Wedding blog to share interesting ideas I have found.

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Merry Xmas 2009!

This year's Xmas celebration is much more special then the ones i had before with woodblock. Usually as a person who loves to save up, I always prefer to cook at home with woodblock so that I can control the budget and yet socked myself up for the day with the xmas mood in the supermarket and kitchen!

As Hongxian is still overseas for Xmas, I thought why not invite Mei--de-beauty and the rest of the other princesses over. Unfortunately Snowy Xuan was occupied so she wasnt able to join in the fun. But i promise there will be more of such wonderful session since we really enjoyed bitching around in the kitchen.

So around 1:00 pm on xmas eve, i met up with Mei-de-beauty first to buy all the grocery. This yr, we are all assigned with 1 out of the 3 course meal.

1) Appetiser (Mei de beauty cooks for Hongderella)
2) Main (Hongderella cooks for Princess Christine)
3) Dessert (Princess Christine cooks for Mei de beauty)

Of cos we did improvise a little to add on more, so there was 2 more sides + cocktail! Of cos w are to asked what the person we are cooking for likes so as to let us find out all the little eating habits we might have miss out on our good friends.


I luv shopping with a trolley lol ! What I din tell Mei-de-beauty was that i always deliberately try to keep a dollar coin in the wallet for this purpose.

Mei-de-beauty is always very serious and detailed in everything she does. We are like in opposite world while shopping. While she kept a list and kept ticking them off when we managed to get the things off the shelves i resisted the idea. She kept insisting that I do until i almost want to faint because I told her there was ONLY 3 items on my list and I can rem !!!

HOngderella soon join u shortly after we bought the groceries and we all headed to my house for cooking.

So here's the menu:
1) Appetiser => Shrimp Deviled Eggs (So chim until both me and Mei de beauty went "HUH???" when Hongderella said what she wans to eat. Basically in my terms, it is just Egg topped with Shrimp salad mixed)
2) Main => I have no idea what is the name but basically it was some exotic dish with Coconut cream plus Salmon plus lots of butter. strangely it taste good after we had a whole noon (ok mainly from me) of "eek!!!" , "eewww" , "what's this?!?!?" lol
3) Dessert - waffle / choc fudge cake with cookies and cream ice cream topping (ok basically it was a very difficult dish so i bought ready mix since i found many ingredients in the recipe not sold in ntuc =( ( i promise i will do a better job next yr)



Mei de beauty started the drum rolling washing and chopping while i was actually slacking away considering there wasnt much to do from my part lol. I cant tell you how much this xmas cookin is the most relaxing one for me esp with so many pple cooking and washing up!

Soon all of us started our engine and was occupied with our own dishes.


This is actually the sauce for the mains, I thought it was some soup and almost fainted when Hongderella told me it is just butter and come coconut cream. (now you know why housewife dont eat much after seeing and witnessing all the cooking process lol. all i know is that the salmon is going to drown in butter and die a second time again!!! )

Some interesting cooking i learnt about roasting garlic for mash potato, i will try out this some day on my own.
As promise, the salmon did drown in the sea of butter and was put into the fridge for some marination time.




This is actually the first time i ever seen Dillweed and surprisingly enough it is sold in ntuc *lucky*


Lime juice for the appetiser and cocktail




All ready for making the Shrimp salad mix topping!

You can tell how much she loves cooking esp when she doesnt have much opportunity to cook.

I was really laughing out LOUD suddenly when I went to see what was in the pot when i thought everything that was needed to be boiled was cooked. Hongderella was like really surprised when she saw me laughing crazily and asked me what the hecked was i laughing about
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Mei de beauty was boiling the egg whites! She felt that the egg whites were too soft and want a serious and mean "HARD" boiled egg whites. Even though her explaination was sound but by then nobody was listening much and all were laughing away like nuts.

In the meanwhile, Hongderella prepped some killer mash potato to filled us up in case the Salmon was not filling.


I was pretty Kiasu too and thought about the same thought and went to prepped my Princess Christine's homemade burger patty!

I cant tell you how slowly i was mixing the choc cake mixed becos there was so much freaking time and i soon got tired and just sat on the floor to finish up the job.


