Back in Australia!

 On 12 August 1999, with a roaring hangover, I boarded an Ansett flight to Osaka via Sydney. It was the first time I had left Australia. While I would come back for holidays, it would be 23 years before I returned for good. When I left, I had two bags that weighed 35kg in total and a backpack that was 10 kg. Essentially all my worldly possessions save a couple of small(ish) boxes of stuff at mum and dad’s. On my return, I have a whole family and between the four of us, about 12 cubic meters of stuff. Including a swimming pool!

Moving to Australia brought the question of ‘home’ into sharp focus. Having lived overseas for more than 20 years, the idea of home is kind of complicated. I had an article published in a magazine in Singapore about this question. As I conclude in the article, Melbourne is now home for us. Which is great because Melbourne is a great city and we fortunately live in a lovely part of town. 

Moving was a pretty big deal. We all came down to Melbourne in late March and moved into our new house (perused and applied for completely online with only photographs and video to go on). Unusually, the real estate photographer did a good job of making the place look smaller than it actually is. Given the rental market in Melbourne, we were quite fortunate to get this place. We were also super fortunate to have people around us to help. Bruce and Christine (friends from our time in Singapore) picked up our keys and passed them on the mum and dad who came down to meet our furniture deliveries. Mel’s mum and dad also came over from NZ to help out after I left.

With 4 months left on my contract, I returned to Singapore to tidy up our house and get rid of stuff. This was a really tough time for us all. 

*UPDATE*

I'm so crap at blogging! I started this post last year some time. Anyhoo, it has been two full years since we moved to Melbourne. It has been challenging but I think we are reasonably well settled. Mel has started a new job as IBDP co-ordinator at MLC which just down the road from my school. Matilda has started Year 7 at Auburn High School, which is just down the road from our house. She was quite chuffed to be accepted into their SEAL programme. This is an accelerated learning programme for Years 7 to 9. Flynn is now in Year 2 at Auburn South Primary School, which is across the road from Matilda's school. Although he is well settled at school, he still thinks of himself as Singaporean.

And the Madness ends!

Yesterday was our 13th wedding anniversary. We actually celebrated a couple of weeks ago when Mel's mum was visiting. We had a really nice staycation at the Shangri La. When I was explaining to Matilda that Mel and I would be staying away for the night to celebrate our wedding anniversary, her response was "I wanna come too! I've never been to a wedding before!" I explained that it wasn't an actual wedding but celebrating the day we were married. I suggested that we go out for lunch on the actual day to celebrate. And yesterday was that day and we had lunch at one of our favourite restaurants.

And so to the "Madness". This past 18 months has been the crazy busiest time I have known. It started just before we broke up for the Christmas holidays in 2015 when Mel said "I'm going out at lunchtime but I'll be back". I though "ok, whatever. You go out for lunch every Friday". I didn't think much more about it until I was walking to class after lunch. I ran into Mel on my way and she said "we need to talk". It sounded serious and I was immediately thinking about would could be wrong. We walked into Mel's classroom and she held out something in her hand. As I got closer, I could see it was a pregnancy tester. And it was pink! I looked up and said "fuck!" We had a quick chat but class was starting so I had to go. As I walked into class, all I could hear in my mind was "Fuck! What the fuck? Holy shit!" etc.. You get the general idea. I assume this was all in my mind because no-one said "oi, stop swearing!"

Anyhow, it took a while for us to get used to the idea of another baby. The last trimester was pretty difficult for Mel (and we would find out later that she developed hernia at this time). As usual, the last few weeks of term was manicly busy and this was compounded by having to pack our gear to move out of our apartment. We didn't want to move but our landlords (who live next door) wanted their parents to move in. They were very good about it and luckily we were to take over the lease on an apartment close to school from a colleague who was leaving Singapore . The building we moved to is literally a 5 minute walk to school and, as it was built in the 1980s, is very spacious. We have two great balconies; one looking over a forested area with loads of bird life and the other looking due west so we regularly see magnificent sunsets. And the moon as well:)

Once school finished, we had to finish packing before we headed to Bali for a week or so to recharge. The original plan was to go in early July to meet up with Mel's mum & dad and her sister & family. But with Flynn due for late July those plans had to be revised and we went as soon as we could. The timing wasn't fantastic as the day after we got back was moving day! It was a nice holiday though and it was cool to watch Matilda release a turtle hatchling back into the ocean.

