Siem Reap: The Kingdom Of Ancient Kings and Heavenly Dancers (Part 1)

Siem Reap is mesmerising, alluring and enchanting. It is like living in another world, where time passes slowly and life is much simpler. We spent 4 days here at the end of June, and despite our short stay, we felt rejuvenated and enriched. Rejuvenated with the understanding that there is so much to life than daily deadlines and stressful to-do lists. Enriched in the knowledge that empires rise and fall from time immemorial, and the realisation that we are nothing but tiny chess pieces in this gargantuan world, along the endless journey of time.

There was so much to see and experience in Siem Reap, and my personal favourite experience was exploring the ruins of some of their ancient and breathtaking temples. There were several memorable indelible moments in our trip, and these were:

1) Little Bee ate a deep fried cricket!
I know Little Bee is brave and adventurous, but her desire to eat a deep fried cricket came as an utmost surprise for me! We were walking around in the night market one night when a female hawker ambled by with a big aluminium tray of deep fried crickets.

Most of us squirmed at the sight of these crickets, but my father-in-law and Little Bee picked up a cricket each and examined them closely. My father-in-law was prodding Little Bee in jest to eat it, with the expectations that she would not. Little Bee was extremely curious about the cricket and I saw her asking lots of questions about the crickets with the hawker.

Being the typical kiasi Singaporean, I told Little Bee that deep fried crickets sold in this manner may not be very hygienic or clean. To my embarrassment, the friendly Cambodians around us insisted that the crickets were completely safe and clean to eat. Before I could say anything, I saw Little Bee's eyes sparkled with excitement and glee when she heard that it was safe to eat these crickets, and immediately popped one big cricket into her wide-opened mouth, much to our shock and surprise!

Can you see the cricket's legs peeking out from her mouth?!

She chewed on it with zest, swallowed down the remains heartily and declared exuberantly that it was super delicious! The Cambodians around her cheered jubilantly and as I watched her hobnobbing with them happily, I was once again struck by her natural ability to connect with all kinds of different people immediately. This is such a rare talent (which is not apparent in any of us in the family!) and I hope she will never douse this wonderful ability of her to connect with people as she grows older.

2) Big Bee and I were stung by a giant wasp!
We were exploring the famous Ta Prohm temple which is also known as a jungle temple, nestled mysteriously within trees and lots of colossal roots. Lots of insects and creepy crawlies abounded - we saw huge, fat millipedes, gigantic termite mounds, armies of big ants and strange flying insects.

As we were taking a family portrait, Big Bee suddenly exclaimed in pain and said there was something really sharp in her bag or around the back of her skirt because something pricked her hand. I patted her down, and encountered a sharp, painful sensation on my index finger, almost as if a needle had pricked me. After a few more moments of search, an enormous metallic blue and black wasp/hornet/whatever the gross insect is called crawled out from beneath Big Bee's skirt. YIKES! Thankfully, our guide helped us remove it from her skirt.

The scary part was when Big Bee told me that she was beginning to see psychedelic colours and felt dizzy. I felt a little nauseous and dizzy myself, and attributed it to either shock syndrome or the venom that the wasp injected into our bodies to shock us into temporary immobility.

Whatever it was, we both felt better after a while, although the swollen insect bites stayed with us for more than a week!

I know these two encounters probably did not encapsulate the Cambodian experience well, but these were some of the more memorable and personal moments for me. I am writing another post on what I truly love about Siem Reap - being like Indiana Jones, exploring the nooks and crannies of myriad temple ruins!

Let Your Imagination Go Wild!

Her latest addiction: selfies! 

These days, with Little Bee reading a lot more before bedtime, we kind of stopped reading English bedtime stories. Every other day, I will still read Chinese storybooks to her though. However, on days when it is English storytelling time, we had taken to rattling off our own bedtime stories because Little Bee told me that listening to bedtime stories with me is something that she really looks forward to every night. Hubby and Little Bee are especially creative at this, spinning tales of hilarity, total creativity and ridicule at times! I am not as innovative nor wacky as the both of them, frankly.

One night, Little Bee spun such a beautiful story of a candy land that I thought of sharing here. Enjoy...and goodnight!

