The weekend celebrating Singapore's National Day!!

What a week ...... busy, busy, busy ...... apart from this being my Birthday week it is also Singapore's Birthday and the BIG day is tomorrow - Monday August 09 2010 - when Singapore celebrates her 45th birthday!!

We started off this amazing weekend by attending the National Day Reception put on by the Ambassador and Consul for Indonesia at the I-Hotel in Batam on Friday evening.

Dress code?

Yikes ..... FORMAL ..... men to wear ties or National Dress, women in LONG DRESS or Batik .... and being a reception at 6.00pm one needs to take note of the dress code.

Of course being female my first thought when we received the invite was  "what to wear", then I remembered I had some Indonesian Batik sitting in the bottom of the wardrobe.... so a quick trip to the tailors in Little India and I had what I wanted. Right down to my little pinkie and my big toe!

 

 John needed to get the suit and tie out of mothballs .... keeping in mind that in the 3.5 years we have been in Singapore he has not needed to wear a suit. But out it came and once cleaned and pressed it was OK. We took the 3.30pm ferry across from HarbourFront to Batam Centre and then a cab to the hotel. We had our clothes with us and the hotel kindly allowed us to change there.... just as well because what else could we do?

Once dressed and ready we headed up to the Grand Ballroom where we were served fresh cucumber juice and where I could take a few photos prior to the 250 guests arriving:

 

This table is for the VIP's, The Indonesian Governor and the Vice Governor of the Riau Islands, the Singaporean Foreign Minister and other dignitaries.

  In the photo above you can see John ...... we were sitting at the next table behind the main table. I thought this was excellent as we could get to see all the ceremonies of the evening, that is until we had two security staff sit with us. I was not 'nervous' as such, but they certainly made me aware of the situation we could very well find ourselves in. I have never been so close to what could potentially be a 'problem'. We also heard (as we were seated) that there had been a bomb scare the previous evening close by. OK, am not nervous, but I suddenly have developed "eyes in the back of my head" and these eyes were scanning the guests as much as the security people were with their super sensitive eye sight, ear plugs and whatever they are carrying in their 'little black bags'!

 

 

 We did enjoy our evening and were introduced to many people, even the Secretary for Economic Development who has invited us to a BBQ in his home. Which I am hoping we will be able to do as I love anything that will allow us to be part of any cultural event either in Singapore or in Indonesia. 

I am always thinking how blessed we are to have these amazing opportunities.

So after this eventful evening we headed off home to our Villa at Nongsa Village where we stayed the night before heading back to Singapore to attend the SCO Opening Gala of Jazz You Up with Jeremy Monteiro and the Singapore Chinese Orchestra.

But more about 'day two' of this amazing weekend in my next blog posting!

Stay tuned.