A few months back, Phwa Phwa (aka Mommy’s Mommy) was visiting for a few weeks. We decided a weekend get-away was in order, so we hopped a cheap plane for the 45-minute flight to Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. Mommy’s cousin Molly lives there and promised to show us around a bit.
In a lot of ways, KL is everything that Singapore is not. It’s chaotic, it’s dirty, it’s noisy, it’s run-down in spots, and it’s got plenty of urban energy. It wouldn’t be a place we’d want to live at this point in our lives, but after a half day of adjusting to a ‘real’ city – as opposed to the somewhat sanitized city that Singapore can be – we really started to enjoy it.
Here’s our boy posing at the airport on the way out, and hanging out waiting for the elevator at the hotel in KL, and at the airport on the way home:
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KL is known for the Petronas Towers – a pair of ornate skyscrapers that were, when they were built in 1998, the tallest towers in the world. (Now they’re something like 8th tallest.) They’re gorgeous from outside, and well worth a trip up – you walk across the ‘skybridge’ that connects the towers at the 43rd floor, then head to the top of one of the towers for some great views across KL, even when it’s hazy like the day we were there.
Some random shots of KL in all its gritty urban glory:
Here we are hanging out in a tree, and in Chinatown:
And more random shots, including Nyan drawing at dinner, Nyan inside an electric car on display at a fancy shopping mall, and the family at dinner.
That’s KL in a nutshell. Dirty, gritty, urban, and frankly a great change of pace from Singapore. Still, no offense to KL, but we’ll take Singapore for now.
Last month, after a few nice but rainy days in Tokyo, we popped over to Hong Kong on our way back to Singapore. (Yes, our boy was in three of the world’s great cities in the space of a single week. Rough life, eh?) Here’s some of what we got up to.
The territory of Hong Kong includes an island, where much of the central business district is, across a harbor from the Chinese mainland, where the Kowloon section of Hong Kong is. From Kowloon you get a pretty spectacular vista of the Hong Kong skyline, day or night:
There are lots and lots of boats in the harbor – something that pleased Nyan greatly.
One morning we headed up to Victoria Peak, a ridge overlooking Hong Kong on one side and the mostly undeveloped southern part of the island on the other. You get up there on a very steep cable car/tram, and at the top are some restaurants and tourist shops, plus some pretty amazing views.
And we did a lot of just wandering around the city, soaking up the scene. It’s quite an intense city, with some pretty interesting architecture, as well as some very interesting housing stock.
Some random shots of Nyan from around the town: posing like a lion outside the HSBC bank headquarters; relaxing in the window of our hotel; kinda-sorta posing for a family portrait.
And finally, here’s our boy on the plane — transfixed by something on his video screen — and at the airport, transfixed by all the planes.
We missed the peak of the famed cherry blossoms by only a week or so, but our April trip to Tokyo was nonetheless fantastic. Mommy had to head up there for work, so Daddy and Nyan tagged along. Here’s some of what we saw and got up to.
Here we are at Narita airport, after our pleasant six-hour flight on a Singapore Airlines A-380. As you can see, we had a great view of the tarmac as we headed for immigration control, and we spent a *long* time looking at the planes. We finally made it out, and waited for a bus for the 90-minute ride to our hotel.
We stayed at the Prince Park Tower hotel, and it was great. Even better: when we arrived late on a Saturday night, our room wasn’t ready — apparently someone had been smoking in it and so it stank, or something — so they bumped us into a one-bedroom suite, complete with our own private Japanese garden. Here it is:
Not bad at all. Here’s more: the three of us at breakfast on the 23rd floor, overlooking Tokyo Tower, plus Nyan being Nyan, napping and drawing and whatnot.
Our first full day was a sunny Sunday, and we made the most of it. We visited a nearby temple, and also checked out a new year celebration being put on by the local Burmese community.
We also met up with Mommy’s Aunt Jessica and cousin Toru, who both live in Tokyo. We wandered around central Tokyo, had a nice lunch, visited the grounds of the Imperial Palace:
And this being Tokyo, we also came across a Godzilla statue:
As Mommy headed to work on Monday, the weather completely collapsed, and our poor tropical bodies were subject to wind, heavy rain and cool (cold to us) air for two straight days. We figured this might happen, so Nyan and Daddy’s first stop that morning was Uniqlo, the cheap Japanese clothes retailer, who have a 12-story flagship store in Ginza. The floor with the kids’ clothes has a big model train display, so Nyan was transfixed by that while Daddy shopped nearby and thawed out. We ended up with a nice thick sweatshirt, which cost us all of S$12 (GBP6, or about US$9.)
Then it was off on our adventure. We grabbed our umbrellas and hit the subway and then a monorail, bound for a science museum. We had a bit of walk once we got there, but Nyan did a decent job holding his own umbrella. (He eventually got tired of this, so Daddy had to hold the umbrella and try to keep both Nyan and Daddy dry. He managed to keep Nyan dry at least…)
The museum itself was pretty good, with lots of space rockets and the like. There were displays where you dropped balls and wathced them circle around, to show the effects of gravity or the Coriolis effect or something. (Daddy wasn’t sure.) This being Tokyo, the museum had a big focus on robots. One display allowed people to speak into a microphone, and the somewhat creepy robot heads-and-torsos would sort of respond. Nyan dug it.
