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This is one for the albums for sure, one of the many oh-so-cute pictures I am going to whip out for her wedding picture collage!

This may sound really lame but one of the keys is to start YOUNG! There you go! Once you know this, you are really off to a great beginning!

1. To start, we need to have good warm-ups so we don’t hurt ourselves unintentionally and ruin our chances of being a tennis star! NO NO!

Good job there for the little girl who is really serious about her training and warming up vis-a-vis the little guy who is just doing the bare minimum!

The little chap trying a little bit more but not quite there yet!

Finally pulling up his socks and trying harder!

2. To feel really comfortable holding a tennis racket! I mean you would need to pose for shots with your racket all the time, wouldn’t you! Enough said!

Balancing is important!

Learning to smile while holding the rackets!

3. Practise, practise, practise!

Practise with BIG balls erm balloons…

Practise with smaller balls!

Practise without balls!

4. Lastly, we don’t become tennis stars overnight so humility is obviously important. What could be a better lesson compared to picking up balls to cultivate that!

I know I know, I have been bitten by the itchy-backside bug bad, real bad! The first week of July, I took the kids and went to Taiwan, without their daddy. Don’t panic yet! I may be crazy but not that crazy, my parents and two sisters went along as well. But like every mother knows, the sole responsibility of caring for the 2 kiddos would still ultimately fall upon the shoulders of the 3-headed-6-handed mother!

We chose to go free-and-easy and the SQ flight we took was in the afternoon. I only bought a seat for Talia and as we only decided to join my family last minute, the whole supposed-to-help-out ginggang was seated far away from my bassinet-available seats! I was given two seats on the left but two very nice gentlemen who were seated in the middle (4-seat row) with an empty seat between them and another lady asked me if I would like to swap seats? Before you could even say s-w-a-p, I was over the other seats happily buckling Talia up. Well, for take-off, the little guy would still need to be buckled to me using an infant seat belt. And what-do-ya-know, he fell asleep in my arms during take-off. When the seat belt sign was turned off, I also happily deposited him into the bassinet and had an enjoyable 2 hr watching movies, feeding Talia, feeding myself. When he woke, he had a seat to himself watching cartoons and playing games! The 5-hr flight was a breeze!

We touched down at Taipei at about 5.30pm and only reached our hotel at 西门町 at 7.30pm because of the peak hour traffic. We set off to look for food and when we saw 天外天 hotpot, we decided right away because I think we have had someone recommending that before and everyone was ravenous, buffet steamboat seemed just like the right thing!

Gorging ourselves silly with food!

The next morning, we set off for Taipei 101. We took the MRT and when we came out, we realised there was a shuttle bus that will bring us right to the doorsteps. There was like 3 bus stops along that stretch of road and a local taiwanese woman actually walked to all three bus-stops to make sure we get to the right one! She was so helpful! and boy! did we need that! The weather was like a blazing 38 degrees. Of course we didn’t know that then, it was only 2 days later in a cab that the cab driver told us that have been a heat wave and the past few days, the temperatures have been 38-40 degrees celsius!

We took the shuttle bus and were relieved to be back into air-con comfort.

The bunch!

We headed to the observatory deck first.

The kids were rejuvenated after the temperatures became more bearable and ran around.

Just a shot first at the not-so-real-thing before heading up.

It’s huge at the observatory deck and the children had a blast exploring.

The view is amazing!

We even braved the heat to go out into the open observatory deck!

We had Teppanyaki lunch at the basement of the building, topped with soft silken 豆花 before heading out. The heat was so unrelenting that we quickly went to hide in the nearby New York New York for some shopping before walking to the MRT station.

A not-so-nice mini Statue of Liberty outside the mall.

The real-thing behind us on our little trot to the station.

We took the MRT to Jian Tan station where the Shi Lin night market was. The MRT stations in Taipei were really stroller friendly as compared to the ones in HK. We could easily find the lifts and wider gantries are everywhere!

I was initially apprehensive about bringing two strollers to the night market but I was pleasantly surprised that even on a Saturday night, it wasn’t too difficult to maneuver around.

Night market!

