Phuket Escapade 30 May - 2 June

So Papa and Mummy had this bright idea when they went to this talk organized by Marriott Vacation Club, which was how we came to be on a plane to Phuket on 30 May. They took up an offer by MVC for a 4D3N stay at Marriott Mai Khao Beach, for USD499. For a two bedroom suite that sleeps 8, it was a very good deal. After two months of anticipation, we finally got on the plane to Phuket.

The Clairester on the plane (not in a very good mood because the flight was at 8.15am in the morning!)

View of the pathetic swimming pool from our 2-bedroom suite on the 5th floor - yup, that's the ENTIRE pool. Sad right.

Papa and Ah Gong competing to inflate my mushroom float while i enjoyed an afternoon snack.

Grinning evilly at the thought of the two slaves at my disposal (see pic above)

They had a DVD player there. Mummy brought my favourite Hi-5 disc (the one I call Hi-5 xing!) and Elmo VCD along, but she needn't have bothered, because there's PLAYHOUSE DISNEY! Here I am camped out in front of the TV in our bedroom (flat-screen somemore, don't pray pray)

You didn't think I'd go anywhere without Pi, did you? :P

Self-entertaining with crayons and paper while the family relaxed at a massage centre in the middle of Central Festival Market - the biggest shopping mall in Phuket (I think). I've been drawing circles for months now, and I even try to draw faces sometimes (but of course if I didn't explain to you that this was a face you wouldn't be able to tell).

Watching the sunset at the beach (yup, you guessed it - another one of Papa's artistic/journalistic attempts!)

Mummy and me - on the way home... so fast...

Making myself comfy on TR153....

Self-entertainment because we couldn't afford a plane with inflight entertainment system - hiaks hiaks hiaks.

Review of Marriott Mai Khao: Obviously a spillover resort for the JW Marriott Phuket Resort and Spa (which by the way was way bigger and had a far nicer and bigger pool). Very limited facilities (but the breakfast at the restaurant was good). The room itself was very nice; they had everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) you could think of within the room, including your own washing machine and dryer, ironing board, microwave oven, coffee maker, so many kitchen utensils that we couldn't even recognize some of them. Location was far from ideal however; we had to hire a private driver to take us everywhere because there simply wasn't any other cheaper way to get out.

Much-awaited updates

Oops, I gotta do this as I backdated some entries... LOL... So please refer...

26 January 2009: The Little Pianist

Meeting up with my friends

Mummy took leave today so that she could go have a look at my potential new school together with Auntie Jane and Alyssa jie-jie (thank you auntie Jane for making the appt for us, and so sorry that we were late!!!)

After the school visit, we went down to Suntec to meet up with a few mommies together with their princesses. The only thorn among us - Kimi - was in school so that Auntie Tona could have a breather, hahaha. But it was still very enjoyable, and at least now we will play together a little. These mommies are some of my Mummy's closest friends from SMH. Oh, and my triplet sister Charlene was also missing in action (Auntie Sharon fly A380 again!).

Mummy says we should have more of these outings, and I so agree!

Alyssa and me - Mummy likes this pic so much coz she says we are posing like models in this. Papa says Alyssa looks like a big sister.

Alyssa, Rachel, me, Estelle and Desiree. Observe the strange face I'm trying to make. LOL.

Rachel: Claire, are those my marshmallows you are holding?

Claire: Psst, Deszi, I 70, you 30. Onz?

Deszi: Eh, why like that. We call it deal at 60-40 la, want?

Estelle: Hey, what about me??!!

Alyssa: I dunno anything, leave me out of this...

3 pretty maidens in a row...

Back at Kids' Loft

Mummy and I were overjoyed when we finally received news from Ms Lavina that Kids Loft was back in action. Though they took very good care of us at Playdays, overall we still felt much more at home at Kids Loft. I got practically my whole class back, along with a couple of new friends.

With the bigger outdoor area, we've gotten into doing more 'adventurous' activities this term. We did one round of hand-painting, and today we had a session of feet-painting. The minute the parents saw us sitting prettily all in a row, out came the cameras!

Pretty children all in a row.... Where's Zavier? Busy looking for Krissa, hahahaha!

Putting my feet into the paint. Ms Lavina put paint onto kitchen towels for us to step onto, so that we would not feel that the paint was too "dirty", as kids are bound to do...

Waiting for my snacks and posing for Mummy's camera...

Drinking from the cup. For some reason I would only do this properly in school, and this term I developed a fascination with apple juice and drinking from the cup, so much so that I often leave my snacks half-eaten.

Finally exhausted, I fell asleep at the table halfway through dinner. And of course, the first thing my heartless, amused parents did was to whip out the camera, as usual.

The Bento Craze

Mummy decided to get onto the Bento Wagon a few weeks ago, after being inspired by what some of my friends' moms were cooking up for my friends.

To her surprise, apart from the her satisfaction from the better-looking lunches she managed to create, she also realised that bento lunches were so much easier to make than the hot one-dish meals she spent so much time doing. And best of all, bento lunches can be eaten warm or cold. Yay, to fuss-free meals!

Anyway this was Mummy's creation for this Saturday's lunch. I always get bento lunch on Saturdays as I have to rush to class. Today's menu: Pooh-shaped egg and cheese sandwiches, accompanied by a helping of Gerber's peach yogurt melts. If anyone is going to the US, please be a kind soul and help me get this, because I love it!!!

Not bad for someone who never did well in home economics and decidedly lacked creativity on the artistic front huh?

My cute bento lunchbox.

I'm Egg-cited (Mummy's memories)

This evening, as we were sitting in the living room relaxing after dinner, Claire suddenly turned her attention towards the bar counter, where a tray of eggs was lying, and told me, "Claire Claire (yao) kan ji dan." (translation: Claire wants to look at the eggs)

I obliged and carried her up to look at the tray of eggs, but after a while, it got a bit tiring (and boring!) to stare at the tray of eggs. So I put her down again.

To our (my mom and I) surprise, Claire was very persistent and insisted she wanted to look at the tray of eggs again. So my mom brought the tray of eggs down to the coffee table, asked Claire to sit on the sofa and gaze at the eggs from afar.

Which was exactly what she did.

And after a while, Claire came out of her trance, noticed me, and pointed to the seat beside her: "Mummy, kan ji dan!" And I had to sit next to her and pretend to gaze at the eggs too, for a good 10 minutes, before i gave up and got up. Claire immediately pointed to the seat again and told me firmly, "Mummy, kan ji dan!" Poor me, huh? Back to egg-gazing.

Gosh, who knew a tray of eggs could be so fascinating? *yawn*

Online shopping queen

I've really got to show this off because I'm so happy with it. Dresses "handmade with love" from the USA. Admittedly not cheap, but the unique design and great worksmanship blew me away. I know a lot of people may say that reversible pinafores like these can easily be found in online stores, but believe me, I'm very picky about cutting, and out of so many stores I've looked at only this and one other store sells reversible pinafores with nice cutting. And as you can tell, the Clairester loves it too!



Please ignore the mess behind the Clairester!

I think this is the sweetest smile I've captured of Claire.

Back of dress - the criss-cross look

Laughing away because I asked her to smile for the camera again...