January 28, 2009

Happy Niu Year!

On the 1st day of new year, we woke up at about 9 am plus.

This year, our itinerary went like this:

- Had our 斋菜 for breakfast;
- Kok Family gathering at 2nd uncle's house in Seng Kang;
- Prayed to my Father-in-law at the Hougang Temple;
- Lok Yang Tua Pek Kong pray for good luck, good health and wealth;
- Yong Family gathering at 1st Uncle's house in Ang Mo Kio;
- Andy's new house in Tampines;
- Home Sweet Home

On the 2nd day of CNY, woke up at about 9 am plus also and went the following places:
- Parents' house in Bt Batok;
- 大姑's house at Buangkok;
- 姑姑's house in Bt Batok;
- Yong family's sixth uncle's house in Yishun
It was all about visiting, eating new year goodies and giving out ang pows...
Haven't had enough fun for this CNY lei... cos' haven't started any gambling bet to cure my gambling itch....come on lei.... where are my mahjong and poker cards kakis....... where are you........??!!!

Reunion Dinner (25 Jan 09)

Finally, the spring cleaning and housekeeping are completed just before the CNY eve.

And on CNY eve, we were busy preparing our dishes for the reunion dinner at my home.

This is the 'Must' dish for CNY - 斋菜... have to cook it in the afternoon, so that after the dinner, Dino and Andy could 'da bao' back home....We spent 4 hours to cook up 2 woks of this dish, and that excluded the time for the preparation of the ingredients, cutting up the vegetables, pre-cooked the mushroom, dried bean curd, etc on the day before... Though the cooking method was more of to 焖 the ingredients, but still need to constantly fry and stir and turn the ingredients to prevent the base from 'chao dar'... as we have only 1 burner which has the big fire, thus, have to finish cooking 1 wok, then follow by another. And by the time 2 woks are done, we already suffering from aches all over our shoulders and hands liao....

But not time to relax yet... already 4 pm, we have to cook the dishes for the reunion dinner.

Both Dino and Andy arrived just before 5 pm, which was supposed to be our intended starting time for the dinner... but we were late.... still in the midst of cooking....

Menu for the Reunion Dinner:
1) Steamed Fish;
2) Broccoli with Scallop and Abalone
3) Sweet and Sour Gu Lu Ruo
4) Yi Pin Guo (Braised Seacucumber, Fish Maw, Button Mushroom, Roast Pork, etc)
5) Prawns with Soy Sauce
6) Spinach with Abalone
7) Chicken Wings (Mum's secret recipe)
8) Tempura Prawns
Dinner started only at 7 pm and probably by the time, almost all were already hungry, so we gobbled up most of the dishes... yum yum....

January 21, 2009

Welcoming the new TV set

Aiyo, few months back, my 6-year old 43"Toshiba Projection TV started to show signs of retirement again.... there were doubled images and colour fading when we turned it on to watch the TV programmes... It has already been serviced twice, by replacing the colour tubes... and as agreed, we are not going to service it anymore if it gives way again.... and true enough, just 2 years from we last serviced it, there... it's down again...

We tried to sell it to a few Garung Guni men, but none of them want to 'buy' this.... hahaha.... Nowadays, the Garung Guni men only keen to collect old clothings, computers, laptops and handphones....
Our new TV came on Monday, a Samsung 42" Plasma, cost $1299, comes with a Home Cinema System and a 8.2 mega pixels Samsung digital camera....
Currently, we placed them on top of our cabinets, couldn't make up our mind whether want to mount it on the wall or not.... still have 3 months for us to consider (to get free installation)... leave it to my hubby to decide...

Reunion Dinners - 17 and 18 Jan 09

On Sat, we went for our Kok family reunion buffet cum lo-hei dinner... and over these few years, the Kok family has really expanded; now 2nd uncle's house was really crowded with the 3 generations of people! hahaha.... 好热闹呀!

Then on Sunday, also had a reunion dinner together with my parents, brother, sister-in-law, Edvan, Edvan's parents (my aunt and uncle-in-law), and fourth aunt....

This year's table was big sia... 12 pax... so crowded....

We went to the usual Blk 155 coffee shop there, as it was more convenient forEdvan's parents to walkover to this coffeeshop.

