On the Saturday after my arrival Monika (a German Oracle consultant living in Australia) invited me to join her in a visit to the Sungei Bulow Wetland Reserve. After I had a late night enjoying drinks and music we left the apartment at 11.15 AM to go north with the MRT (metro train). Then a 10 minute bus ride and another 20 minute walk to the park entrance.

The park is the remains of what used to be a fishing farms area. Here is where man made fishing ponds would be flooded with the tide and then sealed off to breed and catch fish and prawns. All native inhabitants have now moved to the many 'New Towns' that can be found around the island, villages of big apartment blocks.

Within the park many amphibious animals can be found (like crocodile's and turtle's) and in the mangrove area crabs and other small animals live on the tidal shore. Although we noticed the warnings against crocodile's we did not see them. There are many observation points to watch nature and animals and I was surprised that we were able to spend the whole afternoon in the park. On the way back by bus and MRT it became clear how much we walked as part of the trip my eyes were closed!

Arab Street team dinner (August 5th)

On August 5th we had a team dinner with the BOSS AsiaPac members that were in Singapore at that time. Arab street is one of the few area's that have not been replaced by modern shopping center'sor hotels. We sat outside on the walkway and had many different dishes with Middle East origin.

After the dinner some of us paid a visit to the famous Raffles hotel. When you enter this classy hotel you feel as if you step 100 years back in time. Here we enjoyed the famous Singapore Sling.

Back within 2 months!

After my visit in May I was not expecting to be back so soon but as the implementation of the Oracle eBusiness Suite in our Singapore and Malaysian offices was going ahead it was decided to give support on location during the first month after Go-Live.

Same apartment building, some different colleagues but still the thrilling atmosphere of that great city! But it was different this time: made visits to places that I had not been to before. Did not know that in this metropole nature is still so close!

Again on Saturday I went to another nature reserve with Monika. More difficult this time as in this park on the center off the island there are hills. I started in a 'grumpy' mood as it was raining and I hate rain! In the end I was glad that Monika pushed me to continue as it was a beautiful walk and after some time it stopped raining.

It is amazing that on this small island with so many inhabitants there are still area's like this.