Sunday, 21 February 2021

Treasured memories - P1 2021

The blog is re-activated as R asked when did her bros lose their first tooth and the boys claimed that they did so when they were P1; later than their lil sis. Again, the efforts in documenting paid off. 

R lost her 4th and first upper front tooth on 18th Feb (friday) while having a great time at Bounce with her preschool pals. That tooth was really shaky for days and we knew that it was coming off anytime and now its gone forever. She told mummy about it as soon as she was picked up after dinner party. It was her preschool BFF's 7th birthday party and an awesome gathering for 5 little girls who have missed each other's company. 

P1 experience is so different from pre-covid days as
the kids have no morning assembly sessions, are not allowed to play, speak loudly or roam freely during recess and after-school. She may not know what she is missing, but we all do. She adjusted well to primary school from day 1 and we cannot be more and relieved as afterall, it took her slightly more than 1 year before she got over separation anxiety when she entered childcare at 2 years old. Recess has been her favourite activity and she had started buying her own food since first day of school! Pork cutlet rice, curry rice, mac and cheese and waffles are her favourites! 

Being the third and last kid embarking on P1 journey, we really need to treasure her moments and like what her big bro always say "I dont want mei mei to grow up! Stop growing, mei!" 



Saturday, 1 February 2020

Hello & Bye 2019!

How wonderful it would be if we could find time to visit this space and sustain the writing....There have been many occasions where we would come back here to pluck memories, checked in on the bits and pieces from a long time ago or make a weak attempt to want to start typing....now who am I kidding? ;p

2019 just flew by like that when it was just a year ago when we were preoccupied with a flurry of activity to settle down as neighbours with the grandparents. We are just so glad we made the decision as the support, physical and emotional connectivity that ourselves and the children have now is invaluable.
13th birthday morning - ear buds!

Kayden was trying his best to adapt to life as a secondary 1 student in a new school which required a fair bit of commuting, go for CCA trials, make new friends, explore and meet the requirements of the new system (academic pressure was definitely there) but was comforted when he returned to Taekwondo and won his first sparring medal! It was not all work and no play as he had quite a lot of time to indulge in table-tennis and soccer in school and he loved it!

Tristan was experiencing school life without his big bro. He had to wake up earlier to catch bus 197 in the morning and make his own way home too. He grew to love his teachers and made new friends in class 5/6 and we also learnt that he is one of the class clowns. His passion for basketball continued as he played for the school. He also enjoyed his JSA sports, track & field and flippa ball, which was his all-time favourite! With the change in school system where they reduced the term tests and even scale-down the mid-year exam P5 was a relatively stress-free year for him. We pray and hope that he will adjust himself and pick up some momentum this year for the BIG exam!

His favourite curry & fried yam ball for his 11th special day



Reanne was still acting up in the mornings in the first couple of months but she turned around and became the chirpy and adorable little K1 girl you would want to meet to kickstart your day thereafter. We cannot express how happy we were (come on after 2 years ya know), and we know her chinese teacher probably felt that way too. Although she can still be shy and withdrawn at times, her self-confidence had grown during the year and we love it that she loves the beautiful chinese language, unlike her brothers (oops sibling comparison). And for the first time, she participated in the annual school concert as we were in town!
5th birthday celebration in class
We ended the year with an awesome resort holiday at Club Med Phuket where the boys said that they did not want to leave when it was time to head home after 7D6N. K dropped his last molar while having dinner at Phuket and we celebrated R's 5th birthday there.



Hokkaido and Tokyo by T - 30 November to 15 December 2018


30 November
That was the day when we went to Hokkaido, Japan !!It was my first time going to Hokkaido and was so excited that I could not sleep the previous day. .(totally being sarcastic)

The Airplane Ride:
We took off at midnight and I was so tired by then. The ride took about 8-9hours .During the plane ride, I vomited on the plane three times and I felt so sick.(I think I vomited more than three times)It was a very bad experience for me ahd that was my first time I vomited on the plane.

After The Airplane Ride:
When we got down from the plane, we went to take a bus to go to our hotel, Rusutsu Resort. Unfortunately, we were too late and missed the bus to go to our hotel. We had no choice but to take a taxi to go to our hotel as that was the only bus that could take us to our hotel that day (sigh). 

