It's a Panda!

While we were transiting in HK we saw this cool plane! The boys were very impressed! To our surprise the plane landed just ahead of us in Kansai so we saw it twice in a day, must be our lucky day :)

Our Christmas tree is up!

We coudn't get on the plane but we had so much fun decorating our tree in the afternoon. The smell of the fresh tree is just beautiful!! (I never had a live Christmas tree before).

The boys enjoyed it so much, surprisingly they didn't get told off that often. They were actually very good :)







It is very difficult to take a natural look of Luca at the moment, he is very Japanese, he cannot stop posing for the camera...





Here is our brand new Rose Santa going up on the tree by Mr little Rose!



I love getting some of the old decorations out of our box, like the one I handmade when Oliver was born, the one Oliver made at kindy, Luca's first Christmas bauble etc.

Also nice to see our new additions going up on the tree too!
Kiwi Santa in his pohutukawa t-shirt:



Little Maori Kiwi:



It was slightly harder than decorating the fake tree as some of the branches were softer than we thought, but I am very very happy with the result!



Less than 30 days to go!

First time in 6 years

This morning the boys and I were ready to hop on a plane for a short holiday in Japan. We use staff travel so we always know there is a chance we will get bumped off. But it never happened to us until today...

It was supposed to be a B777 but somehow the aircraft was changed to a smaller A330 :( Suddenly over booked and there were no spare seats for us :(

Oliver was more upset then me. He cried and refused to get in the taxi back home. He was determined he was going on the airplane TODAY! Poor little man...

But this meant we got extra time to decorate our brand new Christmas tree :)

Christmas Tree hunting - Day3

Finally I settled for one. Actually it wasn't really like the one I saw in the magazine but it is a real tree!



We found it in IKEA - Surprisingly it was only $45!! What a bargain ha!! The only concern was we couldn't see how wide or bushy the tree was when we got it. Well I will let you know very soon...

Christmas Tree hunting - Day2

Today we started off in Little India where we found a mall of which one whole floor has been turned into Christmas tree/decoration shops. (When it is not Christmas season they sell flowers).

I was very excited to see shops full of nice trees and lights.



But still no luck... I didn't find the one I wanted. I was quite disappointed actually as the prices of the trees were very good in this mall :(

We didn't have lunch before we left home and the boys were getting very hungry. So we headed out to Little India for some food.



We found this famous restaurant - KOMALA VILAS RESTAURANT. It was just after 2 o'clock but the place was packed!! And people just kept coming.



We had a very satisfying dosai masala, and it was very cheap! Lots of interesting looking food went past us. Next time we will try something different :)



We walked back to the train station and hopped on an MRT to Dhobi Ghaut station - Plaza Singapura. This mall has been renovated and has a new part to it.  But guess what!? Still no luck...

Never mind we must find the one on Orchard for sure! Oliver was very happy to be walking down the fully decorated beautiful Orchard Road.



Until was told he couldn't go on any more Christmas train rides in department stores...



We pretty much walked from the start of Orchard to the end. This year they have great decorations with this theme - we will be back when it's nicely lit up for sure!



Takashimaya has a beautiful big tree! (But not the one I am after...)



We gave up when we got to Paragon and TANGs. We were very tired and had enough for the day... Santa still makes my boys smile tho :)



I didn't come home empty handed, I got a nice tree decoration and musical Santa for the boys:



Can you see little roses on the Santa? This must be made for the Rose residence!



He plays 5 different Christmas songs when you clap your hands. Luca is just in love with him - great buy for the day :) :) :)

I will try one more day to hunt down our Christmas tree, if I cannot find one - well we will go without one this year! There must be one somewhere!!!!!!

Christmas Tree hunting - Day1

We are going on a tree hunt! We are going to find a BIG one! Oliver was very excited we were going into town to get our brand new Christmas tree.

We had one in Brunei but when we moved to Singapore I passed it to good friend of ours and decided to get a new one when we get here. We thought in Singapore there would be more to choose from at reasonable prices... So our mission started from VivoCity - Harbourfront.

I like VivoCity as it has lots of shops indoors and has some outdoor kids play area where we can have a break.

The mall was dressed fully in Christmas colours!





We were hoping to find our tree in TANGs but no luck....



I'd seen this beautiful looking tree in a magazine and decided that's what I want. And when I decide what I want it has to be the one.

