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The little Singaporeans Discover the Quays

How much does a pre-schooler know about Singapore?

From what I can gather from Kyle’s understanding, he has very limited knowledge beyond Singapore’s flag, National Day and the races in Singapore. Information that he has gathered from celebrating the nation’s birthday in school twice the last 2 years, watched glimpses of the National Day Parade from the TV screen last August and experienced Racial Harmony Day in school.

As a pre-cusor to celebrate Singapore’s National Day in August and in an attempt to help our pre-schoolers to learn about the country that they live in, Pauline and I brought our kids to visit the Quays for the first time. This post jumpstarts this series of ‘The Little Singaporeans Discover Singapore’ on this blog.

 

3106 2Smug smiles for the camera

 

3106 6This photo was taken right after Kyle asked me if they could play tag while waiting, and looking at their expressions (except for Joyce), you can probably guess what was my answer.

 

3106 9Could this be the bumboat that we will be taking?

 

One of the best ways to visit the Quays is to take the River Bumboat rides from Clarke Quay, which travels along the Singapore River for 60 minutes and passes through the 3 Quays of Clarke Quay, Robertson Quay and Boat Quay.

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1906 01Sights on Robertson Quay

 

So what are the sights that we can spot on this river bumboat ride?

Riverbb2Top – Clarke Quay, Middle – Asian Civilisations Museums from http://www.travelstripe.com/ , Bottom – Boat Quay from http://images.travelpod.com/

 

3106 11Taking note of the places of the sights of he saw along the way

 

3106 16Some of the key landmarks are found on the map we have

 

Riverbb1Top left – Merlion from http://upload.wikimedia.org/, Bottom left – Victoria Memorial Hall from http://www.panoramio.com/photo/17031775, Right – Sir Stanford Raffles Statue from http://upload.wikimedia.org/


The river bumboat ride felt like a typical touristy experience, especially since we were the only group of locals on the boat, but it was an informational experience for the kids nonetheless. It will make a good excursion for pre-schoolers to learn about key landmarks in the Quays of Singapore, added with a gentle immersion of the history of Singapore using the activity sheets that we developed. So how does this river bumboat experience compare to Duck Tours? These bumboat rides were alot more comfortable than the Duck Tour activity that we did with Kyle’s kindergarten a while back. In comparison, Duck Tours seemed more kitschy and gimmicky.

We will be exposing the kids to some cultural experiences in and around Singapore the next couple of weeks, so stay tune for the second part from this series, where the little Singaporeans will check out a place bubbling with cultural heritage and a distinct ethnic personality…

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His First School Excursion

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K's second day at school was spent in a little boat/bus known as duck tours. It was an exciting experience for him, since he has not gone on any boat ride before in Singapore. The last experience I had on any boat ride in Singapore rivers (I don't think Marina Bay is considered a sea) was at least 4-5 years ago, in one of those bumboats from Clarke Quay.

So much have changed since then. So many of the sights that we saw from our ride like the The Float, The Singapore Flyer, The Double Helix Bridge (latest pedestrain bridge that links Marina Centre to Marina South) all seemed foreign. Somehow, landmarks looked strangely foreign when viewed from a boat in the river. It was like seeing Singapore in a brand new perspective.

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K spotted a landmark that he could easily recognise, the Flyer, learnt about one of the key icons of Singapore, the Merlion and watched tourists take their quintessential 'I've been to Singapore' photos next to the Merlion.

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For K, the novelty was more in being in a boat, rather than the sights we saw during our ride. The highlight of the excursion for him? It has to be the start of the ride when we got a little bit wet when the boat/bus entered the water, as well as towards the end of the ride when he got a little 'duck whistle' for a souveneir. 

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Overall, quite a fun experience except for the hot, hot weather. And I still can't help but to miss those weekday outings that we used to have before he started attending school.

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