Day 1:
Since we reached our hotel during lunch, we quickly checked in and my parents brought my Brother and Sister to go to a fast food joint to have hamburgers for lunch while I stayed in the hotel and rest as I was tired. At around five o clock, we went to the Takahashi restaurant to eat dinner. Although the food there was delicious, it was very expensive!

Day 2:
In the morning, my parents made bookings for ski lesson for us! We were almost late for the lesson so we ate yummy cookies for breakfast! (It was unhealthy)The skiing lesson was for the whole day and there was a lunch break in the middle. The lesson was from ten a.m. to four p. m. Since we already know how to ski as we ski-ed at Nagano last year, we could go up the ski lift quickly as we already knew the basics. That skiing experience was great! I loved it! During the lunch break, I ate the tonkatsu curry rice and it tasted delicious. For dinner we ate the same thing on our first day and decided to eat it for dinner everyday for dinner at the Rusutsu resort hotel..

Day 3: My Brother and I went to ski on our own as we did not have an instructor. Even though we did not have an instructor, we still had a lot of fun! This time, we did not ski for the whole day and only ski till the afternoon. At night, since we were tired and slept very early.😪😪😪😪😪

Day 4: Our parents booked us for private snowboarding lesson and that was our first time snowboarding. Sadly, it was not snowing that day so I felt a bit sad but in the end, I still had a lot of fun!

Day 5:
This was our last day at Rusutsu resort. We wanted to go snowboarding but a lot of snow had already melted due to the rain. In the morning, we checked out of the room and went to the arcade downstairs to play. In the afternoon, we went to feed the ponies and wanted to see the reindeers but they were not around. In the evening, we brought our luggage with us and took a 2 hour bus ride to Sapporo.

On our first day in Sapporo at night, I took a taxi which dropped us at our new hotel 🏨.As we were starving, we decided to settle down for dinner. The next day, we took a bus to go to the zoo. It was freezing cold over there so we cuddled up like penguins at one point. At the zoo, we saw a lot of animals like the cheetah, the bear 🐻and much more! At the end of the zoo trip, I bought a souvenir before boarding the bus to go back to our hotel. The next day, we took a train to Otaru-Shi and went to the museum to check what was inside it. When we went inside, we realised that the museum was a music box museum. There was a lot of cool musical boxes and they were all different. As we were hungry, we decided to eat at the cake shop - LeTao. The cake there was so delicious. 


[Ishiya Park ???]
The next day, we brought our luggage down to check out of the hotel. Then, we went to the airport to take a plane to go to Tokyo. The plane ride was 1h and 10min long. We were going to the same hotel as where we had been last year. The hotel room was smaller than the hotel room in the previous two hotels we had been to. My parents had asked the staff to bring in one more bed into the bedroom as there was not enough beds to fit the five of us.

The First Day In Tokyo: [Shinagawa]
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The first day, my parents and I went to the Pokemon center at Ikebukuro. We wanted to eat at the sushi place for dinner but it was too crowded as it was very popular. In the end, we decided to eat at a curry restraint. Since I was not so hungry, I decided to share with my mother the soup curry she had ordered from the menu. It was my first time trying soup curry and I found it delicious.

After the meal, my brother and I dashed to the pokemon center like the wind to see the cool and amazing stuff over there. Sadly, there was not as much things as I had thought as the pokemon center was small compared to the ones I had been to the previous year. Although the pokemon center was small, I still bought a lot of things that cost more than a thousand yen. Since it was late, my parents decided to bring us back to the hotel to brush our teeth and go to bed. The next day, we were going to go to Disney Land!!!!

The moment I woke up, I quickly got changed and we headed down to eat breakfast. After breakfast, we went to the train station to take a train to DisneyLand. At Disneyland, we took many fun and thrilling rides such as the roller coaster ride. We saw the parade in the afternoon and it was very good!

The next day, we went to buy family watches from a Casio watch shop as souvenirs. My watch was black and looked sleek. I loved it!

We took the plane back to Singapore the next day. I was sad to leave as we were not coming back to Japan in the next few years. Bye Bye japan!!!!



