Monday 7th October 2019

I was picked up by Ismail at 08:00 this morning to take me to The Department of Immigration, where I was able to access a 'fast-track' route to get my visa extension. I filled in the appropriate form and paid. I was told to come back at around 11:30 to collect it.

I then went on a city tour of Colombo, taking in a Wetland Park, a Hindu Temple, two Buddhist Temples, The Lotus Tower and a small gemstone museum. I took so many pictures that I am going to put a few on today's post and a few more on tomorrow's.

I was expecting to come straight back to the Bus Station, but many roads were closed in the centre of Colombo for security reasons, as today was the Nomination Day for all candidates seeking to become President of Sri Lanka (35 candidates in all, with only 1 woman). As a result of this the traffic in Colombo was gridlocked and it took me 3 hours to get from The Immigration Office to the Bus Station and, by the time I arrived, I had had enough and so I decided to stay another night in Colombo at the Metro Port City Hotel.

Today's photos show a couple of the Wetland Park, a few of the Hindu Temple and the best mock-up picture I could do for The Colombo Lotus Tower, which, at 800m tall, is the tallest building in Sri Lanka (and maybe the Indian subcontinent).







                                                                                            

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Saturday 5th October 2024

Image
It's my fifth trip to Sri Lanka, but on this occasion I am at last joined by my wife, Valerie, and it will be lovely not to be on my own this time. We flew out of London Heathrow Airport one hour late at 22:30 UK time on Friday, and after a rather excruciating eleven hour flight, we eventually landed at Colombo Airport just after 13:30 Sri Lankan time on Saturday. I slept for a few hours on the journey, but Valerie struggled to get any sleep at all. Sandra Wanduragala met us at Colombo Airport, and we drove into Colombo for a couple of hours - meeting up with her daughter, Selena, at the Good Market, which we really enjoyed and would love to go back to. We then went back to Selena's home, where it was good to be able to freshen up a little bit, and enjoy a nice cup of tea, before our driver, Rohan drove us to Kurunegala, where we will be based for the next two months. Arriving in Kurunegala, we met up with my good friend Tharika and her daughter, Evinka, to have dinner at Sri B...
Read more

Friday 16th February 2024

Image
It was my final day in the Pre-Primary Department of the Royal International School today, which was kind of sad, as they have been so welcoming, and I have had the most amazing time there. Miss Agatha and Miss Tharika run a very tight team that manages 902 children from Toddlers to Nursery to Lower Kindergarten (LKG) to Upper Kindergarten (UKG) extraordinarily well, and which provides an excellent foundation for these pupils' learning journey. I had a wonderful morning where I was observing Number lessons with the UKG Co-ordinator and the English Co-ordinator (seeing the level of English in the Number lessons). In almost all the lessons, the quality of the teaching was exceptionally high, with the attention to detail - and in particular with the resources they had prepared - quite incredible. And apart from all of that, it was great fun, which is, in my opinion what learning should be for children. I had a nerve-wracking afternoon, as I had to deliver a session on time management ...
Read more

Monday 7th October 2024

Image
We got cracking today with our prime reason for being here - to support the work of the Royal International School in Kurunegala. We worked together today to give Valerie a chance to settle in at the school, and we are having a gentle start at the Pre-Primary Department, where we will be spending 3 days seeing what they do so well there, before moving on this Thursday to the Junior Department, which is, of course, where our true area of expertise lies. We received a wonderful welcome from both staff and students as we arrived at the school this morning, including a group of girls performing a beautiful, traditional dance for us. It was lovely doing the few lesson observations with Valerie today, before we work separately from tomorrow onwards. The standard of teaching in the Pre-Primary Department is truly impressive, and we were pretty amazed by what we witnessed today. We are both enjoying it so much already! Sandra (who founded the school) and Ravi (the Managing Director) popped rou...
Read more