Raising Rockstar

The Day Baby, We Got Back

Posted on August 26, 2011 by admin

First day back, baby. And my only excuse for bringing the Baby is I have a guilty thing for politically incorrect gangsta rap songs. (Baby Got Back, anyone?)

: I Have No Idea Why There Is A Pink Robot In Front Of Our Lunch Place

Just back from 2 weeks in Sydney I find myself peppering street and elevator conversations with a lot more Excuse Mes and Thank Yous and Sorrys all the way to get some photos printed in Times Square. Certainly hope that goes away soon, your average local passerby on the street or in the supermarket at Causeway Bay does not respond – especially in English 😀

So there Rockstar and I are at the only shop for developing pics that I can remember to get to offhand, and I realize I feel a lot more self conscious with a small child, coming back to the erm, lower indulgence/ tolerance level to Child Who Wants To Push Lift Button (And Can’t Understand Why No Matter How Clearly He Stakes Claim On Button To All Within Earshot No One Waits For Him To Do It – he finally manages to beat the Stonefaced Other People Around Us to it on his 3rd try after we let the first few rides go by).

In the shop, a blonde woman with large ungainly stroller enters after me and we exchange smiles as we wait to be served and I glance curiously at her very dark-skinned, afro-haired baby. Except after my turn a local auntie and uncle squeeze between me and her stroller and engage the swamped shop attendants.

Mum With Stroller’s mildly indignant “Excuse me?” is easily ignored.

I sympathize; I remember when Rockstar was about a year old and still deigned to sit in a stroller – people at the Peak shopping center (which btw tends to be full of Mainland tourists who come in large buses) literally squeezed past me while I was trying to maneuver the stroller in – and then hit the Door Closed button on the lift – right in front of me before I can get on.

“B*stard!” (Yeah, not my finest moment. And then I turned in time to see the mall attendants not 10 feet away at the information counter snorting in amusement, then looking away when I caught them.) No, no one moved to help me. That didn’t happen often though, just this one time really pissed me off. I hit the lift button again, waited, charged into the next lift the moment it emptied, before some other stranger could be mean.I might have rolled lightly over a foot.

You learn fast to be a Roman. Like Rockstar just learned with the lift button. I’m n-ot completely sure I’m happy with that, but this is where we live. Just… there’s another reason we try to spend a few weeks living Somewhere Else when we can – it really keeps your sense of what’s “normal” from shifting all the way to one end of the spectrum.

Last time we came back from 3 weeks in San Francisco I remember telling a girlfriend from Washington how amazed I was that people there held doors open for mums with strollers “as a reflex”- and even without the stroller, people were a lot more helpful (or maybe the word is “patient”) when we had a small child in tow. Oh hey, maybe that’s another reason so many local mums bring helpers with them everywhere here – so they can move faster with kid and stroller haha.

“Hey the Gwai Mui has been waiting a long time,” I blurt, quite loudly in clumsy Cantonese. The auntie and uncle flinch, but stand their ground and start looking defensive. The shop attendants give no indication they’ve heard. Mum With Stroller doesn’t know I spoke up about the queue cutting, she just looks really angry at the whole bunch of chaotic Asians. Cantonese-speaking me too. She probably can’t tell my Cantonese is crap either. (Or does she mind being called a Gwai Mui? Some Caucasians have told me they don’t like it, others use it all time.)

Darn I struggled to be served and understood at this busy shop counter too, and don’t feel like an angry Canto-exchange with Defensive Uncle + Auntie right after just coming back to HK. (Repeat after me Aileen, I Like Living Here, I Like Living Here, People Are Soooo Good With Kids, Parents Are Not Insane And – And – What Pollution??) I try again to make eye contact with Mum With Stroller, she’s still scowling, I give up and retreat with an already fidgety Rockstar.

So, lunch at SML (Small Medium Large) in Times Square.

: Umm… No (Further) Words?

I find it easy to order here, they literally have S, M, L portions. A Rockstar-and-me lunch consists of 3 x S portions (usually clam pasta and seabass) and maybe a milkshake.

: Restaurant

Also, it’s not horrendously crowded like a lot of Causeway Bay – though when I glance around the room, I realize the majority of empty tables have “reserved” signs on them (and when we leave, they put one on our table as well).

Right next to us are a middle-aged Gwailo (whom I’m pretty sure has no problems being referred to thus) and local lady having lunch (they got Ms) – both speaking in rapid fire Cantonese and initially unbelieving we are more comfy in English. When I say Rockstar can handle some basic Putonghua, he exclaims, “WHY would I speak such an ugly-sounding language?” – in Cantonese.

Can’t believe I had a horrendously mispronounced Cantonese conversation – with a Gwailo. We break off when the food comes – he takes out one of those little bottles of gel hand sanitizer you can get at Mannings. Happily, I wipe down Rockstar’s portion of the tabletop before setting his meal in front of him (he sometimes slurps up noodles that have touched the table).

