Category Archives: Life’s Like That

D’Resort at Downtown East, Singapore

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In early May this year, we happened to visit NTUC Club’s water park,  Wild Wild Wet, during the NTUC May Day celebration. There was some nice water play area and rides for all age groups and even a person like me who is absolutely scared of water could enjoy it. That’s when we saw that there was a resort integrated with this water park – D’Resort at Downtown East.

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A browse through their website showed super nice, clean rooms. The very thought of water play everyday during the stay at the resort was very tempting for the children. This place seemed like the perfect place to go on a staycation.

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We rarely take a break during weekdays. This is one rare instance when we are doing this and started our staycation yesterday evening. We have one of the rooms of the ‘Mangrove Walk’ series.

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This room has all the nice amenities with two big beds, a TV, a double door fridge, a microwave oven, an electric kettle and a clean, spacious bathroom – perfect for a family with kids.

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The balcony of our room overlooks the big slides of Wild Wild Wet.

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But the ground floor rooms have an open balcony without any grills and there are times when somebody is working on the plants on the other side. Centipedes are a common sight on the balcony too. So it is better to keep the door and curtains closed.

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A walk behind the rooms leads to the exit to Pasir Ris beach – a beach with very shallow waves and having dense mangrove behind it.

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A sheltered walkway through the different blocks and rooms of the resort leads us to E! Hub which houses the super fun-filled indoor playground of NTUC Club, eXplorerKid. E!Hub is your typical shopping mall of Singapore housing lots of shops including NTUC Fairprice, eateries, several extracurricular/enrichment classes, Cathay cinema Theatres, etc.

Adjoining Wild Wild Wet are several eateries including Pizza Hut, Subway, McDonalds and NTUC FoodFare housing a wide variety of cuisines. Of course, finding good Indian Vegetarian food outside of Little India or Downtown in Singapore, is still difficult. There is an Indian food stall in Foodfare, but for strict vegetarians like me, the smell from the place turns me away from it. For now, I will stick to the veg Sub from Subway.

There is also a Cheers outlet near Wild Wild Wet as well as at the resort.

So, yes, there is everything at or a stone’s throw away from the resort, making it a perfect place for a vacation.

I am enjoying every bit of this much-needed break from the usual cooking-cleaning-rushing crazy daily routine and we as a family have decided to completely relax for one more day after which we will be back to our routine starting Thursday morning.

P.S.: NTUC members, do check out all the awesome offers and promos at this resort.

The Staycation

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5 years back, my husband and I wondered just why on earth would somebody want to go on a staycation within a small city like Singapore itself when there are thousands of places to explore all over the world. Today, we have ourselves come on a staycation! On the second day of the staycation, sitting back and watching the kids having loads of fun at the indoor play area, here I am, not complaining one bit and enjoying every moment of this wonderful vacation.

The Idyll Idle Afternoon

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I rarely step out of my house in the scorching afternoon heat of Singapore to take my children out to the outdoor play areas. But today morning had me having enough of fridge door banging by my son, ice cube playing by both the kids, refusal from both to play with each other and, as always, repeated requests for watching TV. I had  had enough of mopping spilt water, mango juice, etc. That’s when we came to their favourite play area.

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It didn’t matter that the play area was hot. No cleaner comes to clean the play area during weekends. So there are dried fallen leaves and twigs scattered all through and that was enough to instantly grab the attention of my kids. Both run all around the play area collecting twigs and leaves, crushing the crispy, dried leaves with their small hands and feeling the difference in texture between dried and fresh leaves.

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After a while, the daughter gets comfortably settled at the end of the tunnel slide, while the son runs around picking up leaves and bringing it to her. They both are lost on a world of their own, playing together without fighting.

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I walk for a while, then sit back on the wooden bench and gaze at the clear blue sky up above, a huge cotton-candy-like cloud on one side, the tall towering palm-like trees on the other side, the pinkish-red vrikshi flowers blooming on the trees nearby and the mynahs alternating between sitting and flying all around the play area. The music from a keyboard played by somebody in the nearby apartment fills the air.

It has been a couple of hours already! Their interest is slowly waning. There is a slight breeze blowing on and off. Light gray clouds slowly start coming together to cover the blue sky. Maybe the daily drizzle will start in a while or maybe not. But we are happy that we have had our daily share of the happy outdoor time. For now, the mind is happy that it can idle around for a while and refuses to think about all the never-ending ever-growing to-do lists.

 

Naughtiness, Frustration, Impatience, TV, etc

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I am right now at my peak impatient-irritated mood. I wish I could give a nice long lecture or launch off on a yelling spree to my kids about how they should listen to what I say and stop watching TV and play and eat properly instead. But I know that there is going to be no use whatsoever.

I had already reached my threshold limit for asking/pleading/fighting with my daughter to make her eat her breakfast in the morning itself.

I had planned on taking them out to the play area at least for a couple of hours in the evening and just when I was about to leave, my son poured at least a half glass of milk all over the floor and all over me too! I immediately had to seek the help of my babysitter that Nick Jr channel is and launch off on a cleaning spree. Four rounds of mopping the hall with different rag cloths and mop and after a nice, long bath later, I sit to feed my daughter her food when she refuses to start eating and refuse to turn off the TV too.

I am irritated, tired, frustrated and all that. Rather I was. Writing these trivial, everyday happenings here has made me calm down. Just like all those calming deep breaths are supposed to.

I am all set to launch off on yet another fight to turn off the TV, except that this time it will be a calmer-me handling it.

The Obsession to make kids eat

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Visiting the River Safari last week, we saw these monkeys (or whichever specific type of monkeys they are) happily eating cabbage. Seeing that, a father was telling his toddler, ‘Look how the monkeys are eating greens. You should also eat from now on.’ The fuss that kids make to eat! And, more importantly, the fuss that we parents make! The obsession to make them eat well seems to overpower everything else. We don’t stop, do we?

The Blog Comments

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I have just been out of touch with my blog, comment, comment moderation, etc. that I didn’t even see that some of you have been kind enough to leave your comments here and they have all been pending moderation! Thanks, folks! I will get the comment moderation and everything back in track tomorrow. And, hey, did I tell you that it does feel good to receive comments even today, just like it did back then? Thanks a lot for reading my blog!

Dear Void….

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Publishing those two lines on why sleep is eluding me, I am now reminded of the lines ‘Good Night, Dear Void’ from the movie ‘You’ve Got Mail’.

Sometimes I wonder about my life. I lead a small life – well, valuable, but small – and sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it, or because I haven’t been brave? So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn’t it be the other way around? I don’t really want an answer. I just want to send this cosmic question out into the void. So good night, dear void.

Did I tell you that these lines are my favourite? A small, but valuable life. More thoughts on perceptions, opinions, personalities and traits follow. But I don’t want to write anything here now. Maybe I should also send the message to ‘Dear Void’? 😉

Dwijavanti

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We went to Sri Srinivasa Perumal today evening at around 5:20 pm. With only a handful of people in the temple at that time, it seemed like the perfect time to pray, relax and meditate. What better company than music in the form of the divine nadaswaram and the tavil to accompany you during those peaceful moments in the temple! As the nadaswaram player started the Dwijavanti alapana, I found myself completely relaxing and lost myself in the prayers and the music. There was only inner peace prevailing. If a raagam like Dwijavanti which oozes out only beauty and happiness not relax you, then what else will!

As the song Akhilandeswari started and proceeded to the ‘dwijAvanti rAganutE, jalli maddaLa jhar jhara vAdya’ part, the inner longing in me to get back to singing returned full-fledged. Didn’t I have a voice which could easily reach those upper octaves when it was at its best and in regular practice? Even if it is not Dwijavanti, I wish I could at least sing the nursery rhymes with my children and relax!

October Musings

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As I clicked on the ‘Publish’ button of the last blog post, it struck me that I had written quite a few posts here this month. I saw that I had written 14 posts so far. A scroll down the archives showed the last time I had written these many posts was in October 2013!

Rereading those posts now (Yes, I like looking back at the times that were), I remember how happy I was back then about finally joining a Masters Degree course, how happy I was at my work, how happily I was enjoying the time with my daughter and how confused I was about what to do with my job – to resign or to patiently wait to get a transfer to Singapore. I was having such a great work-life balance then that for a mother with a toddler, that seemed like the perfect place to be. But family takes precedence to me anyday and a series of circumstances eventually had me choosing to take a break and I resigned my job.
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