Category Archives: Living in… Singapore

CHINESE NEW YEAR EATING

3 February 2012 14 comments

So we didn’t have a mad banquet of never-ending food during Chinese New Year. It’s supposed to be really good (guess it shows you’re prosperous and fat?? Heh) to have helluva lot of food such that people can’t finish it.. but we were totally unprepared for it, since we were supposed to be on holiday for Chinese New Year! But it was cancelled at the very last minute since Mum was in hospital (and only discharged the day before), so we had to make do with pretty simple food.

Anyway, no regrets and I liked it that way.. because it meant that 1) Mum was safe and out of the hospital, 2) we were still celebrating as a family, 3) it was kinda nice having a relaxed and chill CNY.

Breakfast on CNY day itself was waffles with bananas, maple syrup and ice cream. It was because I had all the stuff already in my kitchen and so could whip it up for all of us. Plus, Dad LOVES waffles.. and I thought it would be nice to do breakfast and coffee together for CNY :)

The waffles were those pre-made ones that you simply pop into the toaster. Verdict? Crappy. They become pretty stiff and crispy, and SO not like the waffles that I like – all moist and soft on the inside, and light and crisp on the outside. In retrospect it was silly of me, since it’s super easy to make waffles from scratch since I’ve done it many times before. Duh..

Waffles with bananas, maple syrup and ice cream

 

Lunch was a very last-minute decision.. as we had to figure out which places were actually open, that weren’t fully booked. We ended up having Japanese at the Raffles Town Club, which was an awesome decision because the food there is fantastic!

Outside the Japanese restaurant. We're wearing RED cos it's meant to be good to for CNY!

 

And we had this dish called Yu Sheng. OMG IT IS SO GOOD YOU WILL DIE OF HAPPINESS EATING IT………  Seriously. WHERE HAS THIS DISH BEEN ALL MY LIFE??????

I had Yu Sheng for the 1st time 2 nights prior (will blog about that later) and now I LOVE SALAD. Can’t believe just veggies and salmon sashimi can taste so good?!?!?!? It’s tasty, sweet, and utterly addictive. So this one at the Japanese restaurant was my 2nd time having Yu Sheng, and it was ‘Japanese style’… which basically meant it had a lot of sashimi of various types of fish. It was freakin’ awesome :)

Yu Sheng. Utter perfection.

 

So, the point of Yu Sheng is that you mix all these ingredients together (and there are a TON in the dish!). Each ingredient signifies something good…. I’m not sure specifically what they each signify, but it’s just meant to be all ‘nice sounding’!

AND, I remember hearing that it’s also supposed to be good to mix the ingredients hiiiiiigggghhhhh up in the air. I don’t know the exact reason why, but I think it’s something like the person that manages to reach the highest, is the person that has the best year ahead. Whatever. I’ll do whatever it takes just to get my hands on more Yu Sheng – yum yum yum!!

Quite annoyed that it took me 30 years (?!?!?!??!!!!) to discover this dish, because it actually ranks up there as one of my favourite dishes ever. Plus, I’m even more pleased that I like it, due to the fact that HELLO it is a salad! When ever in my life have I ever liked, let alone eaten, a salad dish?? My only regret is that this dish isn’t available year-round, which I reckon is quite unfair :(

Forced smile from me cos all I wanted to do was to eat it!

 

A few more photo ops with Hunter ensued.. mainly cos I think he looks spiffy in his CNY blue outfit :P

Fascinated with the bronze horse

 

Outside the cafe at Raffles Town Club

 

Our CNY Eve dinner was the really random one, because Mum had just come out of the hospital and we didn’t have any dinner planned. Obviously couldn’t go out to eat ‘cos it’d be madness in the City, plus Mum wasn’t really in the position to go out for a dinner.

So we ended up with….. steamboat!

Funny thing is, I was realllllyyyyyy EXCITED about the thought of having steamboat, because we hardly/never have it, and I thought we were all rather cool to be doing a steamboat when everyone else was probably having CNY tradition food or something.

But later, I saw all over Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc etc… everyone was freakin’ having steamboat too!!!! So either everyone else stole our fabulous idea, or steamboat is actually quite common to have on CNY Eve. Pfffttt.

