Time flies when you are having fun!

The last two weeks have flown by, but how come, what did we do?
Well, there is work for Karsten, school for the children and Katrin and sleeping, feeding, burping and nappy-filling for the youngest. All that mixed with fun ;-)

We are sad that Katie's time with us has come to an end and she flew back to Australia 10 days ago. We do miss her!  Katie has been a fantastic help, she cooked, cleaned and looked after the children and therefore made our life much easier. Now you probably wonder what Katrin did at all ;-) What a blessing to have had such a godly woman in our midst! THANK YOU!

Jonas has a busy time in school, lots of tests are written, which is quite challenging since he missed the first half of the school year here and most of the test cover this time. An advanced lesson in resilience, endurance and learning to learn. He is walking every day to and from school, with a heavy backpack. We have brought his bike, but he has to cross heavy traffic in front of our condo: Bukit Timah Road is 4 lanes oneway from east to west, then there is a fenced flood water channel and then Dunearn Road (4 lanes oneway from west to east). To cross all those there is one of many overpasses close by with lots of steps, so it's easier to walk than haul the bike plus backpack up and down that overpass.
Yesterday in Sports he jump over 5 m in long jump and ran 9.9 sec over 75 m, not bad for warm up, eh?!
Jonas has made friends here, but also keeps contact via Internet with his friends back home. Just recently he had a Skype session with his grandma in Spain, going over some Spanish questions he had in preparation for the Spanish test. That is multi-cultural globalisation in practice.

Michael has also found friends and goes to school happily. One of his friends, Mika comes also from a German background. For lunch he eats at the school canteen and tries out new tastes, which is brave since he doesn't like hot spicy food and that is one of the most common ingredients here. He loves the tropical fruit and encourages us to buy this or that to try it out. So Katrin googles a lot ;-)
We have discovered quite some tasty new fruit like rose apples (also called plum apple). This native fruit is pear shaped, rose-purple in colour (the darker the colour the sweeter the taste apparently, unripe fruit has bright green colour) and waxy. The core contains of inedible fluff and once we had an inedible seed the size of a cherry tomato, but the skin is edible. The flesh is crisp and watery (similar to a watermelon), so very refreshing and juicy. It tastes like a cross between nashi pear and capsicum, there is a hint of rose water. They are in season now till the June. Rose apples are rich in antioxidants, calcium, fiber, Vitamin A and C. It is regarded as tonic for brain and liver in India - so we bought a few! The fruit is eaten like an apple, but is also served in salads,  pies or made into juice. The court we live in is called Chempaka, the rose apple is also called 'champakka'.

Michael also loves nashi pears, which are available now too. These fruit are shaped like an apple and have an apple like texture, but they are quite watery, which makes them less suitable for baking compared to European pears. They are best eaten raw and taste like a cross between pear and melon. The nashi pear is ripe even though it's firm, but should be handled with care. It can be stored for a while in a cool and dry place. This pear is a great source of fiber and Vitamin C. Nashi pears are the oldest known cultivated pear and a symbols of spring around here.

Esther is settling into school, the teacher said her reading and spelling level is top of class - she loves to read aloud at our nightly Bible reading time with a lot of emphasis on intonation. Last week she had a friend over, they played with Lego for a long time and then hopped into the pool. Next week another friend will come over, Katrin talked with her mum for a while on the phone and learnt that this mum talked to a friend of hers about Esther as in 'a new girl has come into my daughter's class, she has 6 siblings'. To this the friend replied: "I think, they live in our condo, there is a family with 7 children".... We are definitely being watched and it's great to know that God watches over us with love and joy ("The LORD your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing" or in another translation: "Your God is present among you, a strong Warrior there to save you. Happy to have you back, he'll calm you with his love and delight you with his songs. Your God is present among you, a strong Warrior there to save you. Happy to have you back, he'll calm you with his love and delight you with his songs." Zephaniah 3:17)

Esther loves Sophie and is very glad to have a little sister, she enjoys carrying her in the pouch (Baby Bjorn) or just to carry her like that.

