Uncategorized | Nyan Thomas L's Blog

A Day at the National Museum

During a day off from school in early January, Daddy decided it would be a day of culture and walking around. So we headed to the National Museum of Singapore, which is all about the history, culture and art of Singapore. Pretty cool place!

There’s a big exhibit about life during WWII, when Japan occupied the country. Nyan was especially captivated by the tanks.

He goofed around a bit with some mirrors:

And he spun around in the soaring rotunda at the entrance:

Afterwards we took an early evening stroll around nearby Fort Canning Park. A really peaceful green space.

There’s a cool feature at the park where a spiral staircase leads you down through a steep slope. It makes for great photos!

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Posted by Chris L. on February 5, 2022 in Uncategorized

Tags: Singapore

Lots of Random Year-End Fun

30 Jan

As you’ve seen, we got up to a lot of fun in December 2021. But there were plenty more little moments worthy of a quick photo or video. Let’s take a quick look at some of them. First, some photos (yes, some of the pics in this post are too small – sorry. Just zoom in!)

A video from one of his weekly swimming lessons:

More photos:

Another video. The story here: Nyan had seen a glass wine decanter on a visit to a shop some weeks back and decided he wanted one. Just ‘cause. We said no. Then, over dinner at Kyle’s house, he saw the adults using a wine decanter which reminded him that he wanted one, and he loudly said so. It turned out that Bryan and Sara had an extra one they never used. Long story short, that evening Nyan became the very proud owner of his own wine decanter.

He used it to decant apple juice.

And finally, one last set of pics to play the year out.

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Posted by Chris L. on January 30, 2022 in Uncategorized

December Fun with Jayden

25 Jan

(Editor’s note: we know there are a number of new viewers lately — welcome! — and we also know we are pretty late in posting. For instance, it’s June and we’re only up to December. Rest assured we’ll get caught up one day. So come back often! Or just subscribe to get emailed whenever we make a new post.)

The Christmas holidays brought three weeks off from school – and that brought lots of time for Nyan to hang out with his bestie Jayden, as well as brother Jonnie and the rest of the family. Let’s take a look.

Some time in and around the pool:

The boys spent a fair amount of time outside, walking around fields and on abandoned rail tracks near Jayden’s place:

There was bowling too. Strike!

One evening, Jayden and his family headed for a sunset picnic near downtown, and they invited Nyan along. What great views!

We also went to the Science Center one rainy afternoon. The kids mostly ran around and ran away from the adults, so not many pictures – but we did manage this video:

And finally, Nyan spent New Year’s Eve on a sleepover at Jayden’s, at which everyone managed to stay up all the way til midnight. Much fun – and twerking – was had!

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Posted by Chris L. on January 25, 2022 in Uncategorized

Tags: friends, Singapore

Christmas at Kyle’s

20 Jan

Remember how we said our Christmas Even plans got scuttled because of some ill-timed fevers? It was Kyle and his sister who weren’t feeling well. By a few days after Christmas they were back to 100% strength so we went for a rescheduled Christmas dinner over at their place.

Was it worth the wait? The kids sure seemed to think so:

Little Kara is getting so big!

We ate like kings and queens, of course:

And we posed for pictures:

A very nice afternoon and evening. At the end of it, Bryan drove us home in his convertible:

Nyan loves it with the top down:

Singapore at night:

Singapore at night, with the occasional Christmas light thrown in:

Merry Christmas!

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Posted by Chris L. on January 20, 2022 in Uncategorized

Tags: friends, holiday

One More Christmas in Singapore

15 Jan

2021 brought us another tropical Christmas. In normal times we would of course do a family vacation around the holidays, but with Covid still floating around, December 2021 was still not a normal time. So, we stayed home and made the most of things.

Gardens by the Bay is always lovely at Christmas time:

At school, Nyan’s class did a video retelling of the Grinch Who Stole Christmas:

Christmas morning, of course, brought presents to open.

Followed by a delicious full-course breakfast.

Maybe it wasn’t the most thrilling Christmas ever, since we were stuck on our little island, but it sure wasn’t bad!

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Posted by Chris L. on January 15, 2022 in Uncategorized

Tags: holiday

A Grand Time with a Grand Piano

10 Jan

On the Christmas Eve excursion you saw in the previous post, we wandered around the super-fancy shopping mall for a little while. One of the shops there is a Steinway piano “gallery,” filled with some really, really expensive grand pianos. We’re talking literally hundreds of thousands of dollars for some of them. (One of them tried to justify that price by having a small diamond embedded into the body. I mean… what’s the point??)

Clearly we are nowhere near that level of nouveau riche to be buying anything even in the same universe as those pianos. But they were there for the playing, the salesman was friendly and welcoming, and Nyan loves to play the piano, so we spent a good amount of time in there.

Not bad, eh? Check out the awesome lighting in this next video; that’s all the doing of the store – sorry, the gallery – not your humble photographer/blogger

Not that we would mind having our own grand piano, or even a real piano, if we had the space and the cash. We don’t have either, of course, so this will have to do for now. Not a bad way to spend a little time on a holiday though!

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Posted by Chris L. on January 10, 2022 in Uncategorized

Tags: music

Christmas Eve, High Above Singapore

05 Jan

We had big plans for Christmas Eve – swimming, dinner, hanging out with friends, etc. But those friends came down with last-minute fevers, so the plans got scuttled. Disappointing! But we took advantage of having a wide-open day with no work or plans and made the most of it, by heading to one of the highest points in Singapore for a holiday high tea.

It was at a restaurant at the top of Ion Orchard, an upscale mall and luxury condo tower in the heart of the city. It’s 50-something stories tall, one of the tallest buildings in the city, and offers great views:

Mommy and Daddy enjoyed themselves too.

Afterwards, we had a stroll around the shopping mall, which was jam-packed with last-minute holiday shoppers. We weren’t shopping, just browsing; Nyan got tired of the browsing and entertained himself by sitting outside a store, drawing.

There was one other big activity we did at the mall, but we’ll save that for the next post…

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Posted by Chris L. on January 5, 2022 in Uncategorized

Tags: family, Singapore

Randomness from November 2021

28 Dec

Here’s a quick look at what else our hero got up to in the second-to-last month of 2021.

This and that:

A goofy dance at our regular Italian restaurant:

More this and that:

He had a school project where he and some classmates did a rap version of a Dr Seuss book. Here he is , practicing his lines on a Zoom call with his classmates, and mostly being shy for the camera: