Like many Singaporean families, we do about two family vacations a year that coincide with the longer school holiday breaks in June and December, and routinely have to suffer the higher peak period prices that go along with it. And that’s not mentioning also that it’s also harder to negotiate leave plans at my workplace. It’s somewhat of an expectation, even if unsaid, that someone at work needs to be around even during year-end holiday periods. I guess that’s another cost component of being working teacher parents of two children in Singapore!
Still, I think we have it pretty good. Peter – for the most part at least – has been a very well-behaved traveler for his age in the last two years. A work friend of mine also with two young kids recently took a short holiday trip over the same period when we were in Bali, and she quipped that by at the end of that trip, she was ready to sell away her two children! OK, so Peter can make Ling feel exactly the same way. But fortunately and for some reason, he’s just better behaved, relatively, when he knows we’re on holiday than when we’re at home. His teachers at kindergarten were genuinely surprised when we lamented to them of his antics at home, and said he’s nothing like that in school. They said it’s likely because P’s socially intelligent and very aware of how he’s perceived. At home, he lets loose. But in school, he’s responsible and compliant. The question though is which of these sides is the genuine face, and which is the moderated one!
And Hannah from the beginning has always been sedate, and is happy to soak in the sights quietly and not display the energetic exuberance P has whenever he sees anything new. So yes, we just have to deal with only one energetic child who wants to touch everything when we travel, thankfully.
We’ve been thinking of our year-end trip since the start of this year. We did agree from the beginning that if we didn’t want the two family trips in one year to both be to colder climate countries. And since we’ve already gone to Melbourne and Western Australia for two Junes, we’d do Northeast Asia this time for a change of place in 2018. That meant we’d head there in December, and for June a warmer tropical spot – eventually deciding on Bali for the latter.
There are three pretty popular destinations in Northeast Asia to spend December: Taiwan, South-Korea and Japan. We honeymooned in South-Korea years ago, and the place has always struck me as somewhat inaccessible if you’re traveling there not as a packaged tour and you have young kids too. Ling has also felt that our kids need to be a little older before we do Japan in the thick of winter. And finally, she’s always wanted to visit Taiwan.
So, after quite a bit of back and forth with colleagues at work negotiating our leave periods so that they don’t overlap, we finally had specific dates for travel. And a confirmed flight booking later – hooray for Cathay Pacific discounted flights – we’ll be on a 12 day trip to Taiwan come mid-December.
This itinerary will be a real challenge, since there’s so much to see and do on the island. More to come soon!
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