My Little Climbing Room (Exclusive Media Preview and Giveaway)

Posted in Giveaway, Media Invite, Uncategorized by jahbella

I remember a time a few years ago (honestly not too long ago) when both Jah and Bella would look forward to their next session at an indoor playground almost every weekend. Of course this usually meant that the poor parents (us) had to crouch, crawl and bend through the average 2 hour session. We have almost stopped visiting indoor playgrounds entirely in recent time because these bones are getting older and the kids now don’t need us to join them but WANT us to join them. But more so because most indoor playgrounds now lack an appeal or a challenge to the now much older JahBella.

When My Little Climbing Room invited us to an exclusive sneak preview of their new attraction for kids activity in Singapore, we thought why not? After all, its been some time since we have been to one of these indoor playgrounds and the concept seems alittle different.

We told JahBella that we were taking them to a ‘climbing place’ and they wanted to go immediately. These monkeys have taken to climbing recently so I was also happy to unleash them while the adults could ‘sit back’.

We got to My Little Climbing Room on a weekend afternoon and there was ample parking at their location (The Promenade @ Pelikat). Yes hooray for the North-East siders because this is just at our backyard..no need to battle the East or Central crowds 😉

Each pre-scheduled session last for 90 minutes and the kids got tagged and suited up as soon as they arrive. As with all ‘dangerous’ activites :p they had to watch a safety briefing video although honestly I think it is really more for the parents to learn how to use the rope system. My Little Climbing Room is literally a room lined with different types of climbing walls, with varying degrees of difficulty and levels of interaction. Kids were given a mission card where they could collect stars for each level of difficulty that they complete. There were also little balance equipments to play with while waiting for your turn or if you just wanted to take a break.

The session started with the kids all running off to claim a wall and a parent/ adult would have to help belay them or tighten/ loosen their rope as they climb up or come down the wall. Easy peasy for the adults since the kiddos were well pretty light 😉 The kids took awhile to warm up and get their groove. All starting alittle apprehensive and giving very cautionary looks to their parents. Almost as if they were asking, you sure I can climb this? That’s when I realized we probably tell them “no don’t climb” or “please come down” abit too much as opposed to “go for it” or “you can do it”

By the time the kids were all warmed up, it was time for a ‘break’ (for the parents that is ;p). The staff at My Little Climbing Room took over for the next 30 minutes and starting playing games with the kids. Lights out, music on and let the games begin! The kids were going crazy! Screaming! Squealing! Laughing! Running! Climbing! Oh this is going to get them nice and tired. 😀

The kids went back to their climbing routine after the games and if you think they were too tired for more climbing by then. Think again! The kids all seemed to have this sudden renewed appreciation for climbing and they all somehow went higher and did better. Jah and Bella almost didn’t want to leave when it was time to go.

Verdict

Jah is 6 years old and most of the walls were right up his alley, save for a few harder challenges where he really had to push himself in order to complete. But they honestly challenged him more than they deter him. In fact, we were almost at the end of the 90 minute session when he realize he still had a few missions to complete. He was almost resigned to coming back another day but suddenly found a new burst of energy and yes he completed it and claimed his prize.

Bella who is 4 years old, was able to complete most of the Level 1 challenges and hung out a lot more at the interactive walls such as the number wall and the obstacle course wall. She didn’t complete her mission list but was totally chill about it because she had so much fun!

If you are wondering if your kid is too young for this, the answer is no. My Little Climbing Room caters to children below the ages of 4 too but it will just mean that they have to take baby steps to scaling each wall but still an awesome introduction to the world of climbing!

My Little Climbing Room has just opened their doors to the public 2 weekends ago. If you are thinking of heading down to try the place out, we would doing an online booking first to make a reservation. As there are fixed slots throughout the day and each slot can take up to 15 children, it would be best to have a slot secured so that you don’t end up waiting around for the next slot. Admission is free for one adult, with every paying child and $5 for an additional adult. For more details, check out https://mylittleclimbingroom.com/

GIVEAWAY

My Little Climbing Room has also very kindly offered 2 pairs of admission passes to 2 of our lucky readers. To enter, just follow the following steps

Like My Little Climbing Room Facebook Page

https://www.facebook.com/mylittleclimbingroom

Like Growing Up with JahBella Page

https://www.facebook.com/growingupwithjahbella/

Like and Comment on this post in Facebook and tag your friends. (Every friend tagged is an additional chance to win)

