All Moved In

We got our shipping container full of all of our worldly possessions almost exactly two months after it was packed up in Minneapolis, and are now thoroughly moved in.  I did a Facebook Live walkthrough of the condo just a little bit ago: https://www.facebook.com/michael.borchert/videos/vb.505698245/10155097725903246/?type=2&theater&comment_id=10155097939968246&notif_t=video_comment&notif_id=1504060492576766

Now that we're settled, Maisonette du Borchert is open for business!  We've set up a google calendar to keep track of visitors and vacations, and can host up to 4 people at a time!  We've got several interested parties (some even have plane tickets), so if you're interested in reserving some sleeping spaces let us know and we can share the calendar with you and talk timing.  If you're looking for a little more space we're also happy to help you find lodging in Singapore and extend whatever hospitality we can in either case.  Singapore is a great base of operations for visiting SE Asia (we've got one trip planned to Beijing and are in the early planning stages of a Thailand/Cambodia vacation), and a pretty cool place to spend a few days in its own right. :)

So Many Monkeys

We took a trip to the Singapore Zoo, which is actually a collection of 4 different zoo-like parks.  It turned out that the annual pass for all 4 parks actually cost less than the pass for just the main zoo plus one visit to one other park, so these are actually pictures from both the zoo and the "River Safari", which despite being predominantly focused on riverway ecosystems, is where they keep their Giant Pandas.

We split up, and Eldest and I went to see the reptiles.

Komodo Dragons are pretty big.  Their smaller cousins the Malayan Water Monitors are all over the island, and we've seem them in the undergrowth in parks on a couple of occasions.

Posing on another statue, with actual giant tortoises in the background.  The zoo had a lot of "premium" experiences available, where if you show up at the right time you can pay a few dollars and interact with the animals.  We didn't stick around to see what the Tortoise Experience was, but I suspect it was feeding them and not actually riding around on the back of their shell.

So yeah, monkeys everywhere.  The Orangutans basically had the run of the place, with nets and ropes suspended in the trees above the paths.

Same with the Lemurs.  So many primates.

At the River Safari.  Learning about home!

At the top of the picture, typical American clothing: denim overalls and gingham.

This was Danger Monkey's favorite fish.  She made sure we saw them, and had to wave goodbye to all of them before we were allowed to leave.

Middle Child petting a horseshoe crab.  The zoo attendant was very polite and answered kind of a lot of questions.  Proud of the boy for summoning the courage not only to touch unfamiliar creatures in the water, but also interact with an unfamiliar human.

Did I mention that there were monkeys everywhere?  This was nominally an aquatic exhibit.

Had to get a picture of Eldest re-creating a photo of her at 1 year old at the New England Aquarium.

Monkey-see, monkey-something-something.

Finally made it to the boat ride portion of the river safari.  Spent 20 minutes waiting for our turn, then 20 minutes waiting for the rain to stop, then 10 minutes actually on the tour...

...on which these were the only animals that we saw.  Probably not worth doing again, though this was a pretty cool shot.  These birds aren't technically part of the zoo, they're just a native Singaporean bird colony that settled down here.

The Great Kapok Tree rises above the rest of the jungle!

After the river cruise the big kids watched an animal demo.  They brought out hawks, parrots, turtles, snakes and lizards, all of which got super close to the spectators.  The handlers had to keep yelling at people to stay seated (otherwise the hawks would hit them) and not try to run (there was really nowhere for the kids in the front row to go without trampling other children).  A couple of adults freaked out.  It was great.  The finale was a pair of huge (mostly) tame pelicans.

Super necessary photo op in giant fiberglass eggs.

It turned out that the Pandas were in some sort of possibly-but-probably-not-pregnant hormonal coma, so the most we could see of them was a tuft of white and black fur on a grainy CC-TV monitor.  Luckily we got the annual pass so we can return to try our luck!

Happy 52nd Birthday, Singapore!

