Sophie, la girafe

Can't believe Wolfram didn't know Sophie the giraffe....
En Francais:

In English:

Now he has no excuse. 

Baby merchandising

One of the things about expecting a baby is that you keep on getting goodie bags with lots of samples or products to convince you to buy later.

While some might be useful, e.g. lotion and diapers, others I'm not so sure, e.g. CD with music for baby in the womb or milk powder for expecting mothers.

Anyway, here is what we received today when we enrolled in the First Born Incentive program at Thomson Medical Center.

And still smiling during the day

With a call from my parents and surprise flowers from my husband :)

Starting the day with a smile

Thank you Honey!

Noch mehr Fisch!!!

With the haze, we had to change our plans from the zoo, outdoor, to the S.E.A aquarium, indoor. And we were not the only ones. I had the feeling that every family in Singapore was in the aquarium based on the number of families around us. Again, that is our future so better get used to it already.
Putting aside the inconvenience of the crowd, the aquarium was much better than I thought. I expected something small but actually it is quite big and full of fish from the region. They do claim that it's the largest aquarium in the world... but I am usually doubtful when I read such claims in Asia.
Yet, they did have quite some huge fish tanks that impressed me by their size.

As Henrik nicely said running from one fish tank to the other: "Noch mehr Fisch!"

Taj Mahal - Everything is in the details

Symmetry is everywhere even in the smallest details.
Marble has been sculpted and the closer you get to the mausoleum, the more you discover those details.
Truly impressive.

Taj Mahal - The pictures - Side views of the mausoleum

Actually it does not really matter from which side you look at the mausoleum. It's been built to be perfectly symmetrical. From whatever angle you look at it, you should always see the same.

Taj Mahal - The pictures - Shoe covers

To protect the mausoleum, people have to take their shoes off. Well, at least Nationals (i.e. Indians). For Foreigners, we get to keep our shoes and cover them with a white shoe cover. This way you are sure your shoes do not disappear during the visit.

Taj Mahal - The pictures - Mausoleum of Mumtaz Mahal - From the distance

Taj Mahal - The pictures - The Great Gate Darwaza

The haze is not getting better

This morning I woke up to find that the haze is getting worse :(

Luckily yesterday they gave us masks in the office should I want to go out. I have the feeling we will spend most of the day indoor.

Getting ready

We now have a little less than three months to be ready for the arrival of our tadpole and, let's face it, we are far from being ready.

We did a bit of shopping but that's it. We still have to book the hospital, get the room organized, figure out childcare, and many more.

Thus today we started the prenatal classes. We are not really in advance but we are still in time to complete them before I lose sight of my feet.

It was stressful to get there as we landed a bit after 5pm and the class was at 7pm. Yet despite waiting long the luggage, having to wait for the taxi at the airport (10min before peak hours, drivers prefer to wait so they get more money!!!), stopping home just long enough to eat something and start unpacking, we made it on time.

We were there but there was no trainer. 

By 7:15pm I was becoming impatient and annoyed. We tried calling but no one was answering the phone. At 7:20pm, finally someone showed up. Apparently with only three participants, the class would have been cancelled. But no one told us. It's the opposite we all received a sms on Sunday confirming our enrollment to this class. While the woman tried to get her way out of it, she was facing unhappy pregnant women who had not only come all the way there but also made arrangements work wise.

So no, we didn't want to join a class on another day of the week.

And yes, we want to have the class for which we came and paid for.

A bit after 7:30pm, we finally started.

I don't think I learned much today vs. what I had read already in different websites, but the part with the exercises to strengthen our pelvic muscles and stretch our poor pregnant woman body was nice and even fun.

What's not so fun is that apparently I need to do those everyday. Time to get my gym mat out again.

I hope the following sessions will be more interesting. Next week is pain relief. Should be interesting :)

Haze

After several days in India, we flew back today to Singapore. As we landed we noticed that the whole island was covered by an orange fog. Pollution?

Nope.

It's the haze.

People are burning fields and trees in Indonesia and the wind is blowing the smoke towards Singapore. Conclusion it smells burnt everywhere and it's very unpleasant to breathe. 

As advised by the government, we kept the windows closed and turned on the air conditioning in the apartment. We will also limit our outdoor activities.

Apparently it's been already like that for four days. I hope this won't last too long, especially as Claudia, Wolfram's cousin, and her sons arrive tomorrow to visit us. We may not be able to go to the zoo with such poor air quality. What do we do with kids indoor?

Taj Mahal - The first glimpse at it

Having convinced Wolfram to grab the opportunity that we both had to go to New Delhi for work to visit the Taj Mahal, we left for India one day earlier and arranged for a day trip to Agra.

Agra is a bit more than 200 km away from Delhi, which given the driving conditions in India can take anytime between 3 hours and forever. Yet it is possible to go to Agra and come back within one day. It just means a lot of time spent in a car.

