We are Pretty Cure!

We are having Pretty Cure live performances in our home earlier than expected because KK said to me that it holding back Tai Pi's birthday present may not be such a good idea. Afterall, we expect her to take good care of her school socks and shoes not just till her birthday but after that as well so why keep the girls waiting for Tai Pi's Cure White costume. So I got Tai Pi the costume and a Card Commune (now I realise the handphone thing is known as a Card Commune) thinking that the girls could share Tai Pi's Card Commune and Pumpkin's Rainbow Bracelet. But Pumpkin now whines incessantly about not having her own Card Commune, apparently the accessory they need to unleash their power (why didn't you say so earlier Pumpkin?!!). So I've told her to get herself a Card Commune with her own savings. And now she wants the Card Commune holder as well. This Pretty Cure craze is going to bleed us dry!!!

Don't mess with Sai Pi

I remember when Tai Pi was in kindergarten, she got into a catfight with a classmate over a sweet and ended up with a long scratch on her face. Pumpkin, on the other hand, has survived more than 3 years of pre-school without injury and is not known to have caused bodily harm to any of her classmates. And then there is Sai Pi....

Two days back, I was on my way to a company function in the evening when I got a call from KK telling me that Sai Pi had punched one of her classmates earlier in the day. The boy ended up with a swollen eye that had to be treated with ice. Apparently the boy tried to snatch a block from Sai Pi and she gave him the block....in the eye. When I got home, I spoke to Sai Pi and tried to find out if she really did hit her classmate.

Me: Did you hit Justin with a block?

Sai Pi: No.

Me: [whew]

Sai Pi: I use my hand [demonstrates a punching action].

Well, he did try to snatch the block from her....

Black thunder!!!

Every generation of kids has its own favourite superheros, some with more staying power than others. The only kids' targeted superhero I remember from my time is Ultraman. Strangely, there were more superhero shows targeted at adults at that time, such as Six Million Dollar Man, Bionic Woman, Wonder Woman and Green Hornet. Over time, there has gotten to be more and more TV programmes for children and with that, more and more character merchandise. I've told Tai Pi that this is all a ploy that manufacturers use to make money from consumers, creating cartoon characters in order to sell merchandise. And now I am a victim myself.

After weeks of eyeing the Pretty Cure merchandise at the store, Pumpkin has now got an early birthday present from me - a Pretty Cure costume and a Pretty Cure Rainbow Bracelet. Pumpkin is Cure Black, one half of Pretty Cure, who yells "Black thunder" when she unleashes her power. The other member of Pretty Cure is Cure White who yells "White thunder" (what else?) and is played by Tai Pi (at least in our home).

The merchandise is not cheap. Those two items cost me $100. And there's lots more Pretty Cure accessories they "need" - handphone, handphone pouch, card commune, etc. I'll be another $100 poorer next month when I get Tai Pi her Cure White costume and Rainbow Bracelet for her birthday. But this is only if she doesn't lose any more of her school socks and shoes. She had to dig into her savings to buy some school socks and shoes a while back to replace the ones she lost. I've warned her that if she loses any more of them, I'm getting her socks and shoes for her birthday. She's worried and so is Pumpkin. If Tai Pi doesn't get the Cure White costume, Cure Black will be without her partner. Pumpkin reminds Tai Pi everyday to take care of her socks and shoes. Will Cure White join Cure Black in the fight against the evil forces? Stay tuned to find out.

Dear Mummy

I like you very much. You always read us stories and draw for us. I also like your drawing. Your voise is sweet and woderful. But daddy is not sweet because he always funt and burb. And he doen'st say "excuse me" But he is nice because he likes kissing us.

Yous truely
Tai Pi

2nd Grading

Yesterday, Tai Pi and Pumpkin took the grading test to obtain the Yellow Belt. As is becoming the routine, they had a sleepover the night before, kindly hosted once again by Auntie D who was ambitious enough to even prepare a BBQ. I was in KL for work but came back in time to savour Auntie D's fabulous kebabs and to see Shing get a scolding for yelling at Pumpkin who had accidentally knocked his drink down, the boys being made to dive into the pool to retrieve pebbles they had thrown into the pool, and the (accidental) smashing of one of Auntie D's potted plants. Gee, I can't wait for my turn to host a sleepover....

Paint the town brown

I mentioned in my previous post that there was a gathering of a group of people dressed in brown in support of Mr Brown, the humour columnist who had his column suspended because the Gahmen took offense with his article "Singaporeans are fed up with progress". Well, over lunch today, some colleagues and I decided we too would wear brown in a show of support for Mr Brown.

Then just this evening, I read in Singabloodypore about the Brown Freedom Movement which involves wearing brown and looking out for others similarly dressed and calling out some kind of code. The movement will go on till National Day. So I'm getting out all my brown clothes and fortunately I do like to wear brown so I have quite a number of brown pieces, and I'll be trying my best to go brown between now till National Day. If you believe in the cause, join the movement too and let's paint the town brown!!!

Last week's news

Before I get caught up with the happenings this week, I thought I would reflect on some news from last week that caught my attention. No sorry, not the World Cup. Didn't quite follow the World Cup this time. Congratulations to the Italians though.

