Have You Ever Swapped Packages With a Fellow Blogger?

I spent the first seven years of my life in a communist country. Many things that we considered cool or even magical where abroad. Getting a package from a foreign country even if it was thoroughly checked by customs was a huge event!

Now with online ordering and traveling made easier this excitement of receiving a package has changed… or has it?!

I still see some things as “modern treats” of the Western world and eye brow products are among them. None of my friends back in Hungary use special gels to make their eye brows look more flattering. 

When Beth was posting about her make-up and I saw the eye brow gel she uses, I felt the little girl inside me getting excited about someone else’s lovely, grown-up stuff.

Beth made my little girl dream come true. She ordered the gel for me to her address (they do not ship to Thailand) and went to the post office to mail it to me. But before she sent my package oversea, she asked a friend of hers to draw a picture of my husband, Zoárd and I by showing her friend a photo of us. She also slipped a hand-written card in to the package (which was not allowed during communism in Hungary – you had to send written letters separately ).

You must be pretty curious about Beth by now. Beth’s blog is called Beauty in Beta and she just posted about the package I sent her from Thailand. 

I would love to show you a few pictures of the night I opened the package from Beth. I am warning you our room has a yellow vibe at night time…

Have you done anything similar?

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Could You Give Me My 4th Topic

This is a sensitive topic but I need a topic to get a conversation going. We have a dear friend who needs help when it comes to story telling and he is coming over tonight. I know it is not nice to talk about your friends behind their backs but I did say he was a DEAR friend. Does that make it better?

Zoárd did not take his second nap so it will be challenging for me to keep the conversation rolling.

So far, what I came up with are:

I will ask what he thinks about dressing babies in pink (when their boys).

What do you think?

Then I will ask him what he thinks of the new Volvo commercial. Have you seen it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7FIvfx5J10

And my third topic will be my black eye.

Can you see it?

Please give me ideas for a 4th topic or a 5th or just come on over… 

What is Your Hobby?

Good news: I do not have many hobbies at the moment so this post will not be as long as the previous one.

Besides, the obvious that I love taking pictures, emailing, blogging I think that it is important for me to have a proper hobby.

Coming up with funny pictures to take of your baby does help you spend time but your baby might not like your projects at all times… Though he did not complain, honestly…

And even if Zoárd would agree to be part of my self-entertainment for the rest of my life, I feel the need to do something else.

A couple of days ago I started visiting the hotel’s bar. Some stairs were built very close to our room so now I have no excuse not to go. And I realized that a guy called Ake makes the perfect half-shot latte for me. By shot I mean coffee shot…

Today is Ake’s day off so I might skip my latte break until he comes back. That is what loyal customers do you know.

So Zoárd’s fans will have to spend a day without him.

Now that I made it clear that taking pictures and drinking coffee is NOT my hobby then maybe I should announce that I picked yoga as my hobby. 

For me it is very important to be able to exercise regularly. And yoga can also be done dynamically. I am burning calories for sure when I am in class which is a 90 minutes class held at the hotel’s yoga studio. (I never said I would be bored if I would be a guest at the hotel we live in.)

I came up with my personal goal. I would like my shoulders to be more open. 

Yoga is a way to work my body. I like to dress up nicely for the classes (I prefer beyondyoga and Nike) and a good class for me is when the teacher makes me sweat. I am not spiritual.

Here is an example of a yoga top I have.

I drink water only after class. Never during yoga. This is how I was taught by my first yoga masters on this island and this approach works for me.

Here I am with my first teacher, Mon. She is one of a kind. This picture was taken 3 years ago. (And if you look at my feet on other pictures of me you will find that I am still rocking a Birkenstock -something I never thought I would do when I was an über-serious city chick…HAHA)

This will not be a nostalgia post but I dug out this picture because I wanted to show You where I do yoga. (The picture was taken before I got pregnant.)
See the salt bricks in the back?

My yoga baby is asking me to stop writing this post…

What is your hobby?

Singapore – Traveling With a Baby

I found out, a day ahead of my birthday, that not only we are heading to Singapore but that I will be given special permission to eat cakes and pastries through out this trip. Otherwise I am only granted this privilege on Sundays.

Basically this said: I can be a pig again for a couple of days…

When we travel with our son I am always hoping to come back with pictures of me and Zoárd looking angelic.

This is how I would ALWAYS want to be pictured…

But usually…

Zoárd has been on a plane 11 times. He is 9 months old. My theory on traveling is this:
think of your motives and put aside the adventures that are risky for a baby… those adventures will wait for you if you put them on hold.
I believe that short, safe trips are perfectly fine with a baby if you try to stick to the routines that make your little one feel secure.

Zoárd likes to play with the freshening towels on the plane. We also read to him a lot. Ten times the same book is the minimum. We try our best to make this part of the journey as much fun as possible. Walking with him can also be soothing. Breastfeeding is a must at taking offs and landings to prevent his ears from hurting.

You really have to show a lot of empathy towards your baby. Understand that his needs come first. Your desire to go shopping or to see the architectural masterpieces are not as important as the need to have clean diapers on, to move around, to rest etc.

I am starting to except that I need to bring winter and summer clothes for all of us. Usually the hotels are freezing cold.

Taxis will have strong air conditioning inside.

Some walking is also great in Singapore but often receptionists will advise you to take a taxi saying that your destination is FAR AWAY. For us a 15 minutes walk is absolutely alright even with a baby but the opinion of locals will differ.

These can be seen for example, if you go by foot:

Our focus was on visiting cafes. Fellow bloggers like Ena and Christy helped us with this.

