Paaaartay Time!

(Last updated on 14 September, but as usual posted late because of VPN issues…)

Last Sunday morning, Rosabelle woke up early enough – maybe she knew and was excited that we were going to her favourite Mai Dou Ge Ge’s 3rd birthday party. His mother had messaged me on Friday night to say that it was going to be an outdoor affair at Chaoyang Park. I was very excited as it would have been fun seeing the kids play around outdoors – but I got another message on Saturday night saying that weather forecasts predicted terribly hot weather this morning, so darn, they were going to have the party indoors, at their house. Just great. How terribly exciting. We always go there like at least once a week. But never mind that, I was actually quite glad for her call on this as it was really quite sunny today.

After her breakfast, we played awhile more at home before reaching their place slightly after 10:30am, bearing a toy gift (some gadget with shapes/holes) in hand as Rosabelle helped me lug the heavy toy upstairs. We were early and there was only one other guest around, as Mai Dou gave Rosabelle many party favors and toys. As usual, our girl made herself at home as she started playing, and enjoying a yogurt snack as well.
When the rest of the kids gradually came, there were altogether about 3 other invited families, and Mai Dou’s mum brought out a long piece of paper for the kids to doodle and scatter/glue confetti on. Rosabelle nicely participated, despite being the youngest, and left her mark on the greetings for the birthday boy, heh!
It’s been awhile since we’ve seen Wei Wei Jie Jie, who was back in her hometown for a few months.
Actually, Rosabelle wasn’t exactly the youngest there – the younger brother of one of the guests, Qi Qi, was also there – all 7 months, and seemingly 70kg, of him, haha! It wasn’t too long ago that we attended his 100-day celebration, and look how massive he has grown… just love this shot of him sneering curiously sideways at the balloon.
Not long later, as one of the adults stopped him from chomping on the balloon, he got angry, and even more fretful when they made him don a party hat. So. very. cute. (And cruel of me to continue snapping away as I laughed…)
Next came cake-time as Mai Dou had a lovely cake from 21cake.com, and all the kids gathered round and eyed the cake very greedily as they sang the birthday song and blew the candle. The older kids immediately lurched for the white chocolate signage on the cake, whilst Rosabelle looked on – maybe she did not realize it was edible (or nice), as I’ve never offered that to her before, haha…
There she is, practising for her own birthday cake routine next month, heh!
We enjoyed the cake (yes, I did too – I love chocolate…) and later, they served small sausages, prawns, and bacon. Now, I’ve never let Rosabelle eat sausages nor bacon before because they are very salty, have a lot of preservatives, and are basically considered junk food on my list. But since it was a happy occasion, and I was feeling magnanimous and the rest of the kids were also chomping on them, I let her try the sausages and she ate like 5 of them! I did not give her the bacon as it was oily and fat-streaky, but did not offer her anymore sausages as it was really enough sodium for the day (or week!).

The kids then started playing around awhile more in the house as we prepared to head outdoors.
This flying disc balloon was brought downstairs and became a major source of contention between all the kids, Rosabelle included, as she tried helplessly to tug at it. In the end, the adults had to step in and take it away, letting the kids take turns at it. As you can imagine, there were quite a lot of tears shed, but Rosabelle seems to remember what I’ve been trying to tell her about not fighting with older kids – she wandered around on her own, climbing the benches, looking for cats, picking up leaves.
Later, when she saw that the disc was lying there untouched, she quickly ran up to it and looked at me with a gleeful smile, as if asking me for permission to finally play with it as she was not snatching it from anybody. What a good girl! However, along came an older girl who took it away from her, and luckily her mum intervened and our girl had her turn at it without much hassle, undisturbed, heh…
After that, we just hung out abit more with each other till it was time to go home. My experience with past parties was that I would have a hard time (and feel quite bad about) restraining Rosabelle from eating too much party food or the lunch the hosts had kindly prepared, as we had already cooked lunch for her at home. Thinking it would be the same case this time round, I actually left word with Nainai to not cook our lunch today, but we only had cake and the junk food, so Nainai hastily put together a simple late lunch of noodles in vegetable/tomato/minced pork soup, which our girl happily finished all up when we reached home. Nice! At least the junk food she had earlier did not take up too much space for a proper meal.

