Update and summary

I haven't been updating my blog. I won't say I am busy... though I AM busy... no wait am I busy?? Hmm ... (never mind~~)

Ok~ I admit! I'm plain plain lazy~ hey! Who won't be lazy right? Though my laziness is like for a damn long period of time.... (and I haven't even finish writing about my Cambo trip! (Still stuck in Day 1)

I've decided to continue on .... oh well... I will SOMEDAY continue to write on the Cambo trip anyway ... provided I still remember what happened. . .

Okok~ recent updates~ Judy's wedding~~ ;D That gal finally got married~ To a wonderful person whom we all give thumbs up for ... a teacher to be ;D




The Jie Meis~ Its us again~





Which belongs to Judy?(Psst~ the answer is ---------------------- none!)


Money money money~~~ *Sings*




Wedding dinner at Expo~





Our class gals~~ not all of cos~ Look at Renshi's red face~ really regretted Kampai-ing with her that night



Don't Judy look great in this red gown??




Xmas 2008~ The usual steamboat dinner with Claire, Jing, Yanxing, Phil, Dar and I... This time, no wastages of food~~ but there seems to be a shortage *sweatz*

Erm... Faults partly Claire and mine... cause we finished up the carrots while waiting for them to come ...




My present from Yanxing...., also got an MP3 player from Phil, Female monkey hp dangler from Claire~ ;D Christmas's rather quiet this year...



Mahjong~~~ Oops .. I mean Chinese New Year~

Maybe you won't believe it but I don't know Mahjong AT ALL. By "at all" means they even have to teach me to differentiate the circles and the bamboos.

We actually were having dinner at Holland V and thinking about what to do after that .. movie, KTV or .....

Then *dink* it came to us, we can play mahjong~ but we don't have any ... how? So we went about looking for places that sells mahjong (set and table) at 10pm at night.....

We managed to find one at the market place near Hol V and (even harder) to get a cab willing to drive us back home (Mine)


Tadaa~~~! *deng deng deng deng*

Player 1: The Mahjong



Player 2: The Shi Fu




Player 3: The Tow Kay



Player 4: The Joker~

After several rounds of trying-to-play-and-trying-to-explain-mahjong-to-total-klutz
I managed *yea~~~* to win a round by 自我的力量 (Own strength)

but we didn't play with money cause I've stop all gambling since Primary 4.


Not bad for first timer yeah?



Then the God of the Gamblers (In the world of pooh bears and honey) came after their round of KTV (With the friends of the forest?)

and little old me decided to retire for the night to try doing the puzzle that should have been done a year ago....

yeah a year ago .. but I've only just finished doing the sides and gathered the puzzle pieces for major parts of the puzzle



Of course after the new year round of mahjong I've had another round of practice ... though I didn't have very great wins or play faster than the God of gamblers (In the world of pooh bear and honey) but I did managed to win a few times (thrice) more using




lolx .. but recently not only busy, tired and lacking in sleep .. I'm plagued by blisters, blisters and more blisters~~! Where else but from my shoes? But still, who told me to have the kind of feet which will blister wearing rubber slippers??

Cambo Part 1... ok Part 2 if you include the packing part~

7/10/08

Went to Claire's house the night before the trip ... and well, I guess its just too obvious that none of us gotten much sleep lolx... I slept a whooping total of 2 hours before its time to get ready for the flight.

Having slight flu, lack of sleep and bloated-ness from hormone pills didn't really do my mood well... but since its a trip with June, Claire and Phil its gonna be fun ;D

(ok~ we are not bringing the pooh family along no matter how cute Eeyore looks)

A whole lot of people waiting for the check in. 3 lanes including one that was transitting at Phnom Pen. (There's 1 idiot group of people in the 3rd lane from Ngee *ahem* Poly making lots of noises and screaming/laughing like 3 yr olds with an excuse of going on a mission)


(Cost: S$259)





Though a short trip but I was still rather restless. Having a noisy bunch of poly students (who went woo~~~ when the plane set off) behind was not that much but its a trip too short for rest, too long for anything of interest. Only Claire seemed to be very active and keep taking photos of the scene outside the plane.










