North America

During our interrupted trip to North America, we had a week at Toronto,


during which we met up with my former form master and chemistry teacher Koh Beng Thiam,

and had a day trip to the Niagara Falls.
In New York, we visited Time Square, and had just enough time to take a look at the city from the Empire State Building and visited the business area near Wall St and Ground Zero.



Click here for photos on Toronto, Koh BT, Niagara Falls and New York

Our Sad Loss - Mdm Soh Chiok Ee 1925-2010 - Wife, mother and grandmother

Sadly, Mum passed away on 14th December, 2010, after a short period of illness with pneumonia; Mum had also been a dementia patient for nearly ten years. The support and help from many friends, relatives and members of the church are deeply appreciated.

A day at Fort Denison

Few weeks ago, we went by ferry from the Circular Quay with the McGills and Allens to Fort Denison in the middle of Sydney Harbour. There we joined a guided tour and had lunch with the surrounding beautiful harbour view. Coincidentally, a "Getaway" TV crew was there filming an item on the historic island.

Photos of our visit to Fort Denison.

Amsterdam

We had a few days in Amsterdam doing the standard tourist thing - Van Gogh Museum, Rijksmuseum, windmills, Red Light area, rijstafel.




Photos of Amsterdam - sorry, none taken at the Red Light area.

Other London Sights

We did not spend our time in London just eating at Fat Duck of course. Yvonne and I made the the obligatory first-time visit to the London Eye,



and attended a performance of the "The Mousetrap" now in its 58th year (and found out why we never bothered before).



Also, we all turned up at the Beatles' London Walk that toured sites made famous by the Group, and walked the famous pedestrian crossing at Abbey Road.


More London Eye photos
More Beatles London photos

Stadium MRT Singapore

I had a surprise when I went into the new Stadium MRT station at Kallang. The modern, sleek and futuristic design was quite unlike most other MRT stations in Singapore.

The Fat Duck experience

After watching the TV series, we decided that we have to try out the real thing. Two months ahead, we secured a table at The Fat Duck. The restaurant is located at Bray, not far from Maidenhead to the west of London.

We were glad that Heston Blumenthal's restaurant lived up to its fine reputation. The 14 dishes were full of surprises and fun and the service was excellent. There was not just creative foods but also accompaniment of complementary fragrances and sounds. In one dish, the "Sound of the Sea", an iPod was provided to each of us, carefully hidden in a large shell, to provide accompanying sounds.

It was an unforgettable experience.

More photos of Fat Duck.

Kay's Mazda

It has taken me a long time to post these. Back in July, Kay got a replacement for her smashed up Mazda. She decided to keep up with her luck by having another Mazda !

New blinds to screen the sun

We had blinds installed today to screen out the intense winter sun that falls onto our breakfast area. Now we can read our morning papers without fear of having skin cancer !

Video of Eclipse totality

This is a 38-second video taken by Kay soon after totality commenced. It was a few minutes after 8.30am local Tahitian time, the sun was well up but blocked by the moon.

Total Solar Eclipse on July 11, 2010 from Kin-Mun Kan on Vimeo.

Papeete, last day

On our last day, after disembarking, we did the usual tourist thing, like shopping for souvenirs . . .
. . . photograhing the "Hotel de Ville" (Town Hall)

. . . shopping for Tahitian pearls . . .


and watching the local buskers.


We visited the "le roulottes", the open-air food market, had a Chinese meal with baguettes . . .


. . . and watched sadly as the Paul Gauguin sailed off on its next journey without us !

Early the following morning, we were on our way home.


More photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/kinmun.kan/PapeeteLastDay#

Moorea

The eclipse over, the cruise seemed to have lost its zing. There was only one more island to visit before returning to Papeete, that of Moorea.

We got off Paul Gauguin, and visited a small village near the landing pier, but there was not much to see apart from an interesting mural. The rest of the town was some distance away.


We spent the rest of the day exploring the parts of the ship that we had still not visited, like the ship's marina . . . .

. . . enjoyed the view of Moorea, perhaps the prettiest of the islands we had visited . . . .


and of the sunset .
And with the Tahitian cultural show on the last night, our cruise was essentially completed.

Eclipse Day

From Bora Bora, the Paul Gauguin sailed south and travelled all night towards a predetermine location south of Tahiti, on the path of the total solar eclipse to take place the following day, July 11th 2010, 8.30am local date and time.

The following was my description of the event -


“This morning we woke up to some clouds in the sky. We watched nervously as clumps of cloud gathered above us, but with the expert manoeuvring by the ship’s captain, we managed to dodge most of them. At the precise moment an hour and a half before totality, someone yelled out “First contact!” Sure enough, through a variety of filters we saw that a small part of the sun (I carefully chose the word “part” after Arthur Tan’s objection to my usage in my description of last year’s eclipse) had been blocked. The blocked part gradually increased and the intensity of the mid morning sun dropped away. Soon planets appeared; I saw Jupiter, which was otherwise not visible at this time, and others observed Mercury, which I regrettably missed. There were other stars, and some people even ventured but in vain to look for a faint comet near the sun.

We held our breath but watched on as on as a few wisps of cloud wandered past but the crescent sun reappeared. It gradually disappeared into a pointed light source in a darkened sky. With the moon’s faint outline, the juxtaposition for a moment resembled a diamond ring, with a sparkle brighter than any I had ever seen. A cheer of excitement rang out among the watchers and then the diamond ring was gone; at the precise moment, the sun suddenly became a dark disk in the sky but its corona brightly visible that we could safely watch with our naked eyes. The corona that stretched out several diameters of the dark disc was sufficient to throw faint light into the sky leaving the surrounding a beautiful deep blue,

We marvelled at the dark totality for a full 4 minutes before once again the sun reappeared to display another momentary diamond ring. We returned to our filtered viewing of the sun’s reappearance, but the show was largely over.”

More photos at http://picasaweb.google.com.au/kinmun.kan/EclipseDay#

Bora Bora

We arrived at Bora Bora in the evening and were just in time to view the Heiva festival dances in the town centre.


We joined a half-day tour of the island on "Le Truck", a round trip on the island's only road .


We stopped to view the white sandy beaches and clear blue waters . . .

. . . visited the famous Bloody Mary Bar and Restaurant . . .

. . . and of course had photos of the mountain.





More photos of Bora Bora at http://picasaweb.google.com/kinmun.kan/BoraBora?authkey=Gv1sRgCIbtr6ewyZDBnwE#

Motu at Taha'a

At Taha'a we spent most of a day on a motu.


We were brought there by a tender and the shallowness of the water required a wet landing.


We enjoyed the day in the shade of coconut palms . . .


. . . without much to do but eat and enjoyed the scenery (well, we are not the snorkelling type).



More photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/kinmun.kan/TahaA#