Counting Down to... Christmas!

In anticipation of a busy December, we put up the Christmas Tree quite early - in mid November. The boys were excited.



This does not seem to have anything to do with Christmas - I just put it in since they were really still in that joyous mood and it's in the same folder.

Auld Lang Syne

Staying in Scotland taught me the literal meaning of 'Auld Lang Syne' - 'Old Long Since'. So I hesitated to use the phrase when I was leaving Scotland, since I didn't really stay that long. Yet, it comes again, when now Ethan's last day in his current child care centre is tomorrow.

Of this child care centre, I have mixed feelings, like most parents do with their kids' child care centres I am sure. But I admit that I do feel rather sad at its closing.

Having had no work for the first half of the year, I was privy to some of the inner activities of the school through my daily sending and fetching of Ethan. Somehow or other, it just happened - Jethro would spend sometime at the outdoor playground, playing with the outdoor toys, especially the car, after seeing Ethan to his classroom. The timing coincided with the nursery play time and the head teacher would welcome Jethro with a cheerful greeting. They did not mind that he play on the car, and might pose some hazard to the bigger kids running around. He was even invited to participate in their water play when they had that. At times like this, my headache was how to keep him from making trouble, and how to deal with the older kids who would sometimes gather around him threateningly. Every time, I had to cajole and drag him out of the child care centre so that I could get on with my grocery shopping and other routines. After I started work, a few of the teachers would still ask after Jethro and be delighted at seeing him at the few times when I was on leave.

It was thus that I came to know most of the teachers pretty well: how the English teachers had been changed 2 times - I saw all three of them; how for the afternoon session during Chinese week, it was originally handled by a K2 teacher but later they got a new one so the K2 teacher could be fully involved with the K2 classes. I also know that their meals are catered and not the healthiest around - they do serve fried stuff at times and nothing organic or wholemeal. Still, Ethan is in K1 and should eat like a kid I suppose. (Of course, all these are in the letters to parents and menus - but seeing them first hand is quite different.) And the kids seem to be given quite a lot of personal space to develop - not as disciplinary as some of the child care centres I have looked at - yet are a happy, rather well-behaved lot.

When the news of the school closure was announced in September, it created a big hoo-hah, especially when the initial closure date was end October. Nobody had any notion of its coming, not even the teachers. Forms had even been sent out in July or August asking the parents to confirm if their children were staying on for next year. Angry parents complained to the school management and the Ministry. Some results came out of all these self-righteous complaints - the school managed to get the closure date extended to end November, so that at least the K2 students could have a proper finish to their pre-school education, and the management waived off two months of school fees in October and November for all children who continued to stay. The last did not manage to attract most non-K2 parents, however, and it was sad to see the number of children in the centre dwindle to a handful as the weeks went by. The Children's Day celebration was brought forward to the last day in September because it was the last day for many of them. Now, Ethan does not go upstairs to his original classroom, but uses the classroom at the ground floor originally occupied by the nursery kids. The number of full-day K1 kids has reduced to a mere 3, that for half-day slightly more.

So tomorrow is the last day, and school is only half a day so the teachers can pack up in the afternoon. The building will no longer hear the laughter of little kids and bear with the rowdiness. No more tears and mess, and yet, no more happy chatter and little feet running about. No more children's art hanging on its walls and windows. The little tables and chairs will be gone, the stationery will be gone, the toys will be packed away, the playground will go to ruin. I wonder if the building will be torn down. In any case, it will be such an empty place next time we pass by it on our way home. Well, it's had its grand old days and fun, and we all move on - to primary schools or to other child care centres, where our kids' actions will add to the clamour and liveliness of other buildings.

So long, old yellow building. So long, the dedicated and respected teachers. So long, boys and girls, who have given my son the enriching experience of their friendships.

Jumble of Words: To be Humbled and Moved

I was in a hurry. It was literally snatched off the table as I rushed to borrow the items. Jianming was waiting outside the library. The boys were somewhere about inside the library, still within my view but starting to get too interested in the glass panels that were the library walls. I was supposed to borrow only the CD attachment that came with the book I had borrowed earlier. I decided to linger a little around the table of displayed books and the title of this one arrested my attention: 'The Whole Five Feet', by Christopher Beha.

