Two months after arriving in Beijing last year with a toddler and a baby in tow, I finally convinced my husband to let me send L1, our older toddler, to the private local preschool in our building.

My husband’s arguments against sending our older daughter were valid, but I was getting so stressed that I couldn’t even think through those arguments carefully. It also didn’t help that we were having Ayi issues. And so he reluctantly agreed.

Two months later, my family and I were much happier than before. I was less stressed, my husband heard fewer complaints and could focus on his work better, my younger daughter could peacefully nap in the morning while my older daughter learned to adapt to her new environment and slowly started enjoying Chinese. It took a while, but we eventually got there.

READ: How Do I Choose a School for My Child? Taking your first steps towards answering the million-dollar question

So what were some of my husband’s worries? And what is it like sending your kid to a local preschool?

1. Breakfast and Lunch is provided

And while I was getting to know L1’s potential school-to-be, I was surprised to see that they also provided breakfast AND lunch. We had to pay extra, of course, but it was definitely something we didn’t have back home. We usually had to prepare our children’s food or ask the help to bring them over during lunch time.

“How do you know the food is clean?” asked my husband once. According to the teachers in my school, the vegetables they use are from their own farm. A few months later we all actually took a trip to that farm for a school event.

If the quality of food is something you worry about as well, don’t be afraid to ask the school where they source their ingredients, even if it’s just for your peace of mind.

2. Fapiao

One of the reasons we moved our daughter to another school was because her school couldn’t give us a receipt that said “Tuition Fee”. When L1 became eligible for schooling reimbursements, we asked the school if they could provide us with Tuition Fee receipts. But because they weren’t an official school, they could only provide receipts that said “Training Fees”.

This wasn’t acceptable in my husband’s company, however, and so we moved our daughter to a different school.

3. Air Purifiers

4. They sometimes have classes until night

Many of the families who send their young children to these private preschools do it out of necessity. For families with working parents, these private preschools allow them to return to work while outsourcing childcare to a school. These preschools know it, and some have services where they can watch the children until early evening. For an additional fee, they can also provide dinner for the children.

5. Daily Pictures and Updates

At L1’s first school, they asked the parents to download an app. There they would upload photos of our children, their curriculum, photos of their meals, and more. This is something we didn’t have back home, but seems to be more common here in Beijing. And so every few days I would show my husband this app, and he would worry less about his first child and her new school.

6. Chances of Viruses are Higher

6. The Culture is Different

What are other factors parents should know before enrolling their children in a local private preschool? Share your tips in the comments section below!

Photos: Flickr, Mila, News1130.com, and Philippe Put (Flickr)

Jackie is a mom blogger over at Bringinguptheparks.com. There she writes about her family’s life and adventures in East Asia.

We’ve been riding 首约 ShouYue (short for 首气约车 Shouqi Yueche) ever since we arrived in Beijing last year. I was very reluctant at first to use their service considering their high price, but my husband explained that not only was there an ongoing promotion but also it was the only cab service at the time with air purifiers. At that moment we looked out at the gray haze outside our window, and all my objections disappeared like Beijing fresh air. So yes, we’ve been using it ever since then.

ShouYue basics
My husband and I call it 首汽 Shouqi, but according to its website its nickname is actually 首约 ShouYue. This cab company is a government-run service that’s supposed to be the answer to the city’s demands for a better standard of car service. Their additional services include free wifi, cellphone charging, and air purifiers in all their vehicles. Interestingly, their drivers are former Beijing cab drivers who are supposed to have been “trained” and reformed.

This training is evident by the memorized lines that exit their lips once they’ve started the car. Welcome to Shouqi Yueche. Please put on your seatbelts. Please tell me if the temperature is to your liking, etcetera. One time I actually answered, and the driver was confused and didn’t know what I was talking about. Of course, it could have just been my bad Chinese.

These drivers are supposed to be above par, which means they are expected to provide a better service than their average cabbie counterparts. They’re expected to open the door for you, help you put your things in the trunk, help you with whatever you need, basically.

ShouYue cars are mostly black, but the bigger ones for disabled people are silver. Each bear their company’s logo on the door of their back passenger’s seat, and their nameplates start with 京B.

