The Bub in the Belly

I mentioned previously that my mother stayed over in the last week of July. A week after she left, we had my cousin sister stay over for about 2.5 weeks (she just left a couple of days ago). She was on an informal internship with me at my firm so she went with me to work everyday.

To be honest, before this visit, my cousin and I had hardly spent any time getting to know each other. We are almost 20 years apart in age and we see each other only once a year, during Chinese New Year. So it was wonderful to be able to spend some time with her, to get to know her and to share a bit of our life with her.

With a house guest, we did have to make some adjustments - we didn't do many activities with Ryan (whether at home or outside) and we didn't go for children-centric activities/venues. Actually, this is always what happens when we have guests - we try not to do activities which would make our guests feel like outsiders. On balance, we probably give our guests a very different impression of what we normally do, but that can’t really be helped.

I wasn't a very good host for the first week, because I was feeling extreme fatigue from the pregnancy. Every night after work and after dinner I would just crawl into bed and leave everyone to their own devices. Blogging was definitely not on the cards. After I had the evacuation done, our evenings were spent sitting around in the living room. Ryan would play with his train set and his Lego, which are kept in the living room. Ryan also got a lot of DVD time (and I really mean A LOT) so he certainly had no complaints. He still wanted to have his reading-time every night though.

On the weekends, we spent a lot of time out and about, going around some of the tourist attractions with my cousin and watching performances (Voca People at Max Pavilion at the Expo, The Lion King at Marina Bay Sands Theatre).

Don't worry, this isn't going to be yet another post with no photos - here they come!

We brought my cousin for a go on the Singapore Flyer. This is the view from one of the capsules.

We took her up to the Skypark at Marina Bay Sands. Almost the same view.



We showed her how to fly a kite at Marina Barrage.








[All iPhone photos were taken by Richard, plus some of the pictures at Marina Barrage. The rest were shot by me.]

Richard's father flew down to Singapore on Monday, 30 August for his medical check-up (a follow-up from his spine surgery). Richard's sister, Mary, accompanied him and they stayed one night with us.

All went well, Richard's dad was pronounced fit and well and told to come back in October for another follow-up. After the check-up, we took them sight-seeing.  They had two targets - the two integrated resorts! So on Monday, we took them to Marina Bay Sands and on Tuesday, we took them to Resorts World Sentosa.

We went up to the SkyPark at Marina Bay Sands (57th floor) to check out the view and we were not disappointed - the view is simply stunning. I'm not sure how business at the nearby Singapore Flyer is going to survive! The restaurants were not open yet but there was still lots of people hanging about. There was another highlight apart from the view - the 150 metre infinity pool. It's just ... wow.

Unfortunately, I don't have many photos, just some random shots on my phone (by the way, no professional photography equipment and no tripods are allowed). But there are lots of beautiful shots on the internet, so go have a look!

After we left the SkyPark, Richard's father and sister went to the casino for about an hour, while we walked around the shops (or, as the resort calls them, "the shoppes"). The only shop that Ryan was interested in was Dunhill - good taste, my boy!

The next day, we dropped them off at the casino at Resorts World Sentosa while we went to the Wavehouse for some fries and cold drinks. We joined up again after an hour, walked around Resorts World and had some lunch.

Ryan saw the water sprays and promptly made a beeline for them.


Ryan got thoroughly drenched and he was so happy! He was not satisfied though - we had to drag him away from the sprays. He fell asleep in the car on the way to Change Alley where we bought mooncakes and then it was off to the airport for them to catch their flight home.

The specialist said Richard's father can go travelling now (to nearby places), so the family decided to go ahead with the proposed family trip to Chiangmai, Thailand. That's in the next post!