OK so, the other thing we had to get done – passport-sized photos! Because we haven’t taken any in awhile. Now I remember why. In case you were wondering why they didn’t kick us out, the photo corner was empty and the photog was this young trainee guy who thought Rockstar was hilarious (uh, go figure – at his age I might have put Rockstar in a cupboard – fortunately for him he is my flesh and blood ok) so I left it.
You see lah, this guy:

1) “This is SUCH a bore”

2) “Maybe if I try just a bit I can get off faster?”

3) “Nah… Too plastic…”

4) “Kua Si Mi” (What you lookin at?)

5) Th-iiis j-uust buh-looowwws……. Sigh.

6) “Okok how bout Evil Face Mugshot” (I told him no one likes letting Chucky into their country)

7) “Oops pushed my luck” (That’s his guilty face after you have words with him about Evil Face)

8) “What? This one still cannot?”

9) ” Sheeeee-eeeeesh.”

10) “Huh? Zzzzz…..”

11) “Ta-Ra-Ra Rockstar!”

12) “Aw Shucks, it’s nothing, really, ruining pics…”

13) FUH-FUH-FUH FINALLEEEEEEEE!!!!!

Ps: My favorite’s #11. Don’t tell the Rockstar.

Posted in Rockstar Shots, Rockstar Thoughts, Traveling With Rockstar | Tagged auntie, back baby, blonde woman, buses, Causeway Bay, conversations, elevator, excuse, indulgence, lift button, lunch place, passerby, rap songs, robot, shopping center, squeeze, stroller, supermarket, times square, tolerance level | 7 Comments

Rockstarisms #149 & #150 (Move over, Mr Spielberg…)

Posted on August 25, 2011 by admin

#149

Me: Ok gentlemen, ready to go?

Kings (on laptop): Wait I haven’t finished (sending an email)

Rockstar (on iPad): Wait I haven’t finished (some numbers game)

According to Rockstar: Mummy starfish, Daddy starfish, Rockstarfish. Debatable to me who is the little orange starfish.

Sigh.

And Double Sigh. (No, not really - he's allowed to do that right before I clean everything)

#150

Ok, this next one’s just bizarre. It’s here only because after we got Rockstar animal playing cards from the Australian Museum he was making up creatures and this was the first one he made up so I wanted to get it down.

Rockstar: I got a weird one. A Black Shooter Bird.

Me: Why is it called a Black Shooter Bird?

Rockstar: <looking at me like I’m stupid> Uh, because it’s black.

Me: But does it shoot?

Rockstar: <still looking at me like I’m stupid> Nooo. That’s just the name.

Rockstar: …Do you know what they eat? They eat pizza, with extra pineapple and olives. And they drink carrot or pineapple juice.

Me: That sounds like stuff you eat.

Rockstar: Nooo it’s not! <hurriedly> They also eat people.

Me: <mildly startled> What? How do they eat people?

Rockstar: They pick them up and feed them to their babies.

Me: HOW big are these birds???

Rockstar: Very big! They can fly to the moon… And even Australia and Africa!

–

Move over, Mr Spielberg…

Posted in Rockstarisms, Talking To Rockstar | Tagged australian museum, babies, birds, carrot, gentlemen, laptop, lt, mr spielberg, mummy, nbsp, nooo, numbers game, olives, orange starfish, pineapple juice, pizza, playing cards, rockstar, shooter, weird one | 3 Comments

UPDATE Rockstar’s Picture Appeared In A Singapore Newspaper Ad Without Our Knowledge

Posted on August 24, 2011 by admin

**This update especially for the readers from both Hong Kong and Singapore who sent emails wanting to know what happened after this post**

Following the “You Might Want To Know…” we sent to Mediacorp last Sunday, today Wednesday we received a thank you for pointing it out and apology on Facebook, then on email, then over the phone, regarding the oversight. Apology accepted.

Once again, thank you to the reader from Singapore who first picked it up. And then to all you others who then started going Oh Yeah Hor! And We Saw That Wor! 😀 AND to the well-meaning emails and Facebooks we got about it too…

Ps: Rockstar’s reaction has been Oh Hey! That’s Me! Heee. <Lose interest. Change subject.>

You can tell he cares about photo ops.

Oh, cares so much. (He's not blinking, he's keeping his eyes shut for the duration I'm taking his pic)

So very much. (See how he added the hand there?)

Sigh. Like, why bother? (Body position in this pic is no fluke either)

Oh hey – am I the only one who thinks that last pic looks like I’m carrying Chucky?

And that was me changing the subject.

