Saturday Night: Out on the Town

Remember those dinner invitations? The first one was for Saturday night with Andrew, a student in one of Jim's classes and also Chairman of the Board for the school. Arrangements were made that he and his family would pick us up at our hotel at 7:00 to go out to dinner at a restaurant. We decided to have a short nap so we would be refreshed for the evening. The next thing we heard was not the sound of the alarm clock, but the phone call from Andrew saying that he was here. You never saw 2 people scramble into their clothes so fast! No time to worry or fuss.

Andrew and his wife Jean are a lovely Chinese couple and their 2 children Joel, age 18 and Ruth, age 8 were also along for dinner. I was happy that all of their names were easy to remember. Andrew is a lawyer with his own law firm and obviously well off enough to own a very nice car that seats six and to take this visiting Canadian couple out to a nice restaurant. We ate at Suntec City Mall which is a huge complex built around a fountain called the Fountain of Wealth. It claims to be the world's largest fountain, but Jean seemed sceptical about that fact.

Fountain of Wealth

They had reservations at a nice restaurant where we had a 4 course meal. The conversation was interesting. They asked questions about Canada and were very curious about how maple syrup was made. Ruth had done a project on Canada last year. They wanted to know if we had any kind of national dress. All I could think of was the RCMP outfit. Later I thought that I should have said that our outfit was hat-coat-mittens-scarf-boots-snowpants. After dinner, Jean and the kids took me to another level of the complex where there was a large and very busy grocery store. We had mentioned that we wanted to buy some Diet Coke to replace the one Jim had taken from the minibar. (We would have been charged SGD 7.50 --don't ever touch the minibar!) Jean also helped me buy some tropical fruit. We got a pineapple from the Philippines, a mango from Thailand, and a dragon fruit from Vietnam. The ones I didn't get this time were the mangosteen, with juice that can permanently stain your skin and clothes, and the durian, a prickly looking fruit with a very strong smell. People really love it or hate it, but Jean said I couldn't buy it anyway. You are not allowed to take it into a hotel or on the subway because of the smell.

We ended the evening with a lovely drive around the city. You can see a lot on a personalized driving tour. The lights of the city were pretty - I haven't been out that much at night. As a token of appreciation I am going to give them some of the maple syrup that I brought to use as gifts.

Jean and the kids, Joel and Ruth (taken when we went to the grocery store)