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

SF Tram & Ghirardelli Square

This was our first day in San Francisco on our own - it was a Monday. Look at Isaac in the thick winter jacket - many thanks to Wenli who lent us Dorcas' coat! :) It was nice and thick and comfy and fitted Isaac just fine - but other than this day, he refused to wear the coat anymore! hahaha... think he found it too thick and cumbersome. We decided to take the famous San Francisco Tram down to the piers to walk around. Due to our hostel's fantastic location, we could walk to the tram stop in less than 10 minutes. Was fun to walk as we could look around - plus the weather was nice and cool :)
Look! Here's the tram 'turning around' :p hehehe... still manual turning - see the men pushing the tram?!
We took a seat inside the tram, instead of like sitting at the side, exposed. Coz I was scared lah. Not scared of myself dropping off, more like I was scared that Isaac would fidget and I would drop him! Then he fall off and bang his head and DIE how??!?!? Ahhhhhhhh!!!!! hahahhaa... as you can see, I'm a little paranoid. Dunno if all mothers are like that. hahahaha... More on this paranoia thingy another time.
Look at Isaac with his kuai lan face!!! hahahhahaa... so fierce!!!
Ah! This was the view from the tram when it was at the top of the crookedest street or something - nice view of the city, but pity is was a bit misty/hazy.
We got down the train and walked to the place below Ghirardelli Square! We saw a restaurant there and decided to head there for lunch. If you find that the word Ghirardelli looks familiar... yes, it's that San Francisco chocolate brand! This is widely sold in Singapore and you would recognise the packaging if you see it. But we didn't realise there and then that there was a chocloate museum/factory we could visit. It was kinda quiet when we were there, given that it was a Monday afternoon.
Here we are in the american restaurant. Here, for the first time, Isaac ate his first pasta (penne) and tasted his first french fry - we were desperate!!! He hadn't really been eating since we left Singapore. But luckily think he was hungry by then, so he ate quite a fair bit of the pasta.
These are the grounds in the Ghirardelli Square... quite nice, really. Very 'overseas' look and feel... hahaha... Not exactly very exciting, but we en


Ah! this is the chocolate store down by the wharfs! Look at all that chocolate!!! :p

pictures taken on 3 Dec 2009 thereabouts

San Francisco's Pier 39

This is San Francisco's Pier 39! We went there after Golden Gate Park, to have our dinner. The weather was nice and cool, and not too cold that it was uncomfortable. We had our jackets and all, so were nice and warm. Isaac in particular, took to the cold pretty well.
Oh and thanks to Anne Than for lending Isaac her son jackets and longs! :) Was a great help! Kept Isaac nice and warm - and looked very nice too! ;p Thanks gal!
Look at the super tall Christmas Tree! Yeah, we were there in December, so the Xmas decorations had started to come out already. Good! Nice and cheery and colourful for us.
Here's a nice pic of me and Isaac! :) *beam*
*DUH* look from Isaac hahahhaa...
pix taken on 1st Dec 2008 thereabouts

We meet the girls!

Ain't this a pretty picture? I love it! :) hahaha... Isabelle's a big girl already, huh. So is Becca and Natalie! We were mighty pleased to see them, and so was Isaac!
Below is Natalie in her winter jacket, in the stroller. Being 3 months younger than Isaac, Natalie had only just started to walk. So, for going out, she still sat in the stroller most of the time, as she wasn't strong enough to walk long distances for a long time yet.


Then again, Isabelle certainly is strong enough, but she wants to sit in the stroller too! In fact, my sister says that it is usually Isabelle in the stroller, while they carry Natalie. Hahaha... but since Isaac was walking, we managed to convince Isabelle to walk too! We'd say:"Isabelle, you see, Isaac also walking, why don't you walk too?" And she would! But she'd INSIST that Isaac walks as well, so when Isaac got tired and wanted us to carry him, Isabelle would exclaim immediately:"How come Isaac never walk!? Then I also don't walk?!" Or she would try to drag him down to walk as well... hahaha... well, as you can tell, the two of them hit off immediately.

