NDP Preview '09

Last Saturday we went to watch the NDP preview at the floating platform in Marina Bay. A few of my students were volunteering in the NDP and I managed to get the tickets from them.


















Never in our lives had we been so nationalistic to dressed in our national colours as a family. I can't say the kids really know what is going on, but they definitely enjoyed watching the fireworks and eating the goodies in the funpacks.

Ning surprised us by singing the national anthem when it was played. She can really sing the entire song which we never knew she was able to. I'll put up the video in subsequent post.



And out of the blue, when the commander for the parade shouted all the commands to the various uniform groups, Zhi suddenly got onto his seat and stood up straight with his hands behind his back. It was quite a funny sight and even the audience seated behind him was laughing. I wonder where did he learn that from. Or was it in the males' genes?

Thank goodness it didn't rain and by the time we reached home (considering we stay so near Marina Square), it was already past 9pm and the kids knocked out instantly.

Sing! Dollar

I had always enjoyed Selena Tan's productions and Hossan Leong's acting, thus Sing! Dollar naturally attracted me. We went to watch this muscial last night and we quite enjoyed the show.

The casts were made up of familiar faces like Hossan, Sebastian Tan (Broadway Beng), Dim Sum Dollies (Selena, Emma Yong & Pam Oei), Kumar, Najib Ali and Lim Kay Siu.

The plot is typical but I find the songs and the portraying of each character very well done. Especially Kumar who acted the part on the Blangadeshi worker, it was so real and funny. The tunes in those nsongs they sang also reflects the cultural part of each ethnic group but in a very comical way. We had fun laughing most of the time.

Of course, this being a local production, we can't run away from the ubiquitous 'lors' & 'lahs' plus poking fun at the 'gar-men'. But the production also reflects the recent demise of Michael Jackson (ala Hossan Leong's dancing) and the ongoing court case of Venerable Ming Yi (plus T.T. Durai, Priest Joachim Kang etc). Which we thought was pretty creative.

Do go in early, because the opening segment that features the 4 currencies was very original and WF liked this scene best. If you had no choice but to be late, then beware, for Kumar will tease you in the 2nd scene while you wiggle your way to your seat. He did that to three groups of people last night and we had such a good laugh.

If you haven't bought the tickets and comtemplating if you want to watch, well, for entertainment value, this is a fun and jovial musical to watch. It is a typical Singapore production but I strongly feel that the cast are a really talented lot. They can sing, dance, act and even the lyrics were written by themselves.

I know the critics in ST gave a very negative review. But I supposed, critics being critics, their job is to be critical and they usually have high expectations for everything.

So...support local production lah!

RVHS Gathering

WF wanted me to put this up for the benefit of his school mates (River Valley High School) who couldn't make it for this gathering on the 5th July.

Here are some photos we took:

There were a lot of catching up during that afternoon. And like he commented, everybody had changed so much (in terms of outlook) since he last saw them in the RV uniform.

Hopefully, there'll be more turnout the next time round.

Ning's New Keyboard

Ning had upgraded and progress to Yamaha Junior Music Course which involves playing on the keyboard and recognizing the notes. Because there are practices involved, we needed to get a keyboard for her.

After asking her teacher and some of our friends/colleagues, we went to Carrefour and got a Casio. It seemed like this is the place to get a value-for-money keyboard.

Everyone including Zhi and WF were all excited about this new "toy" at home. And the three of them had been "practising" diligently for the past few days.

Here's a clip:


Keyboard Playing

Mimicking His Sister

Lately, Zhi has developed a trait for mimicking whatever his sister is saying or doing. Particularly during physical play, he likes to follow her actions. And its always such a joy to watch the two of them monkey-ing around.

Here're some shots we took. You can see how their actions are pretty much similar. That is because Zhi had been following what his sis is doing.

Ning's Birthday Celebration - At Home

Because she wanted to invite some of her friends like Zhi Rou and Yi Rou over to celebrate her birthday like what we did last year, we held another round of cake cutting and singing at home over on Sunday.

