Madeline will be CLARA in The Nutcracker!!

We received some exciting and fun news the other night at Madeline's dance class.

She has been asked to be Clara in the upcoming Nutcracker preformance!!! Madeline is sooo excited, and she said that this is a "Dream come true!". We have seen the Nutcracker many many times (both live and on TV) and she has always said that she wanted to someday be in The Nutcracker. We never expected it to be now! The owner/director of the Dance Studio said that "Madeline will be the perfect little Clara!!" :)

The show will be November 23rd and the practicing/rehearsing starts this week, and she is sooo excited about it. The first people she wanted to call was Mimi (Karol-Brian's mom) and her twin sister Auntie Karen-who both are dancers.

Exciting and happy news for Madeline and wanted to share it with all of you!

Bukit Timah Nature Reserve Rainforest Field Trip

Madeline's 4th grade class went on a field trip to Bukit Timah Nature Reserve today. What an amazing place. We learned that all of Singapore island used to be covered in Rainforest, and tigers roamed among us....now Bukit Timah Nature Reserve is the only undisturbed remaining rainforest here in Singapore. Pictured above is my group of 4 girls, along with a group of 4 boys that we toured with. Also pictured above is the Quarry that people used to jump from and swim in the water below. Beautiful scenery and surroundings at Bukit Timah. Here are some of the things we learned and saw today.

The Bukit Timah nature reserve is home to more than 840 flowering plants and over 500 species of animals. These include towering trees, climbing palms (better known as rattans), ferns, orchids, gingers and strange blooms such as the Black or Bat lily. The forest is home to all kinds of animals. The most commonly encountered are the Long-tailed Macaques or monkeys. Please don't feed them as this does them more harm than good. Other special treats are the Flying lemur (Colugo) and squirrels. Forest birds include the Striped tit-babbler, the Fairy bluebird, drongos and bulbuls.

Pictured above is a slide on the outskirts of the rainforest that went down below into an amazing playground area/exploring area/picnic area for kids.

There are monkeys everywhere in the Reserve...so many that these signs are posted throughout the trails. (see below)

When we first got off the bus, one poor boy in her class got his lunch bag taken by a monkey. The hungry monkey jumped up and snatched it from his little hands. Then proceeded to go sit on a bench and start eating his popcorn and trying to open his water bottle. The boy was a little traumatized by the surprise attack, but we have been told this is not uncommon. The monkeys now know that brown paper bags = food due to people feeding them for "fun" and now are very aggressive towards anyone carrying one.

Later after our tour and Photo Scavenger Hunt the kids went on (each child got their own digital cameras at the school to use as they walked around to document and take photos of each item they need to find on the list), we decided to take a much needed snack/water break. We sat near the entrance at some benches and a few monkey found us sitting and eating. One brave and aggressive monkey saw a bag of papaya that a child had brought and walked up, took it, and then chewed through the ziploc bag to get to it. (pictured below)

Madeline was very quietly enjoying a juice box of Gatorade with some friends and was surprised to see a monkey stalking her too!! The monkey came up, took her juice box and scrambled off with it and ran up a tree. He then proceeded to chew a whole in the side, drink all the juice, shake it to make sure it was empty, and then throw the garbage on the ground!! Here he is as he is enjoying his Gatorade!! He seems to enjoy the lime flavor a great deal!!! :)

This last photo is of my group today, Madeline's friends; Kendall, Jamila, and Ruchi. Great girls and we had a fun, hot, exciting day at the Rainforest! :) If you click on any of the photos above, it will make them bigger so you can see them better. Enjoy! And if you come to visit, we will go visit Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, but we'll leave the snacks and juice in the car...just in case! ha ha!

High School Musical 2 Fever in Singapore!

Today, Sunday Sept. 9, is the day that High School Musical 2 will be on the Disney Channel here in Singapore. It came out in the USA a month ago, but it takes a while for things to be shown here on tv. Madeline has already seen it thanks to a local friend who has Slingbox (a device that allows you to see US shows live), but she is looking forward to seeing it again tonight. We already have the soundtrack and she knows all the songs by heart (and so does Grant from having to listen to it all the time).