Take me out to the museum

(Last updated on 14 September, but as usual posted late because of VPN issues…)

I’ve been wanting to bring Rosabelle to the museum near our place at Pingod area, but as it’s a short taxi ride away, and I’m not too sure what else is in the vicinity (i.e. don’t wish to make a wasted trip and spend only 15 minutes there with nothing else to see), we took the safe route out and went to THE biggest museum here in Beijing – the Capital Museum, China. Wayne and I had been there like eons ago when it was showcasing an Egyptian treasures exhibition, and since I am somehow enchanted by all things Egyptian (though having been to Egypt only once on a day trip when we went on a cruise through River Nile when in Cyprus like decades ago…), we went there, only to have Wayne wait for me at the benches whilst I tried to cover as much as I could as he’s not really a museum person, haha!

And so, since Rosabelle has been asking me a lot of ‘什么东西?' when she sees sculptures and paintings, I decided to make a trip there, and we brought Ye Ye at the same time since he has not been there. Whilst checking out their official website to see whether they had any interesting exhibitions on, I found out that if you reserved entrance tickets online, you could enter for free – what a deal!

Our girl woke up nice and early on Saturday morning and for once, had to wait for us adults to get ready and eat our breakfast, heh! So by the time we got there, it was close to 11am.
She wasn’t exactly keen/cooperative on taking photos outside of the museum – maybe she was more attracted to the slopes and steps leading up to it…
However, once she saw this Ge Ge taking photos, it was another thing altogether. She went up to him and wanted to hug him, or maybe it was his toys she was eyeing, as she was all gleeful when he nicely handed her part of a train track.
As we went in, we had to get our bags scanned, and thankfully they allowed me to deposit the food scissors I brought at the door, as I was prohibited from bringing it in. As Wayne went to get the tickets (by just giving them the reservation numbers), Ye Ye had to take care of her for awhile, and in that short 3-minute span, she was let loose and running freely all over the big space at the lobby of the huge museum. (See how she is juxtaposed against the cleaning lady in the background in the picture on the left? They even have the same pose. Haha…)
Inside, we headed to the top-most level 6 first, and saw exhibits of old Beijing as she was excited about exploring the different rooms and areas.
However, by the time we got to level 5, and seeing exhibit after exhibit of ceramics, bronze sculptures, jades, paintings and what-nots, she decided that it was too much for her and wanted to stop me from going into the different rooms, preferring to hang out outside. Well, she can’t be blamed, as most of the exhibits were at the eye-level of adults – i.e. she could only see walls at her height, craning to peek at them from below. Since we were not carrying her most of the time, the outdoor areas definitely seemed much more attractive to her. At one point, when an older boy was playing with the touch screen, she went up to him, hugged his thigh, and gently patted his buttocks, goodness! The boy, maybe frightened off by her passionate nature, ran away, and Rosabelle actually ran after him, chasing him in circles around his mother and wanting to hold his hand whilst calling Ge Ge… haha!

There was an area that seemed to be for kids, showcasing toys of old and having a lot of low tables and chairs. However, there were no activities going on, but our girl managed to make herself busy, sitting on chairs (and instructing us to sit on them), and even moving them around.
She was most happy when climbing up/down steps, as she posed happily for photos from above.
At the basement, there was another area where children, could purchase small figurines to paint on, but Rosabelle was happy just posing for photos.
By this time, it as close to 12:30pm, and normally Ye Ye would have finished his lunch and be asleep by now. It was apparent that he was hungry as he said he did not want to view the exhibits anymore. So, Wayne found a buffet place at the basement area, where he enjoyed a leisurely lunch for RMB40. Meanwhile, I decided that it would be awhile before we got our own lunch (not exactly keen on the buffet place, and with Rosabelle, I did not want to feed her buffet food – who knows when they cooked the food…), so I gave our girl some biscuits to munch on first. She was so happy gobbling up her biscuits and taking a rest on one of the benches, heh!
After that, Ye Ye had also finished his lunch, and we walked around a bit more before leaving close to 1:30pm.
We then headed to Joy City in Xidan to get lunch at Bellagio. Luckily service and food were fast, because by the time Rosabelle ate, it was already 2:40pm, heh! With late lunch and a late nap (slept only at 4:30pm), she got up close to 6:30pm so that we could head out for dinner together.