In order to start using Shouqi Yueche, you’ll need to download their app.

App Info
Using their app is fairly easy…if you read Chinese. To install, download the app via your app store of choice by typing in the words 首汽约车 (Shouqi Yueche). After installing it, you will be asked to provide your phone number and also your city.

To add credit to your phone, click on the tiny hollow human on the upper left. A list of options will appear. Select the second option （我的账户）. Here you can prepay in six denominations: RMB 100, RMB 300, RMB 500, RMB 1000, RMB 2000 and RMB 5000. On the little box below these denominations, you also have the option of typing in your own amount. Your different online payment options are Alipay, Wechat, Jingdong and using online banking payment.

Price
To give you an idea: every morning around 7:45-8:10am, my children and I leave for my daughter’s school which is 4.16 km away from the gate of our compound. The trip will take us roughly 13-20 minutes, depending on the traffic. A trip to the school using Shouyue costs around RMB 39-49. Your average Beijing cab driver, however, would only charge me RMB 15.

Here is what the Shouyue breakdown of a morning trip looks like, translated:

The basic price is more or less what I would pay if I had hailed a normal Beijing cab. “Super mileage” is (Number of kilometers traveled) x (Fixed price: 2.8/km). Overtime charges are divided into two: flat peak and peak hour. For non-peak hours (aka “flat peak”) the calculation is (No. of minutes) x (RMB .5 per minute), while for peak hours it is (No. of minutes) x (RMB .5 + RMB .5/minute).

ShouYue has Air Purifiers
In my moments of frustration with ShouYue drivers, I’ve actually turned to the supposedly all-knowing Baidu and searched for alternatives. Unfortunately though, I’ve yet to find an another cab service with an air purifier in every single vehicle (99% of the vehicles we’ve ridden, anyway). Their newer cars (Camby Hybrid) already have air purifiers installed, while older cars have either the black ones like the one in the picture below hanging behind the driver’s seat or smaller black ones settled nicely on the car’s dashboard above the controls.

But here’s the thing: not every ShouYue driver believes that pollution is a worrisome foe, which is why some of them don’t even bother turning theirs on sometimes. This is why the first thing I recommend immediately looking for that air purifier and making sure it’s turned on soon as you’re settled.

Service
This premium car service also allows its customers to rate their respective riders. In the past, drivers were motivated to treat their customers better because they would get a 5 RMB reward for every 5 star rating they had. That motivation has since gone, and not all drivers have been giving the star quality treatment we once had.

I generally have a good experience riding these prestigious black cars. But on those days when I’m treated badly by a Shouqi Yueche driver, all I have to do is look out the window and see the gray sky and remind myself: as long as there’s clean air in this car, the kids and I are just fine. Then I mentally add “Rate this Driver after getting off” to my list of things to do for the day.

Photos: Jackie Park

As a person who loves to eat, I love that there’s always an excuse to do so here in China. This time, it’s the changing of seasons. And the arrival of spring means it’s the perfect time to eat 春饼, or Spring Pancakes!

I got the idea while reading this article from the Beijinger on where to eat Spring Pancakes. And so along with my younger daughter and a friend, we tried one of the places mentioned in the article. We decided to pay 姥姥家春饼店’s (Grandma’s Spring Pancakes’) Sanyuanqiao branch a visit.

Laolao Jia Chunbing Dian is a local chain specializing in, you guessed it, spring pancakes. We got there at around 11AM. At the time there were only three tables occupied on my floor and zero on the second floor. My friend arrived half an hour later to discover that there was already a long queue!

She immediately sprang into action, ordering dishes from the only-Chinese menu that I could not understand. For those with spectacular Chinese (or enough Chinese to understand this menu anyway), here it is:

The process is easy enough. First, you choose a wrapper. There are two choices: the 春饼 (Spring Pancake) and the 筋饼 (Gluten Pancake). Then choose one dish from each of these categories: Egg (蛋）, Meat（肉）, Vegetables（菜）, Onion （葱） and then Sauce（酱）(this is a recommended procedure, not required.). When the food arrives, give each of the (older) kids their own wrapper, let them choose what dishes they want to put in, and then start rolling! Think of it as a DIY Chinese burrito!

