Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Sun 15 Feb
My wife and I somehow made it to service in time, eating breakfast on the go. A new boy joined me today, and it looks like it's a permanent arrangement. So now my boys number a grand total of five. After service, we had a brief cell at the coffee shop at Simei. Interestingly enough, after the opening of Piccolo, which serves decent pasta, the coffee shop has yet another addition, which is Ogenki. It's a Japanese food stall that sells omu rice, amongst other fare. I ordered a set (I vaguely recall it's some cheese katsu thing), adding miso soup and chawanmushi, setting me back by $11 thereabouts. Expensive, considering that I was eating at a coffee shop. The food was above average, but not fantastic enough to warrant another splurge.
Mon 16 Feb
I had a short day today, so I headed over early to check on Jadon. I realized that I did not have spare home clothes over at my in-laws' place, so I decided to buy a few cheap enough ones to dump there. This is for two reasons: the first is that working clothes is uncomfortable, so it is good to change out of, and the second is that Jadon has puked milk on my clothes often enough that a spare change of clothes may be necessary. I ended up picking up three t-shirts from Hang Ten for $25, which were decent looking - a bit too streetwear to leave as spare clothes. I also found two t-shirts off this nameless shop for $5 a piece. That in itself is nothing much, except that one of the t-shirts has exactly the same print as one of Jadon's rompers! Hehe, time for some father-and-son coordinated fashion. Bwahaha.
Tue 17 Feb
Since I had paid $159 to replace my Xbox 360, I made a grudging trip down to Funan Centre after my lessons were over. I waited a short while at the service hub, and picked up my new console, which I suspect could be a repaired version of somebody else's dead Xbox 360. I guess I'll never know. I also picked up a couple of DVDs from Laser Flair there, which is amazingly well-stocked. I found an old title I was looking for, but fully aware that it is altogether possible I won't be watching any of the dozen new titles I have simply due to lack of time. Ah well.
When I brought the Xbox 360 back and plugged it in, it gave me the red ring of death again! After fiddling with it for a while, it recovered to normal again. I hope I don't see that red ring till 2 years and 364 days later so that I can exchange one for one under their warranty policy (3 red rings is covered for 3 years instead of the usual 1 year).
Wed 18 Feb
I had a long day at work, settling a fair bit of administrative chores, and had several meetings. Blood brudder Zhongming informed the gang quite last minute about his flight to Australia today, and since we already knew that his disappearance to Down Under will be for three whole years, we all made effort to be there.
The problem was that he was shockingly late, even though we had wanted to meet for dinner. I ended up with Shaofeng at terminal 3's Yakun having a late tea while waiting for the rest to arrive, and in the meantime, was dispensing relationship advice. Hmm, haven't done that seriously for years. We managed to catch Zhongming just before the flight to say our two minutes of cheesy farewells, encouraging him to land himself some hot blonde babe over there or something before coming back. After that, we went for a proper dinner at the food court at T3. We all had this porridge thing from a stall there, and I must say, the porridge is quite tasty. I ordered the abalone porridge, and it was good. However, I still prefer the texture of the porridge from Crystal Jade.
Thu 19 Feb
It was a late day for my wife and me. I had meetings spread out through the day. We wanted to go home and do some household chores instead of seeing Jadon today, so we made a small detour to Downtown East to have dinner at Mr Chicken Rice, which is still as fabulous as before, and ended it with dessert at Gelare, because I had a voucher expiring tomorrow. Nowadays, by the time we get home, we are typically doing laundry into the late night (or is it early morning?). Sigh.
Fri 20 Feb
I thought I would have a quiet day today, but many things cropped up at the last moment, and I ended up having lunch with a vendor. Strange turn of events. Anyway, my wife had to attend to some event till 5+ pm, so I waited for her before going over to see Jadon.
Sat 21 Feb
Much as I would like to play mahjong, lately there are no sessions materializing. Anyway, for today it was for the better, as my wife and I wanted to bring Jadon out to Marina Square to shop around. My wife reserved a pair of Crocs, and it was due for collection. We went to check out the Ministry of Food there, and had our lunch there. The dessert was still spectacular of course, but for the cooked food, I think Bugis still ranks the best (in terms of quality of hot stone rice especially), but the Marina outlet seemed to have better food than the Suntec outlet. At the very least it is less smoky than the latter.
