This is the amazing view of Macritchie reservoir from my bedroom window down to the jungle below.Blowing bubbles out the 20th floor is fun

Now wonder that curry was hot!

So the MSG really helps especially in 1 kg lots!

And here are Jen and Jim celebrating our arrival at an Indian restaurant

Like all affairs we’ve had some moments of doubt.

Earlier this week we had a bit of a shuffle on Sorrow St when Jim realised his precious and valuable acoustic guitar had been splintered and shattered down one side and this despite being cradled in the hard case by undies and packs of tissues. I’ve written to Jetstar and although they told tell you that they will contact you within 48 hours it has been four days and to date I have heard nothing.

So, the repeated rhetoric of “it is only a guitar and nobody died” and “we’re not going to let this spoil our holiday” appears to be working. The fact that I said “We’ll leave this one in Singapore and buy another in Spain if we see one you like” seems to have helped too!

Tim and Jen have been excellent hosts. We have driven around Singapore through forests, farms, industrial estates, past military bases and jails an informative and amusing commentary provided by Tim with his practised ironic humour. We’ve driven around the commercial consumer excess that is Santosa Island and had a paddle at the manmade beach but all this was easily eclipsed by the more natural sight of a peacock and her (?) pea chicks crossing the road at a Zebra crossing and two white cockatoo denuding a tree on the island.

Singapore is a city made for eating out. Hawker centres have an enormous range of fresh delicious food for between $3 and $6 a plate, and delicious. We have had Indian, Thai, Malay, Chinese and Singaporean and they are all delicious. We have walked and walked and walked. We have seen the wonderwash Laundromat the Happy Joy restaurant and the thunder rock guitar school. The suburbs are littered with coaching schools for students who sometimes attend before school or after school or both for extra tuition in every subject. There appears to be the belief that if you haven’t made it into an academically selective school by middle school then your life is over. So despite fantastic play equipment in every suburb or area, you rarely see school aged children using the equipment. Private schools are expensive with many charging more than $50,000 a year for tuition so maids look after the kids, take the dogs for walks and pick up the food from the hawker centres because the parent are working to pay school fees. Australian children are very laid back by Singaporean standards.

We have had hilarious encounters and interesting moments.  Yesterday on our way to a hawker stall we came across an ancient toothless crone by the side of the pavement selling mangoes. When we asked her how much they were she said “Three dollar”, (more than they are in the shops) When we showed interest she said we could have “three for 10 dollar” Now my maths isn’t great but we couldn’t resist the bargain!! So we gave her $10 and she looked so smug at hoodwinking the foreigners and we laughed all the way to the Hawker Centre. Today we are off to two nearby islands, Kusu and St John’s and tonight we bard the plane for Istanbul. More later.

Singapore we're here

So far so good, the affair continues

The jet star flight was very mediocre; eight hours of my femur pinned by the knee to the seat in front and jammed into my pelvis tight in my seat. A $16 inedible sandwich and a hypoxia headache and blue nail beds completed the trip.

Coming through customs, less than 20 mins from disembarkation, to see the laughing faces of my son Tim and his wife Jen. Then outside and breathing in the warm satin of Singapore’s 30 degrees and 90% humidified air.

Back to their apartment at Lakeview. A three bedroom, three bathroom, (plus maids quarters) apartment on the twentieth floor with marble floor tiles and spectacular views. On one side the lawn of the apartment rubs up against the jungle surrounding McRithie reservoir. From the windows you can see the lake and follow the movement of the monkey groups as they move through the surrounding forest. At night the lullaby of the gheckos clicks and crickets chirp lull you to sleep. Hard to believe you are in a city of nearly six million people.

Dinner the first night in a local Indian restaurant, mapping each other’s faces for new lines and emerging grey hairs. This confident, knowledgeable man in front of me was once the one asking me the questions! We have transitioned the parent child relationship to good friends.

Our first day and walking the district with fresh eyes, aware of differences, the fragrant incense shrine at the base of a tree, unfamiliar temples to unfamiliar Gods, smells of fragrant spices cooking all packed into the warm dense air. Back to the apartment in the evening for a personal chef prepared delicious meal of mouth-watering steak, potatoe bake and salads. And a Turkish wine with rose petal bouquet! Yum.

Tonight my feet look like small pox as the blisters emerge from the days walking. The sedentary life has a lot going for it, and so to tomorrow.

My affair

Travel blog

I’m having an affair but more of that in a minute!

The concept of retirement for a person who has been in the workforce for 50 years is quite significant.

Having set up and run Registered Training Organisations in the corporate and not for profit sectors sliding into the role of paid employer surrounded by many layers of bureaucracy has been a soft landing and the bonus is that I have been doing stuff I love such as developing on line learning in health related areas.

I have worked for TAFE in the last year or two. An organisation that I have loved for the amazing chances it provides for people who without it would have limited options. It does great things and is full of great people.  People describe TAFE as a family and they are right. There is the sad uncle and the agony aunts, the political cousins and the members who you want beside you when the firing starts. There are so many people with huge hearts, open minds and great good humour who work for TAFE. As I leave this workforce they are the people I will miss most.

In every workplace I have found a small handful of people that I want as friends. As I’ve moved on to the next workplace some of those have stayed friends and others have faded away. I guess it is this unknown of which friends will be part of my forward journey that makes leaving work a little daunting

And so I start my new affair, with retirement.

Affair=A romantic relationship that is not with the person you are married to and often of brief duration

Retirement proper (or hopefully improper) will begin on Tuesday when I fly to Singapore. I’ll let you know how long the affair lasts!