Wednesday, December 19, 2012

妈咪感言

熬了那么久,终于让我熬到了第32周!还有最多两个月,我和小志就能见到然然了,好兴奋哦!怀孕初期真的好辛苦哦,现在我终于有苦尽甘来的感觉了。回想当初,我吐到连吃东西都没有胃口(这怎么可能啊???),现在实在是太舒服了吧,让人觉得很没有真实感耶。

除了宝宝偶尔很爱踢我使我睡不著,手脚很痒,还有偶尔有点儿气喘之外,我觉得自己的身体状态和怀孕之前没什么不同。 现在的我真的是好幸福哦!能吃能睡能玩,又有个这么爱我、疼我的老公,我还有什么不满足的呢?虽然有点儿担心自己不晓得会不会照顾好然然,但是有小志在我身边,我什么都不怕。希望这个小瓜能够顺利出世,不要太为难她老妈。

嗯,等然然出世后,我们的生活应该会有天翻地覆的变化吧。也许,我会很想念她在我肚子里狂踢的时候。也许,我会忍不住想要把她塞回我的肚子里。尽管如此,我还是很期待见到她!宝宝,我爱你!

Progress of Xiao Xiao 9

Yet another visit to Wendy and another confirmation that Ruo Ran is alright and growing well. My dear refunded the supplements which sort of contained a certain fish smell which was missing in the previous batches, though later at home, we found out that the new bottle also contained the same fish smell but at a lesser intensity and that our exchange was somewhat superfluous. My dear also got advice for her itchy hands and feets, which was a simple solution of applying moisturiser on them.

I guess recently Wendy was more concerned with estimating the weight of Ruo Ran, thus the scans were usually of the stomach's cross-sections. Perhaps we should request for Wendy to print the scan of the baby face or side profile instead for the next visit.

The stomach's cross-section
with arm's cross section on the right

The Hobbit

Looking at the list of movie titles coming out in December, this was the only deserving show to be watched, at first glance. At least that was what my dear felt. I guess from this entry onwards, I shall include the movie poster as well to make my post more colourful and less boring.


The show started off with some remnants of the starting of the Lord of the Rings, with a few seconds showing of Frodo. After all, this story was a prelude to the Lord of the Rings. From then on, it was the memory playback of Frodo's uncle, Bilbo Baggins. In a nutshell, Baggins was sort of forced into an adventure by Gandalf the Grey to accompany thirteen dwarves, led by Thorin, to reclaim their homelands, Lonely Mountains, from Smaug the dragon sixty years ago. Smaug was attracted by the massive amount of gold in the dwarves' lair, so the story said, and thus attacked them. When forced to evacuate, Thorin nursed a grudge against the elves as the latter refused to aid them at that point in time.

Thus the adventure started and the entourage encountered a group of trolls who tried to eat them, but was later turned to stone by the sunlight which shone upon them after Gandalf heroically split a big rock into two. To pour salt onto the trolls' wounds, the group plundered their hideout and thus obtaining some elven swords. The group later met up with another wizard, Radagast the Brown, who informed them of a dark force poisoning the lands. At the same time, a group of orcs were hunting the dwarves and Radagast tried to lure them away using his trusty rabbits, while the group seek refuge at the elves' hideout.

At the elves' hideout, the group found the answer to the entrance of another route into the Lonely Mountains, and they secretly set off for their journey while Gandalf was explaining the quest to the White Council. However, the group was captured by another group of orcs after they witnessed a fight between the mountains, a redundant scene in my opinion. Baggins, due to his small size and coupled with the ridiculously poor eyesight of the orcs, managed to escape by squatting and somehow found Gollum and picked up the ring which he dropped, the ring which he called the precious, the ring which was the main focus in the Lord of the Rings. After a series of riddles, Gollum realised that Baggins had gotten the ring and attacked him. By a stroke of luck, Baggins realised that the ring granted him invisibility and he used that to escape.

At the same time, by plot no jutsu, Gandalf appeared out of nowhere, by magic of course, to save the dwarves and then together they killed a path out with ridiculous and comical stunts. Maybe just like chakra, Gandalf need to recharge and could not conjure the entire group out. Anyway, after escaping the mountain orcs, they encountered the orcs who were hunting them. Thus, the group was on the run and they retreated to the trees at the edge of the cliffs. Thorin tried to attack the leader but was no match for him, and he was almost beheaded only to be stopped by Baggins' assault. Then the group was rescued by a group of eagles after Gandalf sent a distress message via a butterfly. I guess, other than being used for the butterfly effect, butterflies can travel at insane speeds too.