I tried to shop around, but I couldn't spot any clothes that I liked. In the end, we bought a big playmat for Jadon from Mini Toons, which incidentally was having a 40% storewide moving-out sale. For dinner, we went to eat at the Imperial Treasures La Mian and Xiao Long Bao. When I flipped the menu, I must say, I had to flip it back to the front cover to verify that I didn't go into Crystal Jade La Mian and Xiao Long Bao, because most of the items on the menu were identical. And not just that the dishes were named identically, the pictures in the menu looked too much alike. I had the la mian with chicken soup, which was really good, but it completely dehydrated me thereafter, and I can't be sure if it was MSG or plain saltiness.
Sun 22 Feb
My wife and I went to service as usual, and I brought my boys to the coffee shop again, because two of them wanted to try the Piccolo pasta. I headed over to my in-laws' place first, and detoured to Sportslink to buy a pair of sports shorts, again as a spare change of clothes. I was going to work on my sister-in-law's computer when for no reason, the error messages that I had been seeing on her computer irked me so much that I decided to do something about it. However, my attempt to rectify the problem by tampering with the registry caused an error with Windows. Interestingly enough, my sister-in-law maintained her cool, and I only found out later from her that before she came home, she had actually prayed to God for more time to study and to not be distracted by her computer, specifically Facebook games. Ironically, my blotched attempt seemed to be an answered prayer.
Mon 23 Feb
After lessons were over, my wife and I headed down to Honda showroom to finally settle the downpayment for the car, which was due to arrive on Saturday. It still felt extremely surreal, considering that I had never wanted a car for a good 30 years of my life, because I thought it an unnecessary luxury. Now that I have a kid, I see it as a luxurious necessity.
Ouch.
I had signed the line that plunged me back into loan again, and I'm not talking about housing loan which most Singaporeans get stuck with anyway.
Tue 24 Feb
I had managed to fix my sister-in-law's computer late last night. Okay, more formatted-the-hard-disk-and-reinstalled-windows than fix. Which was certainly for the better, considering how loaded with viruses that computer already was. I headed over to my in-laws' place for dinner and then shuttled back home to take the computer and brought it over to return it. Again, ironically, the computer was up and running, but somehow the ethernet controller had something wrong. Maybe it really was an answered prayer for my sister-in-law. Hahaha.
My wife and I somehow made it to service in time, eating breakfast on the go. A new boy joined me today, and it looks like it's a permanent arrangement. So now my boys number a grand total of five. After service, we had a brief cell at the coffee shop at Simei. Interestingly enough, after the opening of Piccolo, which serves decent pasta, the coffee shop has yet another addition, which is Ogenki. It's a Japanese food stall that sells omu rice, amongst other fare. I ordered a set (I vaguely recall it's some cheese katsu thing), adding miso soup and chawanmushi, setting me back by $11 thereabouts. Expensive, considering that I was eating at a coffee shop. The food was above average, but not fantastic enough to warrant another splurge.
Mon 16 Feb
I had a short day today, so I headed over early to check on Jadon. I realized that I did not have spare home clothes over at my in-laws' place, so I decided to buy a few cheap enough ones to dump there. This is for two reasons: the first is that working clothes is uncomfortable, so it is good to change out of, and the second is that Jadon has puked milk on my clothes often enough that a spare change of clothes may be necessary. I ended up picking up three t-shirts from Hang Ten for $25, which were decent looking - a bit too streetwear to leave as spare clothes. I also found two t-shirts off this nameless shop for $5 a piece. That in itself is nothing much, except that one of the t-shirts has exactly the same print as one of Jadon's rompers! Hehe, time for some father-and-son coordinated fashion. Bwahaha.
Tue 17 Feb
Since I had paid $159 to replace my Xbox 360, I made a grudging trip down to Funan Centre after my lessons were over. I waited a short while at the service hub, and picked up my new console, which I suspect could be a repaired version of somebody else's dead Xbox 360. I guess I'll never know. I also picked up a couple of DVDs from Laser Flair there, which is amazingly well-stocked. I found an old title I was looking for, but fully aware that it is altogether possible I won't be watching any of the dozen new titles I have simply due to lack of time. Ah well.
When I brought the Xbox 360 back and plugged it in, it gave me the red ring of death again! After fiddling with it for a while, it recovered to normal again. I hope I don't see that red ring till 2 years and 364 days later so that I can exchange one for one under their warranty policy (3 red rings is covered for 3 years instead of the usual 1 year).
Wed 18 Feb
I had a long day at work, settling a fair bit of administrative chores, and had several meetings. Blood brudder Zhongming informed the gang quite last minute about his flight to Australia today, and since we already knew that his disappearance to Down Under will be for three whole years, we all made effort to be there.
