OMG OMG OMG

OMG.... *gasp*... Nov 7... who can wait so long?

A Most Lazy Sunday

Doppy has been meaning to take me to Botanic Gardens for a leisurely breakfast and (literally) a walk in the park.

As usual, his spirit is most willing but his flesh is weak. When I tried to wake him up this morning, he was obviously tired and I didn't have the heart to wake him up.

By the time my Lord deigns to rouse, it was late morning and way too hot for us to stroll through the park. Thus we searched hungrygowhere for a good place to go for brunch (seeing as how we're supposed to make the most of our couple time together) and I stumbled upon a place that I've been meaning to try, Yam Cha@Chinatown.

And so it was decided and we went for a most wonderful dim sum brunch at Yam Cha. The food was quite good and the prices pretty reasonable for a restaurant. Alas, as there was only 2 of us, we didn't manage to order as many dishes as we would have liked. We are thus determined to go back with friends so that we can try the entire range of variety.

Gonna keep this post short as primarily, I'm trying to see if I can blog from my phone. ;p As you can see, I'm obviously still having fun with my new toy. Heehee.

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Update: Awww crap! The alignment is off! I still need to log on into blogger to format the post. Dang! Oh well. One learns as one goes along. :)

Health and Prosperity to everyone!!

Hi everyone, here's the MMF wishing everyone happy new year, and may the year of the Rat bring everyone good health and prosperity.

It's been a fun 4 days for us, but Lovebell and I have had lots of fun and great food. The most fun we had was last night at AD and Sotong's house where we stayed up till 3am playing card games, drinking beer and eating pizza. It was a great evening, and it's been a really long time since I had so much fun.

So here's to a new year. Xiao Pong will be born soon, life will change, but with luck, we'll continue to have fun. Cheers!

Music... music.... musical wednesday!!!

For the young and the young at heart




I must admit... he's good. Alex To started the Chinese R&B trend, but David Tao really helped refine the genre. Very good music to chill to...

Alex still has hotter chicks in his videos though. :)

Newsweek

A number of readers have been asking why I have not blogged for a while. Well, I am coming to the end of my second trimester and entering my third (this is the 27 week for me) and the tiredness is beginning to come back to plague me again. I doze off on the sofa at 9 plus every night and more often than not, I hit the sack by 10pm (after reading to cayden or listening to doppy's fairy tales). And of course, I have also gone back to work and these two weeks have just flown by me with lesson preparations and trying to complete all the overdue work that I still owe others. Everyone's been telling me to take it easy at work and I honestly do try. Yet for those who are teachers, you know that it is inevitable that we are swept along with the tide and pace in school. As it is, I get breathless from climbing the flights of stairs to get to my classroom on the 4th level. I need about 5 minutes to catch my breath before I can start talking. My students look at me gasping for my breath with amusement and my colleagues who have 'been-there-done-that' laugh commiseratively at me. So yeah, between trying to take care of that little one in me and those big children at my work, I didn't have a lot of time to blog. Since I am at work on a Saturday morning and I really don't feel like reading my big kids' essays, so here I am, blogging some of the highlights as far as my memory can serve me, especially to provide some updates and entertainment to my dearest friends who are both at down under right now.

Pump Room

Before 2007 came to an end, my gfs and I had been talking about having a girls' night out. That talk finally materialised itself about a week ago when we met up to go for drinks and dancing. Yes, you read it right the first time, dancing. Initially Petals suggested Gotham Penthouse since none of them had been there before. She actually thought that we could go and laugh at the 'strippers'. I was perplexed as to where she got the idea that they would be funny to laugh at. Unfortunately, when the three of us (Meow, Petals and me) finally arrived at the doorstep of Gotham Penthouse, we were informed that the show had been stopped temporarily as they were revamping it.

