Old School Gatherings..

Recently, I met up with my Primary School classmates. We were in the same class from Primary 1 to 4 in Tao Nan Primary. The last time we met up was a year back and this time round, another one of our primary school classmate joined us.

We met at Shokudo at Raffles City. Its a Marche-like Japanese theme marketplace where you just go around with a card and purchase what you want to eat from various stalls. I bought yakitori and beef steamboat for my dinner.


It was quite expected what we would talk about the whole night during dinner-our teachers, our good old days, our other classmates, wedding plans, having children..etc.

To reminisce the past, we each got our IC out. It was quite amusing as we all looked so cute and small. My IC was changed once before as I lost my old one, so I didnt have my primary school photo on it whie the rest didnt bring along their IC.


Another amusing thing we did was to take out a writing pad and wrote down our handwriting as we could all remembered how each other's handwriting looked like in the past.


It was an interesting gathering.

Another recent gathering was attending Bernard's wedding, where all my JC mates, mostly swimmers, gathered and caught up with one another. His wedding so happened fell during the F1 night race. So he had to choose a hotel more convenient for the guests, which was at Sheraton Towers and there were F1 updates throughout the dinner.


My friends also wanted to sabotage Bernard by making him drink this up-red wine plus sweet sauce, plus chilli and orange juice, but he cleverly avoided us. Sigh.



I left before the noodles dish came as I wanted to avoid the jam in the car park. Still, I did enjoy myself as its always nice to catch up with old friends once in a while.

Learning how to smile

Its not easy to teach Caleb how to smile. Whenever he smiles naturally, I will always be not prepared to take a shot of him. That explains the blur image.


However, when I am all ready with my camera, just shy from clicking the button, he would give me the most 'forced' smile I have ever seen...

Sigh...


When will he ever learn to smile naturally each time I take a photo of him?

I really wonder..

Water fun at the zoo

Today, the family all went to the zoo. We do not really decide which day to go as CT has to book the zoo pass from his company way in advance and we just see when is the next available slot for us to book. The zoo pass allows us free entry to the zoo for 4 people (which is free for the whole family including Vicky because the kids are still below 3) and discounts at shops or restaurants.

I told CT that this time round, I want it to be relaxing. Usually, we would look at the show timings and make sure we go for most of the shows and feeding sessions that is available in the zoo. I found that rather tiring. So this time round, we just wanted to walk freely and focus mainly on letting the kids play in the water area as I heard that the water area is really fun.


We reached the zoo at about 10am. If we had a choice, we would have reached once the zoo first opened. But no choice in that sense as we had to go do my supermarketing first at Giant, rush back to dump our groceries and head off to the zoo after that. So reaching the zoo at 10am is no easy feat already!

Each time I go to the zoo, I feel quite proud of Singapore because I feel our zoo really stands out! It has so many animals and the interesting thing about our zoo is how the monkeys and some other animals can roam freely, even by hanging on the trees above our heads.

There's Caleb attempting to draw what he sees.


We manage to catch 2 shows as we happened to be in the right spot at the right time. So it wasn't intentional.







At Caleb's or Danielle's age, its definitely not easy for them to stare into my camera and smile nicely, especially when you want both of them to do so at the same time.

I tried, but failed. Both were looking down.


Tried again but only Danielle looked up.


And Vicky started attracting their attention for me which was a wrong move since both started to turn to her instead.


I gave up after 3 tries.

After walking to see most of the animals, we went to the kidzworld where the farm animals and water area were.



As I entered, I spotted the ponies. Love ponies because they look so cute and miniature. Talking about ponies...did you know most of us grew up with the impression that a pony was a baby horse? We were probably taught wrongly by our teacher or some misleading book taught us that. In actualy fact, a foal is a baby horse but a pony is just a different type of horse.



We went to grab some seats after that for our lunch. We brought along bread, cucumber, egg mayo, grapes as well as nachos. Aside from that, we also ordered 3 fried chicken from KFC to go with our sandwich.


While CT and I were enjoying our lunch, Vicky was taking care of the 2 kids at the water area! Thank God for Vicky that I can have a peaceful lunch with CT.





The water area really look so fun for the kids. I would definitely love to be back again, playing with them the next time round! Check out how the kids would know when to gather round the spot to get splashed by the gush of water!






