Wind in the willow

Or rather it should be the "willow in the wind" that is making my cough ever so bad.

My cough started when Ryo had his last bronchitis, that was like 3 weeks ago. It was about to get better when I had a sniff of the Beijing air at the airport, and heck I was coughing really bad again. And now I am allergic to every dust, willow seeds or pollens in the air.

So I am forced to wear a mask whenever I am out, at this unfortunate swine flu period, I think I am a monster people choose to avoid.

The Big Birthday

That's the reason we came back Singapore for - to celebrate Ryo's great grandparents birthday.

Red

Ryo particularly likes red nowadays. If he wears red, he has to make the rest wear red as well.

And he handpicked which red shirt to wear for Ah gong and papa.

Bronchitis again!

Ryo is suffering from bronchitis again, this is the 4th time for the past half year, and the many more timeth since he was born.

He got it cos he jumped into the swimming pool soon after a rain... i think it's ridiculous when I heard it.

And now he has to take another course of antibiotics. The doctor recommended some preventive measures, like taking cod liver oil and the medicine Zaditen to take everyday!!!

Sometimes things like that made me regret coming back. Is it worth the while?

Mix up

Sometimes we tell Ryo it is a GUN,
sometimes we tell him 枪.
Now he calls it GIANG.

Tianjin 海河

As the name would suggest, this river in Tianjin meets with sea water. I've featured it previously but it looked different. There is a ferris wheel on the far left.



This few days, we can see the moon in broad daylight.

A visit from grand aunt

A grand aunt visited us in Tianjin, and Ryo was smitten by her. Day 1 he played with her and sat beside her during lunch. If you know Ryo, he must be in a super good mood to do this with anyone he haven't met before.


Day 2, as we were dressing up to go eat lunch with grand aunt again, Ryo told me he wanted to spray perfume. Ha ha this little fella is quite vain. At the restaurant he even asked grand aunt to smell his shirt.


If he can be this warm to everyone else.



* I found this photo of Ryo when he was about 8 months old. I think he looked super cute as compared to now... hahaha.

My little blue helper

Ryo helps me out when chen-jie is not around

He pays attention to the under-the-sofas

He's now so efficient that he just uses one hand for mopping

Polar coordinates

Here's what I learnt and put to test today. It's the Polar Coordinate function in Photoshop. We can create our very own planet. Mine's a very rough one. I'll try something more exciting next time.

How many photos do you take per week?

Me? An average of 500 per week.

If we go to the zoo or someplace interesting I might hit about 800.

If we have a boring week and stayed mostly at home, I'll only have 200-300.

Did I hear you gasp? Out of these hundreds, only a handful of 10 to 20 gets to stay permantly on my computer. The rest are thrashed.

I'm a fanatic.

Ah gong's birthday

Well, ah gong spent his birthday this year in Tianjin, so we brought him to his favourite restaurant

Ryo 干杯, plain water that is

We bought him an ice-cream cake from Haagen Dazs

while chatting on MSN with the family in Singapore. I took a shot of Lankston and Brexton in the MSN window. They too are having ice-cream, together with us... haha. All thanks to technology, it brings us closer to home.

I baked a cake

Really, I can bake a cake. With a premix cake mixture that is... hahaha.

And since Ah gong's birthday is just round the corner, we sung him a song. Well the cake looks hideous but tasted quite ok. I should have taken home economics instead of arts when I was in Nanyang.

The future is worrying

It's kind of worrying, to read from the news that water levels are predicted to rise about 1m by year 2100. I quickly did a search, and found that except Bukit Timah hill, the rest of Singapore lies less than 2m above sea level.



What if the ice bergs decided to speed up its melting process? What if the prediction were underscored? What if by year 2050 it has started flooding and I am forced to swim all day long at age 70?



Although we stay in high rise flats, can u imagine your void decks flooded? Or can we make our way to the banks to get cash to buy food? Or your baby son walking knee deep to school, but still has clean water to drink from cos we can still afford water. Or the worst scenario of the whole island disappearing except the highest flats around, where are our children going to move to?



Today we use water to mop the floor, wash the clothes etc EVERYDAY. Tomorrow we'll be thankful for even a clean bottle of water.

A month of separation

These 2 buddies playing together after a month of separation.

