owls often symbolise intelligence, wisdom, knowledge – plus, they’re REALLY cute. (and ok yeah, there’s a literary reference too: Owl Babies is one of my favourite children’s book makes me teary every time, sniff.)
pink (her favourite) and black (my favourite) hoot loot. well, i had to compromise.
treated the kids to a stay at royal plaza on scotts over the weekend, and had close family members over for high tea at carousel.
just a commoner… ;p
cake compliments of Carousel.
the brother who still refers to his sister as “my baby”.
the coincidentally colour-coordinated grandparents, hmm…
many eligible princes.
the maids-in-waiting.
yes, even he likes to squeeeeeze her. a lot.
the royal plaza people were so kind as to help set up some chairs and a table at the pool side for a small party in the evening.
night owls.
sleeping beauty was forced to wake up from her slumber power nap to blow out the candles…
and pose for insufferably many pictures.
the mommies.
the chewren.
kate middleton she may not be, but marry a prince… who knows??
happy turning terrible terrific three, my owl baby.
so the day FINALLY arrived, with nary a glitch. i almost couldn’t believe everything fell into place according to plan. it was TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE.
yes, it was my birthday. the kids were settled (they were whisked away from the house), the weather was great (no rain!), traffic was smooth, and we even found (relatively) cheap carpark available near the stadium in good time. everything was, to say the least, miraculous.
the stadium was MASSIVE. our seat was like… fourth from the front, and in broad daylight, we could see the stage pretty well.
–> countdown to the start of the show
but as you can see, when the skies dimmed and the lights came out, and the free-standing zone filled up, we were as good as sitting a thousand seats away. lol. i guess i could’ve secured the free-standing zone, but the thought of being elbowed and crushed to an asian pulp by the big-sized ozzies was a little off-putting.
so anyway, jay-z came on and tried to inject some hip-hop vibe into the mostly.. white crowd. lol.
oh hey here’s a crowd-pleaser, though!
and then….
heh. they broke into ‘beautiful day’, which set the mood and the crowd going in an instant.
–> bono did his concert trademark of picking a lucky girl from the front to serenade and fondle. DAYMMMNN. i mean, he had his head ON HER LAP while she sat swooning on stage, and then proceeded to slowdance on the bridge with her for a good entire song. what a cad!
–> the 360 degrees rotating screen at the top unfurled itself downwards halfway through the show, to create a MONSTROSITY of a stage. seriously, it looked like alien royalty had docked its excessively-blinged spaceship right there….
with such a large catalogue of songs to pick from plus their new material, they were spoilt for choice. but they did a pretty awesome job at mixing in their classic crowd-pleasers with their less commercial songs. the date also marked the death anniversary of john lennon, so there were a few beatles’ snippets thrown in as tribute, which bono, the veteran that he is, gelled effortlessly into the setlist. i was especially delighted with tracks from achtung baby (which i’ve decided is my favourite U2 album, evuh), in particular Ultraviolet… which, like in their ZooTV tour, went hand-in-hand with this song.
come on, SING IT!!
they played for 2hrs 15mins with 2 encores, and even though there were tens of thousands in the audience, bono had this ability to make an intimate connection with them through some of the songs, somehow. I DON’T KNOW HOW. maybe he’s magical.
the only downside to the whole evening was – i got a wad of pink strawberry gum stuck on the back of my shirt. like, why do people even stick gum on chairs, right?! which got me telling the man behind who pointed out the stuck gum to me, “this is why we ban gum in singapore!” and gawd, am i glad we did, coz it really sucks trying to get gum out of your shirt. seriously.
the kids were soundly tucked in by the time we got back. i even got a card and a note from the babysitters. how heart, right?!
all in all, it was a totally A-grade awesome birthday. and a perfect end to the trip.