The eagles then dropped the group somewhere safe but in the visibility of their destination. The movie ended with the dragon rousing from his sleep.

I guess after watching Lord of the Rings, there was not much surprises in this movie. However, it was an engaging movie with moments of anxiety and anticipation peppered here and there. Enjoyable, at the very least.


44 and counting...

In view of my dear's growing tummy and low energy levels, which basically eliminates most outdoor activities, we decided to keep it simple by having a good lunch at Ichiban Sushi at AMK Hub. The only grievance was the long wait of thirty minutes for the food to come, despite the restaurant not having that many customers. I would have finished the entire bottle of preserved ginger if I did not consider that the bottom-most of the ginger may possibly had been left inside for the longest of time. Nevertheless, half of a jar of preservatives was inside my stomach by the time the food came.

His meal

Her meal

After that, we carried out our plan to watch The Hobbit, followed by an appointment to Wendy's. Yet another milestone in our lives =)

Monday, December 10, 2012

Rurouni Kenshin

Last Saturday saw us watching this movie with me having no expectations as I did not have any background knowledge about its manga from which the movie was developed from. My dear had seen its manga / anime when she was young and she had loved the series.

The movie started off with the ending of a Japanese civil war and Kenshin, relinquishing his sword and therefore his title in the battlefield, only to have a survivor to retrieve his sword and kill in his name. Ten years later, during which he officially disappeared but still made his presence felt by helping strangers, a cruel drug lord was trying to use opium to control Japan. In order to do that, the drug lord attempted to forcefully take over several land areas, one of which was the dojo of the female lead, to whom Kenshin came to the rescue. However, through that action, Kenshin exposed his identity and the police wanted to recruit him to kill villains, to which Kenshin refused.

In the meantime, Kenshin got to acquaint himself with a street fighter, who later became his ally. With the female lead held hostage, Kenshin had no choice but to confront the drug lord and duel with the survivor who killed in his name. He almost had to break his promise of no killing to save the female lead when she was paralyzed by the survivor's eye technique and could not breathe. But all well ends well, with all the bad guys either rounded up or dead.

There was pretty much blood spilling in the show and the swift sword moves were indeed very realistic and fascinating. Despite the gore, there were elements of cuteness imbued into the main character, making him a very likable character. I quite enjoyed myself watching this movie, though I'm not sure whether I will watch the anime / manga.

Us with the lead actor (in paper)

Perhaps one funny incident from this was that my dear friend forgot to include himself in the total count for purchasing the tickets and thus had to sit out for this event. It was, however, made up at the dinner and desserts later at Wing Seong Fatty's (Albert) Restaurant Pte Ltd and NYDC respectively.

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Progress of Xiao Xiao 8

Just came back from another visit to Wendy and I guess my dear was very happy after hearing the good news about Ruo Ran with her head downwards in the womb. She (the baby) had been working hard in turning herself around, though much to my dear's discomfort. Maybe it was meant to be, or maybe because I had been speaking to her from below almost everyday, just to claim credit =P Another good news was that she is currently at 1.7 kg, which was a marked improvement from 1 kg three weeks back, and this time, the word "smallish" was finally unused. However, there is presence of proteins in her urine which may pose problems in the future.

Till the next visit two weeks later. Her pictures below:

Left: side view of body (spine top)
Right: side view of head with spine

Two legs on the left, stomach on the right

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Updates on Renovation 16

After a delay of a few months (due to work commitments), the installation of the blinds and the poles hanger are finally done. Yet another proud production by none other than me myself. Actually, this doesn't really qualify as a renovation item, but well, it was still an improvement to our house. 

The blinds

The poles hanger

The blinds were bought from Ikea and the poles hanger were left behind by the previous owner. And the only thing left to install them was to drill holes into the walls and ceiling. Ever since my first drilling of a hole in the house, I realised that one can never underestimate the skill of a craftsmen. After all, how difficult can hole drilling be right? Big mistake. After many trials of ugly holes marks and long hours of noise pollution, I can only say that I had improved but not master it. Till now, I still need to take at least 40 minutes for one 1-inch deep hole. Perhaps I should be comforted by the fact that I paid good money for the good concrete walls in our house.

