Our Easter and Mid-Term holiday break

Hope you all had a great Easter and Mid-Term break! 

Ours have been a joyful mix of over-indulgent of chocolate, eggs and plenty of great quality time spent with the kids.

After two crazy months of getting the business ready to launch and the Webshop up and running, I am glad that the school holiday is here again. Beside getting to take sometime off from work (flexible working hours, an advantage for being self-employed ;-), it also means, a short break for Taxi-mama job, less cooking and more sleep for me, yippie! 

I wrote about the wonderful performance of the Apassionata show we saw in Basel recently, “The Golden Trail”, and how my two girls have been wishing for a pony or two around the garden (of which my answer happened to be a “no”). Well, instead I promised them a chance to experience how it is like to look after these ponies by arranging something special for them at a small ponyhof down the village. Though I thought a visit to the “Kinderzoo” Knie at Rapperswil would also be great start for the holiday now that we got the sunshine back (it kind of disappeared from Switzerland for a while prior this).I love this zoo, so did the girls. They had great fun feeding the animals, watching the sea lions doing their little tricks and getting to ride the ponies. I especially like the new Thai restaurant here. The food was good and the staff were really friendly.

Our next stop was a much participated trip to the “Naturama” museum in Aarau. To celebrate Easter, Naturama have arranged special opportunities for kids to visit and hold newborn chicks and cute little bunnies for that weekend. Again, more fun with egg hunting and eating the chocolate eggs they won.

Finally the moment they’ve long been waiting for, days out in the ponyhof (a small pony farm). The girls get to spend two whole days helping out, feed, clean, train the ponies and ride them. It was, as according to my girls, an unforgettable experience that they would love to do again, and again. “Mummy, this is the best holiday ever, Thank you!” Ah… and it's not even yet half-way through the school break, you already melt mummy’s heart! Having heard sayings like this only make me feel like spoiling them even more!!! Control yourself mum...!

Well, the fun didn’t just stop there at the “Ponyhof” (and the girls already knew it). I have also been promising them for a day trip to Europa Park (Rust, Germany). Exactly around this same time last year that we were invited by the grandparents for a weekend in Europa Park. I was surprised by how close we actually are to this great amusement park (less than two hours drive), so, kids packed, food packed, Europa Park here we come.

As if all that wild rides and big splashes at Europa Park wasn’t enough, the following Sunday was happened to be Thai Songkran festival, or better known as the Water Festival for the European. The day is also a special day for my younger daughter Leila. It’s the first time she gets to take part for the Thai classical dance. We were also very lucky with the weather, Leila, Natalie and I were soaking wet by the end of that afternoon!

No school holidays would be completed without a visit to the grandparents for my girls. So, up direction Toggenburg mountains we drove. We later spent a relaxing afternoon with the grandparent strolling through a bit of the countryside. There were plenty of pretty little “Schneeglöckchen” or “snowbell” (Galanthus) flowers to be found everywhere along the way. Some patches of old snow were also still to be found, enough for the girls to have some good snow ball fight.

Strangely it also felt as though I came here to officially say goodbye to Winter and hello to Spring, especially after having to bring back the skis and ski boots which I’ve rented for the girls in a local sport store here. Ah snow, I won’t be missing you until next skiing season!

On the next day I decided to take the girls to join some friends and made a spontaneous visit to Mainau, Bodensee (Germany) before heading back home. Mainau is absolutely stunning at the moment especially with all the colorful spring flowers blooming. Besides the creative flower gardens, castle and more ponies, the huge playground with mini punting boats here definitely have left a very good impression on the girls to make them want to come back :-)

We spent the last couple of days lazing around the house and the garden before the school start and before mummy (me) gets back to her usual 16 hours a day of work. There are packages sitting around, waiting to be unpacked and sorted. Emails, letters, correspondences, contracts and bills, all have made their arrivals as well. The nice thing to know about these stuff is the fact that, they will always be there, waiting for me too.

I’m recharged, refreshed and the next holiday is planned and booked. Life is beautiful. I’m now ready for anything - Hello work!

The (Green) Culture Shock.

The back of our garden in May 2014

We have a young visitor staying with us at the moment. She is from Singapore and she is full of curiousities about the life here. It is her very first time in Europe :-)

Where she comes from, her home is in the middle of the city, surrounded by tall buildings and big streets.

