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Tag Archives: Singapore

Monster Jam!

27 Sep

Monster Jam, for the unaware, is a touring spectacle of monster trucks and motorcycles that go from arena to arena, doing jumps and stunts and generally making a very loud mess. Kids (and kids-at-heart) seem to absolutely love it, so when the Monster Jam tour came to Singapore’s National Stadium, we decided to take Nyan.

As it turned out, Jayden’s folks decided to take Jayden and his younger brother Jonnie, so we made a night of it. (The respective mommies stayed home.)

It was loud, it was chaotic, it was a blast for the kids.

We got there a few minutes late because we had soccer practice just before, so we were still on the outside of the stadium as the muffler-less trucks started revving. But we found our seats soon enough. Here’s some shots of what we saw, plus our two heroes:

Check out this monster truck:

And this one:

There was a lot of music and foot-stomping to add to the general din:

More foot stomping. And check out that souvenier drinking cup Nyan got. It wasn’t expensive at all, and didn’t fall apart two days later at all. Sure.

Did the kids have a blast? They did. Not just our kids; all of them. In fact, when we returned to school the following Monday morning, just about every kid at the place greeted all their friends with the same words: “Did you go to Monster Jam?” Seems like nearly every kid in Singapore did indeed go.

 

 
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Posted by on September 27, 2017 in Uncategorized

 

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Nyan Does Universal Studios Singapore 

11 Aug

To continue (and wrap up) Nyan’s birthday events this year: we took him, Jayden and Kyle to Universal Studios Singapore, our local theme park. Kyle’s parents and sister came along too, so it was a great group of people. Jayden had been to Universal Studios many times before; it was a maiden voyage for the rest of us. And in spite of the heat and the crowds, we managed to have a great, super-fun, super-exhausting and super-sweaty day.

There was so much to do, so many rides to go on. Let’s start with a random assortment of shots of the boys (and some of the others) just hanging out:

Can’t keep Nyan from dancing, no matter where he is:

More dancing:

(In that last video, there was a moment, about 14 seconds in, when Kyle accidently bumps Nyan’s knee. No big deal, except he happened to have a scab on there from a recent tumble, so it was tender and hurting. That’s why the dance paused for a moment and Nyan sort of whined momentarily. I love, though, that Kyle – one of the sweetest-natured kids you’ll ever meet – immediately got down to inspect it and make sure Nyan was okay! He was just fine, of course, and the dance resumed.)

It was a big day for both Mommy and Nyan: their first roller coaster ride! Mommy and Daddy went on the adult one, which uses mag-lev technology to get going really fast, really quickly. She did great! Nyan was a bit skittish about his own first roller coaster – a more tame ride, though still relatively fast and twisty. But he passed the test with flying colors. His verdict at the end, said with a huge smile: “It was scary!”

Here he is, with Daddy, just before the ride started.

There was a ride in the Jurrasic Park section that involved pyterodactyls spinning around, and going up and down. Considerably more mellow than a roller coaster, but the kids seemed to enjoy it. Videos by Mommy:

Not far away was a giant T Rex head that the kids had fun playing around. So did Mommy and Daddy, actually.

Inside the Shrek’s Castle exhibit was this pretty cool indoor ferris wheel. If you look closely you can see the birthday boy peeking out.

Here are some nice (and silly) photos of Kyle with Kara, Sara and Bryan:

And finally, at the very end of the day, we happened upon the boys’ hero, Optimus Prime. (He’s one of the Transformers.) The big guy was just about done with his day’s work of posing with little boys and girls, and it so happened that Nyan, Jayden and Kyle were the final three guests of the day. They insisted that Daddy join them for a meet-n-greet.

(By the way, those glasses were for the 3-D Transformers ride. The boys loved it.)

So overall, was the birthday outing to Universal Studios Singapore a success? Yep. Exhausting though, as we mentioned. Check out this snapshot from the taxi ride home:

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Nyan claimed to not be tired. Sure.

 
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Posted by on August 11, 2017 in Uncategorized

 

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A Great Day at the Circus

02 Aug

We had long heard of how wonderful the animal-free Canadian circus called Cirque du Soleil is. So when they launched a six-week run here in Singapore, we made sure to get tickets for a late-Sunday-afternoon performance. We were definitely not disappointed.

Here we are outside the tent, pre-show. It was a *very* bright and hot afternoon.

In our seats:

And the circus itself. It’s hard to describe, really. There are some traditional circus acts, like contortionists and tightrope walkers (also tightrope bike riders). And there’s things like a dude stacking chairs to 40 feet in the air, then doing handstands from atop that stack. And the Wheel of Death – two giant hamster wheel-type things that spin independently and also spin around a central point between them, with two guys running and jumping inside the wheels and then climbing on top, running in place as the wheels spin, jumping and flying for a moment as the wheels rotate away from them. You can find examples on Youtube, and it’s well worth checking out. Just spectacular.

We were all quite impressed overall. Afterwards, we snapped some pictures of the Singapore skyline at dusk:

And then had dinner at the nearby Marina Bay Sands mall. Our hero was pooped and started to fall asleep in mommy’s arms at the table:

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But by the time we’d paid the bill and headed for home, he perked up more than enough to toss some coins into the black marble fountains to make a wish or two.

All in all, a great day.

 
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Posted by on August 2, 2017 in Uncategorized

 

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Jungle Hike for Mother’s Day

06 Jun

Singapore celebrates Mother’s Day in May, like the U.S., rather than following the U.K. calendar, which celebrates the day in March. Last year, we ended up taking a hike through the jungle along the seashore. This year, completely coincidentally, we wound up…taking a hike through the jungle. Wasn’t on purpose, but it was nice nonetheless.

