Cold-Play

Hey, it's April!  I just realised I have not made any blog posts in the last 2 months.  So here are some photos of what we did today.  Yet another day of staying in, waiting for this long cold winter to be over.  Yes, it is still cold.

Garden chair turned into an impromptu play-station.

Add some bottles, containers, different sized spoons and lots of pom-poms.


Kept him occupied for half an hour.

'Paintings' done in school.

"This post has been brought to you by Brands' Essence of Chicken.  Thank you for reading!"  

I am Two

Lucas has moved out of baby neighbourhood and into toddler city!  And what a big world it is!  Come with us as we run along the last twelve months with him:

Song: Fly High by SHINee

Wintry...

Whilst Lucas was at preschool yesterday, I went for a quick walk in the woods and took some photos.  It was -1ºC.

My favourite series of shots: snow on branches framed by trees.

Typical scene in the woods.

Frozen pond.

Interesting collection of logs.

Twigs in the snow.

  

Someone couldn't wait to get home after school.

Fast and Furious.. Snow

I had wanted to blog about our year end trip back to Singapore and KL but then it snowed for 2 days.  So change of plans, have to blog about the snow!

It started snowing suddenly yesterday.  Big fat snowflakes falling fast and furious, then light powdery snow.  By this morning, it was a couple of inches high.  

Lucas did not like the snow.  He took two steps out, I took one photograph, then it was back indoors!

We ventured out to get groceries.  He was in his stroller, tucked up in his foot muff with the plastic cover down, totally shielded from the elements.  That was the only way we could travel, otherwise there was no end to the whining.

 I just love how everything is covered in snow.

There was so much snow on our balcony that I could build a snowman!  My first and probably last.  It was more difficult that I had thought.  It was hard to get the snow to stay.  Took me almost half an hour to make this two feet high snowman.  But it was great fun!  The snow was lovely, so soft and powdery.

Had to do it all alone because I couldn't get Lucas to come out of the house.  He hated the cold, hated the wind, so he hung around indoors wearing his winter jacket.  And it wasn't even that cold.

It is now snowing again.  Quite mesmerizing to watch the light snowflakes twirling and falling down.  Hope I can get some wintry landscape shots in the next few days.

Christmas... Worlds Apart

(Christmas 2012 and New Year 2013 have come and gone!  Here is a belated post on Christmas, drafted before Christmas but never got posted until now.)

Christmas in the Netherlands is a quiet and simple affair.  Actually, there are two traditional celebrations - Sinterklaas (St. Nicholas Day) which happens on 5 December, and Christmas itself.

There is a lot more hype and anticipation surrounding Sinterklaas, perhaps because the children get their presents on the days leading up to and including Sinterklaas.  All schools celebrate this day in a big way, and kids blacken their faces and dress up as Zwarte Piet, St. Nicholas' mischievous little Moorish helper.

To get the kids even more excited, St. Nicholas arrives on a steamboat from Spain in mid November!  Kids (and their parents) line the harbour and streets to welcome him and his Zwarte Piets as they parade through town.

After all that excitement, you can see why Christmas is a muted affair.  Additionally, tradition dictates that there can be nothing relating to Christmas until after Sinterklaas is over.  No Christmas trees, decorations, songs, etc., it is a big no-no.  I only found this out recently, after putting our tree up in mid October (gasp).  No wonder I couldn't find any Christmas decorations in the shops.  I just assumed that they were not very keen on selling them.

Here are some shots around our neighbourhood, taken on a Saturday two weeks before Christmas:

Solid piece of frozen ice on our windshield.  This is our third winter and I still find it fascinating to have ice on our car.

It was very hard to scrape off, even after spraying a solution to dissolve the ice.

After a spot of ice-scrapping, we went for a walk in the neighbourhood.  The Christmas tree stall was doing roaring business.  Stalls like this sprout up by the sidewalk in many neighbourhoods after Sinterklaas.  The Dutch prefer live pine trees for Christmas, which has to be taken down before New Year. (It is now 13 January and our tree is still up!)

