Anniversaire

This weekend marks a whole twelve months of Frenchie putting up with me and measuring his commitment to me in plane tickets, by allowing me to eat airport Burger Kings, in arguments about the colour purple (not the book) and in numerous nail biting and incredulous passport related stories. Yea verily, it must be true love. 

Thus we decided to celebrate our funny little union by being tourists and going to the South East Asia Aquarium, since we both quite like fish, Frenchie especially, as they talk far less than I do. To get to this Aquarium, we got to go on a cable car. Cool!  Have a picture:

It's me!  Looking only mildly frizzy-haired, but definitely a but gimpy. 

When we arrived at Sentosa, which is an island near Singapore, I had a bit of a culture shock and walked around a little dazed because as a child I didn't really go to theme parks and entire islands made up of plastic and concrete and FUN scare me a little bit. We decided to get on a free bus to go to the aquarium, and when a super friendly, over enthusiastic voice encouraged us to enjoy our time on ASIA'S FAVOURITE ISLAND!!! I stared at Frenchie, petrified, and asked to get off. 

Luckily, there was a Starbucks at our alighting bus stop, since efficient money grabbing from tourists is what Starbucks is all about, and I sat, glancing furtively at everything like a small, furry, caged animal, in a corner, drinking a frappucino until I felt better. 

Motivated by the promise of yet another In The World (I have previously a lot of driest/highest/largest In The Worlds in South America and do like to tick them off my list), we pushed on to the aquarium. 

We had been sensible enough to book our tickets online so laughed at all the other losers who were queuing for 15-30 minutes and pranced through an interesting looking exhibition of the history of maritime trade before being told that there was yet another queue of 45 minutes to endure. Oh. 

Luckily, we were in positive frappucino moods, and this only served to heighten the excitement and anticipation. By the time we finally got through the turnstiles, I lost Frenchie in a crowd, and found him, a few moments later, like this:

Frenchie really likes fish. 

Even more excitement was to come, though, but to go through it verbally would be boring. Instead, have some cool pictures of our favourite things:

10 points if you can spot the cuttlefish. 

These are massive. Like nightmares. 

These are actually transparent, and they had a really cool light show which made them change colour. Awesome. 

Like outer space!

Jellyfish ARE like aliens!

Really big, ugly grouper. 

Awesome manta ray!

Awesome other kind of ray!

These were Frenchie's favourites. Because of the colour. Obviously. 

If that wasn't all exciting enough for an anniversary, we returned home for our furniture present delivery. Now some of you might be thinking 'furniture?!  What are you, sixty?  Are you celebrating your diamond wedding anniversary?' which would be silly of you, because the wedding's not until December, but I appreciate that furniture doesn't scream 'young and madly in love'. When Frenchie picks it, though, it does scream 'awesome and travelly and cool'... but I forgot to take a picture of it, so you'll just have to take my word for it and wait impatiently for a picture of the anniversary furniture. 

Mr. Monkey's Many Adventures

Today's blog is filled with many exciting things, of Li Hi and Li Hi Wannabe proportions as I haven't blogged for a good long while and there is a lot to catch up on!

Firstly, and most excitingly, our assembly this morning was lead by an Arctic Explorer.  Wow.  What's even more wow is that he is 23 years old, and by this age has already been to the South Pole, set up his own business about the ocean and written a book about his trip to the South Pole.  I sat through the assembly, and even though I was chuckling at his numerous penguin jokes and photos of him in a penguin costume, I did ask myself: I am 26 - what, pray, have I done with my meagre and insignificant life?  Admittedly, this was slightly depressing and un-Li Hi and now I am trying to figure out how to organise a form trip to the moon.  I shall market it as 'Year 7: Space Exploration', and we shall tie it in with many cross-curricular activities including sci fi literature and Science and Geography lessons, and each child shall play an instrument to perform the 'E.T.' soundtrack as we are taking off.

Yes.

Then I shall travel around international schools empowering them to lead similar trips, and I too shall write a book, except mine will include lesson plans and pictures from outer space.

