Laminating Helper

Ethan was a busy body, everything he will want to take a part. When he saw his parent taken out the laminating machine, he immediately came. We asked him to go back to watch his Barney. Well he did walk a bit but stood on the place where his eye can look at both side i.e. television and our side.

When he seen his parent started to insert the paper into the laminating film, he immediately came and he didn't want to watch the Barney anymore. He became our helper as he held all the paper and hand over one by one to us. When the film was laminated, he would take it out from the machine and placed it aside.

He sticked with his parent until we finished all the work....

Somersaults for fun...

Recently after mummy bathe and wear the clothes for him, we will have a bit of exercise. Mummy let him somersaults on the bed. He really had fun on it and requests to do so after bathing...

Today is the field trip for Ethan

Today was the first field trip for Ethan. Due to the fact that these few weeks theme was "Land transportation", the school purposely arranged for the kids to take a bus and ride around the surrounding area. Sharp at 10.20am the teacher brought all the kids from the classroom. The kids have to line up with their parents to get on the bus.

During the bus trip, the teacher tried to describe what one can see on the road, like bus, tractor what vehicles we can see if the our bus passed by. Besides that, the kids and parent also sing the song " The wheel on the bus". After one round from the school to Thumb Plaza and back to school again. The bus driver had stopped the bus at the center garden of Season Villas. We had the picnic in the garden.

While walking in the center garden, suddenly it started to rain. At first, the parent and teacher were still struggle on whether they still want to have the picnic outdoor or indoor. After seeing the rain was getting heavier, all the parents and teachers decided to have picnic inside the classroom.

We had the picnic at the basement of the classroom. The floor mat had been laid on the floor and all the food was placed on the center of the floor mat. The kids and parent started to eat the snack. After finished eating, the kids began to play with the facilities in the room. Ethan, he opt to ride the toy car.

After the indoor picnic, everybody started to go home with their kids (for those half day school). When mummy and Ethan walked out from the classroom and found that it was still raining outside. Mummy called up daddy to pick us up at the school on the way back from company for lunch. (Buying lunch for mummy). It was a fruitful day for Ethan... even though he had already taken the bus before but this round was with his friends....

Quick trip in Qibao (七宝古镇)

Our initial plan was not to visit this place but when we arrived at the destination we chose, it was not to our expectation. Mummy was disappointed with the environment surrounding the park so we decided in last minute to visit this place instead since it was nearby the vicinity compared to other parks.

When we first arrived, our first impression was - is this the place? As we didn't see any ancient buildings, all the buildings were like local modern buildings and lot of hawkers doing their business on both sides of the small lane. Our driver went down and asked the local people for confirmation. Yup, this was the correct place but need to walk inside further then only can see beauty of the place. The local people said that we should park here as on the other side, there was no parking places. So we decided to start from other side and walked towards this car park to complete our journey.

Mummy asked daddy to take the photo of the map placed at the side of the road as this was the last minute decision, we didn't bring the Qibao map.

Before we entered the 古镇, we immediately taken the photo of the main entrance billboard as there would be no chance to do so after entering. Ethan was amazed by the water wheel.

Ethan and daddy took the photo in front of the stone sign

Before arriving at the 古镇, we need to walk across the road with both sides were the residence building for local people. Here mummy's impression was that it is just like the business street as lot of people was selling different things. Finally we need to cross the stone bridge and entered the 古镇. Well, the 古镇 was like those water village we have visited. Difference is that it is free.

Our cheeky boy always said that he wants to go to the toilet. Every time it was false alarm. Daddy had no choice at last and said to him that if he wanted to pee just pee inside the diaper. When we walked further inside the 古镇 we found out that actually there were a lot of people there. We purposely chose the weekday and hoped that less people would come here but actually there was no impact. Still lot of people as we can see that the tourist bus had taken the people to visit here. Weekday already so many people so we couldn't imagine what the weekend would be, surely more crowded.

We need to hold Ethan instead of letting him walk by himself and at the same time need to take care of our belongings. Crowded place normally will have pickpocket. Mummy didn't buy anything inside as she felt that those things can be found outside instead of here. Guessed this was a tourist place, those things should be marked up higher than same item sold outside.

Finally we arrived at the place where it was a bigger space, there was a small pond built with a zig-zag wooden bridge leading to the center rock formation. The pavilion was built on the top of the rock formation. This pavilion is for people to rest there and sight seeing the surrounding view from the top. We spent quite some time at this place as Ethan was attracted by the fishes in the pond and he liked to climb the rock formation.

