Long haul + Hot humid weather = Poorly children + Stressed out parents

The flight from Singapore started so well.....

Both Alex and Elliott quickly fell asleep. Despite his aversion to the bassinet on the flight from London, Elliott settled well. However frequent on-off's of the seatbelt sign, resulted in him being moved in and out of the bassinet. It is fair to say he was not impressed. However, poor Alex had it much worse. He had a massive coughing fit mid-flight and managed to cough/vomit an egg-cup full of phlegm. Not pleasant and very upsetting for him.

However, we arrived in Australia safely and managed to get through border controls after being checked for nuts, seeds, soil, food and plant material. Determined to stay awake, we decided on a walk to the Brisbane Central Business District (CBD). It looked lovely, but we were all too exhausted to enjoy it. I had to wake Irmeet up several times during lunch. When it came to dinner, like father-like son, Alex managed to fall asleep with his feet on the floor but his body bent over on the chair. When we woke him up, he jumped up, banging his head on the dinner table (Significant Australia Injury (SAI) No.1).

The next morning Alex woke up with another coughing fit and managed to vomit. He was reluctant to eat and generally a bit off-colour. However, he was not unwell enough to be content in our small serviced apartment. Therefore, we decided to head to the South Bank on the ferry. There have been Australia Day celebrations all weekend. Therefore South Bank was rammed with events and people. South Bank looks lovely with a big man made pool and beach. However it was unbearably hot, reaching 38 oC with extremely high humidity. Alex was exhausted and Elliott would not feed, so we returned home quickly.

Over the last two days, Alex has got steadily better. However, Elliott has developed a fever. Both children have really struggled in the heat. We have been reluctant to push them too hard. Therefore we have limited our activities to necessary jobs, such as opening our bank account and looking for permanent accommodation. Consequently, we have not done much sightseeing. However, what we have seen of Brisbane looks great. I particularly like the public transport via river boats. Going to town on a boat is much more appealing than on a busy Birmingham bus. Alex has continued to injure himself on a regular basis. Whacking his head on a nappy change (SAI No.2). Falling on the bathroom floor (SAI No.3) and most importantly (at least to him) his new crocs causing blisters on his feet (SAI No.4). Pre-blisters, he was showing his crocs off to anyone that would listen. Now "I am never, ever, ever wearing my cric-crocs again".

As I mentioned, Elliott has developed a fever over the last 24 hours. Thankfully, he is feeding well, poo-ing, wee-ing and it responds to antipyretics. However, me and Irmeet have visited local pharmacies on multiple occasions over the last two days. Our Australia medicine cabinet is looking pretty impressive already.

Despite poorly children, stressed parents and Alex's self-injurous behaviour (unintentional), we are really enjoying Australia. A few observations:
- Alex rejects Kelloggs Rice Bubbles, despite Kelloggs Rice Krispies being a firm favourite.
- Tetley tea is "acceptable"
- You can get Heinz baked beans, English recipe. Thankfully, Alex eats them.
- Supermarket food is expensive
- Sushi is everywhere and cheap, yippee!
- Australians like to label all food stuffs as "Aussie", "Aussie milk", "Aussie carrots" etc.
- Australian TV is rubbish, particularly the breakfast news that reminds me of Anchorman.
- Australian CBeebies doesn't finish until gone 9pm! (Alex doesn't know yet).
- Alex cannot tell the difference between a rabbit and a kangaroo.
- Australian TV hyped up Nick Kyrgios to the same extent as we would Andy Murray at Wimbledon. Therefore it has been nice to see him get utterly defeated.

Take note Alex this is a kangaroo

And this is a rabbit. They are not one and the same 

                                             

Flat hunting tomorrow..

Kate

Alex's reaction as the Duck boat drove into the river

Clarke Quay

Singapaul

Wednesday the 21st of January
Despite our attempts to correct his pronunciation, Alex is convinced we are in Singapaul, so we're just going with it now! As Kate mentioned the flight out was pretty awful with it being a day flight, made worse by landing in the morning in Singapore. After a bit of plane spotting geekery in the hotel room, we had a 4 hour nap, thinking that it would be wishful thinking trying to wake Alex up after a deep sleep. To our surprise he jumped out of bed and off we went into town. We very impressed with the MRT train system which was clean, efficient and full of very considerate polite Singaporeans who went out the way to let us sit down with the babies when it was busy. We started out by having a walk around the old quarter by City Hall. Similar to Kuala Lumpur, it consisted of a number of Victorian empire away from blightly buildings complete with bowls green and playing fields. These have since been dwarfed by high-rise commercial buildings that are threatening to swallow these colonial relics up like a venus fly-trap. We then walked along the river to Clarke Quay which is Singapore's equivalent to Liecester Square. It was very pretty and clean (as you would expect in a city where it illegal to even chew gum) but aimed at tourists. We had a bite to eat and let Alex run off a little steam around the fountains, with predictably hilarious results. Back at the hotel, jet-lagged child syndrome returned with a vengeance and we had a fairly awful sleepless night.