The cake was not much of a success since i m an idiot with cake baking. Hongderella was the expert with desserts so she told me i was indeed an idiot for not even using the right tin size as specified on the box. SO we ended up with a crazily thick cake and we have to chop off the top part which is harder.

I was pretty evil, treacherous, CREATIVE *ahem* as usual, I suggested adding one more dessert dish to the table. So i asked hongderella (the culprit) to cut the chopped off part of the cake into rectangulars and I proudly announced them as "BROWNIES" (well at the least the boys believe and thought so too when they were eating happily). They were praising how much effort we put into and even have 2 types of dessert for them lol!


A very happy xmas and sumptous xmas dinner as exclaimed by the boys since they did zero cooking! We even prepped a very yummy cocktail by mixing some cranberry juice, lime juice and gin together! I think i will make more cocktails next time for subsequent parties like this!

To keep us occupied, I played a movie on my notebook by the table. This is one of the shows that i highly recommend pple to watch may it be alone or in groups!

This movie is crazily hilarious and it was so good that all of them was like almost late for their next appointment because they couldnt bear to leave the dining table and was SUPER glued to the movie.

ermmm.... (^.^!) pls dont asked me where I get the movie from =P It's very "Legal".

The following day, it was a second league for another xmas party and this time round it is with my family! Now i know for those non christian family out there, you might seldom hold xmas party with your family, but for my family, we will always come up with some excuse for some little parties here n there and usually it is FULL ATTENDANCE!!!

WHY??? Cos it is always filled with FUN, FOOD and Laughter + prizes! Everytime we have a small party like this, our aunts or the organisers(may it be my cousin or my bro) will think of some games for the families both young n old to play with.

Now many friends who have seen me always thought i am kinda crazy, loud and definitely noisy.

Well if you ever visited my house, you will be superbly amuse by how mild my character is, cos everyone is EQUALLY noisy and MORE dramatic in terms of action then me.

If you just hear our noise alone, you might thought u are in some camps with pple playing cos we are just easily excited and ROWDY in noise!!!

This party, my sec bro, Raymond decided that we should get to know our roots more and prepped like a stack of 40 plus info on Heng Hua pple.


As expected, we are just a group pple who is excited to win vouchers and presents so when they annouced that they want to tell us the story of Heng Hua pple before starting the quiz, WE ALL JEERED (told you we are definitely rowdy) like mad.

To make things more fun for us, instead of getting the most "有墨水" person to read and summarize the key points of the story for us, we decided to get my cousin who speaks like an ah beng to read for us.


I was very glad that he was very sporting because....
as what we had imagined (before deliberately sabohing him to read), he read the story his own style and we were all laughing like mad!! So when the story was about how a king was upthrone he said something like this "总之那个皇帝输了,所以就叫他回家睡觉". Totally off the story line but surprisingly all of us can understand his ah beng version of the story.

Everyone was entertained by the amusing Ah beng reading style version of the story.

Aunt grace was super sly, after listening the whole chunk of the story, they asked the super out of the story question. In the end all the winners are the old folks loh (cos they are the generation who is the more well learned in terms of chinese lit etc in the family)!

One of the question involve my granny saying a phrase in heng hua and we are to guess what she is saying.

In the end, my da gu won (super play cheat leh, how can dey asked this kind of sure win question for their generation only???)

My uncle was another proud winner of the next quiz question. my family loves to show our achievement and seriously they automatically pose whenever they win prizes and asked pple to snap for them. When will it be my turn?!?!?!? I want an NTUC voucher too!

For those pple like me (i mean my generation), the good thing is that the elderly understand how poor our chinese lit is and they plan some idiot proof games for us (finally!!!)

BINGO!!

We were randomly assigned bingo cards and soon everyone was attentively sitting there like some hungry tigers and wolves!


Even my granny joins in (you see how practical we are and we cannot succumb to the temptation of just the mere NTUC vouchers both young and old)


Cousin Pearlyn was the I/C for generating the numbers!

I was eager to fill up my bingo card!

My hearty uncle is always full of energy. I love his personality very much, he is so good with his little jokes and funny speeches, he never fail to brighten up the the atmostphere in his own way!