After the swim, we checked out the rest of the kidzworld area. Caleb was feeding the guinea pigs and touching the goats. I was quite happy to see how loving and brave Caleb was as he patted the animals.





After leaving the kidzworld area, we visited other animal exhibits as we headed to the exit. Here's Danielle after a short nap!


Had a very enjoyable time with the family! Will definitely be back within 6 months' time.

My 2 darlings..

Caleb and Danielle has been growing up quite well and fast. They have their own personal times as well as moments spent playing with each other as well.



Caleb has been doing more daring stunts at the age of only 2 years old! Sigh..He acts just like a monkey-hanging on to bars and climbing up obstacles. Oh well..



Check out my little monkey in action


Actually the more I see Caleb, the more I see myself as I used to be very active and very daring as well. That was why I had lots of injuries and fall when young.

He also likes to get dirty with sand.


As for Danielle, she enjoys riding on this as she tries to shake it by herself.


She has also been 'walking' as we hold only one of her hands for support.


Safety is always at the back of any parent's mind and because both my kids are so active, its even more worrying. But on the bright side, I know that God loves them more than I do. So, my peace comes from knowing that He is in control.

Traditional Cantonese food

Today, I went out with a few colleagues to Geylang for lunch. It was a very nice home cooked Cantonese meal which up to now, am still drooling over it.

I love traditional and simple food.


Sik Wai Sin Eating House is situated between Lor 15 and Lor 13, on the right hand side. It is opened from 1145am to 230pm and from 545pm to 9 pm. It has been around for over 40 years.



My 'almost-70 yr old' colleague brought us there and he specifically chose the dishes that got this eating house started in the good old days.

We had black chicken herbal soup


Simple stir fry kailan with prawns which seemed so simple, but the taste was absolutely delicious. Could taste the XO sauce and its unlike other vegetable dish with lots of gravy. This dish was so tasty even without the gravy.



Then we had steamed minced pork with salted fish. One of my all-time favourite dishes which goes so well with rice or porridge! The blend of fats and lean pork was just right. Even the salted fish was very fragrant.


And lastly, their famous steamed song fish head which was so fresh and tender!


There's even pork lard in this dish to make it very tasty!

All in all, a very fulfilling meal which I would recommend for big families. This is the kind of eating house which we can get used to and grow up eating in.

All in all, its about $15-20 per person. But because my colleague was so generous, he paid for all 4 of us! Will definitely be back again!

Date with mummy

Tonight, I brought my mum to watch Il Divo concert at the Indoor Stadium. I was first introduced to Il Divo back in 2005 when Simon Cowell introduced them publicly in US. I was staying in US back then and when I first heard them, I fell in love with their voices. Looks were a plus point, but secondary...

Then, I went out to the records shop in US to get a copy of their CD...and when I came back to Singapore, I gave the CD to my mum as I was quite certain she would love it as well.

So when I found out that they were coming to Singapore, from the Sistic website, I quickly went to buy a pair of tickets for me and my mum. The price per ticket was quite expensive (amounted close to $400 for 2 of us) but thinking about how rare it is that I can go on such a date with my mum and how I feel she does need a break, it was worth every cent.

I went to her house to pick her up and drove to Indoor Stadium which I was so familiar with since I just attended the Hi-5 concert not long ago.

The seats where we sat were quite strategically chosen as I wanted somewhere near the stage. So, we were sitted about 12 rows from the stage and the big projector screen was just next to us. So we had quite a good view.


We were about 20 mins early and the crowd was slowly streaming in. The place was fully packed when the show started.

The crowd was made up of mostly people in their mid 30s and above as afterall, its an Opera show, only strictly singing. I enjoyed myself from the start right till the end because they were just so good.

For those who are not familiar with Il Divo. They are actually a band of 4 singers from Spain,Switzerland, France and USA formed by Simon Cowell who looks like professional models. They sing pop songs, but opera style. So the songs they sing are very familiar to most people but I feel its more enjoyable to watch them sing because from their voice, it evokes so much emotions and passion that you feel so touched listening to them, giving you goosebumps.



The guy below is from Switzerland.


And the guy on your left is from France and on the right is from USA.


and lastly, the guy below is from Spain. I like the Spanish guy and American guy best not only because of their looks but their power voice! The Spanish baritone (voice that lies between bass and tenor) sings very passionately and the American has such a high, powerful voice.