Quoted from Little Bee directly:

"There was a land with clouds just like cotton candy, where it rains chocolate drops in a purple sky. And during the birthday of every child, lots of candies will be rained down just outside the child's house. It rains different candies outside my house every day because I am the queen of this land!

In this land, tree trunks are log cakes that could be eaten anytime. Leaves are minty food and flowers are nectar with bubblegum flavours. The houses are made of biscuits flavoured with vanilla and chocolate. My house has rainbow-coloured flavours!

Only bakers in this land can build houses, because all the houses are edible and delicious! Pillows are made of cotton candy. The grass is minty, and exhaust fumes from cars are bubbles! There is no insects like flies or ants in this land. Cows are candy cows and cars are chocolate cars!

Yawn....goodnight!"

Paint The Afternoon Away!

We spent a fun, creative afternoon painting our blues away in Arteastiq, a Victorian-looking cafe with a big space for creative expression on canvas. It was so therapeutic and a great way for family bonding by giggling over and appreciating each other's paintings. 

Although we did paint at home sometimes, this was a different experience because the Bees were able to sit down and really focus on creating something from a clean slate. We were also inspired by myriad creative ideas of other painters around us, and could stick to an idea and paint it through.We could paint anything we want, and for the less inspired, there were booklets with picture ideas that we could emulate.

I love the different emotions fleeting through me when painting. Emotions like being reflective before painting. I usually looked deep within myself and examined my mood and propensities before painting. I usually like landscapes because they remind me of escapism into another land far far away.

Wonderment and curiosity. When I first laid my brush on a clean slate, I would never fail to marvel at the richness of colours, the dexterity of human fingers and the ability of the human mind to create something out of nothing. For me, painting never followed any predicted paths (although, frankly, I am but a rudimentary painter). I would usually experiment with different strokes, textures and colours, so I am constantly infused with a sense of curiosity about where all these would lead me.

Frustration (at times). Sometimes, I would experiment and play around with the brush strokes and colours to the extent that the outcome was very different from what I had envisaged initially. But I would adapt and adjust constantly. And this is the most important life lesson I learned from painting - that it is perfectly fine to make mistakes and that we can always adapt and change, so that these mistakes become blessings in disguise. I kept emphasizing this to the Bees, especially perfectionist Big Bee, whenever they grumbled that they mixed the wrong colours or painted the wrong strokes, etc. And I think painting is a wonderful way for children to learn to experiment and adapt!

And finally, satisfaction and gratification when I sat back at last and breathed a sigh of happiness.

Hubby's painting and his fabulous attempt at blending colours for a complete newbie! 

This was mine, and yes, I was dreaming of living on a deserted island at that point of time!

Big Bee's painting - she wanted to paint pop art for a change. This was her first attempt at graphical pop art and I thought it was so bright and colourful!

Little Bee's attempt to convert a landscape into a 2D pop-art portrait - can you spot the waterfall, overlaying branch and river boulders?

A Date With Shakespeare

We had a date with Shakespeare a couple of months ago where we watched The Merchant Of Venice in Fort Canning, under a starry night with balmy evening breezes.

Check out the crowds! We were lucky to have found an area right in front of the stage to plonk ourselves down! 

It was the Bees' first exposure to a play by the Bard, with full-fledged Shakespearean language. They had read a lot of his plays in adapted versions, in regular English, and we had talked about The Merchant Of Venice before this play. However, it was still a delight to see them looking quizzical in the first few minutes, whispering furtively, "Mummy! What language are they speaking in?" Haha.

I read the Merchant of Venice synopsis to them before the play, so the Bees were aware of the key protagonists and the main plot (and subplots). Once the play started and they got used to the archaic language, they were slowly drawn into the dramatic twists and hyperbole of Shakespeare's magic.

My qualms about this play were that 1) the setting was constructed deliberately in a modern setting with techno music (call me an old-fashioned, unadaptable fool, but I would prefer a good ol' Shakespearean play over these new modern re-adaptations!) and that 2) I wish more local actors could be in main roles since this was organised by a local theatre production company. The 2 key protagonists were non-Singaporeans. Otherwise, I thought it was a lovely evening out with the family, just kicking our shoes off, sitting back on the grass and simply having a chillax time!

