Lego getting out of hand.....

Reese and his daddy have been spending hours building a LEGO city. It is getting very big and totally fun to build. Our city has a police station, fire station, some houses, shops, a construction site, a ruin, a library, a Star wars lab, bridges, a jail, a car workshop, a cemetery and etc. Lego is expensive in Malaysia but it is so worth the investment. I am going to keep our collection for my grandchildren!

For parents who are looking to get some used bricks or cheaper genuine Lego, check out E-Bay or get friends to bring back from USA. One way to save is to buy bricks instead of theme based LEGO sets. You can find all the LEGO instruction manuals for free in PDF format online. More specifically LEGO's website. There is a huge LEGO community where they share ideas, technique and many more in building LEGO. Reese and his daddy are working towards building interesting stuff using more specialised parts. Recently I bought 2 books on Lego and the boys are totally inspired!

These books are great. If you're a big LEGO fan, you've probably already seen tons of examples of what creativity and LEGO bricks can bring.

This is Reese's play area in the new house. See the shelves with colourful containers? That is where we keep our Lego collection. We separate the bricks according to colour and the specialised parts in plastic containers with compartments. 

Our city!

A Library

A mobile police station. Hubby used bricks we have and look up the instructions online to build it.

Fire station

Police station

Star wars lab. Only for Star wars figurines. 

Bridges

Construction site

New Microscope

A few months back, I invested in an expensive microscope. Prior to this, we have a toy microscope and it was fun to use. Since Reese is already doing high school science, it is only appropriate we get a proper microscope for his studies. 

I have been super busy with the new house renovation and then the move. Finally settled down and yesterday we explored the new microscope. I can only say WOW! The images were so clear and beautiful. The details that we weren't able to see before were amazing. Having a mechanical stage on the microscope makes the whole experience of looking at slides a breeze. What you pay is what you get eh? :)

I managed to capture some of the images on my iPhone to share with you but the photos do not do justice to the actual images..... 

Vitamin and wing

Onion cell and fibre

Another fibre and leaf

New Drawing on a 9x5 feet Wall

Recently we gave Reese  a drawing wall in our new home.  The boy was over the moon and has since been drawing and experimenting. He drew this a few weeks ago. Total hours taken to complete this 9x5 ft wall was 2 hours. This is quite a feat for a 7 year old child!

Who Will Become a 'Super' Artist, The Psychologist

Reese's work was mentioned in an article entitled Who Will become a 'Super' Artist published in The Psychologist, a publication of The British Psychological Society. An interesting read for those with artistic children.

http://www.thepsychologist.org.uk/archive/archive_home.cfm/volumeID_26-editionID_231-ArticleID_2348-getfile_getPDF/thepsychologist/1013drak.pdf

NASA Replied!

Few months back, my baby wrote to NASA asking for a piece of Hubble Space Telescope when it falls back to earth. They wrote back!! A few days ago we got a package from them. Reese was so happy and immediately snatched the letter addressed to him and read. It is really wonderful how such a big organisation  is willing to reach out to children all over the world in their quest to promote space exploration.

 Reese's letter to NASA and we posted it via registered mail

A special letter addressed to Reese

In the package was a book and two prints of Hubble space telescope and James Webb telescope

 Reading the book about Hubble 

Beijing and Shanghai 2013

Beijing

We went to Beijing and Shanghai for a week. Reese was the happiest because he got to see the historical and the modern architecture of these two cities. Our first stop was Beijing and we hired a local English speaking tour guide and driver to take us around. Prior to the trip, Reese did his own research about the two cities and as expected, he knew a lot of the historical facts and totally impressed the guides. :) Reese can very well be our tour guide for every time the guide told us something, Reese would have something extra to add to it. 

This trip is part of Reese's homeschooling. It is history, culture, science and architecture lessons for him.  Nothing better than hands on experience! 

The Great Wall of China

Cable car and toboggan ride up and down the Great Wall

The happy boy

The Great Wall of China is breathtaking. We love it and the best experience was taking the cable car ride up and toboggan down. It is a must try! We went to Mutianyu's section of the Great Wall.

Reese drew this after his second day in Beijing

Temple of Heaven

Oops...forgot the name! :)

Went to watch a nice Kung Fu performance

The Forbidden City

Family picture

Regular folks playing chess in one of the famous park

Summer Palace

 Peking duck and beef hotpot.... they were sooooo good!

Local home cooked meal at the Hutong

Tianamen Square

My very happy boy

Shanghai/Suzhou/Tong Li water village

The Shanghai skyline taken by Reese

 Reese on the high speed train to Shanghai (5+ hours) and Reese and daddy in front of The Oriental Pearl Tower

Shanghai at night

A walk into Shanghai's past... The museum in Oriental Pearl Tower

Sticky sweet rice in Suzhou

Fruits everywhere

Our guide for Suzhou and Tong Li water villages

Seeing the real thing.... we only read about these fishing birds in the book The Story About Ping.

Street vendor

Our first try of stinky tofu

Local residence of Tong Li water village

One of the famous dumpling shop in Shanghai. We queued for more than 40 minutes

Worth the wait! It was that good!

Our lunch at Suzhou. 6 dishes for 2 adults and 1 child....crazy!

Suzhou's water village

Suzhou water village, very commercial

 Reese and his favourite buildings

Looking at Shanghai's skyline from the China World Financial Tower

At the highest observation deck in the world

Overall, we are satisfied with the trip. During our stay at these two cities, we felt very safe because every where you go including the subways, bags are scanned and sometimes police officers will conduct body scans! Traffic is horrendous. We got stuck in traffic from A to B literary a few times, Malaysian traffic jam is nothing... haha.... 

Dislike restaurants with no enforcement on smoking patrons. People are loud and the restaurants are smoky. Toilets are considerably clean and mostly have cubicles. I had encountered one toilet with no cubicles. Just 3 squat WC. I just couldn't do it. :) 

Beijing and Shanghai are so different. Shanghai is a more modern and civilised city as compared to Beijing. Moving around in these two cities for people who can't speak or read Chinese aren't that bad at all. English signboards are everywhere. Public transport is good too except for peak hours...the subway is crazy crowded.