When I was a kid, two of my best friends Rodney and Van opened a snow cone stand. Only this wasn't your typical stand. Nope. These guys made hundreds of snow cones a day. Those mounded cones of shaved ice actually helped pay for college! They sold the stand for mega bucks, too. It was crazy.
I thought I'd never have a better snow cone. I just figured nothing else would every compare. Sorry boys, but today I discovered something called sago, a Japanese dessert made out of shaved ice, coconut milk, colored tapioca pearls, mango and melon with a strawberry on top! Yummy!
We had it at one of the really nice hawker stalls on our way back from The Singapore Art Museum where we were visiting Art Garden. As I understand it, this is the third year the museum has done Art Garden, a building located across the street from the actual museum that is converted into an interactive children's art project.
Each room has a different project for the kids to try. After Hudson finally stopped wailing (nap time ended too soon!), he joined Maisie decorating clay flowers by using found objects like keys and paper clips. The next room was a place to color and cut. Hudson preferred these giant, self-inking stamps.
From there we went upstairs to a darkened room. In one part, the kids danced in a tiny closet and then watched their video become a part of a moving montage on the wall. In another part of the room, they sang into microphones and watched their voices change patterns on the wall.
Then came my favorite bit of the whole experience: dress up dolls - only these weren't paper dolls, but rather GIANT canvas dolls on the wall complete with different clothes, shoes and heads. The kids LOVED them - running from one to another velcroing these shoes there and that head there. Even Hudson understood it. There was also a giant cake in the middle to decorate with canvas bits. I kept thinking my aunt Georgann would love them - or my friend Julie, both artists.
In yet another area, the kids painted boxes that fit into a giant wall display. Hudson preferred stacking the boxes which was a-okay with the people who volunteered there. It helped that we were the ONLY people there today, one of the advantages of doing this stuff when all the ex-pats have gone home to see their families abroad.
The top floor was a dark room with a cool, giant tube thing filled with lights that reacted to motion. The final room was lit by a darklight, decorated with origami flowers and butterflies. Maisie made a flower all by herself and got to put it onto the wall. She was delighted!
Cheryl and I both loved the place as the kids were entertained, yet contained. We didn't have to run constantly after them and there wasn't all that much for them to destroy. Maisie misses all the art projects we used to do at home so this was a perfect day for her!
It was an afternoon totally different from my morning when I met my friend Yasmin's friend Glenn, a freelance journalist and media trainer here. What a lovely man! He took me to lunch at Hotel Fort Canning, a very cool private club that used to be the British office quarters in World War II. Of course, I forgot my camera.
Glenn gave me the low down on Singapore. His kids are 6 (a girl) and 3 (a boy) so he filled me in on local schools, places to go et al. Most eye-opening was the information on work. Journalists must be accredited and have a work visa. In order to do that, I have to get a company to sponsor me which means I need to get a job to get accredited. It's a chicken and egg kind of situation. I'm not so sure I can work here in the traditional sense I did before, but perhaps that's good. Maybe that'll force me to think outside the box and reinvent myself, something I've needed to do for a long time now. Funny thing? The American Women's Association has a lecture all about that very topic for the trailing spouses - meaning the spouses who don't work. I'm kind of excited about the possibilities here. I just need to find them.
Glenn was fabulous. He invited us to get together as a family over the weekend and even suggested we all go to Phuket together for a family holiday! WOW! Folks are so darn friendly here!
For now, I'm going to enjoy yet another fabulous meal Cheryl made. Tee hee! We are getting so spoiled!