Katie doing Maths with the boys (aka baking)

David, Yannic and Noah are at home and settled well into homeschooling routine. It's great to have this opportunity to address minor issues. At the moment David is quite fast with his number facts whereas Yannic is more confident in regard to spelling. The English ABC is a bit confusing regarding the letter name and the sound it makes, especially when it comes to "E", "I" and "U".
Quite often they sit in their room and play with Lego. Noah is very creative when playing, he takes his Lego and uses highly coveted 'Blu tac' to tie the man up or help him to abseil...
We have been to the Science Centre while Katie was still here, in three hours we covered only parts of the first floor and it has 4 floors or even 5 with 1000 interactive displays. They say in their flyer: "Even if you spend a mere 5 minutes on each exhibit, it will still take you at least seven days to see all we have to offer here!". It's fantastic that their family year pass only costs $50, Katrin bought one pass for  herself and the 3 younger children and once we all go we could buy another pass for the rest of the family. The options for the pass included also a pass for 3 adults and 2 children, accommodating the domestic helper. Outside of the centre are some special gardens: Ecogarden, Kinetic Garden and Waterworks. In future we have to bring our togs regardless of where we go, the Jurong Bird Park had a water park included and now the Science Centre too. Both attractions are less than ten minutes apart (by bus). Another good thing is the direct bus connection between our condo and the science centre, it only takes 20 min and all the buses are air conditioned ;-) Outside the Centre is McDonald's, so guess where we had lunch!

The boys cope well without the school social network and take their turns at time alone. But we are all glad that we have a great garden back home and everybody misses their friends, which is good to realise. David and Yannic are asking a few times if they could send an email to their class or to Mrs. Spencer, but look a bit confused when Katrin tells them that Mrs. Spencer is no longer at their school and that their class has moved on to Year 2 and is been reshuffled... I guess it's their first year at school and maybe after Prep they didn't realise the changes over all the novelty of being a big school child in Year 1?





Sophie is doing well, she feeds nicely and sleeps well at night only waking once for a feed. She started to smile, which is greeted by a lot of excitement from the older children.

 Sophie had her first bath, alone in the basin and then just to make sure also with her brothers:

This week we went for Sophie's 1month-check up, she has gained 1kg. Well, as I said she feeds well and still has cubby checks ;-) All is fine.
We also have obtained a certificate stating that Sophie is Australian by descent. Now we have to get an Australian passport, which needs to be stamped by Singaporean authorities (a sign for her entry into the country) and then we can apply for her dependent pass. As foreigners who aren't tourists we need this check card size pass as ID.


All the children love to cuddle her. Noah came a few times shouting "The baby is awake, she wants milk!" because Sophie dared to move or blink in her sleep... He doesn't mind holding her even when she is upset. Yannic also makes sure he get his share of holding and cuddling her, he especially likes to hold her hand. When Katrin feeds her or she is in the pouch Yannic comes and looks for Sophie's hand to hold it.

Chinese New Year lasts for two weeks. The management office of our condo organised a dragon dance group to come and perform. It was interesting to see it from close by. The band makes a lot of noise to scare the evil away. Then two person are under one dragon costume and it looks like hard work for the second person. There were two dragons, I guess it has to do with the balance of Yin and Yang, two is very important. Towards the end of the performance one of the dragons climbed up a pole. First he walked up to the pole then the frontman started to climb up while the second man elegantly slipped away. It was a very artistic climb and when he finally unrolled a scroll written in Chinese (probably: Gong Xi Fa Cai!) a small firework started at the bottom of the pole.
The dragon also gave mandarines to the spectators as well as chocolate coins.

Last Saturday we were treated to a tour of Singapore through Karsten's work. We were driven all over the island and if we hadn't stopped the lady after a few hours we would probably be still driving! She gave us a lot of advice what to buy where or what to visit. Katrin tried to take notes and Karsten changed seats ;-)
In the East there is a huge park (East Coast Park) where you can hire bikes, nothing unusual here, and ride along the coast for miles. The beach is not the nicest, especially not when one is used to the Gold Coast, but another reason not to swim there is the long queue of ships. They line up from Changi in the East all the way to the harbour, tons of container ships. We were told that a ship at the end of the queue will be in and out of Singapore Harbour in 24 hours or less - wow!

