Christmas 2011

24-25/12/2011

Our usual Christmas celebration, will be meeting up at my house for our usual self-prepared steamboat dinner. This year is something different, we decided to celebrate in a hotel room. Some searching around, we decided on Re! Hotel which has got a wonderfully Retro theme to it. No matter it's the lift, lobby or rooms. There are other themes to choose from though, if you prefer not to sleep in a surrounding of Fushia Pink. 

This Christmas gathering is rather strange, cause after Claire checked in the hotel, Dar and I reached, then all 3 of us went out, Dar and I to Tiong Bahru and Claire to Jurong.-.-" Some sort of gathering huh?

Soon, Dephil arrived, Dar, Dephil and I laze around in the hotel room while watching Prince Of Tennis (Btw, complimentary Wifi) for an hour or so before looking around for our Christmas dinner.

Further, our idea of Christmas dinner arises as I saw this Korean BBQ buffet around Tiong Bahru on our way out earlier. Finally we settled on this "Ko Ryo Jeong" Korean Restaurant at International Plaza. Which foodie reviews said it's authentic enough. 

Being a boring person who normally only eat the more conventional food like Kopitiam, normal Western restaurants, this Christmas dinner will be an interesting one. 

Making our way to International Plaza was the start of the "strange" Christmas 2011. We met an interesting cab driver, who asked us whether we are singing Christmas carols! We thought, whoa~ do we have the word "choir" tattoo-ed on us? How did he know we sing? Then he continued to coerce us into singing a few songs for him. Unwilling, we tried to divert his attention by talking about other things, but this cab uncle won't give up. He said he learnt singing back when he was young and so is very interested in us. Even making an offer to sing to us! In the end, he sang a very impressive Santa Lucia for our Christmas, we really appreciate his vocals but preferred not to be blasted in a cab. ;p

Our Christmas Dinner! Ginseng Chicken Soup set, beef rice, hot plate chicken, Kimchi Noodles! Damn full!
Love the Ginseng Chicken, clear taste that is not too oily, fragrance of the Chicken and Ginseng absorbed by the glutinous rice stuffed in the chicken, can make a meal by itself anytime. The side dishes that came with the set were not bad too, though most of them spicy so I didn't try.

Hot plate chicken and pork were not bad, meat tender though too little in portion. Not exactly delicious but it will do way~~~~~ better than the one Dar ate at Tiong Bahru Kopitiam.

Full from dinner and laughter, we now ponder over where we should be going or doing next. Don't want to go down Orchard, where the crowd of foreigners will swam us. And hey! what is Christmas without log cakes~? So we set on our task to get log cakes or cakes. Google was your best friend but nowadays, iPhones (with workable 3G and network that doesn't go down when you need it) surpassed that.

According to some searches by Claire, there seems to be a place that sells nice pastries down Maxwell, which is actually walkable from International Plaza, so the 4 of us walked the deserted roads down Maxwell, when it began to rain.

In countries where they snow instead, this will be a beautiful sight ~ we're happy tonight~ walking in a winter wonderland~~ 

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Then we found the shop closed. ;(( aw~~~~ We now wonder where we should go next. In the middle of nowhere, shops are in the midst of closing, without cake and drenched. Still very determined on our mission to get cakes~~ we decided to take a bus to Bugis!

Satisfied that we bought cakes (not log cakes~ just cakes from TCC), we decided to go back to the hotel, which was quite inaccessible if not by cab. Hence it's another walk in the rain to the hotel, in my new cardigan and a body full of rashes. Yea~ I've gotten some rashes, rather unsightly, Friday at work, unsure of what triggered it but the rashes quickly became full blown, covering my elbows, knee caps, trunk and neck. Big, swollen and damn itchy that tormented me cause I can't scratch them and I can't fall asleep.

Won't be showing you the photos though, cos here's food again!

Sleeping at 4am watching old old hong kong movies on the Star channel, we woke up with just enough time to wash up, pack and let Claire/Dephil down a bottle of wine each.

Then we had our brunch at Re!Fill in the hotel.


Again, it's a color that Claire won't fancy.

and these are mine! Though Dar took the potato, some of the meat + corn cob -.-"

There's supposed to be a 10% discount but we forgot to make use of the voucher when we made our payment. 

Broke my Record~!

What record? What record??

