Happy new year and a summary

It's 2026, woohoo!

So we slept through all the countdown and fireworks :p Old already, cannot understand crowds, cannot stay up so late. 

And on this day, I woke at 8.20 am. So happy until I realised that tmr it's 6.10 am again *.* Yes, the new school year is starting... 

Got the boys to pack their schoolbag today - nothing much coz no timetable yet. Also got them to clear their cabinets but the amount of unwanted stuff was unfortunately very little.. I have three little hoarders...

Since it's the new year (and I have leftover mashed pumpkin from making pumpkin noodles a couple of weeks ago), I made some pumpkin mochi pancakes. Eat 金瓜 to bring in the 金 and may the kids be 顶呱呱 in their studies! But Yu didn't eat any, even when we had a small plate of dipping sugar. Ah well, all the best to him? :p

Later, we'll be having hotpot for dinner. Macam LNY, haha! 

So, what was Clan Sito up to after the Beijing holiday? We spent a lot of time at home studying!

But we did have some fun here and there..

Went to Legoland on Thursday, 18 December. We had wanted to go on Wednesday but since milk delivery is always on Wednesdays, we decided to prioritise milk and go the next day. But I forgot and had ordered frozen meat to be delivered on Thursday. So I changed the delivery to Wednesday. 

Then, I received news from my milk man that the current batch of milk had an expiry date within a week of delivery. So I decided to postpone delivery to wait for the new batch. To avoid confusing my meat seller, I didn't change the meat delivery date. And of all days, my period came on Thursday. Sian... Legoland is fine but the mall toilets aren't too conducive...

The lucky thing was the weather - it was lovely! Finally no rain in the afternoon!

But of course we didn't know ahead of time. It was near lunch time when we got there but we didn't eat at Nanyang cafe as usual as we were afraid it would rain the afternoon. So we made a snack stop at BIG supermarket instead. 

There were still highlights despite having been to Legoland n times. The build-and-race area has been refurnished with a new Ferrari, new tracks and a new virtual race using real Lego builds. Yu finally rode the VR roller coaster with the headset and it was great, he said. 

Kai piggybacked Yang when he said his leg hurt, awww...

Took little dragon with him

Hard to get in, hard to get out - we're old!

The virtual race with real builds

Then we went back to the malls near the checkpoint for lunch, massage and shopping :) This time, Sito managed to nail the time for grab rides so we avoided fare hikes to and from Legoland.

Early dinner at Meng Meng

Back home, chess is a key feature. Since after his exams, Kai has been going for chess tournaments in Bishan some Tuesdays, and attended a few other tournaments. Sometimes, he met a friend or two before that to play. Once, he went to a friend's place and his friend fried noodles for him! Wa, when can my kids cook for me....?!

Mother continued to cook for us though. Went over for dinner one day, and ate too much... Brought home 15 bah zangs and all were gone in three days, thanks to the kids fighting with me for them! But I'm also glad that they like this traditional food :)

Our year-end festivities started with a 2.5kg semi bone-in ham - real ham! Sito glazed it very well and it looked and tasted wonderful! So moist unlike the ham roll we had a couple of years back. But Kai didn't like it as there were fatty bits in the real deal *.* 

Simple Xmas eve dinner

Also took a chicken fricasse recipe and added pasta instead of reducing the sauce. There were also cabbage steak, grilled pineapple slices and sausages. Too much food :p The ham alone could feed us five times! Since then, I had used some ham to stirfry with taukwa and leeks - so good and all the kids liked it. Next week, I'll make fried rice with it...

For Christmas day, we ditched KFC for Jollibee coz Yang doesn't like the 11 secret herbs and spices... Sito made the trip to Vivocity to buy the fried chicken. They were still crispy when we opened them up! The fries were still yummy too. I think really, no more KFC Christmas for us....

Xmas day breakfast at the newly opened Yakun

What's with my hand...? :p

On Boxing Day, we went cycling! But first, breakfast at Macs at Metropolis. Filled them up with a big brunch, cycled the energy out of them, fed them a good lunner at Le Shrimp. Yu took some time to familiarise himself with cycling again before we cycled to the playground. They played mostly on the swings and the flying fox. I tried the flying fox too - so hard to get down when stuck in the middle!!!

Cycling and swimming were the only two exercises the kids had this term break. With Nintendo in the afternoon, none was keen to head to the playground! 

We had wanted to go to the Queenstown swimming pool but the opening had been delayed from this quarter to the next. So we went back to Delta - sheltered pool. I kena complaints coz I forgot their goggles. But by the time they got into the water, they forgot all about it - just splashed around. They also did some form of backstroke so no goggles needed.

So cold!

The Papa boat is still going strong

Come to think of it, that was also Sito's only exercise in December. He got Flu A from Beijing and was quite sick for a few days. Then rest.... until now.... Nvm, he's lean enough and no more IPPT!

Oh, this Christmas, we had a total of three logcakes! Bought two on 5 Dec :) when we went to Jurong East - we had planned to get the Ikea log cake but also saw some at Donki so we bought two :p The chocolate crunch logcake from Ikea was frozen anyway so it ended up being eaten the last. The Donki logcake was a refreshing yuzu flavour while the middle logcake was a black forest one from Prima Deli from our journey to the east.

Would have bought a fourth one after dinner at Le Shrim but it was going to rain and we had two brollies among five of us so we ran off. We were lucky the rain was light at the BV MRT junction and Sito went without a brolly. By the time we cut through the HDB estate to the last traffic light, it was pouring! Took two trips to bring everyone over and we stayed dry, phew!

And most recently, it was our 忘年会！Third time at Makan@Jen and it didn't disappoint. But it got more crowded every year! I was glad I hit the desserts early coz by the time Sito went for it, the logcakes were gone and we had to wait for the next batch...

