Yes Yes Yes. I did it! Since Mike's on reservist and I didn't wan to "waste" a wonderful Saturday morning, I decided that we shall go to the ZOO. Yes, on my own with Matthew. I know I'm heavily pregnant at 29 wks, looking very HUGE, but I DID IT! YES! heee..

I woke up early that morning to prepare Matthew's lunch. When he woke up, we changed and went to the market for chee cheong fan, Matthew's fav breakfast. Half way through his food, he suddenly remembered that there is a playground nearby and insisted that he wanted to go play on the slide. I somehow convinced him that Mama needed to go and buy bread, so we went to the bakery to get his fav oatmeal buns.

Off to the Zoo we went. Matthew recognised the polar bear on the banners hang on the street lights and remembered from his last zoo trip that there was a pond at the entrance atrium. He hurriedly made his way to the pond and pointed at the stingrays.

Then we walked on to look at the flamingoes and monkeys and then to the Polar Bear enclosure to watch the feeding session. There was this little display in front of the underwater viewing gallery that had a picture of penguins. Matthew saw the penguins and insisted that we go and see the penguins. Somehow he remembered that there was an enclosure with penguins.

After the feeding session, we went to look at the rhinos. It is one of Matthew's fav animals, because Mike would also pretend to be a rhino, carrying Matthew and "gallop" away. Then the zebras.


>> I managed to get Matthew to stand still on a tree stump to take a photo of him with the zebras in the background.

Next to the zebras were the little Meerkats, then the big lions. Actually we only saw the lionesses. Then we crossed the road to look at the tall giraffes. We were in luck. It was feeding session at the giraffe enclosure and Matthew watched as the zookeeper Sarah fed the giraffes with carrot sticks and long beans.

YiXuan and her mummy, daddy were also at the zoo with her godparents. We met up with them at the penguin / pelican / sealion / manatee enclosure. YiXuan was having lunch and when Matthew saw the Tiger flask with porridge, he said that he wanted to eat zhou (porridge in Mandarin). Hahaha. I told him that we were going to eat macaroni at Ah Ma's house, so he said, "wo men qu Ah Ma jia chi macaroni." After looking at the penguins, we made our way out of the zoo and went to Yishun.


>> The penguins happily swimming away.

Matthew is quite co-operative these few days without Papa at home. He would walk with me, hold my hand and cross the road. He did not ask me to carry him in the zoo, except once to look at the flamingoes, because he couldn't get a good view. He was also diaper free on this zoo trip. I was hesitant at first and wanted to diaper him, because I wasn't sure if I could manage. He has shown me again that he is totally toilet trained and is able to hold his pee if I told him to. I'm so proud of you, Matthew.

Labels: diaper-free, zoo

We decided to pop by at the Zoo for a short outing on Sunday before picking up Mike's sister and father at Yishun for his grandfather's birthday lunch.

Matthew was excited. Along the way, he kept saying in Mandarin, "I want to go to the Zoo." When we reached Mandai Road, there were banners of Inuka the Polar Bear on the lamp posts. Matthew saw them and exclaimed, "Polar Bear". There were signs of animals for a letter representing each row of parking lots in the car park, such as G - giraffe etc. As we drove through the car park, looking for a suitable lot, Matthew would exclaim the name of the animal he saw.

The zoo entrance atrium has been revamped with a pond etc. This was our 2nd time since they reopened the atrium. He remembered the stingray from our trip to Sentosa and arowana (jin1 long2 yu2) from the fish shop at the market.


>> What are the 2 boys looking at?


>> Stingrays and arowanas. Can you spot the arowanas?

We went straight to the Polar Bear exhibit to catch the show. We were in for a treat. Both polar bears, Sheba and Inuka, were in very good mood. Many times we were there, only Inuka was in the water. That day, Sheba was also entertaining us and waving! Inuka showed us his prowess and height, standing on his hind legs, clapping his paws, at least 4-5 times!



After the show, we saw the rhinos, giraffes, zebras and lions. Then the rain clouds decided to open - it started to drizzle. It was also about time to leave, so we quickly made our way to the zoo entrance. Then me, the preggie me, smelling the fried chicken from KFC, decided that Mike and I should share a 2-pc meal. When we walked into KFC, Matthew declared that he wanted to eat Hotcakes! Goodness, the last time we went to MacDonald's to eat hotcake was long long time ago! Mike managed to buy an ice-cream wafer cone from Ben and Jerry. When Matthew saw the cone, he said it was ice-cream!?!? Now, where did he learn that from? We seldom eat ice-cream cone in front of him...

