Singapore 27/03-30/03

We had landed last night, I thought I was being really clever trying to get the kids onto our time zone, it seems I managed to con Joey and his little body but Ellie has been up since 3am telling me she's awake! A real pity because I'm knackered and the bed is bloody comfortable! We are staying at Park Avenue apartments which over look riverside point. They are very nice, not too basic, two bedrooms, little kitchen, pool and gym. Everything we need if we had the suitcase with our running trainers, Joey's sleeping bag, Ellie's Pow Pows, my swimming costumes in, also, all of mine and Jim's clothes. Luckily I'd randomly put one dress in the other case. It looks like this particular issue may drag on, they can't tell us anything until tomorrow morning now... We leave Singapore for Malaysia 24 hours after that... Anyway, we will not let it stop us! We were at breakfast at 7:30. It was just a very small room with a spread of bread, pastries, boiled eggs and much needed coffee and you just hang around the reception area eating it. I've never experienced anything like it before, but was very tasty, the only downside was the lack of table and chairs and high chairs meant I got to share a arm chair with Joey to stop him escaping which wasn't great for indigestion! This is only a Monday to Friday thing so we won't get it again. 

We decided to walk along from riverside point to "the big wheel" Ellie had spotted, otherwise known as the Singapore Flyer. It is very, very hot here and humid. It was a fairly epic walk, Ellie did so well. We saw the Marina Bay Sands (off the movie Entrapment) and all kinds of impressive buildings. We walked along part of the Grand Prix night circuit, another one where we're there and the cars aren't, and headed to the complex where the Singapore flyer is. They have a really good food area where they have literally Tarmac'd it like a road complete with double yellows and arrows and put street food style carts along, so you literally feel like you're eating street food. We got a couple of bits of Singapore style satays and then headed up to the wheel. As we were queuing I was dreading it as Joey wasn't happy about being in one place but as soon as we got on and the doors were locked they were safe as houses and tootled around looking at what they wanted to and in Joey's case, licking what he wanted to! The views were incredible and a great way to start our few days here as you really got a sense of what is out there to visit. However, we came back down, had some lunch and Joey was boiling so we headed back to our air conditioning instead. Jim and Ellie had a swim (I have no swimming costume) and Joey had a rest for a couple of hours. When they came back up Joey was still asleep so Ellie made the most of being able to have a bath by herself for once without the splash attack from Joey. Once we were all ready again, we headed to Bugis Street, a market area, to try and buy some clothes to keep us going due to this looking like the suitcase issue may drag on. It was a great area, real hustle and bustle. The kids were constantly getting stopped for high 5s, Ellie loves it but is getting a bit over zealous and close to attack mode with hers, Joey won't even contemplate giving a stranger a high 5, he is very hot and very tired though. Jim managed to find a couple of tee shirts and shorts, whilst picking his tee shirts Ellie spontaneously stood infront of the fan in the stall, blonde locks a flowing, doing one of her special dances, it was hilarious and total inappropriate, I've recorded her so hoping I can add a video to the blog! Ellie purchased herself a very fetching Hawaiian shirt with matching shorts (I'm trying to convince her they are pyjamas, Jim's telling her she can wear them tomorrow in the day) and I wanted to buy a dress and a bikini so I can change my outfit tomorrow and go swimming, the only problem being I am quite a different size to the lovely ladies of Singapore, their dresses are like tee shirts and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't get my bottom into their one size bikini! Also, they are also all incredible cute and wear bows and hearts and stuff, it would quite frankly, make me look like a knob. Keeping my fingers crossed for tomorrow or a person dressed in hello kitty will be arriving back in Worcester. From here we headed to little India! again turning heads with Ellie and all of her blondness on Jim's shoulders, pink and orange trainers balancing by his tummy, we're hardly discreet here! It was a lovely area to walk through, but late, about 18:45 and the kids were tired and grumpy so we headed into a cafe busy with locals and got some food, one of the "must have" foods on a leaflet we read was chicken biryanni, which to be fair, we probably have a couple of times a month at home, but we picked that and a vegetarian platter. They were both delicious, Ellie had fallen asleep on Jim outside the restaurant so she wasn't really interested, she had some breads and a bit of rice. Everyone kept coming over to Joey to try and make friends, bless him, he really isn't interested today (unless it's a woman, then he may try and be friendly) poor little dude got an accidental bit of chilli and bless him, he got so upset. Luckily, as part of the vegetarian platter there was some natural yoghurt Jim managed to get in him and calmed him right down, he loved it. We got a taxi home and had the most talkative driver. He was so lovely, born and bred here (he showed us the hospital) it was like having a guided tour. And he just loved the Brits and all they did here, that the queen sent the president a card on his birthday (he couldn't believe she had thought of him when she is so busy!) what a lovely guy. I think he thinks that England is the most magical place where you are treated to all sorts of treats by our government - I told him not to visit, it would devastate him! We got back, put the kids to bed, drank some Tiger. Lush, what a great day. Although I have to say, everyone you tell that you're coming to Singapore they always comment on how clean it is. While it's far from a cess pit, it's no way as immaculate as I was expecting! Had a great but very short skype from my very lovely friend, well done you! Xxxx

