Return of the Native 2.1 - Part 13 - Singapore

The SilverKris Lounge at Heathrow is worthy of early arrival but not too early or you may never make it onto your plane.  We settled in just in time for a leisurely dinner which we chose from their rather excellent mamak selection helped down by a wine or three then a shower before our flight.

And the flight itself was superb, the Lobster Thermidor almost as good as Nuku'alofa 2006 but at that point of time there was never going to be another lobster as good as Nuku'alofa 2006 although the one at Fagalomo on the larger Samoan island of Savaii a little later wasn't bad and nor were the margaritas.

We slept half the way to Singapore and could have snoozed longer but I'd ordered nasi lemak for breakfast and Peter had the Singapore Airlines version of a full English coming his way.  Then somewhat sooner than we would have liked we were descending into Changi for our three night stopover.

Super capable travel agent Vanitha booked us into the five star Andaz Hotel and less than 30 minutes after clearing customs and immigration we were standing in the lobby which has its own direct connection to the nearby Bugis MTR station.

Now this is where things turned really spooky...

As we approached the registration area a very well dressed Chinese gentleman wearing a gold badge which read 'Manager' approached and said, "Welcome Mr Cawthorne, do you remember me?"  There was something familiar about him but the connection was clearly taking too long to establish so he said, "I'll give you a hint."  At that point he screwed his face up as if in great pain and cried, "I want my mummy!" 

My response was both immediate and quite automatic.  "I want your mummy, too!"  Then we threw our arms around one other and laughed and laughed.

The Tale of Tek Loy Goon

The primary teachers amongst you will be familiar with the Year 6 excursion to Canberra.  I can't recall the exact year but let's say it was 1990 because the old Royal Canberra Hospital on Acton Peninsula closed in 1991 and that is a critical element in this story.

We'd done all the usual stuff: Parliament House; Cockington-bloody-Green; Questicon (Jesus Christ, not again!); the Institute of Sport; the Australian War Memorial; Telstra Tower; the Australian National Gallery; and last but far from least, the National Capital Exhibition with its nearby playground in Acton Park.  We had everyone toiletted and thought that ten minutes play on the lovely new equipment in the park might just settle them for the three and a half hour drive back to Sydney and it probably would have been had a blood-chilling scream not rent the air followed by another then a continuous wail which sounded very much like a WWII air raid siren.

Tek Loy Goon had fallen from a very tame flying fox which saw his feet no more than 30cm above the softfall but that didn't stop him from dislocating a shoulder and breaking an arm on the same side.  As teachers who'd seen and experienced most things child related we all agreed that if anyone was going to do it Tek Loy would be the one because he was charming, cheeky and had a knack of complicating absolutely everything.  In fact it was more than just a knack, it was a gift!

So off we set, two buses, five teachers and eighty-two children (one of them screaming) to thankfully nearby Royal Canberra Hospital.  I didn't actually have a class, I was the English as a Second Language teacher and as such had worked closely with Tek Loy who was just a couple of years out of Penang so it seemed logical that I accompany the screaming child into A&E along with my good friend Anne who had planned and coordinated the trip although to be fair, not this precise part of it.

What followed was two long hours of waiting and screaming.  I attended to Tek Loy while Annie wore a path between us and the admission desk for updates which were very thin on the ground. 

Tek Loy went through the best part of a box of tissues while bellowing "I want my mummy!"

I held him as close as I dared without causing further injury and whimpered "I want your mummy too, Tek Loy, believe me I do!"

So back and forth went Annie in search of an answer to the same question "When will someone see a Tek Loy?  We have eighty-one other children on buses outside and they should be half way back to Sydney.  We need answers so we can make some decisions."

In between trips to the admissions desk Anne had called the school on the very latest addition to our excursion kit, a mobile phone - remember it was 1990.  The school had then called Mrs Goon whose reply we eagerly awaited but in the meantime a fresh-faced young resident with a bubbly voice finally emerged from behind closed doors and asked if we were Tek Loy's parents.

"Do we look like Tek Loy's parents?!" spat Annie.

The pleasant young chap peeled himself off a nearby wall and said, "He could be adopted."

"Well he's not!  Now we have eighty-one other children sitting in buses that should be almost back to Sydney so can you patch this kid up or do we go and leave my colleague here behind with him?  And by the way, he's not my husband!"

