{BUS TRIP}
We asked our lovely "smart" lady at the front desk (who shall be unnamed since I don't want to be the cause of her possibly losing her job) told us that there was only ONE bus that would take us to the Tampines Mall. Yes, we decided to be adventurous today and explore another mall; one with a Toys R Us since I wanted to get the boys their Star Wars Lego.Anywhoo, this front desk lady explicitly told us to go to the bus stop on the LEFT side of the gate. Okay, check. We were there. We waited for about 15-20 minutes and the bus finally came. Check out Lai's pic above. It does say Tampines, yes? So we all excitedly dropped in our coins for the cheap fare (compared to taking a taxi!). When Lai, who was last in line, dropped her S$1 in the box, the stupid driver asked us where we were going. We told him we wanted to go to the Tampines Mall and he looked at us and said that we were on the wrong bus!
He could NOT have missed the fact that we were all tourists. Yes, we stupidly thought it was the correct bus since we were directed to it, but hey! It's my blog and it's my story! Hahahahaha! Anyway, to cut a long story short, we had to get off sans our fare since the stupid bus driver would not return the coins to us. Hmp! He probably pocketed the damn change!
So we crossed the street and waited for the CORRECT bus. And yes, we asked the driver BEFORE we even boarded and dropped in our precious coins! Finally! On the way to Tampines!Forty minutes or so later, we were still on the darn bus, chugging through millions of bus stops through a residential area. Yes, the smart front desk lady assured us that it was only going to be ONE stop! Sheesh!
Of course I spent the time in the bus wisely, snapping pics with my handy dandy cellphone! Hehehehe. Much to the consternation of the kids. But they still smiled for the camera!
{TAMPINES MALL}
As it turned out, the mall was the LAST stop of the bus. Sigh! So we got off and followed the crowd. And they led us to the mall. We were all agog at the newness of the mall. Apparently, everything was new: the mall's opening day was TODAY!!! So much people, so many sales, so little time.
We agreed to meet after about an hour, and off we went our separate ways. Ten minutes later, I got a text message: Coach wanted us at the pool at 12 noon instead of 1:45 pm! What?!?!??? LOL. I looked at my watch and it was 11:15 am. Right. Hurriedly, I texted Lai and Matec about the news. And Raegan and I hurried through the mall in search of Toys R Us. Which was nowhere to be found! Ack!
We were in the WRONG mall! Toys R Us was located in the OLD Tampines Mall. We practically ran through the MTR station to get to the mall and buy the boys' Lego before we woud have to meet up with the others. We got to the meeting point a minute or so after everyone had. Is that stressful or what!
{DIVIDE & CONQUER}
This was the strategy that we swimming mommas came up with. It was the most logical. So:
I would take the 3 kids to the pool, passing by the hotel to get their stuff. Reese was the only one who was wearing her swimsuit.Grabbing everyone's shopping bags, we rushed to the taxi stand and got into a taxi. Thankfully, there was no traffic. As we neared the hotel, I distributed the keys to the kids and told them to dump the shopping bags and grab their swimming stuff as fast as they could. I had barely chit-chatted with the taxi driver when the kids stormed out of the hotel doors with their bags in hand! I swear, it wasn't even a minute when they tumbled out of the cab!
Lai would buy Dic's basketball shoes first.
Matec would buy lunch for all of us, and we would just eat after the kids' practice.
{SINGAPORE SPORTS SCHOOL}
And so we arrived at the race venue. Whoa. It was a huuuge sports complex! I guess the kids here concentrated on their respective sports while studying. There were dorm rooms, gym, a built-in track along the inside of the building! No wasted space for sure!
The rest of the team had just gotten there, too. Barely. They had come from the airport and had only time to check in and leave their bags in the hotel rooms before having to board the bus that would take them to the sports complex. And we thought WE had it bad, hehehehe!The kids were barely in the water when Lai and Matec arrived with food! Not that we ate when the kids were still swimming; we wouldn't hear the end of that, no sirree!
After close to an hour of swimming, the kids were done. A quick shower and we all trooped to the school cafeteria to see what was for (late) lunch and to eat our lunch. Matec and I ordered their lunch. It was a reasonable S$4 for a ton of food, plus juice and a dessert of orange slices. Good thing we did, too, since Raegan and Franco dug into their duck toppings AND then ours! Yikes! Hungry maybe? Heheheh.
Then it was back to the hotel to REST. Like we had a choice. We had to bring the kids to the south for their powwow with Coach Archie later in the evening.
{NEWTON CIRCUS}
Nope, not a circus with a big top and animals. It's a tourist-y place of food, food and more food. It was 7-ish and we were famished. Wrong thing to be when ordering food in a place like this, especially if you're Elizza!
Some pics of our ginormous meal:
This is Elizza, with mouth watering as she gazes into her black-pepppered crab's (dead) eyes:
This is the uber uber YUMMMMMY fried rice that we had. As in! When we ordered it, we put it down in front of Raegan and Reese as Lai and I searched for more food to order. We had barely ordered our other food and sat down to wait, when we saw that the girls had practically INHALED 3/4 of the fried rice!!! So Lai jumped up and got another big order; take note, this big-sized order was supposed to be good for 4-5 people!!!! Ack!!!
And yes, both of us adults almost finished that one extra order of rice!!!! It doesn't look all that great in the pic, but trust me. It was verrrrrry good! Probably with tons of MSG mixed in, hehehehe.
Here's my oyster omelet which I had to have, just like Lai had to have her crabs:
I know, gross looking, but totally yummy!
Last, but not the least, the carnage of our table after our meal:
Blech!It was powwow time for the kids and the team while we swimming mommas waited in the lobby for them.
Home to the hotel, chatted with Japa and the other kiddos for a bit, before falling asleep.
Sooooo stressful, yes? :)
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