Chasing pavements

While it was lovely to walk around the bayside beaches and Pt Nepean last week, we are back to 'Chasing Pavements' here. We had planned to do the steps of the pagoda again on Thursday but made a good decision Wed night, as we were heading to bed, to cancel that arrangement. Instead, having received an email to tell us the Everest shirts were ready for collection, we walked to Toa Payoh to collect them and back, about 10 kms we estimate. 

On Friday Peter and Eric walked while I swam and then we went to the stadium to watch Sharapova play Radwanska in the WTA Year End Finals. The session started at 1:30pm so we went a bit earlier to have a look around and caught Serena Williams on the practice courts.  My, she's a big, strong girl.

Taking our seats in the arena, the lights went off and the smoke effects began with laser lights, rock and roll music and then fireworks as the players made their way onto court. The atmosphere was like that at the start of a rock concert. Not anything like the match days at Kooyong. 















It was wonderful tennis with plenty of power, great shot making and court craft interspersed with Sharapova's grunts and 'whoas' and robotic court-side behaviour. In order to prevent herself stepping on the lines, she has developed an idiosyncratically rigid, stuttering walk around the court between points. Weird considering the number of points she must have played. 

If Sharapova had won in straight sets she had an opportunity to beat Serena for the top spot but Radwanska played a really gritty second set, climbing back from 5 - 1 down to win it in a tie-breaker. Eric had to leave before the end of that set but I could stay at least that long before leaving to get to work on time. We look forward to seeing another session next year as Singapore has secured the rights to host them again. But at work I was so tired; like I'd been playing shots in every rally from both ends of the court! 
Like a number of the players have mentioned, I was very impressed with the crowd's behavior. Unlike the last time I was at the Australian Open, this crowd was appreciating every point and applauding appropriately. I felt they were very neutral and fair. 

The end of the year is approaching quickly and there are few opportunities left to revisit our favourite haunts with colleagues before they leave town. We arranged to return to La Pizzaiola in Lorong Chuan on Saturday night which we hadn't been back to since my birthday in January. 

Monday's walk was from Clementi through West Coast Park and on to Haw Par Villa finishing at VivoCity. Unfortunately before we even left McDonalds, where we met first for coffee, June felt unwell and complained of searing pain in her neck and base if her skull. We sent her off in a taxi with Kathy and she went to the hospital. It was proclaimed a virus, probably the rapid onset due to her over-tiredness, and sent home. By Tue night she was admitted to the ICU with a small bleed on the brain. We are very concerned for her, she had been planning to do the Everest Base Camp trek with us. Our walk began in the heat but not long after we found ourselves sheltering from the rain.  Haw Par Villa, built by the brothers who invented Tiger Balm, depicts Chinese folklore and mythology in static concrete forms. The gruesome 10 courts of hell is hideous but you have to see it at least once and we had a few with us who experienced it for the first time so it was good to see it through their eyes. I just can't fathom how much it must cost to keep up the maintenance on the thousands of figures. 

I broke a filling while we were having lunch at Food Republic in VivoCity so rang my dentist when we arrived home and he was able to see me that afternoon. How's that? Turns out to be an old filling he had replaced for me once already, advising me at the time that it wouldn't last. I should instead have had a bridge but I balked at the cost. So, instead of wasting more money I have had to opt for the bridge this time. The good news he tells me is that it is cheaper to get it done in Sg. Maybe, but it is still so expensive! Only money! We spent the evening over at Peter's place playing ukulele, first time in a long time. He wants us to take them trekking again and teach the Nepalese a new song. Well, I guess he should stop singing the old Rolf Harris classics now that he has been disgraced. 
Tuesday morning we walked to Stadium along the Park Connector which proved to be a good choice with a cool breeze off the water at times. It has been very hot here lately, but with thunder storms too. In the evening we went to see the Deepavali lights along Serangoon Rd in Little India. Heather joined us for dinner at Shish Mahal in Albert Court. Michael has now gone back to Australia for the rest of the year, returning for the Dec holidays (joining us in Langkawi) and then he will spend 2015 in Aust. It's time, he says, to get back to a real life, not just twiddling his thumbs in Sg while Heather works.