One hiccup - I went with a weird tummy that I, um, didn't manage to clear in the day. After half a cup of milk coffee at the end of the meal, I started feeling bad. Laosai bad. The rest waited for me in the lobby area while I went in and out of the toilet. At one point, it felt like that Vivocity episode again! I was resting in the lobby, hoping for the pain to subside so that we could quickly grab a taxi home but nope, I suddenly had to vomit. 

I think it was the original tummy ache triggered by the milk coffee. It wasn't like I ate so much until I had to vomit - I already know I'm past the age to stuff myself. So I was very sad - the yummy coconut logcake, the lovely baked fish, the perfectly roasted broccoli, and I spent time and effort queueing for and shelling the jumbo river prawns! Actually I had only three of those prawns. The only upside was that the vomit was sweet, not bitter. Ok, tmi, haha!

Yang asked if I ate chilli, coz he knew chilli upsets my tummy. But these two days, he didn't tell me to skip my morning milk coffee...

Black and blue are the colours of the day

Looking at the skaters while waiting for the bus home

The term break this time felt longer, perhaps coz we left for Beijing right after school ended so the time in SG was more continuous. I would really miss waking up late! Not very late anyway.. Only once did the kids allow me to sleep until 830 am... Else one or two or three might be on our bed at 730 am, which is the earliest I allow them to disturb us...

So, now we're almost ready for the new school year - books mostly settled including wrapping the textbooks, just waiting for others to become available, shoes mostly done, including new shoes for LNY! 

Auntie wrapping books

I used to wrap my own books after seeing Mother do it but my kids aren't bothered... I insist on wrapping Kai and Yang's books but for Yu, well, no younger sibling to give his books to so what's the point?! I decided to ask him - he wanted his books wrapped. Ah well, I asked for it.

Happy new year to us all!

圣诞寻思/享受寂寞

最近因为友人发来一首歌，挖出了n 年前的一张专辑。是的，是CD！

第一首歌是《圣诞结》，没有错别字。重听一遍，我惊奇地发现感觉怎么跟当年一样，一样的寂寞，因为我现在并不寂寞。

那时的我二十多岁，大多存在于工作和住家两点一线之间，感觉生活没有目标。不是特别夜深人静的夜晚（家人还在看电视），我躺在黑暗的房间里听着床边播着的CD，黯然地寂寞着。

刚刚午餐后洗碗时，收音机传来这首歌。又是那种感觉。

想来，二十年前的我听着觉着寂寞，现在的我其实就是享受寂寞。又或许，我一直都是享受寂寞的。

（突然想起同位陈某人的另一首歌 - 《寂寞让你更快乐》。也在这张专辑里。）

所以我喜欢一个人，一个人看书，一个人逛街，甚至一个人旅行。一个人并不代表寂寞。一个人也是一种享受。

现在我是两个人，加小孩就多达五个了，享受寂寞的时间可能就只有在厨房的时候。菜板上的遐想 - 我写过的。所以这是深广篇吧？

来，把启发这篇文的歌贴在这里分享：

《圣诞结》

作词：何啟弘 

作曲：李峻一
编曲：陈明道
演唱：陈奕迅

我住的城巿从不下雪
记忆却堆满冷的感觉
思念的旺季霓虹扫过喧哗的街
把快乐赶得好远

落单的恋人最怕过节
只能独自庆祝尽量喝醉
我爱过的人没有一个留在身边
寂寞它陪我过夜

Merry Merry Christmas
Lonely Lonely Christmas
想祝福不知该给谁
爱被我们打了死结

Lonely Lonely Christmas
Merry Merry Christmas
写了卡片能寄给谁
心碎的像街上的纸屑

电话不接 不要被人 发现我整夜都关在房间
狂欢的笑声 听来像哀悼的音乐
眼眶的泪 温热冻结 望著电视里的无聊节目
瘫在沙发上 变成没知觉的植物

Journey to the east

Kai had his first standard chess tournament last Tuesday to Saturday. Sito brought him to Tampines on Tuesday and left him to Google Maps his way home. We forgot that Circle Line was undergoing works on weekend mornings so on Saturday, he had to take a shuttle bus from HV MRT to BV MRT to find his way to Tampines. Luckily he still made it in time!

U13 for National Age Group Championships

So I had to wake early every morning to prepare breakfast for him. Tuesday was easy as he bought extra kebabs on his way home from tuition on Monday night - I just heated one up for him and he had the last one when he came home starving before dinner time.

His first day ended really early as he killed his second opponent really quickly. But he had a really long second match on the second day - I was so worried he would be starving! But he couldn't stop giving Sito his match details so ate very slowly....

He has two schoolmates in the tournament so they had lunch together at the foodcourt at Our Tampines Hub. Sometimes he sent pictures of his food to us. Then one day he updated his OS and his WhatsApp got deleted. Then I found out this boy didn't know about SMS *.*

Vietnamese hat from his friend - so cool!

On Saturday, the rest of us joined him in Tampines. So far.... We changed at MacPherson where Yang and Yu said the Downtown Line TV screen at the platform brought back memories of them going home from school to BP, awww... Even now, they still talked about visiting our old house. Hello, someone else is staying there now...

Kai finished his last game before we got there so he stayed with a friend to analyse his game. Overall, he did pretty well, winning three games, drawing five and losing one. He found us outside the tournament room and we stayed there a bit as his brothers wanted to play chess with robots.

Yang played and lost

Yu thought very hard but still lost

We wanted to go to Fish and Co for lunch but there was a queue and we couldn't be bothered. The boys found seats at Macs so Macs it was!

Next was the library. It was huge! But the kids section was strangely deserted... I don't think the school holidays have such an impact on the library at Clementi or Bishan. So maybe the kids were all attracted to the kiddy playground at another level of the library. Coz my kids were attracted by it too but they couldn't go in without socks :p

Since we were so far east, we took a bus to Pasir Ris to visit the Carbon Gallery. It was a 30-min bus ride and we also spent 30min at the gallery as it was quite small... 

Hope the boys learnt something there!

