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Posts Tagged ‘History’

Some Singapore Highlights

Posted in A writer's life, Creative passion, fantasy, geekgirl, Geeking out, retro SF, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 29, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Singapore is full of delights. Culinary, in particular, but also cultural. I had an amazing time last year with the 60th anniversary, with the cultural institutions exhibiting early Singapore artifacts that tied directly to the novel I was writing. This year I had a couple of things on my wish list. But, then, something popped up on my Instagram feed, something right up my alley. The Portals Experience. Link here.

Anyway, my son and daughter-in-law liked the idea too, being geeks like me. Portals is in Scots Road, fairly central. What is Portals? Well SF and Fantasy, a whole spectrum of books, book cover art, figurines, dioramas, games, genre discussion. It was truly amazing and I think I needed a season ticket to get the full effect of it. It opens up the whole world of cover art and books. The early SF. The early art. I’m thinking AI is going to kill the future of cover art and I hate that. These covers were amazing, just like the stories were. Amazing and new at the time. The SF, Fantasy and Horror genres reek with creative imagination of the other worldly and it’s not just books and cover art. There are games, game art, figurines, dioramas–whole scenes of imagined worlds. There are archetypes and there is genre growth and evolution and Portals gives more than a glimpse into this.

I thoroughly recommend this event. I asked one of the staff members if the exhibit will travel elsewhere and she thought not. It took the organizer two years to put together and now they will be looking to store the contents when the exhibition ends September 1, I think. So you have all of August to check it out.

The store was amazing too. You could by first edition SF paper backs, art prints (with half the revenue going to the artists), art postcards (same deal) and other geek stuff.

I will share some photos. It is five stars all round. No loos on site so come prepared.

Image 1. Panels of Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazines. There were several panels of different magazines on display.

Image 2 An example of a panel with book, game and figurine and artwork Warcraft

Image 3 Examples of book displays in the first room

Image 4 Film, artifacts and book Planet of the Apes

Image 4 Examples of early SF books

Image 5 An early book that I had not read

Image 6 Figurines–These were done by themes, exploring different cultural origins

Image 7 Eastern tradition

Image 8 Greek inspired figurines

Image 9

Image 10 Map

A short clip of Atlantis Diorama

And a short clip of one of my favorite parts- The book slider loop thing

Obviously I have way more photos and video but this is just a taste. You should get along to see if if in Singapore and if you are heading to Singapore soon, check it out.

Also, we went to Alice Boulangerie and Restaurant. I had an amazing burger. I couldn’t have the prawn pasta or the lobster pasta because they put fish roe in there. (I needed to google the ingredients). Amazing pastries in the display too. Great service.

Otherwise I have stayed at home and worked on book stuff. Like all day. On the weekend we are booked for the Ginger Lily High Tea at the Hilton in Orchard. Stay tuned.

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Travelling with too much to post

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on January 30, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Since Lincoln we have moved around a lot. We went to Newcastle upon Tyne, staying mostly out at South Shields. We loved this place. My Hanson grandfather was born in South Shields and it was lovely to get a feel for the place, where his father and his grandfather live. I went searching for the houses where they lived. Alas, the Long Row had been demolished and the Long Row now is only part of the original with new buildings, but they lived in these tenements along the river. They were seaman, steveadores etc so lived close by. I went looking for two other addresses. Catherine Street I found was now a library and the other place still existed but the house they lived it appeared on Apple Maps in someone’s backyard so no longer existing. We went looking for St Hilda’s cemetery and it is now a car park. I sort of gave up after that. I was going to go and look where my nana was born in Washington but her street didn’t exist and it was a suburb’s name now. Besides it snowed that day. We did one day in Newcastle and did my Vera thing, including Whitley Bay and the Holy Island on our way to Scotland.

In Edinburgh I caught up with a second cousin on my mum’s side. He and his wife were very interesting people. One of the things they do is medieval music. Fascinating.

We stayed in a lovely hotel, Holyrood with views to Arthur’s seat and very handy to the High street etc. They were so lovely. We left something behind and they posted it to us, charging us only for postage. Food was good, room was large and warm. We did a day trip to Perth to visit Farah and Edward and had a lovely lunch, talked about books etc before heading out to walk through the town/city. It’s quite big Perth. It was also quite cold with barely getting to the high of 1 degree C.

It was time to turn south and we stopped in Lancaster for the evening, meeting up with Patrick and Julie for dinner. Lancaster is a place we’d like to come back to as it seemed interesting but we couldn’t really look around as we were headed south.

In Knebsworth we stayed with my cousin and had a fab time. She took us to Windsor for the day and spoiled us rotten. Now we are in Maidstone in Kent also being spoiled, but today is chill day so I can blog.

It’s kind of sad as I have lots of photos but here are a few.

Windsor castle

Windsor Moat

Matthew in front of St George’s chapel, Windsor Castle.

A snap taken in the Undercroft Cafe with my cousin, whose treat it was for us.

The castle ruins in Rochester, Kent. We went for a day to check it out.

Medway River at Maidstone, we did a long historical walk around the town.

A Tudor style house in Maidstone. Then we went to lunch at La Villetta, enjoyed some great food and company.

We went to Aylesford to visit to Friars again and it was misty and moody and very serene. We enjoyed it so much.

The peace walk lookiing back to the gatehouse at the Friars. Note, to Ruby Heart/Emerald Fire fans, this is the priory I used in the book. It was a great setting for a secret society of magicians.

That’s all for now. Stay tuned for more photos. We head to London for two weeks on Thursday. The sand in our hour glass is running down. Although we are going to Malta and Singapore before we see our cats and family again.

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