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)

Best of Ally again : Nov-14

Update on the latest portfolio of my model, Ally.

New toy - fisheye lens : Nov-14

Purchased a new photography toy, a fisheye lens, to capture another perspective of things.  It comes after much consideration on the options available, and I finally settled with the authentic Canon 8-15mm Fisheye Lens. 

Tried out a few shots and because of its distortion image, the pictures were not generally well accepted.  However, the real test of the lens will probably during our Tokyo trip where I intended to capture some landscape photos with this lens, let’s wait and see it’s result.

XinYang YongYang Anniversary : Nov-14

Maintaining passion require diligent effort and determination.  After we handled over Nanyang Junior college pugilistic alumni to Adrian and team, they had done a great job in up keeping this Chinese culture of Lion and Dragon dancing.  Although constantly faced with various obstacles, the team had never gave up and pressed on.  They even spin off and formed their own clubs, namely XinYang for the male team and YongYang for the female team.

After several years of hardwork, these teams had shown results and achieved multiple awards in competitions and events.  This year marked the 8th year anniversary for XinYang and 2nd year for YongYang, and the team decided to have an anniversary celebration for the first time.

Adrian was kind to engage to alumni members in the preparation process.  After more than 6 months of preparation, we were finally ready to brace the event proudly and happily.  We were even honored to invite Dr Fatimah as our Guest of Honour.  Personally I had also invited the entire family for the anniversary dinner.  It was a great eventful night and definitely a memorable one.

Ukulele moments with En'en : Nov-14

After buying a Sapprano ukulele for En’en during our Taiwan trip last Dec, I did not really take the effort to teach her how to play.  It was only during the Teacher’s day celebration in September when En’en heard her teacher singing a Chinese song “隐形的翅膀” which I had played before,  that  triggered her little passion.  She started asking me to teach her play that song on her ukulele, and learnt the ukulele cords in a lighting speed.  It started off with a few complaints on the fingering, but soon she was coping really well.  After her first song, she continue to extend her passion to another few popular tunes before asking me how to play some simple melody.  I took a little time to explain to her how to read the melody score and to my pleasant surprise, she completely understood how it worked only with a few questions.  She then proceed to learn her first melody “My grandfather’s clock” all by herself and after a few days, we were able to perform as a team.  Fantastic demonstrate on how passion could drive an individual. 

Enjoy the video on our first duet ukulele performance!

Double milestones birthday celebrations : Nov-14

Shin Yang and Qiqi birthdays were 2 weeks apart, but 'coz Qi was having her 'O' levels during Shin Yang's birthday, we did not have the chance to celebrate together at Papa's place.  During an exam break, we returned and celebrated the two 'key milestone' birthdays of the year, a "sweet 16" and a "welcome 40s"!

En's PSLE Marking Day 3: Oct-14

Many primary one kids do not have exams in their first year, but not En. It was her first very SA2. She had little idea what exam entailed. In fact, I would say, she had no idea at all; she did not know when were her exam dates and each time I urged her to revise her work, she would claim to have studied everything!!? Strange thing was, she said the same during her other SA and CAs, but her results left much to be desired..

Being in primary one, I do not want to come down too hard on En as I want her to enjoy and like school. I thought taking a year or so to adapt to the new school system is reasonable. Moreover her exams would only happen after the three- or four- day PSLE marking day. I could make use of that short break to go through her schoolwork if necessary.

Nevertheless, by day three of the PSLE marking day break, En got so restless that she insisted on going out, going to T3 to sit on the slides! As she had been a pretty good girl the past couple of days , we made our way there by late morning. The slides should be opened by then, I thought. 

Somehow, the slides were not opened. No explanation was given, it was simply closed. Naturally En was very upset!! Fortunately she soon bounced back to her happy self and even played for a long while in the young children's playground, making playmates in the process! The T3 shopping mall was quite good as there was no crowd. We tried to buy a pair of shoes for En but she found nothing she liked. I ended up getting a watch for myself, a brand-less automatic clock face watch which looked like a chrono; paid almost $200. Well, I'll take it as an early birthday gift for myself!! (.(

We also explored more of T3 and I gave En a waffle ice-cream treat!! We had a casual late lunch and En even managed to do some work at the eatery.

A Childhood Favourite 鸡蛋糕 : Sep-14

This is a rather hectic but fun month for me, in my own kitchen. Hahaa.. It began first with the snowskin mooncakes, followed by rice cooker cakes. Then Victor requested for me to make one of his childhood favourite, the 鸡蛋糕 with the raisins. Hey, the 鸡蛋糕 is also one of my favourite breakfast food, but I prefer the plain one with the soft paper cup and the red dot on the cake.

The 鸡蛋糕 is definitely a steamed cake, one that I can make in my kitchen!! With this basic knowledge I went on my hunt for a recipe on the internet!! I was surprised there were so many versions of this simple cake.. some were seemingly arrange ingredients like cream soda or Eno, and still other recipes with ingredients so sophisticated that I have never heard of it!! At the verge of calling it a day, I came across this professional food blogger who actually tried out d various 鸡蛋糕 recipes including the traditional one which requires only the three ingredients of eggs, sugar and flour. Naturally I chose the simplest recipe and began my trial..

My first attempt was a success!! It really had that very eggy fragrance.. I LOVE IT!! And Victor loved it too!! Especially with my pre-soaked raisins.. It was really heavenly with my kopi-o..... 😍😍

With 3 eggs, 1 cup of sugar and 1 cup of flour, the 鸡蛋糕 I made did not last very long before they were all eaten up. I could not wait to make and eat another batch!!

Actually I was feeling a little guilty about consuming so much sugar. In a bid to ease my guilt, I attempted a healthier version of the 鸡蛋糕 with buckwheat flour (instead of white flour) and brown sugar (instead of white sugar). The end result was rather dry.. and not so nice. Guess if I really want a healthier 鸡蛋糕 the next time, I will mix buckwheat flour with plain white flour! Also I have to make sure I use caster sugar (which is simply grinding coarse sugar into powder form!!). 

Hahaa.. Before the month ran out, I have steamed my own 鸡蛋糕 at least 4 times!! For the 4th time, I really went back to study the recipe and made sure I followed every instruction to a T. I may not have yield the softest or tastiest cake yet, but the satisfaction was tremendous and I even enjoyed my 鸡蛋糕 even more!!