We arrived in Peru during the 100 year anniversary of the (re) discovery of Macchu picchu and arrived in Santiago just as students started rioting. We arrived in towoomba just at the right moment to meet the lovely students from qut and lynne and jak to help rebuild the most glamorous looking shed you'll ever see and we arrived in Singapore the day before Chinese new year. Not forgetting the coincidence of the rugby world cup in New Zealand (although I have a sneaking suspicion that roo planned that bit, unlike the rest of our trip which has been largely left to chance!)
To arrive in Singapore on the day of Chinese new year to some might seem lucky, to us it marked the beginning of the closing down of most of south east Asia for a week. We also have a habit of arriving at a place and falling asleep and missing the most mind blowing unmissable event in the history of the world according to those who where there, so determined not to 'miss out' we ventured into singapore's modern beyond belief high techness and caught the mrt (think London underground without the dirt, smell and inefficiency - so nothing like the London underground) to the centre of singapores china town. It was drizzling which is a sign of prosperity along with the red decorations and the dragon which happens to be this years sign of the zodiac, good news as we are now as poor as church mice.
We followed the hordes of merry makers and arrived where it was all at. There were a smattering of western looking people knocking around too and as there were some security railings cord ending off the road we thought we had better get a good pitch and duly staked our claim at the very front. As one hour became two, we began to notice that the only people standing at the railings were in fact the western looking types, whilst everyone else had taken to sitting in more comfortable locations like the pavement or cafes. Two hours became three and literally nothing happened, even the stage that was set up a 20 meters away never really sparked into life. After four hours of sitting in the middle of the road, the heavens truly opened and torrential rain poured onto our heads, the chap next to us sheltering under an umbrella helpfully suggested we go and buy one (or we could share?) so off I trotted to find a shop at 11.45 pm on Chinese new year splashing through puddles the size of swimming pools and dogging raindrops the size of bullets. Surprisingly there was no one selling umbrellas but I found some cardboard and improvised! When I got back to where roo had been saving our spot, she was nowhere to be seen, I asked the dry man if he'd seen her and he said that he had suggested she go and stand under the shelter of the shops awnings (or maybe we could share your umbrella, it is quite large?) I searched for her whilst holding the cardboard over my head, much the amusement of the locals. I spotted poor little roo (which is quite easy in Singapore as she stands out somewhat) looking like a drowned rat. we dashed back to the railings as midnight approached with renewed hope that something, anything might happen to make this worthwhile. We counted down in a language which we made up to join in with everyone else and then nearly had a heart attack as about a million firecrackers were left off 10ft away, promptly followed by an apparently spectacular fireworks display, the appreciation of which was marred only by the sky scrapper completely obscuring our view. And that was that, 4 hours of hopeful waiting followed by 1 minute of loud banging, there's a joke in there somewhere! Brilliant, to some that might have been worth the wait, but not me. But hey we were in Singapore and that in it's self is quite something.
