Chinese New Year Day: Singapore 4D3N

This year, we went down to Singapore two days before CNY, so we had a good 2 days to check out the stores minus the traffic jam, as most of the cars have left for the peninsula. We are fortunate to always be on the opposite direction of the traffic jam, as we shake our heads and silently thank God that we are not amongst the hundreds of cars queuing at the Immigration causeway, or crawling along the highway into Malaysia.

Saturday, 21st January 2012

The night before we stayed over at Popo Gong Gong house, to break out journey and to spend a little time with them before CNY. Tradition is that we will have our little reunion before CNY but this year due to Vic's school ending in the evening, and possibly heavy traffic downsouth, we decided not to risk rushing and being late for dinner. So left PJ after dinner.

On Saturday morning, we did a little repacking in Mama Yeh Yeh's house first, before leaving Seremban at 11am in two cars, ie one ours and the other Yee Sok's. The kids were very excited, especially William who have been anticipating the hotel stay days before. He kept asking us when are we reaching the hotel, and was clearly upset and impatient when we had to wait for Jie Jie to finish school, then stay a night in Seremban, and then lunch at Tangkak.

Most Singaporeans and Malaysians working in the island have already left, leaving the roads clear. We went straight to Holiday Inn Atrium at Outram Road to check in, then over to Tai Po's place to see her. Although Tai Po has a little walking inconvenience now due to a fall last month, she is in good spirit and happy to see all of us. Likewise we are happy to see she is positive on getting better and does her therapy.

That evening, we had dinner at a recommended road side eatery, which serves food above average at reasonable price but with zero service. We were treated as if we owed them a living, from being told rudely to sit at a table not of our choice, to a rude lady who took our orders, to another rude lady who pointed to God knows where the tap is for washing our cutlery, to another rude old lady who came by to "assure" us that the cutlery she washed is clean and we need not wipe them. Oh, and have I mentioned that they were very rude?

But that aside, the food portion was big and the cooking not too bad.

Getting around the island with 3 GPS... you never know one may bring you to Holland so just to be safe... (when in Singapore, must be kiasu mah!)

At night, we went to United Square shopping mall, and found Vitakids pharmacy which sells very unique and uncommon supplements and organic foods. 7th Ee recommended this place to us, as we wanted to look for wild oil of oregano for Victoria. So happy we arrived the shop 5 minutes before the shop promoter was about to close at 9pm, and we held her up another 15 minutes purchasing not only the oil of oregano, but also grapefruit seed oil, pre and probiotics and Vitamin C with bioflavanoids. With all our purchases, we qualified to be their member. : )


Sunday, 22nd January
CNY Eve

The cereal bar is where my two kids will head straight for, every morning at the hotel buffet breakfast!  Look at where William puts his legs - when on a mission, he forgets all manners.

Looking up from the spacious lobby area

We had a simple home cooked reunion dinner at Popo's place. I forgotten to take pictures - must have been occupied with the kids.

After dinner, we drove to Changi Airport to let the kids run around there. It was a surprise suggested by Yeh Yeh. Guess the kids need to release their energy somewhere!

Look who was at the Changi Airport to greet us?  Angry Birds!  Vic picked her favourite, the blackie that can bomb!

And William was indecisive which bird he likes best, but this is my best shot of him.  It's getting harder to get him to pose still in front of the camera now. 

Monday, 23rd January
Day 1 of CNY

After breakfast at the hotel, we watch the lion and dragon dance that has been scheduled at the lobby area. This year I find the crowd smaller than the previous years, but no complains. We had premium front seats thanks to Daddy and William who went down earlier. The kids were not afraid, having gotten used to them last year, and Vic was not clinging on to Daddy, nor did she play hide and seek with the lion like previous years. : ) However, I felt the dance was rather short, and lacked in the "ummph" part.

Gong Xi Gong Xi!

Victoria just refused to smile demurely for the camera, instead opting for a playful look showing off her Vitamin C chewable tablet in her mouth.  She simply love this, and I hope it helps to build up her immune when the candida die off.

And one with boy boy.  He's a big boy now. 

