Art Garden @ SAM

Meet Walther

The huge bunny who decided to lie down in front of SAM

The Art Garden on till end of August

An entire gallery completely covered with train tracks,

even on the walls

Tree of love

filled with lots of papier mache animals & figures

Make your own paper fruits

Choose from 6 different designs with different degree of difficulty

It's a lot harder than it looks

All it requires is a little bit of patience

Take your time with it

I folded while the Girl added the glue

Here's the Girl's favorite fruit

Yup, she loves mangosteens

Once you're done, you get to keep it or exchange it for a real fruit

We kept ours

Pasting stickers on the elephant

Dancing solar flowers

Such a happy wall

Mummy Dearest

Bigger version of the paper dolls

Lightning Action

Are these white empty boxes ?

Or Toy boxes ?

A special video effect slowly adding images to the boxes making them sort of come alive

Since you are there for the Art Garden,

Do check out the Video Art Series

SAM website has activity books for children of different age groups

Here's the one for 5 & above

Chiu Chow food in HK

When I'm in Hong Kong, my friends know not to bring me to chi chi restaurants. Actually more specifically no Western food. I love my wanton noodles, beef brisket noodles, claypot rice, century egg porridge.....& chiu chow (teochew) food.

In HK, they call them "chiu chow da lang" restaurants - the usual braised goose but these are my favorites

Minced pork & oyster porridge

(my all time favorite supper food)

I will never forget one supper in an unnamed da lang restaurant in Tsim Sha Tsui where the next table was occupied by some mafia characters. And how would I know ? Well one minute they were having supper, then they left only to return half an hour later with blood drenched shirts to continue their meal. I kid you not. I almost freaked out.

Cold crabs !

I miss HK

I was recently back in HK

Catching up with old friends

Missing them terribly

Missing the wonderful food

Enjoying the sights & sound

Of this hectic & busy city

I used to call home

Keeping The Girl Occupied during School Holidays

I never had to worry about school holidays before. When we were living in France, I was a stay at home mum so school breaks were just extended weekends. When we moved to Singapore, she went to full day kindergarten which meant there were only a handful of days the centre was closed.

What was I going to do with her for a whole month ? Playdates. Camp (I finally found one with an interesting agenda but more importantly, didn't cost an arm & a leg which was where she went last week). Thankfully there are lots going on around town & this is one of our favorites. Before I go there, a little about our lunch.

So I took the day off to have lunch with her (a mother & daughter bonding lunch) at Wild Rocket which was very good. The restaurant is tucked away in Mount Emily but was packed at lunchtime. My first time there & I fully intend to go back again, with X. I ordered the 3 course set lunch very reasonably priced at $28. The starter (we shared) was deep fried tofu with creamy century egg sauce - a little unusual but we both liked it. I had the much talked about laksa pesto with quail's egg & shrimp that was yummy. Her burger was juicy & flavorful. The cucumber & pink grapefruit granita was the perfect end to a very satisfying meal.

After the nice lunch, we strolled leisurely over to the National Museum to the Playdome as part of the Children's Season. I had intended to go there only for a couple hours & then head home to do a bit of swimming but nope, we were there close to 4 hours.

She insisted on going to every station & doing everything.

First stop - the Wayang Play Stage. The children get to decorate & colour the mask any way they like, after being briefed on what the typical colors meant. Then they get to put on the mask, wayang costumes & do a bit of playacting.

Trying out the mask

We had a lot of fun here. Picking up different colored cloth, moving it around & seeing it reflected within the giant kaleidoscope.

Nothing too much happening at the Sun Deck

Chilli Garden

The kids are given a round plastic disc & asked to design it. Once done, slot into one of many cones scattered in the garden & watch it against the different backgrounds.

The stop that we liked best was the Happy Hawkers. There were 5 different stations where children can make food out of plasticine, serve the dish & at the same time learn about the old methods of making food. Satay, laksa, teh tarik, roti prata & tok tok mee.

This is the bowl of laksa she made complete with orange gravy, sliced egg, peas & chillis

Satays on the grill

Satays with sliced cucumbers & egg

That's how we spent an entire afternoon at the Museum

SOTA School of the Arts

Designed by architecture firm WOHA, SOTA is the new iconic building in the block. I've walked past it often & finally decided to walk up the stairs to explore it. Let me take you on a tour.

15 minutes

"In the future, everybody will be famous for 15 minutes"

Andy Warhol in 1968

We discovered this cute space in Lasalle School of the Arts that I had blogged about before. We had gone there to catch a show but arrived early so happily settled ourselves in 15 minutes for a pre-show coffee.

I couldn't tell you if the food was any good cos we didn't have any but other tables seem to be enjoying their pizzas. They have live performances at night & have been told by my young friends that it is rather happening. Click on their cool website to find out more.

Do check this out if you are in the neighbourhood

15 minutes

La Salle College of the Arts

1 McNally Rd