Kirsten recently posted about our visit to Hakuba as part of our Japan trip. I wanted to share some of the pictures and video from my ski day with Jackson.
He really did incredible. It was his first day of skiing for goodness sake, and by the end he was literally skiing down the hill.
Check it out in this video…
It was a particularly good parenting day knowing that I could teach my equally bull-headed son to ski .
The day started out as an absolutely glorious day, with a bright blue sky.
As you can tell from the video, it was dumping snow by the end of the day. It was beautiful light powder.
We had a good midday break where we enjoyed some good pizza in a little snack hut, and a nice view right up the slopes.
Cameron had Model United Nations at school this week. It is a very cool unit. The whole 5th grade does a mock UN session. They pick a topic (in this case it was the Pakistan flooding that happened a couple of months ago, although the effects are still reverberating today). Each classroom is a country – Cameron’s was Vietnam – and they learn a bunch about the country they are representing. Each country selects people to represent them, for example the Ambassador who speaks at the General Assembly. Then they have committee breakouts where they mix people from across the classes (countries) with each focusing on on of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) of the UN. Are you like me and you’ve never heard of those? Here they are…
Cameron’s MDG was Poverty and Hunger. In their committee room, they discussed what resolutions they would put forward to the main session relating to their MDG. Vietnam felt that as a developing country perhaps sending cash was not within their means, but they could consider “in-kind” donations of food and supplies. Their resolution was handily adopted by a majority vote.
I attended the kickoff session where the Hungarian Ambassador in Singapore opened MUN (a bit of a yawn), and then each of the Ambassador’s introduced their countries (in front of hundreds of 5th graders and parents!). Proud Parent Spoiler Alert: The big news for us was Cameron was chosen as the speech writer for Vietnam, and she did a wonderful job (her teacher Mr. Ferguson sent us a personal note of praise). Then I got to attend the beginning of the first committee breakout session.
I walked away with two major impressions. The first, I am a huge fan of immersive and experiential learning and this was about as cool as it gets in teaching kids about how the world works and the issues the planet is dealing with. The second, why didn’t I have any clue about the MDGs? Am I really that out of touch with the world since I finished school?
Couple of photos…
Here is Cameron sitting with Vietnam in the general session:
Here is the Ambassador of Vietnam (Vikram) doing Cameron’s speech:
Here is Cameron in the committee breakout. You can see the countries of Samoa and Norway represented if you look closely.
We are on the flight back from Hong Kong right now (amazing trip! – will try and post about it soon), and just now having a chance to catch up on posting about our Sibu Island trip from a few weekends ago. We travelled with our friends the Tuohys. This was a quick weekend getaway, leaving Friday evening and coming back Sunday evening. But we had a delightful time, and it’s definitely a place we’ll go back to visit for a relaxing long weekend. Bit of a longer post here, since there are lots of good pictures and fun little details to share.
Sibu Island is in Malaysia, off the South Eastern coast of the mainland. It’s quite near Tioman Island, the first trip we took when we came to Singapore. We stayed at the Sea Gypsy resort, and immediately had a great feeling about the place. This is a check-in-your-wallets-cell-phones-and-laptop-computers-at-the-front-counter-at-the-start-of-the-weekend-and-get-them-back-as-you-leave kind of place, and you can really get into relaxing there.
We got picked up on Friday evening in Singapore by a Van and took about a 3 hour journey North. As a part of that drive, we passed over the Singapore to Malaysia border at Woodlands, the first time we’ve left Singapore by land. On the other side, we arrived at a ferry terminal and took a power boat across to the island. It was pitch black outside, yet the boat driver went full speed through the dark. We got there, jumped off the boat, and waded in to shore. We were received in the dining area/bar/lobby, a thatched roof, open building that is common in tropical SE Asia. The island is essentially not inhabited save for a few establishments like the Sea Gypsy, so it was unbelievably quiet. We had a welcome drink and checked in, and then proceeded to have a few more drinks from the bar to make sure we really felt welcome. The beer and wine and even cocktails were a welcomed good deal compared to the inflated prices in Singapore.
Then we headed off to bed for the night. As we had expected, the cabins were very rustic, but perfectly workable for us; loose wooden construction (i.e., you can see through the floor to the sandy beach below), thatched roof, one room with a queen bed and one room with 2 bunks, and a simple bathroom in the back. Here are pictures of Cameron bedding down for the night (note the mosquito netting), and Jackson sweeping the front porch (sand was on the constant assault).
The grounds themselves are also rustic but very functional for a low-electricity and no-TV or -Internet connectivity kind of weekend. You can see the jungle gym is a Frankenstein-inspired combination of the big colorful plastic pieces you would expect, and tied together sticks.
The next morning, Jackson and Kate Tuohy and I were the first ones up, so we went for a walk along the beach. We found a cool outcropping of rocks with weavings of rust-colored rock in a bed of light grey rock, and started to get a fuller sense of the beauty of the island.
The dining arrangements were again very simple but worked out great. The meal were served family style each day. It was a bit like eating at home – the meal was prepared and you you ate it and there was no ordering off a menu or a massive buffet. Each day they would write on a chalkboard what the menu was for the day – for example “Chicken and Rice” for lunch, and “BBQ” for dinner. For our party, the adults had a table and the kids had a table. You can see the buffet sitting on the back wall in the first picture, and you can also see how the eating area just spills out on to the beach in the second photo.
Here is a nice picture of Kate sharing a pretty flower she found while we finished our breakfast.