At first, it was just a book to read for me. The chapters were denominated by the months of the year (the author had taken it upon himself to use one year to finish a collection of Classics - occupying a shelf five-foot high - compiled by Charles Eliot in the nineteenth century). I had read until October without much feeling, despite the tribulations underwent by the author which he described alongside his thoughts about the books he had read. It was rather easy reading, nevertheless, and I wasn't bored.

Then, in 'October', the last paragraph of the chapter struck and humbled me: "... But as I sat in the dining room - the classroom - with my nieces and nephews, it seemed to me that the things my sister was teaching them, and not any accidents of biology, made them her children."

To be humbled by the writings of one rather much younger than me and who had no children of his own! I start to wonder what I have been teaching my children. Probably nothing much, especially since I started working. How can I claim them to be mine if I continue to be removed from their upbringing and know only to scold them for the things they do which disturb me?

Then, in 'November', I was moved by the poem which he highlighted because it had also moved him in a profound way. It was Tintern Abbey by William Wordsworth, or 'Composed a few Miles above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour, July 13, 1798' -the complete title of the poem. I will append the full poem as downloaded from the Project Gutenburg, but here, I will just reproduce the portions that he had picked out:

"To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world
Is lighten'd:—that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on,
Until, the breath of this corporeal frame,
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things."

"For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Not harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue."

"That on the banks of this delightful stream
We stood together; and that I, so long
A worshipper of Nature, hither came,
Unwearied in that service: rather say
With warmer love, oh! with far deeper zeal
Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,
That after many wanderings, many years
Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,
And this green pastoral landscape, were to me
More dear, both for themselves, and for thy sake."

Years ago, I would not be able to appreciate this. Certainly not at the author's age. Although I had just come back from England then and the memory was still fresh in my mind, and I had doubtlessly replayed the natural beauty of the places countless times in my mind, I was still rather untouched by the travails of life then to look for elixir in the past. It was mostly with nostalgia that I looked upon those images. Years on, I still can't say I have suffered much, but I now know this 'heavy and weary weight' full well and how nature could have lightened it. In the midst of this congested city life, both physically and mentally, numbing all your senses, reading these sentences gave me a breath of fresh air; like some cooling panacea to the parched soul. Like I could revive, I could get rid of the mould and rust on myself and be as pure as a baby once more.
Beha's other sentence also resonates with what I sometimes feel when I have something to write in my mind (nothing so ambitious as to amount to a book) and yet when I actually do begin to write, I will be suffering from 'wordblocks' and mental blocks and the final piece usually turns out quite different from the original intention. He said, "In some ways, I suppose no one ever writes the book he sets out to write. The process of writing is a series of compromises by which the ideal gives way to the actual." He further lamented how the ability to express oneself in words that could touch the hearts of the masses, which the likes of Lincoln and Jefferson possessed, was rapidly being lost in our generation. Perhaps he was only talking in the American context, yet I have sometimes felt the truth of it myself.

Allow me to end this rather disjointed piece of essay with a touch of something else, again from another author's words, who might have shown me the light to a conundrum that has been bothering me for quite awhile. Beha quoted from Tolstoy's Anna Kerenina. Levin was having a revelation: "This new feeling has not changed me, has not made me happy and enlightened all of a sudden, as I had dreamed, just like the feeling for my child. There was no surprise in this either. Faith - or not faith - I don't know what it is - but this feeling has come just as imperceptibly through suffering, and has taken firm root in my soul.
I shall go on in the same way... but my life now, my whole life apart from anything that can happen to me, every minute of it is no more meaningless, as it was before, but it has the positive meaning of goodness which I have the power to put into it."

Much of what we have gone through in our lives have at certain times brought about some changes in our inner self. For me, they are notably the two periods of overseas life, having children and seeing how they develop. And I have always wondered why these have not enriched my actions and dealings with the people around me, the environment I live in and the society as a whole. Perhaps the clue is in the above passage. I, too, won't change much of my habits, my natural inclinations, my character flaws because I have experienced a certain degree of this nameless 'feeling' that came upon Levin. But perhaps I am closer to understanding life as it is.

Appendix (well, not really, since this has no separate chapter...)

The full poem of 'Composed a few Miles above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour, July 13, 1798' by William Wordsworth



Five years have passed; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a sweet inland murmur. Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
Which on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,
Which, at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Among the woods and copses lose themselves,
Nor, with their green and simple hue, disturb
The wild green landscape. Once again I see
These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms
Green to the very door; and wreathes of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees,
With some uncertain notice, as might seem,
Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,
Or of some hermit's cave, where by his fire
The hermit sits alone.

