Labels: birthdays, family, photo entry

written at 17:54 0 comments

Labels: birthdays, family, photo entry

written at 00:18 0 comments

It's the night before my first paper and I'm strangely calm. Even though I still have a mountain of things to study for my second, third and fourth paper, I'm not as stressed out as I was the same time last week. I think this is what they call, resigned to fate, LOL. Anyway, we had a mini-celebration for my dad today at home. My mother prepared stuff for a steamboat feast and the in-laws were invited. I decided to dedicate this entry to my dad.

I love my dad, a lot. But our relationship wasn't always like this. Since I can remember, I've always been terrified of my dad. He has a really hot temper, much like my brother and I suspect like my niece. Hence, when I was younger, I feared my dad the most. It also didn't help that whenever my mother was trying to discipline me, her ultimate tool was to say "I tell daddy ah."
Then there were those arduous teenage years where I actually told myself that I hated my dad. Thinking back, I realise that a lot of my hatred stemmed from the fact that my mother used to complain to my brother and I all the time about the flaws of my dad. I think that played a huge part in shaping my impression of him. In addition, my dad used to travel for work a lot and I guess in some sense, it never gave us the chance to become close. PLUS, I'm not the super macho guy as most of you know. I'm not into fishing or soccer like my brother, so there wasn't really anything that I had to talk to my dad about. All in all, I think I only got close to my dad when I entered university.

I stopped listening to the rants my mother had to vent and started listening more to my brother. I started to see how much my dad loves us and how he has a different, less conventional way of expressing it than most people. My dad is one of my role models in life. He has really strong will power and is very selfless. I on the other hand, have very weak will power and am very selfish. This shall serve as a good reminder, to learn to be more like my dad, to become a better person.

Labels: birthdays, family

written at 23:19 0 comments

Just as the title of the entry suggests, this wasn't the best CNY for me. School's technically supposed to have started today for me, but I'm home on MC because I've been suffering from food poisoning since Saturday. Not quite sure what was it that I ate, but all that matters now is for me to recover as soon as possible. Kind of sucks because I'm missing out on all the good food, but I guess the silver lining in this is that I'm actually losing weight during the lunar new year. #pollyanna


I didn't take any photos of myself, not that I didn't bother dressing up whilst visiting (I'm sick, not handicapped, ha-ha). It's just that a lot of the clothes that I wore have been photographed before, LOL. Hence, I turned my attention to taking pictures of my baby niece instead. TOO. CUTE. I'm glad to have her in my life. She definitely made the festive season much better despite me being sick. Visiting is less mundane now with her around as well. Sadly, I try not to get too close to her now that I'm not feeling well since food poisoning or stomach flu can be spread through the air.


The holidays seem to have just flown by, or is it just me? Really hope the rest of the year doesn't go as badly as how it started for me. Year of the Horse, how can it be unlucky for horses :(

Labels: chinese new year, family

written at 17:56 0 comments

How was everyone's reunion dinner?! I hope everyone had a truly enjoyable reunion dinner. Mine was great, although it started ridiculously early (6.00pm on the dot). My family has a knack for eating crazy early and we were done by the time it was 7.00pm. LOL, post dinner activity included sitting around sipping white wine and snacking on pineapple tarts, gossipping about our relatives, playing with my niece and planning the rough schedule for visiting the next day. Oh and yes, the "loan shark" looking photo was just me being bored and having fun with a hideously tacky shirt that belongs to my brother. I think it gave my Instagram followers a good laugh, ha-ha. Looking forward to collecting red packets tomorrow!

Labels: chinese new year, family, food

written at 21:21 0 comments

Labels: cruise, family, photo entry, travel

written at 00:41 0 comments

Labels: cruise, family, photo entry, travel

written at 00:59 0 comments

Labels: birthdays, family

written at 22:02 0 comments

I mentioned in one of my entries that my brother and dad went for a short fishing trip at god-knows-where some where in Indonesia and they came back with LOBSTERS! Okay, to clarify, they didn't catch the lobsters, ha-ha. They actually bought it from the fishermen on their way back from their trip and my brother was raving about the lobsters to the family because every time he goes for his fishing trips, he always eats lobster sashimi at the fishermen's stall.

