Back from Thailand

We got back from Thailand late last night. It was kind of sad to leave Khao Lak, but that was tempered by not having to fly back into winter. Yay! Again Tilda was a trooper on the plane. She's teething at the moment so she's been pretty grumpy for the last 3 or 4 days. We try to give her a bottle when we take off to help her ears adjust to the change in air pressure. Unfortunately, boarding (then sitting & waiting for the laggers) coincided with her dinner time. Mel had made the milk in preparation and Tilda could see it. And she wanted it desperately, so she had a wee meltdown. Although it seemed like ages and ages, it was only probably only 20 minutes or so of waiting. But minutes seem like hours when you have a wailing baby sitting on your knee. Eventually we got moving and we could give Tilda the bottle and she quietened down straight away. For the first time in a year, she fell asleep in my arms:)

We had a pretty good time in Thailand. I managed to pick up a tummy bug before we left (dodgy cheesecake?) which wasn't cool. Some Imodium and a bland diet helped settle it down and the last night I could finally enjoy some proper food. And happily that coincided with BBQ Buffett night at the hotel:)

The place we stayed was the Le Meridien at Khao Lak which is about 80-odd km north of Phuket. Mel and I stayed there in 2005, when we were living in Thailand. The hotel is literally on the beach, facing the Andaman Sea. It had been badly damaged in the Boxing Day Tsunami and a lot of the staff died. We were there almost a year after and if you didn't know about the the Tsunami you probably wouldn't have seen a lot evidence of it besides defoliated trees. Anyway, it was great to be back there after 7 years and see that the place hadn't changed too much, because the setting is just magnificent.

See what I mean:) The staff were all really lovely and totally enthralled by Matilda. They all wanted cuddles with her. Sometimes she was obliging and other times not so much. I think she enjoyed the attention though:)

So for 6 days all we pretty much did was swim, get massages and snooze. Despite feeling ordinary for the first 3 days or so, it was really relaxing.

That'll do for the time.

Ciao

Getting Stuff Sorted

It's a little over 2 weeks since we arrived in Singapore and it's been pretty busy. Having to find a place to live, find furniture, get our work permits sorted and open bank accounts means we haven't really done any sightseeing or super fun stuff. It's actually been a little stressful at times. But we're getting there!

Looking for an apartment has been somewhat of a trial. We looked at 20 apartments in 3 days. We put in 2 offers and after some fairly drawn out & pretty frustrating negotiations we finally signed a lease on an apartment. The landlords are an elderly couple and I suspect that the apartment is part of their retirement plan. I could see their side to a point but it was stressful right up to the last. Anyhoo, we signed the agreement and moved in on Friday morning.

The main reason we chose this place is its setting. The complex is right next to a nature reserve called Bukit Batok. It's basically second generation jungle and it's right next to us. The day we came to look at the apartment I saw monkeys in the trees and on our first morning there I saw squirrels jumping about. Very cool!

Although the hotel was fine, it was good to have Tilda in her own room as we were getting tired of having sit outside in the corridor until she went to sleep. She has continued to be a wee trooper. She's not complained very much at all and when she has it's been with good reason. The apartment has tiled floors (as is the style in warm Asian countries) and Tilda took a little while to get used to the floors. There were a few crashes and quite a few tears. By the next day she'd got it figured out a bit better. There is a koi pond next to the pool and we can see it from our living room. Tilda loves seeing the fish and starts banging on the windows in excitement:)

One of the first things we had to do was get our resident passes. I cannot believe how painless this was! We had our letters from school, passports and photos. We rocked up at 2:30pm and handed everything over. It all had to be double checked by us, then signed. Last we had to have our thumb prints taken. No ink pads here - all done on a scanner! Once we were done the lady told us our cards would be ready in four business days. So four business days later I went back and picked up our brand spanking new resident passes. No doubt I spent more time in the taxi there and back than at the office!

The next day we went to a bank to open accounts. Again this was pretty painless. I reckon it took 45 minutes to open 3 bank accounts. And they were up and running straight away, complete with debit cards with our names. I used my card 25 minutes later to buy some picture hanging stuff.

Just to continue with the whole efficiency angle, the night before we moved we went to see about getting cable tv and the internet set up. This was at 8pm. I guess it took around an hour to complete the paperwork and the guy assured me it would be good to go the next day. And so it was. The only issue was me plugging cables in the wrong places!

Our apartment is partially furnished (i.e. washing machine, dryer, old tele and few other bits & bobs). Mel spent a bit of time online and we were able to get a bunch of really good stuff pretty cheap. A sideboard, chest of drawers, coffee table (all teak) & a dining setting for about $800. We hired a guy with a van to help pick up the stuff and move into our place. It took 2-3 hours all up and it was hot! Who knew teak weighed so bloody much? I was pretty knackered after that but it was all good.

I should point out that I'm writing this in a hotel in Thailand. We flew out on Sunday for 5 nights at a place Mel & I stayed at when we lived in Thailand so we could chill out before school starts. The flight to Phuket was short. We probably spent more time in the car coming to the hotel than in the air. It's really cool to come here again after 7 years to find the hotel not changed heaps. So since Sunday afternoon, we've not done much except swim and snooze:)

I reckon that's about it for time. I'll put some photos up soonish.

