Daddy's Day Out - Kite Flying @ Marina Barrage

It's Saturday, and Daddy got tickets for the Public Service Sports and Family Day at the marina Barrage. Mummy was busy, which translated into a perfect opportunity for a day out with Daddy!

We packed expiring bread rolls and some old kites we found in the store before catching a cab early before 8.00 am to avoid the traffic and afternoon heat. When we arrived, many of the stalls and activities were not yet running, and we occupied ourselves by taking photos with the sporting mascot Nila, bouncing around the inflatable playground, and checking out the stilt walkers before proceeding to the Green Roof to get the kites up in the air!

An interesting concept: two players compete against each other to score as many baskets as possible. The catch: they are tethered together by a single cord back to back! To get closer to your basket, you have to play a 'tug-of-war' with your competitor. Suitable for bigger, older kids as the vest was too loose for the younger girl and came off too easily.

The stilt walkers were intriguing but possibly intimidating for younger children as well!

This booth provided free tryouts for personal transport options of the future!

Game booths lined the pump station. Most of these were easy to play and some had pretty cool prizes.

Check out the bazaar! There were booths with various goodies such as branded sporting goods and soft-toys.

We're the first family on the Green Roof with kites! How nice to have the entire lawn to ourselves before the sun gets too hot. Daddy finds a shady spot to assemble the kites.

K's kite went up easily in the breeze, but it never was able to get much higher. We postulated that it simply was not correctly balanced and became unstable too quickly.

Nevertheless, slight tugs, some backward movement, and occasional sprints kept it flying enough for good fun.

A's kite smoothly lifted off with a slight gust of wind. This one looks promising, and Daddy decides to release more slack to see where it the wind takes it...

On it's first flight, it goes up, up, up and never looks back. Before we knew it, we had one of the highest flying kites around! Pretty good for a simple design we picked out for a few dollars at the convenience store under the MRT at home.

The kids took turns to tug at it, passed it around, and marveled at how high it went. 

This is definitely our most successful kite-flying attempt! The kite was so stable we had so much fun posing for photographs with it.

We played with the kites for more than an hour, taking turns to feel the thrill of the tug, eating our snacks and hydrating as the sun heated up the Green Roof. When the girls expressed that they wanted to end the flight and head back down to try out some of the other activities, it was with a heavy heart that we slowly reeled it in. It seemed to fight us, preferring to stay high up where it was free and happy. Will we ever see such a happy kite again? Only time will tell. For now, our tummies were hungry and calling, and it was time for the kite to come down. We disassembled our toys, packed them up and made our way downstairs.

Finally, the kite has come 'home'.

The ticket stubs allowed us to redeem Funpacks, cotton candy, popcorn and best of all, Potong ice-cream! There was quite a queue though, as expected on a hot day. We split ourselves up to make our time in the queue more efficient.

Yum yum, what a sweet treat!

You know you're in the right queue for ice-cream... it's the longest one on a hot day!

Fun-pack redemption counter... there must be some goodies in there. Free bottled water was provided at a separate booth, which was very thoughtful.

Enjoying our Potong! They melted so quickly in the heat that before we knew it, it was dripping off our elbows onto our clothes!

What's a carnival without a Milo van? Always something to look out for. It's become a well-loved Singapore tradition, fitting for the Public Service Sports and Family Day!

Calling a cab for a pick-up at about lunch time didn't turn out to be too difficult at the marina Barrage. From there, we made our way to the Float@Marina Bay to collect our Race-Packs for Daddy's Army Half Marathon and the Dad's For Life 800m Father and Child Challenge on 31st August.

At the end of the day, we had lots of goodie bags!

We had the option to catch up with Mummy somewhere for a nice eat-out lunch, but the kids were oh-so tired out by the fun in the sun they opted to head home quickly. When they got home, they quickly had a shower and crashed on their beds for an afternoon nap, hardly bothering to have much for lunch aside from a few boiled dumplings courtesy of thoughtful Mummy.

It's been another wonderful and eventfulSaturday morning. Yay!