Anyway, Mum has a steamboat machine thingy.. and all it requires is just raw meat and veg to chuck in. It thus makes a very simple, little-preparation-required, meal. Plus, it’s fun cooking the bits of food in the bubbling broth :)

My fave part? Throwing in the instant noodles and an egg into the broth. SO YUMMY!

Our (not so unique) steamboat dinner for CNY Eve

 

I reckon CNY is equivalent to Thanksgiving in the USA.. where family get together and feast. There isn’t something similar in Australia though, oddly. I guess Christmas in Australia might be the closest, but it’s still quite different, because Christmas in Australia is also spent with friends and has a lot of partying involved, whereas CNY in Singapore is family-centric, in the home, and completely focused on food.

Anyway, hope you had a fabulous time celebrating (if you celebrate CNY)! And hope you didn’t gain too much weight :P I’ve put on around 2KG. Not too bad since I remember when we lasted celebrated CNY when we were 18 or 19 yrs old, Chris and I put on almost 5KG….. Each. Any improvement is an improvement, right? :P

 

 

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HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!

2 February 2012 16 comments

Hey guess what, it’s Chinese New Year!

OK, Chinese New Year actually started more than a week ago.. but I’ve been busy on playdates and looking after Hunter, so haven’t had a chance to blog about it yet. And anyway, was preoccupied writing up his 1st Birthday entries :P

But yep, Chinese New Year is really exciting for us this year because it’s the first time we’ve celebrated in …. believe it or not….. over a decade. I think the last time we celebrated was when I was 18 yrs old or something like that! It’s not exactly big in Australia, and in China the whole country practically shuts down whilst everyone visits their own relatives, so we could only bum around at home.

But THIS year, we’re in Singapore and can celebrate! And, even better, we have Hunter now. It was his 1st CNY so of course we had to dress him up in a traditional Chinese outfit. I figure since Hunter is a mixed kid, he would look pretty funky in it :P

"Oh maaaaan.... what have Mum and Dad DONE TO ME?!?!"

 

Getting into the CNY spirit :P

 

It was still a pretty low-key CNY celebration for us, because my Dad’s side of the family don’t even celebrate it, and my Mum’s side just barely. So all we really got was to go over to my Aunt’s place where she had an ‘open house’. But it was fun! Sooooo much yummy food (which is kinda my benchmark on whether a party is good or not, heh!!) and lotsa family friends there too. Hunter was a bit shocked with the people, but had fun :)

Cute decor!

 

All comfy on my parents

 

Chris finding out what it's like to be Dad to a lil girl :P

 

Mr and Miss Chinese New Year

 

"May I have a snack too, Mum?"

 

My aunt dug out this photo.. of my 2 cousins and I! I'm on the right of the pic, if it isn't obvious :P

 

A DAY IN THE LIFE….

22 November 2011 23 comments

So this is what our little boy gets up to every day… We have our little routine down pat, and it works well for us, because he runs like clockwork and it makes both his and our lives easier knowing what’s coming up, etc. It also means he doesn’t need to cry, because he knows what’s coming up next and when he’s feeding/napping next, so I believe that it makes him feel more secure.

I suppose it’s also because I’m quite a particular and organised person by nature, so I feel a sense of deep satisfaction when I have my baby “all figured out”. And I do reckon he’s very much like me, because he simply thrives on this day-in-day-out routine. Anyway, at the end of the day…. he’s a happy lil boy, so because of that, I’m happy too :)

He goes on a morning walk every day at 8-9AM after his 7:30AM breast feed. The morning walk is great way to start his day, and to learn and experience the outdoors.

 

Breakfast time at 9AM. He likes nomming on snacks like this rice cracker as well. I limit (organic only!) snacks because I don't believe they're very nutritious, so they're more for him to use his pincer grasp and motor skills.

 

It's off to the City after his nap (from 10 - 11:30AM) and 12PM breastfeed. Yeah, I had to sneak in a pic of my bag here, muahaha ;)

 

Wearing my new daily earrings, super-thin gold earrings from Tellurus on Etsy, a gift from a gf. Love 'em!

 

We always have lunch out. Hunter eats with me, at 1:30PM. I *STRONGLY* believe in home-cooked food made from scratch for him, but his lunch is bottled baby-food 50% of the time because it's all pre-packaged/convenient. His breakfasts & dinners are almost always home-cooked, though, to compensate. Fortunately his nutrition is still 80% breastfed so I'm OK with bottled food, but once he transitions to an almost all solid diet, I'll be ensuring the lunch meal is home-cooked as well.