Newsy news #1:

You know how I detest lavish show-off weddings. Well, this one takes the (wedding) cake!!! A $10m Indian wedding in Singapore between the only son of a Calcutta millionaire and the eldest daughter of a couple that runs a worldwide steel supply chain. The wedding took place at the Ritz Carlton where the groom arrived on a white horse and 300 guests were flown in from India and stayed at the hotel courtesy of the bride's family. The bride's mother said that she had been setting aside money for the past 10 years for the wedding so that they would not end up having to pull together the money at the last minute. I hope she also saved enough to pay for the wedding of her other daughter.

So anyway, I was reading about this wedding and wondering how on earth it was possible to spend $10m on a wedding. And of course I was thinking what a waste of money it was... oh how sinful... blah blah. And then I realised that hey these are the people that stimulate our economy!!! Because they spend, people have jobs, incomes, money to spend.... yes I almost forgot - money makes the world go round. We should be thankful for these rich people and their free-spending ways. In fact I think it is their social responsibility to spend money and not hoard it. This is what you call redistribution of wealth.

Newsy news #2:

This 2nd piece of news also involves money. Two months' earnings to be precise, that a fresh graduate of the Singapore Management University, Darren Lim is giving away to a scholarship named after his parents. This nice boy just started work and wanted to give his parents something special and also wanted to thank his university and hence the scholarship worth $4,500 which is about two months of his salary. And he will be supporting the scholarship every year for an indefinite period of time. I imagine that most fresh graduates would be happily spending their first pay check on themselves thinking they deserved it having studied so hard all those years and here you have this nice boy who gives his first pay check to a good cause and in his parents' name. His parents must be so proud of him!!!

Also in the news:

This last piece of news I found most troubling. The fact that it didn't feature very much in the news made it doubly so. A Today columnist who goes by the moniker Mr Brown had his column suspended by Today editors. The editors didn't want to comment on their action but it was in relation to an article that Mr Brown (his real name is Lee Kin Mun) had written about Singaporeans being "fed up with progress". The article was written in his typical satirical style. Unfortunately, the Gahmen did not take too kindly to it and got one of their guys to write a letter to the newspaper's Forum page chastising Mr Brown and boy they really didn't mince their words. And we are not talking about a trouble-maker here. Mr Brown's column is meant to be a humorous and light-hearted take on Singapore life. His other pet topic is his family, particularly his autistic eldest daughter. If this is the Gahmen's attitude towards a humour columnist, imagine what they would do to more serious writers.

So of course the Gahmen linked newspaper I suppose had no choice but to show their support for the Gahmen and perhaps it was also their way of apologising for allowing the article to be published in the first place. While there has been a strong show of support for Mr Brown online, there's hardly anything about it in the papers and no letters from readers. No prizes for guessing why this is so. But at least they did report in today's papers that a group of people gathered outside City Hall MRT wearing brown T-shirts to show their support for Mr Brown. They were just gathered there, no chanting, not carrying any placards or anything, and yet the police said "they are looking into it". Crime rate in Singapore too low izzit?!! Nothing better to do than to investigate a bunch of people dressed in brown!!! It really is a wonder how Singapore could be a first world country and yet still be in the dark ages as far as some basic freedoms are concerned. When will our people be truly free?

Phuket....again

This is long overdue but better late than never.

We got back from a short holiday in Phuket a few weeks back. It was the girls' second trip to Phuket in as many years. This time we went in a bigger group - 4 couples, 2 maids and 11 kids. We stayed at Holiday Inn where we had the Family Suite which is a standard room with an adjoining kid's room. The girls were absolutely thrilled with their room (and I was too) - it was a Treasure Island room with pirate ship beds, X-Box, DVDs.... and even the peep hole was child height. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of the room in the daytime so I only have lousy dark photos of it.

The hotel was near the girls' favourite beach - Patong which I don't think is great as the water is not clear but they just enjoy playing in the sand and having the waves crash on them. We did our nails on the beach and the girls also had their hair braided; it seems de rigueur for little girls to return from a holiday in Phuket with beads in their hair.

Unfortunately we didn't go jet skiing this time round. On our last trip, I brought Tai Pi out on a jet ski and she loved it. Pumpkin didn't want to try it as she was afraid she would fall off the jet ski "and the sharks will get me". She decided to give it a go this time but we didn't get round to it.

All too soon our holiday was over and I didn't even get a decent massage (the pathetic nudging and squeezing I got from the massage lady on Patong Beach doesn't count).

To anyone planning a Phuket trip, don't go to Khai Island and don't dine at Sabai Sabai Restaurant!!!
Khai Island is heavily promoted by tour agents in Phuket but I thought the place was quite pathetic - just a litttle stump of land, very hot because there are no trees lining the beach, lots of rocks along the shore, dead coral. We didn't go to any other islands so I can't say if there is some place better than Khai Island but I don't imagine they could be worse.
As for Sabai Sabai Restaurant, the lady there was grumbling and giving us such dirty looks when she saw that we had so many kids with us, we walked out of there.

I think I'm going to give Phuket a rest for now and consider Bali for our next beach holiday. In the meantime, here are some pics of our trip.