We ate along the way and even had a foot massage before having some herbal bak ku teh at a supposedly 30-year old shop which wasn’t too bad. We headed home in a cab. Yes, all 5 adults and 2 kids squashed together! Go figure.

Thaddeus was spotting a cough before we went and the next morning, his nose started to run and he began to run a fever. I have come all prepared, the doctor even gave me anti-biotics to standby and I fed him the meds. The plan today was to go to the 故宫 musuem in the morning. We took a cab and reached in about 25 mins. By then the little guy was all raring to go, and fever has subsided.

We went straight to the third floor where the “special exhibits” were. Treasures which used to be placed at the forbidden City were displayed there, with a map of their location then. We spent about 2 hours roaming around before going to the kiddy area on the first floor so the children to have some fun!

And some fun they sure had!

Cliched but I couldn’t resist!

Look at the little man’s squirrel cheeks!

There were interactive exhibits where the children could try their hand at.

Sticking stuff up!

We headed back to the hotel and had dumplings noodles nearby while we waited for the day tour people to come get us for our half day trip to Yang Ming San.

On the way there, both kids fell asleep and I had a nice 2 hr respite! The weather was blazingly HOT! Even the breeze was scalding. We could only do a few obligatory touristy shots here and there before rushing back to the van!

Baby girl and her 小姨！

Quite breathtaking views of the mountains!

Baby girl and her grandpa!

After that we headed to a hot springs place and were given an hour to go soak! Of the lot, only Thaddeus would be suitable to be featured here! Anyway, the children didn’t like the hot springs at all because it was too hot for them, besides I wouldn’t have let them in as well, not knowing what the minerals in the water would do to their baby skin. This cold water pool was just tap water and the children was just so delighted to frolick in the cold water!

Skinny dipping!

Even before dropping us at the MRT station, which proper travel agent would not try to get us to buy some mechandise (read: commission for them). So we were ferried to a place selling Pineapple cakes and the likes. Not that we really minded actually because we were planning to buy some back as gifts and it actually tasted not so bad.

The children had their fill trying all the goodies as well!

After the shopping, we took the MRT to 谈水. Its rows and rows of little stalls selling food and knicknacks and we just gorged ourselves as we walked along!

The weather became a little bit more bearable in the evenings.

A forlorn boy lost in the crowds?

Stalls after stalls of food!

As the sun sets…

What came next was one of the most harrowing experience I have ever had in my life. We decided to take a boat to 渔人码头. That boat ride was the most terrifying boat ride in my entire life. it was worse than a roller coaster, even the locals on board were screaming! We were like literally being thrown into the air and then come crashing down. Talia was very very scared and kept asking me what was happening. Thaddie boy was like immobilised with fear. Those who were outside dashed in completely drenched. I was clutching both of them so hard that afterwards I got a cramp in both my arms and thinking furiously in my heart, are there enough life jackets, should I put the life jacket on me first or on them, how to stay afloat if i am grabbing both. That was how scared i was and i just kept praying and the 15 mins boat ride took forever.

Then there was the problem of needing to go back again. The whole family was green in the face and nobody could eat any dinner. We headed back after 30 mins and this time, I prayed and asked God to give us a smooth ride back. And miraculously the return journey was sooo smooth, its unbelievable! Even Talia said how come the boat was not shaking? I told her God answered the prayers of a very frightened mummy! Even now, as I think back, it amazes me to know how real God is!

And all that was for a shot of this silly little bridge!

Bridge at 渔人码头!

The next day, we went for some shopping at the underground mall below 台北车站 and had for ourselves some yummy 红烧牛肉面! After lunch we went back to the hotel for the day tour people to come get us for our day trip to 九份! This is actually a former mining town and we have been told its rather quaint and worth a visit.

Enroute, we passed by the sea and took some shots!

Amazingly blue sea!

The township which is now nearly abandoned!

and it sits high up on a mountain range.

We got back to our hotel around 6pm and decided we will spend the night exploring 西门町！

Shopping!

Between the three sisters, I think we carted back almost a luggage full of face masks! woohoo!

The last day of the trip, we spent the morning at 五分谱 doing some wholesale shopping! There were shops which didn’t even entertained us as you have to buy in bulk. Anyway, thank goodness there were others who did. Grabbed a bit of “Taiwanese-Korean-ish” fashion for the little girl and loads of singlets for the little boy.