Though absent long,
These forms of beauty have not been to me,
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart,
And passing even into my purer mind
With tranquil restoration:—feelings too
Of unremembered pleasure; such, perhaps,
As may have had no trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man's life;
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world
Is lighten'd:—that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on,
Until, the breath of this corporeal frame,
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.

If this
Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft,
In darkness, and amid the many shapes
Of joyless day-light; when the fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart,
How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee
O sylvan Wye! Thou wanderer through the woods,
How often has my spirit turned to thee!

And now, with gleams of half-extinguish'd thought,
With many recognitions dim and faint,
And somewhat of a sad perplexity,
The picture of the mind revives again:
While here I stand, not only with the sense
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
That in this moment there is life and food
For future years. And so I dare to hope
Though changed, no doubt, from what I was, when first
I came among these hills; when like a roe
I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides
Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,
Wherever nature led; more like a man
Flying from something that he dreads, than one
Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then
(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days,
And their glad animal movements all gone by,)
To me was all in all.—I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms, were then to me
An appetite: a feeling and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, or any interest
Unborrowed from the eye.—That time is past,
And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur: other gifts
Have followed, for such loss, I would believe,
Abundant recompence. For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Not harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man,
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye and ear, both what they half-create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognize
In nature and the language of the sense,
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.

Nor, perchance,
If I were not thus taught, should I the more
Suffer my genial spirits to decay:
For thou art with me, here, upon the banks
Of this fair river; thou, my dearest Friend,
My dear, dear Friend, and in thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart, and read
My former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while
May I behold in thee what I was once,
My dear, dear Sister! And this prayer I make,
Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy: for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our chearful faith that all which we behold
Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain winds be free
To blow against thee: and in after years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure, when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies; Oh! then,
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,
Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance,
If I should be, where I no more can hear
Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams
Of past existence, wilt thou then forget
That on the banks of this delightful stream
We stood together; and that I, so long
A worshipper of Nature, hither came,
Unwearied in that service: rather say
With warmer love, oh! with far deeper zeal
Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,
That after many wanderings, many years
Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,
And this green pastoral landscape, were to me
More dear, both for themselves, and for thy sake.

They Know What They Say

I had started this with the intention of 'compiling' the amusing things Ethan said (recently). Then I realise: it is getting difficult to record the conversations, primarily because he is at an age where what he says could be just a display of his gradually maturing thoughts and not really, like something worth noting down as amusingly precocious. Anyway, I had left this unfinished for so long because I couldn't find quite so many things that would motivate me to whisk a pen and paper from that far-off table and note them down (my brain has too many leaks). Until this morning. An amusing verbal incident happened - not to Ethan, but to Jethro. And I thought I would combine both and be done with it.

Ethan's like, mostly very rough with his brother - wrestling, hitting, shouting, pushing, elbowing... but really, he's not that bad...

When Jethro refuses to go into the lift, and all beckonings fail, I would sometimes threaten (futilely) to leave him outside. Ethan would get really anxious and said, "No, Jethro's still there!" And then called urgently to Jethro, "Jethro, come in! COME IN!"

Once Ethan was eating an apple. Jethro took an orange and tried to bite on it too. Ethan patiently explained to him that 'not all fruits you can eat the skin. Apple can, orange cannot.'

Jethro has acquired the exasperating habit of poking anyone and everyone, including strangers. He especially likes to do so in the lift, making me wish there's a hole in the ground I could just sink into. One day, he was poking Ethan when Ethan's back was turned. Expecting Ethan to berate him, I was surprised to see him calmly turn around and sternly told Jethro, "Jethro, I will give you one more chance." Of course, I made sure Ethan never got to show what he would do if Jethro used up that chance.

If you asked Ethan, "Do you want a baby sister or brother?" He would answer matter-of-factly, "A sister. Because there are two brothers now (he includes himself), so we should have a sister." It's heartening to hear him 'welcome' a new addition to the family like this. But alas, Ethan, Mummy cannot help its gender.

