Bai Tian Gong

Sunday was the 8th Day of CNY, Tian Gong's Birthday. As a tradition, family would pay their respect to Tian Gong at 12am sharp to wish for Tian Gong's protection over the family. It used to be an elaborated affair with 5 types of candies, 5 types of cakes, 5 types of fruits & 5 types of meat as offerings, then the family will have something hot & soupy (mee suang or steamboat) for supper to celebrate Tian Gong's birthday! But with modernization & nucleus family within a household, everything's been very much simplified. Some even just pray in the temple. For my dad, it's still at home at 12am sharp, all dressed up, but with a much simplier set offerings.

Well, SIMPLE is NOT the word to describe the way Dar's folks' way of celebrating Tian Gong's birthday! Besides mee suang, they also had a pair of bamboos, paper dolls for each & everyone pf the family, special pineapple specially for praying to Tian Gong, Dar's dad even play chanting songs on his cassette recorder!!! It was such a colourful & interesting sight!

Our Busy & Unlucky Day

It was a busy day on Sunday, lots to do: return offerings back to Tai Sui Ye @Cai Shen Ye Temple, meet gals for farewell lunch with Sufen @Katong laksa, went Plaza Singapura to return cable box & buy yarn from Spotlight Sale, went Chinatown Point to get crystal water feature, have dinner with my parents, go Bai Tian Gong with Dar's parents, then Bai Tian Gong at my Parents'... Phew! SO glad when it was all over!

Unlucky Star #1: Forgetfulness
When we got onto the car in the morning, Dar realized he left another Manulife i/d card at home. Thought will come back home to collect after Cai Shen Ye Temple. But when we reached the temple, I realized I left another bag of offerings at our dinning table!!! So we went home to take the stuff, then return to the temple before heading towards Katong...

Unlucky Star #2: Traffic Monster
We made a wrong turning, so had to make another round to get around those complicated 1-way roads along Katong. When we reached the coffeeshop, Sufen SMS to ask for a lift from Parkway. At this moment, coz a STUPID FATHER holding the hands of a toddler was walking veyr far out onto the raod, & impatient Dar tried to steer towards the right so as to avoid knocking them down like bowling pins, misgauged & hit the rear mirror of a silver vehicle parked illegally by the road side! There was a loud bang! Fortunately Dar's rear mirror is mobile, so it just shuts inwards when it hit the other rear mirror, so there wasn't any damage... Phew! When we got to the drop off point at Parkway, the gals (as usual) are not there yet. So we had to make 4 rounds around the drive way!

Unlucky Star #4: Loud Bang!
1st loud bang that shocked us was of course the one mentioned in the Traffic Monster. Then while we were having lunch, chit-chatting away at the air-conditioned Katong laksa place, there was a sudden loud explosion & blackout followed! Everyone was shocked. But the most amazing part is how almost immediately after the shock, everyone just laughed & went back to their laksa bowl, as if nothing had happened! We were jokingly asking the engineers & architect among us if this is safe & if we should be running for our lives! haha... Isn't it amazing how Singaporeans (including ourselves of course) are taking security for granted. If this were to happen in other country, think most likely everyone would've fled out of the place! Who knows it might even be some terrorist attack?!?! The other loud bang that shocked us, or rather me, took place when we went to my mum's, we took the other lift that we don't usually use. When we reached our floor, the lift jerked up & down & the door jerked open with a very loud bang! For a moment, I thought the lift cable was gonna give way!

Unlucky? Luck?? Star #5: $$$
Went to Spotlight sale & got $113.64 worth of yarn! Happily brought everything up to show my mum, only to realized the cashier had forgotten to give me VIP discount!!! 30%... that's $30 over!!! Called them up to verify & had to go back to Spotlight to void the previous transaction & make a new payment. After discount, it was $33.78 cheaper!!! Luckily we decided to go over to my parents' after Crystal shopping, otherwise, to make a trip down from Sembawang, don't think it's worth the effort at all! Hmm... so probably we should look at it from another perspective... it should've been our lucky $$$ star that day afterall! :)