Every year, the lion troop will come with a mascot.  Does this mascot look like a dragon to you? Looks  more like a crocodile to me. 

And this, folks... is the "baby lion" that attacked me when I was on the floor trying to get a good angle picture of it.  I didn't know it will come charging at me, and it came too close until I lost my balance and landed bum on the floor! Naughty lion!

And finally, one family picture with a lion dance! 

After that, we did our customary "pai nin" with Mama Yeh Yeh in their hotel room where we exchange ang pows and wish each other good greetings. It's good the kids learn this.

On Day 2, we had a sumptuous lunch at 5th Ee's place before checking out late at 3pm. Traffic however was heavy nearing Seremban, where we stopped for seafood steamboat dinner at Aunty Cynthia's house and saying goodbye to Yeh Yeh, before continuing our journey to PJ.

Oh, so much travelling I seriously think my buttocks need to be fluff back up!

Singapore Day 3

Sunday, 3rd July 2011

Today is the last day of our short holiday in Singapore.  We were supposed to explore the Underwater World and sit on the cable car today at Sentosa but we scrapped that plan due to time limitation.  It would not have been worth the money if we only get to see half or less than half the place.  The cable car itself would have set us back easily close to SGD70 return trip.  Will keep this to-do for next time.

So, we decided to take the tram ride into Sentosa anyway, just so the kids can have the thrill of sitting in a "train." SGD3 per person for return trip, and there are altogether 4 stops.

The Merlion in Sentosa Island.

We had more time to eat a hearty breakfast, our last in The Fullerton, and then enjoyed the view a while outside the dining area.

After late check out at 2pm, we walked over to One Fullerton again to snap some pictures of the Merlion and have lunch there.

I picked Palm Beach, facing the Singapore River, that serves Chinese cuisine so easy to find allergy-free for the kids.  Although this place is famous for seafood, we didn't order their signature dishes - just customed fried rice and gravy hor fun.   

Waiting for lunch.  Vic played with my camera and asked me to posed for her. One of the better pictures taken by Vic - properly framed and sharp.

Gravy hor fun with fish fillet.  Very nice.

Sunny day.

Marina Bay Sands in mid day. 

A cake for Mummy.  Vic picked this cake for me when she went out for a walk around the hotel with Daddy, eventhough she was hungry and couldn't eat. 

William fell into the small Merlion pool. The best part is minutes before that I told him and Vic NOT to stand on the divider and there is a reason why the authorities put the railings around the Merlion statue.

As I was snapping pictures away, this little fler defied what I just said, and suddenly a loud splash!! He lost balance and fell backwards, backside all dipped in the water. Some ladies gasped, and I let him sit there a little bit longer to let the magnitude of his offence sink in. Then I pulled him up and point blankedly told him that he deserved it.

You could say I was mean, but well, lesson is next time listen to what your parents say! William just sulked, and for awhile he stood far away from us. Finally I called him, and he and I walked back to the car. Daddy and Vic quickly walked first, hubs didn't say a thing about this to him. Maybe best to let Mummy to discipline him. This boy, one thing I noticed is when done wrong, get scolded, will be repentful and quiet, but before that he'd try to put up a brave, rebellious front by mumbling something like, "I don't give you stickers, Mummy..."

We left Singapore after changing him into dry clothes.

Singapore Day 2

Saturday, 2nd July 2011

After breakfast, we headed to Singapore Zoo and arrived there around 1030am. I anticipated that we can cover the place in 3.5 hours max, inclusive of lunchtime, but we took 5 hours and left the place after three quarter coverage at 4pm.

We bought entrance tickets that included unlimited tram rides (hint: this is a total waste, don't bother as they don't check your tickets when you board the tram. Moreover there are only 4 tram stops and none in between leaving most visitors forced to walk) and unlimited boat rides (another waste of money as we had no time to sit more than one round).

More than half the tourists are foreigners, from my observation, and many are Koreans or Japanese and Filipinos. We ate at Ah Meng Restaurant - the kids had Hainanese Chicken Rice, hubs and I shared the BBQ Chicken Leg and Nasi Briyani (actually he hardly ate, I ate most - famished from all the walking!)

