At Last, My Own-made Fruit Cake : Dec-14

I love fruit cake. And I especially love the alcoholic taste of Christmas-time fruit cakes. So sweet, so dense, so intoxicating..

I seldom buy fruit cake because Victor would not eat them.. To eat them all by myself would be overly indulgent and too fattening!! So I don't eat them as much as I would like to..

Ever since I made my own rice cooker non-dairy cakes, i have been wondering if the rice cooker can make fruit cake as well.. and searching for a reliable recipe. Well, the blog which inspired all my cakes did not fail me!! It has a simple recipe which can be baked, steamed or simply put into the rice cooker!! Check this out -- http://everybodyeatswell.blogspot.sg/2013/12/easy-christmas-fruit-cake-in-3-ways.html?m=1

I had initially wanted to put together my own mixed fruit.. But that took to long and one day when I passed sun lik, I juz bought theirs. The packet of mixed fruit sat on my kitchen shelf for a good many weeks. And it was only on Christmas Eve take I decided to juz do it!! So it was "best eaten after one day", I finally tasted my very own fruit cake on Christmas Day at Dor's party!!

It was good.... In fact much better than I had expected!! That I immediately made plan to make a second one.. This time, I will soak some raisins in rum!! (:(:

So, after one night of soaking, I made my second but alcoholic fruit cake on the 27th. Brought half to share to pa's place and the feedback again, was very positive!! In fact, juz two days later, which I suspect Jiun must have finished the cake I left in her home, she asked me to make some more because it's "very nice"!! (:(:

Hahaa.. Victor had bought me a small bottle of dark rum, which costed about $10 from Little India years ago, when I attempted to make rum and raisin ice-cream. When I went to Cold Storage to check out their rum, it's so expensive.. More than $50 for a bottle!?

In the end, for my third fruit cake, I used what was available at home from Victor's tiny-bottle liquor collection over the years--bourbon whiskey, to soak my raisins. This time, I do not have the luxury of overnight; juz a couple of hours..

Hope fruit cake no. 3 turns out yummy too...

Jay Chou concert@New Stadium : Dec-14

This was the third time we went to watch Jay’s concert in Singapore.  The past two concerts were held in the indoor stadium with a capacity of less than 10,000 while this time, it was held in our new stadium with a capacity of more than 30,000.  Shin Yang bought the tickets several months back and each ticket was almost S$200, not cheap in my opinion.  The concert was initially scheduled early November but subsequently postponed due to the infamous grass issue in our new stadium.  Nevertheless, we were excited to go to the concert and excited about the opportunity to visit the ‘state of the art’ Stadium. 

Compared to the last two concerts we attended, this 2014 Jay concert was rather disappointing in many aspects.  Personally I felt that the most disappointing factors resulted from the poorly designed Stadium.  From my consumer point of view, basic amenities and infrastructure of the stadium were unable to cope with  the demand of the crowd, not to mention other details like the stadium grass or roof.  Even with the non-full stadium capacity during this concert, restaurants were packed with long queues lining outside, walkways were too narrow to cater the movement of the crowd during rain, stadium car parks could not manage the car flow, traffic policemen were required to regulate traffic, MRT station too small… etc etc.  During the concert, the rain was also able to ‘sneak’ into the stadium and concert-goers were ‘splashed’ with rain and needed umbrellas or rain coats.  With such basic issues, it really made us ponder how badly public government projects were handled nowadays, constantly budget overrun and poorly designed.

Take away fast food and eating outside the stadium

Casting away the negative aspects, although Jay’s concert had some sound system issue, the crowd was electrifying and Jay was also able to raise the temperature by singing many of his old favourites and engaging the fans well.  It was a nice concert but our S$200 tickets only allowed us to see Jay at about half an inch tall from our seat.  Indoor stadium still seemed to be much better or maybe travelling abroad next time to attend the concert would be workable too.

Youth Friendship for Peace Festival 2014 : Dec-14

Considering this is February 2015 already, talking about last December's YFP seemed rather dated.. Nevertheless, for the three months leading up to actual event on 20-21 December, our lives especially on the weekends evolved around it.. Of course I have to blog about it, talk about it!! (^_^)

Initially it was simply called YCF - youth cultural festival. The last YCF we had was a good 15 years ago, or so I was told. My own very first YCF was in 1985; I took part as a 10-year-old Kotekitai girl at the Gay World Stadium. I recalled vividly Mummy was a performer as well!! 

