Japan trip : part 1

very excited to be coming to japan - expect it to be completely different from what we've seen till now.
Day 1: overnight flight to Osaka, then cab to Kyoto ( mistake!!!too expensive shouldveytaken the rrain). Checkin to Kyoto Tower Hotel (nice). Then went to Kiyomizu -dera temple. Beautiful location atop a hill. Ate green tea ice cream, bough speaking hello kitty cat and other spuvenirs. Walked down to Gion town - quaint walk along beautiful shops and restaurants. Everyone tired from the walking ( very hot in Japan) so back to the hotel. Headed out for a drink to a japanese pub ( girls had dinner there) and then went to have dinner at a japanese restaurant ( cucumber and soyabean sushi and sake!). Sake very strong- was way too sleepy after that.

Day 2: everyone was fresh after a good nights sleep. We took the train to Arashiyama( using our Japan Rail pass) and walked to the Bamboo forest. After that we started walking towards the Togetsukyo bridge and strolled into several beautiful shops. Love the beautiful shops and designs here. Went into a shop devoted to chopsticks and the girls chose two with winne the pooh ( disney design) and got their names engraved on them. We then went to the Tenryuji temple site which has a UN heritage garden ( absolutely breathtaking) and had a vegetarian monks lunch at the temple restaurant. Never had so many vegetables cooked in such different ways! The girls were extremely picky and ate mosttly the rice but the hubby and i enjoyed the lotus flower, eggplant, green pumpkin and beetroot and ginger salad and many more vegetables! After a heavy lunch we set out on our walk to Togetsukyo bridge. Moods were getting bad as it was very hot so we took a quicj glance at the bridge and then took a taxi to Kinkakuji temple complex. Its called the Golden Pavillion and the view of the golden temple against the water is just amazung. Lovely garden to walk through. Back to the hotel for a siesta break(parents) and TV break (kids) but mainly to get away from the sweltering heat. In the evening we took the train to Inari to go to the Fushimi Inari-taishu Shrine. Lovely red coloured poles marking the long walk up the hill where the main shrine is. We made it halfway and then turned back as the kids were too grumpy. Still halfway not too bad and got a good sense of the place with the crickets chirping the sounds by the mountain the stray cats and the beautiful red poles providing a canopy cover. Just lovely. Then train back to Kyoto tower. The girls had a mac dinner and then we went to the skybar on the 13th floor of our hotel for a couple of drinks. I had some amazing G&T made with Kyoto gin. Quite a tiring day - we walked 11.4 km!!!
Unfortunately the night was not so good. S got the vomiting bug from A - A had vomited in singapore a few days back and again on the plane ( on me! Luckily i had carried a pair of shorts in the hand luggage for myself). S was vomitung throughout the night and so Day 3 morning i to,d the hubby to go with A to Hiroshima (2 hours train journey) while I stay at the hotel with S to help her recover. So here i am with some free time to update my blog. Wishing S a speedy recovery and hoping to take her for a short visit to the aquarium after lunch if her stomach holds ( she slept all morning).
Will update you!

Quick catch up

more than a year has gone by with no post. Too many changes. We moved yet again from london to singapore. Girls joined a new school, hubby got a new challenging role and i managed to get another job. Singapore is luckily closer to home so more trips home- Dad's health has been bad so visiting with and without kids more often. Realise the importance of family and friends. Ciao for now..will try to be more regular..

Ranting about holidays

I was struck by the number of holidays the girls school has while the local school where a friend’s son studies has considerably less, so I did a quick analysis of number of holidays and both schools and found that the girls school has totally 4 months and 3 weeks of holidays and the local school has only 3 months of holidays. That means our school has on average 7 weeks more holidays than the local schools. And we are paying money for this? Makes no sense. Also difficult to justify me working if the girls have so much leave…what do you think?

Scotland trip with Ajja and Ajji

Ajja and Ajji are here (were here in London with us by the time I got around to posting this) and girls are enjoying spending their summer holidays with them. This summer turned out to be a bit of a mish mash, what with me getting a 3 month temporary assignment over the summer break and the girls being off for a long 2 months! The first five weeks was spent in a mix of summer camps, the hubby taking 2 weeks off to spend with the girls ( as detailed in the last post) and 1 week between the nanny and me spending time with the girls. The last 3 and ½ weeks have been a breath of fresh air and a sigh of relief for me and the girls, with my parents here. The girls enjoy going out with them to the garden, listening to Ajji’s stories at bed time, playing games, doing homework (Mummy has set daily targets) and generally goofing around, getting up late, being in pyjamas the whole day.