Another thing I want to add is that I have never been very fond of visiting zoos, even when young. The only thing I remembered was how pathetic the animals looked, inactive and almost malnourished, the lions did not roar and only lay around lazily posing for pictures, and how the zoo is forever hot - and me always sweating, sticky and involunteerily feeding the resident mosquitoes.

In my last visit to the zoo in Taiping a couple of years back (also only because of the kids), I remembered how hot and sticky I felt although we went early in the morning, and within the hour, we were all feeding the mosquitoes there! We left in less than 3 hours.

Oh, but Singapore Zoo IS DIFFERENT. The were plenty of plants, trees and the walkways, railings, trams and eateries were clean - typical Singapore, you can say. I didn't check out the toilets though but I won't be surprise if they are equally clean. None of us had a single mosquito bite on us, and the visit was pleasant, the staff working at the shows and feeding the animals were professional, informed and polite.

And me, the scardy mommy who dare not take up my 6yo's daughter challenge / invitation to get on any roller coaster with her, for the FIRST TIME in my life, fed a rhinoceros. *pat myself on the back*

Less said, here are many many pictures taken.  Enjoy!

Interesting tickets that we can keep as souvenirs.  Brilliant idea!

Monkeys everywhere... so many different types. 

The seal show was quite good, but lasted only 15 minutes.  We rushed there the moment we got our tickets.

She didn't want to take a pic with the giraffe, but mummy "asked" her to.  Just look at the majestic, tall animal. 

Another mode of transportation - on daddy's strong shoulders.  Best of all, free of charge.  : )

Elephant show.  Was quite entertaining. 

Ele

Vic says these are parrots.  William says they are "Angry Birds"... lol!  See what commercialism has done to the kids?  Oh, and did you know that parrots can outlive the majority of us, up to 120years... nobody would keep them as pets because you will have to leave them in your will.

One of the record.  The photographer and her two monkeys adorable kids.  : )

Since cannot sit on the real tortoises, they kids "giddy-up-ed" on this. 

Finally... the one that the kids can pestering us every 3 minute... "Daddy I want to see the crocodile"... "Daddy, where are the crocodiles?"... "Daddy, are we near the crocodiles yet?"  Urrghh, that really got on our nerves... come to zoo to see animals, and all they are excited over are the crocodiles... might as well go to crocodile farm, right?  Oh well...

As expected, both kids conked out in the car on the way back to the hotel.  We wanted to have dinner at the Ion shopping mall, because I simply love the price and variety of the food at the Food Hall, but the GPS brought us round quite a bit in the jam, so we ended up eating at the Food Hall in Takashimaya.  The food there - not good - the variety nothing to shout about and even worse - the price.  Screamingly expensive, don't convert else you rather go on a diet.

Most important the kids ate full, hubs and I decided to go for local hawker supper later, which was what we did.... we tapaued Singapore Hokkien Prawn Mee and Prawn Lobak at Newton Food Court.  While in Takashimaya, we bought some organic, allergy-free snacks for the kids in case they get hungry in the car the next day.

Singapore Day 1

Friday, July 1st 2011

Arrived Singapore around 3pm, no queue at both Immigrations at the Tuas Checkpoint. But the PIE and CTE highways in Singapore was rather jammed with cars, normally I'm so used to the almost-empty roads during Chinese New Year. We took more than half an hour to go to Bedok where Taipo lives (to drop Mama off) and then headed to our "home" for the next 3 days, The Fullerton Hotel.

(Just a side note that we only booked the hotel that same morning we left, having discovered the hotel had a totally irresistable weekend deal)

We checked into our Courtyard room, the view was nothing much since it faces the Courtyard and other rooms but what the heck, we really don't care about the view when we have so much activity lined up, and most importantly, we had complimentary breakfast and complimentary usage of the broadband. Having learnt our lesson of all four of us crammed into one king sized bed in Kuantan Hyatt, we asked for a baby cot this time.