Ever since last year, my hubby suggested to have reunion dinner with my parents, plus my aunt's family, which I think is really good lor.... then we could let my parents eat a proper meal outside of the house... and also to show appreciation to my aunt, who has brought me up since young....

And come to think that time flies so fast, Jiaqi has already been almost a year here.... and must thank my this sil to help to share the burden of looking after my parents....

GK's Birthday Celebration - Part 2

After the sushi dinner, we shopped at Jurong Point for a while and to also collect the Swenson's Blackforest ice-cream cake which I pre-ordered the other day.

It was already 10 pm plus when we reached home and cut the cake... the boys were sleepy and started to be grouchy...





Nonetheless, they still cooperated in finishing the candle blowing, cake cutting and eating a piece of the ice cream cake before they go to bed...
Happy Birthday to you, my dear boys!

GK's Birthday Celebration - Part 1

Last Thursday was GK's 8th Birthday!

Brought them to their favourite restaurant - Sakae Sushi, for their favourite sushi feast...




Hmmm... recently G's appetite has been increasing, he could gobbled up 5 plates of his favourite Tamago maki at one go, and he tried a few of the other makis that we ordered also.... so worried for him... so scare that he would turn out to be obesed in the near future .... the recent weight result (taken in school) indicated that he was 'Borderline Overweight'..... Really need to watch out for him.....

January 12, 2009

Farrer Gathering 8 (10 Jan 09)

We had another round of gathering over the weekend.

James requested for more human essence into his house, so we did this gathering in his newly moved-in house in Ang Mo Kio.

We did a potluck party and some of us bought him housewarming gifts too. Peiqian and I shared the Mahjong Tiles set whereas Eilena and Joey shared the Mahjong Table.

So, next time, we have another place to go for mahjong session liao.


There were some newbies for the gathering, eg. Shahabudeen, Jurinah and Helmi... these are friends whom I have not met over the 20 years, and great to learn that Helmi even remembered being in the same class with me in Pri. 3.
We had a wonderful night we had, feasting the Old Chang Kee curry puffs, KFC, Jurinah's homemade brownies, BBQ chicken wings, Agar-Agar dessert, Sushi, and plentiful of softdrinks...
GK was heavily entertained with those psp downloaded games which James has. And as it was turning late, James offered to lend his albums of games for GK to bring home.
We ended the gathering at around 11 pm plus and by the time we reached home, it was already past midnight.
For more pics:

MIL's Birthday!

Last Thursday was MIL's birthday!

I bought her a chocolate cake from the Prima Deli at Jurong Point.

Saw G's grumpy face.... hahaha... always like that... difficult to get him to pose properly for photo-taking...
Happy Birthday to you Mother/Nai Nai!

The January Babies....

My birthday gift from MIL... yes, I really mean the bracelet is my birthday gift from MIL... this year, she felt like buying a bracelet for her own birthday and so happened to see another one which she also liked, so bought for me.... Thank you Mother!

January 6, 2009

MIL's Bday Celebration - 3 Jan 09

This year's Mil's birthday falls on a Thursday, so we had to celebrate in advance for her.

We had dinner at the Crab Party, 100 Yio Chu Kang Road.

We ordered the 海鲜炒饭,炒面线, 咸蛋螃蟹, 辣椒螃蟹, 炸馒头, 葱爆鹿肉, 叁巴苏东, 西兰花带子, 炸猪蹄. The servings were generous for us, 6 adults and 3 children and most of us fancied all the dishes , except for Andy and Carol who do not eat broccoli...

I was admiring the pepper crab which was served at another table, and looked pretty yummy good.... must try in my next visit...

The expenditure for this meal was $235.

Farrer Gathering 7 - Joey's House

Went for the Farrer Gathering 7 to Joey's House on 26th Dec, 8 pm, at Blk 915 Jurong West.

The turnout was great as there were 15 of our Farrer friends, plus some who also brought their spouse, family and I brought GK along too...

The dinner for that day was KFC and Pizza Hut and lots of vodka and softdrinks and cocktails...

We were having great time playing the Indian Poker and drinking, and I must admit that luck for that night was not good, and I really got drunk after drinking so many glasses of the cocktails...

We left Joey's house at 12 midnight plus, and I was already feeling myself floating and couldn't walked straight...

Lucky one of my friends sent us back home, and I quickly tucked GK into bed as they had to wake up early the next morning for their swimming lesson.

