Mt Faber and the Southern Ridges

 Good Friday is a public holiday here in Singapore so Brennan had the day off. Yippee! I'm certainly not complaining, but it sure seems like there are a lot more public holidays here than back home. With our extra day we decided to head down to Mt. Faber and the Southern Ridges for a little "hike". That's what he called it for Tatum's sake anyway, so she would be excited about it. But it's not really a hike, just a walk. There are a bunch of parks in this area that join together to form the Southern Ridges. We didn't quite see all of them, but quite a few. We started around Hort Park. And as seems to be the pattern with us, just getting to the starting point was a bit of an ordeal. It seemed like we were all tired, sweaty and grumpy when we finally got to where we would begin. Here are the kids at Reflections at Bukit Chandu:

So we took a little break (before we even began) at Bukit Chandu, which is a WWII historical site.

This tree is a timbasu tree, pretty cool looking.

The pond and memorial painting at the side of the building.

Then it was time to collapse the stroller to hike down a million stairs. :) We weren't surprised to see stairs. We knew there would be some but decided it was still worth it to bring the stroller. And it certainly was. Although Tatum constantly begs for us to let Declan get out and walk with her. It's hard to say no to that, plus you can't help but feel bad for the little prisoner, so we let him out a few times. Unfortunately, there is only one speed he knows: as fast as humanly possible. Obviously, for him that's not overly fast but does result in a lot of faceplants. Here is a blurry picture of him running, he has forgotten how to walk.

Hort park was the first park we walked through. Lots and lots of gardens and greenhouses. It was really beautiful. And they had a nice children's playground where we rested yet again and ate some of our lunch.

All of the playgrounds here have lots of ropes for climbing. Tatum wasn't really very good at them when we first got here but in the last couple of months she has really gotten the hang of it. It's one of her favorite things to do now.

Swinging.

Several times on this walk I was struck by how easy it was to forget that we were right in the heart of Singapore. It's just this huge park, that feels like it stretches on and on and then suddenly you'll see tall buildings between the trees and remember where you are. :)

This walkway through the trees was really neat. Tatum looked down through the slatted bottom once and was a little weirded out. Luckily she got over it or forgot about it pretty quickly. They had several signs along the way with pictures of different birds you might see. Tatum liked to stop at each one and say "let's talk about these birds mom". I just love how eager kids are to learn. I wish I could be more like that.

These trees had orange on their bark, but only on one side. Not sure what it was but it was neat to see.

We made it to Henderson Waves and stopped for some more snacks.

I thought I had captured some cute pictures of the kids together or to find out later there had been a smudge on the lens so they all look sort of foggy. Bummer. I still think they are kind of cute, even if not the best quality, so I'm posting them anyway. :)

This is easily my favorite video ever. His laugh just kills me and is only made better by the fact that he is laughing at Tatum, for seemingly no reason. I love it!

I really liked this bridge. It's just so cool looking!

This boy really wanted to be in the picture with the kids for some reason. I guess it worked out since his mom really wanted to take a picture of our kids. haha

We made it to Mt. Faber and found another egg!

So do you think this will appease her desire to ride the cable cars to Sentosa? We sat in one, good enough right? haha.

The merlion at Faber Point.

Declan roaring at the merlion.

Highest point in Singapore...I think?

More stairs. And if you look closely you can see Tatum is in need of a restroom. Her bladder has uncanny timing, let me tell you.

I told Tatum we would go to a splash pad after the hike and it's really what kept her movitvated through the whole thing. (by the end of the day Brennan's phone said that we had walked for a total of 5 hours.  And she was never carried.) She asked about a million times, "how much farther to the splash pad?". We would answer only to have her ask it again immediately, like she was unsatisfied with our answer (which was usually vague). So one time Brennan said "okay, how shall I say it....um...It's a bit of a far stroll to the splash pad." Without missing a beat Tatum said, "That's not how you talk! It's a long walk!". It cracked us up.  We got to the splash to find that it was just a few fountains and seemed rather pititful. I was super annoyed and grumpy about it and then the kids had a total hay day. I always forget just how easy they are to please. Even today I have been feeling guilty all day because I am sick and so we haven't gone anywhere, and Brennan is gone so he won't be able to take them out tonight. I forget that that's not a need they have. I like to get out, which is totally fine, but they just want to play with me and read and feel loved. What we do isn't all that important. Sorry, sort of a tangent.

After the splash pad we got the kids some dinner and headed to the Singapore Art Museum. It is free to us foreigners on Friday nights and has a children's exhibit right now that we thought would be fun to check out. We didn't realize it was in a separte building so spent quite a lot of time wandering around looking for it and stumbled upon this gem. The red blob in each photo is a person with a ton of red balloons attached to them. Sometimes I just don't get art.

The children's exhibit was mostly disappointing. I think my kids are just too young. I'm sure if they were a bit older it would probably have been better.

One room had markers and pens and you were free to draw and write on the wall. Not sure I liked teaching my kids that that is an okay thing to do...;)

This is what Declan did for most of the time in the craft room. When he wasn't doing that he was shouting so he could hear the echo, and climbing on and falling off chairs.

We passed an Applebee's on our way to the MRT after the museum and Brennan just really wanted to stop and get a burger. So we did. And it did not disappoint.

It was a good Good Friday!