The museum’s centerpiece was a show, two or three times a day, of a robot that emerges from its holding pen (cage), talks and walks and dances a bit, and then returns to its cage. Kinda cool and lifelike:
And on our last morning in Tokyo, we headed across the street to Tokyo tower. Nyan had to vamp around a bit before we headed up. It’s quite a structure.
The tower has a few windows set into the floor. This is not a video for those who are squeamish, but Nyan clearly is not squeamish or subject to vertigo:
Here are a few random shots in and around Tokyo. Some from the ground, some from atop various buildings, with mountains in the distance. (Behind some of those clouds is Mt Fuji.)
All in all, a great trip, with a lot of fun and a ton of great food. Here’s our final image of Tokyo, just before our flight out at Narita airport. Photo by Mommy.
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.
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.
A while back (pushing three months ago, actually, but who’s counting?), Nyan took Mommy and Daddy on a lovely long weekend escape to the Malaysian island of Langkawi. Here, better late than never, are a bunch of photos and videos to commemorate the time.
One of the highlights of the trip was when we bumped into another family, British expatriates living in Singapore and working in finance, and spending a long weekend in Langkawi. Sounds familiar, no? They also had two kids, including Sienna, who is about Nyan’s age. They hit it off great.
One cool thing about the resort was they had these big pools full of fish, and every morning a staff member would come out with big buckets of fish food for guests to toss in. Nyan and Sienna had a blast:
Can’t really see in these pictures or videos but there were two huge (six-feet long) water monitors, big slithery lizards that are native to Malaysia. Very cool. Also a giant catfish.
Here’s Nyan, bouncing and then doing something called the crab dance. Showing off for the ladies, in other words.
There was plenty of time on the beach too, with proper protection against the sun, of course:
And oh what a beach. What a place. We loved it. Just gorgeous.
Just for fun, because it’s not the most illuminating video ever: at night, we had races on the beach. Can’t see much in this one, but you can hear Nyan being Nyan and eventually he shows up… just watch:
Another night, we walked by the resort’s lounge and someone was playing a lovely song on the piano. Nyan and Mommy couldn’t help but dance. (Note how Nyan says incredulously, “He’s making song for us??” and then starts in on his ‘dance’ (but at least it’s not the crab dance this time):
More nighttime fun: Nyan found a flashlight in our room and pretty much wouldn’t put it down. Even interrupted his meals to wander around and shine it on things. The resort was almost empty, and we had the restaurant pretty much to ourselves, so no problem.
The weekend was mainly a late-birthday celebration for Mommy, so one night at dinner, Nyan made sure that the waitstaff and a string quartet gave Mommy a fitting serenade:
Here’s Nyan at lunch (the white noise in the background is a little waterfall at the restaurant), showing off his coloring skills.
And just a random assortment of photos from the weekend:
Nyan was, as always, an excellent flyer on this trip. To pass the time on the 90-minute flight, he took some shots with Daddy’s camera:
Finally, here’s our boy at the airport and on the plane, happy after a fun-filled and relaxing family weekend.
We live on a tropical island. In fact we live a 10-minute stroll from the shore, and a long stretch of sand. Unfortunately that sand looks out onto one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, and those ships don’t much care if they dump their trash overboard and if that trash then washes ashore. Jerks. But no problem: when we need a fix of sand and sea, we just hop a ferry or a plane and in no time we’re on another tropical island, one with clean beaches.
Nyan had never spent time on a beach before we moved here, but he’s taking to it like a fish to, uh, sand. Here he is, showing off the latest swimwear for this season:
Here’s our boy on the island of Langkawi, Malaysia, this past weekend:
This is Nyan on Bintan, Indonesia – digging in the sand (while staring at the group of girls who would later chase him around) and splashing in a small tidal pool.
Some video of Nyan, kicking and splashing in that same tidal pool:
And finally, what’s a day on a breezy beach without a kite?
It was an odd moment: we’re on a fairly deserted beach in Indonesia, enjoying the crashing surf and the sea breeze, watching Nyan build a sand castle. Suddenly we sense something; we look up; and standing there are six or seven local girls, ages from about four to 10 or so, standing and smiling at Nyan.
What does our Don Juan (Nyan Juan? Don Nyan?) do? Why, he runs away, of course. The girls chase after him, he giggles, they giggle, on it goes. Of course we captured video:
They spoke almost no English – one of them asked us what our names are, and asked if we speak Indonesian, and that was about it. Eventually a young man came over, with a few younger boys; turns out all these kids were from the local village, and they spend Saturdays with this young man who tutors them. Or maybe he’s their regular teacher at the village school? Not really sure. Anyway, we figure it’s rare that they see such a young foreign kid on their beach — the resort we were at does not exactly cater to children, as we learned the hard way — so they decided to come over and say hello. They were sweet and friendly, and it was just one of those really nice moments you come across sometimes when you travel.
The teacher asked if they could take a picture with Nyan so we got a few group shots. Nyan of course had to vamp for the camera and make faces. Oh, Nyan.
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