Saturday 29/03 my dad's birthday! So gutted I'm not there to see your surprise Charlotte and Boo visit! In the morning, I washed our limited clothing supply (I have one nice dress and limited underwear) the clothes I do have are what I discarded into a bag when we reduced bag sizes earlier in the trip, nothing matches, the shorts are way to big and and tops are strapless and too big... It's just not working. So I hair dryerd my bra and slightly cold and wet, that and my dress, we headed off to the botanic gardens! They are flippin huge! 183 acres and 1.6 miles in length. We asked the taxi diver to drop us at the end where the park is, he dropped us at the opposite end so a 1.6 mile walk in what at the start was 31 degrees in the shade at 9:30, so god knows how hot in the sun by the time we got to the other end! We made it having walked through the beautiful gardens with interesting boards with the history on and got to the splash pad at the end, which we had all been looking forward to the cool down and it was closed! Never mind, they have the Jacob Ballas children garden, the only children's garden of it's kind in Asia. It was very lovely and showed labels on pebbles of the plants such like Banana tree, peanut tree, coffee and chocolate and carnivorous, a really lovely area for them to mooch in and things that kids can relate to when looking at. I should mention, walking around this Ellie is in her new Hawaiian shirt and matching shorts outfit! 

After the gardens we headed back to have some lunch, a swim (I found some bikini bottoms and wore a boob tube!) and Joey napped while Ellie and I got some provisions for tomorrow's bus ride to KL. Again, we called Changi airport chasing our case and no updates. We headed out to China town which is very impressive as it's busy and truly Chinese looking but really, just full of souvenir shops and restaurants. Saying that it was great to walk around, I even managed to pick myself up a dress that covers my bottom! We got some food at Smith Street food center, we'd looked around a food court that only locals go to but it was rammed full, and Ellie and her Hawaiian outfit and blonde hair was causing quite the scene to the tiger fuelled patrons! After dinner we got ice lollies, it's so hot that they were actually steaming! And this is 7pm! We thoroughly enjoyed Singapore and just wished we had more time to do more stuff, I'm a bit sad to leave so soon, I haven't even had a Singapore sling and a chilli crab! Tomorrow we need to be up bright and early for our bus, we're hoping to get to KL in time to dash to the Grand Prix, so excited!   

Last few days in Australia

On the 25th we moved from our lovely north curl curl apartment. We were gutted because we'd miss it so much, but also, we are coming to an end. Nikki, the owner bought Ellie a kangaroo back pack, it was so thoughtful! We headed to Al and Clem's where we were spending our last two nights. Sadly, Al had to go to New Zealand for work so we weren't to see him again this trip. Luckily for us Clemmie is an excellent hostess and had left bollognaise sauce in the fridge and baked muffins. Plus bought us all kinds of Aussie chocolates an crisps. That night we put the kids to bed nice and early and had some nice food and a couple of bottles of wine, lovely!

