Cirque du Solei under the big top

That was such a big week! We needed a quieter one to recover and make it through parent teacher interviews. By Thursday Eric had relapsed with a stomach bug ad spent the whole day in bed. He wasn't alone; others from the workplace were also succumbing to the same condition. By Friday he was back up on his feet. 
On Friday Mum went for the pre admission meeting at Barradine and everything is on track for her to move in this week thanks to all the help from Col and Beth, Judy and Rog. Mum is quite excitied now. Meanwhile with Col's help she is still attending many of the clubs she has long supported and keeping up her social interactions. Settlement on the house went through smoothly during the week. 

With the hazy seeminly gone for good we cleaned the house thoroughly on Friday, something well overdue as it didn't seem worth dusting shelves when the air was full of minuscule pieces of ash. And sometimes they weren't that minuscule. Sadly, on Monday we were getting alerts again to say the haze was on the rise again but in the moderate, not unhealthy, zone. Glad to go to work for a rest by the evening. 

To see out the working week we met up at Wine Bos in the City Hall area for a #9 steak nite. I rarely order steak here as it is often disappointing or too expensive but this was a lovely, tender piece and we must do it again.

Bev is returning to Australia at the end of the year and she has been a member of the walking group since first arriving in 2011. She did EBC that Dec. Since she has very few walks with the group left it was her request to go once more to Bukit Timah. The summit is still closed to walkers while they renovate the trails so we walked from the base to McRitchie Res. We started in glorious sunshine, the golden rays of sunlight filtering through the trees was definitely worth a snap. 

Then, as we approached the edge of the golf course and our leafy shelter diminished, the heavens opened and we were at the mercy of the rain which fell in a drenching downpour. We did find a shed with an eave big enough to shelter about 8 people but since we were already soaked, and there was nothing to suggest it was going to ease off anytime soon,, we just continued on. At first I was trying to avoid the puddles but that became impossible, and fruitless anyway, since our feet were wet. It was still another hour to the end. We eventually got to Mushroom Cafe in the park and had a curry lunch, like everyone else, leaving puddles of water on the chairs and floor. Caught the MRT home from Clementi as we figured we could stand on the train but it would not be good to be in that condition on a bus. We  will laugh about it one day.

After 12.5 kms and a curry I spent most of the afternoon on the couch with my feet up. In the evening we traveled across to Lakeside, near Chinese Gardens in Jurong for dinner at Syd and Kym's. They are the couple who joined us in Bali that weekend we escaped. They have a lovely pool, where we started the evening, and that was good therapy too for the tired legs. It was a very convivial evening but late and we had to catch a taxi home. 

Reading of the fairytale which seems to be coming true for Aung San Suu Kyi as her party appear to be headed for a landslide victory in Myanmarr's historic elections is uplifting isn't it? One can only hope that it comes true without bloodshed. In 1990 the results were similar but a brutal crackdown ended with her spending 15 years in house arrest. The military have promised to honour these election results but they could never have predicted this sort of landslide, so we wait with baited breath. 

Did you see where 'The Interlace', a cluster of 31 apartment blocks stacked at angles, won the Completed Building category at this year’s World Architecture Festival? Instead of dense high-rise apartment living, the architect chose to build six storey high apartment blocks, then stacked them together in piles of four. We have seen them from the road, they are quite close to Hort Park and also when we walked the southern section of the rail trail. 

On Tuesday afternoon we went to Tangs in Orchard Rd to spend a gift voucher I had cashed for one of the local assistants at Kovan Branch because they would never shop there. I spent it on a new SG50 elephant from the Elephant Parade Collection. Then we went on to Satays by the Bay for an early dinner before seeing Cirque du Solei perform 'Totem' in their signature blue-and-yellow Big Top beside Marina Bay Sands. The show traces the journey of the human species from its original amphibian state to its ultimate desire to fly. Wow! I can't begin to explain how enthralling the show was and I can't pick a favourite act, they were all captivating. Everything was fabulous; the staging, sound, lighting and costuming. My pictures don't do it justice.