It's March, spring time, but we still have to wear like it's winter

Katherina being a good model

While Ryo is not being cooperative for the photo shots

If I am this good

I came across these pictures on Flicker, and gosh! Singapore can look this good through his lenses. And his zoo pictures really put mine to shame... urgh. I have to practise more.

Link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/francisg/sets/72157607950017311/

Singapore zoo 2009

Well, I must say, that with Facebook around, it's much easier to dump my photos for upload there. But still our life stories are best presented through blogs. So here are what I have been delaying. Good news is, I have got a new camera.

Yes a new Canon dslr. Which means the quality of the pictures will be so much better, hopefully. And I got my good chance when we went to the zoo.

This is my favourite photo. I managed to capture water droplets.

Brexton getting all wet at the Kidzworld.

They spent more time at the Kidzworld than seeing the animals

And when they do see animals, they become curious at what's down under

Giraffes comparing their heights

The stubborn zebra who refuse to turn around for shots

A wanton lioness

A sleepy elephant

And the white tiger who might have tasted one of our kind.

White tiger says," He jumped into our enclosure, he volunteered, i am innocent."

You see, I only bring the long lens to the zoo, and it allowed me to captured up close and personal.

Probosis monkey says," The zoo must not allow any long lens or zoom lens, it is an outrage of my modesty."

A parrot who can read?

We celebrate a birthday on cny eve

Lankston said this to his mummy

Happy Chinese New Year

It looks like wartime here, I tell you. We hear firecrackers and fireworks from morning till now, and it's getting stronger.

We also joined in the fun, by bringing our fireworks downstairs. Another family was there too and in the midst of our happy mood, their fireworks fell down on the floor, in our direction.

It really felt like gunfire. We tried to hide in a glass shelter, but heck, one speck flew inside and BOMB! No one was seriousy hurt, my mil was hit by on the cheek, but it didn't explode in her face.

So we went scurrying home with 3 kids. Fireworks is best watched from upstairs.

Despite this episode, new year in China is amazing still. I heard the secrity guard mentioned about an hour long of fireworks tonight at 12am. We are all staying up to watch.

Harbin day 3

It snowed on our last day in Harbin, finally.

The kids enjoyed the snow

You can see the snow specks on Ah Gong's coat

It was a good trip all in all. The only regret was we didn't have enough time, and my Canon Isus camera was spoilt by Ryo. Somehow I don't like the photos taken by a camera I had prejudiced on... hahaha.

End of Harbin trip

Harbin day 2

Ice sculptures are everywhere, we saw plenty of them on the shopping street, 金源大街

These are made from big ice blocks. Ice blocks are saw out from a nearby river, transported by lorry, stuck together using water, sculpted by experienced sculptors, then polished to achieve a smooth, shiny surface. It's a lot of work

Ice sphinx

We went to 太阳岛 in the afternoon to see the Snow World. Everything is made out of artificial snow

Yes, this is still afternoon at about 3pm

This snow hut looks lovely

We don't have much time to explore everything, I took all pictures from a distance without knowing what I am taking

It was only 4+pm

Next we headed to the Ice World, the biggest in Asia. Everything is made of ice. Can u believe it?

The theme this year is world's architecture. This is some chinese architecture

Again these building are stacked up with ice blocks


Every theme park had ice slides, the kids (and their mothers) really enjoyed sliding down on high speed. Don't wear jeans to the slide, you'll get stuck. My smooth fabric coat allowed me and Ryo to slide down on high speed. The white specks on this photos showed the artificial snow that a snow maker was spurting

Some church building, the lights changes colour every now and then

The Harbin beer also has its place here

The lights are lovely, the whole place is damn huge

The ticket sales alone is not enough to cover the whole Harbin's ice and snow investment, however, the receipts from the hotels and the food industry made up the difference, barely.

This reminds me of Thailand

This buddha sculpture is my favourite. It's only an ice sculpture, it'll be destroy when winter is over, but if you are there in person, you could feel a godly feeling. In the backgound the 大悲咒　music was playing, many people were offering incense and even praying kneeling down.

Ryo and grandparents posing a goodbye shot

This was his attire, and barely enough to keep warm. He had heat pads on both his feet, both thighs, and 1 on his chest, and he had to walk too.

End of Day 2 of 3