The bright lights of Singapore and the ancient culture of Bali were the two stops on our New Millennium vacation.  As Mac was home from boarding school, we thought this would be a good opportunity for the kids to experience the country where Olive was born and raised.  Actually, very little of Olive's past remains amidst the steel, glass and concrete high-rise buildings on Orchard Road where we stayed.  Hard to believe that Olive's Uncle Lim once lived in a single-storey home in this very area.  Everything has changed dramatically since Olive's childhood.  The beaches of her past have been lost to landfills.  The old Chinatown where she used to go with the family maid, Ho Chey, is now just a series of shopping malls.  Singapore has developed into a very clean, extremely orderly, ultra-modern city.

Mac and Maya had their own room at the Orchard Hotel.  They loved Singaporean food.   Every morning, they ate Indian roti prata bread with curry.  They also loved the iced deserts with coconut milk.  Olive enjoyed the Chinese dishes. The street hawkers are now inside air-conditioned malls.  The food is still great, but expensive by Asian standards

On our first day, we walked around Orchard Road and then took a tour bus to the famous Jurong Bird Park.  It was rainy and one of the shows was cancelled, but we were able to the see the predators.  The hawks, eagles and kites are quite amazing diving from great heights to the trainers below.

The  Night Safari featured  nocturnal animals.  Denny loved watching the Fishing Cat dive for fish.  The kids were quite impressed with the Asian Python that was tucked away under a bench at the beginning of a show.  Not all the people sitting there were amused.

We took a cable car to Sentosa Island - a popular recreation center just a short ride from the main island of Singapore.  The kids grew quickly bored with the history museum, but they loved the aquarium where they could walk through a glass tunnel among the sharks, rays and other fish.  Maya liked the taurpins. 

We were able to spend a couple of hours with Uncle Lim at the hotel.  He is 80 now, but claims to still walk 2-3 miles a day and do his daily yoga meditation.  He sold his private flat and, like 90 percent of Singaporeans, now lives in a flat in a government housing estate.