trippingdifferently

That’s right Spring Forwards – daylights savings change over – we went forward 1 hour last night. So it is OFFICIAL – Spring Is Here!
Actually my Swiss calendar says that Spring’s official arrival was last weekend & this weekend we move the clocks forwards.

Here’s a little picture of lovely pink blossoms to welcome spring (taken with my Palm One):
This is one the many trees now in bloom which we walk pass each morning going to kindergarten.

Here’s a little Swiss German saying about the weather:
"April, April, Sie macht, was sie will"
Translated:
"April, April, she will do what she wants to"

This saying is so very very true: the Spring weather has been a little crazy lately & it looks to continue to be for a while.
Temps have been swinging up & down between above 15 degrees & the 5 degrees region – changing from week to week – last week was lovely, sunny & warm, above 15 even reaching high 20s & this coming week it looks like it’s going to be rain & drop to below 10.

April Showers here we come 😉
syc

HiHI
i’m back – trying to get back into the world of blogging – i have been sucked into the world of "Hubby-Travels-All-The-Time-For-Work", "Being-Mummy-&-Homemaker", "Book-Reseller", "Dealing-With-IMPT-Decisions", "Escape-To-FB" & did i mention "Hubby-Working-Lots" world…

Anyhow, that’s the back story to why, how come we went to Canada in the middle of February & left our blog starving…

Ok that was melodramatic… thot i needed to make something of our long absence from blogsphere…

Yes so we did go to Canada – Toronto, to be specific. Walter had been away every week in January & the company was sending him for an extended period during the February 2-week Sports Vacation – so he asked if we could go along & they said yes 😀 So 4 days after Walter left, Tobias & myself packed our bags & joined him on 11th Feb for 9 days in Toronto, Canada…

Why do i keep repeating Canada? Well, cos it has been the talk of the town since the Winter Olympics was just held there & since they won 14 gold medals on home soil!!! Well Done Canada!!! (No i’m not Canadian & not likely to become one either in the near future – don’t qualifiy)

So back to our Toronto trip – it was nice! We got to visit friends (actually stayed with them for the Chinese New Year weekend) & i finally got to see my cousin, Kelvin, after donkeys of years. He went there to get his degree & never came back – well, he had returned to Singapore for visits but not often & in the last 10 years or so, i’ve always missed his visits – so it was a good time catching up. His 2 boys are soooo big now – Tobias had great fun playing Wii with them. Here’s a photo of the 3 of them, engrossed in the game while my cousin takes a nap 😉

We celebrated Chinese New Year (sort of celebrated) with The Wongs – our friends (former pastoral family) from Singapore – they kindly took us in for the weekend. We had yummy steamboat Chinese New Year Dinner! Then as it was Family Day the Monday after – we went to the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) with them to see this guy talk about Dinosaur Poop! That’s right – he even wrote a book about it. It was a very interesting talk/presentation (aimed at children) but Tobias really isn’t into dinosaurs – not in the big way which Dan (our friends’ son) is. Here’s a photo of all the kids at the Wong’s (didn’t remember to get out the camera more – too busy catching up ;p )

We had our fill of Asian food while there – we had Chinese, Japanese, Korean & even Singaporean food – my cousin showed me where there was a Singapore Restaurant, called Lion City, near our hotel! It was good – so great to have yummy, delicious, can’t-get-here food, especially since we have pushed our annual trip to Singapore back to July (school holidays are longer then).

Oh A Special Thank You to the Wongs for watching Tobias while Walter & myself had a nice Korean dinner out on Valentine’s Day – which was also Chinese New Year 1st Day.

There is only one complain i have – the bus/subway system is terrible there – ok maybe it’s not that terrible once you understand how it works but it is nowhere near as good as here or even Singapore. My major frustration was that most bus stops don’t tell you what buses stop there – no indication of the bus numbers at all! There are a few major buses stops which show what numbers stop there & what’s their end destination but it really doesn’t help a tourist. Ok maybe it’s just in the suburbs – we were in the area near to the airport – that’s where the office of the customer is. But i asked around & they say unless it’s downtown Toronto, you’ll have to drive – so if you ever plan on visiting & traveling outside of Toronto (even to the suburbs), rent a car! Here’s a picture of the bus stop next to our hotel, just to show you what i mean:

(See that little orange sigh, attached to the pole? That’s the bus stop! & that’s Tobias doing his "Stop-the-bus" hand signal.)