So this time, him and my dad decided to buy some home for the rest of the family to try :) I know it doesn't look very appetising in the photo since it's raw and all, but it tastes really good. It's sort of like raw prawn, but sweeter and with more bite. Glad I was able to try it - something new besides your usual salmon/tuna sashimi. Yum*

Labels: family, food

written at 22:11 0 comments

Getting ready to head out for dinner with the in-laws while my brother and dad are away on a fishing trip. Was just looking back at photos from when baby girl was just a month old, to when she was 6 months old, and here she is at 10 months old. Gosh, babies do grow really quickly don't they? In 2 more months Tara's going to turn 1. She's starting to learn how to walk and talk, although she still isn't able to call me at all :( She has started learning how to call everyone in the family except me. I guess 小叔 isn't the easiest thing to pronounce for a 10 month old.

Labels: family, photo entry

written at 21:42 0 comments

Labels: family, photo entry

written at 14:30 0 comments

So, the family travelled to this restaurant (Chao Shan Cuisine) for dinner on a Saturday to celebrate my dad's birthday. Kind of embarrassing but I'm not entirely sure how old my dad actually is. 60+ is all I know, ha-ha. To be fair, my parents aren't exactly sure how old my brother and I are either, so I guess we're even. At the very least, we know when each of our birthdays are, LOL. #failfamily
I was half expecting the restaurant to be of equal calibre to the kind my dad usually brings his company's customers to when they are in town. However, it's more similar to the kind of restaurants you find lining the roads of Chinatown - pretty old and cramp. No complains from me personally, but it got relatively troublesome with a baby in tow. Add in the fact that she hardly slept in the afternoon and that made for an interesting dinner to say the least.

Lesson learnt: bring at least one of the maids along. One of my maids didn't want to tag along, so my mom thought it'd be fair to let them both stay at home and rest. BAD MOVE. We had to take turns molly-coddling baby Tara because she was exceptionally cranky from the lack of a good afternoon nap.
Another lesson learnt: my mother is not good under pressure. My sister-in-law and I tend to be the peace makers in the family, with my dad and brother having the volcanic tempers and my mum being the general worrywart. The sudden thunderstorm in the evening DEFINITELY did not help things.

But of course, at the end of the day, we managed whatever crisis came our way and made it out of dinner in one piece, more or less. The food wasn't bad, not too sure what the total bill amounted to, but I'm certain it was close to $1k, if not more. I've come to the conclusion that I do not like suckling pig. It's so god damn freaking oily, it felt like I was eating a heart-attack. The arrowhead shark was what I was looking forward to the most because my brother told me that it is like FUCKING expensive, around $700 per serving? Apparently it's sooooo expensive because firstly, it is insanely difficult to catch. Secondly, it is rarely sighted and lastly, shark cartilage is supposedly the most beneficial and sought after form of cartilage for consumption? I'm not sure how true these facts are, ha-ha, but I just took them at face value. The taste is so-so in my opinion, kind of tastes like tortoise shell in tortoise soup. Ah well, never really had a taste for expensive stuff. Don't particularly fancy abalone, can't see what's so fantastic about veal or foie gras, you get the picture.


Drove home in the torrential rain, which felt like the longest car ride of my life. We were all soaking wet and baby girl kept crying because she was afraid of the thunder :( Biggest irony was that we were finally home, the rain subsided =.= At least baby girl calmed down and was her usual happy self after getting breast fed. Family hung out in the living room for a bit before we decided to cut cake in case baby girl got sleepy and cranky again. My brother and sis-in-law prepared two cakes for my dad - one from them and one from my niece, ha-ha. It's kind of cute, the do-it-yourself cake from The Icing Room reads: "To Ye Ye (爷爷), ♥ Tara". Unfortunately, it didn't exactly survive the ride home from the shopping mall, so it looks somewhat smushed up in the photo, LOL.
Glad to see my dad so happy; he's usually stressed out from work and he got REALLY upset with me last week when I came home literally, fucking wasted. Hope that spending more time at home and with the family is making him feel better =\ He keeps thinking that I'm going through some sort of depression or psychological trouble when in actual fact, I was just being an idiot and taking the notion of having a good time to far. Sigh pie, I will try my best to change and make sure it doesn't happen again :)

Ugh, on an unrelated note, I cannot WAIT for Monday to be over. Going to spend the rest of tomorrow cramming in some last minute revision for Monday's IEA finals. Honestly HATE the module sooooo much, can't wait for the examination to be over and done with. Then I can breathe a little easier and focus on preparing for BP finals on the following Monday. And then, I'll be FREE and can start planning the more nitty gritty details for my post exchange travelling :D

*2 more weeks*

Labels: birthdays, family, food

written at 23:27 0 comments