You don’t have to go over to Sentosa for the famed foam party at Cafe del Mar. There’s one happening right here in the mainland too, right in the heart of town. Well, almost. It’s just outside the main downtown shopping belt. It happens in front of Tanglin Mall, at the junction of Tanglin Road and Grange Road.

This is a family-friendly foam party, of course. Completely unlike the one at the (more or less) southern tip of continental Asia.

If you don’t already know, Tanglin Mall has this annual festive feature of simulated snowfall at their Christmas tree showpiece in front of their building. This year, the snowy event will run everyday from 19 Nov 2011 to 2 Jan 2012. There will be simulated avalance everyday from 7:30pm to 7:45pm, followed by snowfall from 7:45pm to 8pm. On weekends and public holidays, there are additional show times from 8:30pm to 8:45pm for the avalanche, and 8:45pm to 9pm for the snowfall.

It’s just soap bubbles. Of course, you didn’t really expect snow in Singapore right? It’s great fun for the kids.

Vanessa was pretty happy with the snow from the start. It’s not the first time she’s been to this snowy event. Ian, however, was a little apprehensive at the start. I think he didn’t like the very noisy snow making machine (i.e. the soap bubble blower). But oh well, he eventually warmed up to the snow and happily got himself all soaped up.

The two kids are getting big enough to enjoy these activities. We went to for the Chuggington train ride at Marina Square at the start of the month. They’ve also been to see Angry Birds at Ngee Ann City, and Barney and Friends at United Square. So far, I’ve only heard requests for a repeat of the Chuggington train ride. I guess that’s the one they love the most. Gotta find some time to bring the kids to a couple more of these festive activities.

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Sometimes I think my two babies must be the cutest and most charming babies around. When we take them out shopping, they get offered free popcorn, free kuehs, free raisins, free specials that aren’t even on the menu, free this and that. Hmm, okay, not free money yet, that would be something I would love to have. But certainly plenty of free things.

So like last night, while out at Marina Square, they received yet another treat. There is this Chuggington train ride on level 3 of the mall. It runs on “tracks”, which are basically stickers pasted on the floor, in a loop that goes around the children’s play area and one of the voids, up to the set of escalators nearer to the Centre Stage. It’s a really cool looking train that the kids will love. Yes, and it caught Vanessa’s and Ian’s attention, of course.

The problem is, it’s part of the mall’s events leading up up to Christmas, and these rides just started yesterday evening only, and they had some sort of launch and everything was by-invitation only. We weren’t invited. We could look, but well, we could not be a part of the festivities.

The kids were there for the playground anyway, and they like the playground, so I explained to Vanessa and Ian that we’ll do the train ride another time, and they went on to busy themselves in the playground. But from time to time, they would look toward the train as it “chugs” around.

Okay, I thought I’ll just ask the “train station” staff if they could ride. There weren’t many people queuing anyway. It seemed like many of the invited guests weren’t all too excited about the train. Nope, no luck. I had to come back from 2nd December (today), spend $30 dollars in the mall, then pay another $10 to buy a festive pack which will include one ticket for one train ride, for one person.

But the kids kept looking earnestly at the Chuggington train.

Then, surprise, surprise… someone came up to me and offered me one train ticket. Yeah! Thank you very much! Er, uh, but I have two kids. How?! So took the two kids with me and approached the “train station” staff again. (The kids weren’t with me the first time.) I asked, I have only one ticket, but I have two kids, can you let them both share the ticket? Hmm, the request was escalated to a more senior staff. I think they looked at Vanessa’s and Ian’s eyes and their hearts melted. Yeah! They would let both kids board the train.

Haha, so the two kids gatecrashed the party and enjoyed the Chuggington train ride thoroughly.

If you’re interested in this Chuggington train ride, see the schedule and how-to-get instructions above. (Click for full-sized image to see fine print.)

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Looking back at our Hawaii trip in 2009, I could write a blog post for every day we spent there. I thought I would do the same for Japan, but in the end, I just did a single post… and that was long after we came back. It looks like it’s the same for Hong Kong. Each day we returned to the hotel, I was just too tired and only wanted to sleep. Okay, I spent some time looking through photos and clearing some email, but there was no creative juices left to think about what to write.

The vacation was, in actual fact, a rather leisurely one. We only did a couple of things. We went to Disneyland, we went to Ocean Park, we went to The Peak one of the nights, we shopped a little here and there… and it doesn’t seem like all these should have taken up 8 days. We had earlier been considering following a guided tour to Korea, and I’m glad we didn’t. I don’t think we could have kept pace with the tour group. No way we could have woken up and gotten the kids ready for the first meet-up each morning.

I remember some of the guided tours I went with my parents when I was little… they were too hectic. You just follow the programme, and I thought there was little time to enjoy yourselves. Your have to constantly watch the time. When you’re shepherding little kids around, you are not going to keep pace.

Sometimes I wonder are the kids going to remember their vacations. Vanessa might, this time, since after all she’s already four. Ian, perhaps not. But for the moment, they definitely enjoyed themselves. Like how, for example, Ian was overwhelmed with excitement at the aquarium in Ocean Park. I think he is totally nuts over fishes. Or how Vanessa was willing to put up with a very long queue under the hot sun to ride on the ferris wheel, again at Ocean Park.

