Singapore

Repin and I are now in Singapore visiting our son Rizal and his family. Sophia my grand daughter is now almost 2 years - she'll be two come July. She's quite a vocal little thing, chatting all the while. I love to listen to her " Sophia eat bread now. Bread has jam on it." Yesterday she got us all laughing with her innocent remark - "Daddy has hole in his tummy!" She was referring to his belly button.
When told that Sophia too has a belly button, she said "No, daddy's hole is big!"We all had a good laugh.
Yesterday we went to the museum - The National Museum of Singapore and was pleasantly surprised. The museum is housed in a beautifully maintained Victorian styled bungalow and here again I really love what Singapore has done to old buildings in this country. They've maintained the facade and added a newer block at the back. And the museum itself is really interesting. We enjoyed the film section where they showed snippets of old P. Ramlee films - from his earliest to the later ones just before he moved to Malaysia. Even though we in Malaysia claim him for ours, many of his earlty films were done in Singapore - at the Jalan Ampas studio. There were other old films too - mostly produced by the Shaw Brothers. Then we moved to the History of Singapore section where I expected to be bored. But no way - they have done a really good programme using audio and visuals. We were all given a head phone with a teleguide on which were numbers which corresponded with the pictures on the walls. Once the numbers are pressed we could listen to various recordings concerning the various pictures. Everything was very interactive, history can actually be fun and very personal. I think I can easily stay there for hours, just listening to these accounts. Some were personal stories of Singapore's heroes, some were recorded accounts of interviews, or recorded accounts of actual events. Even news items from radio stations and so on. However we didn't have that much time to spare so could stay for only 2 hours. Well - that's one place we'd be sure to visit next time we come here!
From there we walked to the the Rendezvous Hotel. This was where Repin and I had our first date all those years ago and it is still there. We spent a quiet hour there having lunch - Repin's favourite nasi padang. Then another walk - this time to the esplanade. On the way I took time to admire the huge old trees that lined the roads - another thing that I wish we had kept! But no Malaysia has some thing against trees - hence the PWD cuts all the old trees that line every road we have! As the ones in Jalan Setapak and Jalan Genting Kelang. No more trees exist there now - they've all gone. In place we now have concrete pavements. Smart old KL - adding to the global warming.