We had a dazzling finale to our trip...

We’ve received quite a number of red packets from our family members for Darius’ 2nd Birthday so Catherine and I thought of using those cash to get some clothes and books for him. That’s one of the main reasons that brought us to Marina Square yesterday.

After we visited the MPH bookstore at PARCO Marina Bay (beside Millenia Walk) in May and bought some books there, we knew they have quite a collection of Usborn and Dr. Seuss books that would be suitable for Darius. That’s why we made that our first stop of the day.

Similar to our last trip there, we alighted at the Promenade MRT Station along the Circle Line which would conveniently bring us right into PARCO Marina Bay.

"May I know where we are going?"

Upon reaching the third floor, Catherine went into the bookstore to look for the books while I accompanied Darius as he stretched his limbs by beginning his marathon — by running round the same route in the rather deserted shopping mall for over ten rounds continuously. Well, that would also mean that I’ve walked/ran that many rounds since I followed him closely throughout his stint in case he got himself into a dangerous situation or inconveniencing other shoppers. ^^|

"Hooray! I love this place!!!"

During then, Catherine had finished her selection of books which included Usborn’s The Gingerbread Man, Dr. Seuss’ I Can Read With My Eyes Shut, The Cat in the Hat and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. She had wanted to get Dr. Seuss’ Hop on Pop, Great Day for Up and Go, Dog, Go! too but they were not available at the branch. Darius had watched the animated versions of these stories on YouTube and had liked them a lot, so we thought it would be great if we could get these books for him. The store had an sale where if one purchased $50 worth of books, there would be a discount of 30% and under $50, a 20% discount. So we got a 20% discount for the four books purchased.

We then proceeded to Marina Square for our lunch. We had chosen to dine at Mr Curry again, after our first pleasant visit there. While waiting for our ordered dishes, Darius received a door gift (Waraku’s restaurants make it a point to give their children customers welcome gifts) which consisted of a slot machine and some water game. However, he wasn’t very interested in it and dumped it aside after experimenting for a while . ^^|

A green tea float we ordered

After we had our lunch, Darius dozed off in his stroller for his afternoon nap while we proceeded to shop for his clothes at Mothercare and Kiddy Palace. We got him two pyjamas as his current ones were getting too short. We also wanted to get some long pants but there wasn’t suitable ones.

We passed by Times Bookstore at Marina Square and thought of trying our luck in finding the missing Dr. Seuss books that we were looking for. Interestingly, what caught our attention while we were outside was a quote by Dr. Seuss that was imprinted on top of one of the shelves in the bookstore. After checking with the staff, we successfully located the book Go, Dog, Go! for him! Yeah! ^^

After he woke up, we continued to shop at John Little before heading to Suntec City via Millenia Walk. I had thought of getting Darius some Thomas & Friends’ toys at Toy ‘r Us since he is very into trains nowadays. He would always get very excited when we reached the train portion while reading Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham to him, and also during the chinese story video we played to him which involved trains. However, we didn’t find anything suitable and left the store soon after.

Having no specific destination to go, we wandered into Carrefour nearby. On our way heading out, we passed by their books section and just so coincidently, we noticed a shelf full of Dr. Seuss’ books! We quickly browsed through the shelf in searching of our missing books and gladly, we found another book which we had wanted to get — Great Day for Up! Wow… Both Catherine and I were thankful of these coincidences (this and the one at Times Bookstore earlier) despite us walking around aimlessly. ^^

The shelf of Dr. Seuss books at Carrefour

I then handed the book to Darius, who was sitting on his stroller. After flipping through several pages, he immediately recognised and associated the book with the Youtube video he had watched and became very much immersed in it. When we reached the cashier, Darius whined loudly when I took the book away from him to pay for the item. The young male cashiers saw his reaction and immediately returned it to him after scanning the barcode. Ha! One of them was even surprised to see such a small kid getting so attached to a new book, since usually kids would only react this way to their new toys or stuff like candies. ^^|

At this point, we decided to have our dinner.

On our way to the eatery, we had taken a lift meant for handicaps since it would be cumbersome to carry Darius and the stroller down the flight of stairs. We didn’t really like taking that lift though because of our past experience with it when Darius was only 3 months old. It was slow, stuffy and quite noisy at times. What’s funny was that after we entered the lift, I mistakenly pressed the emergency intercom button instead of the down button and the security guard was fast to respond to our ‘call’. I explained my mistake and Catherine and I had a good laugh over the incident. ^^

The emergency intercom button was all the way to the right but still...

Reaching the eatery, we settled down and had our dinner while Darius continued to busy himself with his new Great Day for Up book.

After our meals, I checked the time and we headed back towards Marina Square. We had wanted to watch the fireworks display at Marina Bay area as we knew there was a full-dress rehearsal for the National Day being held at Padang that day and we would be in time to catch the fireworks.

When we reached the empty space in front of Marina Square’s main entrance, quite a crowd was already gathering by the stairs and some were sitting on the grass patch. We found an empty spot and made ourselves comfy as we waited for the fireworks.

We had reached there at around 7.30pm but only caught a few short bursts of fireworks until 8.15pm, when the ‘main course’ was served. Before then, we were having fun playing with Darius as he walked around us in circles on the grass patch. He seemed to be in a good mood as he knew we were all waiting and anticipating for something to happen. ^^

When the fireworks began though, Darius jumped in shock at every thunderous sound from the explosion. He started crying in fear, wailing and wailing. I held him close and walked around a bit while chanting ‘Boom Boom Boom, Mr Brown is a Wonder. Boom Boom Boom, Mr Brown Makes Thunder!’ from Dr. Seuss’ Mr Brown Can Moo, Can You? book, which Darius was very familiar with. That’s what Catherine and I did to calm him down too whenever he was frightened by thunder during rain.

Fireworks will be shot from 9 locations this National Day at the Marina Bay area

Although he continued to sob throughout the display, Darius kept turning back to look at the fireworks in curiosity and was quite bedazzled by their beauty. Ha ha… He just couldn’t resist being a kaypoh (i.e. busbody) on what’s happening. ^^

Towards the end, the fireworks came out continuously and were sooo HUGE that they seemed to be just right in front of us, covering the entire sky and everybody kept screaming out with joy.

What a beautiful night sky we had witnessed...

After the 5-minute fireworks display, we started to make our way home after Darius had calmed down and returned to his usual happy self.

Although we knew there would be more spectacular fireworks on 31st July 10 (Preview parade) and 9th August 10 (actual National Day), we doubt we would be coming back, one of the reasons not wanting to put Darius through another round of ‘misery’. ^^|

Besides the stunning display of fireworks, we were also glad we had made a fruitful trip and got most of the books we wanted for Darius!

Related posts:

1. Usborne Books Bought new books for Dar when we passed by the...
2. Trip to The Helix and Marina Bay Sands Since the opening of The Helix leading to the Marina...