(10 Feb 14 Mon) Flower Dome - Year of the Horse

We revelled in visiting the Flower Dome as it was air-conditioned and had different thematic displays all the time. Since this was the Lunar Year of the Horse, we went galloping at the Flower Dome one a bright and chirpy Monday.

On the second floor. When we came with papa, he never ventured to the second tier. I thought he did not fancy looking at flowers very much, unlike us, we enjoyed it! We saw lots of cacti. I told jie jie that we could perhaps grow cacti at home since they were such hardy plants...

Fascinated by the bottle trees...there were rounded bottomed ones and slim bottomed ones...

 Now that the two of you were older (2 and 4), you gladly obliged when I asked for poses...hahaha...tong would be cheeky and run towards the camera at the critical moment though, ha, the photobomber.

oooo stalactites...hmmm according to my geography knowledge, they should be called stalagmites...oh well the sign said they were stalactites. It was like a mini frozen landscape so it was really fascinating.

Playing the fool, I told you to drape the curtains of vines on yourself...tong did not oblige though...

Oh the horse display! They used branches to create these sculptures...

Ha, intrigued by the gigantic coins...

Having a sibling was great fun, you two could entertain yourselves by chasing each other round the bottle tree...

I suggested we could pop our heads out from the behind of the tree to make it seem as if the tree had sprouted a head....

ok heading down to the level where we usually went 

Seeing you look intently at the flower reminded me of this beautiful poem I learnt in JC...

To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

Indeed, life was how we made it out to be. Thank you sweethearts for being in mummy's life, you enriched it, splashed bold colours in it, made me die to self, taught me how deep love could be...

A wedding couple was taking photos there! You wanted a snap with the bride. You lamented she was not in a white wedding dress though. When you were young, you would shy away from strangers. Mummy never believed that you should be friendly to people whom you did not want to, I insisted it was perfectly fine to tell those people that you simply did not want to talk. Fast forward to just 1plus year later, you were gregarious and extremely sociable. You had no problems holding long, logical conversations with adults you just met, you loved visiting new houses. you enjoyed playing at others's houses...Mummy believed that you would do things at your own pace and at your own comfort...and yeh...what we believed paid off, you were this confident and eloquent toddler now...

We spotted a glass window on the floor, when we peeked into it, you could see images of pretty flowers, almost like a kaleidoscope...

Ooo a bird eye's view of the Chinese New Year decorations...

Just chilling out on the bench at mama's request...

You said you wanted to merge into the shrubs...

Oh we did something novel today. We ate at this hidden quaint restaurant called "Pollen". The fare was simple and quite costly (a plate of plain pasta with cream sauce and nothing else for $24) but the place's ambience was delightful.

We spent over an hour just soaking in the carefreeness of not having to worry about anything...having time on our friends...one another for company...

papa was gonna change his job soon and he would be taking a pay cut. mama wondered if we could afford such luxury again, it certainly was a tai tai lifestyle to go to Flower Dome on a weekday and dining at a chic restaurant...well papa assured mama that we could certainly continue our indulgences and he would take care of our needs...

mama learnt that we could have free entry and buggy ride if we ate at Pollen, well we could try it next time : ) You mentioned you wanted to eat this every time we came here. You were a creature of routine, you loved to create your own ritual, like eating a particular food when you went to a particular place...hahah...

Resuming the tour, seeing the splendid and resplendent flowers...

mama liked this, golden yellow decorations hanging from the tree...

Taking a selfie...hardly had a photo of myself in the blogs...

Yay, finally got someone to take a photo of us...our must-take shot whenever we came here, you called it the Throne photo...

Kissing under the beautiful arch, was getting you two to pretend to be a couple taking wedding shots...erm...tong did not cooperate too well...

We spotted a solitary red rose, you said you wanted to take a photo with it so I asked you to pretend to be sniffing it...

Tong requested for this photo as he liked the humongous dragonfly...it gave me the creeps though...

More horses' display...

Initially, you did not want to play with this interactive game, I thought you said it was kind of scary..Well, you ended up playing it anyway...they improvised the game, in the past, they had this scene where you would chop down all the trees by swiping the screen. Now they added another portion of replanting the seeds so that the forest would grow again. That was rather clever...

Had a great time...oooo...time to head home for our little siesta...

Love you, sweethearts. We were definitely coming back again!