My BIG 3 Birthday...

Its my birthday today... I decided not to go back to school till 10 Dec as I want to spend my birthday with my family. Deardear is unable to take leave today to bring us, so I have to spend my birthday morning and afternoon with my little precious. After waking up in the morning, my precious little Caden came to tell me 'Mama happy birthday". I am so happy... Then I brought him to the Kwan Yin temple to pray. After that, Caden insisted to go to Chloe jiejie house, so I brought him to Chloe jiejie house. He really enjoyed playing with Chloe. She seems to be his idol. At noon, I brought him home for lunch. The afternoon is spent sleeping with him and reading to him.

At night, my mum gave me a treat at the Singapura Restaurant. Before we set off for dinner, deardear came back with a Mrs Field cookies and a BIG Pooh bear helium filled balloon. The interesting thing about the balloon is that if I hit it, it will produce a 'Happy birthday' song. After the sumptous dinner, we proceed home for the cake cutting. Chloe and my eldest aunt came over too. My birthday cake is a chocolate one... Deardear knows that I love choco sponge cake and so he ordered the blackforest cake with less cream and no blueberries. An ordinary celebration for a BIG 3 birthday... Not much of a hassle yet heartwarming... Thank you everyone...

Early Birthday Celebration

Today, my buddies came over to my place to celebrate my birthday for me. They tried to accomodate to me as Caden is not feeling too well. We bought some zhi char and pizza for dinner. After dinner, we cut the mango cake they bought for me... But I wonder if they buy it for my son instead as my son loves mango cake and I do not really fancy any kind of fruit cakes. haha.. But what the heck... I enjoyed their company and they are my buddies. After Caden fell asleep, we spent some time catching up with each other.

Our 3rd Wedding Anniversary

Came back yesterday midnight from our 5D4N family overseas outing. As it is our wedding anniversary, deardear took leave earlier on so that the whole family can go out to celebrate our special day... However, Caden is down with severe flu. Even deardear is down with flu too. We decided to stay at home today. The only place we went is to Doc Ong's clinic as we need to get medication for Caden. Though its not much a celebration, I am still happy as long as we can spend the day together...

Caden's First Overseas Holiday Day 5

Actually I had planned to go to the Big Buddha today. But Dear and I decided that because Caden was still not feeling too well, we do not want to travel so much. Moreover, we all enjoyed ourselves a lot at Disneyland; we do not mind going back again.

So in the morning, we had our breakfast in the hotel. Then we walked around the place for a while and head back to our room to do our final packing.

We check out after that and headed to Disneyland. Of course, the entire

luggage were in the hotel’s care.

We went around taking photos with a lot of the Disney characters. It’s something for Caden to remember when he grows up. We can tell him he saw, Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy and the rest of the friends. Next we took the train around the fun land.

But towards the end of the ride, Caden fell asleep. So I carried him in my arms while we venture around. We landed in the gift shop eventually and we bought so much stuff there. Gifts for friends and relative and most importantly, gifts for ourselves. We also managed to catch the Disney Parade. Initially we thought Caden might miss it as he was sleeping, but 5 minutes into the parade, he suddenly woke up and totally captivated by the parade. It didn’t take too long for him to get into the mood. He was pointing here and there as usual and telling me the things that he saw.

Right after the parade, we headed back to the hotel. The hotel has agreed to give us a room for us to freshen up before we go to the airport. It was a pretty nice gesture of the hotel. So we washed Caden up and as well as ourselves. As we still have some time, we continued shopping a bit in the hotel Disney shop. I decided to buy Caden a Mickey Safari remote control car. Reason being that, there was a demo set for kids to try. He was absolutely immersed in playing it. But when other kids were playing, he did not try to snatch or fight for it. I felt that was good manner on his part. And so, Caden has a new toy.

We were waiting and waiting for the local tour agency to pick us up to the hotel but it did not come. In the end, we had to rush ourselves into a cab and dash to the airport. Luckily we were still on time and even managed to get seats together on the plane.

On the way back, little Caden was not feeling too well and refuses to sleep. Even eventually when he managed to do so, he was turning and turning. Poor little boy, he must have been really tired. And the worst thing is that we need to seat him up during landing to buckle him up properly. This made him very cranky. But after the plane landed, he went back to sleep. All the way till we picked up our luggage, he woke up. He saw Po Po and Gong Gong waiting at the airport, welcoming him back. We were fortunate that Gong Gong came and pick us up and gave us a ride back. And that wraps up our first overseas trip with Caden.

Though we were extremely tired and missed out on some of the attractions that we planned to see. We felt that it was really worth it. I feel that through this trip, it has bonded my relationship with Caden. Perhaps because of work, at some times, I was not around in Singapore. So I didn’t really spend time with him. But in this trip, we took care of him every hour every minute. We washed his utensils, prepared his food, his clothing. Carried him around, companying him to sleep and making him poo all by ourselves. Though it was a short 5 days, it strengthens our belief that even without a maid, we are more than capable of taking care of our son on our own. It was really a meaningful trip for us. Though tiring, we do not mind doing it for our son.