We went to Solana and decided to try this dumpling place called Lucky. However, a lot of the food we wanted was not available, and the food was really rather salty, so I’m glad we had a quick dinner (in between, our girl even went to the loo to poo!) and I caught a rather artistic shot of her, heh…
This is her, always needing us to remind her to chew and not stuff it aside like a hamster, sigh…
After dinner, we walked outdoors, and that’s when Rosabelle will work off her late dinner by running laps, and she even went onto a stage (for a NFL publicity event that had already ended) with another older girl who was singing. However, just as she got friendly and hugged the older girl, she started hitting her on the face, and even pulled her hair once. Aiyo! Luckily, the other parent was understanding and the older girl was so sweet, still wanting to chase and play with her after.

At that point, Rosabelle refused to sing with the older girl小燕子, but when we got to the stage much later, she climbed up on her own accord to sing a medley of songs, including this one. When Ye Ye, Nai Nai, Wayne and I were below the stage cheering her on, she broke out into song, and a slight dance as she sang along. We were all clapping, except for Ye Ye. She noticed that and stopped her song mid-way, pointing at and instructing that ‘Ye Ye, clap!’. Haha! Like a superstar, she was also strolling on the stage as she sang, as if making sure that she covered all grounds in interaction with the audiences below, so cute!

It was again another late night, as you can imagine, but though the museum trip wasn’t as fruitful in the sense of having her appreciate the arts (much too young, I guess), she was at least exposed to it and knows that she went to the ‘museum/博物馆'. That night, I was mighty impressed as I saw what she had made out of the various brochures and entrance tickets we brought back:
This is an extremely well-thought out arrangement, as she laid them symmetrically. I’ve noticed this as she takes our slippers, she will put them not next to each other in pairs, but instead in symmetrical order (i.e. not AABBCC, but CBAABC). Interesting…

Strangely thoughtful...

That day, in a magazine, Rosabelle saw the movie poster for the movie, Inception, and immediately shouted out, ‘叔叔, be careful!’… Hahaha…she must have seen the movie characters posing for a photo in the middle of the road, in the path of oncoming cars, and decided to warn them about it. That’s how well I have trained her as she will often remind family members to ‘be careful’ when she sights a bicycle/car/trolley coming.
In other miscellaneous news of late, she likes to give really hilarious/cheeky-looking peeks like that these days, and no matter how angry I am at her for taking forever to down her food, I always inevitably burst into smile, heh!
That’s her trying to act cute and all doe-eyed with food still in her mouth, and she can sing/dance during meal times, making me exasperated as to whether to encourage her musical talents or put a damper on it and ask her to focus on her eating… haiz! Of late, she has been singing the ABC song, and though she misses on average about 5 letters in all, she can recite almost the whole song down to the last sentence of ‘Next time won’t you sing with me?’ – I am really quite impressed!
Yesterday, she even let Nainai wear for her the waist sash that Ye Ye bought for her in Xinjiang – she looked so cute running all over with her butt swinging side to side, and the little trinkets clinking away. However, this time round, I did not let her go downstairs with it, which is just as well, as yellow really attracts insects/mosquitos.
Speaking of mozzies, on Friday morning, I brought her to another apartment area to explore their playground. Actually, the rest of the folks in the yard have been making their way there at times (it’s about 10 minutes’ walk away), and I have been meaning to go there myself, but with no stroller, I am afraid that I need to carry her half the way if she decides she does not want to walk anymore. Thankfully she was very cooperative and throughout the journey there and whilst playing there, she was pretty much on the ground herself (and only asked to be carried on the way back). However, she wasn’t very keen on going down the slides (maybe she isn’t that used to slides), and preferred to climb up and down the steps, even using the free exercise equipment. The whole estate is really much more conducive and safe for kids, as there are very little cars and roads within the area, and even has a nice lake surrounding (thus the mozzies, which thankfully stayed away from us). Looks like it’s going to be a regular spot for us once we get fine days.

