(18 May 17 Thurs) Jurong Bird Park

Ah, Tong had been having mild fever for a few days. So, mama cancelled the swimming lesson and tong skipped school. With a freed up afternoon, we decided to head to the Jurong Bird Park! I had initially wanted to take the 1hour long journey via bus but thought otherwise and caught a cab. The traffic was smooth and we reached there in a jiffy and the fare was only $11.60. Just in time for the 3.30pm penguin feeding segment. The kids were thrilled.

Armed with a glove and tray of fish, they scooted off to the enclosure.

The African penguins were waiting patiently for their treats.

Glad we caught this amazing experience.

Went on to the air-conditioned part for the next segment. Turned out that it merely involved the keeper feeding the penguins.

So, we went on our merry way to catch the "Birds of the skies" show which showcased dazzling and impressive birds of prey like vultures, owls and eagles.

Turned some nifty facts, like how the bald eagle was named so not because it did not have feathers on its body but because bald meant something else in the old English. ha.

Went to see the exhibits at the back of the amphitheatre, we had never noticed these before.

saw a sign pointing to the "Research and breeding centre" and ventured there. To our delight, there were rather interesting displays. Like this nest, which Jun really liked, and he kept going back there. The gigantic egg shells amused the older ones.

The research centre showed eggs and newly hatched birds in incubators, and even showed the kitchen where they prepared food.

That enormous egg belonged to the extinct elephant bird. One could only imagine how gargantuan that bird must have been. And that wee teeny egg at the far right? That was a humming bird's egg!

We took the tram round the park and then got off at the Lory Loft.

Both were enthusiastic at first, but the birds were fierce and greedy, one even pecked poor tong's hand so he dared not hold on to the cup anymore.

We ambled around the enclosure, the birds came in such close proximity to us, flying above our heads, narrowly missing crashing into us at times...

My littlest baby...he adored birds, I wondered if he was enjoying this trip?

saw a slightly pink feathered parrot, the kids did not even dare go too near it for a photo

Ha, finally a photo of the cheeky little birds in our house. Before we knew it, 2 hours had flown by and it was time to go home. We were caught in a slight jam and took quite some while before we could reach home and the fare was $24.50, twice of what we paid when we went there! Mama highly suspected that the uncle took a longer than usual route and got us into the jam...oh well...

With the June holidays coming, we would surely come back here again. We would definitely not give the wet play area a miss next time.

(14 May 17 Sun) To the Flower Dome with papa

It was rare for papa not to have soccer on Sunday mornings and the kids to be up bright and chirpy at 8plus am. So, mama had a brainwave and suggested going to the Gardens by the Bay. We loved that place dearly, but it was such hard work getting there on our own via public transport. heh, we had breakfast at Macdonald, xun and tong tried the Mac Chicken burger and declared that they loved it. It was a good thing that they were taking to more types of food.

All the boys were in stripped wear. Well, tong liked to wear matching wear with his little brother, who favoured him when it came to holding hands. And papa just liked to be a copycat. ha

the flower dome was changing its exhibits, they were adding some interesting statues depicting scenes from Alice in Wonderland.

These shrub trees looked so cute

Off with their heads!

Found the dancing flowers, as usual...

They added planters around the area, a really pretty sight

It was the theme of tulips so we caught some stunning blooms...surely hoped to go to Holland to see a pasture of the tulips someday

Wondered what tong was up to, perhaps sneaking a kiss on his sister

Mama bought a new phone, the iPhone 7 which had this live feature which allowed me to catch some motions before the picture was taken. It was incredible. I thought the harry potter era of moving photos had arrived. Unbelievable technology.

So the kids were prancing around, trying to get me to take live photos...a pity they turned out to be mini videos, so I could not be bothered to upload them here via the videos' option.

Puzzled as to what tong was doing...but he sure looked dashing with papa's glasses on his head.

An outing would be incomplete without a family wefie.

and some photos of us with breath-taking backgrounds

and the munchkins putting on their cheeky funny faces...even jun was joining in the fun

the centre piece was this quaint little cottage, definitely a characteristic icon of Holland

An ang moh old couple saw us and insisted on taking a family photo for us, how sweet of them.

the children wanted a photo of us in this beautiful pavilion

Jie wanted tong to take a picture of the entire pavilion and was dismayed it turned out otherwise.

well, not that her photography skills were remarkable. Papa had just configured two iphones 4 (mama and ah gong's old iphones), so the kids had their own sets to practise their Chinese on panda boshi (jie could do the online exercises on Ezhishi). They had been waking up and playing with their phones these few days, taking weird photos and videos of their baby brother who gaily played along by posing for them.

How lovely it would be to have a garden and one could plant flowers in a boat!

I wished parenting was all rainbows and unicorns like what these pictures seemed to capture. There were many frustrating times...like tong and jun taking turns to wake up in the night while I tried to do some work, read books or chill.

And with jun developing a fiery personality resembling the terrible twos (he always insisted on having his way and cried badly when chastised..or put on his mopey cute bambi eyes look)...parenting could be so tedious many times...

today, jun chose this cute little squirtle top to match his favourite caterpillar shoes. Tong wore blue crocs to match his blue top.

At wai po's house, he was often up to no good. Wai po sent me this picture while I was at work. Really amused for he seemed so precocious and mature for a 1.5 year old tyke.

Wai po sent another picture shortly to remark how obedient the two brothers were. They napped on their own while she went to cook. I wondered why it never happened to me. Jun would wake up

in a jiffy once I lay him on the bed. Now as I was typing, Tong had woken up and was standing next to me as I typed. I wished he could be a deep sleeper like xun and just sleep through. It was tiresome having to go in and out to nurse Jun, it was plain irritating having to deal with tong as well.

I knew papa would always remind me that they loved me to bits and would be little only for a while...I wished they would hound him more instead of me *bleah*!

It had felt like a rather long week...perhaps of the anticipation of the Bandung trip. I so badly wanted a holiday!