Circuit breaker

On 3 April, PM Lee announced that Singapore will go into a "circuit breaker" mode - everybody has to stay home for 1 month, to try and stop the spread of COVID-19.

The circuit breaker started on 7 April. And this is my home office for the next 1 month.

Church goes online

With the worsening COVID-19 situation, churches have had to suspend physical church services and cell meetings. Most have gone online, including LSBC.

The 1st week we went online, we were still able to have some members of our cell join us, and could partake Communion together.

But thereafter, everybody has to practice safe distancing. No more meeting. Everything online.

It's weird to not be able to go to church and that now we're meeting people on screens. It's really a very unusual time, all over the world. Pray that we won't have to do this for too long more!

March 2020 school holidays

2020 started pretty well, but it quickly spiralled down with the global COVID-19 outbreak. Started with Wuhan in China, Asia and now, Europe and US. Cities around the world disallowed travelers from entering their countries, restricted their residents from travelling and went on lock-down.

So this March school holiday, we took our "overseas" vacation at Sentosa. Stayed at Village Hotel, which was quite nice. I like the welcome note:

We booked a family suite which were 2 adjoining rooms. The space is a bit tight but it was good to have 2 separate bath rooms. I think for our future vacations, we'll have to book 2 rooms and can no longer just get 1 big room.

The hotel has 3 nice pools, all packed with staycationers. Service was great, and it also has some self-service elements, like vending machines on each floor with snacks, drinks and essentials like hand sanitizer and Mopiko. At the hotel lobby, they have this Dabao Kopi and Teh vending machine!

We took a walk to the beach on the 1st night. It was actually quite nice with the light show. And the kids still like to play with sand.

 . 

2nd day  - Universal Studios. But first, a photo with the Merlion before it gets demolished.

USS wasn't as empty as we were hoping it to be. Not crowded as before, but still had lots of Singapore residents who took the government's advice not to travel.

There were some rides that we still had to queue quite long for.  But one that we didn't have to queue a long time for, and which all 4 of us enjoyed enormously and repeated the rides multiple times was the Transformer ride.

3rd day, we went to USS again for half a day, before exploring Fort Siloso. View from there is really pretty!

On the way down, there were cute artworks along the walls and even some rocks! Cute!

Sentosa turned out to be quite a nice staycation. But 3 days was a bit short. We probably will repeat again in June, with more days!

Castle sketch

Nadine sketched this on a morning before we went to church. Love the castle and the blue swirling clouds!

Singapore Comic Con 2019

We went for our virgin Comic Con in December, and had a smashing good time. We were so amused by all the showcases and people who dress up. Aaron probably enjoyed the most, especially when he saw all the Star Wars and lego.

Okinawa - November 2019: Day 6 & 7

We spent Day 6 shopping at Okinawa Outlet Mall Ashibinaa. It was Japan's Black Friday, so we thought there would be lots of good deals. There were, but it was winter fashion. So we didn't buy a lot.

Day 7, we started the day by going to Shuri Castle, to see what's left of it after the recent fire. Not much to see. We could only walk around in the park outside the castle complex, and could only see a teeny weeny bit of the burnt roof of the castle.

So after 15 min, we headed out for our 2nd round of Blue Seal ice-cream.

Next, we went to the Okinawa Prefectural Peace Memorial.

The museum was established to showcase the Battle of Okinawa, the war experiences of Okinawa, and to commemorate those who died during war.

It looked deceivingly peaceful from outside.

It overlooks the Pacific Ocean

But inside the museum, there's just too much details of the atrocities of the war. Too depressing. And one person in our family was not interested at all.

We left the museum depressed, and also thankful that we live in a time of peace.

Back to enjoying the peace and beautiful nature outside the museum ...

Daddy had planned to go to another museum actually. But after the Peace Museum, we thought it was enough war history for the day. Had to cheer ourselves up with a good meal. So we went back to Ashibinaa. Had a very satisfying steak lunch at Donkey Steak.

Then it was back to the Outlet mall. It was happiness for Aaron because there were ATV kiddie rides!

For dinner, we went to Kokusai Street. Aaron wanted teppanyaki. We were about to cross the road to a teppanyaki restaurant when we were approached by a guy touting for a restaurant. Showed us an extensive menu, and said they have teppanyaki. We decided to try, and were led to a backstreet, which got us a bit wary and suspicious. But when we saw this photo wall, we relaxed. Not that we recognised it, but we sort of thought - with such an instagrammable wall, this place must be quite hip.

And it was. It wasn't the typical teppanyaki restaurant. In fact, it looked more like a hip cafe. Food was pretty good, although we were still quite stuffed from lunch. It was a good last dinner in Okinawa.

After dinner, we went into a souvenir shop and bought tonnes of Okinawa goodies to bring back to Singapore. Then it was back to the apartment to pack up, and for a last few games of Streetfighter.

We had an early flight back to Singapore. Had to wake up early to get to the airport, check in, then go to the car rental office to return our rental car, before heading back to the airport for the flight. By the time we boarded our flight, we were all shagged out.

Okinawa was lovely. Very relaxing place, compared to other parts of Japan that we'd been to. People there seemed a lot more laid-out and chill. What surprised us was the number of young families we saw - fashionable and hip young parents, with not 1 or 2, but 3 or 4 kids! I guess the pace and quality of life there must be really good for these families!

Loved driving around in Okinawa too. The drivers there were so nice. Nobody honked and everybody gave way. So even though some of the roads were really narrow, it wasn't stressful to drive there. Only wished we had a more powerful car for the highways!

Will we go back to Okinawa again? Maybe, but not so soon, definitely! And sure hope the next time, weather will be good so that we can head out to the beaches!