Backtrack SG: Our packed last day

Given the Singapore sunny and humid weathers, you can either choose to lap up the sunshine outdoors, or when you get too much of sweaty armpits and streaked make-up/limp hair, you can head indoors where almost everything has the aircon blasting away, haha! So we made our usual pilgrimage to Ikea, a favourite of the Tohs since they can play at the kids’ playground (Rosabelle’s still too young) and at Tampines, it’s near to home.

And so, on 28 June, our last day in Singapore, we went there together with the Toh entourage, though I had to bring her in for a diaper change as a first stop. She liked the family room and smiled gleefully at me when we entered, and thank goodness it’s nice and clean as she explored around on her own as I went to the washroom as well.
After that, it was pretty much free for all as we strolled around Ikea, and she sat on chairs (playing with fake laptops used for exhibition purposes on the tables), played with the kitchen sink set-up with Marianne (so girly), and basically just made herself at home.
After that, we went for lunch at the restaurant and they also played awhile at the playground there (though I’m not too sure Marianne enjoyed being her ‘horse’…).
When we went downstairs, the older kids clamoured to squeeze into the trolley with Rosabelle, and we had a fun time chasing my sis down the aisle (not fun for me though, more like exhausting, as I had to run and brake to a stop as they pretended to play cops and robbers, shooting at my sister who was running away).
We all then enjoyed ice cream – such is the decadence of simple comfort foods…bliss…
By the time we were headed home, it was about 4 pm and I nursed her in the car, thinking she would fall asleep, but no, our hyper girl was up and raring to go, and so we all decided to follow Simon for his swimming class at his classmate’s home. It was a very last-minute decision so we were in the house for all of like 10 minutes, packing our things together for all the kids, then rushing down to make it in time for the session. Rosabelle seemed to enjoy it, but I accidentally dunked her a few times and she had water go up her nose as she choked and cried slightly – so not pleasant – but she was alright after.
It wasn’t as pleasant for Marianne as my sis tried to make her abandon her car float (the instructor was saying kids will get over-reliant on it), and could not even get her to make her hair/face wet. That night, Marianne was crying as my sis poured water over her head 10 times during bath, to get her to slowly warm up to the idea of water over her head – aiyo – must have been like torture to the poor girl.

And since it was on our last day, and the kids were on a roll, we all headed to East Coast after the swim. As we took in the evening sun and salty sea breeze, I knew that I was going to miss all these when back in Beijing. Oh well, the sacrifices we make when away from home… but at least it makes me better appreciate such precious moments with my family whenever we are back.
In the car on the way back, she KO-ed, and was really dead tired as I lay her to sleep on the bed, only to be woken up by Gideon’s loud crying. Just as well, because she would have slept till really late and not be able to sleep that night. However, it also meant that I asked for trouble by packing everything into this day and had to deal with an ultra-grouchy toddler during dinner, bath and milk time after (though she perked up slightly upon seeing Simon’s yucky reaction to the papaya she tried to feed him for the first time, haha!). She was very sticky to me, and even cried throughout when I was taking my bath that night, aiyo! In the end, we called it a day as she slept at 11-nish that night – which is considered very early by her standards. Thank goodness as well, as we had to wake up really early to catch our 9:30am flight the next morning!

Backtack SG: Parking Around

In the interest of time (as in I do not have much time until Rosabelle wakes up from her afternoon nap), thought I’d skip over the Malacca motherload of an entry (with 35 pictures!), and move on to a short and sweet one instead.

