Category: Everything Else

All observations and opinions

Everything Else

Pee is sterile, right?

yannisms

So. I usually shower with the kid during weekdays. Just so I can save some time. (If you are all judgy, go away. NAO.) I’d plonk him in his bath, he would entertain himself with his bath toys while I wash my hair. Win-win.

Recently, he’s taken to lounging in his bath. I kid you not. He would shuffle his tiny bum to the perfect spot where his legs can stretch out comfortably and his head can lean back onto the tub.

And then he would give me this HEY MA, I’M SO CHILLING HERE look. That expression is priceless, I tell you.

Clearly, this kid is MINE. I love tubs. I love soaking in super hot tubs when we go on holiday and the little man must have retained the image of me relaxing in the tub when we were in Penang.

Because he is doing the exact same thing as I always do.

Anyway, there he was, chilling in the tub while I was shampooing my hair. I turned to keep my eye on him and was laughing to myself at the way he was all stretched out when I saw IT.

The perfect golden arc of pee.

It rose magnificently into the air before curving down. BACK INTO THE DAMN TUB!

Meanwhile, the kid was observing this sight with an amazed, OH MY DID YOU SEE THAT? look on his face. He was bathing in pee water and he had NO CLUE. In fact, he looked positively gleeful.

I did what any mother would have done. Shouted AIDAN!, fished him and his gazillion bath toys out of the tub and then rinsed clean water over them. He was a bit upset – and rightly so – and kept knocking on the tub, saying DIS! DIS! but there was no way I was going to put him back in.

And then I wondered, holy crap, how many times has he peed in the tub without me noticing?

After I related the story to husband, he said, “Well, it’s a good thing I always rinse him after taking him out of the tub.”

Err. What?

He looked at me incredulously, and said, “You do that, don’t you?”

I justified my actions (or the lack of) with the reason that pee is sterile.

Until I googled and realised that pee, for crying out loud, is NOT BLOODY STERILE.

Somebody hand me that Mum of The Year award?

Everything Else

Chasing the sun

yannisms

Over the weekend, we went chasing after the sunset.

It was a very impromptu affair. We were on our way home after celebrating a dear friend’s birthday and the birth of his daughter, when I saw that the sun was hanging gloriously low in the sky. Told Mr Thick to drive to an empty field near our house so that we could enjoy the sight of the setting sun when he one-upped me by taking us to the reservoir instead.

Armed with our packed dinners, two canned drinks and a picnic mat that’s always left in the car, we parked ourselves by the waterfront and enjoyed this spectacular view.

All throughout dinner, I kept repeating to husband, “Wow. Amazing. So beautiful.” And it WAS AMAZING! I don’t know how to explain the feeling or the sight. It felt like a miracle, being able to see the setting sun and catching the changing colours of the sky. When the clouds lit up and turned fiery red, it was almost as if my heart had stopped and I was gasping for breath. I felt like I was so close to the edge of the horizon and yet so far at the same time. The feeling is indescribable and the view was simply incredible. Absolutely incredible.

It reminded me of the Omni-Theatre and the movies that we used to watch there during our primary school days. I loved the Omni-Theatre! Anyone remember watching the volcano movie “Ring of Fire” there?

I have a feeling we will be having more picnics at that park. How lovely, lovely!

Everything Else, Photography

Gardens by the Bay

yannisms

This week being my last week of maternity leave, I was keen to do something with my mama before I head back to work. Coincidentally, she was ‘on leave’ from her full-time job as caregiver to my nephew since the sista and her family are currently holidaying in Melbourne. My mom loves all things flora and requested to check out the newly opened Bay South Garden of the Gardens by the Bay so off we went on Tuesday afternoon.

It being a weekday, the garden was thankfully free from crowds. This meant that we could stroll at leisure and take our own sweet time in taking pictures (and plenty of parking lots for me!). Since I was carting the little man around with me, we decided to skip the paid conservatories and just focus on the exterior gardens.

The rain in the morning made the weather blissfully perfect for strolling outdoors. It wasn’t humid but was cool and sunny. Which was fabulous because towards the end, Mr A needed to nap and he would not do so in the stroller, which meant he had to go into the Boba baby wrap.

As a new mother, I very much appreciated the availability of nursing rooms littered around the grounds. Plus, the architects had incorporated lifts and wide, gentle slopes into the design, which meant that it was very wheelchair- and stroller-friendly. I could pop Aidan into our monster of a stroller – the UppaBaby Vista – and still have an easy time maneuvering it.

