Rose Experiment

Last week, we heard over the radio something about a DIYAH (do-it-yourself-at-home) experiment using roses. Something like colouring white roses 'naturally' by putting the stalks in coloured water.

WF was very keen to try it out at home. So, I braved the hot scorching sun last Tuesday to go and get him the roses from Chinatown. Then on Wednesday, the food colours (all 5 of them) from NTUC supermarket.

On Wednesday night (almost close to midnight, actually), WF declared that it was time to carry out his great experiment. So, we got all the containers and generously poured about half bottle of each colour into them respectively.

I cut the roses' stems (so as to ensure that they would be accessible to the colours) while R went about 'setting up' his improvised stand for the experiment. WF, in the meantime, busied himself admiring the flowers and taking charge of those whose stems I had finished cutting.



Then, we all took turns to decide whch stalk of rose would go to receive which colour. This was how they looked. Ya, the poster-filled wall of this part of the kitchen seemed a little messy in the photo, so R helpfully held up a 'background cardboard' for these pictures.



Before WF went to bed, he asked, "The flowers will really turn into different colours, right?" "Hmm, yes, probably," came our reply. "By tomorrow?" WF asked again. "Hopefully," I said.

"Then we'll surprise 哥哥 when he comes back. Will he be back tomorrow?" WF asked again.

WY had gone on his Sec 1 camp at St John's Island last Wednesday, so he had had to miss out on our carrying out of the experiment. But by the time he returned on Friday, he would definitely marvel at the results of it.

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The next morning, we were greeted by this wonderful sight of the now-coloured roses. See, what beauties, right?



See how we didn't forget to put a stalk in just plain water as a 'control set'? Hahahaha, true blue 'scientists' we all are!

Root Canal Treatment & Alice In Wonderland

Yesterday, WY kept his appointment with the root canal specialist at the dental clinic. The dentist checked and announced that the tooth was now fully treated and ready to be filled with the root canal filling. The permanent filling would then follow.

The permanent filling marked the completion of the root canal treatment.

Phew! I am so glad and thankful that WY's treatment had been, so far, smooth and relatively painless. This was such a contrast to the torturous treatment I had had more than 2 decades ago.

So, we thanked the dentist profusely when she bade us goodbye at the end of the visit. Really, I truly appreciated her kind and gentle handling of WY's poor tooth and her generous sharing of her expert knowledge, every time we visited her.

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After the dental visit, we quickly picked up WF from his LW class (this was a special class to replace the lesson the school missed during the CNY weekend). Then we all proceeded to Great World City for lunch followed by a movie.

Lunch was at Crystal Jade. WF had his favourite meatball porridge while the 3 of us had an assortment of noodles. We also ordered 2 tim sum items while WF asked for his 小笼包, which the auntie waitress had to 打包 from the outlet 2 floors down the escalator. It's always amazing to see how WF will proclaim loudly and clearly as he tucked into his porridge, "Mmmm, this porridge is so, so, so, so.... delicious!"

The show which we eventually decided to watch was Alice in Wonderland. It was a nice mythical movie although I do confess that I have never ever read any book or story about Alice In Wonderland. The special effects were good; I liked especially the vanishing effect of the cat who could turn invisible at will. The hat-ter also looked good and somehow, he seemed very well-dressed as compared to Alice who went big and then small and then big again, before becoming normal-size again.

The theatre was exceptionally cold that day. Fortunately, we were seated at the last row, so we were spared the cold air directly blowing down because there was an awning of sorts above our heads.

We ended the day with a short grocery shopping trip to Cold Storage at the basement of GWC.

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The day's programme seemed kind of mundane, but as WF so aptly summed it up as we unloaded the grocery from the car: We had our outing today, a movie outing, correct? :)

KidsDash 2009

Kids Dash 2009 was a significant event in last year's calendar.

Significant because it marked the end of my 6-month break from office work. And even more so because it was the 1st race where WY and WF ran 'independently' whilst R and I watched from amongst supporters lining the route.

We started the morning with breakfast outside. Then R walked the boys to the part of the route near VCH before joining me outside the old Supreme Court building.

Weather that morning was good. A little breezy and not too sunny (yet). Many supporters stood around, armed with cameras big and small. Everyone seemed to be in a cheery mood.

R and I waited for a long, long time before we heard the emcees announce that the participants for the Kids Dash had been flagged off. From then, it was an intense neck-craning exercise as we tried hard to spot WY and WF amongst the many runners on the road.

