Our Silkair flight to Busan is scheduled to depart at 11:40pm. We checked in one hour before flight departure and still had some time to have cakes and coffee at Starbucks.
There was no direct flight from Singapore to Busan all these years until Silkair launches this particular flight on 1 May 2019. I believe with this flight, there will be more and more people starting to plan their holiday to Busan.
Before boarding, Jerlene and Javier had claimed that they will not be sleeping on this flight but not long after take-off, below was what happened.....haha....
Breakfast was served about 2 hours before landing. We had Bibimbap, a Korean rice dish, which was quite nice.
We were able to catch the sun rise above the cloud too.
Soon after, we had some superb views of Busan from 10,000 feet.
We landed at Busan airport around 6:45am. As there was no aerobridge that connects directly to the airport passenger terminal, we had to take a shuttle bus.
After a short bus ride, we finally arrived at the Busan airport terminal. Though there were not many flights flying into Busan airport, the queue at the immigration counters was extremely long as there were only 2 counters opened at that time. It was made worse when a group of tourists refused to queue up.....sigh.......
All of us, especially Jerlene and Javier who did not have their breakfast on the flight as they were sleeping, were a bit hungry after queuing for about an hour at the custom. As such, we went to an airport cafe to have some Udon.
There are several ways to get to Busan from the airport. We decided to take the Airport Limousine Bus to Busan Station, where our hotel is located.
From this point onwards, our 8 days adventure began...........
We were invited to attend the Speech and Prize Giving Ceremony at Rosyth School this morning. Both Jerlene and Javier were prize recipients for their outstanding performance last year.
In addition, Jerlene also participated in one of the performances as a member of the school's Chinese Orchestra.
Nice smiles from them after receiving their trophy and medal. Proud of both of you. Keep up the good work!
This marks the last school day of semester 1 and it's time to prepare for our upcoming short trip. :-)
Jerlene and Javier got their report books back today. Their SA1 results are generally ok but can be better, especially both the languages subjects.
Other than academic results, I am glad that both their Conducts are rated as Excellent. The teacher's comments are pretty encouraging.
Now it's time to take a short break before preparing the coming semester 2. Jerlene especially needs to stay focus as she'll be preparing for her PSLE.
Jerlene and Javier received their certificates from the school's principal today. Jerlene was awarded as an I-CARE champion for demonstrating all the school core values namely Integrity, Care, grAtitude, Respect and Resilience, Entrepreneurial Spirit.
Javier was awarded for having Outstanding Academic Performance last year. This is the third consecutive years that he had received this award.
Well done, kids! Looking forward to see you two on stage two days later during the school's prize giving ceremony.
Jerlene fell while walking down the stairs and sprained her ankle in school yesterday. It was swollen and she had pain whenever she moved her leg. We tried applying ice pack on her ankle to lessen the swelling. We also help her put on a compression wrap for her sprained ankle. Before she went to bed, we stacked up some pillows to elevate her legs so that the gravitational force will drain away excess fluid to reduce the swelling.
To play safe, we brought her to SATA Commhealth in Ang Mo Kio to let the doctor assessed. An X-Ray on her ankle was taken and glad to know that there is no visible injury or fracture to the bones. This is the first time Jerlene has an X-Ray taken and she was pretty nervous at first. The doctor's advice is exactly what we had done the night before.
Following are extracted from Mayo Clinic website.
"For self-care of an ankle sprain, use the R.I.C.E. approach for the first two or three days: Rest. Avoid activities that cause pain, swelling or discomfort. Ice. Use an ice pack or ice slush bath immediately for 15 to 20 minutes and repeat every two to three hours while you're awake. If you have vascular disease, diabetes or decreased sensation, talk with your doctor before applying ice. Compression. To help stop swelling, compress the ankle with an elastic bandage until the swelling stops. Don't hinder circulation by wrapping too tightly. Begin wrapping at the end farthest from your heart. Elevation. To reduce swelling, elevate your ankle above the level of your heart, especially at night. Gravity helps reduce swelling by draining excess fluid."
