Swimming

Kaelyn starting taking swimming lessons sometime in Apr 2013 and she's making good progress.

Visit to the Zoo

School is bringing Kaelyn to the Zoo and daddy wants to coincide with their zoo visit to bring Kaelyn to visit his favourite animal, the Panda.  Unfortunately, the school doesn't allow teacher to hand over Kaelyn over to daddy at the zoo so he had to drive all the way to the school and pick her up and then head back to the zoo again..  twice visiting the zoo in a single day for Kaelyn.

Hello, Kai Kai & Jia Jia!!

 

 

First Day at CHIJ Our Lady of the Nativity

Finally the day has arrived for Kaelyn to report for school.  Mum is feeling excited and a bit concerned if she can adapt to primary school well. 

All the girls from 1 Peace class lining up for further instructions.

  

Off she goes to her class with her form teacher, Teacher Raniah.

Parents came back at recess time to see how they buy their food.  Instead of queuing for food, Kaelyn ate the food pack which was meant for 12 noon break.  Sigh, girl mummy said this is for break time at 12noon.  There goes our only opportunity to see her buy her food!!

Important Life Skills

Kaelyn is working hard to gear herself for Primary One.  Mummy has a whole list of things that she need to learn to do by herself.  Being the only child, she is very much sheltered (especially by Daddy) and these simple chores may be easy for some but not for all.  Here's the list:

1. Learn to Buy Food.  But first of all, she needs to master her courage to talk to food vendors which was taking away a lot of mummy's energy and patience just to ask her to open her mouth to say a few simple sentence. 

Status - needs a lot of encouragement!

2.  Learn about Money.  She knows simple addition and subtraction eg. she knows 10-2 is 8 but when $1.00 - $0.20 she is lost. 

Status - Still learning.

3.  Toilet Training.  She has to know how to clean herself after passing motion. 

Status - most of the times successful if she wants to do it by herself.  Sometimes, traces of poo stains can be found on her panties.

4.  Put on Socks - She must learn how to put on the socks by herself properly. 

Status - just started learning. 

5.  Tie her Hair - Either she learn to tie her hair or have her hair cropped... that is the message she got from Mummy. 

Status - learnt the skills within 2 days (see video).  See her proud moments!!

Primary One Registration

Finally it is our turn to register for Primary 1.  Daddy signed up for the Hokkien Clan member so that we stand a higher chance to get into Nan Chiau Primary School.  However, as we became member only in 2010, there isn't much time for us to complete the minimum of 40 hrs as parent volunteer.   In fact, we had only completed 16 hrs as parent volunteer.  Whilst we still hope that the clan will eventually accede to our request for the letter, we were also mindful about the possibility of being turned down hence we have a Plan B should we not get the letter.  Three days before Phase 2B, the clan informed us that it will not be issuing us the letter of support.  The wish of getting into Nan Chiau has reduced to zero as we are 1-2 km away from the school.   

After observing the Phase 2B of Nan Chiau, we were glad that we didn't waste time volunteering and trying for Nan Chiau.  During Phase 2B, Nan Chiau was hotly contested and Singapore citizens had to undergo the destiny of balloting.

Plan B was quickly dished out and we are bent to get into CHIJ Our Lady of the Nativity which is within 1 km away from our new house.  Mummy went to register at CHIJ OLN on the last day of Phase 2C.  The process is simple and fast - only need to fill in a form and surrender all the necessary documents.  The total no. of places available is 101 and mummy was no. 105.  Although the school told us only about 80 pax are Singapore Citizen and hence we stand a high chance of getting in, we were just waiting for the assurance on the MOE's website. At the end of the last day of Phase 2C, a  total of 17 pax exceeded the available vacancies.  Alas, it was this year's change in policy ie. Singapore Citizen First that helped us get into CHIJ OLN without going through balloting.  Phew that is so lucky!! 

