Kite Flying at Marina Barrage

It seemed like a perfect windy day activity -- kite flying.

It had been raining every afternoon for practically the whole month, so I wasn't sure if the weather was going to hold out for our afternoon date at Marina Barrage. But God was gracious. On this day, it rained earlier than usual, leaving the weather clear in the late afternoon. Us parents didn't take chances though, and dressed our kids in wellies, for fear that the ground might be wet. As it turned out, we didn't have to, but it sure made for cute pics!

We had a slight hiccup when we realised that the kites we had did not come with string. Haha. Talk about novices! But fortunately, we discovered that the gift shop at Marina Barrage stocks an extensive selection of kites AND string, so this was quickly rectified, and the Dads could get down to work.

I'm really not all that familiar with kite flying or getting a kite into the air and was mostly happy to leave DD to do the work. He was fairly confident anyway, except that things didn't exactly work out to plan. I put it down to the more unconventional shape of our kite, plus the fact that its balance seemed a bit off, leading it to tilt and dip to one side. Adding insult to injury, J and family got their kite into the air fairly quickly, and we were all gingerly offering tips to DD, prompting irritated "I know how to fly a kite, ok?" comments from him.

It took a while, but he eventually got the kite up and stable enough for Noey to have a go. And the look on his face made all the effort worth it. "I love it!" he said with conviction.

We hung around for a bit longer than we had planned, seeing that the kids were having fun. So we were pretty hungry when we headed over to the new Satay by the Bay for dinner. I don't know if it was because it was new, or because it was the 4th day of CNY, but disappointingly, hardly any stalls were open! And the ones that were open were so overwhelmed with orders that some stalls refused to even let us order anything. It was a bit of a daunting situation because we had hungry kids on our hands! 

In the end, after much queuing, we managed to get the children settled with plates of Nasi Lemak, while us adults got plates of Satay (naturally) and BBQ-ed chicken wings, and some really TASTY Bak Kut Teh. The Bak Kut Teh was a surprise - I don't think any of us expected it to be that good - but it's something I'll definitely order again if we go back.

We rounded off the evening with ice-cream (in yummy local flavours) and sparklers.  

Owing to the food situation, it was really late when we got back. Thankfully Noey had no school the following day! 

Now we really have to find another opportunity to bring the kites out for a spin again.