We did rent a car but Walter used it for work – so i said we would bus or train it – thinking how hard can it be – some people have to take public transport, right? Well, the hotel staff had no clue how to take a bus & had to even search in a back room cupboard for a bus guide/map for me. The 1st day, Tobias & myself, walked 20mins to get to the rail station, only to find out that we can’t take the rail into the little town centre (not downtown Toronto) of the area we were in. The bus i thought we could take only ran perk hours. The rail staff directed us to walk another 40mins to the bus terminal to catch the bus into the town centre. But the "good" news is that by our last day there i had figured out the bus system (at least from our hotel) & was able to get into the town centre in 1 hour with minimal walking 😀

But it was all good experience – at least now i sort of understand their system & if we are ever there again, i know what i’m doing.

Oh oh i nearly left out our very very eventful flight to Tornoto.

We left in good time to get to the airport & then found a super long queue at the check-in counter – there was a whole row of counters but only 3 were opened! So it took us longer than expected to get checked-in. We sort of rushed to the gate, only to find out that boarding had been delayed. Technical difficulties on the plane. Then we finally boarded. The plane backed out of the gate & then simply stopped there for quite a long time. When we started moving again, the captain explained that the plane in front of us had technical difficulties & could not move so neither could we & because of this delay we had lost our place in the de-icing queue & had to re-queue. (Tobias did have a good time watching the de-icing)

So we left late, very late. We flew Swiss to Toronto but had to catch a connection in Montreal. i was concerned about catching the connection but was told more infor would be available nearer our arrival in Montreal. Upon arrival at Montreal, they said all connections at 5pm & after are ok. That’s us. But with having to collect the bags & the bottle-neck getting out of the baggage area, we got to the connection counter with 30mins to flight. Got told by one lady we would have to get on another flight – got told by the next lady, we should be able to make it if we ran – so we threw our bags onto the belt & ran for it. Got to the security check only to encounter another super long line – security personnel at the end of the lines would not let me through & said i had to queue. A kind gentleman told us that they were calling for people with connecting flights earlier – we went to the top of the line & asked. This lovely man (apparently the chief security personnel) stopped the queue, looked for the shortest line & sent us through. They still took a while to scan our hand luggage & then we ran & ran… Tobias was a real sport – he was tried & asked to stop but i said we would miss our plane & he just picked up & ran some more – sooooo proud of him!! We made it! But our bags didn’t so had to wait an hour in Toronto for our bags – sigh!

Here are a few more photos to round off this post:

(Tobias looking up at the tall ceiling in the Town Hall)

(View from our hotel)

(University Of Toronto School – apparently only really super smart people get to go here)

The other "big" thing was that Tobias got to watch his 1st cinema movie – 1st time in a cinema to watch a movie – he picked to watch Alvin & the Chipmunks – The Squeakquel.

(Opposite Square One, where the cinema was)

Did i like Toronto? Hate to say – i didn’t really get to explore much of the city, saw a few things only in brief. We mainly stayed in the area our hotel was in (Mississauga) & visited people & not places. One interesting place was the Playdium – a big arcade/games place which Tobias loved. There was that big mega mall – Square One. Oh there was also the Dixie Outlet Mall – worth a visit if you are after a bargain. On the one hand, i’m not much into big cities & i’m so spoilt by all the lovely architecture here – big cities just don’t have that architectural aspect. On the other hand, it is a city i would visit again – there are some interesting spots i wanna check out next time – especially the museums & china town.

syc

This is 2009/2010 Christmas/NewYear Letter
——————————————
Hi there,
It’s the 15th day of the 1st month of the year 2010… a new year… a new decade… about 5% of the year has gone by or so I have been told… & I still find it strange to write 2010 instead of 2009.

Well, this is the Yoongz’ Christmas (slash) New Year’s letter. So why did this Christmas letter not make it for Christmas? Well, it was as usual a busy time & this year was extra busy & extra special – Sandra’s parents & brother were here for 3 weeks – over Christmas & New Year. & we really wanted to include their visit as part of our Christmas letter to you.

Now 2009 was a year of changes for us. There were 2 major changes – we moved & Tobias started Kindergarten.

