After months of 悉心调教，Didi finally started his nursery 1 class on 1st of March after delaying it for a semester. He thoroughly enjoys his playschool and looks forward to it everyday, and no complaints from the teachers so far!

Anyway, this is our first such experience and so forth the excitement. The moment had arrived, we were experiencing night during daytime, but where was the sun and where was the diamond ring!? The Sun was supposed to be right at the middle of the picture, but I only saw the sky of Mordor. Right location but wrong weather, the sky was overcast and it was raining outside.

I wonder if the kids in the Kindergarten were disappointed not being able to witness it to the fullest scale. Well, at least didi had fun running in and out of the balcony trying to catch the phenomena.

I wasn’t very confident about the GP’s diagnosis (or no diagnosis). My brother then recommended me to visit Dr Goh S.K. clinic at Paragon, saying that he is very experienced and charges very reasonably. We made an appointment to see him very quickly. True to what my bro. said, his clinic is really those no frill kind compared to the other clinics around that look expensive, posh, tendy, high class or whatever decor.

Dr Goh diagnosed Zeeyau condition to be the Twenty-nail Dystrophy. Following the diagnosis, he gave me a little education on the condition, showing me books and asked me to read the description of that condition.

He said such condition usually occur in childhood. Early symptoms are small spots on the nails, which will slowly join together to form longitudinal ridges that makes the nails look rough. He found small spots of Zeeyau’s nails and the badly affected nails fits the description of the condition. The cause of such condition is unknown, and there is no known medical treatment. Well, the good news is, it is not fatal and would not affect her health in any way. It might go away when she grows older, hopefully that wouldn’t take too many years.

I was told to stop applying the cream since it has nothing to do with fungus infection. However, Zeeyau wants to continue with it, believing that it will help her nails recover by Christmas. I told her it might take 2 or more Christmas before it will return to normal.

The kids have a blast of their time. Constantly eating all sort of junkie the grandfather bought to indulge them and then spend the rest of their time watching TV or playing with the neighbours until 11pm everyday.

And I finally had my four wisdom teeth rid off this morning. It is a big relieve to get these four stupid teeth off my mind, butI guess our plan for the father’s day feast tomorrow has to be shelved until I can eat properly.

Hopefully the pain and swell will go away very quickly, so I could enjoy myself a bit for the next two weeks before heading back to Shanghai.

1. always bring the child to consult a doctor to get a more through checkup during emergency even if everything seems alright.

2. avoid letting young kids handle glass.

It was really quite a freak accident. 弟弟 and I were enjoying a bottle of juice and he accidentally dropped the glass bottle. The bottle broke upon hitting the hard concert pathway. Then he rubbed his right eye with his hand and begun crying in pain. I thought he was terrified by the shattering sound of the glass. As I dried his tears with a piece of tissue paper, I saw a faint stain of blood on the white tissue.

Damn shit happened. My immediate reaction was to send him to the hospital right away and then warned him not to rub his eyes any more . He stopped crying after a minute or so and I started wondering if his tears had successfully flushed out any glass fragments that had gotten into his eye. Should I just go home since he wasn’t in pain anymore?

Better be safe then sorry and always trust our ultra kiasu motherly instinct. We went to the nearby Ruidong Hospital and was directed to see an eye specialist straight away. The initial checkup didn’t show any sign of foreign objects in his eye. However, closer examination with proper equipment found a stray piece of glass .

She had it remove quickly and his corneas wasn’t injured in any way, just a little cut on the minor eye area. Thank goodness the little lad was sensible enough to heed my warning not to rub his eyes. The amazing thing was, the kid was in total compliance during the whole process. No crying, no fighting. He followed the doctor’s instruction to look to left, right, up down and could even keep himself steady while the doctor was removing the glass fragment. Imagine someone holding a cotton bud and tried to swab it on your eye. I think he was quite brave.

Anyway, that was our little emergency last Thursday.