The problem was that he was shockingly late, even though we had wanted to meet for dinner. I ended up with Shaofeng at terminal 3's Yakun having a late tea while waiting for the rest to arrive, and in the meantime, was dispensing relationship advice. Hmm, haven't done that seriously for years. We managed to catch Zhongming just before the flight to say our two minutes of cheesy farewells, encouraging him to land himself some hot blonde babe over there or something before coming back. After that, we went for a proper dinner at the food court at T3. We all had this porridge thing from a stall there, and I must say, the porridge is quite tasty. I ordered the abalone porridge, and it was good. However, I still prefer the texture of the porridge from Crystal Jade.
Thu 19 Feb
It was a late day for my wife and me. I had meetings spread out through the day. We wanted to go home and do some household chores instead of seeing Jadon today, so we made a small detour to Downtown East to have dinner at Mr Chicken Rice, which is still as fabulous as before, and ended it with dessert at Gelare, because I had a voucher expiring tomorrow. Nowadays, by the time we get home, we are typically doing laundry into the late night (or is it early morning?). Sigh.
Fri 20 Feb
I thought I would have a quiet day today, but many things cropped up at the last moment, and I ended up having lunch with a vendor. Strange turn of events. Anyway, my wife had to attend to some event till 5+ pm, so I waited for her before going over to see Jadon.
Sat 21 Feb
Much as I would like to play mahjong, lately there are no sessions materializing. Anyway, for today it was for the better, as my wife and I wanted to bring Jadon out to Marina Square to shop around. My wife reserved a pair of Crocs, and it was due for collection. We went to check out the Ministry of Food there, and had our lunch there. The dessert was still spectacular of course, but for the cooked food, I think Bugis still ranks the best (in terms of quality of hot stone rice especially), but the Marina outlet seemed to have better food than the Suntec outlet. At the very least it is less smoky than the latter.
I tried to shop around, but I couldn't spot any clothes that I liked. In the end, we bought a big playmat for Jadon from Mini Toons, which incidentally was having a 40% storewide moving-out sale. For dinner, we went to eat at the Imperial Treasures La Mian and Xiao Long Bao. When I flipped the menu, I must say, I had to flip it back to the front cover to verify that I didn't go into Crystal Jade La Mian and Xiao Long Bao, because most of the items on the menu were identical. And not just that the dishes were named identically, the pictures in the menu looked too much alike. I had the la mian with chicken soup, which was really good, but it completely dehydrated me thereafter, and I can't be sure if it was MSG or plain saltiness.
Sun 22 Feb
My wife and I went to service as usual, and I brought my boys to the coffee shop again, because two of them wanted to try the Piccolo pasta. I headed over to my in-laws' place first, and detoured to Sportslink to buy a pair of sports shorts, again as a spare change of clothes. I was going to work on my sister-in-law's computer when for no reason, the error messages that I had been seeing on her computer irked me so much that I decided to do something about it. However, my attempt to rectify the problem by tampering with the registry caused an error with Windows. Interestingly enough, my sister-in-law maintained her cool, and I only found out later from her that before she came home, she had actually prayed to God for more time to study and to not be distracted by her computer, specifically Facebook games. Ironically, my blotched attempt seemed to be an answered prayer.
Mon 23 Feb
After lessons were over, my wife and I headed down to Honda showroom to finally settle the downpayment for the car, which was due to arrive on Saturday. It still felt extremely surreal, considering that I had never wanted a car for a good 30 years of my life, because I thought it an unnecessary luxury. Now that I have a kid, I see it as a luxurious necessity.
Ouch.
I had signed the line that plunged me back into loan again, and I'm not talking about housing loan which most Singaporeans get stuck with anyway.
Tue 24 Feb
I had managed to fix my sister-in-law's computer late last night. Okay, more formatted-the-hard-disk-and-reinstalled-windows than fix. Which was certainly for the better, considering how loaded with viruses that computer already was. I headed over to my in-laws' place for dinner and then shuttled back home to take the computer and brought it over to return it. Again, ironically, the computer was up and running, but somehow the ethernet controller had something wrong. Maybe it really was an answered prayer for my sister-in-law. Hahaha.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Thu 5 Feb
It was a long day, as usual for Thursdays. The highlight of the day was when my colleague pulled me along to Siglap with him and a few others for lunch at the Yong Tau Hoo place. The food was good, but the ingredients I picked were all sent to be deep-fried (even quails' eggs!) except for the vegetables. I had an extra bowl of noodles in addition.
I think I am going down the path of fat ruin.
Fri 6 Feb
After a relatively short day in school and settling some work, I went to my in-laws' place with my wife to bring Jadon home. Jadon seemed to be trying to crawl (before he can even sit up), but with his strength he could only push himself backwards, so he kinda looks like he is breakdancing and doing a worm-like crawl backwards.
