Singapore Garden Festival 2010

A long-awaited event for me. My mom first brought Sarah to the SGF back in 2008. I was having my confinement then so I did not go, but they had great fun. So when the biennial SGF is back this year, I told hubby we must go.

This year, the organizer had gone to great lengths to create a total experience for the visitor, right from the moment we stepped out of the car to the lift lobby. The lobby floor was lined with green carpet grass, the lifts were lined with beautiful pictures of flowers and insects with piped music. As you stepped out of the lifts on the exhibition floors, you are greeted with beautiful flowers and giant garden insects. There were 2 levels of exhibition this year, level 4 - the market place where there are stalls parading all sorts of gardening paraphernalia you need and level 6 where all the garden displays were.

We started off on level 4 as I had signed up for an educational tour for Sarah. The tour introduced the young children to the various foods we eat and explained how they are grown. It was quite enjoyable and even I learned from it.


Beautiful foyer outside exhibition hall


Educational tour


Tall papaya tree






Carnivorous pitcher plant


Worksheets to reinforce learning,


Chiku. Used to have a huge chiku tree in our backyard when I was a little girl

We adjourned for an early lunch to avoid the crowd before continuing with level 6. I was most impressed by all the garden displays. Amazing how simple flowers and plants can be turned into wonderful creations.







Sarah with Sara The Dinosaur


Dainty porcelain




Inspiration for a wedding dress??

Needless to say, I was mildly inspired to start my own garden. But sadly, I have brown fingers. Never been successful in growing anything. But I did buy 4 little pots of pandan leaves and lemongrass for $2 only. I gave 2 pots to my mom, in case my brown fingers kill them all.

All in all it was a good event. But I hated the crowd that inevitably comes with such events. It was so packed with humans that we did not even want to try to wait for a table at the foodcourt, instead went for teochew porridge buffet at the ground floor of the convention centre. The food was not bad, but I still felt it was over-priced for the kind of fare offered.

Will I go for SGF 2012? Will see....

Our Birthdays

Today, I turn a year older, and my baby turns 2. 2 years ago, this baby came to me as a gift on my birthday, and from then on, I always have someone to celebrate my birthday together.

We hope to make it a birthday tradition in our family that on the childrens' birthdays, we will bring the birthday child out for fun, followed by lunch or dinner, all upon the birthday child's requests. Well, since Nigel is too young to make his requests known, hubby decided that we should go to Science Centre for water play. The boy loves water play but at the same time, he hates to get water into his eyes. So he did not quite like the big water fountain, but loved the water display where he got to put the ball into the pipe which will then shoot the ball into the centre of the water cortex.

We were too early, so chilled out at McD

He did not like this cos water gets into his eyes




Yeeesss, I can reach it.

Yes! Did it!

He liked this best. He spent a good 15mins filling the spoon with water, and then tossing it away.

After water play, we spent a short while browsing through the exhibits in Science Centre before going for lunch at Swensen's (again!). Like last year, we had a free birthday Firehouse ice-cream and a family photo. After lunch, its home sweet home for the birthday boy to have his nap, before we cut the birthday cake. Well, since it is my birthday too, I did not bother to bake a cake. Told hubby I would like a strawberry shortcake, so he ordered one from The Patissier.

One cake for 2

First, its mommy's turn

Followed by Nigel's. Not too near, you may burn your nose.

Nigel was real excited when we sang the birthday song. He was very eager to blow out the birthday candles. I guess he knew what to do from those books that I had read to him on birthdays. We then ended the day of celebration with dinner at Crystal Jade with my mom.

I think Sarah enjoyed herself most on this day. She was supposed to go to school, but we decided that she can miss school for one day. Come next year when she goes to primary school, we will no longer have this freedom to take her out from school for one day to spend some family time together.

Though it did not seemed like we did much, I am feeling very tired now. Glad that this only happens twice a year....at least for now.