As expected, she insisted on the 'Princess' theme and we decorated our place with all the girly stuff. Thank goodness, I kept the banner and cut outs from last year's birthday party so we can reuse it again this year.

We had some fun packing the goodies bags as well as stocking up the door gifts like Princess cookies, tiaras, blow-outs and even tatoos the day before. Zhi even got into the act of helping (or rather eating).

For the adults, we prepared Japanese food for the occasion like Japanese curry, miso soup, teriyaki grilled chicken and varieties of maki etc.

The party was so wild (the kids were running and hopping all over) that both of them only managed to sleep at 11pm plus. But I bet they definitely enjoyed themselves that evening because Zhi only woke up 12hours later.

Ning's Birthday Celebration - In School

Last Wednesday, 8th Jul, was Ning's 4th birthday. And we had a celebration for her in school as well as at home over the weekend.

Last year, she was crazy about Snow White and insisted on having a Snow White's cake. This year, it's Sleeping Beauty.

For her school, we got her a really huge cake and the two classes of Nursery celebrated for her. As usual, our birthday girl insisted on wearing her tiara to school to show that its her 'special day' that day.

Zhi got into the fun as well. And amazingly, while I was busy distributing out the cake, he managed to feed himself with a piece of cake.

Tick Tack Tock - How the Tiger Loses its Stripes

Last Sunday, we went to watch the drama by Tick Tack & Tock: How the Tiger Loses its Stripes.

Getting them ready to leave the house was a challenge. Particularly dressing up Miss Vainpot. She insisted on wearing a knitted cardigan over her dress, put on her accessories like ring, bracelet and necklace and not to mention choosing her socks and shoes (not that she's got a lot of choice for shoes).

Because 'monkey see and monkey do', Zhi insisted on wearing Thomas & Friends cap while acting up like a doctor by bringing along the ice-cream stick that the PD uses to check his throat.

Ok, back to the main topic. Basically Tick Tack & Tock are the three actors in this drama and they're going to share the story of how this Tiger Snigger loses his stripes while playing in the mud (the mud covered his stripes and made him looked different).

It was Zhi's first exposure to drama/play since it was written that the drama is suitable for children above the age of 2. We wanted to see how he reacts to shows because in the next half year, there're definitely a lot of kids' play coming up by the various theatre groups. We would like to bring him along if he's 'tame' enough to sit still and appreciate. Too bad, he was too distracted and was jumping around. Until his sister volunteered to participate in one of the acts that he finally look up at the stage. And thats when he started screaming,"jie-jie... jie jie.." Like Ning was some super big star.

Nevertheless, we did have some fun time after the show at 'Colours by the Bay' playing hide-and-seek with us and some other interested kids.

The funny part of this entire thing was Zhi pointing at the Merlion and shouted,'Dinosaur!'. And keep insisting even though WF told him is a Merlion.

Music Wonderland - Giant & the Clown

Besides trying out simple playing at the keyboard, the kids attending this music class do a lot of singing and dancing.

The music philosophy for Yamaha is that they want to make learning music an enjoyable experience and they believe kids at this age should appreciate music through rhythm and hearing.

This video is a segment where she and the rest danced to the song 'The Giant & the Clown'. The giant's footsteps are identified as heavy and low pitch while the clown's steps are identified as fast paced and high pitch.



Giant & the Clown

Music Wonderland - Three Blind Mice

Another segment where she played the 'Three Blind Mice' song plus some exaggerated actions from her.



Three Blind Mice

Music Wonderland Graduation

Since January this year, Ning had been attending Yamaha's Music Wonderland classes. And last Thurs marks the end of this course where she'll progress to the Junior Music course.

There was a mini graduation performance in the class and both parents (usually only one parent is allowed to accompany the child for lesson) and siblings are invited to witness their graduation.

Receiving her certificate from Teacher Ms Maria Goh

She was all excited that we're going to film her and she promised to 'put up a good show' for Papa & Mama. Here's one of the segment we took, "Madam Marika's Favourite Things". The video is a bit blur, because I had to compress it, otherwise the file size is way too big.



Music Wonderland.mov

We took quite a few videos and I'll put a few selected ones up soon.