We waited and waited, then suddenly, we spotted WY! Can you see him? I cheered loudly but I am sure he didn't hear me. He was focussed on his run/jog.

After WY ran out of our sight, it was another 10-15 minute wait before we spotted WF on the road. The little boy was, for the first time since we started taking part in KidsDash several years ago, running all by himself! R and I are so proud of him!



WF saw us amongst the crowd and waved hard at us, too! We must have waved about 100+ times in those 10 seconds or so.

Our brisk walk to the Finish Line after that was a headache. R and I found that all the various sections of the street which had remained open for access in previous years' events, were now closed. So we had no choice but to make big detour around 3-quarters of St Andrew's Cathedral's boundary perimeter in order to get to the Finish Line. And we had to dash about and manouver carefully in case we knocked into any of those sweaty but jubilant marathoners who had finished their race and who were roaming about.

When we eventually met up with WY and WF, they were all smiles and grins. WF, especially, was so proud that he hadn't needed WY's company for the race. WY told us that the ushers had organised the Kids Dash participants according to their age group, so he had no chance to run along with WF. But it worked out fine, afterall.

We took a leisurely stroll back to the car in Clark Quay and then went home for our showers.



To our surpise, the organisers sent us an email after the event to invite us to purchase WF's photographs that their official photographer had captured. We did, of course, even though R initially baulked at their price. I think the photos are worth every cent paid.

Back To Reality

Starting from 1 June 2009, I had stayed home full-time and away from the office for 6 months.

The 6-month stay at home had been a mix of everything - marketing, cooking, household chores and general 'aunty-ing'. There had been lots of studying, worrying, cajouling, scolding and even some yelling. Then there had been some games and other exercises. And much laughter and joy.

There just hadn't been much time for much computer work though, and hence the blogging drought (save for a few posts).

But fear not! Yesterday, I returned to the office. And so, there should be a little more time for more regular updates starting from now. I only need a little more time to sort out the boxes of stuff sitting in my work station (we moved recently to a temporary office space whilst awaiting our new 'open-concept' office to be ready) before the updates can be done. (I almost couldn't locate my stationary yesterday!)

Also, we haven't had time at home to organise the photos that we had taken on our Taiwan trip. So the travel stories will have to come later. Suffice it to say for now that it had been a good trip, both educational and entertaining.

Why else would WF's questions at the beginning of our trip like 'Mama, why did you choose to come to Taiwan?' morph into questions like 'Mama, when can we come to Taiwan again?' at the end of our trip? :)

It's been a long time since we last went to Terminal 1.

We'll see tonight how things are there now.

And we are excited to be travelling!

We'll be back in a week's time. And so, till then!

Bye! :)

3 Weeks Now

It has been such a packed 3 weeks that it's tough to now recall and put everything down in words.

1st week

During the 1st week of June, I brought the boys to the World Book Fair. And as expected, we didn't go away empty-handed. Fortunately, though, we didn't spend beyond our budget for that day - WY got 3-4 books while WF got 2-3; I only managed to find 1 book that I liked.

The Fair was held at Suntec City, so we got on the MRT train in the late afternoon and walked all the way there from the City Hall station. Along the way, WF tried to cajoule WY and I into dropping by MPH and HMV in the City Link Mall but we managed to coax him to hurry to Suntec City instead.

Although we all became so exhausted after our 3-over hour visit to the Fair, it was a good trip.

Supplementary lessons

WY spent a total of 3 full days in the 1st-2nd week attending supplementary lessons at KHS. On the 3rd day, his sympathetic teacher bought pizzas for the children who were elated at the treat. WY was no exception.

WF did not have any supplementary lesson during this June break. What a relief it was for him as well as for me.

2nd-3rd week

We signed WF up for a Maths course at Toa Payoh. And as he had missed half a year of the course, we decided to arrange for the 'missed' lessons to be attended during the June holiday on a sort of 'intensive' basis.

Hence, WF and I had been taking the bus to Toa Payoh and spending 4 afternoons there each week. On some days, WY joined us. By now, WF has come to learn that Bus 155 is, more often than not, a 'snail bus' trundling along the road in the scorching hot afternoon sun and the ride on these snail buses is no fun at all, especially when the roads get a little jammed in the evening peak hours.

