Art Garden

We had a free afternoon yesterday, so we decided to hop on the MRT and check out the Art Garden at the Singapore Art Museum annex, 8Q (on #8 Queen Street).
Soft fake grass and a bunch of little green bean bags - Matias would've loved this:
Making origami flowers:
Floribots! Bella went around singing "We are the flower robots, doot doo doo doot!"
Making butterflies. She could've spent hours here:
Monkey yoga in the Enchanted Forest:
Back to the butterflies:
Interactive video installations rock:
The most exciting, though, was a stop-motion animation exhibit. The artist, Joo Choon Lin, made a set of videos by painting and repainting figures on the walls and photographing each, animations that kind of moved around in a real 3d space. I know I'm not doing it justice by explaining it this way, but here's a link to her blog, and one of her more "traditional" stop-motion animation videos:

Smells like volcano-Video for Laurel collective Fax of Death from Joo Choon Lin on Vimeo.

Afterwards, Bella and I went to the restaurant next door and talked about what kind of video we're going to make, involving, of course: a butterfly, dragonflies, flowers, and potentially a unicorn. Stay tuned.

Not as straightforward as you would think

Chart detailing maximum occupancy in a Singapore taxicab:

And you can forget about riding at all if you just bought a durian.

Clothes made for Bella

It's unfortunate that I'm not organized enough to try to get some kind of endorsement deal from this clothing chain. Bella absolutely love love looooves their clothes, especially the line she's wearing in these photos - frilly girly "ballet" skirts and cool comfortable tee shirts and tanks. They're tomboyish but cool and easy to wear with just a touch of Carrie Bradshaw. As you can see from the photos, fits Bella's personality to a T. Plus, it's a Filipino chain, so I can say, "I remember when I was buying shirts from Gingersnaps when they only had the one location in Makati."

Gingersnaps, now in stores all over Manila and Bangkok.
In Singapore: at Paragon, Takashimaya, Isetan Scotts, United Square Mall and Raffles City.

On the Road Again: Melaka, Malaysia

We're back! The small one is now 3 months old, and we thought it was about time we took a weekend trip to Malaysia. Actually, we had gotten as far as renting a car in early December, but luckily remembered that Matias' passport wasn't ready yet, and we would be crossing an international border. Anyway, after less than 4 hours on the road (a piece of cake for the kids, after all the time we spent on I-95 in the U.S. at Christmastime - more on that later), we were in Melaka, Malaysia, a U.N. World Heritage City and bastion of Peranakan culture.

Since it was a bit of a last-minute decision to go, our first two choices for accommodations (the lovely-looking Hotel Puri and Courtyard @ Heeren) were fully booked, but we ended up finding a great deal on the Majestic Hotel on Expedia instead.

We arrived to find that a baby doll came free with the room! Ha ha, just kidding, that's the boy, Matias, lounging on the cool fluffy white sheets after the car ride.

More pics:

Happy to be back and on the road again!!

The new kid

A new teeny traveler! Born in Singapore at 10:22 on 10/22, just down the hill from our new home.

Trial lesson gone awry

Photo taken during the last five minutes of a trial ballet class in Singapore. We had arrived 5 minutes late (because she had uncharacteristically fallen asleep mid-afternoon and I had agonized for 10 minutes too long about whether to wake her or not), and she was dressed in her yellow leotard when all the other girls were wearing these pink outfits; neither of which probably would've made much difference, except that when she ran into the class and did a typical Bella-esque pirouette with her usual fanfare, all of the mommies and staff laughed (though in a nice way) in a way that noticeably took her aback.

The upshot: girl clinging to my legs, sitting out the next 30 minutes of a dance class, when you could tell that she was dying to join in and SHOW THESE GIRLS HOW IT'S DONE.

First 48 hours in Singapore

Yes, well, at least for now, we are ALL about the food, as we sort out the fun mundane things like power adapters, schools, apartments, doctor, nanny, cell phone service, etc etc.

Bella, after falling asleep in the van on the way to our residence apt (not too posh, but fantastic location), and then sleeping for another 3 hours:

Noodles with fried wontons for breakfast, from the place at the basement of our building:
The kids' bathroom (complete with itty bitty toilet and itty bitty urinal) at the ION mall:

May have seemed like an impulse buy to the ladies manning the shop, as we spent all of 5 minutes in the store before picking this up. The Nespresso machine that I've been lusting after for literally YEARS:

Beautiful macaroons, ensuring Bella's happiness here, at least in the treats department:
She got a chocolate ice cream cone out of me, too:
Rainbow-colored agar dessert thing:
Chicken nuggets on a stick, mmm:
Gyoza on a stick, for Mama:
Curry puff:
Not pictured: Our first night's dinner of Hainanese Chicken Rice. Mmmmmm.