What a month December 2016 was, eh? Holidays, playdates, travel… but there were plenty of everyday moments of everyday joy. Let’s take a look.
Bouncing outside the apartment building:
Little-boy-rhymes with Jayden:
‘Free dance’ at school. Which seems to mostly mean bouncing around and being silly.
And finally: here’s what happens when Nyan gets a hold of Mommy’s phone:
One day in December, we all headed downtown to play tourist for a day. There was a museum exhibit we wanted to check out, so we thought we’d see some other sights along the way.
Here we are in the lobby of Daddy’s office building, just enjoying the scenery.
We had a nice lunch overlooking the Singapore River:
And wandered around a bit, enjoying some sculptures and more views of the river:
But the real goal of our midday amble was the Asian Civilizations Museum, which was hosting a traveling exhibition of some artwork from Mommy’s homeland of Myanmar.
Nyan was very into it. He really loved sprawling on the floor and drawing pictures of what he was seeing. He and Daddy also tried sitting in the Buddha pose, copying the many Buddha statues on display.
A very pleasant way to spend a sunny winter’s day in Singapore.
In our last post, we looked at our time at the beach and the resort during our trip to Phuket, Thailand in late December 2016. Here, we take a look at some specific things we got up to.
We stayed in the town of Karon, which was a short drive away from the tourist hub of Patong, which is jam-packed and overcrowded, and is also home to a red-light district. We popped over to Patong one evening for some dinner and sightseeing.
First, Nyan and Daddy found an Irish pub – complete with American craft beers on tap – and had some dinner while Mommy had a massage. The pub was quite empty but had a stage area that was set up for a singer later in the evening. Nyan took advantage of it being empty and hopped on the stage.
He also tried his hand at some free dancing on the dance floor.
We also took a family stroll up Bangla Road, the heart of the red light district. It was still early, so not too rowdy. Nyan got some attention from some of the ladies of the night, but it was all innocent. We think.
We got to drive in an open-air tuk-tuk on the way back to the resort.
One of our favorite activities on Phuket was an afternoon spent at Dino Golf. It’s a miniature golf course with a dinosaur theme. Lots of fiberglass dinos poking their heads out of the jungle foliage, plus holes that went through volcanos or over fallen logs. Pretty fun!
One thing we learned: none of us are very good at mini golf. Oh well.
Another day we went to visit the Big Buddha, which is – you guessed it – a Buddha statue, high on a ridge overlooking the entire island, that is quite big. Impressive.
The views are pretty amazing as well.
Underneath the statue are a lot of shrines you can pray to. Here’s Nyan, trying his hand at it.
It’s still under construction, and to raise money, they let you write your name on a tile that will one day be installed on the site, in exchange for a donation.
Those are the highlights from our trip to Phuket. It’s a fine enough place, though to be honest, not one we’re likely to rush back to. A bit crowded, and nothing really special enough to make it worth a return visit, we felt. Still, a good time, and a nice way to cap off 2016.
During the week between Christmas and New Year’s, we flew a couple hours north to Phuket, the resort island off the mainland of Thailand. It was crowded, packed with tourists from Russia and elsewhere, but we stayed out of the heart of the tourist zone so managed to enjoy ourselves. Here’s a look at what we got up to.
We spent a great deal of time on the beach – specifically Karon Beach, right across the road from our hotel. It was lovely and pretty clean, with great sunset views and sand that was perfect for building things in.
Here are some random shots from around the island, including Nyan riding in the back of a tuk-tuk and getting some love from one of the Burmese girls working at a seafront restaurant that we frequented
The resort we stayed at had several swimming pools – one with a water slide – plus a kid’s club area, rock paths that a curious five year old liked to examine using his new night-vision goggles, and more. Let’s take a look.
Here’s the young man, bouncing around inside the kid’s club
Finally, some shots from the traveling. Hanging out with Pikachu at the airport, waiting in line for passport control, and passed out on the bed after flights and car rides to the hotel.
Next up: More pictures and videos from around Phuket .
It was, of course, not a White Christmas in Singapore this year. Or any year. But we still did a good job getting into the holiday spirit. Let’s take a look:
Here’s Nyan and Mommy, getting our little Christmas tree ready, and doing other things to get into the festive spirit:
And a few pieces of artwork that Nyan made (paintings, mostly) in the weeks leading up to Dec. 25:
Grandma and Grandpa, in their never-ending quest to spoil their grandson, had sent over a box full of 24 little presents — one for Nyan to open each morning in December. Here’s just a few of the moments when he was unwrapping.
On Christmas Eve, an aunt was in town, so we had dinner at a Chinese restaurant downtown. And look who stopped by our table!
Finally: the big day. Christmas morning! Daddy asked Nyan to wait til Daddy could get a cup of coffee. It was hard, but Nyan managed to wait:
And then: Attack the presents! He opened them all in a matter of minutes, it seemed. But still managed to play with, and model, some of them
We had a plane to Thailand to catch later in the day. But first: Christmas dinner with Kyle and his family. Here’s Nyan, waiting for the taxi:
Kyle and Nyan played while the food was being prepared. And what a spread! Delicious.
Afterwards, we hung out for a while, playing with toys – including the adults, who played with the virtual reality video game. The kids did too. Fun, if a little silly:
And then….off to Thailand! But we’ll save that for upcoming posts.
Let’s check in on how our hero is doing with his taekwondo. Here are a few videos from the month of December.
Start of class:
Stretching and warming up:
Working on his footwork
Various exercises. Gotta get the basics down:
He’s coming along nicely, we think.
Nyan’s school threw a fantastic Christmas party a few days before Christmas. Song, dance, food, cookies… well, let’s go the video. Starting with Nyan’s class doing their rendition of Jingle Bells… in Mandarin:
And it’s not a Christmas pageant without a (rather long!) rendition of the 12 Days of Chrismas.
Maybe our favorite part, though, was a special dance recital. See, Nyan does this weekly class called KinderDance at school. It’s only a handful of kids who do it, but he mostly enjoys it. They were scheduled to do a recital as part of the party. (Note: last year, they were also scheduled to do a recital. But our hero was in the midst of his not-gonna-perform phase, so he just sort of stood there and sulked while his parents looked on in bemused embarrassment. That didn’t prove to be a problem this year though). One of the kids in the class was away on holiday, and another was sick or something. So it ended up being just Nyan and a younger girl. And – at least in the eyes of his proud parents – he did a fantastic job! Checkout the tap dancing:
And this sort of modern, interpretive thing:
Of course you can’t have a Christmas party without Santa:
(Nyan cracked the code though: in that video, when he’s not dancing, he’s whispering to all the adults: ‘That’s not really Santa Claus!’)
At some point the party turned into a preschool dance floor:
After all the fun and songs and dancing, it was time for lunch! Here are the kids, singing their usual pre-lunch song. It’s quite nice:
Bonus track: a few days prior to the party, Daddy happened to come by the school a bit early and catch the kids practicing.
Bestie Kyle and his family belong to the Singapore Swimming Club, which is several swimming pools along with restaurants, playgrounds, and general places to hang out. It makes for a great place for a playdate, which we did in December.
There were hugs, toys and goofiness:
The place has lots of open spaces – perfect for a couple of little boys to burn off some energy.
And then there’s the pond filled with koi fish you can feed – a favorite activity after dinner, for Kyle, Nyan and Kyle’s little sister Kara.
This most recent trip there was just before Christmas, so we got to enjoy some Xmas decorations too. Nice.
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