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 Ta Da~~! I've watched 2 movies this year~! 

I know a lot of you face faulted ...

But to me, that figure IS alot ... movie watching initiated by me/my hubby that is.... Cause usually I go to the movie theatre to watch when friends asked. The last movie I went by myself was "Stich" (Nearly forgotten the name of the movie as well) lolx~

My blog is not to review the movie k~ Usually I just blog about how I feel before/during/after watching the movie.

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Kung Fu Panda 2 (阿波来了~！)

Was bombarded with the adverts for this movie while in Taiwan, every cable channel we surfed to will be screaming 阿波来了~！阿波来了~！at us. That's the power of advertisements you see.... when you kenna screamed at for sometime, you will get the uncontrollable urge to watch/buy/use the product....
ok ok ~ I admit, we wanted to watch the show even without being screamed at....

This is certainly the funniest movie I've watched this year~ although I've not watched many ... I was quite amused that I was able to hear the characters over the din in the cinema. Why was there a din? Well cause we've chosen to watch the best Family Movie of the year = Kids filled up the theatre and scream/cry/asked questions like mad. Oh well, there's nothing to complain or what about this since it's quite the norm for cartoons featuring ... erm well... eh .... "cute" animals. Generally cartoons, generally animals.


The movie's way of trying to describe long long ago and far far away scenes using paper cut animation. That's quite refreshing and I kind of like that. A ~~~~ lot of funny scenes as well as warm and fuzzy scenes where Po got to know that he was (obviously) adopted and who (obviously) his parents were, got to know his enemy and (of course!~!) in the end, won the enemy.


I do note the budding love between Po and Tigress, so will there be a Kungfu Panda 3? If so, please do choose a nice song for the movie as usually, it's the songs (Accidentally In Love) or some re~~~~lly brilliant lines like (Are we there yet?) that stays in the mind of people. For Kungfu Panda 2 I think I will remember "Inner Peace" for some time.

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Super 8 (I'm not scolding vulgarities)

I don't like to watch movies that lament about how great human is by torturing human /animals /aliens /robots /alien robots /planet earth or in the end  triump after they fought back due to the stupidity of human. Hence I don't want to watch shows like Godzilla, X men etc. Super 8 belonged to the kind of movies I don't watch although in the end human did not triump. Not that I don't like Aliens (ok~ I don't like Robots) but I don't like the evilness of human.

Hence this was iniated by my hubby. I'm more interested in the intricate display of feelings by the young male lead Joel Courtney towards his dead mother and too-busy-to-care father as well as how chio Elle Fanning is. They can act damn well~!  So much so that I ignore thinking about how a group of kids can run about when the place was surrounded by the Air Force.

Coming up next will be (airily) Ha~~rry Po~tter (ta) ... I can't really create the airy way of pronouncing the name here but you'll know what I mean if you've watched.

Lasik and black patch

I used to dislike it that I always have to bring extra pairs of contact lenses and contact lens solution with me when I went travelling. There is a constant nagging feeling that I will go blind any moment if my contact lens drop off or my glasses crack while being tossed about in the luggage cabin. Even when in Singapore, I shudder to think that I will come face to face with a roach or something without my glasses/lens on.




Pondered for about 2 years on whether I should get my lasik done but unable to do as I was scared and there wasn't extra money. Finally the last straw came when my contact lens solution ran out and my supply of monthly contact lens is coming to an end too. Lasik ... I decided and proceeded to do some researching and booked an appointment for eye check and the surgery itself.

I was told that I had to lay off contact lenses for at least 3 days. But due to the sensitivity of my eyes (and the fact that my lens solution is coming to an end) I decided to lay off my lenses for 2 weeks. Freaking 2 weeks ~~ of uncomfortableness! Imagine getting giddy everytime you raise your head or pushing up the glasses like every 2 seconds. Decided to go for The Lasik Surgery Clinic since my 未来大嫂(Now I know why大嫂 spells as "dasao".. cause 打扫came up as the first choice) went there and she said they are professional.

Finally the day came and Dar took leave to go with me to The Lasik Surgery Clinic @ Paragon From 10 am, my eye balls underwent tests and treatments of moving lights, blurring red houses and sudden jets of air. Just when I thought the tests are over at (~!) 2pm, the nurse told me that they have to do additional tests as the pressure in my eye ball is higher than normal. So additional $100 and additional tests La di da di da~~~~ and it's time to see the doctor. But before that, I was given eye drops to dilate my pupils. Though looking doll-like was cute, it's actually not that comfortable.





