After our trip to the Botanic Gardens (see Run Darius, Run!) last weekend, Catherine and I promised ourselves to make visits to parks and natural places a weekly event since Darius was enjoying himself so much in these places.

So on Sunday, we decided to plan for a trip to Kids’ Kampung and Pasir Ris Park, both situated at the East side of Singapore. We have read about Kids’ Kampung from a blog and thought it would be an interesting place for Darius.

We reached Pasir Ris just before noon but Darius had already fallen asleep on the car during the journey. We thus changed our original plans and decided to visit IKEA Tampines first while he was fast asleep. Before that though, we needed to fill our empty stomachs so we drove to Giant to have our meal at its food court.

Upon reaching, we transferred Darius gently onto the stroller. The moment he was placed into it however, he opened his eyes wide and didn’t look like he was going back to sleep any time soon. Like Catherine, he’s quite a light sleeper. ^^|

So in the end, we had our lunch together there, which isn’t a bad thing since we won’t have to find an eating place later for his lunch again.

Meanwhile, rain began to pour on the outside. Though we were disappointed about the weather, we were glad we had not headed to the Kids’ Kampung first.

We then drove over to the IKEA building opposite for our shopping; we were intending to acquire some furniture to re-organise our wardrobe and study room. While Catherine was browsing through the items, I was following Darius closely as he explored around the place.

Just soon after, a teenage girl walked towards Darius and knocked him down onto the ground while he  was standing still and looking at something. I could understand that she might not have noticed Darius while she was walking, but she didn’t even bother to apologise nor stop to try helping Darius up! She simply walked off while he was still crying and just proceeded to check out the other parts of the place nonchalantly. Youngsters nowadays sure got some really serious attitude problem!

(Catherine: I looked across and noticed two young gals who were following her looking at Darius worriedly because he was still crying, turning back to the gal who kept her head low, then back to Darius again. They seemed to be wondering why their big Sis knocked a child down and never said anything. What a fine role-model! I glared at them and mouthed, “Don’t even know how to say sorry!” I might have confronted her if I had witness the incident but since it was over, I didn’t want to spoil our happy mood and we just went the other way.)

We didn’t let the incident spoil our moods and after Darius had calmed down, we continue to let him explore around the place while watching him closely. Over at the kitchen section, he was attracted to the washing machine display set and kept himself busy opening the closing the door repeatedly. He has always been interested in our washing machine at home so it was no surprise that he couldn’t help but experiment with the one there too.

"Hmm.. How come this family doesn't have any clothes to wash?"

Just shortly after taking this photo, I accidentally knocked our camera onto Darius’ head and caused a small bump on his forehead! He was whining due to the pain while I was apologetic for the accident. Catherine took over by carrying and soothing him. All of a sudden, he started laughing non-stop and was in a very happy mood! o_0|

Darius in a sudden happy mood! (the bump was on the other side of his forehead)

We were initially wondering if he had gone bonkers after injuring his head but concluded that he was just enjoying the company with his mother, especially when she started playing with him by swinging him around a bit and tickling him.

We were glad he could forget his pain and break into giggles so quickly (we feel he has quite a high pain tolerance). On the other hand though, we had to keep calming him down to stop him from laughing non-stop. ^^|

We then proceeded with our shopping. Although we had wanted to get a set of chest of drawers for our clothes, the one we wanted was out of stock (seems to happen often from our experiences with IKEA) so in the end we only picked up a new computer table and roller chair with some other smaller items.

With all the stuff loaded into the car, we drove to Pasir Ris Farmway 1 to get to Kids’ Kampung. It was very near to IKEA and we arrived at the place in less than ten minutes. The weather was sunny then.

When we walked into the Kids’ Kampung however, Catherine and I were disappointed as it didn’t turn out to what we had expected it to be. It was very small and didn’t look interesting to us at all.

There was the longkang (drain) fishing but as we moved further in towards the petting farm, we discovered that we needed to pay a S$1 admission fee per person. We are alright with the fee if it’s justifiable but when we peeked in through the fence, all we saw were just a pool of Koi and a few small cages housing animals like rabbits.

Well, we have seen and come close to many more animals at Animal Resort (see Day of the Animals) which offers free admission, so the admission fee had turned us off. Not to forget they were also charging for fish food if visitors choose to feed the Koi too.

Disappointed, we left the Kids’ Kampung and were glad we had not drove especially to Pasir Ris just for this.

On our way out of the area, we came across a shop selling puppies and we decided to bring Darius in to check out the puppies. He was interested upon seeing the cute puppies hopping around and wanted to touch them, but were blocked by the glass wall. We were telling ourselves that we no longer needed to get a pet for ourselves since we already had our own fun ‘pet’ — Darius. ^^|

We then drove towards Pasir Ris Park, dropping by a mall on the way to get some pancakes to eat at the park. When we finally arrived at the park however, rain began to fall and we ended up having to stay inside the car to wait for the skies to clear. What an unlucky timing for us!