Posted in aileensml, Rockstar Shots | Tagged apology, changing the subject, duration, email, facebook, fluke, hong kong, interest change, last sunday, Mediacorp, newspaper ad, oversight, photo ops, rockstar, Singapore, well meaning, wor | 2 Comments

Sydney Through The Eyes Of A Rockstar – Final Day and Rockstarisms #146, #147 & #148

Posted on August 23, 2011 by admin

#146

When I make a fuss about my swollen fingers (because while I’m trying to take a pic of some ducks Kings was feeding from the car as we left Thredbo Rockstar winds the automatic window back up (because the few raindrops getting into the car were bothering him), trapping my already hurting fingers and eliciting my scream at him)

: Him pretending to be one of the bird statues – uh, maybe one of the birds caught my hand in the window too

Rockstar: I fall down too, Mum.

Me: <get even madder at him – my eyes were tearing up, it hurt that much>

Rockstar: <looking quite upset> Okok… Next time, we won’t feed ducks anymore.

(In case you were wondering – yes he knows it’s not the ducks. I call this “typical crime denial that males are known to perform” – by which I mean males like his father :D… I only just got an acknowledgement and apology, like, 2 days after – also like the father haha)

: We had one brunch here – the food’s alright, the view is amazing, the birds have serious gumption – the moment I turn to cut Rockstar’s food, one of the gull-like birds swoops in and takes one of my strips of bacon… And then also some scrambled eggs (in pic). We pack the AUD 12.50 brunch and proceed to the quay where we time how long it takes for the birds to devour the whole box of food – 8 seconds. In the video is also a delighted Putonghua-speaking family right next to us observing with their 10-ish year old daughter)

: Crazy Birds – btw they are seriously good at catching food scraps mid-air ok (well we tried to get our AUD 12.50 worth of entertainment right)

We spend our last day feeding gulls, visiting the Aquatic museum, riding the boat taxi, just chilling – and aware Rockstar will be missing the first day or two of school. Flight booking complications because we planned this trip so late.

We pass a little girl, about 6, with a boy who looks a couple years younger. The girl is on her hands and knees next to one of the fountains along Darling Harbor, trying to fish a purple flower out of the water when her dad yells “Get outta that filthy water!!” in a thick Aussie accent.

Rockstar observes, “In Sydney, there are birds in the fountains.” He means the water isn’t treated, unlike in the Cyberport fountains back home – there are signs repeatedly telling you to keep out of the water as it’s treated. That doesn’t stop quite a few kids from wading in it (tho another mum once told me she’s keeping her baby clear because she actually saw the stuff they put in the water), but I once made the observation to Rockstar that we’d never seen birds in the Cyberport water and that’s how we’d know it probably really is treated.

As we go by in the harbor “train”, Kings puts his arm around me (Rockstar insists on sitting separately from us – and so it begins 🙁 sigh)

“Hey, where’s my hug?”

I turn to see 3 boys on scooters hanging on to the back. “You’ve got a smart mouth.”
“Yeah,” he smiles and shrugs.
“How old are you?”
“14.”
They’re Southasian, smaller than I expected (I thought they were about 12 or 13), speaking with heavy Aussie accents. They hang on, still mouthing off (I don’t find them rude, just gutsy – and Rockstar looks on with interest, which is part of the reason I continue to engage them), til the driver waves them away.

We also took the Boat Taxi (Rockstar insisted) but no one hung on to the back of THAT

#147

At the Four Points Sheraton buffet on our last night (btw it’s seriously good – would you believe people actually queue outside the restaurant area waiting for it to open at 6pm a la Hong Kong?)

Me (to both men): How is it possible that the whole time I was in the buffet line and now I’m back (Rockstar) has not eaten a single bite?? <trying to feed him>

Rockstar: Here we go again.

Random fireworks display we are treated to from the hotel room on our last night... Rockstar came and got me out of the shower (please let me not be reflected in my towel through the window glass haha)

We needed to get up early for our flight home the next day, Rockstar didn’t comply – he KOed right after our Sydney Aquarium visit that afternoon and then was still bouncing off the walls at midnight so instead I switched back to HK time (then he’s only still awake at 10pm instead of midnight! See how well this works? :P) And changed him into his travel clothes before he slept – then peeled layers off in the plane as it got warmer… It’s still boiling HK summer now…)

#148

At the airport cafe in the morning before we board

Rockstar: Mum. Is that fish and chips? <peering at menu>

Me: (Trying to discourage him, we already ordered him poached eggs on toast) Umm.. Maybe it’s just an advertisement for another restaurant…

Rockstar: I’m not going to order it Mum, I was just asking.

Sydney Airport Cafe

Where we have to break out the iPad because we mis-budgetted how much time we would have to eat (forgot our order would not get here at warp speed because we uh, haven't taken the flight home yet?)

Had to take this picture of hair and nail salon right on the way to the gate! It's seriously that open, there are people walking back and forth to their boarding gates not 5 feet away from these chairs

And there's the Rockstar, finishing his baked beans on Kings' shoulders as we speedwalk to the gate (literally had like, 10 minutes to eat something, the rest is in the box Kings is holding)

And we’re home…!

