Entertaining Kids in the Paragon

There's not much free outdoor activities to keep my Sam entertained here in the heart of Orchard Rd. Especially right now, with the building of the Ion right behind the apartment, the planting of NEWater pipes in the road in front of the apartment, and the expansion of the pedestrain walkways of Orchard Road itself (previously the stretch in front of Ngee Ann City, now shifted opposite in front of Paragon), the whole area is a mess of construction din & dust contributing to the usual slightly dusty city roads.

But still, it's not supposed to be good for the kid to spend all his time indoors, so today I thought I'll let him vent his energies outside for a little while. Started Sam off running down the slopey walkway between Wisma Atria & Ngee Ann City, where he saw a lizard sunbathing. Then, walking along Orchard Rd he gazed interestingly at the water fountain in front Ngee Ann City & consented to a pose with the Christmas decorations:

After 15 min, both Sam & I were sweating, so I hustled him into Paragon. This is becoming one of my fav shopping centres for lunch, not because of its good variety of restaurants, but for the availability of child-friendly facilities.

The free children's playground (2 ~ 6 yrs) on level 5 must be the answer to lots of mummies' prayers. At 11.20 am on a Wednesday morning it was quite popular, Sam having to jostle through the tunnel & to wait for his turn at the slides.

From 11.30 am onwards, the crowd of children started to thin, as the mothers begin to move into the just-opened restaurants for the early lunch. I, too, wanted my food before the office crowds set in, but Sam refused to go till he played pretend in one of the musical cars.

By 12 noon, I managed to get Sam into my fav soba restaurant, Shimbashi Soba. After my previous experience, this time I ordered a cold soba for my Hana Syokado set (S$28.80). I had thought 'cold soba' = 'zaru soba', but no, the soba was chilled & served already dipped in broth, with wakame seaweed & tenkasu (bits of deep-fried tempura batter). It was so much better than the hot version, very chewy & fragrant. Sam had several helpings in his baby set, I was glad I paid the extra $5 for a larger serving of noodles.

Was glad we made it to the restaurant early, a queue started forming from 12:30pm! After the very filling lunch (the Hana Syokado set included 5 slices sashimi, 3 pcs sushi, chicken katsu, agedashi tofu, deep fried soft shell crab, 4 pcs tempura besides the noodles), we left the restaurant and literally walked into another children's fav outside the Spageddies.

I don't know the proper name of the technology. It seems to make use of the shadows thrown by the kid on the projected image & triggers a specific response, eg. bouncing the basketball, turning corn into popcorn, or Sam's favourite - overturning & chasing cars.

Like the playground, I noticed other mothers letting their children play here, while they waited for their tables at one of the many restaurants in Basement 1. The only unfavourable thing about this video game is its location - being right in the centre of the passageway, many a unwary adults nearly stumbled into the playing children, or stumbled trying to avoid them!

Shimbashi Soba
290 Orchard Road
#B1-41, Paragon
Tel: 6735-9882
Opens 11:30 am to 10 pm.