NSRCC Changi Staycation – Review

Posted in Birthdays, Reviews, Staycation by jahbella

We decided to rent a bungalow at NSRCC Changi to celebrate Jah’s 3rd birthday. We thought it will be a nice way for JahBella to spend the weekend and to ensure enough space for our guests and their kids.

We checked in with Jah at about 2pm after his Transformer outing at the Science Centre. We were entitled to free parking in front of our bungalow and 1 additional lot for our guest at $10 per day (Note that it is for 1 fixed vehicle so not interchangeable). All other guests had to park at the nearby guest carpark E.

The bungalow had 2 levels, with the living room, dining area, kitchen and 1 bathroom on the lower floor and 2 bedrooms and the 2nd bathroom on the upper level. There was also a BBQ pit outside each bungalow (we didn’t use ours as we were catering). Each room had 2 single beds which means you can accommodate four people in the rooms and have the option of adding another 4 mattress sets (at $2 each per night). We ended up renting the additional mattress sets as it started to storm pretty badly after Jah’s birthday party and his auntys and uncles decided to stay the night. Bath towels and toiletries were provided but I would suggest bringing your own.

NSRCC Changi is also home to one of the Jumbo Seafood branches and we headed there for our dinner on the first night. It was a Friday night but relatively empty and peaceful. I have to say that the food was pretty awesome! The kids enjoyed it and so did we! The service was also very good in fact the manager came around several times to check on us and to get our feedback and was very receptive. He also remembered us when we came back the next afternoon for a Dim Sum lunch and the Dim Sum lunch was also pretty good! Although you will definitely have to make a reservation for a Saturday lunch.

Please excuse the half-eaten food

Our unit was just across from the playground and the swimming pool. It poured the morning in the early morning hours and I was worried that the kids wouldn’t be able to go swimming. But as ‘predicted’ by Jah, “the rain will stop in 2 hours!” and it did. Come 9am, the rain went away and the sun was out in full force! There was a children’s pool and a water play area as well as an adult pool (which doesn’t allow kids in floats). The kids were more than happy to play in the water play area which was ankle deep and the children pool which was chest deep for Jah.

After swimming, the kids headed over to the playground to dry off. I loved the playground, it was a pretty decent playground with enough challenging things for Jah to do without us having to worry he would hurt himself while Bella could also enjoy yourself with the simpler task.

Check-out was between 9am to 10am the next day and you will have to call housekeeping before you check-out. The housekeeper will do a simple stock take, sign off on your form and you will have to leave the bungalow immediately while she locks up. The check-out process was efficient and effortless and we were out of there in 5 minutes!

Honest opinion? It may not be your fancy hotel room with a nice plush king bed and white linen but it is definitely a good staycation option with lots of kid friendly activities to occupy. I can’t complain when the bowling alley is just a walk away that some of the adults managed to sneak off for a few rounds of bowling while the kids were sleeping. I will definitely bring our own bikes the next time around so that we can do our family cycle trip along the coast. 🙂

JahBella’s Mummy

9Jan2015

Zoom Park Asia – Trampoline Park – Media Invite

Posted in Media Invite, Reviews, Weekend activities with kids by jahbella

We were recently invited to the newly opened trampoline park, Zoom Park Asia at Pandan Gardens. We have been wanting to bring JahBella to a trampoline park for the longest time but have been abit apprehensive and uncertain if they will be able to handle it. I worry about the people jumping out of control all around them and whether they will find jumping around boring.

I honestly don’t know why I worry so much but I’m so glad that we had the perfect ‘excuse’ to bring them to one.

Jah has been jumping on his bed a lot recently and a trampoline park is just the right place for our boy to get that jumping out of his system (or well get more jumping into his system ;p)!

Zoom Park Asia is not exactly your regular trampoline park. Apart from the usual trampolines, it also has tons of activities like dodgeball and slam dunk (basketball) that are combined with the trampoline jumping. Jah was extremely happy to be jumping around and throwing balls at people. Actually I think Joel was very happy to throw the balls at me while Jah went about collecting balls. (don’t ask me why). My worry about people landing on my kids were also unfounded as we were all briefed on the safety rules prior to starting our session.

Dodgeball

Slam Dunk

The kids were very excited to explore the entire Zoom Park, trying out all the different sections and then coming back to the ones they enjoy the most. There was also a very challenging rock wall which jumpers can attempt to climb horizontally. A foam pit awaits you at the bottom if you should fall and trust me you wouldn’t want to fall because getting out of that foam pit is equally challenging! Yes I was unable to get out of it, too fat, too heavy! Don’t laugh, you have to try it for yourself to know what I mean.:(

Mummy is this a slide?

