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.)