LEGO CITY

Yes, it is getting bigger and bigger every day... Oliver and Luca working hard on using their imagination.

The harbour:

This is my favourite, McDonalds. The shop person is very polite and sells healthy fruits.
   

It is almost taking over the entire bedroom but I am certainly happy with my boys' obsessions! 

Places to visit

We travel quite a bit so I don't often get an urge to visit particular places. Well... until I saw this place on TV the other day. It is a Sicilian Island called "Lampedusa" which is in the Mediterranean Sea. People refer this place as "Island you can see boats flying" You know what I mean? The water is so so clear that it looks like the boats are in the air.

Matthew has already checked out how to get there. We just need to plan a holiday!

My girl

Ashley is growing way too fast. She is such a happy girl - even the supermarket cashier lady calls her "Happy Girl"

Setsubun 2015

On the 3rd of February we celebrate "Setsubun" It is the day before the beginning of spring in Japan. The name of the festival literally means "seasonal division" and is closely associated with the Lunar calendar . It is said to drive away all the evil spirits by performing "mamemaki" To do this we throw roasted soybeans inside and outside of the house calling out loud "Oni wa soto, Fuku wa uchi" (Evil out, happiness in). And you are to eat the number of beans equal to your age.

Unfortunately we didn't have the special roasted soybean. Instead we ate some pistachio nuts ha ha! I made the Futomaki/Ehomaki - fat sushi rolls, to enjoy the tradition. On this day you don't cut up the sushi roll as you normally do. Instead you eat the whole roll looking towards the good luck direction. This year it was West-South-West, I think we were looking at the right direction according to Kei's cell phone...

Hard Rock Lunch

We often buy good deals on Groupon or exchange our credit card points to dine at places we don't usually go. This time our Hard Rock Cafe lunch voucher was expiring. It was buy one meal and get one free. We had two of these which was enough to feed all of us! Of course the kids dressed in Hard Rock style and off we went.

It was such a long journey to the city center on the bus. I don't think I will do this route on the bus ever again. It took so long once we were into town, stopping everywhere and avoiding all the one way streets. By the time we got there we had been going for over an hour! (prior to getting to the bus we walked 15min...)

Was it worth it? Well... both Matthew and I were quite disappointed by the food :( Nothing was wrong but there was no WOW factor. Maybe our tastebuds have changed?

Anyways it was a nice afternoon out for the kids. They love being on the bus and eating out in different restaurants :) Let's see what great deal we get next.

Morning coffee

This little lady really enjoys going out to a cafe after the school drop off - such a hard life!

Happy Birthday Kei

It was Kei's birthday yesterday. She texted me in the morning saying her husband will be working till late so she would like to have dinner with us and celebrate with a cake. I wish I had more time to decorate the house for her...

I put up the birthday bunting:

And Oliver and Asahi made the welcome board.

Unfortunately Matthew was flying so we ended up having kids and mummies evening.    

Time for the birthday cake!! It was a very nice cheesecake. Mmmmmmmm!!!! The kids decided how many candles to go on the cake :)

Happy Birthday  Kei! 

Playdate at the zoo

Luca had a very special playdate today. He went to the zoo with his best friend Rafi. According to Rafi's father Ben, they were so keen to go into the bushes and look for bugs and spiders instead of looking at white tigers and hippos....

Art Stage Singapore 2015

During the weekend we had a chance to spend some educational (?) time at Marina Bay Sands. Our friends Ben and Gabi had some extra tickets and we all went together. This art fair is known for its special focus on South East Asian arts. Over 130 galleries from Asia and Western countries took part in the exhibition. It was unique as all the art works were presented in museum-like layouts.

It was the last day and yes there were lots of people! It was still fun for all of us walking around looking at some modern art. The kids were fascinated by all the different forms of art. There were a few things I wasn't too sure whether you call it art or not though...

This was a live performance by a Japanese artist. He was adding more details to his work, if you look closely all the fine details consists of little faces.

Another piece of art from Japan:

The kids really liked this TV screen art (?) A waterfall running and at the bottom of the screen you can see some little people were actually moving:

Ginormous vase with images added by a projector. These butterflies were flying around:

And this whole corner was a piece of art. Luca went into the art and tried to pick the seeds and got told off big time :(

Ashley and Ben admired (?) this $20,000 teddy bear sculpture... 

Once we had a good look around we then went to Gardens by the Bay for some early supper and fresh air. Luca definitely preferred "natural art" - A tree with lots of seeds hanging off it.

The boys really enjoyed playing rugby with daddies.

Great way to finish off the weekend. Thank you Ben & Gabi!

Two little dragons

Yes, Luca is now a little green dragon too!

He is still not sure about the whole hour of training tho. He wants to chase people but he doesn't want anyone to chase him :( 

Oliver has moved up and he is now in the under 6 team. A year ago he wasn't sure what was going on but now he is very confident and enjoys playing with his teammates. We are so proud to see him run around. There will be more opportunities for him to play in tournaments this year and he is already looking forward to it :)