There were 2 occasions when we were a little hard-pressed for time (I had to rush back to cook dinner) and we had to take the taxi. The pockets hurt more although the rides were a little more bearable than the stuffy snail bus.

WY has gotten used to the lessons. He is now less intimidated by the sums in the workbooks even though the more challenging ones remain tougher and take more time to complete. In a way, I think he also gets to practise the discipline to sit down to finish his work all at one go.

Cooking + washing

M's contractors moved in to start the renovation works at her place right from 1 June. And henceforth, I have been resuming all the cooking and washing chores. M has been shuttling up and down to take her breaks etc. We have told her to take things at an easier pace or she might risk getting into her dizzy-problem again. The works have been completed by now.

Actually, the cooking and washing are much easier stuff than anything else that needs to be done. Menu planning is, contrary to popular belief, easy and quite fun. My rule is to keep things simple - mostly steaming and blanching, minimal frying - so everything from preparation to washing-up can be kept easy.

The stove area is much less greasy now because my habit is to clean the place immeidately after each use. But the accumulated layer of disgusting grease stains on the walls and fittings etc remain to be scrubbed and cleaned.

News?

As with my past experience, the minute I went on long leave, I became out of touch with the world. No more STOnline, no TV, no getting around except to TP for lessons and for quickie pick-ups from the supermarket.

All 'leisure' time is spent poring over the schedule and making sure that everything that needs to be taken care of has been fitted in and seen to. Think an over-worked secretary - knitted brows, perpetual frown and unkempt hair, telephone calls and smses - that's how it roughly is.

So it was no surprise (to myself) that I hadn't known that the number of H1N1 cases in Sg had hit the 60+ figure before last Saturday! And what North Korean vessel carrying WMD approaching Sg?! Ha?!?!!

Sigh, I guess it will be only after the boys return to school that I will be able to get connected again to the world. Don't ask why this must be so - it's just difficult to manage everything while seated in front of a laptop that has been switched on. And we are not even talking yet about the immense distraction such a machine will create.

Badminton

One of the biggest step that I had taken with the boys these 3 weeks so far, has been playing badminton. WY and WF tried for the 1st time some time last week to play the game. I brought them to the little wind-sheltered corner behind the lift lobby in B121 opposite our block for the game. By now, we have come to refer to this corner as 'behind the glass tiles'.

WY was a complete novice when we started. But he is now better able to serve and to receive the shuttlecock even though he is still nowhere compared to the level CP and I used to play at during my primary school and secondary school days. One thing, though, is that there is fortunately no risk of us hitting the shuttlecock onto the roof (like we used to do in the kampong where we had to resort to getting the bamboo poles/slippers to try to retrieve the stranded shuttlecock!).

WF is still a newbie to the game. But he has remained very positive in the few sessions we had had so far and he is now able to serve the ball albeit to the side (not to the opponent in front). The only thing now with WF is that he still insists on bringing a pack of biscuits or some light snack along whenever we go about our badminton game. And he would be asking to eat these at the earliest opportunity, by claiming that his 'stomach level is so down, down, down already!' (with his hand marking the level below the belly).

There is a newly installed vending machine outside the RC. It dispenses fizzy drinks. And both WY and WF would try to convince me that we should give each drink a try so we know its taste. Much to their delight, I had given in to their pleas once but other times, we had managed to stick to only the plain water we had brought from home.

We have placed bookings for the badminton hall in the CC for 2 mornings this week. Hopefully, we will then be better able to try the game since the wind will not be an issue in the hall. But I think there are about 3-4 vending machines in the CC.

Korea 2008

It was only yesterday that I suddenly realised that we had forgotten to share with everyone our Korea photos during CNY!! Aiyah, what a shame....

So, I post here some of the photos taken of us by our photo-cum-assistant-tour-guide on our trip. Shh.... she wasn't supposed to give us 'soft' copies, but I think she genuinely likes us. The 30,000-won tip (~S$30) which we gave her probably helped, too.

At Nami-Island:



At Mt Seorak:





At YongPyong Ski Resort:



At Kimchi School:



At Lotte World:



Some of those taken by ourselves are on WY's blog. Others we'll find time to share here again.

Gold Coast - Sea World

After a good night's rest, we all woke up early for our usual early-breakfast-then-shower routine the next morning. Breakfast was especially good, I remember, because we were the 1st to be seated! Hahahahaha - 1st customers, leh!

