Selamat Singapore

This is my first trip back to S'pore in more than a year and I feel totally at ease coming back, as if I've never left. Even the inconvenience of taking public transport and the much dreaded warmer weather didn't seem so bad. The buses and trains are air-conditioned, new and comfortable, even the bus drivers seemed friendlier. Except the initial sweating those first few hours after getting out of Changi Airport, I'm able to stay calm and cool most of the time but my active boys, their hair is often wet from perspiration.

You Tiao and Soya Milk Breakfast

Everything feels familiar, though initially, I do feel like I have developed 'new' eyes. I am noticing things that I've always taken for granted in the past. Like how people here dress and behave and the landscape of tall concrete buildings. Of course, after a few days, my eyes got accustomed but they're still very busy taking in all the changes in Singapore's shopping landscape and the ever so delicious looking, never ending selection of food, glorious food. Honestly, I am kidding myself if I think I can savour all those food that I like within the 2 weeks of my stay. But I'll still try.

My favourite - Sweet & Sour Pork

Another good one - Chilli Crab

Our social life this last week has been very active and hectic. We go out everyday and most days, we return home only after 10pm. The boys have been going to bed around mid-night, that would be 2am Melbourne time, unimaginable back home. Gosh, I refuse to think now how I'll adjust them back to 9pm bedtime when we go back.

Old Young Friends

And they're having so much fun. As we meet up with our old friends, they also get to catch up with the kiddies of our friends. The adults don't change much but children, after one year, they grow taller, leaner and behave differently. Like at yesterday's Hari Raya gathering with a group of old university friends, there were 8 other kids in addition to my 2 boys, age ranging 2 to 10, I spent a considerable amount of time staring at each child and noticing their developments. There was a time when they were all toddlers who had all their milk teeth, didn't wear spectacles and didn't know how to play together, but yesterday, some were missing one or 2 front teeth, many bespectacled but who cares. The boys especially, were soon huddled around playing "Bakugans" and watching "Star Wars", like old friends.

The Bakugan Club

Are We There Yet? (Images Added)

It has been more than a year since I travelled internationally. Although the 8-hour flight from MEL to SIN is only considered medium haul, alone with the 2 active kids in Economy Class, I'm mentally preparing myself for a long long time in the fuslage.

The children were really well-behaved at the airport and on the plane. It was a day flight and we had reached the airport at 1330hrs. I expected the kids to be active during the flight but surprisingly, XX fell asleep during take-off and only woke up 3 hours later. That left me with only 5 hours of nannying and a lot of personal time to browse the newspapers, watch a movie and enjoy my meal while he napped. KK took care of himself most of the time with the in-flight entertainment system. Although Hubby came down once or twice during the flight from Business Class to check on us, there was nothing much that he needed to help.

After XX woke up, I fed him his pasta and introduced him to the entertainment system to keep him occupied. The only challenge came when XX wanted to go to the toilet. The queue was very long at the lavertories as it was just after the meal service. Nobody volunteered to let me go first on account of the toddler I was carrying so I decided to go visit Hubby in Business Class and ask him to take XX to the Business Class toilets. Unfortunately, Hubby was sleeping like a child when I got there. Regardless, I asked the crew if I could use their toilet and of course, SIA's crew seldom say no.

Even though my children were extremely well-behaved and I was having a relatively comfortable flight compared to the mummy on the other aisle, I was still relieved for the flight to end. After 8 hours, I was running out of toys to keep XX occupied and am utilising my lifeline of candies. Even KK is getting bored. There's only so much you can watch do on the AVOD. I cannot imagine if I have to continue another leg of journey to Europe after this!

The Art of Persuasion

Both my sons have very different fruit preferences.

They both started their fruit diet with pureed steamed apples at aged 6 months. KK now don't mind cut apples but he prefers oranges more. He also takes watermelon and grapes.

XX on the other hand shuns both grapes, apples and oranges. He's only willing to drink a bit of orange juice at most. He used to take grapes and bananas when he was smaller but when he turned 2, he suddenly refused them all. Up till 6 months ago, he shuns all fruits except apple puree. I was pretty stressed up trying to get him to eat any fruits. Thankfully, he now enjoys watermelon, strawberries and bananas. He will even take canned peaches and pineapples (on pizza), thanks to the positive example of KK.

How did I get XX to start eating these fruits? I had tried the 'benefits' approach of persuasion but it obviously didn't work. Who cares about Vitamin Cs and healthy skin? Not a 2 year old. In the end, it was the 'consequence' approach that did it. "Eat this strawberry or no Xbox!"