Giveaway ends 19 Oct, Thurs (2359hours)

1Aug2017

US California Trip (May 2017) – SFO to Monterey -Day 5 (Swanton Berry Farm, 99bottles and Monterey Plaza Hotel & Spa)

Posted in Food, Travel Planning, Travel with Kids, Uncategorized, USA by jahbella

Day 5 and it's goodbye San Francisco for now! Time for us to head south towards LA with a few pit stops along the way. 🙂

We made a really early breakfast stop somewhere in SFO (honestly not worth mentioning) and headed straight out of the city. The kids were raring to go because we had a nice road trip pit stop planned at Swanton Berry Farm. The kids had tried lemon and orange picking in Australia last year and loved it! Link here. So how could we not incldue another fruit picking session this time around, given that it was strawberry season!!!!

The drive from SFO to Swanton Berry Farm took us almost 2 hours but wasn't that bad since it was enroute to Santa Cruz which was going to be our lunch stop. We probably would have gotten there faster if we had stuck to the highway route but our GPS told us to turn off the highway just as we were about 10 mins away from the farm. We ended up on the 'mountains', taking a circular/ scenic route before we hit the farm from the other direction. So word of caution, you will be able to see the farm on your left from the highway and will be able to turn in directly from the highway. If you don't see it yet and your GPS tells you to turn into some small road, don't! It was quite a challenge for Joel to maneuvor those narrow steep slopes/ roads in a people mover (yes we rented a 8 seater for maximum passenger comfort and luggage space). Poor Joel!

We got to Swanton Berry Farm at about 11am and we picked up an empty brown box for our pickings. We headed back out the front door and was told that we could either walk to the farm, approximately 800m away or drive over in 2 mins. We chose to drive haha but it was really nearby. The smell of fresh strawberries hit us as we got out of the car! Sweetness in the air!!

We spent almost 45 mins picking our berries and the kids just went crazy haha and couldn't stop. We filled our 2 box trays and had to bring it back to the store to weigh them out and pay for them. Honestly for the same price that we paid, we could have gotten the really sweet, plump ones that the farmers had picked themselves and were selling. But it's all about the experience isn't it?

The kids were also attracted to some chocolate coated strawberries and we were forced to buy some. We consumed them on our walk to the car. They were so divine! I belted the kids in their car seats and ran back to the store to buy a few more for post lunch dessert. Yummy!!

It took us about 30 mins to drive to Santa Cruz and we headed directly to 99bottles for lunch. As the name suggest, if they have 99 different types of beer or perhaps more but it was a treat for the adults and the pub food was pretty decent too. The kids made us order a second portion of the mac and cheese for them. I have to say that everyone was in an awesome mood after such a fun morning and yummy grub and beer. :p

Thank goodness for the good mood too because we had another 2 hour drive left to go before we got to our hotel in Monterey and we also had a laundry stop to make.

So in case you are wondering how we dealt with our laundry for our 17 day trip (without any AirBnB stays) we made laundry stops throughout our trip and space them out so that we would have enough clothes to last us between stops. When I say laundry stops, I don't mean spending 1-2 hours at a laundromat doing coin wash. Honestly, I would prefer a 2 hour nap than a 2 hour laundry run and also there is no way my kids are sitting nicely in a laundromat while we wait for our laundry. So I made sure that the places we stopped at, had what they call Wash and Fold Services where you dropped off your laundry for them to wash and literally fold it and you either collect it or it gets delivered to you in about 24 hours.

We dropped our laundry off at Sudz Cyber Laundry (10 mins drive away from our hotel) and we picked it up the next day at about the same time. Clothes were nicely folded when we collected them. 5 days worth of laundry for 4 people and it cost us about $50. I know it seems like a lot but I figured we were paying for convenience, zero tantrums and clean clothes..well worth it! The place has coin machines too if you prefer that and I think they may even have the option of someone watching your machine for you but we didn't explore that.

It was almost 4pm by then and the kids were in need of their nap (and so were the adults). We checked into the Monterey Plaza Hotel & Spa which came highly recommended by a friend. And you can totally understand why you are paying a premium at this hotel. It has a really nice harbour/ ocean view, rooms were spacious and they even had decent room service which we enjoyed every night that we we were there. Hot chocolate with whipped Cream every single night! Trust me, it's hard to get decent room service in most hotels in the US, even the big names we are so used to in Asia, only offer very basic service. So this was definitely quite a treat.

