Nature's Great Shows

Here are some video clips of the creatures we saw at Sungei Buloh:

Smooth Otter Playing In the Pond


Snake Slithering In Mangrove Swamp


The Milky Stork Feeding

A Christmas Story By Jedd

Santa's Helper

Mum was busy cleaning the house and told me to write a Christmas story. So here's my story on how I went to visit Santa Claus to help him:

One December holiday, after walking back from the park, I decided to open the mailbox. I discovered that there was a letter for me. Immediately, I tore open the envelope, eager to read the letter. I could not believe my eyes! It was a letter from Santa! Santa wanted me to work for him and he would send reindeer to fetch me on Christmas Eve, which was that day!

That night, I waited eagerly for the reindeer to come. Suddenly, I heard a low whistle. I rushed out of the house to see who whistled. I thought it was something scary. But when I opened the door, I saw Rudolph and the other reindeer with the sleigh outside! Rudolph told me to hop onto the sleigh. Like magic, the sleigh rose slowly up to the skies, then off to the North.

Soon, I felt cold air rushing past me. I peered down and whooped when I saw that we were flying over an iceberg! Suddenly, the sleigh descended and landed with a loud thud. I got off the sleigh and noticed that I was next to a huge factory. The factory doors flung opened and Frosty the Snowman wobbled out! He gave me a hug and I almost froze! Next, he showed me inside the factory, which was Santa Claus’ workshop. Instead of seeing elves making and wrapping presents, machines were making and wrapping presents. Frosty told me that Santa had modernised his factory last year.

Suddenly, a voice boomed out through the factory, “Ho! Ho!” I turned to see Santa Claus at the control room at the top of the factory. He was much bigger than I thought. His blue eyes twinkled at me. He then came down the flight of stairs and explained to me my job. The machines were not working well and kept making the wrong toys. My job was to fix them as I was very good at getting machines to work. Immediately after he had spoken, he handed me a case of tools for my work. I then began fixing the machines.

Soon, everything was fixed.Santa was impressed by how fast I finished my job. As a reward, he gave me a present with green wrapping all over it. He told me not to open it till I got home. He then told me that while he was modernising the factory, he made a Santa plane. That would replace his sleigh in the future. He asked me whether I would want to ride in it home. I said yes. Before I went home, Frosty stuffed my pockets with sweets and gave me another hug. I shivered and almost froze!

As the plane took off, I dozed off. When I woke up with a jolt, I was in my bed at home! My pockets were still full of candies. I rushed to the Christmas tree. The green present was there. Had it really been a dream? Anyway, I tore open the present and inside was a model of Santa’s plane. What a special Christmas this was!

-- Edited mildly by mum who kindly helped me type out my handwritten story:-) --

MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE!!

What A Day!

My Awesome Sungei Buloh Visit

It was definitely a smashing experience. We not only saw the usual monitors, archerfish, needlefish and birds. There were a number of squirrels and fantastic spiders. The giant mudskippers were really cute, especially the way they move on land.

We also spotted two Milky Storks. For the first time on a mangrove walk, we saw TWO snakes. Besides the square crabs, we also saw fiddler crabs and the really funny sesarmine crabs. One of them was holding a twig like a rifle! Best of all, I spotted the smooth otter.

Here are some pictures we took, and look out for video clips which are coming right up:




Monitor lizard basking in a "spa environment". Mum did not see it and walked right onto the platform!




Look at the patterns on this spider's web.








Well-camouflaged giant mudskipper




The Milky Stock was foraging for food alone.

And here are the square crab and the sesarmine crab:

Otter Sighting

Otter In Sungei Buloh

I was really thrilled to spot the otter at Sungei Buloh. It was the highlight of my visit. The otter was not very cooperative when it came to picture taking. It was busy digging up the waterbed. It was very fierce. We saw it fight off two monitor lizards!

(will load video of the otter once daddy sizes it down)

My Shell-less Egg

And It Bounces

The Trick : Soak Normal Egg In Vinegar

What happened:
The shell disappeared! The egg became bouncy. But we bounced it too hard. Splat! That was the end of it.


How come:
The vinegar (acid) dissolves the shell which is made of calcium carbonate. There are lots of bubbles on the egg because carbon dioxide is released. The membrane of the egg holds the contents in but when we bounced it too hard, the membrane broke. Mum says if you want a hardier bouncy shell-less egg, use a hard boiled egg.

(Em, how would the hen feel about a shell-less egg?)

Awesome Limestone Cave

What A Spectacular Sight

It was my first time visiting a limestone cave. We were at Yinzi Cave in China. We were in the cave for a long, long time because the cave runs across 9 mountains (said our guide). It was tiring walking in it.