Aunt Grace announcing each BINGO number as they are generated. We love playing games very much and always believe that whoever is chairing the game must always be standing in proper full view of everyone.

My cousin, Xinting was so excited she sat right in front of the rolling bingo balls and sure enough she was the first winner!

If you ever have the chance to play with my family, remember we show no mercy when it comes to vouchers etc cos the minute someone shouted a BOGUS BINGO for fun, you should know the rest of our SYNCHRONISE telepathy reaction:

"诈湖!!!!OUT!!!! Yay we have one less competitor!!!"

Yes, we are a bunch of serious GAMERs.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Genting Wonderland!

Happy Xmas Eve everyone! I hope you will be having a great time today and I am already looking forward to a good grocery shoppping time with Mei-de-beauty and Hongderella this noon before we are going cook together to have a nice xmas meal!

As usual I would like to share about my recent trip to Genting as it was definitely an eye opener for pple who have visited Genting umpteen times like I do.

Unknown to many, Genting is one of my compulsory travelling destination since a few yrs ago. WHY?
1) I like to travel more than once a yr to feel that i have been to holiday
2) Genting is light on our pocket as the costing to stay in first world hotel is very low.
3) Even though first world hotel is suppose not to be a ATAS or a hotel as good as the other hotels available there due to its cheap costing, I felt that the accomodation is not bad in terms of bed and the hot water bathing facility. BUT the best part i like is how freakingly comphrehensive the hotel's shopping mall was and how it is design to self sustain an all yr festive season feeling in the huge mall like a mini disneyland. So now the bucks becomes super duper worth the $$$
4) For pple who dont have money to visit super duper faraway cold countries which appears romantically misty, genting offers such romantic atmostphere once u step out of the hotel!

So this yr, I invited Mei de beauty and Hongxian to join me and woodblock for the trip for a whole new chemistry=) We took the grassland coach from golden mile and I must say we do like the comfy seats! The only set back was without the upgrade, grassland's coach do not provide any personal tv at all but well it's nothing when u have good company =)

Day 01

I like the 2nd tv which happens to be near our seats at the back, makes it easier and clearer for watching.

The boys were both getting super comfy in their own seats and enjoy the serenity and peace away from us girls.
Love sitting with Mei de beauty! She can chat with you throughout the whole trip without dozing off like stupid woodblock.
See how much the boys ARE really enjoying the moment for themself.

We soon stop over at a check point for food and loo. And guess what?
I saw my fav long lost food from amk market!!!!


KAYA BALLS!!! Super yummy! ANyone can tell me where is still selling it??? I miss it to nuts in Singapore!

The boys know how to fill up their yummy tummies with a good old nasi lemak.

After the nice filling breakfast, we headed back to the coach for a long journey to Genting. However, if you think this is a BORING LONG trip then you are wrong!!!! Don't believe it??? Asked the boy in front of me.


Can you see a small head in front? Anything strange??? How can a small person with a small head be sitting that tall????
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OMG!!! Are you trying to hit that kid in front of you????

Relax! I was trying to amuse him with my hand puppet that's all!
The kid in front is very adorable and I love playing with kids! So for the next few hours, we were playing "SILENT"(cos we din wan his parents to know about it) gun games, puppet, strange face peek-a-boo with him!

He got so excited he was laughin superb loudly on the bus and sometimes screaming in excitement!!! Even the little boy sitting at the back of us wanted to have a pie of fun and kept peeking from the back at what Princess Christine and Mei-de-beauty was up to. In the end, with so much screaming excitement, Mei-de-beauty was afraid that the little boy might end up having nightmares at night, so we harsh him down instead.

It wasnt soon after all the crazy fun and play, we reached genting!!! It was really exciting to see the coach being surrounded in a sea of mist. It seems strange but it is the first time that I see genting being surrounded by such a heavy mist compared to my prev trips.

Of cos we were hungry and quickly grabbed a meal while queuing for checking in.


Yummy claypot chicken rice

After checking in and a nice hot bath, we decided to go and purchase movie tickets to watch AVATAR which woodblock had been yearning to watch.

Soon after we headed for the other hotel....???


Hey where are you guys heading to?