By the time we stepped out, it was raining. So we decided to have a drink at the canteen - the compound was once a school and the canteen now caters to visitors and the neighbourhood. The rain had slowed to a drizzle when we left but we walked through HDB blocks until we had to cross a canal. That was when the rain turned slightly heavier again.. 

But this time, we had three umbrellas instead of the one in my bag, yeah! Kai had one in his tournament bag and Yang had his tuition bag too. So we managed to get through the canal where two herons perched, then Pasir Ris Town Park before reaching White Sands. The weather was a pity as we found a fishing pond in the park - the kids would have liked to go fishing! 

We took a walk through the food hall at the mall. My four boys had yakitori and we bought a 1kg log cake from Prima Deli! Then we survived the long train ride home... But we almost didn't survive the walk from HV MRT to home...

The wind became crazy just after we crossed the road. Even my hair got wet!! So all five of us got home half wet. I guess it's better than four half wet and one fully wet if we had only one umbrella for poor Sito to ferry us across in turn!

It's been raining these days. So cold as I type... Hope the weather changes soon so we can go out more..

Congrats to all my boys!

Update 26 December

Guess what, Yang got the Good Progress Award! We're so happy for him! He's very happy too!

Now I look at the dates:

• Kai's letter was dated 28 November; we received 9 December
• Yu's dated 4 December; we retrieved 11 December; Na received her son's on 9 December
• Yang's dated 5 December; we retrieved 26 December

Lesson? Study hard, and open the letterbox more often than every two weeks!

*** *** ***

Original post, unedited:

Since we moved to HV, Yang and Yu open the letterbox every Friday on their way home, as we have changed the lock to a digital one - easy and fun to do. So during holidays, we tend to forget to check our letterbox :p

But Sito was browsing Xiaohongshu and saw parents humblebragging talking about their kids' Edusave awards and so he opened the letterbox on Tuesday on his way home from sending Kai to the National Age Group Chess Championship.

Surprise! Kai has received an Edusave Scholarship for being in the top 10%! 🥳 Ok, maybe not totally unexpected as he studied hard on his own and did well in his WAs and exams. 

Since he was busy with chess, we didn't tell him the good news until he came home. After reading the letter, he swept his hair up from his forehead and went, "I'm so smart!"

Hahaha! This boy can be so full of himself that it's funny! 

But later, we realised he thought this was among the whole of Singapore. Eh hello, your school la. Then he wasn't as pleased; he has this 情节 about his school... Maybe coz he thought he didn't make it to ACS (Ind)... And so we had to do some education....

Yes, he went to ACS (Br) via affiliation route with his PSLE score of AL15. We know at least for his batch that the school didn't hit the 80% cap for affiliated kids, which means that more than 20% - just not sure how much more - of his peers entered the school at PSLE score of max AL10. 

He has beaten more than half of these max AL10 kids to get his top 10%. And that is something to be proud of, especially since he did it all on his own - he finished his homework on time; he studied hard for WAs and exams; he dutifully went for English tuition and did the extra bits at home; he let me go through his Chinese textbook with him. 

All these he did with little reminders from us, though the Chinese he did somewhat grudgingly and so that he wouldn't need to go for tuition. He came to us only in areas he wasn't sure about or good at (like factorisation at first) and to ask Papa to test him, coz we didn't get any papers for secondary school.

So Kai was settled.

Yang and Yu were both there when Sito and I opened Kai's letter. Yang lamented that he had never had an award :( Yu was quite confident he would get it again - so yaya *.* Then later that afternoon, Na told me she got the letter for her son who's the same age as Yu. Indeed, Sito opened the letterbox again today on his way home from getting lunch and there it was, Yu's letter.

Yu was pleased but was a bit sian he wouldn't know whether he was in the top 10% like GeGe. But same boy also told me last night that he didn't think he would do as well as GeGe coz he wouldn't study on his own like him *.*

Anyway, my initial happy thoughts for Yu very quickly became sad thoughts for Yang. I was hoping he could get the Good Progress Award, like Kai did at this level, as he had improved from P4. But alas, that was not to be...

So we told him that we would give him something to reward him for his improvement. Actually, Yang is the one who had put in the most effort this year. Unlike Kai who was left alone to manage his own studies, Yang was given lots of work and personalised supervision from both Sito and me. Unlike Yu who resists work, Yang even asked for more work in synthesis and transformation which he was weak in, and he really improved after working through loads of exercises!

In the end, MOE awards are just one part of the ecosystem of recognition for students. If the kid has improved or has simply put in his best, parents could and should recognise it too. 

So yes, we'll congratulate all three of them for their efforts and achievements! We'll think of something for Yang by the time of the award ceremony early next year... 

Brave man, woman and boys

COVID upended all our travel plans. We went to Taiwan before Kai entered P1. We had wanted to go to Japan before Yang entered P1 but nope.

When travel resumed, we had originally planned to take long and/or faraway trips only in PSLE years, and go to our all-time fave Legoland in between. So it was Japan last year after Kai's PSLE, and we were supposed to go to China after Yang's PSLE next year. But things changed. So I shan't even bother talking about post-Yu's PSLE trip now...

Earlier this year, we were doing some rough planning for the 2026 trip to China. It would include Beijing as we think it's a must to go to the Great Wall, and Guangzhou to visit Sito's ancestral home. But such a trip involved quite a lot of travelling as those two cities aren't exactly near! We also had to coordinate with the grands for the Guangzhou part. In the end, we decided to go to Beijing this year and Guangzhou next year.

So some time in June or so, we started planning for Beijing. And just as well coz no more overnight trips to Legoland now. Now we've gone and come back! Here are our adventures and some tips for a holiday in China...

Sunday, 23 November

Travel day

I don't like morning flights but we always go for the cheapest combination, factoring in hotel stay. But we got Macs breakfast to compensate for the early start - so I finally got to try their bagel! I missed it last time due to an ulcer...

Just to show his sweater - AhMa bought for Kai some years back but it was never worn until now!

And Yu was wearing Yang's from last year; Kai could still wear his

I sat between these two while Sito and Kai were in front of us. Yang and Yu asked for their own drinks since they were both in aisle seats. I just minded my own business :) Managed to watch MI: Final Reckoning with multiple pauses coz Yu kept saying he didn't know what to watch...

The flight was delayed for over an hour so the kids watched a lot of movies. We arrived a bit later than expected but immigration and the meet-and-greet were smooth. We did the immigration thingy online but the QR codes weren't used; just used passport. 

When we came out of the airport, gosh, it smelled like London! Must be the traffic... The journey to town also reminded me of the UK... Must be the wintry weather...

The driver dropped us at the roadside as our hotel was on 前门大街 which is pedestrians only. But it was a short walk and it was a warm evening. Turned out it was the only warm evening...

Our two rooms were next to each other so it was convenient for us to visit and do admin like packing... They were nice and roomy enough, with ample wardrobe space unlike Japan! Later, we were to discover big fluffy bath towels :) and smokey corridors :( coz our rooms were near the hotel lobby toilets and a courtyard and it seemed like people were smoking there, disgusting...

Walked to dinner at 阿文汤包 where we had XLB (and a big one) and dry noodles. Dessert was 冰糖葫芦 but strawberry version; kids didn't know about hawthorns! Walked to the other end of 前门大街 and found ourselves facing 正阳门；天安门广场 is right on the other side. Our location is fantastic :)

Need a straw to drink from the 蟹黄汤包 before eating it! 

Pose with the statue of a 冰糖葫芦 seller after sharing one stick

After this, the kids had their own stick each. Think we had these three more times during the trip... Too much sugar *.*

正阳桥 behind us, and 正阳门 in the background

This was as near as we could go due to barriers

Happy to take a photo in front of our hotel - so 古色古香 :)

The adults can use Alipay to pay for transport but the kids need 一卡通 aka Ezlink cards. We couldn't get the cards at 前门 station near 正阳桥 and Yu had to poop so Sito went to 珠市口 station at the other end of the avenue by himself to get the cards. And it was lucky we had cash as he couldn't use Alipay for this transaction! Oh, he came back with 烤鸭煎饼 for supper :)

Standard every night

Kai was kind of upset that he wasn't in the same room as his brothers. But I don't think we should let these three sleep together. They may not sleep *.* They may kick each other in the middle of the night *.* They may fight for space and end up really fighting *.*

Not paranoid ok... I slept between Yang and Yu on the first night. I could hardly wiggle my way out of the blanket to get tissue for my nose in the middle of the night. Almost cramped. So I took the side spot for the other nights, and the two boys took turns to take the middle spot. I still didn't sleep well - Yang swung his arms about (my face) while Yu was a random hugger *.*

Sito didn't get it easy with just Kai with him in the king bed too. I totally get it coz I have seen Kai sleeping, haha! So I guess we need more beds for future trips as they would be bigger too...

Monday, 24 November

Great Wall of China

We booked our tickets for 八达岭 and for the cable car on Trip.com, and the high-speed train on the 12306 app. Both were amazing, as you would see...

Woke early to take the subway to 清河站 to get to the railway station of the same name to take the 高铁 to 八达岭长城，which is different from 八达岭 station. But the crowds made sure no one got it wrong! Though it was supposed to be off peak season...

This is inside our hotel - they hold free activities for guests but we didn't go for any

We made sure we arrived early for the train. There were a lot of gates to go through - from subway to railway station area, getting into the actual station, and the final ticketing. We weren't sure if we could find food as the area beyond the subway looked quite empty... But the guard at the second gate told us there was food so we went in an hour early.

Breakfast at KFC - but we just missed their breakfast hours which ended at 9.30 am!

Everything was very smooth. Ticketing was done by scanning our passports as we booked the tickets with our passport details. The train reminded me of TGV... It was punctual and super steady considering we were going at up to 195kmh!

The ride took less than 30 min, but the journey to ground level was looong. No wonder ticketing ends 12min before train departure time from 八达岭！

When we arrived, we found that the cable car to the north was not operating due to strong winds. We didn't want to take the ground cable car to the south and so we decided we would walk like Sito did when he first went there as a child!

So what did we do with our tickets? Refund them of course! There's an option for "attraction is closed" under reason for cancellation in Trip.com, so convenient. The full refund in SGD - i.e. didn't suffer exchange rate differences - came back within a couple of days.

Along the food street towards the entrance

Getting in was easy too, just scan the QR code given by Trip.com at the ticketing gates. Could have just used the app but I printed out everything coz I kiasi in case signal was bad..

Here we are!

But the climbing was tough work... For me. The kids were complaining a bit - so far, so long, where are we heading etc. But they climbed and climbed. Sito went ahead to watch over them. They stopped to wait for me here and there. I just took my time. So unfit...

He was slanting backwards a lot but didn't fall due to the steep slope

Eventually, we go to the base of the north 4th tower, and turn sideways towards the 好汉石 where a queue formed to take photos at the stone. We took some ourselves and also paid ¥100 for two photos of the whole family, one of which was a certificate to say we were there! 

Placeholder for the photo - need to do a proper scan as my phone didn't capture a good one...

That's the north 4th tower behind us - we stayed below, too lazy, haha!

And then we turned back down. We decided that it was too windy and tiring to continue to the 英雄碑 - the kids can decide whether they want to be heroes when they're grown!

It was a challenge going down as well as some parts were quite steep. The wind was so strong that - ok this is quite gross - whatever drip coming out of my nose got blown off before I could dab with tissue!

不到长城非好汉

Yang took this for us :)

The queue for these pictures was messier. Maybe coz there was no professional photographer there or it was a more open space. Some people just went to stand right in front of the stone as if the long line wasn't there *.*

Curry rice at 永和大王；Kai wondering when his will arrive...

Yes, they all had the same thing, and only Kai managed to finish his. Quite big! And Yang found it a bit too spicy. Sito and I had beef brisket noodles.

We finished earlier than expected so Sito tried to change our train tickets. It took only a few clicks and we were set to return an hour earlier than planned! We were lucky this was off peak so there were adjacent seats available. Can use this app for all train tickets throughout China 👍

Maybe we can return to the Great Wall another time, in another season, and explore perhaps another section. It's quite am amazing sight to behold but it was too cold to appreciate it. 

In other news, the other Great Wall wasn’t difficult to deal with. Search for anything in WeChat and pay for everything with Alipay (below ¥200) or Changi Pay (above ¥200). Our eSIM worked very well so we also had access to WhatsApp etc.

Rested a bit in the hotel before heading out for dinner. Got a queue ticket for 四季民福 for the wait was too long. The staff told us another outlet nearby probably had no queue so we headed there. It was just a short walk away in 大栅栏 and really, no queue! 

We finished everything! 

They served complimentary oranges and appetisers. Yang and Yu enjoyed the oranges a little too much, haha! Had to stop them in case they couldn't eat proper food. 

We ordered a whole duck with condiments like pancakes and vege/sauces, one squirrel fish, fried meatballs and two lion head meatballs. A chef carved the duck right outside our room so we missed seeing it; thought they would come in but I guess the trolley was a bit big... The waitress then came in to demonstrate two ways of wrapping the duck in pancakes, and gave us an extra plate of vege/sauces.

Could hear the crackling as he cut - the fish was kept warm throughout

It looked like a lot of food but we finished it all, surprisingly! Yang and Yu even had more oranges at the end...

By the end of dinner, my nose was getting quite bad. Sito grabbed a cold grape drink from Hey Tea while I grabbed a hot 冰糖烤梨 - both were so good... Thankfully, my nose was quite ok after one night...

I had a mask on half the time this day, mostly for the cold. But from Tuesday, I found that I could take the cold quite well, unlike in Osaka, and so stopped wearing the mask. The air quality was also fine after the initial London smell. Even Kai who was all paranoid about dirty air as we left the airport stopped mentioning it once we were in town. Indeed, the black booger from my London trips never reared its ugly head throughout the trip...

Tuesday, 25 November

天安门 etc

So I wrote a note in our planning to get tickets for 天安门 and 故宫 seven days before our visit, at 8pm when sales opened. No issue with 故宫 - just use the official website. But we hit a bump with 天安门 tickets - I realised that we couldn't use SG phone number to book tickets! 

In the end, we paid an agent to book those free tickets using GetYourGuide, and thankfully the chap did it very quickly, phew! Actually, if I had tested out the official website earlier, I would have paid an agent way earlier for peace of mind... 

There wasn't anything for Chairman Mao Memorial Hall on GYG or anywhere else though - kids had wanted to go after watching one too many episodes of Mind Your Language *.* But on this day, Sito found that he could book tickets using his SG number in WeChat, and there were still tickets available for the next two days! Perhaps the restriction was for overseas users? Anyway, we decided not to add another visit...

Our tickets were for morning entry so we set off by 8am. First stop - breakfast! We had 门钉肉饼，豆汁焦圈，锅贴 and 馄饨汤。We all liked the food though Yang found the 馄饨 a bit spicy.

Statues along the way - I was ill...

This one chao keng for MC only, haha!

Serve me!

Big shoe to fill!

Discussing the 馄饨；the 焦圈 were like youtiao

Happy with his 锅贴

Our tickets were for entry at Tiananmen West Red Wall Security Checkpoint. Took a short train ride and a short walk to get there. While the guards were checking our passports and asking if we had reservations, a woman walked past us into the compound. Another guard asked his colleague whether she had been checked. No, and so they ran after her! While queueing for ticketing and security clearance further down, we saw the woman being led out of the compound; she didn't come back in. Mini adventure?!

And now the kids know how Chairman Mao looks like!

At one of the gates leading to the Forbidden City - these are the door nails that give 门钉肉饼 its name!

From 太和门，we took a longish walk to 太和殿 Hall of Supreme Harmony to see the throne, passed by the smallish 中和殿 Hall of Central Harmony aka the emperor's transit lounge, passed by 保和殿 Hall of Preserving Harmony for banquets and later exams, and eventually entered 斋宫 Hall of Abstinence which was a jade gallery. 

Our boys with a male lion - notice the ball at his right foot

Mama with a female lion - notice the baby at her left foot!

The whole place is very, very big...

What a lovely smile! With Chinese chess and backgammon pieces

Now pondering over a go board

Sito still remembers this 九龙壁 from his last trip!

We spent quite a bit of time getting lost in 寿宁宫 Palace of Tranquil Longevity which is a treasure gallery. We visited the gold and silver room - so crowded! The kids found a few fave pieces so must take photos :p Missed out on the jewellery room coz we couldn't find it after exiting the gold room... But stumbled into a room with big rocks with poems carved onto them.

Wandered into a stone forest on our way to 坤宁宫 Palace of Earthly Tranquility to find the restaurant but it was so crowded - it was lunch time - that it reminded me of our lunch wait at USJ. Nope. Just bought a pack of honey cakes from a hole in the wall nearby to eat in the 御花园 Imperial Garden. But this is no season for blooms.. Just botak trees and plenty of people!

Yang's fave - can drink (100 cups of) Milo with it!

Yu's coz it's so shiny

The kind of high-walled alley for ambushes in period dramas, haha!

Exited via 神武门

I had wanted to go to 景山公园 but when I saw the potential climb opposite 神武门 as we exited the palace, I gave up :p There was no straightforward public transport to the 王府井 area so we decided to walk. It was quite a walk but we saw a lot of 格格s waiting to cross a junction, haha! 

Actually we saw many princesses in the palace, posing and/or live-streaming but to see a horde of them outside the backdrop of the palace was really quite amusing!