Travel Memoirs: Flying Solo

Travelling long distance for business can be very lonely. Recently, I took a 30-hour flight to Florida on a work trip. There were 3 different flights, 4 airport changes (including the airport of departure) and 2 relatively long periods of transit in New York and Frankfurt. And I am not even including the journey back home! 

At every intersection, I saw families and friends reuniting, hugging, chatting and smiling. Lone business travellers like me just ambled around sterile and commonplace airport shops, sat in airport lounges together with lots of other bored business travellers, and watched endless movies on the plane. Surrounded by so many different people, I had never felt lonelier. Yet, back home, when I am just ensconced in the love and warmth of our little family of 4 (and sometimes with our parents too!), I had never felt more contented.

I do get lots of time to reflect upon many things in life on these trips though – from trivial matters like what the kids are doing in school to deeper reflections about life in general.

While humanity is all about communication, lone business travellers often times only have the company of their own thoughts. On occasions like these, I had many conversations with myself throughout the journey and got in touch with myself again. It was a lot easier to observe beautiful things around me. Little beauties like fireworks under a full moon as the plane departed from New York . The changing multi-hued shades of sunset at 9pm on a long summer day in New York. Beautiful patches of emerald German farm land as the plane got ready to descend into Frankfurt. Watching a wakening Singapore as the soft, magical wings of a purple-hued dawn swept across our island that was aglow with the twinkling lights from the night before. 

 Lonely yes, but comfortably alone. And I relish such chances to observe the world so closely without distractions from the boisterous kids. 

My gregarious girls had talked about their fear of being alone and doing things on their own. Which is understandable at their ages. Sometimes, I wonder how we can help eradicate the fear of being alone in our children. So that peer influence may not be that much of a deal. So that they are perfectly contented – like us – wherever they are, so long as they have the companionship of a book, their eyes (for observing things around them!) and conversations with themselves. Some kids cope better with this but my kids are social beings, and I find that it is harder to encourage them to do things on their own, without the company of their friends or us. Well, let’s see how else I could encourage them….

A Month Of Free Rein

The June holidays had been gloriously unfettered. I took half the month off to spend time with the Bees, and the days were long, luxurious and languorous. We went on a very short trip to Cambodia, and then spent all our time back here in Singapore. Although I always enjoy new experiences when travelling overseas, I discovered the beautiful virtue of leisurely days spent at home. No agenda, no hurriedness, no deadlines to meet. And I don't just mean me. The Bees had the time of their lives not worrying about their school schedules and homework as well! 

However, this is the PSLE year after all, so Big Bee - being the disciplined girl she is - did immerse herself in some light revision. But no drilling, whatsoever. I believe in letting her enjoy the June holidays to the fullest, before the intensive PSLE revision this coming term. Play helps to boost brain power, in my opinion! 

This holidays were epic in the sense that we had plenty of playdates with different friends of the Bees. There were trips to the malls, outdoor playgrounds, movies, concerts, Adventure Cove, Universal Studios, Starbucks - just plenty of opportunities to bond with friends. We spent loads of time with the cousins as well. Little Bee attended an amazing zoo camp with a close cousin of hers, and there were play dates where the 2 generations of cousins gossiped incessantly. A very close cousin of ours got married, and we had the time of our lives bonding and having plenty of fun and laughter at the wedding. 

On the family front, we played lots of board games, we had many lazy mornings spent at Starbucks (Big Bee has a latest teenage addiction to frappuccino, and could not stop drinking them!), we read plenty of books and watched home movies. Simple activities but plenty of bonding. 

Life is leisurely and carefree, days are long and beautiful - and we could forget about the usual hassles of living in a fast-paced society for a while. Here's to more holidays with zero agenda! 

Colours Of Nature: The Tree Huggers

Nothing revivifies our family better than a walk amongst the giants of nature. Even in insanely crowded Singapore, we try to escape far from the madding crowds on a regular basis - just so we can maintain our sanity, breathe a little freely, and retreat into our inner selves.

One recent walk that we really enjoyed was in the MacRitchie Reservoir Park. We hike here regularly because we love the serene combination of a large, tranquil lake and uncultivated forests deep within the park. Being mainly flat, it is also a relatively easy hike, compared to the steeper Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, so we could always stop anywhere and admire the amazing wildlife around us.

