Catch up 2018 - 7 - holiday season gatherings

This is the final catch up post for 2018.

2018 was a major milestone year for Lynn.  The hard work and consistency over the years had been instrumental in getting good results.  She got admitted to RGS, which I like for 3 main reasons, the most important of course is that it's one of the top few secondary schools.  The other 2 more personal reasons are that it's a all-girls school, and that it's very near my home.  I came from an all-girls secondary school, so I knew how fulfilling an experience it will be for a young teenage girl.   I remembered attending the orientation before Christmas holiday.  When we were walking into the school, we studied the huge banners hanging on the facade, most with them with some kind of quote/tag line.  I exclaimed to Lynn, that "this school is so "you"!".

Now that I'm writing this in March 2020 (she's in sec2), I came to realise that mothers don't stop worrying about kid's studies and results.  I though that I can "let go", but I found myself not able to do that totally, because at 13+/14, she's still essentially a kid.

Anyways, these are a few photos of gatherings in the last month of 2018:


Lynn, Chloe, Mabel, and Mavis


Meet up with seniors from HCJC (1991/1992) - Yunhui and YenYen


Karaoke with WS, SY and WL - sis and bros for life!

Catch up 2018-6- Family trip after PSLE

Mid of 2018, WK and I discussed about our year end family trip, to pick somewhere further than Asia, to celebrate Lynn's milestone year (completion of PSLE).  At first we though of the US, because it had always been my dream to visit the Grand Canyon.  After research, we decided that the flight to US will be too taxing for Lynn, who tend to suffer motion sickness.  So we picked Europe instead, and decided on Italy and London.

I made a big boo-boo on the planning, with the initial flights booked for the first 2 weeks of school holidays.  Then I realised that PSLE results will be released on the Friday of the first week of school holiday, and Lynn has to select Secondary school by following week.  In the end we had to pay to change the tickets to earlier dates.  And earlier meant being absent from school in the final week before school holidays, which led to her missing a lot of fun activities, such as graduation concert and prize giving ceremony.  And that's not all; that year the PSLE result was released not on Friday, but on Thursday, which we spent flying back from London to SG..  haiz.. my bad..

We took a red eye flight, which took off at 11.30pm.  Lynn did not tell me that she wasn't feeling too well those few days.  She slept for about 8 hours, and woke up with motion sickness and fever.  We had a torturous next 10 hours.  She puked for about 2 hours on the remaining flight from SG to London (transit), still didn't feel well for the next 3 hours in transit.  She slept for about an hour when she boarded the next flight, but woke up to puke again on the 3 hour flight to Rome.  We then took about an hour to clear immigration, and she still puked a little on the cab ride to the hotel.  We finally checked in about 12.30 pm in Rome (7.30 pm SG time).

For the next few days in Rome, she was down with fever almost half the time.  She "survived" with panadol and sleep.  She slept all afternoon upon checkin, and then was awake most of the first night. On day 2 morning, we visited the Colosseum; in the afternoon, her fever came up again, so she slept, and then again she couldn't sleep well on day 2 night.
On day 3, we were supposed to do a dinner tour, but we decided that she should stay in, so only both of us went.
Finally by day 4, she's more or less fully recovered, and we enjoyed a great cultural tour of the famous Vatican Museum.

From Rome, we took the train to Florence.  In Florence, it was more museums.  It's important to take guided tour for these museums, which we did, to appreciate the historical context and significance of the art pieces.

On day 7, we took a day trip from Florence to visit Pisa.  Of course we took the touristy photos of holding up the the leaning tower.

The next day, we traveled to Venice.  Venice is a beauty tourist place.  On day 9, we were supposed to  take the gondola ride, but I chicken out due to the cold.  While the 2 of them went for it, I sipped coffee in warmth.

On day 10, we departed Italy for London.  I have always love London.  It's very metropolitan, but I still love it for it's old-in-new kind of charm.  On day 11, we braved the cold to visit Buckingham Palace and Oxford street.  But London was just too freezing cold, so we didn't last too long outdoors.

On day 11, we went to 221B Baker Street!  Although Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character, the allure of this great detective is just too great.  It was so fun for us, a family of fans.  On day 12, which I remembered to be about 4 degrees, we hid indoors at a shopping mall.  We ended this last day in London with shopping at the Harry Porter shop at King's Cross Railway station.
 
When we boarded our plane on day 13 evening, it was the wee hours of Thursday in SG.  After a 13 hour plane ride, we touched down at 6pm in Changi.  My dad had collected the results for Lynn, and he sent us photos of her results.  We were trilled at the good results.  Still I can't help but "suan" her a little about her HCL results, which she got distinction - I said "新加坡的华文水平没药救了".  Which she did not understand...haiz..

Here's a very small collage of the tonnes of photos that we took of this memorable trip.