I also want to dress up as a princess but in another season. I want to return as we didn't see a lot of the palace. Too cold. Kids. Time/hunger. And I'll be a princess with my prince escort by my side haha! Not empress ok, coz emperor too many concubines!

Just a stone's throw away from the exit - so peaceful looking

Us :)

We spent some time in Beijing APM, a shopping mall. I had my one and only Luckin coffee on the trip - latte with red bean foam! Yummy :) But I scanned to order with my phone scanner and wasn't successful so didn't get a good discount. Sito said I should have scanned using Alipay (or whatever app named near the QR code) - next time!

Kai and Yang had ice cream from this place called Coco, next to Luckin. And Sito had a grape drink again. Yu declined... Maybe he had one too many honey cake :p

My boys :) Yu held on to my specs which I dropped

We spent a bit of time at the bookshop next to the photo above. Kids were browsing Demon Slayer comics - never mind that they were in Chinese coz they just looked at the pictures *.* Ushered them off to Xiaomi store where the kids played on the displayed phones happily while the parents looked at other Xiaomi gadgets. I so wanted to get a smoothie blender but it had a lithium battery (cannot check in) and blades (cannot hand carry) *.*

Also checked out two local brands of shoes. The only pair of 100% white shoes did not have Kai's size - US10. So we missed out the chance to try out China brand. Maybe later when we're more sure about shoe requirements for school...

Dinner was Big Pizza, a buffet at 王府井大街喜悦中心 which was a short walk away. The kids - and Sito - loved it! I liked it too but it was certainly not my top fave of the trip haha!

Then we headed to a huge bookstore. The kids didn't want to get any books but I got two :) With that, we headed back to the hotel, getting some 奶酪 near our place. My legs were jelly already. Sito went out to get a drink for me - some apple orange tea which was hot and I accidentally scalded my tongue, sighs...

Spot my durian pizza!

They were apparently famous for their lychee pizza but I didn't like it. But the 杨枝甘露 over mango ice cream was fantastic... They also had various Chinese food so it's not all pizza.

Anyway, it was a very tiring day. I think Yang gave me a little shoulder massage :)

Wednesday, 26 November

Universal Studios Beijing

The morning didn't start too well. We ordered XLB for breakfast at 馄饨侯 only to find that the XLB were not the XLB we know - they were more like meat buns, bigger than our usual XLB but smaller than a regular meat bun. 

Needless to say, the kids didn't like it. Yu had one and swopped his plate for Papa's 馄饨 while Yang couldn't finish his one XLB. Kai didn't like it but seeing 15 such buns, he had his share - good for him! I had a meat bun and a few XLB to share the load, burp!

Yes, those were XLB!

But this was a happy day otherwise - we had great fun at USB! The crowds were a lot more manageable than in USJ. Sito also had our route all planned out, and indeed, we managed to take all the rides we wanted without paying extra for express passes or having to wait too long for rides :)

Oh, another hiccup. No selfie stick allowed! We were at the security checkpoint for the City Walk area and I had to go back out to the lockers outside the train station to keep our selfie stick. For a moment I wondered if it was worth ¥20 but in the end, I kept it.

Ticketing further in was easy - just use passport even though the Klook voucher mentioned exchanging for tickets using the voucher and our passports.

Anyway, first, we went to Jurassic World Adventure where we took a ride through Isla Nublar and encountered Owen and friends - human and dino - which was very fun and exciting! Helped that we watched the movies on TV some time this year so we knew the scenes from the movies.

Then we went to Three Broomsticks for an early lunch. So happy that we got seats so easily as we didn't manage to get in last year in USJ. But I must say that after the novelty of USJ, the Harry Potter world didn't feel as magical this time... It was still enjoyable nonetheless! There were new things like the wand show where Ollivander chose a guest to select a wand. I should have pointed to Yang as he's 11 this year!

Next was the Forbidden Journey ride. I wanted to puke again *.* "But you said you wouldn't puke!" said Yu. Oh well... We brought our wand from USJ and went around casting spells. There was the ascendio charm which wasn't in USJ. Generally, Yang was the best wizard of the lot :)

Waiting for our food at Three Broomsticks

Look at the decor behind us!

Food was quite good! The corn looked unreal but it was, haha! Chinese BBQ seasoning 👍

Backyard of Three Broomsticks

Then we headed back to take the Jurassic Flyers - easy ride, thank goodness. Next was the Battle for the AllSpark at Transformers Metrobase - fun ride! But want to puke haha! Time to sit for a while so we watched Untrainable - it was an all-out musical! Since we were in Hollywood, we went for Lights Camera Action! too. Very cool to see the sound stage. 

From there, we split into two groups - Sito brought the older two to take Decepticoaster while I took Yu to Minion Land. The Despicable Me Minion Mayhem queue was too long and there were no churros in USB! So I got him a 小黄人冰淇淋 which he slurped up in the cold.

There was a parade starting but he wasn't interested so we went into the Super Silly Fun Land to take baby rides. We took the Super Swirly (like aeroplane in Legoland) before the Loop-Dee Doo-Dee rollercoaster. That was when the rest joined us.

Not cold meh?!

They very brave...

We went back to Harry Potter World to catch the Triwizard Spirit Rally show. Could hardly understood the narrator's Mandarin... We realised that the angmohs in USB didn't speak good Mandarin whereas the angmohs in USJ spoke good Japanese, hmmm...

Since we were there, we bought the wizard chess set that we saw earlier after our ride. Kai is the main kid saying he wanted it though he was hesitant as it was expensive. But it was a worthwhile buy since the kids could play with big pieces together - fun and somemore, our bigger chess set has missing pieces!

Hungry again so we went to Kung Fu Panda Land of Awesomeness, yeah! Had wanton noodles, zhajiangmian and beef noodles at Mr Ping's Noodle House. When we came out, the kids wanted to try hanging off a bar. You get different prizes depending on whether you reach 40 sec, 70 sec or 90 sec. The catch? ¥40 per try.

