The Circus

After a day of recovery I met up with Libby, Eric, Peter and Yuan Yuan at Satays by the Bay before the Cirque du Solei performance, 'Totem'.  Wandering through Gardens by the Bay on the way to the venue always provides some stunning picture moments and tonight was no exception.
Cirque du Soleil describes Totem's theme as the evolution of humanity from its primordial, amphibian state toward the aspiration of flight, taking inspiration from many of humanity's founding myths. The staging, costumes and performances were amazing and it was hard to believe that the human form can bend in some of the directions we witnessed! One of my favourites were the girls on the unicycles. While keeping upright they balanced a metal bowl on one foot and flicked it through the air where it was caught by another girl...on her head!

The bottom gymnast on the left is actually bent over backwards!

After such a mind blowing show we decided to end the evening with a nightcap at a bar in Marina Bay Sands.

I was kept busy through the rest of the week with Parent Teacher Meetings and some work I had offerred to help Jo with. This turned out to be a much bigger job than anticipated so she came over on Friday to clarify a few things. 

I ended the weekend with dinner at Saturday's with Libby and Eric.

Monday's walk was Clementi to Haw Par Villa, through the very pretty West Coast Park, and we even managed to (almost) avoid the rain.

As we had all been through the Villa and no one really wanted to revisit it we caught the train back to Bishan for lunch.
Last week Libby had seen a ruddy kingfisher in Bidadari, a natural area near their place. Next year it will be removed to make way for more housing which is rather sad, as it is a stopping point for many migratory birds. The ruddy kingfisher is one such bird. On Tuesday morning Libby and I went looking for it and we were very lucky to spy it shortly after entering the park. We saw a number of other species but the kingfisher was the highlight of the day.

The one on the left is Libby's (just to prove we saw it)!

Mum bought me back a flower tea from her recent trip to Hong Kong so I decided to test it out. I wasn't keen on the tea itself but the "pod"turns into a flower which you can display for a number of days.

After such a pleasant walk I headed home and spent the afternoon being domestic before preparing for the Punggol/Kovan Xmas Dinner. We had a delicious meal at the Mandarin Oriental, with good company and a sensible amount to drink! We had a secret Santa where you could steal gifts from each other if you saw something you really liked. I did begin with a set of headphones but alas it didn't last. Still I ended up with a practical gift of a luggage tag and a 2016 diary...very happy!