In the second picture above, the bottom part was a reflection. The water was so still. The cave was lit like ice kacang. It was pretty. Minerals glistened on some of the limestone. They looked like precious stones. The guide told us many stories about the cave.

HortPark With Friends

What A FUN Day!

We had a really fun day going to Hortpark, followed by swimming at Keppel Club.

Mum got a shot of us on the bridge and we were very very tiny because she was so far away. We had walked very fast compared to her and the aunties:-) Power to small legs!! And that's my 'brother', Isaiah. I was pretending to strangle him ;-)
Later, we had lunch and played for the rest of the afternoon at Keppel Club. It's really nice meeting up with my friends.

Philatelic Museum Fun

I fixed my own "Beijing Opera Mask" face at the museum. Nice?
(p.s. enjoy my chewing gum smile!!!)

I'm 9 Now

*****Turned 9 In November*****

Q: Do you like being 9 years old?
A: No, because I will be in P4 and I have to do more difficult things.

Q: How old do you wish to be always?
A: 6 because I was primary one at that time. Everything was so easy!

Q: Do you think you are a big boy now?
A: Yes. I can do more things by myself. But this is not always good. I'm expected to do more and more things on my own :-(

Q: What's one thing you wish to do in your ninth year?
A: Play and play and play computer games!

Q: If you were the Birthday Fairy, what nice thing would you do for Jedd?
A: Homeschool Jedd.

Q: What did you do for your birthday?
A: Had friends over at my house, went to eat spagetti (yay!), played computer games like mad and went for a musical concert.

Q: Name one very special thing about your 9th birthday.
A: I got a new camera from daddy and the camera's name is Camel, because that's how I pronounce 'camera'.

Cooking During The Hols

Cook It, Eat It!
Mum is teaching me to cook this school holidays. I cooked my first instant noodles and fried three eggs. We also baked. I stuck sprinkles into my bear cookies. I was making a game but mum said I was doing voodoo.

My First Drum Performance

Drumming Away!
Here's my first drum performance at a music conference. I enjoyed it a lot! I played Mambo No. 5 by myself and other rhythm with my teacher. It was fun!




Here's a short clip of my first performance!

Bukit Timah Nature Reserve

All The Way To The Top!
We climbed and climbed, and got to the top of Bukit Timah. Yes!

It's a fun nature walk but look out for the monkeys! We saw them grooming each other on top of cars parked at the reserve. Some monkeys were playing with or chewing on car antenna, and sliding down windscreens (whee!)

Beanie's Pretty Flowers

My Bean Plant Blooms

Wow! Will I get beans soon? I hope so! Exciting!

Green Belt Now!

Whoo Hoo!

The grading was quite difficult but whew! I got my green belt!

Beanie Reaches For The Sky!

Remember the bean from my science teacher?

It has grown!

Yep, that's beanie, from that tiny seedling!



It is scaling the window grills and has gotten right to the top. Wonder where it will head next because it has touched the balcony ceiling.

Beanie is matured now because it is starting to bear flowers.

Y a y!

"Assistant Bird Trainer"

Now This Is Cool...

helping the bird trainer during the bird show

A Sad Bird Story

Luckily, It's A Happy Ending....

Notice anything strange about this bird here?

Macaws have long colourful tails. But she doesn't.

We were told that Polly's previous owner did not know how to care for her properly. Bored, she developed a bad habit of pulling out her own feathers.

When she was first found, she was in a sorry state apparently, with flesh showing. With good carers, she has grown her feathers back.

But when mum and I saw her, she was still a loner. Sat on her own. Poor bird.

IMPORTANT MESSAGE
Don't take exotic animals and keep them as pets if you don't know how to care for them.

Awesome Creepy Crawlies

Amazing Encounters

at the Butterfly & Insect Kingdom in Sentosa

We got so close to the friendly butterflies! In the picture below which mum took, you can even see the curled up proboscis of the buttlerfly!
The place had a really fantastic collection of insect specimens. There were all sorts of butterflies, some with metallic coloured wings and even transparent wings!

Look, this brown butterfly had "eyes" on its wings to trick predators.
Spot the butterfly on this branch of leaves. How cleverly camouflaged the butterfly was!









Now this isn't a butterfly at all. It is a jungle grasshopper. Can you beat that?!







Mum loved the collection of beetles. Some were really cute like the ones that look like they were wearing warrior masks (man face beetles). There were champions among them, like the World's Largest Rhino Beetle below. It was really, really eye-opening.

Magic! Look At My Flowers!

At First, They Were WHITE.... A little science experiement reveals the magic here. My white flowers became these colours because we "dyed" them. Fun!