In the end, all three went for it. Kai managed to hang on for 43 sec. Yang for 13 sec and Yu 10 sec. Kai got a wrist band. Oh well!

After the Journey of the Dragon Warrior which was a boat ride with a little splash, we split again. Sito took the Decepticoaster with Kai and Yang while Yu and I stayed on for the Carousel of Kung Fu Heroes and Lanterns of Legendary Legends (with a different story each ride!). Then we meet up at the Fun Land in Minion Land.

Hot food!

Like in the cartoon

Fiddling with Po before their turn to hang on the bar

Carousel is always nice :)

Well, he has been described as porkish...

He decided on this cute pose!

The boys decided to queue 30min for Minion Mayhem. It was a little different from the USJ version - all cars are open in a theatre with a big screen. Kids said they preferred the USJ version. But hey, we could understand this! Haha!

Actually, the kids kept saying they didn't understand anything *.* Hello, Mandarin! But in the Minion queue, they mentioned something which showed that they understood at least some la... 

Sad face coz somehow the bag broke :(

Theatre style seating

So that was it. We took a photo against the big Xmas trees, played with some artificial snow and left. As we had a late lunch, we made the hour-long journey back to our hotel area for dinner. 

Early Xmas for us! 

Happy with snow from the roof

Dinner comprised 门钉肉饼 and 鸡肉馄饨 which were easy for all of us tired bodies. Sito also ordered this 乾隆菜 which was fantastic! After sending us back, Sito went out to pack some 驴打滚 and two types of pear juice - one with 枇杷 from a big container and the one I had on day 2. I didn't realise 驴打滚 was a mochi dessert! Some flavours nicer than others. Both the pear drinks were good.

We had a lot of mochi that night!

Thursday, 27 November

City walk

The day started with a massage from Yang and Yu :) They woke too early, sighs.. So they offered to massage me to make me feel better. Sure, haha!

It got even better when we went for breakfast - KFC breakfast finally! The kids had panini sandwiches, Sito had porridge and I had thick toast. We chose a mix of youtiao and hashbrown for sides. Sito ordered a corn juice/soup thingy and four soy milk. In the end, he had most of the soy milk coz Yang and Yu were not keen.

Breakfast ended with a real-life Charmmy Kitty entering the restaurant and refusing to leave! Very lovely stray cat. Yu was all "fluffy and cute" over it without touching it.

Happy all round!

Our first stop was 雍和宫 Lama Temple. Adults get a complimentary bunch of incense sticks. But the sign said to light up three. I had to google to find out that there were 12 halls to pray at! But we didn't go to every hall. Only prayed at the three main halls in the middle and left the remaining incense on the lighting table.

There were three 法物流通处 aka shops selling all sorts of accessories and decor related to praying. I had wanted to get a bracelet and bring to a hall inside to 开光 aka to be blessed. But I didn't see anything I liked. 没有眼缘就不买了 :(

Kids prayed too!

孔庙 Confucius Temple and 国子监 Imperial College were a short walk away. One ticket got us entry to both. We spent an unexpectedly long time in the temple as the gallery showcasing Confucius's life had a lot of info. Asked the kids to read too. 

Along the way, I found that Yu was near me all the time - reading! English of course but he was reading everything. While the other two were bouncing about, they also read when I asked them about a couple of things. They also shared with the grands later.

I learnt about his 大同 ideology and 为政以德 coz 苛政猛于虎！Leave these here to remind me to go read more about them. There was only a brief mention of the 六艺 but I had read a lot about them at the Confucius Temple in Taipei last year. 

May these boys 克服万难 in their learning journeys!

The reading boy - like 一粒，so cute :)

Entering 国子监

Nice surroundings to study in

I guess it was just a school so nothing much to see. The main gallery was closed for maintenance so nothing to read too. So we didi-ed to lunch! And 馅老满 did not disappoint - we ordered 30 dumplings, four meat pancakes, a meatball vege stew dish and zhajiangmian. All were so good! It was not in a touristy place so the prices were good too. But we couldn't finish two meat pancakes so we packed them back.

It was a huge bowl of noodles with toppings given separately

Yang showed me the big prawn in his dumpling

Rejuvenated after lunch, we walked to 钟楼 and 鼓楼 but we were too tired from the past few days to climb anything! We just went to look see and continued walking to 南锣鼓巷。Along the way, we bought more candied fruits for the kids, and osmanthus cake for me. Think the fruits were yummier haha! Also bought cakes and drinks etc.

We also didn't really check out the 胡同s much coz we were soooo tired! And Yang said he wanted to go back to the "entertaining district" aka our hotel area for shopping. So we took a walk through 南锣鼓巷 to take the subway back.

But in the end, we also didn't shop much haha! Just walked the food street and went back to the hotel to rest. Think two kids needed to poop :p

Sweets!

Very pretty cakes here!

The boys found some naked ducks :p

After resting our feet a bit, we ditched the kids to their own devices and left to do our own shopping :) Got some 奏折 type of booklets and stamped pictures of various Beijing sights in one of them. Sito recommended 人民咖啡馆 with nice cocoa print on the foam; it was good and I didn't lose sleep over my cappuccino. 

大栅栏 had more food and shopping than the food street. Spent some time in there but didn't get any souvenirs. But packed sausages and 煎饼果子 (果子 means youtiao in Tianjin) from there, and went to the main street to get siew mai, 京酱肉丝 and three Mixue sundaes.

My lovely coffee

It was an amazingly big 煎饼 with lots of fillings!

Date night :)

Happy with their sausages

A different type of siew mei

In the end, we couldn't finish our food! Really sad... But even sadder was that Sito developed a fever :( Luckily, we had medicine and a thermometer. He went to bed early after some medicine. The kids were also sad to hear that Papa had taken ill. 