Once he tasted the yummy taste for himself, there's no need to persuade further.

First Dental Check-up

It was XX's first visit to the dentist today. Hubby arranged to go for his dental check-up before him to show an example for him so he knows what to expect. XX was curious seeing his father on the dentist's chair and wearing sunglasses. He seems quite intrigued, so that was a good sign. My only worry was whether he will open his mouth when it's his turn.

When it was his turn, he eagerly sat down on the chair. He got sunglasses too and he laid down like he's sunbathing as the dentist moved the chair up and down to thrill him. Surprisingly, he had no problem at all opening his mouth to the dentist. He even closed it and bite his teeth when told! He doesn't even obey my instructions all the time to do that when I brush his teeth at night!

It was a relatively short and pleasant experience. The objective is to make the FIRST EXPERIENCE a positive one. No scaling and polishing, the dentist just did a check for him and the verdict is ALL'S CLEAR. Phew! No decay = Save Money!! Next check up is when he's four years old.

Grampians National Park Weekend

Last weekend, we were at the Grampians National Park, 235 km west of Melbourne and the 3rd largest National Park in Victoria. We drove up on Saturday morning and spent 2 nights at the Parkgate Resort, part of the Big 4 Holiday Parks group. Together with us were a Malaysian family. They have 3 kids, aged 2.5 to 7. Their eldest is KK's classmate in school.

It was early Spring and the weather was still rather wet, with misty showers on and off. We were really blessed that during our walks through the trails, the rain stayed away. Though it was cold, there was no wind.

Looking at ants

On Sunday morning, we set off on one of the trails to see the Venus Bath rock pools. It was a very mild track and only 2.3 km return. The real challenge was managing the dynamics of the 5 children. I had brought along toy binoculars for my children to have some fun during the walks but they turned out to be the source of contention amongst the older kids. There were 3 binos but 4 kids. So half the time, the parents had to intervene and sort out disputes about who holds the binos and which one. It was crazy and it doesn't help that one of the kids will wail at the top of her lungs when she couldn't get her way. I think all the wildlife, including insects must have been frightened off by the din that came with our group.

KK looking rather displeased at not getting the binoculars

Nevertheless, it was a good walk and I'm especially proud of XX who walked most of the way on his little 2 feet. We carried him only over muddy pools and tracks. I'm also proud of KK. He was adventurous yet not reckless. He also took quite good close-up photos of interesting plants along the way.

The little trekker

Some interesting 'eggs' on a leaf

After the walk, we had a picnic lunch at the base with another group of friends who had just driven up from Melbourne to join us. It was so cool to see so many people get together, chatting and eating chipolatas, bread, chips, fruits and biscuits.

All together now - in harmony

We wrapped up the day with another walk to MacKenzie Falls, one of Victoria's largest and most spectacular waterfalls. As XX had fallen asleep in the car, only KK and I took the steep walk down to the base of the waterfall with our friends. The walk down was easy enough and the view of the waterwall was stunning. But it was the return journey that really took my breath away! I had to rest now and then in between climbing up the steep steps to catch my breath. My 7 yr old son, on the other hand, did not need to stop and reached the top a good 10 mins before me. Now my calf muscles are starting to ache, a testament of how unfit they are.




The nights were pretty interesting too. We had dinner at our friend's cabin the first night (Chinese Herbal Chicken Soup 八宝汤) and we invited them over the next for Fish Bee Hoon 鱼片汤 steam boat style. It was a good arrangement cos there was not much choice about eating out, the nearest township being about 30 mins drive away. Of course, with 5 kids together, it was chaotic and there were frequent interruptions to discipline, reprimand and comfort. But the adults did manage to make some good conversations and we enjoyed the fellowship nonetheless.


Check out more photos in Facebook, friends!

Strawberry Swiss Roll

Tis the season to be eating strawberries & naval oranges. Around this time of the year, all fruit sellers are selling these 2 types of fruits at very low prices. The cheapest I've seen for strawberries is 79 cents for a 250gm punnet and if you buy 2, it's only $1.50. Naval oranges are the sweetest and juicest oranges around. Right now, we can get 3kg packs for as low as $1.99 each.

