Visit to Ang Mo Kio Fire Station

DS' school organized a visit to the Ang Mo Kio Fire Station last weekend. DD and I tagged along. :) In Singapore, fire stations have a structured programme for groups of 10 or more people wanting to visit the fire station. It's free of charge, but an advanced booking two weeks prior to the scheduled visit is required. For groups of less than 10 persons, all fire stations except Jurong Island Fire Station have open houses every Saturday morning from 9am to 11am. During the open house, walk-in visitors are welcome with no registration required.

DS got to wear a real fireman jacket and helmet! These thick and heavy fire-resistant jackets protect the brave firemen when the fire is too close to them. However, as the jackets are not fireproof, the firemen have to spray water around themselves while walking through or near fire to prevent getting burnt.


DS got to sit in the driver's seat and pretended to drive the fire-engine!


DS also got to sit on a Fire Bike with his teacher, Ms Ida! The Fire Bike can quickly respond to small fires and is equipped with an Impulse Water Canon. An Impulse Water Canon is a hand-held fire-fighting equipment that can fire out small amounts of water at high velocity to put out small fires.


Here's a real fireman, all decked out in his full gear - helmet, fullface mask, BA (Breathing Apparatus, a cylinder which provides breathable air), fire-resistant jacket, pants and boots.


DS posing beside the Red Rhino, an all-terrain vehicle. The Red Rhino, also known as the Light Fire Attack Vehicle, is unique to Singapore and found nowhere else in the world! It is able to travel off roads and also maneuver within small spaces such as HDB* carparks and HDB void** decks! What a brilliant idea, proudly designed and conceptualised in Singapore, and even built by a local company, ComfortDelGro!


And finally, DS posing in front of a fire engine. We thoroughly enjoyed the trip to the fire station and the firemen were happy to answer any questions that the kids (and adults!) had. The firemen even demonstrated how they slid down the fireman's pole, "Singapore style". Apparently, the way our Singapore firemen slide down the firepole is somewhat different from how their American counterparts do it. I guess in many ways, we are really "uniquely Singapore"!


*HDB stands for Housing & Development Board, which is Singapore's public housing authority and in charge of all public housing in Singapore.
**Void decks are typically found under apartment blocks built by HDB. Void decks occupy the ground level and apartments usually start from the second level onwards.

NZ Vacation Day 4 - Fox Glacier (Part II)

After a satisfying lunch at Matheson Cafe (at Lake Matheson), with great views of Mt Cook and Mt Tasman, we headed off to do the Fox Glacier Valley Walk. We were supposed to be able to see the terminal face of the glacier after a 25-minute walk. Unfortunately for us, the walk was closed due to the bad weather.


In the picture below, the glacier can be seen (just beyond where the men were standing). You can also see the heavy fog blanketing the mountains that day.


The outflow from the glacier forms the Fox River in the picture below. Large blocks of ice can be seen in the river.

Since we couldn't do the walk, we spent quite a bit of time in the rain admiring the views in the area. The kids, warm and dry in their water-resistant winter jackets and water-proof rain pants, kept themselves entertained by searching for pieces of unique-looking rocks.


I guess we'll have to come back to Fox Glacier, since we weren't able to see what we wanted to see today - the terminal face of the glacier and also the "mirror" effect of Lake Matheson. Nevertheless, we had a lovely and relaxing day. We were going to end the day early in preparation for a long drive into Queenstown the next day.

NZ Vacation Day 4 - Fox Glacier (Part I)

We only spent one night in Hokitika as that was meant to break up our journey from Christchurch to Fox Glacier. Fox Glacier was an easy 160km from Hokitika and along the way, we stopped to see Lake Matheson, which was just 5 minutes' drive from Fox Glacier's town centre.

Lake Matheson is supposed to be a photographer's dream. The waters of Lake Matheson are dark brown in color, due to the natural leaching of organic matter from the surrounding forest floor. On a calm day, the dark-colored waters create an ideal reflective surface, much like a mirror. Reflections of New Zealand's highest peaks, Aoraki (Mount Cook) and Mount Tasman, can be seen in the waters.


Click on the picture of the map below to enlarge it. (This can be done for all the pictures on this blog too). We took a 10-minute brisk walk to Jetty Viewpoint for our first glimpse of Lake Matheson.


Here's my dad on the Clearwater River suspension bridge, which we had to cross while walking to Lake Matheson. The Clearwater River drains off the lake and the water is supposed to be brownish under the bridge but quickly becomes clear thereafter. We forgot to see if that was true as it was so windy and cold! We had just focussed on walking quickly to see Lake Matheson, worried that the kids might get too cold.


And finally, here we are at Jetty Viewpoint, to get our first view of Lake Matheson. And boy were we disappointed! There was nothing spectacular about the lake and no mirror image to speak of! Of course, that was because we were not there on a "calm" day. :( Instead, it was windy and raining, so the "mirror" effect was totally gone. You can see Lake Matheson behind us. (We quickly took this shot of ourselves instead of asking my dad to take a picture of us as we were worried the kids might fall into the water if they were unsupervised! The viewing platform was right by the water's edge!)


Lake Matheson once again, this time without us blocking the view. :P


But I know how beautiful Lake Matheson can be, from pictures seen on the internet and also from these picture-perfect shots taken by Uncle Soon Leng just a week before we visited Lake Matheson. Look at the mirror image of the trees and mountains on the surface of the water! It's too beautiful for words!