Here in Switzerland, where we live is in middle of a farm, surrounded by green fields.

I asked her about the journey and her first impression of Switzerland. She said, the train journey was straight forward, everyone on the train minded their own business, it was a nice and quiet ride. She enjoyed the calm atmostphier. People seemed friendly and extremely polite. She told me a lady actually asked if the seat next to her was free before taking the seat, and asked if this was normal here. I smiled and welcome her to Switzerland. 

As we were leaving the train station behind us, it didn’t take long before the view of the buildings were replaced by farms and wood hills. She asked me if we live is in a remote area and how far does it take from town to my house. I laughed and said, “actually it’s only about 15 minutes drive away”.  Soon we approach the village where I live with my family. Immediately she asked, “Where’s all the people gone?”…"Well, at work or at schools I supposed" was my answer. 

I said to my young visitor, considering the fact that she's from a very modern city like Singapore, this trip is either going to bore you or enlighten you and I hope she will experience the latter.

Our strawberry fields in June 2014

Now that we got home, she noticed during cooking that I separate the green waste from the regular ones. She asked me why so I explained to her about the compost. She doesn't know what a compost is so I took her to the garden and showed her our “green waste container”. More questions were then answered regarding the whole green container and composting and more surprises came after seeing boxes of glass bottles, coffee capsules, paper, cartons and various stuff being collected for the recycling in my cellars. She asked if this is compulsory in all Swiss home.

Hippo by Leila

Before I could answer, I asked her if the people in her country are not encouraged to do this and her answer was “actually yes, but most people just don’t do it, or maybe just not as much." I said, recycling isn’t compulsory but it is more of a habit here. In fact, I would even call it a “culture.” I personally don’t know anyone here who doesn’t recycle. My little girls also love collecting some of these stuff to make themselves toys and other creative things. They even argue over who got to keep the next plastic bottles or toilet paper rolls. Not only recycling is good for the environment, it saves us money when we produce less rubbish! We both laughed about this and I later explained to her about the cost of each bin bags regarding their sizes. 

Nespresso capsules bracelet by Natalie

She later asked if it’s to do with the fact that we live in the middle of the farm so we’re more aware of these things and for those who live around the city are less aware and therefore less concern. I said, “I don’t see why where you live should matter. Environment is all around us and not just what we see in the country side. It’s part of where we live, the air we breath in and in the food that we consume. I believe we are all aware of it but the question maybe how many of us are actually bothered to do something about it. Here I also see that it is very easy and convenience to recycling stuff. Perhaps, if conveniency is the key word to get people to do more recycling then maybe that is exactly what each community should be focusing on. She then jokingly said, “You mean, like, replacing all regular bins with recycling sorting bins?” I said, “That would be a good start”. She looked at me, amused and disbelief.  

Sorting bins in Geneva airport.

Well, it didn’t take long to change her mind about this conversation after I took her down town in Aarau. Also during her visits to Basel and Zurich, the so-called “sorting bins” seemed to be a common sight in various public places.

Sorting bins in Zurich HB

There were also countless of new things my little visitors get to discover later on like having to bring your own reusable shopping bags to the supermarket, being asked if she needs a bag for the items bought at department stores, that the (Post)bus in our area runs on schedules, (so please plan your trip and your traveling time accordingly), children actually come home at noon for lunch before returning to their afternoon classes. Also what she considered shocking is the fact that kindergarten and school kids are encouraged to be walking unaccompanied by adults on their ways to schools and back again, even on the rainy days. 

Toggenburg

After about four weeks of stay, I asked her again how she feels and if it’s all too boring for her here. She said; “Not at all! I love it! It’s really pretty here. Also even here in the country side, somehow everything is so well connected and that’s really nice. I like the dish washing machines, they’re cool. Do all rented apartments also have such machine fitted in the kitchens too? I really like the way of life here, people seemed happy with simple things and they value what they have. They also really mind their own business.” I laughed and said, “I remember you already said that when you just got here, so there’s nothing you would complain then?

“Umm…Yes..It’s very expensive here and I wished there were more food stalls… also I have the impression that although the people here seemed very polite, they don’t know how to queue...” 

We both just laugh and I actually agreed :-)

Happy Easter Monday!

- Daow

Easter 2015