Ukulele Duet with Enen : Apr-16

Since Boon Wun Koh started her frequent Chinese Orchestra practice for SYF this year, we rarely have the chance to jam together. Recently she took up her ukulele again and here is our first duet of the year!!

My 1st Baked Food from My Oven - Apr-16

My oven began cranking in April ....

- Cranberry Pistachio Biscotti - 

For the longest time, I've been bugging Victor to get me an oven in our kitchen! For the longest time, he's been refusing me as oven is most often associated with baking and butter, and he simply cannot stand the stench (but I call it aroma) of healthy butter!!

The latest gambit I adopted was I need an oven to roast chicken! Well, Victor eats roasted chicken and knows they're tasty!! Anyway, one fine day at dinner time he mentioned about the oven to Ma & shortly after one of Ma's extra ovens was out of her storeroom & shifted to our home!!👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

Well, I wasn't the first to bake in that oven at home; Qi beat me to it. Never mind that. After a looong period of procrastination, I finally used our oven for the first time, and it wasn't for the chicken!😆😆

Yes.. I was missing decent biscotti with my kopi-O too much!! It suddenly dawned on me that with my own oven, I no longer need to depend on generosity and charity, and that I can finally make my own biscotti!!!!!! YAAAYY!!!🎉🎉🎉

After gathering my favourite biscotti ingredients - pistachios and cranberries, and armed with an olive oil version recipe and a YouTube version of another recipe, I finally mustered the courage to begin!!

The dough was damn sticky and extremely challenging. Only the thought of 'cannot let my ingredients go to waste' nudged me on.. Eventually my dough was ready to enter the oven. It didn't matter that I did not manage to split the dough into half, it didn't matter that my biscotti came out weird-shaped and huge, it didn't matter that I thought my few slices of biscotti were somehow not worth the efforts I had put in.. What mattered was the whiff of my freshly-baked biscotti from the oven!! What mattered was my biscotti was simply so choked with my favourite pistachio and cranberries!!!!😋😋😋😋😋

*****

- Lemon Curd Filled Muffins -

Muffins seemed like a must-do on the oven, but now that i have one in my kitchen, I have no urge to bake muffins; I was never infatuated by any muffin I think.

Nonetheless I still scroll through some muffin recipes just so that one will catch my eye.. After all, Victor was on overseas business trip and I can freely bake buttery stuff in the house.. Finally this one made me want to eat it!!

Lemon is sourish and combats and compliments the sweetness of muffins. To have something flow out of my muffin like a lava cake, oooooh!! So I proceeded to make my own lemon curd before attempting to make the muffins. I like the taste of lemon curd!!👍🏼❣

Somehow tho, my muffins didn't turn out too well.. A lil' dry, plus no lemon curd flow out!!?😭😭  Fortunately, at least half of my 12 muffins from a single tray was shared by those who attended the 4D review & planning meeting that very evening. Phew...

*****

- Chicken Thigh -

Since roasting the chicken seemed to be the reason Victor eventually brought over the oven for me, I had to bake or roast some chicken, right?

As a novice, I start small - juz 3 chicken thighs for lunch.

The thighs came out a lil' but very tasty!! I was pleased... (^^)

Enen's First SYF Experience - Apr-16

En has joined the Junior Musicianship Program organized by her school since P1. Apparently it is a program to cultivate some skills and interest in the Chinese orchestra instruments and eventually let them join the main Chinese orchestra. In this program, parents pay a nominal fee and children have a morning each week with the instructors to learn music and to play the instrument.

En seemed to have set her goal to want to join the main orchestra to enter a competition since she began the program. So when she was finally chosen to take part in the SYF 2016 at the beginning of the year, she was thrilled! Nonetheless, it was a very tiring journey as her once-a-week practice became twice a week after school hours, and subsequently thrice a week!! 

Once, nearing the competition, she was obviously quite tired out, and had wanted to play truant for one practice... I knew she was rather exhausted and left her to make her own decision after reminding her of the importance of every practice especially juz before the SYF.. After some deliberation and whining, she ultimately fulfilled her responsibility and attended that practice too, albeit she's late for that practice. I was very proud of her perseverance and sense of commitment!! 

Eventually they did not clinch the Distinction award they were working towards and only gotten the Accomplished award, but seeing how hard the children tried, the teachers and instructors were also much encouraged and gratified, I'm sure. 

Enen learnt cycling : Apr-16

After our cycling session to Coney Island with En’en, it seemed like she had made a personal resolution to be able to cycle herself.  She started to ‘bark’ us to remove the supporting wheels on her bicycle and then pester Shin Yang to bring her down to practice on her bike.  She progressed well to achieve her goal, and although her high confidence level did eventually resulted her in a fall when coming down from a slope, she persevered after her recovery and had better control over her skills now.  It was the determination in her that made me proud about her, something which I would also like to consistently maintain throughout.

Supporting Xuan Performance : Apr-16

After being appointed as the drum major for the wind orchestra at Nan Chiau High, Xuan had her first concert for 2016 at her school on 02-April.  Xuan was excited and committed in making this event a successful and put in huge effort in selling as many tickets to her friends and family.  I jokingly also asked Xuan if I could be the ‘official’ photographer on that day and to my surprise, she really went and asked her teacher-in-charge and gotten approval for me to take photographs on that day!  It was also funny for Shin Yang to re-confirm this with the teacher during the meet-the-parent session before the concert.

