The Exploratarium

My sister had been telling us about the Exploratarium - saying that it's very good for both kids and adults and that the girls enjoyed it so much that they cried when it was time to go home. As a result, they bought like season passes to the place so that they could go often at a discounted rate.

Look! We lucked out! It was free on the day we decided to go coz of donation from The Bernard Osher Foundation! Faboo!!! Now, looking at their website, think they support life long learning, or something like that. Anyway, THANKS a lot!!! :)
This huge round thing was at the entrace. It's an inclined huge disc which has some metal pieces within. So when you spin the disc, the metal pieces move about - guess you learn about centripetal forces, and the paths the metal discs take etc. But for kids, it's just fun to make the thing turn round and round and watch the metal discs move.
Look! Kids on a school trip to the Exploratarium! Guess a lot of them were there that day coz it was free. Here they are having their packed lunches - lunches they packed themselves, and not like chicken rice or mc donalds as we do in Singapore. Most of them had a sandwich, a packet drink (some juice), and a fruit (apple, banana etc) in their lunchbox. So cute eh! And they were all very well behaved, sitting in a corner, as instructed by their teachers.
There were older kids outside by the pond, having their lunch and feeding oart of their lunch to the birds too. Isaac liked to see birds, and we wanted to be out in the open for awhile, so we went out. Plus, we were attracted by the kids too kekeke...
See, Isaac managed to score another picture with a blonde...
It's always nice to take pictures out in the open, with natural lighting and all. And all this nice greenery in cool weather... fantastic!
One of Isaac's favourite activities is to go through his Papa's legs. He thinks it's fun. And does it over and over again. Think we caught a video of that below.

Smiley Isaac! :)Here's the vid! enjoy! ;p


Look at Isaac's pants. It's meant for 2 year olds, so it was kinda long. Had to fold it a bit, but it sure came in handy for this trip as it had an inner cotton lining, and the outside was kinda windbreakery kind of material - plus it was only S$10 and branded. Think Baby Gap - got it from those overruns stores.
Hubbs attempt to take a picture of me and Isaac. Again, he's not smiling. hummmphh
Hehehhe.... a better pic this time - at least he kinda looks like he's smiling!
Here's a vid of Isaac walking. I like to take vids of him walking, coz I think it's an important milestone to be able to start walking.


Here he goes again... in, out, in, out... hahahhaa...
Smiley Isaac with hubbs' knees! kekeke... See, Isaac's smiling...
Nice place huh. How come our Science Centre don't have surroundings like that. hahahhaa...
We were kinda scared that Isaac wouldn't get used to the cold, or that he'd fall sick. So we dressed him up in at least 3 or 4 layers each day. That's why he looks pretty buff in the pictures.
After lunch and the walk outside, we went back into the Exploratarium. Here's Isaac playing with sand on a spinning horizontal disc.
And here, playing with pendulums...
The Exploratarium takes everyday simple science concepts and blows it up, and make it such that it's very hands-on. You can touch it, feel it, and just play with it. I mean, look, we've all learnt about pendulums and the path it takes, wave theory etc - but when have you ever seen such a huge pendulum swing thingy that kids are allowed to touch?

This one below is a room, which uses the lines to give an illusion about size. They didn't do this well though. We saw a much better one in New Zealand when we were there on honeymoon. Hmmmm... maybe I oughta go dig out and post the video hubbs and I did in that. :)

See here, this is an interesting contraption. It shows us our face, in the orientation that our friends see us, and NOT the orientation that we see our own face in the mirror. Oh yes, if you didn't already know, we see our own face in the mirror differently from how others see us. We didn't conciously realise that till we saw this exhibit.
It is kinda disconcerting when you see the picture of your face the way other people see you. I'm not sure how to describe it, it's just kinda wierd. hahaha...
This one below is about Mark Twain's theory that so long as the first and the last letter of the word is correct, it doesn't matter how the rest of the letters are placed - people would still be able to read what you're intending to write. Hahaha... well, sure, but you defnitely get marks minused for sure... and confirm spelling FAIL!!!
Ah this is my favourite below! My sis says it is Isabelle's favourite too. This blackish gray stuff below is Magnetite - it's black magnetic sand. Magnetite is an iron ore that is found in beach sand in many locations. It can be collected just by dragging a magnet through the sand. (info from Exploratarium website). COOL HUH!? See below for the video I took one-handed of myself playing with the black sand! :)So, my theory about why the Exploratarium is so successful and popular is coz it breaks complicated scientific theories down into simpler terms by making huge exhibits, or exhibits that allows kids and adults to be hands on with it. This makes it very fun and interesting for both the young and the old.

