Palawan Beach

Another weekend slipped past far too quickly for us here in Singapore. We find that keeping ourselves out of the temporary apartment and needing to eat out for most meals tends to take up so much of the weekends that we find ourselves wondering on Sunday evening where the time has gone.

This weekend we explored the beach on Sentosa Island called Palawan Beach.  Of the three beaches on Sentosa it is defined as being the most geared towards kids. It was a nice afternoon of playing in the sand and sun for all of us.  The beaches here are not exactly the tropical beaches that one might picture in Southeast Asia.  As Singapore is mainly a shipping port, the beaches are nice enough but certainly the water is not the crystal blue waters that you might see in photos of Thailand or Malaysia. We will hope to see the more amazing beaches soon enough! For an afternoon and being only 20 minutes from our location it was certainly well worth the time.

Halie's first experience at the beach was humorous as all babies.  Just like Dannette at that age, Halie enjoyed scooping the sand up and trying to eat it.  I think we even have several pictures at home that are near identical to the shots we got of Halie and the sand.
Sunday was hot and very humid.  It rained for a good part of the morning making the afternoon excessively humid. We toughed it out though and spent the afternoon having a picnic at the Botanic Gardens.  As you may recall from one of our first posts we all very much enjoyed the gardens.  We chose to go back and have a picnic as part of the celebration for John and I, as our two year wedding anniversary is on Tuesday.  Halie especially seemed to enjoy  the picnic as she had a large grassy area to explore freely.  After a picnic on Symphony Hill we explored the Jacob Ballas Children's Garden.  A free garden that is geared towards children to 12 years of age.  

Picnic at Symphony Hill

Rope Bridge

A petrified tree

The garden was very nice and had things for all ages including a sensory garden, potting garden, displays on photosynthesis, a rope bridge and even a playground or two mixed in.  

Durian Fruit growing from the trees in the Botanic Garden!

And my favorite pic of the weekend (photography by John, creativity by Amanda)..............................

This week is shaping up to be quite busy! We will be collecting the keys to our new home on Wednesday evening and moving in on Thursday! We will be receiving a delivery of rental furniture on Thursday (beds, sofas, etc) to get us through until our sea container arrives in November.  We also expect to receive our air shipment which is already here in Singapore on Thursday so we will have many of our immediate needs like more clothes, bedding, pots and pans etc.  This finally means an end to so much eating out which is welcome news to all of us.  In addition, John was able to purchase a new TV for us today today so that it will be delivered and allow for cable installation. If all goes well, we should be up and running by the end of the weekend with internet and TV but please be patient.....we may be out of communication for a bit.  We will have limited email access via Blackberry when Halie allows us to take a moment to check it :)
I hope you all enjoyed the very pic heavy post.  I just couldn't narrow down the pics to use. 
And for a blogging first, here is a very small video of Halie at the beach.