But its been great being back. This house is the only family home that I have known in recent times. I don't know why I never stayed back here whenever I returned to Singapore. I now have the entire 2nd floor to myself, since no one lives up here anymore - kind of like a temporary bachelor pad, except that the place is pretty spartan. Its wicked to see the bookshelves with all my late grandad's physics and chemistry books. Its also cool to see my old room again, even though its now completely empty and refurbished. I remember chilling out in the garden in the evenings, watching the rain come down, or popping to the nearby Caltex petrol station to buy milk. Nice! I've missed this house - I definitely need to come back here to stay more often...
Jetlag surprisingly hasnt been too much of an issue on this trip. I think the fact that I was out till 3am on my first night back probably helped adjust my body clock. It was Lizzie's 31st (I mean 25th) birthday - so how not to stay out??!! Besides, it was completely worth flying back and staying up just to see how funny she gets when she gets wasted! I almost completely forgot! Highlight of the night was definitely the ride home, where she complained to Alex that I was "a bad friend who was keeping her from her slumberrrrrrrrr". Heh! And then there was something about monkeys who stick thumbs up their bums? Or something like that? Heh!
Here is the birthday girl in the middle -
And what she looked like the next morning - Im sure there was a Confucian saying, which went along the lines of "Dont get hammered the night before you are due to take a boat ride!"
Bintan was brilliant! The beach was really nice, although not fantastic. I got lots of sleep in, both in the room and at the beach itself, which was swell. Endless drinks and snacks at the beach bar. I even managed to get a beach run in at 6am where I had the entire beach to myself with the sunrise as a backdrop. To be frank, there isnt very much to do at Bintan, so we kept on having to find ways to entertain ourselves. We ended up trying to do our best Bollywood dance routines around the coconut trees - I think the other guests were very amused....
We rounded up the weekend and celebrated Singapore's National Day by doing dinner at Banyan Tree on Sunday - it was actually really very good. There was even a Ricemaster who was a sort of sommelier for rice, if that makes any sense? Cynical me had to bite back a bit of a laugh when he told me that the Nasi Kunyit went really well with the Ginger and Tumeric Chicken. Sigh.. But nonetheless, the food was great and the resort itself was even nicer. Definitely a place to come back to in the future, I think...
I now only have 3 full days before I head back to London, so its going to be a case of maxing out all the breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner and drinks slots that I have before then. So many people to catch up with and so little time. To round this post off, I thought I would end with an awwww moment - a Lizzie and Alex (who are getting married in December) starfish shot, which turned out incredibly well I thought!