Needless to say, after a long day on the move, everyone was wiped out and in need of some good sleep on those plushy double beds before we continue our exploration of Monterey tomorrow….zzzzz

JahBella's Mummy

Next Up – Monterey Bay Aquarium and Lafeyette Bakery Carmel

1) How we survived flying 15 hours with the kids and coped with jetlag

2) US California Trip (May 2017) – San Francisco Day 1 (GoCar & Pier 45)

3) US California Trip (May 2017) – San Francisco Day 2 (Lori’s Diner, Cable Car Tram and Koret Children’s Playground, Hog’s Island Oyster Bar)

4) US California Trip (May 2017) – San Francisco Day 3 (Ferry Plaza Farmer’s Market and Children’s Creativity Musuem)

5) US California Trip (May 2017) – San Francisco Day 4 (Mama’s on Washington Square and California Academy of Sciences)

10Jul2017

US California Trip (May 2017) – San Francisco Day 4 (Mama’s on Washington Square and California Academy of Sciences)

Posted in Eating Out with Kids, Food, Holidays, Travel Planning, Travel with Kids, Uncategorized, USA by jahbella

I had many breakfast places listed for our time in San Francisco, IHOP was after all only a skip and a hop away (pun intended) and Boudin’s Bakery was also not too far off. However when a friend gave us a very timely recommendation on Facebook, the night before our last full day in SFO, we decided to give it a try.

Mama’s on Washington Square opens at 8am but we read that many people come up to an hour before opening time to queue for the first seating. An hour was too ambitious for us so we decided to take a chance and arrived at 730am. The queue was already long and we were 2 tables short of the first seating. While the wait was long, it was rather pleasant because they had a very good system going. We were ushered into the restaurant at 825am but soon learnt that that was not the end of our wait. We queued along the counter and were tempted by all the baked goods. We finally got to the cashier where we could place our order at 840am and then we were seated shortly after at 850am. The reason why we had to queue to place our order is because they try to only take your order as a table is being cleared for you. It took another 20 mins for our food to arrive but I will tell you that it was soooo worth it! Mama’s French Toast, Banana Pancakes and Dunguness Crab Benedict! It was so good that we wanted to come back again tomorrow before we head out of the city but it was a pity that they are closed on Mondays. Next time for sure!

We headed to California Academy of Sciences after breakfast. Thankfully they opened at 11am that day, we were running really late for their usual 10am opening time because of breakfast. Haha and you know how I can’t stand to deviate from schedule :p We joined the longest queue we saw which was for the ticket booth but my very observant husband noticed that the self service machine had no queue and told me to try it! Voila! So yes, please use the self service machine to buy your tickets 🙂

We were initially contemplating whether to drop this attraction and try something else. We weren’t sure how interactive it would be and whether it would capture the kids’ attention. I will tell you now that this is an absolute must do! I am so impressed by how they curated their content in a way that appealed to all age groups. There is literally something for everyone and each subject matter is presented in a way where you can simplify it for the young ones like Jah and Bella, yet still impress and wow the old cynics/ parents who think we have seen it all 😉
My advice to you would be to head straight in, to look for the planetarium show ticket queue as the tickets for shows run out very quickly and they have different shows for different times. There is also a show for smaller kids in a smaller auditorium in case you think your kids can’t cope with a long show.
We learnt about earthquakes and entered an earthquake simulator. Climbed up the Rainforest exhibit which is kind of like our Cloud dome at Gardens By the Bay but ends up with you being at the top of the Rainforest surrounded by free flying butterflies. We went through this exhibit 3 times!!

