Easter in Singapore

Happy Easter Everyone. I know the teachers in The Territory are happy as it also marks the start of their break. It could easily go by here and you wouldn't even notice other than the public holiday for Good Friday. Very few Easter Eggs or displays in the shops, though there were some special efforts made by the cake shops.

When we arrived at work on Sunday morning to discover that Easter Bunny had hopped all through, depositing eggs and leaving trails of footprints and strewn shredded paper behind, the kids and parents thought cats must have got in.  But we were really delighted and it helped get through the last day of the week cheerfully. It had been a pretty busy week because we needed to leave everything in place for the replacement teachers next week as well as prepare for the following week (which is the one in the term we actually plan ourselves) and have any marking completed.
Sandy flew in Fri night and since we were not working we were able to meet her and share a cab back to Serangoon together.  Over the weekend while we worked, she enjoyed the pool, went to Sentosa and took a flight on the Singapore Flier I mentioned last week. We met after work and had dinner each night and then on Monday she completed her shopping list and then joined me at the MAE book club meeting.  Now you might be wondering why anyone would do that, but this was a bit special. Since we had been reading 'A Different Sky' by Meira Chand (which is a wonderful read leading up to the fall of Singapore and through to independence) the meeting was held during High Tea at Raffles. Sandy and I managed to get there early enough for a cocktail in the courtyard first and then joined the ladies for tea and petits fours. You only do it once, so you might as well enjoy it and have a glass of wine as well we figured. Forgot to take pictures but I am hoping others will share theirs and I can upload one then.  Here's one of the courtyard from an earlier visit.

Sandy left last night and today we have been getting read to leave. The beds are changed, the place is clean enough and we are putting some things together in the carry on.  I'm a little slow getting around as I managed to strain my hamstring yesterday, nothing too serious but I wont be dancing all that much at the wedding I'm afraid. We are so looking forward to catching up with many NT friends and those in our family who are travelling north to hear all the news first hand. Thanks to all of you who keep in touch via email, we always expected to skype much more often than we manage but the times just don't seem to work well. We have a list of things to bring back with us but don't need to take much.  It was wonderful to skype with Luke and Tahlia this morning, they look relaxed although I think I did detect an edge to Luke's voice on some topics. We were looking forward to sharing today with Joan and Jim who were to be cruising around India next week but unfortunately that trip had to be postponed by the company.  Hopefully it can be rescheduled for sometime in the near future and we will have more time to share with them too.