September started with a trip to Fort Canning Park, which is situated in the middle of the city. One can follow three walks on this hill, 'Ancient History', 'Colonial History' and 'Trees', those walks are overlapping, so we just walked once around and enjoyed the Nature.
Fort Canning Hill is historically significant, considered royal and sacred, even taboo, called the Forbidden Hill by local Malays when Sir Stamford Raffles arrived. Legend has it that the founder of Singapore Sri Tri Buana (apparently a grandson of Alexander the Great and an Indian Princess) is buried there.
In 1822 Sir Stamford Raffles had his first residence build on the hill, which was in due time called Government House and therefore Government Hill.
It was really that steep!
There was also an antique printing machine and the Time Ball. Later has an interesting purpose. It was one of three navigation structures which were important during the early maritime history of Singapore, the two others being the Flagstaff and the Lighthouse. The Time Ball is made of a metal pole with a steel ball inserted through it. According to Wikipedia a time ball is dropped "at a predetermined time for sailor to check their marine chronometers from their boats offshore. Accurate timekeeping is one way of enabling mariners to determine their longitude at sea... Time balls are usually dropped at 1pm... they were raised half way about 5 minutes earlier to alert the ships, then with 2-3 minutes to go they were raised the whole way. The time was recorded when the ball began descending, not when it reached the bottom." So everybody could set their watches and clocks to a common time.
Apparently there is another time ball at the top of Mount Faber, which was for use by seamen, the Fort Canning one was for the people in town.
Around 1859 the hill was transformed into a fortress, Government House made way for the fort, which was named after Viscount Charles John Canning, Governor-General and First Viceroy of India (1856-1862).
Under Fort Canning exists an underground command centre named Battle Box where the British army officers surrendered Singapore to the Japanese in World War II.
Two cannons have survived the years and our boys:
We found also a display of a rickshaw with sacs of spices. The display sign reads:
Rickshaws were a cheap and manouverable form of transport in Singapore in the early 1900s. The pullers were usually Chinese men from Foochow province in China. At their peak in 1922, there were over 30,000 rickshaws on the island. But by the 1930s, their popularity had began to decline. There were less than 4,000 rickshaws by 1939.
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Tumeric |
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Star - Aniseed |
Back home Esther got creative with blankets and made a hammock. Noah even slept in it:
Sophie-Galore:
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Until her true hair grows or sheepskin always handy |
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Are you talking to me? |
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Happy happy happy! |
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Her favourite working position: kneeling! |
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She is fast asleep... |
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... and here also! |
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Noah and Sophie on the move |
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Noah and Sophie after their hard work |
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Sophie swinging the ruler and thus helping the others to get their school work done - Pronto! |
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A little snack in the kitchen |
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I love chocolate ice cream! |
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Yannic and Sophie |
Noah loves to wear two different shoes ;-)
Food in a plastic bag, a typical picture.
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Pomelo tree at the side of the foot path |
SAP had a Kid's at Work Day, which not only meant that the children could come along to work, but they were divided into groups (mostly age wise) and given a tour where they had to answer questions. At the end the group received prices depending on their answers. There was also a jumping castle!
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Arrival and registration |
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Group Green |
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Group Purple (minus Sophie) |
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Group Green came 3rd |
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Group Purple came 1st |
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Time to show the booty! |
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Concentration |
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Concentration too! |
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Armed with purple (!) swords |
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Also armed! |
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Happy chappy |
15.09. saw the opening of Legoland in Malaysia just over the border from Singapore in honour of two birthday boys:
We woke up extra early to have time for gifts and birthday traditions. Also we had to be at Singapore Flyer at 8am to leave at 8:30 with a chartered bus straight to Legoland, therefore we planned in the wait for taxis to get there and called two taxis at 7ish. They came at once and we were in no time at the Flyer. But then in true Singaporean style the bus left around 9am.
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All aboard! |
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The Marina Bay Promenade was made ready for the Formula 1 race (big fences) |
It took roughly 20 min to the border Singapore - Malaysia. We all had to alight the bus and go through Singaporean immigration then board the bus again, drive a few meters and go through Malaysian immigration. An exercise in patience! All aboard again we drove via the Tuas Second Link:
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Taken on the way home
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to Johor Bahru, Malaysia, which is just opposite Singapore. On the Malaysian side it took only 10 minutes to arrive at:
In the Park:
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Our first ride |
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Sophie enjoyed herself... |
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... as did some birthday boys. |
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They must have felt like celebrities going by those paparazzis. |
More rides:
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Karsten + Noah |
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Michael + Esther |
Yannic had hurt his leg (more later) a week prior and here his cut split open again, a helpful worker offered to find a band aid so we thought, but he called the ambulance (the men in blue). We had seen different groups of three blue uniformed persons walking around the park earlier, now we know what their role was. But not only one group of three came but also four other medical staff. All very helpful and eager to bandaged Yannic:
When they learnt that Yannic and his brother had their birthday today, they spontaneously sang "Happy birthday" to them:
We don't go unnoticed, first Sophie in the water play and now the boys on their own.