Seeing the fishes swimming

Posting some posture at the zig-zag bridge

Climbing the rock formation and crossed the stone bridge on the small pond

Before leaving this place, Ethan spot the cartoon character located in the one corner. He requested us to take the photo of him with this icon. It is the China Expo 2010 icon. Initially he wanted to climb up and take the photo with it but the place was too high for him to climb up. So mummy asked him to stand in front of icon and took few photos of him. He was happily standing and willing to leave this place after taken the photo.

From those photo, can see that lot of people visited this 古镇

Mummy's feeling was this 七宝古镇 is just like the mixture of "周庄"and "豫园". Where it is a water village and the commercialize 古镇. Only the different was that 豫园 has more foreign visitors and "周庄" was bigger.

Fresh morning visiting the GuZhong Park(古钟园)

Seeing that the weather forecast mentioned that it was a raining day today so we just opt for the nearest place. This round we went to Nanhui District where we do not need to go across to Puxi. When we started our journey, there was some rain and mummy was worried that it would still be raining when we arrived. Luckily, the luck was on our side. When we arrived at the destination, there was no rain. Mummy fed Ethan with milk before we got down from the car. As we know that when we entered the park, Ethan will throw the tantrum if he is hungry and tired.

After having had the milk, Ethan became the energetic bunny. He walked inside the park with us. The air was fresh in the morning especially after the rain. When we arrived there, not many people was in the park. Maybe it was because of the rain and the cold weather.

After visited so many parks, one conclusion is that the park in Shanghai mainly has the pond for people to row boat and there are a lot of tree. Even the basic is still the same but every time we visited the park, we have those kind of feeling that "Wow, another beautiful park". This one is also of no exception. We kind of like this park as you can relax and peacefully enjoy the scenery of the park especially the air was so fresh and cozy weather in the morning.

There was a small rock formation. This one does not have any pavilion on the top but it was planted with lot of vines trees. A bit different from those that we visited before.

There was a pavilion in the middle of the lake. The pavilion is accessible by a zig-zag bridge platforms. Ethan just likes it and he can stand on the zig-zag bridge watching people row the boat. He even sing the song, "Row! Row a boat".

Standing beside the rail enjoying the view

Pay attention watching people row the boat and happily smiling

In the middle of the park, we found that main attraction that brought us here - the "Old Bell".
Daddy took lots of photo of the bell while mummy was busy taking Ethan's photo with the bell.

After the bell, we rested inside one of the building where you can view the scenery of the park. Ethan was just like the monkey climbing up the railing and trying to see whether the lake has any fishes or not. Really need to take double care of him as he also bent his body to view into the lake.

Taking the photo with his parent

Sometimes in order to lure Ethan to leave certain place, we need to find and use some tricks. Like the photo below, mummy placed Ethan to walk on the top of the divider then he was only willing to walk. At first, he was a bit afraid as he need to walk on the top of divider with the pond just beside him. Mummy had to hold him until a certain place where it was more safety and lower then only let him walked by himself.

Mummy asked to lift up his hand to balance his body while walking

Posting some cute and innocent face

After we explored for some time, we have met our driver in the park so we took the opportunity to take his photo with Ethan.

Our driver with Ethan

Before we leave the park, we entered another side of the park that was the amusement park. At first seeing lot of parent was taking the photo of their kids' riding the merry 'go' round. Mummy though that the merry 'go' round was already broken so let people to take photo. When we wanted to place Ethan on one of the horse there the guide started to collect money. We quickly brought Ethan out because we knew that he will afraid of riding this by himself. We brought him to walk further inside where there was the train track. We chose this as it requires adult to accompany the kid. We paid RMB2 for these train track ride. Ethan was free.

Mummy purposely chose the front seat so that daddy can take a good photo of Ethan when we were having the ride. At first round, mummy have to remind Ethan to stand up and wave to his daddy when we reach the station so that daddy can take the photo. After one round, Ethan will automatically stand up and wave his hand to his daddy when we reached certain place. We have 3 rounds on the train track. Ethan really had fun with this train track but luckily he didn't request to take the train again.

After the train ride, Ethan wanted to ride the horse which mummy just asked daddy to take the photo instead. Ethan was willing to let daddy hold him away after taking some photo of him. We left the place at noon but the weather was windy and cool so we didn't know the time until our stomach starts to growl.