Meanwhile, we fed Darius his milk while Catherine and I had our picnic inside the car, consuming the pancake and milk tea we had bought. Well, it wasn’t really that bad actually, since we could keep ourselves dry while enjoying the comfort and air-con in the car. ^^

When Darius finished with his milk and we were done with our food, the rain had already stopped. Fortunately it was just a passing rain and the sun had begun to shine down onto the park again. Park goers were also coming out from their shelters too.

The sun emerges again after the rain

Without wasting any more time, we walked into the park too with Darius running happily along the footpath. Despite a dedicated bicycle lane for the cyclists, there were still a number of inconsiderate cyclists cycling on the footpath, posing danger to Darius and other park goers. I would have wanted to tell them off but there were just too many of them.

Meanwhile, while the path was clear of bicycles, Darius could roam happily as we made our way towards the beach. He was running very fast due to his excitement that we had to keep very close watch of him in case he lost his balance and fell. The wind was blowing strong towards him too, parting his hair naturally.

We went up to one of the breakwater structures to appreciate the wind blowing from the sea while admiring the vast ocean in front of us. Darius was interested in the sea too and was very composed while watching the waves moving in.

At this moment, we felt some water droplets falling onto us but thought they came from the sea and didn’t take much notice. We then headed towards the playground area.

As we stepped onto the sandy pitch of the playground, Catherine spotted some swings and wanted to let Darius try on it. The seats were specially made for younger children so we thought this would be a good opportunity to let him go on a swing.

We were expecting him to whine in fear when Catherine started pushing him gently. Instead, he started giggling and was enjoying himself while the swing moved forward and backwards.

Darius probably felt much at ease seeing Catherine near him and thought she was trying to tickle him as he moved to and fro on the swing. We had so much fun together that we couldn’t stop grinning over his giggles and happy expressions. ^^

When we felt he had enough fun with the swing, we moved on next to a mini-maze. As he walked around the area, I quickly intercepted him by blocking his exit every time he was headed for one. Since he has always loved playing hide-and-seek, he had certainly enjoyed these moments together.

Next up, we stepped onto the sandy ground to lead Darius towards some drums. I demonstrating once on the drumming and that was sufficient to get him started off hitting on the drums himself. ^^

Catherine then spotted a huge, nice-looking tree nearby and we decided to take some shots of Darius with it. We were however concerned that he wouldn’t be willing to stay put there for us since he didn’t seem to enjoy being taken photos of.

Surprisingly, he was very cooperative then and stood still at where we placed him, doing some funny and mischievous gestures for us to capture! If only he is so cooperative in front of the camera every time, it will save us a lot of trouble. ^^

At this moment, we felt more rain drops falling down on us and we knew another downpour was imminent. Without delay, I carried Darius and headed towards the nearest pavilion while Catherine followed behind. The rain followed closely indeed and soon it was all rain around us.

We had previously bought a raincoat for Darius to deal with situations like this, so I went back to the car to check if we had brought it along. Unfortunately we didn’t, so we decided to leave the park and move on to another location, since the rain didn’t look like it would stop soon.

Taking a look at the street directory, it appeared that a viable sheltered location nearby would be Downtown East, which was also within short driving distance.

When we reached there, the car park was packed and we could only find an available parking lot at the topmost, open-air storey. I escorted Catherine and Darius to the building first with our only umbrella before returning to the car to bring along the other necessary things.

Darius was appearing to be tired, obediently resting in his stroller. He must have expended most of his energy over at Pasir Ris Park earlier. ^^

There wasn’t much for us to do there however. We did consider bringing Darius to eXplorerkid, a paying indoor playground like Fidgets (see Trip to Fidgets) and Polliwogs (see Darius’ Birthday Treats (Part 1)). However, seeing how crowded it was and knowing that Darius was already tired, we felt no point entering.

So we proceed to dinner and realised that we had left our Combi spoon meant to feed Darius over at the Giant foodcourt earlier on! As a result, we had to use a fork to feed Darius the noodles we bought instead.

After the dinner and on our way back to the car park, we came across some Christmas decorations at the lobby where a Merry-go-round and children train ride were available. There was also a model of Santa Claus climbing a rope up and down repeatedly. I thought it was quite funny so took a shot of it with Darius. ^^

Bubbles were also blown out from behind one of the Christmas tree and Darius had fun watching and playing with them while Catherine carried him to chase after the bubbles. It was a beautiful moment to watch but unfortunately I was unable to catch the moment with the camera.

With that, we returned to the car and headed for home, where Darius had a good night’s rest after a long and fun day.

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