New Year’s Eve

After spending a great and enjoyable morning with my buddies at Wild Honey, I had to do some marketing for tonight’s dinner.

On my way back home, I went marketing near home and bought some stuff back to prepare as I will be the one preparing dinner for my loved ones tonight.

While my mum kept Faith entertained with her kitchen set, I was busy preparing dinner with my real KITCHEN SET! Hahaahahaah…. I made grill chicken with black pepper, bake baby potato with bacon bits and pasta. Hubby bought pizza back from La Pizzaiola to complete the dinner. Since it was New Year’s Eve dinner, we decided to open a bottle of Moscato to go along with our dinner as mum loves the drink too.

After dinner, we sat at the living room having our desserts and watching TV as a family. The countdown show started only from 11pm and by the time for countdown… our little Faith already sleeping soundly on hubby’s lap.

Since the birth of Faith, we spent our New Year’s Eve at home and though it’s a quiet one but we kind of like the way we welcome the brand new year.

Happy New Year everyone! Wishing one and all a joyous and healthy 2013!

Last Day Of 2012

It has been ages since I woke up early to meet friends in town. I remembered I used to meet my buddies in Orchard Road in the morning to queue up for Esprit sale…

This morning, I met up with Hairon and Threz to do a quick shopping at Zara as they were having sales… a sale that we can’t miss… hahaahahah we planned to meet for brunch but we met earlier to do some shopping to beat the afternoon crowd.

After heavy damages at Zara, we went to have our brunch at Wild Honey located at Scotts Square. I have never been or heard of that place until Ron mentioned and made reservations. She told us that Wild Honey will only hold our reservation for 5 minutes and it will be released thereafter.

To my surprise, the restaurant was so crowded upon our arrival and it was only 10:30am! I was really shocked to know that Singaporeans actually wakes up early and dine in town!!! My goodness… I would prefers to be in bed as long as possible… hahahahaaha

The menu is really interesting and I was told that they serve the same food all day and in fact, we do not need to do it in the morning but then again, will you have breakfast for dinner!! The restaurant is really cozy and the décor gave you a ‘HOME’ feeling which was quite good.

As I am an egg lover, the menu really suits me and I really had problem ordering as I would like to have all of them!!! Greedy you might say but when it comes to egg dishes… it’s really a headache.

After a long consideration, I decided to have European. European breakfast includes eggs benedict with 2 poached eggs, sautéed mushrooms & Italian prosciutto (Parma Ham). It was simply heavenly delicious! Totally LOVED it!

As for service, it took quite a while for our food to be served. Our coffee came and we thought our food will be served shortly but our coffee already turned cold by the time our food was served. Overall, the food is great and I would want to bring hubby to try as I believed he will enjoy the food as much as I did.

I thoroughly enjoyed the brunch with my buddies and I really had a great time spending part of the last day of 2012 with friends whom I love...

Part 2 Of Post Boxing Day

After a wonderful gathering at the Tan’s place today, I tried to clear the study room as mum was barking at me to clean up the room.

After dinner, we brought out the rest of Faith’s Christmas gifts to the hall for her to unwrap them. She was so happy and excited to see the remaining items to be big items and wanted to check them out as soon as possible. Before she started, she wanted to take a photo with all her gifts and then started opening up the gifts one at a time.

She actually saved the biggest for last…in actual fact; she couldn’t wait to open our gift to her from the day we brought it back. We told her that she has to wait till Boxing Day to open her gifts and we were glad that she waited patiently for the day to come.

We could see the big smile on her face when she was opening our gift to her. When she finally opened it, she said “My Kitchen Set, mummy, I want to play now”… hubby immediately set up the little kitchen for her and she kind of help us out a little by bringing the pieces to hubby.

It was a pity she could not start to play as it was getting late by the time we finished. We told her that she will be able to play tomorrow and she immediately dash to the bed… when asked why she dashed to bed, she answered “I want to sleep, Tabi want to play kitchen set tomorrow”…

Party At The Tans

I would say it has become a tradition that we will spend our Christmas at Theresa’s place but this year, we spent it after Christmas as they have family gathering on the actual day. The wonderful Tans always play a fantastic host who always welcomes us warmly with good food, drinks and companionship.

We arrived just in time for lunch and man… she prepared all our favourite food especially the MUST-HAVE sambal chilli fish balls & quail eggs. I remembered back in those school days, we will fight to get the last piece of the fish ball or quail eggs or do anything just to have more… missing those fun and carefree school days.