Sunday, 30 December 2018

Trip to Hokkaido and Tokyo by K - 30 November to 15 December 2018


Trip to Japan 🇯🇵!🤟

















































Day 2: Rusutsu Resort
I woke up early in the morning, excitement burning inside me and I could not wait to go out for my 🎿 lesson! We ate some delicious Hokkaido cookies while waiting for our coach to arrive! (the cookies were awfully good!🍪) we met our coach soon after finishing our cookies. His name was Coach Cameron. As we were fast learners, the Coach managed to teach us some cool tricks! Such as skiing backwards and doing a 180° spin on our skiis! I really enjoyed myself throughout the whole 5 hour lesson and I found the Coach really friendly! After a long and tiring lesson, my parents decided to bring me for a scrumptious dinner at the Japanese Restaurant "Takahashi". They had many different choices of food to choose from. They had many dishes like crab rice, beef and pork cutlet, ramen, and many more! I ordered cheese baked potato and it sure was delicious! 😋
My parents even ordered some premium beef that was so tasty! Just the smell alone made my mouth water.....  The Crab Rice that my mother ordered took more than 30 minutes to cook. I was not a fan of crab so I was not interested but to my amazement, the rice was simply delicious! I even wanted a second helping! It was a very good restaurant and my family decided to go again tomorrow as we wanted to try the other varieties of food. YUMMY!!! 🤟 🤟 🤟







































































































































































































































Day 1: Rusutsu Resort
After a long and exhausting 9 hour flight from Singapore to Hokkaido, we took a taxi all the way up the mountain to the Best Ski Resort in Japan! Rusutsu Ski Resort!!!! 🤟 The moment we stepped out of the taxi, my eyes widened and my teeth started chattering. It was colder than 😂thought! The temperature  was - 3 to - 6! I quickly scampered into the hotel lobby only to be bewildered once again! A huge carousel stood before me! And do you know what was the best part? (drum roll🥁🥁🥁) IT WAS FREEE AND NO QUEUING NEEDED!!! I was hoping to munch into a delicious Hokkaido soft serve but unfortunately, the shop was closed....😭

However, the disappointment did not last long...... I got to take my first look at real snow! 🌨 Rusutsu is also the home to the world's best powder snow! After settling in to our hotel, we went out to play snow for the first time.My first experience playing snow in my life was something I am never going to forget. We had a whale of a time in the freezing cold throwing snowballs at each other! (except for my mother who was too cold😅)
























Day 3: Rusutsu Resort
On the third day, we were going to ski by ourselves as we no longer needed the instructor to ski with us. After eating a sausage bun for breakfast, I eagerly went to the ski rental shop to get my skis. After that, my father bought the ski lift tickets for us and off we went to the mountain. During the first time I went down, I kept falling down as I was still trying to get used to the skis without help. However, I persevered and continued practicing my turns. Before lunch, I even had the confidence to execute some tricks like skiing backwards! 🤟 We went to the "Cricket" restaurant for lunch. They had very limited choices but they were all delicious. Their soup curry with rice was exceptionally good! The rice bowl with pork🐖 that I ordered was mouth-watering as well! 😋 After our lunch, we continued skiing. This time, I skiied pretty fast and the strong gusts of wind that caressed my cheeks plastered a wide smile on my face. The snow was excellent for skiing compared to last year when I was skiing at Kruizawa ski resort. The snow there was artificial and was not comparable to Rusutsu. After a few more laps, my brother and I decided to call it a day and went to return our ski gear. To my utmost surprise, my father and sister were making an enormous snowman. It was as tall as my sister!!! I took many pictures of it. Here's one! 



My father took almost a hour to make it. Afterwards, my brother and I tried to make the snowman fall apart. However, the snowman was so solid and it was almost impossible to break it. In the end, I realised that if I kicked with all my strength, the snow would fall apart. It was very enjoyable to destroy the snowman and we decided to make another snowman next time! ☃️ For dinner, we went to our favourite restaurant there "Takakashi"! Yeahhhhhhhhhh!!!!! Today, I decided to try something different. As I was starving and my stomach was grumbling, I decided to order a beef and pork cutlet with a very very big bowl of rice! Delicious! The beef patty was the best thing I had eaten in Japan so far in our trip! It was simply magnificent! As I went skiing the whole day, I felt exhausted and decided to turn in early.