Back in reality, Risk or Death and I have had a rather relaxed few months, stretching our Li Hi desires to far less than their full extent by taking up yoga and by travelling to Singapore on our long weekends. Our visit to Singapore was very exciting and hedonistic and a great chance to meet and get to know RoD's new friend, Mr. Monkey, who, it turns out, has a number of things in common with us:

So we got along splendidly!  Mr. Monkey is a barrel of laughs, and we get away with taking pictures of him in public places and at national landmarks by explaining hat RoD is a primary school teacher and thus needs to create a 'Mr. Monkey Goes to Singapore' Powerpoint to show her five-year-olds.  I'm not sure if this presentation will/would ever have existed, but there is enough truth in it to help us sound convincing - not enough to get a picture with passport control, but enough to get us FREE SCARVES from the wonderful people at the Skybar on the top of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel.  How cool is that?  A lovely waiter man (Tristan) had his photo taken with Mr. Monkey, and then, as Mr. Monkey was posing in front of the skyline, he literally ran up to us, sweating and panting and gave us scarves!

Tristan: (panting)  Where is your colleague?
Me: oh!  Mr. Monkey?  He's over there, having his photo taken against the night skyline.
Tristan: please, take these (offers scarves) and wish the children all the best from us at the Sky Bar and Marina Bay Sands.
Me: thank you!  I shall take them.  For the sake of the children.

Cool.

I have seen this fo' real, yo.

Whilst that was an indulgent and exciting weekend, our new yoga hobby (which is often followed by gin, since we are now embracing the whole expat housewife lifestyle) is a little more Li Hi.  Every week we stroll in, trying not to be noticed, we shuffle our bottoms into our yoga mats (mine is purple, like all the others; RoD's is pink with flowers on it because she brings her own from home) and we chat about y'know, stuff and the weather and whatnot and then stern, slightly camp yoga man demands that we breathe really loudly and stretch and contort ourselves and RoD and I assume out serious faces and inhale exhale.

Our serious faces don't last for long because yoga, just in case you are unfamiliar with it, involves lots of very amusing poses like that 'lie-on-your-back-and-spread-your-legs-apart' pose, which I personally like to call the Position of Women's Oppression, or the 'sit-half-way-down-and-balance' pose, also known as the Really Reluctant Poo Position.  Some of the most upsetting for us are the more simple of poses, like the one that requires you to stand straight and then bend over and hold onto your ankles.  I approach such positions with a bit of a smug 'at least I don't fall over on this one' attitude, and even peek a look at myself in one of the three way mirrors to see how flexible and bendy and awesome I look in my leggings and baggy t-shirt.  Alas, I am only to be greeted by the sight of the lithe and supple Vietnamese ladies in the class who can literally - no exaggeration at all - bend themselves in half and touch their forehead to their knees.  It shouldn't be humanly possible to do this, nor should it be in accordance with the laws of physics that a sixty something year old Vietnamese woman should be able to do the splits in a straight line and then lie flat on her face with her hips, stomach, boobs, chin and forehead touching the floor.

Not photoshopped.  I've seen it with my very own watering eyes.

My comparative whale-like voluminousness sets me giggling in embarrassed shame: I am not flexible; I am not bendy; I am stiff and rubbish at yoga and I'm very sorry.  I try to stifle the laughs.  I look up to the ceiling.  My chest begins to shake as much as the muscles in my poorly toned legs and my abs whilst doing the plank.  I think I can keep it under control, but then I catch RoD's eye in the mirror and hear her make a weird snortsnuffle sound and suddenly, as the camp yoga man comes around and pushes down on my bum to make me stretch, I burst out laughing, really loudly in a guffawing kind of way and I spit in his face a little bit by accident.

He looks at me, disgusted.  I am horrified, but still laughing.  I am so very embarrassed.

"Come on!" he says, "At least try!"

What he doesn't realise is that I've been expending all my mental and physical energies for the past year on this (chorus of cherubim a and angels, please):

WOW.  Look at the GOLD letters!  Look at the RED RIBBON book mark!

...yes. That is nail varnish remover on my desk.