Exploring here and there

01/10 Tuesday
John left this morning for Beijing, China. He will be there until Thursday night and leaves Friday for a conference in Hawaii. It's for work, not fun and games. He then will stop in Tokyo before coming home 10 days later.

We took the #16 bus to Fort Canning Park to visit a World War II Battle Box. This is where the allies had an underground 26-room bunker used for coordinating the Malayan defense against the Japanese attacks. On February 15, 1942, the British surrendered after 10-days of bombardment. It was the first British surrender of the 20th century. The battle box was 20+ feet underground and had just been rediscovered in the late 80's and opened up to the public in the 90's. They have very life like figures in the various rooms depicting the military personnel. Again, another example of senseless war and it's devastating effects.

The Singapore National Museum happens to be a short distance away. Their current exhibit is "Dreams and Reality", a impressionist show including Cezanne, Monet, Manet, Morisot, Degas, Renoir and several others. A knowledgeable docent described many of the pieces for us and we saw several that we had never seen. It is always a thrill to see Van Gogh's "Stary Night". Our guide told a great deal about the lives of the painters, which added so much.

We will return next week to learn more about the history of Singapore, another permanent exhibit that we started, but 45 minutes was only a beginning. A vast improvement from the Singapore history that we saw over 15 years ago. It is now housed in a beautiful building and done in a very interesting manner.