Visit to Haw Par Villa (虎豹别墅)_29 Dec 09

I think I forgot to mention that I am currently on extended maternity leave. Initially, I was supposed to work for 90 days before entitling to the remaining extended maternity leave before baby Br turned 1 year old, which means that I should only start my remaining 40 days leave from mid Jan. However, I decided to heed a friend's advice and try to ask my director whether he could support me to go on leave earlier in December since it is the lull period now and I would be less disruptive to the work flow in January. Fortunately, my director saw the sense in my proposal that he wrote in to the personnel department for a special request and the approval came only in mid-December. So, I have been on leave for about two weeks and will return to work in mid January.

On Monday, while having dinner at my mil's place, we were chatting away and my mil asked whether the Haw Par Villa is still available for visit and she'll like to bring my nephew there to see the eighteen level hell (十八尘地狱). So, we went home to check on the internet and decided to bring the boys out the next day to Haw Par Villa.


On Tuesday morning, after breakfast, I proceeded to cook porridge so that I pack and bring along with us to the outing for my two dear son's lunch. It was free entry for the villa but we had to pay $5 for parking and $1 entrance fee for seeing the eighteen level hell. There were not many visitors at the place so we were happy that we need not jostle our way through and my nephew could spend a fair bit of time reading the description of the statues. I was pretty shocked that my nephew, C did not know many of the Chinese mythologies since his mum is a true blue Beijing lady and he has always been the first in his class in P1 and P2. He is definitely a product of our current education and social system which focused more on academic results since one of his daily activities involves working on the numerous assessment books. It was definitely a pleasant 2.5 hour day trip where we could allow our energetic toddler to run around and climb onto the statues. However, the many steps and narrow path in the park made it difficult for us to move around with our twin stroller.

Br sitting on top of the landscape while waiting for Ry, my mil and my nephew to explore the Journey to the West (西游记) statues.

Ry was most excited about all the different animal statues he saw in the villa.

Our last visit - inside the dark tunnel where the eighteen level hell is built. Ry is already tired and hungry, so he's quietly snacking away from his cheerios cup while the adults were busy explaining the statues to my nephew!