The kids also discovered dinosaurs, tickled starfish and stared at scary alligators. We were there till almost 4pm and yet we could not finish everything! Oh how we wished we lived in SFO. The kids asked to come back again but we had to break the news to them. Sorry kids, this is our last day in SFO on this trip but I promise you guys that tomorrow will be even more fun! 😀

JahBella’s Mummy

Next Up – Swanton Berry Farm and Monterey Plaza Hotel & Spa

1) How we survived flying 15 hours with the kids and coped with jetlag

2) US California Trip (May 2017) – San Francisco Day 1 (GoCar & Pier 45)

3) US California Trip (May 2017) – San Francisco Day 2 (Lori’s Diner, Cable Car Tram and Koret Children’s Playground, Hog’s Island Oyster Bar)

4) US California Trip (May 2017) – San Francisco Day 3 (Ferry Plaza Farmer’s Market and Children’s Creativity Musuem)

5Jul2017

US California Trip (May 2017) – San Francisco Day 3 (Ferry Plaza Farmer’s Market and Children’s Creativity Musuem)

Posted in Food, Holidays, Tips with Kids, Travel with Kids, Uncategorized, USA by jahbella

Our main attraction for the day was the Children’s Creativity Musuem. After spending the day running outdoors yesterday, it was now time to take it back indoors. But of course we needed some place to settle breakfast first and given that the Musuem only opens at 10am, we had plenty of time for a leisurely breakfast. I decided that it would be fun for the kids to experience a farmer’s market in the US. They did visit one in Margaret River, Perth last year but the rainy weather kind of put a dampener on the overall experience. So yes, Take 2 it is.

We got to the Ferry Plaza (where the Hog Island Oyster Bar which we visited last night is also located) at about 830am. It was a short 3 minute Uber ride from our hotel. The initial plan was to take the bus/ tram but honestly Uber is so so easy there that we decided to not go through the hassle. I was also hungry.

There were fresh produce and hot food for sale at the Farmer’s market and the kids were super excited that they were pointing out all the things that they wanted to buy. There were many wooden benches along the pier and we quickly settled down. Bella and I hung out and made sure we secured our seats while Joel and Jah went around and bought our food for us.

They came back with the most awesome grilled cheese sandwich we ever had and it was also one of our best meals on this trip!! The sandwich was a Honey Lavender, Bacon, Farm Egg and cheese sandwich from The Farmer’s Wife Sonama. Yes just reading the name of the sandwich is Omg!! In fact we ended up ordering another portion of it on top of all the other muffins and cakes we bought.

With full bellies, these happy people headed to the Children’s Creativity Musuem (in an Uber). The Musuem as its name suggest is all about exploration, creation and creativity. It is not your typical ‘musuem’ but really a place for the kids to play with materials and create artwork, learn concepts through play and express their creativity through stop motion animation and music.

The kids spent a good amount of time just sitting at the art table – cutting, pasting and drawing. I realised then that we were not going to leave this place for at least another 4 hours.

After a while, we managed to convince them to move on and explore other areas. They found themselves at a table containing kinetic sand. Yeah kinetic sand, no big deal right? But then I realise the Musuem had combined the use of kinetic sand and augmented realiy to teach geography and the concept of mountains, land, valleys and ocean. Even the adults were secretly having fun!! Oh yes and we were stuck there for quite abit too.

The main reason we came to the Children’s Creativity Musuem was because we heard that they had a section/ studio where they taught kids how to do stop motion animation. For those who are not very familiar, just Google Lego Star Wars on YouTube and you will see many stop motion animation videos. Jah is crazy about these videos and wanted to know how it was done. I was initially concerned that it would be too complicated for him to understand but the concept was really simple! We spent about 30 mins creating our own clay models from scratch and then we chose a backdrop and were taught how to create different scenes. It was really a case of moving your characters really slowly for each ‘frame’ and then pressing the record button each time. Oh trust me, this takes a lot of patience!! We completed a simple 13 seconds! video but it took a lot of effort to stop the kids from rushing through it. The good thing was that the Musuem would email you a link to the completed video 🙂 Check out the video on our Facebook page and Instagram but please excuse the shaky hands as it is a handphone video of the video clip.

It was almost 1pm by the time we were done with the stop motion studio and we still hadn’t explore the 2nd level. We headed up and Bella wanted to star in her own music video haha she barely sang but totally enjoy being a music video star. The 3 mins music video was also sent to us via an email link. Check out a snippet of it on our Social media channels too 😉

It was hard to get the kids to leave but we had not eaten our lunch yet (thank goodness for the full breakfast that sustained us for so long) While there are malls within walking distance of the Musuem, there isn’t really a proper cafe there for good hot food. So I would suggest doing some research of where u might wanna eat around there. Jah and Bella wanted to do some shopping (toys) so we crossed the road to a nearby Target and they got their shopping fix there. By then, we were honestly too tired to eat and figured the kids would be too cranky to survive through any proper meal so it was Starbucks to the rescue and we headed back to our hotel at 3pm for a much needed nap.
I have to admit that it was a pretty fun day and life changing too (the grilled cheese sandwich that is) :p

