October 20, 2008

GK's First Visit to a Hari Raya Open House - 18 Oct 2008

Thanks to GK's form teacher for giving the opportunity to GK and their classmates to experience a Hari Raya Open House...

GK together with two of their classmates at the void deck of their form teacher's block

This is Areo, the form teacher's son, now about 17 months.

Almost half of the classmates came, this is a picture of the early-birds...

Souvenirs given out by the form teacher; a packet of cereal plus a $2 ang pow money


Home sweet home....

More photos :

http://luvina76.multiply.com/photos/album/23/18_Oct_08_-_Hari_Raya_Open_House_Visit_to_Mrs_Alexs_House

October 13, 2008

Updates for the Week (8 - 12 Oct)

As Mil was away to 珠海 with Andy and family since last Wednesday, hence I had to apply morning leaves over the past few days, to look after GK, cook lunch and send them to school. Actually I enjoyed those days spent as I could laze and get out of bed around 10 plus or 11. It was really the kinda of good feeling having to sleep until 自然醒...and not having need to wake up so early and dread my feet to work...I didn't mean that I don't like to come to work, but it's just that I wished that I could get to sleep until song song, then wake up and get to work at whatever time I like... but don't think i'll ever get to realize this dream until one day I become my own boss... hahaha!

As I am a liberal person, hence, cooking meals for my sons was an easy task... Just have to ask what they want fo their lunch/dinner, they will tell you... and it seemed that the mother-and-sons have got this mutual understanding... they would not make things difficult for me....

So the menus for the few days went like that :

Wed lunch - Wanton soup with White Rice (the wanton were pre-prepared by MIL on Tues)
Wed dinner - Golden Fried Rice
Thurs lunch - Fried Rice with Pork Floss
Thurs dinner - Fried Rice wrapped in Egg Bag (蛋包饭)
Fri lunch - Fish Soup, French Fries and Rice
Fri dinner - Fried Rice with Silver Fish
Sat lunch - Steamed Meat Egg, French Fries and Rice
Sat dinner - Dining out at Sakae Sushi (Novena Square 2)



Square 2 has a quite a great number of restaurants, fast-food chains and most importantly, it is where I get to feel very-Korean... cos' of the Solmart and even in the Poh Kim Video shop, the posters of those K-dramas were very prominently displayed. There were also a few K-boutiques selling Korean fashions. We passed by a Korean dessert/snacks stall, and found a typical Korean food which I had wanted to try - 辣炒年糕. The dish looked good, but GK were pestering us to go for Sakae Sushi... haiz, didn't try out this dish on this visit... Well, there will be a next time, to bring my MIL to try out this food... cos' we are both crazed with K-dramas...

At around 7.30 pm, we arrived at the Budget Terminal to fetch MIL Oh my goodness, the exterior Budget Terminal was just a very simple-looking airport but I still feel eager to find out how the interior looks like...
And well well, the airport arrival hall really tagged well with its name 'Budget'... Only can see a few rows of chairs, a money changer counter, limousine service counter, some 5 public phones and 3 vending machines...that's all....

The pic showed my MIL coming out of the glass door together with Carol and Cheryll..
And here are the new 'toys' bought and brought back from China... Mine is the black and my hubby owns the silver, costing about S$120 each.

We spent the Sat night and whole of Sunday to get the phones set up and try out their functions...The phones comes with Bluetooth, FM Radio, MP4, Video-Recording, 3.0 Megal Pixel Camera, Handwriting function, etc. One plus point about the phone - Can watch TV channels....and the reception tried out at home and outdoor was good and clear. Especially in Sungei Tengah, where I was doing my vegetables marketing there, we could receive some M'sia channels also...

So, time for my two-and-a-half year-old N73 to sit back and take a rest, and wait for upgrading in at least 12 more months' time....

October 6, 2008

Dinner on 5 Oct 08

Last night had a dinner at the French Road, Seafood Fish-head steamboat...

Have heard the recommendation over the radio station, hence expected the restaurant would be crowded, so I called up make reservation.

But when i reached there, was shocked that there were no crowd at all.. and it was a coffeeshop setting... Din really like the environment, because it was within a housing estate, so got people walking here and there, got elderlys sat at the concourse there, watching us eating, and we even witnessed an elderly coughing and the long and sticky phlegm coming out of her mouth and slowly drooled and dropped onto the floor... urghhhh....

