Attack of the Cheek Swipers : Dugong Fumes

To all my faithful readers and my most critical reader, my dearest wifey, sincere apologies for the long absence. We all understand how work sometimes zaps up most of our time, and I do want to maintain the quality of the content I put up here for my dear readers :)

We have just returned from a 3-day cruise to nowhere on board the Superstar Virgo over the weekend. Excellent ship, facilities, my kudos to the excellent service attitude of every single international staff on-board. They make you feel right at home, hmmm...that doesn't really sound too accurate, since we seldom do experience such good service attitudes here at home. I'll rephrase that to : "They make you feel so glad to be away from home". If you're wondering how I can justify that statement, just look at the number of Singaporean staff they have on their on-board crew, also noting that Star Cruise has an office in every major city including Singapore where they do their recruitment. Yup...a big fat zero. Special mention goes out to the male crew working in the Galaxy of the Stars club; he was dressed as an angel during the Chariot Race and the Bingo game. We really enjoyed your rendition of a fairy, when you were trying to entertain Terelle after the game.

The three of us had an excellent time on board, the unlimited-food wasn't great, it was ok, but at least it was unlimited. There was breakfast, mid-morning tea (to flush down breakfast in time for..), lunch, dinner and finally supper (for the gambling ghosts to re-energise themselves to continue contributing to the economy of the ship owners). Amidst these frequent mealtimes; during which its pretty evident the Singaporeans get pretty well-fed, we were indeed appalled to see certain "mou-mou" Singaporeans doing "take-aways" with their empty Gardenia Bread wrappers and even their wet swimming towels!!! I have never felt such a strong urge to stand up and sing the national anthem. Yup, even in international waters far far away from home, our people keep our flag flying high....

I'll dedicate the next paragraph solely to the Cheek Swipers...what are they? Talking about them certainly makes my blood boil. You know the kind of people who come up to a cute-baby, with super cute and chubby cheeks like my little Terelle (ok..i'm bias...sue me...), well at a blink-of-an-eye, they launch their two thick potato-wedges-like fingers, clasp them around the baby's cheeks, and swipe with one swift motion, leaving the cheeks vibrating violently in the wind.....They then let off their evil victory cry "MUA HA HA...SO CUTE THIS BABY!!!"....and then march off into the sun, without batting an eyelid and a look of acknowledgement at the parent. Yes.....I'm sure we are all guilty at some point of our lives, but I swear I've seen the worst on board the ship. The least they can do is acknowledge the parents, compliment the baby and ask for permission to play with the baby. Biggest lesson learnt for me on this trip : Parents, you are the gate-keepers to your baby's well-being....you should always keep a look-out and be aware of the things and people around you. If you see something which you feel your baby might not like being done to him/her, you have the right to speak up and say no. Either that or you teach your baby to bite hard at fingers or better still, you bite. :)