Tag Archives: SOTP
Kick Your Way To Fitness! | New cardio kickboxing bootcamp in Dubai
Martial arts based fitness training and cardio kickboxing is one of the hottest fitness trends across the world in recent years and are motivating many people to get off the couch and into a fitness program.
Dubai based professional MMA fighter and former international karate gold medalist, Rafat Shawe is just one of the fantastic martial arts talent to be based in the Middle East.
This October, Rafat Shawe is launching his new kickboxing bootcamps that blend boxing, martial arts and cardio kickboxing in a fantastic total body workout. Well-known as an excellent form of stress release, martial arts-inspired workouts also improve strength, aerobic fitness and flexibility. The variety of movements used in kickboxing can sharpen reflexes and improve co-ordination and balance. Even better, most participants can expect to burn at least 600 calories during a typical cardio kickboxing class.
Rafat’s new outdoor cardio kickboxing bootcamps kick off on Sunday 11th October. The bootcamps will take place as follows:
- Sunday 7.00pm, Palm Park, Palm Jumeirah
- Tuesday 6.30am, Palm Park, Palm Jumeirah
Each bootcamp costs AED 100 or AED 800 if you sign up for a package of 10.
For more information about the bootcamps and to enquire about personal training, please contact Rafat Shawe on:
Email: rafat_shawe@yahoo.com or call
Mobile: +971 (0) 50 4954446.
You can also keep up-to-date with his latest news on Facebook and on Instagram.
Additional bootcamps at other locations in Dubai will be announced shortly.
Four Seasons Singapore | Organised with Quintessentially Dubai | Travelling with children
Our stay at the Four Seasons Singapore was a breath of fresh air. It was understated luxury at its best and located right in the hub of Orchard Road, the main shopping district. After a tedious flight in from Phuket on Silk Air and 4 extremely tired children, our pick up at the airport was on time, and the ease of checking in with the hotel manager who arrived personally to take us, her ‘Quintessentially’ booked guests to our rooms on the highest floor to check into our adjoining suites. It is a relief not to be waiting in the lobby with hungry and tired children. For any mother, a luxury.
Food
The hotel’s buffet breakfast is more like a professional feast with freshly baked breads, fresh sliced smoked salmon as well as a spattering of local breakfast dishes to try and there is such a large variety to cater to the fussiest child guest. The restaurant is looked after by an Italian head chef so that made the Italian side of our family extremely happy. The breakfast is popular and busy with business meetings and families but the staff always appear to have everything under control and are extremely helpful and accommodating with young children. The service could not be faulted in anyway. No staff is too snooty to serve you, from waiters to senior managers passing by who will still stop to assist. It is really Five Star service attention to detail at its best. The room service menu is large to satisfy all international pallets and the quality of service amazing – try their wonton noodles, satay and pizza. Also, do try their special martini bar if you can’t face going out after putting the children to bed as their bartenders are extremely specialised in the fine art of making martinis, and they have a selection of Japanese whiskeys with knowledgeable bar staff to assist.
Rooms & Facilities
The rooms are immaculate and practical for families with adjoining rooms and their beds are extremely comfortable. We also had to desperately wash some major items after 10 days in Phuket for the children, and you will be delighted to know that clothes could be sent and returned the same day.
There are two swimming pools, one for adults only and one for children, which are quite small but sufficient to please the children. They also have a business conference centre to hold meetings as well as a well-equipped gym which I did try out – a morning run to help ease the holiday eating.
Quintessentially
Booking as members of Quintessentially made a huge difference to the service we received on arrival, with special surprises for the children, upgrades and discounts. An efficient concierge service and worth the sign up especially for those who travel a lot with families. For more information on Quintessentially Dubai Click Here.
Location of Four Seasons Singapore
The hotel is located on the back of Orchard Road but you are able to walk through the connecting shopping mall into the Hilton and come straight out onto Orchard Road (8 minute walk). For mums who need baby items, you can head down to Tanglin Mall (15 minute walk with children, 10 on your own) nearby to pick up anything that the children might need. Also, head to Wheellock Place and Ion – Wheellock Mall has Marks & Spencer if you have forgotten to pack anything and Ion has all designer brands, but if you like stationary there is a beautiful stationary shop right next to the art galleries on the top floor, and there are great shops in the underground sections of Ion Mall including Kikki_K stationary. There are also many food retails areas. For more to do in Singapore check out my other feature. Click here.
Viel family:
Will we go back? Most definitely. Our new favourite hotel in Singapore.
