Gong Xi Fa Cai!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbIEeBM4pzM

Today is the first day of Chinese New Year, which is based on the Chinese lunar calendar and is celebrated for 15 days. This is the most important of the Chinese holidays. The traditions include giving 2 mandarin oranges, giving red envelopes containing $2 to children, decorating pussy willows, and decorating and dressing in the color red. To celebrate, my neighbor, Vicki Rooney (also a Cat wife from Peoria) arranged for a lion dance in her driveway last night. Here is a video clip of the dancers. It was very lively, festive and fun!

Happy New Year!

Kangaroo Island, Australia

Our third and final destination in Australia was Kangaroo Island. This island lies south of Adelaide, off the southern coast of Australia. It has a population of only 4400 people and a whopping 800,000 wallabies, and physically is seven times the size of Singapore. If you're looking for nightlife, shopping, and restaurants, this is not the destination for you. It is definitely a little remote. If, however, you want to see Australia's wildlife in its natural habitat, explore unspoilt beaches, coastlines and bush country, and get away from the city, then Kangaroo Island is a fun getaway.

To get to Kangaroo Island, we flew from Perth to Adelaide. From Adelaide, we had to drive an hour and a half south to catch the ferry. After 45 minutes on the ferry (and a little seasickness) we arrived at Kangaroo Island, but had another hour and a half drive to our hotel on the other side of the island. But we knew we were in for an adventure when Anna started spotting kangaroos grazing in the fields on the drive south from Adelaide. This was truly a beautiful drive with rolling hills, country farms and cottages, and gorgeous coastline.

Our first stop in Kangaroo Island was Seal Bay, home of a colony of Australian Sea Lions. For a fee, you could pay to be taken out onto this beach with a guide and the sea lions and watch them frolic, swim and sunbathe. Truly an amazing experience!

Our hotel advertised wallabies at sunset every night (they are nocturnal) and they didn't exaggerate. Every night around dusk at least half a dozen wallabies would emerge and begin hopping around the hotel courtyard, hoping for handouts. The hotel sold food that you could hand feed them, and needless to say, my girls were out there feeding them every night for hours on end. One little guy would actually show up around 4:30 pm, about 2 hours before all of his friends. Apparently he had learned that the early wallaby gets the food!

Another stop on our visit was the Parndana Wildlife Park. Here, the animals were in captivity, but we were able to pet koalas and feed kangaroos, as well as see many other types of native Australian wildlife up close. We were amazed at how gentle the big kangaroos were. One of them was stretching his neck, obviously enjoying it while I scratched him under the chin like a dog!

One of the most beautiful places we saw on Kangaroo Island was Remarkable Rocks. This incredible rock formation overlooks a stunning coastline.

And not a mile away is

admirals arch, a natural arch sculpted in the rocks which overlooks a colony of New Zealand Fur Seals.

Next to our hotel was a wildlife sanctuary where you could go on a koala walk and a guided

nocturnal tour. This was also a unique experience. They have a large grove of eucalyptus trees that were planted years ago by previous residents. As eucalyptus trees are the sole food of koalas, the trees have attracted a wild population of koalas. You are able to walk around under the trees and look for the koalas in the trees. We were able to spot several, including a couple of mother koalas and their babies. These are not very active animals. Our guide told us that they sleep 20 hours per day!

We also took the nocturnal tour, which was very fascinating. He spotted more koalas for us up in the trees. Hundreds of wallabies came out at night and were hopping all around us. Kangaroos were grazing in a nearby field. We also saw several possums.

One afternoon, Darrell and the girls explored some nearby caves. And on our last day there, we attempted sand surfing on the islands' Little Sahara sand dunes. A fun, but very gritty experience!

We spent a quiet new year's eve packing and went to bed well before midnight. On new year's day, we got up early to drive back and catch the 8:30 ferry to the mainland. This drive was amazing, yet stressful as the wallabies and kangaroos were still up. The wallabies were everywhere and would jump out in the road without warning. And a couple of times a large kangaroo went hopping across the road in front of us. Only in Australia!

Rottnest Island, Australia

On Christmas afternoon, we drove north from Bunbury to spend two nights in Perth. This was after having chinese food at the only restaurant open on Christmas day in Bunbury! We enjoyed a very nice (and surprisingly expensive!) Christmas dinner at the Hyatt. Santa even came and sat at our table and visited with Anna for a little while.

The next morning was another holiday, Boxing Day, in Australia. We got up and drove to Freemantle to catch a ferry to nearby Rottnest Island and spend the day. Rottnest Island is a small island only 11km long. No cars are allowed on the island and you can rent bikes and ride all the way around it (we only made it about halfway due to Darrell getting tired). The name "Rottnest" literally means "rat nest." The early explorers mistook the small marsupials living here for rats, which they do resemble. They are called quokkas, and we were excited to find a few of them on our bike ride. The island boasts beautiful beaches, coastline, several shipwrecks, and lighthouses. It was a very fun day in spite of some whining about having to bike so far.