Then just beside our table, was a group of youngsters, gangsterly-looking, with tatoos and talking vulgarity...

One elderly uncle was next to us also, occupying a non-smoking table, but he was puffing his cigarette, almost made me out of breath...

As for the food, we ordered fish-head steamboat, balacan sweet poatoes leaves, furong egg, pai gu wang, and hei-zhou... The quality of the food was so-so only... I still prefer the fish-head steamboat and hei-zhou from the Upper Serangoon road there, Tian Wai Tian.

What shocked us most was when the bill came, the total amount was $72 plus...

Wow, that was pretty steep.....

Overall, we didn't enjoy the quality of food in this dining experience, but we did ate until very full....especially the two kids, they have to unbuckle their pants...





Still miss my Tian Wai Tian Fish-head steamboat... will go and eat next week, after MIL returns from her China trip...

Something to look forward to... hurray!

I am Okay, still Safe and Sound...

Came back from the drinking session, something happened..

Have to be careful next time....

Farrer Gathering with Mrs Chia

It has been a long-awaiting reunion of our Farrer friends, together with our form teacher, Mrs Chia. The scheduling of this reunion began in mid-Sept, and finally, on 3 Oct, we met up!

A lot of Farrer friends were amazed on how I got in touch with Mrs Chia. Well well... credit goes to my effort in keeping all those so-called 'junks' which I've kept with me for the past 20 years... i kept the primary school newsletter, graduation party name list, photos and autograph books..

During the 2nd gathering on 6 Sept, i brought out my autograph books and did tried calling up Mrs Chia's phone number. But unfortunately, the number has been recycled and taken up by another person.

So, what we did was to appoint James to go and knock on Mrs Chia's house. I was quite sure then that Mrs Chia is still residing at that address because i saw her name appearing as one of the owners in an en-bloc property last year. And till now, the en-bloc issue still not settled yet, hence, there gave a high chance that Mrs Chia is still residing there.

James paid his visit on 9 Sept (if i remember correctly), but to no avail. There was no one answering the door and the neighbour was very hostile... so he could not confirm if Mrs Chia is still there. So, he thought he was so intelligent to leave his namecard at the door.

Two days had passed, but there was no reply from Mrs Chia. So, on Thursday night, we decided that James should pay another visit to Mrs Chia. This time, we would write a letter, to be dropped into the letterbox, if there were no one answering the door.

So on Friday, James wrote this:

Dear Mrs Mary Chia Gek Cher

It has been 20 years since we have last met, let me introduce myself. I am James Tan formerly in your class of 6.1 in Farrer Primary School 1988 and yes I have the same name as your son only the surname is different.

I was actually arrowed to come here by our classmate Wang Limei to drop this note as recently there was a mini gathering of Farrer Primary School mates and we all decided to find you as you were in fact our favorite teacher. To tell you the truth I lost the lom chiam pass game and had to come wahahahaha.

Attached are some pictures of how we turned out and if you want to see more there is a group called Farrer Primary School 1983-1988 in Facebook itself. It has some of our grown up pictures. I turned out for the better but guess I can’t say the same for the rest. =p some grew shorter some grew fatter some grew more ah lian some grew ah beng and some didn’t even grow at all. I am so dead if they see this letter.

Anyway, Mrs Chia we would all love to meet up with you one of these days to catch up. Please do contact Limei after you see this at 96691182 and she will arrange for everything as she is our coordinator

Look forward to seeing you soon Mrs Chia. Miss ya and luv ya lots.


Yours Sincerely
Your students of Farrer Primary School.

PS: I accidentally finished the mooncakes that I have brought along with me so I have to owe u one box first .

And if can hor grade this letter.


Interesting right?

On that day, around 9 pm plus, Mrs Chia called me! And we chatted for almost an hour, and she still sounded the same, full of energy. Wow sai, 62 years old, still so power! When i asked if she has received the namecard which James left at her door, I got the answer which I expected.. She has put it aside (cannot be sure if it has been thrown already or not), and kept wondering how come salesman could enter private condos to distribute namecards... hahaha... blamed it on James who did not even bother to write anything on the namecard and assumed that Mrs Chia will remember him...

