singapore family trip may 27-30 2009

This trip deserves a post for remembrance. This holiday was due to the fact that it was MaRey's High School graduation. So it was a treat for her and it was timed to overlap with the Great Singapore Sale so she can go buy some college clothes :-)

So we tried booking online because a lot of friends even our aunt who heads a travel agency said it was cheaper. We booked a Cebu Pacific flight, to maximize our budget trip, us girls got booked as Go-Lite (no check-in luggage Pesos 24735.00) and the boys Dad and ReyMey booked as regular budget travel (Pesos 17290.00). Big mistake, don't believe the website when it said 15kg, that's all the check-in luggage allowed. Cebu Pacific Go Lite customers are only allowed seven 7!!! kg of luggage anything over and you have to pay penalties and additional fares. It's a good thing when we got to the airport to depart Philippines, we only had minimal luggage it all got checked -in with the boys at no added cost. At least we had been forewarned that when we get home we need to fix the bags.

So off to Singapore we went. We have all been there two (2) years before so we saw the real Changi airport. The Budget Terminal at Changi was boring. Only Cebu Pacific and Tiger Airways fly there. We took a free SMRT bus to transfer us to Terminal 2 where it can connect us to the City trains.

Note that this is a budget trip booked online so we had no package ride airport-hotel so off we go take the train. Commuters that was us. First off you need to take train from airport to City Hall Interchange and transfer there. Next we took the Red Line train to get to Novena Station that's where to find HOTEL ROYAL. Our home for the next 4 days. Hotel Royal was great, big rooms, buffet breakfast wonderful and delicious, it had slippers, towels, a weighing scale!!! which made packing very easy. Last 2006, we stayed at the ALLSON hotel. This was a way more beautiful hotel with a bus stop just in front and very near MRT station so once you get the hang of public transport it's great.

It took a while to orient and get acquainted so we arrived at the hotel 1:00pm. Much later than expected. It takes 20mins if taxi from airport to hotel but since we took the bus and had to exchange some money, we shuffled the sched around. That afternoon, it would be the Singapore Flyer, Esplanade and the Mint Toy Museum instead of Science Center and Chinese Garden.

So off we traveled again. We were trying to get Singapore Tourist Passes but you can only buy them at selected main interchanges so we decided to do that for the next two days instead.

First business, Lunch. There was a Hawkers Food Center at Newton Circle so we ate there. Then off to City Hall but we decided to do Toy Mint Museum first instead of Esplanade, Sing Flyer, then Mint. The Toy Mint Museum was fun and enlightening our coupons weren't used because they said their current promo will turn out cheaper so 5 tickets S$47, yup cheaper all right. What a collection! We all were impressed to take a walk down memory lane.

After a long walk from Raffles to Singapore Flyer (S$148.00) 4 adults and 1 child was amazing! a 30-minute ride to see the whole of Singapore from 165 meters high up. We're on top of the world!!

So then we were showed the walkway to Esplanade (BTW from CityHall it's 1.5km to Sing Flyer and .5 to Esplanade) and took photos and shopped and snacked. No more time to take the tour so we just chilled then headed-on back to City Hall via the Underground City Mall back to the Hotel. Short detour to Cold Storage for some grocery, chips, soda and water. Water outside is S$2 for a 1,5 liter but grocery only 1 dollar.

Dinner was a treat. We were taken by a college girlfriend of Hubby who is a permanent resident to eat @Dempseys which used to be a Military Barracks. We ate at Long Beach @Dempseys. Oh wow! Wonderful meal. Crispy Fried Duck, Spare Ribs, Sambal Kangkong, Shanghai Rice, Dumplings, Tofu all wonderful food. Thank you Marilez for the treat.

Now Champions League Finals Barcelona vs Man Utd at 2:45am in the morning-- of course I had to watch on the telly and it seems 2 of my neighbors did too :-) Barca won 2-0 yehey!

The next day, Thursday, we went back to city hall to buy the Singapore tourist Pass good for two days. (A bit glitchy that one, at one point the next day we could no longer ride the bus but MRT was hop on hop off. Still good overall and sulit S$8/ person/day with $S10 deposit )

Breakfast was very good as it was buffet so a very decent start to the day, kids were tired from yesterday's walking already.

Off to Singapore Sciene Center at Jurong East we went. Now because we had passes, we can now take the bus to the Science Museum so no 10-min walk from Jurong East Station. 10:30 am we were there. Extra treat we also bought tickets to the Da Vinci Exhibit. Oh wow. Illuminating.