Yeah~! Finally reached Siem Reap International Airport. It looked like a resort more than an airport~ having a big area that seems to be reserved for a garden. Clean, decorated and organized area. However, we were delayed somewhat when we were stopped at the gate going out the airport. The guard there insisted on taking our declaration form which the Jetstar should have given to us but did not. So we waited there since the person refused to talk to us except for a "Wait" and a hand signal until one of the officers there finally passed us the declaration form. We proceeded to fill in the form and pass to the guard. And guess what? He didn't even look at it. He just gave us a satisfied smile that left us wondering whether his pay was on commission basis.




Van from Molly Malone was already waiting for us when we got out.... Hom took us (Cost: US$7 divided by 6) from the airport to the guest house. Along the way we saw bangalows perhaps influences from the French. Numerous Korean and Japanese restaurants no doubt to cater to the tourist crowd. Although end September was in the wet season of Cambodia but we heard from Hom that rain falls were still seldom and won't be there till Oct/Nov. Roads were dusty and though the sun wasn't particularly weak, the feeling wasn't uncomfortable like the humid weather in Singapore.

Sounds Easy Perf at Jurong Point

Woo Hoot~! Woooo Hooooot~! Woooooooooo Hooooooooooot~!

Sounds Easy had the honor to be invited to sing for the Singapore Arts Festival 14 Jun 2008 at Jurong Point. "Arts on the Move" is one of the initiatives organized to bring Arts into the neighborhood to get more people interested and involved.



Although I won't brag that I've never had stage fright for performances before, I must say performing on stage hadn't been getting on my nerves before. However this time round I was more nervous than before. Its more difficult singing in A Capella groups. One of the obvious reason is that each individual is the voice and the accompaniment. Each error we make can be clearly seen or heard. Furthermore, we are a small group with only 1 or 2 person for each part. The amount of stress on each person is greater than being in a big group, each person is a soloist. Blending is of course a more difficult task when the number of singers reduce.


I kept making mistakes during the practices too... for my soloist/melody parts especially for "不想睡“ I keep getting the pitch wrong.... had problems remembering the words.... and all these add to my nervousness. Luckily the people around have been singing with me for a few years now and we are close friends. Having them there was a great morale support (anshin desu) before the big thing.


Even though I felt that we did not do very well for the performance especially for my solo parts and that we kept rushing our songs. A bit of flats here and sharps there. We can still see that most of the audiences enjoyed our performance as they stayed put throughout the performance and that is a good sign. We have experienced singing in the public and keeping audiences throughout, is tough and nearly uncontrollable. (Unless we tie them to the chair or they absolutely cannot leave the place e.g Weddings)





Despite some glitches in our singing and screams from the kids directly below the stage (potential 追星族 practicing for chasing idols in the future), some audiences were singing along with us for the more familiar songs like Kit Chan's "喜欢你“ or nodding when we sang "Stand By Me".



However, I would say people are still not accustomed to A capella, especially the more contemporary remixes like the arrangements that June did for “车站” and "最后一夜“.





Listening to the video recordings of our performances (Haha~! Cannot show you ~! Pending approval from higher Management *wink*) I kind of have a feel of what its like when we perform on stage. We had never recorded our performances before and I think this is a correct step to take.


Now I know co-operation and coordination among the members are very important, not only for the sound quality but also for the outlook of the whole group. The group will look strange when some of us look like we are enjoying while others are not. Looking at each other during the performance can help us communicate and also to calm ourselves down. Its real difficult to sing well when we are nervous wrecks. In fact we should actually be too busy on stage to think about being nervous. Thinking about the pitches, coordinating our pitches and blending with the others, our volume, quality of sound, feel of the songs, the mics and expressions.


All in all, we are glad for this performance opportunity. It also gives us a clearer guide to performing.

Also a big Thank You to all the friends who went to support us. Qian~~~~ Phil, Allan, Renshi, Alan, Jing Jing and Dawson. Arigatou~!

Singapore Arts Festival 2008: Arts on the Move

*Copied from our Sounds Easy blog

WooOooOooHoooOooOOo!!!