Bunbury, Australia

For our Christmas vacation, we decided to venture "down under" to Australia, where it is now summer. We were all very much looking forward to this trip and it didn't disappoint. Australia is truly beautiful with wide open fields, rolling hills, abundant wildlife, pristine beaches, sparkling blue water and gorgeous coastlines. The people are friendly and laid back and constantly saying "No Worries!". The entire country has an outdoorsy, tree hugger vibe that reminded us of Colorado. We are already thinking about when we can go back!

Our first stop in our trip was Bunbury, a small, quiet seaside city on the western side of the continent. With a population of only about 30,000, Bunbury was a very nice change from the 4.8 million person concrete jungle that is Singapore. Bunbury boasts a very quaint downtown area with lots of little shops and cafes that were fun to explore. Our hotel was centrally located so you could walk to all the shops or head to either of the two different beaches. One beach was rocky and while very pretty, not so good for swimming. The other beach was great for swimming and playing in the sand and not at all crowded. Best of all, it had a section where dolphins swim up several times a day. You are not allowed to try to touch them, but you are allowed to stand still in the water while they swim closely around you. Megan and Darrell also went on a boat trip where they were able to go out farther and swim with the dolphins. Anna wasn't old enough for this, but she and I enjoyed a relaxing day on the beach. The temperature was very pleasant (upper 70's/lower 80's) while we were there, although we were told it was unseasonably cool for that time of year. And the best part was that it was not at all humid! (The second best part was that they had a Target!)

Our last day in Bunbury was actually Christmas day. We spent a good portion of it with many Australian families on the beach before packing up the car and heading north to Perth and Rottnest Island.

Christmastime in Singapore

I think our whole family was in agreement that it never really seemed like Christmastime here. Despite going through the motions, it just feels like we are stuck in some weird kind of endless summer time loop. When you are used to the change in seasons to announce the arrival of the holidays, it is a challenge to get into the Christmas spirit. Christmastime means seeing long-time family and friends, wearing sweaters, boots and heavy coats, seeing your breath, shopping while simultaneously freezing, and then going home where it's cozy and drinking warm beverages. Instead we had heat, sweat, fake soap snow, sunshine and lush vegetation.

Surprisingly, the city of Singapore actually goes pretty overboard in decorating the downtown shopping area at Christmas- time. Bordering on gaudy, cartoonish plastic figurines greet you with smiles and waves at the main intersection (photo blatantly stolen from Vicki Rooney's blog without apology). And the streets are lined with huge candy canes that I believe went up as early as October. The lights at night are beautiful and they do a great job on them. My photo doesn't do them justice at all (was taken with my cell phone but thought I should use one of my own!).

Now, of course, on a tropical island you don't expect to get any snow. Anna is amazed that there are kids in her class who have never seen snow. But a few places here try to duplicate the effect with bubble blowing fake snow machines. One is an upscale mall that does it every night (we never made it there) but another is the American club, to which we belong. We happened to be there the night they brought out the "snow." The girls had fun playing in the bubbles, but let's face it, soap bubbles are NOT snow.

And we had some nice, normal holiday experiences. One was a very well organized gingerbread house making event at the American club to which I took both of the girls. They had a lot of fun building and decorating their houses. Unfortunately, Megan's house had some structural problems and didn't survive the drive home intact. Fortunately, I had some extra frosting and Megan was able to resurrect her house again to most of its former glory.

Other holiday events for our family included Megan's orchestra concert in which she played the violin. I have no photos from this as we couldn't actually see her from our seats. But she sounded great!

Anna participated in an after-school choir last semester, which culminated in a holiday concert. As many of you know, Anna LOVES to sing. She is singing constantly. In Kansas, we were treated to her renditions of Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, and Tim McGraw. She would often stand in our front yard and serenade her 12 year-old crush next door. In Singapore, we are subjected to, I mean treated to, reinactments of all of the songs from Mamma Mia, after we took the girls to the movie here in Singapore. So it was fun to see her up on stage, belting her heart out (she is in the middle in light green).

Also, five of the 12 first grade classes at SAS got together to have a holiday program one afternoon and Anna had a speaking part and made us proud parents.

And let's not forget her class holiday party on the 19th, for which I am one of the room moms and helped organize. Refer to photo of Anna with Santa above! So, we were definitely busy doing lots of the same frenzied but fun holiday rituals we would have been doing back home in the states. We even managed to put up our Christmas tree after discovering that the movers accidentally sent our tree stand to the storage unit. Thankfully, Darrell was able to buy a replacement, but we were a little worried as many things are difficult to find here.