Sat 7 Feb
My wife and I settled some household chores before bringing Jadon with us to Downtown East for dinner. We strolled there (and back as well) since we brought him out on a pram, and had a good dinner at New York New York. We did a little bit of grocery shopping before calling it a night.
Sun 8 Feb
I had service and cell group with my boys as usual, and headed home by 3 pm to receive some friends. Finally, I got to play mahjong! I started the session with a man tai zi mo, which gave me a boost in capital of $9.60 for the day. After some wins and losses, I had a nett profit of $6, but it was a good day. I was so close to winning man tai many times, but was foiled by the rest who won fast enough. Compared to some bad days when the possibility of winning wasn't even there, today was exciting.
Mon 9 Feb
I was on paternity leave today. Before I went over to see Jadon, I made a big detour to Orchard Road. I headed to Shaw House to pick up a free iPod nano from Citibank, which I recently won in some promotion. After that, I went around shopping a little, but only managed to buy one tee-shirt. I detoured to Heeren to have dessert at Shokudo. I had a $10 voucher from my last visit to New York New York (apparently they are both managed by the same company), and I thought I might as well spend it. I had this massive mango ice-kachang-equivalent, and I added one more scoop of ice cream to it. I could easily wolf down a big dessert, but the mango was sour, and the ice cream was only so-so. I still don't understand why there are people who tell me the food at Shokudo was good. The hot food I have tried so far were sub-par, and the desserts I had were equally mediocre. If I had the same amount of money to spend, I would rather be in Ministry of Food.
I wonder if I can sell off the iPod nano. The money could really help me recoup the cost of exchanging my Xbox 360. I am now a victim of E74 (error message 74), which generates one red quadrant of death. Unfortunately, that one is only covered in the normal 1-year warranty (and mine had expired), so I had to pay $159 to exchange my current console for a brand new one (which, for all I know, could be a repaired console). How I envy ZH, who was hit by the red ring of death (three red quadrants), which was covered for 3 years of warranty!
Tue 10 Feb
The highlight of the day was an impromptu decision to go to Old Airport Road for lunch. Perhaps we could resume our weekly pilgrimage! Out of sheer greed I had a bowl of prawn noodles, and a plate of hokkien mee. After school, my wife and I went to my in-laws' place to spend quality time with Jadon.
Wed 11 Feb
I spent the day settling some administrative stuff. For lunch, a whole group of us went out to the coffee shop opposite to eat zi char. An ex-colleague, who had left the teaching service, came back to catch up with us. We hung around to chat with her for a while before I had to head back for civics lessons, staff conference, and a meeting with a vendor. In the meantime, my wife and some other colleagues were at Teachers' Network for a SPA course, so I arranged to meet my wife in town for dinner.
We ended up going to Ministry of Food at Bugis Junction for dinner. We each had a bowl of pork ramen, which was absolutely fabulous, and a californian handroll. On top of that we ordered a dessert, which was, like the rest of the desserts I had tried, superb. We then went around to shop a while. I managed to find a tee, a polo tee, and two shirts that I liked, and my wife also found her fair share of purchases. The only unfortunate thing was that she couldn't find the correct size shoes for herself; Charles & Keith was having an up-to-70% sale.
Thu 12 Feb
It was my long day of the week. Other than all my lessons, I had two long meetings that only convinced me of the mountainload of work about to befall me. My wife hung around to pack her table and wait for me, and we went over to my in-laws' place to spend time with Jadon. He's so cuuuuute!
Fri 13 Feb
It was a long day today. Inbetween, a colleague drove us out to Block 216 market at Bedok for lunch, and knowing that I was in for a long haul before dinner, I had a bowl of ban mian and a bowl of laksa. I had a make-up lesson in addition, and following that, there was the college road run. Although the intention to shift the road run till the late afternoon seemed good, it was still, unfortunately, very hot. After the whole occasion was over, it was already 7+ pm.
Thankfully, a colleague drove my wife and me back to my in-laws' place, which was along the way for her, and after dumping all our bags there, we went over to have dinner at Botak Jones. The food made the long day appear a little less wearying. After dinner was done, we brought Jadon back home for the weekend.
Sat 14 Feb
It's my first Valentine's Day with a kid in tow. My wife and I wanted to go out by noon for lunch in town, but Jadon woke us up early, made us exhausted, and all three of us went back to sleep till about 11 am. By the time we got ready, i.e. packed all the baby stuff, fed him, bathed him, and etc, we left the house around 2.30 pm. By then, I was positively famished. We went to Coffee Club at White Sands, and had lunch (or should it be called tea?) there. I tried their salmon coudibliac (can't remember how it is spelt), and it had a unique taste which I found to be quite delicious. Seriously, the worst food I ate from Coffee Club was still above average in quality, and that was the ordinary carbonara. I tried their cocoa mango blend drink, which was refreshingly different yet nice.