Sounds Easy has the honour to perform at Jurong Point Shopping Mall on 14 June 2008 for SAF '08!!! This is a rare opportunity and Sounds Easy really appreciates it!!! We're definitely going to show everybody that..

"We Sounds Easy, but We Ain't!"

Eh..a little cliche..but that's our motto right!? And it Sounds nice and Easy to remember right?! Haha..enough of rubbish.

Our tentative repertoire for the event includes (but not restricted to):
Kokomo
Stand by Me
喜欢你
Where Do I Begin?
车站 (a Hokkien song)
Thank You

..and the list goes on. Our performance lasts for 30 minutes, and our item starts at 4pm. So if you're going to be in that area at around that time, do come and enjoy our Easy Sounds at the event.

Birthday Celebration at Sushi Tei and Liquid Kitchen!

Happy Birthday Yanxing!!!! Or rather, Happy Belated hatchday~

But we did gave him a pre-birthday celebration that day at Sushi Tei~

Look at food-satisfied YX! Haha! Glad he enjoyed his food~





I ordered Curry Chicken Katsu Don and its like ... erm .. sweet .. well, Japanese curry is sweet I guess it has got to do with the onions that they put into the curry. I love onions so I don't mind them. In fact, I like munching those onion pieces. Dar, however, hates to eat onions so he will always pick them out:


*tsk tsk* its bad to choose your food ~~~


Lucky we did not buy much cake but just enough for all of us to have a piece. However, customer service (non-sushi tei-related kind) is not that good. They didn't even help us put the cake into the fridge. So the cake didn't taste great. Or was it because the cake is not that great in the first place?




Present from Phil from Philippines Manila. And YX was trying to act fierce for our cameras but of cos he failed~ I've known him for so long and its very very very very~~~~ seldom I see a fierce expression on him.



Another pressie from Phil! Dark chocs with almond flakes inside. *drool~~~~* Even though its dark chocolate, the taste is sweeter and creamier in texture.



Yanxing trying to get past us to make the payment for the meal! Haha! Of course he did not succeed. Why should we let the birthday boy pay for it? (when we can make him pay for each and everyone's birthday next time~~*evil grin*)

So Claire gave her card to the cashier at Sushi Tei and ask him to hold it while we forced YX to hand us the receipt.

Wanted to watch Le Grand Chef so we make a trip down to Great World city, hoping that being more "ulu" there will be seats left on a Sat night. I don't usually like to watch movies as I find it quite boring to seat there and wait for the movie to happen. Claire says its comedy so its still "passable".

With Mr Street directory (aka 1900-yanxing) around, of course we can 环岛追追追 just by hopping on buses. He's the most famous street directory in Singapore and some say in JB!



Turned out, there are seats left in Great World but its the 1st row... duh~

Not wanting to risk neck pain, we decided not to get tickets and since Phil wanted to go home (he just touch down Singapore!) we decided to go with him.

To side track a bit.... can anyone spot anything interesting in the upcoming photo?


(3 secs more! hurry!)
3........2...........1!

Ans: the bus stop is ..... placed in the opposite direction. The poles that should be behind the commuters are now in front.


Can anyone tell me why is that so? Current suggestions are :
1. Engineers gone kooku~
2. Prevent buses from ramming into the bus stop.
3. There is no curb in front of the bus stop.
4. So that rain will not flow from the top of the bus stop onto the pavement.
5. ??

Talked about adventures of Old Changi hospital and eerie websites on the way to Phil's house while enduring the perfume from the woman sitting beside me.



Decide to chill out at Liquid Kitchen as we don't want to disturb Phil's mum with our maniac laughter.

Look at the menu! So cute!



and the guys .. mesmerized with ....



Soccer-on-TV-complete-with-stereo-sound-speakers



While we cam-whore and drink Salty Dogs....




They even provide some packs of cards for us people who don't worship soccer!

Though the Diamond 3 is missing.... =.="

Finally I get to learn how to play Chua Dai Di~ though its shocking to learn that they actually think of tactics to put the cards while for me .. its got what cards available, I will put... thats why I only won like twice??


Its a money spending night and a fun one... its been ages since we went out like that ;D

More upcoming outings in Mar?

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