After our hearty breakfast and then shower, we met up with our tour group at about 9:15am. The coach was early but some 'new comers' in the now-enlarged group were late, so we started off some 20 minutes later than planned.

By the time we reached the gate to Sea World, it was already past 10am. The park was already open, so we hurried in as our tour leader went about collecting then distributing the tickets as she had done the day before. Once we were inside, we hurried to the Monorail Station - it felt so much like we were on Sentosa!

The Monorail train brought us to the Dolphin Show. This was at a very large gallery. As we tried to look for a bench in the shade, we saw many groups of young children in uniform. I think they were on a school excursion.



The Dolphin Show was quite good. It was a pity, however, that there was minimal opportunity for close-up encounter or interaction with the marine mammals.

When the Dolphin Show ended, we strolled to the theatre about 10 minutes away for the 4D Show called Planet SOS. This was an educational show aimed at encouraging people to protect and conserve the natural marine environment. The special effects of this show were just as good as those of Movie World's Shrek movie although it certainly was not as hilariously entertaining as the latter. Whilst waiting to enter the theatre, we chatted briefly with some 'new' members of our tour group.

After the show, it was a little chaotic because somehow, our group got a little disbanded - the tour leader hadn't had time to brief us on what attractions she was going to guide us to next! And at this time, WF asked to use the toilet, so R had to carry him to look for one whilst WY and I waited for them as we queued for the open-air cable car called Sky High Skyway.



When R and WF finally re-joined us, it was almost our turn to board the Skyway. It felt quite refreshing being on the open-air cable car whose cables spanned across almost the entire length of the park! When we reached the middle of the park, the cable car suddenly stopped moving, leaving us 'dangling' in the air for close to 5 minutes! R and I think (and would prefer to believe) that this was a planned and deliberate stop and was meant to allow us to take some photos of the beautiful scenary all around us.

The cable car rode us to the Main Entrance. As we disembarked, our tour leader who was already at the station, suggested to us to get ourselves a good seat in the gallery before grabbing some lunch from the fastfood stalls just behind the gallery.

As the gallery seats were filling up very quickly, we did just as told. It must have been almost 40-degrees celsius in the sun then - very luckily, we were able to find some seats on the 'last' bench in the shade...

So WY and I left R and WF to jaga our seats as we trodded to the fastfood to grab some food for everyone. As the Waterski Show we were there for was about to start soon, I just ordered 2 portions of fastfood (one with chicken and another with fish). To my shock, what we got was something like 2 paper trays of french fries, each probably weighing 1 kg or more and one was topped by 2 pieces of fried chicken and the other was topped by 2 pieces of fried fish fillet! And then there were 2 gigantic cups (souvenir designs) of coke!! All at a total cost of close to A$25.00!

When WY and I returned to our seats, we were dismayed to find them occupied by some Indians. Trust R to jaga our seats! When WY couldn't squeeze into our 'rightful' seat, he had to contend with a seat on the bench below ours. This sent him squinting and I started to feel super frustrated. Just then, one family from our tour group who was sitting on the bench right behind us called out to WY, "小弟弟，那边很热，你来跟我们一起坐吧！"

And so WY stood up and 'climbed over' to sit behind us. That family chatted with us happily as we waited for the show to start. We found out that both WY and the elder daughter of that family attend SHHK sister schools and both will be in P5 when the new school year starts! What a coincidence! (Later, through a late-evening chat at our hotel lobby, we also found out that the man in this family is a hairdresser whose salon is in AMK, very near to CP's house!)

Anyway, given that the weather was so hot, we didn't really have any appetite to finish the fries. To cut a long story short, we ended up throwing away almost 60% of the food although we quite gladly downed all the refreshingly cold coke.

The WaterSki Show started off with some dancing girls and clowny men. When the water skiing demo came on, the pace of the show picked up and it all became quite exciting! The many stunts were gracefully executed and the crowd was unmistakably impressed, cheering loudly with all our ooh's and ahh's....



When the show came to an end, we were invited to pose for a souvenir photograph with the team of waterski stars. WF was at first very reluctant but because he was interested in the 'blue car' which was part of the waterski props, he agreed to join us for the picture eventually after some coaxing.

On our way out, we were quite tickled to see how the team of cleaners who had arrived to clear the garbage left by spectators were swarmed by flocks of seagulls! The hungry seagulls were so busy pecking away at some leftover food that most of them were not even bothered by WF's attempts to 'shoo' at them! Fortunately, we had already bagged our remaining food for disposal at the cleaners' bins.