We stopped at McDonald to give the children a break from sitting in the minibus. One exit led towards the beach and still inside Maccas we found this 'Feet-washing Point':

Last night, Thursday, we took the children to Marina Bay and watched "Wonder Full", a laser show over the bay. It "uses electric light and laser effects to tell the universal tale of the journey of life" (their website: http://www.marinabaysands.com/Singapore-Entertainment/WonderFull/) accompanied by an orchestral soundtrack. It was very entertaining. For 15 minutes the skyline was the backdrop to a colourful show, when the flame thrower came into action it got really warm, even though we were 30 m (?) away. Afterwards we went into the shopping centre and ate ice cream at Cold Rock, which is next door to an exquisite toy shop. They sell bamboo baby clothes, these are amazingly soft and light, very tempting! But at the moment Sophie has a lot of clothes (THANK YOU for the loving parcels!) and toys ;-)

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Pancake batter in the making.

The second weekend with hatchling Sophie was quiet - recovering from the first week of school for some and storing energy for a big opening event for others ;-)
We started again our Saturday tradition of pancakes.
Just have to add apple sauce to our shopping list ;-)

At church on Sunday we found out about a Chinese tradition concerning newborns. The first month the baby and mother stay home, they apparently don't go out and some families don't even open the windows. So everybody 'was looking when we rocked up with a 10 day old Sophie, but the comments were all encouraging. I guess Singaporeans are used to different cultures and traditions and can tolerate without taken offence or looking down on others nor having to prove they know better.
After the first month the first haircut is celebrated - "Taimao", it is said that the babies have 'foetus fat' secreted from skin which can cause bacterium reproduction. So apparently the first haircut keeps the head clean, the hair will grow better and even fuller. On top of all those advantages it brings good luck.
Some families have the cut hair made into a brush. The story goes that a student, who studied to become a scholar, was too poor to buy a calligraphy brush. His parents made him a brush with his hair they kept from his first haircut. He became the top scholar in Beijing. Other families followed as the infant-hair brush (taimaobi) seemed to bring good luck and knowledge. People regard those brushes as the best ones for writing and painting because of its unique softness and smoothness. Katrin loves to kiss Sophie's head due to the softness! The price of those brushes range from $38 to $428 depending on the material of the handle. By the way couples brushes are made too, "joe fa" = 'The joining of hair' (prices from $199 to $999). All in the name of good luck and eternal happiness.
Another keepsake is Umbilical Cord Stamp or "Wealth Stamp". By keeping the umbilical cord in a crystal ("liuli") it apparent brings good health and wealth to the baby, after all the cord is an unique tube supplying the baby with oxygen and nutrients without a direct air source. The baby's name is engraved on it too and the top can be decorated with an animal.


Monday, 16.01.12 was the big day: This was Sophie's due date ;-) and also the opening ceremony of the Singapore Research Centre, for which Karsten has toiled the last few years. It was a huge success.

Tuesday, Jonas was sick at home, probably a relapse from Glandular Fever, he stayed in bed almost all day. While the other children either went to school or did their schoolwork at home. Noah has a sticker book to keep him busy and he dilligently brings it along to do his schoolwork. Katie found next to the recylcing bin a stack of school books typical for this part of the world. One book was about telling the time, it's the same over and over again, which we find very typical for the "Asian" way of learning: repetition, repetition, repetition. Which has it's benefits, but can dim creativity.

Katie got busy with David, Yannic and Noah baking Chocolate Brownies:

Busy bakers!

Hawker centre Ghim Moh, the wet market is in the background.

Wednesday Esther didn't feel well, so she stayed home and Michael went on the public bus all by himself. Being-Wan had offered to take us to the Wet Market, so off we all went. We ate once more Thosai and had Kofi (= coffee) with it. We also tried a sweet variation called "Appam", this crisp pancake is eaten mixed with orange coloured sugar and coconut. Katrin and Katie both love coconut and since they both have a sweet tooth, it was a favourite!
We also ate some sweet snacks there: Sesame Balls and You Tiao. Esther loved the Sesame Balls, David, Yannic and Noah loved You Tiao, which is a long golden-brown, deep fried strip of dough, that can easily be torn lengthwise in
two. A Cantonese folktale regarding You Tiao says that an official and his wife plotted against a popular general and succeeded. The You Tiao is made as two foot long rolls joined along the middle, with one roll representing the husband and the other the wife, it is deep fried and eaten as if done to the traitorous couple.
Sophie slept soundly as we walked through the noisy market. She loves to be carried around! It's great to have Katie here, she is very patient and doesn't mind carrying Sophie for hours!