On that particular hike, we spent more than 3 hours traversing the edge of the reservoir waters alongside its boardwalk trail and wandering deep into its primary forests.

It was such a leisurely walk where we ambled along, spotting all kinds of wildlife like gigantic spiders, sun skinks, monkeys, kingfishers and all kinds of exotic birds, as well as damselflies and dragonflies. We loved the fact that these wildlife seemed really tame, nestled deep in nature, away from the harmful reaches of vile human intervention.

Long-tailed macaque monkeys

Nature's glorious beauties. Can you spot the spider with its intricate web?

This spider, perched in its huge web high above us in the forest, is as big as my hand (or bigger!)

Can you see the Common Sun Skink?

We loved the feeling of pure isolation in the forests, where we could be trudging along narrow paths without meeting another soul, surrounded only by towering trees that had seen more of this world than any one of us.

We shushed each other at regular intervals just so we could enjoy the pregnant silence of nature. And what deafening silence it was! Once human noises were curtailed, our ears were treated to the vociferous orchestra of the wild - the undulating trills of invisible birds, the hypnotic chirrups of  territorial crickets and the incessant whispering of stalwart trees.

The girls also used this opportunity to embrace these valiant trees, climbing as high as they could on the stout shoulders of these stately elders. They loved the feel of the textured bark on their hands and revelled in the support of the strong trunks and branches.

It was such a rejuvenating morning, and we are truly blessed by the myriad biodiversity in our very own forests!

Pirouette Away!

Dance is an amazing way for children to express their emotions through movement. It defies the usual conventions of using words - which are already laden with social engineering, in my opinion - to express oneself. For me, it is a platform where we can return to the most primitive form of expression through body movements and actions.

We attended a couple of performances in their ballet open house some time back, and it was so heartening to see how they had grown in their journey of dance. 

Little Bee was a little shaky in the beginning of her ballet experience a couple of years ago. As someone who does not enjoy rote learning, she was not keen to remember dance sequences, so this had always been a problem for her. However, attending primary school in the rigid Singapore education system might have some repercussions in her approach to ballet, because this year, she started remembering and practising more advanced ballet sequences much better! 

We were also treated to Big Bee's ballet performance in a class of strapping tall girls. How they had all grown! As some parents commented, these girls had gotten so advanced that watching their open house dances was akin to watching a professional classical ballet performance! The highlight of their performance was a Spanish flamenco dance which was truly energetic and captivating.

It was an afternoon of pride and happiness - at how they had transformed in an art form that they both enjoy tremendously. I would love for them to continue pirouetting along this boulevard of dance for as long as they like...enjoying the journey, and discovering new things about ballet and other forms of dances too! 

The Eternal Optimist

"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened." - Dr. Seuss

And that is exactly the fundamental philosophy that Little Bee lives her life by. This girl with the petite frame and a booming voice never seems to be deflated by anything. She trundles through life with limitless energy and infectious zest, and only worries about not having sufficient time to play!

She is like an eternal burst of sparkling sunshine, even at this stage in primary school where most kids are stressed up about academic performances. I remember an afternoon when she came back from school and told me she was the first in class for her Math test...a dramatic pause...and then she cheekily exclaimed, "From the bottom!!! Hahaha!" What an optimist! That night, at bedtime, I asked her if she was really happy with her Math results, and she cheerily proclaimed, "YES! Because I tried my best! Didn't you tell me to be happy once I tried my best?!" What undefeatable spirits!

From infancy, she is never one who cries much. She can fall down and scramble up immediately, brushing her limbs and reassuring me in her loud, clear voice, "It is ok, I am fine! I am ok!". She would look at the bright side of things, and love to greet strangers with a sunny smile and a bright "hello!" that would make even the stoniest adults smile back. At supermarket lines or in department stores, she would yelp out a chirpy "thank you!" to the cashiers, melting their typical icy expressions. And she would repeat herself unabashedly until she gets some form of response from the other party!

My little sunshine pill. My optimistic beacon of light. I hope her indefatigable spirits stay with her forever, and that she will not be assailed by stressful Singapore's education system, or life's multitudinous challenges!

