~ NFC 2010 @ Sentosa (Palawan Beach) ~

Today is National Family Celebration 2010! The event will start from 9am onwards till evening. Hubby and I have been planning how we should be spending our day since the Songs of the Sea only starts in the night and we need to collect our tickets in the day. (*We won 7 tickets to the Song of the Seas via the NFC Blogger's Pledge contest by Nuffnang.) The children have been coughing all week and hence we are a bit concern that the kids will be too tired and fall sick if we stayed on the entire day and night. (Plus we will be travelling to China next Tuesday so we have to watch out for their health as well.)

After much consideration, Hubby decided to drive in to Sentosa before 7am so that we only need to pay $3 entry charge rather than $7 (after 7am charge). The only 'mistake' we did was parking before 7am and hence incurred another $2 charge. :p

We woke up at 5plus and leave home at 6.15am... The children are very excited as we enjoyed the cooling and soothing ride to Sentosa. We were the 'earliest' bird at the event. :p Even arriving before most of the organizers...hahaha. It feels so good to enjoy the morning breeze by the beach and seeing the sun rises. The last time Hubby and I visited Palawan Beach was more than 8 years ago. (before our marriage). So this morning, we spend our time walking by the beach and touring around with our 2 children. ^_^ So much has changed since we came many years ago.

Tentages have been setup for NFC when we arrived. The children love the beach and the sea. They have the entire space to run around.

Lots of interesting sign boards to check out. ^_^

We brought our own breakfast and found a spot to sit down and fill our stomach first. (After all, breakfast is the most important meal of the day.) ^^

Mini water play area for the kids

The Suspension Bridge - this is much longer that the bridge we walked on at Jacob Ballas Children's Garden. Denver is extremely excited while Gladys is kinda scared. To encourage Gladys, we sang the Dora the Explorer song... Mummy said "Come on Vamanos, everybody let's go. Come on, let’s get to it. I know that we can do it! Beach, Bridge, Tower"... "Beach, Bridge, Tower"... "We walked by the beach, now we are heading to the Bridge and then going towards the twin towers ahead!" Hahah.. That works! ^_^

Daddy very funny and 'noisy'. hahahah :p

YES! We did it! Arriving at the southernmost part of continental Asia! Next, its concurring the Tower. :p There are 2 mini-towers (about 3 storeys high). Denver and Hubby took the left while Gladys and I took the right. Denver challenges us for a competition to see who reaches the top first.. Of course he WON. 妹妹 has to climb slowly oh.

View from the top of the tower. Sea view, view of the Palawan beach and a glimpse of the tip of the Merlion!

View of the Palawan Beach from the tower.

Gladys is extremely happy when she saw part of the Merlion. We went to the beach, bridge, tower... now is going through the Merlion trail to see the Merlion and also to fulfill the promise Hubby made to our little princess. :)

There are a lot more to see around Palawan Beach, not far away, we saw Animal Encounters where there are daily shows at the Palawan Amphitheatre and tourists can view the different acts by the various animal friends.

We continued our morning walk up the slope and finally reached the Merlion Walk. It is a 120 meter long Gaudi-inspired mosaic at the back of The Merlion. In the night, there will be music and both the Merlion and Merlion Walk will be beautifully lighted.

Gladys is thrilled when she saw the Merlion. She finally gets to see the real, BIG thing and not just via the poster advertisement. ^_^

Climbing up and down the stairways and busy taking pictures. Yeah! Mission Accomplished! ^_^

The sun has rised and it's getting hotter and hotter. We did a lot of walking since morning and all of us are perspiring away.. A cool Apple Freeze surely COOL us off a fair bit. Songs of the sea is just located nearby but we have to wait till tonight for the show.

Various coloured-bus lines to get around Sentosa

It's already way past 9 o'clock and we make our way back to the Palawan Beach. By now, most of the stalls have finished setting up and many more has arrived at the event. Before we left, the 2 uncles just started decorating the entrance, now the arc of balloons is completed. Really a lot of hard work oh. ^_^

Gladys wanted to play with the sand and so we found a shady spot by the beach to build her sandcastle. :) We didn't bring any tools along with us and so the empty cup comes in very handy.

Time to get ourselves really sandy and messy. Since there is no spade, we used our hands to scoop the sand into the cup and they really have fun doing so.

The sun slowly moves away and our shady spot now becomes really hot.. Time to go wash up and collect our tickets. Gladys is definitely reluctant to leave her sandcastle. Awwwww.. :( Maybe next time....

It's very HOT.. Even Doggie needs to keep itself COOL. :)

It was a LONG Queue at the ticketing collection counter... especially making it more difficult under the hot, blazing sun. I took the children to play at the various stalls first while Hubby continues to queue.

Balloons, Frisbee Throw, X-Box games.... The queue at the stalls get longer and longer as more crowd starts to join in.

Mummy is more interested at the OCBC booth since I already decided to sign up for the Mighty Savers account for the kiddos. There are free gifts for the initial sign-ups and for every $20 the children saved, they get to collect a free gift too.

While I am busy filling up the forms, Denver and Gladys are busy playing with the sand again. OCBC has provided various spots around its booth to keep the children occupied while parents are busy. ^_^ Apart from the Sand corner, there is also a shady spot for colouring and drawing and a Mighty Savers Treasure Chest game.

It's getting really too hot for the kiddos and we decided to leave for home after spending 4 hours here. It's funny to see that while families are just arriving, we are already leaving. The children are a little disappointed but no worries... we are coming back again tonight for another round of FUN and excitement.

Visit http://bpdgtravels.blogspot.com/2010/05/nfc-2010-sentosa-songs-of-sea.html for Part 2 of the NFC 2010 Event @ Sentosa! ^_^