Good for children? Amazing.
Top tip: Book with Quintessentially Dubai and get yourself on the 19th floor for the view.
Singapore
Singapore is located in South East Asia close to Malaysia and Indonesia, and is 6 – 7 hours by air. Emirates and Singapore Airlines fly directly to the city, and upon arrival you will be hit with the all year round humity but you will very much enjoy the luscious green City.
Food: Singapore has become a blend of many nationalities. Some top favourite national dishes include chicken rice, laksa, pepper or chilli crab, mee siam, char siu noodles, and DURIAN (if you dare eat the King of the Fruits)
Visa: No visa is required for Philippines Passport if you are travelling with your nanny.
Currency: Singapore Dollars
Temperature: 25 – 35 degree celsius
Weather: Humid all year round with monsoon rains.
Tips: Bring cardigans for the children especially for the air conditioned malls that are especially chilly during the monsoon rains
Adventures in Art with Children: tell stories…but just a few | Sarah Palferman | Minerva London | Part 2
Sarah Palferman shares with us another feature on why art exhibitions are brilliant for young minds. Sarah has the gift to harness our children’s sponge-like minds to absorb and learn about art in the most interesting of ways. I cannot wait to take my children to London to expose them next summer to the galleries with Sarah.
“I never teach my pupils. I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn” – Albert Einstein.
There are more than 850 art galleries in London. The city’s wealth of culture might, therefore, rather easily overwhelm even those of us who schedule furtive ‘gallery time’ into the working week. This is particularly true if you are a child and the very word “gallery” might render you instantly fatigued.
It has been argued that art exhibitions are no places for children and, while anyone whose contemplation of a sublimely silent Dutch interior has been shattered by the noisy protestations of young visitors being dragged round London’s National Gallery might agree, I do not.
Those noisy protestations are unnecessary. Done the right way, it is perfectly possible to engage young people with art so that their curiosities are sparked, their wonderfully sponge-like brains are stimulated … and they have fun!
Human beings are hardwired for stories. We have told them to each other since the dawn of time; we have written about them in literature from the Epic of Gilgamesh inscribed on clay tablets in ancient Sumer onwards; we depict them in music, theatre and dance; and we express them through visual art.
Behind so many canvases and sculptures lining the walls of London’s galleries lurk fascinating stories waiting to be discovered: scenes of scandal, war, revenge, love; canvases with their own tales of tragedy and fables of forgery; art that might or might not even qualify as art.
It is hard, for example, not to be moved by Waterhouse’s symbol-sprinkled and gorgeous depiction of the ill-fated Lady of Shalott, frozen in Tate Britain moments from her demise. The power of this tale to enthral is evident in the layers of inspiration from Arthurian legend through Tennyson’s poetry to Waterhouse’s paintbrush.
The National Gallery is heaving with portrayals of myth: Daphne mid-transformation into a laurel tree as an arboreal escape from the attentions of Apollo; Bacchus mid-leap from his chariot, struck by a coup de foudre on discovering the abandoned Ariadne; the Rokeby Venus mid-languid gaze at the viewer and fully recovered from her attack with a meat cleaver at the hands of a suffragette in 1914.
At the Courtauld Gallery skulks The Procuress, the subject of decades of speculation and revealed by clever modern investigative techniques to be the handiwork of a somewhat talented twentieth-century Dutch forger rather than of an early seventeenth-century painter of original creations, also Dutch.
Focusing on just a few pieces and exploring them together in depth is far better than parading children round vast rooms of great masterpieces and, even worse, telling them that these are ‘Great Masterpieces’. Research conducted in the USA 犀利士
over the past decade concluded that the study of the visual arts allows young people to explore ideas, realities and relationships that cannot be conveyed simply in words. Through visual stories, children can explore concepts beyond their own environments and appreciate alternative viewpoints. They are exposed to different cultural perspectives and social groups in entirely unthreatening circumstances. They can develop a sense of themselves in relation to others and the world they inhabit.
Captivating young imaginations with the stories behind art, and keeping each cultural encounter clearly focused so that repeat visits are begged, removes the danger of dissociation from artistic tradition that many children might experience. It endows them with a sense of wonder without the risk of paralysing awe, or even worse, scant interest. It allows them to see themselves as part of a cultural continuum, with the capacity to engage in a journey of discovery that will enrich their whole lives.
Sarah Palferman is a private tutor and educational advisor. She is the founder of Minerva London Ltd, offering tailored adventures in art and culture to young people in London.
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