They had a local dance contest yesterday, sponsored by Disney Channel Asia and High School Musical 2, that allowed kids to form a small "dance team" with kids from their school and preform to one of the songs from High School Musical. They called it "MY SCHOOL ROCKS"-and thousands of kids across the tiny island of Singapore tried out last month. The finals were yesterday at a mall close to our house, so Maddie and I went to watch them compete. The 5 team finalists were cute, and all under the age of 12 (our fav. team is pictured above-they were from the International Community School, great routine!) . Maddie was upset that she didn't get the chance to do it with kids from her school, you know how she is about dancing and getting on stage. :) We'll have to wait for High School Musical 3 to come out so she can try out then!

Culture Shock

Now that we have been here almost two months (time has flown by) I have had a chance to get used to a lot of different things here in Singapore. I guess you can call them "culture shock" as these items did seem to frustrate me in the beginning, and now I am very used to it. Here are some I can think of off the top of my head:
*Lack of electrical outlets throughout the house:
-no outlets in the bathrooms (yes, I have to blow dry my hair in my bedroom)
-only 2 outlets in the kitchen (AUGH!!! do you know how many things we keep plugged in normally? and you have to move your small kitchen appliance way over to where the outlet is to use it!!)
-only 1-2 outlets in each room, and in the least used part. We had to buy many extension cords upon arrival.

*Hot Water Heaters- There are switches (like light switches) to turn on the hot water in the bathrooms and kitchen. It takes only a few minutes for it to start working, but many times I have gotten into the shower and can't figure out why there isn't any hot water...forgot to turn it on! Kids have taken cold quick showers many times due to my forgetfullness. Some places in Singapore don't have hot water in the kitchen, thank goodness ours does. Most houses do not have dishwashers either, due to everyone having live-in maids. I had our landlord put in a new dishwasher before we moved in, can't live without it!

*Store employees "stalking" you while you shop. They hover over you while you look around. I first thought that they must think you are about to steal something, but later found that they do that to EVERYONE who come in. They hover....and hover....and ask you frequently, "can I help you with anything?" Keeps me from window shopping now-don't want to deal with the employees of the store! And they give you attitude if you say "I'm just looking".

*You pay for your grocery carts at the store. You put in a dollar coin to release the cart, and if you don't return it to the line of carts after you are done shopping, your dollar is gone. Like the airport carts at the airport. It DOES cut down on the amount of carts left in the parking garages. :) (see photo above of the carts and the chains that connect them until you put in your $1 coin)

*There isn't any consideration when waiting in line for anything-locals will push, cut in front, or ignore you. They call it "queuing" for things. But most are not considerate of kids, pregnant people, elderly etc. Which is very odd, because the local "Singaporians" are the nicest people, just not when they are waiting in line for things.

*REAL donuts are not to be found here (YES, one of the few US companies NOT here is Dunkin Donuts!!) They have donuts, but they taste like cardboard. And the few places that sell donuts, the line for waiting is sometimes as long as 2 hours!! People will wait in line for hours until they open their doors in the a.m. CRAZY but true. And they taste horrible...just gross. Anyone want to come over and open a Dunkin?? The people here would love it!

*No central air conditioning! We have separate wall units in each room, that are mounted to the walls (not windows, thank goodness) and have a remote control to set the temp. Pain in the butt to get used to. They also have to be serviced and cleaned every 2-3 months due to the fact that they run constantly all year. (it remains a constant 75-85 degrees here year round-great beach/pool weather though).

That's all I can think of now, but my list was a lot longer when we first arrived. I just seem to have forgotten or are so used to it, that I can't remember! :)

All in all it has been very easy to transition living here in Singapore. I have met a lot of moms from the US who lived in other countries before coming here, and they all say that living in Singapore is SOOO easy. I guess living in China or Japan is very difficult, and not very "western like the USA". I really forget sometimes that we are in a foreign country so far away, because of the same products, stores, and items we have at home you can find here easily. And there are SOOO many Americans here that we don't seem like foreigners. (at least in the Central and Downtown areas).

I will post more later about our adventures. :) Keep checking back, as I am sure we will have funny stories to tell (I already have a few that involve a GECKO in the kitchen and Brian screaming like a girl......)