Thank goodness we were at Clarke Quay so being the creatures of habit we are, we trooped back to Pump Room to check out the scene. The waitress asked us for our first drink and Petals in her classic fashion blurted very loudly when I was offered cranberry juice, "Cranberry juice is good. It prevents urinary tract infection." There was a stunned silence before she quickly redeemed herself with a "Not that you have it lah". Gosh! She never fails to make me laugh with her classic comments. :)

The place had plenty of standing room and both of them fussed over me in trying to get me a seat. Petals even activated one of her students who was working there to try to coerce the other customers to share a table with us. I had a ball of a time dancing (or rather, just swaying very gently) to the songs which we were all familiar with. I even caught the eyes of a couple of guys there though not for the same reason that I caught my husband's ones 6 years ago. A number of them pointed at me and jabbed their friends in their ribs in a bid to make out whether I was just fat or really pregnant. Petals and Meow had a hoot of a time trying to prevent people from bumping into me and tried very hard to take videos of my dancing. Well, we all had a great time but we decided to call it a night by 1.30am because the songs were becoming less and less familiar. Cayden must have had fun too because he was kicking me very vigorously the following night when it was time to go to sleep.

Cayden - our little warrior

Speaking of little cayden, our little one is growing a little way too fast. At our last visit to our OB, she said that cayden's on the big side. Though she reassured us that there is still a long way to go and his size might change, both doppy and I are of the view that he is big-boned like doppy and is likely to be on the big side. The kiddo has not even put on his baby fats yet (so far, he's still growing his skeleton, experimenting with his five senses and his weight will only shoot up in the last trimester) and he's already considered big. Doppy, in his usual problem-solving self, began to suggest exploring a C-section birth with me. Oh well. We'll cross the bridge when we come to it and see what our OB advises then.

We also had a little scare on New Year's eve. If you had met us this week, you would realise that doppy is driving an ah-pek-chia, the Toyota Altis, instead of his bengster Lancer. That is because we got into a minor accident on NYE on our way to lunch and his car is currently in the workshop hence he is driving a replacement car. Our vehicle was stationary along a slip road and we were waiting for the on-coming traffic to clear before we turn out. This Colt came up from behind without slowing her speed down and rammed straight into us. Thank goodness the impact was not a very big one and except for the yelp that Sotong made and the curse that doppy muttered, we were all none the worse for wear. Fortunately, I did not hit anything but merely jerked forward suddenly at the impact. The OB checked cayden out and he was also fine. Doppy was real nice about the whole thing and even told the lady driver to try to have a good new year still. Now we are just waiting for our car to return cos poor doppy's legs are in a permanent cramped position due to the car seat being too low and close to the pedals.

Work

On the work front, I am actually having things a little easier this semester. I have actually managed to pack my table and it is now 2 weeks after school has reopened and it still remained very neat and tidy. I am slowly trying to farm out the things I am doing in view of my impending maternity leave. I have applied to go on leave earlier as I do not want to start work at my new post later than the official date as they have held the position for me for half a year.

It sure makes a difference when one can see the end of it. I find myself counting down the weeks and honestly, I only have about 8 more weeks to go. 7, actually, if you take into consideration that the CNY week is an non-existent one.

Things to do

Speaking of which, we need to start preparing for CNY soon. It is a mere 3 weeks away and our place is still a mess. My Fil and Ah-Yi are flying in as usual and we would need to clear out the spare room for them and the maid subsequently. I am looking forward to cooking the reunion dinner cos doppy always enjoy a home-cooked meal and I could do more dishes with more people eating.

I have also yet to sign up for my prenatal classes (note to self: do it this weekend), engage a maid, sort out cayden's stuffs (we're very blessed. All our friends and colleagues are offering us stuff that they could spare and I think we're saving quite a fair bit. hehe) etc etc.

Movies Caught and To Be Watched

As I caught "I Am Legend" with doppy, the points I earned got me "American Gangster" last night! :) Washington was superb in his role (doppy puts him in the same league as Tony Leung leh)and though the pace was a little slow in the beginning, it was engaging enough to sustain my interest for the 2.5 hours it was screening.

We are going to catch an anime today with Yogi, Vexille, at Cathay and hopefully, it is a good one too (the cinema is really small and Rotten Tomatoes did not have a review of it yet).

The other shows that I want to catch are the following:

1. Eastern Promises (doppy frightened me off with the purported violence so I am still trying to decide if it's worth watching)

2. Atonement

3. Love in the time of Cholera (my guru colleague said that the book was superb and I thought I should check the show out)

If anyone is interested in any of the above shows, leave me a comment and I will jio you when I eventually go for the show.

Well, I think I have bored all enough with my mundane life. :) Hope that this long post more than makes up for the posts that have been missing.