The young doctor and I were both feeling a tad nonplussed by this ultimatum and Tek Loy went into another round of "I want my mummy!" just as an older Anglo couple came up and introduced themselves as Mrs Goon's friends who would take charge of the situation while she drove down from Sydney.  She was on her way to oversee the repairs being, as she was, a nurse as well as mother to three uncharacteristically high spirited Malaysian children.

So after calls of confirmation by both us and the admission staff I assured Tek Loy that mummy was indeed coming and we got the hell out of there.

So fast forward 30 years and Tek Loy Goon, the kid voted most likely to be running his own Triad cell by the age of 25 was now an extremely well presented 42 year-old in charge of one of the slickest hotel in Singapore.  And his English was perfect, thanks entirely to me.

Well what a fortuitous reunion that was!  We received a room upgrade and were just taking in the fabulous view there was a knock at the door and in came a waiter with a bottle of Taittinger, a tray of canapés and an invitation to dinner the following evening.

That combined with what we'd consumed on Singapore Airlines, be it in the lounge or in the air, completely alleviated the need for dinner that night so we set off through the heat and humidity to the Gardens by the Bay for the nightly Garden Rhapsody Light and Sound Spectacular and what a spectacle it was.  We returned next day and didn't leave until after we'd viewed the light and sound show for a second time.

Garden Rhapsody Light and Sound Spectacular

Singapore Tip #1

When visiting the Gardens by the Bay (and you must) be sure to purchase the Attractions Bundle which will get you into the Flower Dome, Cloud Forest and Floral Fantasy as well as give you unlimited shuttle rides.  The latter is a big plus if you have mobility issues but only the food court and restaurants provide any real relief from the debilitating and ever present heat and humidity.

The Gardens by the Bay

And speaking of heat, our dinner with Tek Loy was at 665°F on Level 38 of the hotel.  The views were extraordinary and so were the prices but he made it clear this was all manager's expense account business and to ignore any numerals.  The exception to that was name of the restaurant itself which is apparently derived from the temperature of the grill, it being essentially a steakhouse serving shockingly expensive cuts of Australian meat plus a few seafood options.

Tek Loy remembered the night in the motel in Narrabundah when the Jewish kid who was supposed to get a kosher meal found a used bandaid between his fish and the thick coating of batter in which it was encased.  This, of course, not only rendered it non-kosher but also a health risk.  He asked if I still ate seafood then insisted I order the Boston Lobster Thermidor which I have to tell you wiped the floor with both Nuku'alofa and Fagalomo.

Boston Lobster Thermidor at 665°F

The discovery of the bandaid that night so long ago had caused chaos.  Fish was immediately removed from the menu and half the group hastily served a replacement whilst Annie, one of the bus drivers and I took those awaiting their reformatted meals on a nighttime tour of Canberra.  They were fed when we returned then the whole lot taken out again while Annie and I were directed to the main dining room and instructed to order whatever we liked.

Oh joy, oh bliss, a proper dining room, a menu and no kids.  Why couldn't all school excursions be like this?  We were reflecting on that very thing when two very handsome, well presented men in business suits approached and engaged us in conversation.  They asked if we would like to join them in the bar for a drink later and we agreed.  As they walked off, each glancing back with a smile as they went, Annie assured me that this kind of thing happened to her all the time.

I had heard about this but never seen it and as it happened I still hadn't seen it because when we joined them for a drink in the bar we found ourselves in the midst of a Canberra Gay Business Association social event and I was the main attraction not Annie.  Oh how I dined out on that back in the staffroom!

Only being 12 at the time, Tek Loy was oblivious to that part of the evening's events but it seemed reasonable enough to share the story now that he was 42 and my how he laughed!  He remembered Anne as being quite the glamour and was pleased to hear that hadn't changed.

Having viewed Ireland from Wales and Scotland from Northern Ireland we determined to view Malaysia from Singapore so took the MTR up to Woodlands North at the current end of the line and after a short but very warm walk found ourselves standing by the Straits of Johore looking across to Malaysia.  Well, that was fun!

Woodlands North MTR Station

Back we went to the station and on to the Singapore Botanic Gardens which is much closer to town but feels like it could be a very long way away if you use a tree to block out any tall buildings in your line of sight.  What a marvellous place!  Structurally it's quite reminiscent of the gardens we enjoyed so much in England but with tropical plants and nobody takes their shirts off and lounges about in deck chairs.  If you enjoy gardens then the Gardens by the Bay and the Singapore Botanic Gardens make a perfect compare and contrast and both are beautiful.