After a brief toilet break, we stopped by at the gift shop - airconditioned! WY chose to buy a set of wood-block windchime for A$11.00. I bought a coloured-stone costume-jewellery ring for A$10.00. R found nothing suitable to get. WF, who was more eager to get moving, also did not buy anything at the gift shop.

When we were waiting for the Monorail train earlier in the morning, we had heard the loud whirring of the rotary blades of a helicopter. When we found out that there were actually scenic rides available, we had decided that we would try to catch the ride before we bade Sea World goodbye.

So, as we walked away from the gift shop, we were wondering which way we should head to. WY and WF lost no time to suggest that we check out the helicopter ride and so, we proceeded towards the Ticket Booth for the Sea World Helicopters.

On route, we dropped by the Dugong Discovery. WY went about reading the facts about the Manatees and WF tried his hands at some puzzles and texture-colouring at the young children's section. We also found out how we would each measure up to the Manatees - based on our heights (not weight, lah!!)!



As we left the Dugang Discovery, we hastened our pace and we were soon at the ticketing booth for the Sea World Helicopters. The various rides available ranged from a 5-minute ride to a 30-minute one. Naturally, the longer the ride, the more costly the tickets would be.

After a super-fast study of the information pamphlets and by checking with the counter staff, we decided that it would suit us most to take the 10-minute option. And so, we bought our tickets for a total of about A$350 and booked a 3:15pm flight. We had to take our weight at the counter but this was done so discreetly that no one, except for the staff, knew how much we each weigh! Hahahaa....

As we had some time to while away before we were scheduled to fly, we decided to check out some other attractions in the meantime. We dropped by a stationery ship and took some pictures while climbing up to its decks. Then we went on a rather boring ride on the Grand Central Train followed by the soon-to-be-removed Sea World Eye.



The Sea World Eye is like a big ferris wheel, something like a smaller version of the soon-to-be-ready Singapore Flyer. The bird's eye view it offered was quite fascinating but I was scared stiff whilst our car was huing up in the air, dangling away in the winds.



At some point, WF cheekily 'rocked' the car a little, which sent me screaming, "Ahhh!! Please don't rock the car!!!!! I am already trying to keep my balance clawing at the side of the car because it has no handle, so STOP rocking!!!" R and WY just laughed. *huff*

We saw the much-talked-about Cork Screw Roller Coaster and the Pirate Ship from afar. We also saw the tip of the fire-spitting volcano at the Bermuda Triangle ride attraction. It was quite exciting sitting on this giant ferris wheel going round and round 3 times - that was what the staff promised when we first mounted the car.

It was such a relief when we finally completed the 3 'promised' rounds of the ride and I was all ready to be released from the car when we reached the 6 o'clock position.... then, to my shock, the staff didn't open the door of our car! And just as we thought they had mistakenly decided to send us on yet another round (*Ahhh!!*), they stopped and released us. Phew!

By the time we were done at the Sea World Eye, it was almost time to report at the Helicopter area for our pre-flight briefing. So we made a dash for it and even though WF started to pester me to buy him a cup of popcorns from the snack bar, I told him we would get it after we had flown.

The pre-flight briefing consisted mainly of a video show with information on the do's and don'ts. And then, when we were done, we stashed our bags including our cameras into the lockers provided (and so from this segment on, no photo was taken, R only held the video-cam) and then got into the boarding area to wait for the cobalt-blue helicopter we were to ride in. Whilst we sat waiting, the staff explained that based on our weight, we had a choice of either both children taking the front seats and both adults taking those at the back or one adult in the front seat and all the other 3 at the back.

WY was of course keen to sit in the front, and although at first WF asked to sit with me, we eventually managed to convince WF to sit in the front with WY. WY reassured WF, "Don't worry, ok, WF. 哥哥will take care of you. We can both sit together and look out from the front together, ok?"

When the chopper landed on the landing-pad, the noise generated by the spinning blades was incredible - we could hardly hear anything else! As the staff ushered us to the aircraft, we saw how everything seemed to fly about because of the strong drafts caused by the spinning blades, wow!