Five days whizzed by so fast that even though I have to clean vomit for 2 nights out of the 4 nights, gobble down my meals as I spend the majority of my time feeding, take care of the daily morning and before-bed routine myself, I had so much fun! and it was so nice to just hang around my family!

I wish…

Just like in the beautiful utopia world of Playmobil, the little guy would already be toilet-trained…

Slowly weaned off drinking from his milk bottle…

He would be able to self-feed…

and transition from sleeping in a cot to a toddler bed…

The little girl would become accomplished with using her camera…

and learn how to ride a bicycle…

and would be interested to pick up tennis, golf or horse-riding…

and most most importantly of all…

Both of them will play together without bickering or screaming or fighting…

I WISH!

The husband and I are avid fans of board games, from the traditional Monopoly and Risk and Cluedo to European ones like The Settlers of Catan, Ticket to ride, Ark of the Covenant etc and we wanted to start the children young.

The children’s aunt gave them Red Lorry, Yellow Lorry for Christmas and the children had such a blast playing it.

In this game, the children create traffic chaos as they match vehicles type and colours. Its for 2 to 4 players and the age guide is for 4 years up but Talia had no difficulty understanding, playing and enjoying the game even when she was only 3 years old. Didi needed a little bit more help to be a courteous player (its ALWAYS his turn and he likes to hoard cards!) The game encourages observation and matching and develops basic strategic play.

After that we were always on the lookout for more board games. During a trip to Isetan we noticed a whole range of pre-schooler board games by this publisher Clementoni and picked up another game Ahoy! Me Hearties!

By the name, you would probably guess its a game with a pirate theme.

Its a pirate counting game and pirates raced around the board collecting coins for their treasure chest. The one who gets 10 coins first wins.

Even the little guy has no difficulty playing at all. He spins the wheel, moves his character piece around the board, counts his coins and places them in his chest! (All while even chomping down papayas!)

Its really good family fun playing together!

It has been a hectic hectic week for me last week. I took all five mornings off to bring Talia and Thaddeus to Julia Gabriels holiday program at the Forum. I did this last December as well but couldn’t get Talia into a class because it was full! It’s not cheap mind you! 1 kid for 5 mornings of 2 hrs each is about $300, putting 2 kids in set me back by $600! Yet I will have no qualms doing it again! Simply because the program is great, the teachers are good, it’s great bonding for me and the boy (his class must be accompanied), he gets to socialise and chat up girls and Talia gets to enjoy fun activities during her school holidays!

The boy went to Playclub and I signed the girl up for “I love reading”. Since I can’t go in with Talia, I was not quite sure what she did during her class, but she came back with some art and crafts, some writing exercises and she told me there was storytelling as well.

The boy’s Playclub program started with some warming up and toys playing on the mat before there were welcome songs and good morning songs sung. The children were taught to keep the toys back while singing the Cleanup song. That really was great. Now whenever I want the children to keep their toys at home, I start singing the Cleanup song too and it works. I like the energy levels of the teachers as well. There are three teachers, one head teacher and two assistants. I think JG has the most number of teachers in a pre-schooler class of this sort. For some other alternatives that I’ve been like Zoophonics, its only one teacher. Some other competitors like Growing Up Gifted and Bibinogs, its only two teachers. Oh! another thing is the classroom size, JG’s simply has the largest one by far.

Building blocks!

After that the children were straightaway launched into their art and craft activities. I think it makes sense as the children are most alert now. The theme for the week was The Seaside so the children were taught to recreate a beach scene on the the paper plate.

This time round, just 6 months on, it was a vast difference from how he fared when he was just 17 mths old. He virtually needed no help from me and was able to do most of the crafts himself!

The little guy was very focussed on painting his sand.

After the craft, it was storytelling time. He was also able to just sit by himself right in front of the teacher to savour the story without fidgeting. One thing about this boy is that he has quite a long attention span and is able to do things on his own for a pretty long time.

Listening intently to the story.