Beng-Wan, Esther, Katie and Sophie with Thosai (front), Appam (back) and Kofi.

Snack stall in the food court of the markets

The following photos show stalls which are typical Chinese New Year stalls: Mandarins/tangerines/oranges and special sweets/bisquits are sold for the festival:

Mandarin stall

Special Chinese New Year treats.

Our condominium has balconies for every unit or almost every unit, where we dry our clothes. Older style units use bamboo poles to dry the clothes, it's very effective, but also a hazard. Just the other day Katrin read in the newspaper of a maid who fell to her death while trying to gather in the washing.

Washing on bamboo poles

On Thursday Sophie and Katrin went to the Australian High Commission, which is just opposite the Gleneagles Hospital where Sophie was born. Sophie is born in Singapore but that alone doesn't make her Singaporean. One's parents has to be Permanent Resident (PR) or citizens for one to be Singaporean by birth. Well, none of us is PR nor citizen, we are foreigners. But we are Australians, so we have to have Sophie be registered for Australian citizenship by descent. Therefore we had to have passport pictures taken of Sophie and then we were able to apply for citizenship on behalf of Sophie. It was an interesting experience for Katrin. She had to leave her phone (because it has a camera) and some ID at the guardhouse before granted entry to the main building. There, six people were already waiting for the consulate to open. After 15 minutes we were allowed to go upstairs and get a ticket. More waiting until the first person was called - which happened to be Katrin (the last shall be the first!). It'll take 5 business days for the citizenship certificate to be ready, due to Chinese New Year and Australia Day, it's almost 10 days before Katrin can pick it up and proceed to apply for an Australian passport for Sophie. We need it to get her dependent pass, our Singaporean ID/visa.

In every waiting area there was a TV showing 'The Wiggles' and then 'Playschool' and the Australian landmarks on the posters made Katrin a bit homesick.

Thank God that Katrin and Sophie were in and out of the High Commission in less than an hour. We'll try to come back early in the morning next time as well. Soon, we will have to go through a similar process with the German embassy.

Sophie awake!

Another answer to prayer came on Friday. David was complaining about an earache on and off, with a long weekend before us, it seemed to be best to see a doctor before the holidays. But to see a doctor on a Friday could mean a lot of waiting. A few weeks ago Katrin rang a clinic close by which was recommended to her and the receptionist said that they don't make appointments, you come and wait (welcome to Singapore!) and Fridays would usually mean long wait. So off we went (Sophie, Noah, Yannic, David, Katie and Katrin) to Bukit Timah Plaza to go to the doctor and also get some groceries, since the little store at Maplewoods is closed for the next two weeks. When we arrived at the doctors there was only one other lady waiting. After the paper work we were straight called in. The doctor was very patient in answering David and Yannic's questions regarding her tools. David's ear is swollen, so she couldn't see enough, which means we have to come back after a few days of treatment to get the swelling down. No pool for David. 

Instead of going back to the first receptionist we waited at a second counter to get the medicine and pay for the visit. The visit costed $20 and the medicine $4, a bargain ;-) 

Then off to the supermarket which was crowded and half an hour later was crazily crowded, so we were glad to be done. The queue at the taxi stand was non existing, just one person in front of us. David looked at the lady, who had really short hair (almost like a soldier) and said to her, why she had a boy's haircut. To which she happily replied "Thank you!" The next taxi didn't want to take her (Katrin couldn't hear where she wanted to go, but it must have been the reason rather than her hair cut) and so the taxi driver asked Katrin where she needs to go and took her. Which left Katrin a bit perplex to have been jumped the queue, but the lady said smilingly she is used to taxi driver been unwilling to take her to her destination, still left Katrin uncomfortable. Nevertheless we took the taxi back home and came home in record time - praise the Lord!