For our comfort, especially mine, we booked a private car with driver and guide via the hotel. It would have certainly been cheaper to join a group but 1) we don't like groups and prefer our own pace and 2) travelling in a car is more comfortable than in a bus or a mini van, especially in India.

We arranged the car to leave at 4:30am. Yep, another super early wake up to go sightseeing. It's now a habit. Key reason for that was to arrive at the Taj Mahal as early as possible to limit the crowd and the heat. Ideally we would have liked to be there at sunrise, but this meant being there by 5am which was just too early for us. 

The drive went quite fast as per Indian standards. There was almost no traffic and we arrived in a bit more than three hours. Wolfram had arranged for breakfast from the hotel that we took with us in the car and we were joined by a guide once in Agra.

By 8am, we were all set, tickets and cameras in hands, ready for it.

And here is what we discovered as we walked through the gate...

Simply unbelievable! 

As the guide mentioned, from that distance, it almost look like the mausoleum is flying above the ground. Obviously it's not but it surely gives this impression.

And once we were inside, we saw the mausoleum and its reflection in the water. I know millions of people have taken that picture, but seeing it in real is just not the same. 

Look at this!

I'll add more pictures and more details about our visit later, but I wanted to post a couple of pictures already. Today I was amazed with what I've seen and I wanted to share it!

This trip is my birthday gift from my dear husband. For sure, that's a gift I will not forget. Thanks again for taking me there!

N.B: unfortunately the weather was not great today. It was very cloudy which means grey sky on all the pictures. This said, it made the heat less and therefore it was easier for me to enjoy the visit. We also were very lucky as it started to rain about one hour after we left. Net, there were clouds but it could have been worse if it had rained.

Unusual sales

It's the annual sales in Singapore. All the stores are displaying promotions. Normally I would be very excited, as always when there are sales, but this year it's different. Key reason is that I obviously don't fit in any of the clothes anymore and there is no point buying more maternity clothes. Shopping for me will have to wait next year.

This year however, I dragged Wolfram in a few baby/kids stores so we can start buying baby clothes benefitting of the special offers. It is really weird because its buying for a baby who's not there yet items based on different recommendation. In other words, it's shopping in total unknown of what we really need and whether what we buy is right. Anyway we bought a whole bunch of baby bodysuits and sleep suites covering from 0-3 months to 6-9 months and some t-shirts. Hopefully that's the right thing to get started. 

25 weeks

Growing, kicking, swallowing and even now sucking my thumb.

Hard to believe that Tadpole still needs another three months before coming out.

I wanted one, it will be the other one

We've visited two hospitals for the delivery of tadpole and my gut feel was telling me to choose Mount Alvernia. For some reason, I had a better feeling about that one than Thomson Medical.

This morning we went there to enroll in the prenatal classes. We sent early so we could do it before the appointment with the doctor later that morning. By 9:20am we were in front of the parentcraft center and we found it closed. There was a sign that said someone should be back at some point but no idea when that would be. As we were standing there helplessly, one of the nurses saw us and offered to go and check where the nurse in charge was. 5 minutes later, we were at the nurses counter, with probably the head nurse calling around to find the nurse from the parentcraft center. Once she had been located, she passed me the phone so I could talk to her. She was with a patient and proposed to have the clerk call me on Monday. I can understand that if she is with a patient she cannot come, but what I cannot understand is that the hospital is not capable of having enough staff on the ground to cover their opening hours. Yes I could called and get the info, but I prefer to talk to someone face to face. That's my choice and an option that I can take if I come during their opening hours.

I declined the offer to have someone call me back on Monday and we left. If this hospital cannot staff their parentcraft center, it makes us wonder whether they can staff properly the maternity.

On the way out, Wolfram insisted we talk to someone in charge to complain. Of course that someone was busy and had to be called. The woman at the reception said it would take 5-10min. We waited 7 and told her to get lost. These were not exactly my words, but with the hormones when I get upset, I really lose it completely so I believe I told the receptionist that if they cannot offer the services they claim they have and if this is how they treat people in their hospital, I will never step a foot in it ever again.

I was really upset, so upset it took 30min before my body would calm down. Normally I would have just been annoyed, but thanks to the hormones it turned into drama. One should not upset a pregnant woman. Devil might come out of it :)

Net, we will not go to Mount Alvernia for the classes nor the birth. We will go to Thomson Medical where even if they were spotty when we went there, at least they had enough people around to address our questions. 

I miss Amazon

I miss that I can order whatever I need in a few clicks and get it delivered.

Last night we ordered a whole bunch of things for tadpole (yep, we are starting to get equipped), all of it on Amazon in Europe. It was easy. It was simple. It was stress free. And it was cheaper than in Singapore.

I just don't understand why there is no Amazon in Singapore or any decent online shopping option.

Green Kit Kat

Green tea Kit Kat from Japan.

Looks weird but tastes good.