Last weekend we made a 4 day trip to Scotland with my parents. We were extremely lucky with the weather as it was sunny every day! It was quite an involved journey getting to Inverness. Being the start of the long Bank holiday we were worried that we would get heavy traffic on the way to Gatwick so we took the complicated route of Home –Uber- Railway station-Train-Gatwick South terminal-Shuttle-North Terminal, leaving home at 12 noon for a 15:20 flight. We reached pretty early and made the mistake of stopping for a coffee and ended up rushing to the flight after being delayed at security check. We were the last passengers on. We reached the hotel around 7 pm and after an unimpressive dinner in the hotel restaurant called it a day.

The next morning the hubby drove us to the Glenfiddich distillery, about 1 hour 45 mins away. The hubby, my dad and I went for  a 1 ½ hours tour of the distillery while my mum was in charge of entertaining the kids. After some nice whisky sampling at the end of the tour, we had lunch (again very disappointing, cold quiche and stale bread!)  and then headed back to the hotel. Everyone was too tired to head out again for the day, so I took S to the nearby park (A refused to come, would rather do painting with Ajji!) which turned out to be really nice with all sorts of playground and exercise equipment including a small zipline! We were tired of the terrible Scottish food so decided to go for Indian/Italian for dinner. Luckily I called up a couple of places to make a reservation and they all turned out to be completely full. Talk about everyone landing up in Inverness for the weekend and heading out for Indian food. WE decided to try our luck with an Indian takeaway which delivered to our hotel. The food was only comme ci comme ca as A would say but at least it was warm food with a hint of spice.

The next day we decided to venture out further to the Isle of Skye, stopping at many tourist and picturesque stops on the way. It was a 2 hours 45 mins drive to the Talisker Distillery in the Isle of Skye. We decided not to do a tour, which anyway turned out  to be impossible since we reached only at 6 pm after all our meanderings. On the way we stopped at the Loch Ness Information Center where we saw an exhibition/film which showed how people had scientifically proven that the Loch Ness monster does not exist. They had taken each sighting and claim and proven through various scientific experiments/facts that a creature as big as the Loch Ness monster could not be in the Loch Ness – lack of food, not traceable using sonar inside the lake, not visible despite cameras continuously filming etc. I liked the scientific approach as it showed us (hopefully the girls got something out of it) that we should not accept things at face value, but try to logically and scientifically see if they are true/possible. After we went to Urquhart Castle, which is on the Ness river. The castle was in ruins but parts of the structure were still there and the location was just outstanding. Standing on it you could see across the Loch Ness and it was a wonderful sunny day. Mum and Dad stayed back at the café at the entrance- which had a lovely view of the Loch Ness and the castle while we went to have a look around. There was a sheet for the girls which questions to be answered by reading the boards at various parts of the castle, including fun activities like counting the number of steps from the base to the flag on top. So they were quite entertained. After the castle we had lunch at the café itself. Just sandwiches for everyone – now we were really missing our home cooked hot food! We then drove to the Isle of Skye stopping to see beautiful landmarks on the way –  Seven Sisters of Kinteal, Eilean Donan Castle, the bridge at Kyle of Locaish, Beautiful lakes reflecting the sky on the way, a brief stop to feed some yaks by the mountainside. We reached the Talisker distillery only around 6 pm. We didn’t do the distillery tour, but went around the shop and bought a bottle of whisky. We drove straight back to the city centre of Inverness where we had booked an Italian dinner at Zizi. It was super crowded and we had to wait a long time for some pretty ordinary food.

The fourth and last day, we decided to drive to Glencoe which is a very beautiful part of Scotland and we were advised not to miss the drive there. It’s about a 21/2 hours drive from Inverness and we had to be back at Inverness at 4 pm for our flight back. It was more or less a drive to Glencoe, with a few stops on the way to look at beautiful sights/landrmark such as the Waterfalls near Loch Ness, Fort William area etc. Glencoe is really beautiful and I would love to spend a couple of days hikinh or walking around in that beautiful mountain/lake area. We had an Indian lunch at a restaurant in Fort William and then headed straight back to the airport.

That was our Scotland holiday. Short but beautiful.

Summer time fun with Daddy

Impressed and amazed. That’s how I feel right now. I hesitantly accepted a 3 month job offer doing something that I’ve always enjoyed doing and wanted to get back to for the longest time.Hesitantly because it co-incided with the 2 months holidays of the girls, and would mean that instead of spending time with them in the holidays exploring London, or going away for 2 weeks as a family to Europe, I would instead be working in a temporary job, which would in all probability come to an end just as school started. Still, I thought it would be a good work-experience for my resume and a way to build some kind of network here in London. And best of all its back in credit risk, which is where I have my expertise and skills, but working in a new market.

