I celebrated my birthday a week ago! It was so nice to be here coz it’s been a while since I’ve celebrated my birthday with my siblings.

In the day, James, Sophie and I took a 5 min walk to the City Cat stop near our place and took the City Cat (a ferry) via the Brisbane River to go to the city. We had breakfast at Shingles Inn – the same place we had breakfast in on our last trip, on our first visit to the city. The last time Sophie had Heinz jar food BUT this time, she had a muffin and some cake! Yums!

After breakfast, we went shopping at Queen St Mall – a whole stretch of shops. Some stuff were so affordable! All the more since the Aussie $$ has dropped significantly against the Sing dollar. Nice!

We had lunch at Elizabeth Arcade. I like this little arcade coz there are little shops with quirky stuff, not the usual Aussie Valley Girl/Sportsgirl stuff. There are shops with stuff from Thailand, Japan and prob HK. Nice to look at. We chanced upon a Jap food, bento style stall – a lot of students, turned out pretty nice and affordable. Sophie shared my unagi rice bento set. Yum yums!

We took Soph to the toy shops and then headed back in the City Cat.

There’s a nice big playground just at the City Cat terminal at our place. On the way out, we promised Sophie we’d be back. So we stopped at the playground. Errrrr…. but our little one got caught up playing and had a little accident (oops…claiming her territory??! er………) and wet herself. Argh… We changed her and brought her back. Poor girl, she was looking forward to playing. But since it was so nearby, we kept coming back the next few days.

Ended the day with dinner with my siblings at a super ching chiong Vietnamese restaurant. I have no idea where we were. It was super far out. We had SO MUCH CRABS! I love crabs lah. Yums yums!

Rachel surprised me by inviting Mel, one of my old Serve student from 2003 who now works in Brissy to join us! So fun!

I had a really good day. Thanks to everyone who smsed, left messages on FB, on my blog etc… Thanks for being part of our lives and loving me.

One of the things that I was looking forward to in Brisbane was exposing Sophie to Sunday School! Back home, we do not have programs for the under 3s. Rach, my sis serves with the tods and kids ministry so she’s been telling us about what they do.

James brought Sophie for the session in the morning while I went grocery shopping. Yiyi (Rach) was leading worship. So happening! Sophie slowly warmed up and was happy to go around on her own or with Yiyi.

When it was ending, James left Sophie with Rach and went out of the room to wait. Rach eventually brought Sophie to her meeting and she fell asleep during the meeting. So we left Sophie with Rach and went on a little lunch date and had the most amazing pizza! I kept a piece for Sophie which she enjoyed very much. The first pizza she actually ate coz the crust was so thin!

In the afternoon, we went for the afternoon service and then for dinner at Hawkin Village – yummy Viet noodles and pork chops. Our fav in this part of town. It’s nice to be back.

And noooooooo we’re not back in Singapore yet! We’re in Brissy to visit my siblings coz my sis in law is giving birth in a few days’ time!

We arrived on Sat night and it felt so good to be with family! I was so happy when Sophie asked if she’s going to see Uncle Kelvin, Auntie CY and Auntie Rachel – wow, she actually linked them all together! Cool beans! I’ve been trying to tell her about them and remind her so that when we get there, she’ll be more open and settle down quickly.

We had dinner at Kel’s place. Ooooo it was so nice to have my sis running after Sophie instead us. It’s been really good being here. More updates later!

A few mummies have been asking me how the flight went. It’s always the greatest fear when travelling wondering if our little kiddo will ever sleep or if they’ll wail non-stop thru the flight! I had a real bad experience when we left Shanghai – Sophie was wailing non-stop from the moment we boarded the plane for at least 20 mins!

Having travelled on the plane when Sophie was 7mths, 15mths, 18mths, 20 mths (agar agar ah) and now 2 yrs old, I find that the best time to travel with them on the plane is anytime below 1 yr and after 2 yrs! Seriously! Below 1, just nurse and sleep. Above 2, you can talk to them until they sleep. HA! No lah… but at least they can be entertained and reasoned with. In between 1-2, it’s just all a blur.

We took the midnight flight to Brisbane and then an internal flight to Melbourne.

My grand plan was
1. The night before, sleep real early
2. The day itself, early nap and then sleep at 7pm
3. We’ll grab her just before we leave for the airport at about 9plus. She’d prob stir a little and wake up slowly.
4. By the time we are on the plane at 12plus, she should be sleepy and sleep!

Turns out?!?!
It went according to plan……… ya right! To about point 3 and she was awake until 3am before she slept thru till we arrived. Our flight was about 7 hrs. So she sleep about 4 hrs – half time on the middle seat between us and half time on me.