But of course, there’s bound to be some waiting. It took between five to fifteen minutes for our orders to arrive, so pass the time by suggesting that the children pay the unsuspecting goldfishes at the aquarium by the cashier counter a visit. Follow the fishies, kids. Follow ’em left and right.

My daughter was extremely excited when the food finally came out, and so I picked her up and plopped her in her high chair. She still being a wee little toddler, I figured half a spring pancake wrapper would suffice. I was reaching with my own chopsticks to put some veges on her wrapper when she suddenly attacked at the meat with her own chopsticks. She knew what her mother was about to do again.

酱爆鸭片(Jiangbao Yapian)

“Veges first,” I told her. “We need to put veges.”

“Together!” she said. “Together!”

Together here means eighty percent meat, twenty percent vegetables.

Oh well. At least she’s being independent!

Laolaojia Chunbing Dian’s (姥姥家春饼店) Sanyuanqiao branch is located at Sān yuán xi qiáo qī shèng nánlù xī bà hé nánlù jiāochā kǒu (三元西桥七圣南路西坝河南路交叉口) and can be reached at 13366626996. If you’re thinking of commuting there, I recommend taking a cab.

P.S. If you’re like me with so-so Chinese, here are some pictures of the food via Dianping that you can tell the fuwuyuan what you want for your meal.

Photos: Jackie Park

The days start out in either blue or white, depending on what we see outside our window.

L1 heads for the light. “It’s not polluted today!” My little observer squeals, pointing at the blue skies that have replaced yesterday’s heavy smog. “Maybe we can go to the playground later?”

“It depends on what the air is like later,” I answer, careful not to make any promises. She goes on to play with her toys while I prepare her clothes—long pants and a dress or shirt, which will hopefully be enough to keep the mosquitoes from feasting on her again today.

To help her not feel so alone when she first started attending kindergarten, I would give her her Hello Kitty doll and a bottle of her favorite Pororo juice drink to keep her company. She eventually outgrew her Hello Kitty doll, but today she remembers her juice. “Don’t you remember,” I say, “how we talked about no more juice this week? We are running out of juice. If you are thirsty you can drink water at school.”

I’ve said that line three times already this week, and as they say, third time’s the charm. She lets her shoulders drop and looks away. Before any tears can start flowing, her father cuts in. “Honey, I’m about to go.” He turns to L1. “Let’s go L.”

She immediately perks up and bids me adieu. “Oh L, what did you forget?” I ask her. I’m referring to my daily kiss.

She pecks me on the cheek. “See you later Mommy,” and she gives me the biggest hug a tiny little girl can give. I say I love you. “I love you too, Mommy,” and I get another peck on the cheek.

***
According to my husband, there are still some days when L1 isn’t happy after being dropped off. On those days, she will greet her teachers with a frown and then sway from side to side, her discontent communicated very clearly. Nonetheless, she will still follow her teacher into the school.

The children will start their day by heading into the common room and then having breakfast with their peers. Weeks ago when my daughter caught the Hand and Mouth virus, my mother asked me what reassurance I had that the tiny kindergarten’s food was clean. It brought back memories of the few days I spent with L1 in her new school, with L2 in the baby carrier. The teachers were kind enough to also provide for my littler one. When L2 couldn’t finish her food, I took a spoonful and found the food very satisfactory—not too salty, not too sweet. Almost bland to the adult palate but just right for toddlers. With that moment in mind, I told my unbelieving mother that the school food was safe for children and that L1 had most likely gotten it from her classmate rather than the food.

Not only that, L1’s school uploads pictures of their food daily via their phone app. Here’s an example:

After breakfast, the children will generally head upstairs to do some exercise. The last time I was there, one of the kids’ activities included walking along an oval. This routine is very deeply ingrained in L1, who—at the sight of a fat line to walk on—will start tiptoeing along its line.

Next up is their DIY class. Every child has an assigned space on the floor or on the table and are in charge of bringing over their own mats (when necessary). Some of the teachers have mentioned that this is L1’s favorite activity. She loves putting her hands to work and sometimes gets mad when she’s bothered. Here’s a picture:

Snack time will come next, and fruits are generally served. This is followed by a reading activity or a trip to the playground outside their door. Unfortunately, our playground has also become a feasting ground for mosquitoes, and I’ve requested the Head Teacher to not bring L1 to the playground anymore. I realize I might sound like a wet blanket, but L1’s 15 minutes of fun isn’t worth a whole night’s worth of nonstop “Mommy, so itchy!!!”‘s. To make matters worse, the black scars across her legs are making her look diseased.

