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Originally posted 2010-01-05 13:14:31. My dad’s talked about this since the early 90′s: Of bringing the whole extended family for a visit to his hometown (more like village). Not that we minded the idea. Back then we only loathed about … Continue reading
So some of you know that I had been planning this trip for a while. After all, when you have an annual privilege like this from work, it’d be a waste not to use it, wouldn’t it? 
So a few months ago I asked Hot Mummee where we should go with these free tickets. “Gotta save money lah, impending recession, you know..”
The long and short of it? I went ahead with the planning without her. I decided to bring Caitlin along to Adelaide, where I went to uni, where Hot Mummee wouldn’t be interested in coming anyway, and where (thus, since it was only going to be an adult and a half) I was able to crash at a uni friend’s house. Yes recession may be coming, but this trip is looking pretty cheap!
So, last night we set out for the flight. This was all quite familiar to Caitlin already, after having flown to Australia twice before already, within weeks of her 2nd and 3rd birthdays, and now her 4th birthday!
The train ride was fun, as expected. We didn’t have that much time in the terminal to run around like the last time, due to pretty-ok-thus-little-buffer-time planning during that evening.
As soon as we got on the plane Caitlin was asking for the headphones already! “I wanna watch Bob the Builder!” She was quite right, Bob the Builder was listed as one of the program on the kids channel. But it was only 1 episode. In the end, she ended up watching Finding Nemo, twice.
Which also means that she didn’t actually sleep that much. I guess a little like her Daddee, she was trying to savour every moment of the holiday by staying awake as much as possible. But being an overnight flight, this wasn’t something I had wanted, because it will mean that we’d be wasting the following fullday trying to recuperate from the lack of sleep. And I had forgotten to ensure that she didn’t have her afternoon nap the afternoon of the overnight flight.
Which was what we ended up doing, because Caitlin only managed about 3 hours sleep, and I even less. But you wouldn’t know it if you saw her in the Adelaide international airport. She was jumping and running and giggling all the way!
Just as well for the time difference. She knocked out at her usual Malaysian afternoon nap time, which was around late morning Adelaide time. So, come night time, she’d be adjusted to sane local sleeping times.
Which she is now asleep soundly as I type…
Tonight, with my uni friend we went to Fasta Pasta. Those of you who thought this sounds familiar is because these are the same guys who ventured into Malaysia at Ikano years ago. It’s quite a big franchise here in South Australia, and the menu is still the way I liked it when I was at uni here over a decade ago….
So, after spending a day here, these are the things I forgot to bring! (ie, as of today!)
The place where I work has recently just launched a blogsite. To out knowledge, there’s only one other company in our industry that has a blogsite. So, we are kinda proud!
And naturally, I am one of the blog contributors ;D
I wrote this one recently, and thought to share it here too. It may not have much to do about my own experience in parenting and kids, but; well, I’ll let you read it yourself…. Let me know what you think?
The thread that strings the chapters of my life..
I thought I heard Pa mention we were going to fly back to KL. I think we drove up in the car that was meant for his site engineer’s use. I am going to fly to meet Oscar (Goldman) who will brief me on my next exciting mission, to fight the bad guys again, to rid the world of such malice. I will show up in my smartest clothes of giant collared shirt and bell bottoms, man. Oh boy wait till I tell my school friends about this! I will still remain cool even though this is my first ever aeroplane trip; I will listen to my Pa and Kor-kor and remain seated even though the aeroplane has landed but still driving… I wonder why Kor-kor kept looking at this slim girl in uniform; the one who was serving the hot drinks, the one that other uncles near me were also constantly looking… Ee-yer, the stairs coming down from the aeroplane was so steep, but I shouldn’t complain- Steve Austin wouldn’t complain.
“Here, let me pin this on you….” He said, and then leads me to get my passport stamped, by this man in uniform sitting in a very tall counter. I am alone, wearing only my backpack, going to visit my jie-jie in Singapore. It’s the school holidays, you see…. Then he leads me to this big room full of people. We walk towards a counter infront of another door that leads somewhere, and asked me to sit here and wait, and speaks to another man that was behind the counter, and leaves. Later, the second man asks me to follow him; everyone else in the room was still sitting and waiting. I follow the second man through this door, and down this tube towards the aeroplane… After we land, another man comes to me, looks at the pin on my shirt, and asks me to follow him. We walk into another big structure, passing his friend also in uniform, who said “kid’s stuff, eh?” and they both chuckled a little. Yeah, like I don’t understand you are talking about me… We come to this big glass door, and he asks if I recognise.. Ah, there’s jie-jie there, waving….
I am going to be away from home for a long time. Mummy and I flew to Singapore first, for me to catch another flight to Sydney. We are to meet a friend who is on the same flight, in the same boarding school I will be attending. The flights’ timing meant that Mummy didn’t need to exit the terminal, only enough to see me to my departure gate, and she can then board another plane heading home. I will always remember the sight of her walking away from me, after saying goodbye, after trying to hide the tears welling in her eyes. I watched as she started walking away; watched until she couldn’t be seen anymore. She didn’t turn around at all. I know why. I wished she did. But I wished she didn’t. And I am glad she didn’t….
Holidays. I love them. Especially year end ones when I can go home! What’s an 8 hours flight when we have something like 7 weeks of absolutely nothing to do? Oh look- the magazine says “Back to the Future” is going to be on on this flight! Now if only those window passengers would close their shutters so that we can all watch the screen infront, and “Miss, can you ask that passenger 2 rows infront of me to recline his seat? I can’t see the screen, and it’s about to start….” At least they are giving out wired speaker headphones these days, and I hope it’s that crew who will be serving me- she’s kinda hot…
“You nervous, honey?”
“Yeah- do you think your parents will like me?”
“Of course they will…”
“…..”
“Just try and relax; hey look, at least now we have our own screens and you can watch that chick-flick you wanted to watch..” Thank goodness- I was never interested in that movie!
“Headset for you, sir?”
“No thanks…” I don’t feel like it. I am going back for a family funeral….
“How was the flight back, dear?”
“Good; even though we got a bassinet, baby didn’t like it, so I held him most of the time…. The crew was very helpful and understanding.. The flight wasn’t the nightmare I thought it might be with an infant… ”
“Oh, by the way, I will be going on a company trip.”
“Cool, where are you going?”
“Istanbul and Sydney. We are going there as part of the evaluation, as part of our tendering selection process”
“Wah… ”
“And did you know that managers get to fly first class?”
“WAH! No wonder you guys are losing money!”
“No, not really. The plane is flying anyway. We take those seats only if they are unsold….”
“I guess.. First class. I am so jealous…”
“Hey sweetie, wanna go to Sydney and visit Mummee?”
“Yay Daddee! We are going to Australia!”
Okay, now how do I keep a 3 year old entertained on board, and would sleep through the whole journey?“
Posted in Adventures, Education, milestones, Prequels
Tagged chapters, firsts, flight, growing up, long haul
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As you know, I had recently brought Caitlin to Sydney for Christmas. Mummee was already there in Sydney- Yes, I flew with a 3 yr old alone! She’s been to Sydney once before when she was 2. So for this … Continue reading