In the evening I did not take pictures. We did visit two restaurants after Zoárd’s bed time. La Villa was very relaxing since Zoárd fell asleep after we did a few circles in the parking lot. At the other Italian restaurant we did not have a happy dinner. I even erased the name of the place. One of us had to stand outside of the restaurant rocking Zoárd who previously made it clear that he is not happy about dining out since he was not able to fall asleep.

Here are the cafes we went to:

Common Man Coffee Roaster 

I liked the atmosphere of it. Service was quick and cool. The carrot cake cupcake was delicious. The coffee tasted bitter but it could be that this is a type of roasting I personally do not find tasty. The place was packed.

Zoárd did not mind sitting in his buggy, nevertheless this never means he is encouraging you to eat a three course meal.

I had a latte and cake.

I forgot what my husband had. Zoárd had milk that is for sure. HAHA

SPRMRKT

I had a quinoa salad at this cafe and we ordered french fries with truffle sauce. I became a vegetarian 17 years ago because I was making hamburgers and french fries. I really do not know what I was hoping to get when I ordered the french fries. I read about it, it seems fried eggs and truffles are also popular in Singapore but deep fried food is yucky for me. Sorry.

Otherwise we chilled out at this place. It was not too busy when we were there so Zoárd was able to come out of the buggy and do some serious stuff.

Department of Caffeine

You can only pay with cash here. There is no ATM machine walking distance from the cafe. Believe me, we tried. I had a coffee latte here that was bitter and a pear cake that was too sweet. At least I took a cool picture…

Department of Caffeine might have a cool name but it did not become are favorite place.

L’etoile Cafe

This place is hard to find but you are prepared for this if you have read ironladychef’s review on it. The confusing about the place is that it is a small cafe and though the review talks about a second floor, we only found the ground floor that was a little bit sad looking. Not to mention, that the cafe only has one single review on tripadvisor. A 2 point one. So I am not sure what happened here.

The furniture was truly sad looking here but I tried my very first cookie ice cream. I am happy when there is something new I can try out since I am extremely picky.

Highlander Cafe 

We were looking for Strangers Reunion (another cafe) but it was closed. We ended up in Highlander because of this and I am extremely glad. They were super kind to us. They even creatively solved the problem of our desire to change Zoárd’s diaper.

This guy showed my husband a technique he was curious about. They made a certain type of pressed coffee together. It was like a mini training. Simply because we asked them to and because they were kind and willing to do so.

I had two latte-s here and this wasn’t my first dessert either. I did not like this apple pie but their carrot cake way yummy.

Brunetti

This place is listed among the child friendly places. It is in a mall that is full of baby shops. I was too full to try their dessert. My cannelloni had too many black pepper in it but I found that to be the case at La Villa as well with my other wise delicious pizza. So maybe it is a trend.

You have to pay ahead at this place. It was full when we arrived but I spotted a family who was about to leave. We had to wait a lot for our food but we were relaxed about it.

Go where the locals eat…

Ready for chaos but the best duck of your life?!

Though duck is not the best for a vegetarian. I am sure that vegetarians and mothers alike can enjoy this place…

I am mean. We did not eat at this place. I just took this shot because I found it funny how many times they wrote out their name.

I will end this post by showing you a few ways we made it possible for Zoárd to move around.

Sport’s department.

Golfers’ section.

A hotel’s lobby.

At the airport.

Of course moving was not always an issue…

Did I almost forget the Swedish cafe we went to because of Ase?

Fíka

Let the pictures do the talking. This post is getting long as the dough of a strudel. HAHA

I am really ending this post now with a question:

Take a wild guess: what kind of car does this gentleman have?

This is not the correct answer. Though this gentleman wore a Rolex…

The correct answer.

We Left The Island For My Birthday

I am never going to write a post again if I cannot let go the idea of showing You ALL the pictures I like from our trip.

For my 34th birthday my husband surprised me by giving me the best birthday present ever. Spending time together far away from his work. If you do not already know where we flew to, you are welcome to take a guess…

Since we live in a five star hotel, I had to find the modest university student in me, who used to be nervous upon entering a simple restaurant. I think I can say that I found her! I was able to enjoy everything almost as much as Zoárd did…

I made so many hints to my poor husband that I insist on having a birthday cake, that I ended up enjoying one in the morning and to our surprise the hotel also prepared a birthday cake for me. 

This was the view from our room and if this is not helping You to guess where we flew to than maybe nothing will… HAHA

We went to a lot of cafes and we tried to walk as much as it was possible since we miss our big walks from the time we lived in Europe.

It was dream like to spend this much time together.

I am satisfied easily on a vacation. I like to stare at people and I prefer to bring back memories of them.

Can I take back what I just wrote?! Maybe not everyone would enjoy being on a vacation with me because it is one thing that I like to pose with stuffed animals but I also believe in team spirit when it comes to having “fun”… My husband was very supportive as you can see…

My husband also had some ideas of his own. He likes to eat things like noodle soup with beef and grilled duck. So now that you know who likes to do what it will be a piece of cake to guess who was inspired when I took the following pictures. Oh by the way: the cool, elderly couple took this picture of us and I also took a picture of them (with my camera before I talked to them and with their camera after I offered to take their pictures).

Ducks.

I found these people hanging around in the lobby of our hotel…

We got free tickets to go to an aquarium. This was a little bit out of our comfort zone but we went with the flow.

I realized that fish make me very relaxed. Look at the awesome picture I took of this… hm… fish.

I saw some fish in trees!

Not everyone was paying attention…

The tailor shop was not a hit either…

So we showed Zoárd this very famous bar and he got breastfed.

But no worries! We understand that Zoárd needs slightly more entertainment…

Reading at the hotel…

Reading on the floor…

I think I should publish this post before I have to start all over. For some reason, I am denied adding more pictures. Message taken.
xoxo