Posted in Rockstarisms, Traveling With Rockstar | Tagged bacon, brunch, darling harbor, feed ducks, flight booking, food scraps, fountains, gull like, gumption, hands and knees, little girl, mid air, purple flower, Putonghua, quay, raindrops, rockstar, scrambled eggs, statues, swollen fingers | Leave a comment

Sydney Through The Eyes Of A Rockstar – The Ones (Not Quite) Left Behind In Thredbo and Four Points Sheraton

Posted on August 22, 2011 by admin

An English girl with mildly punky dyed red hair tells me she’s 24 and has just finished college; she intends to do this (travel while working cafes – food and staff quarters are paid for) for the next 4-5 years, then go back to college to study language or broadcasting when she’s “maybe 29 or 30.” I’m supportive, partly because she’s the first one I chat with about it… but a few minutes after she leaves our table and I’ve had time to think about it, I feel a bit guilty.

Rockstar, immediately following his last ski lesson - we took all the gear off and then he got really quiet and after confirming he HAD had a good time, he kind of just leaned to one side and fell asleep 😀 Much to the delight of the ski rentals staff. Now they all want one too.

So I browsed the souvenir store over and over while Kings checked his Berry... We carried him into the car after letting him nap on the bench for about an hour

At almost-35 I sometimes feel horrendously dorky when I get out there and see things like snow “a little late” as I do. But we can’t afford all the things we want in life .I can be encouraging to the 20-somethings I meet for 15 mins sure, but if I’m honest I would admit I would not have chosen to do what they’re doing. The “opportunity cost” of it gets to me.

Part of the reason I was “blinkered” was because there was something else I wanted more. I guess it depends what you really want – how much you want it, and what you’re willing to give up for it… Because unless you were born a rich kid (and not just any rich kid, but one who has absolutely no problem relying on the folks’ money – which is quite something right, I don’t know many rich kids like that) you will not be able to afford everything, you will have to choose. Time. Relative youth. Money. Lifestyle.

Based on current market conditions, what is the best combination of factors you can afford in the investment product? Oops, I mean life. What, to you, is the most desirable combination of factors that you can afford with which to live your life? And break out the laundry list. If you don’t know what you want and just how bad you want it, how will you get it?

The flip side of doing what Girl I Met In Cafe is doing is she is going to start her career in her early 30s. I regret not at least telling her that, just cos from our conversation I wasn’t sure she’d thought of it. Save for nixing any little leadership positions that foreseeable-y might require a little more politicking post baby Rockstar (got pregnant at 30) I headed my first (small) team when I was about 28 or 29.

We know people who chose to sabbatical right after really costly degrees, or hating said costly first degree and going back to school to do a second degree – and when they came out several years later and were just starting out while some of their friends were already a few years in the market with slightly better hours and pay – they felt the difference. It’s not something I’m sure that many 20-somethings think about – they might (or not, depending on their priorities) feel left behind.

It is their choice to give up some seniority and earning power in order to have the experience of a sabbatical (like I’m doing now raising Rockstar), or study something else – the thing that just gets me is I’m not sure they made the choice having really considered opportunity cost.

(NOT referring to those who don’t WANT to sabbatical, but just can’t find a decent job in which case my heart goes out to you, it’s happened to me before* too… And I realize there are people who worked harder than me and didn’t get the same opportunities – so for the mentors and friends I’ve had, I consider myself blessed.)

We got Rockstar the ski hat as a souvenir, doesn't he look totally freaky in the top left pic!

Ok back to the trip – from Thredbo we drive back to Darling Harbor where Kings has booked a room at the Four Points Sheraton for the last leg of our trip. We arrive at something like 10pm at night and tired Kings upgrades us on arrival.

This is our room.

And this is our view, night:

And day, through the huge floor-to-ceiling windows that take up about half the room

Even with the room upgrade this is the cheapest accommodation we’ve had on our trip. Just about half of what our Thredbo accommodation cost per night, but the real shocker is it’s easily 30% cheaper than the apartment we rented in Mosman. (Yes the ones with blinds perpetually stuck in open position in living room when we are on ground floor, where the heaters keep tripping, not enough hot water for baths, and no hairdryer because the owner claims it “always gets stolen” – all the apartments we’ve rented this is the first we’ve encountered this ok..)

When Rockstar was younger we had a habit of staying in apartments rather than hotel rooms because we wanted to do our own laundry with baby-safe detergent, and I washed his bibs and clothing often. It wasn’t just a case of the germ-freaky though – baby Rockstar had seriously sensitive skin, as in he rubs his face on some fabric surface that doesn’t agree with him and his whole cheek flares up with an angry, itchy rash.

But we have not been using baby detergent in awhile. We won’t be renting Mosman again either.

Ps: I’ve never been drunk or high in my life before either. But I don’t think I’ll try it…

**I studied where and what my parents told me at university, hated it, couldn’t get a job initially in a bad market. (Then when I finally got into banking I would encounter 3 mergers in 10 years.) Periodically I considered going back to study – especially since I hadn’t really had much chance to choose what I did first time round – but in my case I just couldn’t bring myself to give up a few years of chalking up potential job experience or earning a salary.