Another shot taken by Uncle Soon Leng. Thanks for letting me use your awesome pictures! :)

NZ Vacation Day 3 - Heading to Hokitika

We woke up feeling quite refreshed after a good (and much needed!) night's sleep, eager to start our drive cross-country towards Hokitika. The vehicle we rented was the largest (if you don't include mini-buses!) available from Hertz. It was a Toyota Prado, an 8-seater 4WD. Here's what our Prado looked like from the outside.

And here's what it looked like on the inside. We had DD and me on the 2nd row, and DS beside all the luggage in the 3rd row. As DD is still rear-facing in her car seat, all you can see of her is her leg sticking out.

We started off from Christchurch with the weather very nice, sunny and warm. Almost reaching 20 deg C, I think. But along the way, it started to rain heavily and the temperature dropped to the low teens. The men (DH and my dad) were pretty ill-prepared for this low temperature, wearing only their fleece jacket above a t-shirt or shirt. Hehe. They totally did not expect the change in weather given that Christchurch was warm and beautiful! The kids and I, on the other hand, were warm and toasty. :) The picture below shows the dark clouds above as we were driving along.

We finally found a nice restaurant where DH spent quite a while in front of the fireplace drying himself off. The men had earlier stopped for a pee break and had gotten quite damp running from the car to the toilet and back under the rain. The picture below shows the 4 of us in front of the fireplace, trying to get some warmth!

The kids, being very much into Power Rangers (for some reason, DS loves the show very much), started doing their so-called "Power Ranger poses". This picture below is blurred, but you can see DD doing some weird pose!

Another picture with silly Power Ranger poses!

We finally arrived at Annabelle Motel in Hokitika at 3.30pm, 5.5 hours after leaving Christchurch! The distance between Christchurch and Hokitika was only 250km, so we didn't expect to take so long. We had to slow down driving through Arthur's Pass (lots of winding roads up and down mountains), especially in the heavy rain. We should also have started our trip earlier in the morning, rather than at 10am. But I guess that could be forgiven since we were all so tired from the day before!

NZ Vacation Day 2 - Arrival in Christchurch

Our flight arrived in Christchurch just before 9am and we quickly dressed ourselves and the kids up in winter jackets as the temperature then was 14 deg C. Here's a picture of the kids soon after we stepped out from the aircraft. DD looked like she was still trying to get used to wearing a bulky piece of clothing!

We stayed at The Hereford (161 Hereford Street), which are serviced apartments right in the town centre. The Hereford was only opened sometime in the middle of last year, so everything there was pretty new!

The apartment was pretty chilly even though the temperature outside had already risen to 18 or 19 deg C by mid-day. I think it was because our body was not acclimatised to the cold yet, and also the lack of heating in the apartment itself. So we kept the kids (and ourselves!) nice and cosy in thick sweatshirts, like DD below.


After a quick nap, we ventured out for a late lunch and then collected our vehicle from the Hertz office nearby before having a light dinner and calling it a night. We had to wake up early the next morning to start our cross-country journey from Christchurch to Hokitika.

NZ Vacation Day 1 - We're Leaving On a Jet Plane!

I was hoping to be able to blog about our holiday as it happens, but due to unforeseen circumstances such as the totally crappy, non-free internet connection in New Zealand, I decided to blog only when we arrived back in Singapore. Internet connection in New Zealand's South Island, where we holidayed for 2.5 weeks, is very expensive (eg. NZD$15 for 24 hours with 500MB cap, or NZD$60 for a week with a data cap that we didn't even bother to find out), SLOW, and occasionally unreliable.

After weeks of preparation (lots of reading up about driving routes, what to do in the towns we'll be stopping at, places to eat, places to stay, making sure the kids have adequate and appropriate clothing to keep them nice and toasty, and preparing enough entertainment to keep them occupied), we were finally on our way! The kids were very excited, even Caelynn who probably cannot remember the last time she was on an aeroplane (when she was 14 months old, on our return trip from Taiwan).

So here we are at Changi Airport. We even had time to do some shopping because we managed to get to the airport on time! I would say, we were even early! Haha. In the picture below, the kids kept themselves occupied playing peek-a-boo on the stroller while DH and I were busy shopping for a nice camera case for our new camera.

I can never take enough pictures of the recycling "bins" at Changi Airport. I think they are the coolest in the world! How can anyone not recycle with such cute bins like those? Anyhow, the kids decided to do their "Power Ranger" poses too.

Dad and DS, who sat together behind DH, DD and me. DH and I couldn't sit together with both kids due to the seating configuration of this aircraft.

DD and me. I was very glad that DD slept half the journey and even during landing. Well, she was sleeping in my arms so I didn't get much sleep myself, but hey, I shouldn't be asking for too much. Maybe during our next holiday I can hope that she sleeps by herself on the seat. Haha!

Like father, like daughter. DD was glued to the screen for a while. I think DH turned on an animated movie for her. And SQ now has earphones for the kiddos! And in case anyone was wondering, DH was glued to the screen (as usual!) for almost the entire flight, except the few hours he stopped to take a nap!

DH and his iPhone

Yep, sadly, this is what happens when your husband buys an iPhone and spends all his time playing with it. Yep. You get a picture of yourself like the one above. DH has been searching for useful apps on his iPhone and what does he come up with? An app to disfigure a picture of his wife!!! He still thinks it is totally hilarious. Sigh.