Saturday was a quiet day with pancakes ;-) 

Monday was the beginning of the Chinese New Year Festival which lasts for 15 days and ends with the Lantern Festival. The Chinese Year is based on the lunar system, so the start of the year changes each year. It's a huge festival here in Singapore, some say it's even bigger and more traditional than in China itself. During the culture revolution under Mao many traditions were apparently lost, which on the other side Chinese people who moved to Singapore before that time still practiced and they passed it on to the next generations. This new year will be the year of the dragon, which is said to be a prosperous year. Well, looking at the world economy and the doomsday scenario the media depicts we could use this... 

Chinese New Year is all about family. On New Year Eve it starts with a reunion dinner, the whole family comes together. Quite a few people said they will be going to their families as they themselves are the youngest. So it seems that the oldest hosts the younger siblings. 

According to tradition the New Year started with fighting against a mythical beast called Nian. Nian would come on the first day of the new year and eat the livestock and even the children. But one year the people observed how Nian was scared away by a child wearing red. Thus the tradition of hanging red banners, red lanterns and red spring scrolls in the windows and doors began and Nian never came back to the village. Apart from red fighting off evil, the sound for the colour red means prosperity, therefore red is the predominant colour during the festival. Red also stands for joy, virtue, truth and sincerity. 

Our neighbours' front door

Another tradition is the giving of red envelopes. After paying for the groceries Katrin was given a handful of red envelopes and Karsten got some from work. They are called "ang pow". Married couples and the elderly give them to the unmarried or children. The ang pow are filled with money, an even amount is supposed to bring good luck with the number 8 to be considered lucky (homophone with wealth) and also the number 6 which sounds like smooth (have a smooth year). The first digit defines odd and even in Chinese, so 50 would be odd. An odd amount would be given at a funeral.

Sometimes chocolate money is given.

Ang pow in a kumquat tree

Karsten was surprised when he came to work on Friday and found two mandarins on his and everybody else's desk. Like yin and yang everything should be in pairs. For example is salt and pepper mixed into one container, so that a soy sauce container can go on the table as well. Therefore everybody was given two mandarins. Also mandarins are very popular during this time of the year. They are like oranges available in abundance. An often seen sight are two mandarin/tangerine trees next to the front door. At a few places those trees were sold almost like Christmas trees during Christmas time. Mandarin oranges are a symbol of wealth and good fortune (homonym for gold).

Another food is the Celebration or Prosperity Salad "Yusheng". Shredded crunchy vegetables like white radish, capsicum, turnips, carrots, red pickled ginger, sun-dried oranges, key lime leaves, Chinese parsley, chilli, chopped peanuts, toasted sesame seeds, shrimp crackers, five spice powder and other ingredients. The main ingredient is raw salmon (rather than mackerel due to popular demand). Then plum sauce , rice vinegar, kumquat paste and sesame oil are pour on. The salad has a total of 27 ingredients. Yusheng means raw fish, but is also a homophone for 'abundance' or prosperity. It's a very tasty salad. The fun part is apart from obvious pleasure of eating the tradition of tossing it all together. Everybody stands up and tosses the ingredients around trying to only make a little mess or so ;-)

This salad is commonly eaten at the 7th day of the festival, but is available all throughout the festival.

Other traditions during New Year:
Lion dance
Visiting relatives (on the first and second day but not the 3.day)
Firecrackers (Singapore has banned firecrackers due to whole houses burning down and fatalities)
Wearing new clothes from head to toe as a symbol of abundance, wealth and a new beginning
Spring travel (migrant workers return home to celebrate with their families)
Spring cleaning before the festival
No sweeping on the first day as not to sweep out good fortune


And to solve the riddle in the heading:
Gong Xi Fa Cai means: Wishing you to be prosperous in the coming year!

A disclaimer: The Chinese words/sentences we used are from all the different dialects like Cantonese and Hokkien, to keep it simple we just wrote 'in Chinese'.


On Monday we went to:

Yes, right: Jurong Bird Park!

Roughly half an hour drive from our place lies Southeast Asia's largest bird park, an open concept park with the world's largest walk-in aviary which has the tallest man-made waterfall at 30 m (African Waterfall Aviary). There are also lots of other aviaries featuring birds from around the world, from penguins and flamingos to lories and toucans, around 5000 birds from 380 species. Quite a few displays and hands-on activities made the time entertaining for the children like a dino dig. Interestingly birds are very successful animal despite their bird brains: they fly, swim and roam all over the world, even otherwise uninhabited Antarctica. So we walked through the park and at the end sat in a monorail to be driven around in air conditioning to recap what we just had seen ;-)

The Schulz family in the African Waterfall Aviary

Penguins and other funny birds

Adventure is out there!