During her first two months, L1’s English teacher became her favorite by default, since she was the only one she could communicate with. It’s her class that she goes to after the kids visit the playground. She generally loves participating in English class…except when it’s time to play games. Interestingly, when her teacher shared this dislike for games she also added that L1 says it’s because “mommy doesn’t like it.” You can imagine my surprise! I have no idea why she said that!

The children’s start growling around 11:30, and they troop back to the dining room to wait for their meals. Children are expected to eat by themselves and then wash their own hands afterward by themselves, and I’m quite proud to say that L1 can already do that because that’s how we do it at home as well.

Some children stay for half the day, and the rest stay until late afternoon. For those who are expecting their parents at 12, they will wait within the common room’s play area. The children are invited to play some toys while waiting for their parents. Other kids just play with their teachers.

I’m not always on time, which I often feel crappy about. But when we finally see each other again, I can feel L1’s happiness as she puts away her toys and changes into her shoes quickly.

***

“Bye!” She heartily bid the Chinese teacher who brought her out to me today. It was the first time she didn’t put up a fight about saying goodbye.

As we walk away, for the first time since she started attending her Bilingual Montessori Pre-school she happily says, “I like my teachers!”

It’s a bittersweet moment when you’ve learned to let go—even if it’s just a tiny bit. I’m less stressed, and she’s also becoming happier in school.

It really is a beautiful day today. ?

*This post was written for the Multicultural Kids’ August 2016 Blogging Carnival entitled “Schools Around the World.” Hope you liked it! ?

This post originally appeared on Bringing Up the Parks.

I was planning to take my children out to watch a play last weekend until I saw the news via The Beijinger: “Red Alert Declared for Beijing’s Air, Dec 16-20.”

Crap. Here we go again, I thought to myself. Pollution isn’t uncommon in the capital, but a “red alert” announcement was. Worried even more than usual, I decided to cancel our playdates.

The general rule of thumb is to NOT let the AQI (Air Quality Level) go beyond 50 while at home. My air purifier will go on full blast if I see the AQI level on my egg approach 100, which is the maximum for what is considered as “healthy” for my kids. (If you’d like to understand this more, click here.)

Based on the new regulations, a “Red Alert” status means one of three things. The first is that the AQI level will reach over 200 for at least 4 days. The second is when the AQI level is above 300 for two days in a row. The third is if it becomes higher than 500 over any 24-hour period. It is definitely the second, and not just for two days in a row. (Update: I just read earlier today from Shanghai Expat Official that some places reached 1000 yesterday.)

As I shared in in a past Nihao Beijing post, living in Beijing has its perks as well. But the white wall of Particulate Matter (a.k.a. PM) reels in that traveler in me. So on those high AQI days, the kids and I stay at home.

Unfortunately, hiding within the four corners of my home isn’t enough. One needs defenses against the wretched white fog. Two must-haves for all Beijing homes are air purifiers and the Laser Egg.

Blue Air is the most popular choice for those who can afford and are willing to shell out a few thousand RMB’s. The much, much cheaper alternative, Xiaomi, is currently being hounded by allegations of failing quality inspection according to The Waijiao. Simply put, there’s a hefty price tag on clean air here in Beijing.

The Laser egg is an air pollution meter device invented by Beijing expats. Some expats I’ve spoken to carry their egg (as it is fondly called) around everywhere just to see what exactly they’re breathing in. It is small enough to be held in one hand but might not fit into a lady’s purse. It’s quite reliable, and one of the things I will definitely bring home with me when I move back.

For cab-goers like myself, the state-owned Shouqi Yueche cab service has their own purifiers. As you might have already expected, they also cost a bit more than your average Beijing taxi.

