#activities4tots – Page 2 – Ask the Clueless Middle Age Dad

Kyoto Holiday: Kaiyukan (Osaka)

This is my second post on the places our little family of Missus, Lil Missy and myself visited while in Kyoto. It’s not on Kyoto itself yet but will try to get to it in subsequent posts. Not because we didn’t spend much time in Kyoto itself — we did spend the majority of our time there. But the day trips out of Kyoto were specifically intended for the Lil Missy and thought I would write about them first.

We originally considered Kyoto Aquarium but Missus heard good reviews from colleagues about Kaiyukan (海遊館). We added Kids Plaza Osaka to the itinerary in the afternoon.

For our trip to Osaka, I had wised up and decided not to struggle with the ticketing machine ourselves. Instead, we bought tickets at the Japan Rail (JR) counter at Nagoya Railway Station during before we journeyed back to our hotel after our Legoland visit. The staff serving us was a Mr Wada who, despite the difficulty in us communicating, patiently tried his best to help us find the best option. Thank you very much Mr Wada!

For the trip, we woke up bright and early at 7am to have breakfast before setting off. There were express train services to Osaka from Kyoto. However, not being very familiar with how exactly they work (think they would not be leaving from the designated platforms), we took a local train which stopped at every stop.

From Osaka, we took had to take two subway lines to reach Kaiyukan (the Midosuji and Chuo lines) which is located close to the Osakako station. Once we got there it was 10min walk to Kaiyukan. Most of the folks getting off at Kinjofuto seem to be heading there so it was easy to find our way there.

It was however raining throughout the day we visited so we needed to kit out in rain coats. The little one was a good little trooper then and had no problems making the walk there despite the weather. We got tickets before hand and we’re promptly whisked in at our designated time slot of 10:00-10:15 (much better prep than for Legoland).

The aquarium tour starts with a long escalator ride to the top. The building, as far as I can tell, consisted of a giant cylinder shaped tank with specially-made plexiglass that was 20 plus cm thick. The tour then would be a nearly 1 km walk down a spiral hugging the fish tank to the bottom. So conceptually, the tour started with mammals on the surface (seals, puffins and penguins) and progressively aquatic creatures l preferring different depths as their habitats.

The long distance would be something of a challenge for the little one who wasn’t yet used to walking long distances. She started off really excited to see the seals and penguins, but would progressively become less enthusiastic the further we went along the tour route.

Along the way, we saw some majestic sea creatures. Among them were huge manta rays, sea turtles and most breathtaking of all, the whale shark. We took some videos of them swimming serenely around one another. These videos were accompanied by soundtrack of the little one complaining about one thing or another — “I want to be carried” and “I hungry” were the two main streams of complaints.

Sea creatures at the bottom of the gigantic tank…

Two whale sharks saying hello to each other…

Jelly fishes that were kept separately from the main tank.

Despite lil one’s protestations, we thought she enjoyed some of it — especially the earlier parts of the tour. Maybe it was something more for older children — or overgrown ones like Missus and me…. The two of us enjoyed it. Near the end of the tour, there were benches in front of the main tank for tired visitors to rest. They were nicely positioned for you to get a majestic panoramic view.

We were especially enamoured by the whale shark. Their movements so deliberate and graceful that it seemed to us like the other fishes revolved around them — like choreographers or an underwater dance troupe.

We got ourselves a little souvenir to commemorate the trip. Being so taken with the whale shark, we got a little plush keychain based on its likeness (below).

That’s it for another instalment of this blog. Will try to document and share more of the places we visited during our trip. Thanks for reading. Till next time, stay healthy and safe everyone.

Kyoto Holiday: Plane Ride with a Preschooler

As a parent, we always discover new things about our child as well as new things about ourselves through different situations. Since Covid-19, our little family of three (Missus, Lil Missy and me) had not had a holiday requiring any long travel time. We’ve taken one in late-2020 but that required only a ferry ride and car ride. It wasn’t cabin fever inducing.

For our first faraway-ish holiday, we had chosen to go to Kyoto. It was a place that missus and me had fond memories of and wanted to create new ones with the little one. The first thing for us to prepare for and get through was a five plus hours plane ride from Singapore to Kansai airport and an hour plus commute from Kansai to Kyoto Railway Station.