Have a good weekend, all. :)

Greek Masterpieces from the Louvre

Caught this on the news just now and checked out NMS's website.

Last year when we went to Seoul, we also caught a mini Louvre exhibition at the National Museum of Korea.

Since we do not have monies to go to Paris and visit the Louvre, perhaps I should date doppy for this. It should be worth a visit.

National Museum of Singapore

Updates

If you have been religiously checking this blog for updates about our little one, we apologise on our little one's behalf.

When our ob-gyn did the routine scan, little one was fine and his/her heart was furiously beating fine and dandy. Unfortunately, he/she was also overcome with a bout of shyness (yes, yes, so very unlike the parents, I hear you exclaim!) and modestly crossed his/her legs throughout the examination. Though our doc tried her best to 'knock' my tummy in a bid to get him/her to change position, he/she is determined to keep us in suspense for another month. He/She also caused his/her mum to be embarrassed in public. The doc said that she could see something sticking out but she couldn't be sure and I asked, "Well, it could be her fingers, couldn't it?" She shot me a 'omg! how dumb can you get' look and replied bemusedly, "Nope. The fingers wouldn't get anywhere near there.' I think I have just sunk to a new low in my doc's opinion and I just want to clarify that it was not of my doing.

On another note, we had a day yesterday meeting up with two different groups of friends. We met up with my girls for lunch and though our initial plan of eating pig-trotters bee hoon did not work out (the restaurant closed down!!!), we had a great meal at Upper Thomson (Taiwanese porridge!!!) and enjoyed very cheap drinks and fruits at the nearby hawker centre.

We then met up with doppy's guy friends in the evening and had a most satisfying dinner. I broke my dietary curfew and had a crab. We were at an idyllic seafood restaurant off Bt. Timah Road and I simply could not resist the call. It was the first crab I have tasted in goodness knows how many months. PJ warned me to stay away from crabs cos she had 3 in her pregnancy and she's paying for the consequences now with her baby PJ being a most restless tyke. However, she was the same person too who mocked me when I said that I am staying away from dark food stuff in case my child comes out dark-skinned thus I thought it was safe enough to take her advice with a pinch of salt. :P

We also earned a free treat from Sotong who were bullied into paying for the chicken wings and french fries when we adjourned to the watering hole next to the restaurant to catch the Arsenal vs Manchester United match. TINS attempted to cheat doppy by asking doppy to take Manchester United and give him half a ball against Arsenal but luckily, impending fatherhood has made doppy more prudent with his betting ways. Unfortunately, this particular watering hole did not serve milk and I ended up for the FIRST time in my life ordering a mocktail and thoroughly hated it. Gosh! What would I give to have a sip of wine or whiskey or beer but I still have many, many more months to go. Oh well. I guess I have to get used to the idea of sacrificing for my child.

Do you see the yucky drink I had? It was some funky mocktail that was supposed to have watermelon juice in it but it just tasted like Sprite with some funky syrup. YUCKS! I want my Corona!!!!

An Unusual Sunday

Last evening, we went to watch a basketball game at the Indoor Stadium with PJ, Darth Binky and baby PJ.

It was the Singapore Slingers versus the NZ Breakers and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

I was seated between doppy and PJ who insisted on shouting instructions to the players in Chinese never mind the entire team was made up of Caucasians and Blacks. PJ in particular was extremely vocal with her opinions and half the time, she was shouting at the top of her voice and the rest of us just pretended that we did not know her very well. Her classic moment came when one of the players made a bad call and she BELLOWED, "WAH LAU EH! Like that you also cannot see?!! You are blind ah???" (in Chinese! No. On second thought, it was in Hokkien!). That was when the three adults and 1 toddler stared at her in amazement and immediately disassociated ourselves with her.

I have never been to a live sports match and I must say that it was quite an enjoyable experience. Doppy was disappointed that the cheerleaders did not face us for some of their routines but our seats were very very decent (for $16!) and we got to watch the action right in front of us.

To quote Darth Binky, it was a nice way to spend a Sunday evening. Decent family entertainment and the time sped by with all the number of baskets scored and missed. We shall be more active in our lookout for great spectator sports to catch again (F1 next year?). Maybe next time, more of you will join us. :)

Hehe .. my 'cute' player on the Singapore team



In the thick of action!

