SG50 The Fighter Jets Fly By ECP Expressway

Date:  Aug 9, 2015

While we driving home.  It was 12 noon when we on the ECP Expressway.

There is a fighter jet flying in the sky.

So, we hazard light our car, and investigate.

Kay: “Is Singapore under attack?"

Where have they fly to?  Where is it?

Here it comes again.  Four fighter jets doing the twisted moves.

Here comes Larry Leong.  Our friend who is going to drive across 15 countries form Singapore to London in 66 days in his Land Rovers, with his wife Simone, and their daughter Lucy.  I think Lucy is only 5 years old.  And the plan is, 50 years later, hopefully Lucy will do another long Land Rover trip to celebrate SG100.

What do you know?  The four fighter jets came to see them off too.

A convoy of 52 Land Rovers will escort Larry’s car to Tuas check point where he will joined with other Malaysia drivers, about 15 of them to embark this wonderful journey.

The sky is not that good.  But good enough for us to see the LOVE shape the fighter jets make.

The kids really love it.  They don’t like the sun though.

Let’s do selfie.  or Wefie.

Happy Birthday Singapore.  In front of us.

Happy SG50.  Behind us.

Let It Go Butterfly

Date:  Aug 23, 2015

One day, Blue Blue, my blue eye cat, was caught playing with “something” in his paws and mouth.

When you get close to see it, it was a bright green caterpillar, may be drop from the leaves in one of the pot in our balcony garden.

My wife thus place teh caterpillar into a plastic container.  Of course, we place some leaves and water in it.

Few days later, the green caterpillar ate quite some leaves before turning itself into a pupa.

Another few days later… which is today.

Jay suddenly shouted and say “Mommy, mommy, the butterfly has come out…."

And there you go, the butterfly that we saved from Blue Blue’s paw.

As it is just came out from the pupa, the butterfly is learning how to flap its wings.

It is actually quite a nice butterfly.  Very pretty.

She still flapping the wings.  And she is ready to fly.

So, we have decided to “let it go”.

So that the butterfly can find a new home in our herbs garden downstairs.

We let Kay Kay do it.  So, Kay Kay will let the butterfly go, and let her has her freedom.

She was a bit scare in the beginning, but as soon as she flapped a few times of her wings, she flew off.

Bye bye butterfly.

Of course, I did not waste this opportunity for Jay Jay to learn his Chinese Composition.

So, I quickly draw out my iPad and ask him and the brother to think about the Butterfly event, and write a small passage of it.

So, the journey from home to Millenia Walk is only 15-20 minutes. 

As you can see, this is what he comes up with.  Not too bad.

I recon that this will give him may be 5/10.  So, thru out the day, we discuss about the whole event.

Instead of “my cat”, I asked him to think, where is the cat?  Where he (the cat) finds the caterpillar?

Instead of “let it go”, how he fly away?

What about the conclusion, any thoughts he wanted to write down?

During lunch time, we talked about it.

After he took his Taekwondo grading, we talked about it.

While going from Millenia Walk to the Turf City, before the drawing class, we have another 20 minutes or so, for him to work on it.

And this is the revised version.  

Much longer version.

He knows learned the important thing of “describing”.

Describe our cat is naughty.

Describe where our cat found the caterpillar.

Describe why the cat is naughty?  See the caterpillar, wanted to bite it.

Describe the how he tell mommy about it.

Describe how the butterfly is scare and don’t want to fly out.

Tell who is the one brought the butterfly downstairs.

Describe how he touch the butterfly and make it fly away.

Describe what was his feeling?  Happy.

Describe why?  Because he let the butterfly regain his freedom.

This is a very short event.  But writing it down involves constant thinking and asking questions about the 6 “Ws”.

Who?

Why?

When?

Where?

What?

How?

And after we have done with the Chinese composition, I will let him speak out from his mind in English.  Again, asking him to “describe”.

He won’t learn it straight away. 

But I am sure, thru the training, and exercising, he is more confident and grabs the concepts of writing.

Writing is about describing.

Writing is about asking the 6 “Ws”.

Why I love to read the Hardy Boys Junior Files for them every night.

That is because these Hardy Boys books focus in asking the 6 Ws to solve crime.

Hardy Boys: http://miniliew.blogspot.ch/2015/07/hardy-boys.html

And I show him a way how to use technology, the Dragon Dictation to quickly jot down the chinese sentence thru speaking.

First you learn how to pronounce things correctly.  Second, you quickly write down the Chinese senates.  For words you don’t know, as long as you can read, you can use the Han Yu Pin Yin to find the words.  In P3 Chinese composition, they are allow to use the dictionary.  Be it hard copy or electronic.

Hopefully, thru these methods, I can help my boy to improve his writing in both Chinese and English.  Yeah, Dragon Dictation can change the languages to English or Mandarin.

Quite cool.

Dragon Dictation:  http://miniliew.blogspot.ch/2015/08/learning-chinese-composition.html

And lastly, you notice that the brother Kay Kay is sitting besides.  Do it in front of the siblings so that he or she can be inspired and wanting to follow his brother.  :)

????My sons, if you guys can make it for your Chinese, don’t forget about the efforts your daddy put in to teach you guys.  :)

SG50 National Day Observance

Date:  Aug 9, 2015

Today is Singapore’s 50th National Day!

Happy Birthday Singapore!

Early morning, we are heading to the National Day Observance event @ Teban Garden.  