After that it was snack time. JG provides the food and water as well (but I guess with that kind of fees, that little bit of biscuits and cheese or sausages and fruits is nothing! bleh!). The children were encouraged to eat on their own and to drink from cups independently as well. I was surprised little Thad was able to drink his water without spilling at all. And after eating, they were encouraged to bring their little plates and cups back to the serving table as well.

Munching!

And its playtime after that. This is the other perk of JG. They have a huge play area complete with slides, play house, play kitchen, little cars and scooters of all kinds. The JG at Evans Road is even better as the play area is outdoors, so the children could even indulge in water play and sand play!

toot toot!

We spent 4 mornings in the classroom and on Wednesday, the whole class went to Sentosa to truly experience the beach. That, I was a tad disappointed. The parents and children were simply left to their own devices. There were no group activities at all so I guess a little bit more planning on how the children could enjoy the beach better would have been better.

Even so, it was no doubt the little guy enjoyed the excursion. He made several trips to the water edge to collect water with his little pail and squealed when his feet was covered with water and half submerged in sand!

Thaddeus digging away at the sand!

The week just flew by. Class would end at 11am and I would drive everyone back home to have lunch and then I leave for work at 12.30pm. Oh! i forgot to mention, on Friday we went to this free interactive play CAT sponsored by JG at the Forum as well at 1pm. That simply was fantastic! Truly entertaining! If you have a child between 1 to 4 years old, you gotta bring them there to see this! Even this old kid here was enthralled!

So its adiós until the next December holiday program!

There is something very tugging about the repeated requests of a little voice. Ever since the school holidays started, the little girl has been repeating on and off on separate occasions on her wish to go build sandcastles. Being the more practical minded one, the husband asked me if there is any playground nearby that has sand. Sure there is! The rather big playground at Bishan Park has sand in it but I added rather quickly that there is no water though!

And after church on Sunday, and perhaps by design or perhaps by coincidence, after lunch at Aston in the East, and after shopping at Robinson’s sale at the Expo, it seems like a rather good idea to head to Changi Beach for the girl to have her fill digging at the sand.

And we found out that it was indeed a fabulous idea! The beach is completely shaded from the sun, is totally not crowded, the toilet is like a stone’s throw away (it even comes with an outdoor shower area)! It was a sandcastle-builder’s dream come true, except that we did not come equipped with spades and buckets and the likes!

We whipped out the groundsheet that we always carry with us in the boot of the car (you never know when you would suddenly want to have a picnic or have a suntan or to build sandcastles!) and found a nice spot on the sand close to the water!

The funny girl was reluctant to step out on the sand initially! Fancy that! and the whole family is sitting gingerly on the sand-splattered groundsheet for WHO?

Ok. Perhaps some warming up is needed. The husband went around the beach and gathered up a lot of shells. We also found a discarded plastic cup to scoop water. From the initial useless poking at the sand using twigs to finally using his hands to build the sandcastles, the children were eventually lured to the edge of the water to help their father build the sandcastles and to decorate it with the seashells!

We left at 7.15pm as the light was waning. I am not sure about the kids but I sure enjoyed myself!

To be very honest, I have not visited any museum in Singapore before. But the few weekends in May, there were some activities for kids going on in the various musuems in Singapore in conjunction with International Musuem Day so we trooped down to National Musuem on Saturday.

First up, there was a large velcro stick-em up play-installation where kids could freely decorate only limited by their creativity. The two children needed no prompting to dash right in and started re-arranging stuff!

Talia observing how a jiejie is playing

The little boy alternated between rearranging and playing with the building blocks on the ground.

Eyeing the lizard the angmo gor gor is holding on to!

And dashing back and forth sending items from one end to the other end!

What he didn’t quite enjoy was the dressing up by us!

We left this and walked around the museum a bit and chanced upon another rearranging play-installation, this time magnetic!

The children had fun putting up their own composition!

After that we stepped out into the hot afternoon sun onto Stamford Green where a mini carnival was going on. There was a duo from Australia “The dustbin People” amusing the kids with their gig of cleaning up and sent the children into peals of laughter. We queued for a unique cat balloon for the girl!

Meow!

There was a story-telling session at 2.30pm so we decided to go for that. Before that we strolled into a part of the musuem that allowed free access and and some fun looking at old ice kachang machine and kueh tutu cart. The rest of the musuem need a ticket to get in and we didn’t bothered to.