Weekend in review

The weekend went by like a drop of water in a hot pan. One minute you're yearning to see what happens, the next moment, it's already gone.

Lovebell and I spent Saturday morning at the doctor's. She's already blogged her experience in the previous post. We then had breakfast with PJ and Darth dude, and Phoenix and VT (is that his nick?) at crystal jade. The food was decent and the girls had lots of fun chatting as usual.

We spent the rest of Sat afternoon watching DVDs. Lovebell made me watch this.


The show is good if you like pretentious art films that misdirect you by jumping around in sequence without telling you it has done so. It doesn't let you know whose perspective it is, which part of the timeline the scene's at, whether it's a memory or something going on now.

I watched the entire show, dreading it more with every minute. I hated the pretentious way they added the element of mystery to the story. Not even the decent acting of the protagonist , Ti Lung's presence or the pretty girl could save the film. I wasn't surprised when I saw that MDA sponsored it.

Notice the two little logos there that said the film won awards or was nominated or something? Yeah, probably judged by more pseudo-intellectual artsy fartsy fags who couldn't get to judge anything else, because anyone with brains wouldn't have sought their opinions on shit.

Luckily, Lovebell pulled out a better DVD after this one. In an effort to make it up to me, she proposed we watch another one.


The English name is "Priceless" in case you're looking for it in the DVD shop.

This one, I liked. The plot was fairly obvious, but the humour in the lines and the believable acting by the two main leads really lifted the show quite well. Perhaps it was in comparison to the previous show, but I enjoyed it so much more than that crap above.

If you want a proper review, google it yourself. :)

So late saturday, we proceeded to head into town. Dinner at Vilage (the old Marche's) at HMV building where the food was decent but a little pricey. Headed over to Kino after dinner to try to buy Alan Greenspan's new book "Edge of Turbulence", but bloody hell, it's sold out in both Kino and Borders.

So that's Saturday.

Sunday was less exciting. We bought groceries, and Lovebell made chicken curry and fried beehoon. I must say, her skills are improving very much! AD and Sotong came over and we had a good time just hanging out.

Sigh, it's dreary monday again.

Fun weekend

It's been a fun weekend. :)

Lovebell and I went to Sim Lim Square on Saturday. On our list of things to check out were a scanner, photo printer, HDD recorder for tv shows, portable DVD player and possibly a new camera. It had been a while since we bought new toys, so we were very eager to go.

After frittering away 2 hours in the building, we finally bought a Canon Selphy photo printer and a Canon Lide 25 scanner, along with some extra printer paper and some toner for our laser printer in the house. Decided against looking for the other stuff there as the only shops selling consumer electronics were on the first 2 floors and those are notorious tourist traps.

After all the shopping, we went over to Orchard side where we had a nice dinner at the cafe on the top floor of Tangs. I had never been up there before and I found it to be a good experience. The food was a bit pricey but the service was good and the ambience was great.

We caught "Shoot em up" at Lido after dinner. That was another fun movie to watch. The show is exactly as its title suggests, though I would suggest PJ and Sotong not to watch it. Lovebell had to cover her eyes throughout parts of the show cos she couldn't stand the gore. Which only meant I enjoyed it very much. Muahaha...

On sunday, we went to Ikea in the afternoon and bought us a bookshelf and a small little bedside table. The bedside table was to shelf our new tech toys and the previously purchased laser printer. I then spent the remainder of the afternoon fixing up the furniture and another DVD rack we had previously also purchased from Ikea. Lovebell and I then rearranged the study to fit in the new shelf and table and now the whole study looks much neater!

We tested out the new tech toys and Lovebell immediately put them to good use, scanning in our condo's floor plan to send to a housing agent, and printing out one of our old photos for her neat desktop. It's always fun to have new toys. :)

AD came over in the evening to have dinner with us at the Claypot chicken rice near our place. His wife was gallivanting in some Indonesian resort and he was left all alone.

And so that's that. The weekend went by really quickly and I can't wait for the next one now.

Pizza, Beer, Ice-cream, Movie - What a Lovely Saturday!