When we were done with the meal, we headed down to Marina Square. Along the way, I bumped into many students, current and graduated, but all of them were with friends and not partners. Oddity, considering that today was Valentine's Day. We did a massive amount of shopping. My wife managed to find many nice working wear tops, and I bought a pair of loafers from Crocs, amongst other things. We found some good stuff for baby too. We took turns to handle Jadon while we settled our dinner and shopping. He somehow didn't want to sit in the pram most of the time till he got drowsy. In the end, we decided to save ourselves the agony of squeezing with the crowd on the MRT, and took a cab back. Now that we have decided to get a car, suddenly all the troublesome parts of public transport appeared more unbearable.
It was a long day, as usual for Thursdays. The highlight of the day was when my colleague pulled me along to Siglap with him and a few others for lunch at the Yong Tau Hoo place. The food was good, but the ingredients I picked were all sent to be deep-fried (even quails' eggs!) except for the vegetables. I had an extra bowl of noodles in addition.
I think I am going down the path of fat ruin.
Fri 6 Feb
After a relatively short day in school and settling some work, I went to my in-laws' place with my wife to bring Jadon home. Jadon seemed to be trying to crawl (before he can even sit up), but with his strength he could only push himself backwards, so he kinda looks like he is breakdancing and doing a worm-like crawl backwards.
Sat 7 Feb
My wife and I settled some household chores before bringing Jadon with us to Downtown East for dinner. We strolled there (and back as well) since we brought him out on a pram, and had a good dinner at New York New York. We did a little bit of grocery shopping before calling it a night.
Sun 8 Feb
I had service and cell group with my boys as usual, and headed home by 3 pm to receive some friends. Finally, I got to play mahjong! I started the session with a man tai zi mo, which gave me a boost in capital of $9.60 for the day. After some wins and losses, I had a nett profit of $6, but it was a good day. I was so close to winning man tai many times, but was foiled by the rest who won fast enough. Compared to some bad days when the possibility of winning wasn't even there, today was exciting.
Mon 9 Feb
I was on paternity leave today. Before I went over to see Jadon, I made a big detour to Orchard Road. I headed to Shaw House to pick up a free iPod nano from Citibank, which I recently won in some promotion. After that, I went around shopping a little, but only managed to buy one tee-shirt. I detoured to Heeren to have dessert at Shokudo. I had a $10 voucher from my last visit to New York New York (apparently they are both managed by the same company), and I thought I might as well spend it. I had this massive mango ice-kachang-equivalent, and I added one more scoop of ice cream to it. I could easily wolf down a big dessert, but the mango was sour, and the ice cream was only so-so. I still don't understand why there are people who tell me the food at Shokudo was good. The hot food I have tried so far were sub-par, and the desserts I had were equally mediocre. If I had the same amount of money to spend, I would rather be in Ministry of Food.
I wonder if I can sell off the iPod nano. The money could really help me recoup the cost of exchanging my Xbox 360. I am now a victim of E74 (error message 74), which generates one red quadrant of death. Unfortunately, that one is only covered in the normal 1-year warranty (and mine had expired), so I had to pay $159 to exchange my current console for a brand new one (which, for all I know, could be a repaired console). How I envy ZH, who was hit by the red ring of death (three red quadrants), which was covered for 3 years of warranty!
Tue 10 Feb
The highlight of the day was an impromptu decision to go to Old Airport Road for lunch. Perhaps we could resume our weekly pilgrimage! Out of sheer greed I had a bowl of prawn noodles, and a plate of hokkien mee. After school, my wife and I went to my in-laws' place to spend quality time with Jadon.
Wed 11 Feb
I spent the day settling some administrative stuff. For lunch, a whole group of us went out to the coffee shop opposite to eat zi char. An ex-colleague, who had left the teaching service, came back to catch up with us. We hung around to chat with her for a while before I had to head back for civics lessons, staff conference, and a meeting with a vendor. In the meantime, my wife and some other colleagues were at Teachers' Network for a SPA course, so I arranged to meet my wife in town for dinner.
We ended up going to Ministry of Food at Bugis Junction for dinner. We each had a bowl of pork ramen, which was absolutely fabulous, and a californian handroll. On top of that we ordered a dessert, which was, like the rest of the desserts I had tried, superb. We then went around to shop a while. I managed to find a tee, a polo tee, and two shirts that I liked, and my wife also found her fair share of purchases. The only unfortunate thing was that she couldn't find the correct size shoes for herself; Charles & Keith was having an up-to-70% sale.