The story-telling was pretty interesting but after half an hr, the boy started getting restless. We lasted the 45 mins and it was time for us to leave.

While waiting for the daddy to get the car, Tubby the robot strolled by! It’s actually a man dressed as a robot! Cute!

The afternoon was well spent with fun and varied activities and specially worth mentioning, enjoyed in air-con comfort! Ha!

Day 3 was going to be the only free and theme park-less day. We started the morning with tim sum at a Chinese Restaurant near to our hotel and it was pretty yummy!

and we strolled towards the Avenue of Stars. The boy has not been the most cooperative the last couple of days, refusing to poo in the mornings and then pooing in his diapers 2 or 3 times throughout the day and I have to scramble to find toilets and wash his butt singlehandedly. This morning I was particularly pleased as the deed was done and perhaps I would be spared all the heaving and balancing to get his butt wash.

The picture will give an indication as to just how polluted Hong Kong actually is.

Before we descended from the overhead bridge, we let the children fool around for a while. Just a simple game of catching got them laughing so hard!

It was actually quite nice to just walk along the water front! There was a slight breeze but as it was also almost noon, the sun was also out! We hid the girl into the stroller and told them they had to lead the way by consulting the maps they have!

The children deciding which way to go!

The duo got out of the stroller and we tried to take the two of them together. It was virtually mission impossible, with little Miss Bossy insisting that it must be done this way and that way and Mr Itchy-Backside itching to get away at every juncture!

Stayyyy didi!

We eventually reach Harbour City shopping center, apparently the biggest shopping mall in the city with about 800 shops inside. We were there barely for 10 mins and Thaddeus fell asleep in the stroller. We then brought Talia shopping at the many children shops and she bought some toys and paid for them herself!

Here’s the money!

We went for lunch at one of the cafes there when the little guy woke and had western fare like salmon, baked rice and pizza for lunch.

After lunch, it was the little girl’s turn to snooze and time for Thaddues to run amok! We went to this little quaint shopping corner and he had a wild time checking out the mechandise.

Hellooooo!

Feeling gungho, we decided to brave the crowds at mongkok and ladies street to let the children have a feel of the vibrancy of Hong Kong. It was good that the actual ladies street was not crowded at all, but getting there was scary.

Boy ergo-ed and girl pram-ed to brave Mongkok!

We shopped for about an hr and then we even went for a foot massage. (Thaddeus was entertained with my iphone and the Talia played with her doll while waiting for us!)

We got back to the hotel at around 10pm. It was tedious going round and round the MTR station trying to find the gate which is bigger so that the stroller can get in and not to mention the lift, Hong Kong isn’t child-friendly at all!

The next morning, we set off for Disneyland by cab and reached Disneyland Hotel at around 10am. We couldn’t check-in as yet so we left our luggage at the concierge and were preparing to head towards the shuttle bus stop to catch our bus to the theme park when a princess suddenly appeared in the hotel lobby. The children couldn’t take their eyes off her! While daddy queued so that they could have a shot with her, they sat on the floor just admiring her! Finally it was their turn.

Hi princess!

After that, we headed out to Disneyland! First up, the children saw Mickey and Minnie at the main pavillion for photo taking and didn’t want to go anywhere else. As usual, daddy went to queue and I stationed myself behind the don’t-want-to-go-anywhere children. Mickey was actually quice nice, he came by twice to pat the children on their heads and they were so thrilled!

I managed to lure them away when we saw in the distance Donald and Daisy making an appearance. A queue immediately formed and we didn’t want to queue.

So the children went back to their post by the Mickey and Minnie pavillion. I managed to lure them away to check out the shops for a while and to chase after goofy when he walked by!

and then it was back to their post again! Finally after 25 mins, it was their turn to take a shot with the mousey pair! and since we waited so long, it has to be one shot with the girl…

one shot with the boy…

The street parade was at 3pm and we wanted both children to be awake then to enjoy it. Kev ergo-ed didi and pretty soon he was fast asleep. We fed Talia milk and she fell asleep in the stroller very soon after as well. We then had our lunch of grilled meats at the Main Banquet Hall. Then we decided we should quickly go survey the mechandise with all the children sleeping. At about 2.40, we walked out heading towards the main street, looking for a shady spot to sit and wait for the parade to start. By 3pm, the little guys were all up and ready and totally enjoyed the parade with its colourful floats, exuberant dancers and catchy music!