The downside, in addition to the girls disappointment was that I expected the hubby to be very upset about missing out on the Europe holiday and having to babysit the girls for 2 weeks in London instead of relaxing on the beaches of Corsica. But I’ve been pleasantly surprised, impressed and amazed. This is the first week of their holidays with him (last week they were in a multi sports camp from 9am -3 pm the whole week while the hubby was in Zurich and I was working) and in the first four days they’ve already seen more and done more in London than in the last 3 months. Their schedule has been like this

Week 1 :

Monday : Scootering down to London Zoo and spending the day at the Zoo. With birds of prey show where A wanted to sit right in front next to the big owl and the creepy mice. Am I glad I did not go.

Tuesday : Changing of the guard at Buckingham palace followed by lunch at Rainforest Café

Wednesday : London aquarium with becoming a certified  Dory rescuer, cruise on the River Thames to Tower Bridge, then Tower of London in the afternoon where I believe they were all disappointed with the size of the Kohinoor diamond, then down to Leicester Square where I joined them for dinner at Dishoom

Thursday : British Museum, where S amazed the hubby with facts about Cleopatra killing herself with an asp bite because her boyfriend died. They also shared a joke about life expectancy where ‘Mummy would be a Mummy by now if we lived in the olden times’. Ha ha.

Friday : Lunch at Salloo’s (a popular Pakistani restaurant) followed up an afternoon at the Science Musuem. I believe not as good as Technorama in Zurich, but some Science is better that no science I believe. Dinner at a friend’s house, back home exhausted at 11 pm

It’s been really awesome weather in London this week, in fact extremely hot. 33 degrees plus. I’ve been sweating it out in office while the hubby has been relaxing with the girls. I say relaxing because the hubby informed me that the girls are very well behaved and relaxed when only he’s around and they only start misbehaving when I’m there!! Well, anything which makes him happy..

Week 2 :

Monday : Wheelying at O2 with lunch at Wagamama

Tuesday : Greek lunch at Spitalfields, followed by browsing around the Spitalfields market (A got a smiley cushion and the hubby got some 3D greeting cards)

Wednesday : Rainy day at the History museum. The hubby and I squeezed in the latest Bourne movie at night with the girls with the babysitter

Thursday :  The hubby and I again went out this evening to the Book of Mormons. Amazing show, completely enjoyed it.

Friday : The hubby took the girls for Finding Dory at the Everyman cinema near the house. They loved the show (waah I missed it) and the large comfortable leather seats in that cinema.

Ok, before you think I’m just chilling while the hubby is getting all the brownie points with the girls, let me add that in the next one week I took the girls for 3 children’s plays. The Wind in the Willows in Kew Gardens, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (superb) and the Gruffalo (by now I was a bit sick of it and this last one was really quite kiddy!).

Summer time fun with Daddy

Impressed and amazed. That’s how I feel right now. I hesitantly accepted a 3 month job offer doing something that I’ve always enjoyed doing and wanted to get back to for the longest time.Hesitantly because it co-incided with the 2 months holidays of the girls, and would mean that instead of spending time with them in the holidays exploring London, or going away for 2 weeks as a family to Europe, I would instead be working in a temporary job, which would in all probability come to an end just as school started. Still, I thought it would be a good work-experience for my resume and a way to build some kind of network here in London. And best of all its back in credit risk, which is where I have my expertise and skills, but working in a new market.

The downside, in addition to the girls disappointment was that I expected the hubby to be very upset about missing out on the Europe holiday and having to babysit the girls for 2 weeks in London instead of relaxing on the beaches of Corsica. But I’ve been pleasantly surprised, impressed and amazed. This is the first week of their holidays with him (last week they were in a multi sports camp from 9am -3 pm the whole week while the hubby was in Zurich and I was working) and in the first four days they’ve already seen more and done more in London than in the last 3 months. Their schedule has been like this

Week 1 :

Monday : Scootering down to London Zoo and spending the day at the Zoo. With birds of prey show where A wanted to sit right in front next to the big owl and the creepy mice. Am I glad I did not go.

Tuesday : Changing of the guard at Buckingham palace followed by lunch at Rainforest Café

Wednesday : London aquarium with becoming a certified  Dory rescuer, cruise on the River Thames to Tower Bridge, then Tower of London in the afternoon where I believe they were all disappointed with the size of the Kohinoor diamond, then down to Leicester Square where I joined them for dinner at Dishoom

Thursday : British Museum, where S amazed the hubby with facts about Cleopatra killing herself with an asp bite because her boyfriend died. They also shared a joke about life expectancy where ‘Mummy would be a Mummy by now if we lived in the olden times’. Ha ha.

