Chinese New Year Carnival

Daddy brought us to the CNY Carnival @ Bishan. Its at the big field opp blk 514A, behind the bus terminal. The organizers had built 7 tentages to house this carnival. Its sort of the same as Chinatown's carnival next to the temple except this is much bigger.

See my Daddy. Macho man! Carrying the 2 of us. ( Note: Daddy's bone is cracking)

This was what caught our attention. S$4 per ride for 10 mins.

Waiting while Daddy went to purchase the tickets.

Daddy helping me onto the horse

Rachel also.

Daddy helping us along the way. Its not easy. There are no peddles for u to step on. Instead, you have to use your buttocks to press up & down on the seat, enabling the horse to move. Just like riding a real horse, bobbling up & down.

Posing for some foto shots.

After the ride, we walked ard , looking for something to eat. Mummy had already sniffed out something that she wld hv termed it as very very smelly years back. Guess what?!

Yes, its the smelly toufu. Long q as u can see above.

We prefer to some something cooling. Daddy pointed out this tou hua stall.

We orderd this strawberry tou hua @ S$2.50 per bowl.

Sitting @ the beer garden, almost empty tables eating our tou hua, There is a stage performance as well but not many people watching it. The songs sang doesnt bring out the new year mood. :P

After our break, its time to look ard again. We went to the play area outside the tentages.

Trappeline? Bungy jumping?

Bouncing clowns, castles...

Games stalls.

Prizes Redemption Counter.

Looking at some people playing some games.

I wanted to do the boat ride.

Here i come... u gt to use your hands to navigate the rollers at the side of the boat so that the boast can move.

I wanna play the waterball. Mummy asked if i really wan cos i hv to go in alone. I nodded my head.

I am inside the ball now, getting ready to be "zipped" up.

( note: rachel is still ok at this moment)

Some final pumping... ( she is still fine..)

But when the ball is being pushed into the water, Rachel let out a loud wail that can be heard even from inside the ball. Her wail has been amplified 100 times louder & people ard can hear her screaming for me: " mummy mummy...i dun wan...

We got her out of the ball & calmed her down. Daddy carried her away & we went to watch Lionel "hard at work"

We left the place ard 10.30pm.

Animal Resort

We went to the Animal Resort today, along Seletar Farmway 4, off Jalan Kayu. We wanted to visit the butterfly park at Bah Soon Pah but cldnt locate the place. Asking directions from people along the way didnt helped either for no one knew of such farm. Does it exsit in the first place?

Upon reaching Seletar Farmway 4, we gt lost again. We only saw the outside sign: German Shepard's Training Grounds but did not see Animal Resort. We went further in & stopped to us some people. They told us to turn right & keep left but isnt that back to the same place as the GS training grounds??? There isnt any other farm nearby so we thought might as well go into the training grounds. Stupid us. Animal Resort is right here! We missed the signboard. ( cannot blame us la. The sign board is so small & nt put up in an obvious place)

We saw many small farm animals such as horse, goats, rabbits, goose, turkeys, ostrich, peacock & even an area for dog grooming & training. We bot feeding food to feed the animals.

After visiting the farm, we drove out & saw a mushroom farm so we went in to look around as well. There was an assistant who gave us a introductory tour of the grounds & he explained to us how they plant the mushrooms. It was very cold inside the tents, about 15 degrees. Mushrooms need this temperature to help them grow.

We brought some ready packed mushrooms & even mushroom floss, same like pork floss. We planned to come back again but Mummy mentioned something about Elias Park instead. Till then...

Graduation

Hooray! I have graduated from the course & i'm now a certified service professional. ** pai sey**
Below are js some random snapshots taken from my hp & forwarded via bluetooth from my classmates. Some may nt be clear. Enjoy

CSP - Certified Service Professional. Course conducted at SIRS.

My class/course mates together with our trainer, Mrs Rabia Muir.

( Can u see me?)

My team members - Team 3.

Some of my classmates.

another snapshpot.

End of the buffet.

We did 2 banquet & 1 service host during the course. For most of us who do not have any F&B experience, it was really difficult to run a restaurant. Everyday, there will be diff grps doing banquet & they hv to come up with new ideas in table settlings, atmosphere settlings, what & how to serve, what to set on the tables, what kind of music, what type of cutleries, etc... And each grp has to be better than the grp b4. And it boils down to having alot of communication, team work & coordination. LOL. But it was worth the while. We learned alot of things.

And can u imagine? The youngest in my class was 20 years old & the oldest was 68 years old.

Quiz!

Mummy: I was attending a course on PE/CRM/CSP at the Singapore Institute of Retail Studies
(SIRS). Part of the course was to apply effective reading skills & we were all asked to do the below quiz ( to see whtr we followed instructions)

This is not the actual quiz but it goes something like that. We were all told that we shd be able to finish the quiz in not more than 3 minutes. Everyone scrambled to complete it. At the end, only 1 person passed this quiz. The rest....well....laughing like mad. All kenna trick la... including myself..haha.
***********************
Can You Follow Directions?