After that, we went to catch a couple of shows. The one the children enjoyed the most was the 3D Fantasia show. The “specs” given were too big for them so Kev and I spent the whole show hanging on to them for the children. It was so enjoyable that we simply just stayed back when it ended and watched it a second time!

As for the rides, the children’s eyes were wide as saucer when we took the Pooh Bear ride and the Small Small World ride. There were simply just too many things to take in all at one go! In between that, we caught Pooh Bear as well.

After we took the Safari boat ride, we decided to just have some chinese food at the Safari Restaurant right beside, turns out the food was pretty decent!

It was almost 7pm when we finished our dinner. The fireworks display was at 7.30 pm and so we tried to catch a few more rides like the flying jumbo (they wouldn’t let us up as it was too late they say) and the rotating cup! I had to leave all these to the daddy as I can’t abide all these rotating rides at all!

The fireworks display was great although not so great for our arms as the chidren had to be carried throughout. After that we headed out and thought we would take a stroll back to the hotel instead of squeezing in the shuttle bus. The stroll was wonderful! No crowds, beautiful strains of music accompanied us as we walk, lovely pavement and greenery and fountains tops it for us. The walk was perhaps 20 mins. We then checked in and had an early night!

The next morning, which is also our last day in Hong Kong, we were going to have breakfast in the Enchanted Garden with Mickey and friends.

Before we could even start eating, Daisy came by!

and teased the little boy, who suddenly became shy!

The buffet spread was not bad and they had the cutest mickey-shaped pancakes and stuff for the children!

Talia tucking in!

but the boy needed help to have his portion cut up first!

And even while eating, the children’s eyes would be darting here and there to check out where the disney characters are! Then, didi’s favourite, Mickey Mouse descended on them!

When Pluto came by, Talia was amazed at the size of his paws!

and goofy was so tall!

The characters make their way systematically to all the tables and made efforts to play with the children so it was all quite nice! The Enchanted Garden was also quite beautiful, so I was glad we paid a little bit more to stay at the Disneyland Hotel to enjoy this.

Enchanting Enchanted Garden!

After breakfast, we made our way out to the gardens outside and there was a mini maze there which Talia and her brother trailing behind had fun with!

The hotel was quite beautiful! Not just outside, the inside was quite amazing too!

We walked around a bit and then we chanced upon the children’s room and the children spent some time inside drawing and colouring.

After that we took the shuttle to Disneyland again and took the Buzz Lightyear ride, did some shopping and then headed to City Gate for lunch and some shopping!

A few last shots with the castle in disneyland and its tata!

We took the Disney train to Tung Chung station where City Gate is.

City gate is a mall of discounted outlet shopping but we were rather disappointed with the prices and save for some clothes for the children, we did not buy much. At about 4pm, we took a cab back to the hotel to retrieve our luggage and sped straight to the airport to catch our 6.30pm flight back to Singapore.

I think we achieved our purpose of having this trip geared towards the kids because they really enjoyed themselves so much! The parents were totally peng san-ed and after church the next day, slept the entire afternoon away to recuperate!

I have been to Hong Kong a number of times, for both business and leisure. But this time round, we wanted to do a trip really just for the kids and we thought HK, with Disneyland and Ocean Park should be a good choice. SQ also had quite a good 2-to-go promotion and Disneyland hotel had a promotion for Citibank cards with 2 free breakfast at the Enchanted Garden thrown in. We also found online a pretty nice boutique hotel called Butterfly on Prat near to Tsim Sha Tsui MTR with numerous good reviews. And with that we were really to fly.

The boy saying goodbye to Singapore!

Our flight was in the afternoon and although the flight time was only 3.5 hrs, we were so blessed to have the little boy napping for almost 2.5 hrs in the bassinet. The air stewardess was initially hesitant to set it up for us after taking a look at the boy (muahaha!), but we assured her that he is only 13kg and will not exceed the bassinet’s maximum load of 16kg! In the meantime, the little girl was watching TV and enjoying her childmeal that has so much food she didn’t know which one to eat first.