After moving, we started to get ourselves unpacked and sorted. It was a slowish process as Mel was struggling a bit. And of course, by the end of July our little guy was ready to put in an appearance. Mel and I headed to the hospital on the evening of 31 July. After lots of hard work from Mel, Flynn showed up around 1:50am on 1 August. We were very lucky to have Mel's mum staying with us for a few weeks, which made the transition a little easier. Especially for Matilda. Flynn's arrival meant that I missed the first couple of days at school. In some ways it was good as I didn't have to sit through dry, boring stuff. It did mean that I was a little bit behind where I wanted to be in terms of preparation. Oh well.

This year at school was busy as usual, but different because of the broken sleep for first term. It was a bit of a struggle at times but once we were home from Bali after the October holidays, Flynn settled into a nice sleep routine and Mel and I started to catch up on our missed sleep. Our trip to Bali ended up being good after a rocky start. We had booked a villa on Air BnB. When we arrived we found the place not really matching the photos. The place was tired looking and there was mould on the curtains and underneath the wall paper. The bathroom basin drained straight on to the floor which was really dangerous. The place was generally not clean and there was a wasp nest in the kitchen area. The pool was nice though and if it had been Mel & I by ourselves, we might have stayed. But with two little kids it wasn't ok.

We got in touch with the owner with no success. We had to go through AirBnB's conflict resolution process and I have to say they were really helpful and we ended getting our money back less the one night we stayed at the place. Luckily there was a decent hotel across the road so we spent two nights there before we found another villa that was more honest. The last four days were reasonably relaxing which was cool.

Although not doing as much travelling for school this year, I still got to Saigon for a very cool conference on IT in education, Hong Kong for an IB workshop and of course my trip to Bali with the Year 10 Geographers. These were all cool, but it's always hard to be away from Mel, Matilda and Flynn. We managed some family trips too, getting to Bali in October, NZ for Christmas and Penang in March.

Adding to the 'madness' was my decision to start an MEd. programme through Waikato University. The course is offered through the uni's Centre for Global Studies in Education. The people in charge are former Geography teachers and the course, while not Geography focused, definitely has a geographic slant to it, which is what made it attractive to me. It started really well and I got an 'A' for my first assignment. The second half was more challenging in terms of trying to pay enough attention while still managing all the school stuff and spending time with Mel & the kids. I found it quite a struggle over the last few weeks. I got there in the end but I'm not sure about my grade:(

It was so cool to wake up this morning and not have to got to school. Both Flynn and Matilda slept well and it was around 8am when we woke up. Not a massive sleep in, but as anyone with young kids would agree, pretty nice:) We have about seven weeks off now. We'll be hitting Bali in early July to meet up with Mel's mum & dad and her sister's family. Towards the end of July we'll in Saigon for a couple nights before 6 days on the beach near Hoi An. Really looking forward to both trips, as well as just hanging out at home.

Ciao!

A New (School) Year

*UPDATE* 11/6/17

So, I started writing this post during the first of week school. In August 2016! It is now 11 June 2017 (our wedding anniversary by the way!) and school finished on Friday. I will write something more detailed about this year. Soon(ish)!

August 2016

School starts in earnest again on Wednesday. Which also happens to be my birthday! Teachers have been in at school for a week already, two in the case of the new staff. I don't mind coming in for that week, though some of the stuff is a little dry and boring. Luckily for me, Flynn decided to show up very early on Monday morning. Which meant that I was away for Monday and Tuesday and therefore missed out on some those dry, boring things. I shall have to buy the little man a beer. When he's 18 of course:)

Flynn is doing well. He feeding ok and sleeping ok. Although last night was rough. He basically didn't sleep between 10:30pm and 11:30am. And of course this was accompanied by much crying. Luckily Matilda had gone to sleep quickly and slept through it all. Unlike Mel & myself. We had maybe 2-3 hours of sleep, which very hard on Mel as she is already tired from the birth and feeding. Not to mention sore! He seemed to go down ok tonight, so we'll wait and see how we go. It would be good to get some decent sleep between now and Wednesday morning as school starts then!

I think Matilda is having mixed feelings about her little brother. She is obviously very excited to have a little brother as we had explained to her that we probably wouldn't be able to give her a sibling. We explained the IVF process we went through to have her and while she was a bit sad, she accepted that she probably wouldn't get a sibling. When we told her we would be having a baby, she was super excited.