The kids didn’t take too well to Universal Studios in Singapore. They were scared. Vanessa wasn’t too keen on Disneyland and Disney Sea in Japan last year either. Fortunately this year, the park tickets were much better utilized. Ian had become more brave this year, wanting to try many more rides than we had time for. Vanessa was more selective, still afraid of some rides, but certainly an improvement from the Disney parks in Japan. While in Japan last year, I had thought to myself that we could have saved ourselves a lot of money skipping the Disney parks and just confined ourselves to the Disney hotels.

We left Singapore on a very early Saturday morning, and returned back evening the next Saturday. The kids feel asleep on the taxi ride back from the airport. Family holidays are fun. But really, really, exhausting, and everything moves too slowly. I hope to get to the stage where holiday time could be ultra productive and we could get plenty of things done. Perhaps when they are at least 6 years old? Then they would already be schooling, and holidays would have to be during peak holiday seasons.

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It was the same with Vanessa too, back in March 2009. But I was a little apprehensive that it might be different for Ian. Vanessa had been very excited about starting school, even before she actually started going to school. We can see how excited she was. Ian is different. He seemed quite unexcited about the idea of attending school. It’s not that he didn’t want to go, or protested about it. He was simply indifferent.

Going to the child care centre would also be his first time attending any sort of class without either of us or our domestic helper accompanying him. Vanessa had attended classes where the child-minder does not accompany the child the entire time. All of Ian’s classes, so far, always had a child-minder accompanying throughout. So I thought Ian might be somewhat more anxious to be left alone in his class.

Of course, maybe the fact that his sister was in the same school might have been comforting enough. However, Vanessa’s classroom was on a different floor. He wouldn’t see her all through the day.

So, how was Ian’s first day in school?

Well, no fuss at all. He did not cry, and didn’t cause any trouble. Really nice. It seemed like he even fared slightly better than Vanessa did on her first day.

It’s a good thing that this is a short week for him, so it will be a gradual introduction to school. He was supposed to start on Monday, but fell sick, so stayed home on Monday and Tuesday. Thursday will be Children’s Day celebrations, and Friday is a holiday for the kids.

We’ll see how he does on the subsequent days.

Update: He was still good on Day Two.

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Or, more interestingly, would she even have to learn about analog clock faces? As it is right now, digital clocks are everywhere, and analog clocks are disappearing fast. Is it going to be important to know how to read analog clock faces at all?

It got me thinking a little bit. Vanessa is reading the time as just a series of numbers. Or, more accurately, two sets of numbers: the hour number, and the minute number. At some point, she’d figure out 60 minutes make an hour, and 24 hours make a day. But these are all just sequences of numbers. Like 10 centimetres make 1 metre. Or 12 inches make 1 feet.

What I’m trying to drive at is that I don’t quite see time in this way. I have a visual model of time: the clock face. When I read time, even from a digital readout, I map it onto that analog clock face.

I imagine if your mind has only learnt digital clocks, when you do time arithmetic, you do simple numerical arithmetic. For example, what is 6 hours after 2pm? You probably just add 6 to 2 and arrive at 8pm as the answer. But I don’t. I see the analog clock face. 6 hours after 2pm is to point the hour hand in the direct opposite direction, giving me 8pm.

This visual model works for all sorts of time arithmetic for me. For example, to convert from Singapore time to New York time, to calculate time schedules, and all other sorts of time arithmetic.

I don’t think it is easier to calculate time in the pure digital sense, i.e., without what I refer to as the visual model of the clock face. It isn’t for me, anyway. I can’t say if this is really the better method, or simply that I’m too familiar with it.

Does being good at time arithmetic have anything to do with better time management? I often run into people who have litte or no concept of time management. I’m not talking about big-picture high level things like project planning over many months, but simple day-to-day things. Even very simple mechanical things like… getting to an appointment on time. (Maybe the real problem is that they just cannot be bothered.)

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From time to time, I’d bring Vanessa and Ian out on my own. I’ve little trouble managing the two of them together, so it’s even lesser of an issue with just Ian alone. Actually, the main problem to manage the two of them on my own is when we’ve sat down for a meal such as at a restaurant, and then Vanessa wants to go to the toilet. Problematic.

On the daddy-son outings, I think Ian misses his sister. It’s because there’s only so much baby that the daddy can pretend to be. There’s no Vanessa to hold his hand. There’s no Vanessa to talk and do silly baby things with.

I’ve realized a funny thing that they are a lot easier to manage when I bring them out on my own, as compared when there are more people around (yes, even including the Wife). They actually will listen and obey instructions. Well, mostly. It’s good enough for me anyway.

Like you see in the above photo. I tell Ian to drink his water. He obediently picks up his bottle and drinks. When we walk around, I tell the two kids to hold each other’s hand. I can then walk ahead of them, and they will follow behind me. Sometimes I’d end up somewhat ahead of them, and curious people look on and wonder about the two kids seemingly going galavanting on their own.