Orhhh, they were trying to check out the timing of the bus to the temple. AHA you guys might not know like me that there is a temple right? Anyway even if you do know, I think most likely you wont be bothered to go cos it sounds stupid to visit a temple on a short holiday trip to genting. Dont worry I will show you soon enough why it is a MUST to go lol.


Woodblock looks more handsome in the mist cos i cant see him clearly.

It was so romantic in the heavy mist and cold chilling wind! It makes you wan to thug and snuggle into the arms of your partner!

Soon it was near dinner time and we went for a....

KTVing session! I din know about genting's ktv until hongxian recommended to us to visit it. One special thing about this ktv is that every single room is designed with lots of cartoons!!!! Hongxian said that the prev one he went to was a hello kitty theme but we got the hawaiin theme instead.

BUT WELL it is still super duper adorable lor!!



Woodblock and me started the drum rolling with one of our fav duet song!


It was soon Mei-de-beauty's turn shocase her singing talent.


I love this shot!

Now the reason why i like this ktv was never ever just becos of the deco! They also offer dinner too. I think it costs us about S$15 bucks/pax or so for the ktv plus dinner. I felt it was totally worth it!

Herbal Chicken Stew! Super yummy and must try!

Woodblock's Cheesy Chicken Cutlet.

Sometimes it is really amusing, if you notice on all pics, the way woodblock sing is unlike the 3 of us full of action and facial expression or etc

He sings with so much concentration that it felt like he was a Primary School Kid doing his first performance on stage. So focus, so expressionless and YET SO KAWAII!


Me indulge in my own romantic world as i listen to woodblock singing the usual love songs. It seems strange but when i m alone with woodblock i easily get touched and tear whenever he sings love songs for me. I guess it is the simple and focus way he sings it, which made me felt how he meant everyword he sings *heart meltz*

Mei de beauty and hongxian were having a jolly good time with sing duets too! lol It is so fun singing with an action packed couple! Not only they were singing with actions...

It is full of drama too!!!! Totally entertaining!
After the ktv session, it was getting late and we went a little crazy and decided to explore the misty streets!!!



It was even mistier den before and we went berserk for such a cheap thrill walk for it felt super duper exciting walking around hardly being able to see what is in front. It felt like walking on the streets of some exotic countries!

If you cant imagine how heavy the mist was and how cold it felt, here's a sample!

A drenched and distraught loooking woodblock with just only a 5 mins walk outside. It felt like he was drenched by some rain.

So we decided to warm ourselves up walking around indoor instead. While Mei-de-beauty went to hitch a ride on the ferris wheel with hongxian, woodblock and me went for a short shopping trip around.

Soon we met up...




It was still a tad early for us to turn in, so we decided to go pubbing!

Dont asked me why? BUT i dun understnad why parents will bring their child to a pub!?!? The kid was fully occupied in his own PSP but i felt it is a little rowdy environment for him to be with with the live band singing with a hell of a wild songs!


Love throwing peanuts on the table. Yes we are good royalties, so such little uncivilised acts will make me go excited too lol.

HOng xian enjoyin himself!

Cheers to the Princesses!

Day 02

It was an early rise and shine at 7am and we met up at 7:30 for a breakfast at first world cafe (free in the package). Den we retired back to our hotel rooms for a hot bath before meeting up again. Just when we are leaving, I asked woodblock to put on his jacket and he refused, saying it will not be cold etc in a defiant way.

Once I stepped out of the hotel room i knew exactly why woodblock had rebel. Unknown to me, when woodblock went to open the door to recieve hongxiand and mei de beauty, he saw how little hongxian was dressed in. So he thought since he is not cold, then i m not cold (stupid mentality).


LOL we girls were laughing all the way on how stupid our boys dressing were! It is FREEZING cold even in our jackets and jeans!

See woodblock is already starting to freeze and shiver!

Finally on board of the shuttle bus. The boys felt so relief!

For me I was so excited and energetic after a good slp!

So happy I wanted to do those indian dance with the moving head.

Finally we arrived at the long awaited for....


Mind you, the wind is so huge all the time we were at the temple. Even the boys could hardly walked forward. In felt i got blew away and lose my balance with the strong gust of wind when i was taking this pic.