Never mind we might find it next time we are out...

I checked out one of my favourite shops we have in Japan - Franc Franc is now in VivoCity with more Christmas goods :)



And when we stopped for coffee and muffins at Starbucks we treated the boys with this charming Christmas train ride! Boy, Oliver was so happy! (Luca was a bit scared...) It was a good 10min ride going around the outside of the mall at the waterfront. They could see the monorail, boats and cable car etc!







Definitely starting to feel Christmasy!

While husbands are away

Last night I had my friend Nicola and her children over for sushi and movie night. Both Matthew and her husband James were away overnight so just like the old days in Brunei :)

Annabel helped me in the kitchen - she was very good at rolling the sushi!



Taddaaaaa!





After dinner the mummies enjoyed some nice NZ wine and kids of course had some popcorn. A relaxing cosy night :)

It's a beautiful day!

A blue sky and wonderful sea breeze... It's a great washing day! - I must be really getting back into living in the real world.

Cheeky smile

Back in exercising

We have great access to the ECP from our condo and it is a shame if we don't take advantage of it. This morning we got back into doing some exercise!

Oliver took his balance bike for practice and Matthew went running with Luca in a buggy. I was Oliver's solo assistant for him to get the proper balance on his bike. He actually did quite well, didn't give up easily and went on by himself for a while.



Matthew came back with Luca in his arm after a while and told me Luca suddenly decided he had had enough and stood up and jumped off the buggy. So I took him over and Matthew carried on running. He told me he did about 6km which I think was quite a good distance considering he hasn't done much exercise recently.

We met up at the food court where we got some freshly made sugar cane and coconut juice. Yes, I know Matthew looks pretty stuffed. I think next time we need to leave an hour or so earlier. It got pretty hot!



It was such a nice morning!



The boys had lots of fun with sand:





Hopefully this will become our new routine!

IKEA catch up

I heard some Swedish people were in town - So I put my boys in a taxi and headed out to IKEA.

My lovely friends, Boel and Anna were in Singapore for their annual Christmas shopping from Brunei. When I got there I quickly put Oliver into the playground he loves and enjoys so much, and started to look for them.

Did I have any trouble spotting them? Naaaaahhh they were way taller than everyone else in the shop. I could see them from a long distance!!

Unfortunately they were on a tight schedule - getting to Singapore around lunch time and leaving by 9pm so didn't get to sit down and have coffee but I enjoyed seeing them while we browsed around the shop.

Anna and Boel:



All the Christmas stuff is now out!





I was very happy when I saw Oliver doing some drawing and stamping with his friends (as he calls them). For the first few times he was just sitting in the movie/DVD area, but now he can easily make friends and run around :) :) :)



It was very short but lovely to see some more friends from Brunei. This month must be - "catching up with Brunei friends" month for me!

Japanese cuisine

Finally we found some great Japanese dining places near our place. There are so many Japanese restaurants in Singapore but somehow they are slightly different from what we want.

We went to 112 Katong mall - one street over from Parkway Parade where we normally shop. It has movie theaters and kids water play zone etc so we have been there before but never really looked around the other shops properly.

We felt like something healthy - lots of veges actually. I saw this restaurant when we went past the other day when Matthew took me for a birthday movie.

The restaurant is called "Sukiya" and it is an all you can eat hotpot/steamboat. You can choose 2 out of 4 different soups - shabushabu (light fish stock clear soup), sukiyaki (soy and sugar base), kimuchi (korean chilli soup) or soya bean soup I think (not really familiar with this one). And they will bring out very thinly sliced pork, beef or chicken meat. You cook them all yourself at the table.

Unfortunately? Oliver fell asleep and we had only Luca to feed so had lots of time to eat eat eat!



We had shabushabu and kimuchi soup:



Lots of veges to choose from:



I think we were there over 2 hours. We were both so full when we left but in a good way, very healthy nice Japanese meal we thought :)

We wanted to explore more of the mall so we went back for lunch again. The place has nice kids clothes shops, deli, bakery, supermarket etc etc.

This time we had lunch at a newly opened ramen shop. The place was very full but we found the service was very good.



Matthew and I shared some ramen noodles, gyoza and stone bowl cooked rice:





Oliver and Luca shared a kids meal:



I love having lunch out when the kids eat well and they seem to enjoy Japanese meals a lot. Hmmmmm, wonder why?!