Come and Hear Me Sing Karaoke!

We went to a karaoke session cum birthday celebration organised by MW's ex-colleague today.

This is the first time we brought ZY to a karaoke lounge. Before we reached there, MW had already forewarned ZY that we were going to a place whereby there were very loud music. She gingerly said that she 怕怕, but we told her that there was going to a birthday party and she happily agreed to go. :)

We reached Party World KTV @ Clarke Quay at about 4p.m. and I'm surprised to see that the place is very family friendly with brightly lit hallways and very clean VIP rooms and toilets. Maybe because it is a new branch, the room does not smelled of any cigarette smoke and ZY was very comfortable in it. This little girl even managed to make her debut in a Karaoke lounge! I've picked some children's songs that ZY is familiar with and she has no problem singing and dancing in front of all the uncles and aunties, gor gor and jie jie! Below is a short clip of ZY singing, with daddy and mummy as the backup singers. ^_^



Some more pics taken in the KTV...






Too bad ZY is the only kid in the group to sing as the other kids are just too shy. She sat through the whole 2.5hrs and happily announced that she wanted to come back to sing Karaoke again!

CATS "Now and Forever"

MW, my brother and I went to see CATS the musical yesterday at the Esplanade.

It was full house yesterday and we spent a memorable 2.5 hrs in the brilliant songs and dance performance. I especially loves the poignant hit song "Memory" sang by Delia Hannah as "Grizabella The Glamour Cat”. I also loves the "rock and roll" cat which i am not sure what's its name..he looks and sang just like the America hard rock band Aerosmith, lead singer Steven Tylor!!

During the show, the audiences are frequently surprised by the casts as they will mingle with the audiences by getting down the stage and purring and playing at the aisles! During the intermission, we have the opportunities to get face-to-face to the performers as some of the 'playful' cats came down and played with the audiences! Too bad I did not get any pictures with them as these 'cats' are simply too sly and playful ;) However, I still managed to take video of them and the above collage is screen print from the video. ^^



Overall, this is quite nice show but compared to all those previous musicals that I've seen so far, I still prefer Phantom of the Opera and The Sound of Music. ^_^

"Homemade" Yong Tau Foo

Ok, I confessed, this Yong Tau Foo is not exactly homemade. Only the chicken & vegetable soup stock is made by me as I've bought the ready-made Yong Tau Foo pieces at the nearby wet market. :)

I'm ashamed to say that being a 'true-breed' Hakka (both my parents are Hakkas), I'm just too lazy to really handmade Yong Tau Foo at home like what my mum does. The tedious process of mincing the onion, toasting the dried fish, mixing them with fish paste and minced pork, and then putting the mixture individually into tau kwa, tau pok, brinjal, fresh chilies, bitter gourd (that has been washed and pre-cut with silt) are just too much for me. And it does not end here as the traditional Hakka Yong Tau Foo needed to be fried with oil and then served with a sauce that is made with garlic, onion and oyster sauce!

Yes, my mum has to go through all these just to serve us this yummlicious dish. It takes her like half a day just to prepare the items and then another hour or so to fry them up!!

Anyway, its just too time consuming and economically unwise to prepare the traditional Hakka Yong Tau Foo for just the 3 of us. (excuses, excuses, excuses..)^^

So, I've cook up this easy-way-out concoction whereby it's super easy to make, yet it is still full of nutrients as I've put in lots of 'good stuffs' into making the soup!



How do I know it's delicious?

MW will always try his best to come home earlier than usual if I'm making Yong Tau Foo that night! As the saying goes, "要抓住男人的心,就要抓住他的胃"!

A Day @ Causeway Point

We went to Causeway point this morning as I wanted to borrow some VCD/DVD at the Woodlands Regional Library. I've got a free one year premium membership and has yet to fully utilized it as we usually goes to Sembawang Library which does not carry any VCD/DVD. However, Woodlands Regional Library, being such a HUGE branch has a very pathetic range of Audio/Video. I only managed to borrow a VCD of Nursery Songs for ZY and a DVD named "The French Chef with Julia Child". I'm interested to know more about Julia Child as I've recently read a novel whereby the author of the novel Julie Powell embarked on a year long project to complete all the 524 recipes in Julia Child's legendary cookbook, Mastering the Arts of French Cooking. I just loved novels that includes love, cooking, family and friendship all in one! ^^

I'm also contemplating on embarking on such a project myself... will blog about it if I finally decided to do so. ^v^

We also had our lunch at Jack's Place and ZY has had her first kid's meal today! ZY will usually share my food when we dined out but since we were super hungry today, we ordered a kid's meal especially for her. See how happy this little girl was with her Fish n' Chips, er... ok, I confessed, she was far more interested in her chips than her fish, which she only managed to finish half of it. And as expected, she loves the sweet corn and zucchini. :D


She also loved her scoop of velvety chocolate ice-cream and will have no problem finishing the whole thing if mummy did not steal some from her. Hehehe.. no doubt this girl has inherited her mummy's love of chocolate!