Singapore Botanic Gardens

Time was running out and there was still so much more to see but we paced ourselves next day and went in search of the best mamak in the various neighbourhoods around town.  By the end of the day I had completely purged myself of five weeks of British and Irish food and hit Type 6 on the Bristol Stool Chart.  Lovin' that spicy food!

Night markets

We had a late checkout on our final day so just hung by the pool and toilet till it was time to return to Changi Airport and the mother of all SilverKris lounges for just a few pre-flight sates.  So with a tear in my eye (thanks largely to the sambal) we said farewell to Singapore for now because we'll be back.  The quest to find the world's best kway teow has only just begun!

Post Script

The flight to Sydney was great but I cancelled my second 'Book the Chef' Lobster Thermidor and went with roast chicken breast because I already knew it would be a disappointment after 665°F.

Having trained it in Wales, Ireland, England and Singapore we shunned the taxi rank at Kingsford Smith for the airport station and a near empty Waratah B set.  The winter sun rose just as we emerged from the Airport Tunnel to make our change to the North Shore Line at Central and it suddenly felt like we'd never actually been away from home.

How odd was that?!

Return of the Native 2.1 - Part 12 - Cambridge

Barry and Trevor decided they'd like to have a day in Cambridge and as chance would have it we'd booked a midsized car for our long weekend on Fordham.  They came around to give us a hand with the pack and tidy up of the flat then the four of us set off to Oxford Circus Tube Station and on to the Europcar depot at St Pancras.  The Golden Union Fish Bar was just opening as we passed by and the manager gave us a friendly wave and called out "Teddybears' picnic, lads?"

And that's exactly what it must have looked like given the two large bags of Pret A Manger sandwiches and pastries Barry had thoughtfully purchased for a farewell picnic at a yet to be sourced location by the banks of the River Cam.  Barry was always thinking, especially when it came to food so just to keep it all safe Trevor put it in the boot of our very roomy Vauxhall Insignia along with the luggage.  I sensed that en route snacking might have been an issue on previous excursions.

So with Peter and Barry in the back, Trevor in the navigator's seat and me behind the wheel off we set out onto the streets of London in a generally northbound direction.  Barry and Trevor suddenly broke into "We're All Going on a Summer Holiday" and I joined in confident that nobody could tell me to stop or get out of the car this time since I was driving.

Trevor was an excellent navigator and in just a little over an hour we were sitting by the River Cam on Jesus Green enjoying our picnic.  Odd name for a park but nice.  We all had other places to go though so Peter and I dropped Barry and Trevor at Cambridge Station which is a good place to start the Hop-On-Hop-Off bus tour then be pointed in the right direction for London at its conclusion.  We were a little sad to say goodbye to the Santas but Te Kuiti isn't really that far from Hornsby Heights so certain there'd be future trans-Tasman visits we went on our way to Lara, Nikos and Yiannis in Fordham near Ely.

Lara, Nikos & Yiannis

We were delighted to see them all and Lara was surprised to hear that we'd just been picnicking with her late Uncle Ray's sister's son.  She even remembered Barry and Trevor from a family do at Aunty Eulene's house in Pukekohe at some point of time before she left New Zealand to study at Cambridge.  So much for six degrees of separation!

Lara is the daughter of my oldest aforementioned Kiwi mate Philip and great niece of Aunty Eulene who must be in her 90s now and going strong.  I'll bet she still turns out a beaut gem scone as well!  Lara went off to Cambridge to do her PhD in some kind of mathematics which is completely beyond me, met and married Nikos who has his in some kind of physics that is equally beyond me and produced Yiannis who has just completed Year 3 so I'm completely up to pace with what he does apart from what he learns at Saturday Greek school.

And speaking of things Greek, Nikos prepared his signature saganaki prawns for dinner that night and I think it was even better than three years earlier when we enjoyed a summer solstice dinner together by the River Snail which runs through the foot of their lovely garden.  What a great evening of catching up topped off by a slow and contented stroll back to nearby Trinity Hall where we stay whilst in town.

Bridge of Sighs

Trinity Hall is a magnificent Victorian B&B run by Sue and her daughter Hannah.  It's on a working farm and is a little bit grand without being over the top.  We had the same huge room as last time with a bathroom that's the size of a regular hotel room itself.  And Sue's breakfasts are the best!

