travelling

I’ve just spent the last two days in Bangkok doing everything a pregnant person shouldn’t do. Most women do a leisurely babymoon somewhere relaxing like Krabi or Maldives but I’m the sort to traipse all over Bangkok with my 30-week pregnant belly. Incidentally, the last time I was in Bangkok was 4 years ago, when I was seven months pregnant with Truett. It’s like a rite of passage every male child I have goes through.

Finn hasn’t been happy with all the commotion the past couple of days and he’s been making his displeasure felt by kicking me in the bladder throughout the night when I’m trying to sleep.

It’s been thoroughly enjoyable though. Great food, fantastic shopping and very satisfying Thai massages.

One of our favorite discoveries this trip was Asiatique, a night market bazaar by the pier that has the ambience of Santa Monica Boulevard. It had a very nice vibe, with a mixture of slightly pricier local designer items and cheap finds.

Being the hardcore shoppers that we are, we’ve been walking for like 10 hours everyday (with maybe 2-3 short breaks in between) so I’ve basically lost all feeling in my feet. But looking at all the stuff we got, totally worth it.

I’ll be doing one last post on Melbourne and I’ve saved my favorite for the last.

Well it’s hard to really pick a favorite because the entire trip was filled with the most incredible experiences and seeing all those places through the kids’ eyes have been just awesome. I hope you enjoyed reading all the posts as much as I did writing them.

Anyhow, top of the list goes to Phillip Island Penguin Parade. This phenomenon happens only at nightfall and Phillip Island is one of the few places in the world where you can get up close to witness the Fairy Penguins crossing the beach on the way back to their burrows on the island.

They don’t allow photography on the beach, so these stock images come courtesy of Tourism Victoria.

The cover of night gives them a bit of camouflage as they scuttle across the beach back home and apparently, it’s the most terrifying thing they have to do in their lives.

Because they’re so tiny, it takes them many steps to make it across and in that time, they’re most susceptible to predator attacks. And it’s not like the poor penguins are physically equipped to run very fast so it’s very cute to see them put in so much effort to make that one crossing. Some of them cross halfway, then freak out and run back to the ocean.

The kids both fell asleep just as the penguins came out so they missed the whole thing. We tried waking them up like “Kids want to see penguins? Wake up quick!!” Tru took one look at them, then climbed back into his stroller to sleep. Kirsten woke up to peer at them for a while and decided to throw her duck duck over the barricade “to share with the penguins.” Good thing the ranger managed to rescue it or that would have marked the unfortunate end of yet another duck.

Speaking of penguins, we saw some King Penguins over at the Melbourne aquarium. They’re much bigger than the little ones (yeah, DUH!) but no less cute.

Also, I realized I haven’t talked much about the first leg of the trip with the other bloggers. So just a quick shout out to the folks at Tourism Victoria, OMY and Jetstar, who went to great lengths to make the trip unforgettable. And to the rest of the bloggers who went for the trip, your company made it so much more special.

One last thing, Episode 3 of Olay 360 is out here, bringing you the importance of hydration and tips on what to eat for healthy skin by Dr Leslie Tay.

Alright, that’s the lot. Have a good weekend, folks!

When we stayed in St Kilda, we took the time to explore the neighborhood a little. It’s an inner city suburb, about 15 minutes out from the city and located right next to the bay. Sort of like our Marine Parade, with the beach on one side and a whole street of cafes and bars on the other.

I hear it’s got a thriving red light district but we didn’t see anything during our walks around town in the evenings, which was good, I guess. We did get yelled at by a bunch of white boys as they drove past us but then again, they could have been yelling at the cat nearby so I didn’t like chuck a rock at them or anything.

Besides that, everyone else seemed really nice and I liked that the streets were buzzing with energy.

We checked out the Makers Market on Saturday morning to do a spot of shopping. Unlike flea markets where you can sell all sorts of junk, everything sold at the Makers Market has to be well, made by the sellers. So there was stuff like hand-sewn dresses, paintings, crafts, jewelry and even soap.

In many of the stalls, the owners were sitting there making new stuff so I spent some time watching a really sweet lady sew a dress on the spot. She’s done it so many years that it takes her 20 minutes to complete one dress from start to finish.

I wanted to get one for Kirsten but the one I wanted was $70AUD, so I figured I’d try to make one myself. Seemed easy enough when she was doing it, so says me who got an F for my Home Econs. An actual F. All because the dress I made looked more like a moo moo. I tried negotiating my way into an E by telling my teacher that fashion was subjective and I’d wear it for a whole day if she gave didn’t fail me. She obviously couldn’t see my genius.

Anyway, back to St Kilda. I’m wrapping it up with pictures of the kids admiring flowers. They usually only see the tiny yellow ones in Singapore so when they saw all the different varieties of flora in Melbourne, they went a little mental like “SEE, PINK FLOWER! YELLOW! WHITE! PURPLE! SO MANY FLOWERS!!!”

