a spot of singapore

We brought the kids for a ride on board the Singapore Flyer for the first time over the weekend. It’s not the sort of thing we’d typically do because between you and me, it doesn’t seem terribly fun or exciting. I mean, can the thing go any slower? I’m guessing no.

Anyhow, the husband got comped passes so we thought we’d make a fun family thing out of it. I’m going to go ahead and eat my words here because it turned out to be pretty fun.

All 3 kids had such a great time on it, especially baby Finn who went around dancing and clapping and celebrating like it was a party. He was inspecting everything, peering at maps and looking out of the windows with absolute fascination.

I have no idea what the cause of celebration was but every so often, Tru and Kirsten would break into cheers of “WOOOHOOOO AWESOME!!” while baby Finn followed behind them with a little skip and a bounce.

The capsule thing was way more spacious than it looked. There were 10 of us in it and the kids had tons of space to chase each other around and around in circles. Thankfully the other visitors on board didn’t seem to mind the ruckus they were causing.

It took us a while to get to the top but when we did, the view was quite spectacular.

I managed to snap a few pictures in between their crazy games and aren’t these some of the happiest faces you’ve seen?

That’s one local attraction I didn’t think we’d ever do but I’m glad we did.

Is it bad that it’s the second day of the year and I’m already exhausted? Technically, I’ve been exhausted since the last day of last year, which by the way, was splendid because taking into account my current state of being, we decided to spend new year’s eve having the best kind of party…

A pyjama party – wherein we filled the living room with all manner of soft objects and hung out in our jim jams playing Disney Infinity and watching Monsters Inc until we all got too pooped. Which, if you must know, happened at like about 10.25.

I like to at least be awake to welcome in the new year but the time check was 10.28 and I thought I’d just have a quick lie down next to baby Finn and then I figured I’d maybe close my eyes a little bit. Let’s just say that I didn’t make it very far past that time.

The benefit of that was being up bright and early(ish) on new year’s morning so went to check out PasarBella for the first time with the whole tribe.

Is it just me or does this place feel like New York’s Chelsea Market? We walked in past the rows of Maine Lobsters sitting on ice and I had a major flashback of the steamed lobster we had at the Lobster Place in NYC; I could taste the juicy, succulent lobster in my mouth. Then I looked at the price and wow, ok, moving on. For $110 a kg, I’d be having 3 of those babies at Chelsea Market.

Overpriced frozen lobster aside, the place is quite a gem. It’s beautifully themed, the food’s decent (hello crackling roast pork), plus there’s good coffee and some ice cream, what more could a girl ask for?

How about pretty toilets? Uh huh. It was pretty enough for the kids to make themselves feel very comfortable in the toilet, among other strategically placed rest areas.

Post lunch, we all came home and I took a delicious long nap.

January is looking good, y’all!

Yesterday must have been some sort of record – we went to 3 parks in a day with all 3 kids.

It was one of those Sundays where we had no plans and instead of wasting away a perfectly beautiful day feeling sluggish at home, we decided to put on our exploring boots (also known as flip flops) and declare it a park day.

The husband recently started going for runs at this little park place near Lorong Halus and he’s been raving about it so that was our first stop. It was indeed quite a gem. Pretty landscaping, lots of space for the kids to explore and relatively empty, the best sort of place for a Sunday morning stroll.

Actually, we were doing most of the strolling while Truett and Kirsten took off on their Striders. It was the first time Finn saw them ride their balance bikes and he was so intrigued by how fast they were whizzing past. He decided that being in my arms wasn’t fast enough for his liking so he made me put him down on the floor to chase them on his own. Which might have been a good plan had he learnt how to run but his only method of getting around at this point was on his hands and knees so I have to say that it didn’t work out very well at all.

On retrospect, I probably wouldn’t have done this with Truett but that’s the thing about having a third kid. By now, we’re like “you know what, go for it” so yes, that is my baby you see crawling furiously on the boardwalk. A boardwalk filled with…ok I don’t even want to think about it.

We would have stayed longer but it got too hot and Finn was starting to get into that tired-kind-of-cranky zone so we went back home for him to take a nap before heading out to Punggol Park and finally wrapping up the day at Punggol Waterway.