Oh wait, let’s not forget the masks. It’s very hard to find masks for very young children, and experts generally discourage newborns and very young toddlers from using masks for risk of suffocation. An interesting new air purifier that is now on Kickstarter is the Wynd, which describes itself as “the smartest air purifier for your personal space”. From the looks of it, it’s as high as your typical Starbucks insulated mug cup (the taller one anyway) which means it can be easily inserted in, say, a baby pram, or even put alongside your egg.

For kids three and up, there’s a mask called the Coco Koala Respirator. It comes in two colors, blue and pink, and size #2 is for kids 3-7 years old. The one I just got (which I see many expats sharing online) is the one that cost RMB 198. By the way, there’s a RMB 10 shipping fee. Again, breathing clean air is quite the commodity here.

Adult masks vary, but the trick is to find one that suits your needs (and is really tight enough that it actually covers your nose and your mouth). There are the disposable ones like 3M, the fashionista ones like Vogmask, and there are the cloth ones that really don’t do much. My husband prefers the disposable ones for hygienic reasons, but I see quite a lot of people in my neighborhood using the pricier Vogmask nowadays.

Parents will also often exchange information on which places have air purifiers and which don’t. Not many malls have air purifiers, so in my opinion staying home is still the better option.

For this same reason, many parents whose schools do not have air purifiers will be asked to keep their children at home. For this particular red alert, schools were closed in certain districts. Fortunately, most international schools had just started the holiday break, which means the kids don’t have to go to school anyway. My daughter’s school has air purifiers as well, but I chose to just keep her at home. So though my daughter knows pollution is bad, she finds that it oftentimes works in her favor.

I’d like to end this post by saying that it’s not always this polluted. Though rarer now, we’re not perpetually in a warzone-like state. But for the days like today, you need to get your anti-pollution gear ready. For your health’s sake, put your air purifiers on full blast until the pollution finally dissipates.

This post originally appeared on Jackie Park’s blog Bringing Up the Parks.

Jackie Park lives in Beijing with her two kids and husband. Find her on her blog, and this original post, at bringinguptheparks.com (VPN required). We suggest finding the materials you need for these cards by setting up the English-language Baopals for shopping on Taobao.

I’m planning to send out our Christmas cards by mid-next week, and I wanted to make it extra special. Now that we have kids, I wanted them to personalize their cards. Because isn’t it more touching that way?

So while I was scouring the net for these little nuggets of inspiration, I came across some photos on Pinterest of children’s handprints, fingerprints and footprints used to decorate the Christmas card! For today, I’ll share about the cute footprints. Check in again tomorrow night to see the different possible Christmas cards you can do with handprints!

Let’s start with the most obvious: a Christmas Tree!

Sadly the site of the original source of this project (The CSI Project) isn’t available anymore. I got this photo from a site called Bomb Shell Bling in her post about 12 Kid Crafts for Christmas.

Or how about this Rudolf-inspired step by Emma Owl?

 

And because we can’t get enough of Christmas trees, here’s another one (but with both feet this time) by Craft Rookie:

And here’s a challenging craft from Indulgy definitely meant for Christians:

This last one I’m about to share from Crafty Morning isn’t exactly Christmas-y UNLESS you added a caption and maybe some snow? The caption could be like: Missing you this Christmas season. Merry Christmas! Or something like that.

The first time I lived abroad was as a student learning Mandarin here in Beijing. It is not uncommon for Chinese-Filipino families to send their children to China or Taiwan to study Mandarin for a semester or two before finding a job, and I happened to be one of those kids.

My first foreign contact was a Korean girl who was my roommate and eventually also my best mate. I was raised in that typical Chinese community wherein girls are expected to “behave” by always coming home early, studying well, and follow all the given rules. In fact, one of the reasons my mother sent me to China was because she considered me a “rebel”, although I would later on learn that I was a rebel but only in our cultural context.

My Korean roommate was younger than me by a few years, so it shocked me that she could cook. Likewise, it shocked her to discover that I couldn’t even fry an egg. If you find me silly, then you’ll probably find it shocking that many of my peers in Manila at the time couldn’t do it either. Most of us grew up with helpers, after all.

As the weeks passed, the standards for a “good girl” that I had been raised to believe all my life were tested, and that was when I realized that I wasn’t wrong but neither was my mother. Our expectations and our views are shaped by several factors, like our environment, our culture and our own family’s personal values.