She actually fell asleep watching TV! Argh. Ok at least she fell asleep. Just in time as well, after they served all the food and turned down the lights. It’s just so hard to toddlers to fall asleep upon boarding coz there’s so much activity!

When we arrived in Brisbane, we had to take a transit flight to Melbourne. CY came to pick us up to go to the other airport for domestic flights and we didn’t watch the time and ended up MISSING OUR FLIGHT!!!! Argh!!!!!!!! Ended up incurring a forfeit. Good thing we bought the tickets on discount so in the end, no discount.

The flight to Melbourne was pretty good. It was only 2 hrs. Sophie fell asleep soon after take off and slept the entire time. But because she was sleeping, it was hard to make sure her ears weren’t blocked. When we were descending she stirred and started crying! Oh dear…. it was quite bad! She screamed for a while before she finally stopped. She refused everything – water, snacks etc.

The flight back to Brisbane was REALLY good. This time, Sophie didn’t sleep at all. She was happily reading, playing, snacking and watching shows. It’s like she’s all grown up all of a sudden!

I’m so glad it’ll be a few weeks before we fly again! It’s so exhausting!

Saturday was our last morning at Melbourne City. So sad! I really really like Melbourne. There was more that I wish we had time to see like Chapel St (another stretch of shopping! Hiak!), maybe a day trip to take a ride on Puffing Billy (train) or even further out to Mornington/Phillip island to see the penguins.

But I think we did quite a bit the past 10 days. We had a great time doing a mix of things plus we spent our nights catching up with our hosts and just relaxing at home.

Our last day was spent at the markets. Amber, James’ friend mentioned the Rose St Artist Market and said we had to go. So we went!

It was well worth the trip! Guess where it was? Yes! Near Brunswick, again! Ha! There were lovely handmade stuff – accessories, clothing, homeware, and some for kids too! We bought a couple of handmade dresses for Sophie and a friend.

After that, we HAD to make a trip to see Queen Vic Market. Since my cousin Min was in Melbourne, I’ve heard loads about it. We just had to see it. It was HUGE! It looks a bit like our Pasir Ris Wholesale Market, selling fruits, veggies plus another area that sells the meats, seafood and cured meat etc. James had another go with the oysters. He did one round of half a dozen when he arrived at South Melbourne Markets and another half a dozen here. So cheap!

We didn’t have much time left so headed back to Ds’ and they helped us call a cab, said our goodbyes and left for the airport. It was a bit sad to leave Melbourne and the Ds and their lovely house BUT we were also looking forward to hanging out with my bro, sis and sis in law in Brissy so off we went!

I heard about the Collingwood Children’s Farm thru a forum mum’s blog who now lives in Melbourne. It’s just a little outside the city and since we don’t drive and travel around in taxis (argh yes! Even in Aus we’re doing that!), it was a nice way of being in the countryside but it’s not too far away.

It was LOVELY!

Sophie had a great great great time.

When we were paying for the entrance fee, we decided to let Sophie try on a bright pink t-shirt with the words "Collingwood Children’s Farm" printed on it to see if it’d fit. She never allowed us to take it off. Even at the end of the day, we had to struggle with her to remove it! I’m not sure why she liked it so much but it was really funny to see her so adamant about what she liked!

We got there just in time for the cow milking. Cow milking is at 10am and 4pm. I was really determined not to miss it! How often to we get to see cows being milked?!?! I’m glad that our little girl was such a sport! She was so gamed to milk the cow that she queued up for it!

After that we sat down at the Farm cafe for breakfast. Ooooo it was once again heavenly to sit down in the sun in the lovely environment to have breakfast. James had a full breakfast set with sinful bacon, home made baked beans, eggs and the works. I had corn and zucchini fritters with rocket leaves and roasted red peppers. Very healthy, a bit too healthy for my tastebuds so I had to venture into James’ plate. Hiak! Sophie had her little Babycino – this time just milk froth with chocolate sprinkles. Yums!

Sophie took the last picture, nice!

After that we slowed walked thru the farm. We saw pigs, cows, goats, sheep, horses, hens, ducks……….. So fun!

Along the way we fed some of the animals with the feed we bought. One of the goats escaped out of the gate while we were feeding him! Yeeeeeks! I was trying to be brave but halfway, I was a bit terrified coz he kept coming to get food from us!

Top Left: Ooo goat, let’s feed the goat!
Top Right: Ahhhh the goat squeezed out of his "cage"
Bottom Left: Terrified mummy taking picture, oops!
Bottom Right: Farm girl brings goat back. His name was Harold we found out and he did that often. So naughty!

