Month: June 2012

Well despite my best intentions we’re still a bit all over the place with jet-lag. We spent yesterday morning zonked out in the condo and the afternoon splashing in the pool. Phil took some lovely video of the cousins playing together in the water which I’m sure he will put on here in due course. We all had a fantastic time.

In the evening Ally and the kids escorted us to the local hawker centre. Susie gave is all a fright – she kept crouching down to hold her sore tummy and turned the brightest shade of red. It was only a 10 minute walk although it was incredibly hot. Fortunately once sat down in the hawker centre under a fan and with a large juice she returned quite quickly to a normal colour!

Tony joined us at e centre and he and Ally showed us some of their favourite Singapore food. We loved the dumplings filled with soup (how do they get the soup to stay inside?) and Phil enjoyed the cereal prawns (yes, really prawns covered in oatmeal). I couldn’t get my head around the bahkuhtae noodles which were very dark brown. The look was just so off putting, I did try them but I didn’t like them!

Today we are braving heading out alone on the MRT to the Botanical Gardens. Maybe some more swimming later – even the people who live here are saying it is unusually hot!

We’re here in Singapore! The flights went remarkably smoothly with little newsworthy except for the idiot smoking in the toilets…. Twice!

It was lovely to be met in our state of dazed exhaustion by Tony who brought us straight to his condo. The cousins started playing together almost immediately. We found time for a very brief dip in their fantastic pool and now it’s time for sleep. I don’t think we know which way is up now never mind what time of day or night it is, but with only a couple of hours sleep between us in the last 45 we are definitely ready for bed.

We finally got the children’s last vaccinations yesterday. I knew it was going to be a trauma after the last time, so I took the mature route and didn’t tell them until we arrived at the doctors. When I told them what we were there for all three immediately went into total meltdown. Luke finally pulled it together and said he was going to be brave. Emma and Susie had to be physically moved out of the car and in through the door!

By the time we arrived at the reception desk, the poor receptionist was convinced that we were a dire emergency who should really have been heading for A&E based on the amount of noise coming out of them. We finally managed to explain that we’d just come to visit the travel clinic.

The nurse had gathered reinforcements (probably based on hearing the noise in the waiting room of Susie screaming at the top of her voice and trying to escape) so we had two nurses and myself to hold them down and jab the needles in. I felt like the worlds worst parent.

All over very quickly, if deafeningly! Plasters, stickers and lollipops afterwards and suddenly everyone was feeling much better. On the way home in the car the children competed over who had been the most “brave”! Susie thought she was braver than last time because apparently she “didn’t try to get away and didn’t even cry”, Emma and Luke both thought they were braver and they all agreed that it didn’t hurt at all. Unbelievable!!!! But I have decided that if they believe this fiction it is probably for the best as it will lower the likelihood of lasting phobia of needles.

I’m very glad to have it over and done with!

So many people have asked us why we are making this trip I thought I would include it here.  Above all, we want to have time as a family unit without the distractions of work, housework, house maintenance etc etc.  Phil and I were blessed with nine months of travelling together not long after we married and we loved the luxury of time and exclusivity which just can’t be replicated within everyday life.  Ever since we had children we have wanted to be able to have this same luxury with them.

We are also really keen to show the children that the world is a far bigger place than rural South Norfolk!  We want them to understand through our actions that they can do whatever they want, even if it’s something that other people think is mad.  They need to understand that the world is interlinked and that increasingly our actions in the UK impact the lives of others elsewhere in the world.  You can only truly understand how fortunate you are by seeing how others live.

The primary reasons for the timing of the trip are practical.  I get the six week school holiday anyway so it requires less time off work to overlap with the holiday and it minimises the kids time out of school.  Because Susie is not yet five, Phil is entitled to four weeks of parental leave and we are utilising this to facilitate his work being happy to let him take such an extended period of time off.