London and eats...

We always put on weight whenever we're in London... 

How not to when: 

1) Bryan ate 4 char siew paus at each dim sum session! 

2) Daddy had ducks for three consecutive meals! 

3) Mommy loved all her dim sum treats and Indian curries! 

4) Kristin... erm, she didn't even finish her milk! But hmm, I think she also put on weight for all the shortbreads she gobbled down. I just had to tell her, This is just butter! 

We didn't manage to go to Yauyatcha. But after hearing so much about Hakkasan, Alan and I decided to go check out this 1-Michelin-Star restaurant. Indeed, we weren't at all disappointed! 

This was our favourite of the day, Scallop Siew Mai with fish roe: 

I thought this Cheong Fun was quite special too, with crispy beancurd skin as the inner layer, wrapping mushroom and bamboo pith: 

And this was Bryan drawing furiously before his Char Siew Paus came... 

Can't say that Hakkasan was better than Yauyatcha since we never been to the other restaurant before. But that will surely be a reason for us to be back in London again, right? :) 

Also... thanks to all those friends who recommended Pearl Liang. I think I just found the world's best duck there (ok, I admit I'm not much of duck fan). Certainly the queue and poor service at Four Seasons isn't all that worth it anymore. Just head over to Paddington for a nice treat in peace and with a lot of space! 

More on London to follow... IF I can find time amidst packing... 

missing germany #9

This is my lovely cleaning lady from Poland - Halina. She speaks almost no German and I don't know a single word of Polish other than "dzine dobry"! But we managed to communicate somehow, in the simplest of German and I have never been disappointed by her housekeeping power for the past 2.5 years. 

Yep, for the first half year, I was struggling to clean my house, cook meals, do laundry, iron my husband's business shirts while I was nursing a then 3 month-old Kristin. What would normally take 2 hours max (e.g. vacuuming the floor, mopping, cleaning the bathroom and toilets) would become a never ending ordeal. I dreaded when it was the cleaning day - my self-induced stress. I've always had this tick of having my whole place wiped down at least once every week. Household chores were never a big deal to me and my brother. I think my mom excelled in this department - my brother and I used to clean for my mom once every week as soon as we were in secondary schools. This habit has accompanied us throughout lives that even in the most stressful exam periods while I was overseas, I never had a dirty bathroom! Thus when I couldn't clean like I would love to in the earlier days of our posting here, I was M.I.S.E.R.A.B.L.E.! I was stressed. I think I even had post-natal depressions because of that! 

Things changed when Halina came into my life here. Strangely, I had to outsource the department that I was most comfortable with! Cleaning and cooking had never been a problem for me, while the other C in the chemical makeup of a SAHM was something I struggled and am still struggling most with, namely Childcare! But that one - cannot outsource lah! Yes, I complain and whine about my kids, yet I won't want to return to working full-time. It's not hard to guess where my heart is. :)

Back to Halina: I wish I could tell her how much she meant to me during our stay here in Frankfurt. I know, no amount of Polish I know would help me express that - that's because I know none. Still, if I could speak perfect Polish, I wouldn't find enough words to thank her... I do hope she'll continue to find employment... I felt terribly sorry when I told her that we were leaving soon. If only I could have her come along to Singapore too... 

frankfurter bookfair

Somehow it slipped my mind completely to blog about the book fair this year. Nothing spectacular, since Sterling wasn't giving away free books plus there were many many other organisations present to collect books for a good cause e.g. Some representatives from the American English Library were there speaking to each stall to ask for a donation of books. I saw an African man with huge stacks of books. He claimed that he'd be sending the books back to Africa. Alan was skeptical when I told him about it. "Are you sure he's not selling them in Africa?" 

Here's our take from this year's book fair. We weren't so crazy this year. 

In preparation for our last extended weekend at the end of November before we leave Germany for good: 

reading "green eggs and ham" again...

Let this be the official day that marks Bryan's independent reading. 

Ever since he turned 5, he's been found sitting in a corner each day... at several intervals of the day with a book. It's usually Tintin or a Berenstain Bear. I have long stopped reading to the kids. Now it's a rare time when Mommy actually reads a book with them, and it's usually when Daddy's not home. Yet, I haven't had plenty opportunities to slack this month either, since there will always be a couple of nights when Alan's not around each week. In fact, I think his successor probably sees more of him over the past couple of months than the kids and I do! 