Thursday the 22nd of January
After a lie in we thought the most entertaining and efficient way of seeing the highlights of the city was to do a river boat tour. We managed to find a company that had amphibious buses. We captured the delighted expression on our 4 year old's face as it drove into the water to complete our tour of the harbour. After a spot of lunch we took a trip in the Singapore flyer, essentially the equivalent of the London eye for a panoramic view of Singapore. The population explosion that Singapore is attempting to curb is clearly evident when you see the scale of high rise construction in progress on vast swathes of reclaimed land.

On the Singapore Flyer

To round off our day, we headed to the Ion Mall on the Orchard Road to have dinner with my cousin Gunish and his lovely wife Puneeta.

Gunish, Puneeta and us 

Friday the 23rd of January 
Our flight out to Brisbane was at 1am on Saturday. undeterred by this, we headed out to Sentosa Island with the boys for some child-friendly fun. The island's original name was "Pulau Belakang Mati" meaning the Island of Death from Behind. In the interests of commercial viability the Singaporeans decided to change it to "Sentosa", meaning peace and tranquility. Wise choice... We got the super-hero cable car over to the island from the harbour. Alex was extremely excited, but beside himself when daddy took him luging once we got there. He was very obedient and promised to not tell mummy how fast daddy drove! After dinner on the beach, we slowly made our way back to the hotel and had a relatively stress-free check in to the airport. We were sad to leave Singapore. It exceeded our expectations in many ways. On the surface as an outsider, the ethnic groups seem to harmoniously co-exist with the English language being their common bond. Despite this, they are bi or even tri-ligual and retain their cultural traditions. they are polite, courteous and have a great sense of civic pride. They also love cooing at cute little babies. I'm sure they have their fair share of problems, but it is a place I would love to spend more time in.

On the superhero cable car to Sentosa Island

Luging at Sentosa Island

'It's taking ages....'

It looks like Alex will take after his father, he completely and utterly loves airplanes. The excitement of travelling to Singapore was nearly too much for his four year old brain.

After a Morton's dinner and late night, we woke Alex at 5 am. The phrase 'never wake a sleeping baby' is usually absolute law in our house. However, this time we had no choice. I woke him gently, anticipating a complete meltdown. It never came, he sprang out of bed and amazingly did exactly as he was told. His excitement started, and snowballed from there.

All the way to Heathrow he stayed awake, thankfully Elliott slept. However, the 'it's taking ages..' started, over and over again, with the occasional 'we're going to miss the airplane'. We made great time to Heathrow, arriving early enough to have breakfast with Grandma and Grandad before sad farewells. Incredibly, our luggage was also within allowances, so I didn't have to give Grandma and Grandad some of my many pairs of shoes.

Airports are always exciting on the way out, particularly for Alex. He adored his Spider-Man trolley, pulling it with pride and loving the noises it made as it rolled over different types of flooring. Typically, his Spider-Man trolley was the only item to be taken aside and screened for drugs or explosives. A small case full of toy cars, airplanes, colouring books and a Leap-pad must look dodgy on airport scanners.

Once through security, all Alex wanted to do was look at airplanes through the windows. He wanted to know the names, where they had been and where they are going. More than anything, he wanted to find ours. Once we found ours, the 'it's taking ages' statement was briefly replaced by 'are we going on the top floor?' He must have said it a dozen times in a few minutes, despite repeating the simple answer 'yes Alex'.

As for the airplane, it took ages. Alex reminded us of this fact on a regular basis. There is not much else to say about that. As anticipated it was horrible. Neither child wanted to sleep, Alex too excited and Elliott completely unimpressed with the bassinet. Flying long haul used to be fun B.C. (before children), neither me or Irmeet managed to watch telly, however we did drink alcohol. Frustratingly Singapore Airlines serve a Singapore Sling cocktail. I didn't have one, only because drinks were served mid-breastfeed. Obviously in my mothering book, wine is ok whilst breastfeeding but a cocktail is pushing it (only because I fear disapproving glances from fellow passengers).

12 hours later we landed, Alex managed to sleep for about 2 hours. Typically falling asleep just before lights were turned on for breakfast service.

Turns out I made the right decision in booking an airport hotel. Literally we turned left after customs and there was our hotel. I could have kissed the man on reception when he said we could have an early check in at 9 am. Lovely hotel, not the Alex cares about the building. For him, the best bit is the wall of glass in our room overlooking the airport. He just stands there, looking at airplanes, Daddy by his side. Father and son bonding over a common obsession with aircraft.

It has 'taken ages' to get here, but we are only half way. Another 8 hour flight awaits us on Saturday morning. But first, Singapore.....

Kate.

                                      Alex and his amazing spider man ankle chopper case x