Due to the high cost of plane tickets in general, we had chosen to go for a budget instead of full service carrier. The airline we chose was Scoot. Missus and me did some prep in anticipation of the Lil Missy wanting to climb the walls while the seat belt sign was on.

First Missus had heard from colleagues that to help young children get over the pressure in the cabin and the discomfort it causes to their little ears, it’s best to let them wear ear phones. For this, we got the JBL kids earphones.

Next. to have some content go with the ear phones, we downloaded some YouTube videos. To do this, we needed to get a YouTube Premium trial account. We downloaded the the little one’s usual staple of video content including Peppa Pig, Come Play with Me and old episodes of the Korean variety show, The Return or Superman. About the last show, our little girl has specific preference for old episodes with the Song Triplets (father Song Il-kook) and Choo Sarang (father Choo Sung Hoon / Yoshihiro Akiyama — who had a revival of fame by being a standout contestant in the Netflix gameshow Physical 100).

Not wanting Lil Missy to spend her 5-6 hours watching videos, Missus prepared sticker activity books, paper and colour pencils for scribbling and games.

In all the rush to try to keep the little one entertained, we actually forgot our own entertainment on the plane…. And I wasn’t going to pay for overpriced and slow as a snail wifi on a plane….

How the plane ride played out was that the little one came through it quite okay. Apart from some restlessness which saw her switch between the window seat and the middle seat with my wife, she was kind of well behaved. A pleasant surprise.

How did I fare in a budget flight without in flight entertainment and without any reading material which I neglected to bring on board? Happy to say, my sanity was intact though I had my moments which led me to laugh uncontrollably at the boredom.

Moment number one came when I saw a fellow passenger reading the in-flight menu as if it was the most revetting novel — I saw that he had a book with him and he resorted to this! The page he was “reading” was as below.

Maybe he really likes coffee or salty snacks…🤔

I found myself suppressing an uncontrollable chuckle at the sight of this. My daughter saw this and the curious little cat asked me. I didn’t know how to explain it to her so I just made up something about the passenger being very funny. At this time, missus was asleep I think and didn’t notice my descent into momentary insanity.

Moment number two: I started thinking about the message on the little piece of paper they placed over the headrest which read, “Feeling Restless?” My answer in my head was, “You bet!” Then I thought back to the moment when I chuckled at the in-flight menu reader and started a suppressed chuckle again….

Missus had been noticing my very feeble attempt at a digital detox and kindly lent me her AirPods for me to listen to some music. My sanity was restored…

All in, I thought that the little one and missus handled the longish flight way better than I did. My two moments of sliding into pseudo insanity were actually quite funny to me as they happened and just as funny when I thought back on them. They were, in fact, the two genuine moments of entertainment I had on this flight.

During this flight, I discovered that we underestimated the little one. I discovered that my wife is the calmest person in the family and finally, that I am quite hopelessly addicted to external stimulation due to my attachment to an internet-connected smartphone.

Thanks for reading. That’s it for another blog post. Stay healthy and safe everyone.

Free Concert at the Esplanade: Cactus Cactus ft Houg

Haven’t written in a while due to the hectic Lunar New Year schedule and a post holiday bout of the flu. Had wanted to write a post in January of a visit to the Esplanade in January and never got around to doing it till now. So this will be a very belated review of the experience of missus and me bringing the little one for a free mini concert.

Jumping straight into the topic, the performance we caught was on 7 Jan 23 of a band called Cactus Cactus. They had a guest collaborator named, “Houg” who performed with a synthesiser. The band had two members for the performance: Isaac Chiew and John Paul Kwan (there seemed to be two other members according to this profile).

The music was nice from what I remembered. A bit of a Brit pop kind of sound and a certain ethereal quality provided by Houg’s synthesiser. The little one, for the most part, sat quietly through it and gamely clapped after each song was performed. But there were of course some moments of restlessness to be expected.

Chiew appears to be the front man from the fact that he did most of the talking to introduce fellow performers and the song. He sounded very chill dragging out each word. Maybe it’s his stage persona. Can’t imagine him speaking like this in real life. His family and friends would be like, “Hurry up Isaac! Get to the point…” But nice style to put the audience in a relaxing mood.

His band mate Kwan appears to be in another band called Altoduo with Winifred Tan. Tan, quite interestingly, was featured in a website called, Shecanbeboth.com. The article revealed that she is a financial consultant by profession besides many other things. Kwan appears to have quite a normal day job as well. Google his name and you’ll see it in the first result. I think it shows the passion that they must have for music since besides holding down a job, they would have to make time to practice as a band.