That place was so much fun for the kids and Dad that we stayed till 2:00pm and skipped Chinese Garden. Had a quick Lunch and went to Vivo City MRT onto Sentosa. We arrived at Sentosa around 4pm. The booth didn't want to sell us the package because they said it was no longer worth it given the time. It would be better to buy tickets per ride. So we took the Sentosa Express and did Luge and Skyride twice. 8 combo rides for S$48.00 got the tourist trap photos for S$30 (of course we were all so happy there). The Sky Ride was so much fun, a bit scary but it removed the need to take the cable car going home. Turns out the $S3 Sentosa Express was 2-way anyway.

We walked to Palawan Beach to eat snacks and then went to Go Green Segway.

The Segway (S$48 at S$10/head) was surreal. It was unique and fun treat. We should all have one of those to travel around. Just the fun trip round because the eco-trail was too pricey for us.

So back to Vivo for some shopping, and we meandered back to the hotel via the MRT again and some time at the mall. Dinner in a Hawkers Center with "A" rating. Then more grocery, we were trying to find some bubble bath for ReyMey but we can't decide on what to get.

The next day, Friday, was the start of the Great Singapore Sale. Off to Orchard road we went for some shopping. We took the bus to Orchard Road, got off at Tangs and walked our way up, Paragon, Lucky Plaza, Robinsons, John Little, OG . Then we went back to Whelock for Borders and bus to Suntec Plaza for more shopping. It was a toss up if we go back to hotel, dump bags and shop some more but we can't find the bus back to hotel so off to Suntec we went.

After that we went back to the hotel and by 7pm we were off to Clark Quay (this is where the pass didn't work for the bus so we took the MRT). The Ultimate Bungy Ride. Only MaRey and MeyMey did the ride. ReyMey said it was too extreme for him. Again we took the with DVD package as souvenir. The screams from were LOUD, the whole of Singapore must have heard them. Best thrill ever for the girls I think. And it works, after their try, 6 more people tried it out and lots of people were watching from down below.

I didn't want to eat on the restaurants along the riverside because I wanted food, fast, so we could still go to China Town (one MRT stop away from Clark Quay) and we ended up eating at Burger King. Not too bad the burgers and fries were huge for S$6.50 unlike here in Manila.

So Chinatown next, and it was quaint, the kids shopped and we gawked at the architecture. It was a good detour altogether but the closed at 10pm so we headed on back to hotel by 10:30.

Dad and I went out again with Marilez and we went to this place called OOSH. They had live band and I had a Singapore Sling. Not much sense ordering it here in Manila so I ordered it there, hah tourist!! The landscape architecture of the place was beautiful and when I went to the bathroom I had a laugh... women's was called WOOSH and the men's was called MOOSH... get it!

So last day, Saturday, Ed earlier booked a coach to take us all to the airport (S$45) and we gave up one of the rooms so we could have extended checkout at 2:45pm on the other room.

We did a quick stopover at City Hall to refund the Sing Pass Ticket after all that's still S$50.

We went to IKEA -- now Ikea is in front of a mall called Anchorpoint what we should do next time is take train to Queensland and wait for the FREE bus ride to anchorpoint and then just cross over to IKEA building. that saved us S$5 on the way back home. On the trip out we MRT'ed till Redhill and then took a bus S$5 to Ikea.

Now Ikea was so much fun, the children had never been to one and they so enjoyed it. If only they could easily bring home all the stuff being sold there, they would. I wish there was Ikea in the Philippines :-(

Since there was a mall right across the street (Anchorpoint) that's where we ended up having lunch and spending the rest of the time until 1:45 then back to the hotel to checkout we went.

The budget terminal had a duty free after all, not much, but there is. Next time we will try and get the GST refund. We never did it this time. 3 of our luggage with only 7kgs each (go-lite) eventually also had to be checked-in while boarding (was told the plane is full) good thing there was no breakable and fragile items on it -- so moral of the story when booking go-lite just use a light back-pack not those 45 linear bags not worth the weight. Having said that, No more Cebu pacific :-) part of the thrill of flying for us who seldom do is bashing the airport food if it's good or bad and no-frills flight is really boring.


So that's the Singapore trip-- it was just absolutely amazing. ReyMey could live there. He could figure out the public transport system and commute by himself, very negligible crime rate. I wouldn't dream of letting him commute on his own here in Manila.

Oh well that's that. Photos in the girls multiply account probably. I just wrote a post to remember it by because it was a great vacation. Thank you hubby for letting us have it.

Cheers!

wow, 16 months later... an update

It has been 16 months since a blog post was made. Sorry about that but time has flown so fast.

Computer usage is practically non-existent with all three children sharing between two PC's.

I'm just updating, coz it's summer break, so later on I will remember.... let's see, what has happened these last 16 months:

Eldest, MaRey (17) is now a high school graduate and she's going to take up Industrial Eng'g in the best university ever here in the Philippines. MaRey also passed as Merit A scholar for DOST-SEI but we have decided not to avail it. Two proms have passed for her during Junior year and during Senior year and a graduation ball. All very dressed up affairs. She looked gorgeous!

