In March, I managed to get away to Tokyo with Wei-Han for almost 4 days. Wei-Han was there for work while I explored the place. I was so blessed to have two different tour guides, both whom were friends of my friends here. So though I didn't know them, we both knew someone in common. The first guide was Ayu, a Japanese lady - actually she's more of a girl since she was still in her mid 20s! I'm still adjusting to the fact that there are many people much younger than me! Anyway, Ayu was great. She took me to the Tsukiji fish market, followed by the tiniest Japanese restaurant I have ever seen for breakfast. We had raw salmon, tuna, squid, prawns and fish roe, some tofu and egg all with rice and wasabi, miso soup and green tea. The only thing I enjoyed raw were the salmon and roe, the others would take some getting use to. She then took me to Asakusa where there was a Buddhist temple and it was surrounded by touristy stalls. And then to some shops where they had gourmet Japanese and western food, mostly for take away (kinda like David Jones on the basement of the city store). We had a yummy lunch there , though we had to sit on a bus stop to eat it. I was taken by how decorative and beautiful the disposable takeaway containers were - it seemed like such a waste.

But that is the way things were here. Many things were very detailed oriented. Every shop front was incredibly extravagant, esp the top brands like Gucci, DKNY, Chanel,...etc. I walked past one of these stores which had a proper sized merry go round with 3 horses studded with Swarovski crystals and they sparkled like you wouldn't believe.

Another example was the toilets. For those who have been there before, you know what I'm talking about. Every toilet has a panel on the side of the seat with these standard buttons/knobs: to spray your behind, to spray the middle section (for women), to warm up the seat and to adjust the pressure of the water jet. BTW, the water jet sprays warm water. Some of the toilets have extra buttons: to blow dry your posterior, to deodorise the cubicle, to call for help (emergency) and to play a flushing sound to hide your intimate sounds so that others don't hear your noises.
Some cubicles also provide a special sanitising wet wipe to clean the toilet seat, a toddler chair to confine your child so they don't end up opening the door crawling under the floor while you're doing your business and a fine serrated edge for the toilet paper to tear easily. I'm sure there are more - I certainly have not seen every toilet in Tokyo!

The next day, I had organised to meet Diane who ended up being an hour late. When she told me it was because of the train delays due to a man who had jumped onto the tracks to kill himself, I was shocked and saddened. She then quickly said "Oh don't worry, it happens here all the time." I think that saddened me more. In what must be the most technologically advanced country and a clean, safe, orderly and rich country, there are many who are suffering and have no hope.

Diane is an easy going American lady married to a Japanese man with children who are adults now. She lives and breathes Japan and speaks fluent Japanese, which was so wonderful to witness. She took me to the Shinto temple which was a beautiful temple without any image of their god. That is because they believe there is no god, rather there are stories of mystical deities which come and go, and the concept of the deity in the form of natural forms such as the waters and rocks, or just an abstract creative force. This religion places a high importance on families which explains the culture in Japan of people celebrating 'family' occasions such as weddings and births at the Shinto temple. However, because there is no god, no theology and because it does not deal with death, most Japanese will go to the Buddhist temple when there is a funeral. Apparently, every temple in Japan has a fortune telling option which you can pay a token sum for and upon reading it you may choose to take it with you, or if you so decide that you really dislike the 'fortune', you may hang it on a tree on your way out so that the bad fortune will not follow you out.

After that, we walked through Harujuko and Shinjuku. Some young girls looked like they just stepped out of some crazy costume party. It was incredible how much effort they put into making themselves look so strange - they seem to enjoy it dressing up and the attention they receive and costume retailers are certainly making money off their fetish. I also walked into a shop that sold only clothes for dogs of all sizes - unbelievable. I couldn't help it, but my mind flashed to an image of a near naked malnourished African child. I found it incredulous, despite the fact that I have a dog.

We had a nice traditional Japanese lunch at a quaint little restaurant which apparently had produce which came from a certain province. It was a nice lunch and their bathroon was beautiful. The bathroom sink was a smaller version of the wash area in the shinto temple. Had I not gone there before this, I would have had some trouble figuring out how to wash my hands. You had to scoop the clean water out of the sink and pour the water over your hands over another smaller sink to wash them.

We then went to Shibuya to take part of the well known crazy scramble of humanity when the pedestrian lights turn green. It wasn't so busy when I was there, but even then, there were many people there crossing every 4-5 minutes. We visited a toy store and a souvenier store in between - but I didn't buy much as things were expensive there.