Wednesday 26th was our last full day in Australia and it rained! Clemmie set me up for the day with one of her green smoothies (actually very nice) We headed into town on the bus with a lady in the seat next to me poking me, eyes bulging screaming "they all think I'm mad but I ain't! I've seen a physiologist and he says I'm mad!" To which I replied "you aren't mad! What does he know?!!" And we got off promptly at the next stop, so did she! Shit! No worries though, she wobbled off to talk to other people! We went to the sealife centre which was great, Joey loved the fish in the large tanks that you could push him right up to and he could see in. Ellie got to see sting rays after her recent Steve Irwin fascination and we had a lovely walk around I took loads of pictures at what I thought was the best bit walking through the glass tunnels with the rays floating over and smaller sharks and my phone battery ran out and then they had an even better set of tunnels with bigger sharks, gutted! We also headed to the park we took Ellie to in Darling harbour for her birthday and she was soooo excited. We didn't get back until quite late which unfortunately meant we missed the kids next door as they'd gone to after school clubs and it was raining etc so Ellie never got to say goodbye to her friends, pretty sad really. We did catch the girls and Tommy quickly on Tuesday night when we got there and they just smothered Ellie and Joey in cuddles and all retreated to Ellie's room to jump on the bed so that was better than nothing. Wednesday night Jim went out in the pouring rain and grabbed us all some pizza which we had, followed by caramel koalas, Tim Tams and swilled down with a nice Aussie Shiraz, really lovely. But we were knackered so I think we were in bed for ten ish.

Thursday 27th came along... Oh dear... The day we definitely start the journey home... It poured down in the morning, probably helped us get ourselves together. We said our goodbyes to Clemmie and she headed off to work, we packed up, ate some of our muffins and called a cab and couldn't get through.... Oh crap.... Luckily we decided to order it a little in advance so due to the rain it was constantly engaged, mildly panicked I persisted and after half an hour got through and we left within ten minutes. Ellie gave the pugaliers some cuddles and we made our way to Sydney Airport. Unfortunately we were hoping to catch Alex one last time as he flew in from New Zealand but our taxis probably passed each other. All we had left was nine hours on a plane with a pretty strong 16 month old who has learned to walk in Australia and sure as hell has no plans to sit down on the way to Singapore! The girl gave us two seats on one row and one on the row in front. I was livid at first, but got over it pretty quickly. We ended up, even though we were very prompt, rushing to the gate, Mcdonalds in hand (classy!) and were on board our very low budget plane that didn't even have TVs on board! Once were were seated we realised she'd left the seat next to our two free and put a seat in front so essentially the very kind lady who I may or may not have said nasty things about had given us four seats. (Guess who sat on the single seat, it wasn't me, Ellie or Joey...!) the flight wasn't too bad, we rented two iPads and Ellie watched a couple of movies, she's really very good. Joey was more challenging but once he'd finally screamed himself to sleep he slept on me for an hour and a half so I at least got to watch a film. I was so busy the flight went relatively quickly and because I wasn't sat still I didn't ache to badly or feel too tired. We managed to look over some of Australia's amazing landscape, I want to go in land next time we visit, it's stunning. So, at 19:30 local time (22:30 our time) we landed in Changi Airport in Singapore. Obviously with only two of our three bags, that's what happens to us now (grrrrrrr) hopefully that will arrive tomorrow and we can continue. With the exception of that, we are very excited to see what the next couple of days bring. From the drive to our apartment I can tell this is an amazing city! Bye bye Australia, we miss you already... 

Ku-ring-gai Chase national park 24-03-14

We woke up to a pretty nasty grey day. The original plan had been to go to the Blue Mountains but we'd decided it would be too much driving for the kids when there was more local stuff we could see so we decided to head for West Head Bay. We had to pay $11 to park but you could've around the whole reserve and it was massive. It took us about another 10 minutes to get to the other end. We got to west head point and looked out to the amazing view. Part of it was looking out at Palm beach which we'd been to two days before. I hadn't realised that it was essentially a spit of land, fascinating to see from that angle. We had a picnic lunch and then walked down to West Head beach. We basically walked through the forest down steps for 15 minutes, the whole way down I just dreaded the walk up as I knew it would be tough, especially with the extra 4 year old i'd undoubtably be carrying. The small beach was lovely, the rock formations were really interesting. Ellie loved climbing them and we took a load of photos. The only problem was that we couldn't take our shoes off and paddle as we had to get trainers back on to march back. Also, I had jeans in as the weather said 21 degrees max but it was starting to get hot and very muggy. 