Happy Birthday to All Mankind

Today is the 7th Day of CNY, ie. Ren Ri. So happy birthday one & all! Met up with mum to pass a baby booties to an Indonesian Knotty Fan. Dad had mahjong session, so we went to Vivo City to meet Dar for dinner. Yes, Vivo City again... Like Dar said, we can apply for membership to Vivo liao! On the way to Vivo, ran into Cindy & Ian who were going to Central. On the train, ran into another fellow MAADsters, young guy, didn't get his name :P It was like a mini MAAD gathering on the train! hehe... After all the tiring shopping around Vivo, Dar called to say maybe we won't have dinner at Vivo! Iyo! So we went to Tiong Bahru Plaza instead, had steamboat at our favourite place! haven't been there for so long! But amazing that the waitress still remembers us! It was a peaceful & satisfying meal. :)

Fatty, Prosperous & Happy Golden Pig Year!

What a busy week! Busy EATING!!! Must've gained at least 5kg! Yah, I know & everyone also noticed that I've put on a lot of weight since end of last year. :P Strangely, I'm not disturbed at all. Feel quite neutral or even happy about it! hehe... don't know why...???

Anyway, been pigging out since last Fri, eve of CNY eve. Was at my mum's to bai ah gong. Had our 1st lou hei this year, also had a sumptious dinner. Look how my aunt is pigging out to welcome Mr Golden Pig this year liao! :D

Then on CNY eve, Sat, Ed & I were home the whole day to do our last minute Spring Cleaning. We have a few new neighbours moving in & were doing lotsa reno for the past few weeks to rush for CNY, so our house is VERY DUSTY since our place has an open concept. It was so dusty, Dar was sneezing non-stop! We cleaned up Oreo's catch too. Oh, check out our Chinese New Year Innovation - the One & Only New Year Tree!!! hehe... It was so funny! We've been wanting to do this since 2 years ago actually... :P Then we went to Ed's parents' place for dinner.

Sometimes Ed's folks can be so strange. Apparently they ate before we reached their place for reunion dinner! Well, we did reach there later than expected due to our Spring Cleaning, we reached there around 7pm, but isn't reunion dinner supposed to be eaten TOGETHER, that's why it's called "Reunion" Dinner right? Anyway, they did join us in eating the dishes & finger food while we eat la. Our families are so different. For my side, usually we will wait for everyone no matter how hungry we are, unless the family member mentions not to wait for him/her for dinner. But for Dar's family, his mum will just place food on the table & then it's "own time, own target". I still prefer my family's way... :)

On the 1st day of CNY, as usual, we met at Marina Mandarin Hotel to see the Annual Lion Dance Performance. We've been doing this as a family for as long as I can remember! It's become part of us. Think Dar & I will carry on this "tradition" with our kids, even after my parents are gone. Somehow this tradition always mark the start of CNY & always adds a lot of festive mood to our CNY. That why even though sometimes, like this year, the Lion Dance may start very early (8.27am this year), we'll still make it a point to wake up early to catch it.

Another "tradition" of our family is to go Neptune for lou hei & dim sum lunch after the lion dance. Unfortunately, Neptune has recently closed down. This is so saddening :( I think I can even feel a little sense of loss in my dad, now that we no longer going to Neptune for our Annual CNY Dim Sum Lunch. He always likes that place. He's even brought my mum there for a date before! then we've been there for our Annual CNY Dim Sum Lunch for as long as I can remember! Now Dar-Dar is determined to use this 1 year to hunt down another nice place where we can have our Annual CNY lunch :)

The rest of the CNY break is just lotsa FOOD, LAUGHTER & of course, GAMBLING, especially MAHJONG for both of us!!! :)

This year's CNY is also very special to the Gals, since this is the 1st time the 7 of us get to get together after a long long time! It's really something worth celebrating! We've been close friends Since Sec1! Wow! We've actually known each other for more than 16years already!!! I'm sure we'll be friends for a long, long time... & I hope our kids can also be friends in future :)

Mum's Birthday

This year since I'm not working, I went out with mum to celebrate her birthday. Bought her an Aquamarine pendant reccomended by Ayako, which she loves the colour. I also gave her an ang bao to thank her for all her help to make Knotty Bicsie possible. We met up at Central where we had Japanese food. I used my sub-card from Dar to pay for our lunch. So Dar, Lunch on you! hehe....