Happy National Day 2017 everyone!

Today, Singapore celebrates its 52nd birthday, and we decided to get in on the fun - as you might expect, there was a lot of fun to choose from. We opted to take advantage of free admission to the National Museum of Singapore to learn a little bit more about our new home. Mike and I appreciated the walk-through of the history of Singapore section (they have a bell from the Revere foundry in Massachusetts!), while the kids most enjoyed the craft stations set up for the day (yes, Callie is still green).

For the evening, we ordered food delivery - partly just to try out food delivery here - and set ourselves up with the live stream of the National Day Parade (NDP).

Folks, the NDP is no Fourth of July parade. No, no, no. This was a full-on celebration of strength of this tiny nation - military and otherwise. It not only included a simulated terrorism incident that came with a parental advisory on the live-stream, it also included a bird-and-the-bee aerial ballet promoting family togetherness (and babies), as well as formation-flying drones. Our minds were blown.

Singapore, you sure do throw yourself a fine birthday party.

Botanic Garden + Jakarta

Catching up on some stuff we've missed!  Weekend before last we spent a day at the Singapore Botanic Garden, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and all-around beautiful spot for a picnic.  It is a massive place and even though this was the fourth time that Elizabeth and kids had visited I still don't think they've seen it all.  Historically, the Singapore Botanic Garden was part of the network of colonial botanic gardens maintained throughout the British Empire, largely to keep colonial governors and staff occupied.  In the early 20th century an actual botanist was put in charge and it served as the laboratory where the first industrial-scale harvesting methods for rubber trees were developed from the original Brazilian seed-stock, leading to an agricultural revolution on the Malay peninsula and south-east Asia which remains the global leader in rubber production.  Today the garden is more notable for it's massive orchid collection, the largest in the world with 2,000 specimens spanning 1,200 species.

 In addition to the orchids there is also this "Valley of the Palms", which is the world's largest collection of palm species.  Of the 400 species worldwide, 200 of them are represented here.

Callie is unconcerned by the botanic wonderland around her, and is simply thrilled to run up the hill.  In the background you can see cages being used to get new palm trees started.

Maxwell actually asked to have his picture taken behind this waterfall grotto in the Children's Garden so I had to oblige.  The Children's Garden is a collection of educational areas, hedge mazes, tree houses, and splash pads.  But all the kids seemed to just congregate in the best climbing tree.

After that bucolic weekend I headed to Jakarta, Indonesia for work.  Here's the view from my 62nd story hotel room.

Jakarta is a lot rougher around the edges than Singapore, but seemed to be a lot more vibrant and energetic as well.  Fewer malls, and _way_ more corrugated-steel-roofed motorbike repair shops with chickens running around in them.  It is a city of approximately 10 million people with basically no mass transit, so traffic is a nightmare.   It was 10km from my hotel to the customer site, which meant between 60 and 90 minutes in a taxi each way.  It was recommended by other travelers and customer folks to budget 2 hours to get anywhere in town, and 3 to the airport.

The population seems to make up for the lack of transit by scaling vehicles out instead of up, and the streets are filled with fleets of motorbikes threading around the parked cars, sometimes in the same direction as the flow of traffic and sometimes not. In addition to the regular taxis and standard configurations for the various car-hire services there was also a "motorbike" option that gives you a single seat and a loaner helmet. You can make out the green-helmeted passengers on the bikes of the Grab drivers, a Malaysian start-up that's working on taking down Uber in the region.  There' even an all-motorbike ride-share app called Go-Jek, but apparently the app hasn't been localized into English so I couldn't check it out in any sort of meaningful way.

 Here's a sneaky shot of my cab driver getting shaken down by a traffic cop!  They had a conversation with lots of pointing, some money changed hands, and we were on our way.

 My hotel was located in the tallest building in Jakarta, the Gama Tower.  From the bar on the 67th floor the city made a pretty convincing cyberpunk dystopia.

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