However, the reality is that new babies don't do much except eat, poo and sleep. Matilda is a little frustrated that she can't play with Flynn right away. But I am certain that she will be a great big sister. About three months ago, she asked Mel if she could have her baby and pushchair that we gave her for Christmas a couple of years ago. Matilda has taken care of her baby ever since. In bed, the baby took up most of the space and Matilda squished herself into the corner to make room for the baby. A couple of nights ago, Flynn was crying and she brought in her music box which plays Lullaby and said "maybe this will help Flynn go to sleep." Very sweet.

While school starts on Wednesday for the kids, teachers have been at school since last Monday (earlier in the case of the new teachers). As we stayed in Singapore for most of the holidays I went into school a few times before Flynn was born. I missed the first two days, so being able to get some stuff done was good. I'm probably not exactly where I want to be in terms of preparation but I'm not too badly off.

We have a few new staff starting this year, including two in our department. It was good to meet them and help out where I could.

Luang Prabang

Laos, and Luang Prabang in particular, are places I have long wanted to visit. We made it these holidays and we were very excited to be going.

The old town part of Luang Prabang is a world heritage area. Having been to Hoi An in Vietnam, I was interested to see how the area had coped with 20 years of being listed as a world heritage area.

Our hotel was the Belle Rive, which looks over the Mekong River. It is three beautiful old buildings, with lots of teak. The furniture, floors and trims were all teak. It was situated in the old part of town which meant we could pretty much walk everywhere.

It was the hottest part of the year which meant the temperatures were hitting the high 30s/low 40s during the afternoon. The evenings and mornings were quite chilly, dropping down to around 15. Basically we spent the mornings out visiting temples and other places, had lunch then went back to the hotel to chill out in the air conditioning until the late afternoon.

The temples in Luang Prabang look superficially like Thai temples. However the colours and decorations were a little more subtle as opposed to the garish colours in Thailand.

The temples are all working temples in that they have monks living there. Every morning there is something of a procession, as the monks walk through the streets to collect alms from the townspeople. What is kind of sad is that it has become a scene of conflict between the monks, townspeople and tourists. It's to the point where there are signs in lots of places asking that people be respectful towards the monks.

The other thing about our trip was the haze. March and April are when the farmers burn off the rice stubble left behind after harvesting. Because was hotter and drier than usual, the haze was horrendous, consistently sitting over 100 on the PSI scale. This was another reason to chill out in the hotel in the afternoon as the haze became worse as the day wore on. It was a shame, because the countryside would have really beautiful in clearer weather.

Perhaps one positive of the hot, dry weather is that the bougainvillea were flowering strongly. Which made for very colourful scenes along the streets and pleased Matilda no end.

I should point out that I started writing this post in April and as usual, didn't get around to finishing it. So now that I have started again, I can't really remember exactly what I was going to say. Never mind. Anyhoo, here are some more photos of Luang Prabang's old town. Enjoy:)

Borobudur

Having visited places like Angkor Wat & Bagan, I was very keen to check out Borobudur, in Central Java. And I wan’t disappointed. Being able to watch the sunrise between two volcanoes from the top of Borobudur, with the growing light revealing the mist and smoke shrouded trees and villages, was very cool.

Borobudur is contemporaneous with the construction of the temples around Angkor , making it around 1100 years old. I find the fact that there was no cement used in the construction totally amazing. Part of the attraction was the mystery associated with its construction, as there is very little mention of the whys & wherefores in the written histories of Central Java.

Making the trip to Borobudur satisfied some of my curiosities, but learning about the area has created new ones. I found out that there are two other temple complexes (Pawon and Mendut) in the area and together with Borobudur, make a straight line stretching about 3-4 km. Something to investigate on another trip? I was also hoping to visit Prambanan, which is a 10th century Hindu temple closer to Yogyakarta, but didn’t get the time. Definitely enough reasons to come back. Next summer, maybe:)

The End of the Year!

Tomorrow is the last day of school and I'm more than slightly amazed that we have been in Singapore for three years now. They have just whizzed by and this past six months have been the most frenetically busy I have ever known. It's been great but, wow, it has been busy!

