{"id":22318,"date":"2016-12-16T04:49:54","date_gmt":"2016-12-15T20:49:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=22318"},"modified":"2017-02-21T21:53:19","modified_gmt":"2017-02-21T13:53:19","slug":"staycation-activities-downtown-east","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2016\/12\/16\/staycation-activities-downtown-east\/","title":{"rendered":"Staycation Activities @ Downtown East"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’ve got a rule of thumb, and it is to avoid 3D2N holidays as much as possible, even if it means forking extra to stay for a longer period and having to wreck our brains thinking of how to fill up the itinerary! The only 3D2N stay we’ve ever had at this point was at Capella Sentosa<\/a> 5 years ago. The short duration was largely on account of cost, but that property still remains by far the best we’ve ever stayed at.<\/p>\n

While we received admission tickets to Wild Wild Wet<\/a> for all four days of our stay at D’Resort<\/a>, we ended up just using passes for one day – as we accidentally dropped our entire ticket stack somewhere in the water park. We did put in a Lost and Found report at the Information Office and the park crew were nice to follow through it, but finally had no such luck finding them back.<\/p>\n

I reckon it was just as well, as it forced us to think harder of what to fill up the rest of the days with. And of that:<\/p>\n

Disney’s Moana<\/strong><\/em> @ Downtown East Cathay: Peter’s first late night cinema experience for a cartoon that hearkens back to the Disney themes from its films starting 25 years ago. This one was a gamble as we wondered how Peter would handle an 8:50PM screening – and we lucked out. It didn’t take beyond the film’s midpoint before he got grouchy (probably from just being tired) and generally annoying the heck out of Ling.<\/p>\n

Didn’t take long before he wriggled out of his Eskimo outfit.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Orchid Bowl<\/strong><\/em> @ Downtown East E!Hub: you know you suck at something when your 7 year old daughter hands you your butt:<\/p>\n

You know you suck at it when even your 7 year old daughter is handing you your butt.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Then again, this is how she got there:<\/p>\n

Ball, meet foot.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Longkang Fishing<\/strong><\/em> @ Mainland Tropical Fish Farm: with ‘longkang’ literally meaning ‘drain’ for our Ang Mo bud.:) Our parents’ generation will quip that this was one of their leisure past times before Gen Y and Z’s iPads, video games and smartphones. But Ling and I just a few years ago climbed down into a large drain opposite Hougang Mall to catch fishes to supplement our freshwater aquarium – and we caught several Corydoras even!<\/p>\n

The Farm was just a few minutes drive from Downtown East, and we spent an hour there in a small tidily landscaped and man-made drain of about 18 meters long catching critters. There’s a token fee of $4 per child for every 30 minutes, but the very nice and super laid-back auntie there gave our two kids 45 minutes of catching time.<\/p>\n

Some bloggers have remarked how difficult it was for kids to catch these critters given how fast they swim. Funnily, we had no such difficulties. We caught 15 with most going between Hannah and Ling. I was taking pictures, but in the space of a minute also caught three too. The fishes do detect movement – I assume from the mid-morning shadows we cast onto the water – and typically scatter free quickly. So, the trick is simply to use the tiny nets provided in the opposing direction and where clusters of fishes are. We were able to scoop 1-2 critters this way a time.<\/p>\n

Safe for kids, though Peter didn’t catch anything!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Hannah camping where the drain outlets were, since large groups of fishes were gathering there.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Our catch for the morning.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Peter looking as though he’s prepared to eat the fish – raw.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We returned all we caught back to the farm though, since our home aquarium is already densely populated with tetras and snails. But the kids enjoyed this one – and the activity gets a solid recommendation from us.<\/p>\n

Pasir Ris Public Library<\/strong><\/em> @ White Sands Shopping Centre: the E!Hub @ Downtown East is a little rundown, while White Sands has just recently undergone refurbishment. Its offering of stores and restaurants remain pretty much standard fare for Singapore shopping malls, but the also recently renovated public library is very nicely done-up. We stayed and left with about a dozen loaned books.<\/p>\n

We again feel terrifically fortunate that Hannah prefers reading instead of electronic gadgets.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
And Peter just treats every thing as toys to smother his body parts with.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

eXplorer Kids<\/strong><\/em> @ Downtown East E!Hub: we’d gone by this indoor playground earlier this year. The area was also just recently refurbished, and it looks slightly brighter now, with a few new play areas that we didn’t previously see in our last visit. More importantly is that there’s a current promotion for NTUC Members: each card holder can get free membership for up to two kids. More details here<\/a>. The offer was good enough for us to drive back home to pick up our kids’ birth certificates for registration.<\/p>\n

This was about as high as he could manage, even with assists from Mommy.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Starbucks<\/strong><\/em> @ Downtown East: half of the indoor seating in the store were squatted by young adults pretending to study, but we managed to put together two separate tables to chill over brewed coffee, Hazel Nut Lattes, and Signature Hot Chocolate for the kids.<\/p>\n

Listening to pieces from the accompanying CD in the Suzuki Method book.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Signature Hot Chocolate – yummy.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
His latest thing: stick his tongue out whenever a picture is taken.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
After all the trauma you routinely cause mommy, you better invent some world changing technology to benefit all mankind, bud!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
There was also a small Tayo & Friends demonstration area beside Starbucks. One of Ling’s ex-students was temping in the area, and he kept our two kids jolly entertained around this children road circuit.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hannah quips that this was our best vacation ever. Putting aside the bleh stay at D’Resort, it was certainly enjoyable also for us parents. We’re start planning for our mid-year vacation spot for June 2017, so more to come on that soon enough!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’ve got a rule of thumb, and it is to avoid 3D2N holidays as much as possible, even if it means forking extra to stay for a longer period and having to wreck our brains thinking of how to fill<\/p>\n

Read More Staycation Activities @ Downtown East<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22319,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7,17],"tags":[573,567,568,566],"class_list":["post-22318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aquarium-pets","category-children-blues","category-traveling","tag-fujifilm-x70","tag-12-40mm","tag-40-150mm","tag-e-m1","wpcat-5-id","wpcat-7-id","wpcat-17-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/blog-bowling.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}