Istana Open House - 1 February 2014

The Koh family organised a trip to Istana this Chinese New Year as Aunt Peggy and Uncle SK are in town for once this year. Istana Open House starts at 8.30am in the morning but our meetup time was 10am. It was not a good choice to come at 10am on the open house day as the queue was horrendously long! I read up on the internet that in the past few open house days, there was a queue for Singaporeans and PRs, while there's another queue for foreigners. This CNY open house day, they had only 1 express lane for senior citizens (age 60 years and above), disabled, and families with infants in arms / children below 3 years (whether Singaporeans or foreigners). As we do not qualify in any of these categories (my mil went in earlier with our Brother-in-law's batch), we had to join in the queue with everyone else.. and started from the roadside area of Istana's entrance:

while queuing, before I felt giddy from the lack of fresh air!

It took us about 40 minutes to get into the park (including security checks). Aunt Peggy and Uncle SK who reached slightly later than us had to queue for an hour + to get in eventually!

The Istana has a rich history. It was constructed in years 1867 -1869, which means it's almost 150 years to-date. We understand from one of our guided tours that it cost more than $190,000 to construct the entire place and this place is built by convicts. The maintenance of the building and parks has not been an easy task as they had tried to upkeep this place in its original state till present.

We downloaded the Istana Garden Walk Apps and this allow the children to search for various sites of interest within Istana grounds. Caden and Ethan had a lot of fun searching for these spots with Emma (the rest of the children were still stuck in the queue) as there are about 10 sites to discover. On each successful hunt, there is a QR code for them to scan into our phones and upon completion of the hunt, they get to receive a small souvenir from the redemption booth as a reward for their efforts in the entire compound.

At the Gun Terrace, this cannon symbolizes Singapore's liberalization after the Japanese Occupation

The boys with their fav uncle and Emma

We rested here as well while waiting for Aunt Peggy and Auntie Cindy family to join in.

Other QR codes sites:

The Villa - where state visitors stayed till 1984

Queen Victoria Park 

We signed up for a guided tour within the Istana building as we think it will be informative and enriching for the children to know more about the place. As the guided tour is scheduled 1.25 hours after booking, the rest of the children went round the Istana grounds to complete the QR codes hunt.

we decided to rest under a tree while Caden showed the rest where to get the missing QR codes

Ethan being mischievous again

After they are done with the scan, the kids started playing in the open field. Caden, Ethan and Kimi went to roll on the grassland:

Then, they try to get a shot of the jumping air pose

First try

2nd attempt

Finally!

With the rest of the girls

At the main Istana Building before the guided tour

During the guided tour, we were all assigned with a mini-ear piece which allows us to listen to the tourguide's narrations without the need to get close to her. It's quite a refreshing experience and the boys listened to her attentively throughout the 40-min session. There was a lady with 2 children who didn't seem to have paid for the guided tour and gatecrashed into our session. It was not nice of her to block our views and she refused to move away despite being told off by some of our family members. I thought she was a Chinese national who didn't understand english but I think she was literally just thick-skinned, and thought its alright to just be a free-loader. Its funny to see such behavior from a rather well-dressed lady. How can she not pay $8 for the guided tour and knowing that these fees will go to Community Chest?

At the start of the tour

We were not allowed to take pictures in the Istana building and it is heavily guarded by quite a few high ranked officials. As we understand, if the Presidential Standard flag is risen at the building, it signifies that the President is present on the compound. Although the flag was up, we didn't get to see any sight of Mr. Tony Tan before we left. What a pity..

After 4 hours in Istana, we only got to eat our lunch and a Yusheng treat in Iciban Boshi at 3pm!

It was a good outing with the family members, to bring up the spirits in this CNY. We won't want to have another visit back in Istana in the near future, given the time taken to get into the compound, unless there is an express lane for Singaporeans. But probably we may bring the boys back into the compound for a history lesson when Caden is in Sec 1..