China's Golden Week: Return to Singapore

Our Singapore 7
Here are the seven highlights from our time in Singapore (the second part of our trip).

The pool!  The McClintock ladies love their time in the pool.  My girls enjoy the beach for a short time, but they would really rather play in the pool.  Our hotel had a fantastic kids area that included completely shaded water slides and a separate splash pad area.

Night Safari at the Singapore Zoo.  The zoo in Singapore has a separate park devoted to a night time safari.  We rode the tram around the park and watched the animals behavior at night.  We even walked through the bat cage.  LBean and I accidentally shrieked a bit, which stirred up some of the birds in the cage with the bats.  We decided we needed to exit ASAP.

Singapore Aquarium on Sentosa Island.  We took advantage of the aquarium that was near our hotel on Sentosa Island.  The aquarium was really nice and we had lunch Cat Cora’s restaurant so we could dine and watch the large tank at the same time.  But, what we all seemed to enjoy the most was the history museum that visitors walk through when entering and exiting the aquarium.  LBean really enjoyed learning about the famous Chinese woman pirate, Ching Shih.  We all enjoyed getting henna tattoos.   

Getting henna tattoos.

The touch pool.

Inside the restaurant where we watched the
fish in the large tank as we ate.

Cable Car Ride.  We have brave girls! They allowed Jamie and me to convince them to take a cable car over the bay and right over the top of a cruise ship.

Little India.  Many ethnicities are represented in Singapore.  Despite our girls’ instance on visiting Chinatown, they eventually agreed with us that since we live in China, we probably don’t need to go to Chinatown.  Instead we went to Little India.  We enjoyed looking at the spices, the flowers, all of the beautiful saris and fabric and the gold jewelry.  We picked up some henna to take home and enjoyed a yummy lunch.  Jamie and I love Indian food!

Picking out a few gifts for
teachers and friends.

Raffles Hotel & Singapore Sling
The iconic hotel in Singapore is the Raffles Hotel.  It oozes old-world charm and we took a refreshment break in their courtyard cafe.  Jamie and I each enjoyed a Singapore Sling, which reportedly was invented at the hotel, and the girls had a more age-appropriate treat…icecream.

Jamie's empty glass is on the left.
I savored my Singapore Sling.

In front of the hotel.  I could only
convince one girl to stand with me.

Singapore Zoo (in the day time)

We ended our time in Singapore at the zoo, but this time in the day.  The zoo was easy to manage and the girls enjoyed all the animals.  If you ever visit, be sure to pack swimsuits because there is a great water play area of the zoo.  It is perfect for a mid-afternoon break during a hot day.

Pretending to be cold near the polar bear.

Water area at the zoo...brilliant.

Did you miss my post about our first stint in Singapore?  You can read it here.  The Indonesia part of our trip is here and here.

What's That? Wednesday: My Love/Hate Relationship with Potty Training in China

Can I be honest for a moment?  I really, really, really dislike potty training.  It is not a highlight of my mothering career.  And, for the record, my first two children were very easy.  I know it can be much worse.  I don’t like that I have to be constantly thinking about someone else’s bodily functions and asking every 20 minutes, “Do you have to go potty?”  I don’t like having to drop everything and run to the toilet with a toddler any time there is a thought of potty running through her head.  I’m lazy that way and I’ve okay with that.  

Potty training while in China just adds a whole new dimension to the process.  The assurance of clean potties?  Nope.  Finding a potty quickly while out and about?  Nope.  Family bathrooms so daddy can share in the potty training fun?  Nope.  Holding a small child who has legs barely longer than an American Girl doll over a squatty potty…not fun (and doesn’t smell so great either).  Anticipating our 14-hour flight to the US this summer with a potty training toddler…also not fun.

And yet!  We live in a society where it is completely socially acceptable to allow your child (or adult male) to potty in the bushes, the grass, along the side of the road, in the park or, for the particularly brave, into a plastic Coke bottle while standing in front of the “It’s a Small World” ride at Hong Kong Disney (not our child or adult male).  There is great freedom in this and it almost makes up for the challenges.

If you haven’t already guessed, we have recently started another season of potty training at our house.  My past experience in potty training a toddler in China gives me confidence that we will prevail once again! 

What's That? Wednesday: My Daughter's Mandarin...She's Got Skills!

Since moving to China, our entire family has taken language training in one form or another.  Jamie has had private lessons at work.  I took about 9 months of private lessons in our home.  We met twice a week for an hour at a time.  I took a very looooong break (18 months) and I happy to say that I've restarted my lessons after the new year.  LBean's school teaches Mandarin 30 minutes a day 4 times a week.  Even ChinaBean hears a good amount of Mandarin from our Ayi (housekeeper) and now at her new preschool where all the teachers are native Chinese speakers.

