Thaks for taking an interest in my blog. Due to the incompatability of WordPress with my MAC browsers, I will no longer be updating this Blog. However, be rest assured that whatever that is in here will still be here for your reading pleasure (not that they are so interesting anyway).

The good news is Jas and I have started a new Family Blog! So see you there!

Cheers!

Happy Birthday my love!

Mummy reporting our safe arrival…

The journey from the airport to Knox was pretty eventful. Cherise pooped a major one about 15 mins into the journey so we were super “kan cheong” about it. What if she gets uncomfortable and start crying? How do we change her diaper without causing any inconvenience to the other passengers? WHERE can we change her diaper? Will the others smell it if we don’t change? Well…before I could worry any further, Cherise fell asleep all the way to Knox so we didn’t have to struggle with the mess till we got to the serviced apartment.
Praise God indeed.

Punthill Knox was a welcoming place, it’s located just a stone’s throw away from Knox City where the mall is. We managed to get pretty good rates for our 1 bedroom apartment via the net. They even provided a baby cot/playpen free of charge. We like the fact that the property is just a few months old cos’ everything is brand new and so clean.

This is the view from the door.

The kitchenet…it is very very well equipped.

Another look at the living room…

The bedroom…our only complain is that they don’t have a room with a king sized bed…

Cherise in her play pen. We actually requested for a baby cot but this was what we got…which was a good thing anyway cos’ Cherise really enjoyed playing by herself in it…for a while at least.

We didn’t stay long in the apartment though cos’ we were getting hungry and we couldn’t wait to check out Knox City. So off we went, but not before we make sure that Cherise was adequately “insulated”…

Thank God Jas insisted that we bring the wind shield, the wind was so strong that it literally swept her (Jas, not Cherise) off her feet momentarily. And REALLY thank God that we brought this stroller instead of the Combi…I can almost gurantee that it’ll fly off with Cherise in it.

She’s like a little “char siew bao” ha ha…ok I admit that the beanie was probably a little bit too much lah…

Knox City was huge, probably the size of Ngee Ann City (I think…). It’s kinda like a town centre for the community in that area so you can basically get everything that you need there. Makes it difficult to decide what to eat cos’ you are spoilt for choice. Puts Bukit Panjang Plaza to shame ha ha. We decided to leave most of our shopping to the next day cos’ we were really quite beat from the journey. Lucky for us we got back just in time cos’ it started to pour really heavily after that (we were warned of a thunder storm that day).

The best part of that day was when we met up with Mum and Auntie Pat (aka Ah Yee Mummy) later in the evening. The main reason why we decided to stay at Knox instead of the city was because it was near Eve’s place. So they brought us over to see Ken, Eve precious little Kate at their home, Jo was there too. Sorry I didn’t take any pictures of their home but believe me when I say that their estate was so beautiful that it made us want to just sell everything here and go live there. We were so caught up with catching up that we forgot to take pictures!!! Anyway, they wanted to bring us to this pan cake place at Glen Waverly but the storm knocked out the power at the area so we ended up eating at a chinese restaurant instead.

The following day was a full day of shopping at Knox City, lucky for us (or rather Jas) it was late night shopping at Knox so we managed to comnplete most of our shopping there. The rest of the family joined us there as well so it really a great time of catching up.

Cherise and her ‘Xiao Gu”.

Cherise and Auntie Pat who is her God-grandma…

The playful Nai Nai and Xiao Gu.

We enjoyed Knox so much that we decided to cut short our stay at Kyneton later and came back. Well…there was also another reason but I’ll leave that for part 3.

Jas will have a lot to share regarding this holiday…trust me…she had more than her fair share of “adventures”! I’ll leave it to her to tell her story on her blog. As for me, I’ll try and share my perspective on this holiday in a few parts:
1) Pre-departure;
2) Day 1 and 2 @ Knox;
3) Advantures @ Kyneton;
4) Back to civilisation;
5) Back to Singapore.

Okie dokie…so here comes Part 1….