And the story went on with me starting to fix a date which Mrs Chia could make it, send emails, getting responses, check out suitable venue(s)...

In actual fact, the response was only about 7 to 8 members, but never did I expect when on that day itself, 3 more turned up... making it a total of 11.

The night was fun.. everyone was shocked to see that Mrs Chia was still in good position, just the same as how she looked 20 years ago...

Photos of the gathering:


At 11 pm, we parted with Mrs Chia and some of the friends, left about 9 of us, going for our 2nd round at Harry's Pub. It has been donkey years since i last clubbed... and also my first clubbing in Holland Village.

We drank and sat till 2 am, and because we hadn't had enough, 7 of us went for our 3rd round at the Adam Road Hawker Centre. Actually we wanted to look for one of our Farrer friends there, who opened a famous dessert stall, but unfortunately, his stall was closed on that day.. so one of the guys initiated and bought some bottles of the Tiger beers... and the drinking and eating session continued until about 3 am.

The night has been very fulfilling, and I felt a sense of achievements for being credited in getting back our old friends... despite the 20 years of separation, the Farrer spirit was still there... and we had so many school-talks to share.... It was really fun!

And today this morning, Rappa was already in the mood of searching for a chalet in November, to get everyone to drink and eat for days and nights...

October 2, 2008

What To Do About My Little Brother....

Ever since E's dad knew about the incident, he began to step in to discipline E... In term of discipline, well, it was actually some trade-off of conditions; he settled the payment to the ah long and bought E a new hp with the conditions that E has to be home by 6pm on weekdays and no going out on weekends..

E obeyed the conditions, but that was not for too long.. for only about 1 - 2 weeks, the nonsense started again...

On the other hand, E's dad went to meet the MP and told me about the ah long matter as he was annoyed with the people at the lion troupe who made use of young teens, loaned them $ and made the parents pay their debts, which were calculated just the same as the ah longs... In actual fact, the ah long was the friend of the members of the troupe...and that was how E got to know the ah long. He was not a member of the troupe. But E's dad went to tell the MP that he was the member of the troupe, and the members i think got questioned... and started to look for trouble with E...

Just over the past 1 or 2 weeks, there were a few nonsense from E...

On Sat, he sneaked out of his home early without telling his parents... around 11.30 pm, he called me, wanting to come over my house to use my microsoft word in my laptop to type a resume (for his homework). At 12 pm plus, his dad and mum came home, didn't see him around... when they called him, he told them that he was on his way to my house... Eventually, he had sneaked out in the morning to meet his gf....then came over to my house to complete his homework...

On the night, around 8pm, he smsed me:

E : Sis, i need to pass eileen her sis atm card but i dunno how to tell my dad later he will ask why ppl atm card with me.

(i asked how come her sis atm card on his table)

E : Cox i dunno she put on my com table ytd then she today ask me check then i found it.

(i asked him to tell her come and collect)

E: Ok then, i ask her if cannot jialat le lo.

E : She can't come over.

(i told him that dad don't allow him to go out, and moreoever, it's Eileen's fault, ask her come and collect. If he still insist to go out, then go and ask his dad)

E: ya lo, must ask dad again. Haix.

E : But her sis need to use leh. Jialat.

So in the end, i dunno how the matter ended... but i guessed he would have sneaked out...

Another incident was 2 days ago, Tuesday. I received the following smses:

6.02 pm : Help me call my dad i now at cantonment make police statement so will be late home they will send me home after that and tell him the police will call him tell him I at there.

(i asked him to give a call to his dad and demanded to speak with the officer)

6.04 pm : Busy, can't later then can. Cox I need to tell him the whole incident and wad happen after that. He say later.

(i asked for the police officer's name)

6.10 pm : DSP Leong

(Between 6.20 pm to 6.45 pm, as she was nearby a neighbour police station/post, she went in to help me check on the name of the police office through the intranet, but there was no such person in the CID dept in Cantonment. She called the Cantonment, to confirm the name again, there was really no such person. Moreover, there was confirmation that all the investigators would have already knocked off by then and it is not the liability of police officers to send the members of public (i.e. E) to home...No such thing.... So i smsed E to ask him where and which floor he was, cos' Amy was at the Cantonment lobby then, waiting to see him... but he did not reply... Called him also no answer... Then i sent another message, to tell him that there was no such person with this name DSP/Leong, and have confirmed that all officers have knocked off from work already... what is he still doing there?)