I loved, loved, loved the open space and it was like a piece of serenity in the middle of our bustling city-state. The gardens is a gorgeous, carefully designed piece of art and the view was, of course, spectacular. We enjoyed exploring the grounds and finding different angles to the same sight. And when we were tired, there were benches thoughtfully placed on the grounds for us to rest our aching feet.

After dinner, we were treated to a delightful light show at the Supertree Grove. Unfortunately, because it was way past the little man’s bedtime, we left before it concluded.

All in all, it was a wonderful day spent with my mama. The only thing that marred the experience was a terrible tea break at the Hill Street Coffee Shop. We got there slightly after 4:30pm hoping to get a cup of tea and some toast to fill our tummies but was told that the kitchen had stopped serving bread at 4:30pm since the bread menu was only meant for breakfast. HUH. The only food available were heavy (and overpriced) items like rice and noodles. Worse, my iced teh-si was watered down and bland and cost me a princely $2.20. What kind of lousy coffee shop is this? AVOID.

(More photos here.)

Everything Else

Last year’s Christmas eve…

yannisms

We had some friends over for dinner and I put together a mis-matched meal for five.

I’m not terribly creative when it comes to table settings and you can so see it! The colours don’t go, nothing matches but ah well, it’s charming in its own quirky way.

And those drinking glasses – I LOVE LOVE LOVE them. My godparents used to run the snack/drinks bar at The Cathay before its current incarnation when I was a wee kid and my mom worked for them. I used to spend my Saturdays at the stall, scratching lucky draw cards and getting snuck into the cinema for a free movie.

In fact, the very first movie that I can remember watching on the big screen was The Fly, which SCARED THE SHIT OUTTA ME. The visuals of the protagonist metamorphosing into the fly was seared in my memory for the longest time.

Anyway, back to the glasses. When the owners of The Cathay decided to close the cinema, my godparents had no choice but to wind up the business and these glasses are what remained of the stall. Last year, I decided that they would belong to me and my mom was all too happy to pass them on. SCORE!

Everything Else

Groupon grouses

yannisms

My end of year holiday plans are in disarray and I am Not. Happy.

Between the constraints of the new job and my state of pregnancy, the only window of opportunity that Mr Thick and I have to go on a holiday together is during the Christmas period. We can’t fly too far out because of the nugget and I didn’t want to stress my heavily pregnant self on the long-haul flight. We narrowed our options down to Tokyo and Hong Kong and thought that luck was on our side when we spotted the Tokyo travel deal on Groupon.

Before we booked, however, we did our due dilligence. We called up HIS, the travel agency, and checked that there were flights on the dates that we were looking at. We ensured that the blackout dates did not fall on our preferred dates and that there were no additional surcharge aside for the airport taxes (excluded from the price of the deal). And then we bought the vouchers. And on that same Friday, we emailed HIS with our details.

We didn’t hear back from them until a week and a reminder email later. And to our dismay, the travel agent told us that there were no SIA flights available on the dates that we had in mind and that if we wanted to, we could top up an additional $690 to fly on ANA.

Now that pissed me off. I had already paid an extra $200 per pax for the vouchers to travel on SIA instead of JAL and now I was supposed to fork out another $690 to move to ANA? It doesn’t make sense. Plus, I had checked the SIA website and there were flights available on our dates. When we called HIS prior to making the booking, nobody mentioned that there would be any additional costs to travelling during the festive period. I highlighted all these in my reply and asked the travel agency to please work with me on this as we only had this tiny period of time to travel.

Their reply to me was absolutely hogwash:

True, there were no black out dates on SIA on the period you want to travel, however seats are based on availability.

This is under SIA promotional seats and during the peak period, these seats are not available already.

The seats you saw from the SIA website would have been based on normal fare. however it should be based on very much higher fare.The special SQ fare for this promotion is based on $380 fare. If you wish to get your airfare by yourselves, we could always deduct this $380 from your base fare and we will book the hotels for you.

I opted for a refund instead and sent a note to Groupon yesterday, who has yet to reply to me.

So yeah, I am mad. It’s not even about whether the deal is too good to be true or not. There’s misleading information and false advertising involved, and now we are scrambling to get our plans in order. We had read and reread the terms and conditions carefully to ensure that we had covered all possible loopholes, we even called up HIS for clarification and still this happened.

Note to self: trust Groupon only with low-price items. Urghs.

Everything Else

Capture the Everyday: Feet

yannisms
Capture the Everyday from Adventuroo

Capture the Everyday is about getting you to capture those everyday moments in your life! Each Thursday, Mel from Adventuroo issue a simple challenge to capture something that’s a part of your daily life. You can post just a picture or add some words to go along with it. You’ll have a week to get it done and then she’ll issue another. It’s a quick, easy way to start capturing those little parts of life we sometimes take for granted.