setlist:
Beautiful Day
I Will Follow
Get On Your Boots
Magnificent
Mysterious Ways
Elevation
Until The End Of The World
I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
North Star (John Lennon Tribute)
Pride (In The Name Of Love)
In A Little While
Miss Sarajevo
City Of Blinding Lights
Vertigo
I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Scarlet
Walk On Encore:
One
Where The Streets Have No Name Encore 2:
Ultraviolet (Light My Way)
With Or Without You
Moment of Surrender
the last i’d visited my aunt in brisbane was 16 years ago, and she was kind enough to have us stay over at her new place for the last few days of our trip, where the kids got to know my two young teenage cousins, noorida and caliph. aniq & especially auni were absolutely smitten by caliph, and followed him EVERYWHERE… so, it was pretty easy when we had to do our ‘thing’ on one of the evenings – they didn’t even look for mommy and daddy. pfft! :p
it wasn’t too hard to occupy them, really. there was a swing set, a slide, a pool, and mcdonald’s nearby… which was how we made our ‘getaway’ for the evening, when they were ‘lured’ by my aunt with ice-cream and fries and a big playground… and later xbox games and toys at home.
come husband, let’s buy a piece of suburbia here…
and maybe i can get me one of these too??
addendum
i guess i could mention here two things on my personal agenda which i didn’t get to do.
i) i had the idea to visit a local day care centre since i was in the suburbs, just for the heck of it. (we passed by so many!) the australians are very child-centric, and they’ve a strong focus on quality early childhood services, so i was really interested to see for myself how a typical centre looks like on the inside. my aunt herself has family day care experience and looked after young kids at home (before she got bored and looked for other challenges). but we eventually just couldn’t find the time to formulate and execute a plan for this ‘look-see’ mission of mine.
ii) since my aunt is also a yoga enthusiast, i’d wanted to go to one of the classes with her. but she kept leaving for the gym at like, 5 in the morning (?!) and by the time i woke up, she’d already be back home, getting breakfast ready for us. i swear the women on my mum’s side of the family are all superwomen. (i skipped that gene.)
i mean, how could we NOT? it is their homeland after all…
we went to the wildlife sanctuary on a rainy afternoon, so the koalas were mostly curled up on their treetops, huddling from the chill… and slept, only moving occasionally to stretch, or eat leaves that make them ‘high’. oh the idle, hippy life of a koala, how i envy it.
–> aniq imitating the koalas. macam paham.
–> they weren’t very exciting, obviously, but i couldn’t help but squeaaaalll at how cute and furry and cuddly-looking they were, and the squealing reached its crescendo when we spotted a baby koala peeking out of its mommy’s armpit. i don’t know why i got so excitable over some smelly, poop-eating marsupial. maybe it was my mommy hormones on overdrive. but it definitely was not from inhaling all those eucalyptus trees, or i’d be all nonplussed like them koalas.
then we headed STRAIGHT for the kangaroos (well you know how EVERYTHING in australia closes early, right?). hey, i was a woman on a mission to tick off everything in my Things To Do list, you know…
–> we were SWAMPED! the roos were eager for food, and as you can see, were hardly shy animals.
* trivia time! did you know…
- the female kangaroo is usually pregnant in permanence, except on the day she gives birth; however, she has the ability to freeze the development of an embryo until the previous joey is able to leave the pouch;
- the composition of the milk produced by the mother varies according to the needs of the joey;
- in addition, the mother is able to produce two different kinds of milk simultaneously for the newborn and the older joey still in the pouch;
- during a dry period, males will not produce sperm, and females will only conceive if there has been enough rain to produce a large quantity of green vegetation.
(i mean, HOW COOL IS THAT LAST FACT? it’s like: “hey wifey, we’re kinda low on cash right now, but don’t worry, i ain’t gonna get yer preggerz”, and: “hey hubs, our finances are doing great now, so watcha waitin’ for, let’s get busyyyy, gimme some boootyyy!”…….. ok, i’m sidetracking, aren’t i.)
–> again, baby joey spotted in pouch = squealing.
so anyway, we had to miss out on some other native wildlife, like the wombats, the tasmanian devils, and as aniq – to this day – reminds me, the platypus, which piqued his interest from a kids’ book about australia that we borrowed from the library prior to the trip. (yes, i did. what a nerd.)
oops, sorry laddie, but they weren’t on my To Do list.
on our 8th day, we left the waterfront and hit the country road…
i’d always wanted to do a farmstay, despite my, err, natural disposition to seek urban comforts… but Lillydale Farm, where we had our farmstay, was perfect. the homestead had everything we needed (except mobile reception, so no twitter/facebook, which suited me just fine, heh) and most importantly, the bathroom had hot water and was VERY clean. the farm hosts were so hospitable, and Farmer Doug, while a man of few words, was really patient with us ‘city-dwellers’.
my aim was to get the kids to appreciate nature and experience a farm which they’ve only thus far seen in books and heard in songs. (everybody now, “old macdonald had a farm, ee aye ee aye ohhh!”)
the kids have always been told to stay off grass and mud, and nagged at to death for getting themselves dirty (thanks to a clean-freak grandma’s upbringing), so at the farm, with the slushy mud and grass all around them, they were a little discomforted, and i had to assure them a million times “it’s okaaaaaaay, we’ll wash up later!”
we were sent to a nearby dairy farm, and introduced to… the cows.
