switzerland – Page 13 – trippingdifferently

June 23, 2014

Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate…

A few weeks ago, we visited the Frey Chocolate Factory with some friends and had a wonderful time.

Now we have visited a few chocolate factories already – all throughout Switzerland but this one has to be my favourite!

For me and for the boy, it was probably the most comprehensive journey through the entire chocolate production process, from the cocoa beans to yummy dark brown bars of chocolate, which we all love.

Each group of visitors was given a batch name and can enter the factory when your batch was called – ours was named Lucky 🙂 We each received a headset attached to a device which gave us a choice of languages and all we had to do to listen to the description of a particular exhibit is to point the device at the infra-red spot and push the button.

Most of the exhibits have a hands-on part. One of my favourites is this one which shows chocolate packaging design through the years, from the 1900s onwards. We could also take home a sample of the current packaging of one of their current popular chocolate.

There was also a cute giant box of chocolate where people could get in, dress up as a praline and take photos.

The kids liked the little digital game where they threw bars of chocolate via a motion detector.

And no visit to a chocolate factory would be complete without the tasting of the delicious brown stuff 😉 There was a whole conveyor belt full, along with 2 chocolate fountains where you can cover fruits with liquid brown gold – YUM!

i did not order it but there was the option get a photo of yourselves taken and printed on a chocolate bar. There was also a short quiz on a computer we could take to find out our chocolate type. We each got a computer print-out of the results and a custom chocolate recipe for our chocolate type.

Tobias got The Stylish and a Chocolate Cupcake recipe. i got The Curious Gourmet and a recipe for Fig and Chilli Chocolates 😉

There was one down side – they played this video which was screened on their big wall in the room about every 20 minutes or so and that messed up things if you were in the middle of listening to an exhibit.

Other than that, it was a great visit. i highly recommend visiting the Frey Chocolate Factory. The plus is that all their chocolates are fair-trade!

syc

June 14, 2014

Memories…

Over the last few months, there have been little things that have happened and events/places we have been to, which i want to remember and would have loved for each of these to have a blog-post each… but life took over and those posts never got written. Besides, some are really small things and others have already passed so i thought i put them all into one big photo post.

So here are some memories from our last few months:

Some time in February, Tobias decided that he would attempt to finish an entire Subway Foot-long Sandwich (a whole 30 centimeters of bread and fillings). He has tried a few times since but has not been successful. It doesn’t matter whether he did or did not finish that huge sandwich; what was important is that he tried and it was fun watching him try 😉

Sticking with the food theme, we found a new Sushi place to eat at. Now if you know have known us (in real life) for some time, you would have been told at some point that our boy is a Sushi-Monster! He LOVES Sushi!! So this is a big thing. Yooji’s serves great sushi and it’s a conveyor-belt system which my boy adores. The other attraction is the tablet ordering-system – very modern, complete with little games and internet access to entertain you while you wait for your food. The only problem is how expensive it is to eat there, especially when he can finish an average of seven plates by himself!

At the beginning of March, Tobias started going to Chinese class again. We had him in one class when he was in Kindergarten but that closed after a year or two due to a lack of students. Now his best friend and his best friend’s brother are going to one, he has decided to join them, which is fabulous. Unfortunately, it is a fair drive to get to class and now the other parents who share the driving have found another teacher much closer so it looks like we will continue with classes but with another teacher.

After the Sportsferien (Sports Holiday in February), Tobias picked up Unihockey (floor-ball) and is loving it. None of his friends play this sport but it doesn’t matter, he enjoys it and is making new friends on the team.

Daddy’s birthday should have gotten a blog post all its own BUT… we had to celebrated it belated and then life got busy. So here’s our little celebration at home with the 6-minute Chocolate Cake.

We got invited to a Swiss-American wedding! This was special because we got invited to the dinner, which is a first for us. We got to see how a Swiss wedding dinner works from beginning to end – so very different from ours. It was all about having fun – my kind of wedding! There were games and lots of laughter and conversation; it was a long long fun-filled event – we left early (close to 11pm). We really enjoyed ourselves and it was an excuse to see the lovely city of St Gallen. i’m not posting a picture of the couple because i don’t have permission and because i couldn’t get good pictures. So i’m posting a picture of the very lovely homemade table decorations – i really liked them!