Of Hermit Crabs and Wave-Surfing

Instead of staying in Singapore to revise for the mid-year exams, like what most people did, we decided to take a short break over the Easter long weekend and escaped to Bintan! It was a lovely 3-day, 2-night stay at the Bintan Lagoon Resort which was entirely rejuvenating and refreshing.

Yes, it might be a little crowded there at times, and yes, the food might be a little unsavoury in some restaurants, but hey, we had a perfect view of the South China Sea and was barefooted in white powdery sands half the time! My kind of chillax holiday for sure!

We spent hours on the beach, body surfing with the surging and crashing waves, drinking loads of salty seawater as a result! We dug holes and built clumsy sandcastles on the sandy beach.

We interacted with frantic hermit crabs in all sizes and colours, admiring their resilience and their myriad colourful shells.

We created a protective moat where we gathered a few shy hermit crabs together. Can you spot them?

The girls were fascinated by the hermit crabs!

We had long leisurely breakfasts and other meals, where we did nothing but fooled around and chatted with one another. We took long walks by the beach, encroaching into the part of the shore that resembled no man's land and true wilderness, with deep mysterious forests beckoning at us. We strolled into the multi-hued, tangerine colours of a glorious sunset which gradually faded into mellow lavender twilight...and were bitten by pesky sand flies as a result!

I tried (rather unsuccessfully) to be a typical Singaporean tiger mother as well, so yes, in the lazy sweltering afternoons, we spent indoors where the girls did some revision (not much, but some was good enough for me!). We were truly working and playing hard!

All in all, a wonderful short stay, being so close to the wild, tempestuous ocean again!

Their Reading Adventures

With hubby and I being fairly avid readers, we know how books can open up worlds of imagination, knowledge and creativity - just through plain old simple text. Pretty amazing, isn't it? So, it had been gratifying that both our girls are very much into reading.

There was a little time when we worried about Little Bee because she was (and still is!) more interested in toys and TV, compared to books. However, I had been surreptitiously creating opportunities where she would have no access to TV, computers or toys for protracted periods of time, and hence had to depend on reading as a form of escapism. And then she was hooked!

I thought of summarising very loosely the main types of books that our 2 girls are reading or had read, just to see if there are different reading preferences between the 2 of them.

Big Bee

Big Bee started reading chapter books from the second year of kindergarten (K2). She had a very healthy dose of Enid Blyton when young, discovering the whole spectrum of Blyton's stories, and then went through the usual popular children's classics and now, teenage fiction. She tends to be (very) obsessed by certain series at different stages of her life, and like me, would devour entire series before her fanaticism died down.

K2
Rainbow Fairies and other simple fantasy series

Primary 1
Enid Blyton's fantasy series - The Enchanted Wood, Wishing Chair, the fabulous "O'Clock Tales" which used to be my favourite when I was younger, eg 8 O'Clock Tales (she read my original copy from the days when I was 8!)

Also started on Amelia Jane's (Naughtiest Girl) series but she was fairly neutral to the series.

Primary 2
Re-reading Enid Blyton's The Enchanted Wood's series at least 7 to 8 times...she was that enchanted!
Started on (and was hooked in a major way) Enid Blyton's Malory Towers and St Clare's series, which I believe she re-read many times over as well!

Primary 3
Started reading classics like Black Beauty, The Secret Garden, Little Women, etc. Her personal childhood classic is Black Beauty, even till now.

Hopping around Roald Dahl's books but was fairly neutral to them. Her favourite Roald Dahl book is Mathilda.

Discovered Enid Blyton's adventure and mystery series, and was addicted! Entire series like Famous Five, Secret Seven and all the Adventure Series were chomped down by her rapidly! At her peak addiction stage, she could complete 1 to 2 Famous Five books in a day. This was also the year that her eyesight went drastically bad because she spent most of her time buried in books.

Primary 4
Peer influence set in! Started thinking that Enid Blyton is too childish, and began reading fantasy fiction like Percy Jackson, lots of Greek mythology books, Shakespearean adaptations in the form of novels, Lord of The Rings, Narnia, and the David Eddings series which hubby and I used to love. Unfortunately, she was not a fan of David Eddings or Narnia, but really loved the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan (which she re-read multiple times again!).