–> the fresh milk was warm and quite tasty (though, as you can see from aniq’s expression, not quite the conventional formula milk or HL milk he’s used to, heheh), and smells, hmm… beefy?
of course, we didn’t just meet cows. we met a whole gamut of farm animals. even pigs, but we weren’t interested in taking pics with them. :p i really liked this leg of the trip for the close encounters of the furry & woolly & feathery kind. SO FUN.
–> farmer Doug made me stick my hand in the lamb’s mouth for it to suckle like a pacifier. it was eewww! the lamb’s tongue was very rough and it sucked reaaallly hard. (aniq liked it. then again, he likes everything gross.)
i already miss the view.
and one of the best parts? sneaking out at night and seeing nothing but a stretch of stars twinkling across the velvety sky. (even with two little children breaking the romantic moment by pestering us to go back into the house coz it was TOO DARK MOMMY! tsk, these city kids. :p)
the weather was pretty erratic for the most part of our stay – sunny one minute, rainy the next. but the mugginess that the moody clouds and intermittent rain brought about didn’t deter us from making the most of the down-under summer that has always been promised to visitors in the month of december.
the house we stayed in was right by the lake, so the few idle moments we had were spent on the jetty, watching kayaks, speedboats, families of ducks, sunsets. there was also a pool and a spot of sand for the kids to muck around in. now, if only there was a hot cabana boy to hand me iced tea while i lie on a sun deck chair, ahhh…
on the day we headed out to the Surfers Paradise beaches, the sky was blindingly bright for a while – enough to turn us at least one shade darker – before it started to blow in some grey clouds and made the waters choppy. we even got to witness some Baywatch drama, heh.
too bad none of us did any actual surfing. i wouldn’t mind trading the (imaginary) hot cabana boy for a (real-life) hot lifeguard.
one of the main attractions in gold coast is its theme parks, and with young kids and young-at-hearts, the Worlds were at the centre of our itinerary. we’d planned them on alternate days, spent the whole day at each one, and attempted almost every ride – well, as many as time would permit anyway, seeing how EVERYTHING closes early (ie. 5pm) in australia. :p
@ Dreamworld:
the three big thrill rides that i and my 3 rides ‘kakis’ attempted – The Claw, Tower of Terror II, and The Giant Drop – and survived to tell the tale! we would have gone through them again, if not for the long queues and our ever-patient spouses who babysat the kids…
… who had their thrills too, of course.
@ SeaWorld:
the kids’ turn to have their fun (although the mommies and daddies did manage to steal away for the mad roller-coaster rides at the end heh heh.)
we got wet quite a bit, and not just because of the rides but also because of the intermittent rain.
our full “tour” group – 10 adults and 9 children
@ Movie World
we got Aniq a free pass since it was a few days to his birthday, so it was totally worth it.
the only regret was not getting on the Batman rides, no thanks to the rain, and also, not meeting (fake) Batman for a photo opp, because he moved about so elusively. (did i tell you i’ve always had a crush on Batman?)
we actually bought an unlimited VIP pass for SeaWorld and Movie World, and seriously considered just popping by for that last ride/show we didn’t get to do, but the packed days – and again, EVERYTHING closes early in australia! – didn’t permit it. SO SAD.
and don’t say ‘we have Universal Studios Singapore’ coz that JUST DON’T CUT IT ANYMORE, man.
there were a few things on my checklist of Things To Do While In Australia (generic, touristy stuff, really), and though i’d done most of it before, it’d be different because this time, i was participating as a parent instead of a child, so they were almost new experiences all together, seeing things afresh, through their eyes.
perhaps some day, they’d come to treasure the opportunities we afforded them. and i hope we’ll continue to be able to bring them out into the world, be it near or far, and let the wanderlust bug bite them just as it did me.
