On Christmas Day in 1995, Phil and I met up with a couple of friends from Perth who were living in Singapore at that time and spend the day at Sentosa with them.

It was very different to be meeting up with friends and eating sandwiches, sweet bbq pork, and nasi lemak on Sentosa, compared the family gatherings I'm used to.

Sentosa (meaning in Malay "Peace and Tranquillity") is a resort and amusement park island just off the South Coast of Singapore. It was previously a military base and was known as Belakan Mati (Malay for "The Back Death"), but after spending the day there I coined a new Malay name for it "Palau Mahal" (= "Expensive Island") because the prices of everything there in 1995 was very expensive compared to the rest of Singapore!