In Singapore, we are blessed with having nice parks and gardens within walking distance of all neighbourhoods, and since we stay in the East, our favourite East Coast Park is just a short drive away. Every time we head back these few trips, we will always schedule parks/gardens in our to-dos, as we then enjoy the humid, but fresh, Singapore weather – haha!

On 25 June, even though she was having a fever of 38.1 degrees that morning, it thankfully subsided by evening time so we could go as planned to East Coast for a bicycle ride. She always enjoys time with her lovely cousins, no matter how ‘chili padi’ (小不点) she looks next to them…
And then we rented bikes for ourselves, where Simon got his own bicycle (and Marianne took over after he was tired, but she moved at a really snail’s pace, aiyo!). Rosabelle enjoyed the ride, and the breeze on her face, as we caught up or overtook them, though I wasn’t so comfortable with the bicycle seat cutting into the base of my spine as I rode…yikes…
After close to an hour, I needed the rest more than she did, so we took a breather and waited under a shelter as she ate her grapes, and as we waited for the kids to catch up, heh!
On 27 June, before she had her bath in the afternoon, I asked my mum to help trim her fringe short as it seemed to be bothering her eyes. She wasn’t the most cooperative, so when she slept, I placed a folded piece of tissue paper under the uneven fringe and continued trimming it straight… and ta-dah! That’s how short/straight it was when we headed out that evening to a park near my sister’s place. (In the car, she asked for my mum to ‘on’ the radio and after that danced to the music – so vain!)
It was a newly-renovated park, though it has facilities catered more for older kids. Rosabelle wasted no time in playing and exploring the area with her cousins, and I think that Marianne and her have similar expressions at times, heh!
Little Gideon wasn’t left out as we took turns carrying him…
And Rosabelle finally got her wish when Simon let her have her turn on his skate-scooter.
When we got home that evening, she was quite hungry and asked for pear, banana, and even milk before dinner (none of which I gave her, of course, as she already had her fruit snack prior). Maybe it was the hot weather, or simply the novelty of it all (or she had to replenish fluids from the idiotic mosquito bites she suffered at the park), but she slurped up the bird’s nest drink that I shared with her that night, though I did not dare to give her too much as it might be too cooling for someone her age!

The snot, the cut, and the mad dash!

Yesterday morning, Rosabelle strangely woke up with a fever of 38.1 degrees (when I nursed her at dawn, she felt slightly hot, so I took her temperature in the morning when she got up). After that, sneezing ensued and she had a slightly runny nose, turning into sneezes with flying yellow, mucous-like snot (I know - yucky).

However, she seemed to be in high spirits and was eating fine, so I still brought her down for her usual morning walk. My guess is that she could have caught a cold from those late-night walks to/from Yeye's block opposite, and with autumn coming, it does get chilly (she goes out in her usual home singlet and shorts combo, which is kind of much too thin).

I even took her for a haircut after lunch, since her fringe is getting longer, and the hair at the back was quite uneven. It was the Seventh Month Festival before this (i.e. Hungry Ghost Festival, where the Chinese believe that spirits roam the Earth, and is not an auspicious month for anything major), so on the first day of the Eight Lunar Month, we made an appointment at the usual place Wayne cuts his hair, where she had her hair cut previously in May.

However, this time round, it was another supposedly better hairdresser (cost RMB48 as opposed to RMB25 the previous time), and I was quite irritated that we had to wait for about 10 minutes since he was attending to another customer (in spite of us having made an appointment and me rushing Rosabelle through lunch to get there on time). So when he finally came over, I was quite hostile when he started suggesting that she needed to have her hair washed before he can cut it. Hello... Rosabelle even kicks at Nainai when the latter is trying to wash her hair - what makes you think she will let a wierd-looking young punk with badly-dyed yellow hair wash it for her at the dingy-looking sink? And so we left it at that, suggesting that he just spray it wet.