To celebrate doppy's and thereisnospoon's passing of the CFA Level 1 examination, AD, Sotong, thereisnospoon and the mmf gathered for a evening of good old Italian food at Greenwood Avenue (inside Bt. Timah Road, near to NJC) and went for a movie at (where-else?) Lido.

The initial plan was to take the group to Sunset Bar & Grill for buffalo wings and beer but it was a little of the way and thereisnospoon counter-suggested Peperoni Pizzeria. We have been meaning to recee Greenwood Avenue (where you can find the famous Lana Chocolate cake) for a while but have found the prices not very friendly and could never justify an evening out there. Seeing as how the two guys have studied so hard for their exams, we decided to splurge a little last night and surprisingly, the total bill only came up to $99 for 5 people which wasn't so bad for good-quality Italian food.

We ordered calamari and fried chicken wings for the starter and had 3 beers and 2 glasses of juice. Our mains consisted of 2 medium (12") pizzas, a Suprema (sausage & mushroom) and a Frutti di Mare (seafood). The pizzas are of the thin-crust type and the seafood one was particularly good. The ingredients were very fresh and the cheese on the pizza was quite different from the ones we regularly have. The calamari was so-so (I like the Spaggedies' ones better) and chicken wings were nothing to rave about. Doppy and I had a bottle of belgium beer, Chimey (nope! It's not made in China), which we had tried previously at his friends' new pub. It was good and coupled with pizza, it was a most lovely meal.

AD then treated us to ice-cream. We were initially going to move out to Island Creamery at Serene Centre but then we stumbled upon a hole-in-the-wall gelare shop along the same stretch as Peperoni Pizzeria. We decided to give it a try and it's the first place that I have been to that had yam ice-cream. Not even Tom's Palette which I swear my undying devotion to has that! I was way too greedy and had a large cup to myself (which I eventually shared with thereisnospoon cos the helping was quite generous) which I ordered durian, yam and coffee flavour. Both the durian and yam flavours were quite good, with pretty strong authentic taste and the prices were reasonable ($5plus for a large cup), considering that the other restaurants along the stretch are either part of the Les Amis group or displayed 'The Tattler's' reviews on their doors.

After dessert, we (except thereisnospoon who took a rain check) then proceeded to Lido to catch The Simpsons. We went into the cinema only to find two of our pre-booked seats occupied by two ang-mohs. We took out our respective tickets to check the details and both sets of tickets displayed the same seat details. Eagle-eyed doppy then spotted their tickets were pre-booked for an earlier show which was supposed to be screened on Friday night and the poor girlfriend/wife who did the pre-booking was so apologetic about her mistake. The two of them then dutifully trooped out of the hall to try to see if they could exchange their tickets for the current show whereas the four Singaporeans remarked that if we were the ones who made that mistake, we would have just found 2 empty seats in the theatre and plonked ourselves in the seats.

The movie had both doppy and AD howling in their seats and even Sotong enjoyed it. I have never been much of a Simpson's fan and though I get the satirical parts of the movie (trust me, there were some who didn't, for instance, the couple seated next to me. The girlfriend was doing a running explanation of all the jokes that were being made in the show with her boyfriend's laughter coming at least a couple of seconds later than the rest of the movie's audience), the humour isn't quite my cuppa of tea and I ended up keeping a straight face throughout the show and dozing off once-in-a-while. Doppy took pity on me and declared that he would catch Balls of Fury with the guys as he had no heart to put me through that movie. I must say however that the movie version of The Simpsons is a lot better than the episodes that are showing on TV and one doesn't necessarily have to be a Simpson's fan to enjoy the movie.

All in all, it was lovely Saturday evening out especially since I had spent a lovely morning with Petals and PJ at NIE/NTU sitting in the courtyard(??) and catching up with each other. I thoroughly enjoyed myself yesterday with the various friends I met up with and how I wish that today is still Saturday.

No such luck though so it is back to marking I go. Enjoy your Sunday or whatever that is left of it.

BUTS!

Ballet Under the Stars: Great Wine, Cool Weather, Fantastic Company!

Ever since we have started dating, doppy has been meaning to take me to "Ballet Under the Stars" (BUTS). The closest we came to going for one was a year when my school's dance society took part in the event and we could ask for complimentary tickets. Unfortunately, one thing or another always cropped up and we always ended up missing the show.

