Continuing from my Singapore trip, Mark and Felicia had gone back to KL, and the next on my agenda was to pick up my Aunt Jennifer from the Airport. I actually don’t ever remember meeting my aunt Jen as an adult. Last time I saw her I was 6 i think. She was flying all the way from Fort Worth in Texas, and arriving in Singapore at 1.15am in Changi Airport. I was staying at a backpackers place that didn’t allow guest and my aunts hotel room was not going to be ready till much later the next morning, so my task was to meet my aunt and then just Chill at Changi. I thought that airport would have tons of things open for travellers….boy I was wrong.

Hours before my Aunt arrived, her husband, my Uncle Walter sends me an emails saying

I am attaching her latest pic so u can easily identify her easily. And, please don’t look out for some blonde coming from the US!. Jenifer’s not changed so drastically!!

Uncle Walter Cracks me up. So I took the MRT from Bugis at about 11pm and found that the train goes directly into Terminal 2 of Changi Airport. Amazingly easy. I was really impressed with the connectivity!! Then again Singapore is so small, its very easy to manage. Anyhoo, I checked on Aunty Jennifers flight and I realized that it had been delayed. There were no more trains into the Airport past midnight so I decided I would just stay there, because I thought surely there would be things open for the public past midnight. Big mistake. Nothing in Changi except 3 24 hour restaurants were open. Everything else in the public domain was closed. I guess the transit travellers get most of the shops and stuff, for everybody else nothing is open at all.

At 1.40pm her flight had arrived, and I saw this Indian lady who looked allitle like the pic, minus the Knock Out Smile, then again after a 20 hour flight, you try and smile. I called out “Aunty Jennifer”, and she turned around and asked ,”Nicky?”. Before you start calling me that, Nicky is only for Family , Family friends and Ex-Girlfriends. If your not any of the above stated, you shall refer to me as Nick or Mr.Tay if you wish…Muahhaha. Anyways, I went “Yes Aunty”. And we hugged. She asked me what the plan was and I told her we have to find a place to rest in the airport as I didn’t have a hotel room, so we found some chairs to sit and we talked.

My aunt showed me pictures of my family in India from her recent trip there that were in her Digital Camera. She had tons of photos in that thing, some from 2005. I told her I would burn them into a CD for her, and did so. I loaded all my family pics here :- http://flickr.com/photos/nicktay/sets/72157594303321714/

We talked and talked about our Childhood and she updated me on our family. My mom had 13 other siblings, Only my Mom and Uncle Cirril had passed away, and my Aunt Jen being the youngest had an interesting perspective on all of them. She named each one in sequence, the name of thier Children and Grandchildren. Not bad for an Aunty who the rest of my aunts tell me have a bad memory.

I kept asking her questions about my mother. You see my mom passed away when I was 6, and when I was younger, I never though of asking my aunts about her. Now that I am much older there is so much I want to know. My Aunt Jennifer gladly filled me in on the details and told me how if my mother was alive she would have been so excited about my Sisters Wedding.

My Mom, according to my Aunt Jennifer, was a woman filled with an Artistic Creative flare, and she loved anything to do with arts. She would decorate, bake, cook, cross-stich, paint, design, take Photos, anything. I guess looking at it, I can see the little of her artsyness in the 3 of us. I asked her which of the sisters is my mom most like and she said In the sence of her creativeness, Aunty Olga is like her, and in the sence of personality my Aunty Tanya, though my mom is a million times more outgoing. I think my Aunty Tanya is already outgoing enough, I can’t imagine what my mom would be like.

We talked the night away, and then we found a coffee place that had a computer which opened at 6am. I showed my aunt some pictures on Flickr and went to sleep. She browsed through almost all of them and then at 10am, my other aunts arrived.

More later…

On this day in History..

• Sat, Oct 04 2003 - 2003
• The view from my apartment - 2005
• 3 days 8 hours 54 minutes and 30 seconds.... - 2005
• Smoking Kills - 2006
• The other aunts arrive.... - 2006
• Knocked up : A movie review - 2007
• Picture postcard from Australia - 2007
• Fracture :- A Review - 2007
• London Calling :- Lamb Burgers @ Borough Market - 2008

Tags: Personal

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