The Evil Influenza Bugs

ZY has been down with running nose since Good Friday and after giving her some flu medicine, her condition still did not improve. I brought her to the doctor yesterday and he diagnosed that ZY is having the more serious influenza rather than common cold. I guess she has gotten the bugs in her playgroup as quite a number of kids are down with flu last week. The teacher told me that ZY kept on hugging a girl who was having flu last Thursday, and even though the teacher had repeatedly told ZY to stay away from this girl, ZY refused to listen. =_= (guess all the breast milk that ZY had drank and is still drinking, to boost up her immune system, is somehow not working...hiaz)

In addition, ZY is also having slight fever and cough. Her cough will get worst at night and plus the running nose, she has had a hard time getting to sleep. Since she has a tendency to vomit when she was coughing at night (according to the doc, its b'cos she is trying to cough out the phlegm), I have to be on guard with a plastic bag nearby just in case. Hence, I also have a restless night and is now having body ache.

Despite having used up almost a whole box of 200 sheets Kleenex, ZY still wanted to go to her playgroup! She must have missed her favourite Chinese teacher, 陳老師 and her schoolmates. She even weep when I told her that she was not going to school yesterday!

Anyway, the doctor said that she will need to rest for at least a few days and hopefully the medicines will be effective and this little girl can go back to school again.

Bird...No! It's Bert!!

Hehehe..ZY requested to do painting today and when I asked her what she wanted to draw, she said "Bird". While I'm preparing all the paints and brushes, I saw ZY holding her favourite Sesame Street Thesaurus Book. It was then that I realized she wanted to draw Bert not Bird! ^_^

So I quickly drew the outline of Bert and ZY painted it. I will opened the book and asked ZY to refer to the book to colour accordingly.

 

ZY also cut some black craft paper and pasted it onto the paper as Bert's hair and crumbled some more for Bert's eyebrow.

 

This is the end result. Not bad at all ^v^

 

妈妈的味道

I love to eat "mee tai mak" or some will call it 老鼠粉.

During my childhood time, my mum likes to stir-fry the mee tai mak with some meat, fish cake and vegetable. Very simple, you may say, but it taste fantastic :P
I love the fragrance of the slightly fatty pork belly together with the garlic and dark soy sauce. Accompanied by some chili padi, its so sedap ^_^

Unfortunately, MW on the other hand, hated mee tai mak as he associated it with illness. This is because my mother-in-law used to cook mee tai mak in soup for him whenever he was sick.

Thus, I'm never able to cook stir-fry mee tai mak at home as MW will definitely complained that I'm 'torturing' him. So, being a good wife, I will usually ask my mum to cook this dish for me instead if I have a craving for it :)

Opportunity however arising on last Friday when MW needed to stay up late in his office. I quickly went to the nearby wet market and bought the ingredients for this dish. This is the first time that I am cooking this dish by myself so I've called my mum to double check on the seasoning that she used.

Here how's the dish look like. It taste ok, I guess.

But it just lack a certain taste. A unique taste that only my mum is able to create. I think that's what we called 妈妈的味道.

A Fun Day @ Singapore Science Centre cum Witnessing the Hatching of a Chick!

MW took leave today as he needed to queue up for ZY's next year Nursery registration. Will blog about this next time.

Anyway, since he took leave, we decided to go to the Singapore Science Centre today. Once we reached the centre, we quickly had our lunch at McDonald and eagarly exlored the place. The centre was totally different from the time I've visited donkey years ago (I think its during my Sec sch time!). What a great improvement!

 

There are alot of exhibits that allow kids to touch and feel. The hands on experience is great! Both ZY and MW had a great time walking all over the place while poor me had to push the stroller (we intend to let ZY nap on it) while taking photos at the same time =_="

 

Anyone care to have a plate of fruits AND a little girl? ^^

 

ZY having fun doodling at the screen and also sitting on the "Toilet Bowl cum Weighing Machine". While you sit on the machine, it is able to measure your BMI for u.

 

The Discovery Zone also has an area where we can witness the hatching of little chicks. We were so excited to be able to see one chick breaking out of its shell right infront of our eyes!!! Watch the video below!

 

Can you see ZY's image of this digital screen?

 

Some others interesting exhibits...

 

 

The centre also has a waterplay area called the Waterworks. You can see quite a number of water related science exhibits here like how to create your own rainbow! ZY has lots of fun throwing the balls into the tunnel of water. She kept on throwing and throwing the balls just like a Durecell rabbit :D

 

 

Overall this is a very ineresting place to bring a kid along, however we will definitely choose to come on a weekend in the future as there were groups and groups of Primary school students visiting the centre yesterday and the place looks and sound like a school canteen during recess time! They were shouting and running all over the place and we were not able to really enjoy the place while they were there #_# OMG