Well, being typical Singaporean that I am, I was telling hubbs that "Actually this place, not difficult to do what. We can also make one like that in Singapore. The Science Centre people should come and take a look." hahahahhaa... See, I typical Singaporean, right? kekeke...

So, we spent an entire day at the Exploratarium and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Travelling with Isaac has been 'slow'. Which we kinda expected. Of course, we can't expect to like cover 3 or 4 tourist attractions like we used to when we were travelling before we had kids, right? So we managed our own expectations and just took it slow and easy.
Well, we had a lot of fun this trip, despite it being slow-going and we didn't "cover " many places. So, to us, it just goes to show that you CAN travel with kids, even though you have kids. So! To all those people whose excuse not to have kids is coz you "wanna travel" - it's not true!!! kekeke...

pix & vids taken on 4th Dec 2008
Isaac @ two days to 16 months

Oh these last 3 pix are of us chilling in the hostel's lounge after dinner, and before we went back to our room. Was quite a cool place coz there was free wifi, and loadsa backpackers were all there chillin' too. So we had a nice chat with some of them. And of course everyone was entertained by our cute Isaac :)

Alcatraz

Hehehe... nice pic? kekeke... I used to have a 'fetish' for images of american flags. Kinda died off, but still quite like them. No particular reason. Well... when I was young, I used to read the encyclopedia for fun, coz it was interesting.

hahaha actually it was coz my dad was pissed that he spent a ton on a set of encyclopedia and yet neither me nor my sister was reading. So he refused to answer any of my "Why...?" questions and would always reply me:"Go and check the encyclopedia." After many such replies from him, I was so frustrated that I wasn't getting my replies that I really went to read the encyclopedia.

And what fun it was! So much info! I was intrigue, and there started my love for reference books. In fact, I used to run to the living room to grab a volume of the encyclopedia before racing off to the toilet to do my big business! hahahhaa okay okay *too*much*info* hahahhaa...

Coming back to why I started telling this story - the first encyclopedia we had was an early edition of World Book Encyclopedia before they came up with the Global version, i.e. it was very America-centric. Anything about America had tons of info, for eg like information about the different states, and the Presidents of the United States etc... Thus, these are info which I know more about compared to the average Singaporean.

Hahaha... ah yes, thus the fetish about american flags and all things american. Well as some of you may know, this is the total opposite of my dear hubbs who's more China-centric than me American-centric. Or rather, he's cheeena-centric and me angmo-centric!hehehee
ALCATRAZ!!! The famous prison island!!! Okay, it was the prison island that was in the film X-Men 3 - The Last Stand! It has been featured in many other Hollywood films, like The Rock, and Escape from Alcatraz. It's no longer a prison but has been turned into a tourist attraction.
View of San Francisco from the ferry ride out to Alcatraz. The prison has small windows and little slits in its walls which the inmates can look out from and see this view. In the silence of the night, they can also hear the sounds of the night-life in San Francisco. It was said that this would really taunt the prisoners, constantly reminding them of the life they are missing out on by being in prison.
American Indians lah... :p Apparently, after it was not a prison anymore, at one time, the government resettled a community of Native American Indians there. There was this documentary we watched there on this topic, very interesting! Read more about Alcatraz at their official website.
Look here below - it's the water tower I think hahaha... think it was "featured"in X-Men 3 when the final battle was taking place and they were throwing stuff around!
Bored with the tour guide's commentary on the prison island, Isaac was spending his time with his other pursuits...Jialat. Chat girls up not enough, still want to touch her hand... sighz...
"HEY! The two of you!!! Not blatantly in front of me, please!!!" See their guilty faces... kekeke...
We walked down the road, and up the hill and entered the main building where we were each handed a set of earphones and a tape player thingy. It's quite cool, the audio commentary can be started and stopped by yourself since we each hold our own set.
But you hardly need to do so, coz they time the audio commentray very well such that you just listen to instructions and walk where they tell you to, and listen to thei commentary on what you see around you - fantastic!!!
Here's Isaac looking kinda bored ;p
Look at the rows and rows of cells!!! Shawshank!!!
Oh no!!! stuck in cell!!! Not!!! hahahhaa...
We broke free!!! yay!!! kekeke...
Look at the mugshots of the escapees!The inmates had a lot of rules to live by. There was even a rule book! I bought it! kekeke... will come in useful next time ;p Here we are, leaving the prison island The Alcatraz!!!
Here we are back on mainland, went for lunch at a nice Italian restaurant while Isaac slept in the stroller. As we had a late lunch, we more or less had the whole restuarant to ourselves. Hubbs even had a glass of wine to go with his meal. Sweet!
Afterwards, we got him some food and bought stuff to cook for our dinner at this shopping centre near the piers.
Isaac would always want to imitate us - including carrying paper bags! We usually empty them except for one or two light items, and let him carry it. Bother!
See, we took the public bus back to our hostel! They have a map that's very comprehensive - even has all the bus routes and bus stops on it. Hubbs didn't know how to read the map - luckily I could figure it out! hehehe...