On that concert night, shouldered with this responsibility, I braved through the performance area and took photos at every possible angle.  I had come to learn the courage required in photography from being embarrassed in awkward positions while taking pictures.  Only by overcoming this hurdle, then the pictures will be unique and special. So fearlessly, I snapped numerous pictures and Xuan enjoyed the benefit to share them with her friends too.

Family supporting Xuan

Memorial Prayer : Mar-16

It was another year for Ching-Ming where we would come together and pay respect to our deceased relatives.  As mummy and Ah Jia & Gong-gong ashes were placed at Senja, we would attend the memorial prayers at Senja centre every year.  This year, I was also tasked to be the photographer for that session and thus, had a good view of the entire event. 

A deep impression of this event was when our General Director (GD) delivered his speech after the prayers and requesting the attendees to lower their volume for the respect of the Gohozon and the deceased.  Personally, I felt GD was courageous to remind everyone on the spirit of Ching-Ming session, and paying respects to our deceased.  It was a culture I also felt lacking in our society, well we could be warm-hearted and kind individuals here, the awareness of proper behavior on various important occasion could be further observed.  Let’s see how we could improve within ourselves first. 

Cycling to Coney Island : Mar-16

It was the March Holiday and a Saturday where we could hardly have a break from our weekly NAFA routine.  Initially I had planned for a picnic together with the extended family where we could all come together to take some nice photos before Dor would go and give birth the second one.  Unfortunately, everyone was busy with their own schedule and we had to change our plan.  

From friends and Facebook posts, we had always being told how beautiful Coney Island was, and although we were less than 10 km there, we had never visited the island since it was opened up to the public.   So with that in mind, we changed our plan to cycle to Coney island instead.   On that Saturday early morning, I got our bikes ready and Shin Yang and myself started our journey there with En’en riding behind Shin Yang’s bike.  We managed to reach there within an hour.  Personally, I enjoyed the things I saw in that small little island.  It was like going back to the times where things around us were less developed and more nature surrounding us.  There were many trees, soiled path, tree logs, no artificial fixtures and many birds chirping around.  It felt great that the authority made a deliberate effort not to develop this island much, leaving it’s original taste for us, and I hoped it would continue this way as long as possible.

Photo shots with Ally : Mar-16

We joined Ally when she went swimming on a Sunday and took some really nice pictures.

Mama’s Birthday : Mar-16

What we did special this year for mama’s birthday was to have a birthday dinner in a VIP room at the WoPeng restaurant.  With his excellent contact, Andrew kindly helped me to order and book the restaurant at a good price.  Unfortunately, the portion was too much for our small stomach to contain and we left filled up to our throat and could hardly walk.  Nevertheless, it was a nice special experience to celebrate mama’s birthday and  we also continued our cake cutting at home despite our full-load.

Chingay photo-shooting experience : Feb-16

After being an Angsana member (SSA photographers group) for more than a year, I was given an opportunity to shoot our SSA performance in the Chingay this year.  Prior to committing myself, KX did warn us on the challenges of taking photos during Chingay, nevertheless I took on the challenge and agreed to go for at least two Chingay performances. 

My first experience was the full dress rehearsal at AMK-Bishan park which was a total breeze.  How difficult could it be I thought…

Group photo during rehearsal

However, a week later when I joined the actual Chingay Parade 1 at F1 pit, I finally managed to taste the pain.  It was pouring like crazy then and after sitting at our seats for a short while, my partner (Alex) and I were forced to retreat to the shelter and waited for the SSA event to come.  Our raincoats did not help much and the rain did not go gentle on everyone and continued with cats and dogs.  When our performance was about to arrive, we confronted it regardless, battling the rain together with the rest of the performers and photographers.  Our only consolation was the fact that due to the heavy rain, we were actually able to get very close to the VIP stand, which provided us a good angle for our shooting, but still, it was very very wet.  After half an hour, my camera lens could not continue anymore and caught a ‘cold’ and got condensed… L  Fortunately, I got a backup camera to take a few shots for our performance to ease my disappointment.  The rain also did not encourage us to stay on too long and we retired shortly after our event, drenched down into our underpants and definitely one of a lifetime experience.

Alex and myself

VIP - LHL

Close shoot near VIP stand

Performer drenched

Volunteer helping the media photographer

 Two days later, the Chingay Fiesta was conducted at AMK-Bishan park where our MD choir would be performing.  Three of us went down to take the shoots; Alex, KX and myself.  While there was a brief passing shower, it stopped way before our MD performance commenced.  Due to the crowd gathered at the park, we had to discuss on our strategy to take some good shoots for the event.  I suggested my position to be at the opposite block where I could shoot the performance together with the VIPs viewing them.  So, I recce the place and confirm that it was a viable spot.  At 7pm, we went separately to deploy our mission and I was ready and waiting for our performance to happen at 8pm.  Prior to that, I adjusted my camera settings and fully prepared for that few minutes.  Close to 8pm, to my huge dismay, huge crowd of participant gathered at the performance area with big balloons which obstructed my view totally and then also came the firework in front of me which smoked my entire view.   What an unexpected outcome after an hour of wait, but nevertheless, it lived up to it’s Chingay photography challenge reputation.

Shoot from opposite block

Smokey fireworks