Just ran across this collection of intimate portraits of Nyan from late February, about two months ago. Presented without further comment, other than to just shake our head and say ‘yep, that’s our boy… Our silly, silly boy.’
Nyan Thomas, Photographer
We’re in Tokyo for a few days, and our first day here was full of beautiful spring sunshine, which brought out the best in Tokyo’s flowers. The colors must have inspired our young man, ’cause he grabbed Daddy’s Nikon and started shooting:
The kid’s got talent, eh? Or does he? Let’s see how his shots look. Here’s a selection, unedited:
A few technical issues with some of these, perhaps, but all in all pretty good. Especially for a three-year-old.
Chinese New Year
The Lunar New Year, or Chinese New Year (or CNY), is a big deal out here in Asia and in Singapore — two public holidays, huge parties and family get-togethers, much symbolism. And, in Singapore at least, a big festival down at Marina Bay. There were carnival rides, carnival food, giant inflatable peacocks, acrobats — standard festival fare, really.
It was a beautiful evening:
And a lot of people came out for the colors, the fresh air, the inflatable peacocks.
Phwa-Phwa (Mommy’s Mommy) was in town so she joined us.
We ate a fair amount of rather lousy food (carnival food, what do you expect), including a lime-green popsicle for the young man.
Did we mention there were carnival rides?
There were carnival rides. Including this sort of kiddie roller coaster (okay, that’s maybe stretching it a bit) featuring lots of cars and trucks going up and down a twisty track. Nyan loved it.
There was also a train. Nyan got to sit in the front, along with several other random boys. They all happened to be wearing orange t-shirts, purely by coincidence.
Yes, Nyan had a blast. He absolutely loved it. Happy belated Chinese New Year, everybody!
Nyan Thomas vs the Red Balloon
In which our hero finds a red balloon at the playground and proceeds to try to toss it and catch it.
As we can see in this video, he’s more interested in looking at the other kids than in keeping his eye on the balloon. But he comes up with a great excuse as to why it keeps getting away from him…
Nyan Thomas and the Singapore Flyer
We’re going back in time a bit for this one: July 2014, when young Nyan Thomas was not yet three years old, and was still new to Singapore. One Saturday afternoon, he took Mommy and Daddy to the Singapore Flyer, a huge Ferris wheel down by the shore. It’s 541 feet tall, and was for a time the largest Ferris wheel in the world, until a couple years ago when Las Vegas opened one that’s 9 feet higher.
It’s obviously a tourist attraction, but not a terribly popular one: it was in bankruptcy when we visited, and has since been bought out by someone. We could see why: a nice bright Saturday afternoon and we had the place mostly to ourselves. It was a bit pricey, yes, but beyond that, we can’t really figure out why it’s not more popular. It’s certainly scenic:
(Photo taken from the Internet; the rest of the photos in this post are by Daddy)
And some great views from up there:
Also great for family selfies:
And back down at ground level, they had cardboard airline pilot cut-outs for Nyan to stick his face in:
All in all, it was a fine way to spend an hour or so. Would we recommend it to visitors? Sure we would. Would we return ourselves? Eh, maybe. Wouldn’t go out of our way to go there, but wouldn’t refuse outright. (And let’s not forget that it’s a great landmark that Nyan loves to point out when we take the bus from our apartment in to the city — we go right over that bridge you can see in the middle background in the first picture, above.) We don’t mean to sound too lukewarm on the Singapore Flyer, though I guess we do sound lukewarm. Well, call a spade a spade: it’s tall, it’s a little pricey, it’s got great views, it’s just fine. Nothing more, nothing less.
Nyan Thomas in March
Here’s an assortment of photos showing our young man in all his glory during the month of March. As you can see, we did a lot of art work, we swam, we goofed around, we ate, and once in a while we even slept a bit. In Mommy and Daddy’s bed, of course.
Recent Playground Fun
Most days after school, Nyan and Daddy spend a good hour or so down at the playground at our apartment complex – burning off energy, getting fresh air, socializing. There are a good number of kids around Nyan’s age who are usually down there at the same time. Here’s some of their recent hijinx: This is Nyan and Neil, a boy who also happens to attend Nyan’s school.
Here’s some fun on the playground equipment: This is Nyan with Justin, a very sweet boy who’s a year or two older. They have a blast together, and recently discovered that Nyan can sit on the back of Justin’s bike while they tool around the complex. (And yes, Daddy insists that Nyan wears his shoes while doing this. He just happened to get away with no-shoes this one time.)
One day, none of the other boys were around, but in one of the function rooms near the playground, someone had put a toy kitchen. So we hung out there, cooking (notice the exchange after he gives daddy some chicken rice. “It’s delicious. How did you make it so good?” “I put oil on it.” The kid is turning into a fine chef, even if just make believe for now) and bouncing around the room and being silly. Speaking of silly, here’s Nyan, being silly. And, at one point, being a dog. That’s our boy.
Nyan Thomas Does Vietnam
A few months back, we had a lovely family vacation, leaving the tropical heat and humidity of Singapore for the cloudy, drizzly and cool (to us anyway) environs of central Vietnam – Da Nang, to be precise, right in the middle of the country (and, as it happens, the place where U.S. Marines first landed way back at the start of what the Vietnamese call the American War). We didn’t get much sun, but we had a great time. And here, better late than never, a bunch of pictures and videos. Here we are at Changi Airport, checking out our plane and Nyan checking out one of the giant climbing things they have to keep kids entertained.
Nyan on the flight: 
The security lines at Saigon Airport. For travelers coming from Changi Airport – truly one of the best, and definitely one of the most efficient airports in the world – returning to the reality of a very average airport was a shocker! 
But we made it to Da Nang.
We stayed at the Pullman Da Nang resort. It was just lovely. Highly recommended. We were there a few days before Christmas, so it was relatively empty at first, which gave us pretty much the run of the house.
Nyan Thomas, Multi-Cultural Eater
As you may know, Nyan is part Iowan and part Asian. You won’t find much of a better example of this than some snackin’ Nyan undertook the other day. Dried seaweed and corn on the cob. (Separately, that is.)
First, the seaweed:
And the corn:
The corn, by the way, comes from Malaysia. And while Nyan likes it just fine, Daddy has to report that, no, it’s nowhere near as good as Iowa corn. (In fact, it’s such a pale imitation that Daddy can’t bring himself to eat Malaysian corn on the cob. Nyan doesn’t seem to mind though.)
Also by the way: at the end of the video, you’ll hear Nyan whining. What he’s saying is “But later, the bugs will cry!” See, we were discussing how we were going to tackle a swarm of flies that had invaded the house (it’s a tropical thing, apparently) and Nyan apparently thought our methods were a bit too severe. Bless him.
Bumper Cars!
A few weeks back, as part of the local Chinese New Year celebrations, they threw a big carnival-type thing downtown. Lots of kiddie rides, bouncy castles, food stalls, ice creams and other sweet treats, standard stuff. Among the kiddie rides was bumper cars, which Nyan, for some reason, became insistent that we go on. We figured why not, so Daddy and Nyan climbed into a bumper car.
How’d it go? Good! Here they are getting ready to rumble:
And live action:
Here are some still shots:
A good way to introduce the lad to carnival culture, we guess…
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