One more photo: Henry's origami mice have been incorporated into the Chinese New Year decorations at the SMART Centre (Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology) at NUS (National University of Singapore). Happy Chinese New Year everyone!

This is the end of my Singapore pictures. We are now home, safe and sound. The flights back were uneventful and seemed to go more quickly than the outbound leg; the only hitch was that our flight from Chicago to Boston was canceled and there wasn't a seat to be had until more than 24 hours later. So, we hopped on a flight to Manchester NH, rented a car and drove home - perfect. It had started to snow hard by the time we took off in Chicago and it snowed here all day yesterday, so I don't know when we would have made it home had we gotten stuck in Chicago.
Henry very much wanted to see the Singapore Flyer, world's largest Ferris wheel, even though it was still shut down due to a power supply problem. In typical Singaporean fashion, at the base there is a beautiful planted tropical garden, complete with a pool of carp you can feed, and of course, a mall with beautiful shops and restaurants. All still open despite the Flyer being off, but somewhat deserted.

The Flyer has giant glass capsules instead of seats. Next time......

Looking at the exterior of yet another giant mall, Suntec City, with towering hotels and the temporarily defunct Singapore Flyer in the background.

Kids posing in the squashed-cylinder sculpture

This is the drab daytime mode of the Fountain of Wealth, supposedly the world's largest fountain. From the pictures we could see that at night they crank it up and light it spectacularly, but in the daytime it is just a dribble. In a city where each mall food court it seems has a beautiful fountain we expected more from this! We will have to return in the evening some time to see it in its glory.

The Raffles Hotel, famous colonial landmark. We didn't go in this time since it has a dress code which we needless to say did not meet.

Yes, they have duck boats.

Our last day in Singapore we went downtown for a few hours. Here's Sylvie posing with her Ferrari. She preferred the black but I liked the fire red.
Over the last two weeks we visited and toured four international schools to evaluate them before our six-month trip coming up in a couple of years: the United World College of Southeast Asia, the Singapore-American School, the International School of Singapore, and the Canadian International School. We were pleased with what we saw and heard and I'm confident that one of them will be a good fit for Henry and Sylvie.

Last stop: Daddy's lab, for 2 minutes.

The kids were moving at unsafe speeds by this time, so I could pause in the last exhibit only for these two goofy shots. Called 'Neither East nor West,' the exhibit is a set of photographs taken of wealthy and powerful Asians, who were able in the late 1800s and early 1900s for the first time to travel in comfort to Europe. Many had their photographs taken at the Lafayette Studio in London, some in their Asian finery and some dressed up like English gentlemen and ladies. The exhibit emphasizes how the invention of the railway and the steamship made possible an age of international travel and exchange. I have been thinking of my grandmother's trip to Europe in the summer of 1926, the same year that some of the pictures were taken...

Next stop: the fabulous Asian Civilisations Museum. It houses gorgeous collections of Southeast Asian, South Asian, Chinese and West Asian (Islamic) art and artifacts. I plan to spend a LOT more time here when we come back.

In the Islamic section we were all enthralled by a set of videos demonstrating calligraphy and paper marbling; this display case contains calligraphic tools (pens, knives, brushes and writing tables) and practice sheets.

We walked along the edge of Chinatown and the business district, passing along Club St., a steep, narrow almost European-feeling street lined with wine bars and very elegant looking tiny restaurants. Here we have emerged at the Raffles Place MRT and the kids are stretching their limbs....

On the Singapore River, on Boat Quay, looking back at the Fullerton Hotel with the Durians and the Ritz in the distance on Marina Bay.

Sylvie's Maserati on the left; Henry's Lamborghini on the right.

This was the find of the day.....Durian ice cream!!!! It was delicious. It probably takes 1 picogram of durian to flavor a whole gallon.

Pretty old Chinese shophouses (this doesn't show the first floors, which still have shops). I marched the kids through the grid of streets crowded with shops selling cloth, pillowcases and bags, scarves, clothing, food, Chinese medicines, Chinese sweets in little paper bags, nuts and seeds, Chinese New Year decorations of all sorts, etc.
This is Fuk Tak Chi, a Chinese temple dating from 1824. I don't know the history well enough to expound on it but this street (far inland now due to "reclamation") was coastal in early Singapore, and this temple (now a museum) an important destination.

Here is Sylvie at the door of the beautiful Yueh Hai Ching temple, also a museum now. You have to step way up over a board at the threshold. If you pass through and out the back door into the alley, you find yourself in a glass-and-steel food court full of businessmen and -women having lunch and drinking coffee.

Scenes from Chinatown: On 26 Jan the Year of the Ox begins, thus all the cow-like cartoon characters everywhere. Chinese New Year is all about joy, luck, happiness, cheerfulness, and the bright red and gold decorations are everywhere in Singapore now. Mandarin oranges also must be a New Year thing; also people give presents, especially money in bright pretty red envelopes.

Yesterday we decided to go to Chinatown which is getting geared up and decorated for Chinese New Year. Here are the kids with a giant inflatable man behind them...

Sylvie with giant bamboo at the marvelous Singapore Zoo where we spent last Sunday. Then last night we went to the adjacent and also marvelous Singapore Night Safari, which opens at 7:30 pm (sunset in Singapore), allowing visitors to see nocturnal animals awake and active.

Primates (human, and a cotton-top tamarin). The tamarins - the same species as we have at the Boston Museum of Science - are here in a walk-through enclosure, but also are free-ranging in one area of the zoo; they are just trained to stick around. There are also free-ranging orangutans in another part.

Critically endangered Sumatran orang utan.

Proboscis monkey

Lions

Leopard, resting in the sun. At the Night Safari, a leopard was leaning up against the glass of its enclosure so that you could get your face an inch away from its face - amazing! No flash photography at all is allowed at the Night Safari so I didn't even try to take pictures. The animals are illuminated at about full-moon brightness so you can see them, but it would be hard to take decent snapshots, especially from the moving tram. Also at the Night Safari, a leopard was making its weird noise, just exactly like someone sawing wood loudly with a handsaw.

Jaguar just about to go for a swim.