It is the eve of Chinese New Year and we felt a little lost without Naenae. We are still going to have reunion dinner with Su Su and Ah Boh, but somehow it felt different. In the morning, we decided to head for The Botanical Gardens and let the kids play with bubbles. Usually, we would have some breakfast before we roam around, but today, we went straight to our “bubble” spot.
Alfee was asleep by the time we reached the “bubble” spot so Sophie went ahead and played without him. I bought a bottle of Crayola purple bubble juice to test out today. It did not work as well as I had hoped. The colour was staining in its liquid form but not visible as bubbles. It also had a strong paint smell and the non-spill feature made it difficult to take the stick out of the bottle. Thus, we reverted back to our usual bubble juice.
I made a lot of bubbles for the kids even though Sophie almost always insisted on doing it herself. I know she likes to chase the bubbles and pop them. Many other kids came over and started joining her in their quest as bubble destroyers. I do not mind making bubbles for everybody yet I got some strange looks from people sometimes. We met 3 groups of people of different nationalities and their reactions towards us were all different.
First group was a Singaporean family of 4. The father was sitting far away while his two kids played with the bubbles. The mother was embarrassed that she could not stop them from crowding me. There was no verbal exchange between her and me, even her “thank you” went through her kids. The second group was a huge family of tourists. The grandmother was trying to pacify the child who insisted she wanted to buy some bubbles juice. The family soon spoke out loud (maybe hoping we would hear and respond) that they did not know where to buy. Finally, they sent the father to ask us. Lastly, a group of Caucasians (maybe 2 families) with young toddlers approached us. They chatted with Sophie and tried to make conversation with us. They encouraged the kids to play together and they left after saying “goodbye”.
Then our little girl complained she was hungry and tired and declared she needed to eat at Casa Verde. So, we started packing up to go. Just then a little girl came up to me hoping for some bubbles. I smiled and gave her the rest of my bubble juice. She was very happy but I could not say the same for Sophie. Her sense of possessiveness kicked in and I had to really talk her into letting that bottle of bubble juice go. Fortunately, she soon forgot everything with a good hearty breakfast.
Back home, we washed up and had a simple lunch. Then we crashed in front of the TV and waited for dinner. It had been about a month since I last relaxed and lazed around. We started getting ready around 4 pm since we were meeting Ah Boh and Su Su at 5.30pm.
Last year, Sophie wore a Korean bubble dress for reunion dinner. This year, she had the traditional version (commercialised version). I thought they looked really adorable in costumes, even though I doubt they felt comfortable at all.
This year, we had our reunion dinner at Corpthorne King's Hotel. It really did not feel quite the same without Naenae. She would always smile at the kids and she always made them feel like they were the best children on Earth. She was the anchor of our reunion dinner. We found the food average and service quite disappointing yet reunion dinner is never really about the food, is it? At least, we were able to spend time as a family together.
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