PS: more pics here; http://picasaweb.google.com/adrnt14/HongKongTrip

Caden's First Overseas Holiday Day 4

Today marks the beginning of our Hong Kong Trip highlight. Disneyland!

We woke up early to pack our luggage as we need to move to Disneyland Hollywood Hotel. So by the time we packed up, bathed and feed our little prince, it was time for us to go. So we did not have a proper breakfast.

Once we are at the hotel, we were overwhelmed by the crowd. Some were sitting around, waiting for a room, some were queuing up to get a room but most people are just standing around. I took care of Caden while dear went to get our room keys. And dear was pretty smart to pay the hotel for early check in. If not we have to wait for another 5 to 6 hours before we can check into our room. Not a good idea if you have a little toddler travelling with you.

The room was absolutely beautiful and Caden loves it too.

Running here and there fidgeting with the cupboards, drawers, bed and sofa. The TV programs even have his favorite cartoons.

After we did some unpacking, we were off to Disneyland. Prior to this trip, Caden has been telling everyone that he is going to Hong Kong to see Mickey Mouse. Today, it is really happening. From the welcome entrance to the fountain and to the main entrance, everywhere is Mickey and his friends. Caden is so busy pointing here and there, telling us MICKEY! MICKEY! We were very happy to see him so excited. Though he might not remember he has come to Disneyland before when he grows up but it is definitely a joyous and exhilarating experience for him now.

As it is the Christmas Season, everywhere in Disneyland, it’s decorated with Snow, ribbons and beautiful Christmas ornaments. Even the Disney Characters were dressed up in nice Christmas costumes to take photo with everyone. Most of the rides here are child-friendly. And we really had a good time with Caden on them. There’s the Winnie the Pooh ride, Buzz LightYear space ride, Small Small World Ride, Mad Hatter Teapot ride and also Dumbo ride. Caden loves them a lot. He keeps saying that he wants to sit on Merry Go Round. But Disneyland is so big; we were only able to let him sit once for each ride. We spent quite a while at Disneyland before we headed back to the hotel again in the afternoon for Caden to nap.

In the evening, we decided to go back to Disneyland again. This time, we are going because of the Fireworks. By the time we reached the Castle, there were a lot of people crowding around. So we were only able to stand and admire the fireworks. It was beautiful. Especially when we were looking through these special glasses that were given to us at the entrance, it makes the fireworks transform into small little hearts. But our little prince was a bit terrified of the loud exploding sound made. He keeps saying scared scared, but still want to look at it. After the fireworks, we headed back to hotel and packet dinner back to eat. And after that, we had an early rest.

Caden's First Overseas Holiday Day 3

3rd Day (30th November 2009)

There is a Chinese restaurant situated at Golden Mile Holiday Inn Hotel, the hotel that we are staying in. It looks pretty nice, so we decided to have our brunch there and boy, were we not disappointed. We ate a variety of dim sum and a pot of congee. And I must say, the taste is really special. So much so that Caden wanted more and more of it.

After brunch, we took the MTR to Kowloon Station.

We were heading to the famous ladies street. We did some shopping there, bought some Hong Kong Drama DVD set and bags. We bought Caden some pretty stickers too. There wasn’t much thing for Caden there, but he is absolutely excited about the big towels that were hung up, with pictures of SpongeBob, Dora and so on. I really had a hard time holding on to him. Though it was a small area, we actually took nearly 2hrs to complete walking it. By this time, Caden was again tired out. So in the end, he slept in Mama’s arms for 45 mins. We managed to find seats at a Starbucks outlet, where we, the family of 3 had a short rest. After Caden woke up, we actually visited this building that has a lot of toy shops inside. We bought Caden a Thomas the Train Railway set, a mini one actually. And for me, a Mickey Mouse Optimus Prime. I absolutely love it!

In the evening, by the time we came out, it was already pretty late as we need to let Caden nap a while more, make him poo and bathe him. As the night falls, we decided not to venture too far. So again, we roam around the Tsim Sha Tsui area. It was near my Wedding Anniversary with Dear Dear, and yesterday, I remember seeing a Teppanyaki Restaurant. Dear loves Teppanyaki, so I brought her to the place for an early celebration. The place was pretty small but cozy. And everyone in the restaurant was very friendly.