Then we went shopping for bags. I bought a cute little basket bag for CNY & bought a basket shopping bag for mum. After shopping, we went home to wait for Dad before we go for steamboat dinner at Liang Seah St. Poor Dar had to work OT till 9+, so ended up eating at the coffeeshop below my mum's flat, late that night.

Another Happy Thing Today!!!

Haha... I know it's strange posting 3 publishes in a row, but thoughts keep coming & things keep happening one after another! :P

Dar-Dar just got home... with my Valentine's Day gift!!! Somehow, during one of my looong MRT journey, my gut feeling told me that he's getting it for me :P The funny thing is that the moment I saw the packaging, I knew it was the same gift Tom had given Ayako for V Day! Haha...!!! Coz it's the exact same packaging that Tom had asked me to secretly keep for him at MAAD the last time! hehe... & I LOVE the gift! It's a VERY BEAUTIFUL silver kaleidoscope pendant! I've always love kaleidoscope :) It's really beautiful, BEAUTIFUL, VERY BEAUTIFUL!!! :D

Thank you, Dar-Dar!

The BIG Reveal!

Haha! Dar-Dar FINALLY read the mail! Well, he's touched, of course (he better be!) :P He was actually speechless for a long time, quietly reading through many of my publishes... In fact, he's even left me & all of you guys visiting this blog a comment under the publish entitled "Happy Valentine's Day!". The following is his message to you all:

"for all those ppls who have been and even left message on the blog... thank you for all your blessing and wish you a very happy valentine's day. And Please visit the blog again.... we will defintely like to share all our happy moments with all of you."

Feel very loved & blessed. Many happy things are happening... just today alone!

1) Elaine brought me ot her friends' shop at Arab Street area, custome-made 2 blouses which I designed myself, so very "ME", sweet sweet but weird weird one. hehe... Very nice experience, very exciting!

2) Sufen & Yanlin are back!!! Called them both & had a SHORT chat with them. Both of them sound chirpy & excited to be back. Yay...!!! Can't wait for next Tuesday's gathering at the Fans!

3) Went to look for the Jap/Korean shop at The Edge. Found MANY nice clothes that I like! & that lady at the shop, Apple, is also very nice to talk with... I spent a good whole hour at the shop! Bought 2 tops. hehe... Apparently she also likes to do simple detailed modification to the clothes she gets from Japan & Korea. We exchange namecards. Hmm... am sure she'll fall in love with my Knotty Shoes! Maybe can place some at her shop next time to sell! :D

4) Ran into Auntie Doris, had a quick chat, updated her abt what I'm doing now & told her my plans to order labels for Knotty Shoes in future...

Just read Dar-Dar's comment & re-read everyone's comment... I'm SOOO.... OVERWHELMED with bliss & happiness! I really feel that Love is All Around! Like what Siew Huey said, Valentine's Day this year, even though no special activity, is extremely special... I feel we are all celbrating it together! We really should celebrate all our love for each other! Thanx for being such wonderful people in my life!

Dar, we will grow old together, with a stronger bond each day, with countless beautiful memories to look back on when we flip through our albums & journals with our grandchildren...

Dear Friends, you are & always will be part of our laughters & joy! Let's have a very loving & happy Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Day is in fact "just another day". However, it is up to us to make it a special day. We can either be cynical & stereo-type all gestures of love to be blind-followers/victims of commercialisation; or we can take this as an opportunity to remind ourselves to show & celebrate our love for each other! This is very important because very often, admit it or not, we tend to take each other for granted in our daily rat race. I must say doing this blog has been a wonderful experience & I have not felt this strong emotional attachment to any of my creations for the past 2 years, since my last exhibition. Now, I hope Knotty Shoes will kick off well & I will soon re-merge as a confident artist I used to be... :)