This year, doppy decided that no matter what, we would go for it. Since it was a rain-or-shine event, he got the tickets earlier in the week for the Saturday evening show and we were both looking forward to it.

Half the fun of going for BUTS is packing and taking along a picnic basket. Wine was a no-brainer (especially when I have an entire carton of Dr. Loosen at home) and this year, we even brought along a tub of ice-cream. I prepared my usual potato salad and chicken mayonnaises sandwiches to fill the stomach and by 5.15pm, we were all set to leave for Fort Canning Park.

Yesterday's weather did not bode well initially. It started pouring in the morning and by late afternoon, the rain had turned into one of those small, persistent drizzle so typical of our tropical weather. In the car, doppy was grumbling all the way and muttering at the God he does not believe exists. Doppy doesn't have much luck with the outdoors and picnicking. The last time, he went through a lot of trouble to borrow a picnic basket from PJ and getting her help to pack one, it poured so heavily that we ended up having the picnic at the back of our little monster. Though that was an experience we enjoyed, he wasn't quite prepared to have paid $36 for us to sit in the back seat of our car.

But our Lord is good to him. Despite an overcast sky, the weather held and we had a most enjoyable evening. It was so cool that I did not perspire at all despite being in the outdoors (though I can't say the same for doppy. He blamed it on the wine). Though there was only 2 of us, our shower-curtain-turned-picnic-mat was so big, we ended up having quite a comfortable plot of grass to ourselves. Doppy was initially embarrassed by the size of our basket. Afterall there was only two of us and we had a huge basket with a cooler too. We were obviously amateurs compared to some of the others picnickers there who had a full spread of food. I over-prepared the portioning as usual and though we didn't have much of a variety, the quantity more than made up for it and we were stuffed silly.

Needless to say, the wine was fantastic. We had a bottle of German Riesling Kabinett and both of us polished off the bottle by the middle of the show. The dances by SDT were very good though the standard by the school dancers were uneven and most of them were nowhere near SYF standard. If there is any gripe, it was the slightly-too-long-interval-between-the-dances. Then again, it gave us time to people watch and gossip about a former JC mate of doppy and speculate about the aunties-having-an-aunties-evening out group seated just in front of us, and of course, enjoy a couple of romantic moments lying down on our make-shift mat and trying to spot the stars (of which there were ONE!).

It was a most lovely evening, with great wine and of course, my husband's fantastic company. He was surly in the earlier part of the evening when he thought that it would rain but his mood cheered up considerably once we settled down and the sky didn't seem like it was going to break. We even heard the fireworks from the NDP rehearsal and managed to see some colours between the trees and some of the picnickers gamely called out, "Chop down the trees!!!".

We hope to go again next year with a fiercer picnic basket (doppy wants roti-prata and I want hor-fun!) and definitely more bottles of fantastic wine. If you have missed the event this year, you are most welcome to join us for a evening of ballet under the stars come 2008! :) We might just share our picnic basket with you.

Where shall we all meet again?

Upon Oosh!

We checked out this place last night when we met up with Doppy's friend who came back to Singapore to introduce his fiancee to us.

Though the mmf has been to Dempsey Road a number of times, we have always just driven past this place because it looks damn atas and didn't seem like anything we could afford.

Our meowmeowmobil didn't qualify for valet parking right on the compound so we had to park in the public carpark 'reserved' for the cattle class. Even then, our car was probably the only Japanese make one around.

Prices for drinks are a little on the steep side. A bottle of corona costs $12 and a glass of Macallan costs $14. The strangest thing is they serve Macallan by the jug too. I was most curious to find out how one serves whiskey by the jug but I just couldn't justify spending $65 when I can get an entire bottle for slightly more than a 100bucks.

Food-wise, finger food is reasonable and their mains costs like $14 for a plate of normal pasta. However, all dining is al fresco for if one wants to be seated in the indoors, one will need to spend 1K and above to qualify for a table (and I haven't work out if that's per table or per pax!). To be honest though, their ventilation for the al fresco dining is quite good and even Doppy who would always think twice about sitting in the great outdoors enjoyed the experience.

When I finally survive the next few weeks of mad, crazy markings, I shall contrive a little date there.

Till then, all the teachers work hard and the non-teachers try not to tempt us with exciting programmes, k?