a not-so-great dancer pose, ha ha – too distracted by the view of the lake @ mermaid waters
my early morning sun salutations lasted all of, err, 3 mornings before i succumbed to a few extra winks instead, while waiting for the shared bathroom at our holiday home to be available.
feeling all creaky and slouchy now after not practising for more than 3 weeks. gotta get back on track…!
in a fit of nostalgia, i’d raided mum’s photo albums this evening, which made up mostly of badly-taken photos of our family travels throughout the years. every time i look through them, i’d lament at how awful the photos were, and worse, how awful i looked in ALL of them. (which is why i’m thankful mum keeps them in a cupboard, out of sight from visitors. :p)
i wonder if some day in the future, my kids will look at the gazillion photos we took of them and think the same. i can imagine the conversation now.
adult daughter: “mummy, WHY did you make me wear those awful crocs when i was small? what’s with those awful dresses and tights? how could you let me keep that awful hairstyle? why wasn’t i wearing make up?? HOW AWFUL.”
aged me: -____-’
so my first plane trip happened when i was about two years old, visiting a relative in Perth. of course i don’t remember anything of it, if not for the photos. but i think the camera must’ve hated toddler-me, or vice-versa, because i couldn’t find a full picture of my face anywhere.
evidence below.
partially hidden by giant panda (can you see the auni resemblance?):
partially hidden by ferry bench (my late dad in his corporate tee or whuuuut, heh):
partially hidden by hand (check out the cool stroller-thingy circa ‘79, looks more like a lawn-mower):
skip a few years ahead, and we find ourselves on our first visit to brisbane and gold coast. why did i surface these? well, it’s 22 years later now and whaddaya know, we’re flying off tomorrow to the same destination… but more on that later.
so, gladly, these photos were taken from afar. i’d entered the awkward tween years. urgh.
we headed there again in ‘91 to visit an aunt who’d started staying there. by then, i’d entered the awkward teen years, coupled with myopia. double urgh. but i did find this sweet photo of my parents in a very rare display of ACTUAL PHYSICAL CONTACT. ha ha.
in ‘93, the said aunt gave birth to, back then, the most gorgeously grumpy but adorable half-matsaleh baby i’d ever seen, so we went to visit, this time with my grandparents. trivia 1: my grandma and i each have a mole above the right upper lip, and my mum has one on her left upper lip. i’d hoped auni would inherit a mole like her grandma, just to, ya know, form an awesome genetic pattern or something, but unfortunately it’s not meant to be. (… unless moles appear later in life?) trivia 2: this tub of chub (the baby! not me) is now a 17-year-old babe. i’ll be seeing her on this coming trip, and she’ll be babysitting MY babies this time.
as i’d mentioned in an earlier post, i’d bought tickets to watch U2 live in concert on my birthday (!! – yes, still not believing it), so i simply had to dig these up, from circa ‘96 and ‘98 (NEVER MIND HOW AWFUL I LOOKED)…
(notice how bono had ‘moved’ further away from touching distance the second time i visited him, tsk.)
okaaayyy, so it was his wax figure that i was ogling/fondling at london’s madame tussauds lah, whatever, that ‘bulu’ on his arm felt Even Better Than The Real Thing heh heh.
anyway, our bags are packed, we’ll be BNE-bound at 3.15pm, and how apt is it to end this post with this video?
see you guys in two weeks…
“you’ve been all over… and it’s been all over you”
barely recovered from The Worst Stomach Flu i’d ever encountered and being comatose and totally devoid of food for almost two days, i was prepared for a shock to my system… well, what’s a celebration without food, after all. it’s something the husband is especially, especially fond of. i think, even fonder of than me ha ha.
and that ice-cream, which i’d taken the liberty of requesting from the wonderful staff of TGIFridays @ JB, was almost regretful on the part of my stomach (no dairy, doc said!)… but i survived, phew.
to the guy who boils me homemade barley for my fever, makes hot tea for my stomach, scours shops for that particular isotonic drink to recover my salts…
to many more years of looking after me!
HEH HEH.
(that, and many more dishes of delish food to enjoy, and drive-home music to sing along to.)
the organisation had its Family Day last weekend. with discounted tickets, considerable food vouchers AND retail vouchers, how could i not go?
brought not two but three kids who were excellent company, with nary a whimper or complaint despite the slightly schizo weather and long, snaking queues.