However, when he brought the high chair over for Rosabelle to sit, she started getting edgy and hid by the mirror, refusing to get on it nor let him touch her. Oh dear... I carried her and she kept turning away whenever he touched her hair. No good... and so, I asked them for a hair roller that distracted her abit whilst I gingerly put her down onto the chair, standing. She refused to have any cloth or towels put around her, and since I had to hold her hands and stand close by, we both had loads of hairs on us.

The hairdresser was very nice and patient throughout, speaking with her, and Nainai also took magazines/postcards in the shop to distract her. Unlike the other guy, he dared to cut the sides by her ears, and in the end, it wasn't sloped to one side like previously, heh! I must say he did a pretty good job of trimming the fringe and back evenly, and had to bear with Rosabelle using his water spray to squirt water all over, even onto his face at times - but that was the only thing that kept her occupied as he trimmed the fringe, so good for her!

And in spite of her fever/sneezing, she was fine all the way throughout the day, giving me cheery smiles even at dinner as she modelled her new bob, heh!
Thank goodness by this morning, her fever went down to 37.2 degrees (even though the sneezing snot was still around - she woke up with two big pieces of dried snot on her face as she must have rubbed her nose whilst asleep - ewwww!), and I had to wake her up (by opening the door and talking gently) as we were running late for our first offical Kindermusik class starting at 10am.

We practically rushed out the door with avocado/soya bean milk puree in hand as the booked taxi was waiting, and luckily she cooperated with me in finishing up her breakfast quickly. The ride took longer than last week, as we rushed to Familier about 5 minutes late (the taxi driver also wasn't very friendly and ignored Rosabelle when she repeatedly thanked him for turning on the aircon). Thankfully the class had not started and altogether, there were 5 families - a younger girl from Scotland, two younger boys from the States and Bermuda, and an older boy from Korea. A nice, international mix, I must say.

We went through the paces and learnt the building house song again (hammer goes rap, rap rap and saw goes see, saw, see), ringing bells and hitting sticks, as well as lots of dancing. It was quite exhausting for me too as I carried her at times to make sure she did not stray away, haha!

After the class, we hung around to chat for awhile with the other mummies (I prepared Yakult and biscuits for Rosabelle - she very nicely shared the biscuits with her new friends, which was really lovely) and made payment only after they had all left (signed up for a RMB5,000 membership card that entitles us to 20% discounts on everything, including F&B). I'm surprised none of them stayed on to play around abit more, but we were there till almost 2:45pm!

Whilst there, she played at the usual places, and liked climbing up/down the stairs, ensuring that the stairgates were closed shut at all times, but was her scary self again when she hit three younger kids at different times. Sigh... looks like as much as I don't wish to watch over her, I must still continually watch out for her wierd hitting/pushing phase.

One of the mothers commented that Rosabelle speaks well and looks matured for a yet-to-be-two, as she immediately said, 'No beating, no pushing', when I scolded her. She's a Singaporean as well, and was there with other friends, all with similar ages of around one.

As they were all having lunch there, and the centre only had three high chairs, there were none left when our lunch was ready. For the first part of the meal, she was sitting on propped pillows on the chair, but was climbing all over the place, so I was thankful when the staff brought up a newly-vacated high chair so I could strap her in.

The meal wasn't that good - the Hainanese Chicken rice was dry and offered parts of the chicken I don't like (drumstick and wing - I like BREAST, haha!). The spaghetti bolognese was only so-so and much-too-overpriced at RMB22 for an Ikea children's plate portion, served with a small piece of garlic bread. The pumpkin soup was so watery that I had to feedback to the centre manager (a guy called Daniel, I think), and they very nicely made a new bowl of soup for me even though I did not ask them to (it still came out watery, so maybe it's the way they do it...).

I had ordered drinks of vanilla latte (they serve Starbucks) and for Rosabelle, a blueberry/strawberry yogurt smoothie, which she was very happy to taste but strangely enough did not go beyond about 3 sips of it. Much too overpriced food (thank goodness I have 20% off with my card), but it was nice to have the minders around helping and watching out for whenever I needed help.