Isaac and Isabelle were like long lost best friends. They really enjoy playing with one another. Isabelle would be very curious with everything about Isaac, and would enjoy teasing him and making funny faces and funny noises and silly actions which would make him laugh. I guess Becca and Natalie were all very used to Isabelle's nonsense and wouldn't react as much, so now with a captive audience, Isabelle was most pleased.
Isaac too was very pleased that his Isabelle cheh cheh was playing with him all the time. Greatly amusing to him! But as all things go, there are limits... hahaha... Isabelle can be very pushy and insist that things are done her way. So, as you can see in these 3 similar pix - Isabelle is insisting that Isaac stands at a certain position and she is 'forcing' him into position... And Isabelle is one strong gal... so as you can see, Isaac is already feeling uncomfortable... hahaha... But by and large, the two of them had a great time playing with one another. In fact, by the end of the trip, Isabelle was exclaiming that Isaac was her best friend! When my sister asked :"Oh? I thought Natalie was your best friend?" She replied:"Both Isaac AND Natalie are my BEST FRIENDS!!!" hahaha...
Anyway, we're mighty pleased the kids got along with Isaac very well. So we're looking forward to them coming home soon - in June I think! :)
At the time of this trip in December 2008, Chris' mum - my sis's mum-in-law (above) was there to help them out, as my mum had just returned to Singapore in November. Currently, my mum is there, she went up straight after Chinese New Year, and will be back in Singapore in May this year. In fact, my dad is also currently there! He went up late March, and is coming back this Sunday.
Here's Isabelle climbing on the tree. Kinda reminds me of the scene in Sound of Music when the kids were climbing trees hahaha...
There was something we noticed though, when we were spending time with my sister and family. We noticed that they are now not as uptight about the kids getting dirty. I mean, not that they were very uptight before, but as in, you know how most of us Singaporean parents would like: not really let the kids roll on the grass, climb trees, play with sand with bare hands, sit and crawl in the sand etc - coz it's DIRTY??? Well, it seems like my sister's family is not as uptight about that now - it's like - "Dirty, then wash lor." kind of attitude. Hubbs and I discussed it, and we think it is quite good really. Why be so uptight, right? "Isaac!!! Dirty!!! Stop it!" hahahaha...
Oh I forgot to mention - these pix here - are all at the Golden Gate Parks. Very nice, got museums and all. I know you guys are all looking forward to our usa pix right? Don't know if you'd be disappointed though - coz I realised that actually, most of the pix we took, are more of Isaac and the girls, than of the scenery etc. Also, actually, we didn't take as many pix as we used to. Coz more than half the time, I was busy looking after Isaac to take pix. Also, I was still sulking that I don't have as much nice pix with Isaac as hubbs does - so hubbs was trying his darnest to prove me wrong. It was sweet of him - he kept it up quite a bit, but it died off too. So in the end, we didn't have that much pix from this trip. Kinda regretting it now. hahaha... sighz! Can't be lazy! once the moments have past - they're gone!!! I'm a Chronic Chronicler!!! HAHAHA!
What can I say, another fairly excellent picture (trying to be modest here by using the word "fairly") of hubbs with Isaac - with BOTH smiling and looking good. sob sob sob. Well at least I always have nice pix in my wallet... *self*consolation* (is better than no consolation) hahahhaa...

Ah... two very good tries. Above, hubbs nicely catches me with Isaac, and my sister, Becca and Isabelle in the background. And below, it's Isaac's fault that he's not looking and smiling right? Not hubbs' fault what... *wink* :p *grinz*
Ah! Found a picture of the grounds outside the museum. Nice huh! :) We came back again on our own another day, so maybe a later post would have more pix here. Stay tuned! :)
pix above taken on 1st Dec 2008 thereabouts
Isaac @ five days to 16 months
Natalie @ two days to 13 months
Isabelle @ 3 years plus
Rebecca @ 5 years plus