More than a quarter century later, in YFP 2014, although it was a rather strictly youth event, our entire family of 3 girls, Victor and I were involved!! In fact, Jiun and Hong too!! (^^)  I was involved as a PD sunshine aunty helping to train our lion cubs every week. En of course was one of the more than 500 PD lion cubs who participated. Xuan was in the FD item, even Qi who could only join in pretty last minute due to her O level examinations, participated in the FD item too. About 3 weeks before the actual performance, Victor suddenly expressed explicit interest in helping out as a photographer for YFP.. "Don't know whether they need photographers anot..?" -- one thing led to another, and very shortly later, he received a text message asking if he could take some pictures at our last combined rehearsal at Northland Sec!! So for the final training at Northland Sec, Victor was the one who drove the entire family plus our 2 ex-lion cubs-neighbors there!! I was overflowing with pride and joy that my whole family was participating and contributing to this all-important SSA event, actively contributing our part for kosen-rufu!! 

*\(^_^)/* *\(^_^)/* *\(^_^)/*

Of course it was not all smooth-sailing.. Juz as my lion cubs' parents faced resistance from their children to attend the weekly YFP training sessions, I too faced some similar challenges encouraging persuading coaxing cajoling En and Xuan.. Maybe because En was younger and had me accompany her for all the sessions, she was manageable. Xuan's resistance was fortunately juz her very first training. When she went and realized she could see some familiar faces there, though still a lil' reluctant, she dutifully avail herself for most of the subsequent trainings. It helped tremendously too that Sharon and I car-pooled our FD kids and took turns to send them for their training. Surprisingly the stronger resistance came from Qi who after her O-level papers, was extremely disappointed that she could not join SD.. but it helped that Xuan was already in the thick of YFP prep mood and I juz have to push Qi along..

Once Victor got started to take pictures at Northland Sec, he was totally absorbed into the photography team, being part of their whatsapp chat group and regularly being updated on their team activities. Best part was he could legitimately hold his camera and take our pictures at the YFP rehearsals and performances!! Drawback was he could not share these beautiful pictures on social media...

On the district front, considering the very limited number of youths we have, most, including my 3 girls, actually signed up as performers. From their sharing during zadankai after the YFP, they, even Qi and Xuan, actually enjoyed the entire experience and found it memorable!!

Our take back, besides the beautiful memories, would be the beautiful picture Victor took of all of us.. almost everyone whom he knows who took part, would have his/her face on his photographs!!

Victor was so proud to see quite a few of his photographs being selected and printed on SSA Times!! Almost at the same time, he recognized that 2 of the 3 printed photographs by Seikyo Shimbun on the YFP coverage were his!! Beaming from ear to ear, he could hardly contain his joy and excitement!! I guess that must be one of his greatest satisfaction.. I was told Sensei reads the Seikyo Shimbun.. which meant Sensei have seen Victor's pictures!!!!!!!! What a wonderful wrap up to our YFP.. (:

2014 : Our first Tokyo holidays : May-2020

This was our first holiday trip to Japan in 2014.  We considered for a while due to the high cost before finally decided to bite the bullet, save up and just visit the Hall of Great Vow as a family.  There was definitely obstacles to overcome before the trip, one of the biggest challenges I remembered was Papa constant sore throat which later diagnose to be fine.

One of the amazing thing during the trip was our first time experiencing snow, you would see how excited all of us were when we touched it ourselves.

A short Japan Trip video : Dec-14

During our last Japan trip, I realized we did not take many videos as I was busy snapping and swapping between two DSLR cameras.  Nevertheless, with the limited videos we took, I created a short trailer video for our Japan Holiday last December.

Tokyo Trip summary : Dec-14

Just like our Taiwan trip, I had come out with our personal literary for our Tokyo holidays.   We did very well in covering most destination as planned and more importantly, everyone had a good bonding time as a family.

ShinyKoh - 2014_12 - Tokyo Trip

Day 1 (Arrival) – Asakusa + Ueno (淺草+上野)

Day 2 - Tokyo Disneyland (东京 迪士尼乐园)

Day 3 - Kamakura + Yokohama + Odaiba (鎌倉+横滨+台場)

Day 4 - Hall of Great Vow + Akihabara (廣宣流布誓願堂 +秋葉原)

Day 5 - Hakone (箱根)

Day 6 - Soka University Japan + Harajuku (创价大学 + 原宿)

Day 7 - Yuzawa (汤泽)

Day 8 - Tokyo Tower (东京铁塔)