Singapore's 45th Birthday & Hungry Ghost Festival

Singapore celebrated it's 45th Anniversary since gaining independence from Malaysia on Monday, for us, this meant that Duncan could enjoy his first 'long weekend' since arriving in on this little island country YAY! We enjoyed lots of family time together and even squeezed in a few of play dates and swims with Matthew's friends Charlie (3) and Lizzie (nearly 2) and new friend from our building Hayden (1). We stayed away from the celebrations to avoid the heat and crowd by lazing by the pool at a friends' place. The only thing which made National Day any different from any other weekend for us was the armored tanks that came thundering down the road that night and the fireworks display we could see in the distance.

On a more interesting note, Tuesday was the start of the Hungry Ghost Festival. According to Chinese tradition, the 15th day of the seventh month (I know it's August, but keep in mind that Chinese New Year was celebrated on Feb 14 this year) in the lunar calendar is called Ghost Day and the seventh month in general is regarded as the Ghost Month, in which ghosts and spirits including those of the deceased ancestors roam. On Ghost Day, ghosts and spirits are believed to visit the living. On the fifteenth day the realms of Heaven and Hell and the realm of the living are open and both Taoists and Buddhists would perform rituals to amend and set free the sufferings of the dead. Sounds a little scary doesn't it?

This past week with Matthew has been a bit of a blur. Matthew is back to his bad habit of biting again. My shoulder is covered in little Matthew bite size bruises. Saying a firm 'No' doesn't seem to cut it and he thinks it's funny when I pull the 'Mummy's angry' face. He often does it when he's overtired although he does sometimes like to nip at you when you least expect it. I guess that's why they call the 'ankle biters' (yes, he's bitten me on the ankle before).

Oh yes, .... between visits to the playgym and pool over the weekend, we managed to take a look at a couple of cars. It looks like we will have a little Honda Insight, which looks remarkably like our old car in a couple of weeks.