Anyway, I guess I can finally declare that the house will remain in the present state for many years to come. At least until the next renovation, which probably will not happen =)

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Tampines Eco-garden

We first knew of this place through one of the television programmes on Channel 8 and we were thinking that there was actually such a place and yet we knew nothing about it. As such, we sought to visit it one day during the holidays. We originally wanted to visit this place much earlier but our plans changed due to extension of cut-off time for another activity. My dear decided that today was a good day since our housework was done and we still got some time.

En route to the garden, we passed by a park and we found it quite interesting enough for us to spend some time there. There was a young couple making out at one bench (young people these days) but that was not the interesting stuff I was talking about. I was rather referring to the structures erected there but got worn out, probably to negligence and poor maintenance. Nevertheless, it was some fun for us.

Was it connected to electricity?
 So that it will buzz when the ring touches the rod?

My arsenal of cannons - with echos as projectiles

The aging map of the park

The eco-garden was just across the road and we found it with ease. The place was some sort of a nature reserve but on a smaller scale. We first visited the toilet to see how eco-friendly it was since it uses bacteria to digest our excrement. I was amazed that there was no smell, typical of a toilet in shopping centres, which ought to bring them to shame. We then covered the entire circumference of the area in less than an hour, which included stopping to take photos, scratching our blood donations to the mosquitoes and admiring the greenery around us. The place was not as deserted as I thought for there were the occasional joggers and strollers walking in the opposite direction to us. I guess this place will not be that suitable for dumping a body, though the possibility still exists.

The signage at the entrance

The rules which most people probably ignored

The map in case we got lost

The eco-toilet with bacteria digesting your wastes

The mimosa

Some plant that I like

Another one that was liken

In the end, we realised that we could have walked to the park instead of taking a bus as we managed to find a short route back home. I guess we will probably be back but with our kids =)

Monday, November 26, 2012

Guobin and Angie's Wedding

We were so happy for them that we actually did not sleep very well the night before. It was to the extent that I thought I slept more during my own wedding. Anyway, the gatecrash started early in the morning, with one of the brothers picking me up to Guobin's place and soon we were in the standard formation, waiting to be teased by the sisters. It was a simple affair with some food eating (and dumping), mini-dancing, charades and poem creation, followed by the standard procedures of photo-taking and picking up of the bride. I guess we were left off quite easily by the sisters, though I must admit that tom yam jelly shall rank as the top gross food ever, together with raw bitter gourd.

The dinner banquet was held at MBS, one of the newest places around and the solemnisation ceremony prior to that was conducted smoothly as well, unaffected by the rainy weather a few hours before. I was helping with the solemnisation items and I was surprised to know that the Justice of Peace had six prior sessions and one more after, with the one before just happening in the ballroom next to theirs. I guess it was indeed a good date for marriage for later on we got to see photos of more people in our contacts tying the knot.

The service was good with much attention given to the guests, though I did find our attached server slight over-zealous in serving us. The food, however, was so-so and the high-expectant first dish was slightly disappointing as it was cold. The fish was overcooked and the dessert was too bitter. The rest did not leave much impression in my non-existent memory. Nonetheless, it was the joyous celebration of the official union of our friends which was most important and anything else did not matter.

Roasted (chilled) whole suckling pig

Sauteed king prawn with asparagus

Braised seafood broth with crab roe

Braised sliced abalone with sea cucumber in oyster sauce 

Steam (hard) red garoupa with crispy garlic;
crispy roasted chicken

Braised e-fu noodles with (missing) exotic mushroom

Chilled mango with (bitter) pomelo

Saturday, November 17, 2012

43 and counting...

After our shopping spree, we proceeded to this dim sum place - Swee Choon Tim Sum Restaurant, recommended by one of our friends. It was an apt location to celebrate our union as we were in the area and especially since my dear had been yearning to eat dim sum for the longest of time.

The place was rather easily located with the help of streetdirectory.com and its prominent shop sign, thus it only required a short walk from Farrer Park MRT station. The queuing system for seats, in the form of a number display and a handsome young staff perpetually on a hands-free walkie-talkie, was rather sophisticated and efficient, and very soon, we were ushered to our places. The ordering system was simple as well and our stomachs were soon waiting patiently to satisfy their hungers.

It was indeed a good place having an old coffee shop feel and the food was excellent and non-greasy, though my dear prefer the food to have more seasonings to tickle her senses.

