Last week of term

The working week ended with a gathering at Wala Bar in Holland Village to discuss everyone's upcoming adventures. Colleagues are spreading themselves around the globe with trips to London, Dubai, Vietnam, Australia, Italy, Cambodia and Thailand just some of the places on the list.
For the second Monday in a row I was able to have a sleep in, as this weeks walk was scheduled to be an evening one. I spent the day cleaning out cupboards, organising money etc for my upcoming trip before meeting up with the other walkers in Sengkang. It was very pleasant walking along the rivers edge out to Punggol Point where we had dinner in one of the many eating establishments there. They even had a wall decoration that brought thoughts of Michael into many heads...not just mine.

Libby had generously lent me her South East Asian Bird book but it is full of her notations and so is precious. I decided I couldn't risk taking it away so on Tuesday I headed in to Orchard road to visit Kinokuniya Book store to buy my own copy. This is a store where you could spend hours pottering and of course I came away with more than just the one book. I bought a book about the greening of Singapore and it is amazing to see the difference between 1970s and today. It also has many of the parks/reserves that we walk through on our weekly rambles so the pictures are quite significant to me.
It turned out that Robert and Maria were also in town so I met up with them for dinner in Telok Ayer. I discovered that the little museum that has been closed for renovations has re-opened and that you can still get $6 glass of wine in happy Hour! We shared a delicious meal at Kasbah before wandering through the streets back to Chinatown MRT.

Telok Ayer Museum

Street art between Telok Ayer and Chinatown

Friday of this week is Teacher's Day in Singapore and each year MAE give us  lunch to celebrate. Punggol and Kovan combined to have a delicious Thai meal in Serangoon on Wednesday before we began our last working week of the term.
On Thursday Libby came over to stretch her legs and to deliver some mail from head office. I was a bit annoyed to see that I had an appointment at TTS hospital on the 24th August (it now being September), until I realized it was actually for 2016!!! We also finalised the whale unit we have been working on together.
I met up with Libby and Eric on Friday morning for a trip out to Sungei Buloh for a spot of bird watching. Despite a few showers it was a very pleasant morning and we saw a good variety of birds, including three different species of woodpeckers, as well as the resident crocodiles lurking in the waterways.
I will add some pictures here when I return from my holidays