Posted in Traveling With Rockstar | Tagged bench, cafes, dorky, english girl, few minutes, good time, lifestyle, money, nap, opportunity cost, red hair, relative youth, rich kid, rich kids, rockstar, ski lesson, souvenir store, staff quarters | 7 Comments

Rockstar’s Picture Appeared In A Singapore Newspaper Ad Without Our Knowledge

Posted on August 20, 2011 by admin

An eagle-eyed reader (whom we had not had the pleasure of knowing before) spotted this ad which was apparently published in Singapore newspaper TODAY, on 19 August – then recognized it from this blog post. So driving about in the middle of the mountains, Rockstar asleep in the car, we switch on the Wifi and nearly drive off the road when we receive a scanned picture of the newspaper page, of which here’s the ad bit:

: Great Balls Of Fire Is That My Child???

Aside from the photoshop-ed insect repellant patch on his collar…

: It Would Appear This Is My Child.

I’ll get round to sending them an email eventually since I guess they would like to know whoever put this ad together for them took the pic either from this blog or Kings’ Facebook without saying anything to us…

What I really wanted to say on the blog however was how the kind reader even asked if we would like to be mailed a copy of the newspaper as a souvenir…

That was so nice…

Posted in Rockstar Shots | Tagged balls of fire, email, facebook, great balls of fire, insect repellant, mountains, newspaper ad, pleasure, Singapore, wifi | 13 Comments

Sydney Through The Eyes Of A Rockstar – Thredbo

Posted on August 19, 2011 by admin

I…. HATE….. Skiing. I hate it, I HATE it. How is it possible to loathe a sport that much, especially one where you see all these kids whizzing by and then you see serious senior citizens waltzing by and you think OK this can’t be that bad…

But it bloody…. freaking…. IS!!!

: Rockstar – who is amazingly good on skis, even on his first try. Obviously he did not get this from me. Hopefully I can upload his skiing video – very cute, like a little penguin following the instructor

I suck, I absolutely suck at skiing. On your absolute first lesson they expect you to be able to maneuver around all the little kids flitting about. And you are carrying ski poles and have these long Planks Of Death attached to your feet when you really need your feet for balance. Just putting on the restrictive ski boots to begin with left me claustrophobic. What if there is a fire and you need to flee for your life, do they seriously expect you to sit down and spend 5 minutes taking all your crap off?

Rockstar on the bus to the slope where they have the kiddie lessons (yeah he's quite serious about "learning" if it's something he decides he wants to learn.)

The worse part about my first ski attempt is I feel wayyy too old to be falling everywhere inelegantly. When the little kiddies topple, they look sooo adorable. When I do it I look like a loserr. My last spill is so mortifying (and public) the instructor clambers back up, unhooks my boots from the skis, then has me walk the short rest of the way down. When Kings asks if we can get him tomorrow (because we thought Rockstar might like the same teacher) he looks away and says he’s booked solid for the next 2 weeks. Looking at me, “Today was different, today was like a weird vacation day for me where I was free.”

Actually if he hadn’t tried to explain to me direct while kind of not then meeting my eye, when Kings was the one chatting with him because I was still too busy trying not to die with my skis, I would’ve been more inclined to believe it has absolutely nothing to do with me sucking to the point of possibly embarrassing an instructor. But I will never know for sure.

I spend the early part of the evening self-consciously having Giant Pity Party That Shows How Full Of It I Can Be while Kings goes for a massage (which he says is super) after lugging all our bags up several flights of stairs when we checked out of the Mosman apartment. Rockstar of course spends the evening wanting a second ski lesson.

Round two.

Get over yourself, Aileen. So what if your ski instructor really did give up on you/ was embarrassed at your ridiculous flopping about/ whatever. If you did not suck you would not need lessons. In the meantime the people who laugh can go to hell. Scr*w them. You will never see them again. In fact those who laugh probably have too much ego to try and learn the ski/ snowboard equivalent of whatever is hard for them.

So. Snowboard lesson.

“Those boots are sick.” It’s one of the guys at the board-rentals. He means my DSquareds. For the record, they’re excellent. (I also sprayed a whole can of waterproofing over them just in case, but well they held out considering we had a lot of rainy weather, not say, soft powdery snow.) The guy at the board-rentals is…. Extremely kind. I tell him I’m terrified- first snowboard lesson you already take the ski lift up and come down the steeper slope. (Apparently for snowboard they always do this here.)

I have never been on a ski lift in my life.

I have never been on a ski slope in my life.

I have never been strapped on a snowboard in my life. I’m not sure I’ve even seen one that closely before.

And I am no spring chicken to be trying this now in front of all these people.

