Brendon aged around 10 years old was playing a video game at the computer table and the maid was on her knees feeding him while he played. That seemed to have stuck in our minds.
Alison is the nicest person on the planet and it is such a pleasure to be around her. She will go out of her way to make sure we have a good time. For example, early in the morning she would drive us to our preferred food market for some very local foods, such as Nasi Lemak, coffee with the beans roasted in butter and cakes. But wait there’ s more, as Alison knows we also like the Indian food from another place she takes us all the way there to eat even more! Alison has previously picked us up at the airport at all hours of the day or night and she is usually accompanied by many of her children and her sister and her family. Alison is a full time mother and chauffeur as she drives the children and even her husband to work and school and puts double the average mileage on the car each year. Singapore is a remarkable place and as you can tell, eating and shopping are the two key elements of life. But they do work hard and the same applies to school. But we all have so much fun and laughter is frequent, loud and long lasting. A good combination.
Clockwise: Mimi’ s Brother-in-Law, Sister-in-Law, Claire, Brendan, Matilda, Eva
We celebrated Christmas with Alison’ s family and her sister Debra Ong and her husband Tun and their two daughters Dilys and Glenys. They also are fun to be around and we enjoy their company immensely. Tun usually spends quite a bit of time with me taking me around to some of the older parts of town for photos and taking us all over to swim clubs or the very exclusive golf club for bowling, swimming and yes, more eating.
Eva and Goat, Perth, Western Australia Photo by Barry Epstein
Early the next morning I turned on the TV to see the announcement of the Tsunami with a magnitude of 9.3 that struck fairly close by in Indonesia in the Indian Ocean. We watched this horrible event unfold and I asked if we were in danger but was told that Singapore was protected from this and it was. I believe that waves up to 98 feet high killed more than 230,000 and represents one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history. They commented that it caused the entire plant to vibrate as much as 0.4 inches and triggered other earthquakes as far away as Alaska.
Alison and Lisa Chong Photo by Barry Epstein
Claire, Perth, Western Australia Photo by Barry Epstein
A few years later we returned to Singapore to attend our niece’ s wedding. Mimi’ s sister had arranged for three celebrations for her daughter Claire who married a very nice guy named Brendan O’ Shea. The first celebration was held in Perth and we had a lovely lunch after the Celebrant performed the brief ceremony at Mimi’ s sisters house. Claire then had her formal wedding in Bali, Indonesia that was held in a very upscale and newly built church. Unfortunately, Mimi and I did not want to travel to Bali as we had heard so many bad things about this third world area so we stayed away. Luke did attend
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