Thai lunch with Matthew

We are so glad that Thai cuisine is back in our everyday life. We have been in Singapore for over 5 years and only recently found some good Thai restaurants. Now we often drop the little ones at the kindy then carry on to have some lunch just the two of us. Nice.

Luca's dinosaur

I gave him some cardboard this afternoon. He came up with a wonderful piece of art. A volcano erupting and some dinosaurs are hurt because of the lava. Pretty good I think.

Just because

We felt like opening a nice bottle of Champagne while we relax and catch up on some TV. It was very tasty.

A little bit more organised

I have been wanting to clean up our entrance area. I know we have way too many pairs of shoes, jandals and gumboots for the each of the kids. And so many basketballs, tennis balls and rugby balls everywhere! Plus each of us now has a scooter which needs to be left in this area too.
Driving me nuts!

So today I decided to put in a new shelf for gumboots and store balls etc. It made it so much nicer.

My enthusiasm carried onto our store room too. We used to have half the size of this shelf but things were falling off as I had way too much on them. So Matthew and I went to good old IKEA and got this great big one.
Look I have empty space! I can get more goodies from Osaka and stock up! Yeah!

CNY Lion & Dragon dance 2017

I am very happy that we can watch the CNY celebration dances in our condo every year.
In the morning Oliver's classmate Yuto and his family came to play basketball and swim, then stayed on to have lunch together.

We had to wait for a long long time, almost 40 minutes :( until the Lion had visited all the towers in Bayshore Park before they did this stunning performance. 

Ashley was tired and scared of the noise so I had to hold her in the end. You get good luck by touching the Lion's face so I went closer to let her touch but she was too scared! 

I couldn't see the dragon dance too well this time. I think we need to sit on the other side of the road next year. 

Luca on the other hand couldn't control himself.  He just wanted to touch and follow them everywhere!

I think we were blessed with lots of luck today. Happy Chinese New Year everyone!

U6 junior mini tournament 1/4

Luca and I were up very early to get to Turf City which is located on the other side of town. From this year U6 and U7 has 4 mini tournaments in Singapore. It is organised by the Junior Rugby Club Singapore. It is so much nicer than just watching them practice but I was still waking up...

It was a beautiful morning! Here are the little Dragons Under 6s.

I found it very funny there are three Charlies in the team, 1 Lucas and 2 Luca! Must have been the popular names for boys who were born in 2011!?

Even it was called a mini tournament, there were coffee shops and hotdog stands etc just like the normal tournaments. 

Ready for kick off!

I must find a special trick to turn Luca's switch on. He is not a morning person hence he didn't perform as well as he could. It is so hard to watch him not concentrating when I know he can be a star player once he is into the game. He can handle the ball very well and he is FAST! In the end it was a very good opportunity for the boys to experience more games against other teams. 

Here are the coaches and our mighty Dragons!

Well done boys! 

Setsubun 2017

February 4th is called Risshun in Japan - the beginning of Spring. A day before Risshun we have Setsubun, that is a tradition which has its' origins in a Chinese custom introduced to Japan in the eighth century. On this day we throw roasted soybeans with people saying "Demons out! Luck in!" to cleanse away all the evil of the former year and drive away diseases. We then eat roasted soybeans, one for each year of one's life plus one more to bring good luck for the year to come.
It's easy for the kids to eat 7 or 10 beans but for me? 41 (40 plus 1) beans! I made a special rule for adults - if we eat the black beans that is counted as 10! so only 5 beans for me :)

Here are the kids ready to battle with the demons! Check out Luca's face. He is hilarious.

Here they come!!! This year Matthew and Kentaro did a great job of scaring(?) or I should say entertaining them.

After the throwing of the beans it is also a tradition to eat the whole roll of sushi without talking looking at a specific direction. This year it was North North West.

The kids dinner was done quickly so us mummies started with bubbly drinks and yummy nibbles. 

I think the next Japanese gathering will be Girl's Day which is on the 3rd of March. It is so nice to continue the wonderful Japanese traditions with great friends. 

Kuro Maguro

Kuro Maguro is a new Japanese sashimi restaurant specialising in bluefin tuna in Tanjong Pagar. As in this article the tuna is airfreighted from Japan and it is some of the best quality around.

Kei, Keiko and I wanted to try the special promotion dish. So we went out for ladies lunch. When we arrived 20 min before the opening of the restaurant, the queue was already super long!

We waited almost one hour to get our table. Was it worth it?? YES Definitely!!

Look at this marbled tuna belly sashimi! It melted away in my mouth. It was so delicious!!

The location of the restaurant is not so convenient but I am sure we will be back there again. I should bring Matthew next time. Oh I can still taste it... yum yum yum!

Christine's stopover

We met Merryn & Dennis' friend Christine while we were in NZ during our Christmas holiday. She is such a lovely lady and our kids loved her! She had her long vacation in NZ and another trip to Thailand straight after. Yesterday on her way back to the UK she came through Singapore. It was very nice of her to pop over to our place during her 10 hour stopover.  

Luca was especially excited and was all over her! She read him stories and swam with him in the pool. She told me after a few hours that Luca hadn't stopped talking... Well he hasn't stopped talking since he was born!!! So no luck!

All the kids listened to her bedtime stories before she had to head out to the airport. Our kids are so keen to visit her house in the UK as she told them that she has hedgehogs in her garden! Watch out Christine we will show up on your doorstep one day!

Ashley's first sleepover !?

Ashley is very lucky to have her best friend Sakura living downstairs in the same tower. They talk about sleepovers every time they see each other and finally the day came! Both Keiko and I weren't too sure how the night would turn out so we said to each other to have the phone on loud.

Sakura and Ashley heading downstairs:

It turned out Ashley was too excited? or missed her own bed? she wanted to come back home. I went down and picked her up but Sakura wasn't happy so she came and slept over at our place in the end. They were very happy in the morning to find they slept the whole night together. So cute.