The pilot was a very friendly man. After a brief 'hi' and 'welcome' etc, we soon took off on my first-ever Helicopter Ride - after we were all safely buckled up and comfortably fitted with the hearing-saving ear muffs. Like the Sea World Eye, there was no handle for me to hang on to in the cabin. So I had to try to keep my balance, once again, clawing against the side of the seat. Oh man, I was thinking to myself, why is it that they cannot fix a simple handle bar for people like me, ha?! View is so fantastic but I felt my arms gradually becoming so stiff that it actually felt painful!

The boys enjoyed themselves tremendously, looking out from the glass doors and full-height windscreen from their front seats! I think WF, who looked quite at ease in his seat, must have felt very privileged to be seated right next to the pilot and the wide-ranging joy-stick controls and panels! At some point, he even asked me over the microphone, "How are you, Mama?"

R and I posed various questions to the pilot, who readily shared with us the information (mainly about the Gold Coast overall, Surfers' Paradise and Sea World). I remember that I also asked how high we were flying at and he told us, "500 metres."

When we finally returned to the landing-pad at Sea World, it felt as if we had been away for longer than 10 minutes. We quickly retrieved our stuff and then made our way out of the helicopter area - without the ear-muffs, it was really quite unbearable to be near the whirring dragonfly! WF said, "What a noisy helicopter, just like Harold!" I couldn't agree more.

WY and I had felt so excitingly refreshing (or was it refreshingly exciting?) to have completed our first-ever helicopter ride that we kept talking about it non-stop as we trooped towards the ride attraction at The Flume - The Viking's Revenge.

This was like a simpler version of the Movie World's Wild West Falls Adventure ride (like our Haw Par Villa water-splash ride). In fact, it was so 'mild' that many riders were young children. As we sat in our gondola-like 'boat' waiting to start our ride, we saw several kindergarten/school caps being fished out from the waters by the staff!

For this ride, WF took the front seat. I sat right behind him. R took the back seat while WY sat between R and myself. As the 'boat' went round and round the maze of water-filled longkang, I kept reassuring WF (who was like, semi-protesting that he didn't really want to ride) that the ride would be most fun as we went splashing down the slide. The little boy did not seem very convinced.... then.... as we approached the top of the slide, there was again a momentary pause *click* (photo-taking, lah!) before we plunged down the slide and got ourselves all drenched!

When we proceeded to collect our souvenir photo, the person manning the photo corner pointed out that both WY and WF's faces were hidden - WF had ducked his head right into the body of the 'boat' whilst WY was completely hidden behind me!

So, at his suggestion, we decided to go another round on The Flume so that we could get that 'perfect' picture.....



To cut long story short, for this 2nd attempt, we managed to get WF to keep his head up (in fact, he even managed to give a big brave grin!) as the camera snapped out photo. But WY tilted his head so high that we couldn't see his face on the photo anyway. Aiyah....

Anyway, immediately next to The Flume was the Bermuda Triangle with the fire-spitting volcano. Just as he had done with the Scooby-Doo Spooky ride at Movie World, WF resolutely refused to try the ride at Bermuda Triangle. So, eventually, WY and I made a dash for the Bermuda Triangle whilst R and WF proceeded to order and collect our photo.

WY and I had to wait for a super l-o--n---g time for the Bermuda Triangle ride. There was some video-screening 'briefing' (they were trying to conjure up some exciting atmosphere but I think it wasn't very successful) just before we started the ride through the dungeons and cave-like enclosure. Everything was loud and noisy and there were at least hundreds of weird-looking aliens lining the sides of the dungeons. Some looked rather frightening but most were more funny than scary. There was of course lots of loud noises, too.

I guess WF did the right thing again to decline taking that ride in Bermuda Triangle. It would have been difficult to warn him when and how to dodge those unexpected water sprays and *poofs* of fire spitted at us around corners here and there (we did the right thing not to have any camera with us).

When WY and I emerged from Bermuda Triangle, we realised that we were already running late. In fact, it was almost 15 minutes later than the appointed time for gathering at the entrance for our coach ride back to the hotel! And so, WY and I ran and ran all our way out to the entrance!

*pant* *pant* *pant* *pant*....

On the way, we made a brief stop at the photo shop to pick up our WaterSki photo, but we couldn't find it on the shelves. It turned out that R and WF, who had made their way to the entrance earlier, had already collected it.

And so, amidst many many apologies to our tour leader and our fellow tour group members (for being the 2nd-last family to return!), we boarded the coach and made our way back to the hotel for our shower.