We tried to ballot for the NDP, but we did not get it.  We got it in 2013.  I guess there are too many people balloting for it.

We are are on red top today.

Some friends ask me, “I thought you are Malaysian?"

Well, my wife has converted to be Singaporean for our children sake.

And both my sons are Singaporeans already.

One of the thing that I teach my son is “You have to love your country."

That is why as a father, I will have to go all the way to support the Singapore national day events, and make my sons to be as patriotic as possible.

After all, they are Singaporeans.

No point to teach them politics.  Just ask them to be a good Singaporean who love their countries.

When national day comes, there is no line drawn.  No PAP, no ??? (oppositions).  All is about loving your countries.

This is what they have to know today.

When they grew up, and when they become older, and they can think, then, they will think for themselves and they will make their own observations, and make own judgement which side they want to choose.

Quite cool they decorate their HDB like this.  At Teban Garden.

So many Singapore flags.  Must be here la.

A lot of people are here already.  The band is from Commonwealth Secondary School.

We don’t know what is National Day Observance.  

Oh…. oh….

It is a small parade.

There are uniform cadets marching, etc.

More and more people arriving.

Here come the guest of honour, Ms. Foo.  The MP.

Shaking hand with all the residences.

Oops… She spotted both Jay & Kay.

Then, she put here hands on Jay’s shoulder, and ask her guys, “Let’s take a photo here!"

Too much publicity.  Don’t like. hahaha

Raising the flag.

They are broadcasting the Mr. Lee Kuan Yews proclamation in 1965 live across the whole Singapore at 9am. 

Then, the MP gave National Day speech in 3 languages.  Wow, I am impressed with her Malay.  Click below to listen a bit.

https://instagram.com/p/6JJryLsk--/

She also get to inspect the uniform groups.

Jay Jay was happy to be here.

The cake is here.

Kay Kay also very happy.

My two boys.  They have grown so much.

The three Singaporean at home.

3x S and a M.

Let’s light up the cake.

Got flag, got SG50.  Its perfect.  Let’s take a photo.

Happy Birthday Singapore!

Jay Jay Back In Action In Badminton

Date:  Sep 20, 2015

The kids has a lot of sport activities each week.  This is one of them where both brothers enjoy playing. 

Jay Jay just recovered from a knee cut injury.  But seems like he has fully recovered.  This is his first training since resting 2 weeks for the injury.

Seems to me that he has finally learned how to get rid of his elbow problem when hitting the shuttlecock.  He uses to bend too much on his elbow.

But this week, I can see that he has improved a lot in this area.

Also, the foot work is starting to get better.

Can lar… next time can “xian char bo” using badminton.  :)

Foot work is important.  That is why I also please to see how Kay Kay practise his foot work.  Well done Kay!

I think he can become better than his brother Jay Jay in 1-2 years time.  hahahahaha  Good work Kay!

Badminton is a sport I like.  I think it is the only sport I like.  

May be it is the gene, so, the two boys also likes to play badminton.

For Jay is for fitness.

For Kay is for fun!

An Hour at Urban Ski

Date:  Aug 17, 2015

This year, we are heading back to Hokkaido for our winter vacation.

So, it is nice to know that there is an Urban Ski opening in Singapore.  And it is just right beside my office here at Millenia Walk.

[Updates] At the moment, Urban Ski has to close down for 2 months so that they can get a proper license they are missing… yeap… The Amusement Park license.  Once they got the license, they will re-open again.  :)

Urban Ski is a training facilities for skier.  It is kind of amazing.

Since I am bringing Jay and Kay back to Hokkaido for Skiing, so, it is better to train up Kay first.  Because Kay has zero roller blade experience and only 2 hours experience with skiing (last December).

It is not a big facility but at any one time they can have two trainers train on two different sections.  Each section can accommodate up to 4 students.

So, let’s give it a try.  If you learn at Hokkaido, I think it is much more expensive. 

If Kay can pick up at least most of the basic here in Singapore, then, it will be easier for us.

They have shoes for all sizes.

Jay has a red shoe.

The helmet, they required every one to wear a hygiene head net before you can wear the helmet.  I think that should not be needed at all.  It looks very ugly.

OK.  We are up.  It is our turn.

There is a big revolving carpet below.  

And they moisture it with water.  That is why when you turn your ski, it will cut the carpet and the water will sprinkle up just like the snow effect.  

Very cool.

The coach wants us to get the feeling of the carpet.

 Kay is up and skiing.  And he did good.  

But he cannot come down.  

HaHaHa… because his leg is not “pizza” shape enough.

I can fly.  Yoo hoo...

It feels real.

It’s me and Jay Jay turn.  Jay has learn it before, that is why he can pick it up faster.

Let’s focus on Kay Kay again.  He is the one who need to learn how to control.

The coach will lend him a hand to make him comfortable.  He needs to do that pizza shape in order to stabilise.

He has not enough strength to control the ski.  That is why.

So, he will need to learn a few times before he has the confident.

And by the way, sometimes it can be dangerous too.  But the coach will stop the facility in time.

After just a two sessions of 10 minutes sessions, my legs are very very tired.  

I can walk 2-3 hours continuously but this skiing sessions is using all the muscle that I don’t usually use. 

So, my legs are very tired after the skiing lesson.

But I must say, it is a fun thing to do, especially in Singapore.

Can’t wait for it to reopen again.