20- to 90-minute queues for 3-minute rides! we ended up on most of the kiddy rides, as you can see.
we had the most fun at Shrek’s Far Far Away land, especially the 4D show. and what’s with everything going 3D these days? saw a whole set of fairy tale books at Times the other day with 3D glasses, i mean, what’s next, assessment books in 3D?!
anyway, aniq and adam had their first taste of the rollercoaster. a junior one, short but thrilling nonetheless – and i think they were fairly traumatised. no tears but a little dazed at the end, and when asked if they wanna go on a rollercoaster again, they unanimously went “DOWAN!”. dem wussies, i tell you.
so we were wondering, with the current hype on Shrek 3, all the wonderful details in Far Far Away land, and obviously a lot of money poured into building it, will our Universal Studios be stuck with this theme forever after? the Jurassic Park theme already feels dated, the last movie was what, almost 10 years ago?, and even the merchandise weren’t so compelling (except for that $15 dinosaur tumbler thingy we bought – with our free voucher of course – similar to one my parents got me when we went to Universal Studios in LA a loooong time ago! #relivingmychildhood).
look, Gingy and 2 donkeys! (Gingy’s my favourite character, btw. he just looks… delicious.)
Ancient Egypt, where i could not help but ogle at the model on stilts with perfectly smooth and sculpted washboard abs, and OH, that pelvis (if it were a Greek theme, he’d be Adonis). the other highlight was the Revenge of The Mummy ride, which was the only adult ride izad and i managed to go on while the kids were in another queue. tip for mums and dads – strategise your rides!
2 of the Battlestar Galactica rides in Sci-fi City were down, which was probably why we were compensated with all those free vouchers. i’m quite a sucker for rollercoasters, so it was quite a bummer. but the kids loved this one, an updated version of the spinning teacup.
feeling New York…
and Hollywood…
the rides and shows end at 7pm, which was about the time we came back to the starting point. you’d think the kids would be pooped by now…
but nooo, especially when there’s a Hershey’s chocolate store outside. and the wonderful smell of Garrett’s caramel popcorn!
some points:
- i liked that most of the restaurants are certified halal, so we didn’t need to lug around a picnic basket, and with active and perpetually hungry kids, the food joints were convenient for a quick meal on the go or while waiting in queues.
- wish the rides were generally longer, but i suppose if they were designed longer, waiting time would double, and besides, sentosa’s too land-scarce as it is to build any bigger backlots. but perhaps they could do tram ride tours or something to ease the queues?
- i hear that you can enter from 7pm-9pm for $2 on fridays and saturdays, just to walk around, eat and shop. that sounds like a cheap yet fabulous date! coz it’s quite nice at night, lively and scenic.
- ouh, parking at the place itself, while convenient, was costly. goodbye $20 from our cashcard, lol. and that didn’t include the $7 entrance fee at sentosa. there are shuttle buses, of course, but we were too lazy to lug around the kids and stroller, etc up and down buses. SPOILT lor!
- i’d probably go again. maybe without kids the next time. :p
went for dinner at na/bins at bali lane the other day. was disappointed for a number of reasons:
1) was misled into believing from their FB site that there’d be bellydancing. ok, nevermind, maaaybe we read or processed the information wrongly. fine.
2) the music was blasting from the moment we sat down, and continued to blast despite our repeated requests to turn it down. fine.
3) the air-con was also blasting, and continued to blast despite our repeated requests to turn it up. by now, we’re like, helloooo, mr foreign-waiter-with-no-expression-and-didn’t-seem-to-understand-us!
4) the food looked good when served (plus we were starrrving by the time it reached us), but discovered that it lacked… oomph after a few spoonfuls. only this appetiser platter wasn’t too bad. we would’ve been sufficiently filled up by sharing this between us and forgetting about the main dishes.
even the birthday girl who treated us left with a “takde dua kali lah tempat ni”. BUT! it was a cosy enough place since we were practically sprawled out in a corner, it wasn’t crowded despite a friday night, and the neighbouring tables pretty much weren’t bothered by our mak-budak-tak-sedar-diri antics and the two children spotted scampering around the place making themselves at home. and yes, we even appointed these two children to be our unofficial photographers. (bagus jugak ada anak.)
(taken by aniq. i’m not kiddingggg.)
(evidence of child labour.)
aaand happy birthday to the eldest mak budaks among us. THIRTY FREAKIN’ THREE OMG.
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