The Road to 40 Day 220/365: Vacation Day Out

It’s officially Vino’s school break, so we had to find something to do to keep him occupied.

Che had coffee before leaving for work, and I sat with her as I had some while we talked on the dining table.

For some reason, I always feel sleepy after drinking coffee. I crashed on the sofa while Vino played with his friends online in the room.

Right before lunchtime, we got ready to move already, because Che forgot her office phone at home. Vino and I were supposed to drop off the gifts Che had for her charity. This plan involved us bringing our trolley, then going back home to keep it before heading over to Che and having lunch.

However, Vino said he was hungry already, so I decided to optimize our time by getting him to help me carry the stuff.

We took the cab to the place. There wasn’t much of an interaction, as the place knew what the gifts were for. It’s also charity, so we didn’t really need to say who its from. The important thing is that it will make some people happy this holiday season.

Checking out the map, I knew there was a burger place close by. It’s a place I’ve always wanted to check out, but Vino usually opts for a different burger when we order delivery. This time around, he didn’t get a choice.

The place is called Burger Labo, and it’s gotten some good reviews when I search it up. Vino got the 2280 Burger, their signature, while I got a smashed burger. For sides, I got some onion rings while he asked for some fries.

They also served iced lemon tea with home brewed tea. Usually, home brews are nice, like Shakey’s and most of the hawker stalls here in SG. However, this one was not. Vino’s face turned sour and asked for water instead.

He surprisingly finished the burger. He didn’t eat all of the fries, though, which was fine. We next headed off to Che’s office to drop off her phone.

We got to see some old friends while we were there. We briefly talked and promised to catch up in a more relaxed setting next year.

I promised Vino we’d check out this game zone at Chinatown, but the earliest slot I could get was 5:00pm. As such, I asked him if it was ok for us to go to Paragon first to buy a gift for my dad.

My dad recently had a scare where he thought he lost his phone. My mom said his bag’s zipper was left open, which may have either helped someone take the phone or let the phone drop to the floor. My key takeaway from that ordeal was that my dad needed a new bag.

I called him to check the size that was ok for him. I ended up getting him this Pacsafe bag, which had excellent security features. Their bags are advertised as slash-proof because of the layers of material they make it with. This one also had zippers that lock, which I’ll teach him about.

Vino wanted to go to Toys R Us for some window shopping. I’m happy that he doesn’t really ask to buy random toys now, so we go there to just play sample toys.

We took the bus to Chinatown to go to the play place. On our way there, we were talking about comedies. He asked me what kind of comedies I liked. I said I like sitcoms, stand up, and those that make me think. I’m not too big of a fan of those with laugh tracks because it feels like it’s telling me which things are funny or not.

For him, he said he liked memes, those that use music as a punchline for humor, and old-school stage comedy. He doesn’t know the term “slapstick” but I think that’s where he was going. He told me a story about him and his friend playing this horror game and how his friend’s character died in the game.

He had very dark words to describe the deaths. Personally, I wasn’t too amused. My face would show it. However, I tried to catch myself to not shoot down his idea of humor right there. I feel like if I always dad him up whenever he tells me stories about the dumb things he and his friends do, he won’t open up to me later on.

It’s a tricky part of parenting, I feel like. On one side, I feel the need to nip this behavior in the bud, but on the other, doing that might also cut off any future honest relationship we could have.

I wasn’t laughing with him, but I tried to be engaged in the conversation somehow to keep him going. He was laughing so hard, which made it more difficult for me to try to cut him off to tell him it wasn’t nice.

Of course, comedy has so many versions, I can’t possibly dictate what should be objectively funny or not.

We got to the game place, where Che followed. They had archery, this digital dodgeball thing, a floor is lava game, basketball, darts, and a lot more. We had one hour to play, which was just nice.

We decided to walk around to find dinner. We thouht there was a Japanese restaurant nearby, but it was apparently just selling rolls, which we weren’t in the mood for.

We did see a Korean barbecue place nearby. We went there instead.

It’s our happy food. Vino had a lot of the pork, but didn’t really care much for teh beef. So I feel like Vino would love beef it was steak, but for barbecues, he would prefer pork.

After dinner, we walked to the bus stop to head home. There were still a lot of packing left, but I wasn’t able to get my clothes ready yet. Che decided to pack other things first.

I think it was a pretty good first day of vacation for Vino, but I’ll aim to get my things ready tomorrow so that we can get ready for our trip on Wednesday.