En's adventures in Beijing..

En is taking his nap.. despite his numerous attempts to defeat the Zzz monster with his "I not tired" ..

And I am reviewing the pics of sights in Beijing the

 past 3 days, and listening to Faye Wong..  How everything Beijing is that!

Hubby is back to studying, and has been out since morning till evening for the past 2 days. So I am rendered to manage En alone. I must say, I thought of it as a challenge.

Back in Singapore, with Melanie, my mum and MIL, I always have support with the kids.

Faced with an active, and possibly temperamental kid alone can be daunting, especially in my current preggie state. Yes, I see this as a challenge.

As with most challenges, I find that when thrust into the situation, I will just do what is needed. And the strength of mum/ parent can be amazing, I find.  I am usually a very impatient person, highly irritable myself. En is sometimes a mini replicate of me perhaps. He can be highly temperamental as well and requires a lot of patience in coaxing him for some stuff to be accomplished. However, I find, it takes one to deal with one effectively. 

En has always been curious and easily fascinated and stimulated by the new and novel. So the carrot of some new adventure or sights or events can motivate him into action.

He is a determined little boy too. I must say these 2 days of walking around has been tough, but since we ditched the stroller when he started walking steadily, he has been "trained" to walk and stroll with us.. So that training has kinda paid off. The most resistance he put up was to say "My legs are tired".. and I will sit down on a bench with with and distract him with some snacks.. :)

The Beijing Zoo, Aquarium and NanLuoGuXiang (南锣故乡）

On Monday, early morning, I brought En to the Aqua

rium. I only intended to visit the aquarium, but turned out that on

 Monday, combined tickets for the Aquarium and Zoo are sold, with the Zoo only going for a nominal price.

Well, i have some pics of the zoo, but let's just say that I don't find it great - in terms of animal treatment, layout and collection of animals. This is not the Singaporean superiority/ complacency ok, even the guide book in Beijing says so. Still the giant pandas are worth the incremental price, after all, even I have never seen a panda up close.  Otherwise, I can now finally understand why the Singapore Zoo is given such fantastic ratings, in comparison. 

The aquarium is another story though. While it is not big, the collection is awesome. En much enjoyed the sea lion and dolphin show. The only funny thing was he had to grapple with the Chinese commentary with the show.

With this trip to China, it has much sharpened his awareness of different languages. He will now ask, for everything, "is it English or Chinese?". He asked that for restaurants, places of interests, and even taxis - he wanted to know if they belong to English or Chinese. I find that rather amusing. He understand the Chinese quite well, but his spoken Chinese still has the English accent to it, which is appalling, but I guess with the 6 months immersion here next year, it will become better!

Outside the aquarium, I saw these absolutely hilarious kiddy rides - the automated rickshaw rides to entertain the kids. This my absolute favourite -  猪八戒抬轿子. It really made me laugh non stop. We should have these in Chinatown!

In the evening, Hubby came home, and we went to 南锣故乡。 I love it, the shops there are fascinating, just right up my alley with all sorts of what I call neo-antique stuff (antique stuff which are added with the modernist touches). However, with En around, i was not in the mood to shop or else I am sure I will have spent quite a bit of money there. A must go again I think. We had dinner there in an Italian place, and in this picture here, you see En's little panda which cost like SGD 10 bucks. Well.. papa started it by asking if he wanted one, and after that there is no turning back.

Well, our policy is, "Dun ask the kid if you have no intention of buying it for them" - it is like asking for trouble. It is a policy of honesty and integrity. No point getting the kid all ex

cited only to disappoint them. So Papa has to live up to this and buy it even though it is a darn expensive panda! But En was quite enamored of it for a day. he reads to the Panda that night and even put him to bed, his first I think at playing imaginary friend. 

The Domestic Goddess

On Tuesday, I played domestic goddess. and I finally have the true taste of a SAHM that day. 

I cooked, and went to do grocery shopping in preparation for dinner. 

And I had a taste of lugging heavy grocery bags along with a kid. In the past, with hubby around, we were lucky to have a chauffeur and a helping hand. Yesterday, thankfully En behaved himself and was amicable even though he was really sleepy. He almost fell asleep in the cab!

I cooked En's dinner, here on the left, a colourful mixture of broccoli, pumpkin and chicken. 

For ourselves I cooked  chicken curry with baguette. Not too bad. Except I realise that stay at home mums hardly have any time to themselves at all! Hm, next year with 3 kids, I think it will be real tough and crazy for me!

But I think I can be a very good domestic house woman if I want to. And i do like to cook, except, I hate the washing and the prepping. But i like to experiment with the taste, so i quite enjoy the process of planning and doing the cooking..

Of course, En can be trying at times, but i really swear by letting him adhere to a schedule. After his nap, he is always refreshed and more amenable. And we can do things together. During his nap, I get the dinner prep and some housework done. So it all works well, I am a holy evangelist of scheduling kids on a comfortable routine. It makes the kids more manageable too and allows breathing space and time for us as well, instead of the ad hoc-ness which create some chaos.

圆明园

This morning, En and I set off to the old Summer Palace. 

En still wants to go aquarium, he keeps talking about it, so I thought I will bring him to the scenic palace to watch some fish in the ponds. Turned out not much fishes in the pond (more lotus flowers and all) but we took great pics!

 

Sometimes, I think En is really boyish looking. Over here in northern China, he has a distinctly Southern look, with his double eyelids and long lashes. A lot of salespeople always ask if he is a boy or gal, I think because even the gals have very short hair or are botak here, so they will always ask and not take the gender for granted. And over here, they always say En looks like Papa.. hm, I wonder if it is the truth or it is the male superiority thing, like males must take after Papa as a compliment to the male superiority.

But the little boy is very cute, he has started to ask me to take picture so can show Papa. That is how I manage to get him to standing properly for these lovely pics.. the weather is cold but from these sunny, bright colourful pics, you wouldn't know it!

A lovely time to bond between En and me I guess. I treasure such times, tiring and trying on my patience sometimes it may be, but I am looking forward to doing it with Xuan, which I am sure is a different game altogether. I miss Xuan Xuan sooo much!

I really think traveling helps to broaden the kids' perspective.. and En is fast becoming a savvy traveller. I am constantly impressed by his memory. The other day, we walked past the porridge place where we had our dinner the first night we were here. And En actually said, we had dinner here, right Papa?

Other places that we drive past, he will point out and said if he had gone there before. I never recalled having that kind of cognition in my tender years. Kids these days are amazing, really cannot underestimate what they can recall...

Here it is, 2 of us tracing our shadows across the gardens this morning, with En holding on to his small map and saying that he will bring me to see the boat. So I just trudge along, till his tired legs and hungry stomach dictate that we should go for spaghetti lunch and he forgot all about the boats that he wanted to see. Oh.. the price of tired-ness for such little gems. The choice is clear.. :)