Throughout, Rosabelle kept seeing and calling out to Yuliya, and greeting every and anybody in the place, haha! She was fine playing on her own or holding hands/being carried by the minders as I ate my lunch/went to the washroom, so at least I know she's comfortable in the place. She even attended a mini-art session with one of them, painting with brushes and drawing with markers as I read a magazine outside. I purposely left my seat beside her and went out, to see if she can manage on her own, but made sure I was within sight of her. She only came out when she saw me playing with a younger baby, and maybe jealousy pangs took over as she quickly came out and became all babyish again, sitting on my lap and hugging me, heh!

It was a nice first lesson, and here she is at the lift lobby, modelling her first-ever scoolbag, a RMB350 (cost of materials on top of the amount we had to pay for lessons) package of two music CDs, three books, and a stir xylophone. As I was saying to the teacher, Yuliya, all these are Made in China and she had to pay a bomb to ship them over, tsk tsk! Our ride home in the taxi was more pleasant as the driver was lovely, even offering her a cookie from her dashboard compartment (which I obviously politely rejected - I don't let her eat cookies much, and his fingers looked grimy, haha!).
For next week, I will make sure that I wake her up a least 20 minutes in advance (woke her at 9:05am when we were supposed to leave at 9:15am)!

Backtrack SG: Barraged

On 18 June, a day after we had an exhausting day at the zoo, we headed out to Marina Barrage for a look – those few days were intensive since my brother-in-law was on leave and could bring us out (leaving poor Gideon at home with my mum and the maid, haha!). Rosabelle was at it again, sitting on poor Marianne’s lap…
The Barrage has been open for awhile but we’ve never really thought of heading down there, as there aren’t any eating/shopping places in the area, but at least they have a cute mascot, haha!
We took a walk around the exhibition area, which was quite nice and futuristic-looking, and highly informative as it gives information on water saving, and what Singapore is doing to conserve/collect water in its reservoirs. I can imagine a lot of schools bringing children here on cheap excursions.
We spent quite a lot of time at the green screen (also known as blue screen) where we could take pictures with a background and email the e-card.
As you can imagine, the older kids totally enjoyed this feature, but this was one of the nicer/clearer-looking shots we got:
After much egging, I finally got them to move on and went on up to the sky roof area, where Rosabelle actually correctly spotted a kite whilst we were in the car (and I thought she was just talking nonsense) as we saw people flying kites and even school children taking picnics there. That’s Marina Sands in the background – that will be one of my must-visit places on my next trip back!
That’s the pair of cousins using the tacky backdrop for camwhoring time…
And we then left the place to head to Vivo City, first for lunch at King Louis Bar &　Grill Restaurant. Not exactly very good food, though Rosabelle tried a variety of meats, fish and pastas, and even posed for photos with the tacky mediaeval interiors of knights and what-nots. There were some fake candlelight chandeliers and Rosabelle even sang ‘Happy Birthday’ when she saw them, haha!
Simon was actually eating pretty well, right until my sister gave him some corn in his spaghetti and he actually spat, then vomited, his food out. My sister was adamant that he eat back all his vomit and even as he was crying, she threatened to leave and there and then, he actually ate two small teaspoons of it as he continued to sob. Ewwww…. My evil sister could not take it anymore and laughed at him, thankfully stopping him from continuing to chew puke. Aiyo! So disgusting… thankfully Rosabelle did not ask to eat it, but as my brother-in-law and I were joking, the chef must be wondering what the dish is since they did not serve us any ‘beef goulash’… Yucky!

After that was quick shopping time as I rushed to Big Bookstore at HarbourFront Centre (one of my mecca for children’s books) and got her quite a few new books. The kids also enjoyed the usual kiddy rides, and nowadays, when Rosabelle sees a carousel, or a picture of it, she will recount ‘Simon, Marianne’ as she sat on the ride with them.
It was quite a tiring day for us all as we headed home really late that day (Vivo City, with the expanse and wide variety of shops, almost always tires me out…). But it’s always fun to go out with family as Rosabelle can enjoy the company of the big kids, heh!