Our B&B in Rome


Day 2 - Colosseum


Day 4 - Vatican Museum


Day 6 - Florence Accademia Gallery


Day 7 - Pisa


Day 9 - Venice


Day 10 - London


Day 11/12 - The success of popular fiction

Catch up 2018 - 5- Nepal trip

I fulfilled another dream in 2018, which was to trek in Nepal.  Years ago, an older colleague from China ever said to me that there are many famous mountains to visit in China, like 黄山, so why go Nepal.  But from young, I hear the adults raving about “去Nepal爬山”.  It sounded challenging, like something that needed endurance and perseverance to conquer, like running long distant which I enjoyed but is not good at.   

After years of talking about it, I finally got a few kakis to go.  Went with Lili, Ginny, Jocelyn, and 2 other friends.  I do not know much about the country; the impression that I got from this trip was that it’s a poor country.  In order to write this post, I googled, and what I read confirmed the impression.  It’s economy is largely based upon agriculture and tourism.  It’s capital, Kathmandu, where all tourists put up at before departing for various kinds of trails, is like a rural town rather than a city.  There isn’t any nicely pathed roads, nor any tall buildings.   At a place where we stayed over one of the nights, buildings affected by the major earthquake in 2015 was simply left partially standing.  To a city girl like me, I feel out of place and sad. 

The trail that we choose was supposed to be an extremely easy one.  While the long daily hikes was not much of an issue for me, the terrain was.  I’m not good at slopes, which are essential part of mountain trekking.  So luckily we choose the easiest trail, or else I couldn’t imagine how badly I will fare. 

After this trip, I’m done with mountain climbing.  I would like to explore national parks next.  The flatter ones would be ideal for me.  Maybe Japan would have such trails? 

Catch up 2018 - 4 - PSLE year

May 2018

Chinese Oral
It was the PSLE year for Lynn, and mid year exam were over for the P6 by mid May.  Only I attended the PTM.  I can't remember what I spoke to Mr. Chiang about, probably about how Lynn was empathic towards her friends rather than about grades.   However, I did remember looking into her report book and saw that she scored 79.5 for HCL.  I knew she did ok for her written papers, so I thought that Mdm Wu must have calculated her marks wrongly.  Then I proceed to the hall to meet Mdm Wu.  When I ask her to verify the details, she took a look at her records, and declared “叶祾的口试分数是全班最低的！”  And so for the next 3 months, I took great pains to drill her on Oral topics.  I prepared many topics, we crafted the replies together, and she then she memorised them!


Chinese Funeral
WK's paternal grandma passed away.  Although I do not know her well, I can tell from the little that WK's mum told me that she was a nice gentle lady.  Her funeral was the 3rd I ever attended as a family member.  I don't like the way Chinese funerals are conducted, the complex customs doesn't make the affair as dignified as it should be.  It didn't matter that I don't know her well, I still feel emotional about her passing, I just wish that we can have funerals that take care of the fragile feelings of the living.

June 2018

Long awaited extended family holidays
Finally the 4 Yap siblings went "overseas" together.  But we only managed to settle on Bintan, not anywhere further.

Clubmed was kind of good choice actually.  The adults and kids enjoyed the sun and sea, and the seniors enjoyed the buffet.

And Lynn got stunk by jellyfish.  There were scary looking scars, but they actually totally faded after sometime.











Musical Journey
In 2018, she took part in 2 events.  One was the yearly piano recital, and the 2nd one was a piano competition.  She didn't do well in either of both.  It was only from the 2nd half of last year onwards (2019-now) that I found some improvement to her appreciation and execution of her pieces.  Maybe it's because she joined band as CCA in secondary 1?

Hopefully, she will do well in this year's (2020) grade 5 exams, and the June recital.  Finally she choose a piece that's not hard-rock-metal  kind for her recital!  Most importantly she's enjoying her musical ability.

August 2018

Life is unpredictable
I just read in today's paper that Kobe Bryant died at the age of 41.  A few days before national day in 2018, I was shocked when a friend informed me over WhatsApp that another friend had died of sudden cause.  He was 45  This was the first time in my life that I lost a close friend.  Life can be so fragile, so random..

October 2018

Milestone!

After 6 years of conscientious learning, sweetie reached a major milestone with the completion of PSLE.  The exam was over by the first week of Oct, so the P6 kids all had almost 3 months of play time, before they embark on their next journey.

Lynn and I were still actively playing Pokemon Go then, and we got lucky with getting an Ex-raid pass each.  With our 2 passes we were able to invite 2 other players, so we invited 2 of her classmates who played the game too.  The Ex-raid took place at East Coast park.  I was glad that the 2 boys made it, and all 4 of us caught the rare pokemon Dyoxys.  They then send pictures of our catch to their class WhatsApp chat, because their teacher Ms. Chua also played Pokemon Go.



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My sweetie turn 12!
Finally, my last entry here is about Halloween!  Uncle Eric gave me 10 tickets, so Lynn asked her classmates.  Eventually we took 6 kids to the party.

Catch Up 2018 - 3 - My sakura dream

In April 2018, I finally fulfilled my Sakura dream.  Lili and I went for this late season trip because we wanted to include Tateyama Kurobe Alpine route, which opens in mid April only, in this trip as well.  Luckily there were quite a bit of Sakura in various places. We took many pretty photos.

Women are like plants, aren't we?  The beautiful flowers are short-live, but the plants itself are strong and naturing.