Rock Wall and Foam Pit

Other innovative ways of playing with the foam blocks according to Jah

Not sure which kid enjoyed himself more :p

The park also has a very good system for tracking when each session starts or ends. Every jumper is given a colour tag that indicates the time of their jump session and announcements are made when the session for a particular colour ends. All in all, very organized and impressive.

You will also find a café in the park who currently serves simple cakes, snacks and drinks. While most parks or indoor playgrounds may choose to charge an arm and a leg to their captive audience, Zoom Park Asia charges very reasonably for the F&B at their cafe.Great for that 5 to 10 minutes break for kids (and for me) before they re-charge and continue their jump session.

Taking a break but extremely happy!

Even though Zoom Park Asia may be on the other end of the island from us, it has definitely been placed on our regular go to places. In fact we brought JahBella’s uncle and aunty there with us last weekend and even they admitted it was really tiring good fun! We will be heading there again this weekend at the request of the rest of the Village :p. After all which parent can resist an outing that = fun for them too and results in a hungry child all ready to eat his lunch and take a 3 hour nap after!

JahBella’s Mummy

7Jan2015

Whisk and Paddle Review – Tebing Lane

Posted in Eating Out with Kids, Food, Food Journey, Reviews by jahbella

One would think that we would have discovered this café/ restaurant a lot earlier, given that we live almost right next to it and it has been opened for almost 2 months now. I guess this kinda shows that we haven’t exactly been on our family bike rides much in recent times.

Jah and I chanced upon Whisk and Paddle on Saturday morning when we took a Mummy-Son bike ride. Joel’s bicycle had somehow ‘come apart’ that morning, a combination of his annoying bike tyre problem and Jah messing up the bicycle chain while we were trying to solve the tyre problem. The result being, Joel and Bella were relegated to a morning at the playground (Bella was very pissed off) and Jah insisted that Mummy stuck to the original plan and took him to the park for a ride.

Whisk and Paddle is located at Tebing Lane, with a view of the park and the waters. It would have been a perfect morning outing for mummy and son but ermm mummy didn’t bring any money with her so we were resigned to coming back at another time with papa and little sister.

The view!

We decided to come back on Sunday evening for an early dinner with the other half of the JahBella team. The restaurant does not take reservation on weekend evenings so we did a walk-in. At 6pm, the place was already half filled with the other half of the place fast filling up. We chose to sit further at what I call the family friendly seating area, long tables with sofa benches. The other seating area consisted of more traditional café like tables and chairs. There was a small play area with a tent and some toys to keep the kids occupied. The play area was right smack between the two seating areas which in my opinion was perfect! Rather than have the kids play at some corner where only parents seated at those corners could see what was going on. Having kids right in the middle meant that they could have lots of light and they could spot their parents no matter where they were seated. 🙂

Family friendly seating area

Play area

The restaurant serves all day breakfast and other mains from 3pm onwards.

We ordered Eggs Benedict with Smoked Salmon and Ham for the adults and a Bolognaise Penne for JahBella to share. We wanted to try the chunky fries with truffle mayo but it wasn’t available. We also order a Piccolo Latte, a Babycino, a Crunchie Honeycomb Milkshake and a warm Chocolate Fudge cake with Ice cream. One word sums up our food experience..yummy! Jah was very happy with the food and he was also very happy with the old school snack corner. 🙂

The food plus the laid back ambience, blue skies and fresh air really completed our wonderful weekend. Our kids are very much like us…give them crappy food and we will get very cranky kids. Give them a good ambience and yummy food and we have the sweetest kids ever. :p Suffice to say, our kids were extremely happy and cooperative that day.

We will definitely be bringing the kids back to try more, in fact I think there might already be plans to celebrate our Wedding Anniversary with the kids there this weekend.

For now, we will let the pictures do the talking…:)

Eggs Benny with Smoked Salmon

Bolognaise Penne

Eggs Benny with Ham

Piccolo Latte

Crunchie Honeycomb Milkshake

Babycino

Warm Chocolate Fudge Cake

Old School Snacks Corner – Spoilt for choice!

JahBella’s Mummy

31Dec2014

JahBella’s Top 10 Blog Posts of 2014

Posted in Eating Out with Kids, Holidays, Kids health, Online Shopping, Perth, Photoshoot, Plays/ Theatre, Reviews, Tips with Kids, Travel Planning, Travel with Kids, Weekend activities with kids by jahbella

2014 marks the beginning of our blogging adventure – a decision to document our special family moments and vacation experiences as well as to give a little insight into the everyday lives of two full-time working parents, with two childcare going children. Although we have only been blogging for the last 5 months of 2014, the attempts to note down our experiences and thoughts have truly enrich our lives in more ways than we could imagine.

