Skiing holidays in the last few years

We have always been skiing only in Switzerland. Even after moving to London in 2016, we went back to ski in the February break (2017) to Engadin (St Moritz) and Davos. That was a lovely trip as we stayed together with friends in a hotel in Davos and all of us had a lovely time skiing and spending time together. Funnily enough, we bumped into A's friends in St Moritz so she got to spend time catching up with them for dinner, ice skating etc. Strangely enough we ended up taking an Air BnB next to A's friend L, much to A's delight.
In 2018 we went back to Switzerland in the February break, this time the whole week at St Moritz.
We got to catch up with a few friends (A met her best friends L and P) and S met her good friend N, and I got to meet some of the moms I sent so much time with in Zurich (really miss those days). In the St Moritz mountains it was just us though. We took a lovely Air BnB with a view of the mountains, rented the skis at Signal (like we always do) and skied on the various St Moritz slopes.

In 2019 we decided to bite the bullet and try skiing in Japan. WE had heard so much about the amazing slopes and snow conditions. Well it  turned out to be quite the disappointment. The journey itself was quite involved. We flew to Sapporro (about a 6 hour flight from Singapore) and then hired a car to drive 2 hours to Niseko. Looks like Niseko is the destination for international schools from Singapore. In our flight there were more than 6 families from the girls school, with 2 families from A's class itself. The drive from Sapoorro to Niseko was scary to say the least. WE set off around 4 pm when visibility started to be low, and got caught in a severe snowstorm. The hubby was super stressed while driving in the blizzard, the car kept sliding and he couldn't see anything. I prayed furiously to all the Gods and somehow we made it to Niseko. I mad him promise we would make the journey back in the daylight.
The skiing itself was disappointing. There were snow blizzards on many days and two of the days the slopes were shut. The other days it was sunny for about 1-2 days and the other days it kept snowing, so it was very uncomfortable and cold to ski. We had to take many 'warm up' breaks and I never ventured beyond the blue slopes, didn't want to take any risks in low visibility.
We tried some non skiing stuff too - the hubby tried snowboarding the girls did snow moiling and snow tubing. S and A had their birthdays in the Japan break. On S birthday we called her friend B who was also skiing with her family in Niseko) and the girls did some indoor rock climbing. A's birthday we were in Sapporo. It was the snow sculpture festival there- we walked around Sapporro watching highlights of the snow sculpture but it was too freezing so we quickly dashed to an Italian restaurant where the girls had their pizza dan then went to a local Japanese restaurant where the hubby and I had some local Japanese food. I was disappointed that there wasn't much non skiing stuff to do- like ice skating, or movies, or other stuff, so when we were not at the ski slopes we were either relaxing in our Air BNB (which was also good fun, we watched the Terminator series with the girls) or else eating pizza in the restaurants (no one wanted to try to local stuff to the hubby's disappointment).
I think we won't go back to Japan for skiing.Much prefer the weather conditions in Switzerland. Have to figure out the ski trip next year though -the CNY holiday is in January itself, too early to go on holiday again after the winter Xmas break.

Thailand beach holidays

I've been giving grief to the hubby that we only go skiing and never do beach holiday despite living in Singapore and amongst the best beach holiday destinations in the world. After a not so exciting trip to Bali just after moving to Singapore (chose a hotel in the wrong location, did too much travelling to see temples and volcanoes, exhausted and tired at the end of it) we decided to take a break from beach holidays.
But after much persuasion we planned two beach holidays in the same April-May season this year. the first one was Phuket and the second one was Krabi. This time we booked resorts in isolated beaches (away from the city centre) and spent most of the time in the resort. Lazing in the pool, long lunches, lie ins and massages. One day was devoted to snorkelling. In Phuket we made a day trip to Banana Island. The island was beautiful but the snorkelling not so much. There were lost of jellyfish so the hubby and A did not venture into the water, and S went bak to the boat in 5 mins. We had better luck at the island itself, no jellyfish only sea urchins. Could convince S & A to come snorkelling, while the hubby lazed around admiring the beautiful views.
Krabi snorkelling trip was a day trip to Phi Phi islands. We stopped at Maya beach (were Island was shot) -shut now, could only stop to take in the view (& take photos) and various other breathtaking locations. We did snorkelling twice around Phi Phi islands, the corals were beautiful and we were lucky not to have jellyfish, or sharks :) Could not convince the hubby or A to come, but S and I had a good snorkelling swim. A admitted that she is more of a mountains person!
the last day in Krabi the hubby hired a car and we went to some tourist destinations - Emerald Lake, Tiger cave temples, but it was not so exciting. He enjoyed the drive (we miss having a car in Singapore). 

Just a quick update

can’t believe its been 2 years. Life has been very hectic with mire than full time work and nqvigsting two children through their new school. But good hectic, family is fine, parents are fine, work is fibe and I’m fine.
Few milestones passed, S completed 10, in last year of primary school now. A had her first tooth fall out naturally. I completed 40 and the hubby is completing 20 years in his company. Will try to post more regularly!

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.