During the show, me and my mum were whispering who we like. Haha..such a rare girly thing to do but I was quite sre, a lot of women who attended the concert were whispering the same thing throughout the show.

Check out the video as they sang the famous Abba song, "The winner takes it all"


And check out their angelic voices

All the way to the other side...

Today, we decided to bring the family to the other side of Singapore for a swim at Bukit Batok Civil Service Club since the water area seems more fun there!

Before that, we dropped by at the newly opened, world's Largest CNG Station at Toh Tuck Road to pump our gas. Initially, we were clueless where the exact location of the station was until we saw a CNG car in front of us and figured we should just follow the car and we were right! Yippee!



Reached the club at about 10am for a nice late morning swim.

It was huge swimming complex with slide tower, wave, lap and drift pools, jacuzzi, 2-tiered cascading waterfall and water play facilities. It was whole lot of fun!





The wave is activated every hourly. It was rather rough. So Caleb and Danielle just stayed at the edge of the waters.


After a fun swim, we had lunch at the Hilltop Chinese Restaurant in the Club. Ate fried rice, claypot beancurd, fried prawn paste chicken and a bowl of corn soup with crab meat. We were all so hungry...

I probably wont come back anytime soon because I feel we can enjoy more only when the kids are older as I was so busy taking care of their safety that I couldnt enjoy myself much or do much exercise.

So for now, I shall just stick to going to Changi Club.

Birthday celebration

My dad turns 62. How time flies..

This year, he decided to celebrate his birthday with his brother's and sister's family. So it was a nice family gathering with my cousins as well as for the kids to get together, besides Chinese New Year.

My dad booked 2 tables in Hua Ting, Orchard Hotel as we have lots of kids. We have a total of 7 kids.

Danielle was wearing her white dress which god-ma Marianne bought for her,


while Caleb was wearing a polo shirt which my friend, Juliane passed down.



I have to say, my relatives are all very punctual. We arranged to meet at 7pm and by 645pm, we were all here. I love it when people are early and punctual as it saves a lot of time.

The food only came at around 730pm and the kids were already starving and cranky. So we ordered plain rice for the kids first and they all ate that without any complains. Haha...

The first dish was the longevity buns, compliments from the restaurant. If you are wondering whether the tree could be eaten...well, we tried, but it wasnt possible to break it, what more eat it!



We had lots of dishes! There was roast pork, bbq pork (char siew), deep fried white bait fish, an individual portion each of cod fish,



another individual portion of pork rib which was absolutely tender and tasty. But I was already quite full.



As for the kids, the first few dishes werent dishes that had gravy or went well with the rice. So Caleb mainly add rice with char siew, without any sauce. However, when the more kids-friendly dishes arrived (bean curd, veggies, fish), the kids were already quite full. Haha.

Oh well..but nevertheless, I still managed to stuff a few mouths of fish, bean curd and veggies into Caleb's mouth.

Before the next dish arrived, Caleb would scooter off to play with his cousins, running all around, outside the restaurant!


He especially enjoyed playing with korkor David.



They played catching and when Caleb couldnt find David, he would whine and look really worried and depressed.

Here's a video of the cousins together! They were screaming away and looked like a bunch of sugar high kids!



There was even a point when the manager of the hotel had to come up and warn the children not to play until so rowdy as the vase almost toppled down on them as they were pushing each other against the table. But of course, he said it politely...but from his looks, I could tell, he was trying to exercise his patience and was controlling as the whole hotel's quiet and peaceful ambience were disrupted by this bunch of over-enthusiastic children who seemed like they had been deprived from play since birth!

After all that, I finally decided to place Caleb on the pram to cool and calm down.


It was dessert time and we had a very nice and light mango cake with coconut shavings at the side.


We were celebrating not only my dad's birthday, but also both my aunties'. Pak Leong's birthday happen to fall on the same day as my dad while my Gu Ma's birthday falls during the same month. So it was 3-in-1 celebration!





By the time everything ended, it was already 10pm. The kids were tired and the parents too from having to chase after them, feed them and calm them down etc.

I do wish for more gatherings like this where the cousins can play happily together.... but has to be in a more kids-friendly environment!