Day 4 - Rusutsu
The next day, we went for snowboarding lessons with our instructor coach Emily. Turns out snowboarding is even harder than skiing! However, I did not give up even when it got tough and persevered. As a result, I learned the ropes fast and before we knew it, we were going up the lift to snowboard down the mountain. On the way down, the instructor taught us many things. How to turn and other stuff. In the afternoon, we did even more laps and started to improve tremendously. At the base of the ski slope, my brother and I even made a ramp for us to use when we snowboarded down. When I snowboarded up the ramp and jumped, my heart thumped rapidly and I was on cloud nine. Awesome! 


Day 5 - Rusutsu 
The next day, my brother and I woke up, as our father had rented the snowboards for today. However, the excitement did not last long as......so much snow had melted. Not only that, the ski slope was all sticky which made it hard to snowboard or ski. As a result, we did not get the chance to go snowboard again that day. My dad decided to bring my brother and I to the arcade instead! My father, the legend won all these little Tomica cars with only 400 yen!!! Amazing right! My sister was so 😊!!! Afterwards, we tried to get the chocolates. However, after spending more than 1000yen, we still did not get it.... 😭 

On the last day, we took the monorail and went to the Westin to check out the snow activities there. But it had not started as there was not enough snow yet. So we went back to the resort to check out. We took our last few rides on the carousel and even tried the best hokkaido soft serve which was the icing on the 🎂! We also went up to Mt Isola to check it out and had lunch! At 5pm, we took the bus to Sapporo. I was happy yet sad at the same time as I was going to leave lovely Rusutsu resort. Bye bye!! 


Sapporo:
We went to the very unique Asahiyama zoo which took us more than an hour to get there. However, the long wait was worth it as we managed to see many different animals that we could not find in Singapore. I saw a snow leapord, reindeers, a sika deer and many more! What I found most exciting was the wolves. There were 5 of them. At one point, all of them got into a fight which was cool! I even saw a very large siberian tiger! It was really a majestic creature and was wonderful to see. After that, we we to eat some delicious soup curry. Yummy! We even went to a Pokemon centre. However, it was very small.... 




The next day, we went to a small old town by the name of Otaru. What I found very cool was it is a wifi street! We even went to LeTao's original shop there and I tried their famously delicious double frommage cheese cake! I even got some delicious strawberry chocolates there. We had to get ourselves some yummy snacks before leaving to continue to explore Otaru for a while and then headed back. 



We went to the Ishiya museum the next day and it was absolutely splendid despite the freezing cold weather. We bought so much biscuits and chocolates and I even ate some white chocolate ice cream that was simply 😋
We also took many pictures with things like sleighs and more! I even managed to witness candy being made! Turns out, it was way harder than I thought which made me appreciate sweets alot more! 


Tokyo:

On the first day in Tokyo, my family took the train excitedly to our favourite place in Tokyo! Ikebukuro! Home to many shopping places, a mega pokemon centre, and delicious food! My brother and I quickly made our way to the Pokemon center. There were so many things to buy and there were even pokemon statues which looked absolutely awesome. They had all sorts of accessories and toys for one to choose from My sister also had a whale of a time there playing with a  mini Pokemon gachapon machine.  We were starving and my tummy was growling and so we decided to have dinner. We went to the amazing burger shop called Kua Aina! The burgers that they sold there were delicious! I ordered a yummy double cheese burger. The fries were also very crispy, way better than the ones at Macdonalds!!!



The next day, we went to Tokyo Disneyland! Supposedly the happiest place on Earth! There were many Disney characters parading around the park and my sister would exclaim whenever she saw one! There were also many  themed rides. There was a (mini) roller coaster that my sister loved so much, she even wanted to go again! Three times and she was only 4! For lunch, we had some pizza as we watched the afternoon parade, my sister was so excited at the sight of minnie mouse! However, it was raining and the night performance was cancelled. At least, we got to see the special christmas performance though! ☃️ When we went back, we ate at 品辛!a very good ramen place. The food there was simply delicious! We went there last year and this year, I could not wait to eat it again! Three cheers for delicious ramen!


We went to a place (Daimaru i think) to buy some unique Casio watches for everyone! It was very cool and mine was green! So that i can camouflage during army! 😅 The watches were to commemorate our trip to Japan as were not going to come back in the next few years. We were all delighted about it but could only wear them during chinese new year next year! Woohoo!

The next day, we went back to Singapore happy but sad as we may not be going to visit to Japan in a long while. I will not forget all the fun and the delicious food I had there. especially the food. GOODBYE JAPAN!!!