Computer Geeks

The kids have a 3-week break from school for Chinese New Year. One day they managed to convince their dad to let them have a go on his laptop to play some of the online games on The Wiggles website. I was just so surprised to come into our lounge and seeing them playing the games online and knowing how to use the mousepad and pressing the right keys! I don't know if this is advanced for their age or if there are other kids who knows their way around the computers at this age. Both Samuel and Audrey has mostly watched Daddy navigate the site and they've mostly pointed at the answers. But that day, was just a shock for me.

You can see how Samuel was so happy to have solved the The Big Red Car puzzle! Daddy has decided to set up our old Mac for him to play on The Wiggles site's games. Daddy also installed a CD-ROM we bought a while ago which contains The Wiggles interactive games.

Shanghai Zoo

Today, we decided to check out the Shanghai Zoo which a friend of ours mentioned was an okay place to visit. As it was Chinese New Year, we thought that there should be less people out (traditionally, families get together during the first 3 days of the Chinese New Year holidays). But we got the shock of seeing the place almost packed with people from the provinces with the same plan as we did.

My past experiences with zoos in China has left me very disenchanted and rather depressed as all the zoos I'd gone to before, has animals kept in small cages and are not treated properly. I had this illusion that with Shanghai's rapid progress and modernization that these places would have also been upgraded.

(sigh!) I was wrong! It was rather depressing showing the kids the way the animals lived esp. as this was their first visit to a zoo... maybe they will forget this experience,or maybe not. But what we saw were filthy animal pens, a cheetah who's probably gone crazy pacing back and forth this tiny space, elephants tied up in chains inside this big building with filth everywhere and little light (and even people going inside kept remarking how the place stunk), rubbish everywhere, people spitting and throwing rubbish into the animals' pens, and more. We just cannot believe at what we had experienced that day.


The only thing that the kids enjoyed was getting inside this bouncy 'castle', which by the way, we had to pay to get inside and jump around for 30 minutes for RMB 20 each. The upside was this was not crowded like all the other places because if the extra cost to play inside.

The trip just was so depressing that I long and wish I could take the kids to the fantastic zoos I've been to before like the one in Singapore or in Sydney. Those were unforgettable experiences. Okay, the Shanghai Zoo is also an unforgettable experience as well as a regrettable one.

Disney On Ice: Princess Wishes

For the first time, we managed to get to see Disney on Ice and this year, they were featuring the Disney Princesses which is quite hot with the little girls these days. Mine is not an exception. She's so into the Princesses.

Anyways, we went to an early morning show. There was quite a crowd even if it wasn't completely packed. But hey, they were doing almost 3 shows a day for 4 days! We went to the show with our neighbour whose kids are almost same age as ours.

The show was great and I think both the little boys and little girls in our group enjoyed it tremendously. They all knew the names of the Princesses. The show was also well-put together. Hope that they come to town again in 2009...

The only drawback was it was freezing cold! inside the gymnasium!!! We couldn't even take our coats off with the cold indoors and outdoors.