A bunch of beautiful flowers all grouped together

We left the park around lunch time and took the opportunity to try Singaporean Laksa and the Celebration Salad. Laksa is a popular spicy noodle soup with fish or coconut based. It originated from the Peranakan community, Peranakan Chinese are the descendants of Chinese immigrants who came in the 15th and 16th century to the Malay archipelago and didn't intermarry with the natives, but sometimes they lost the Chinese language.

Singaporean Laksa

We couldn't leave without taking a photo of this special iPad:

Do you want to go to the airport ...?

Well, these were the words of the taxi driver when he arrived at lobby four at our home address on Wednesday evening. Katrin's waters had broken about half an hour earlier, so we had called a taxi to take us to the hospital. "To the hospital, please" was our reply to the taxi driver, as Katrin with a very round tummy slipped into the back of the cab. Our bag must have confused him.
The confusion continued at the emergency ward, the nurse asked why we were here and Katrin replied, that her waters had broken. He asked, how far along in the pregnancy she were and if she had any labour. Less than two weeks short of her due date and no labour pain was the reply. "So why are you here?", was his comment. Katrin again said that her water had broken and then some action took place. A wheelchair was brought and a fragile looking nurse pushed Katrin to the lift and further on to the labour ward, it was quite a few uphill stretches in this journey and Katrin felt sorry for the nurse, but this wasn't her first time obviously!
To make a long story short-ish: During the night labour started but in an irregular pattern. When Katrin arrived she was 2.5 cm dilated, in the morning it was still only 3 cm. Dr. Yam (our obstetrician) wasn't very happy, he feared the Caesarean scar won't stand this test if he was to induce Katrin, but to wait was heightening the risk of an infection since the waters had broken. He agreed to give us 45min of walking around to start labour properly - and Katrin had been so proud to be able to breath through those labour. Not much difference 45min later, so the drip started with half the normal dose. Around lunch time we had reached 4 cm and the intensity was almost too much for Katrin to cope. A nurse coming in took one look at the situation and then said, in her opinion the baby is posterior and after an examination, she was sure of it. So Katrin was told to try being on hands and feet, but that wasn't much better. Next time Dr. Yam came in he saw only two options: Epidural or Caesarean. Since one needs an epidural to perform a c-section, we went with an epidural first. By the time the anaesthetist came (around 3pm) Katrin was 8 cm dilated. The anaesthetist administered the epidural quickly and Katrin knew why one of the nurses called epidural "happydural". What a bliss and what seemed only minutes later Katrin was told to push and there she was:
SOPHIE CHARLOTTE JENNA
Charlotte is Katrin's mum's second name and Jenna is a deviation of Karsten's mum's second name.
Her profile:
Born: 05.01.12 at 3:49pm, weight: 3560g, length: 51.5cm and despite been born in Singapore she is Caucasian ;-)

For those of you who are super sleuth: We didn't leave the children alone at home. Being-Wan or her helper came and stayed with them. They did a fantastic job in reassuring and feeding the children.
In the evening Katrin and Sophie were taken to the maternity ward and Karsten went home. Before been taken up to the ward, the nurse said she would give a bath we thought to the baby, but she was then bathing Katrin, what a very nice service!
In the room there was already another patient with a lot of people around, quite a racket, but at 8pm they all left and only her TV was still running. Katrin couldn't see her, because both beds were surrounded by drawn curtains and due to the epidural Katrin needed to stay lying for at least 8 hours.
The next morning Katrin wanted to be discharged, which was fine by her obstetrician, but we had to wait for Sophie's blood group test. If she would be Rh + like Karsten, Katrin would have needed an antidote, as she is Rh-. The first test - taken from the cord blood - showed the same blood group as Katrin. But to be sure they wanted a control test, which was never needed before. Rh- is very rare in Asian people (that's why the AntiD syringe Katrin had to buy here was so expensive, whereas it wasn't an issue in Australia or Germany). It took till the evening for the results to come back confirming the earlier test. It was great that Karsten and the children came with Being-Wan to see and cuddle Sophie and it was also good that they left after some time and didn't wait for Katrin and Sophie to be ready to come home. They would have gotten cabin fever waiting all day. That is one thing we discovered here, not many things are done in a rush, which has it's advantages and disadvantages I guess. Interesting for Katrin was also even though many different people came to see Katrin (from nurses and paediatrician to lactation consultant, customer service,
hearing test nurse and others) there was no physiotherapist amongst them - maybe if she had stayed the two days. The smallest package for booking into the hospital was two days, one day would still cost the same.
Karsten, Katrin and Sophie were chauffeued home by a complimentary limousine service by the hospital, very thoughtful.