Ethan has rather good memories on cars, if not on anything else. Recently, he was still talking about his 大姑丈's brother's car. He said, "Next time we'll get a car that is bigger than 大姑丈's brother's car. Not just three rows, but four. Can store (he probably meant 'sit') 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 persons! E and R will sit with their mother. N will..." Those are his cousins by the way. Took me some while to figure out who this 大姑丈's brother is. We had used his car, an MPV, on our trip to Malaysia in April. April, four months ago.

Jethro in the morning, in the car, on the way to Childcare Centre, sometimes has this glazed look over his eyes, like he's really, really, bored with life. But sometimes he'd be quite engaged. He's also at this stage where he's micmicking the words of almost everyone he hears, in particular his brother. Yes, I kid you not, he's just at about this stage, no further, at the point of approaching two.

It's become his custom to ask about the whereabouts of his brother at least once on our way to work. This morning, he asked again, "Where Gor-gor?" After having asked this question without fail at least once each morning, I've gotten a bit bored with it and thus answered in a non-standard English way, "Gor-gor at school LAH!" Next moment, he's asking Jianming the same question, "Daddy, where Gor-gor?" Jianming probably found it pointless to repeat the answer, so he asked him back the same question. To which Jethro replied in an almost perfect imitation of my tone, "Gor-gor shgool AH!"

A Second Set of Stitches and Other Things

Ethan's got his second set of stitches again. This time on the lower lip. It happened nearly 3 weeks ago and the wound's almost healed by now. Perhaps I shouldn't have brought him home early from school. But he was this happy to be home earlier. Then the howlings, the blood that welled up in his mouth and spilled all over the floor.
It was because I was mopping the floor and he was, as usual, jumping about in the house and oblivious to my warnings about wet floor. When I saw the cut, I thought, 'How could his upper teeth be so sharp?' and 'There it goes again, I'll have to bring him to the clinic, hope he won't need stitches.' But my hope was not met, we ended up spending the rest of the afternoon in KK Hospital.
While waiting for his stitching to be done (he had to be put unconscious again, but this was a different way, not general anaesthesia, compared to what was done in Scotland), I brought them for a walk upstairs, where there are shops, a small park and a small playground. Bought this art thing for Ethan to do on the spot as a way of passing the time, with guidance from the lady at the stall ('ArtUKidding'). For half an hour, he concentrated on colouring the car with the paint that would turn rubbery and hard after being heated, and was happy with the result. So, I think he had quite a good impression of hospitals in general. Dear me. Jethro also enjoyed the 'outing' and all the attention showered on him by the nurses. (They were really concerned about him making so much noise and shaking the railings on the hospital beds while we waited for Ethan to wake up.)
Life as a stay-at-home-mum is like this. Sometimes you feel helpless and alone in facing some issues with your kids. You'd better not fall sick because there is nobody else but you. But if you don't stay at home, and you work... Then there seems to be a dozen things to do each day and you have little time for your kids. You'll have to let go, and letting go is really hard and doesn't sound reasonable. You are afterall the mother.
So I have joined the rat race and everyday it's sitting in the car and bashing through the horrendous traffic so we can get to work one minute earlier and leave office a minute earlier. It gets tiring and the nerves are all strung up throughout the week for that rush and drumming the fingers during traffic jams. There is a bored toddler beside me and I really hate to have him go through this. Maybe in a few months' time, he's old enough and can join his brother in his child care centre that is nearer home. This is just temporary, you tell yourself. Everything is temporary. Every suffering, every inconvenience, they will be over - when the kids grow up, when you decide you can stop doing the work you don't like (your husband's pay is high enough), when working is easy-peasy and just a way of passing time and exercising your brain, because your kids don't need you that much anymore and you will be idling at home anyway. Come that day... But I don't want it to come so soon. I know I should spend more time with the children, especially at this period in their lives when they still look to you for company and guidance. Yet, this is also when the financial situation at home does not allow you so much freedom.
Why is life so difficult? Ever since Scotland, I have been asking myself. Can't we choose to make it easier? No rat race: scrimp and save and worry about saving sufficient money for the future; minimal social life. Rat race: no family time; the children are moving further away.

