Kingsley and I kicked off the Formula 1 weekend in Singapore with friends at Ce La Vi’s Sky High Brunch, a decadant buffet of oysters, foie gras, caviar and champagne. Poor Kingsley had just arrived back in Singapore after a red eye flight from India and was pretty tired but he rallied and we we had a lovely afternoon with great friends.
I spent about a week exploring the downtown area of Ho Chi Minh. It was rainy season so every afternoon a torrential rain would arrive for a few hours. Thankfully there were coffee shops like the one below selling Organic Weasel Coffee where I could hide out till the rain finished. But for the most part the weather was beautiful and the people very friendly. A fun week of exploration.
Near our hotel I came across 9 puppies for sale on the street, all crammed into a small rabbit cage with some tied on top. Sitting there all day in the hot sun! It was seriously heartbreaking. I tried to convince Kingsley to let me buy them all and keep them in the bathtub of our hotel room until I could come up with a better plan but he was smart enough to tell me this was not a smart idea. The other problem was that by buying them I am only perpetuating the cycle and new batch of puppies would likely show up the next day...
I contacted all the animal rescue organizations I could in Saigon but none of them would take my puppies even after I promised to sponser them until they got adopted.
This is a very sad situation in too many places in the world but I'm still at a loss on how to change things...
I was in the hotel gym this morning along with two other guys who were spotting each other with free weights. Eventually I made my way over to the free weights section and was looking over the options when one of the guys walks up and says "no your weights are over there" pointing to the 1lb, 2lb measly little dumbbells in the corner. He was obviously just trying to be helpful but of course I had to respond. So I smiled sweetly and said "no thank you I was actually waiting for your weights" and then promptly picked up the weights which he had just replaced (10kg each) and proceeded to do as many chest flys as I could while both guys looked stunned with jaws on floor. I probably won't be able to move tomorrow but the looks on their faces was priceless.
Grey Panda Incident -
One afternoon while flying Suhas had a bit of a rough top landing and sprained his ankle. It began to swell that night when we were at dinner so on the drive home he asked me if I had a "crepe bandage" at home (which is what we call Ace Bandage in the US). I could not figure out what he was asking for and for a few seconds I paused trying to think what he could possibly be asking me for because all I heard him say was "do you have a grey panda at home" so I finally blurted out "are you asking me if I have a GREY PANDA?" to which the entire van full of temple pilot paragliders erupted in laughter. We all had a good chuckle about the miscommunication and GREY PANDA became the code word for almost everything the rest of the trip. It's probably one of those "you had to have been there" stories but anytime I see or hear of a ace wrap bandage from now on I will fondly remember grey panda.
Here is a great video Suhas made of our paragliding trip:
Our our lovely Temple Pilot friends. We absolutely LOVE our Bali trips with them each year. Kingsley and I still can quite figure out why we were accepted into this amazing group but we are thankful. This was our 4th year of Bali Bliss with the gang and again it was full of incredible memories.
Late afternoon and I had already changed and was wearing a nice dress and wasn't quite plananing to get back in the pool that day but Suhas and Anita had other plans and I got dunked in the pool fully clothed. So we turned it into an impromptu underwater photoshoot and had a ball laughing and posing underwater.
Two days in a row I showed up at the brand new Ritz Carlton to wait for Kingsley and Suhas to land on the beach there and have a drink together at the end of the day. They always send me ahead to win over the staff so they aren't given any hassle from the hotel staff or security. So I did my duty and got a great cabana spot on the beach and was chatting with the wait staff telling them how my husband was paragliding and would be landing on the beach soon. However due to wind condition changes Kingsley did not fly that day so it was only Suhas who landed on the beach and the staff thought this was my husband. Fast forward to the next day and I arrive at the hotel and say the same thing to the staff, a while later Kingsley lands on the beach and I run up to give him a kiss. The poor staff were SO confused. It was priceless...
When the wind is a bit strong in the morning, chess was the game of choice.