William's cot (actually it's a playpen) came with complimentary set of Kodomo toiletries as well. Before checking into this posh 5 star hotel, I reminded the kids to behave themselves while Daddy did the check in. The kids did quite well, surprising they both took a liking to the oil painting art works on display near the reception.

Honestly, I was surprised this little boy knew how to posed like this without any prompting!  Jie jie checking out the oil paintings in the background

Parking, thank God was also complimentary but it was quite a walk all the way to One Fullerton, having to take two lifts, two escalators and one travelator. Each time we got on the travelator, William exclaimed, "Mummy we are going into the aeroplane!" because the airports had these. Aahh, yes, boy boy... how we all miss getting onto an aeroplane, right? Hehehehe...

Part of the bathroom.  It came with private WC room where you can do your business in private, glassed-up shower area and a very nice bathtub.  Oh, and also audio system piped into the bathroom so you don't miss out on what's happening on TV albeit no screen lar

Working area

The bed.

OK, back to Singapore. I tipped the porter who delivered our luggages to the room. Vic caught sight, and asked me after the porter left, "Mummy why do we have to pay the Uncle when he already has salary?"

Good question, babe. Well, errm... because he's expecting to be tipped? Because if we don't, he will silently curse at us behind the door? Because he's underpaid? Because it's the norm to tip in a hotel? Honestly, I can't remember what answer I mumbled to Vic, but will get around to this next time.

Four other guests came along. Three here on the bed, the fourth is a blue donkey borrowed from Mama Yeh Yeh's house to accompany the boy on the journey down (which he pretended was Bullseye from TOY STORY character).

Since they both slept in the car, we scrapped the afternoon nap in the hotel room. As it was nearing 5pm, we definitely did not have enough time for the places we planned to visit, so to the pool we headed! Oh but wait, Mummy forgotten to pack the SPF50, yikes... so we may just end up with two very dark-skinned kids!

The view from the pool was lovely, overlooking the Singapore River and high rise buildings.

Look at the camera, William... stop checking out the babes in bikinis!

After the tanning session in the pool, we bath the kids in the room and walked out for dinner - crossing over to One Fullerton, then to the Marina Square and the Esplanade. My camera battery conked out, thus no beautiful pictures. : (

The kids were mesmerized by the Merlion - simply because of the water spitting out from its mouth, I think. Our walk out and back reminded me somewhat of our time in London last year where we had to carry William in his stroller up and down stairs and kids taking turn to rest in the stroller.

We had dinner at Harry's @ the Esplanade. We sat in the non smoking air conditioned corner, and ordered Braised Lamb Shank for the kids, replaced the mashed potato with rice. For myself, I ordered their Harry's Jazz Burger, and hubby had the Big Breakfast (always thinking of kids first - just in case they want to eat his food). The ambience was nice, the service and food commendable, the best is the 20% discount that came with our SCB credit card : )

After dinner, we walked around at the Marina Square then headed back to the hotel by 930pm. By this time, our legs were all gonna give up on us. Wish I could sit on the stroller too.

Next day's itinerary... "Daddy's gonna bring us to the zoo tomorrow... zoo tomorrow... zoo tomorrow..."

A wedding in Singapore over the weekend

Last weekend we hung out in Singapore, mainly to attend hubby's ex unimate's wedding, which was held at Il Lido, Sentosa Golf Club.

The luncheon was prepared in fine dining setting, and the wedding couple have thoughtfully place a teddy bear door gift from the Singapore Cancer Society with name tags of the child on the designated chairs.

Who says we cannot date younger men? See my very young, very dashing date? :P

Meet Vic's new beary friend, called Isabelle. William's bear is named... JUICY JONG! (Beats me how that name came about, I think it was Vic's suggestion as she's the one likely to come out with crazy names than little brother)

We had a choice of wine - standard - and a 6 course menu including coffee/tea. No speeches, no videos, just simple great food and friends (not that we know many others, except for Aunty Marilyn who flew in all the way from UK just for this).

The menu

This is our starter, raw (but not stated in menu) tuna tartar with blah blah blah...