We have decided to make a trip down to the city today, since we haven’t visited town since Darius’ birth. To avoid the weekend crowd, I’ve taken a day off from work to visit Marina Square and Suntec City with Catherine and Darius.

We have chosen these two shopping malls as the malls are bigger and thus less congested, and also there are quite a few shops for babies and children.

"Why did you wake me up so early?"

The trip from our home at Woodlands to Marina Square after peak hours took us 45 minutes (via an unjammed CTE) and 20 odd dollars. It sure was a long ride and we felt like we had just travelled to a faraway land in Singapore. That’s how far Woodlands is from the town.

We arrived close to 11am and we wanted to start off our trip with a brunch (breakfast + lunch) at Kenny Rogers but were disappointed to find out that like most restaurants there, their opening hours are from 11.30am onwards.

Hungry, we decided to go for breakfast at MacDonalds first, which was a stone’s throw away. Alas, the time was already 11am sharp and we wondered if we could still make it in time for breakfast. Fortunately, we managed to secure the last breakfast servings (the customer behind me was rejected of her breakfast’s request). ^^|

"Go Go Go!"

As Darius’ next feeding time was 11.30am, I enquired one of the MacDonalds staff about the location of the mall’s Baby Room, and was told that most of the restroom locations in the complex had a separate room for nursing and diaper changing, and the nearest restroom was just opposite MacDonalds.

And so we went there and found a stand-alone room with a sink, changing mat, cushion, hand dryer and rubbish bins. It was a different concept from the other malls we have visited (usually a centralised room with several nursing cubicles) but we settled down in it nevertheless and started feeding Darius.

After that, we went to the 3rd floor (we were at the 2nd floor, though it felt like the ground floor) and visited the Motherhood outlet there. We were pleasantly pleased to see many clothes for babies, consisting of the off-season Spring/Summer collections and the new Fall/Winter collections, with the former on sale.

Knowing that babies outgrow their clothes very quickly, we were careful not to get the cheaper Spring/Summer Collections clothes as the local climate is starting to get wet and cold already. We only bought a pair of trousers at S$17 from this collection. We also bought a pack-of-3 from the Fall/Winter Collections which consisted of three long sleeved shirts at S$24 (i.e. S$8 per piece, which is a good deal).

We were tempted to buy more clothes from the Fall/Winter Collections as they were really nice, but worried that we might see nicer clothes when we visited other shops later.

We then moved on to the Kiddy Palace, seeing that there were many clothes on display too. However, the clothes were not as nice as we had seen at Motherhood, so we moved on for our lunch at Kenny Rogers.

The restaurant was situated at a place in the mall called Center Stage, and the seatings were spacious near the entrance, very welcoming for families like us. We then ordered a set lunch each, which comprised of an entree, two sides, one muffin, one soup or salad and a drink. That’s great value at S$11.50 each.

Yummy!

Near the end of our lunch, Darius started to get cranky and we decided to carry him out of the stroller. He must have been really bored and warm in his cosy little stroller. We noted that it was close to his diaper changing time, so we brought him back to the Baby Room we had been earlier.

After that, we started to head towards the Suntec City but along the way, we were stopped by the Fox Kids outlet. We had been wanting to visit one since our previous experience at the branch at Compass Point, as there were some nice fashion collections for babies too.

However, we noted that it was close to Darius’ feeding time (i.e. 2.30pm) so we decided to feed him first. We went to the nearest Baby Room and although it had the same amenities as the previous one we went to, this room was smaller and we even had some difficulty closing the door with the stroller obstructing the path.

Close to the end of the feed, Darius fell asleep again, this time a very deep one. We could hardly wake him up to finish the feed, so we placed him back on the stroller for him to get a good rest.

Deep in Dreamland...

That done, we went back to Fox Kids and got Darius two short sleeved shirts (at S$11 each on offer) and a grey elastic pants at S$19.

Satisfied (and getting tired), we proceeded to Suntec City, where we wanted to visit its Happy Kidz corner to get some books for Darius.

After reaching the Suntec City’s fountain area via the Millenia Walk, we were unwelcomed by two flights of stairs leading up to the next floor. There wasn’t any lifts in sight so we were wondering if carrying the stroller up the stairs was our only option.

I recalled seeing a sign for Wheelchair Access the previous times we came here, so I led Catherine to the lift. We were surprised that the lift entrance looked really old and kind of spooky but decided that this was the only transportation which could get us past the stairs.

Spooky...

We pressed the call lift button and waited patiently for the platform to reach our level before we could open the door and pushed the stroller in. Once inside, we were surprised that it was very stuffy inside, with barely any air cirulation. We endured for about a minute or so before we could finally breathe fresh air again.

We then took the escalators up to the third floor, where the Happy Kidz corner was at. The place was pretty quiet, given that it was a weekday afternoon. Our first stop was Elm Tree, a shop which sold a lot of books for infants and children.

We were overwhelmed by the collection the shop offered, but still couldn’t find much choices suitable for Darius’ age. Catherine was hoping to find books with bright and big pictures, and simple words which she could read aloud to Darius while he was being seated in her lap.

In the end, we chose two books, one Picture Reading Book and a Colourful Animals book. We the moved on to another shop called My Learning Kingdom where we bought a set of ‘Your Baby Can Read!’ flip cards. There were options of getting the same thing on DVD, VCD or a book, but we thought we should start from the flip cards, which would be more portable.

Good educational tools

With that, it was close to 5.30pm, Darius’ next feeding time. We noticed there was a Baby Room just beside the shop, so we went in for his feed.

We were both exhausted and worn out by then, so decided to have our dinner quickly and head for home. The taxi queue was long but fortunately there was a constant flow of vacant, unbooked taxis coming by.

Though we had to go through two ERPs, we decided that CTE was still the fastest path home (as compared to the new KJE, which would still have one ERP). It took us around 45 minutes to reach home too, though the cab fare amounted to 30 over dollars, with the city surcharge, 35% peak hour surcharge and ERP costs. Phew!

So that ended our 10-hour long journey in the city, and though exhausting, we sure enjoyed ourselves, especially when we didn’t come home empty-handed. ^^

Nice looking clothes for Darius!

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