That’s it for another post. Very belatedly. Thanks for reading. Stay healthy and safe everyone.

Farewell to Jurong Bird Park

Haven’t had the time to write anything for a while. So the next few articles may be about things that are chronologically a bit far back in time. Starting with this one.

One weekend in December 2022, we were looking for something new to do with the little one. Missus remembered reading somewhere that Jurong Bird Park was closing before relocation to Mandai and rebranded as “Bird Paradise” there was a significant discount on tickets. The little one, like all young children, is fascinated with animals and birds. So it’s something she’ll very likely enjoy. So we grabbed tickets for a Sunday afternoon.

We drove and when we got there, we realised just how popular the Bird Park was. The carpark was packed to the brim and we needed to head off further to a nearby industrial area to park along Tractor Road. Missus and I last visited the Bird Park some decades ago and she remarked that the industrial cocoa odour (turns out it wasn’t just chocolate) at where we parked brought back memories.

Upon getting there, the first birds we saw were some colourful macaws near the entrance.

Some very artificial looking tree trunks. I wondered what the birds thought of them….

We also saw some African penguins (below).

They were in a glass enclosure. We learnt on a placard that their guano was prized as fertiliser but it harvesting them was damaging to their habitat.

As the little one isn’t used to walking long distances yet and we’re not the stroller sort, we decided to take the tram as a way to look around the park. There was a long snaking queue. When we got within the front of the queue, the bad news hit like a bolt from the blue: the tram service is down…. We had invested 30 minutes of time waiting for it…

As we were near the bird show area and there was a Birds of Prey show starting in 40 minutes. We headed there for yet more waiting but were able to secure great seats in the shade. We were not disappointed. The show featured some spectacular flying by a sea hawk specie called Brahminy Kite, amongst others.

Not the Brahminy Kite but another specie of sea hawk… can’t remember the name.

Little one was really wowed by these high flyers. As were the missus and me! The hawks were really well trained. Birds like these were probably trained to assist hunters. I suppose now that no one is required to hunt for food, the same or similar sort of training is now used for entertainment.

I was kind of saddened by the sight of vultures at the show. The host / trainer explained that vultures at the park were those who got lost in Singapore while migrating. To see them hopping around rather than gliding in the sky was kind of depressing. They came out to music of the legendary WWE wrestler The Undertaker. I supposed it’s apt; that’s kind of like the role they play in nature.

After the show, we tried to get back on a tram but made the mistake of heading to the penultimate stop before the terminal near the entrance. Very few passengers got off so there was only room for Missus and Lil Miss. As it wasn’t a long distance I jogged my way back. Missus said the little one was looking out for me during the ride and didn’t really enjoy it that much as a result. Awwww…..

After reaching the terminal — I was only slightly behind the very leisurely pace tram — we bade farewell to Jurong Bird Park. Thanks for the memories for Missus and I. Thanks for the new memories and experience it’s given to our little one. Au revoir! See you in Mandai!

Till next time. Stay healthy and safe everyone.

Playground Review: Playground at 21 Telok Blangah Crescent

Telok Blangah Cres, Block 21, Singapore 090021 (link)

This post is a continuation from the Pirate Ship playground post. This playground was close by so we gave it a try as well. It’s another Playcraft System so oh well… This one is a typical generic design — functional but aesthetically boring…

It had quite a few slides, including a set of two which looked scarily steep. It’s designed for kids 5 to 12 supposedly. For them to relive falling hard on their bums as toddlers learning to walk?

Looked like it’s designed to drop you on your posterior…

The highlight of the visit had nothing to do with the playground but the local fauna. In the middle of the little one’s play, I noticed something bounding about on the tree above us.

It turned out that the little critter was after a bounty of treats left by someone as a ritual offering to their ancestors. Because of our presence as well as that of a few other kids and their minders, it was very cautious in approaching its objective.

It was a nice surprise. Worth the short walk from the pirate ship playground. The playground itself was okay — as Playcraft Systems playgrounds go…. The little squirrel’s antics really highlighted the whole experience — I think squirrels inhabit the area so you could expect a similar experience once in a while.

That’s it for another post. Thanks for reading. Stay healthy and safe.