7.26 pm : Ya, i know all officer knock off at 5 pm.

(I asked then why was he still there?)

7.30 pm : important to tell them about the troupe's matter cos' all coming to find me.

(i asked him where he is now?)

7.32 pm : near Cantonment lo. i show you the report next time.

(i asked but there was no such person called DSP Leong. Who was he with then?)

7.49 pm : I dunno the full name. I only know the tag there.

9.04 pm : He will call you later.

(i replied that i don't want to talk to the officer. Asked him to call E's dad instead)

9.31 : Ok, ok

9.32 : I got give him your number leh.

12.56 am : Sis, actually i go down find police awhile then i go troupe settle the loan shark thing if not i dunno wad they will do to me and my family i dun wan your worry so i didn't dare to tell you and mum.

1.00 am : Just because of dad say the troupe do ah long i almost kana beat by them for anyhow saying the troupe.

(I was shocked that at that hour, he was still outside, so asked him where he was)

1.03 am : On the way home. I go down settle because I don't want mum and dad or aunt leave home being beaten or stab by ppl for no reason.

1.04 am : They old le... cannot leave them to clear things for me.

1.05 am : Hope you explain to my parents about it.

(I replied that i am not going to tell his parents, asked him do it himself)

1.10 am : K, but tell them they don't believe how?

(I told him i got very disappointed with him for making use of me to bluff his parents... and moreover, already checked that there was no such person called DSP/Leong... and he still insisted to lie on it)

1.24 am : Ok, The officer that investigate is Mr Alan Goh.

(i replied him that I would be going over to his house at 10 am, asked him to leave the police report at home, i want to see)

On Sunday, I arrived at his house at 8 pm.

Stayed there for about half an hour... his mum kept shouting and calling him to come out from his room, he only responded 'orh, orh'... but never come out.

When i walked to the main door, bade farewell to my aunt and uncle, my aunt suggested if i would like to go to E's room to meet his gf... My goodness me....he never come out so i must go and meet him and his gf... I was fuming... told straight at my aunt's face, that, 'Look, your son knows that I am here, you have been calling him so many times... he knows why I am here... and still don't come out... there is no respect for me... I am disappointed with him' . Then I left.

That's it... What can i do now to him? Should i still care about him?

September 29, 2008

Dinner Appointment on 24 Sep 08

On last Wednesday, our family planned to have dinner at the 世纪村海鲜鱼头炉 located at the French Road, but unfortunately, upon reaching the destination, we realised that it was closed for business on that day, haiz... should have called up the shop first, then wouldn't have wasted our trip there...One lesson learnt - despite the fact the website did not mention about its operation hours, it is still safer to call up to check that they are open for business before making the trip down..

So we had to change our plan and eat at the Zhou's Kitchen in Anchorpoint which my hubby has longed to try out whenever he passes by Alexandra Road..

Photos :
http://luvina76.multiply.com/photos/album/21/Dinner_at_Zhou_Kitchen_-_24_Sep_08

Our reviews:

1) The ambience was good; it has 2 storeys, and we sat at the 1st storey... small place but quiet and classy;
2) The staff were very friendly; maybe it was a weekday, not many customers, so the service was fast, and we even have chance to chit chat with the captain/manager;
3) The food prices were reasonable;
4) Serving portion was just right for the 5 of us;
5) The vegetable soup dish (苋菜三蛋)was our favourite; the soup/gravy was tasty, when cooked with salted egg, century eggs and eggs;
6) MIL commended on the 红糟鸡,she enjoyed the dish because it tasted like a home-cooked dish, and the gravy was well-cooked and tasty;
7) I liked the 咕噜肉 and its sweet-sourish taste was very appetizing..
8) My sons also fancied the 1-foot-long and crispy spring roll and the 杨州炒饭.

Total expenditure : $95

In conclusion, we will return to this restaurant again to try out their hi-tea buffets or set menus...