View from ski lift

I’m not really scared of falling in the snow and I’m not afraid of heights but I had a serious fear of collisions with the ski poles and Planks of Death and many people are whizzing down at what looks like warp speed – that includes lotsa kids. Anyone collide with my Rockstar I would take their head off. Skis and poles flitting around me as I flounder helplessly/ skid off out of control are seriously frightening to me. Yeah these people are in control of their skis and boards – but I’m not.

Yesterday when I put on ski boots for the first time my throat closed up with serious claustrophobic-ish reaction to having my feet strapped down tightly into heavy clunky boots that are seriously so hard to walk in you might want to tackle stairs sideways like a crab. That was before we even put the skis on them.

“Please warn your instructor I really suck,” I tell the girl doing the booking. “And she should keep me away from most other people, especially children. Oh, and please give me a girl instructor.” Because I expect to cling to her for dear life, or possibly in some other way totally humiliate myself like throw up in the snow and for some reason I would prefer to throw up in front of a girl. Whatever makes me try harder. So in this case a girl is going to make me push myself harder. Because I won’t be as afraid of pushing myself til I throw up if it comes too it (it doesn’t tho, but still this is what was going on in my head).

Happy Family Pic

I fall maybe 25 times today. Seriously. Definitely more than 20. But maybe not 30. I fall like, 8 times, coming down the steep slope you have to access with a ski lift. I fall (kind of) getting off the ski lift on my board. I fall when I don’t want to hit anyone else especially all the kids and simply can’t stop in time. I fall because my board slides before I can get my boot out of it (and goes right into a neatly lined up kiddie class, clattering into their skis and gently bumping one child- their instructor is loud, “If you don’t know how to stop, then fall!” No sweat, I’m good at that. Had she been Rockstar’s instructor I would’ve wanted her to take the head off the idiot sliding into her children. I just wish my own instructor would help me get the hell out of there faster though.

The kids all stare at me wordlessly for what feels like an eternity of minutes as I flail about struggling to get up. In case you’re wondering, no one helps you up unless you are a child, because you have to learn to do it yourself. And it is exhausting to get up while your feet are strapped to the board on the slippery snow.)

Oh, and I also fall into the hole next to the conveyor belt transporting skiers and boarders about on flatter slopes.

The only other embarrassing spill I note (because we always think our own situation is the worst right) is by a guy who boards head-on into the conveyer belt. One of staff wearing the resort colors remarks “That was embarrassing.” (Which is how the idea I might have embarrassed my previous instructor got reinforced.)

Then I fall, I fall, and then I fall some more.

But then I don’t care. I don’t give a freak.

Rare pic of me not falling

At some point I wanted to prove to myself I hadn’t gotten so old I couldn’t still swallow my ego and look really stupid trying to do something I know to be completely out of my comfort zone. And I realize how that last is a bit oxymoronic.

The next morning I wake with trepidation. Like when you don’t get up immediately from a bad fall and gingerly see what hurts.

It……. hurts a lot less than I expected. Though my right hand is swollen, with one finger about double its original size. Couldn’t type for about a day but that was it.

Ps: On Day 3 I still fell a lot but now I love snowboarding!

Me n my snowboarding instructor... Who is now also my Facebook Friend!

(It turns out Rockstar takes to being instructed in skis quite well – he can maneuver, turn and stop by his second lesson. Others keep asking how old he is. We are surprisingly and extremely proud – but I have to also remind myself it’s probably partly cos a lot of Caucasians think he’s younger than he is and even when we tell them his real age he still surpasses their expectations because visually they just find him very small and cute. But there is that he did far better than I or Kings’ first attempts.)

As for the Board-rentals Guy, I wish I’d caught his name. When I went back the next day I didn’t see his mustache anywhere. It probably wasn’t a big deal to him, those few kind words before my first time on the snowboard – but it was a big deal to me. Just another reminder how important little acts of kindness that cost us nothing can be. If I ever see that mustache again, I’m buying it a drink in Hong Kong.

Posted in Rockstar Thoughts, Traveling With Rockstar | Tagged crap, kiddies, little kids, little penguin, penguin, planks, powdery snow, rainy weather, senior citizens, ski boots, ski poles, skis, slope, spill, waterproofing | 14 Comments

Sydney Through The Eyes Of A Rockstar – Roadtrip Day!

Posted on August 17, 2011 by admin

Roadtrip!

We wake at 7am and pack, scheduling to leave latest 8.30am on a 6-7 hour (non-stop, but obviously we’re going to stop at least twice) drive to Thredbo (where the snow is.) I’ve come a long way from my totally insane freak-out on our first trip to Perth when Rockstar was 11 months.

(Napkins. Baby food. Piles and piles of bibs and t-shirts and sheets and blankets. Bottles. All ziplocked and chucked in a giant cardboard box we checked in (and yes everything duplicated in small amounts in hand-carry). We even bought bottled water because someone told us their baby got diarrhea throughout their Aussie trip as she wasn’t used to the different water that they mixed her formula in. (Not unclean, just different mineral content – apparently Aussie water is quite different from Singapore water if you formula-feed younger babies.) So we got Rockstar used to drinking easily-available-wherever-we-traveled bottled water like Evian. Not that we necessarily expected he would actually get diarrhea, but we alternate mineral and tap water as a reflex nowadays.)

