Island life

Beatrice had a birthday invitation today and the party was going to take place on the Sentosa island right after school. I was very sceptical about it to start with as it seemed quite a challenge to get everybody out there in the peak-time traffic on Friday afternoon. But it turned out a rather nice and probably typical singaporean experience. I arranged for Beatrice to go with a classmate instead of getting her home inbetween and we went already earlier with the boys. There is a part of the beach that has a nice water-play area for small kids. Complete with a balloon-blowing pirate. So the boys had a good runaround there and we walked along the beach to the restaurant where the party was going to be. Their attraction is trapeez - very high and scary and all the kids were tied with ropes and had to climb up a really high ladder. To our surprize Beatrice chickened out at first. They had a little practice run on a low hanging trapeez and were encouraged to hang head down. So she thought she is expected to do that 10 meters up in the air as well. And then jump several meters down on the net. But that of course wasn't the case. It took her a long time to get the courage but in the end she did it and even twice in a row. Karl was very eager to go on it - and he is usually the chicken - but he was under the age limit which caused a lot of tears and distress. Then they had their pizzas and played in the sea and sand while the well-tanned designer-dressed parents sipped champagne. The birthday boy's family lives on Sentosa and this is not exactly the cheapest place to stay in Singapore. Karl and Raoul made up for their trapeez misery by getting in line for the birthday cake and had more success there. Darkness falls very quickly here so a little after 7 pm it was already dark and a magician turned up and put on a good show. The kids were really mesmerized to see how he turned a big dice into a white rabbit. First time that the boys saw a magic show and they actually sat and watched with mouths open and joined in when asked to. Everybody fell asleep in taxi as was to be expected. Another party coming up on Sunday! I'll try to get some photos up here soon.