Happy Birthday Dorothy : Dec-10

How many people do you know can cut logcake as her birthday cake every year?  I only know Dor can. 

Therefore even though they are not Christians, Dor's family celebrates X'mas and throw X'mas dinner almost every year.  Though this year is no exception, with the clash of SSA's 80th Soka Gakkai Anniversary Celebration Meeting held at the indoor stadium with Dor's birthday cum X'mas dinner, we could not eat Dor's logcake.

The gals adore Dor.  Hence even when they are unable to celebrate Dor's birthday, hope their very cheerful birthday greetings reach their Ah Dor Jiejie!!

Effects of TV : Dec-10

The gals have discovered Starworld channel on cable TV recently. A program they have watched together was Australia's Next Top Model where the contestants strutted their stuff on the catwalk amidst the other reality tv stuff. Well, we didn't know that has rubbed off Enen until Zhenjie put on this dress for her on X'mas Day at Megan's house that morning.. Thereafter, I noticed Qiqi has also been strutting around the house with a deliberate bounce! (;

Our Malaysia Trip : Dec-10

Since En'en is born, the family never have an oversea holidays yet.  Finally this year, we decided to drive up to Malaysia for a short break.  It is initially planned to Cameroon Highlands, but considering unfamiliar to the Malaysia roads and the distance, we settled with something more manageable, Port Dickson and Sunway Lagoon.

Everyone is excited about the trip, including En'en who does not really knows where she is heading to.  The gals are also delighted that their Ye-ye is joining the fun.  Most of the planning are based on blogs posted on the web and the google maps for the GPS which we will be strongly relying upon.  Malaysia Soka centres are also part of our itinerary besides the places which we will be relaxing and enjoying ourselves. 

We set off on the 13th Dec, 2 days after Qiqi's P6 graduation day and the journey goes like this...
Day 1 - Melaka Soka; Melaka Jonker Street; Thistle Hotel@Port Dickson; Swim and relax
Day 2 - Ostrich Farm@PD; Swim; Seafood dinner
Day 3 - PD town; KL Soka@Bukit Bintang; KL Soka@Cheras; Sunway Lagoon
Day 4 - Theme Park@Sunway Lagoon, Shopping
Day 5 - Home sweet Home

All of us enjoyed this trip, a nice break from our routine and work.  The gals as usual enjoyed the stay in the hotel rooms, especially at Sunway where we stayed at the CLUB level, pretty impressive.

Anyway, who dun enjoy holidays... we already starting to plan for 2011...

Visit to Soka Gakkai Malaysia : Dec-10

The very first stop after we crossed the second link was the Malacca kaikan. We almost gave up the idea of visiting this Malacca kaikan as we were told that this kaikan is located far from the city centre and to get there, we would have to pass a Malay kampung which is rather unsafe for a single Singaporean car!

However, after Victor turned his iPhone into the most sophisticated GPS system in the market and discovered how the Malacca kaikan was along our route to the city centre, that became our very first stop! (:

On our third day after we left Port Dickson, we told our very sophisticated GPS that we wanted to visit the KL kaikan. As the very sophisticated GPS system did not have the latest sophisticated map of KL, Victor had to search for a nearby point on his google map and tell his no-longer-sophisticated-in-KL GPS that we wanted to make our way there. Alas, Victor dropped his pin at a wrong location, and we had to re-educate our GPS on the actual location of our KL kaikan, as reflected on our letter from SSA-HQ. Whoa~ the KL city kaikan though prominent and about 10-storey high, has a pretty narrow and inconspicuous entrance. We missed the entrance along the busy one-way road, and had to route a long way to return to the kaikan..



At last, we successfully turned into the kaikan compound and found the basement carpark. To our surprise, we were told that the kaikan was closed for the renovation of the mentor & disciple centre, which would take up the top three levels. What a pity.. we were told by the Malacca kaikan staff that we could visit the mentor & disciple centre at the KL kaikan and were looking forward to it! Mr Leong, who spoke to us at the lift lobby gave us the directions to the KL culture centre.. which happened to be along our way to Sunway Lagoon. Hmm... we were running late.. should we?