Sunday saw us on a guided tour of Cambridge which Nikos knows like the back of his hand having lived there most of his life.  He is a fellow of Selwyn College so we had lunch there as we did on our first visit in 2015.  The Oxbridge colleges are considerably different to my beloved Drummond College at the University of New England which was really a hall of residence rather than a traditional college as such.  I enjoyed it though just as I enjoyed our rambles around and through the colleges of Cambridge with Lara, Nikos and Yiannis.

In fact I enjoyed it so much that we went back next day when Lara, Nikos and Yiannis went off to work and school.  Never having been built for cars, many cities and towns in the UK have park-and-drive systems where you leave your vehicle in a large lot on the edge of town and take a shuttle to any one of a number of points within.  It works perfectly and the buses are all double-deckers so if you're lucky you can sit upstairs at the front on the right and pretend to drive just like you did when you were a kid.

Punting on the River Cam

Our final night in Fordham; and in fact the UK itself ticked another box.  We finally made it to an Indian restaurant and had the National Dish of England - Butter Chicken!  It's also where we said goodbye to the Nikiforakis-Jamiesons for now.  We look forward to the next time be it here, there or perhaps Aotearoa.

Our flight to Singapore didn't leave till just after 10.00pm on our last day so we lingered around Trinity Hall after a long and very satisfying breakfast then said goodbye to our hosts and headed for the the Stained Glass Museum in nearby Ely which was a treat.  They have works from the 13th to the 21st century with 125 pieces on permanent display, 1000 more in the collection and numerous special exhibitions throughout the year.

Ely Stained Glass Museum 

That was a lovely way to finish our visit but the SilverKris Lounge at Heathrow beckoned and I was determined to get every cent of worth out of our business class flights.  So off we set through the Fens of Eastern England, an area of drained marshland that's flat as a tack but very pretty.  This is where England was joined to Holland prior to the last Ice Age and the rivers of the area flowed through a much tighter English Channel to join a longer version of the Rhine unless you're a Flat Earther in which case God made it all exactly as it is about 5000 years ago.  

The Victorians were responsible for the bulk of the drainage systems though, Victorians being obsessed with changing landscapes as they were.

So farewell to England's green, pleasant and sometimes drained fields for now.

Draining the Fens

Return of the Native 2.1 - Part 11 - London

It’s never easy bidding farewell and such was the case when time came to say goodbye to Lin and John who are especially good friends as well as the most amazing hosts.  It was even more difficult when I realised there would soon be 16,855km between us.  Who’d have thought you could determine the exact distance from Hornsby Heights on the edge of Sydney and Sunnybrow near Durham but it’s all there on the internet, you just have to look.

So after hugs, thanks and a promise to return Peter and I boarded our train in Darlington for the first leg of the trip to London.  I managed to find a ridiculously cheap fare that required a quick change in York which seemed like it might be a bit of fun and it was.  In any case, there is no point booking 1st class on a weekend because the usual complementary hot food selection and open bar turns into a sanga and soft drink for the exact same price.

Three hours and fifteen minutes later we arrived stone cold sober at King’s Cross Station in London, their place names still sporting apostrophes unlike those in Australia.  In no mood to battle the Tube then a drag our baggage from Oxford Circus like common tourists I hailed a classic black London cab and we were at our expensive but rather ordinary and quite tiny flat on Poland Street in Soho in no time at all plus a generous tip.

We decided to stay in the heart of it all this time.  On our first visit in 2015 I booked Canada Water which was quiet and modern but although only a few hundred metres from the Tube was a little out of the way.  Next time in 2017 saw us in a very atmospheric flat at Russell Square overlooking leafy parks front and back once you ascended three flights of very narrow stairs.  It was also a bit of a haul from the Tube and Waitrose.  This time we went for restaurants, nightlife and an elevator.  Of course once we opened a window and heard the street noise outside we wondered why the hell we wanted nightlife so thought it best to find out and took ourselves across the road to The Kings Arms which is oddly devoid of an apostrophe unlike King’s Cross Station.

The Kings Arms a gay pub frequented by bears - generally older larger gentlemen who tend to be unshaven both facially and everywhere else.  There was nothing buffed over there so I felt like I’d arrived home!  We bought a couple of pints and settled in to meet the locals who, as it happened, were Christmas tree farmers from Te Kuiti, New Zealand which made perfect sense given they both looked like Santa Claus.  And of course they knew my oldest Kiwi mate, Philip Jamieson as everybody does.  In fact Barry is a distant relative by marriage through Aunty Eulene’s late husband Ray and Trevor met Philip at a Scottish Country Dancing summer school in Palmerston North decades ago so there was the topic of the evening’s conversation.  We promised to meet up again for dinner and not mention Philip, Aunty Eulene (who does a lovely gem scone) or Scottish Country Dancing.

