More celebrations followed over the weekend. On Saturday the boys' school had a fundraising party celebrating the Chinese harvest festival with performances, dinner and lantern parade. The school had set up a huge event and the kids really enjoyed being there and playing with their friends in a different situation. Even teachers took part in the entertainment - line dance, which is very popular here and a more disco type number, where our class teachers joined in. For dinnertickets there was a lucky draw and Karl won a seafood restaurant voucher. (After my recent win at the shipyard event we really have to keep up with that!) When it got darker the paper lanterns were lit and it was really pretty. Of course the kids were running around with their lanterns and Raoul managed to cause a fire. Big panic. But he was wise enough to let go of the lantern. At the end we all marched with the lanterns around the school and along Holland Road, but all photos are still in Robert's phone...

Then on Sunday Robert got his birthday present that he didn't guess until the taxi turned into the Changi sailing club. So we managed to keep the secret and it was a perfect surprize.

The boat we had hired was a 37 footer, so not too big and quite old as well but it was just right for us. Beatrice was a bit careful at first and said she is scared of big waves but after a little while felt really at ease. We went out westwards on the north coast of Singapore but couldn't sail the first leg - no wind. This part of the trip was the least spectacular anyway - lots of industries on the Malaysian side. But that was the only way to get somewhere for lunch. After lunch (chinese seafood) we headed back towards east and sailed along the north coast of Pulau Ubin venturing into Malaysian waters quite a lot as the strip between the two is quite narrow. Thatswhy the north coast of Pulau Ubin is also fenced in - to keep the Malays from swimming over. That was very quiet and nice, just mangroves and small villages on the Malaysian side with simple houses on tilts. Beatrice thought these were "olden-times houses". Even though the wind wasn't strong the boat tilted of course and funnily Raoul who is always the bravest on rollercoasters and scary rides was so afraid that the boat would tip over that he sat on my lap and eventually fell asleep while the others played pirates and climbed around on the boat. We sailed all the way to Pulau Tekong and to a quiet bay there where the brave ones had a swim (that didn't include me). Raoul wanted to go at first but when it turned out that we were not going on shore he didn't. Karl and Beatrice were jumping from the boat and enjoyed it a lot.

On the way back it started to drizzle with rain. Raoul was getting a bit braver by now. He sat inside most time and sang. Just climbed up occasionally. We sailed just under the landing path of the airport so there were quite a lot of planes going over and they caused small whirlwinds on the water.

Our skipper was an interesting guy - British, has been in Singapore nearly 30 years, used to teach philosophy at the university here but now writes on a book during the week. We had very interesting discussions about press freedom and Asian mentalities. Really insightful. They have just jailed a blogger here for insulting a judge so don't really know what do I dare to write here. I'll have to think about it and get back.