We usually use the oranges to make fresh orange juice. As for the strawberries, there are many ways of eating them. Usually I just slice it up and eat them with chocolate dips as some of them are not very sweet. Or I'll open a can of peaches and have a fruit salad. My favourite is to add them to strawberry ice-cream. Combined with peaches and some bananas, it'll beat Swensens sundae anytime!! Last night, I threw some strawberries into the blender with ice-cream and some milk for a very fruity strawberry milk shake....delicious! Worse case, if I can't finish up the strawberries, I'll just make them into jam. Luckily both my sons like strawberries and orange juice, so in whatever form, I'm happy to see them enjoy the vitamin c rich fruits.

I tried to make a strawberry swiss roll today. I have on hand fresh strawberries and half a block of Philadelphia cream cheese so I thought of making a cream cheese filling with chopped strawberries for the swiss roll. I was really scared because I have a poor track record with making sponge cakes. It almost always falls flat and often dry. See my previous post on Lamingtons.

I researched several recipes and decided to use the recipe from a cookbook I own. It uses less sugar, no butter (more healthy) and also calls for self-raising flour. I thought this might improve my chances of a more fluffy cake. My recipe asks for the eggs to be separated but interestingly, some other recipes don't.

I carefully followed the recipe, whipping up the egg whites, gradually adding in the sugar and the egg yolks, one at a time, until the part where I'm supposed to "gently fold" in the flour and hot milk. This is where I'm most panicky. What exactly does "gently fold" means? I tried to be light handed but the flour does not get incorporated so I got to keep folding and folding. And I think that's how I end up deflating the egg mixture. Plus, I tried to warm up the milk in the microwave but I overset the timing and the milk boiled all over inside the microwave. I guess I lost precious time there, mopping up the mess and reheating another bowl of milk. Grr...it's so frustrating.

Inside the oven, my swiss roll looked so ugly. In my haste not to lose anymore time, I didn't spread the mixture evenly across the pan, so the cake looked like some fat woman's lumpy tummy or cellulite sweltering in the oven's heat....haha! I took care not to overbake it, so it the nice brown colour when it came out kind of made the uneven height not too obvious. Unfortunately, the texture is very coarse....I still haven't got it :( And even more unfortunately, I used some lousy baking paper (never gonna buy that again) that stuck to the nice brown skin of the swiss roll and tore off almost everything when I unrolled the cake. It's the ugliest swiss roll I've ever seen. It need emergency cosmetic surgery. So I whipped up some more cream and covered it from head to toe. Now it's looking better with the beautiful bright red strawberries and mint leaves decoration.

The cream cheese and strawberry filling is very nice, but it's a little runny and I don't know why. With the layer of fresh cream cover, I give myself 50/100 for my swiss roll. 40 points for decoration, 10 points for the damned cake. Got to try harder.

Ben 10 Jedi

As part of Literacy and Numeracy week's activities, KK's school asked students to come dressed up as their favourite character from a book today. Over the last year or so, this is, I think, the 3rd or 4th time they've asked students to turn up for school in a costume.

This activity can be fun as I get to see some really interesting costumes characters when I go pick up KK after school. There are the usual predictable ones, like princesses and batman. But sometimes I see a pirate or an indian princess.

I always support the event by not dressing KK in his school uniform for that day but I will not go the extra mile to buy or make him a costume. I think it's a waste of money and effort just for one day. Most importantly, my son doesn't care less what he wears! Besides, he usually informs us last minute so the night before, I'll scramble around and let him wear whatever we can find in our wardrobes that most matches the theme.

The last time he was supposed to dress up as a fairy tale character for a fairy tale ball in school, he said he'll be Jack in Jack & The Beanstalk. I tried to follow the book's illustration of Jack and got him to wear a lime green outer vest and a black belt (both compliments of mummy's wardrobe) over grey slacks. I thought the impromtu costume was fantastic and he looked rather close to the Jack in the book. But the boy thinks he looks funny the next morning and refused to wear the belt. At the end of the day when I picked him up, he told me he became Peter Pan instead. Ok, Peter Pan wears green anyway and he showed me his hand-made Peter Pan dagger.

Last night I asked what character he wants to be and he agreed to be Ben 10. Ben 10 always wears green pants and a black and white baseball t-shirt top. I don't have the exact design, the closest was a black & white t-shirt so that will do. He's got his Omnitrix watch to complete the look. The boy took one look at what I prepared for him and said, "That's the ugliest costume ever." He wants a Batman costume but of course it was no way. Nonetheless, he wore it the next day but guess what? When I picked him up from school, I realised that he's bought along his Star Wars sword. Huh? Since when Ben 10 became a jedi? He should have told me earlier if he wants to be a jedi. I would have let him wore a blanket to school!