Year of the Rat : joining us for tea: Rat 鼠 (shǔ) and Burns Night Jan 25th,

Happy New Year ... 新年快乐 (Xīnnián kuàilè)

恭喜发财 (Kung Hei Fat Choi) I wish you earn more money This year

Some files uploaded to YouTube

In the Land of Oz

Matt’s on annual leave. How else would a bloke from the land down under celebrate a birthday .. Strap a hairy bloke to his back and Jump out of a plane: … Nice one Matt.

“Whitsundays in the Great Barrier Reef and I jumped from 14,000 ft – it began with a one minute, or 9,000 ft, free fall. Absolutely unreal!!”

Inspiration is all around

The S’pore Grand Hyatt Executive club has an interesting set of architectural free standing wood sculptures.  … A little out of scale for a home but they do stir the creative juices. All created from a single tree and cut from solid sections

Deep breathing in the Philippines

The rest of the week is filled with meetings and interviews. Singapore;  its never ending construction and re-construction projects, making, despite the changes, a never changing landscape of construction cranes (national bird-local joke) and road-works. Over the past 25 years that I’ve been doing business here.  The place still generates fast a pace business excitement and maintains growth in almost every sector.

Robbie continues her adventures in the Philippines (in GREEN)

Tranquil scenes from Robbie's underwater oasis:

“Now is the winter of our discontent”

“Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by this sun of York”  Shakespeare,  Richard III

Discontent being “COLD in China” and Substitute “Singapore” for York  and you have a start to January.   On the 4th. Robbie setoff to the Philippines for a 3 week SCUBA safari. Jan 5th has me on a China / Singapore trip.

Landing in HK on Friday (7th) morning and bee-lining to Dongguan the energy sapping stick to your bones cold diluted any fun to be had shopping for tea.  Saturday my Taiwanese friend Tim came over for dinner. This gave us a chance to catch up since his Oct. trip to the US was cancelled.  Sitting in a restaurant where everyone is eating, still clad with their winter apparel, another winter joy in DaLang

Factories will start losing workers this coming weekend and will not restart until Feb 9th. From a 3 Day CNY shut-down to about a 3 week vacation … times have changed.   The dynamic growth in consumer spending is mindboggling  ..  Prices for a typical winters coat in most retail shops are in the 500-700 RMB range unheard of a couple of years ago. (close to months wages for a factory worker)

In Wuxi we encountered a different cold ..An Icy, 5 below, cold that cuts through, coupled with the driest air .. No fun!  I don’t have the ambition to  take photos for this post .. the Great Fire-Wall of China persists and that takes the fun out of blogging.

Friday 1/14/11….  Singapore: equatorial equilibrium, much to be said for this .. arrived about 9:00pm finally thawed out by Saturday morning.

A few underwater shots from Robbie:

Marina District

A very short 6 days in Singapore are winding down, a full day today, Thursday, complicated by the YOG, Youth Olympic Games, closing events. Then the first flight out on Friday heading to MLC.

All built on earth barged in over many years, the original Seafront has expanded, new development continues to provide Singapore its own unique skyline. On the left, the temporary stadium for the Youth Olympics closing ceremonies.

The Marina Bay Sands Hotel ..

Singapore day 2 & 3: Sunday - Monday

The Youth Olympics are in full-swing here .. The bicycle road was held here in the Marina Square area .. an early morning stroll I managed to avoid the congestion.A wall of water: One of the many new exotic buildings. Sunday evening was filled with past memories when we joined; Peter and Tina for dinner, Japanese style, then later in the evening HB Chan stopped by for drinks. HB, now retired, is a legend in Singapore for his ability to start up company operations from Zero to full production in short order, during the glory days of High-Tech Mfg. in S’pore. Talk about a small world, HB’s son, now married, and living in USA-Colorado, only a few miles from our Colorado home. (now sold)

Monday brought on a full day, a heavy rain shower in the late afternoon forced us into a shopping center .. a serendipitous occurrence. In Marina Square the First Day opening for: Long Run Tea .. a lone TEA voice in the Singaporean addiction / love affair with coffee.Not quite ready prim e time, I’ll find time to stop by later in the week.  First impressions .. Favorable in that they carried more Pu-Erh than any other tea .. the prices: Truly Singaporean. At first, only used to seeing Pu-Erh priced in RMB, then Matt reminded me this was Sing-Dollars… Ouch.

A perennial favorite: The MERLION draws a group of onlookers:…

Singapore .. Day 1

After a few hours (days) at 30+k feet I arrived in Singapore on Saturday Noon.  Staying in the Marina Square. Near the Old Raffles'. Much has changed over the years. Singapore looks and feels like a modernized Hong Kong.

On Saturday evening, Matt and I met up with my very good Friends; Simon Choo and Peter Kwang (wedding day 1987 !!!) how time flies.Peters wife, Tina, went to the Casino, while us boys got caught up on old times. The heavy influence of Mainland China is to be see all-around. Much more “mandarin is spoken, restaurants styles and much of the staffing in the service industry is Mainland Chinese.