Especially the waitress, who is an old lady, she loves talking to Caden. And Caden entertained her with his funny antics. The food was absolutely fantastic! Especially this wrapped pork dish. Let me explain. The chef will take a thin slice of pork, wrap it with fried garlic and some veges and wrap it up to be grilled on the teppanyaki table. Initially Dear thought that it was too much but once the succulent pork melted in her mouth, she knew she wants more. And of course, I had the same feeling. Though it was an expensive dinner, nothing beats seeing my Dear’s face lighted up with joy. Happy Wedding Anniversary Dear! We ended the day with a bit more shopping at Espirit outlet, before we headed back to the hotel.

Caden's First Overseas Holiday Day 2

Today is our guided half day city tour. We got picked up by the local tour early in the morning.

As Caden as having fever during the night, we were contemplating whether to go or not. But when he woke up, he seems better as we gave him some medication

in the middle of the night. So we decided to proceed as planned.

It was pretty much a simple tour. We visited places like the Hong Kong Repulse Bay, Aberdeen, Bauhinia Square and Midpoint of Victoria Peak. We also had a Dim Sum breakfast, lunch in a Cantonese Restaurant and an open top bus ride.

We ended the tour in Kowloon at nearly 4pm. By this time, Caden was pretty tired, so we decided to head back to the hotel to let him nap. Overall, we thought this tour was a ripped off. Trying to make us buy over priced products, but too bad for them we are not too dumb to fall for it.

At night, we walked around Tsim Sha Tsui area. We had dinner at this small restaurant and order a plate of Roasted Meat Rice, Hor Fun and Fried Noodle. But sadly, the service was bad and the food was just so so. Plus Caden was not too comfortable in the restaurant, so we ended the dinner in a rush and shopped around the area.

Caden's First Overseas Holiday Day 1

28th November marks Caden’s first overseas holiday. The location we chose was Hong Kong, reason being that Hong Kong is a place that we feel would be easy to find food that Caden can eat and we feel comfortable with. But most importantly, there’s DISNEYLAND. The duration was 5 days 4 nights.

Caden needs to wake up exceptionally earlier today; he needs to wake up around 6.30am. Perhaps he knew today was the day we are flying, so when we told him to wake up, he did so quite obediently rather than making a din out of it.

By 8am, we were already at Changi Airport Terminal 1 with Po Po also. And by 8.15am, we have already checked in our luggage. The airline that we took was Cathay Pacific Airline. As it was a bit early, we took our breakfast at Han’s. We spent a short while there, before sending Po Po off at the monorail stop for her to go to T2 area to catch the MRT.

Caden was very excited all this while, running around the airport, playing with my hand carry luggage.

Not showing any signs of lethargy from waking up early.

We decided to check in earlier, to walk around the departure area, to see if there is anything to buy. Nothing much actually, as most stuff is expensive or nothing we need. Instead our only purchases were from guardian pharmacy and a souvenir store.

By 10am we were on the plane already, waiting for the plane to take off at 10.10am. Before this, I was thinking how to entertain my active little boy for 3.5hrs. I thought it was a challenge. But as it turns out, it was not as bad as I thought. He started playing with the toys that were given by the airline. Next he was kept entertained by watching his favorite shows on my iPhone. After which, it was time for meals, he took a while to finished. Then he repeated the same stuff again, before he took a quick nap. Next thing we know, it’s time for touchdown. Phew… We were pretty glad that we decided took an extra seat for him instead of letting him sit with Dear on the plane. If we have done so, I think hours will seem days to us.

By 2.30pm, we were already out of the arrival hall of Hong Kong Airport. And we were waiting for the local tour at Hong Kong to pick us up and send us to our hotel. This took quite a while, as we need to wait for the some other fellow travelers and also we need to wait for the bus to come. During this time, I even bought myself a cup of Xu Liu Shan mango and aloe vera juice.

After some waiting, finally we got onto the bus. Caden was still much energized, keep pointing out of the window, asking me what is this and what is that.

He also says that the seat in front of him is DOMO.

Silly little boy. We had a good laugh about this.

The trip was pretty long as we need to drop passengers off at different hotels. By the time we reached our hotel, it was nearly 4pm. Once we reached our room, Caden took his daily afternoon nap. During this time, we were busy unpacking the stuff.

We met with my colleague, Kenny and his wife and the hotel lobby at 18.30. We have arranged to meet up for dinner with some other Hong Kong colleagues also. They are really a nice bunch of people who have given me a lot of help and support at work. They are Alice, Dennis, Joey and Kenny. We had a nice dinner at a Chinese restaurant. Caden even received a present from the uncles and aunties, a cute Winnie the Pooh toy set and 2 papayas. The papayas were given because, Kenny knew that Caden needs to eat fruit every day, so he bought 2 papayas for us, so we do not need to go around hunting for them. How thoughtful! Overall we had a great dinner and I am very glad to meet up with them. But I forgot to take a photo with them. Sigh.

After dinner, we bid farewell and proceeded to walk around Tsim Sha Tsui. We went around the Victoria Habour for a while before calling it a day.