When You Were (Are) Very Young

Sometimes a certain book's title caught your attention and imagination more than its contents. That's how I feel about A A Milne's collection of poems, 'When We Were Very Young'. I read it when I was not so very young, at a period of time when, by circumstances, I frequented the Children's Library more often than the Adult's. I am not saying I don't care for the poems inside. Being A A Milne, his poems are readable and rather charming. Still, I always think of the title, and how it fits the situation of my own sons (and many others as well, of course). At another period of life, I might not have noticed this book at all.
What is 'very young'? I wonder if Mr Milne meant that time of your life when you are quite small, barely at your parents' waists or shorter, and when your imagination is seldom inhibited by facts and probabilities. What you are thinking of, becomes the source of amusement or frustration (and sometimes both together) to the adults around you as it manifests itself into actions and words. I would like to think my sons are at this age, and still some way to go.
I sometimes have it in my mind to write a simple note to the boys, starting with...

"My dear sons, when you were very young, your mummy went on (a) no pay leave (that seems to have no end) and we lived in Scotland for awhile - when Ethan was between two and four and Jethro was born there and till he was 16 months.
We had fun there, Ethan, you and I, especially at the beginning. Remember (you probably don't) we played peek-a-boo with the blankets on the bed after reading Preston Pig and Wolf's 'Boo!'? You liked marching and playing drum a lot and the nursery rhyme we sang most often was 'Oh The Grand Old Duke of York' when we would march up and down the room, pretending to beat the drums. And Jethro, you did enjoy it there too, although I was a 'changed' mum by the time you were born...
I know that you kids like it best when you have parents who would act silly with you and I tried to do so, for sometime. But it got too stressful and lonely, this world of entertainment and immersing in playgrounds, toys, nursery rhymes, children's books, kids' meals. Then your brother was born, and I just had to be me again, just to relief the stress. Or perhaps to make myself more stressed. Still, I learned that I am not the only one. That Mothers all over the world have this problem of wanting to be 'good' mothers but not being able to suppress their own desires, feelings and inclinations. So it's okay to give in to what is your human nature sometimes, because you are only human. Only thing I still keep to is the tiresome job of providing quite nutritious meals for you whenever I cook. Though there are times when I nearly want to follow the example of a certain mother I knew once, when a sausage roll shall suffice for lunch.
So I stopped being the mother who doesn't scold, who doesn't hit, who will always entertain her children when they are bored. And I have stopped and never turned back. I do regret this. But perhaps what I need is to find a way to meet half-way, because I can't change what I am, but certain boring, harsh old ways I should try to change for a happier relationship with you all.
I believe one day I will miss you as babies and little boys; the carefree, blue skies you have shown me. One day, when I see you having problems of your own, wondering about which way to go next, worrying over the realities of your dreams - I think, I must really treasure this short precious period of your lives more, when you are so very young.
But I don't think I can stop chiding you and saying 'No!' instead of 'Why don't you do this instead?' most of the time. Cheeky tongue out here."

Little Trips and Little Activities

As the fifth month of 'homecoming' comes to a close, and I am still NOT working, life is settling down for all of us. Though now the adjustments to be made when I do go back to work will be sources of stress and distress. Not so much Ethan and Jianming, I predict, but for me and Jethro. Well, we'll see. Some photos from March and April. May's aren't uploaded yet.
How fast the boys grow.

Fire Station


Whose cake are thou?

Mummy's!


Pirates one more time.


If I were to make a mess...


Tea-time (yes, and I need that askance look)


Dip dip


A poor attempt to catch J and T at play (and no, J wasn't behaving nicely that day)


I - LOVE the playground


Our Malaysia Easter holiday trip - guess where?

Just imagine it's moving, imagine...

The animals are 'free', we are in the cage

Says Ethan: "That's a girl horse, because she has long hair" ...


Says his cousin: "You don't throw like this. Come, let me show you."


Dum-dum-dum...


Brothers at play - wild and quiet times


Ethan: "I chose the cake! Hee hee."

Journey to Immortality

It was morning and the museum has just opened. There weren't many people about and we had the space almost all to ourselves. I thought Jethro would be afraid of the low lighting and monumental, forbidding Egyptian exhibits at the basement. Instead, he very excitedly explored the underground-like area and was particularly taken with the falcon and sphinx statues. We explored a little of the National Museum above too, just the public areas - I didn't buy the tickets for the rest of the museum. Hardly surprisingly, it was my first time there since its refurbishment in 2006. Jethro got rather active and initially I was worried we would be told off by the many people working there. But a really jovial Malay man working at the museum, who apparently liked children very much and had lots of experience with them (he has 6 kids), actually tried to engage Jethro. So, it was a simple, fun, rare outing to the happening downtown. Thanks to K for making it possible.