1. You learn that some values are not as bad as you thought they were.

I was hired as an English teacher in 2012 at a local teaching academy. I was assigned a desk next to M, an American co-worker who was surprisingly just as chatty as I was. Of course, not all Americans are chatty. But the ones I’ve met are much more outspoken and direct than my countrymen. And though I did my best to pretend otherwise at the time, her blunt honesty and straightforwardness shocked me once in a while. What a relief!

What a relief, because finally, I had found someone who was doing what I’ve been told is wrong. I finally found someone who was doing to me what I knew I had probably been doing to others, and I didn’t find it offensive at all. It was just facts being stated, no beating around any stupid bush. The way she spoke was honest but not to the point of insulting, and she made me feel like I finally wasn’t alone. Interestingly, though, as the months passed by I would notice her starting to choose her words more carefully around our Chinese co-workers. While I was learning to adapt to my Western friends, she was learning to be more conscientious with her choice of words.

When we learned that we had similar days off, we planned for an adventure. Our first of many would be a beach adventure to Beidaihe, a beach a few hours away from Beijing. There we discovered that it wasn’t as warm as we had hoped it would be (we were probably the only travelers there), that even local wines were faked, that said fake local wines should never be tasted (or even opened for that matter, blech!) and that silly things such as chasing sunrises could actually be fun as long as it’s coupled with awesome companionship. This whole adventure would have been filed under the Disaster category if I had been traveling with my family or even with my Korean husband’s side of the family, and yet those are just some of the reasons I found it so absolutely memorable.

2. You become a bit culture-conscious.

My husband would first discover “Filipino time” when I tried introducing my friends to him for the first time. By the time everyone had arrived more than an hour had passed, and some had said they could make it in time. My husband would only discover how deeply ingrained this “Filipino Time” attitude was in my being after we got married. What would have been more acceptable in the Philippines was considered an insult in my husband’s culture.

Likewise, I had to ask my husband to slurp his noodles a bit more quietly whenever we were in the Philippines. He’s getting the hang of it, especially since he doesn’t like attracting stares from fellow customers.

Speaking of the Philippines, we like to say thank you over there. Thank you for this and thank you for that. So it’s very hard for me to control it sometimes when I’m with my Chinese best friend, who has reminded me probably a thousand times to stop thanking her for Every. Single. Thing. She says that you don’t need to say thank you so much among friends. I get it, I get it. But sometimes it’s so hard to change!

3. You learn to be flexible.
But change you must. Otherwise you’re bound to step on a few toes. You’re bound to offend someone. And you learn that some acts are just not acceptable in some cultures. Like did you know that you can’t write Korean names in red? That’s practically sentencing them to die. Some things you just don’t do.

4. There are sides of yourself that you can let out because of your foreign friends.
Some of my longest and favorite lunches were organized by our Latin American friends. That was when I first discovered that some eat outs don’t have to end just because lunch time is over. My husband and I had this group—we were three couples in all—with whom we would have marathon lunches that would reach all the way to dinner and even beyond if no one said anything—or rather, we had too much to say. My Latin American friends taught me that having lunch is not just about the food on the table, but the connection that happens because of the food.

5. You learn new tricks.
The other couple in that group are our Korean friends, and interestingly we both had our first child just a few months apart. She introduced me to books and places and Korean-related information that helped me with parenting in Korea. Isn’t it fun to have a friend to transition into motherhood with? Not only did I have a friend who would always understand, but because Koreans are naturally more independent since they don’t have helpers, I unintentionally raised my children to be a mix of our cultures.

Not just that, I learned about different foods—like did you know that different places have different versions of “spicy” foods, different fashion styles, different parenting styles, and more.

And oh what a blessing it is to experience that. If there’s anything I’ve learned from this multicultural society we currently live in, it’s that we just never stop growing. There’s so much to learn, not just from others but about ourselves as well beyond the fences culture has sometimes limited us to. Like how my parents’ parenting was shaped by their environment and their own cultures, I hope to raise my children to be the best versions of themselves in this new cultural arena I’m lucky to be in, which is our multicultural society in Beijing. Our children can discover the best versions of themselves but also adapt themselves by taking into consideration the culture of the people they meet and the environment they are in.

