Finally we made it!

Tonight was a perfect night for us to go to Jerudong Park. We picked Matthew up from the airport (poor Matthew, after 5 and a half hours of flying from Perth he had to join us for a night park excursion) as we went straight to the park.
Hinata was very happy the sky was so clear!

In front of the huge diamond ring.



At the entrance:



We were told there were some NEW rides in the park so we were silly enough to get our hopes up. But as usual, the ticketing people weren't really sure what they were doing and just confused us so much. They made the ticketing system complicated enough to confuse themselves...
There were 8 new rides introduced but 4 weren't open, or not ready if you know what I mean. We thought we were getting tickets to the cool new rides but all the ones we wanted to try weren't open anyway.

Even though us adults were disappointed the boys had a great time.



Oliver with his favourite cousin.



My favourite - Beautiful merry-go-round.

Matthew and Hinata tried one of the new rides - electric bike:







Oliver was pretty excited seeing them coming around on strange bikes.

Hinata's favourite was this double seater go cart:
Here they are getting ready for the race!



They went around so fast - Hinata later told me he felt the G-forces!



I wanted to get Oliver on this train - we could see it going around the park but couldn't find where we could get on it. I guess leaving some things for next time is always a good thing.

Shau Lon Pau

While Oliver was having an afternoon nap, Hinata and I went out for a dim sum lunch. Hinata loves shau lon pau and insisted on having them for lunch. It was so funny looking at him getting excited to have his favourite food. Even before I placed the order he had a serviette around his neck and waited with a big smile.





It was nice to have a quiet lunch just the two of us for a change.

Chasing the sunshine

This evening we had a plan to go to Jerudong Park (night park). Hinata has been there before when he visited with his family 3 years ago but the day we visited, it was pouring down with rain. All the rides were closed and the only thing that was open was the musical fountain. So they stood in the heavy rain and watched the show. They still remember it well so I guess it was a unique experience for them!

He was really excited when I mentioned to him about going there tonight. But guess what!? When we left it was sunny, but when we got to the park the black storm clouds came out and by the time we got to the carpark the rain and thunder started :(
Poor Hinata was so disappointed.

To make him happier I decided to drive to the other side of Brunei - Pantai Muara so that the boys could play until sunset. We were driving and half way through, the rain stopped and the sun came out. The road was dry and Hinata looked happy.

BUT! Again when we got there and just as I was parking the car (we weren't even out of our car yet) the storm caught us and it started to rain super heavily :(

We weren't quick enough to chase the sunshine. We hope we will get better evening weather tomorrow.

Playdate

I wanted to show Hinata what Oliver's Brunei life is like.
Oliver had a playdate with his friends today and Hinata came along with us.

Oliver's friend Lucia and Oscar live in a hotel downtown so we got to swim in the pool again today.







Hinata got to meet lots of Oliver's little friends today : )



To my surprise Oliver has got so much more independent since we came back from Japan. I think spending lots of time with older kids helped. He played by himself for a long while, giving Hinata some time to swim and gave me a chance to catch up with my friends. We spent almost 3 hours in the pool. Great to be back in summery weather : )

Have a great flight

How unfortunate, Matthew had to fly to Perth Australia today and won't be back until Thursday evening.
Oh well, I guess someone has to work...

We went to the airport together to see him off. Hinata was pretty excited to have a photo opportunity with Matthew.

Breakfast in the park

Guess what, he woke up even earlier with an itchy little toe at 4:30 am... Poor Hinata... I guess he is used to haveing only a 7 hour sleep so going to bed so early made him wake up early. Today he managed to go back to bed which made it a little bit easier for me.

We had a plan to go to Pantai Muara for a morning walk and breakfast in the park. It was quite cool to start off which made the walk very pleasant. I didn't do much exercise while I was in Japan so it was very lovely.
Here are some photos Hinata took.







The boys:



Hinata is loving pancakes with whipped cream. I think he is putting a little bit too much on tho.









Before it got too hot, we moved to the playground. There was noone else in the park so we had all the equipment to ourselves!







Lots of giggles and happy noises from the boys - a great way to start the morning : )

Full on day 1

Our excited visiter, Hinata was very excited this morning ... getting up at 5:30 am, turning all the lights on in the house waiting for us to get up!? I had to tell him it's still too early so try stay in bed... but he was just too excited I think.

Oliver found it wonderful to have Hinata at the breakfast table with him.



As Matthew had a Singapore flight in the morning, the boys spent most of the time in the backyard and in the house. The same old toys seemed so exciting to Oliver like finding a whole new bunch of toys.