Later
Tone

We're in Singapore!

So we've been in Singapore for 4 days now. It's very warm, but after the rubbish weather on the day we left, that is totally ok!

We got into Singapore late Tuesday after a pretty good flight. Tilda was really good. She only grumbled a little on the flight and even slept for around 3 hours. We were lucky that there was a spare seat next to us so we could put Tilda between us. Once she fell asleep (on my arm) we could put her in the bassinet. When we tried before she was asleep she didn't like it as it was pretty small. Again she was great as we made our way through customs etc..

The hotel we're staying at is nice. The pool is good and so is the breakfast:) The staff are really friendly and very helpful. And they love Tilda! Each morning at breakfast, the waitresses make a big fuss over her and go out of their way to walk past our table so they can say "hello". Tilda obliges with big smiles. Actually, Tilda has become quite the star. Whenever we go into a restaurant everyone fusses and says "hello". She is loving the attention!

We started looking for an apartment on Wednesday afternoon. School has arranged for two agents to helps us. Sharon and Rachel drove us around on Wednesday and Thursday afternoon. They were so helpful and understanding, especially when it came to Tilda. And she was a trooper as well. She didn't complain at all about getting in and out of the car as we looked at around 16 places. We saw some nice places. One in particular we liked and put an offer in for it but we appear to have missed out. Sharon and Rachel have been really proactive on our behalf and are in touch regularly to update us. It looks like we need to look at some more places in the next couple of days.

We went to the Ministry of Manpower (or MOM) to get our Employment Pass stuff sorted. It was pleasantly not traumatic as we had expected. I think this was due to our experiences in Japan & Thailand. In Japan you had to have everything perfect or they'd send you away. And you could only go at certain times/days. Once I went too late and even though I was in line, they closed for lunch! In Thailand, things were somewhat haphazard and it might ok or not. The woman who looked after us was really helpful and explained everything well. So by Wednesday next week we should have our passes.

This is a picture I took from the pool floor and put together using a cool app called Autostitch.

Later:)

Catching Up with Friends & Family

After several edits of our bags while we were at Mel's mum & dad's place, we managed to get our stuff to around 70kgs for the 3 of us. It meant we had to take out some stuff we wanted to take. In the end, we put a bunch of stuff in a box that Mel's mum will bring up for us or we'll collect when we return to New Zealand.

Our last little while in NZ was wet!

It rained solidly from Monday night until after midday. The little creek that runs through the farm was over flowing big time, creating a small lake and covering the road. For some reason the cows were very intrigued by all of this and most of them walked into the water up to their bellies. Then they buggered off. Weird.

The flight to Melbourne was ok, although it seemed like 1 out of 2 people had a cold and were coughing up a storm. I couldn't believe how many people didn't bother to cover their mouths when they coughed. Needless to say, Mel & I both picked up colds and have been sneezing and blowing our noses non-stop:(


Tilda was not keen to sleep at all. We put her in the bassinet, but she insisted on standing up so she could look at everyone. Especially the wee baby in the bassinet next to her. She cried a bit, but it could've been a whole heap worse. Despite being absolutely knackered, she was great while we gathered our baggage, went through customs and picked up the rental car.

We had booked a night in a motel that was reasonably close to the airport. Unfortunately, we had no idea that roadworks on the Western Ring Rd mean that ALL the left hand exits (where we needed to go!) were closed. We ended up taking the most epic detour ever. We didn't get to the motel until 11pm instead of around 9:30-10:00. The bonus was that Tilda had a good sleep in the car:) The motel was nice - clean, tidy and very quiet! Luckily we were able to give the wee girl a quick drink, change her nappy and put her to bed without too much drama.

The next day we headed up to Wahgunyah to stay with my mum & dad, with a smallish detour via Kyneton to see our friends Josh & Bri. It was great to see their new house and introduce them to Tilda, as well as pass on a present for their impending little one. The drive to mum & dad's was pretty uneventful and Tilda slept most of the way.

Over the next few days we caught up

with some friends here in Wahgunyah, as well as Tarawingee. It was great to meet Fiona & Adam's new twins and introduce Tilda to their elder daughter Chelsea. My brother Chris & his family came up to stay and Tilda was able to meet her cousin Hudson, who was born 3 months after her. Hudson was a little unsure about Tilda as she just wanted to cuddle him all the time:) By Monday morning they seemed to be firm friends, with Hudson following Tilda around the house getting into mischief! It was really cool to see the reaction from Hudson when I brought Tilda into the kitchen in the morning - he was totally excited to see her.

On the Sunday, we had lots of family come for lunch. Tilda was able to meet her grand-nana, aunts, uncles and cousins. She was terribly excited to have more kids to play with and by early evening was extremely tired. Despite a couple of protests, she went to bed and fell asleep very quickly.

It was great to see everyone as it had been 18 months or more since we had seen them. Dad cooked multiple roasts on the BBQ and lunch was awesome. It was almost like Christmas, but without the presents and hot weather. It's been really cold here since we arrived. We've basically had 5 frosts in row. Singapore looks better and better each day:)

Today is a quiet day. Time for some last minute washing and then repack the bags before we head back down to Melbourne. This time on Wednesday we'll be looking at apartments. Hopefully the searching won't be too traumatic:)

Ciao for now.

Tony