21 Sept 2011

Visiting Rizal and family

On Thursday 12 September Sarah and I decided to visit Sophia in Singapore. It had been at least 2 weeks since we last saw her, during the Eid celebrations and at that time I was just too busy to really enjoy her. So off to Singapore we went!As usual the arrangements were made by Repin, my husband. And as usual we went by night train, taking the sleeping berth and arriving in Woodlands at approximately 6.30 am. After immigration and customs were over we hailed a cab and arrived at Paya Lebar at 8 am - a bit too early for my daughter in law, who was obviously woken up by us ringing the bell!

Anyway she welcomed us and prepared breakfast - pancakes with maple syrup ! Hmmm I can still remember the delicious taste of the pancakes right now- two weeks after the visit!

Sophia was excited and to show how excited she ran around the living room and jumped up and down.But she still had to go to school- nenek or not. Poh ling sent her to her pre- school which was about a block away and after that since Poh ling had a Mandarin class to attend, we decided to meet at Orchard Road and have lunch with Rizal.

We had a great time walking along Orchard and just window shopping at first. Then we had lunch with Rizal and Poh ling at a place called famous for it's sandwiches. Later Poh ling took us to a new store- H&M which is well known in UK but had just opened in Singapore! Talk about queuing for clothes - there were so many people we had to queue to go in!Even though I didnt initially want to buy anything we ended up buying a shirt for Sarah, socks for me and a sweater too. They were so cheap at the discounted prices I just had to buy! Ha ha! So says the eternal shopholic.

Repin arrived later that night and we fetched him from the station at Woodlands in Rizal's new car. It 3was quite an adventure because Rizal had not driven much in Singapore and that was to send his boss to meetings and so on. However we did not get lost - much to my surprise actually and it is true that Singapore is so small you cant really get lost!

Next day was a Saturday so we all decided to spend some time at the zoo with the small fry who was initially excited and talked of the zoo non stop before that. All that changed however when we were there - she was afraid of everything! We couldn't walk near the monkeys or any of the animals or she would scream her head off and yell instructions - no not so near, stay in the middle of the road, no don't go near the animals! Luckily all that changed after she had her lunch and a dip at the water park - which was after 2pm., by which time she had calmed down enough to allow us to take her to some of the animals. Which was the point of the whole visit actually - to introduce her to some of the animals she sees on tv or in her books. Sophie however is more like her father in many ways - one of which is their fear of anything new! Rizal as a baby was just like that - he cried when we took him to the beach  and refused to touch the sand - it was too grainy and stuck to his feet so he refused to leave my arms and clung like a baby orang utan!
Sophia in her pram "reading" the zoo map

The Singapore zoo actually deserves a whole page to itself - its so well maintained and beautifully landscaped. There are lots of huge old trees, orchids and other plants the walk around the zoo is like walking around a park and the view is certainly fantastic, with lakes and rivers all around. I hear they are adding other attractions - a river boat ride is one of them. This is one place I promise myself I will visit again.


Orchids at the zoo

1 comment:

The Bookworm said...

Hi Kat, it sounds like you had a nice visit. Sophia is adorable!
The Singapore zoo sounds like a fun place to see. Nice post.