It was very nice to be back home!

Saturday was a very quiet day with lots of sleep for Katrin, Sophie and Karsten (who didn't get much sleep neither on Wednesday nor Thursday night). Pool, tennis and entertainment for the children. Late in the evening Katie H. arrived from Australia. She kindly agreed to help us in the first few weeks to settle into school and newborn baby. We are truly blessed.

Sunday was also quiet. The children enjoyed holding Sophie, we nearly set up a roster! We also had to get ready for school, which wasn't as intensive as it would have been back in Australia. Firstly because only 3 not 5 children go to school and also because, the books and textbooks provided at school for Esther and Michael. Jonas' supply was wrapped the German way with easy slip on plastic covers, so mainly the labelling was needed.

Monday was the "big" day for the three "big" children. Karsten went with Jonas to his campus. They left shortly after 7am to be there before 7:45am, on the way they overtook a student wearing the same school uniform. He later drove past in a taxi, stopped and asked if Jonas wanted a lift - what a start!
Michael and Esther were accompanied by the rest of the family who took conveniently the bus. A few chores needed to be done: We had to pre pay for this month's canteen meals for Esther, which can only be paid in cash or cheque. It seems that the main payment method is cheque except at the supermarkets and bigger shops. Then we purchased two school hats - one size fits all baseball caps, hm, sun protection is taken much more serious in Australia. One of the teachers even said that there is no rush to buy the hats, the children could still play outside without them.

On the funny side we saw some monkeys climbing on the school fence - well no, it wasn't David, Yannic nor Noah! ;-) In the school's handbook we read that the children have to watch out for monkeys who like to steal the lunch boxes or backpacks and disappear with them over the fence into the jungle...

 Monkeys?

Found the monkey?

Esther's class teacher is Mr. Landrum and seems to be very friendly and kind, there are 11 girls and 9 boys in her class - what a difference to last year's class!
Michael's class teacher is Ms Carroll, who also is very welcoming and caring.
Each year level has two to three German and two to three English speaking classes.
Back home David, Yannic and Noah did their school work and in the afternoon Katrin took Sophie to see the paediatrician, David and Yannic came along, - all is fine according to Dr. Y. Y. Yip (just read that name aloud!). To have the heel prick test (Guthrie Test) done we needed to go to the laboratory on a different level. The paediatrician has his rooms also next to the hospital (Gleneagles) like Katrin's obstetrician. The receptionist verified the referral, apparently we had the wrong form. A little while later, they could perform the test and David and Yannic gave advice on how to comfort Sophie. Then the receptionist set to work regarding the bill, in the end we had to go along a few corridors, downstairs through to the main office of the laboratory where again we waited - seems to be a great lesson in patience, living in Singapore! Finally we were able to pay, again a nice little sum, I guess this test is also a rather Western tradition. We took the bus home after we had the luxury of taking a taxi to the hospital due to the starting rain. In the bus we sat next to a young man, who tried to get some contact in order for him to become Australian citizen, a bit bizarre. Good to be back home!

Happy birthday could be heard onTuesday in the Schulz home, t'is was the day of Esther's birthday. Both our girls are born just a few days apart!