By then, we called it a day and I was happy to make my way home and rest. The rest of the time was spent just walking around and doing a little shopping (this time I shopped without making purchases). I had dinner near a railway station at a tiny eatery which sold noodles like soba and ramen. They had an interesting system where you paid a machine the money and pushed the button which corresponded to the dish you wish to order. This machine then spat out a receipt which you would give to the chef who cooks up your dish in less than 5 minutes. By the time your dish is ready, there would be a seat available for you. It was incredibly efficient and the food was tasty. Only in Japan....

I also came across an interesting passtime for many Japanese men. They seem to love spending hours playing a game called Pachenko. It was a machine decorated with manga animation and filled with tiny silver balls. The men would sit in front of these machines much like a gambler would in front of a jackpot machine, but these machines spat our those balls instead, which they then apparently and illegally exchange for cash in the back alleyway. The establishment that I saw with these machines was large and extremely noisy and smoky. I honestly don't know how anyone could put up with all that noise for more than a minute.

The next day Wei-Han and I flew off. Tokyo is interesting, strange, weird and yet in some parts, beautiful. I don't know if I would want to live there, but it was definitely worth visiting at least once

February saw the coming of the Chinese New Year here and we had our 2nd Chinese New Year party at the Meyer Road playground. Lots of families came and God gave us great cool breezy but dry weather, despite rain just 2 minutes away. Everyone wore something red or gold, it looked like a 'red' party. We had good food and the men got to throw an American football around while the women mostly ate, chatted and kept an eye on the kids.

Then not long after we had an Easter celebration and an Easter egg hunt for the kids at the same park. The kids managed to do the easter egg hunt in the park, but the heavy rain arrived very soon after. So we had over 60 people including kids in our house. There were people everywhere - on the stairs, the floor, upstairs and the kitchen. But it was fun and it was great to see that God had blessed us with this house big enough to squash us all in to keep dry and still eat, drink and be merry!

Meanwhile, as Mia is growing older, she is proving to me more persistent and strong willed. I have little idea of how to handle her, she is quite different to her brother. Matthew is doing great, though we are realising that he does not cope so well in the local school system here, even at the preschool level. So we will change him to a Montessori preschool next month and hopefully he'll discover the joy of learning again. We have also found that Matthew is more confident in social settings when Mia is around. Mia of course is oblivious to whether Matthew is there or not, she just does her own thing.

We got these photos professionally done - that's how camera lazy we've been! My brother Alan also too some great shots, but am still waiting on those to arrive. Esp the great photos he took of Emma, our other other beautiful niece. He's one great photographer, with a cool camera to boot!

Having spent more time with my nieces and watching them, I realise that they seem very compliant and laid back, quite unlike my children. I considered Matthew to be compliant, but he wasn't as easy going as my nieces were, and as for Mia, well, she's adds all the spice in our family! Today she climbed out of her cot after her nap, something Matthew never attempted to do. Discliplining her is so much harder for me than it was for Matthew. But, she's so darn cute that I'm partly to blame as I haven't been consistent : )

We flew home at the end of Nov and went straight back to the routine or work, school,...etc which kept us busy til Christmas. We went to stay at Afamosa Resort Villa in Melacca, Malaysia with the Wilson family. The Wilsons have 3 boys ages 9,7,5 and a baby girl who is 1. So Matthew was mostly preoccupied with following whatever the older boys were doing and Mia to an extent, though being so young and possibly because she's a girl also, she did often hang out with the women more. We each had a separate 3 bedroom villa and each villa had a pool. The villas were not luxury villas, but they were adequate, though without any cooking facilities. I brought my rice cooker - a trick my mother taught me, so that came in handy at times. However, Mia was bitten by bed bugs every night, which made her very itchy, and Matthew's asthmatic symptoms got a little worse, so he was back up to the higher dose of antihistamines. The housekeeping was a joke at best. It was done by a young man (I have never in my life come across a male housekeeping staff) who might change our towels, who might remove our dirty towels but not replace them, who might or might not sweep the floors or empty the trash, who might not wash the dishes in the sink. What he consistently did was made the beds and hosed down the entire bathroom. The bathroom was dripping wet from ceiling to floor and he would leave it that way. It wasn't too much of a surprise when we saw a rat in the villa too.

But despite the lack of hygiene, it was fun to celebrate Christmas with the Wilsons. My kids loved the Wilson kids - Matthew loved the fact that they have Gameboys - he made me promise that I give him one when he becomes older. I said that I would do so when he turns 10.

I was blessed to spend more time with Wendy, she is such a joy to be around. It amazes me that women like her who are so busy with kids and food preparations, can put some mind space into decorating for Christmas while on holidays with minimal decorations!

