Sembawang Splash Park - revisit

We made another visit to Sembawang Splash Park this morning. The weather was absolutely lovely and the kids had a blast!While the boys ran straight for it, Joy-Anne took a while to actually get herself wet.

If we had gone to the WaterPlay at the Singapore Zoo, we would have spent a LOT of money on admission fees.

While this is all FREE!!! Wonderfully FREE!

I read that there's a similar thing back home at the Mines Shopping Centre but when you're not on holiday, you just don't have the time to go. And when you are free to go, everyone else is also free making the place very crowded.

I was very surprised that we almost had the whole Splash Park to ourselves this morning. Hardly half a dozen other kids considering it's a public holiday. Maybe all the Singaporeans are in Johor busy shopping or visiting to collect ang pow.

The water aside, I think the best part for Joe is just spending time with his brothers...

...that's what Chinese New Year is about after all - spending time with family!

Blessed Chinese New Year to everyone!

Singapore in December

We just got back from a short break to Singapore.

Joseph had a wonderful time with his brothers.

They had pillow fights in the attic.

We took a drive down Orchard Road.... this is the Ferrero Rocher Christmas Tree.

The decorations are not as elaborate as in previous years.

I particularly enjoyed the black pork ramen at Tampopo (Ngee Ann City). It's a specialty at this restaurant and the crowd and queue outside means it's really good.

I forgot to take pictures of the food though.

Joseph and Brandon thoroughly enjoyed themselves at the Walking with Dinosaurs live show. He promised me he would not hide under the chair if he was afraid and he kept his word. Brandon was very mature and told us the dinosaurs were all robots. Daalin said the show was worth every bit of the S$41 that the ticket cost.

After the dino show, we met up at Raffles City Shopping Centre where there was a live Dora show.

Joy was very excited...

Even though there was a galore of Dora merchandise, she did not bug me to buy anything but was content to just take photos.

I explained to her that the seating area was only for children and mummys and daddys had to stay behind.

So when the show started, she went up front and sat with the other children, all by herself.

And she actively participated in the singing and dancing with actions, not even looking back to check on my presence.

I was rather surprised, and felt redundant of course.
The bigger boys found Dora too boring and went to check out some book shop.

After dinner at Shokudo (it's like Marche, but japanese), we took a drive down Orchard Road...

I stuck my head out the sun roof to take some photos.

We also drove past the Singapore Flyer...

...and the Marina Bay Sands Hotel which is really really huge!

While the holiday in Singapore was good, the return to Malaysia was horrendous. We inched out way for 2 hours to cover just 500m to the immigration & customs checkpoint in Johor.

I had planned to have lunch at 12noon in Yong Peng but we didn't arrive in Yong Peng till 2.30pm! The children finished all the bread and biscuits and every tiny bit of food I had in the car.

Back home safe and sound, Joe is having a wee bit of a hangover. He says he misses his brothers and wants to sleep with them in the attic. I guess he has to wait till Chinese New Year to 'camp' in the living room with them. Unless Tua Pek and Tua Um wants to adopt him....

Splash Park @ Sembawang Shopping Centre

I found a better alternative to the Water Play at Singapore Zoo.
This Splash Park located on Level 3 of Sembawang Shopping Centre is FREE!

The dry playground is open mall hours but water play operates 11am-2pm and 5-8pm. It's not as elaborate as the Water Play at the Zoo but I'm not paying $12 per kid and $18 per adult just for them to run around the water play area for an hour.

The kids had a blast running through all that shooting water from the contraptions and sliding down super fast when their butts are wet.

There's no shallow pool so it's actually more hygenic since there are people who go into these water play fully clothed in their regular clothes and just soak in there.

We had lunch at the food court and then Joe had a ride in Uncle Nick's car with the sun roof.

Long Weekend in Port Dickson & Seremban

It's been a very long weekend which started last Thursday night. We drove back to Seremban to spend a night in AhMah & AhKong's house.

Ah Kong made the kids very happy with ice-cream in cones.

I'm amazed how such a simple thing can bring such huge smiles to their faces.

I let Joseph indulge, since we now find his cough gets better with Herbalife's tea. So he obediently takes the tea after taking cough-inducing foods.

On Friday morning, we drove to Bayu Beach Resort in Port Dickson. It's clean but not quite my cup of tea. On my own, I wouldn't check in here.
We had the very 'talkative' Rev Nicholas Choo (all the way from Singapore) as our camp speaker.

The kids hit the beach in the evening.
This time, Joy was no longer afraid of sand between her toes.

Joseph proceeded to built the sandcastle he had been talking about for weeks.

But a city boy is a city boy and he kept fussing about his sandy hands and wanted to keep washing them.

The next day, they hit the swimming pool and the city boy was certainly much more comfortable.

He's now very daring to jump into the pool unlike some time ago.

We had good fun in the pool. Joe particularly enjoyed playing with Iris che-che. And he had no qualms of splashing his kindy class teacher who was seated by the poolside.

On Sunday, about 40 of us drove to Seremban after checking out, to have Ngau Lam Fun (beef noodles) for lunch.

We went to the Quinn's branch in Kemayan Square. The entire shop was full of just us.

While the rest of the camp went back to KL, we stayed back in Seremban for another night. Daalin drove back to KL early Monday morning to go to work while Nana, the kids and I stayed till evening and then came back my Komuter train. I was quite afraid that the kids would need to pee during the 1hr 20mins-ride but to my relief, Joy pee-ed 3 times between the time she finished her milk, and the time we left home and thereafter stayed dry throughout the journey. Joe also didn't ask to pee. They were both very good in the train. Excited as well.

Today I did a little bit of packing and clearing out junk. Gonna give away stuff that I don't intend to bring to our 'promised land'.

La Gomera Spanish Buffet

A friend gave Daalin a voucher for 50% discount at this new place - LaGomera Spanish Buffet Restaurant. I've never been to Neo Damansara so we had to look up a map to get there. (I don't like nor need a GPS!)

Regular price is RM59.90 and RM49.90 if you go from 9.30pm onwards. They open till midnight. There was a decent spread of tapas, salads, stews and also a selection of pizza, pasta and grilled stuff that are cooked to order when you drop clips labelled with your table number into bowls labelled with your selection.

I've never had lobster in my life and to tell you the truth, I still can't tell what it tastes like. Nana on the other hand has never seen scallops still stuck to their shells. She's ever only seen and cooked dried scallops up till now. So fascinated was she that she brought home the shells as a souvenir!

Oysters (fresh or cheese-baked), scallops, salmon, ribeye/sirloin steak, bratwurst etc are available at the cook-to-order counter.

They open at 5.30pm and when we got there at about 5.45pm, the place was still almost deserted. Nobody had started yet on the buffet and we gladly did the 'opening ceremony' for the evening.

However all the tables were fully booked and by the time we left at almost 8pm, the place was really very busy. You would probably have to wait a while for your cook-to-order items to arrive at your table.

I'd say it's worth the money at 50% discount but the thrifty person in me wouldn't pay full price for this.

**You can google other blogs for more info and better pictures.