This time, Theresa arranged this gathering just for the group. Though not the whole group attended due to out of town or unwell, we usually kept them in mind. It was indeed a great gathering for us to chill out at her comfortable home while we chat the lazy afternoon away.

While we were chilling out and pigging out…little Faith was very well-entertained by the two big sisters – Chloe & Jana. They helped to entertain her by getting her to draw and playing toy cars with her in Chloe’s bedroom. Faith was so happy hanging out with the sisters that she almost refused to have her tea break. Thanks to Chloe who brought her down to have at least a sliced of cake made by our sexy host.

The tiramisu was deliciously tasty that I had two servings… OOOPSSSS!!! It was too good to stop at 1 slice. Our group usually side-track after a few drinks and did some funny things that not many will do… hahaahahahaha…

I am very happy that my last party of 2012 was a fantastic and memorable one. Thank you Theresa & Zen for the gathering; which make our 2nd last day of year 2012 such a fun one. We love you guys!!!

Post Boxing Day

It has been a tradition that I will open my pressies on Boxing Day instead of Christmas Day. Christmas Day is for us to remember and celebrate the birth of Jesus and I would prefer to spend time with friends and family.

On Boxing Day, I will make it a point to open up all the pressies and I believed that what Boxing Day came about. However, we were kind of late to open those pressies from friends & relatives. We were busy with work and somehow opening up the gifts was delayed.
Faith has quite a bit of unwrapping to do as she received many gifts from friends and family members. She is really blessed to be loved by many. I decided to allow her to open up some of her gifts today as she simply can’t wait any longer for she has been barking at me about her gifts in our study room.

Finally she gets to open some of her gifts and she is definitely excited. After taking out some of the gifts, she wanted to take a photo with them after arranging them nicely. She was really happy and started to choose her gifts to open. One by one she opened and she would give a big smile after she saw the gift.

She has certainly grown up as she can open those gifts on her own compared to 2 years back when we have to open for her and she wasn’t aware what was happening. I guess she will be telling me what gifts she wants in time to come…

Silent Night

Many years back, we used to attend midnight mass on Christmas Eve but we have stopped attending since the birth of Faith. Instead, we attend Christmas Day mass for midnight mass will be too tiring for both of us and little Faith. This year, hubby took leave and came to fetch me after work (half day) and we went marketing for tonight’s dinner after our lunch.

We decided to have some simple dinner at home as we wanted to dine outside initially but we assumed it will be overcrowded. I prepared dinner and since it is Christmas, I made western instead of Chinese cuisine. Starters were mushroom soup and salads. Mains will be pan fried salmon for mum and grilled chicken thigh for us. Faith had her dinner prepared by my mum but she did share my mashed potato and soup. We rounded up the dinner with a sliced of chocolate cake from Awfully Chocolate.

After dinner, we drove down Orchard Road to check out the Christmas lightings and driving pass town was really painful as there were so many cars and in actual fact, we were stuck in a jam instead of enjoying the lights. It was silly just to drive through Orchard Road but at least we fulfilled our promise to little Faith who wanted to see the Christmas lightings.

On our way back home, we stopped by at Selegie to buy our favourite beancurd which was somehow a consolation… super YUMS!

Christmas Party At Linda’s Place

We are honoured to be invited to Linda’s place for Christmas gathering and she kindly prepared loads of food for us. We certainly looked forward to parties after returning from Hong Kong though we are still missing the good food…

When we arrived at her cozy house, most of my friends were already there having fun. Kiddos were playing the dancing game and others were enjoying the food she prepared. As usual, Faith will start to yell every time we visit friends’ place. Guess she is afraid of unfamiliar places and worried that we will not bring her home… After she has warmed up, she was all over the house… from the hall to the room hanging out with the big sisters. While hubby was enjoying his game of mah-jong in one of the room, I hang out with my little cutie God-dotter Mizuki. Though I don’t get to see her often but she surely was a good girl… at least she did not cry when I carried her… *winks*

We were surprised that we spent quite long hours at Leng’s place just by chatting and assisting the kiddos on their games. It was really fun to chill and catch up.

Thank you Leng for having us at your place… it was great fun!

Goodbye Hong Kong & Hello Home

We left our hotel early this morning for airport and when we arrived; it took us about 20 minutes to check ourselves in as the flight back to Singapore was pretty crowded. Thank God our travel agent checked us in on our behalf.