When the boy woke, we were also offered bottled baby food for him which he always never did quite mind eating.

Kev’s cousin Patrick’s family came to fetch us at the airport and after checking in to our hotel, we dropped by his place at Tsim Sha Tsui to see his new baby Dave. The children wasted no time in ransacking their place and helping themselves to all the crayons and colour pencils!

After that we walked over to Kev’s aunt’s place for dinner. There were 2 toddlers and 2 babies there and are cousins whom Talia and Thaddeus have never met. The children had a blast playing together there and took turns to serenade Kev’s aunt with songs! At about 10pm, we said goodbye and strolled back to our hotel which is about 10 mins away.

Butterfly on Prat is a small boutique hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui which is pretty new. We were quite happy with what we saw. Plenty of table top room for all our clutter, a huge bathroom (by HK standards) so we could shower both children together, a shower spray which is hard and furious and has fabulous hot water! It was also clean and furnishings were new. The bathroom had a see through window though so if you are not travelling with family, it would be a bit of a hassle though hehe!

The children eventually slept really late at 11pm but regardless what time he sleeps, our little guy will still wake up at 7am. The morning routine of drinking milk, poo-pooing, brushing teeth, changing clothes took us 2 hrs and we were out of the room at 9am.

We decided to have Kev’s favourite beef noodles at 源记 for breakfast and top it up with a 波罗包!

The target was to go Ocean Park today if the weather is good. So we decided we will take a nice leisurely stroll towards Star Ferry and en route, we passed by The Peninsular, and this really nice conserved compound called the 1881 Heritage.

The Star Ferry has got to be one of the world’s cheapest “cruise” to have a view of the city, albeit a short one.

A grinning boy!

Hazy hazy Hong Kong!

Enjoying the breeze!

Once we got over, it was just a short walk over to the bus which will take us to Ocean Park. The bus ride was about 30 mins and the little boy fell asleep just as we were reaching at about 11am.

With Thaddeus asleep in the stroller, we brought the little girl to see the absolutely CUTE panda bears!

and then it was panda bear overload with panda bear stuff toys

and panda bear hairband!

The little man woke just in time for lunch and we had a simple fare of spaghetti for the girl, bottled food for him and baked chicken legs for the adults from a kiosk outside the Panda Bear (what else!) restaurant.

There was a dressed-up panda for people to take pictures with and the children especially Thaddeus was enamoured with. He refused to go after having his picture taken.

and after Ms Panda was replaced with Mr Croc, even though he went forward also to hold his hand, he was still whining “I want panda bear!”

By this time, Talia is already napping in the stroller and the Thaddeus took the tutu train and the carousel with his daddy!

Round and round I go!

There are 2 ways to get to the other part of Ocean Park, the part that is on the mountain, by cable car or by this train which I supposed cuts right through the mountain. We took the train up and saw a spectacular view of the sea and small islands and the rides.

We then proceeded to the aquarium and even though I have been here before, I was still awed by the size of it (almost 3 storeys tall tank) and the sheer sizes of the fishes in it.

We rushed for the 5pm show and was slightly late so we stood at the last row to watch without a seat. By then Talia has just woke up and was amazed at the dolphins and seals performing.

Isn’t it beautiful that the sea is the backdrop for the stage?

The park closes at 6pm so we made our way to the cable car after the show ended at 5.25pm.

It was a very scenic cable car ride with views of the vast seas and mountains and not to mention wonderful breezes as well. Talia was even remarking that this cable car ride is better than the one she had in Genting!

After we got down, we decided to take one last look at the panda bears before leaving and it was having its dinner then.

Our trusty peg perego could even take 2 kids at the same time and whenever we need to walk for a short while, we will pack both kids in and tell them its the “stroller tutu train”

Time to leave! Bye bye Ocean park, bye bye panda bears!

We went to causeway bay to have dinner, steaks for us and packed porridge for the children, took the MTR back and reached the hotel at 10pm. That night both kids hugged their panda bear stuff toys to sleep, I am sure they must have dreamt about them as well!