Thu 12 Feb
It was my long day of the week. Other than all my lessons, I had two long meetings that only convinced me of the mountainload of work about to befall me. My wife hung around to pack her table and wait for me, and we went over to my in-laws' place to spend time with Jadon. He's so cuuuuute!
Fri 13 Feb
It was a long day today. Inbetween, a colleague drove us out to Block 216 market at Bedok for lunch, and knowing that I was in for a long haul before dinner, I had a bowl of ban mian and a bowl of laksa. I had a make-up lesson in addition, and following that, there was the college road run. Although the intention to shift the road run till the late afternoon seemed good, it was still, unfortunately, very hot. After the whole occasion was over, it was already 7+ pm.
Thankfully, a colleague drove my wife and me back to my in-laws' place, which was along the way for her, and after dumping all our bags there, we went over to have dinner at Botak Jones. The food made the long day appear a little less wearying. After dinner was done, we brought Jadon back home for the weekend.
Sat 14 Feb
It's my first Valentine's Day with a kid in tow. My wife and I wanted to go out by noon for lunch in town, but Jadon woke us up early, made us exhausted, and all three of us went back to sleep till about 11 am. By the time we got ready, i.e. packed all the baby stuff, fed him, bathed him, and etc, we left the house around 2.30 pm. By then, I was positively famished. We went to Coffee Club at White Sands, and had lunch (or should it be called tea?) there. I tried their salmon coudibliac (can't remember how it is spelt), and it had a unique taste which I found to be quite delicious. Seriously, the worst food I ate from Coffee Club was still above average in quality, and that was the ordinary carbonara. I tried their cocoa mango blend drink, which was refreshingly different yet nice.
When we were done with the meal, we headed down to Marina Square. Along the way, I bumped into many students, current and graduated, but all of them were with friends and not partners. Oddity, considering that today was Valentine's Day. We did a massive amount of shopping. My wife managed to find many nice working wear tops, and I bought a pair of loafers from Crocs, amongst other things. We found some good stuff for baby too. We took turns to handle Jadon while we settled our dinner and shopping. He somehow didn't want to sit in the pram most of the time till he got drowsy. In the end, we decided to save ourselves the agony of squeezing with the crowd on the MRT, and took a cab back. Now that we have decided to get a car, suddenly all the troublesome parts of public transport appeared more unbearable.
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Thu 29 Jan
It was a quiet day for me. Today, the timetable was running on Monday's schedule, which was shorter for me than the typical Thursday, so I had no complaints. I met my wife at White Sands for dinner, and we ate at Manhattan Fish Market.
Fri 30 Jan
After school, we headed down to my in-laws' place to shift the base of the cot down, since Jadon now is active and able to flip with ease. I was originally planning to join my maths colleagues in some Lunar New Year fun, a.k.a. mahjong, but I guess there were other more important things demanding my attention. My wife and I then went down to Tampines Mall to buy some essential baby stuff, and bumped into Alaric, our super relief teacher, who joined us for a break at Haagen Dazs. I don't know if it was the ice cream, the fatigue or that we had yet to fully recover from the recent flu/cold we had, but both my wife and I were hit by heavy headaches, and we quickly called it a day to return home to rest.
Sat 31 Jan
It's the prerelease weekend! I headed down to Suntec for the Conflux set prerelease in the morning, but I overslept. To my horror, the number of seats this time were much fewer as the organizers only booked one small room instead of two. When I was in the queue, one of the organizers was counting off and said that there was no space, and we were supposed to go for the second flight which was in the afternoon. I didn't want to make a wasted trip so I hung on. When I was third in line, the organizer announced that there was only one space left! I was quite disappointed, but suddenly the blessing came. The two in front of me in the queue were a couple, so they withdrew from the queue since there was only one space and they couldn't play together. So I was the last person to join the first prerelease flight. God was gracious, even for such a trivial pursuit. Anyway, I won 2 rounds and lost 2 rounds. I had to mulligan (reshuffle because the initial draw was too bad, but each time a person reshuffles, he starts with a smaller hand of cards, which is a disadvantage) more than half of my matches, so the games didn't go that well.
After grabbing a quick lunch at Republic Food Court and having my usual prawn noodles, I headed down to my in-laws' place to visit Jadon. I stayed there till evening before making my way down to Bugis to meet my blood brudders to celebrate the birthdays of Junzhong and Shaofeng. I reached early, so I went to get them birthday cards. I don't know if it's because I haven't been buying cards for people for a while, or that there was inflation, but the fact that one birthday card costs about a movie ticket was quite a scary notion.
