Ducktour, Hippo Bus and Singapore with Kids - Part I

It's SMALL FAN's birthday and we decided to celebrate it in a unique way this year.  We brought him on a Ducktour follow by a Hippo Bus ride to the Singapore Flyer.  The kids really enjoy themselves, running around, playing hide and seek with daddy and basically get a good view of Singapore from the sea, the land and the sky.  Here's an account.

We took a MRT to CityHall MRT and had lunch at Citylink Mall, Xin Wang Cafe.  Big FAN and I each ordered a crispy chicken set and the chicken pieces was so big that we skip our dinner that night and was feeling really bloated for the whole day. After a good lunch, we headed to Suntec City to purchase the tickets for Ducktour and Singapore Flyer.  The Ducktour itself cost $33/adult, $17/child, $2/toddler but they have a package deal which we brought costing $49 adult, $28/child and $2/toddler for both Ducktour and Singapore Flyers plus a complimentary Hippo Bus Shuttle Service from Suntec to Singapore Flyers.

The SEA

 

We took the 3pm trip on the Ducktour which lasted for about 1 hour.  The ducktour was quite crowded that day, the whole boat was fully seated, as we were the last few to get seated, we ended up seating at separate rows. SMALL FAN was a little scared, he was worried he will fall into the water and daddy has to hold his hand. The tour bring us around the Marina Bay.  Personally, felt that the tour was quite boring, maybe because I'm a Singaporean and many of the story the tour guide mention about calling Esplanade, Durian etc, we already knew.  SMALL FAN was almost falling asleep as the boat was a little stuffy and with the sound of the boat engine luing him to sleep. Baby FAN also got a little cranky nearer the end of the trip and I have to bring out my Special Weapon (sweets) to keep them happy.  Luckily, it started to rain half way thru and this sort of created some excitment and with wind from the rain blowing at us, it makes the ride more enjoying as it's so cooling.

On board the Ducktour

View from the boat

SMALL FAN getting really sleepy....

The LAND

After the Ducktour, as it was raining, we decided to take a rest at Suntec City.  Settle for some quiche, gingerbread cookie and coffee at Gloria Jeans while waiting for the rain to stop so that we can take the Hippo Bus to the Singapore Flyers.

Active little girl,roaming around Gloria Jeans

I want the pink colour bread....

SMALL FAN ate the whole Gingerbread Cookie, was surprised he likes it as the ginger taste was quite strong.

Boarding the Hippo Bus

Next Destination, the Singapore Flyer....to be continued....

Nursery Rhymes in Mandarin

Baby FAN's first Mandarin song taught by her daddy.

Teacher's Day Present

This is a backdated post, almost forgot about it until I saw the picture taken of the card that SMALL FAN made.

Was thinking of what to get for SMALL FAN's teachers for the Teacher's Day when I thought, instead of buying something, maybe it will be more meaningful to get SMALL FAN to make it himself.  So I get SMALL FAN to the nickjr.com website and get him to colour some trucks and vehicles online (as he still can't colour very well, so by colouring online he can actually colour whatever he likes and it will look nice).  Then I printed it out in our printer, but our printer's magenta went bongas...so all the pictures turn out yellow and blue...sigh...but nevertheless, it still looks pretty good. Then I cut out the pictures and pasted it on a coloured paper.

Then the next task was to get SMALL FAN to write "HAPPY TEACHERS' DAY". However, I know that SMALL FAN won't have the patient to write the complete sentence in one card.  I thought I give him a few papers then I get him to write the word "Happy" by looking at how I write and then following me.  Then "Day", however "Teachers" proves too tough for him, so I write for him instead.  Then I cut out the words one by one and pasted it on the coloured paper.  Here's the completed work, now bad right?

Living the Natural Way

Recently I seemed to be in the mood for natural product as I have such successful story with honey.  I just have to share it here.  I have started giving my SMALL FAN 1 tsp of honey every night before he sleep.  Heard from a honey seller that honey actually helps promote good sleep, but in any case, the purpose of my giving SMALL FAN the honey is for his sinus.  SMALL FAN used to have such bad sinus that he cough every night and day and sometime even vomit due to the mucus that was stuck in his throat.  We have brought him to pediatrician, to chinese sinsei and spend thousand of dollar on his medication but it just doesn't seems to work, he visit the doctor almost every few weeks.  So one day while searching for a cure I stumble upon this miracle honey from the website http://www.earthclinic.com/  and decided to give it at try.  (Crossing my hand) I proud to say that my SMALL FAN has not seen any doctor for almost 3 months now and I never heard a cough from him anymore except for ocassionally when his throat get too dry.  One side effect I found out from this is that beside sinus honey is also very good for fever.  I have tried it on myself and SMALL FAN and on both ocassion our fever breaks after 2 days of consuming honey.  My Baby FAN is now down with high fever so I'm trying to get her to drink honey water to see if it helps.  Introduced to my mum, she always have this persistant dry cough every few weeks, but ever since she started during honey, I hardly hear her cough anymore. Beside honey I also found many natural way of healing from earthclinic, here'a few that I tried and seems to work, so do give it a try better than paying loads of money for chemcially processed medication.

