Water Fun!

Our first few weeks in Singapore were fairly mild... lots of lovely breezes, a warm but pleasant sun.  What's everyone complaining about I wondered... it's not that hot!  That all changed about a month ago. It is hot. Stinking hot every day.  And the breeze has disappeared.  So we've been looking for ways to stay cool.  The first place we hit was...

Wild Wild Wet

This was awesome.  Not hugely expensive (and even cheaper because we bank with DBS and they have a discount with their credit cards there or something), not too massive, and not too crowded on the sticky Sunday we headed down there.  Kind of in the middle of nowhere, we were a bit confused when our taxi driver dropped us off at a shopping centre, but we soon found it.  Wild Wild Wet has probably seen better days.. there is a bit of rust on a few things, a strange dank smell to the air, and it could generally just do with a lick of paint....but the kids don't notice things like this, and this is really all about them.  Oscar hit the water slides with Andy, and although he got scared on the first one (a group water slide), all the rest were of an acceptable thrill level for this 6 year old.  After a spin around the Shiok River in a giant donut, Frankie and I spent most of our time in the very cool and activity filled playground for kids - unfortunately Frankie DOES NOT LIKE being splashed with water unexpectedly, which is happens a lot in here... so a bit of sooking sent us to the REALLY baby pool where she was OK until tired and grumpy time approached.  Don't get too excited about the Tsunami Wave Pool by the way... much more of a 'gentle lapping at the shore' than any actual waves.  Overall, fun had by all, probably best for the kids tall enough to go on the water slides, but still plenty for the littlies to do to... no photos though, as I didn't want to get my iphone wet : )

112 Katong

This is not a water park... it is a chi-chi-ish shopping centre.  Crystal was kind enough to send me through a list of some good water playground at shopping centres around Singapore when she found out I was new in town and keen for kiddie activities... which made me think - maybe that sign for Aqua Playground at our local is NOT the name of a fancy swimming shop, but an actual AQUA PLAYGROUND.  The concept of a waterplay area at a shopping centre was just so foreign to me that I hadn't even considered it before.  But lo and behold, on the roof is this -

 

Yay!  The kids and I now go there at least twice a week.. it is so close by that we haven't even checked out any of the other ones around town yet, and it is handily next to a great food court with has awesome pan-fried dumplings (Oscar happy), $2 fresh watermelon juice (Frankie happy), and my latest addiction, Popiah.  This is a fresh crepe thing filled with a crunchy nutty sauce, vegies, stir-fried turnip (really, it is sooooo good, not just some weird pregnancy food craving!!!), and prawn or chicken if you so choose.  They then roll it up into a kind-of giant spring roll and cut it up into slices.  YUMOLA!

Science Centre Singapore

Just a note to start....., this post is a bit old. You might recall Chinese New Year was about a month ago... but I had to get some photos of my phone, which took me about 4 weeks to get around to.  Blame the morning sickness...but 12 weeks now!  The end is in sight THANK GOD!


Science Centre

Everytime a local would tell us about the Science Centre Singapore, we were like 'Oh, yeah, we have a place called Scienceworks in Melbourne, really great, went there all the time... we might check out the Singapore one'.  No biggie, been there done that.  Then with 4 days off school/work we got bored, so we took advantage of the Chinese New Year public holiday and took the cab out to Jurong East on the other side of the island.  And it was AWESOME.  Probably best for kids aged 4+, Frankie still had fun running around like a maniac, but we did have to move through some areas quicker than we would have liked to accommodate her.  Entry is pretty cheap, only SGD$23 for the family, and a yearly membership is only SGD$50.

 

Entry area to the Science Centre - Optical Illusions!

Upon entry, there is a large optical illusion area which is a fun way to get the kids straight into it, as they love a visual trick!  The main difference with Scienceworks in Melbourne is the size - massive - there were enough things in each area so that it wasn't too crowded... and dare I say the exhibitions were a little more fun too?

Where are his legs???? Oscar thought this was hilarious.

Although they still demonstrate Science, I found they were all fun to do as well, whereas at Scienceworks, some displays demonstrate the science excellently, but have a bit of a 'meh' factor to them.  There was a giant lighting rod we didn't see in action, then a sound exhibition which we all loved - and my hearing is superb by the way!  We then went through to the toddler area, where my favourite bit was in incubator showing chicken eggs at various stages - there were about 20 eggs there due to hatch that day, and a few brand new chicks there straight out of the shell - very cute.

MASSIVE outdoor water area.

But, with the heat, and kids, the highlight is of course, the WATER AREA!  Yes, there were science bit too it to, but who cares, there is WATER, and you GET WET.  Take your togs.  Will be heading back for this alone, and to explore all the other bits we missed out on - probably only really saw about 1/3 of it in the 2 hours we were there.  The only issue is lack of decent food - not sure if it was because it was a public holiday, but it looked like there was a hawker style cafe there that was closed... leaving our only other option as McDonalds - oh well, the kids were happy!

School

School started for Oscar - he hates it : (  He is feeling a bit stressed out as he doesn't know all the games they play at lunchtime and can't remember anyone's name.  But it has only been one week, so we are hoping things will look up!  He likes the actual classes - he gets to do swimming once a week, and music, drama and art as well as Mandarin twice a week, and Unit of Enquiry each day (as we selected a Primary Years Program IB school, just like we had in Melbs!).   His challenge this week is to learn one name each day - I think that is achievable - and it will hopefully make him feel a bit more comfortable talking to all the other kids.

Chinese New Year Celebrations at school

We generally avoided the whole Chinese New Year celebrations in Singapore as we moved into our new Condo that weekend, and were all a bit tired and still getting settled.  The New Year period goes for about 2 weeks, and at the end of it they did have a performance at his school, with lots of kids dressed in the CNY costumes (mainly red which symbolizes joy and is also used to frighten away the mythical Nien, a beast that was believed to steal food and livestock and attack children), and a Dragon Dance to scare away the evil spirits and bring luck for the new year (there was once of these at our condo the weekend before too).  Frankie loves them as the dragons eat mandarin oranges (which symbolize sweetness and good fortune) and then throw the peel everywhere - including a theatrical 'pooping of the peel'!

Recently we've been in the water a lot... so some fun stuff we've been doing with the kids coming up soon!

x Amelia