Let's juz do it! So, a place where we thought we should reach by lunch time, we eventually made it only in the late afternoon. But WOW~ the culture centre is huge! They have a Soka Kindergarten there too!

PD Anniversary P6 Graduation : Dec-10

Since I joined PD, I have lost count of the PD Anniversary or PDAs in which I was involved.. must have been at least six or seven, but this year's PDA held a different meaning to me. Qiqi is amongst this year's PD graduands! (: Qiqi was still in kindergarten when I first became a sunshine aunty. Qi was curious about my PD meetings, and she was so excited when she finally entered primary one and had her own PD meeting to attend. Well, her excitement was short-lived.. I recalled many occasions whereby I had to cajole or chide her into attending her meetings. There was this incredible episode where we struggled at the staircase of Aunty Annie's place for a good ten to fifteen minutes.. Her lower primary meeting place was at Aunty Annie's house, and I had to send her there before rushing off to my own upper primary meeting at Aunty Carol's place, both starting at 2pm. As usual, I was running later than desired and did not think much of Qi's request to attend my meeting instead of her own. After all, it was not the first time she made such a request which I did not give in.. Well, Qi has always been a persistent child and she displayed her persistence all the way this time. Upon stepping out of the lift to Aunty Annie's place, I dragged and pulled a whining Qi all the way up, hoping to make my way to the house in the shortest time possible. Halfway at the staircase, Qi's whining turned into loud wails and cries as she absolutely refused to budge any further, totally ignoring residents and all passers by. Mind you, there was quite a lot of passers by at that time as lion cubs and their parents made their way to Aunty Annie's house. These lion cubs are all Qi's friends from her PD class but she had completely no sense of embarrassment and continued to cry and wail at the top of her lungs!!?? While lion cubs and their parents made their way past us, Qi's sunshine auntys who were in Aunty Annie's house made their way out to check out the din. Most were shocked to see Qi's behaviour as she was usually pretty well-behaved. In the end, I had to relent and bring her to my own PD meeting, late. That was an extremely stressful incident.. Fortunately after much sweet-talking from both her papa and I, Qi never protested as hard for all subsequent meetings. She also has the good fortune to have very caring and easygoing auntys who gave in to her requests and tolerated her nonsense, especially this past two years. After attending the P6 camp in March, she was actually looking forward to PD meetings!! At the beginning of this year, I told myself that this must be my most participative PD year ever, as I must lead Qi to have a most memorable time in PD this year! I was there for all the P6 events, even every PDA practice there was.. well, almost except for one! I believe I have broken my own attendance record.. Qi's papa's support for the PDA practices has also been unprecedented!! (; Hahaa.. this was also the first time after so many years that Victor attended our PD Anniversary graduation, with Xuan and En. He must have enjoyed it as Qi received much limelight during the PDA - always in the front row during the dance, and also selected to lead in the 'Be Brave' and 'PD Song'. Here's the PDA graduation in brief and Qiqi's items at length.. (;

Second Trip to Universal Studio : Dec -10

Instead of holding a Dinner & Dance, GSK decided to extend the joy out to the employees' families and have a family day at Singapore Universal Studio this year. 

This is our second time visiting USS, this time, mama comes along too... Leveraging on our past experience, we rented a stroller for En'en immediately when we arrived.  As the scorching hot sun shines upon us, En'en got tired quickly.  Without the stroller, I could imagine us carrying her from point to point.  This move proved to be the best decision made for the day!

Despite the big crowd and queue, every GSK colleague I met seems to be enjoying themselves.  We managed to capture more videos this round too! Although we did not stay at the USS hotel, this trip is equally fun compared to our first visit.

Pictures from below the Singapore Flyer : Dec-10

My first time on the Singapore Flyer...It has air-con inside the carriage.When I was going into the carriage,it was still moving! It was moving so slowly that sometimes I think it was not even moving.But it was moving all the time.The scenery was so beautiful I started taking pictures.I even needed to delete some pictures to take more!
Here are some pictures that I think are the nicest.