Poland Street shares a corner with Broadwick Street which is an iconic location for reactionary right-wing talkback radio tragics.  This is where, on 6 December 1988, Alan Jones was arrested in the classic underground Victorian public toilet for 'outraging public decency' which was evocative of his forced resignation from The King's School at Parramatta in 1975.  No visit to Soho would be complete without stopping by Broadwick Street to celebrate Australia's most famous old bog troll!

The Broadwick Street Bog

From there we strolled across to Tottenham Court Road and took the Northern Line up to Archway to relive a fabulous Turkish lunch we enjoyed at the oddly named Bistro North Mediterranean and Turkish Cuisine which I'm sure had a much simpler name five years ago.  The food is still excellent though.

We didn't pay homage at the tomb of Karl Marx in nearby Highgate Hill Cemetery which was the purpose of our last visit to the area but continuing the theme we took the Tube back to Tottenham Court Road, changed to the Central Line and alighted at Marble Arch.  That's the closest station to Speakers' Corner (with an apostrophe of plural possession) in Hyde Park.  We listened to a modern day communist for a short while but deluded though he was, there was little in what he had to say that I found worthy of argument so we moved on to an anti-vaxxer who was infinitely more entertaining.  I can only hope you're not reading this on a 5G device.  If you are best say your goodbyes right now and get your affairs in order quickly!

Anti-vaxxers at Speakers' Corner

Well fed and entertained we made our way back to Poland Street where we decided to have just one pint at the Kings Arms and ran into Barry and Trevor the Christmas tree farmers from Te Kuiti again.  It turned out they were in London for ten days and could be found there on any evening, earlier on a Saturday or Sunday.  We arranged to meet for dinner on Tuesday, finished our pints and went on our way.

So what else did we do during our week in London?

• The Victoria and Albert Museum - what a stunning swag of colonial plunder!
• The Tate Modern - loved some things, hated others, but well worthy of a visit.
• The Houses of Parliament - a return visit for us but I'm passionate about democracy and this place is the origin of our own, such as it is at the moment in both nations.
• The Hop-On-Hop-Off Red Bus - which we have avoided on the last two visits but having done them in Cambridge, Bath, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dublin I now see the point.
• Westminster Abby - studiously avoided on previous visits much like the Tower of London but it is jam packed with history and although dead people abound none were executed on site.
• The Embankment - we retraced the numerous land reclamations along the northern bank of the Thames and the now subterranean Fleet River which still joins it albeit invisibly.

Bananas at Victoria Embankment Gardens

Tuesday rolled around and we toddled back to the Kings Arms to meet up with Barry and Trevor who were quite excited by their recent discovery of the Golden Union Fish Bar which was pretty much right across the street and up a bit so with one pint each on board, along with the Santas who had arrived early, off we went.  

Barry & Trevor

Now I don't mind the odd feed of F&Cs and the Golden Union Fish Bar defines itself by the following quote from the New Statesman "You can’t get more British than fish and chips.  Winston Churchill exempted the dish from wartime rationing, Amy Winehouse ate them on her wedding anniversary, and George Orwell believed they could avert revolution."  How could I possibly argue with any of that apart from the Oxford comma which I detest?!

Peter, as always, was not the least bit adventurous and went with straight old cod and chips; Barry had the saveloy and chips with curry sauce which I thought both exotic and adventurous; after some deliberation Trevor ordered the steak and ale pie with chips and a side of Heinz baked beans; and I went for broke and with haddock and chips (no salt) and a pickled egg.  Now the observant amongst you will have noticed my use of semicolons rather than commas in that list thus avoiding the ugliness of the Oxford coma.  You may have also been left wondering why Barry and Trevor wanted to go to a fish cafe but never mind, it was all good!

We arranged to meet one final time before we were due to head north to Lara, Nikos and Yiannis in Fordham near Ely and the Santas headed home to Te Kuiti which is quite close to where Lara was born and raised in the southern Cambridge.  And what could be a better venue than the Friday evening wine bar disco with the gender-fluid DJ at the National Portrait Gallery just off Trafalgar Square?  Well who'd have thought those big boys could dance?!

Che Guevara and Debussy to a disco beat...