NZ Summer Holiday Day 1 and 2

21 December 2011....  The long awaited NZ trip is finally here.... This trip has been postponed for the longest time and the air ticket was due to expire in a month's time.  Can you imagine, we bought the Auckland ticket 1 year ago??!!.... Not only that, we almost changed the ticket to fly to London.... Anyway, to cut a long story short, we paid S$7,200 in total for 3 of us on the SQ flight to Auckland (amendments and flight upgrading etc)... This is ridiculously crazy, but we didn't have any choice, since we had to return earlier for Amanda's orientation in her new school...

as usual, we parked our car in terminal 3 throughout the entire trip...

amanda had some food before the flight since she usually sleeps through the entire flight without any meals... however, this time, it was a great success for amanda... not only did she not vomit at all, in fact she even managed to stay awake for a sector to catch the inflight movies and snack on potato chips and chocolates....

our rented car... since we have spent so much unnecessary fees on our flight, we decided to cut on our car... hence we took from a local nz company instead of our usual hertz car rental... it was a good experience but just that the car was a little old, compared to what we usually got from hertz i.e. the latest model... haha...

checked into the apartment... and after freshening up, we walked around the city... amanda was so funny, she logged on to facebook the moment we reached the apartment whilst i was seeing to the check-in... haha....

we finally found the apartment we stayed when amanda was 3 years old... daddy was elated as he had very good experience and memories during his stay... lol!!

took the free shuttle to auckland fish market...

we enjoyed ourselves so much here.... played awhile before we had our dinner....

seafood was ultra fresh!

just couldn't resist my cuppa coffee...  we discovered L&P and love it to bits!

our seafood dinner....

never had such a relaxing meal in a long time.... good food, good ambience with live band, perfect evening cool weather of 15 deg cel and most importantly, with my family.... awesome to the max! <3

more pics before we took the bus back to auckland city... decided to drop by this bbq duck cafe to get out takeaway supper... daddy's favourite!

bottom left : our supper... by the way, the char siew rawks... and the beef hor fun was awesome too...  extreme right : refreshment with compliments from the apartment...

Time for bed... Day was extremely well spent... Looking forward to another fun day the next morning...  :))



December, a time for fun!

December, being the month of school holiday and celebrations, tend to be filled with more fun and happenings.... will blog about my NZ holidays in the next post...

3 & 4 dec... dinner at chongqing mala steamboat at tanglin....

dim sum again... and baby's recovering well... :)

followed by snacks at fruits paradise and tea time at joo chiat...

5 dec... visit to the school's dentist for the last time... had her molar extracted... her first time getting a jab on her gums.. brave girl.. look at the bloody tooth and the way they bundle up her tooth...

8 dec... the 2 letters of offer from both MGS and SCGS... and we chose the latter.... arthur christmas was quite nice, considering that christmas is just round the corner... :)

yummilicious japanese lunch at arashi... each of us had our own pot... i had beef in hokkaido milk broth, daddy had seafood in herbal broth, while amanda's child meal consisted of porridge in jap broth...

11 &12 dec... hi-tea buffet at swissotel merchant court... love the christmas decor....

brought tinkerbelle out for some fresh air...

look! daddy caught a fish... and no, we were not fishing, but he just happened to see the fish swim to the surface of the water... lol... well, we put the fish back into the water after taking a photo... :)

our last meal in Singapore before we head off to New Zealand for our Summer holiday... yippie!

SIM Family away on a summer holiday....

29 dec... invited amanda's friends over as they've been wanting to play with tinker since before the school hols... at the same time, amanda wanted to break the news of her leaving the school to them... unfortunately, amanda fell ill the moment she returned from nz... had fever and vomitted... hence she looked quite pale and didn't have much energy to play with the girls... but the girls were really sweet and understanding... all of them kept trying to "cheer" her up... hehe...

dinner at mellben... yummy!

lunch at tangshifu... shiok!

What's Happening In November...

Exams were over by the first week of November.... Time to relax!!!  :)

1 Nov... we celebrated her last paper by having lunch at jack's place with one of her classmate and his mother....  a circular ring surrounding the sun, my first time seeing this... interesting!

2 Nov... the school started the swim safer course for the entire pri 3s... i volunteered... hence these pictures... hehe!

lunch at sakae sushi.. dinner at baystreet...

6 Nov... kongkong and mama asked us over for dinner, so we decided to get a cake as well, to celebrate their 41st wedding anniversary since they would be away on a holiday on the actual day...

7 Nov... brought her for a swim and then to kfc brekkie for the very first time... and we absolute love it! yummy!

followed by omni theatre for movies...

9 Nov... lunch at Tang Shifu... heavenly...

11 Nov... shopping at ngee ann city followed by lunch at king louis at vivo...

12 Nov... dinner at mouth restaurant.. the samsui chicken was awesome!

13 Nov... daddy and i brought kongkong and mama out for dinner at tung lok to celebrate their 41st wedding anniversary...

16 Nov... amanda went out with her friends... to the library, to macdonalds and also to pasar malam, under the supervision of one of the girls' grandma... look at what she bought during her outing... gosh!   top right photo : double-yolk egg!... and bottom left : went to mgs to submit photocopy of report book... we almost missed the deadline of 17 Nov!... the first time she stepped into the school and she didn't quite like the environment... seems cold, according to her... lol!

18 Nov... amanda's first reaction when she heard she got into SCGS... sobbing away in tears (quite a heartaching sight, but deep inside, we know it's for her own good and she will thank us for it in future)...

guess reality finally struck her when she realised that she would be leaving the school and most importantly, all her good friends... here she is talking on the phone with mama, who was consoling her....

19 Nov... dinner with J and family followed by Happy Feet 2 Movie! 

20 Nov.. another meal at Tang Shifu...

21-24Nov... homemade pandan soyabean drink at mama's house... dinner at jack's place... holland village laksa....

25 Nov... bought uniforms and books at scgs... daddy went to have his molar tooth extracted at the dentist (left)

trying out if the uniforms fit...

dinner with J and family at Mussels Guys  restaurant (not sure if i got the name right)... followed by Puss in Boots Movie...

26 Nov... poor amanda had a fever the next morning... and we were supposed to leave for genting to celebrate kongkong's birthday the next day... in the end, we didn't manage to join them for the trip... amanda was most disappointed... of course kongkong and mama were upset about it too...

30 Nov... she was feeling better, so we decided to dine out for a breather...