Dryer. Washing machine. Bathroom. Bedside tables. Wardrobe. Behind the door. All check – nothing left behind.
– Rockstar?

ZZzzzzzzzzzzz

Really didn’t expect him to sleep in, especially not with us bustling about, or I would’ve dressed him the previous night in his travel clothes. Ah well, at least he’s safely in the bed while we clear all the other areas up. Kings can be quite a tornado.

Switch off lights. And heaters. Clear fridge. Pick up paperbag of Rockstar’s spare change of clothes and snow-wear (he’s going to jump in the moment we drive up). Pick up apartment keys to lock up, drop off.

Not-quite-sleeping-anymore-child

And yes – pick up sleeping PJ-clad child.

(We told him the night before to expect to travel early. We’ve found he acts up more if we don’t prepare him for things but when we do or when we explain it away he rarely flips.)

And the circus hits the road.

Circus Rockstar dressed and carrying Expensive Dog From Luna Park (this is possibly the first pic we have of him holding a plush toy ok...)

Driving along...

There are like, 5 or 6 Mc Donald’s along the way, not counting also Hungry Jacks and some other fast-food.. The cafe thing we stop at is not much better, and we watch with dismay as a tour bus starts unloading a seriously big bunch of Putonghua-speaking Asians. We’re thinking long, long queues for the toilet, super-crowded rowdy diner, and almost drive off to the next stop, but then decide to stick around for a few minutes. Upon closer inspection majority of the bus passengers are tweens, with a few adults among them – and are actually speaking at a way lower decibel level than we’ve come to expect from living in Northasia. The kids are very well behaved – after the toilet break some stop to buy takeout and play the arcade game in the corner before boarding the bus.

So glad we didn’t drive off. The toilets are clean, dry, odorless. Most people actually don’t dine in and we have a quiet breakfast – which is unfortunately super greasy. Rockstar grumbles that his milkshake looks like it came in a bucket again.

Rockstar entertaining himself on iPad while Kings queues for breakfast

Then at Cooma we pass through a residential area on the way back to Snowy Mountains Highway – passing 3 church buildings that are literally across the roads from each other. Hmm. Maybe they’re different denominations?

Random pic as we leave Cooma

When I start at a dead animal about the size of a Cocker Spaniel lying on the side of the road with its stiff legs in the air, Kings tells me he’s counted at least 10 roadkill, “mostly kangaroos and bear-things” (by which I guess he means wombats).

Rockstar missing roadkill

Toilet in the middle of Nowhere (Kings says this one was quite yucky though)

We arrive at the little town 4.15pm to find we’re kinda early for dinner. Most if not all eats open about 5pm. Rockstar’s hungry (well of course he is, he had brunch, a small snack, then nothing til now – in fact he hasn’t been eating that well this whole trip and it’s starting to bother me) and T-Bar has pizza to offer before 5pm.

T-Bar tucked in a corner of the little skiing town at Thredbo

I pick the squid, the waiter reminds me the kitchen isn’t ready for another 20 minutes, then returns in 5, triumphantly bearing the very yummy salad – that’s the first time I’ve ever had squid (I thought they were like deep fried calamari, they’re not) in a salad and there’s an exquisite tangy flavor, not just your usual balsamic vinegar.

It’s dark around 6pm when we check in… I find the room very expensive for pretty standard amenities but partly because it’s peak season and we booked late, partly I pass judgement on snow stuff as being an expensive hobby…

Reception area the following morning

But then in one of the cafes in the morning I observe the young couple at the next table on serious coffee date (I guess eating out is quite expensive, easily comparable to nice restaurants in HK; this couple is not really “eating out,” just sitting together with a coffee – which I get from overhearing their conversation- they are so disappointed when the table they really wanted to sit at is taken up by an old-timer with a newspaper while they’re getting their coffee) and I think they probably worked college-break jobs and saved up to come here.

It occurred to me this is all stuff I missed out on on at their age. Yeah I worked hard like they probably did, maybe harder, but I used to use vaccies for learning things or chalking up school extra-curricular activity points <sheepish> it’s got nothing to do with “work attitude,” I don’t mean to say I’m uh, “hardworking” – it was just that somehow 10 years ago I would not have considered a vaccie like what this young couple are doing.It simply would not have occurred to 25-year-old me. Not hardworking so much as “blinkered”. Like what they put on horses to drive them in one direction.

Anyway I didn’t have a thing for travel and found it an extravagance even though lots of friends were doing it. And I hated the seriously broke feeling coming back from our honeymoon. Kings of course is a bit more erm, “normal” about this, he’s been on budget trips during uni days – so the first time we went on one of these he pretty much ignored all my excuses – booked everything and said “yeah, uh-uh, and this is where we are going.”