However, it's EBean that is the most impressive.  She has attended the same school for two years now.  Half of her day is presented in Mandarin (and about half her class are native Mandarin speakers) and the other half is presented in English.  Last year she would tell us that she didn't understand or speak Mandarin.  She would not speak it at home.  This year is a completely different story!  She is our most fluent speaker in the house (and she knows it).  I've been told by my Chinese friend that EBean's tones are correct when she is speaking and even she is impressed.  EBean is much more confident in her skills and now she speaks Mandarin to our Ayi, sings and talks to herself in Mandarin when she is playing at home, and if she is being particularly ornery, she'll speak it to us at the dinner table (and we have no idea what she is saying).

Some time ago a family member shared with me that they would like to hear EBean (our 5  year-old) speaking Mandarin Chinese.  The family member had a hard time imagining what EBean might sound like speaking another language.

About two weeks ago, I was finally about to take a decent video of EBean speaking Mandarin to her best friend.  They are looking at a coloring book about the movie Frozen. Enjoy the video!

Emergency Contact Information Form in English & Mandarin Chinese

Jamie's travel schedule, activities at my girls' schools, volunteer commitments, my birthday and a Girl Scout meeting converged at the same time.  Blogging has taken a backseat for the moment.  

My Brownie Girl Scouts are earning their First Aid badge this year.  One of our goals was to put together an emergency contact sheet that had both English and Mandarin.  One of the challenges expats face is what to do in an emergency, how to communicate that in another language, and how to equip people in our home to handle an emergency even if we don't speak the same language.

LBean learning more about first aid
during a recent Girl Scout meeting.

I'd like to share our emergency contact sheet that includes both English and Chinese.  We plan to post ours on our refrigerator and hope we never need to use it!  I had a native Mandarin speaker translate it for me, but I can't tell you if I copied and pasted it correctly.  I apologize for any errors that you might find!  

If the link doesn't work properly and you'd like a copy of the document, please let me know and I will email it to you.  I'd really like to make this available to anyone that is interested.  It is a docx format, so it should be possible to edit it.

Click here: Emergency Contact Sheet in English & Mandarin Chinese

The document doesn't appear to open correctly in Google preview, but I think it will download properly.

Coffee & Friendship: Indonesia Days 2-4

Read about our first few days in Indonesia here.

Amanda didn’t have to apply any pressure to get us to agree to visit Borabudur, a 9th century Buddhist temple, the next day.  (Feel free to insert any Lord of the Rings references here.  We did…Borabudur, kinda like Mordor)  Borabudur is a UNESCO world heritage sight and easy to drive to in a few hours.  We borrowed their hiking baby carrier, strapped ChinaBean in, covered up our knees and shoulders (required to enter and show reverence for the sight), and began our ascent to the top.  It was a hot trek and we had four girls under the age of 7 with us, so we might have missed a bit of what our guide was trying to teach us.  Never-the-less it was impressive and I’m really glad we went.  We celebrated our descent with our traditional ice cream reward.  We really have eaten ice cream at every major historical sight we’ve visited.

On our way.

There's one in every crowd.

ChinaBean had the best ride.

Listening to our guide and enjoying a rest in the shade.

Going up, up, up.

EBean

LBean

Our friend's daughter, an honorary !Bean

Hot, but smiling.

EBean made a friend and led us down.  I think she might have been running towards the promise of ice cream.

Refreshment at last.

We found a place for lunch, but more importantly a place for the girls to run off a bit of energy.  In fact, now that I think of it, how did they have any energy left?

Dinner was street vendor food.  Yippee!  More peanut sauce, more chicken (this time on a stick, and veggies and rice with peanut sauce.  Amanda said the veggie/rice/peanut sauce was an Indonesian grown-up’s version of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  

Kids in bed and time for some adult conversation.

Our last full day was low-key a bit more local.  Laundry for us, kids running around, a quick trip to a grocery store for me to buy peanut sauce packets (what else?), swimming at a local pool and pizza for dinner.  We ended with a family movie night.  It took a bit of convincing for LBean, but the movie Mary Poppins was chosen.  She was a bit concerned it might be scary, but by the end she was marching and singing along.  It left such an impression that she asked for the movie for Christmas.  It’s a favorite now.

Time for a few last pictures.

On the way back to the airport.

The next morning it was time to load up the luggage and head back to the airport to finish up our time in Singapore.  We are so grateful to Jonathan & Amanda for opening up their home to us, even though we bring along a 5-person family amount of craziness.  Thank you for turning over your bedroom to us, showing us your favorite things and what matters to you, and for sharing your life with us.  My favorite moments were chatting with you as we stop at your kitchen sink washing dishes.  Until next time…