 

And of course, play dates! At least 2-3 times a week with his various 'lil friends.. almost all of whom are girls. Hrmm! He has his afternoon milk at 3PM just before his 45min nap, and this time it's his one-and-only formula milk of the day. It's still a work-in-progress as he rejects formula milk 50% of the time and makes angry faces at me, then tries to stuff his hands down my top :X

 

We get home for dinnertime and playtime from 5-6PM, before he has his bath. Can you count his rolls in the above picture? ;) This is one of his fave toys - he's extremely meticulous and concentrated when he plays with toys, which is more of Chris' trait than mine, I think.

 

After he's clean as a whistle, it's his night time breastfeed, snuggle time in bed, reading books... until the clock says 7PM, whereupon he insists on being tucked into bed, and then drifts off into dreamland... g'nite world :)

 

 

GARDENS BY THE BAY

19 November 2011 1 comment

We went to visit Gardens By The Bay so that Hunter could check out pretty flowers, and also to try out his new Combi stroller for the first time :P

Gardens By The Bay is open to the public only this week, as a bit of a sneak preview. It will only open officially in June 2012, so I was pretty chuffed we got to check it out! It wasn’t too crowded either, much to my relief.. I get a bit overwhelmed and freaked out when there are crowds of people, because I don’t think it’s good/healthy for a baby to be pushed and shoved around and potentially have sick people near him.

Walking outside in Gardens By The Bay

 

These 'trees' catch rainwater which is then used to water plants

 

I was in a girly-pink kinda mood

Can't see it in the above pic, so here's a proper one of the pretty heart pendant my cousin gave me for my 30th birthday. Love it!!

 

Think of Gardens By The Bay as the Botanic Gardens, on steroids. The Flower Dome that we checked out was AMAZING. Think of a giant glass dome, whacked on top of the ground… and the atmosphere inside being a perfect 23-25 celcius.

Bliss.

Know how they do it? Viapipes with cold/frozen water running underground. And yep, it’s true – the ground really was cold when I touched it! Honestly, they Singapore government should build an even more gigantic glass dome and cover the ENTIRE COUNTRY with it, with those frozen pipes underground. Can you imagine Singapore with perfect cool weather? :D OK if that even happens in the future, I am laying dibs on the fact that I had the idea first ;)

Anyway… the Flower Dome climate means that Mediterranean, Australian, etc plants can all grow there. And boy, do they make the whole area beautiful. It was chock full with a myriad of colourful flowers and impressively-high trees, and most of all, it overlooked the pretty Marina skyline. What a treat!

Gigantic glass dome FTW!

 

Huge hibiscus flowers

 

These flowers were teeny-tiny, maybe 1cm?

 

More teeny flowers. SO CUTE.

 

Orchids overload

 

Thick with flowers!

 

'Dancing lady' flower. Can you spot the dancing lady?

 

TA DA!!! This ends this post.

 

MEMORIES OF MY CHILDHOOD HOME

29 September 2011 5 comments

 

A small, random post for today, because I’m busily writing up a whopper of a (beauty-related) post which I’ll finish off later tonight or tomorrow…

This is our family home. It’s particularly cool because it’s right near the city (maybe 5 mins drive?). This is where I grew up, and where my family stayed until we moved to Australia when I was 11 years old. I have very clear and fond memories of my cousin madmoneymonkey and I playing here – drawing hop scotch tiles with chalk on the ground by the gazebo (much to Mum’s chagrin)… building ‘obstacle courses’ using furniture and making Dad climb up, down, and around it all (LOL!)…  running around with my dog Shelly…

It’s being rented out at the moment and is in-between tenancies, so there’s a lot of fixing up and renovations to be done. So it looks pretty boring inside, but I still love the garden outside!

By the gazebo (with Hunter too intrigued with everything around him to smile for the camera)

I like the front garden :)

 

 

A sketch version of Hunter's superman pic :P

 

It’s crazy how far we’ve come and how much life has changed since. Funny how I’ve ended up back here in this country, near my childhood home. Never would’ve expected it!

Do you live in or near your childhood home too? Or are you in some far-flung country? :P