We went to Maggie Thai restaurant at Liang Seah St for dinner, despite my strong advocating of Ministry of Food. We had a feast of eight medium to large dishes for the eight of us, and I had my fill, especially since I was helping to finish up the food after everyone had stopped eating. Blood brudder Marcus made it in time to join us for dessert, so I managed to convince everyone to go to Ministry of Food for dessert. True enough, they all liked the dessert there, and for good reason.
Sun 1 Feb
My wife and I were late for service slightly, barely making the shuttle bus. After service, my boys and my wife's girls came over to eat fondue. Since the fondue set was given to us as a present, we might as well make good use of it. The kids were tasked to buy kiwi, apples, marshmellows, strawberries, pretzel sticks, and bananas, and so we had our little feast. As my wife aptly puts it, this is the steamboat for the new generation.
Some of the kids wanted to play mahjong for some reason, so we had a short mahjong session before my wife and I headed over to my in-laws' place to play with Jadon.
Mon 2 Feb
I covered my lessons and settled some nitty-gritty administration, and when lessons were over, my wife came to pick me up using her driving instructor's car. She was going on a refresher course because we were quite certain on getting a car. We went down to the driving centre off Ubi so that I could register for Basic Theory to start the whole process of learning to drive. It still felt surreal that I, adamantly resistant to owning a car, had to change my mind to get that extra time and convenience for the sake of the baby.
We had previously shortlisted a few cars within budget, specially Toyota Corolla Altis, Suzuki SX4 and Honda City, and by checking out web reviews and user forums, we were more in favour of the Suzuki. When we got round to the Toyota showroom, we checked out the Altis, along with the Vios, but we didn't like the interior. For that matter, we didn't really like the exterior either. We strolled down to Honda, and saw the City, which was a drastic improvement from what we saw on the web reviews. Apparently, the latest model looks pretty cool. We took it out on a test drive (by my wife), and then checked out the Honda Jazz. Now I've heard about the Jazz from many, many people, but I had always thought that it was small, having been in the original older model. I was pleasantly surprised to find the latest model out late last year is not only wider, but longer too, with a pretty big boot space, and a few improvements and nifty features. Given that we couldn't locate the Suzuki dealer and that we really liked the new Jazz, we went along and bought it for $55300, with some extras thrown in. Not cheap for a car nowadays, but very much lower in price than the usual $60k++.
Now I just have to wait for the COE bidding. I wonder if the COE will increase. If that happens, I won't get my car for a few months I guess.
Tue 3 Feb
After my lessons were done for the day, I rushed down to Parkway Parade. I was tasked by my wife to check out the car seats there, since she knew I was going there to buy a watch. Stege happened to be the only shop that carried the Tokyoflash Negative, so the trip was necessary. This would be the most expensive watch in my possession, though nowhere even near the range of Tag Heuer and the like.
I headed back to my mother-in-law's place to check on Jadon, and after playing with him and feeding him, my wife and I brought him back home. He likes to laugh a lot apparently, and I think most babies do at this stage anyway. He's really adorable when he laughs and chuckles.
Wed 4 Feb
It started off a busy morning when I had to help out with the EZlink card registration for the new year 1 batch. After I settled the administrative tasks and had lunch, I met my civics class for a civics lesson. The PDP exhibition was today! We had a surprisingly good response for the newly emerged Infocomm Club, to the immense relief of the teachers-in-charge.
I don't quite believe it but the COE price dropped further to $1020 for Cat A cars. I think my Jazz will arrive faster than I think.
It was a quiet day for me. Today, the timetable was running on Monday's schedule, which was shorter for me than the typical Thursday, so I had no complaints. I met my wife at White Sands for dinner, and we ate at Manhattan Fish Market.
Fri 30 Jan
After school, we headed down to my in-laws' place to shift the base of the cot down, since Jadon now is active and able to flip with ease. I was originally planning to join my maths colleagues in some Lunar New Year fun, a.k.a. mahjong, but I guess there were other more important things demanding my attention. My wife and I then went down to Tampines Mall to buy some essential baby stuff, and bumped into Alaric, our super relief teacher, who joined us for a break at Haagen Dazs. I don't know if it was the ice cream, the fatigue or that we had yet to fully recover from the recent flu/cold we had, but both my wife and I were hit by heavy headaches, and we quickly called it a day to return home to rest.