We went to pick up Mike's sister and father and proceeded to AMK for his grandfather's birthday party. Matthew remembered quite a few of Mike's aunts and cousins and took a wee short while to warm up. He had his lunch and was keen to play.


>> Matthew sharing rasins with Mike's cousin and nephew


>> Singing birthday song for Great Grandfather


>> Enjoying the birthday cake

What a fun Sunday! Matthew almost didn't want to go home! He wanted to stay and play more.

Labels: diaper-free, sunday, zoo

A nice cool Sunday morning to the Zoo. I baked blueberry muffins the previous night to bring along. Put together a simple lunch for Matthew, as we felt that there wasn't much healthy food available and too expensive. As we were up bright and early and Zoo only opens at 9am, we made our way to the market for breakfast. Three of us shared chee cheong fan, egg prata and cheese pancake for breakfast.

We reached the Zoo at 9:10am. Apparently some of the animals were still resting. The free-range Orang Utans were already up in the trees. We saw 8 white rhinoceros (did not know that we had so many), some wild african plant eaters, zebras, giraffes and the roaring lion and lionesses.



We had a up close and personal encounter with the giraffes. They saw the zookeeper with the leaves to be hang on the poles and thought it was feeding time. They came really close to the giraffe gallery, almost within reach.





The polar bear feeding session was 10:05am, so we made our way there and found the place already packed. Matthew enjoyed watching the bear swimming around in the pool. We took a break and Matthew finished one blueberry muffin. We took the tram to the Children's World and a train from the Play Land to the Animal Land.

At the Animal Land, Matthew had a chance to pat a guinea pig and saw some rabbits.



The goats were noisy and Matthew could imitate their sounds to perfection, really sounded like a goat. Then there were the sheep, the cows and the pot-bellied pigs. We made our way to the train station for our return trip to the Play Land. While waiting for the train to move off, Matthew decided that he wanted his lunch. So lunch it was. By the time he finished his lunch (porridge with shredded xiao bai cai, carrots, tofu and egg), the rain clouds had moved in and was threatening to pour anytime.

It just wasn't a happy ending, as the rain came pouring. As the entrance area was under renovation, the trams no longer stopped there. We got off at the amphitheatre and waited at the restaurant area for the rain to clear. By this time, Matthew had already fallen asleep in my arms. What a wet wet way to end our zoo trip!

Labels: sunday, zoo

The morning did not start right. It was raining. Matthew woke up early at 5:55am. I told him to go back to sleep, very obediently, he went to lie down on his bed. But he was up again 5-10 minutes later.. This went on till 6:50am. I decided to wake up.

Our initial plan was to be out of the house by 8:30am to reach the zoo at the opening hour of 9am. Papa had a late night, ironing clothes and watching soccer, so he was in bed till 8am. It did not matter, because it was raining.

It finally stopped at 9am. We decided to go ahead with the trip. In 10 minutes, I managed to come up with fried rice for our lunch (a little cheating required, the ingredients were prepared earlier). We were out of the house by 9:40am, reaching the zoo at 10am. Matthew actually fell asleep in the car, but only for 10 minutes.

We rented the Tiny Explorer cart for Matthew. He was excited and kept pointing to us the direction to go.

The first stop was near the entrance, where the Simang (a type of primate) are located. We saw the zookeeper feeding some little monkey type mammals (not Simang) with peanuts and fruit. Matthew was totally amused by these small mammals, because they were fast moving and agile.

Next up, the otters. The group of them were busy following the zookeeper (who was outside the enclosure), obviously hoping for some food. But sorry guys, it was not feeding time. We also caught two otters swimming in water in their underwater observatory. Matthew saw them swimming and he paddled his hands, just like the otters.

Then we saw the flamingo. Matthew only associated them as birds. Nothing interesting here.

The lions were up next in the Cat Country. First we saw the lioness on a rock...

Then in the up close and personal gallery, we saw the big male lion. Whoa, it was the first time we saw a real lion so close up. Usually we would only the lionesses.

Finally another bonus, we saw the ever elusive leopard, taking a nap...

After that, we skipped the Children's Zoo and Play area and made our way to the Sealion, Manatee and Penguins enclosure. We had our lunch here, while waiting for the sealion token feeding session to start.