Before immigration, I made a quick stop at Kei Hwa to get some cookies for Faith’s teachers and friends as souvenirs which I believed I left out. I wished I had more hands and help as I wanted to get so many delicious cookies but I limited myself. Anyway, after immigration, I went straight to get a seat so that we can have our light meals before boarding the plane. To my surprise, I saw this familiar face at the table I was eyeing and she politely smiled and told me they are leaving. I immediately realized that she is Koi Meng Fai, one of TVB actress & well-known opera singer in HKG. I watched some of her dramas (even my mum knows her!). I asked her politely if I can have a picture with and she smiled and replied ‘of course, why not!’ I would say I was lucky to bump into 2 TVB artistes during this trip and managed to get a photo with one of them.

While waiting to board the plane, Faith was excited to see the planes at the viewing gallery. She instructed me to take pictures for her with the planes and of course, I gladly obliged!

Our journey back to SIN was a smooth one and all of us were so tired especially Faith who slept through almost the whole flight and missed her meals… I reminded the steward when Faith woke up and he served her meals about 30 minutes before landing… Faith preferred milk than the child’s meal and I had to finish up her ice-cream… *winks* There was a drastic difference of weather temperature between HKG and SIN. We were feeling so comfortable with the chilling weather and Singapore was so HOT and HUMID! Wish we have winter in Singapore too...

Day 7 In Hong Kong

Our wonderful winter holiday in Hong Kong is almost coming to an end and we are certainly quite sad return home… Hubby & I agreed to make this last full day a fruitful and should be well spent one.
We set off early this morning to have our dim sum at Cheers Restaurant as it has become one of our favourite restaurants. The dim sums served in this restaurant are really delicious and varieties are wide. We were happy to know that they even have sets for dim sums. Fantastic!

Hubby ordered the usual but added the steamed pork knuckles to try as parents in law like the dish which is not available in SIN. I did not try that dish but father in law mentioned that it was really tasty and wished restaurants in SIN will serve in future.

After our delicious breakfast, we went to check out Sham Shui Po. This is one place where the elderly would enjoy visiting. There are many shops that sell second hand electronic stuff and you can see many street stalls that sell different stuff… from fishing gears to army bags. We took our time to stroll the street and their street market.

Parents got excited when we reached their street market. They checked out their vegetables and started commenting how fresh their vegetables were. Actually, they wanted to buy some lotus, pumpkins and cabbages back to SIN but we stopped them of course! They even checked the price at the fresh meat and fish stalls and found out how cheap they were compared to SIN. Finally, they bought some cherries and oranges as they said they were so cheap and looking so good. We couldn’t stop them as they said fruits can be kept and they want to share them with our family back home.
After combing Sham Shui Po, we went to Temple Street for lunch. We brought them to Mido Café which is one of the oldest café and the first to introduce ‘Kar Wai’. I remembered back to in 2009 when I was pregnant, we came here for our tea and I ordered their baked pork chop rice and ice milk tea which left me with a good memory.

This time, we are back again with our little Faith. We ordered their fried rice, sliced fish soup noodle, fried soya sauce noodle, pork rib soup noodle and their toast. I simply enjoyed their milk tea… it was so smooth and tasty… even Gong Cha or Koi no fight!

After a tiring afternoon, we went back to hotel to pack our stuff since we will be leaving tomorrow. I certainly had many packing to do and so does our parents. While packing, I realized that most of the stuff I bought was for Faith and family members back home while only a few pieces for myself… not too bad actually compared to the past where I bought tons of stuff for myself… Our parents prefers steamboat for dinner once again as they simply enjoyed the good and fresh food and we took the opportunity to celebrate ‘Dong Ji’. We are back at Cheers Restaurant again and this time, we ordered different dishes for our steamboat. We totally enjoyed the fried fish skin which used to be my favourite for steamboat in HKG. Their wantons, fish and squid were so fresh that they tasted sweet even without dipping into their sauce. Little Faith enjoyed the instant noodles we cooked from the pot as the soup base was delicious. Parents enjoyed their free flow of desserts too... from sesame cream to mango puddings. I will miss these foods when we return to SIN!

Back to hotel, I continued my packing and prepared to return to Singapore tomorrow morning. The thought of going home was not excited at all but I know that we will be back to HKG in the near future. I would say this trip was very relaxing and we had our own time to walk, shop and eat… wonderful fun for family!