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My brilliant publisher Edmund of Epigram Books will be at the Bologna Children's Book Fair and the London Book Fair so if you're there, please look them up.

Sam, Sebbie and Di-Di-Di go to Bologna

At the Epigram Booth

Sam, Sebbie and Di-Di-Di made their first trip to Bologna with Edmund and Ilangoh and now they're safely back home again, but not for long. They'll be headed to the London Book Fair next week. If you're there, please check them out at the Singapore Pavilion!

Also Soefara has done a brilliant job of the paper dolls we'll be using at our book launches and school visits. Thanks, Soefara!

Walking Tour of Bologna

Archway to our hotel

Huge church

Perspective

The walkways of Bologna

Syrian demonstration at the town square

Bologna's famous twin towers

Church with interesting brick work

The best gelato ever!!

Kenneth at dinner on our first night in Bologna. Thanks
for dinner Kenneth!

17th March 2012

So after freshening up, Kenneth and I decided to walk around town. The buildings and the architecture as you can see were amazing--really, really beautiful.  After our tour, we headed to a famous gelato shop, recommended by our hotel's GM Laura,--it was unbelievable!! If you want a taste of real gelato...Italy's the place to try it, not some place on Orchard Road in Singapore. After our tour, we headed to a mini mart near our hotel to pick up some supplies. The Indian girl at the cash register couldn't speak a word or English but her Italian was flawless!! We picked up some strawberries, a bag of potato chips and some ginormous cans of Fanta Orange and Coca Cola. Let me tell you, Fanta Orange tastes vastly different and a miles lot better than the sugar loaded garbage we get here. When we got back to our hotel, we K'oed for a bit before waking up and heading for dinner. The first restaurant we headed to was fully booked, but the one we ended up going to was rather charming with tables named after famous authors. Thanks for dinner, Kenneth, I was stuffed. With sleep gradually overcoming us, he went back to the hotel for hopefully a good night's rest before the Tools of Change conference the next day.

On to Bologna, Baby!

17th March 2011

Chris Cheng

After checking in, Kenneth kindly bought us breakfast while we waited for our connecting flight. After some initial confusion we found our gate only to find it packed. A verifiable who's who of publishing was on the plane, including Chris Cheng and his wife Binnie whom we had met at the immigration line at Heathrow. Thanks to Kenneth, they had changed their flight to the same one that we were on. Kenneth had checked us in online and we were seated at the back of the plane. 


I overhead to ladies talking about wanting to change seats. "Oh no, we can't change seats. That's the only way they'll identify us is by which seat we were sitting in if the plane goes down!" Ok, this really calmed my nerves. Sarah Odedina, editor of the Graveyard Book and Harry Potter was seated about two rows in front of us. 

Sarah Odedina

In  First Class was Chris Cheng and Arthur A. Levine, who I was to meet later on the bus to the Terminal at Bologna airport.

Arthur Levine

After a 1:45 minute flight over the Alps we touched down. Chris Cheng introduced Arthur to Kenneth who in turn introduced Arthur to me. What a nice, personable man, I thought. 

The Alps

The taxi line at the airport was horrendous. All the flights seemed to have arrived at once. While inline I chatted to Chris about the state of publishing in Singapore and the struggles that the writers here face. Soon enough it was our turn to hop into a taxi and head to our hotel, Il Convento dei Fiore di Seta.

London Landing

Kenneth buckled up and ready to go to Gatwick

17 March 2011

So after a 13 hour flight we landed on London. Kenneth managed to catch some Zzzs despite the loud wailing-not from me-but from a baby in the front row.  I hadn't realized that the route would take us between Baghdad and Tehran, My eyes flicked back and forth between the two cities on the map and our plane which was on a course between those two cities. Kenneth turned to me and said very simply that we were too high for any missle to hit us. Phew!! Ok the rest of the flight was rather uneventful, other than my digging my fingers into Kenneth's flesh when we hit turbulence as well as  the incessant hacking from a passenger, which brought back memories of the movie Contagion for me.  I certainly did not want to be in Quarantine for the duration of my holiday. The pilot announced that the weather wasild between 6 and 7 degrees...haha! 

The look of fatigue and relief: I'm on terra firma in London!!

So we disembarked and spotted Australian author Chris Cheng in the immigration line.  I was kind of getting antsy as we approached the immigration officiers as one of them was in a foul mood and barking at some Chinese tourists who had no idea what he was talking about, pushing him further into the grumps. I crossed my fingers and hoped I didn't get him--it worked!


I got a very nice lady officer and babbled about having lived in london and where I lived etc, while Kenneth, I assume was interrogated in a gestapo-like manner by officer Grumps.  Here's a tip: babble on  non-stop about your life story and your immigration officer will wave you through. They'll be glad to be rid of you. Having survived immigration we headed out the doors to find out transport to Gatwick where we would catch our connecting flight to Bologna.

On the way to Gatwick

Our transport was waiting for us and swiftly escorted us to the car park, but I had to take a potty break first as my bladder was unaccustomed to the cold weather. Then we were off and away to Gatwick as the jet black sky slowly faded into a dull grey. Our driver was an affable man from Iraq, and  Kenneth peppered him with questions...I'm thankful he didn't probe too far because if he had been a secret operative or assassin Ken and I might  still be in England right now, in a ditch somewhere, serving our purpose as human fertilizer for the surrounding countryside.


While I was just thrilled to see the English country cows and horses and sheep. I hadn't been back to England since 1992-too long- and I was thrilled to be back.