Bus stop advert.  You can have Jamie Oliver 'cook' for you at Christmas.  Just pop into the nearest Albert Heijn supermarket.

Our favourite kebab store, which stays open till 8pm, yay!  Actually, it is our only "tar pau" option in the neighbourhood.

Christmas/Sinterklaas deco.

Live floral arrangements at the local florist.

Street Christmas deco.  Low-key is the way to go.

It was a little bit more festive at Nieuw Engelhard, our favourite neighbourhood cafe.

And at the other side of the world, you have Singapore, the mecca of consumerism.  There is so much Christmas deco that you wouldn't know where to look.  Fantastic decorations are the norm, year after year - you would easily take it for granted.  Until I came to the Netherlands, I thought floor to ceiling Christmas trees were standard decoration items, haha.  Take a look below:

Bulgari Christmas tree at the foyer of Ngee Ann City, complete with crystal encrusted ornaments and blue fairy lights.  Three storeys high.  Yes, wow!

Grand Hyatt's tree at the lobby.

Paragon's giant tree and 3D orange snowflakes.

Tangs had beautiful white and lavender hanging topiaries.  It was like a fairy land.  This photo doesn't do it justice, you would have to see it yourself. 

Decadent?  Yes.  Over the top?  Definitely.  Fake?  Obviously.  But you can't deny that it does bring out the festive feeling (that, and the urge to buy).  One thing is for sure, they are certainly beautiful to look at.  So I say, walk around and just enjoy this once-a-year expensive spectacle if ever you are in Singapore.  And for Singapore residents, count yourself lucky!

When in Rome... (Part 2)

St. Peter's Square at night.

Cheese and egg soup - unusual but surprisingly yummy.

Day 2 - Colosseum and Palatine Hill

We took the metro from Ottaviano to Colosseo, involved a changeover at the main Termini station.  It was easy and straightforward.  The interior of the metro looked exactly like Singapore's MRT.  The metro ticket was a flat fee of 1.50 euros per person per trip.  There were some steps involved, though, so Kevin had to carry the stroller up and down.

We ran into some new friends who said they did a guided tour of the Colosseum, so we decided to do the same.  The Colosseum isn't very big and the guided tour made it a lot more interesting.  The guide had an extensive knowledge and spent a good chunk of the tour telling us things about the Colosseum.

Cross-legging at the Colosseum.

View of Palatine Hill from the Colosseum.

After a brief break for lunch, we headed over to Palantine Hill where another guide took over.  He was again very knowledgeable and made the ruins come alive.  Otherwise, we would be just looking at clumps of stones without appreciating their significance.

On both tours, we brought the stroller along.  There were steps involved but not excessively high, so it was ok to carry the stroller up.  The fact that Lucas could walk helped a lot as Kevin didn't have to carry the stroller and him together.  We did get a lot of offers to help from the other members of the group so it was nice.

What was originally a chariot track at the Palatine Hill.

A once-opulent Roman villa.

Exiting Palatine Hill on very bumpy cobblestones.

We then took the metro to the Trevi Fountain.

Everyone wanted a piece of the Trevi action.

It was quite a majestic sight.

The Pantheon at dusk.

Another dramatic fountain, this time at Piazza Navona.

Day 3 - Villa Borghese and Spanish Steps

Our B&B owners told us at breakfast that there was going to be a demonstration in town and advised us to avoid certain places.  They suggested we visit Villa Borghese so we set out after breakfast.  It was about half an hour walk.

Pasar malam on Rome's shopping streets!

Lunch break on the way to Villa Borghese.

Piazza del Popolo near Villa Borghese.

Strolling up to the gardens.

More steps..

Beautiful sunset from Villa Borghese, on the way down to the Spanish Steps.

Masses of people hanging out at the Spanish Steps.

Pompi - the only reason why you should visit the Spanish Steps!
Best tiramisu in Rome, in convenient take away boxes.

We were fascinated by the presence of these stalls on the streets of Rome, so we took another photo.   This one was in front of a respectable looking Trussardi outlet.