We were treated to all the major aspect of Chinese culture which includes tea brewing, music, dance, song, martial art, opera, face change and even a magic show. The performances were all interesting and easily appreciated by everyone, even the children were absorb by the various items, else they kept themselves busy with the snacks.

It was definitly an enjoyable night and a great place to visit in Beijing.

Zeeyau completed the amazing feat of climbing up the steps to reach the great wall and continued effortlessly for the rest of the trek followed by more climbing up some more steps. 弟弟 climbed and walked and cried for half the journey and demanded to be carried every now and then I would have given up if there was a choice to turn back, carrying 弟弟 while walking up the steps was killing.

弟弟 climbing up the steep steps on the great wall.Getting down the wall was much easier as we bought the cable car tickets. Though it required more effort to reach the great wall by foot, walking down the long flight of steps with children will be too dangerous.

We left the hotel early at 7.30am, so the traffic weren’t too bad except for a few bottle necks. James did the driving though I was against that idea initially, and it turned out to be a smooth and event less drive after all (thank God).

Anyway, we were heading for 龙庆峡, which took us about 3hours to reach. It was bloody warm and sunny yesterday, so we were all dressed lightly today. However, it was raining in the morning and there was chilly wind blowing. We were confronted with a 14degC temperature and cold wind when we reach our destination and James was without a jacket. Zeeyau was crying and wanted us to return home immediately. We almost headed back home, but decided to have an early lunch and wait for the weather to clear.

We had a meal of 农家饭 (err…country style meal), and their 柴鸡蛋 (range free chicken eggs) were really yummy. However, such simple, non fancy meals cost us around 200rmb. That was really expensive since we could easily have a meal in a nice restaurant for that price . Well, thanks for the meal, the rain stopped, the sun showered its warmth and we managed to make our way into the gorge.

Boat ride in the gorge, kids friendly and leg muscles friendly.

金刚寺, small temple, nothing special.

百花洞, or rather, 假花洞, ultra amusing cave full of fake plastic flowers. The kids found it interesting, we thought it was amusing looking at the plastic flowers, spotting buildings that were falling apart. The toy pandas even had the same expressions and pose.

After spending lots of time trying to bargain for a better deal, we still pay a dear sum of 4300rmb for the G10. Ah, so expensive, but we really need a camera.

Well, 雍和宫 was the former residence of emperor 雍正 and birthplace of 乾隆 and was later converted into a Lama monastery. Bringing children to monastery or temple weren’t a relaxing experience. First, they architecture didn’t interest them, secondly, they simply couldn’t follow the instruction not too step on the 门槛 (doorsill)。Anyway, the children disrespectful behaviour of stepping on the doorsill did not annoyed the monks or the Buddhas, instead, a friendly monk who was on duty to change the 供品 (offerings) gave the 3 children present an apple each. Oh, that attracted lots of attentions from the people around. The guide then told me it is considered great blessing to receive the offerings.

Next stop were 国子监 and 孔庙 which were just a street away. They were so much deserted compared to the other tourist attractions around. I hope the children could absorb some of the positive elements present at these educational institution but they clearly didn’t. They were more interested in playing with the wooden plaques (for blessings) hung around the institution. Zeeyau was tired and complained of leg pain and 弟弟 kept wanting to touch the relics on exhibit. I had to flee the various rooms before getting chased out of the premise.

James finally joined us in the afternoon for the visit to 恭王府(Gong Wang Fu). The huge and beautiful mansion was definitely overcrowded with tourists. The show at the 戏楼 (theater) was too short, too commercialise and lousy, what a waste of time. There was a long snaking queue to touch something, should be something to do with fortune or blessings. We weren’t keen in doing that and left our tour group before the queue start and wander around on our own. Well, no guided tour, but at least we didn’t have to endure the guide rattling uninteresting information into our ears.

We ended our tour with a trishaw ride visiting the 胡同 (Hutong, small lanes) 四合院 around 什刹海 (Shichahai). Many of these traditional Beijing houses were undergoing renovation or restoration. It would be interesting to live in such houses, though the floor area seems rather small.