We made it back up and fair play Ellie Bellie Cinderelli walked the whole way backup (on the proviso she could tell everyone in England she walked it on her own) and the skies were getting very very dark. On the way out we wanted to visit the aboriginal carvings but it had started to spit. The pictures were 400 meters from the road so we decided to grab the kids and run, not wanting to miss the opportunity. It was great, guringai land was a great place to visit. I didn't realise (maybe naively) that they did carvings that people visited as well as paintings and pictures, they were on a big open flat rock. As we were there it was raining more and more so we ran back, kid under our arms. The added rain, thunder, lightening added to the fun, I'm glad we did it!

Later in the afternoon we headed to the beach for the last time, probably the last time we'll head to the beach here.... Sad... 

Back in nsw 18-03-14 - 24/03/14

         18/03/14 -  24/03/14    North curl curl

So the time has come to leave Noosa, as Jim mentioned, it's the start of our journey home really. We're heading back to Sydney to try and make the most of seeing Alex and Clemmie before we fly out to Singapore on the 27th. We will then spend three nights in Singapore here we will book tickets for a bus to take us to Kuala Lumpur (accidentally arriving on Grand Prix day there, no we didn't realise and no, we won't get tickets as the kids won't like it :( no more talk of it please... One day we'll go...) we'll stay in KL for three nights then fly to Phuket where we'll spend a week back at Baan puri where this trip started, after that there will be four very moody people in Worcester. 

We were flying with Jetstar again from Brisbane which I was pretty chuffed with due to the huge levels of service we received last time we flew with them! although it turns out! when we flew with them from phuket on their Dreamliner it was only the third time it had flown and was a new plane on that route two days prior. Anyway, as we were waiting on board the announcement came in that you always dread "Sos, we're taking off without your bags, there's a problem with the baggage handlers!" Oh! We had to even check the pram in on this flight so we had nothing! The flight was not bad, Joey was pretty nuts and it was only a 1 1/2 hour flight, we have a 9er next week! When we got to Sydney and joined the dreaded queue at the back as everyone stampeded past us on the plane because having kids makes you slow, we found out it could be delivered or we could wait for 2 hours or so and it will be on the next flight in. We decided to wait as we were renting a car and Ellie's booster seat was on the flight and it would have been too much aggravation to rent an extra seat for a day, return it and claim the money back. We had $8 vouchers each for food (which we a bit sneakily claimed at two different counters so we had $16 and got ourselves a slap up meal deal from whsmiths! A large bag of m and ms were $7!) Our luggage came through as expected and we rented our budget car from some rude little git but, we were given an Avis car which was much smarter than our last Budget renter and the baby seat for Joey is new and clean! After what should have been a 14:30 landing and get to curl curl by 16:00 with a car full of groceries we got here at 18:00 empty handed but with luggage. It is just so nice to be back here, I feel a bit like if someone was narrating my life they'd say "....and, relax now" even Joey hasn't cried (he does tend to give it some at any occasion but really, that's down to us dragging him about, changing his routine and where he sleeps etc) he just seems to recognise where he is and smiled all evening. Jim took a quick walk to the shop and was essentially robbed by the shop keeper for some bread, butter, juice, jam and milk ($38) and got us a bottle of sparkling white, good and dry. Even though our luggage fairies weren't with us on this flight, it's great to be back and looking at our view and watching the surfers bob up and down.

The weather forecasts all said that the weather was going to be awful Wednesday, Thursday and Friday so when we woke up and it was sunny it was like a little yellow gift! We made the most of being outside, at the park and then to the beach waiting for the rain but nope... Then we did some shopping and risked another run to the park and nope... Brilliant, we had a nice sunny day. The next was the same (we have decided to discount the weather forecasts) we woke up, sunshine prevailed. Me and the kids after putting the sun cream armour on (I have to admit, I'm a bit over the sun cream smothering now, kind of looking forward to that stopping or, to purchasing some that's not like applying clay) me and the kids headed to the park to play, we had a really nice time. Al had taken the day off work so he came round at 12 and we headed to Manly for fish and chips by the sea. Ellie was so over excited she couldn't stop jabbering on and on! We took a walk up the beach and went and looked at the water dragons that live there and headed home for a bit of time on the beach. Poor Joey is struggling on the beach at the moment, we think the sea aggravates his cheeks so we tried putting ointment on his cheeks on top of his sun cream but it didn't really work. Maybe it's just hat the sea is freezing and he doesn't like sand in his eyes! Jim talked Al into running up and down curl curl beach, Ellie was devastated to be left behind but met them on their way back for a bit of a run. There were some huge clouds in the distance but we lucked out again. As we were watching tv that night there was some lightening in the distance but nothing came close to us.

