks. (Proper food and drink, not just popcorn and coke, of course, you can have popcorn and coke if you choose).

Needless to say, it was an awesome experience, and the movie wasn’t half bad either!

Only problem, any future trips to the cinema will be a bit more expensive, as who would want to go back to economy after experiencing the joys of first class

Keri chilling in Style

Ready to sleep

Gold Class Seats

A day out in Singapore

(Disclaimer) This is the first time I’ve added media (photo’s and video) into a post, so if it’s awful and takes long to load – tough

We took advantage of the first day of the long weekend to go and do some touristy stuff downtown. We walked along the river past the Fullerton hotel (the old post office) and down to the Merlion Park.

Singapore Merlion Park

This was also a brilliant opportunity to use our “Gorilla Grip”, a very useful gift we received before we left the UK. (Thanks Mike!).

Gorilla Grip in action

Hmmm, tasty!

After roasting in the heat and taking as many photo’s as possible, we bought tickets for a half hour boat cruise on the Singapore river. The river goes past my office and down to a few quays. We eventually had lunch at Boat Quay.

Keri made a few short videos while on the boat trip, I’ve yet to figure out how to resize them, so I’ll add them once we have them resized.

Update – 07 May 2009:

I have recently figured out how to resize video (again thanks to Lookatbowen for his technical know-how). Video below is of the Merlion and a bit of the Singapore River. (We did not provide the commentary, it was part of the boat tour).

The long weekend

Tomorrow is Labour day in Singapore. The hardworking labour folk (like me) get rewarded with a day off, which is nice. We have a few activities planned for the long weekend and we’ll post some pictures and news about them soon.

I found a rather funny / sad (depends which way you look at it) website this morning. It’s called “Wrecked Exotic Cars” and it has photo evidence,  proving that money cannot stop you from being an idiot.

I also hope to be able to spend some time working on this blog, as it’s still rather basic and has already had some criticism.

The First Post

We’ve decided to start a blog to share photo’s and news with family and friends. It will hopefully be easier to add a few posts each week, rather than sending infrequent emails. When I say we decided to start a blog, I mean: I had the idea to start a blog and I’ve persuaded Keri that it will be easy and fun to maintain.