It was a Friday but it was crowded with school children and mums and babes. Seemed like a very popular place for kids. I think if we had sth like that in Singapore that was near the city, it’ll be super crowded too!

We left about 12 plus coz it was getting hot! As we were leaving, Sophie fell asleep in the pram, sitting upright!! That’s so rare! I don’t think she’s ever done that before in the past 2 years! Ha, she must have been exhausted being chased around by a goat!

Since she was asleep, we took a slow walk and walked all the way to Gertrude St (again Brunswick area)! There’s just so much to see!

Last Thurs we did a variety of things.

We spent the morning at the Royal Botanical Gardens (which we discovered wasn’t far from where we lived), met James’ old housemate during his uni days at St Kilda’s for lunch, walked around the area a bit and headed back to South Melbourne for a walk to the park with the Ds.

The Royal Botanical Gardens again, was MASSIVE! Sophie enjoyed the walk and started picking up sticks, leaves and all. We wanted to hang out at the Children’s Garden but by the time we got there, we were really hungry so we had brunch at the cafe nearby.

It is SO NICE to eat in the sun and not feel terribly hot. One of my most fav thing to do.

We finally made it to the CHildren’s garden and our camera died on us! Argh! So no photos of the garden. Sophie and I had loads of fun walking around and exploring while James tried to fix the camera.

After that we met Amber, James’ old friend from Perth for lunch. James and Amber had amazing mussels and soup for lunch while I had a okay Waygu beef burger. Somehow Waygu tastes better in thin slices and marinated. Anyways, Sophie and Amber hit it off almost immediately. Nice!

After lunch, we discovered a newly opened vintage clothing shop opp the hotel we stayed when we arrived at St Kilda. It wasn’t opened the week before! NICE! I bought a couple of things, even found two vintage baby tops for Sophie! Hee, will blog about that once I have time to take pics.

 We made our way back and took a walk with the Ds to a nearby park.

We went to the Melbourne Aquarium today and Sophie got to touch a starfish! I learnt that they eat scallops and mussels! So shiok ah!

After seeing so many sea creatures made me hungry for some seafood! Heh…. We went back to Brunswick area. This time to Smith Street coz we didn’t manage to finish walking the last time. Sophie fell asleep on the way there. Since we discovered that Sophie can sleep on couches, we’ve been looking around for cafes with couches so that Sophie can sleep while we eat or shop. Nice! We found a nice cafe with couches on Smith St. I had a really really good marinara with scallops and mussels!

Sophie hasn’t been eating much lunch coz she doesn’t really like the food. So she has been eating snacks thru the day! Here she is snacking on biscuits while we go shopping. This time round we discovered more vintage shops and I bought my first real vintage buy at Smith Street Bazaar, a really cool vintage furniture and clothing store.

On our way back, Sophie discovered DUST! The light was shining thru and the dust particles were just dancing around. She started trying to catch them. So funny.

Today we went to the Melbourne Museum. That’s it. It’s that good. We spent the entire day there.

In the mornings, Sophie looks forward to spending time with baby Dylan. We normally have breakfast in the house and she spends time playing with Dylan before we head out for the day. She’s been eating her usual yogurt, fruit, sometimes bread, sometimes cheese and past two days, AVOCADO. Did I mention? The avocados here are so creamy and huge! YUMS!

After breakfast, we went to the museum.

Left: I made Sophie do a little dance in front of the letter "S" in the word Museum.
Right: Showing Sophie different species of birds. They had these "maps" provided that went along with the display.

It’s soooooooooo good to finally go to a museum where they value KIDS! We spent 1 and a half hours just in the Children’s Gallery! It was eye opening how they made complicated things so easy to understand for children. There was an area to learn about dinosaurs – they even had a sand pit for the kids to dig for dinosaur bones! My fav was walking thru the section on how things grow – they showed different animals and their young. Even I learnt so much.

Top Left: Growth cycle of a frog

Top Right: Mummy wombat and baby wombat (There was a weighing machine there that showed you how many wombats you weighed. I am as heavy as two wombats. Ha!)

Bottom Left: There are buttons you can press to hear the sound of these animals. Sophie had great fun here.

Bottom Right: OOOOOO that’s the bones of a blue whale, the largest animal on earth!

The rest of the museum was just as exciting. I’ve not enjoyed a museum so much since my last trip to Washington.