Second child MeyMey (16) will turn senior this June. She did Junior prom 3 months ago together with MaRey and she had a date!! Another round of reviews for entrance to colleges. Hope she also passes.

Am planning to get both of them to learn how to drive this summer. This way they can now drive themselves to school. :-)

Now the youngest, ReyMey (12). He will turn twelve tomorrow. Happy 12th Birthday ReyMey. He is soon to be Grade 6 back at old school Community of Learners (COL). Partly what had kept me busy making sure he can transfer back to his old school. From SMWS, spent two years in Keys Grade School and it didn't quite work out well. Turns out COL had been the best school for him all along. Hence the return. I am so happy he passed and they allowed him back. Oh my goodness the pressure and worry I had to what if they don't take him back for Grade 6, where would I search for another school!!!

ReyMey still plays the piano, an hour once a week, and he will now start Grade 3 of John Thompson Book. The ASP (Autism Soc of Phil) invited him over again last April 2 as a guest in AutiMusical for WAAD. April 2 is World Autism Awareness Day. Last year, he also got invited to provide intermission for another ASP event.

ReyMey, he still plays video games awsomely. Finished Pokemon Platinum in 15 days! Unlocked the Grand Finale Galaxy in Super Mario Galaxy game. Mind you that's because he finished the game with both as Super Mario and Luigi so he saved Luigi hence unlocking Grand Finale Galaxy, just now, he's excited to show it to MaRey and MeyMey when they get home. He has also discovered the coolness of owning an Ipod 4th gen. He has become a rocker!! What with playing Rock Band and Guitar Hero.

So anyway, he had another round of speech evaluation and is on queue for another neuropshyc testing but no worries now. He's cool. We are where we want him to be.

So this is the end of this post. Just marking a milestone. I just want the world to know we, hubby and I, have absolutely AMAZING and WONDERFUL children. We are good parents. All is well.

December 5, 1987, My 20th Wedding Anniversary

Ok actually while I'm writing this post, it's already Dec. 6 but once I post it, it will get dated Dec. 5. Time difference.

So I had been married 20 years to a very wonderful man. I had been blessed with 2 girls and 1 boy and it had been great fun.

The last post made me think that maybe it's time to rationalize the photo albums upstairs, they hadn't been opened in years except when the girls raid it for school requirements.

Hubby took me a 3 days 2night vacation to paradise, Super grabe GANDA!!! what an idyllic place. He took me to Bohol Beach Club in Panglao Bohol a very small island in the Visayas, south of the Philippines. Just the two of us. We looked back on when was the last time we vacationed alone together and it was 12 years ago when the girls where really young and we took an overnight trip to La Union while we left them with my parents in Sual, Pangasinan.

I had a really great time and on the day itself, last night, since the girls had their quarterly exam ongoing, we ate dinner at home, steak, crabs, clams and Pizza Hut's Triple Chicken Cheese Pops for the boy. Yum.

halloween nostagia

I guess you could say I had a halloween hangover, I went back through all those halloweens we had been celebrating and made a collage (mind, only those with digital photos spanning seven years) the first eight years from when MaRey was born have all be stored in albums in the attic, too much effort to peel it out of the albums to scan.



I did the collage for ReyMey's speech teacher because she has been told by the boy of his costumes. Now that I had posted this, it looks unfair for the first 8 years of the girls halloween hadn't been shown. Need to find time to do that.

My favorite is the one where ReyMey is still in his baby carriage, he's Pubert Addams, MaRey is Esmeralda and MeyMey is Megara (last row, 4th photo from left).

16th halloween celebrations

The 10th halloween for ReyMey. I must say, my daughters are getting old, they want to collect candies but do not want to wear costumes. Well MaRey should have gone as a witch with cape and long nails she said it's hot, MeyMey she was a pirate so I got her a striped shirt and an eye patch and red scarf but nope she did not wear her's either.





Now ReyMey, he's still into halloween and going trick or treating so he requested that his costume be 'science fiction' based on Chazz Michael Michaels of Blades of Glory, ice devouring sex tornado spawned from the hellfires of Motown --- he even memorized the spiel so he can explain who/what his costume is -- sheesh. He loved it though, I had a really, really, truly difficult time making it but he loved it.

Trick or treating was done last 26th, this is to allow everybody to enjoy the long vacation as it is semestral break for most schools. Lots of loot and goodies mind you. School resumes on the 5th of November.


Last Sunday, Oct 21, we had a christening (a baby cousin of the children) cum bon-voyage party (Kuya Elmer working in Australia) cum welcome-home party (my cousin vacationing from Dubai) . It was a blast, a whole-day of get-together. It was a great time to relax and chill.

