Advent in Asia

Vietnam is definitely getting prepared for Christmas. This was my evening entertainment as I waited for my bành xèo:

I know exactly how this little girl feels:

Can't get more exciting than tinsel, can you?

Here is my bành xèo, which as you can see, looks suspiciously like Vietnamese omelette, so it was very brave of me to sit down and agree to eat it because omelette upsets me:

However, it's not omelette, it's more like a lentil pancake with dubious prawns in it. In this picture is also my trusty coca cola which I order in case of taste emergency where I want to spit out the contents of my mouth onto the floor, but can't, for fear of offending. 

By the time I had made friends with the little girl, the little girl had made friends with a flearidden kitten, and the kitten had made friends with me, Jimmy Le, who I'd also made friends with, had finished his Christmas tree...

And everyone was feeling very festive all around. When combined with the briht blue lights on the palm trees around my swimming pool, this is all contributing to a veritable winter wonderland!

Qantas Lounge

There are many cons to being married to a man whose job requires him to spend more time intimately acquainting himself with the Jetstar, Qantas and Tiger Airways schedules than he does with me, his legal spouse, but occasionally there are some very convenient perks that come with the magic words, 'no, don't worry, we'll put this on the company', and are always accompanied by an expenses receipt. 

Today, by some fluke chance with flight timings, Frenchie and I ended up at Changi airport at the same time. For some, queuing for check in, passport control and immigration stamps with the same date on them are not symbols of romance, but for Frenchie and I, this is practically a second seduction. Imagine my confusion, therefore, when Frenchie rushed me through my end-of-term-approaching duty free purchasing to insist that we 'spend some quality time together'. Surely being in the same place at the same time is quality time enough for us?  No, no, Frenchie had other magical surprises up his sleeve...

The Qantas Lounge for Gold Clients!

Was anyone else aware of the existence of such a paradise?

Believe it or not, everything in this photo is FREE: the delicious plate of assorted salads, the attractive European husband, the enormous glass of sparkling wine, the coasters I stole for my living room. Free! So free, that, like any self-respecting child who grew up with a chip on her shoulder because she wasn't quite as middle class as all the other children at her Home Counties school, I went back for more:

Free!

(The delicious-looking brown and white pudding was disgusting, but that was okay, because it was free!)