Sophie fell asleep after lunch. We had a brilliant plan to put her in the pram while we went around look at exhibits but the plan fell thru – Sophie has grown too big for her pram. Gua gua. She kept falling out of it if we put her lying down. Anyways, the next brilliant plan was to put her on a couch! That worked! So James and I took turns to see the galleries. Wah shiok, she slept on that couch for at least an hour or so.

After the museum, we wanted to go find a place to have dinner but when we got out of the museum, it was so windy and cold we decided to head home. The weather here is quite crazy. You’ll never quite know. It’s been pretty cold since Sun.

We went to Fitzroy Gardens and visited James Cook’s Cottage. After that we met up with Shan to go shopping at Brunswick area.

I had a brillant plan coz I can read maps very well (ya right!). I had this strange idea that Fitzroy Gardens is very near to Brunswick St. At least on the map, I estimated it’ll prob take 15 mins to walk from the garden. But what I didn’t realise was that it took at least 10 mins to get from one end of the garden to the other! It is huge! And another 10-15 mins to walk to the START(!) of Brunswick St. The real shopping only starts much further down the street. Of course Sophie had to fall asleep along the way and made the journey longer coz she’s getting heavy! When we finally got there, poor Shan had to walk from the happening end of the street to meet us at the beginning of the street and by then we were famished!

We ate lunch at the nearest decent place and thank God we chose a good one! The food was amazingly good and I ordered a hot chocolate thinking that I’ll share with Sophie BUT the lady was so sweet! She gave Sophie a hot chocolate, Babycino style, on the house! Wow! Sweet! Sophie finished the entire glass! She also had her own lunch of scrambled eggs and raisin toast. Yumms!

After that, we went shopping! It’s a lovely area with an eclectic mix of shops – it’s got vintage stuff, high end designer stuff, local designer stuff, books, homeware etc. Our fav type of street. Somewhat like our Haji lane but 10x the range and size. We had a great time just looking at stuff. Didn’t buy much but just so nice to look.

We shopped, stopped for drinks (and pee break for Sophie, btw she’s been doing great with the toilet training!), shopped some more and finally when we couldn’t shop anymore (oh, actually the shops were closing!), we took a final drink break and went home. It’s amazing how the shops say they’ll close at 5 but by 4.30, they are packing and leaving! It’s great to be at a place where family and home means more than work. I can also understand why kids sleep at 7pm. There’s simply nothing else to do after 5pm. So Sophie’s back to sleeping at 8pm after dinner and wash up. Since we’ve moved to D’s place, I’ve been cooking her dinner every night. At least she’s eating 2 good meals a day – breakfast and dinner.

We didn’t do much today. We followed the Ds to church, had very yummy dim sum with their family and D dropped us off in the city where we went shopping.

We must have been shopping a lot because James has taught Sophie to imitate the mannequins! She’s trying to pose like one here.

Btw, the weather is heating up! It’s so hot I’m now wearing sleeveless. Apparently it’ll get cold again the next few days.

South Melbourne Market

We moved into D & D’s today. They live in a nice swanky new apartment in South Melbourne.

We spent some time unpacking and then went out for lunch. The weather is wonderful for walking and they live just a few minutes from the South Melbourne Market. It’s like a wet market – lotsa fruits, veg, meats, seafood plus random organic shops and even clothing shops. We had lunch at a Spanish restaurant. Sophie started to fuss while waiting for the food prob coz she was very tired and sleepy – hangover frm the night before! I put her to nap and carried her while I ate my lunch. After that we bought our supplies of fruit and veg for Sophie. I’m quite concerned that she’s only been drinking milk, eating yogurt, fruit, bread and raisins!

D & D went home while we continued walking around. The adjacent road Coventry Road had very nice household ware shops, supermarkets and a nice bookshop. We spent some time walking around n then headed back to rest.

I cooked pasta dinner of pasta, carrots, spinach and egg for Sophie. It felt so good to see her eat a whole meal of good nutritious food. She’s been eating but very little. Mainly sushi and pasta, sometimes noodles. She’s been eating a lot of fruit tho. Seems like other than breakfast, she’s just snacking throughout the day.

For the first time since we arrived, we managed to get Sophie to sleep at 8pm. Finally back on routine. Melbourne is 2 hrs ahead of Singapore plus 1 hr more of daylight saving so it’s a total of 3 hrs difference so we took a while to adjust her schedule. She kept falling asleep at 4/5pm, Melbourne time and slept for a long time so by the time it was her bedtime, she was not sleepy at all.

It’s such a blessing to have somewhere homely to stay. We had take away Thai dinner w the Ds at home and we’re just enjoying ourselves doing nothing very much. Nice.