Anpanman Museum AKA Baby Crack

As some of you know, Gus loves Anpanman. Anpanman is a character created by Takashi Yanase after WWII. Yanase believed sharing food is one of the greatest things people can do and that is what Anpanman does, he feeds the hungry. His head is made of anpan, a sweet bun filled with red bean paste, and he gives people his head to eat if they are hungry. His Uncle Jam is a baker and bakes Anpanman new heads. Anpanman is EVERYWHERE in Japan and I know this because Gus can spot his picture from a moving train. When we learned there is a Anpanman museum in Kobe we knew we had to take him.

Gus prepared for his big adventure with a nap. He's wearing his new shades. I did not pick out the Anpanman shirt especially for today. Gus picked it out all by himself.

It took us about 10min to get him in the front door because every image of Anpanman required full investigation and constant "Anpanman! Anpanman! Anpanman! Anpanman!" You get the idea.

As you can see, this place was built for toddlers in mind; everything is at their height.

Gus is "driving" an Anpanman submarine.

The staff were trying to get the kids to hold their arm out like Anpanman. Gus, of course, was totally adorable when he did it.

This is Anpanman's nemesis, Baikinman - Bacteria Man. He wants to stop Anpanman from feeding the hungry and spread germs all over the world.

The ball room was pretty crazy. A whole bunch of little kids with a whole bunch of big, bouncy balls.

Here is a video of Gus getting all excited about Western Anpanman and the "ho-shees."

Singapore - the fun stuff

As I mentioned, it is hot in Singapore so we tried to find a lot of indoor activities. We went to a lot of museums.

The first one we went to is called The Red Dot Museum.  It is entirely dedicated to design. The exhibits feature things that are cleverly designed ranging from light switches to motorcycles to salad forks to clothing buttons for the elderly. Gus especially enjoyed the tupperware "garden."

I had to include this picture of Gus's toy whale, Kujira-san. The very first day he lost her and I kept asking "Gus, where's Kujira-san?" It took me one day to figure out that when I asked him that, he'd walk over to the mini-fridge. It was in a tight space so Craig and I were trying to figure out how to look behind it and confirm that we have the world's smartest baby. Craig had the idea to take a picture and, sure enough, Kujira-san had fallen behind the fridge. We were able to rescue her.

We also have the friendliest baby. As some of you know, Japanese people fawn all over Gus. Well, they've got nothing on Singaporeans. This is a picture of Gus with an employee from the 8Q SAM, the contemporary art extension of the Singapore Art Museum - this was my favorite museum that we visited. After Gus played coy and then waved and smiled a bunch, the man walked over and took him out of Craig's arms. Gus, of course, just gave him a big smile.

This is our hotel room in Little India. We would take afternoon breaks and let Gus stretch his legs while we rested ours.

One must see attraction of Singapore is the Night Safari. It is a zoo designed to be viewed at night. All the enclosures are lit to mimic a full moon and the animals are much more active than they would be during the hot daytime. There are a couple of foot trails but you mostly take a tram around the park. It is tough to take good pictures in such low light while moving so we don't have any of the animals. I'm not a big zoo fan but these animals did look a little more lively. In the bat house the fruit bats were chowing down on some melons and you could get really close without anything between you and the bats. Gus was asleep in the ergo baby at the time and I was really nervous he'd wake up, let out a squawk and the bats would all fly in our faces. This is a picture of some lit up trees at the entrance that Gus found really fascinating.

Don't most people think of putting their heads in the mouth of a bronze alligator?

Gus passing through a "wormhole". That was the name of this art installation.

The interior of the wormhole. I was wondering if the artist added extra worms to the soil because there were, conveniently, a lot of actual worm holes.

Wormhole exterior. This was outside of the Singapore Art Museum. It was made by a Malay artist. In Malaysia mountains are considered holy places because they connect the sky, where the gods live, to the earth, where people live. The title is a reference to the scifi wormhole that connects different points in space.

Here we are on the roof on the Marina Bay Sands. The pool has an infinity edge. Don't worry, there will be more pool pictures shortly; this was before we actually went swimming.

Gus catching a ride on one of the elephant sculptures in Gardens by the Bay, a huge botanical garden with both outside gardens and two different climate zone areas under glass domes (the armadillo buildings).

We just went inside the cloud forest dome. It was much cooler and wetter than outside. Craig did the gardens last year so he and Gus ran amok while I enjoyed the garden.

Of course, I had to get Craig to do a silly pose.

And I had to do a silly pose.

This is the suspension bridge between the Supertrees.

And the pool. It was surprisingly cool. We are 57 stories up. There are life guards and I think their primary job is to yell at people when they hop up and sit on the infinity edge. We mostly just splashed around and checked out the view.

Gus LOVES to swim!

He also liked chilling in the shade, of course.