Hazy Days

Before moving to Singapore my local friends had warned me that there would be days like these...

What I'm talking about is the haze from smoke fires that have descended upon the island. It looks a bit like the pea-soup foggy winter mornings you get in Sydney. But unlike those, this has been hanging around for days now. It got progressively worse as the week led on. The haze I've read in the local paper is due to the smoke from Sumatran fires brought here by the southwesterly winds. The Pollution Standards Index (PSI) went above 100 units, anything above this figure is considered to be in the unhealthy range :(

Today, the PSI is hoovering just under 100 mark.

Matthew and I have retreated inside and haven't left the apartment since yesterday morning for play gym. This has meant that we haven't been able to go for a swim for the past few days. Although it doesn't smell terrible, there is a hint of smoke in the air and you can definitely see it. Duncan who suffers from allergies is not terribly happy with the situation. I'm hoping that a big gust of wind will carry it off to sea. Here's a picture taken from our lounge room window of what I'm referring to...

Teeth! lots and lots of them...

The poor boy has 5 new ones *, which makes a total of 13 and counting. Fortunately though Matthew doesn't seem to be terribly bothered by all the toothy action.

* Edited to add: Oh dear, there's actually about 6 or 7 new teeth, one of his molars on the bottom seems to have pushed through overnight as well. There are sharp little bumps all over his gums - brushing his teeth is hard enough as it is.

Matthew for some weeks now has shown quite some interest in birds, hence we thought it'd be a nice thing to go to Jurong Bird Park on the weekend. I must admit I was pleasantly surprised. Gorgeous gardens, pretty birds of course, loads of people (as we went on a Saturday) and the shows were entertaining. Though not somewhere I'd buy annual membership to but interesting enough to recommend to visitors at a loss at what to do when visiting us. Matthew's Poh Poh and Goong Goong paid us another visit over the weekend also, so Matthew got his little dose of home plus presents from from their recent trip to China - lucky boy!

Our flights are now booked too for our trip home to Australia, we'll be their from the 6th to the 21st of November and hope to catch up with as many of you as possible during our visit.

Cebu

We're back from our holiday to Cebu in the Philippines with Matthew's Uncle Tim. We all had a great time and it's such a shame that holidays must come to an end! Cebu is highly recommended as a holiday destination for rest, relaxation and diving. Matthew had a lovely time, although was a little cranky at times, we assume due to a little bit of a cold (which came and went) and possibly due to the 3 new teeth that are coming at this time. He spent everyday either swimming, playing, running around being naughty, biting, eating, drinking 'Ju Ju' (banana or mango shakes) impressing and collecting new girlfriends or sleeping beautifully through the night and 2-3 hours during the day.

By the end of our stay in the Philippines, Matthew had attracted the attention of A LOT of ladies and girls. In return, he gave lot so of cheeky grins and cuddles and a lucky few even received frangipanis hand delivered from Matthew. As result, the female staff (and some of the male too) and guests knew his name and would call out a 'hello Matthew!' to him every where we went.

We stayed at the Plantation Bay Resort and Spa in Cebu for 6 nights and found the staff there to be very attentive and friendly. There is enough to do (if you like your water sports & spa treatment) at the resort to keep you occupied for a weeks stay. However additional activities come at a price. The most costly for us being the scuba diving, but it was well worth it. Duncan and Tim managed to accomplish 5 dives each and I managed to squeeze in 2 dives ... my very firsts. The AquaSport shop which doubles as an accredited dive centre was a minutes' walk from our 2 bedroom suite. The in-house spa which is one of the best in Asia is located 2 minutes walk from our room. We took advantage of both as often as Matthew permitted :) There is also a children activity centre and playground which Matthew took advantage of a couple of times. In addition to the usual resort facilities, there's also rock climbing wall, archery and firing range and free activities for children and adults scheduled throughout the day. One of the evenings, we took advantage of the Butler service and went out for grown up dinner and drinks while Matthew slept under the supervision of not one but two babysitters.

A quick update on Matthew's modeling career, he was offered a job which we unfortunately had to reject as the assignment shoot was scheduled for the period while we were away. Here's hoping the next job will be better timed next time.