Finally stepped inside the doctor's room and the first sentence he gave me was "Jeslyn~~~ there's a good news and a bad news.." and not even pausing to ask me the cheesy question of which would I like to hear first... he went on "the bad news is that, we've detected a black patch in your right brain while doing your eye tests..... the good news is, as the black patch is beyond your right eye ball, you can still carry on with the lasik.. (in super fast speed right after) but you'll have to do a brain scan..."

My husband and I looked at each other without any reaction. Dar was the first to react (as usual), he seemed a bit worried until the doctor showed us the test results and mentioned (not quoting~! It's my own interpretation~~! I don't want to be sued~~!) that given the size and the spread (machiam peanut butter), the patch would have been there for a long long time. It may have been a tumour, or simply over zealous blood flow whatever, Dar's theory was that it's been there since the start of my puberty, small chance that it's something serious.

Now what's left is the decision to have the brain scan first or the lasik first. Don't have to think for very long, I chose the lasik. Well, the eye test results can only hold for 4 to 5 weeks. I'm very much sure that I don't want to let my eye balls go through the sudden jets of air again even though the charge for eye tests is free or $1 (I forgot). The doctor respected my decision though he made me promise to go for the MRI brain scan to find out more about my black patch....


(What comes next, differs from clinic to clinic and person to person... not all will have the same experience / result as me and I'm not quoting~ I'm just stating my experiences and interpretation)



Since my eyes were not in a great condition, I had to go for the bladeless custom wave front (whatever it means) which is the third expensive kind totalling to a whooping 4k(~! ~! ~! ~!) (after a $100 discount for Mar 11 Lasik babies) which I can choose to pay via instalment. Later on I got to know during the pre-ops counselling session that laying off contact lenses is to get your cornea back to their original shape. So those people who over use their contact lenses may have their corneas' shape changed and may need to choose the even more expensive epi-lasik.

People at Lasik Sugery Clinic going for the surgery will need to watch a video about the process and thereafter, go through a counselling session where they will inform you of any instructions that you will need to follow after the surgery (including not bathing or washing face for 3 days~!) as well as any danger of side effects. Was quite impressed with the staff at the Lasik Sugery Clinic whom managed to give good service despite dealing with a house full of patients.

Don't want to describe the process here but just keep in mind that there is nothing to be afraid of + it's 95% painless. The surgery itself only takes about 10 to 15 mins in total. Yes, you zip in, you zip out. (;P) Do keep in mind that if you want to go for the lasik, please get someone to go with you cause

1) You won't be able to wear your contact lens thereafter... this is common sense yeah, but you know some people . . .  so I had to mention it.

2) You will only regain about 40 - 60% of your eye sight i.e, if you are like me with 700 degrees shortsightedness, you will still be half blind after the surgery on that day ....

3) You will look like "The Fly".



~The Fly~

4) Approximately 1 hour or less after the surgery, you will feel that some idiot went and dumped a truckload of sand on your eyes.




Your eyes will start to water.



You can't open them.

Hence you need someone to shield you from the prying paparazzi  while calling a cab and holding you so that you won't knock into a wall. Except for the "Fly" part (That's my own interpretation), all of the above would be explained to you by the staff at the clinic. Including the fact that you can see 90% well the next day and the sand paper effect only last for 4 to 5 hours. So just go home pop a drowsy pill (they gave) and sleep. The staff at The Lasik Surgery Clinic will also hand you a checklist of things you cannot do for a certain amount of time after the surgery. You can also purchase eye drops at the clinic, they charge their patients lesser compared to retail price.

For the past 1 month, mornings were blurry since my eyes were super dry after 1 whole night lacking oxygen. Night vision wasn't that great with halos spotted at street lamps. These symptoms are improving though. The other significant side effect I experienced is the urge to sweep boxes of Refresh (Plus!) eye drops into my shopping basket and jumping for joy that I can see things beyond 2 feet. I also can't seem to get over the feeling that I need to take off my contact lens every night.