Primary 5
At the beginning of the year, she went a little overboard on Harry Potter, and completed the entire series in a couple of weeks. Once again, she indulged in her usual re-reading and also watched the entire Harry Potter movie series in a few weeks.

She was feeling a little lost in the middle of primary 5, so I introduced her to Mitch Albom and Anne Frank. I think she could not quite understand the scale of horror in Anne Frank's diary until we went to Dachau in Germany. Surprisingly, she liked Mitch Albom quite a bit!

Her friends started reading more teenage fiction, and she went absolutely bollocks over The Hunger Games trilogy last December (which was when I finally decided to let her read this series, after months of persuasion). Her first discovery of more mature romance in these books should be pretty memorable! I also started reading all these teenage fiction these days, just to make sure that the content is appropriate, and I must say I really like Hunger Games too!

Primary 6
More teenage fiction ensued. She has now wolfed down entire series of Divergent, Mortal Instruments and Clockwork Prince, and is heading for John Green next!

Little Bee

Little Bee is a relatively late reader, compared to her sister. Until now, she still prefers doodling, toys and TV more than books. However, if she chanced upon a book she was fascinated with, she would be totally focused. She has shown a lot of interest in Roald Dahl, which is a complete difference from her sister! She does not really like Enid Blyton's Enchanted Wood series, although she completed the first 2 books of that series. She is also more "practical" and less fanatic than Big Bee, in that she does not believe in re-reading books, at least for now.

K2
Reading was more "academic" for her, as in I used books to get her to recognise more words. Peter and Jane series was a big thing in her life then! She also read lots of Ladybird books. She started on Rainbow Fairies, but was not very fascinated by them.

Primary 1
Started on Enid Blyton's books, mainly The Enchanted Wood series. She was still reading a smattering of picture books then, but was beginning to be intrigued by Shakespeare. She loved the simplified Shakespeare stories in the Usborne's children series, and frankly, I was surprised that Shakespeare appealed to her. I guess dramatic Little Bee loved the plot twists and comic tragedies found in many Shakespearean stories!

Primary 2
She discovered Roald Dahl recently, and for the first time in her life, ravaged a few of his books in a short time! She read almost all his children's books, except for The Witches, which freaked her out. Her favourite Roald Dahl books are Mathilda, James & The Giant Peach and Charlie & The Chocolate Factory.

I bought a copy of Usborne's adapted stories from Charles Dickens, and again, I was amazed that she was captivated by Dickens! She finished reading all the 6 to 7 stories in the Usborne book in less than a fortnight - which was considered a feat for playful and active her.

She also started reading Enid Blyton's Malory Towers, and although she was a little intrigued in the beginning, she still prefers Roald Dahl. I am in the midst of looking for more Roald Dahl's books for her, so any recommendations would be great!

Until now, I still find it really amazing that the Bees' preferences in reading could be so different! What are your children's reading adventures like?

Colours Of Nature: Deserted Island

Cerulean skies, white powdery sands, crystal clear waters with little fishes darting around, not afraid of human intruders. Lush overgrown woods with not a human soul in sight.

Silence. Pristine silence that lets us hear the diligent buzzing of bees and the whisperings of wild lallang that sways in the gentle breeze.

This is not a national park in a foreign land. Nor is it a beach paradise overseas. 

Instead, this is a little slice of paradise in Singapore - Lazarus Island. As part of hubby's and Big Bee's birthday celebrations, we had a bit of an escapade in Lazarus Island. We were far from the madding crowds of over-populated Singapore, and we could finally listen to the silence of nature.

We trudged in the luxuriant, deserted woods, occupied only by huge grasshoppers, crickets and swarms of angry, large red ants that freaked the girls out! 

We plunged straight into the spotlessly clear, unsullied waters and played with the teeming fish all around us. What untouched paradise is to be found just a stone's throw away indeed!

In the journey to the island, we also sailed past many of Singapore's Southern Islands. I find it sad that there are 63 islands in Singapore, yet the majority of Singaporeans had not touched foot on many of these quiet, uninhabited islands. 

After our little excursion, the girls were really curious about Singapore's offshore islands, and we spent a good afternoon exploring some of more popular offshore islands on the internet. Islands with fascinating legends and stories like Sisters Island, Kusu Island and Pulau Hantu. I wonder which island will we hop to next?