Night Festival

Over the last two weekends of August, Singapore's Night Festival has been held. We didn't get to see it last year but last Saturday night after work we met up on the train with Heather and Michael too, to wander the streets between Dhoby Ghaut, Bugis and Bras Basah. Organised by the National Art Museum, it all happens in the streets of this Arts and Heritage Precinct where many of the museums, art schools and monuments are located. They incorporated art and light installations, street level roving acts like trapeze and juggling, outdoor music and dance performances, all before a backdrop of spectacular light projections on the National Museum and Art Museum buildings. We popped into Molly Roffey's Irish Pub for dinner and discovered a terrific little 3 piece band. 

This week we celebrate Teachers' Day in Singapore. Each of the branches share a meal together; Punggol went for dinner on Sunday night while Kovan are having lunch this afternoon. Many of our students are giving us gifts which is lovely. Last week I got some durian lollies, not sure what the message was behind that. 
Monday saw the culmination of the 10 week trivia competition draw to a close with a trivia afternoon organised by Graham from Ang Mo Kio Branch. He does an amazing job seeking out obscure competitions across the globe and then collating and reporting to us all with humour and poetry. It was a fun afternoon at one of the biggest Condo complexes I've ever been to in Bedok. The Smiths both ran middle of the field this year, not even threatening for top or bottom. We all stayed on for dinner at the Bedok Lake and then returned to the apartment for a musical interlude thanks to Michael Canaway. 

Because of this function the devoted walkers did a quick 10kms around Bishan Park so we could all get home and freshened up in time for the afternoon frivolities. 

Mahjong class continued last week and thankfully many of them remembered much of what we had learnt. I've been busy retyping the notes from my course and adding lots of diagrams etc so they make more sense. We will have another session this week and then they just need to practice and share. Michael and Heather bought a lovely felt mahjong mat for the table, now I want one of course! Eric and Michael spent the session discussing cameras and and apertures and lenses. There is an exhibition at the ArtScience Museum of the 50 best photos from National Geographic. we hope to get to it before we go away. This time next week we will be in Xi'an seeing the Terracotta Warriors. At least it wont be smoggy under there.