Papa Eric's Blog

“Do you like my new look?”

Recently I happened to find out a very good website for Dads through a package goodies. It’s “DADs for Life“. Lots of useful informations could be obtain through this website if one really wants to find out how to be a good daddy.

I like some of the “Did You Know?” facts inside the promotion brochure package that I have received. Here are some of these facts to share:

“Children perform better in school and feel more confident when their fathers take an interest in their lives.”

“Children learn fromwatching their fathers make decisions.”

“All future romantic relationships in a girl’s life will be influnced postively or negatively by the way she perceives and interacts with her dad.”

Daddies do drop by this great website…Cheers!

“Hi Barbie, hold on tight! We are late, Ken is waiting for you!”

Learning to swim has never been easy. Prisca has experienced her first hardship in the pool last Sunday afternoon. The weather was bad and the water was freezing cold. Poor thing…

We happened to come across this sand art package at Txx & Stxxxxxx.
Believe it or not, it costs only S$1.00! Wow! Unbelievable.
Most sand art costs around S$5 plus when we did them in a shop.

First step of all is to peel off the relevant portion of the sticker.

Pouring of coloured sand (grits) is fun. It trains a child to stable their hands and concentrate on the task of pouring.

Do you like my art piece?

Final touched up of “fine tuning” the background. Wow! Pretty master piece indeed ha-ha.

It has been weeks since the official opening of the ‘gambling den’.

We have decided to visit this place (not going into the casino of course ha-ha) since the curious SG crowds will not be that enormous as compare to the first few days of opening.

These are some of the signature icons of this Promenade MRT station. Can you guess what these are? Yes, water droplets!

Follow these signboards inside the MRT station and you are on the right track to the Double Helix Bridge (leading to Marina Bay Sands).

These are some of the interesting ‘floor arts’ imprinted on the pavement at the entrance of the Double Helix Bridge.

More art pieces are being displayed at the open air art gallery wall.
This is Prisca’s favourite ballerina painting.

This is an interesting maze; have fun with your child in here if the sun is not that scorching.

On the Double Helix Bridge, do look out for these interesting alphabet lighting on the floor.

Spot the different! The ‘poster human’ looks real from a distance ha-ha; let us join in the fun too!

This Double Helix Bridge is really a marvelous creation with sophisticated connections design. Lots of engineering calculations in the initial design stages I guessed.

This is one of my favourite shots of the Marina Bay Sands SkyPark from the ground.

This is an interesting glittering exterior building design of the hotel. At first glance it seems to be some big LCD TV; but they are really some glittering foils that “dance” in the rhythm of the wind.

21 years old please! People are queuing up and withdrawing money to gain entry to the “Gate of Wealth” (provided they win of course).

This is the first shopping mall in SG that has this canal design I guessed. See the two small boats? They are ready to earn some income soon by ferrying the shoppers in this mall on a canal trip.

The renovation for this shopping mall is still ongoing. Lots of noises and gluey smell; I think it will look great after the final grand opening.

Prisca has a little wish of becoming a ballerina & wearing a tutu skirt.
We have by chance patronised a shop at Anchorpoint and found some real affordable outfits for kids. This tutu look-alike outfit costs only S$15!

The Little Fairy outfit.

So where is this shop located. It is situated at Anchorpoint (beside IKEA). The shop is Something-something ‘Kids‘. You may like to get some cute dresses for your little ones too.

Cheers!

What is this place? Yes, this is the once famous Haw Par Villa. It looks kind of deserted now with only a handful of tourists.

This is a FREE admission leisure park or villa (opens daily) for the family. Prisca was quite excited about this place initially visualizing friendly cartoon characters welcoming us and having roller coasters, etc. ha-ha. But we have told her that there were ‘monsters’ in here to mentally prepare her for those ghastly figurines.

Please do not climb on top of these sculptures as warned by the sign board.

I have re-visited this place after donkey-years ago (teenage times perhaps?).

Here is a location map. As you can see, this is quite a large place for one family to explore.

This is the signboard showing the direction of the famous “10 Courts of Hell” in the Chinese Taoist legend.