Mid year examination is finally over and it's time to take a break. Both Jerlene and Javier had been looking forward to watching the movie "Pokemon Detective Pikachu" since they saw the trailers about a month ago. And so here we were..... :-)
It's a nice movie for the family, especially those who enjoy playing Pokemon games. By the way, before watching this movie, we did not know that Psyduck's head will explode when it's under stress or extreme headache.
There was a thunderstorm during the night and what a mess it had caused to our roof garden. Several pots had toppled and a few smaller ones had fallen off the table.
We had to spend some times to clean up the mess. Sigh......
Remember the caterpillar that visited our mini garden recently? It has transformed into a beautiful butterfly today.
It's ready to take off on its first flight.
We have honey bees visiting our plants daily as well. The amazing thing is that they will come at a specific time of the day. I wonder what "clock" and "GPS" do they use such that they know the direction to our garden and at a specific time. They especially love a plant with small purple flowers which has a common name called Monkey's Potato. In Singapore, this species is not cultivated and generally considered a weed.
It's the time of the year when Jerlene took her Ballet grading exam. This year she's taking Grade 4 exam and she needs to memorize the theories from Grade 1 to 4. While doing their usual warming up exercise, the girls tested each other on the theories.
There they went to the exam studio. All the best, my little ballerinas! :-)
While providing "tender loving care" to our plants on our roof terrace, we found a caterpillar having its "meal" and a snail crawling up a wall. It's slowly turning into a home for many garden creatures.
It has been one month since the last time I checked on Javier's projects on Scratch platform. He has created close to 20 new projects since then.
If you like simple games that test your precision, try the Align 1 and Align 2 games.
If you like city simulation game, try City.
If you like to test your eyes and finger agility, try out the series of Guitar Hero games with different difficulties. I tried the insane level and I scored -200K. I really don't know Javier does it which he scores 180K. Do try out all his other projects as well and give your feedback.
Recently, he started participating in the Scratch Forum discussing with fellow Scratchers from all around the world. Since he's really into programming, probably I should go look around to see if there is any competition which I can sign him up. :-)
It's public holiday today and we decided to get out of the comfort of our house. One of the recent major events in Singapore has to be the opening of Jewel Changi Airport. After years of anticipation, the majestic Jewel Changi Airport opens its doors to the first visitors this week. As the place is expected to be very crowded, we drove there early in the morning. By the time we drove into its car park, there were still available parking lots.
The main attraction is the Rain Vortex, the largest indoor waterfall in the world – and the crown jewel of Jewel Changi Airport. It's really spectacular and we took photos of it from all angles around it.
As expected, queues for the eateries and shops were a little bit out of control. One of the most popular shops in the Pokemon Center, the first centre to open outside Japan. Seeing the super long queue, we decided to just take a look from outside of the shop.
There are other attractions in Jewel Changi Airport but most of them, such as Canopy Park, Hedge Maze, Topiary Walk and Changi Experience Studio, have yet to be opened.
We decided to have an early lunch before the lunch crowd started streaming in. We had our lunch at Hot Tomato, a contemporary casual steakhouse offering grilled steaks and seafood, pasta, salads and sides.
Jewel Changi Airport is situated in the middle of Terminal 1, 2 and 3. It connects to Terminal 2 and 3 via a glass walkway.
We took the walkway to Terminal 2 looking for Starbucks as the one in Jewel was full house.
It has been a while since we last visited Terminal 2. Frankly speaking, it's still one of the better terminal that we had visited so far. We were especially attracted to an incredible clocks artwork, which is both a kinetic sculpture and a functioning clock. Hats off to the designer of this amazing piece of artwork.
By the time we returned to Jewel from Terminal 2, it was so crowded that the airport staff had started performing crowd control to the Rain Vortex. This place is more than just an airport and I am sure Changi Airport will continue to be voted as the Best Airport in the World in the years to come.
Today Javier had his second assignment during Taekwando grading at Toa Payoh Sports Hall. Though he's currently wearing a Junior Black Belt, he needs to complete two assignment before he can get the actual certificate. Below shows Javier leading the warm-up exercises in front of the class together with the instructor.
They are one of the last group to be graded today. And they almost missed the grading as they were given a last call while they were still practising outside the hall. Fortunately we heard it and informed the instructor.
Javier took on his next task below being a referee during a sparring session.