And one more thing...if you were expecting a present from us, we apologize. We actually managed to do some shopping but after discovering it would cost about $450 to ship them, we decided that you could wait to receive your gifts until this summer. Another lesson learned the hard way about life as an expat!

Christmas day itself was actually spent in Australia. So, stay tuned for my next installment regarding this very awesome family trip!

Anna's Birthday

On December 19th, Anna Claire Spitzer turned 7. This, however, was just the culmination of a week of festivities starting with her birthday party on Sunday the 14th.

Kid's birthday parties in Singapore are notoriously expensive (try $700-800), so when Anna said she wanted to have her party at home and frost cookies, I didn't hesitate to comply. Now in the U.S., you don't give a second thought to running to Target and the local party store to pick up party plates, invitations, gift bags, balloons, craft supplies, etc. and to order a cake from the bakery or Baskin-Robbins. Unfortunately, obtaining these items is a little more difficult in Singapore. If there is a party store, I don't know where it is. I saw a few party supplies at the Toys R Us, but they weren't very nice and were expensive. And the local bakeries don't make desserts like we're used to. Asians generally don't like things very sweet, so their cakes, while beautiful, taste strange to us. And you can find craft supplies, but there is only one true craft store in the whole city, so that means driving downtown and fighting the traffic and dealing with the crazy parking garages.

So, I improvised! Anna made her own invitations. I used a combination of plates and napkins left over from previous parties. I did venture downtown to the craft store to buy ornaments to paint and managed to get enough for the party (they didn't have many and these were very picked over). And for the first time ever, I made my child's birthday cake myself from scratch. It was actually a cupcake cake and it turned out very cute if I do say so myself!

The girls had a scavenger hunt, frosted Christmas cookies, and painted ornaments and a good time was had by all! (And with the money I saved on the party, I bought an antique chinese chest the following week!)

Later in the week on Thursday, Anna got to celebrate her birthday with her classmates. I brought in some frosted Christmas cookies, which we all worked on the night before. And then on Friday, she finally officially turned 7 and got to open some more presents from us.

Whew! And then I had 2 days to get ready to leave for Australia and Christmas........

The Last Village in Singapore

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/01/03/world/1194837118520/the-last-village-.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

This is an excellent video clip from the New York Times that will give you a great feel for the culture here as well as a lot of good footage of the city itself. It also highlights one of my primary frustrations with Singapore: the government seems to place very little value on preserving its cultural heritage or historical buildings and keeping what little land there is undeveloped. You see very little in Singapore that is more than 20-30 years old and the vast majority of its citizens live in the very large concrete government apartment buildings (HDBs) referred to in the clip.

Thanksgiving in Beautiful Bali

Ask any expat about the advantages of living in Singapore, and undoubtedly one of the answers you will get will relate to its proximity to other desirable travel destinations. So, to not to be left out of the travel opportunities as well as to avoid a lonely Thanksgiving eating overpriced turkey, we booked some tickets to nearby Bali, Indonesia and enjoyed a few days of relaxation on the beach.

Of course, traveling in Asia is not quite as worry-free as in the U.S. Originally, we were considering traveling to Phuket, Thailand, but decided against it due to recent anti-government protests. This turned out to be a good decision as the Bangkok airport was shut down by protesters for eight days including the Thanksgiving time period. And many expats were nervous about traveling to Bali after the "Bali-Bombers" were executed a few weeks ago. The U.K. and Australian governments actually warned their citizens not to travel there due to the risk of retaliation against westerners by terrorists. But the U.S. government did not issue a warning. So after some deliberation and discussion with other more seasoned travelers, we decided to continue with our travel plans and had an uneventful and relaxing trip. Of course, during this time were the bombings in India, which is also in this corner of the world.

As far as our trip, we pretty much stayed at the Grand Hyatt and relaxed. The girls rented boogie boards in the mornings and played in the waves and spent the rest of the days between the beach and the large meandering pool. The grounds were beautiful and the weather very pleasant, despite a few rain showers. We did have a very nice turkey dinner with all of the trimmings on Thanksgiving night with two other Cat expat families at the Ritz Carlton, but somehow it just didn't really seem like Thanksgiving. However, we were very thankful to be together in such a beautiful spot, to arrive safely back in Singapore, and for Darrell's good job during these difficult times.

And I have to mention this very smart bird. He and his relatives hung out in the ponds surrounding the hotel lobby and restaurant. One morning, Anna tried to throw him a couple pieces of bread leftover from breakfast. He quickly took the bread, tossed it in the water and then plucked out and swallowed one of the unsuspecting fish who tried to eat our bread. He then immediately repeated the entire maneuver to eliminate any possibility he had just gotten lucky the first time!