pix above taken on 3rd December 2009
Isaac @ three days to 16 months old

Down to the piers

After lunch, we walked down to the piers, nearer the water.
It was pretty cold as the wind was blowing, so we wrapped Isaac up in many layers, and made him wear a cap. He kept pulling it off though! Managed to catch these two pix before he pulled it off.
Look what we saw? A Segway tour! These two wheeled vehicles are amazing! Apparently they have a self-balancing mechanism in them, such that it will automatically adjust itself to be upright, even when the rider shifts their body weight.
We wanted to take the tour - but as Isaac was with us, we couldn't coz where would we put him? And no, it's not an option to piggy-back him and ride the Segway... No, coz I say so :p Well, apparently, there is Segway in Singapore already! Heard that you can ride one in Sentosa...
Can you spot me and Isaac in the picture above? kekeke... Here we are in the bottom left hand corner of the picture :)
No prizes for guessing what Isaac is doing! :p hehehe...
Yeah, Isaac was all tired out and it was nearing his nap time, so he latched on and quickly dropped off to sleep. yay!!! We quickly placed him in the stroller, and we could have WE time!!!
Pictures of us!!! kekeke... all the da4 tou2 zhao4 (big head pictures!)
Actually, can call them chang2 shou3 zhao4 also - long arm pictures! hahahhaa...
It is slow, travelling with a kid, coz you have to feed him, make sure he's dressed well, change his diaper if he defecates etc. BUT, it is not impossible to travel with a kid. Yes, it is slow, but we still enjoyed ourselves very much and had lots of fun. You also see the world through the kids' eyes.
So! To those couples who say that they don't want to have kids coz they "want to travel" - well I say HAVE KIDS and STILL CAN TRAVEL! :) So, no excuse! kekeke...
Hehehe... more pix of us. We realised that after Isaac was born, we hardly took pix of ourselves anymore. hahahaha... so we decided to try to make a concious effort to take more pix of the two of us.
We chanced upon a group of kids, on a school excursion. We've always been interested in how kids can learn about stuff through other means other than conventional teaching. So, we stopped and listened to this lesson going on.

The kids were actually being taught how to lower the boat like how sailors used to do. Basically, they were role-playing sailors! so cool, right?! hahaha... Other groups of kids walking the piers were also role-playing, speaking in uncouth pirate-speak and pretending to walk as though they had a wooden peg for a leg. It was all very fun :)
Night fell by the time we walked to Fisherman's Wharf - decided to try some of the seafood sold at the pier stalls. Tried some scampi soup in the bread. Nice to have something warm in the cold weather.
Look at some of the sculptures we saw outside a shop.
kekeke we did some still sculptures with them too - hehehe hope we haven't lost our touch!
Later we took the tram back to town again. By then, Isaac had woken up already. Look at his duh face. hahaha...
This time, we decided to sit on the outside! exciting! :) I was quite scared and held on to Isaac very tightly. Made hubbs put his arm across us as a sort of safety belt too!
We quickly went in search of food for Isaac as he hadn't eaten since lunch. We decided on a Vietnamese restaurant, since it was the closest food to Chinese food that we could find. Isaac ate a bit of rice and a bit of the beef noodles.
Back in our room, look at what Isaac's doing? During the trip, he started the habit of putting on our shoes and walking in them. He did that for the whole trip! It's amazing that he can balance in them though! haha...

pictures above taken on 2nd Dec 2008
Isaac @ four days to 16 months