Wei-Han and Steve got to play a couple of rounds of golf, which they enjoyed. We also got to check out the Animal World (think zoo), Cowboy Town (Wendy went on a reverse bungy!) and the boys and men all did the Water World (kinda like Wet & Wild). It was all fun. Unfortunately, we only have 1 photo as we didn't bring a camera.

I'm still pinching myself to see if it's really true - it's 2008, another year just flew by. Since our last blog, we have spent the month of November in Sydney, came back and celebrated Christmas in Melaka with our close friends, the Wilsons, and then, because we can't seem to get enough of our American friends, New Year with them - the Wilsons, Nashs, Hoffnagles, Peters, and Butz.

Going back to Sydney was so much more sane this time round since the kids were older and they learned to sleep together all through the night (well, save the first wk). The weather was frightfully cold for us, yes, we have gotten use to the heat and humidity here for the first couple of weeks. I bought some winter clothes for the kids and borrowed some from my sister in law, Michele.

We celebrated the kids' birthdays a number of times, Matthew once at school before leaving, one on the actual day, another at a gathering at my in laws, another big bash with everyone for the 2 of them, and a last for Mia on the actual date of her b'day. Crazy. Mostly, it was just a b'day cake and candle blowing event for them. They got showered with gifts for their birthdays and Christmas - I have never seen so many toys in my life.

We spent time with family and close friends which was great. We attended Raj and Sophie's wedding at Berry at a beautiful vineyard - a touching ceremony and spectacular lunch. We were very grateful that Wei-Han's parents came with us to mind our kids during the wedding - it made for a delightful day. Our family stayed at a beautiful bed and breakfast with lovely views due to enormous number of windows (from floor to roof - no window coverings) which meant of course that we were mostly up by 5am. Not great for families with young uns. We then went to Magenta Shores with Wei-Han's parents and his brother Wei-Hoe, Chui Yan and our big eye niece, Chevonne. The men got some golf, mostly we just hung out together and caught up with each other.

We managed to catch up brieflywith a family whom we were close to while in Singapore, the Poll family at Terrigal which was so nice, but oh, so brief!

I found myself being very lazy with the camera towards the end of the year, so I took only a few photos, so not too many to put up on this blog.

Because Matthew and Mia were sleeping quite well, I felt like Wei-Han and I were able to enjoy our family, friends and the trip as a whole a lot more. The previous few trips that we made to Australia felt like a tiring blur to me, mostly because I was up many times each night nursing or comforting a baby. As much of a blessing my babies were to us, this relief was definitely a welcome blessing too!

Some recent photos of out little outing to Kent Ridge Park and some water play at home.

Light at the end of the tunnel

Matthew and Mia are at an age where they are playing well with each other on a more regular basis. This is so wonderful to witness and I'm constantly pinching myself to see if this is a dream. Of course, it's not always peaceful play, but I'm still amazed. Finally, I can walk away and get things done for short bursts while they play.

Matthew is growing up fast. He's playing trump cards with racing cars, he loves rockets, space shuttles and just recently, volcanoes. He just moved out of his toddler car bed into an Ikea wooden bed (of course with bed sheets imprinted with colourful rockets). We also just took the training wheels of his bicycle and tried it last week. As long as he pedaled and went straight, he was fine. However, this would only last a few seconds and when he realised that we weren't holding on, he would glance up, grin proudly and forget to pedal.

Mia is also maturing fast. Her vocab has exploded and it's so cute when toddlers are learning to say new words. She's generally better at understanding and following instructions than her brother at this age, however, she has an independent will that her mostly compliant brother does not possess. During those times, depending on how cute she is, I either give in with a smile or send her to her 'naughty spot'. I know, I know, I should be more consistent....

Wei-Han has been busy at work and has spent some time travelling also. The kids miss him when he's away, especially Matthew.

My work is slowly picking up and I'm seeing the patients that I want to see, namely babies and children. Despite working only 2 mornings a week, I'm quite surprised at the impact of that on me and the family. Just things like the emotional tension at leaving my children in the care of others, wanting to rush back in time to pick Matthew up from school (which isn't possible anyway), wanting to be around especially when Wei-Han is travelling, needing to get errands done,...etc. But it does feel good to get back to work and use my skills and knowledge to help others.

We have noticed more expats moving to Singapore, and we have met some new families in our area. Of course, given our stage of life, I'm meeting mostly mums with young children, and that's fun. Meanwhile we're enjoying our routine of meeting friends at the playground in the evenings (a number of Matthew's school mates hang out at the playground too), and hanging out at the Wilson's who live in a spacious unit nearby. They have 3 older boys and a baby girl, and they all play nicely with Matthew and Mia, so I always find my time there a welcomed distraction, especially since I love being with Wendy, their mum.