As for me, I quickly took a quick shower and went to bed... but I tossed here and there, couldn't sleep at all...my head was splitting in pain... By the time, I slept, it was about 5 am, and in like just a minute, I was awaken by the alarm showing 8 am... had to wake up reluctantly and bring them out for swimming lesson....

I wondered what kind of strong vodka my friends had brought, and must beware of not getting to be penalised so often in the next gathering...which will be this coming Sat (10 Jan 09), at James' new house!

Pics for the gathering:
http://luvina76.multiply.com/photos/album/36/Farrer_Gathering_7_-_26_Dec_08

Shopping in Paya Lebar

On a fine sunny Monday (29 Dec), jeo-ed Alicia to Paya Lebar City Plaza to shop for clothes.

When we arrived at the complex, we saw most of the stores were busy sorting out their new clothes stocks on the floor for those retail shop owners to pick and choose. So, we were most of the time, shopping without catching any attention from the salesgirl, unless we called for them....

We ended the shopping in this complex with a 'lunch cum teabreak' at the Arnold's Fried Chicken, and only bought a short dress for myself costing $45.

We departed the complex around 3 pm and walked across to the Tanjong Katong Complex to shop at the This Fashion... but couldn't find any suitable pieces... While walking back to the MRT station, we decided to pop into the Singapore Post Centre, and there, got another This Fashion outlet... and it has a wider range of clothes to choose from. So, in the end, I bought another 4 pieces of blouse at $75.

As we walked to the MRT station, we saw another This Fashion outlet again... aiyo, how come this estate so many This Fashion outlets??? But one commendable point is that the clothings here are more nicer than those found in neighbourhood centres and neighbourhood shopping malls....

And of course, with the satisfaction of my purchases, I signed up membership with This Fashion and needless to say, this is going to my clothes-hunting boutique for the next 2 years...hahaha

(Afternote : the selling prices for the clothes in City Plaza are quite expensive)

The Beginning of Spring Cleaning

On 26th Dec, my hubby was on leave, so decided to start spring cleaning and clearing away unwanted stuff at the shoe rack/display cabinets...

And these were part of the 'victims':
My trophies won from 1986 to 1997.
For the description: http://luvina76.multiply.com/photos/album/35/TrophiesMils_Bedside_Lamp


And the most 'sayang' stuff was this pair of porcelain bedside oil lamp, which was bought by my FIL/MIL for their wedding... and it had almost a long 40-year history liao.... but well, since, there wasn't any place for us to display them, so, with MIL's consent, all of the above stuff were disposed of into the rubbish bin on 26 Dec 08.... Sayonara.....*sob* *sob*

Bye Bye OSIM Mermaid, Welcome Dyson DC22

On 21st Dec 08, my OSIM Mermaid finally retired....

Have been owning it since 2003, and i remembered that time, it cost $800 plus. Over the 5 years plus, there have been wear-and-tear, eg. the remote control cover is broken, some parts of the vacuum cleaner having scratches and chipped-off, the suction noise getting more noisier, etc... and finally, on 21st Dec, the motor died.... cannot start at all.....

So, upon recommendation by friends, and doing some research in internet, we bought a new vacuum cleaner - the Dyson DC 22, at $599 (UP : $699), available at Best Denki.

Christmas Gathering on 20th Dec 08 (Sat)

This year's Christmas Gathering was held at Bottle Tree Park and Alicia's House.

We reached Bottle Tree Park around 4.30 pm and started to get the children down to catch those longkang fishes... but seemed like the adults enjoyed the most.. hahaha!

There was a playground in the Bottle Tree Park, and GK enjoyed playing on swings and the slides....
We packed KFC and Pizza Hut from the nearby KFC/Pizza Hut delivery kiosk located at the 701A Yishun, and brought up to Alicia's house. Oh ya, must compliment Alicia's mum's sponsorship for the super-delicious braised duck and we finished it all without leaving any for Vincent, kekeke...

Next was the time that the kids had been waiting for! Presents!
For this year's Christmas presents, GK got Bakugans, and remote forklift trucks... Malcom got Power Rangers and Bakugan too... as the girls... wow... all pretty stuff; bags, backpack, Hello Kitty stuff, Barbie, MacDonalds' playset...