Bali

Been wanting to write about this for a while, but hard to get myself to sit in front of a computer if it's not a workday...
Hubby's brother and fiance visited last November and we decided to take a trip to Bali. None of us had been before. It was going to be Girl's third birthday - the first one she had in the US, the second in SG, why not the third one someplace else? So she turned 3 in Indonesia.
I liked much about Bali. We chose to stay in Sanur because we heard that it was more laid back. If we had known that Kuta would anyway be quiet during off season, we would have stayed there. It just was a pain to deal with the traffic - Kuta would have been more central to the things we wanted to do.
Hotel isn't much to write about - it was okay. I liked the breakfast. Brother-in-law and fiance decided to have breakfast under a tree one day and some bug fell on them. Sanur Beach was nice enough - a few nice restaurants right on the beach. We celebrated Girl's birthday at one of these restaurants, owned by Ed's family.

Chilling on Sanur Beach

We met Ed when he picked us up from the airport. He seemed a nice guy and spoke good English, so we engaged him to drive us around. It turned out well. He took us on a cultural/shopping trip - batik factory, silver/goldsmith, wood shops, art shops. We stopped at a cafe where you could have kopi luwak - the cat poop coffee. The men tasted it, I think just for tasting it. The women and children watched in amusement. We had lunch at this nice place, surrounded by peaceful rice paddies. I really liked the fresh juices. We also visited the monkey temple, but I had to stay in the van with Girl taking a nap. Which is just as well, because I've heard that the monkeys were quite aggressive.

Batik factory

Kopi luwak production

Rice paddy fields

We spent another day on a snorkeling trip to Turtle Island. The snorkeling wasn't so good though, and Turtle Island was like a private zoo - other than turtles, there were snakes and birds. Donations were actively solicited from the visitors. We also stopped by a waterfall, but did not try to go swimming as it did not look like an easy walk to the water. Some tourist had taken the shortcut and dove down the waterfall. Boy asked why we didn't buy the trinkets from the boys selling them. I had to explain that perhaps we help in other ways, but we don't need trinkets.

Snorkeling

Waterfall

We had dinner a couple times at Jimbaran, simply because we liked hanging at the beach near sunset and then getting dinner right on the beach. The food was okay but the children liked the shows.

Jimbaran Beach

Bali was a lovely place - would love to see it again.

Tui Na

Yesterday, at Hubby's recommendation, I decided to try chinese massage. I'd been feeling achy for a few days. Not really a fan of massages (I prefer spa body scrubs), I figured it was just fatigue and I just needed to catch up on sleep. Toyed with the idea of a spa trip, and since the "spa" Hubby goes to monthly is so close, I decided to give it a try.

NatureCare seemed nice when I checked out their website, so I made an appointment. I arrived on time for the appointment, signed in and waited only a few minutes before a therapist brought me to the treatment room. I didn't much care for the subtle smell of food - don't know if it's the massage oil, really - nor the chat I can hear from the next treatment room. When the therapist climbed on the bed, I knew the whole thing was a bad idea. I expected more the western style massage experience - even the sports massage didn't have the therapist on top of you. She kneaded and worked my back and it started popping - ouch. I could've asked her to be gentler, I suppose, but I just grinned and bore it. The therapist seemed nice and chatted about this and that - I asked her the difference between tui na and massage and she said that western massage is more superficial while chinese massage is deeper and slightly achy. No kidding. She also started chatting about more personal stuff - as usual, people here make the leap from "hi" to "where do you live" to "do you rent or own" to "how much is the rent" surprisingly quickly.

After the session, I was served some tea and fruit. I felt quite relaxed, actually. Today, I am achy - Hubby assures there are no bruises, but the spots she worked are tender to the touch. I think I will go back to the western massage next time...

Legoland Malaysia

Boy is very fond of Legos. He wants them for birthdays, Christmases, and also buys them with his allowance. Mommy is a little tired of looking for, stepping on, and picking up Legos. It feels like Legos are quite pricey in Singapore, compared to the US. It doesn't stop people from spending on them. This past Christmas, we found this specialty Lego store at Great World City, and people were dropping BIG bucks on Christmas gifts. The Toys R Us section looked cleaned out.

With the recent opening of Legoland Malaysia, ads were splashed all over the place. So naturally, Boy requested to go. We arranged to share a taxi with another family, one that would be door-to-door on Sunday, October 14. It would be about hour and a half each way, taking into account immigration and traffic.

We had already been to the one in Florida, so had some expectations. I think the park does cater to adults too. There are coasters, and the Miniland is usually fascinating. The rides are similar to the European amusement parks to which I've been (Linnanmaki and Sarkkaniemi in Finland, Grona Lund in Sweden, and Tivoli in Denmark) and not too taxing. The one difference was that they did not allow parents to ride along with the toddlers on some rides - I was surprised at Royal Joust when the attendant blocked me from getting on and let Girl (3) on her way. Luckily, she handled this first experience (and subsequent rides) like a trooper. Boy and pal could not be dragged away from Build & Test (building and racing cars). Mommy enjoyed shooting stuff at Lost Kingdom.

Miniland

Build & Test

The facilities seemed to be still half functional (they were operating only one out of two machines for many of the rides). The restaurant process needed work - patrons were not routed efficiently. Probably growing pains that would be sorted out soon. We will likely make more trips. One thing we would do differently is to dine at the Mall of Medini before heading back to Singapore (traffic jam made for a late dinner).

School

Gosh...Boy is in Primary 1. It has not been the easiest journey. Being foreigners, we were the last allowed to register (in phase 3). Okay, we could have decided to send him to an expensive international school, but we want him to get the local experience. Don't remind me that if I had kept my citizenship and arranged citizenship for Boy we might have gotten into the primary school across the street from the house. At least we put him on the waiting list.

I was actually surprised how many foreigners were registering their kids in the last phase. I selected 2 closest schools with vacancies. It didn't really matter what time you arrived to register as the way it worked was that as long as there were more applicants than vacancies by the end of the day it went to balloting. The first school I went to I was handed a registration ticket number 80-something for 11 spots. I left immediately for the other, where I was number 18 for 30+ spots. There I experienced my first problem with information dissemination in this whole process - I was told I needed the parents' passports for registration. I had looked twice over the documents I needed and did not take "Parents’ travel document/Singapore NRIC/Entry or Re-entry Permit/Employment Pass/Work Permit" to mean I needed passports - I had employment passes. Don't the rest of the world read "/" as "or"? Summoned hubby to bring passports. Still plan to write a complaint to MOE. There ended up being more applicants than vacancies and we were fortunate to end up with a spot at balloting. Else we would have been assigned a spot at one of the remaining schools with vacancies - could have been anywhere.

I took Boy to orientation. The actual start time was earlier than stated on the invitation. When I tried to purchase uniforms, the sale location was different from the info supplied. All this misinformation made the process more painful and time-consuming than necessary.

So our weekdays start earlier to accommodate the 7:35am start of school. Boy enjoys buying food from the canteen, and his one-a-day soft drink allowance. Other than the early start, he seems to enjoy school. We are still thinking about after-school care arrangement, but for now he comes home with the school bus (stable times now after a rocky start - we declined the morning bus as the assigned pickup was 6:15) to the helper. We are still working on the routines, but it's nice to have one-on-one time when it's my turn to take him to school (okay, it's a lot of nagging - do this, remember that, don't do this...). When it's Hubby's turn to drop off, I get time with Girl. Not bad, not bad...