But the real highlight of the Sea Gypsy is the pristine beach that you have pretty much to yourself and small band of fellow resort-goers. Well, the beach is mostly pristine, save for the black creosote balls you find among the fine white sand – thank the oil and shipping companies for that. Here is panorama picture of the beach (built by putting together about eight photos using the Stitch Assist feature of our digital camera and the Panorama feature of the new Windows Live Photo Gallery – very cool!). Of course in a 180 degree panorama, the perspective gets distorted, but I think you get the idea…
After you have breakfast, the basic process is pretty simple: grab your white plastic chair and towel, traipse about 50 meters to the beach, plunk yourself down, apply sun screen and sand-fly and sometimes even mosquito spray liberally, and then sit and Chill. Picture #2 should give you the basic idea.
If you’re a kid, then the Chill step is replaced by intense digging and general frolicking in the sand. One of my favorite pictures from the trip is the next one. It’s followed by two pictures of the massive hole the kids created. They became so enamored with the hole, they went to great lengths (even after the sun had gone down) to build a series of protective dikes. Alas, the tide proved it’s own powerful self by completely flattening the endeavor by morning.
To continue the process, you supplement your day at the beach with frequent dips in the gorgeous ocean, perhaps even snorkeling if it catches your fancy.
Repeat the process throughout the day, rolling yourself into the eating area for lunch, and the bar as needed.
Ok, it wasn’t all just hanging out on the beach in front of the Sea Gypsy. For example, we took a hike through the jungle to hang out on the beach in front of another resort called Rimba. Having been told it was one of the better snorkeling areas on the island, we certainly found that to be true.
Not only did we see a lot of cool fish and coral, but we saw a stingray and a shark! For some reason, I did not find the sting ray daunting, perhaps because it was 5 meters below me and headed under a rock pretty quickly to avoid the big scary white thing in the water (me). The shark on the other hand, that’s freaky. We’re not talking about a small shark here – it was probably 3.5 feet long with a substantial (not skinny) body. It turns out that a shark sighting is not proceeded by the baaaah-bump music made famous by Jaws the movie, and the thing surprised the heck out of me by swimming right under me. Jackson and I were the only ones still out in the water at that point… I grabbed him by the life jacket, completely interrupting his happy space, yelled straight into his face “Jackson, there is a shark in the water, we are heading for the shore right now”. I got to say, he really impressed me with the speed he covered that 100 or so meters of swimming.
The Sea Gypsy has been run by the same owner for the last 18 years, and her 17 year old son Richard gets in on the action too. He runs a lovely little service called the Fun Center. You’ll note by the sign on the outside of the Fun Center building that parent’s are expressly not allowed. Perfect! Richard treated the kids to more than 3 hours of arts, crafts, games, and running around.
He capped off the fun by teaching the kids how to climb palm trees. Can you believe these pictures?!?
Well, you can see the boat is awaiting to take us home. The end of the weekend came too fast, and we all agreed that a 3 day weekend would be best next time around.
Just like Seattle, Singapore has some great parks. Now that we have some wheels (yep, we bought a car – we’ll post a picture soon), the parks all seem closer and more convenient. We went to check one out last weekend called Labrador Park. We got to walk through the jungle, play with guns, climb on rocks and bars, and dip our toes in the water. Great Day!
Looking at this picture of the kids with huge smiles on their faces, and with their arms around each other no less!, makes me incredibly happy. You can see how beautiful it was walking through the jungle.
The Park has military history, being one of the older bases on Singapore, designed to help protect one of the strategic harbors. It points to the South West, but the guns could swivel 360 degrees, and they were turned around back towards the Singapore mainland when the Japanese attacked during WWII. The kids and I had fun re-enacting scenes from the war.
There is a nice boardwalk along the sea (okay, cement walk). The breeze was constant and felt lovely. We found a few good sticks and made some antlers out of them.
There were also some good climbing rocks, where we got some good pictures. The big rock the kids were on is a re-creation of an actual rock found there by the original explorers and named “Dragon Tooth Rock.”
Sometimes the simple outings are the best. We had a great afternoon hanging out with Jackson today. Cameron is over at a friend’s house to stay the night. The kids (and Kirsten) have the week off school coming up. I had heard recently that the golf course that I thought was yet another of Singapore’s exclusive (and expensive) golf clubs, is actually a Par 3 course. They have a “mini” Range as well, which means you hit into a net that is about 20 meters away. $4 for a bucket of 50 balls, not bad. My folks bought Jackson a set of clubs before we came to Singapore. Embarrassingly this is their first usage. I suspect now that we (and he) know about the Royal Tanglin Par 3 and Range, they’ll be getting some more use. In fact, we’re going to look into getting some lessons going there.
My wife also swung a club for the first time in her life – other than putt-putt. I believe she has excellent potential, both in terms of her athleticism, and also her looks. She could definitely be one of those hotties on the links.
So we hit some balls, headed out to dinner, and came back to watch some movies. Great afternoon. It’s funny how you get to appreciate your kids in a totally different way when you get them one on one.
Anyway – Wednesday we are headed to Hong Kong for several days, including Disneyland. We should have more to post soon!
Hi Jewetts! Your trip looks wonderful. We also got new jobs in Asia and will head to Seoul, Korea next year. I'm glad you're still loving Singapore. Will you be there first week in January? We're flying in for a few days and staying with a good friend.
Wow! Love the opportunities you are all having. Hopefully in the next 3 we can make it out to visit. We do miss your family being around in person tho. Happy Holidays!
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