Kids playing together....

A Break in Phuket

We spent a 4 days in Phuket with the Song family 2 weeks ago at the JW Marriot resort. It was a family friendly place, and the 2 bedroom villa we were in was fantastic. Plenty for the kids to do though we certainly did miss being close to good, cheap restaurants and shops. But we wouldn't have done much of that anyway as it turned out that I came down with some serious food or water poisoning for half the time we were there. Wei-Han did a great job looking after the kids, cooking for them and caring for me, while I got a good rest. I spent much of the time in bed either sleeping or playing card games or with cars with Matthew or letting Mia roll all around me. The kids bonded more strongly to Wei-Han as a result of me not doing much, which was special.

The Song family stayed next door to us and since they have 2 year old triplets (Jonathan, Natalie and Caitlyn), they were always busy to say the least. Matthew loved being able to run next door to play with them - it made me dream about living in a community or village of some sort where it would be entirely acceptable and safe to do that.

We got into Granada at night and we were quite surprised to find that it was a beautiful small town with narrow cobbled stoned streets. Obviously driving in Granada was an experience. Because I was very nauseous from the drive (for some reason, I react this way to smells of a new car - 3rd time now, maybe next time I'll request for an old car), poor Wei-Han had to drive and navigate us to Granada, to a parking station and to our hotel on foot. He did a phenomenal job because it took all of my strength to carry my bag, walk and not throw up. We finally found our quaint hotel which was really an old Spanish-Morrocan 3 storey terrace house with 9 rooms. I collapsed into bed and stayed that way til morning while Wei-Han got some kebabs for dinner. He described the streets as lively and interesting, nothing that he had ever seen before. Many stalls which sold touristy things were laid out like an Arabic shop - filled with vibrant colours, and they had Arabic music playing in the background. Most of the architecture was quite Morrocan and they were beautiful to look at.

The next day, we awoke at 6:30am to walk up to the main tourist site - the Alhambra by 7am. We figured that this would get us close to the front of the queue as the ticket office opened at 8am. We were devastated to see that there were close to a thousand people ahead of us! It was the May day weekend and it seemed like everyone in Europe decided to visit the Alhambra that day! Still we queued. We bumped into Phil and Rebecca who arrived much later, but we invited them to join us anyway - we were glad for some distraction during what would become the longest queue we had ever taken part of. We had to leave Granada by 4pm in order to return our car by the latest 7pm in Seville (250km from Granada) and be seated for our flamenco show starting at 8pm. So we fervently hoped for tickets which would admit us as early as possible. We finally got our tickets at 1pm for a 2pm slot. We were ecstatic!

And it was well worth the queue. The Alhambra was beautiful. It seemed that everywhere our eyes went, the buildings, the gardens and the views were beautifully preserved - we were quite awed by it all. Unfortunately, due to time constraints we had to skip the Nasrid Palace as that didn't admit us in til 6pm and we had to leave by 4pm. We rushed back to Seville, dumped the rental car and cabbed our way to Seville's old quarters to check in and dump our bags. We then watched a flamenco show which was a real treat - a couple of the musicians and women flamenco dancers were excellent.

The following day, we visited the usual tourists sites such as the cathedral, the Alcazar (which was the most enjoyable palace I have ever visited, I'm sure mostly due to the fact that it is still being used by the royalty at times) and the streets of the old quarter. All through our Spain trip, we avoided visiting any museums as we had little interest in art, especially after having seen the Vatican city, the Louvre and the British Museum.

Later, we found out that there was a special bullfight on May day, which was that day itself. Naively, we got excited and bought tickets. We sat halfway up the bullfight stadium and the place was about 3/4 full. Every 2nd person was smoking which was incredibly annoying and we noticed that many women were dressed very nicely and there were some children present also. Not long after the bullfight started, I wanted to leave. It was the most barbaric thing I have ever witnessed - I know I haven't seen much compared to others who have been through war and so on, so I know I'm a softie, but I'm sure God did not create a bull to be tortured like this. Healthy strong bulls were being stabbed in the back repeatedly (apparently also drugged before hand) and made to run through silly red or pink pieces of cloth til he lost too much blood to care and decided to sit down, at which point everyone started to cheer and clap. This would take about 1/2 hr. Then the bull was stabbed one more time to kill it and the horses would appear to drag it out. We could not understand why this was a sport when the bull was doomed to lose and die anyway (if a man was somehow hurt, I'm sure they would have quickly shot the bull anyway). After awhile, I couldn't watch anymore and had to leave.

