Art night

What a night we had! I havn't been this drunk for a long long time... it destroyed me completely for the next two days! I don't need this too often but well it was certainly a very fun night. Our Kiwi friend Jennifer found this art event "Art After Dark At Gillman Barracks" where you can walk 6.4 hectares of old military barracks filled with modern art. Unfortunately it was very stormy when it opened up so we waited with some nice wine at J&D's until it was clearer on the West side of the country.

We left slightly too late and it took a long time in a taxi to get there. We only had time to look at 5 exhibitions. There was one very good photography exhibition but otherwise all the pieces were too modern for me like these ones...

We scored some free champagne which kept us going!

Then we found some music and alcohol at this bar. Being outside, drinking in the fresh air makes it so much easier to have an extra glass or two or three... 

By the time we got home it was almost 3am!!! It was certainly the best night in a while!

Special treat for Luca

Since Oliver has no school at the moment it is quite easy to take him out for some special treats. Then I thought maybe it's time for Luca to have one.

On Wednesday I took ONLY Luca to a special show in town. "The Gruffalo" He was very impressed with the live show we watched in Hong Kong Disneyland so I was very confident that he would be thrilled to go to this one!

And I was right!! He was like this in this picture almost the entire show. He concentrated, laughed and shouted loud (when the actors/actress asked the audience to do so of course).

It was such a brilliant show. They followed the story from the book yet added some fun bits and made it very enjoyable.

There will be more plays of Julia Donaldson's books coming. The only problem is... tickets are quite expensive and I cannot take all of our kids to see them all... Let's see who will be the lucky one to go to the next show. 

At the library

The Japanese School doesn't start until April 2016 for Oliver. So we were thinking about sending him to a kindergarten for 3 months but since he cannot go to the one he was attending previously, we needed to find a different school, pay entrance fee, uniform etc etc it seemed to be a very expensive exercise...

In the end we have decided to keep him out of school and get him some private Japanese lessons at home. He has been exercising with Kylie and also spending some time with me in the condo library.

It's very quiet and he knows he has to finish his work before heading back home. His concentration span is much better there. The change of scenery is definitely helping him I think. 

He is having Taekwondo lessons on Thursday mornings and has rugby on Saturday afternoons. Hopefully I can squeeze in more activities to make some kind of routine for him for the coming two months. 

First Officer Rose

The kids are spending hardly any time on the iPad this month. Finally, the Minecraft boom has died down (YES!). They have been listening to stories, building LEGO and constantly playing dress up. Wonderful. I am very happy. 

House to myself

I can't remember when was the last time I had the house to myself. Surely it has been way too long. Finally I am at my computer blogging for the first time in a long long time.  Since the last post in November we have been on a roller coaster ride. (Actually the whole last year was a roller coaster ride...)

We went to New Zealand for almost 3 weeks. At first we took a camper van around the South Island with our Japanese friends from here for 10 days. Then we spent the rest of our holiday up in Auckland.

Once we got home in early December we were busy getting ready for Christmas and another quick trip to Phuket to have some relaxing time with our friends from Brunei.

Then the busy festive season arrived. Christmas Eve party, Christmas party, The End of Year party and The New Year party...

Hence no blogging activity until today. I hope I can sort out all the wonderful photos we have taken and write as much as I can remember. I know I am always behind but I would like to keep this up somehow so that our kids and family can look back one day on how interesting our life in Singapore has been.

Gardens by the Bay and Arab Street

While traveling around the South Island in NZ, we managed to catch up with our old old friend Kylie (Kylie and I met 23 years ago when we were both at high school!!!). She had worked in Japan for a long time then decided to go back to university in Christchurch. Before we left Christchurch we managed to give her the idea of having 2 months of her uni holiday here in Singapore.
It didn't take long before we heard from her saying she has booked her tickets! She actually arrived Singapore before the kids and I returned.

Anyway it has been very good to have her with us. Our kids love her and I get lots of help everyday. 2 months sounds long but time flies and she only has one month left. There is a list of things Kylie wants to do and I want her to do while she is here. So we have started to go through the "to do list".

The other day I took her to Gardens by the Bay. Matthew was off so we left the kids and just the two of us spent quite a long time looking at the amazing plants and flowers displayed.

These giant flowers are called Rose Grapes. My new favourites. 

We thought about waiting until the light & the music show started but in the end we decided to come back with Matthew and the kids some other day. 

Instead, we went to Bugis/Arab Street to have a Lebanese dinner. We had no idea which restaurants were good but used our 6th sense and guess what!? It worked! 

Very yummy food and we even got to see live belly dancing while we had dinner.  

And some after dinner drinks at funky cafes in a little alley. 

Another tick on the list. Still we have quite a bit to cover. We'd better get onto it!!

Double date at the movies

We have been wanting to see the newest Star Wars movie since it came out. But except for Oliver, we needed to watch all the previous episodes. Especially me, I have watched bits and pieces but never seen any of them properly. Finally I was up to date and good to go and watch it.

Since the movie was kind of long, we wanted to watch it in Gold Class where you get nice relaxing lazyboy seats and have some wine of course! Kylie needed someone to sit next to her so we made Oliver ask her out for the night.

He was very proud of himself getting a date!

And a huge box of popcorn to share with her :)

Some parts of the movie was a little too loud for Oliver but he sat through the whole movie and he was very pleased. It is quite nice to take only one child with us to spoil sometimes :)

He is already looking forward to the next one coming out. I think May 2017?  Until then I think we will have lots of LEGO Star Wars play with the boys.

No more Mana Mana Beach Club

We are not sure if it was due to the bad haze which lasted more than 3 months at the end of last year, but our favourite hangout place by the beach has been closed down. There are no signs of reopening yet...

Our new Kiwi friends David and Jennifer told us that people still go and use the beach in front of it. So we met up the other day and had a lovely evening together.

I do hope it will come back with nice restaurant food and some live music soon!!

Goodbye champagne and sushi lunch

We had sushi & seafood lunch for our friends Jee Sun and Shanon who are leaving Singapore for good :(

It is our 5th year here in Singapore. We have made some great friends but always so sad to see some of them leaving...

We hope we can catch you sometime in the future either in Korea or in Japan! Good luck with your new adventure!!

The VERY FIRST Man of the Match for 2016