Rockstar, no doubt, is living a childhood much more privileged than his parents (well d-uh.)

View from balcony of our apartment

In the morning light the next day after our arrival, we discover our apartment has a view.

Welcome to Thredbo. Where the weather is a balmy 6 degrees C. (You can tell right, there is way less snow than say, Lake Tahoe)

Posted in Traveling With Rockstar | Tagged baby food, bedside tables, bibs, bottled water, cardboard box, diarrhea, first trip, freak out, insane freak, mineral content, napkins, paperbag, piles, roadtrip, spare change, tap water, travel clothes, wardrobe, washing machine, zzzzzzzzzzzzz | 1 Comment

Sydney Through The Eyes Of A Rockstar – Luna Park

Posted on August 16, 2011 by admin

: Just any old picture to show off the “Since 1935” banner

We spend a seriously embarrassing amount on the fair games at Luna Park. Because all Rockstar really wants to do is shoot hoops and throw darts. He is by far the littlest, youngest child at the games stalls and keeps attracting tween Caucasian littlegirls who say he’s really cute, standing on the tables with very serious expression (not to mention giving us a play-by-play) as he launches basketballs and darts.

: He’s not actually screaming, that’s his latest picture face

To everyone’s amazement (ours too) he manages to pop 3 prize balloons unaided – then prefers to exchange most of his prizes (the giant plush ones) for more ball and dart tries. But he totally can’t score with the balls – the blonde teenaged boy minding the stall keeps giving us extra tries and at the end thrusts this dog at us muttering “You guys played this thing like, 5 times.” (Which is something like AUD 25). So we got an Expensive Free Dog. First soft toy Rockstar has ever really shown an interest in.

: Rockstar also won two of those giant dice but we gave them away…

In fact, all the stalls give Rockstar lots of extra tries. (We still spent a lot though <sheepish> Kings’ shades of We Don’t Know When We’ll Be Doing This Again When I Start Work.)

: Rockstar going nuts in the hall of mirrors

There’s another section with a hall of mirrors, and lots more attractions just outside… There is a group of special needs kids organized in the center of the hall… In one of the queues there’s a Caucasian man with an Asian woman and her son who looks to be about 10… She’s speaking English kind of the way we’re quite used to hearing it spoken among locals in Hong Kong and I try to strike up a conversation with her out of curiosity <sheepish> a bit boh liao lah but well the nearby Singaporean pharmacist also did that with me when he heard me and Rockstar talking what… He’s been here since he was 12 (now late 30s) but still totally speaks Singlish, “Aiya once Singaporean cannot be totally Ang Moh one lahhh.” Erm ok.

View from the cafe we were sitting at before popping into Pharmacist That Happened To Be Run By Singaporean - and there are like, 3 pharmacists practically across the street/ next to each other

This cute little car parked right next to us with two rather worried mutts in it

Anyway. Hongkie mum isn’t chatty though her companion is quite friendly with us… And tries to keep Maybe-10-year-old Asian boy from bumping into me from behind repeatedly (no, we don’t hear the mum say anything. Hmm.)

Ok Luna Park Haul:

1 giant bubble wand

1 Expensive Free Dog

1 seriously giant pencil with sharpener attached

1 big Luna Park children’s cup with crazy straw attached

2 x 3 sheets of stickers

3 little soft balls

2 tiny dice cushions

2 giant dice cushions (that Rockstar really couldn’t care less about Kings giving away; he then requests more tries at darts and basketball i/o more prizes)

2 free games (which Rockstar traded some other little prizes for)

Not counting all the extra tries from all the stalls we played repeatedly at…

And that’s how much we spent at this place ok…

Posted in Traveling With Rockstar | 2 Comments

Rockstarism #144 (We Don’t Always Get What We Want)

Posted on August 15, 2011 by admin

Me: Hurry up, finish up your corn on the cob so we can go in the room
Rockstar: Why?
Me: Because Mummy’s freezing out here, the bedroom is warmer.

Rockstar: Or, you could go in the room, Mum. Go on, it’s alright. <insert convincing facial expression and theatrical head nodding>
Me: (Getting impatient) You are NOT staying out here.
Rockstar: But I want to…!

Me: Yeah, well we don’t always get what we want. Mummy wanted you to finish your dinner but you didn’t and so Daddy went to get you the fried noodles that you said you wanted and then you said you didn’t even like them. If your parents got what we wanted first time round we wouldn’t even have had to queue for a long time to get your ….fried ….noodles!

<pause>

Rockstar: (conversationally) Finish my corn?
Me: Yes please.

Rockstar: I think that after I finish my corn we should go in the room.
Me: That is an excellent suggestion.

What happens to you when you don't eat (I'll make up something about the tusks. No, not really)

Posted in Rockstarisms, Talking To Rockstar | 2 Comments