Wow! This is an extraordinary “tiger” vintage car. It belongs to the two brothers founders I guessed.

A famous Chinese poems saying, “Good actions/ deeds ripe good karma; Bad actions/ deeds ripe bad karma; if one has not encounter either good or bad karmas, it is the time that has not yet come.” (Hope that I have translated these correctly he-he).

Do you dare to enter this “10 Courts of Hell” now? I didn’t take any photos inside here as I superstitiously believed that I may captured some “good brothers” unintentionally inside here ha-ha. Anyway, it was not that scary inside this hell, just that the figurines were kind of ghastly and bloody. What can one expect inside a ‘hell’, Mickey Mouse waving to the tourists? Hahhaa…LOL.

A wishing well that does not ‘attract’ anyone to throw a coin into it. The water was just too deep and dark.

This is a model showing the real villa of the founder. He was really a rich man.

This is a photo showing how rowdy it was inside this Haw Par Villa during 1937.

This is a cute little tigress holding the products of the founders – Tiger Balm gel.

If you like photography of old traditional Chinese architectures, you will like this place.

This place is just lacking of enough funds for maintenance; look at the little tree growing on the Buddha’s legs.

This is a nice place actually if proper maintenance and further development were being carried out.

There are lots of steps to explore this place. Please remember to bring more water and some insect repellents as well.

Water hyacinths! This is a familiar water plant during the school days biology class. This a pig and tortoise favourite meal.

Sculptures of the “Journey to the West “.

Hey! Looks who is riding on Rev. Tripitaka’s White Dragon (name of the white horse)? Ha-ha.

Crab monster? I guessed it means that a person who had done bad deed had reborn into a crab.

A King Kong family?

Sculptures showing one should not engage into addiction of gambling. It harms!

Sculptures showing one should be generous in helping the needy. Two men were donating to the poor villagers in these sculptures.

Sculptures showing a lady were being forcefully dragged away into prostitution.

This is an interesting sculpture showing a big turtle saving a man called Wan Qing (from a capsize ship) who had saved the turtle at a market from being becoming a food on the table. Good deed ripe good karma indeed!

Sculptures showing the three sworn brothers in the story of the famous “3 Kingdoms”.

Large masks which had terrified Prisca.

The three deities love by most Chinese families – Gods of Fortune, Wealth and Long Life.

Btw, one does not have to explore this villa by stairs! One could use the ramp instead.

Well, this is a great place for a child to learn about the moral of life – do good and not evil!

What’s new at Changi Airport this time round? It is the Slide @ T3! We had a hard time locating this Slide @ T3 initially, it was situated at one corner (located near Killnery coffee @ T3, Level 1).

Here are the rules & instructions. Basically, for Kids ride (i.e. 1 storey height slide) is FREE and for unlimited rides but the kid must be 110cm tall. For adults/ big kids ride (i.e. 4 storey height slide) a min spending of S$30 at Changi Airport will awarded 2 tokens for 2 rides; the height of the ‘fun-rider’ must be at least 130cm tall.

This is the 1 storey height slide that Prisca is going to conquer. This is nothing as compared to that one at Kids Amaze ha-ha.

It was a fairly long queue…but it was Prisca’s exciting moment of the night real soooon…..

This was the boarding room with a ‘Jie-jie’ (big sister) explaining the rules and instructions for safe-boarding. It was safe as I would say; one person at a time so that no colliding as in the case of Kids Amaze & Explorer Kids where few kids slided down at 1 go!

Notice the TV? It showed that the previous slider had safely alighted from the silde and out of the exit. Prisca listened patiently for the instructions.

This was the 4 storeys high slide which myself had tested it. These slides are different as they were made of SS (stainless steel). The friction-grip is there for these SS slides as compared to those plastic-made slides which are damn fast in descending especially for those heavy mass like me (remember that F=mg? The heavier the mass, the faster pull will be the gravity force ha-ha).

It was really a good experiences for both the kid and parents. Visit this new ‘in-thing’ at Changi Airport T3 next weekends…cheers!