It was the best of times and the worst of times..

After a week of family bonding, I am home. The trip was intense to say the least. Daily activities start at 10am in the mornings and usually ended around midnight. By the end of each day, my feet were aching and belly too full from eating.

Everyone at home is in high spirits due to the impending arrival of grand daughter numero uno. My sis is very healthy and has no complaints at all, even after 4 hours of walking in new ION mall at Orchard road.

We even got a look at my niece when we visiter her doctor at paragon for a scan. The baby looked rather chubby on screen and was pouting, perhaps annoyed at being on display for all to stare at.

During one of the evenings, I treated my parents to a meal at Akanoya, at Orchard Parade Hotel. This Japanese joint is unlike others in that the chefs are quite theatrical. The food is Yakitori style and the fresh produce is laid in front of you just like in the supermarket cold section. Point to a veg / seafood and they grill it to perfection for you.



The food is handed to you by the chef on a wooden plank that is shaped like a paddle. One of the customers asked to hold the paddle and she could not lift it at all, that thing was heavy !

Food was good but expensive but we came for the experience.

On a another day, we headed to ION, the newest mall in town. It occupies that spot where the foreign maids used to hang out, in Orchard. ION resembles an alien mothership and it is a maze indoors. As usual with new malls, it was mobbed even on a weekday.

Came across a store Vom Fass, that had on display, vats of speciality oils and vinegars even cognacs and liqueurs. You can purchase 50, 100 or 250 ml glass containers and fill them up. After tasting about 10 different ones, I decided on pumpkin seed oil and truffle oil.The aroma of the pumpkin seed oil was especially strong and so lovely.


On the weekend, we headed down to Sentosa for a bit of sun. My sis and R came along because he wanted to try the segway machine and my dad wanted to do the luge and the flying fox.

The day was scorching but we soon forgot about it as we lined up for the ski lift to the luge station. Even my mum took part and she had a blast.



Afterwards, my dad went to the newly opened MegaZip Adventure where he did the daredevil obstacle courses. There was a 15 metre free fall Parajump


The Climbmax suspended 40 feet in the air


And finally the 450m flying fox down to the siloso beach.