Family Day

The department of the company I work in held a Family Day event at the Putrajaya Botanical Garden today. To be honest, I had been looking forward to this event with some great anticipation. I guess such events are more meaningful to you when you already have a family to bring with you, as compared to when you're still single. I have been to a number of family day events in the past, but the motivation of going as a single is of course different. It was probably to check out the babes (if there were any!), and failing that the food and telematches provided some consolation. Now with wifey and Insyirah in tow, I was all bubbly about going to the Family Day.

Me: Ok Insyirah. Here's the game plan!

We got to the place close to 9am, after taking a wrong turn along the way. Without talking about it at length, much needs to be done about the road signages in Putrajaya I have to say. One can get easily disoriented with the confusing road signages, especially when you're late and your tummy is empty. The Botanical Garden itself is a beautiful place. But for such a huge and beautiful place, I felt it was rather deserted of people. Perhaps the place needs a little bit more marketing to create more awareness of its existence.

Me: Insyirah! The race is about to start! It's no time to eat pudding!
Insyirah: Munch.. munch.. i haf juzh a wibble bit more... yum... yum..

After her usual inhibitions, Insyirah really had a ball of a time. She was rather inhibited at first when taking part in the kids telematches. In the "Run to Daddy" game, wifey had to coax her to run towards me who was waiting at the finishing line.
She practically didn't want to run the race and broke down crying in the middle of it, much to the amusement of others. But even then, she managed to get 3rd place as there was another kid who chose to stay static at the starting line. So I guess Insyirah didn't do too bad...

Insyirah: No Ibu! You're going the wrong way. This way!

Later in the morning, we had an adventure treasure hunt ala Explorace. If there's anything I've found out about myself after the race is that I know nuts about plants. The puzzles in the hunt required us to find the names of plants based on the clues and descriptions given, and to be honest I had no inklings what they were about. So I just tagged along with the team, who weren't any wiser. The solutions to the puzzles were

Me: No Insyirah! You're supposed to take the chocolates to the finishing line. Not eat them!
Insyirah: Sorry Abah. I can't resist. Cadbury's my favorite chocolate!

scattered all over the huge park, I must have probably covered about 2 kms running all over the place looking for them. I know I might not bee feeling it now, but I have the feeling my body will be aching all over come tomorrow. It probably served my Weight Loss Challenge well however...

Insyirah on the tram with her new friend, Razin

While I was burning fat running around the Botanical Garden wheezing like a fish which unfortunately got tossed out of the water, wifey and Insyirah sat through a tram ride around the place. The tram is such a good vehicle to get you around the place without having to break much sweat, and I noticed the kids were all excited during the ride. Insyirah made

Razin: Hiya good looking. How ya doing?
Insyirah: Cool hat!

herself acquainted with the son of a colleague of mine while on the ride and they became rather close thereafter. It's just amazing how children could make friends so easily. They have no inhibitions or preconceived perceptions of anyone that they can easily strike a friendship within minutes of meeting each other.

The maestro at work... with mummy at hand of course!

The Masterpiece

Insyirah's spoils at the end of the day

The whole event wrapped up around 2pm, after lunch and the prize giving ceremony. Kids are the ones who enjoy the most in events such as this as they tend to gain so many prizes, even if they didn't do well in any of the events they participated. Insyirah ended up bagging 3 prizes at the end of the day, even finishing 2nd in a coloring contest. Well, the coloring was really mother-assisted as my wife held Insyirah's hand with color pencils in her hand and helped her to color, but who's contesting?

Everyone got his/her prize at the end of the day and went home happy, and that's what matters the most.