Friday 21st, a small amount of rain had fallen through the night and the day was cloudy but it was a hot day still. Cloudy days only mean one thing, food court for lunch, whoop! I stuck to my salad guns ( :( ) and they all ate some really nice looking curries. We headed up the coast to some of the areas we haven't seen yet in the afternoon, Narabeen which was one of the areas we were supposed to be staying but got let down with a double booking and Nelson's Bay. Narabeen is a lovely beach but we're glad we got let down, we do love curly. Nelson's bay was lovely, and it has shade from a huge tree which is good to make a mental note of although I'm not sure how much of the day. We had a chat to a couple of ex pats who picked up on our accents, they were very lovely. They had recently done a 50km walk from palm beach to Mosman along the coast which they were telling us about, the one said it was great as she had 9 hours without her kids to chat to her friends! Jim did two lengths of the beach today (his feet are taking a bit of a pounding from it) and I took the kids down after he left so Ellie could do a bit of running with him once he was done. We had a nice little dip, a bit of a sandbank had formed so we were quite far out with the surf crashing about 5 meters ahead and to our right, down the beach we were level with the surfers, it was pretty cool. It was an exhausting day and an exhausting tea time and an exhausting bed time, I think everyone's getting a bit over tired, Ellie's a bit up and down like a yo yo, I think all the extra walking, running, swimming etc is taking it's toll bless her. I might try and get her to nap tomorrow, Joey didn't really get a nap today so unless we want double trouble tomorrow we'll have to be better organised. To give myself more energy I had a vodka and diet tonic which along with my salad for lunch left me space for three Caramelo Koalas! YUM! I need to find a vegetable addiction, I think Jim and I are going to get into smoothies when we get home... 

Saturday 22nd and Fez came over ready to head out for the day at 11. We headed to the Newport Arms, Newport on the North Shore to meet Al and Clem and had a great lunch. We were out in the sunshine (well, the shade looking at the sunshine) and at the great views of the river. We then headed down to palm beach where Summer bay from Home and Away is based and we all had a nice chill out there. All of the boys and Ellie went and played in the sea, Clemmie and I had a chin wag and Joey just sat fiddling with bag straps bless him! It was a surprisingly relaxing afternoon and the beach is beautiful, what a treat! We said our goodbyes to Al (although fingers crossed we may just catch him Thursday morning before our flight) and headed back with Fez to North curl curl for bar b q, beer, vodka, wine, vodka, beer... We drank the house dry... Great day! 

Sunday we soon booted Fez off the sofa and into bed in Ellie and Joey's room and had a slow start to the day in front of bananas in pyjamas and Sesame Street. Saying that, we were all ready and on our way to Manly to catch a boat into Sydney by ten. We walked around the botanical gardens which were lovely and perfect for Joey to roam around. They are huge and with loads of different themed areas... More tropical areas, beautiful, massive "shade trees" and a fern house. We grabbed some lunch at the Westfield centre in town and then went up the Sydney Tower which is at the top of the Westfield shopping Mall, it was great, 250 meters high and after a short 4d movie we were at the top looking over the whole of Sydney and out toward Manly and beyond you can just make out the tower from our apartment in curl curl. They had a small kids play area with building blocks so Ellie just wanted to go there, the view just didn't register. I don't think either if them could take in that they had gone in a lift and it had gone so high the view was like they were in a plane!  That was a fairly long hot day by the time we had walked back to the ferry terminal and got the boat then drove back.

On the Monday the weather took a turn, we headed to ku ring gai chase national park which was wonderful and then back to the apartment where we took a last walk down to North Curl Curl beach as we leave tomorrow. The weather had been pretty bad and the waves were huge. A couple of young lads were struggling to get over the front waves let alone get out and surf! We've had a lovely time back here again, I will miss the apartment so so much, it's so light and you can just watch the Beach, waves and surfers bobbing up and down all day long.

Pictures

1 Ellie and Joey at the airport

2 Joey in his airport pram

3 at Manly beach with Al

4 best swing ever!

5 the home and away beach - Palm beach

6 girls ice cream

7 on the boat into Sydney centre

8 guy playing digereedoo at circular quay

9 - 12 Sydney tower