When Matthew got home we went out for a swim. Hinata finds it very hot here compared with freezing Osaka and wanted to have a quick dip. Unfortunately the yacht club swimming pool is still under construction so we drove down to the RBA sports club. I was expecting it to be full of kids because of the school holidays but no, there was hardly anyone there. The boys had a ball!!





Happy to be with daddy!



We carried on to Gadong to show Hinata some of the shops. We have a great culture of buying souvenirs in Japan and Hinata has a big list of people he wants to buy presents for. He already found two presents today.

Here is Hinata in front of the only McDonalds in Brunei:



When we finished shopping I realised I had forgotten to take Hinata for a haircut. Mako didn't have enough time to take him to a barber and asked me to take him in as soon as he got to Brunei. I told Hinata about this wonderful $2 Indian haircut place Matthew sometimes goes. He was very excited as he had his own $2 in his wallet to pay for his own haircut.



Not too bad for $2 ha? He even got some gel put on to style his new hairdo!



To finish the busy day we had dinner at our local Thai place. He really enjoyed all the food : )



I am glad he had a fab first day. Hopefully he is tired and sleeps in a bit longer tomorrow morning...

Hinata's adventure begins

Here we go! We are on the way back to Brunei - with Hinata (9 years old). For the next 10 days or so my blog will be featured around Hinata as this is his first time traveling overseas without his parents. How brave is he!?!

Our flight leaving Osaka is slightly earlier now, (this makes our connection in HK much easier though) we had to get up early and make sure we checked in before lots of other people.

Here is Hinata helping me check us in - unlike on the way over there were no problems checking in at Osaka phew!



We had a lovely breakfast with Ah-chan, Yuzuki and Mako then rushed through immigration and got to the gate on time:



Our plane (photographer Hinata)



Hinata and Oliver (photographer Hinata)



We got the best seat to start with, a window seat for Hinata to see the plane take off plus a bassinet row at the very front of the plane with lots of leg room. Then the lovely cabin crew moved us to an empty row of 4 seats. Oliver got to sit by himself and I had a lots of room to move around.

Here is Hinata enjoying his lunch on the plane:



Both the boys were quite popular among the cabin crew, they wanted to take photos with the boys.



It takes just under 3 hours flying from Hong Kong to Osaka but on the way back it takes 4 hours. I was a bit worried the boys might get bored and difficult - not at all! They entertained each other and within no time we arrived in Hong Kong. Great to have Mickey Mouse Clubhouse as personal entertainment!!

We found our connecting plane with no problems. Oliver was very excited to see daddy's plane (today it was a 777 so Matthew couldn't fly us back...).





I found this trip extremely easy even with my huge tummy! How wonderful to have someone look after an active toddler!! I told Hinata I would love to have him traveling with us all the time but his answer was - I would love to but getting on the plane is not cheap and I cannot ask my mother for that sort of money all the time... Bless him!!

A surprise from daddy

Daddy came to the airport to pick us up in a brand new 7 seater car for mummy!!! Yeah!!!

Last minute shopping

Our Japanese holiday is nearly over. I sort of finished packing and realised I had a bit more space and weight to fill - how unusual!! So of course I called Mako and off we went to the outlet mall near our place.

First we had to pick Yuzuki up from her kindy, she had to attend a graduation ceremony for the older kids. She was very happy we came to pick her up : )

We did lots of power shopping, the kids were great walking and not complaining most of the time.





Oliver, Yuzuki and Mako



Cheese!

Now I have a mission of fitting everything into my suitcase. Lucky I will have extra weight allowance as Hinata (my nephew) is traveling with us tomorrow.

Happy packing!

Happy kids

Kids free day

Yesterday was a public holiday here in Japan (Shubun no hi - Spring Day). It is a day for the admiration of nature and the love of living things. So everyone in my family had a day off.

Mako and I had a plan to go into town to do some shopping. We were brave and thinking of taking 3 of the kids with us. But we thought maybe our little sister Shinobu might be crazy enough to agree to look after all 5 kids (including her own 2) and she was!!

So we went out just the two of us and spent a whole day shopping like crazy people!
What a great relaxing day for us!! And the kids were all happy playing together when we got home.

Runa (10 years old) told me she put Oliver to sleep and fed him some lunch too!

Kids free = Stress free day : )

A train trip

On Sunday we visited my grandmother (Oliver's great grandmother) by train. We had to change trains three time and it took 3 hours to get there. Even though it was a rather long trip, the kids were happy to be on the train -Especially Oliver!





We used to visit her more often as she lived much closer to where we live, but now we can only visit her once or twice a year.
As we expected she was very genki (well) and chatted to us a lot.
Unfortunately Oliver was too excited on the train and didn't sleep so by the time we got to her place, he was so asleep...



I am glad we got to see her and hope she will stay well and funny until we visit her next time : )