[to be continued since I'm tired of writing and no one in the right mind will want to read a blog post that is so long]

17 April 10 Mayday Concert

Tomorrow's 五月天演唱会~~！ 期待已久的演唱会（怪兽~~~！）明天将会在Kallang outdoor stadium举行。。

可是我这几天都觉得不太舒服。。。 发冷发热的，不时又出汗。。 又鼻塞可是有时又流鼻涕。。。 有一阵子还觉得会不会是感染了chicken pox 毕竟我小时感染的也才7天或许有可能第二次感染。。。.. 最好不是阿~！不然我就不可以去五月天concert 或是我们已定好的台湾行~~ *期待期待再期待**




明天我可以又跳又喊吗？？

我可以为我崇拜的怪兽欢呼吗？

Mayday concert Padang April 17

Themuxicbox is going to Mayday concert at Padang~~~!!! Woot~~~~! *Jumps with joy* *Waves hands around* *Going crazy*

Themuxicbox is going to see Monster (I heart)~~~!!! Woot~~~~! *jumps with joy**Waves hands around**Going crazy*



.... Calms down .....



Goes back to sleep .....

Universal Studio (Preview)

Thanks to my Dar, we managed to get free tickets to Universal Studio at Sentosa to watch the Donkey Show. (yeah Donkey from Shrek, not the donkeys from zoo)

I'm so surprised the photos from my 烂phone camera can come out so nice... haha but the nicer ones are from Claire's camera though .... I no longer have the habit to bring my camera around... so I didn't bring it this time cos Dar didn't tell me what we will be doing .. -.-"

Of cos photo taking is a must while walking to the show area~~~~~

(photo taking with a dirty flower with my 虎年行大运）

Popcorn car.... at first I thought those brown brown things up the car are parcels~~

However, the place is still under construction so we still see a lot of construction workers with their safety hat (while we walk the place unprotected-.-")

They have this Madagascar (Was it spelt like this?) area with this cute little merry go round of those related character.... I didn't take the photo of the zebra which looked like its forever in shock though.....

With 2 kinds of rails .... with your head up or with your head down ....

The castle of Far~~~~~~~~~~ Far Away ... (Are we there yet~?~~ Are we there yet?~~?)

that looks like its frozen in time as not even the flags are moving ...

Looks like the Angkor Wat photo we took in 2008... haha ... a grander revamped version of Angkor Wat

Haha~~~! This Shrek wishes every one will dio 4D~~!~~

I named the toy tiger on my hand "虎年行大运" so its

虎年行大运。。。大家中4D~~!

(Let me in~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~)

This is the poster of the show we watched. Quite a lame show that only lasted for 30 mins inclusive of a 15 mins introduction by the MC and moving into the main theatre to sit down and settle down ... to see a big TV screen with a pre-prepared, animated Donkey and its band.... =.= duh~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lucky the Donkey's voice wasn't pre-recorded and the MC was "auto-high" and trying to get the unresponsive audiences to respond. There were some funny parts and the kids singing together with Donkey and shouting responses made the show fun to watch ....
But I think there are more areas to improve on .....

There are some areas like Prince of Egypt or Jurassic Park areas that we weren't able to get in ... as its only opened to Staffs.... My Dar and his colleague went in while Claire and I sat outside listening to the sound tracks of past Dreamworks' works..... thinking how nice it would be if Flash Mob is one of the activities in the theme park .... ;)

Dinner and Dance 2009

Ok. Chop chop. Dinner and dance. Raffles Hotel The Ballroom.

First time wearing the $12 stockings ... hahah ... felt like a freak in the train...

Meant to dress a witch and had wanted to buy the witch hat at cold storage but I think I won't dare to wear ba ... -.-"

The witch and the princess ... and well it looks like that .... but . . .

I wonder who is the real witch .... wa hahahahahah~~

Overall had a great time there just that the food wasn't that nice (felt strange to be eating chinese course dinner in a DND themed Masquerade). The red wine wasn't that good. Oh well, not to be disheartened, the MC was entertaining and had us laughing a lot. (As long as he don't shout as we were sitting in front of the speakers~) Most importantly, sitting with the correct persons made the day (or night). We were quite entertained by our official game player Kong's erm ... very coordinated dance too.

Surprisingly the dance ended quite early. Adrian had me sent home before 12am ... lucky ... or he would have found a pumpkin in his 2 doors sports car...

Note: Photo courtesy from Chloe and my pinky cam