So this year’s English League Premiership saw Liverpool, my husband’s beloved team, having a real shot at winning the cup. Which is the reason why Tobias and i left him with his friends in a pub one Sunday afternoon and went to a small Medieval Festival in Luzern. We enjoyed the sunshine while walking around the stalls. Tobias got to work with a blacksmith and hammered out a small horseshoe.

A highlight for Tobias in April was getting to play the Cajón during worship at church. He has been asking and asking to be allowed to play with Daddy during worship and he finally got to do it. He was thrilled so was i and i’m so proud!

Like a true Singaporean, i bring you back to the food. We (husband and i) got to eat at a small family-run Vietnamese restaurant in Liebefeld, Bern, (Pho Saigon) directly opposite the chinese grocery shop. They serve authentic Vietnamese food and we love it and will definitely be back for more.

Last but not least, we have been living in renovations since the start of May. The real-estate company which owns our quartier has decided it is time to renovate the facade of our building. So the scaffolding went up and will stay up till the middle of July. Tobias was really excited cos he could open his window and walk directly onto the scaffolding. Of course, that idea was met with much disapproval.

Yes much has happened. Looking forward to a quiet summer holiday – is that possible?

syc

April 23, 2014

Back At Work???…

Yep, this time the word ‘Work’ is referring to employment…

Well, not exactly – not yet… i’m doing my internship for my playgroup/childcare course – unpaid, of course. But from now till Autumn, at least, i’ll be spending my Tuesday mornings with 7 adorable, always active, mostly loud, sometimes difficult boys of 3 to 4 years old.

My very first morning was yesterday and what an eventful first morning it was.

backatwork20140423 — See that beige little house – that’s where the playgroup is. Doesn’t look like much but it’s quite nice inside…

i got there nice and early, only to find out that on Tuesdays the lady in charge (Monica) doesn’t come in very early. She arrived just 15 minutes before the playgroup was due to start. She says on Tuesdays, the kids tend to arrive right on time or a little late so no rush. She is really laid-back, both with the running of the playgroup and in her interaction with the parents.

It all started well. i was not a stranger to the boys. i had visited their group last October when i was just observing different types of childcare situations. But one of the boys’ mother just had a baby and he was not wanting to leave his mummy that morning. So Monica convinced him (let’s call him M) to wave bye at the window, while his mother promises to come pick him up very soon.

So like i said before, Monica is quite laid-back with the running of the morning. No big timetable to follow, no planned craft to do – unlike playgroups i hear about back in my home country.

We gather the boys, sing a couple of songs and then they are off to play. One of the boys, J, kept wanting to have snack and dragged his backpack around with him, asking if anyone wants to eat. We ended up having an early snack. A couple of the boys weren’t ready for snack just yet and we left them to play. They joined us quite quickly when they realised everyone was sitting down to eat without them.

They all bring their own snack and are really good with sharing their food with others. They do lots of food exchanges – i was very amused. A couple of the boys finished early – one of them was M.

M went off to play with R just round the corner from our snack table. The others were still eating so we stayed with them. i popped my head around to tell them playing around the big tables is not a good idea. The room is a shared facility with the Lunch-table for older kids so there are much bigger tables in the big room. i go back to the snack table and almost as soon as my head was turned we heard a loud BANG and then crying.

M had fallen. i suspect he was trying to swing between 2 big tables. i have done that in my childhood days and broken my tooth. He had a big bump on his forehead and his upper lip was bleeding. i picked him up and handed him to Monica. While she took care of him, i got the other kids to finish up their snack, go to the next room to play while i cleaned up the snack table.

M won’t let her even put a cold pack on his bump and the only thing which calmed him down was dialing his mother’s mobile on Monica’s phone. It wasn’t serious but Monica had to carry him the whole time till just 5 minutes before the end.

We tried to get everyone back to the circle to sing a few songs before the end but they were all so distracted by the incident. The mums arrived early and it was all good.

So i was super nervous about this first morning and now that it’s over, i’m looking forward to next Tuesday and i think i will enjoy these Tuesday mornings with the boys 😉

syc