It was also a busier day than we expected. Esther is learning to play a string instrument through school and needed a cheque as a security for the instrument. Since we don't have a cheque account and therefore no cheque book, we thought that Katrin could quickly get a cheque book at the bank, which seems to be a more common way of payment and more convenient than getting cash from the ATM. Off we all (Katie, David, Yannic, Noah, Sophie and Katrin) went to the shopping centre. We went to the bank, and were told to go to the main hall to get a cash cheque or for Katrin to come back with Karsten in order to open a cheque account. Katrin has a dependent pass due to Karsten's work, so he is needed too. Going into the hall, there was a queue like at the airport check in. On the very right sight was Priority Banking, on the very left side was business accounts and the three counters in the middle served the rest of customers. Katie took all the children for a walk around in the centre, whilst Katrin queued up. After a few minutes a lady joined the queue. Katrin asked her if it was always that crowded which she confirmed adding "Welcome to Singapore", well we had had some taste of this. After a few more minutes without any progress, Katrin left the bank to do the grocery shopping hoping that afterwards it might be less crowded at the bank. One and a half hours later Katrin returned to the bank to the same situation just different people waiting. The lady who came after Katrin was in fifth position now, nearly there to be served but clearly annoyed. Katrin waited for a few minutes then decided to ask how to be eligible for Priority Banking. So she went to the counter at the entrance and was told that you have to have $200 000 in your account as a foreigner, so back she went... Then God moved the hearts of the clerk at the entrance and he had her sit in a waiting room, handing her a form to fill out for the cash cheque. After a while a lady came and escorted Katrin into her office. In 5 minutes the formalities were sufficed and Katrin had the cheque. The clerk asked how far along Katrin's pregnancy were - Praise the Lord for Katrin's baby belly! Meanwhile Katie and the children were waiting in the taxi queue, which was quite long too due to the rain. But they had a taxi even before Katrin was finished in the bank. All that time, more than two hours, Sophie slept happily on Katie's arm. Once again everybody was glad to be home again!
Esther came home happily with a Viola, she played a bit and everybody wanted to have a go too. Quite a racket!

Wednesday came, Jonas walked to school as before, Michael and Esther took the public bus with Katie and planned to come back on their own (which went well). After schooling for David and Yannic and Noah, who takes his sticker book activity very serious, all of them with Sophie and Katie went to Tanglin Mall at the beginning of Orchard Road to have Sophie's passport photo taken. The Australian High Commission recommended that particular photo shop. Tanglin Mall is only two bus stops away from the Gleneagles Hospital. Sophie was sound asleep when we arrived at the photo shop, what a shame to wake her and what hard work! But the staff there was fantastic and we got a good shot, open eyes and no crying! But the Singaporean lesson hit us again (patience) - we had to wait for the photos, they would be ready in a week. After some discussion, we arranged pick up for Monday providing they have texted us to say it is ready and also the pick up is in a different mall a bit further down the road (Forum Mall, where we went to the huge Toys'r'Us and which has lots of kid's related shops). Oh well, off we went to have some late morning tea at Starbucks ;-)
Michael went on an excursion to an organic farm and he managed to take over one hundred photos! His year level is preparing for an in depth study on the topic of recycling and waste which will cumulate in an exhibition in a few weeks. On Thursday they are going to Marina Barrage (a dam at the mouth of the Marina Channel to create a reservoir,  http://www.pub.gov.sg/Marina/Pages/default.aspx) and to a water plant to learn about recycled water.

Thursday was now a home day - wow what a first week for Sophie! But she took it all in her stride, sleeping and feeding and filling nappies! She is the darling of all, even Jonas comes and happily carries her around - which looks great, he is so grown up and she is so tiny! The children marvel at her tiny feet and toes.
Jonas has quite a challenging time to catch up with his class, but he raises to the occasion and thrives. Most of his class mates are turning 16 years old this year, so he the youngest. Karsten loves to sit down with him in the evening to go over Maths or Physics homework.

Friday was busy again, Katie took on the homeschooling of the boys and Katrin took Sophie first to a Coffee Morning for new parents of GESS (Jonas, Michael and Esther's school) and then for her check up with her obstetrician, who said he had anticipated a very fast delivery, but it turned out to be Katrin's second longest labour, go figure! All is well though - thank God!
The first week of school went well for all children, the bigger ones made new friends and settled very quickly into their new school environment. Apparently the teachers of the other year level classes at the primary campus told their classes what new children have joined, so they know their names and can make them feel welcomed. The younger ones applied themselves also well to their new schooling experience. Good on them ;-)