I've done some pretty cool stuff at school this year. I lead two overseas trips. One with Year 9 to Sabah which was brilliant. It was really rewarding seeing kids responding to being out of their comfort zones so positively. We have a lot of mainland Chinese at our school and they were not impressed with sleeping in hammocks in the jungle and having to prepare their own food. But by the last day they didn't want to leave, which was pretty cool. I also took a group of kids to Bali to look at volcanoes. This was the second time I've done this trip and this year was as good as last. Kids get so much out of seeing the real life version of the stuff we talk about in class. Although this group were sort of 'too cool for school', individually they all said they had a great time and would do it again. There were other things too, but I won't bore you with that.

Early start at Changi

Jungle Camp

View from hotel at Kintamani, Bali

View from Mt Batur, Bali

Our school has grown a lot over the three years we have been here. In August 2012 we had 317 kids from Nursery to Year 13. At the end of this year we have over 800 kids and we look like hitting 900 by the time we come back in August. The growth hasn't been without its issues but we have managed to pull it off. Even though we are dead knackered and looking forward to the holidays, I am already a little bit excited about next year. Our staff is fairly stable now and that means we can organise things with more continuity. Our department work well together and we have done some really good stuff this year. Hopefully we can consolidate that and then build on it next year.

Mel is the co-ordinator of two core subjects for IGCSE and IB. This keeps her busy, and is both challenging and rewarding. She will be working full-time next year, which will be a big change for her and Matilda. I think she is keen to be working full-time, but she will miss the time with Matilda. We have been very lucky that they have that time together over the last three years. Mel and Matilda got to do lots of stuff together that wouldn't have been possible if Mel was working full-time. Matilda will also be at school for the whole day next year. This won't be such an issue as she asked if she could stay at school longer and has been doing full days for most of this term.

One of the things I really love about our school is the commitment to professional development. Mel and I both got to travel overseas for courses this year, which was awesome. Mel went to Phuket for Global Perspectives workshop and I had three days in Nanjing for a Geography workshop. We were also able to go to the annual Google Education Summit here in Singapore. I attended a workshop with the head guy for Google Geo Tech Education looking at Google Earth and Google Maps, as well as few other things which was quite geeky and cool. I also have a course in Bangkok lined up for September, which should be interesting.

Wearing daddy's hat at Melbourne Airport
the day we left for Singapore

Making 4th birthday wishes

Mel was looking at some photos yesterday, from around the time we arrived in Singapore. Matilda was still a wee baby; not long walking and just learning to talk. Tomorrow is the last day of her first year at school (she was in Nursery for half a day for most of the year). She really loves going to school which is awesome. We were looking at her report today. She has done quite well. She loves Chinese and swimming!
It has been amazing to watch Matilda develop from a wee baby into a little girl. She has an incredible imagination and makes up stories and songs about everything almost every day. She loves to draw and has done some interesting of portraits of Mel and I. She is very much the little princess that cares a lot about her clothes and shoes. But she also loves watching volcano videos and nature documentaries with her daddy. She also loves maps and flags:)

Matilda is very well travelled for a 4 year old. This year we went to Myanmar, Australia & NZ for Christmas and Perth for Easter. Myanmar was very cool and I am dead keen to go back. Christmas time is a much nicer time to visit both Australia and NZ. The weather is much better and everyone is mostly relaxed. Perth was great as we got to meet my cousin's little boys Zander and Jace and Mel and Matilda were able to spend time with her sister Rose out at Kalgoorlie. Matilda loves seeing her big cousins, Zoe and Emma.

Sunset over the Irrawaddy River

Shwezigon Temple, Bagan

Tilda singing to the Buddha

Sunrise ballons over Bagan

Big Umbrellas

With tomorrow being the last of school, we now have 7 weeks holiday. Yeah! We went to NZ and Australia this time last year and while it was good to catch up with friends and family, the weather is shit. Mel and I vowed we would never visit at that time of year again, unless it was absolutely, positively unavoidable! To bring things back into balance we will be heading for Thailand and Bali this year. We're heading up to Bangkok late next week for a few days. We are taking our helper, Lorie, with us so she can visit her son who teaches English there. In the last week of June, we are hitting Bali with Mel's sister and parents. It is Rose's birthday and good chance for Tilda to hang out with her big cousins for a while. I am going to Java for a couple days to visit some of the ancient Hindu/Buddhist temples near Yogyakarta and take geeky photos. In the last week before school we are spending a few days at a flash resort to make sure we are fully rested and relaxed!

I guess that's it for the moment. Being on holidays means I should be able to post again soon. But I probably won't:)

Ciao!