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PRE-DEPARTURE
Since this was the first time we were travelling with an infant in tow, we decided to play it safe…very safe! We checked it quite early to ensure that we get the front seats so that we can get the bassinet (which we ended up not using) for Cherise. And since it was also our first time at terminal 3, we decided to go into the departure lounge early to have our dinner and check out if terminal 3 was worth all the hype.

Bye bye Singapore!

“Can we go in for dinner before baby wakes up please???”

Cherise fell asleep on the cab journey to the airport so she didn’t get to see the exterior of T3, but like she always does…she woke up as we were having dinner!!!
For a moment we were worried that she’ll sleep all the way till boarding time.

We had dinner at Brewerks and thanks to our friend Teryn who works at T2, we managed to get a discount off our bill. And that was not the only discount we got, we basically raided the DFS perfume store and utilised her staff discount to the max. I basically completed MY holiday shopping at T3 – my new 32 GB IPOD Touch…only to find out that it is not compatible with my current OS urgh!!!!

Anyway, T3 is HUGE!!! Shops and restaurants galore, they even have foot reflexology service! Basically, you can literally spend your whole evening there and you won’t get bored. Well…if you are bored of T3, simply hop onto the sky train and visit T2. Basically the 3 terminals are connected in the shape of a horse shoe so transit passengers will find it a breeze to hop from one flight to another. In this area, I think Changi International Airport has got the formula right. My only complain is that for such a “Titanic”, the baby care facilities are in terrible lack. The last I counted, there were only 3 diaper changing rooms/nursing rooms, of which NONE were on level 2 where the restaurants and foodcourt are. I guess the good people in the building committee do not have any children cos’ EVERYBODY knows that all a baby do is eat, sleep, cry, poo and pee!!! Which means that there is a very high chance that when you are eating, your baby will let go a number 2 and you will need to change his/her diaper. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that the baby facilities there are no good, in fact I think the diaper changing rooms there are very well equipped (I’ll do another review of baby care facilities soon). I’m just saying that it is not adequate at all, I mean the least they could do was to install a diaper changing station in the toilets.

Anyway, here’s a picture of the wonderful auntie Teryn who helped us get the discounts at T3.

And here’s the happy family moments before boarding…
Cherise is looking quite stoned cos’ she’s actually getting hungry and sleepy…but we could not nurse her yet cos’ we needed her to nurse upon take off…

The flight itself was a testimony of how God answers prayer. On the way to the airport, we asked God specifically to allow Cherise to nurse upon take off and landing. We also asked for God’s presence to calm her and cause her to be settled throughout the flight. Since we were in the business of asking boldy, we also asked that God provide us an empty row so that we don’t have to squeeze with strangers and Jas can nurse Cherise in privacy. As always, God is a prayer answering God. First, it was not a full flight, thus we were able to have an empty row of 3 all to ourselves. Secondly, not only did Cherise nurse at the appropriate times, she also slept throughout the entire flight! The biggest miracle was that she slept in the infant carseat that we brought along! Now, all of you who know our little princess will know by now that she HATES sitting in the carseat, but not only was she contented playing in it, she slept so peacefully…totally unaware of the few pockets of turbulance that shook Jas quite a bit. Thank God indeed!

Here’s a few shots of Cherise in her own “capsule”.

So the basinet that was provided served only as a storage space for the pillows and blankets ha ha.

Something caught my eye as I was taking a leak…
See the black dot?

Can’t tell what it is? Here’s a closer look…
Waiter! There’s a fly in my “bowl”!

I initially thought that some joker was trying to be funny and stuck a sticker of a fly on the urinal. But as it turns out, EVERY urinal has one. Well…I guess it does help guys with the “aiming”part cos’ the toilets were very clean ha ha!

It’ll be interesting to see how we manage everything tomorrow, the plan is for me to pull the big luggage and carry the duffel bag while Jas will carry the hand-carry luggage and push the stroller with Cherise in the carseat.

This is so exciting! Australia, here we come!!!

Daddy and Cherise sharing a moment…

My two beautiful darlings…

Check out what we had….

Starters:

I had the baby spinach with chinese sausages…

Hunny had the asparagus with poach egg on a bed of greens.

Entrees:

I had the Grilled Rib Eye…it’s nice but not big enough leh…

Hunny had the Foie Gras and Persimmon pizza (raved to be their signature dish)…nice but as expected, not enough foie gras!!!

