28 Apr 2016 - Green Parakeet by the poolside

After my morning swim today, I saw a green parakeet (a medium-sized parrot) feeding on seeds in a pod on a nearby tree.

I managed to get up close without scaring it away and took the following video.

24 Apr 2016 - A Squirrel!

On our way home today, we saw a squirrel dashing across the pavement before climbing up onto a tree.  So adorable!  :-)

19 Apr 2016 - Learning Journey at Pastamania

Javier and his classmates went on a learning journey to Pastamania today.  Look how excited they were while waiting to board the bus at the school's indoor sports hall.

Thanks to the mommies who followed the children on this learning trip and took these wonderful photos.  The following photo showed Javier trying to make his dough.

Once the dough was done, it was time to top it up with cheese, ham, mushroom etc.

The baked pizza looked good.  Javier finished it all as his lunch.

After all the baking and eating, it's time to do some worksheets on what they had learned so far.

A class photo before leaving Pastamania and returning to school.  Well done, kids!  Hope you all learned something useful in this trip.

17 Apr 2016 - Taekwando Grading to promote to Yellow Belt

Javier took his Taekwando grading examination today at Toa Payoh Sports Hub.  He's currently wearing a white belt with yellow tip.  If he passed today's grading, he will be promoted to his first coloured belt, Yellow Belt.  As such, he was very excited and very eager to perform well.

Here is how he performed during the exam.  He can kick real high now.
All the best, Javier!

14 Apr 2016 - Putting on the permanent maintainer

This afternoon, Javier has an appointment with his dentist at School Dental Clinic @ HPB.  He was there to replace his maintainer with a permanent one.  This new maintainer is glued onto his baby teeth and will be there till the baby teeth drop in a few years later.  The maintainer will help to keep the space between the two teeth (as can be seen in the below pic) intact so that the adult teeth got sufficient space to grow out.

Initially Javier felt very uncomfortable with the new maintainer and kept complaining about pain.  However, he slowly got used to it as the day went by.  Finally, I had one thing less to worry about after this long episode of Javier's "teeth problem".

11 Apr 2016 - SwimSafer certificate

Jerlene had swimming for her school's PAL program last year.  Today she received her SwimSafer certificate for completing the requirement for Stage 1.

Below are the skills required to pass Stage 1.

10 Apr 2016 - Tea and Dessert time

Jerlene went for a birthday party at McDonald's this afternoon.  After bringing her to the party, we brought Javier to a nice little cafe (Rainbow Cottage Cafe @ Ang Mo Kio) for dessert.  We had ice cream, red velvet cake and coffee/tea.  In this little cafe, there is even a small play area for kids.

9 Apr 2016 - Har Par Villa (虎豹別墅)

Har Par Villa (虎豹別墅) is a theme park located along Pasir Panjang Road. The park contains over 1,000 statues and 150 giant dioramas depicting scenes from Chinese mythology, folklore, legends, history, and illustrations of various aspects of Confucianism.  I have not been to this park for decades.  I vaguely remember the last time I was here was when I was about Javier's current age.

The park, originally called Tiger Balm Gardens, was built in 1937 by the Burmese-Chinese brothers Aw Boon Haw and Aw Boon Par.  The vintage car below was once owned by the Aw's brothers.

The best known attraction in Haw Par Villa is the Ten Courts of Hell (十殿阎罗鬼门关), which features gruesome depictions of Hell in Chinese mythology and Buddhism.  As we walked through "hell", I explained to Jerlene and Javier that this is what happened to those bad people after their death.  This is a good place to teach children to be a good person.

We spent the rest of the morning exploring the different parts of the park.  There was a short shower and we took shelter at the canteen, which has now stop operating.

I remember I took a photo with this tiger when I was a kid too.  :-)

We left the park at about lunch time.  We drove to a newly opened hawker center called Timbre+ and had our lunch there.

2 Apr 2016 - Swimming lesson in pyjamas

Jerlene and Javier started having their swimming lesson in pyjamas today.  We had a hard time finding this type of pyjamas in retail outlets and in the end, we bought it online.

Initially they had a hard time swimming with their pyjamas on as they were not used to it.

Half way through the lesson, the instructor taught them how to remove their pyjamas in the water, tie knots into the lower legs of the trousers and then blow air into the trousers to make a life-saving float.

It's really interesting.  :-)

1 Apr 2016 - Crane Dance

After a day of great fun at the Adventure Cove Waterpark, we went to a nearby Chinese restaurant (鼎泰丰) for dinner.  There is a daily 8pm show at the waterfront called the Crane Dance.  Best thing is it's FREE admission.

The show is about a touching story of a pair of mechanical cranes and how their true love transform them into real birds.

Though the show is free, it's presentation is superb.  The combination of groundbreaking audio visual technologies with stunning light and water effects perfectly illustrates the cranes' graceful courtship ritual.

Below are some highlights of the show.  Enjoy!

1 Apr 2016 - Adventure Cove Waterpark @ RW Sentosa

Today, we had another surprise for the Jerlene and Javier.  We brought them to Adventure Cove Waterpark at Resort World Sentosa.  The park opens at 10am and we were there around that time.  As we did not know that outside food is not allowed in the park, the staff at the entrance refused to let us in.  They advised us to store our tit bits at the lockers outside but that will cost us $8 which we do not think it's worth it.  Mommy decided to bring it back to our car while Jerlene, Javier and I went into the park first.

The best place to store our stuff is the locker located at the centre of the park.  Before getting ourselves wet, we applied sunscreen as usual.

There are quite a number of water slides around but Javier just missed out on the height restriction by a few cm.  As such, we only went to those "less thrilled" slides.  Below Big Bucket Tree House slide is one of them.

I personally was excited about the Rainbow Reef station where we were able to snorkel over colourful rainbow reef and get up close with thousands of marine fishes.  Mommy and Javier attempted initially but gave up after a while because they got choked by the "sea" water due to their cough.  Jerlene and me managed to complete the session successfully.  I went for a second round and this time, I tried to capture what I saw under water.......
After I've done with my first ever underwater videography, I went over to the Bluwater Bay wave pool to reunite with my family.  This particular wave pool has the strongest wave that I had ever experienced.  Although we all had our life jacket on, the waves still managed to submerged us, especially the kids.  Javier had been shouting for help on a number of occasions.  Having said that, both Jerlene and Javier still kept wanting to go back to the waves.

Other than the waves pool, we enjoyed the Adventure River the most.  This lazy river brought us through many stunning scenes including jungle garden, mysterious grotto, underwater tunnel with marine fishes swimming all around you and come up close with the Rays.  You can ride down the river on a tube and simply with a life jacket.

It was so relaxed and fun, so much so that in total, we flowed through the river at least 5-6 times.  Enjoy the following video showing some of the scenes as we floated through the river.
We had a superb day at Adventure Cove where we had so much fun.  Will definitely be back one of these days.