Karsten is feeding the dangerous but cute Estion (Esther lion):
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David |
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Noah and Yannic |
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Michael |
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Sophie |
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You thought you had seen a tower! |
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Helping hands |
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Prayer room |
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Toilets in 'Legoian' |
In the centre of Legoland was a display of famous Asian landmarks:
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Singapore |
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Singapore Flyer (where we boarded the bus) |
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Malaysian Petronas Towers |
A great day we had had, lots of fun, not too many people, sunshine and a bit rain to cool down. This Legoland was very similar to the one in Germany, with a few new additions ;-)
What a fantastic birthday!
Katrin likes to buy fresh fish in the supermarket. The salesperson asks "Head and bones? Filets? Skin off?" Normal we leave the head and bones behind which is meet with disbelief "Good soup, lah!" That may be but what good is a soup if nobody wants to eat it??
Our garbage chute ends here and is daily clean. Once they didn't do it and you could tell!
The children were fascinated with the ramp in the bus. The bus driver comes and folds out this ramp.
Jonas visited us for a short week!!! Hooray!!!
To the Science Center we all went, we will surely miss this facility!! This time we wanted to visited the exhibition: 'Candy Unwrapped'
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First healthy food!? |
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A little rest |
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Yannic eating a sour candy and spraining his face |
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David calling for more chocolate |
A display showed common Western take away food. If you keyed in the code another display light up showing a similar tasting meal. Here Scrambled eggs are compared to Witchetty grubs with fried flying ants.... Esther looks very pleased!!
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Western take away food |
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Similar nutrients |
Next was a huge tower of sugar, apparently the amount of one person's lifelong sugar consumption, surrounded by items containing sugar. If you think now, 'Yeah, Coke and the like' think again:
Karsten's favourite molecular structure:
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Small and big 1 |
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Small and big 2 |
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Small and big 3 |
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Michael peacefully |
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Michael surrounded by mayhem |
Yannic's leg episode:
While visiting friends Yannic jumped from one small wall to the opposite small wall across a little path. Just as we asked him to stop and come he banged his shin at the rim of the wall and had a deep cut. We were going home anyhow but now much faster and in different directions: Karsten and Yannic to the next hospital and Katrin and the rest home.
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Yannic in hospital |
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Yummy take away food |
He ended up with 4 stitches!
Two weeks later Dr. Schulz de-stitched him. Once Yannic is grown up Karsten will be an absolute expert, oh, he already is:
For Jonas' last night in Singapore we went to Clarke Quay:
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Traveller's Palm |
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Rickshaw deco |
Clarke Quay is a historical riverside quay, it's colourfully renovated, It's named after Singapore's second Governor Sir Andrew Clarke. Clarke Street is a Mall with lots and lots of eateries and stalls and a water play area. Guess who drew a crowd!
You can see the photographers behind Noah.
And once again the boys joined in the fun:
This river house hosts now a restaurant, it is one of the last original Chinese buildings:
September (or early October) sees the celebrating of the Mid-Autumn Festival or Moon Festival or Mooncake Festival or Chinese Lantern Festival (in Germany exists a lantern festival in November to remember Saint Martin and his kindness). This year the full moon was to be seen on the 30.09., it's supposed to be the brightest, autumnal equinox. The festival itself is held on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar (according to Wikipedia).
There are few customs regarding this festival like eating mooncakes, for weeks the newspapers are full of advertisement for these delicacies. Mooncakes are round (ca. 10 cm in diameter) pastries filled with red bean or lotus seed paste. Our neighbours gave us a beautiful case full of Blueberry-Cheesecake Mooncakes (from the Marriott), they had a distinct Durian flavour to them ;-) which unfortunately didn't add to the experience. It seems that every bakery or restaurant tries to outperform each other in creating exotic variations.
Clarke Quay was brightly decorated and lots of stalls had been set up:
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Decorated bridge |
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Stalls |
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Stall selling Seafood-kebabs (do you see the octopus?) |
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Decoration along the Singapore River ... |
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... and on the Promenade. |
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Overview from another - decorated - bridge |
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View to the other side |
We watched three girls doing reverse bungee, they boarded a passenger car and were strapped in. then the two elastic cords tightened until they were catapulted into the air. (Apparently this ride can reach a g-force of 3-5, according to Wikipedia)
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Reverse Bungee high in the air |
It was dinner time, Jonas picked a Chinese restaurant along the River:
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Spring rolls with Sweet Chilli Sauce |
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Drunken Chicken |
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Salad with asparagus |
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Jonas had Roasted Duck |
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Same water play in the evening |
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Same bridge at night |
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Dessert tasted good! |
Orchids grafted onto the tree at Maplewoods:
This has been our September. We hope you enjoyed out blog.
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