Multiculturalism is here to stay, and I want to be there to guide my children to embrace it.

Photo courtesy of Jimee, Jackie, Tom and Asha (Flickr).

Jackie Park shares the best of family-friendly hotels while on vacation in the Philippines.

Winter is here—the worst in Beijing history, in fact! For those already dreaming of warmer days, the Philippines, and its few thousand islands welcome you with open arms.

But where exactly in the Philippines can a freezing Beijing family go? Bask in the sun at one of these family-friendly hotels in this tropical paradise.

1. El Nido Resorts Pangulasian Island
If price isn’t an issue, then this little heaven on earth should be part of your bucket list. Dip your toes into that warm, glorious white sand and then make your way to the pristine turquoise waters—also all this is visible from the resorts’ many cabins. This darling also happens to be a Trip Advisors’ Travelers’ Choice 2016 winner. And, take it from a local, El Nido beaches are known to be some of the most beautiful beaches in the country.

2. Hotel H20 in Metro Manila

The kids are going to love these marine-themed rooms, each with its own aquarium. Different species of fish swim about gaily. This hotel is also connected to the Manila Aquarium, the country’s first world-class marine theme park.

3. The Peacock Garden in Bohol

The Peacock Garden is a luxurious getaway overlooking the Bohol Sea. Like most top hotels, it also has its own family-friendly pool and tours. If you choose to go to Bohol, I recommend paying the world’s smallest primate, the Tarsier, a visit, check out the thousands of hill formations called “Chocolate Hills,” and also watch dolphins swim.

4. The Manor at Camp John Hay in Baguio

Locals used to flee to Baguio to escape the Metro Manila heat. It is also known for horseback riding, for paying the nuns at Good Shepherd a visit, and just relaxing in the cool wind. A stay at Camp John Hay’s The Manor will delight those with families because of its nearby playground and because of its countryside feel, perfect for those seeking to temporarily escape city life.

5. Sheridan Beach Resort and Spa in Palawan

This gorgeous beach resort lies near the Puerto Prinsesa Subterranian National Park, one of the seven wonders of the world. The National Park is famous for being the world’s longest navigable underground river, and yet still has many more caves and paths that have yet to be explored. It’s a great experience for the kids to learn more about our environment, our nocturnal friends and appreciate the beauty of this underground river. I know I did when I visited it as a kid!

Photo courtesy of El Nido Resorts Pangulasian Island, Hotel H20, The Peacock Garden, The Manor at Camp John Hay and Sheradon Beach Resort

Our family is currently taking a breather from our beloved Beijing and vacationing in Kuala Lumpur. It’s been years since I returned to my country of origin and my first time to return as a mom. I honestly didn’t expect to see a very kid-friendly Kuala Lumpur during my trip back, but that’s exactly what I got. Not only that, there are so many places to explore! A friend helped me gather information on some places to go with the kids, which I bet some of you parents out there would love to know as well, especially with Chinese New Year travel itineraries on our minds:

1. Most malls I’ve been to here in Kuala Lumpur have an indoor playground, and for those that don’t they will at least have a coin-operated kiddie ride that will easily satisfy your toddler. Not only that, bigger malls such as Sunway Pyramid, Pavilion, and KLCC have stroller rentals and also nursing rooms.

2. What toddler won’t love the idea trying their hand at the life of a grown-up at Kidzania? This family edutainment complex takes real life places such as banks, restaurants, and more, and gives children the opportunity to role-play and have a more personal understanding of the way things work. It’s a great experience for young children.

3. Bring a change of clothes for the kids in case you decide to pay the Kuala Lumpur City Center (KLCC) Park a visit. There’s a big playground where active ones will surely sweat it out, otherwise consider checking out their huge public pool.

4. If your child is a fan of sharks and other underwater creatures, then off to the Aquarium! It is located inside KLCC and is a popular destination for families.

5. Or if your child prefers something a bit more above ground, a trip to the butterfly farm in Lake Gardens or the “World’s Largest Free-Flight Walk-in Avery” are great options.

Come to Kuala Lumpur for your next vacation. There are so many things for the family to do!

Photo: Emran Kassim (Flickr)