Truett is such a sweetheart. He’ll scoot off on his bike for a little bit and every few minutes, circle back to give Finn a hug and a kiss. After a few rounds, baby Finn was like “ok ok, enough…” But I think he secretly loves it. He looks at Tru with so much big brother admiration it makes my heart get all kinds of mushy.

It was so nice just taking it easy and hanging out with the kids like this. Nothing spectacular but wow it was a really fun day with these 3 really fun tiny people.

I’m grateful for my fun life.

The kids skipped school to check out the new Adventure Cove at RWS last Thursday and you know I hardly rave about such attractions but I’m going to take a moment to rave about it.

It was surprisingly very fun.

How fun? This fun.

It looked ordinary enough when we entered the place so we thought it was like a tiny waterpark like Wild Wild Wet. First of all, the place is massive. There are a total of 13 attractions and by the end of the day, we only managed to check out 4 of them.

1. Big Bucket Treehouse

This is an interactive water play area similar to the ones at POLW or the Zoo. There’s a huge bucket that tips over, some climby areas, 2 water slides and lots of splashy things. Kirsten loved it so much she spent like 3 hours running around non-stop. Apparently kids under 122cm need to be accompanied by an adult but she went on it like 15 times on her own before one of the lifeguards spotted her. But they were really nice about it and one of the girls even offered to ride it with her another dozen more times.

2. BluWater Bay.

It’s a wave pool with gorgeous landscaping and a rest area where you can sit back and sip a couple of mojitos while Copacabana plays in the background. About the wave pool itself, you can either swim around or lounge in one of the floats provided. I did the lounging on the float while Truett (in his life jacket) dragged me around to catch the waves.

3. Riptide Rocket

Ok, this one is Truett’s favorite ride in the entire park. It’s a hydro-magnetic coaster that rides like an intense rollercoaster on water, complete with climbs, plunging drops and quite a bit of speed. Tru went on it with the husband 6 times and he was all “it’s SO SUPER FUN! Can you sit with me please please please?” I took one look at it and I told him “Mommy will do a lot of things for you, but riding on a crazy water rollercoaster where I could get flung out violently? Nuh uh.”

4. Adventure River

If you feel like chilling out and taking a breather, there’s a river that takes you around the entire water park with different stops at the various attractions. Again, there are life jackets provided so you can either swim or relax on a float. Plus the water is heated so baby Finn had a nice time splashing around in the nice warm water.

There were also a number or rest areas around the water park, which was rather thoughtful. When baby Finn got tired and hungry, I could grab one of the beanbag chairs to nurse him and read a book while the husband brought the two big ones for more rides.

And that’s Finn looking knackered after a long day of fun. As for why he is in a Hello Kitty rashguard? He doesn’t have his own swimwear yet so he’s dressed in Kirsten’s hand me downs. Plus the little guy is manly enough to pull off a girly pink top, don’t you think?

I’ve actually never been to one of those famous foam parties at Sentosa, even though they used to be all the rage several years ago. I get the appeal, I mean, it’s a party! With bubbles! And music! And tequila shots! I just didn’t like the close proximity with half-dressed strangers who seemed to be in constant danger of accidentally bumping into you with their various body parts.

The kids are obviously now much cooler than we are because they’ve just gone to their first ever foam party. Over the weekend, we were invited to visit Sentosa’s newest kids attraction called Port of Lost Wonder, a very impressive pirate-themed water playground.

It’s an interesting concept. The entrance fee (of $8 per child on weekdays and $15 on weekends) comes with a bag of doubloons (called curios) which can be spent on various activities in the play area.

One of the most popular spots was this foam pool, which costs 30 curios for a half hour slot. The kids had a blast smearing each other with bubbles, doing Santa Claus impressions and flinging foam in all directions. It was like the most awesome bubble bath they’ve ever had.

The other main attraction was this pirate ship with water slides and shooting jets of water and a ginormous pirate head bucket that dumped water down every couple of minutes.

After several hours of non-stop action in the blistering heat, the kids looked like they were ready to collapse. Kirsten crawled over to where I was sitting and said “I’m very tired, I need to rest.” Which pretty much translates into “I’m ready to go home now.”

That’s like my favorite end to every party – no whining or bargaining for 5 more minutes. Just this look of utter exhaustion followed by the tired shuffling of baby feet.