大年初二 at the waterfront

First day of the CNY, my mum was grumbling about not having any activities the next day. Since we were also free, I suggested we go out for some fun, away from crowds and noise, to breathe some fresh air!

Ever since we've brought my mum to the Woodlands waterfront, she's been exploring the place. She's very excited about finding a route from her place (at Marsiling) to the waterfront. It would take an adult 30 minutes of walking, one way. She was also very excited about crabs! She said she always see people having good crab catches there and suggested we buy nets and go try catch ourselves some crabs one day. Love the idea!

Hubby and I love a scenic walk! And we really needed to burn off some fats from all the binging. So we were very enthusiastic about walking there, each pushing a stroller with one kid. Of course we weren't going to make the kids walk! Will never reach there!

True enough, the walk was fabulous! Maybe it's because it's CNY, it's so quiet. Being very close to our neighboring country (right next to the causeway) also gave the whole place a rustic 'backyard' feel. We walked past the old deserted checkpoint. Gosh, it looked like the perfect setting for a horror flick. Think 28 Days Later or the latest drama series The Walking Dead. By the way, I love such horror flicks. Ha.

I kept imagining zombies coming out from the empty and eerily quiet corners of the building, with that signature stagger. Should have taken a picture.

We reached the place at 10am. And woah, we saw a lot of crabs!

This is just part of their catch. Further down, one family was having a mini bbq (just a wire rack over some fire) with sausages, balls and the big bucket of crabs they caught. *salivates*

It was super windy. Good for us but the wind made the already sneezy Mandy start to have a runny nose. Uh oh.

The kids complained of hunger they sat on a bench and ate their favorite inari sushi that I made the morning. You know, I'm very proud of this although it didn't take that much effort. Inari is one of their favorite food. And I know going out as a family and eating their favorite food out of their very own lunchboxes, is something like a dream come true for Mandy. She often talked about this 'dream' of hers. I'm glad it's finally being fulfilled.

Yes, kids have simple dreams. It just take a little effort and time for us to make them happy. They actually don't need big and expensive presents. At least that's how I feel. :)

Would you look at Barry's greedy face?

The boy gulped down 4 inari sushis in record timing. Hah.

We continued our walk along this part of the waterfront which we've never been. It's right next to the causeway. Previously, we've only been to where the Skywald is.

Eventually, we settled in a pavilion. Grandma and the kids played a game of football.

 

Then it's lunchtime! My mum prepared kong bak bao (our de rigueur picnic dish) and fried rice! Yummy! The seabreeze and fresh forest air made our lunch all the more enjoyable!

We would have stayed longer if not for the phone call from xiao gu. They're hosting that night! Whoopee. Time to go home, recharge and cheong arrrrrrrrr!

Till the next post!

East coast with mum

This time, we brought along our new Ezy Roller and my mum! Hehe. Mandy wanted to show her how she cycles.

The weather was not as fantastic as our previous outing in December. It's starting to get hot! But thanks to the trees, we had shade most of the time.

Started off with cycling for the kids. Barry insisted on trying. He could 'cycle' by himself for a while. But his feet only moved back and forth, and not one full round. We tried to teach him the right way and he got confused and gave up. Hehe.

He went on the Ezy roller instead.

They took turns. Here's how the roller works:

Barry's legs are nearly too short. He can manage it but not fast. They like the roller very much and we like that it's fuss free for us, except the bringing out part since we don't drive. We found out 3Wheels rents out Ezy Rollers at East Coast! So we don't have to bring it there next time. The kids love to roller around our estate though. :)

After that, we went for hotcakes while waiting for our turn to rent the big carriage!

It was worth the 1+hour's wait and the $40 rental. Hubby and I got to cycle! He super gian cycling. Haha. My mum got to sweat it out a bit too and she liked that. The kids loved the wind and were giggling throughout, until it got hot. Haha.

Then we had a feast at TungLok seafood restaurant again. They ran out of Peking Duck so we ordered the chilli crab yet again. This time, the crab was delicious! Sweet and succulent. Even my mum ate quite a bit. As usual, the girl feasted on chee cheong fun and they boy ate a bit of everything, except the crab of course.

After lunch, both kids fell asleep almost instantly on the taxi, and continued their nap till 4+ in the evening.

Though my mum was still troubled and exhausted, she chatted animatedly with us, played wildly with the kids and laughed out loud at some instances. I'm glad. :)

What we did last december

An evening at Esplanade

Hubby and I are music lovers. We're particularly found of live performances. We used to go Crazy Elephant at Clarke Quay for their blues rock music. We also went Wala wala and Balaclava a few times. Of course, being 民歌餐厅 performers ourselves, we patronised 木船 (when it was still in Chinatown) many times. Well, we used to perform there too. And before 一炮儿红 closed shop, I visited the place quite a few times. We 客串 a few times too.

We really miss those days where we could watch performances late into the night, then go for supper afterwards. We miss that kind of magic in the air which only live music can bring. Alas, young kids in the family certainly doesn't support this lifestyle.

On that particular evening however, we got back a little bit of that magic. We were lucky the band playing that day was pretty good! Of course the kids weren't interested but we had them laughing and squealing by placing them on our laps and dancing with them to the music. Hey, music should be enjoyed thus! They were enthusiastically clapping to more than 3 songs!

But first, dinner and a walk by the riverside.

Very unsightly white balls.

Don't worry, I read that all these plastic balls were recycled after the New Year celebration.

We decided to stay out a bit later that night. During holidays, we are willing to push back their bedtime to 9.30pm. School nights are strictly 8.30pm. That night, they slept at 10+pm I think.

The keyboardist was awesome.

 Drummer was awesome too.

The bassist was quite good but the lead guitarist was bleah.

The band is called Laksa something. With the exception of the lead guitarist, they were all very groovy and tight. Pretty impressive! We performed such free performances at the Esplanade before and so I was surprised this free performance was of such fine quality. (Ya lah, we weren't exactly that good. Hehe)

Hannah's 4th birthday party

Do I really still need to write captions for birthday parties?

Meetup with SNGS friends

Made a new friend that day too. :)

We had lunch at Marche. That was a good choice because the kids had such a great time at the Marche playhouse that we could chat from 11+am to almost 4pm. At 2+pm, they napped for a while, Mandy in the stroller and Barry on the bench with cushion.

Even hubby enjoyed chatting with us girls. Ha.

We should do this more often. :)

Woodlands waterfront

It was my mum's first time there. There was a huge group of people. They all look like Myanmar (I've checked! This is the correct name for people of Myanmar) or people from that region. It looks like their family day or something.

Later, we saw them leave in the busloads! It was the 18th, anyone know if it's any day of significance for them?

The skywald was swarmed with kids, some of them very big. So after playing at the playground, we took a walk at the jetty first. My mum, as usual, was a great entertainer. She fed them pears and jested around with them.

This Mandy, so corny.

 Finally got to climb. We started a huge traffic jam behind us. Oops.

 

Or course, we had many other outings last holidays which I've already blogged about. We thoroughly enjoyed spending the whole month together as a family.

Aren't holidays great?