Friday, 28 November

Science centre

I did not sleep well. Yang bullied me! I was squeezed all the way to the edge. He said Yu was squeezing him so he had to shift. But Yang also whacked my face *.*

Good thing was that Sito was better, no fever :)

Today, we had a local breakfast again, this time at 护国寺小吃 near the subway. More 门钉肉饼 and some 松肉 beef sticks for the kids. Sito had salty beancurd finally and 糖油饼 a sweet pancake which I liked too but I was struggling with my huge potato 卷饼！

The main attraction today was 中国科学技术馆 China Science and Technology Museum. We took a taxi from the nearest subway instead of walking 10min :p It's not faster by taxi if we had taken it directly from our place anyway.

There were a lot of school groups so we had to jostle a bit here and there. But we had great fun across the four levels - ancient inventions, maths and science, AI and space/sea. I was rather taken with the astronomy tools on the first floor. Finally seeing them in real life outside of period dramas, haha! And it's quite amazing how we got from those unwieldy tools to exploring space! Kids were more taken with the hands-on stuff, especially the space rides. 

As expected, we spent a lot of time there. Took breaks along the way to buy drinks until we found a water dispenser. Left when the kids were hungry but food was not to be for another hour coz of the travel back to town. Think we eventually ate at 5 pm?! Some dumplings and tomato stew with rice at 王府井 coz we went there to refund the kids' travel cards - just bought single trip tickets for our last trip back to hotel. So much complaints over dinner *.* Not that it was not nice; it just wasn't KFC or Macs!

Their fascination - a student said 被摸到发光了！

Testing their massage skills - 高级 for Kai and Yang, 初级 for Yu

Very cool vending machines - makes me that Japan's hordes of vending machines are obsolete

Voice-controlled tetris - not easy!

Sito has the most beautiful smile!

Space walk mission

Moon mission

Full rotation experience - Yu wasn't tall enough for any rides! :(

I forgot the name of this thing...

Time to go back to the hotel... But first, Mixue again! It was cold but they enjoyed their ice cream all the way to the souvenir shop. Let the boys roam the shop to choose something for themselves. I saw some cream suitable for both face and body and bought a small bag of it - love all the scents! 

Sito saw some beads and picked out our names :) In the end, we all gathered to find all the characters to form our names. Then the staff strung them up for us. Now we have a family bracelet! Kai chose three 状元笔 while the brothers got some random motorbike toys *.* 

Then we went back to the hotel to collect our suitcases as we had checked out that morning. Packed our stuff probably and waited for our car. Again a short walk to the road. And then we were at the airport. Still early for our check-in counters but just as well coz a long queue started forming behind us!

Anyway, we had Macs. Or rather, they all had Macs. I tried Sito's burger with a sausage in the middle but I really wanted some bubble tea... Unfortunately there were only Starbucks inside... Oh well!

Saturday, 29 November and later...

Home

Our red-eye flight was delayed... But by the time the crew served supper, we were still full. Yang had his eye on the movies but ate some of his food. Yu didn't want his food so I started eating his noodles. Then his eyes got greedy and took over the noodles haha! In the end, I couldn't stomach more anyway so I didn't get my own tray. I looked forward to breakfast instead :p

But Yakun at Jewel had a queue of 50?! We gave up and cabbed home. Sito packed some beehoon for brunch. We let the kids play Nintendo whole day as we also had to unpack and rest. They didn't sleep much on the plane so we were waiting to see if they got tired... Yu had a difficult time sleeping on the place - was whining in his sleep and later the air pressure during descending got to him. 

Our loot

So happy with the chess set; first game with Yu

Anyway, by the afternoon, Kai had fallen asleep in his sofa and later moved to his bed. We were all not too hungry so I prepared some eggs and prata (I think?!) for Yang and Yu but found Yang asleep on the floor when I was done! Kai woke later and had the hotdog bun that Sito bought back. Ushered them all to bed at 7 pm and we slept early too.

It was a good trip as we checked off so many attractions and food. But towards the end, we were also so glad to come home as this trip was shorter than our Japan trip but felt so much more tiring! Maybe it was colder and much drier. Sito even came down with Influenza A - tested positive at the clinic on Monday and he's still taking meds today. Poor guy. We were too tired to even watch drama at night for the first three days after coming home! Just glad the kids were all ok.

We'd also had enough of all the cigarette smoke. I don't remember encountering so many smokers when we went to Shanghai 20y ago! There were people smoking while walking, standing by the side to smoke, and standing in front of shops to smoke - often while the wife or girlfriend was inside the shop!

Ok, consolidation of tips:

1. Get eSIM - plenty of sellers online - to continue to have access to the outside world while in China
2. Use WeChat to do research in Chinese if possible - way more details than in Google world
3. Plan for hot tickets early. Test buy. If the website needs a local PRC number, look for options earlier
4. Use 12306 app for rail tickets
5. Use Alipay or Apple Pay for subway, or get their Yikatong if you travel often; else single trip tickets are convenient enough to buy without the hassle of returning the cards. There's no child price and no difference between stored value cards and single trip tickets. Or just didi
6. Have some cash on hand even though everything can be cashless as we had encountered situations where QR payments didn't work
7. Finally, be ready for zero social distancing...

Perhaps it was the capital with many domestic tourists from far flung places so not everyone was from cities. A lot of people stood too close, cut queue and/or jostling hard etc, and one funny guy struck a big drum at the Confucius Temple when there was a sign prohibiting it, leading to the security guard running over to tell him off. A woman nearby said 没文化，没办法！😂 We had one nice encounter at the science centre though - a tween asked me if I was in the queue and told her mum to queue up when I said I was. 

Oh btw, there are plenty of public toilets in Beijing and quite well maintained. I didn't see - or smell - the nightmare that visitors described back in the 1980s! The only downside is that you're supposed to throw used toilet paper in a waste basket due to old sewage systems... 

So that marks the end of our Beijing trip! Our next long trip will be China too. Gotta start planning already :)