This week’s assignment: Feet

There’s nothing better than a pair of tiny pink feet of babies. These little feetses are oh so cute and oh so dainty, and it reminds you of the fact that one day, these tootsies won’t be so tiny anymore.

I may not have a bub of my own but I certainly have one that I can borrow. In this picture, my nephew Rai is all of 10 weeks old and sleeping in his stroller. I love that little tyke.

Teeny tiny feet

But! Although I don’t have a human baby, I do have two feline ones whom I love as much as I would my human baby. I love Emi’s little feet-paws because of the adorable pink padding on the underfoot.

Pink padding

Everything Else

Capture the Everyday: Summer food

yannisms
Capture the Everyday from Adventuroo

 

Capture the Everyday is about getting you to capture those everyday moments in your life! Each Thursday, Mel from Adventuroo will issue a simple challenge to capture something that’s a part of your daily life. It’s a quick, easy way to start capturing those little parts of life we sometimes take for granted.

This week’s assignment: Summer food

This little red dot that I am living on sits snugly near the equator so everyday is a Summer day for me. And what better to quench the summer heat than to indulge in a ice-cold drink?

Lemonade it is!

Lemonade

Nothing feels quite as awesome as a refreshing cold drink sliding down your throat on a scorching day. Which, in Singapore, is practically everyday. Gah.

I had quite a bit of pain making this jug of lemonade for a picnic with the friends because I don’t have a juicer and was manually squeezing the juice out of those pesky lemons. I think there were seven of them altogether and my hands went sort of numb.

Needless to say, I stopped making lemonade for a while.

Okay, so it’s not quite a summer food but I daresay it counts. Heh.

Everything Else

Capture the Everyday: Celebrating Freedom

yannisms

I have always enjoyed the Capture the Everyday series on Lady J’s blog and thought I’d jump in as well. It’d be a nice repository of memories and moments. If anything, it may very well force me to take more photos, which is always a good thing!

 

Capture the Everyday from Adventuroo

Capture the Everyday is about getting you to capture those everyday moments in your life! Each Thursday, Mel from Adventuroo will issue a simple challenge to capture something that’s a part of your daily life. It’s a quick, easy way to start capturing those little parts of life we sometimes take for granted.

 

This week’s assignment: Celebrating freedom

I come from a pretty traditional Chinese family, where the Self often comes second to the Family or the Society. It’s rather Confucian in that sense, which is hardly surprising given that I live in Singapore.

When I got married and moved out of my Mom’s flat and into our own, I felt a certain sense of liberation. Oh, it’s not that I didn’t love my Mommy or that living with her was a pain. Having Mommy around definitely had its perks: breakfast was lovingly prepared every morning, dinner was kept warm for me after work, I always had freshly laundered clothes. But moving out made me a more responsible adult and suddenly, I could do things that I couldn’t do in my mama’s house.

Such as cook. Bake. Play music and dance in the living room. Walk around in my underpants. Buy clothes and shoes without sneaking around. Enjoy a glass of wine in solitude. Put up a Christmas tree. Adopt two crazy funny cats.

So yes, everything that I do today which I never did before is a little celebration of the freedom that I got from moving out and growing into my own person.

Our estate, all lit up in the evening
Our first Christmas tree
Had a glass of my favourite Moscato on a sunny Sunday on the balcony
Everything Else

Vote for me!

yannisms

A little shameless ad here: I’ve sent in my entry for the HP Me and My City contest because…well, I get a chance to win a trip to New York City.

So if you could just pop over the site and vote for my entry, I would be super grateful! You’d need to sign up though (BUGGER) and my entry is currently on page 4 of the gallery.

And well, I didn’t put up any sexy pictures of my friends and I partying as many other contestants did. Mine is a moody night shot of Haji Lane. I’m sorry, I know that’s such a dampener but seriously, you wouldn’t want to see me in sexy outfits.

Thank you very much in advance!
(Sending lots of hugs and kisses your way)

Everything Else

Well, f-you too

yannisms

I am usually not so vulgar and un-classy on the blog (in real life, now that’s another story altogether) but today was just such a dreadful day. When 6pm arrived, I zipped up my bags, shut down that useless piece of crap my company calls a laptop and dashed out of the office without a second glance.

And when the day is bad, what do you do? Why, find a song that sums up everything you are feeling and Keep. Singing. It.

This song is for all the bad Mondays you have had and you will have in the future. Peace out.