We’ve been hearing about the Jacob Ballas Children Garden located in the Botanic Garden and we finally made a trip there today, which coincidentally is Valentine’s Day.

Arriving there, we came to a lobby area where there was a small cafe and information counter. There was also an interesting tree-like scuplture with figures of children as its leaves.

We didn't notice the figures of children until we reviewed this photo we took

As for Darius, he had just woken up from his slumber so he didn’t look too interested about his new environment. Nowadays he falls asleep easily when in a moving vehicle.

Entering the garden, we found a nice-looking map featuring different parts of the garden. By the way, only adults with children are allowed access. Otherwise, adults can only enter at alloted timeslots for a ‘preview’. I thought this was a good idea since it would prevent ‘unwelcomed guests’ which could mess up the serenity of the place.

Click for the larger version

As we strolled around the garden, we were a little disappointed that there wasn’t much that really caught our attention. Probably Darius is still too young to appreciate them.

We came across this mini waterfall with a rock-like structure, and it was one of the fine touches to the garden. Darius was also fascinated by the falling waters and kept staring at it.

Catherine had actually wanted to let him play with the water at the water play park area, but the sun was already shining strongly above us at this time. We should have done it when we first arrived at the garden but on the other hand, perhaps Darius was still too young to enjoy them…

On our way out, we did catch some interesting plants, such as cotton, yam and tapioca. This was the first time we saw how cotton looked like in its raw form.

Leaving the garden, we proceeded to the rest of the Botanic Garden. We walked along the eco lake despite the hot weather. We had brought a cap for Darius to preventing glaring from the sun rays but forgot to bring caps for ourselves.

The area was pretty serene (if only the weather wasn’t so hot though) and we caught a few couples picnic-ing under the trees. Having brought a picnic mat along, we thought of following suit too. Ants and occassional sun rays aside, our short picnic experience wasn’t so bad. I also took the opportunity to give Catherine a Valentine’s Day card. ^^

Temporarily returning to our care-free couple life~

We then took a cab to Tanglin Mall nearby, since we heard it’s one of the shopping malls close to Botanic Garden. I had previously thought of going Serene Center for lunch but thought there wouldn’t be much to do there otherwise.

This was our first visit to Tanglin Mall, and we were pleasantly surprised by the number of shops catering to kids and families.

Needing to change Darius’ diapers first, we proceeded to the Baby Room on the 3rd floor. The room was well furnished with beautiful wallpapers and we couldn’t help but to pose Darius for a photo:

A happy Darius! ^^

We then visited the Mother Works shop there and managed to let Darius try out a Bright Starts activity table. It’s like an exersaucer but with a revolving chair along the edge of the table He seemed to enjoy it and we might consider renting it next time, though we were worried if he might not want to go back to the immobile exersaucer that we have after that.

On the ground floor, a toy shop caught my eyes and I decided to take a look at its stuff. There was this Thomas and Friends ball pit on sale at the front and though I was never interested in Thomas and Friends, I had been wanting to get Darius a ball pit. The usual price was stated as S$49.95 and guess what, it became S$14.95 after discount! It was unbelieveable as it was a 70% discount! Had the popularity of Thomas and Friends started to decline already?

The shop's name is 'Attic Pals'

I was surprised by the huge price difference and beckoned Catherine to take a look. She was also amazed by the price and felt it was a good bargain too. I was convinced to buy it but would come back later to get it since we wouldn’t want to carry the bulky box around.

We then passed by this shop selling kids’ apparels. Though there were stickers on the shop’s glass panels offering discounts too, I thought their stuff should still be quite pricey since the shop’s name had a ’boutique’ word on it. Indeed, when we checked out the average price of the kid’s shoes (which looked ordinary), they were of S$120 and more. Even after discounts, these things would still be way off our budget, and we didn’t see why they deserved those price tags in the first place.

Doesn't look like a high class shop from the outside...

We also came across this store selling organic food, though when we followed the signs towards the place, we were obstructed by a flight of stairs. Not seeing an alternative path to the store, we carried Darius and the stroller up the flight of stairs. Fortunately, the store was pretty big and had quite a wide variety of organic foodstuff. Catherine bought a box of organic cereals for Darius.

With that, I returned to the shop named Attic Pals to purchase the ball pit, with Catherine and Darius waiting outside. As I was paying for the item, the salesgirl mentioned that she had helped to remove the price tags for me. Initially I didn’t understand what she meant, but remembering Catherine mentioning that I don’t look like a father, I soon understood.

Valued for money!

The salesgirl was thinking I was buying the ball pit as a gift (I’m not so cheapskate okay…) so she took off the price tag for me. Relating this to the Kiddy Palace’s incident recently (see Musical Table for Darius (Part 1)), perhaps the salesman also thought I was buying the musical table as a gift so kept reminding me that the packaging was torn. Oh well, looks like both Catherine and I look too young to look like parents? (should I be happy or sad?)

Returning home and resting for a short while, we went out again, this time to the nearby Sembawang Shopping Centre. It had been renovated (reconstructed would be a better word, since they pulled down the entire building before constructing a new one above it) recently and the place looked more welcoming than it previously was.

We had our dinner at Fish and Co and being Valentine’s Day, we could only choose from the selected set dishes. We ordered Fish & Chips and waited while Darius was feeling bored on the high chair.

"I'm bored..."

The order came pretty swiftly but we were disappointed that the fish turned out to be very saltish. We had tasted this dish at our outlets before and it certainly tasted a lot better than this. Guess this was the result of dining on Valentine’s Day as chefs rushed through the dishes to meet the higher demand. We highlighted to the waiter while footing our bills and he offered us a S$5 voucher in return. Not sure if we will be returning there again though.

Looks nice but can't say the same for the taste

We walked around the area, visited shops such as Diaso and Giant supermarket. We had wanted to check out the Splash Garden on the top floor (which was scheduled to be opened mid-February), but was told it was yet opened. Not sure when it would be opened though.

Feeling a little hungry, we wanted to get some snacks after having a disappointing dinner. We found this small stall selling Tako Pachi and sat down in the stall while enjoying the food. Appeared that this simple snack felt way better than that at the restaurant earlier. What an irony!

Back to simplicity! ^^

With that, we headed home. Darius had a long day with us on this Valentine’s Day and we brought him to sleep upon reaching home. Gonna set up our newly bought ball pit soon and let him play in it.

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