It was another chock-full weekend spent on a combination of exploration, swimming pools, screen time, and attempting to assemble the facsimile of an adult existence (which is to say, I finally have an SG phone number and data plan). We succumbed to the siren call of the local food center on Friday for dinner and got what has become our kid-friendly standard (satay, the best chicken wings I've ever had, and several varieties of dumplings) plus one new thing for the adults to try (a relatively tame roast pork dish this time).
Saturday was errands (acquiring footwear and mobile plans) in the morning, followed by our lunchtime/naptime/screentime/dinner routine, after which Amelia and I went out to explore the baybeats music festival, a free 3-evening line-up of Singapore-based musicians in the Rock/Metal/Punk genres. It was pushed over the top by being adjacent to the floating stadium where they were holding the dress rehearsal for the Singaporean National Day celebration, complete with light shows, fireworks all across the bay, and the most insane coordinated drone display I have ever seen:
This was by far the most successful local music hunt I've been on thus far, and ended up with us bringing home a CD and a t-shirt for Amelia's new favorite band, SUPERSECT, which I choose to describe as "Shaolin Funk", and meant we had to have a conversation on the busride home about how I am trusting her to know the appropriate places to use, and not use, words that she learns listening to rock music.
By comparison, Maxwell and I had a much tamer Sunday morning when we explored Haw Par Villa, which is a sort of Dollywood-esque Buddhist/Confucian morality theme park built by one of the brothers that founded the Tiger Balm financial empire in the 1930's. In addition to enormous concrete dioramas depicting various legendary battles, folklore, and fables, there is a long cavernous area that contains "The Ten Courts Of Hell" that illustrate with a surprising amount of detail the punishments meted out by King Qinguang based on each deceased sinner's misdeeds in life before they pass through the Wheel of Reincarnation to one of the six paths of Samsara. The punishments are creatively horrible and painstakingly rendered. Elizabeth warned me to maybe avoid it with Maxwell. Maxwell insisted on going through it three times. Here are some other pictures I snapped during our visit:
Jeez. Haw Par Village is intense.
ReplyDeleteYeah, they don't pull any punches. Luckily I was able to escape without having to explain what prostitutes are and why someone thought it important that they be thrown into a pit of lava.
DeleteI love that you take each child out for some one-on-one time. As you know, our daughter is an only child so we never felt a need to do that but I sure wish my parents had done so.
ReplyDeleteElizabeth accuses me of conspiring to be the "fun" parent, but mostly it seems like getting the older kids out of each other's hair for a few hours allows everyone to connect a little better and have honest conversations about the enormous upheaval that we've put them through.
DeleteMaybe you could sometimes stay with two and let Elizabeth be the fun parent every now and then. Because Dave worked full time and went to school half time during much of Alexa's childhood I got to be both the fun parent and the disciplinarian for those eight years. None of us knew quite what to do when he graduated and suddenly had free time. It's probably best if you two can balance both sides of parenting all the time.
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