Next Up – Our last day in San Francisco (California Academy of Sciences)

1) How we survived flying 15 hours with the kids and coped with jetlag

2) US California Trip (May 2017) – San Francisco Day 1 (GoCar & Pier 45)

3) US California Trip (May 2017) – San Francisco Day 2 (Lori’s Diner, Cable Car Tram and Koret Children’s Playground, Hog’s Island Oyster Bar)

13Jun2017

US California Trip (May 2017) – San Francisco Day 2 (Lori’s Diner, Cable Car Tram and Koret Children’s Playground, Hog’s Island Oyster Bar)

Posted in Food, Holidays, Travel Planning, Travel with Kids, Uncategorized, USA by jahbella

After spending almost a day being cooped up on a flight, we decided that the kids needed an outlet to release those pent up energy. So we decided to spend the first full day of our time at San Francisco at a park.

We headed to Lori’s Diner at Ghirardelli Square for breakfast. The Diner was about a 10 mins walk from our hotel but the kids were more than happy to oblige us especially Jah who was looking forward to visiting an American Diner which he learnt about in school recently. So yes off we went for pancakes, French toast, scrambled eggs and of course milk shakes!

After breakfast, we walked across the street to the start of one of the cable car tram lines to begin our journey. There were of course other cheaper public transport options to take us to The Golden Gate Park where the Koret Children’s Quarters are but we figured that the kids would love the experience on the cable car tram. They were both scared and excited to be sitting on the exposed side of the cable car tram and were thoroughly thrilled by the view that they got of the streets.

We rode the cable car tram to the end of the line at Mason & Powell which always meant we got our money’s worth 😉 From there, we got onto the local Muni & Judah train and it took about 15 mins to take us to the USCF/ Paranssus station. Once we got off, we followed our phone GPS and walked another 5 mins till we got to the Golden Gate Park. The Koret Children’s Quarters was very close to the entrance.

The kids were so happy to be out in the open space. Running, climbing and swinging! The park was quite crowded for a Friday late morning and we noticed many daycares or school kids there with their teachers. Come early if you want a picnic spot because they tend to grab all the shaded areas but if you are happy to be just running around the playground then it’s fine and there were more than enough stone benches.

There was also an ice cream stand and an old school carousel ride nearby. Of course we rewarded ourselves with an ice cream and a couple of rides after a crazy time at the playground.

By the end of it, the kids and us were famished and we decided to take a walk back towards the entrance we came in through. You would be able to find tons of restaurants a few streets down outside the park (9th Ave being one of the streets) and of course the phone GPS came in handy again and we found ourselves some lunch rather easily.

We didn’t think the kids or the adults could cope with another multi transfer public transport ride to get back so we got ourselves an Uber and it took us back. The 20 mins ride cost us about US14 and we were all ready for our afternoon nap. Yes for those who don’t know we all still do afternoon naps even when we are on holidays. :p

We got up at 6pm from our nap and the urge to skip dinner or have room service was almost too hard to ignore. But I persevered and dragged everyone out of bed. I even insisted that we head to the Ferry Building where the Hog Island’s Oyster Bar was located at. I don’t know what possessed me to choose that restaurant for dinner, on a Friday night of ALL nights. The kids were pretty cranky the entire way and when we saw the snaking queue we were ready to give up. It was already 730pm and it didn’t look like we would get a seat for at least another 45 mins. But for a lack of better option in the vicinity, I was unwilling to give up. So Joel very bravely brought both kids to Starbucks while I stood in line. Thankfully the queue moved pretty quickly for a table of 4 as most people were there in big groups. We were also willing to take a table at the bar which fortunately gave us a good sunset view and a view of the food being prepped 🙂

We ordered ourselves a raw oyster platter, some raw halibut, the best clam chowder we have ever had and will have on this trip and a grilled cheese sandwich. Actually we ordered ourselves 2 oyster platters because the kids absolutely loved the raw oysters and we found Jah polishing off half a dozen of them on his own!!! Blue cheese and raw oyster lovers, what kids are these?