• Fever - mix 1 teaspoon of honey with 1 cup of luke warm or cold water and drink it as regularly as you can until the fever breaks
• Cough and Phelgm or sore throat - mix 2 teaspoons Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV) with 1 tsp honey in half 1 cup of warm water and drink it 2 to 3 times a day.  (I love this concoction, always work for me whenever I have a cough or sore throat).  For those of you who can't stand the smell of ACV you can try using lemon juice to replace the ACV it works as well, my mum love this concoction, whenever she feels that she is coming up with a flu or cough she will drink this and so far she has been really healthy and seldom here her reporting sick.
• Sinus - 1 teaspoon of honey in half 1 cup of lukewarm water and drink it before you sleep. My SMALL FAN got his sinus cure this way.  I think the honey drink also keep him from getting sick easily.
• Dandruff - mix 1/2 ACV with  1/2 water in an application bottle or any container you can find,  mix them up well. Then apply this concoction to the scalp of your hair after shampooing. Leave the ACV on the hair for about 5 to 10 minutes than rinse it clean with warm water and dry your hair. I always have dandruff problem so recently decided to try out a more gentler way of getting rid of it instead of the strong dandruff shampoo.  Found this remedy in the earthclinc website and tried it out. After the 1st day, my head don't itch as much anymore, after 3rd day I can visible notice less dandruff.  Beside getting rid of dandruff, I also notice that my hair is softer and shinier, as if I have put conditioner on my hair.  Am going to continue this remedy for a while and see if I can totally get rid of my dandruff. 
• Reduce grey hair -  Mix 1 tablespoon of molasses with 1 cup of warm water and drink it every morning. As the molasses got quite a strong taste, I actually mix it with milk instead, Here's what I did, I mixed 1 tablespoon molasses with some warm water to dissolve it, then top of the cup with cold milk, it actually tasted like latte so it's easier to swollow. I'm currently drinking this every morning, it supposed to help get rid of grey hair which I have lots and lots of.  But I think it will take a while for the effect to be seen.  But here's what other people say that molasses can help, it's a good source of iron so it's very good for lady who is suffering from heavy mensus, it's also said to get rid of fibriod and also help with breast cancer.  But most of all, a lot of people has mentioned that drinking molasses give them increase energy so they dont't feel that tire.  I personally felt that I do feel slightly let tire in the day after drinking this concoction for 3 days.  

Beside such health remedy, I am now also looking out for natural household cleaning product.  My baby girl always dirty her clothes ever since she started eating solid food and want to feed herself. I tried bleaching her clothes but it sometimes distroy the coloured one.  Found this remedy from this website: p://frugalliving.about.com/od/cleaningtipsandrecipes/qt/Natural_Bleach.htm 

• Natural bleach - squeeze some lemon juice on the stain and rubbed some salt on it, then put the clothes under the sun for a few hours, then wash as normal.  Wa lah....nice clean clothes. 

Will be continuing to research on natural living and update my post along the way.  For now, toast to great health for all.

Is TV really bad?

Baby FAN has been watching Utube sing 1 year old and loves it. She loves to watch nursery rhymes and sing along with it. Now at 17 month, she can sing songs like "twinkle, twinkle", "old macdonald", "ABC" and will dance and do actions to songs like "incy wincy", "Humpty dumpty", "head and shoulder" etc... Many of these she learn from Utube. So, it keeps me wondering, is TV really bad for the kids????

By the way, here's a vid of Baby FAN singing the ABC Song, see if you can make out what she sing.


Here are some of Baby FAN's favourite videos from youtube:

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star


Skidamarink


5 little Monkey


Incy Wincy Spider



If you happy


Here we go round the mulberry bush
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQB-L2I0ke0

enjoy!

A Staycation at Crowne Plaza Changi Airport Hotel

Been planning to bring the kids for some holiday vacation but with Baby FAN still so young, we find it really tough to bring the kids for a good nice oversea holiday. So decided that instead of going oversea, let's try bring the kids to a hotel in Singapore to stay. So, made used of the Staycation promotion at Crowne Plaza a booked a deluxe room for S$166++. So last saturday, the whole family went there for a nice weekend stay. The hotel was pretty new, only one year old so everything in the room was nice and new. The kids love it and was jumping and running around the room the whole afternoon. My boy got the kick looking at aeroplane flying up and down as our room was facing the T2 runway. But it's a pity that part of the runway was blocked by buildings, so we only manage to see part of the take off. In the evening, we visited T3 & T2 and had our dinner there before heading back to the hotel for a good night sleep. Planned to do some swimming the next morning after a pretty good buffet breakfast (the kids get to eat for free as the hotel package was only for 2 adults), but it started drizzling, we wanted to wait for the rain to stop but got lazy after that and just 'nua' at the hotel before we check out at 2pm. All in all and nice and pleasant weekend, don't mind going back there to stay again.





View from our window


Visit to T3 - SMALL FAN fascinated over the automatic water dispenser

National Day Songs