1) Read this entire list carefully before doing anything else.
2) Get out a blank sheet of paper.
3) Put your name in the upper right-hand corner.
4) Write the word "name" and circle it.
5) Draw five small squares in the upper left-hand corner.
6) Put an "X" in each square.
7) Sign your name under the title of this paper.
8) Write sentence number seven above and put a circle completely around it.
9) Put an "X" in the lower left-hand corner of the page.
10)Draw a triangle around the word "corner".
11) On the back of the paper, add 75 and 13.
12) Loudly call out your first name (for motivation) when you get this far.
13) If you think you have carefully followed directions to this point call out, "I have" (for self-affirmation).
14) On the reverse side of the paper, subtract 12 from 69.
15) Count backwords to yourself from 10 to 1.
16) Say "I am a leader in following directions".
17) Write all of the even numbers in this list on the page.
18) Say "I am nearly finished and I have followed directions."
19) Now that you have finished reading the entire page do only sentence number two.

How i find out that i was being tricked, or rather, did not follow instructions. As i hv mentioned, the above is nt the actual quiz. The questions have been modified. But it goes something like dat. One of the question was to mutiply a 4 digit by a 3 digit, eg: 7042 x 345. I was wondering how to get the answer? Can we use hp to calculate or must work out manually? Then i ignored the question & read the rest. I hv followed the above instructions & did all the neccessary drawings, wrote all the words, do the circling & squares, then.....

I couldnt helped laughing silly for all the stupid stuff which i did. I realised what had happen. Behind me, some of my classmates were still counting out loud: "10, 9, 8, 7 ...... I followed instructions... i am a leader..."

Everyone of us banged our heads on the tables & laughed till we gt stomach cramps after we realised what happened.

Another trick question:

The teacher asked all of us to raise our right hand. She raised hers as well. She told us to show a fist. We did. She did too. Then she say to put the fist on our cheeks BUT she put her fist on her chins instead. And u know what? We put our hands on our chin as well. We followed her actions But did not listen to her actual instruction. The teacher asked what were we doing? She asked us to put the fist on our cheeks right? Why are our hands on our chins instead? We laughed for being stupid.

School Updates

Well, well, i hv brought my little one to school this morning & she seems all right. She followed instructions, washed her hands & sat down for her breakfast.

On the other hand, my little niece, who is also her 1st day in sch, adapts easily as well. However, both of them are in different classes; Alexis being the younger one, who just turn 2 years old last Dec, is put into playgroup. Whereas Rachel is in N1.

I waved goodbye to the both of them & they waved back. Later, i will be going to school to pick up all the 4 kids. And i hope to be greeted with happy smiling faces from the 2 young ones.
*****************
As of 2.15pm 04 Jan 2010 - Mon

i was on the wrong end of the conclusion for Alexis. According to the teacher & the principal, Mrs Leong, Alexis did not accept her peers & environment readily. She was crying non stop since i left her this morning. But i told the teacher that i thought she willingly sat down, didnt she in the morning? The teacher replied:" Yes, she did but her non stop crying came right after breakfast. She looked ard & cldnt see anyone she knew & started howling".

( opps! no more food to keep Alexis occupied :P)

True enough, even when we pick her up just now, she was still crying & howling & sniffing non stop. So ah ma say to give her some " jing feng san" to clam her down.

As for Rachel, both teacher Jolin & the principal, Mrs Leong praised her. She did well, did not cry & participate in all the activities the teacher carried out. Except for 1 minor incident whereby Rachel spilled water all over her uniform & the floor. She was so scared that the teacher wld scold her & so she cried. But after when teacher Jolin calmed her down, telling her its ok & changed her into her home clothes ( i packed one set of home clothes for her inside her school bag), Rachel was all smiles & resume her activeness. That's my little girl.

I asked Rachel if she likes school & whether she wants to go to school tomorrow. She readily said yes, nodding her head. I hope she stays this way, all the way.

As for Alexis, let's hope she fits into the new environment soon enough.

Start of School Term

Tomorrow is the 04 Jan 2010 - Monday. It is also the start of the new school year for most. Needless to say, Rachel is also starting her 1st year in a school.

As her Mummy, i think i am more excited than her. Her uniforms are ironed, bag washed & packed, water bottle washed as well, name tags are in place & some neccessary items.

I will be going to school with her 2moro & hopefully she can behave & not cry. I will try not to sit in with her all the time but i wld like to see how she adapt & listens.

I cant helped but feeling a little lost here. Why? Cos she has been with me every morning & i'm so used to our little morning walks, breakfast, reading & sometimes i even bring her out for some shopping. But now she will be attending school in the morning & somehow, i'm beginning to feel like something is missing, like she's not by my side, like she's somewhere far away...
(crazy of me to think this way right? C'mon, her sch's only across the road :P)

Okay, okay...stupid me, i know! I shd feel happy & proud that my little girl has finally grown up, right? In time to come, she will be attending primary school, sec school, JC/Poly & even U. Then how am i suppose to be feeling by then? **wink**

Am i being fair to Lionel here? Cos come to think of it, i didnt even have this kind of "lost" feeling towards Lionel as i have for Rachel. I felt equally excited back then, i felt that only 1 day in sch with him was not enough - he cried, he struggled & i had hoped i can stay for another 2 or 3 days. But school rules have to be obeyed & most of us mummies there hv to hardened our hearts & leave, no matter what - how loud & hard the child cried.

But for the "lost" feeling, maybe its becos I wasnt with him full time; he was being looked after by my aunt for the 1st 2 years since birth & only "returned" to us when its time to attend school.

And he was more attached to his grandparents - my ils back then. So maybe it was my ils who had have this so call "lost" feelings instead. (trying to console myself here :P)

Happy 2010

Its 01 Jan 2010. Happy New Year to One & All & Have a Blessed New Year.