Netherlands

I went to the Netherlands in Sep 2013 on business trips. I never been Europe before. This was my first experience to travel for 12 hours alone on the flight. My longest hours on plane was with hubby 12 years ago to Canada. It was 24 hours flight.

I self photo taking myself at Amsterdam Centraal. You can see that there were many pigeons at my back.

I took boat ride along the canal. Something similar as Singapore Boat Quay, but their canal is wider.

In front of Amsterdam Centraal subway station.

The meal on KLM flight.In my opinion, the food was yummy, the portion was not big but enough for me.

On my first day, I visited Windmill at Kinderdijk because our office was located there. I stayed at the hotel nearby the windmill. This was the photo I took along the side road.

The entrance of windmill.

I met a student from China and we took turn to take photo for ourselves.

I enjoyed my Europe trip very much. It was a 8 days trip. The 12 hours flight is still bearable. I found the subway is still very easy to follow. Some of my colleagues complained that they missed the train because the verbal information given at the station is in Dutch. As long as, you note the direction showed on the TV at the platform, you will not get lost.

All the pictures taken from iphone5 without editing. I could not bring my DSLR because I was travelling solo with office laptop.

Finally Joshua can ride tricycle

Finally, Josh can pedal his tricycle today. I bent down to hold his foot and keep reminding his leg to be straight for 3 rounds until my neck ache. I almost give up and finally when I almost can not control my temper, he can pedal it in the correct manner. I read back this post, it took him 3 months to be able to pedal his tricycle. I admit that today could be my fifth time to bring him to playground riding the tricycle. A few times before I want him to ride, he refused. But my helper bring him down ride tricycle every day.

Joshua 1st Excursion

Joshua has been attending Nursery for 4 months.

He enjoys the school bus ride to school. He waves 'bye-bye' to me everytime I see him off from school bus. I enjoy the moment to see his happy eyes waving bye-bye to me. However, I can't see him off every day, because every time I see him off, I am late to reach office.

I am a bit regret of starting J to school only this year. Sometimes, I wish if I could turn back the clock, I will drag him to the nearby montessori pre-school. It could be worth it. J is lack behind his peers in everything except for the gross motor skill. He has been on TV for almost 8 hours a day since last year. His stubborn character also discourage my previous helper to turn off the tv.

With the new helper, she seems to have way to disallow the kids to turn on the tv even with Derick. Derick only got to watch tv for 2 hours a day when Joshua is having his nap time.

To-date, J is still not able to sound in 2 words. The only 2 words he could say is 'di tie' (MRT). I don't know whether I have spelt the chinese correctly. He is almost 4 years old but still can't speak in 2 words. I am quite worried of him.

I have been looking almost whole Singapore for the speech therapist. All the speech therapy session in Saturday are full. Singapore is really lacking of speech therapy.

I googled and found out some of the reasons of late talker is due to immature neuron development. The only way is therapy and giving omega 3. Today, I give him Omega 3 and I need to struggle with him. He is a fussy eater. This Saturday, I will bring him for the first speech therapy. Hopefully, in 3 months time I could update his improvement in speech.

Today is my first time in my life to volunteer myself for school excursion to Butterfly Lodge. It's really a great experience. I met some parents there. Some photos for viewing.

Joshua Learns To Ride Tricycle

Joshua learns to ride a tricycle at 3y9m.

We are back from Taiwan

We went to Taiwan from 18 - 25 Dec 2011. We only bought the ticket and book one nite stay at Kaohsiung. We planned our next day itinerary and accomodation when we were in Taiwan.

Our itenerary is as follows:

18 Dec: Stayed at Mirador Hotel. Hanging around the park nearby and window shopping.

19 Dec: We took High Speed Rail to Chia Yi and stayed at Day Plus Hotel. I recommended you to stay at this hotel. The room is new and great. We visited the Night Market.

20 Dec: Upon reaching Chia Yi, we met a cabby driver. And he brought us to Ali Shan and Sun Moon Lake. We stayed at Min Shu, recommended by the cabby driver. It is mountain ride to Ali Shan and Sun Moon Lake. Everybody enjoy the ride, except me. I had car-sickness.

21 Dec: The cabby driver drove us to Tai Chung and we took HSR to Taipei. We stayed at Caesar Park Hotel, Taipei. It is quite convenient, above Taipei Main station. The hotel is pricey and old. Not recommended.

We visited Xi Men Ding and CKS Memorial Hall. I enjoyed visited this kind of places. So far, I have visited Soekarno (ex-president of Indonesia)'s residence at Solo, Indonesia and Song Qing Lin's residence at Shanghai.

At Xi Men Ding, I ate Ah Cong's vermicelli. It contains lots of MSG. After I finished eating, I felt so tasty. If you are lack of time, you can give Xi Men Ding a miss. Taipei is a wet city. It is rainy for whole day.

22 Dec: We took Taroko Express (train) to Hua Lien. Remember to book the express train. It will only need 2 hours from Taipei to Hua Lien. We stayed at Classic City Resort. Another recommended hotel. We took cabby to the beach and Xinguang Zhaofeng Leisure Farm.

Scenary at the Farm.

23 Dec: We took train to Taitong. We stayed at Traveller Taitong Resort. This one definitely not recommended. It is pricey and old. The fridge is rusty. I think they never maintain for 30 years plus. This city can give a miss.

24 Dec: We took train again to Kaoh Siung and stayed at Hotel Kingdom. We visited Love River and ate Sea food. We have to take a short ferry 5 mins to an island to eat seafood.

25 Dec: We are back to Singapore.

For more photos, please visit my facebook page.

I bought a new Yamaha U1 Piano

I make my decision to buy a Yamaha U1 piano after looking for a piano for two years. Initially, I wanted to look for a second hand, however, after visiting 2nd hand shop, I realised second hand piano is not cheap at all. For such a different of price 2k-3k, I would prefer to buy a new one. The second hand dealer claim that their pianos are imported from Japan, nicer sound, blah and blah. In fact, all the pianos are above 10 years old.

Some close-up of the piano.

The free gifts from the shop are 3/4 cover cloth, cloth and solution for cleaning the keys, metronome.

Because I am the first 100 buyers from yamaha sale, I got the free yamaha desk top audio system. I am wondering whether this sound system is useful. It serves as docking station to ipod and iphone.

Derick: First Time Joining Camp At Church

Today is first school holiday. This year may be the most busiest school holiday for Derick. He is joining church camp. It is an in-door camp which means he is staying overnite at the church.

He requested to join the camp this year. In contrary, he refused to join last year with the reason that he was too young and only want to join the camp when Mommy could accompany him.

He even took the public bus to the church himself this morning. Sam waited with him at the bus stop until the bus arrived. He hopped in the bus himself and waved at Sam. The church is about 4 bus stop from our home. About 30 minutes later, I send sms to the teacher to check whether he has reached. The teacher informed me that Derick is with them now.

Tomorrow, we will be visiting Der and watching him to perform a small performance to us. Perhaps, he will sing with his classmates on the stage. On Wednesday, Der told me that he would go back on his own. I reminded him to keep his student card properly, drink water, cover himself while sleeping, inform teacher if he feels unwell. Der also informed me that he doesn't need to bring a blanket as he could easily zip himself in the sleeping bag. All the camper sleeps on the sleeping bag. Every one has to bring his/her sleeping bag. In such a coincidence, Derick got a free sleeping bag from school during Children Day.

My baby has grown up. I really hope that by joining this camp he would learn to be more independent, neat, and discipline to himself.