By some miracle both children slept in til just before 7am local time (10am Australian time). We had either fooled their body clocks or we were all just plain exhausted. Given it was after 2.30am when we went to bed we were expecting them to be up and about after another couple of hours.

After Soren was fed we headed down to check out the buffet breakfast.  We had breakfast included in our hotel (random bonuses of last minute bookings!) and were pleased to only have to wander downstairs when we were tired and weary. We are staying at the Grand Mercure Roxy, on the East Coast. About 15 minutes from the city.  It is a nice hotel and our room is a good size, even with the cot and rollaway bed in it. Here are Anto and Astrid posing in front of our hotel (it’s the big brown and glass building in the background).

Our room has a king sized bed, the rollaway for Astrid, a cot for Soren (for decorative/storage purposes only since he won’t sleep in it) and a desk, comfy chair area, coffee table, fridge, nice TV, and wardrobe space. The bathroom is also a decent size.  Not too bad at all for a week.  Anto managed to take some photos of it in a semi-organised state. It seems to turn into a disaster once Astrid moves things around!  Of course Anto managed to take photos while I was changing Soren’s nappy, not my best angle……

The breakfast was pretty good. The usual Western fair mixed with Asian options, an egg station and plenty of pastries and breads.  The coffee was pretty average but the food wasn’t too bad. After our obligatory eggs, Anto and I tried the curries and dahl, figuring it was almost lunch time in Australia. Astrid still had a sensitive tummy so stuck to a plain croissant and waffle but we figured she would be into to it all the next day.

After breakfast it was operation decontamination. With a huge bag of vomited on clothing stinking up our hotel room, and both the ergo and stroller out of action due to said vomit. we figured we had to do something about it.  Anto headed out with Astrid to find a screwdriver to pull apart the stroller for washing purposes, and some power adaptors (the one thing we seemingly forgot to pack). They also scoped out washing locations.  I decided Soren needed a sleep so got him off to sleep (in his hammock which we had bought with us since he wasn’t having a bar of the hotel cot).  I then had time to start unpacking and cleaning up the tornado of stuff that had ripped through the room at 2am.

Anto and Astrid returned with the screwdriver, the adaptors and stories of tasty food providers and washing facilities.  Once Soren was up and fed  we paid a quick visit to the pool as Astrid had been bugging us to go. It turned out to not be quite warm enough yet for either her or Soren as there was a lot of cloud cover so after 10 minutes we abandoned that idea and we collected all the smelly washing and headed across the road to deposit it with some nice lady who was happy to deal with it for $4 a kg.

Anto decided it was time to introduce Astrid to chicken rice, the food he lived off last time we were here. Last visit we ate a lot of meals at the local eating houses since they have interesting food and are very cheap and there is one near pretty much everything.  There seem to be about 5 within 5 minutes walk of our hotel.  The only problem if finding vegetarian food for me. The lack of English often makes it difficult and nearly everything seems to have at least prawn in it.  Astrid decided  it wasn’t a good day for chicken rice and to share some pork and rice with Anto. Anto obtained me some steamed ‘carrot cake’ which is actually made from turnip and not carrot at all.  Soren in his sling being grinny and cute, and Astrid eating pork got lots of attention from all the locals.

After a hot and sweaty lunch  we headed back to the hotel and commenced afternoon napping.  Everyone was very jetlagged and tired from a busy few days so we inadvertently slept for many hours. I had kept waking up and looking at the clock and thinking it was time to get everyone up and falling back asleep again.  We eventually all arose, and after Soren was woken from his comfy slumber and fed, we figured it was time to explore the nearby Katong shopping centre.

It was now late afternoon and mid-30’s. Anto had been carrying Astrid everywhere since she isn’t fond of walking and her transportation devices were being washed so we didn’t want to go too far afield. The Katong shopping centre was just around the block from the hotel, and pleasantly air-conditioned so we perused the shops for food options and located another supermarket for snacks.

There were quite a few dinner options at quite cheap prices. A little more expensive than the food markets but still cheap as long as you avoided the more restauranty places.  We ended up in one of the food courts and Anto thought he had found me some good tofu and vegies from a tofu place….. until they put chicken gravy on top! So he and Astrid go that for dinner.  Astrid was a big fan of the noodles in chicken gravy. I ended up with some Korean rice which was nice and actually vegetarian.  Astrid put on quite a spectacle of slurping noodles and Soren displayed extreme cuteness trying to gurgle at everyone and grab everything off the table so they both got a fair bit of attention.

It was now late and we headed back to the hotel for baths, showers and bed. Astrid is a big fan of her hotel bath and bed, and Soren has conned us into leaving him in his hammock.  Luckily there is a spot to hang it between the bathroom and the main room. Everyone lets their baby sleep in the hotel bathroom, right?

Our designated jet-lag recovery day had been quite pleasant but we were all still tired.  After the kids were finally asleep Anto headed out to find us some actual coffee.  The hotel cafe was wanting $7 a coffee and that is the cost of 3 meals, so he walked back to the shopping centre to obtain $5 coffees……. not necessarily a bargain but we need it that night.

Given our late end to the day, Soren’s dreamfeed got delayed til very late and we were hoping they might sleep in til at least 7 again the next day (or later since nothing is open early).  Well that plan didn’t work!