Our Singapore Fling!

Well, what a wonderful time we had in Singapore! It was great to see Chris and the kids loved their first overseas trip!

We headed off last Friday afternoon. The kids were fantastic on the flight. They couldn't believe the size of the 747! Ronin sat happily in his seat the whole time, watching "Curious George" and "Nick Jnr" shows on his seatback entertainment system and falling asleep an hour or so before we landed. Taylor just loved the whole experience - she watched a bit of every family movie and tv show and listened to her favourite music, she loved the meals, the hot chocolate, the kiddie's Narnia activity pack - everything! I relaxed and watched 3 movies and read my book - the quickest 7+ hours on a plane I've ever spent!

Chris was waiting for us when we arrived and we caught a taxi to the hotel. Ronin was wide awake again by then even though it was after midnight our time and he gave a running commentary on the drive, especially thrilled with the avenues of trees, which he calls "tree tunnels"! It was good to see he was so excited, I wasn't sure how he would be as little kids can be quite unimpressed in these situations!

We had had a bit of trouble finding a hotel that would take two kids in the room and our wonderful travel agent Romaine found us the Furama City Centre smack bang in the middle of Chinatown - great location! It was a "family suite" and OMG you should have seen the size of it! Singapore hotels can be notoriously compact but this one had a full kitchen, loungeroom, two bathrooms and a bedroom the size of a small country with two huuuuuge queen size beds, big screen plasma telly and DVD player, room to hold a ballroom dancing competition, full desk, two dressing tables and views to-die-for! Buffet breakfast was included and the kids especially enjoyed it, Ronin even eating FRENCH TOAST (with vegemite of course) and CORN FLAKES!!! Taylor tried a bit of everything and had tried the lot by the end of the week! We had a couple of lunches and a dinner there as well and she tried lots of local cuisine, she was quite fearless! Ronin, alas, stuck to his usual french fries! Oh well!

We spent most of each day doing some touristy things - shopping in Chinatown, checking out the shops and stunning Christmas decorations along Orchard Road, strolling through the magnificent rainforest gardens of Singapore Zoo (loved the elephant show!! - see the pic of Tay feeding the elephant??) - has to be the best zoo I've been to - and more rainforest walks through Sentosa Island which we got to by cable-car. We checked out Underwaterworld & the big Merlion there and the kids had a play on the beach. We walked to Clarke Quay and Boat Quay and took a bumboat cruise of Singapore River. Taylor took lots of video footage for her school project!

Most days we had a rest at the hotel and a swim in the pool. We went to some lovely restaurants for meals. The first night we went to Chijmes, an old colonial convent school converted into little curio and antique stores and lots of lovely restaurants. Ronin fell asleep in his chair and the waiter brought over another chair and a cushion so we could lay him down and continue with our meals! We had a couple of meals at Macca's (for Ronin's benefit - not mine, believe me!) and lunch at KFC at the Zoo. We shopped at the Funan centre which is all technological stuff. Got a new Telephoto lens for my camera, Chris got a new notebook computer (yay, I get his old one!) and we checked out all the amazing Hanspree store where you can get little TVs set into soccer and basketball shapes, stuffed toys and even a fire engine! You have to see it to believe it! On the last day we strolled through the markets in Chinatown again and picked up some souvenirs before heading home.

It was very sad saying goodbye to Chris at the airport. He headed off to Phuket to meet the rest of his team and to do a couple of days diving before back to work in Penang for the next 3 weeks. He's hoping to get home a bit earlier so we're all crossing our fingers! Taylor cried as she hugged him goodbye and I had a few tears in my eyes myself :( We had a bit of a wait for our flight but I found a kids playground area (believe me, in Changi airport you can find anything!) and that kept the two of them busy as they played with other kids from all over the world before we boarded the flight. Ronin lasted 45 minutes before dropping off to sleep and he slept the whole way home. Tay was a right royal pain in the butt, overtired, overexcited, sad about missing daddy and acting out. She wouldn't even try to go to sleep and must have got up to go to the loo about a dozen times before finally snoozing for a couple of hours before we landed. I kept dropping off and she kept waking me up and when I finally slept when she did, Ronin started fussing and I had to calm him down to back to sleep so that was it for me!

Arrival and transfer in Sydney went smoothly if you don't take into consideration the fact that my tired and grumpy children just wanted to get home and were absolutely horrid and a total embarassment! *groan*! I got them both fed, bathed and into bed asleep by 6pm that night and they slept until 10am the following morning! And another 9.30am wake up this morning, so they're definitely catching up! I can't complain too much, their behaviour while we were away was so excellent, they were so well behaved (well, 95% of the time!) and went to bed happily each night, sleeping like angels! They were so good that Chris reckons he'll bring us up again early next year. Ronin will be happy, he tells me a dozen times a day he wants to be back in Singapore, that Singapore is HOME! Glad he enjoyed it!

Well, I'm sharing a few pics here with you, Chris and Ronin on the pagoda bridge in Chinatown, Chris and the kids at the end of the rainforest walk on Sentosa Island, Taylor and I on the bumboat cruise on Singapore River, Taylor feeding the elephant at Singapore Zoo and some views of Singapore including the Merlion (which Ronin is obsessed with) and one of the amazing Christmas trees on Orchard Road.

Now I've got lots to scrap and nothing to do all weekend (I'm unpacked, everything washed and put away and the house clean thanks to MIL!) so I'm SCRAPPING!

Catch you next time!

Trace xxx