Somehow this place felt like I was in TIBET!!!! (because of the atmosphere)

As we moved down the stairs, all the bright coloured lantenrs were swaying fiercely to and forth.

Woodblock is still shaking from cold...
Once we were in the cave like temple, the 3 of us were going WAHHHHHH because, if you have been to a chinese temple before, you will know that there is always a big urn for praying to the sky deity section.

This temple also had one but the only difference is that it has a killer view!

OMGGGGGG check this out!

SO while you are praying, it felt like you are like in the realm of the heaven!
SPECTACULAR is the word i can think of!


Does it feel more like tibet now to you???

Since i cant take the pic inside the temple, i can only take shots outside.

I told you we were in heaven cos we even met 2 fairies!

The fairies!

There is also another section whereby it is mainly for sight seeing with a big open space.





All the 8 immortals were watching woodblock and hongxian playing chess (wei qi)

A pavilion for resting and relaxing while viewing the gorgeous sky!


I deliberately asked Mei de beauty to stay put so i can show everyone how crazy and chilly the wind was at that time.

The pagoda looks extraordinary gorgeous with the beautiful sky.

It felt like brinigng us back to the olden day ancient china, that hongxian couldnt resist to do showcase his kungfu martial.




Oi no kissing in the temple lah!

There was a higher observatory deck, so we went up to take look!


Woodblock felt like super man with the strong wind! Seriously we didnt stay for long because the wind was even more rough and we nearly felt being blew away, unable to stand properly for certain moments. But then again we love the thrill lol!



Mei-de-beauty holding on strongly to the railing while admiring the view.

Soon to chill ourselves out, we went to the lobby to wait for the shuttle bux. I rreally admire how we can always amuse ourselves becos we were soon crowding outside some fortune telling shop and trying to tell our own fortune with the giant posters on how to look at your mole's position and your palm print.

I saw this lovely laughing buddha and asked him to bless me too ... NOT with a big tummy, but a BABY =) Yes i like kids a lot and I do hope i get one of my own soon!


It was near 12 when we got back to First World and we went to its bus terminal to catch a coach to KL! It is so convenient, just a 6RM and 1 one hour, we were here in KL.

The coach from genting will bring you to a station call Titiwangsa in KL and Hongxian is bringing us to Bukit Bintang for shopping.


We were waiting at the LRT startion for the train to arrive.

The LRt train is quite a comfortable ride with strong enough air con and it was interesting to see their manual air refresher.


Woodblock is always an interesting character because it seems that he is always in his world while the others are so much aware of what is happening around us. See the other 2, despite located further away, has already detected the camera but he is totally aloof of it.
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I cant tell you how a killer the shopping mall Bukit Bintang is! We gals almost drown in the sea of shopping madness leaving the guys to wander on their own too. THIS IS A MUST GO FOR SHOPPING! Can you imagine we only manage to shop like one and a half level for that few hours?

You can see how please we were with hongxian's recommendation! After the tiring but happy shopping, we went back to the hotel for a buffet dinner as a celeb for xmas =)

It felt really nice esp when there is a live xmas caroling around!


A nice group shot but who is the camera man???

Hong xian requested for a 2nd shot becos we felt that he was sitting too straight.

IN the end he only tilted a little lol!!! waste my effort leh, lao xiong!
After the hearty dinner, we headed for the movies and boy it was such a fabulous movie. I totally regretted not watching it in 3D instead.

Day 03
It was our final day at genting but weirdly it felt like we have gone there for so many days doing so much things!

I am also grumpy in the morning too! I felt so tired my face went expressionless in the morning!

Woodblock suggested we go for some dim sum breakfast!

Interesting way of having tea! Pail style!


Woodblock: I am a grouchy grand pa in the morning, so stay away from me =P

After breakfast, we went to packed our luggage and left it at hong xian's room(he is extending his stay to meet another group of friends) and we went to the ARCADE to play.

I cant tell you what a coincidence it is becos their fav arcade game was the same as ours!!! It is some game whereby you hit the screen with plastic balls. Sadly the machine at genting is not that well maintain and the screen was not that sensitive to the hits by the balls. But I do know where to find the game in amk central =)

Our final meal at genting for this trip before leaving, Kenny Roger!



Have a wonderful xmas!!!