Which is what I am doing at the moment, chilling, 5 more days of vacation, no therapies even, imagine that. I got ReyMey this R4 adapter for his Nintendo DS that uses a micro SD card and we can download from the web *.nds nintendo rom games for the DS--- absolutely worth the price, I don't have to buy original cartridge for most of the games-- sweet huh.

left brain right brain closing

I read the news today about Kevin closing his blogsite Left Brain/Right Brain. I must say I got sad to hear the news. Five years of reading that blog almost everyday is a long time. Meg's about a year a a half younger than ReyMey. Years ago, I saw lots of similarities from stories between them and then eventually he decided to make stories private access only and we all moved on. He stopped then with good reason and finally now having to stop blogging altogether is really a loss. I joined posautive partly because it gave me a thrill that the videos got linked from Kev's blog. I wish the Leitch family well. I may have not known them personally but in reading his blog for five years, it has made my life easier and lighter, like having a long distance friendship except that you don't want to write back and tell what goes on with you. I will miss it.

MeyMey's Birthday

Yesterday was my daughter's birthday. Happy Birthday MeyMey!!!

She turned 15. It was a normal day (thank goodness!) for everybody. Except for the wonderful special breakfast after opening presents and a special dinner of her choice the rest of the day was spent normally. Oh side part of bringing Krispy Kreme donuts to treat her friends during lunch in school.

I think she enjoyed her gifts, mostly shoes oh and an ipod nano which she hasn't charged yet. (OK what does that mean, she doesn't like it? but she asked for it?) Anyway, it will get used to death soon enough.

ReyMey's semestral assessment, so far so good -- this Keys school, weird they have both oral exams and written exams per subject -- first time I've encountered something like that, I do wonder now what the report card would be like. As usual the teacher said last Monday that his Filipino was bad. No surprises there, he struggles with Tagalog. I do wish they would require him extra Filipino classes. On my own I can't seem to find the effort to do it. Having tried yearly and failing.

ReyMey said his science was easy peasy. The girls 2nd qtr results are excellent, everything but MaRey's math, we don't know yet if she passed or she'll be getting a failed grade again but no matter there's still 2 more quarters.

I'm going to add a side note here and tell about a kind internet stranger named BJThompson. He made me very pleased and made my heart grow several times larger with his kind words. Now, nobody visits this blog. There was one a few months back but no more. This BJThompson, he went to visit the YouTube natterandramblings. There he left a comment on ReyMey playing the piano piece Go The Distance from Disney's Hercules and his comment made me happy. It was exactly the reason why I post ReyMey's piano playing on You Tube. He is an angel.

So October is almost done. I never found a solo-rented cottage so the family can celebrate MeyMey's birthday so it will just be spent here at home -- sleepover with the cousins and swimming.

Quickie Update

Today is October 8, Happy Birthday HIPAG!!!

'Hipag' in Tagalog means sister-in-law. It is my in-law's birthday today and I wish her all the happiness in the word. She's wonderful, she really is and I want her happy, healthy and safe.

That done, within the next two days it will be MeyMey's birthday Oct. 10. Happy 15th Birthday my lovely daughter. News of that willbe posted at a later date, next free time mayhaps.

September, it went by so fast that was a blast. Sept 13 was MaRey's 16th birthday. She wanted a really gorgeous and humongous cake (the fondant kind) and we gave her what she wanted but it also meant having a cake party with her classmates from school which took a while to organize given our much smaller house. Her birthday was a mixture of a sad event and a happy event. A birthday and a funeral.

My hubby's 94y/o maternal grandmother, she passed away last Sept 9 from pneumonia complications. May the Lord have mercy on her soul and grant her eternal peace. Lots of growing up to do during times like these. It gives you time to take stock of life, count your blessings, learn to forgive and forget and love unconditionally.

So anyway Sept 13, like I said that morning we woke up early so MaRey can open her presents and enjoy breakfast and bask in our love ( :-) ) and then go bury their great grandmother. It took most of the morning including horrible traffic but in the afternoon we let her go to school so she can be greeted by her classmates. Her party was on a saturday and not during her birthday. I think she had a great day nevertheless especially since she got a gift from this really cute boy she had a crush on since way back first year HS. A nice to be a teenager huh.

Ok moving on, the party-- it was fun, tiring but fun. It had been awhile since my siblings and their families partied. So it was a great get-together. I really should do that more often even if we are packed like sardines here at home. I stopped holding get-togethers when we moved last year mainly because of cramped space but you know sometimes one way to turn a house into a home is to make fun memories inside it with all those aunts & uncles and cousins you love.

So yesterday we had a watch Manny Pacquiao live on pay-per-view TV here at home and it was a great impromptu get-together 12 rounds boxing and Manny won!!

So there, the week after that was chill week while the daughters studied for their 2nd quarter exams. This week is ReyMey's 1st semestral assessment exam and it starts at 10:55 so that is my cue to stop and be off.