We went to an interior part of the island, a hilly part full of water reservoirs surrounded by dense jungle, cut through with a number of well-maintained hiking paths.

This being Mother’s Day, Nyan allowed Daddy to take a fair number of photos in which he posed with Mommy:

We also tried out a newly discovered feature on Daddy’s camera phone, which takes “bursts” of shots – like dozens in a row. We thought we’d try to capture Mommy and Nyan both leaping high in the air together. We didn’t quite get the timing down. Nice photos though:

But maybe best of all: the rainforest here was thick with monkeys! We steered pretty clear, as we’d heard they might try to steal a water bottle or whatnot. Managed to get some good pics anyway.

Oh, and yeah, Nyan posed for some photos with Daddy. Although they pale next to all the shots with Mommy, and the monkeys too.

 
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Posted by on June 6, 2017 in Uncategorized

 

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The Singapore Slingers

17 May

Singapore has a professional basketball team. Who knew? Not us. But we read that they were scheduled to play Game 4 of a best-of-five playoff series, at an arena a short ride away from our apartment one Sunday afternoon in April. So Daddy and Nyan snapped up a couple of tickets and off they went!

It wasn’t just any best-of-five series; this was against Hong Kong for the ASEAN Basketball League championship, no less! Nyan put on his best Singaporean finery to support the home team:

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It wasn’t the biggest arena ever, but it was pretty good sized, and it was packed. We had decent seats too. The Slingers even have their own mascot. I think it’s a Merlion.

Nyan was really into the game – much more so than Daddy expected, to be frank. Although he got a little restless late in the game and decided he’d stand (or sit) just off the court. Nobody seemed to mind.

It was a fun and exciting game – but unfortunately, Hong Kong won in double overtime, and won the series, 3 games to 1, and thus the championship. But we had a blast and will definitely try to catch more games next season!

 

 
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Posted by on May 17, 2017 in Uncategorized

 

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Return to Gardens by the Bay

12 May

As you’ve seen in previous posts (see here and here), Gardens by the Bay is one of our favorite places to go – and going there with Kyra and Chryssa is always a great time! So one weekend in April, we went back with the girls and their parents.

There was splashing around in the waterpark, playing at the playground, reading maps, looking at various exhibits, and also snacking.

 

And random dancing too:

Always a great time with these two girls!

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Posted by on May 12, 2017 in Uncategorized

 

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The Henderson Waves

26 Feb

Henderson Waves is this funky pedestrian bridge that soars high over a roadway in south-central Singapore. It’s part of a system of trails through the jungle. It all sounded good to us, so one Sunday morning we laced up our hiking boots* and headed out.

(*Not really. We wore our usual sandals and Star Wars crocs. It was a very tame jungle hike.)

Here we are on the bridge itself:

And here’s Nyan in the jungle, pointing out a tree stump for some reason.

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We saw some nice scenery of Singaporean developments on the hike (click to enlarge):

The section of the trail we were on ended up at Mount Faber, a hilltop restaurant overlooking Sentosa Island and the harbor.

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They also had a bell – the Bell of Happiness – for anyone to ring. It sure seems to have made Nyan happy!

 
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Posted by on February 26, 2017 in Uncategorized

 

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A Day Trip to the Beach 

17 Feb

A couple weeks after our return from Phuket, we were feeling the need again for some sun and sand. Despite being a tropical island, Singapore is not exactly blessed with great beaches – there are a mere handful of them strewn across the island, most of them small and man-made, and nearly all of them suffering from ocean debris (that is, trash and litter) washing up on shore. (This is, sadly, common across nearly every beach we’ve been to in Southeast Asia, we’re sorry to report.)

But we’d read about a small off-shore island just a short ferry ride away that had great beaches.  It’s actually a pair of islands – St John’s and Lazarus – that have been connected over the years via reclamation. So early one Sunday morning we took a cab to the ferry dock and piled on for the half-hour ride across the still waters of Singapore Harbor and the Malacca Strait.

We were seated below decks on the way back, and up top for the return. The rides were fine, as we passed by plenty of other ships at anchor that made for nice viewing.

And here we are on shore. It’s obviously not exactly the deepest wilderness here, what with paved sidewalks and cut grass AND the like. Still quite nice though.

Here’s more scenery, including a view of the Singapore skyline a few miles across the water, and a shot of some of the dozens of stray (or feral?) cats that live on the island.

Finally: the beach itself! A perfect crescent of soft white sand, with bathtub-warm water lapping gently ashore. So beautiful. Unfortunately, it’s still Southeast Asia, and we got there as the tide was going out and leaving behind a fair amount of rubbish. There was a bit of trash floating in the water as well. Such a damn shame.

Still beautiful though, and a great way to spend a part of our Sunday.

 
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Posted by on February 17, 2017 in Uncategorized

 

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Party at Nyan’s Place

03 Feb

At the start of the year, the parents of a bunch of Nyan’s classmates decided that it’d be nice to get the kids together just before the new school year started. Our apartment complex has a nice function room, so we reserved it and hosted. And what a fun, casual afternoon it was.

There was lots of running around, often with Adriana in the lead:

Lots of general fun as well:

Of course everyone made it into the pool for a while:

And there was more running and playgrounding:

There were also some more mellow times, when the kids were hanging out on the chairs, chit-chatting and eating ice cream.

A great start to 2017 and the K2 school year (the last year all these great friends will be at the same school, but we’re trying not to think about that just yet!)

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Bonus: Afterwards, Ming Xuan came upstairs so she and Nyan could play Legos for a while.

 
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Posted by on February 3, 2017 in Uncategorized

 

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Family Fun Day Downtown

27 Jan

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.

 
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Posted by on January 27, 2017 in Uncategorized

 

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