Sat 31 Jan
It's the prerelease weekend! I headed down to Suntec for the Conflux set prerelease in the morning, but I overslept. To my horror, the number of seats this time were much fewer as the organizers only booked one small room instead of two. When I was in the queue, one of the organizers was counting off and said that there was no space, and we were supposed to go for the second flight which was in the afternoon. I didn't want to make a wasted trip so I hung on. When I was third in line, the organizer announced that there was only one space left! I was quite disappointed, but suddenly the blessing came. The two in front of me in the queue were a couple, so they withdrew from the queue since there was only one space and they couldn't play together. So I was the last person to join the first prerelease flight. God was gracious, even for such a trivial pursuit. Anyway, I won 2 rounds and lost 2 rounds. I had to mulligan (reshuffle because the initial draw was too bad, but each time a person reshuffles, he starts with a smaller hand of cards, which is a disadvantage) more than half of my matches, so the games didn't go that well.
After grabbing a quick lunch at Republic Food Court and having my usual prawn noodles, I headed down to my in-laws' place to visit Jadon. I stayed there till evening before making my way down to Bugis to meet my blood brudders to celebrate the birthdays of Junzhong and Shaofeng. I reached early, so I went to get them birthday cards. I don't know if it's because I haven't been buying cards for people for a while, or that there was inflation, but the fact that one birthday card costs about a movie ticket was quite a scary notion.
We went to Maggie Thai restaurant at Liang Seah St for dinner, despite my strong advocating of Ministry of Food. We had a feast of eight medium to large dishes for the eight of us, and I had my fill, especially since I was helping to finish up the food after everyone had stopped eating. Blood brudder Marcus made it in time to join us for dessert, so I managed to convince everyone to go to Ministry of Food for dessert. True enough, they all liked the dessert there, and for good reason.
Sun 1 Feb
My wife and I were late for service slightly, barely making the shuttle bus. After service, my boys and my wife's girls came over to eat fondue. Since the fondue set was given to us as a present, we might as well make good use of it. The kids were tasked to buy kiwi, apples, marshmellows, strawberries, pretzel sticks, and bananas, and so we had our little feast. As my wife aptly puts it, this is the steamboat for the new generation.
Some of the kids wanted to play mahjong for some reason, so we had a short mahjong session before my wife and I headed over to my in-laws' place to play with Jadon.
Mon 2 Feb
I covered my lessons and settled some nitty-gritty administration, and when lessons were over, my wife came to pick me up using her driving instructor's car. She was going on a refresher course because we were quite certain on getting a car. We went down to the driving centre off Ubi so that I could register for Basic Theory to start the whole process of learning to drive. It still felt surreal that I, adamantly resistant to owning a car, had to change my mind to get that extra time and convenience for the sake of the baby.
We had previously shortlisted a few cars within budget, specially Toyota Corolla Altis, Suzuki SX4 and Honda City, and by checking out web reviews and user forums, we were more in favour of the Suzuki. When we got round to the Toyota showroom, we checked out the Altis, along with the Vios, but we didn't like the interior. For that matter, we didn't really like the exterior either. We strolled down to Honda, and saw the City, which was a drastic improvement from what we saw on the web reviews. Apparently, the latest model looks pretty cool. We took it out on a test drive (by my wife), and then checked out the Honda Jazz. Now I've heard about the Jazz from many, many people, but I had always thought that it was small, having been in the original older model. I was pleasantly surprised to find the latest model out late last year is not only wider, but longer too, with a pretty big boot space, and a few improvements and nifty features. Given that we couldn't locate the Suzuki dealer and that we really liked the new Jazz, we went along and bought it for $55300, with some extras thrown in. Not cheap for a car nowadays, but very much lower in price than the usual $60k++.
Now I just have to wait for the COE bidding. I wonder if the COE will increase. If that happens, I won't get my car for a few months I guess.
Tue 3 Feb
After my lessons were done for the day, I rushed down to Parkway Parade. I was tasked by my wife to check out the car seats there, since she knew I was going there to buy a watch. Stege happened to be the only shop that carried the Tokyoflash Negative, so the trip was necessary. This would be the most expensive watch in my possession, though nowhere even near the range of Tag Heuer and the like.
I headed back to my mother-in-law's place to check on Jadon, and after playing with him and feeding him, my wife and I brought him back home. He likes to laugh a lot apparently, and I think most babies do at this stage anyway. He's really adorable when he laughs and chuckles.
Wed 4 Feb
It started off a busy morning when I had to help out with the EZlink card registration for the new year 1 batch. After I settled the administrative tasks and had lunch, I met my civics class for a civics lesson. The PDP exhibition was today! We had a surprisingly good response for the newly emerged Infocomm Club, to the immense relief of the teachers-in-charge.
I don't quite believe it but the COE price dropped further to $1020 for Cat A cars. I think my Jazz will arrive faster than I think.