This restaurant is well known for their flat bread pizzas, very nice and crispy.

Dessert:

Valrhona Chocolate Mousse…very sinfully rich…one of the best I’ve ever tasted.

Even Cherise got to eat….

Her own jar of baby food of course…

She’s not really happy cos’ I think she wants my chocolate mousse…but who could blame her?

Daddy…chocolate pleassssseeeee.

Sorry folks, the Techno XLR has been sold and shipped all the way to Down Under.

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Ok, like I mentioned in an earlier post, here’s an advertorial on the Techno XLR that we are letting go really cheap.

Here’s our coffee brown/powder pink Techno XLR in it’s original state.

For those who are familar with Maclaren buggies/strollers, you will find that the most popular model would probably be the Techno XT since it is the only model that can be reclined fully to accommodate a newborn. Well, the XLR is simply a wider version of the XT with one major difference – it is the only Maclaren model that is designed to accommodate an infant car seat thus making it the only Maclaren Travel system that is available in Singapore.

We bought it in May last year straight from the distributor cos’ it was not readily available then. It is still in very good condition cos’ we’ve been toggling between 2 strollers so we only use it half the time. Plus we are big fans of baby-wearing so she’s seldom in it anyway. Half the time we use it as a trolly cos’ Cherise is in the sling and the XLR is sturdy enough to hold ALL our shopping.

Here’s what so good about it (according to the website):
1) 5 point harness for added security
2) Lightweight
3) Removable washable seat
4) Compact umbrella fold
5) Water resistant hood
6) High-performance aluminium frame
7) Handy mesh shopping basket
Carry handle for easy portability
9)5 second one-hand fold
10) Ergonomically optimised, foam insulated handles
11) Lockable, front swivel wheels

Ok…here’s what WE really like about it:
1) It’s wide and roomy.
2) It’s comfortable cos’ Cherise sleeps really well in it.
3) It’s very stable.
4) The seat liners are reversible.
5) It holds our infant car seat.
6) Can be used as a shopping trolly!!!
7) Easy to fold…but must practice lah…
Removable washable seat.
9) You have the peace of mind that the stroller will not give way due to rough handling.

Here’s a look at the XLR with the safety bar for the car seat.

You don’t really need it if your using the Maxi-Cosi Cabriofix cos the sides of the car seat will lodge itself to the side of the pram. However, you can always fix up the bar for added safety. Just recline the seat to the lowest position, push the car seat in and attach the bar and you are ready to go.

Here’s the specification of the XLR according to the website:
Basic Weight
7.4kg / 16.3lb
(without hood, shopping basket or raincover)

Carrying Capacity
up to 15kg / 65lb (US)

Appropriate From
Birth

Recline
Four seat positions

Wheel Size
16.5cm / 6.5in

Hood
Square, with storage pockets
UV protective viewing window, sun visor, and extra panel for additional sun protection

A few things to note about the XLR though.
1) It is one of the heavier prams in the market though not as heavy as the Quinny or Bugaboo.
2) You will most probably need both hands to open the stroller. Don’t expect it to open and close it with one hand like you would an Aprica or Combi.
3) You have to remove the safety bars for the car seat before you can close the stroller.

Overall, it is a very good pram (especially if you have a big baby hee hee). Like I mentioned in my earlier post, we’re selling it not because we don’t like it but because we’ve found something more suitable for our trip to Melbourne. The retail price out in the market now is about $699. We paid a lot more for it then. However, we are willing to let it go at $350… a steal right?!?! So, interested parties may contact me via my email – soulman792003@yahoo.com. We can even arrange to test out the pram at our place to see if you really like it. So please spread the word!!!

Anyway, for those who have been dying to see her standing on her own (we have to stay behind her to catch her when she falls of course), here are a few pics…

Cannot decide if she wants to watch TV or stand up…

Wah…can tip toe some more….

Believe it or not…she’s actually trying to walk!!!

A giant grin for everyone!

Ok ok…before anyone lectures us about the iron and the ironing board at the backgroud being a safety hazzard, we’ve cleared it already…so don’t worry yah.