We just got back to Singapore yesterday after what was the best holiday the kids ever had. Ok it was basically the only holiday they’ve ever had but they’ve been raving about it non stop. Their eyes light up when they talk about the trip and Kirsten keeps reminding us about all the fun stuff she’s done.

“Yesterday we go see the penguins, remember? So cute right? Remember yesterday we sit the boat, and the boat go SO FAST! I like the boat. And the horse. And the tram. And the birds…”

I’ve still got lots of places to share and pictures to edit so those will be coming up over the next couple of days.

Today though, I bring to you the beauty of Churchill Island. Located right next to Phillip Island, it’s got a Heritage Farm that’s got the cutest cattle I’ve ever seen – Shetland Cattle, otherwise known as furry cattle. By me, at least. The long hair makes them all look like super cuddly soft toys, soft toys with horns that can pepper me with large holes.

During this trip, I’ve grown rather fond of farms. The smell isn’t half as bad as I thought it would be and all the animals are so relaxed all the time, just walking around eating their grass. I think if we lived in a farm, Truett would make a really good cowboy. He walked around exploring the place, petting the animals and blending right in.

And this was the chicken that Tru was chasing but then it decided to turn around and peck him on the hand. So obviously, he backed away from the crazy chicken. When Kirsten saw it, she ran up to the chicken and tried to tell him off, like “no no, you cannot peck kor kor.” The chicken couldn’t care less and tried to attack her as well, so they both turned and ran away from it.

We would have intervened but it was too hilarious to watch.

There were also wagon rides pulled by this beautiful shetland horse. She was so gentle that she ate right out of Tru’s hand. I assume it’s a she because I didn’t see the um, thing that boy horses usually have.

Totally loved the wide open spaces, the wild flowers, the pretty cattle, the wagon rides and the fresh air. But most of all, I loved watching them look like this.

PS. The second episode of Olay 360 is out here. It’s all about combating pigmentation with skincare and makeup so you get flawless, radiant skin. I know many of you enjoyed watching me cringe, so here’s more for your viewing pleasure.

Picnicking seems to be really big in Melbourne. Over the last week, we saw so many people having picnics in Melbourne that we decided to try it ourselves.

Only I’m not really the picnic sort because there was this one time that I tried picnicking in Singapore and I ended up getting bitten by red ants. We wanted to do something different and romantic so I made sandwiches, bought a real picnic mat and packed everything into my little basket all prepared for a leisurely day out in the sun.

And then of course I had to set my mat down on an ant’s nest, which resulted in me getting attacked by a colony of very angry ants.

But after doing the touristy thing for several days, we wanted to soak in the Melburnian culture and experience the city like a local. So my sister, who’s like an expert because she spent the last year and a half studying here, took us to Queen’s Lake Park for a breakfast picnic.

It’s got a nice lake with water fountains, birds of various species, several playgrounds and lots of open space for picnics.

We packed all sorts of nutritious fruits and breakfast options but the kids were only interested in eating Red Rock chips. I knew we shouldn’t have spent all that time making sandwiches and just gone with the bag of chips. They were all “I need to share my bread with the birds because they are very hungry,” but it was all a ploy just to get rid of their sandwiches to get more chips.

The playgrounds were a nice touch. We had at least 3 to choose from and this was the one we went with. The kids spent over an hour climbing, swinging, see-sawing and sliding to their heart’s content. As far as playgrounds went, this was pretty similar to the ones we have back home, except that they used wood chips as floor padding instead of the spongy material we’re so used to. It was so very um, natural.

It was the perfect way to slow things down a little after all the long drives and crazy sightseeing. Also, just glad there weren’t any red ants to be seen.

Seeing how much the kids love animals, the Melbourne Zoo was on the list of places we had to visit. Plus it’s located right in the city, which was like 5 minutes from where we were staying.

The animals were basically the same ones as those we have in the Singapore Zoo but the cool weather was divine. Even though the sun was out, it was nice not be be all sticky and sweaty and gross. We set the kids loose and we didn’t even break a sweat sprinting after them around the park.

It was ingenious how the animal enclosures were done. We could see all the animals up close, even the lions. I mean, there was a fence but I could pretty much stick my hand in to touch it if I wanted. I thought about reaching in to stroke the lion but then there was a chance I’d have my entire arm eaten right off. Which was why i didn’t, obviously.

All the animals were so close I could shoot them on my 50mm lens without any zoom.

Then we went on the outback trail to get up close with the classic australian outback animals. All the kangaroos and emus were just running free on the trail so we had to brief the kids to be quiet just in case they aggravated the animals and got themselves attacked by a kangaroo.

Truett was all “Shhhh, we need to be quiet, we cannot disturb the animals.”

We even got to see the elephants up close in the Asian-looking elephant village. The kids asked me what the words on the sign meant and evidently Bong Su means elephants. Or something.

And so I leave you with a video of Truett chasing birds. He didn’t catch any but he tried really hard so that’s 500 points for effort.