Our First Day ~ Singapore

Gosh that felt so' good....we slept through to 6 am this morning! That was great! 

Nick & I were talking about our past....my mother & father met for the first time here in Singapore! Yes Pop was serving & stationed in the Dutch army here in Singapore...the year was about 1946..Mom who lived in Holland had decided to sign up and go to Indonesia (still serving under the Dutch flag & government) to do some volunteer work to assist the Dutch military. 
Well the ship departed from Rotterdam and made a stop in Singapore before heading to Jakarta.  My father stationed in Singapore hard that a ship had just docked in the harbor from Holland...so off he went in the military jeep down to the harbor to check things out!  Yes...in his sharp white military uniform.. Yes..Poppa came to check it out...as the story goes! He approached the ship and saw many young ladies up on the railing!  He called out to ask if they were allowed to disembark for a while and if so would they want to go for a ride into town with him to the nearby hotel for a cold drink and a tour through Singapore?  Yes!  they all said...so He invited the young ladies and took them in the jeep to the Raffles Hotel!
   

 

He offered to give them a ride in the jeep....and guess what? Yes he had "eyes" for Mom and she was invited to sit up front with him! How cute is that!!! These stories I heard as a kid...and he was so proud to share that! Mom's destination would be Jakarta (Batavia) and from there she would take the train to Bandung and Pop said..."that is where my family lives...here is our address and be sure to go by and say Hello!" Well that is how it all began...the "Baidenmann"...story that is! Mom & Pop later that year got married...such a romantic story huh?

Nick too had a story to share: Nick's mother who had become a widow after her husband past away unexpectedly - had decided to move from Java to Singapore with her 12 year old daughter -Maud...and begin a boarding house business here in Singapore! She seems to have been quite a woman...with so much entrepreneurship & guts...really! (remember she also went to America with Nick & Cecile when they were in their teens and she was in her mid-fifties starting a boarding house again in San Francisco...an amazing woman) ...anyway here in Singapore she did open a boarding house on Orchard Road and enjoyed the English & Dutch influences and of course and the activities & adventure of this English colony!  

Pretty interesting that Nick & I decided to fly into Singapore first...and this is also the City where Nick's father died in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in 1945 as a Dutch soldier.