My dear surveying the menu

Me doing advertising for free

The hot barley and the cold soya bean with grass jelly drink

Fried banana and prawn

Xiao long bao, chee cheong fun and lo mai kai

Guo tie and fried mian xian

Sha liu bao, har gow, siew mai and cong you mian

Fried beancurd

Don't they whet your appetite? =)

Popular Fair and Shopping for Baby Stuffs 3

Much earlier in the week, we went to Expo (again) to beat the crowd for the Popular Fair as my dear had its membership card. We thought that it would be less crowded since it was a weekday and we could not really reach there in the morning due to work commitments. Little did we know that almost everyone was a Popular member and it was the first time that I actually saw that there was a queue to enter the exhibition hall and the queue can only start to move after 4 pm. As such, we decided to visit the Metro fair first to see if there were any stuffs worth buying and indeed there were.

We quickly went back to check the status of the Popular queue with our bulky items and we were astonished to find ourselves queuing outside the air-conditioned walkways. We found it even more absurd that the queue was growing continuously. Luckily, the queue moved rather fast and soon we found ourselves finally in the exhibition hall, only to see a longer winding and unmarked queue for the cashier. It appeared that Popular never learnt from its previous mistakes and half of the people there were probably stuck in one of the queues. Anyway, we went one round around the stationery section before abandoning our thoughts of buying something from the fair that day.

We returned to the battleground early on Saturday and we were glad that our decision was sound as the number of people there were indeed much lesser. That made shopping a more pleasurable activity. Anyway, we more or less knew what we wanted, thus we merely took the stuffs that we eyed previously and did a casual stroll around the sale exhibits to see if there were any stuffs which we left out. The queuing process was smooth and quick and we went back home to deposit our gains.


The cashier queue was rather short but we had an experience with an inexperienced temp staff which lengthened our stay there. From the shaking of her hand when she tore the receipt (the first and the many to come) from the receipt dispensing machine, it was evident that she was new, and it got worse after she made the first mistake of keying in the wrong final amount for the credit card machine. She got my dear to sign the refund receipt before repeating the purchasing process. That would have been alright if I had not went to check the items with the new receipts, which led to a discrepancy in the final amount. Thus, we went back and this time her supervisor was like helping out with our request. The poor cashier was like standing there watching her supervisor handling the matter, probably thinking of the repercussions to come.

My dear was like saying that I was like kicking a big fuss over a few dollars, which may affect the working progression of the girl, but to me, I just thought that I should not be paying for others' mistake. However, on hindsight, something which I did not do and I felt strongly afterwards that I should do was actually to give assurance to the poor girl that things like this are part and parcel of a cashier's life and that she should not broad too long over them. Probably such an assurance could make her unlucky day better.


Later, we went out again, shopping for the toiletries needed for cleaning Ruo Ran. And where else but the usual cheap toiletries shop at People's Park in the form of Swanston. I guess I'm just used to going there, even though the same products may be sold at similarly low prices back in my area. Another draw factor was its large variety of products and huge volume of shelf space. After which, we walked around Chinatown to see if we could get more baby stuffs before proceeding down to Balestier.

The items from Popular Fair

The items from Metro Sale and Popular Fair

The toiletries from Swanston

Friday, November 16, 2012

Progress of Xiao Xiao 7

Yet another trip to Wendy's. Similar comments about Ruo Ran being smallish and my dear needing to eat more. Another not so good news was that Ruo Ran was like in a breach position, with her head on mummy's and legs on mummy's left. Wendy's advice was to wait and see if Ruo Ran will turn on her own as there is nothing that we can do. Let's hope for the best.

However, we decided on the twin room package for my dear's delivery, after mulling over the pros and cons of the single and double room for a long while, where cost became the eventual determining factor.

Another picture of Ruo Ran:

Top left: her head facing towards you
Top right: cross-section of body from side
Bottom: cross-section of body from bottom

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Shopping for Baby Stuffs 2

We went to Expo on the last day of the Parenthood Fair, meeting my dear's brother as well for breakfast. Prior to that day, we had seen some of our friends posting their "plunders" on facebook, thus sparking some ideas in us. The first thing we did was to queue for Pampers, which happened to be a good move, as the diapers were running low on stock. Some sizes even ran out of stock as we progressed through the queue. Luckily for us, we managed to get what we wanted. Lesson learnt: Must go for queue for diapers on the first day of any baby fairs.

After that, the shopping was at a more leisurely pace and we bought some stuffs which we did not buy previously. It was not really a good harvest as we did not see a good deal for breast pumps and baby carriers and we hope that the baby fair next month will be more fruitful. Nonetheless, Ruo Ran has more items for her usage.

Clockwise from top left: newborn diapers, baby wipes,
bottles, baby clothes, bed sheet, nursing top,
yoga pants, nail clipper, bottle brush