Ramayana Revisted

What can you do with an active 5 year old during the weekends ? Quite a lot if you are living in Singapore. Several weeks ago, we had a blast at the Peranakan Museum. They organised a special event over a weekend celebrating Ramayana & so had a whole bunch of activities for kids, all free.

Shall we take a look at what we did ? We were might busy.

This is Rangoli, traditional sand art. I'm ashamed to say my introduction of this was one episode of the Amazing Race Asia where they got the contestants to do this as part of a road block.

This takes patience so it was amazing for me to see The Girl spending a good part of the hour at it. She wanted to keep going on.

This was the end result (just kidding !)

I only have to whisper the words "face painting" & she would be jumping with joy. Children are so easy to please.

The only time she will sit quietly for more than a few minutes without fidgeting.

This was the highlight of her day. To have a henna painting. You should have seen her. She was holding up her hand the whole day, like the wounded, so afraid to smudge it. The henna lasted a good one week, during which time, she would show it off to everybody - even random strangers on the street.

The favorite with everyone else was the clay section. Everybody had a go at making different animals. We made this adorable elephant.

This was a bit of a mess but so much fun. Sand art. The children had a choice of different designs. I just had to help her remove the stickers & then she was off selecting the colours & pouring the sand over. The final result is now sitting on her bookshelf.

And that wasn't it... In between the activities, we got to watch several performances.

The space is a bit tight & since we weren't on Singapore kiasu mode yet (that changed for the next show) meaning we weren't there early enough to snag a spot, we didn't manage to catch the first show.

I might have found out what a Chinese opera had to do with the whole Ramayana theme if I had bothered to read the program.

Making sure we weren't disappointed a second time, we made our way to the performance area early. The Girl was the one who kept reminding me not to be late for the show. A Indonesian group enacted part of the Ramayana story which thrilled everyone. I, personally, adored their costumes.

Photo op after the show

All in all, a very good afternoon. It kept her busy for several hours. We brought home several souvenirs & best of all, didn't cost me a single cent.