Matthew was not interested in the sealions, but was captivated by the Pelicans which stationed themselves near to where the zookeeper was. After the session was finished, the playful sealions (obviously wanted more food) were splashing water and making lots of noises.

This was something new we did not know, perhaps Matthew would do it when he's older - Token feeding for the penguins by the kids! The zookeeper got four kids to feed the penguins. The kids had fun throwing the fishes into the water.

After that, we thought we would just make our way to the entrance, stopping by at any interesting exhibits. Matthew was walking and somehow he tripped and fell flat on his face. He had some scratches on his forehead and nose and a Big Big Bump (baluku) on his forehead.

This is a photo of Matthew after a nice warm bath, on our way out to IMM to buy diapers. The swelling had gone down, but the bump was still so red.

Labels: zoo

April was not all about the Perth trip. Here's an update for what we did last month.

15 April 2006 - Friends of the Zoo
We became Friends of the Zoo. We paid $108 (10% from $120 with Toys R Us Star Card) to become FOZ, a year's entry into the Zoo, free parking, 5 train / tram rides and 4 issues of wildlife magazine. It made sense to be FOZ. Each adult entry cost $15. Toddlers enter FOC. Each zoo trip would cost $30 in entrance fees. Four trips would cost us $120. We would definitely bring Matthew to the Zoo more often, now that he could recognise lots of animals.

We were greeted by two beautiful peacocks in the car park. One of them had its tail opened and displayed. The reason being it was trying to intimidate the other peacock and chase it away.

First was the Polar bear feeding session. Matthew recognised the Polar bear (we have a polar bear stuffed toy at home) and enjoyed himself watching the Polar bear swimming around. Then we saw the white rhino and giraffes. The giraffe enclosure and viewing platform allowed us to come up close and personal with the tall animals. Zebras were up next. Matthew saw the zebras shaking their tails and we told him "wei3 ba1 (tail) yao2 yao2 (shaking)", he started dancing, amusing some visitors who were next to us.

He was totally fascinated with the Jaguars during the token feeding sessions. The big cats were jumping around, going into the water, grabbing the chunks of meat that were thrown into the water.

In Fragile Forest, he was captivated by the beautiful butterflies that had rested on the nectar trays. As we walked around, he kept looking back and pointing at them. We saw the fruit bats and the lazy tree sloths feeding on some fruit and carrots. Some butterflies came to rest on Papa's shoulder and he got upset and wanted Papa to chase them away. We were amused because it was totally opposite from the reaction we had earlier.

Children's Playland was next. We fed Matthew his macaroni lunch and he had a go at the playground after that. We then went on a train ride round the Chilren's Land.

You know how kids are... No matter how tired they are, they would try and stay awake. Matthew cried because he was tired but did not want to take his nap.. I carried him, pat him and finally he slept. We put him in the stroller for his nap. We then took a break at the Manatees and Seal enclosure and had sandwiches for lunch.

As we strolled along, we noticed that the Zoo had a new feature, free ranging orang utans. The Zoo has put up some nettings and vines for the orang utans to venture beyond their enclosure. We talked to a zoo keeper and found out that this was a new project and he was stationed there full time to ensure that these primates would not be up to any mischief. As the sky started to turn dark, we decided to move on. There were an orang utan swinging along the vine above the walkway and she decided to PEE!!! some visitor "screamed" when she realised what was happening. Luckily for her, it was not on her. But Matthew woke up crying...

We wanted to watch Tiger Feeding, but somehow we couldn't find the enclosure. Instead we took a tram ride round the zoo before heading home...


16 April 2006
Here's a photo of Matthew with Po Po and Gong Gong at the new National Library Building along Victoria Street.


22 April 2006
We met up with Joshua, YiXuan, Nayli and their parents (and Nayli's sister Qis) at the Zoo. Making full use of the FOZ membership we got the week earlier. In fact, Matthew's little friends are FOZ friends too! Mama did not take any photos. We headed straight to the Children's Zooland where the toddlers were. We all had banana muffins (which Mama made and did not add milk, thinking that Iggy may turn up at the Zoo too). As time came for the Zoo to close for the day, we took the last tram to the zoo entrance and had B&J ice-cream. Matthew and us bid farewell to our friends and headed to Ah Ma's place for dinner. For more details of the zoo gathering, check out Miini World 24 April 2006 entry

23 April 2006
We went to to Weiyong and Yikai's place at Hougang to visit JinLing jie jie and JinYi kor kor and then to Sengkang Compass Point before heading to Punggol to see Sing Tian and Katherine's newborn Gerrard Lim JunLe. Gerrard was borned on Papa's birthday 28 March 2006. He was a small baby at 2.4kg. When we saw him, he was 3.3kg, still smaller than Matthew at birth. Matthew was 3.79kg at birth!

