(just edited)
in singapore, we stayed at A's aunts' home, a teeny tiny flat above with an insanely large and beautiful palm-fringed pool.
think resort pool; all undulating lines, curving around corners (it took 5 mins to walk along the waterline from one end to the other), rounded nooks and eddies; a bar set within the pool itself, secret tiny bubbling spas hidden under palm trees, wooden loungers and big umbrellas; a "mountain" concealing a big water slide. a big toddler pool and splashy area with big pipes gushing jets and curtains of water you could run in and out of.
and behind said fringe of palm trees, 2 little playgrounds at either end to choose from, as well as several balinese huts.
(why did i not take any pictures of this???)
it was lovely. every morning we'd pop downstairs to take in this tropical paradise, set ourselves up at a deck chair with the breakfast we'd bought at the local shops, then splash around with dandan - "me monkey! me fish!"
dan only had 2 baths in the 10 days we were there, most days i brought bath wash down with us, and would surreptitiously wash him while he was swimming and playing with the poolside showers (it was a very unchlorinated pool, i guess being private and all).
although, oops, he turned down swimming a few times in the latter half of the trip, in favour of the playground.. maybe he cottoned on to it? pool = bath.. =(
it was hot though. blagh, i hate hot weather. it makes everything tiring.. walking from the apartment to the local shops to get breakfast, though first thing in the morning, made us sluggish and sweaty and a bit grumpy.
but the food was sooo goood.
in fact, i'm writing this now because i saw some ad on tv with some hawker food, and it made me grumpy. why do we live here and not there? there's literally nowhere here to get a decent approximation of most of my favourite things. imagine having to wait to fly to a faraway country, once a year at best, just to satisfy a craving...
like goreng pisang, soft sweet gooey sugar banana deep fried with an impossibly crispy and fluffy crust (the urban legend is that they melt plastic PET bottles into the cooking oil. surely there's some way to find out for sure?).
or my favourites, all which seem to involve being grilled over an open charcoal flame, and fanned with a woven heart-shaped fan (colourful plastic strips or dried banana leaves) by a sweaty man in a sarong and string singlet.
like otak, spicy fish meat mixture wrapped in banana leaf. satay, sweet and tender and spicy meat. sting ray atop a banana leaf covered with a thick layer pungent sambal; you use chopsticks to scrape off the thin layer of delicious stringy meat off the dense comb of sturdy bones.
dandan loved the food too.
*he demolished a whole plate of pappadums one night (each one as big as his head);
(in little india (we're about to have fish head curry)):
and he developed such a taste of kueh (soft jelly like cakes made with coconut milk) that he asked for them no matter where he went.
but only the green ones (kueh talam) - "dreen duay!"; so much so that, well, the contents of his nappy ended up a bright green smushiness. although that could have been the change in local germs.
and the rainbow layer kuehs; you can peel off one stretchy layer at a time, each one a different colour f the rainbow. he only ever wanted green and purple (he could be tricked with blue), leaving the rest discarded.
or the paus (steamed rice flour buns with filling); the green one with sweet pandan flavoured filling, or the light purple one with sweet yam filling.
we didn't get the camera out very much, so there's a lot we'll just have to remember.
*here he is on the plane (with the sticker book that literally saved our holiday, daily):
*at the science centre with the boys:
*the bird park (much too big a park / too many birds for one little boy, despite there being a monorail, but the aviary was fun.. biggest aviary in the something something):
this is inside the biggest aviary in the something-something. you can't even see the mesh of the gigantic tent..:
^(these guys were eating out of a cup from my hand, but it freaked me out a bit so i put it down, after which they pushed it over. dandan kept saying worriedly for ages
"cup fall down! birdy fall down!". i think he thought the birds had fallen with it...)
treetops walk! we're VERY high up, this are the tops of tall trees.. and this bridge sways.. very Perils of Penelope Pitstop:
and this very special one - dandan took this picture! all by himself! and this is just one in a whole series of perfectly framed pictures (well 90% of them anyway).
if i do say so myself, he is a genius:
*at the night safari at the zoo (i saw a bull elephant 15ms away! dancing and swaying significantly in the silent darkness). no pictures unfortunately, but there was this indonesian fire dance show (with fire-eating!!, fire blowing-from-mouth; fire twirling, and loincloths galore):
*the water playground with leaping jets of water atop a gigantic mall. i thought this warranted a whole day of our holiday - there're dozens of jets, along the whole stretch of concrete you can see in this pic, all spurting to some cool rhythm:
*and uncle ronald's magical car:
(this is taken at the northern most point of the island, one of the few undeveloped pockets left; looking over to malaysia across the narrow strip of water)
*and dandan hanging with the boys he absolutely lost his heart to. he followed them all around at every opportunity, and hugged and kissed them all at every farewell.
here they are having a cigarette break :| after dinner:
^p/s - note the open air eating places with lots of space to run around? THIS is why families with children can eat out in asia, where they can't in australia (apart from fast food places with playgrounds). garh!
*and on a side note, visiting my uncle who has lung cancer and a prognosis of a few months. he spent a lot of time caring for me when i was dan's age, so i wanted to visit him especially:
ain't this the sweetest thing!:
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