Friday : Lunch at Salloo’s (a popular Pakistani restaurant) followed up an afternoon at the Science Musuem. I believe not as good as Technorama in Zurich, but some Science is better that no science I believe. Dinner at a friend’s house, back home exhausted at 11 pm

It’s been really awesome weather in London this week, in fact extremely hot. 33 degrees plus. I’ve been sweating it out in office while the hubby has been relaxing with the girls. I say relaxing because the hubby informed me that the girls are very well behaved and relaxed when only he’s around and they only start misbehaving when I’m there!! Well, anything which makes him happy..

Week 2 :

Monday : Wheelying at O2 with lunch at Wagamama

Tuesday : Greek lunch at Spitalfields, followed by browsing around the Spitalfields market (A got a smiley cushion and the hubby got some 3D greeting cards)

Wednesday : Rainy day at the History museum. The hubby and I squeezed in the latest Bourne movie at night with the girls with the babysitter

Thursday :  The hubby and I again went out this evening to the Book of Mormons. Amazing show, completely enjoyed it.

Friday : The hubby took the girls for Finding Dory at the Everyman cinema near the house. They loved the show (waah I missed it) and the large comfortable leather seats in that cinema.

Ok, before you think I’m just chilling while the hubby is getting all the brownie points with the girls, let me add that in the next one week I took the girls for 3 children’s plays. The Wind in the Willows in Kew Gardens, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (superb) and the Gruffalo (by now I was a bit sick of it and this last one was really quite kiddy!).

Summer time fun with Daddy

Impressed and amazed. That’s how I feel right now. I hesitantly accepted a 3 month job offer doing something that I’ve always enjoyed doing and wanted to get back to for the longest time.Hesitantly because it co-incided with the 2 months holidays of the girls, and would mean that instead of spending time with them in the holidays exploring London, or going away for 2 weeks as a family to Europe, I would instead be working in a temporary job, which would in all probability come to an end just as school started. Still, I thought it would be a good work-experience for my resume and a way to build some kind of network here in London. And best of all its back in credit risk, which is where I have my expertise and skills, but working in a new market.

The downside, in addition to the girls disappointment was that I expected the hubby to be very upset about missing out on the Europe holiday and having to babysit the girls for 2 weeks in London instead of relaxing on the beaches of Corsica. But I’ve been pleasantly surprised, impressed and amazed. This is the first week of their holidays with him (last week they were in a multi sports camp from 9am -3 pm the whole week while the hubby was in Zurich and I was working) and in the first four days they’ve already seen more and done more in London than in the last 3 months. Their schedule has been like this

Week 1 :

Monday : Scootering down to London Zoo and spending the day at the Zoo. With birds of prey show where A wanted to sit right in front next to the big owl and the creepy mice. Am I glad I did not go.

Tuesday : Changing of the guard at Buckingham palace followed by lunch at Rainforest Café

Wednesday : London aquarium with becoming a certified  Dory rescuer, cruise on the River Thames to Tower Bridge, then Tower of London in the afternoon where I believe they were all disappointed with the size of the Kohinoor diamond, then down to Leicester Square where I joined them for dinner at Dishoom

Thursday : British Museum, where S amazed the hubby with facts about Cleopatra killing herself with an asp bite because her boyfriend died. They also shared a joke about life expectancy where ‘Mummy would be a Mummy by now if we lived in the olden times’. Ha ha.

Friday : Lunch at Salloo’s (a popular Pakistani restaurant) followed up an afternoon at the Science Musuem. I believe not as good as Technorama in Zurich, but some Science is better that no science I believe. Dinner at a friend’s house, back home exhausted at 11 pm

It’s been really awesome weather in London this week, in fact extremely hot. 33 degrees plus. I’ve been sweating it out in office while the hubby has been relaxing with the girls. I say relaxing because the hubby informed me that the girls are very well behaved and relaxed when only he’s around and they only start misbehaving when I’m there!! Well, anything which makes him happy..

Week 2 :

Monday : Wheelying at O2 with lunch at Wagamama

Tuesday : Greek lunch at Spitalfields, followed by browsing around the Spitalfields market (A got a smiley cushion and the hubby got some 3D greeting cards)

Wednesday : Rainy day at the History museum. The hubby and I squeezed in the latest Bourne movie at night with the girls with the babysitter

Thursday :  The hubby and I again went out this evening to the Book of Mormons. Amazing show, completely enjoyed it.

Friday : The hubby took the girls for Finding Dory at the Everyman cinema near the house. They loved the show (waah I missed it) and the large comfortable leather seats in that cinema.

Ok, before you think I’m just chilling while the hubby is getting all the brownie points with the girls, let me add that in the next one week I took the girls for 3 children’s plays. The Wind in the Willows in Kew Gardens, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (superb) and the Gruffalo (by now I was a bit sick of it and this last one was really quite kiddy!).