Day @ Sentosa

I woke up to great disappointment to a wet rainy day. We have planned to spend the day at the beach in Sentosa. I sent a quick prayer up and started the day, hoping the skies will clear in a couple of hours. But after we finished breakfast and packed the bags, it was still pouring. We made alternative plans. We will still go to Sentosa, but instead of sand play on the beach, it will be the Underwater World, since its indoors. I was a tad disappointed our plans have changed, but told myself, maybe God has better plans for us. And He did.

Well, Underwater World was a disappointment to me. The place is small, and the fishes on display are just ordinary. The dolphin show was a mere 15 minutes and nothing spectacular. But both the kids enjoyed themselves, and I think that's good enough.




After lunch, we proceed to the Imbiah Lookout for the storytelling session. We were late for the 1st session, but there were crafts activities for kids, so Sarah and I did craft while Nigel took a short power nap in the car. She chose pebble art.

We transformed this initial drawing that she did.....

to this.

I thought she enjoyed it, but later on when we reached home, she told me that she actually wanted to do the foam craft, but chose the pebble cos that was what I wanted. I have to admit that I did persuade her not to choose the foam craft as I thought that pebble art is more fun. No wonder she seemed to have lost her touch for creativity. I had to help her with the ideas. A reminder to myself that I should not influence her decisions or impose my own preferences on her.

Next, we went on the Luge ride. Fun! This seemed to be a must-go whenever we visit Sentosa. Sarah preferred to ride with her Daddy cos he goes faster, while Mummy is a bit more careful, thus slower.



After the Luge ride, we quickly hopped over for the next session of storytelling, before going home.



Despite the change in plans, we had a really fun day.

Fun @ Barrage

This is our first time to Marina Barrage. Well, except Sarah. She had been there with her school. I was like a little girl, excited about our trip there. As we drove into the Marina Bay area, I was surprised by how much it has changed. What I remembered to be big open fields for kite-flying and those barbecue steamboat restaurants are all gone, replaced by construction sites. And there is the new integrated resort, Marina Bay Sands. It is all so different now.

The place is basically a reservoir in the city. We took the short walk through the Gallery, which shows our country's journey from the 60s till now, in cleaning up our rivers to creating our very own water supply. We did not stay long as our main purpose was kite-flying! It was perfect weather for that. There was a good breeze and the kite went up effortlessly. In fact, it was so easy we let the kite go till it reached the end of the string.

Can you spot our kite?


Sarah had a try at kite-flying and decided that she did not like it as she has this fear that the string will break. So she was contented with playing with the spare kite on the ground.



I enjoyed the scenery from the rooftop garden.



Next up, water play for the children.



It was a hot day, all of us were sun-burnt. We ended the day with a delicious lunch at Swensen's, and a little shopping after that.

Happy and grateful.

Tuesday's Tidbits

Today is a good day for us. Daddy arrived home at 6am from his Shanghai trip. He did not wake us up, and Sarah was happy to see Daddy sleeping beside us when she woke up. Good thing she talked softly, and we let Daddy continue with his sleep while we got on with our morning routine and lesson. The little girl kept asking whether its time to wake Daddy :).

Mommy got a present from Daddy today. Its the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS3.



I have been talking about getting a new camera to replace our 5 year old Canon Powershot which has not been taking good pictures, but never got around to buying one. During lunch, I was just showing Daddy some promotions on cameras and he decided to bring us all to Sim Lim Square to get one. I actually wanted to get either the Casio Exilim or Canon IXUS, but we were recommended the Panasonic instead. I like it that it has the Intelligent Auto mode function and the auto macro function which makes photo-taking easy for me.

After bagging my present, we brought little missy to Island Creamery for a treat. Between 3 of us, we shared 4 scoops of ice-cream. Little missy was, of course, thrilled. She has been asking for ice-cream for some time, but was denied due to her cough. Since she has recovered, we decided to indulge her.



I am glad we had a good time together today. Hubby is flying off to Korea on Thursday. We are definitely going to miss him.