Likely to be Park Apartments?

Just got news from Hubby that his HR screwed up again with the paperwork for our apartment. When will they ever tell us the rights things to do without us going in circles. Anyways, most likely we are going to stay in Park Apartments. A nice apartment too. Hopefully we can get it approved this time round. If approved, my dear relatives will have lots of room to stay.

Study Room

Kitchen (hope I can do lots of baking and cooking here)

MBR

Dining Room

Living Room

A Sense of Guilt

I have been feeling guilty towards Lezane and Kyla for not spending time with them over the weekends. For the past 2 mths of weekends, I have 'conveniently' put them with my in-laws as I need to buy things and pack things for the relocation. During week days, after work, I am always constantly in a rush to clean the house, do laundry, feed the kids, put them to bed and left with very little time to do any activities with them. At the very most, I can only read to the kids before bed time. It has been eons since I did artwork, lapbooks, etc with Kyla or even bring both out to shop/play. Most of the time, I left her to do unstructured arts and crafts by herself while i tidy up the house. She seemed ok with it but to me, this is all not very healthy for them and I. Well for lezane, he is never ever ready to sitting down with me to do structured activities, so I think he is just happy running about, beating his drums and hurling things around the house.

I am also feeling bad towards my mother in law who is 24/7 with them. She too hardly rests during this period of relocation, she doesn't have much time left for her housework and sewing business. She is indeed a very dedicated grandmother to my kids. I really cannot ask for more.

Really hope that once we have settled down in the new place, all things will fall nicely in place- with my in-laws having the time to do the things they want and not be tied down with my kids, and my kids enjoying their new home, new friends, new school and not forgetting that Weikai will like his job better.

Curry Boy

My little boy is liking spicy stuff just like his mummy, me. The last two nights, I had curry chicken rice and korean noodles for dinner. Lezane came up to me asking me for my food. I gave him a try and guess what - he came back asking for more, without any change of expression to indicate whether it is hot (unlike kyla who just uses her tip of her tongue to touch and ran to the kitchen for water). I must try to capture him on video, slurping up the korean noodles. Very adorable boy...

First Class Recce Trip To Beijing

My virgin trip to Beijing was on SQ 805 First Class seats. It was a very comfortable and enjoyable 6 hrs ride with the entire cabin for us only (but it gets kind of awkward as the attention was solely on us). Upon my insistence, Weikai reluctantly took photos for me on board to document my first virgin first class flight. I sneakily took a picture of him without flash too.

This trip to Beijing was mainly to source for a suitable accommodation for my family and to recce around what is /is not available in Beijing. Finally, after looking at 8-10 houses in a day, I have decided to stay at Liang Ma Qiao Diplomatic Residence Compounds at Sanyuanqiao [crossing my fingers now that his company will approve of the apartment.]. It is a new, modest 2 br + 1 study room apartment.

One thing I do not fancy about Beijing is the climate. The air is very dry and very dusty. Every car that passed by were covered with a layer of dust. Just only a short stay of 4 days, I came back with patchy and itchy skin and a bad throat. Just praying hard that Kyla n Lezane will be fit enough for such weather.

For school, I have also decided to enroll the kids into The Children House at Lufthansa Centre which is 10-15 min walk from our new home.

I am very glad that I managed to meet up with fellow Singaporean friends during this trip. It is/was a great feeling to know that I know some familiar faces in a very unfamiliar foreign land. It makes the relocation much easier and happier. Hope we can catch up more when I am in Beijing.

Resetting to Zero

We are going to shift to the land of Great Wall in less than a month's time soon. I am starting to wonder again if we had made the right decision to lead a 'normadic' life for the years to come.

Initially, the idea of living abroad sounds really exciting and interesting compared to the 'routine' life we had in Singapore. But as I started to prepare for our shift, I was thrown into a state of confused mind...

Our kids will have to constantly build and break friendships, switching schools (and at times likely to miss a couple of months of school), being 'forced' to adapting to new environment (be it in a liveable or non-liveable country)...Yes it is good exposure to them but is that what they want???Thankfully, now that my kids are still young and they have not grasped the concept of relocation- to them, it is like going to another place for a really long holiday. But there will come a point in time (around 10-11 yrs old, where they have their own mind) they will start to question me... "Mum, why are we leaving again... can we don't leave... I don't want to leave". or maybe by then, they are so used to moving around and cant wish to move each time.... :-)

A switch from a full-time working mum to a full-time housewife is something that I cannot really imagine myself doing right now. My only simple wish (but yet a tall order) for the coming years for myself is that I can be a happy domestic engineer and not one who will nag and grumble at my kids and hubby when things get really tough.

Well something to cheer about now is that due to this relocation, I can get a short 'getaway' with Weikai (without the kids) in a couple of days.