So to round off and recap our year, here are our Top 10 Blog Posts of 2014.

1) Why a C-Section Doesn’t Make You Less of A Woman/ Mother

A reminder to all c-section mummies that regardless of birth method, we are all precious in the eyes of our little ones and a c-section does not make you any less a mummy.

2) Little Nyonya – Peranakan Outfits for Little Girls

Want to know where to pick out food quality Peranakan outfits for yourself and the little one? Little Nyonya has really authentic and beautiful pieces!

3) The Playhouse @ Rochester – Review

An Outdoor AND Indoor playground for the kids, with yummy brunch food for the whole family

4) Update on Jah’s Head Injury

A life-changing and scary moment for our family this year in fact the entire family + uncles and aunties are still pretty shaken by this event. We thank God that Jah is well and healthy today.

5) 3 Must-Have Items When Flying With Kids

Our family’s must haves when flying with kids and looks like we will be trying these items on Bella in 2015.

6) My Top 4 Kiddy Products of the Moment – (Sep 2014)

While we are no longer using our Double Stroller, the other 3 items still continue to be my favourite parent-life saver of the moment..

7) How to Survive an Eye Test with a 3 year old

We will be attempting our 2nd eye test with Jah in Jan 2015. Perhaps another post soon on how we survived the same test, this time at a private practitioner. In the meantime, this should lend some insight on what goes on during an eye test at a government hospital.

8) Trigg Beach Family Photo Shoot (March 2014)

Our first of many more family photo shoots in Australia (i’m sure). Its really hard to get the whole family to look at the camera together pix especially when attemping wefies so I’m totally for photo shoots during our vacations..at least it guarantees some nice pics to take home with us 😉

9) Hop and Honk (I Theater) – Review

Jah’s introduction to his first full on theater play + an intermission and we survived! In fact keep a look out for more reviews on upcoming I Theatre productions in 2015! Can’t wait!

10) Getting Spectacles for Jah – The Ups and Downs

Finding a place that offers spectacles for kids below primary school going age, is really a tough feat in Singapore.

We are glad we found a place to go to for good quality spectacles that are ‘child resistant’ – a 3 year old is not going to treat his specs with the same care as a 13 year old.

So here are our Top 10 Blog posts from 2014!!

Thank you everyone for your support and we hope to share more of our adventures, tips and activities with you in the new year.

Happy 2015!

JahBella’s Mummy

23Dec2014

The Solution to Internet Blindspots in your own house – TP Link Wifi Range Extender

Posted in Reviews by jahbella

I don’t know how I managed to live with such bad internet connection in my own house all these years and just somehow learnt to put up with it and worked around it! When I say bad, I really mean horrendous and non-existent. The only place that I could get any signal is in my living room (5 steps away from my router). I have no signal in Jah’s room and no signal in my bedroom, both of which are about 10 steps from the router). Yes how is that possible when I live in a standard HDB flat!!

To my defense, I did try to sort out the problem a couple of times. I screamed at my internet provider and insisted they come check on the reception in my house. We attempted to troubleshoot the problem over the phone and we all know how difficult it is to reach any of these service providers over the phone. I upgraded my internet plan to give me better speeds. I changed my router twice! because I was told my router might be ‘too old’. Nothing worked and well I eventually gave up and made do with a mobile wifi device when I needed internet access in the rooms.

I recently found out that I was not the only one with this ‘strange problem’ and that a wifi range extender could potentially solve my problem. So I went in search of it, at the nearest challenger.

I was initially looking for a particular range extender that needed to placed mid-point between my existing router and the area where the signal is weak. Prior to looking for it, I was abit skeptical and confused on whether this would even work, given that the supposed mid point between my router and weak spot area was well yeah only bridging things by 5 steps away.

In any case I decided to try but was told that the shop did not carry the brand I was looking for. Instead of recommending me a different brand with the same setup, the very kind salesman recommended me something slightly different.

This wifi powerline extender was connected via the ‘power lines’. Therefore I just needed to plug Adaptor 1 to my wall socket and by LAN to my router and plug Adaptor 2 to a wall socket in the room where I needed internet. Hit the PAIR button on both adapters and voila! I get internet in my master bedroom. I was told that I could get an additional adaptor if I wanted to also place one in Jah’s room. However I found that by placing Adaptor 2 on a wall that divided both rooms, it gave me signal in Jah’s room as well!

So yes now I have internet signal in my rooms without me having to carry a mobile wifi device around the house with me! Oh the joys of easily accessible internet in my own house..such irony 🙂 but I’m a happy girl this Christmas.

JahBella’s Mummy