During the period of registration, we kept in touch with friends and relatives who are undergoing the same experience as us this year.  We complained, strategised and cheered for each other.  Weixuan got into the same school as her sisters ie. Opera Estate, Sharlene into Anchor View, Ian into Fairfield Methodist.  Rachel got into Northview Pri Sch.

We informed Kaelyn about her school's name and she quickly memorised the name of the school and learnt the spelling too.  Ha.. This sort of show her enthuasiasm!!

Now that we have settled her Primary School, Daddy & Mummy have to start looking out for After School Care, school bus services and a whole lot of logistics issues for Year 2013. 

Hopefully things will go smoothly as planned.

11-17 June - Holiday at Korea (last 2 days)

This is our first time trying out ice carving...our creation got 3rd prize... yeah!

Our tour package also includes entrance tickets to Fanta-stick show.  It is a modern interpretation of Korean traditional performances combining percussion & string performances, break dancing &  martial arts.  Quite entertaining but as there are some ghost characters in the story line, Kaelyn didn't quite get it so it may be suitable for primary school kids and above.

The rest of the time are shopping and shopping...too busy for photos.

At the departure hall, we kill time by participating in the free activities provided by Korea Traditional Cultural Experience Centre. Kaelyn painted accordingly to the sample and she gets to bring home her own creations.  Visitors get to choose other art and crafts too.  Depending on timing, visitors also get to immerse into other cultural performances.

And we were in time to catch one of the traditional performances/walk-about.  It displays the cultural ceremony and also the King and its entourage's symbolic tour.

We bid Korea farewell with a little regret.. only if mummy has a little bit more time in Korea, I'll definitely try out a Korean hair perm...

11-17 June - Holiday at Korea (Day 3 & 4)

Starting from today, we are slowly heading back North to Seoul.  This morning, we visited a farm - Agroland.  Kids are so excited when they get to feed the different animals.  During our Perth trip, Kaelyn almost wanted to feed every animal...this time round, strangely, she wasn't enthusiastic at all ..

The farm owner took us around - We passed by a ginseng farm (left) and what is this animal on the right?

After the farm tour, we are all led to a classroom to learn how to make ice-cream.  All of us are giving absolute attention to Tour Guide, Uncle John, who was showing us how to make ice cream

Stiring continuously.... hands are really tired!!

Finally, we get to enjoy our fruit of labour... Yums... finger licking good!!

We ended our farm tour with milking the cow experience...Kaelyn refused to go.. holding daddy tightly... so in the end, Daddy have to obliged..

Next we were all hungry so we had bbq lunch.  Our first time seated on the floor over meal...

the bbq meat, dipped in chilli sauce and then wrapped in lettuce is really fantastic..

mummy so enjoyed it!!

After lunch, we had a good time in the Strawberry farm... plucking and eating juicy and sweet strawberries...3 bagful of strawberries...

After a sweaty good time in the strawberry farm,Uncle John brought us to ChunChunHyang.. or Resome Spa Castle in English... It is an indoor and outdoor spa and water family resort. 

The indoor spa is separated by gender and be prepared to go nude or people will think of you as an alien..  There are many pools with different temperature (freezing cold, hot or super hot), scrub facilities, massage at additional charges, steam bath, sauna, washing machines & etc.  Koreans call them Jimjibang which is a must-try if you go to Korea.

Right outside the indoor spa is a semi-outdoor hot spring pool.  Here you are expected to be in your swimwear and swimcap.  After your muscles have been relaxed by the hot spring water, you can opt to go outdoor where all the exciting slides awaits you.  There are also outdoor spa with different "soups" eg. wine spa (you can pour additional wine into the pool). There are also small rooms where you can relax yourself in eg. Geranium room & etc. 

As there are so many different offerings and involved water so we didn't take any pictures but here's a picture of its map.

We ended the day with western food opposite our hotel. 

Our restaurant has an interesting architecture.

Day 4 is a dress up day - we get to put on the hanbok as many times as we like. 

After laughing and changing costumes, we moved to another room to have a hands-on kimchi making

After our lunch, we spend the rest of the day at Everland which is very near to Seoul city already..