(Later, I realised that we have missed out the Sesame Street Beach! Luckily, WF didn't make too much noise, although he did ask to visit this young-children's theme sub-park 'next time'! We also forgot all about the much-talked about Shark Bay and Polar Bear Shores. Sigh.)

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Dinner that night was at yet another Chinese restaurant across the road. Dishes served included curry chicken (everyone was surprised!) and some well-fried omelette. Although food was still so-so only, we had a great time chatting with the different families seated at our table and exchanging with one another what we had seen or tried at Sea World that day.

In fact, we enjoyed one another's company so much that we actually took a short walk together to Hard Rock Cafe to buy some souvenir t-shirts. The reason: the tour leader had distributed to us some 'privilege cards' which would entitle us to some collar-pin souvenirs from Hard Rock, mah!! Hahahha... so cheapskate of us, hor?!

Then, we strolled on to some other shops before we parted and went our separate ways. R, WY, WF and I eventually found ourselves at this shop called The Australian Spirit or something like that. And here, we found a wide array of Australian-made t-shirts and very beautifully-crafted boomerangs and other handicrafts.

WY decided to get a string bracelet with a 'Red Back Spider' encased in a plastic tile. R and I selected a dozen or so Aborigin-design and Animal-themed-design t-shirts for adults and children. WF didn't choose anything, and so I proceeded to make payment. The total bill came to just above A$300!!

Just as the very friendly and helpful sales lady was going to prepare the bill, WF came running to me and requested, "Mama, I would like to buy a bracelet, just like 哥哥, please?"

And so, WF and I pored over the assortment of designs available and finally picked a beautiful bracelet with a very pretty bug encased in a tile. WF quickly asked to put it on, just as WY had done. And then I continued to deal with the sales lady on the bill.

Barely seconds later, we found WF by my side again! This time, he asked, "Mama, what is the name of this beetle?" I was stumbed. "Oops, I don't know." Turning to the sales lady, I quickly asked, "Would you happen to know what this bug is called?"

The very amused sales lady examined WF's bracelet and then helpfully offered to look for its name from the labels on the boxes. I, too, browsed through the boxes to search for a similar beetle but to no avail. Then, just as we were about to give up, I spotted a similar beetle on a necklace on the shelf and the label read 'Flower Bug'.

"WF, I think your beetle is a Flower Bug," I offered. "Yeah! Thank you, Mama!" came his jubilant reply.

Then the sales lady and I returned to our business. In the distance, we could hear WF telling WY, "哥哥, mine's a Flower Bug! Wow, mine's a Flower Bug!"....

Of course the sales lady was full of compliments for WF's inquisitiveness. Even her elderly relatives seated next to her and who were also very amused by our little exercise to ascertain the name of the beetle, commented heartily, "That's a very bright boy! And both of the brothers are very well-behaved!"

I chatted with this group of elderly seniors briefly. It turned out that they had just recently visited Singapore and had enjoyed their 3 weeks' stay here. They were all full of praises for the locals (or whoever they had encountered and whoever they thought are 'locals'), "Singaporeans speak very good English!"

(Ha?! Really, meh?!)

After we bade these Aussies goodnight, we took a leisurely stroll back to the hotel. On the way, we popped into the supermarket for (more!) drinking water. This time, we decided to get a 5-litre bottle so that we would not need to keep replenishing our supply. R also bought a one-litre bottle of Yoghurt drink - this yoghurt drink (cannot recall its name but it has this bottle whose top looks like a honey comb) actually costs more than double the A$ price in Cold Storage in Singapore!

By the time we were done at the supermarket, the wind had begun to feel a little chilly. And so we quickened our pace. When we finally arrived at the hotel, we decided to rest our feet and so *plonk* we took our seats on a sofa set at a comfortable end of the lobby overlooking its pool. Then we started to enjoy R's youghurt drink.

We were soon joined by our tour leader. Then minutes later, 3 other families in our tour group also dropped by in quick succession. As our group of about 7-8 adults (and 5-6 children, all pre-teens) sat to 'exchange notes' on our respective evening shopping spree, we became more acquainted and found out more about one another. Somehow, at some parts of the very animated discussions, 2 or 3 of the mothers even went on to share their respective experience giving birth to their children!

It was a very fun and pleasant chit-chat and the group broke up only when we realised our respective youngsters had begun to fall asleep right on our laps there and then!

Later, R and I agreed that we were very fortunate to have great company on this tour. And this is, I suppose, the bonus of group travel, which I am very glad we have opted for this time.