Oh, but occasionally they have a mind of their own. The last weekend, after dropping off some library books at the book drop outside the library, they held each other’s hands and went on straight into the library. I hadn’t intended to go into the library that day. But alright, too late, they were already inside. So I went along and saw that they were headed to the children’s books section. I told the two kids, I’ll browse my books, they go look at theirs. They happily went off on their own. (I can easily watch the area that’s the only way out of the children’s book section, so no danger of losing them.)

I imagined had I insisted on not going into the library, they’d probably complain for a few moments then eventually give up. They just need their attention turned to something else.

This is a good time because they can both enjoy each other’s company, Vanessa can play the role of big sister and learn some responsibilities, and Ian can learn a couple of things from his sister. This sounds very much like the Train the Trainers approach to parenting.

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I thought it will be a good idea to note down some of the funny things she has said or asked about concerning this trip.

We were going to Disneyland and DisneySea… that would be the giant playground for her. She asked, “like my school’s one?” Erm, many many many times larger. The whole idea of going to Japan for a holiday makes it like a playground too. But these were probably difficult concepts for her to fully appreciate. More about this playground thingy later…

On another day, as I was trying to explain to Vanessa about going to the toilet… she asked “Japan got toilet?” Oh of course there are plenty of toilets… just that toilets just might not be so easy to come by while we’re traveling. Like on the plane, you couldn’t expect to always have instant access to the toilet. (She doesn’t want to wet her diapers nowadays.)

This is not her first overseas trip. But perhaps, this is the age when she starts asking more intelligent questions and can reason things out. So she’s constantly trying to understand many new things. Like, for example, the spatial concepts of traveling, what/where Japan is, etc. When she had enough of the outing one of the days, she asked, “can we go home now?” When we were in Tokyo Disney Resort area… she asked, “can we go back to Japan?”

Hmm, how do we explain that Japan is a country. Disney is in Japan, our hotel is in Japan, Tokyo is in Japan, Kyoto is in Japan, Nara is in Japan. Japan is a very very very big place. Vanessa kept thinking that Japan was a specific spot… a place like, say, her child care centre.

Somewhere along the way, Vanessa started to miss Ian, so she asked, “can we bring Ian to Japan tomorrow?” Not like we’re going to come back again that soon at all. But I guess she misses her little brother, because in the last few days of the trip, she kept asking about bringing Ian to the playground to play with her.

We try to make sure there are activities suited for her. Unfortunately, it seems the many things we imagined to be “fun” for a 3 year old wasn’t quite what Vanessa had in mind. She took a long while to warm up to Disney. I don’t think she enjoyed the first day at all. She started to warm up on the second day, but it was only the third day that she was really ecstatic about a few of her favourite rides.

The thing about all the fun is… she seems to be just as happy playing inside the hotel. We stayed at the Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay. It’s a really nice hotel, and we were supposedly “upgraded”. I’m not sure how our rooms are better, but we can tell that the lobby and common area decor on our floor was different. It was very bright and cheery, with pictures, boxes, cushions, etc. On the first day at Disney, it seemed like Vanessa was happier playing in the lift lobby on our floor than at Disney park itself! On our last day, we finally had time to visit the children’s play area in the hotel annex… and would you believe it… she was so excited about it. To top it off, the Mummy won a big stuffed bear in the adjacent games arcade, and which instantly became Vanessa’s most-favourite toy.

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It’s funny that McDonald’s seem to be just about the only fast-food restaurant that targets kids. KFC doesn’t do that. Burger King doesn’t do that. Pizza Hut doesn’t do that. A&W, while they were still around (they aren’t anymore right?), didn’t do that. It seems to make good business sense, isn’t it, to target kids? The kids will bring the parents and the whole family along.

Well, anyway, so we went to McDonald’s for breakfast. Just a simple quick 30-minute breakfast. A Happy Meal toy, and two Happy Meal balloons.

A few years later, I expect Children’s Day will become a much more complicated affair. There will be special requests that cannot be easily “settled” for under $20.

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It was a little different with Ian. He looked at the bed suspiciously. Her sister, of course, knew what it was and went into it right away. Ian had to be coaxed a little bit. But it didn’t take too long. The new bed soon became his “swimming pool” and he was happily lying prone waving his arms and legs… as if he was swimming.

Vanessa was a little upset when Ian’s new bed arrived. She missed her old bed, and she fussed about wanting to have her brother’s bed. She eventually got over it a few days later. Now, it’s Ian’s bed at night, and their play-pretend “swimming pool” in the day. Yeah, beds can be used for many more things than just laying in it to sleep. Like, right now, Vanessa and Ian are sharing the bed to drink their milk.

Luckily this is a “cost-effective” bed. I can’t imagine those sort of children’s bed that costs several thousands of dollars. You know, those elaborate multi-deck modular designs with ladders and slides.

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I suppose McDonald’s has done a good job appealing to the kids… the other fast food restaurants don’t target this age group. Where the kids go, the parents and grandparents will go. Yes, my dad is waiting to bring Vanessa out with her cousins.

I suppose as long as the kids love it, we’ll do whatever makes them happy. I don’t recall “Happy Meals” and the toys that come with it during the time when I was a kid. But

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