29 April 2006 - Cycling at East Coast Park
Matthew woke up very very early, at 6am. We had breakfast at home before heading to East Coast Park. We have always enjoyed cycling in the morning. As usual, we made our way to Bedok Jetty and then further. Because the weather was a little hot, we made our return trip before reaching Changi Sailing Club. On our way back, we went by the ski lagoon. Mike noticed that Matthew's head was nodding and realized that he has fallen asleep, with his hands on his child seat handle. So CUTE!

Labels: east coast park, SMH, zoo

We brought Matthew to the Zoo for the first time today. Thanks to Chris and Tianfa for inviting us along to the zoo. You see, Tianfa's company has this zoo pass, which admits 4 adults, as part of welfare or something, so lucky us got a chance to go FOC. Matthew has this Animal Picture book, which I bought from Commercial Press at IMM Mall and we have been going through the different types of animals for a while now. It was time to show Matthew the REAL thing!

In order for him to enjoy himself, I allowed him to nap for 2 hours in the morning. In order to do that, I made the environment so conducive for sleeping that I got to wake him up for his lunch at 1130. I turned on the air-con and fan, closed the curtains and he slept like nobody's business!

We met up with Chris, Tianfa and Megan at the entrance to the Zoo and went our separate ways thereafter (because the three of them had already covered half of the Zoo on their previous trip). First stop - Simang... Aiyah, actually it's just a type of ape. I just told Matthew that those were monkeys. These apes were aglie, swinging from tree to tree... But what actually got Matthew's attention were the water hens that were by the stream below the broadwalk. Not sure whether he saw the mouth-wide-opened crocs, waiting to snap their jaws on these birds anytime!




Next up were the white tigers! It just happened to be feeding time. We saw tigers chomping on pieces of meat. One of them was even in the water. Matthew saw the one in the water and eyed it as it moved from one end of the moat to the other, before leaving the water to enjoy its meal. He was so captivated that he did not even want to look at the camera


Then it was the Great Rift Valley of Ethiopia where we saw deer and baboons. Again, they are just apes, which I would just categorised them under Monkeys to Matthew for now... Until he is old enough to differentiate. These baboons are active, running around, jumping up, down. There were rockscape for them to exhibit their skills. We also saw some little ones on their mothers' backs. Matthew was just watching all the action on the other side of the thick Perspex window.

Primate Kingdom was where all the monkeys or apes were sited. But when we were there, the sun was out and high. It was too hot and most of the apes were hiding in the shades. We did see a few but nothing exciting...

Elephant time! But Matthew was getting tired and it was time for a short nap. As we walked him in his stroller while he slept, we passed by the sea lions, manatees and penguins and made our way to the Children's World Animal Land.

Matthew finally woke up at the Animal Land, where children could interact with the goats, sheep, horses, cows and pigs, the farm animals. I brought the Animal Picture book along and showed Matthew the photo of a horse and the real horse. He looked at the photo, then the real animal, as if trying to match the two.

Then there were the goats. Somehow the gate to the enclosure was open and several goats "escaped". Mike informed the zookeeper who chased the "fugitives" back into the enclosure. But I was telling Mike that the "fence" keeping the animals were so low that they could just simply jumped over, gate or not... ha ha ha.

After meeting up with Chris, Tianfa and Megan after the animal show, we made our way to the Children's World Funland. There were playground and fountains for kids to play. Megan aborted her plan for a nap and made her way to the playground. Matthew wanted to get himself WET! Wet he got. He was promptly dried and changed and we made our way to the Zoo entrance, as it was near closing time.

On our way out, we saw the lions and giraffes, but did not stay for long. After saying our byes to Chris, Tianfa and Megan, we fed Matthew near the Zoo entrance. He had his brown rice porridge with spinach and meat and banana for dessert. Well, we could say that he enjoyed himself, so did we!



We will be back!

Labels: zoo