Anyway, as the story goes... Tonight was yet another one of those Daddy's-out-nights. So guess who did the reading tonight? Me? Lucky me... it was Bryan! Finally and thankfully, Mommy can now skive, officially! 

I told Bryan I was only keen on reading Dr Seuss' Green Eggs and Ham. Then Bryan told me he could do it. In fact, he's done it before in preschool during daycare. Apparently, he's been reading it to another girl. Trying to woo one with poetry already? Not eliminating that possibility there... haha! Even his sister vouched for him! "Yeah, Mommy. He's reading to Miranda!"

So in a whole sitting, he finished the entire book. "Am I not fantastic, Mom? See, I told you I could read it all by myself!"

Yes, I'm mightily proud of him, taking even more pride in his effort to finish all 62 pages at one shot! Ok... I won't call him a lazy bum anymore. 

By the way, I did realise some interesting cues he draws from reading... I mean the non-verbal communications, e.g. When he saw a couple of horizontal lines coming out of the character's mouth in the drawings, he told me, "Oh, he's shouting a bit here." So he raised his volume and pretended he was shouting out loud while reading. Next, he saw some words printed all in upper case. And he told me again, "Oh, there he goes again. Shouting!"

Pretty interesting what he picks up from the non-verbal signs. Guess comic books are brilliant for such things. Yep, more Tintin it will certainly be... I think it's also high time to re-introduce The Electric Company dvds. 

Yep... think most moms are right on this one... just leave the child alone and sooner or later, he'll pick up reading! Ok, more later for our case. Still loads better than "never", I guess. And really... phew! Because we'll be heading back to Singapore (where kids are already reading by 3 or 4 years of age) in a couple of months! Oops... in fact I need to fret about Kristin! Now I've found the new object of my obsession! Here we go again... 

talking about London...

Mommy: What are you going to do in London?

Bryan: Eat Char Siew Pau's. Many Char Siew Pau's! 

Mommy: Whom did we meet the last time when we were in London? 

Bryan: Gan-die and gan-ma! We stayed with them. 

Mommy: Did we meet any kids? 

Bryan, Thought for a while: oh yeah yeah... Sean. I met Sean. 

Mommy: What about Sean's mommy? Do you remember her? 

Bryan: Oh yeah yeah yeah... But I can't remember her name. 

Sorry Aunty Lilian, you're not a kid. Bryan can't remember your name. :p

it's been a while...

and I've been kept busy with life outside the apartment. :) 

A couple days of sunshine will mean I'll rather be outdoors than indoors. 

We flew kites, walked in the woods, picked walnuts, had some playground time with a cute little girl from Malaysia. 

There was also the Frankfurt Bookfair. Will post about it later on. 

Above all, I'm up to date with all the US series again! :) 

Well, not a lot, just following a few, e.g. 

1) Brothers and Sisters

2) Desperate Housewives

3) CSI 

4) CSI NY

5) Bones

6) Boston Legal

7) Without a Trace

8) Grey's Anatomy

9) Private Practice

10) Heroes

Oops... it doesn't look like a few here... :s

Of course, I've been waiting for The Starter Wife to return too. 

trick or treat...

"Trick or treat, smell my feet, 

Give me something good to eat. 

Otherwise, I don't care, 

I'll go down your underwear." 

Bryan learnt this chant from one of his friends in school. He's very tickled by it and has been repeating it for the sake of irritating me at home most of the time. 

Tonight, I decided to make some improvisation with the kids.

So we had a few variations, 

"Trick or treat, stomp your feet, 

Give me something good to eat. 

Otherwise, I don't care, 

I'll snip off your pretty hair!" 

or 

"Trick or treat, stinky feet, 

Give me something good to eat. 

Otherwise, I don't care, 

I'll turn into a hungry bear!"

or

"... I'll give you a hungry bear."

Yep Halloween is near, and I haven't got any costumes yet. Arrggghhh... 

a hammock is a hammock is a hammock...

How do you pronounce the word "hammock"? 

Alan and I both say, "ham" and "mock", thus "hammock".

But Bryan corrected us, "No! It's hammock!" You know, like how the Americans would pronounce stomach, with an inverted e in IPA. 

