Happy 45th National Day!!

What a fun day we had on this 45th National Day celebration. We woke up to a rainy morning and Anders told me: “mommy, we can’t go cycling because it’s raining.” I told him not to worry; the sun will be out later. True enough after breakfast, the rain stopped and we started packing our stuff for a day at Pasir Ris Park.

Now that both Anthea and Anders both owned a bicycle and had learnt to cycle on their own. We would like to bring them to the park to let them get used to the crowd in cycling.

As Bishan Park is undergoing major renovation and most part of the parks are closed off. After some discussion, we decided that Pasir Ris Park would be more idea for the children as it is not as crowded as East Coast Park.

We headed off around 10 plus with both bicycles in our car. The drive to the park was very smooth and fast, as the road was quite empty. We off loaded both the bicycles and headed to the park and the children were all excited about cycling in the park.

They saw a big playground and started heading toward the playground. The playground was huge and had different kind of slides and play area. Both of them went to try the different slides and had so much at the playground.

Then after play about ½ hour, we told them to ride their bicycles to explore the other side of the park. As they were riding along the way and I was following Anders while Adrian jogged beside Anthea. I could see many families having their family picnics by the grass patch and some under the canopy. Most of them were dressed in our National Day color – Red & white. It was really fun and we can feel the National Day mood with all these colors surrounding us. One of the families was even doing BBQ under the hot sun…: P

We had water breaks in-between and I also brought along cheese buns for the children as snack. During their rest, we even had the chance to play 嗒嗒球 at the open field. We had so much fun doing all the different sport at the park.

Then at about 1pm, we started to get changed before lunch. Anders even took a quick shower at the changing room. We headed toward Elias Mall, which was nearest to the park, and had a simple lunch at the food court. Then followed by a good treat of ice-cream for a hot, sunny afternoon.

Finally we reached home around 3pm. The children bathed and had their usual afternoon nap. They had planned to dine-in to watch the LIVE National Day Parade on TV.

In the evening, we packed Macdonald’s for dinner and sat in front of the TV for dinner. We had so much fun watching the 2 ½ hours parade and the children sang along to the tune of the familiar National Songs.

At 8pm, we even caught a glimpse of the Mobile Column that drove passed our street. Then at 8.10pm, the children recited the Pledge and sang the final National Anthem and this brought us to the closed of the ceremony.

It has been an enjoyable National Day for our family and we were glad that we had discovered this new “GEM of the East”. We will be there again as the children said they really had a good time at the park.

NDP 2010 Combine Rehearsal

This year Adrian has been assigned NDP logistic duties again. Yes, his officer seems to like to give him NDP assignment..hehe.

Well, he took pride in his duties and has been fulfilling them on most weekdays and weekends for the practices. Missing out on our regulars weekends families’ dinner but he always tell the children: “Country comes 1st and he must serve it before his family.”

We are proud of him and for his scarifies, we were rewarded handsomely…hehe. Usually before the actual NDP Preview and National Day Parade, the organizing committee will have few rounds of combined rehearsals to improve on the parade for the actual day. For these rehearsals, publics were given tickets to attend the parade and show.

On Friday, Adrian came home with 4 tickets for the CR on 03 July 2010. The children were very excited and were looking forward to the parade. As we had an extra ticket, Anthea invited her best friend, Maya, to join us for the parade.

On Saturday afternoon, we had a light tea-break at home before setting out to fetch Maya for the Parade. This was our 1st time to the Parade@ Padang.

We reached Odeon Tower around 4.30pm and started walking from the building to the Parade Square. As we were walking along the road, we saw many people walking in the same direction and we were all dressed in REDS. Amazing support from the public, even though it was just a rehearsal, we still came in the DRESS CODE requested by the committee.

We had tickets for Blue Sector and the marshal directed us to the zone. As we walked, the marshals were all shouting to the public: “hi, welcome to NDP 2010”. I felt I walked in to a Giordano store…haha.

Our 1st stop was to collect our Goodies bags and this year tote bags are Designers bags. We are the 1st batch of public to get our hands on the bags and inside each bag – there is a Fun Box, bottles of water, Singapore Flag, a flipper and Poncho. The tote bag is so much neater & practical to use compared to those previous year goodie bag.

We got to our seats and settled ourselves before the parade commenced. Around 6pm, it started to drizzle and we took out the poncho from our bag and used it. I had brought along umbrellas too.

The parade started around 6.15pm with the marched in of the different contingents followed by the Guard of Honor. The parade & ceremony commenced after the “President” arrived. As usual the children were excited when they saw the helicopters flew passed with the Singapore Flag. The F16 saluted the Nation with their fly passed.

This year the MOBILE COLUMN is the main show display and there were many different Mobiles that were introduced. As we were seated a little too far from the main road of display, we had to keep watching the Big Screen to seen the different Mobiles.

It got a bit boring for the children and at this point, it was still drizzling. So we made the decision to leave the parade and head for our dinner.

We had Macdonald’s dinner at Odeon Tower and the children had a great time chatting with one another. Anthea truly enjoyed Maya’s companionship.

After dinner, we sent Maya’s home and we went home for a good hot bath and finally settling down to watch a good match of World Cup between Germany & Argentina.

Overall the children had enjoyed the NDP combined rehearsal and now they are looking forward to the actual National Day Parade and we will watch it from the comfort of the home.

The only setback I felt about his year NDP 2010 was that it was not as interactive as the previous 2 years shows. Also because of location – the show seem to be a little pale in comparisons with previous. Anyway, good thing was we managed to see it LIVE and experienced the real thing and of course, our Designer’s Tote Bags…haha.