It rained heavily the next day which was ok as we were flying to Barcelona that day and we had seen all we had wanted to see. Although we still did trudge through rain to have a look at Casa de Pilatos - apparently a replica of Pontius Pilate's home in Jerusalem. Since I'm not sure if I'll ever make it to Israel, I was quite adamant about seeing this site even with all the rain!

We spent the rest of the day in Barcelona shopping and we flew out the next day - back to Singapore. We were really missing the kids by then and were more than ready to come home.

Meanwhile Matthew and Mia were enjoying Wei-Han's parents and they were all having a great time - though mum and dad were a little sleep deprived and quite worn out from caring for their grandchildren! They took off to KL for a short break before returning for a couple more days before returning to Sydney. Matthew was upset for days after they left, he really missed them.

As for me, I just started work at a practice nearby. I am only working 2 mornings a week which is great. It has been great to start using the part of my brain which hasn't really been used much for the last 4 years and great to using my skills again. The kids have adjusted well to me being at work. And that's all for the month of May!

Wei-Han and I spent 9 days in Barcelona, Granada and Seville without the kids. Admittedly, a couple of weeks before the trip, I was anxious and thought I was crazy to be leaving my kids for so long and being so far away from them. However, as the days drew closer, I was quite ready to go. Wei-Han's parents flew over to help Tina, our helper to care for the kids.

The flight there was 14 hours with a brief transit at Milan and flying economy for that long and overnight could not go quicker. Once we touched down at Barcelona, we were impressed with how efficient, clean and modern everything was. The subways were fantastic too, making it so easy for tourist to travel from the airport to town for just a few dollars. We struck up conversation with an Australian couple Phil and Rebecca, who were sitting in front of us on the plane. We decided to follow them on the train to town and we parted at our stops closest to our accomodation with an agreement to meet up for dinner. Wei-Han and I checked into a basic, but comfortable and quiet hotel in a nice neighbourhood further north of town. After settling down, we walked around the streets, got some food from a supermarket for breakfast, had lunch and visited the famous La Sagrada Familiae, designed by Gaudi. Although it has the gospels all over it, it is not called a church, rather, a temple. I'm not exactly sure whether it's because no one worships in it or it just looks nothing like a church. From the outside, I thought it looked like an enormous grey melting wax cathedral. Wei-Han described it as messy. But the insides were quite a contrast. It was quite beautiful and unique and very interesting in the way it was thought out and designed. For example, the pillars inside the building are made of different strength materials. The pillar at the center of the building was of the strongest granite which represented Jesus. Around this pillar were 12 other pillars built from a slightly weaker granite, of course representing the 12 apostles, and the surrounding pillars thereafter were of the weakest stone there, representing the rest of us.

The Spanish have dinner at 9-10pm, which made for a long day - so of course, we also did what the Spanish do, have a siesta, much needed after the overnight flight in economy. We had paella, tapas and of course the ever sweet and addictive sangria for dinner with Rebecca and Phil which was fun.
The next day, we took a trip out to Monserrat, a monastery up in the mountains. A train and a cable car ride. We listened to a boys choir in the beautiful cathedral. Many a times I have often questioned the logic in man building a large expensive and beautiful church or cathedral so common in the past, while many suffer and perish around them from poverty. And for the first time, while I was sitting in this cathedral listening to the pure voices singing to God, surrounded in wonderful art and architecture, I sense that perhaps some of these buildings were built to glorify God Himself and all of this beauty was a way to express praise to God. And it reminded me of how much bigger, more wonderful and complex God really is.

The following day with joined a Gourmet food walking tour which took us around the city to understand more of Spanish cuisine and its origins. We saw the fresh food market, small shops that specialised in cured meats, pattiserie, chocolates, nuts, nougat, coffee and hot chocolate. We gained a fuller appreciation of the diversity of food here and we were treated to some pate and wine when we finished.

We also visited Montjuic and the Pablo Espanyol. Montjuic was a large park like area up on the hills and it had many gardens, some museums and eateries. One of its attractions were Pablo Espanyol which is a recreated old Spanish village. I'm sure it's probably considered tacky by many travellers who enjoy the 'real thing', but we enjoyed it. I looked into the many little shops in there and saw a variety of the traditional Spanish buildings typical of different eras.

While we were in Barcelona, we decided to arrange to visit Granada. We did some last minute bookings, and the following day, we flew to Seville and drove a rental car to Granada.