Anyway, if you don't believe me, try the link to the Free Online Dictionary. 

Ok.... is this a case of orang utan and hammock now? 

Hope to post a video footage soon. 

After note: 

Just looked up the Cambridge Online Dictionary. 

hammock is pronounced /hæm.ək/.

So Bryan's right.

According to Daddy, Bryan said he heard it on Caillou long time ago and couldn't imagine how we could have doubted him. Alamak, he's such a PBS kid! How would we know? We never grew up with Caillou!

hey I'm sweet!

This conversation took place when I was changing Kristin on Friday evening. 

K: Mommy, I'm sweet. 

M: Yeah, you're sweet. 

I paused for a while and I thought if I had been feeding my daughter's vain ego. 

M: Who told you that you're sweet? 

K: Miss Alka. Miss Alka says I'm a sweet girl! So sweet! 

Ouch... toothache! 

Btw, Miss Alka is Kristin's teacher this year. Miss Alka once told me that she wouldn't mind having twenty Kristin's in her class. I suppose that's a compliment. But I told Miss Alka, things aren't quite the same at home and I wouldn't be wishing for twenty Kristin's! 

romancing the weekend...

Here's to a great weekend for everyone! Enjoy... 

romancing@siesmayer-ffm.de

The ambience... 

The table... 

The food... 

The couple...? Not her... me! Behind the camera! 

The flowers... 

The glass... 

The place... 

that we will definitely miss... 

kristin@palmengarten.de

Yay daisies! 

He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves me not, he loves me...

The new Pocky Girl! It's Pocky... 

Look Mommy, a red leaf! 

Ok, not the wrong thing in the mouth... 

This is my lipstick, Mommy! 

Pocky, yay!

missing germany #8

This Friday was quite special. Bryan was off to his friend Ryan's home for a play date - not the special part. It's a perfect autumn day with 18 centigrade and a clear blue sky, thus I decided to ride a bike to school to pick Kristin up - I can only manage biking with one kid, however. Yep, picking Kristin up with the bike was the special part. Besides being a great workout, the ride also allowed me to take some exciting pictures along the way to school... yep, I will certainly do this again, if I only have one kid to pick up from the preschool. 

Instead of allowing me to make a pit stop at Grueneburgpark (a public park), Kristin wanted to take a walk in Palmengarten (one that requires an entrance fee, though it doesn't really matter since we have a season ticket, just that I had to go home first to fish out the ticket from my bag). She was exceedingly well-behaved today. Or maybe it's the weather... it was so good, I felt so good... I didn't care if she was whining a little, errm, actually, I can't remember if she did whine, did she? 

By the time we came to this pond in Palmengarten (there are several in Palmengarten), Kristin refused to move. So I decided to start taking a few photos since I couldn't tear her away from the pond and its little drain...

Anyway, it has been pretty warm the whole day. I saw no harm letting her play with the running water: 

In between, I thought I could make a few photos to send in as a photo assignment to Digital Photography School (DPS) which has the theme of "bubbles" for the week. 

I took over a couple of dozens, deleted many... and am still having problems deliberating on which one to send in... 

These are the shots I'm happy with:

Shot 1, shutter@1/60, aperture@6.3, ISO@400, on sub-auto at aperture priority mode :  

Shot 2, shutter@1/60, aperture@5.6, ISO@400, on manual mode: 

Shot 3, shutter@1/60, aperture@5.6, ISO@400, on manual:

Shot 4 on manual with shutter@1/60, aperture@5.6, ISO@400 : 

Shot 5 on manual with shutter@1/60, aperture@5.6, ISO@400 :

So which one, my friends? Will appreciate some critiques... :)

missing germany #7

Remembering Frankfurt, this is Alte Oper (the old opera house): 

The fountain: 

The water: 

Remembering Grueneburgpark, this is the Korean House (built to commemorate Frankfurter Book Fair 2005 during which Korea was the country featured). Looks like I was in the Far East... 

The Japanese Wall: 

I wanted to return to take more shots. But on our way home (on bike), Kristin refused to let me make a pit stop for more photos... sigh! 

Biking and taking photos in this wonderful weather... that's something I'll surely miss... 

for casting purposes... :)

This cool dude says hello! 