That’s right we moved to a new apartment – not far from our last one – just the next block in fact! It is a small more space-efficient apartment with a better view. Why?-you ask. Well, in March 2009, Walter was given the heads-up that the company isn’t doing well & employees may have to take a pay-cut in the second half of the year. So we decided that rather than wait for it to happen, we will be pro-active & start cutting back on some expenses. The major expense for us was our lovely big rented apartment. So we gave the required 3-months notice & started looking for somewhere else – a smaller place. We looked for a long while, not finding anything suitable. By the end of May, we were still looking & we had to move out by the end of June – God helped us – He did indeed – in a week we got a place & it was just the next block! Which means we got to stay in the neighbourhood we like & Tobias can keep the friends he made. But there was a glitch – the website ad had the incorrect move-in date – the correct move-in date was a month later than specified. A month too late for us – but God worked it all out – because the whole quartier was run by the same agency, the lady-in-charge simply said that we could stay in our old apartment till the new one became available. The move went well – we had lots of friends came help – which we are so grateful for. The last time we moved the company paid for movers & cleaners (they were taking Walter away on a business trip during our move) so I just packed & unpacked. This time we did everything ourselves. It all went great! Thank God. For those of you who don’t or never have lived in Switzerland, when you give back your old apartment, you can’t just up & go – you have to clean it very well, leaving it the way you found it or even better. Over here, expats say that the apartment has to be “Swiss Clean”!

So how do we like our new place? Very much, thank you. It’s on the 2nd floor (according to the Swiss way of counting) – so it’s the 3rd apartment up, & we ‘tower’ over the terrace houses in front of us & get a lovely view of the mountains. At our old apartment, it was the ground floor & did have a lovely view when we 1st moved in there but they started lots of construction in front of us & the view is now mostly blocked. So we got our view back. The one drawback is that there is no lift. It took some getting used to when dragging shopping up 3 flights. We still have 3 bedrooms but now we have an open concept living/dining/kitchen area. It’s enough space & in fact the open kitchen seems to have more work-top space, much to Sandra’s delight. Of cos, less cleaning to do – hehehhe 😉
The picture shows what the view looks like from our balcony now. Sorry don’t have pictures yet of the interior – still working on it.

Well, we moved on the 1st of August 2009 & Tobias started Kindergarten on 10th of August 2009. He had been excited to start Kindergarten ever since we received the notification in January of 2009. Then he started counting down the days after we went for the Introduction Day in June. Each child was given a lovely paper fish & a box of colourful dots to help them count day till the 1st day of school. Each dot is a scale for the fish & also represents a day. They are to paste 1 dot everyday & when they have pasted the last dot, it would be time to start Kindergarten. What a lovely idea! They also got to print scales on their cushion cover that day. They started with the theme Fish – needless to say, Tobias was & is still now obsessed (ok, maybe that’s putting it a little too strong) with fish & all things sealife related. So much so he now has his own digital fish tank on Sandra’s Facebook account.
Anyhow, Tobias is enjoying Kindergarten. He doesn’t mind the having to wake up early to go 3 mornings a week. He goes for 3.5hrs and also 1.5hrs on Tuesday afternoons. He likes his teachers & his friends. Over here, all the kids in the village go to the same school & this school has 3 Kindergarten classes. Each Kindergarten is in a different building & each kid is assigned the one closest to his home. So all the kids in our neighbour go to the same Kindergarten, everyone waits for each other on the corner of our street & walk to school together. It’s great!
Here Tobias is all decked out in his rain gear on the 1st day of school.

The last major event for us was Sandra’s parents & brother visiting us over the Christmas & New Year period. They arrived on the 13th of Dec & stayed 3 weeks. It was nice that they got a chance to walk Tobias to school, meet some of his friends as well as do the regular stuff like grocery shopping, hanging around the house, playing games with Tobias. They also got to decorate a real Christmas tree. But the highlight for them was that it snowed! It had not snowed that much at out level since our 1st winter here which was 7 years ago. They enjoyed it very much, although they did find putting on the layers of clothes to keep warm a hassle. We also spend 3 days up in the ski resort of Murren. Sandra’s parents did some walking around while her brother tried his hand at snow-boarding. We also visited the Stuttgart Christmas Market – it was lovely but freezing cold (-16C) when we were there. Every hour spent outside had to be followed by some refuge in a building. We covered the major tourist stuff as well. Here is all of us in front of the tree (picture is a little over exposed).

So that was 2009 for us. We look forward to 2010 with much hope & expectations.
Do stay in touch & let us know what is happening for you & your loved ones.
From the Yoongz – Wishing you & your family lots of love & may your dreams come true.
15/01/2010