This is another great piece of work from Miss McKenna @ Make Photographie. 

Does anyone know any casting agencies? ;) 

oct weekend getaways 2

If anyone's looking for hotel accommodation in Europe, I'll recommend www.booking.com. You will always be guaranteed the best deals, sometimes even better than what the hotel websites offer you! 

As usual, booking.com did not disappoint us. We booked two nights with this business hotel, Hotel Bloom of funky and modern designs. The best part was we paid only 88 Euros per night, with breakfast and tax included! Our usual French chain Novotel was charging 120+ Euros/night for the weekend, without breakfast! 

The kids were greeted by beads in the retro lobby when we arrived: 

Bryan tucked in a scrumptious breakfast amidst a hall filled with designer pieces of furniture, just look at that spider-web-chair at the table behind Bryan: 

The room is newly renovated, spacious, clean and quiet, even though the hotel is along the main street where the trams run: 

Oh... these two bubble swings are the pure highlight! It's like THE playground for the kids. When we arrived on Friday evening, there were models and photographers working in this area:

Oct weekend getaways 1

Over the weekend, we were at a place where we could see this: 

climb through a shaft like this one: 

stay in a place as funky as this one: 

have a caricature of ourselves like this one: 

Oh yes, you guessed it! We were in Brussels.

More to follow... 

more walnut shots... aka more "warts"

1st shot with shutter @1/10, aperture @ 5.6, ISO @1600, WB @ tungsten. 

Pretty happy with it in general, although the top shell of nut looks a little too exposed. Also, my ceramic hob has speckles of dust on it! 

2nd shot with shutter @ 1/13, aperture @ 5.6, ISO 1600, WB @ tungsten. Like this one better... a less dusty hob! :)

Another practice shot after dinner, shutter @ 1/13, aperture @ 5.0, ISO 1600 and WB @ tungsten. Like the composition in this one, with the circular ring separating nut and reflection. However, the nut is not in focus, while the reflection turns out sharp. 

Last practice shot... shutter @ 1/15, aperture @4.5, ISO 1600, WB @tungsten. 

Still top shell looks too over-exposed. 

Sigh... shooting manual is very tough... lots of trial and error. 

After note: 

Warts = (W)alnuts + (art) = lots of imperfections lah... 

(inserted after comments... ) 

schwarz gefahren!

Walnuts... fresh ones below walnut trees... sweet! 

In the area around the kids' preschool, there are plenty of chestnut, walnut and oak trees. Every autumn we see many unfamiliar faces in the neighbourhood and these people have come to gather bags and bags of chestnuts and walnuts. 

Today, being the warmest day of this week, I thought I could join the crowd and pick some nuts, when I picked the kids up at the preschool. After 5 walnuts, my handphone started to ring. It was my Polish cleaning lady. In her few words of German, I realised that I had unwittingly locked her up in my apartment when I rushed out to pick up the kids. It would have been too tedious to explain to her that I had another set of key in one of the drawers and that she could still let herself out - my Polish Putzfrau doesn't understand much German, while I can't speak any Polish! So, in the simplest sentence I could tell her, "Bitte warten. Ich komme sofort zurueck!" (Please wait, I'll be right back.) 

Luckily for me, I managed to evoke some empathy with the kids: I told them Oma Halina was trapped in our house and we had to go back to rescue her immediately. It was the fastest walk we ever made to the bus-stop and within 15 minutes, we were back home to save Oma Halina. 

In our hurry to execute our rescue mission, I forgot to pay for my bus ride home. In Germany, it's a trust system. People usually get their tickets if necessary with the bus driver at boarding. The bus driver will not question if one already has a valid ticket. Once in a while, spot checks will be conducted. And passengers caught without a valid ticket will have to pay a fine of 40 Euro. So I schwarz gefahren i.e. travelling without a valid ticket, with absolute no intention on my part. Thank goodness there was no one conducting a spot check. Else, I would have ended up paying another 40 Euro, which is the amount I pay my cleaning lady every week! 

So our walnut picking was cut short... Hopefully, Kristin and I will return to pick some more walnuts/chestnuts tomorrow, while Bryan will be heading over to his best friend's place for a playdate after school. 

kristin on swing

My china doll girl... yet another shot done by Miss McKenna @ Make Photographie.