This trip to Sydney was not part of my planned travel in 2016, it came as a 'stretched' target for me and I was supposed to temporarily take over the IT operations there for the next 10 months! Nevertheless, i was 'rewarded' with this flight to the cold Sydney on our comfortable SIA business class. Travelling alone there to work did not generate much excitement, even worst, when you were not certain of the people and tasks which you would be handling in the near future.
However, from the positive perspective, there were still a few good things worth mentioning:
1. Going to a winter country in June was refreshing. It did not strike me that Australia was at the other sphere until I was packing my luggage. It was nice to escape the June heat and humidity in Singapore to somewhere chilly. It was 7 degree when I landed at Sydney, such refreshing feeling.
Cold and Beautiful Sydney
2. Met Mummy and Papa's old friends and had dinner. It was almost 20 years ago (in 1997) when Shin Yang and myself went to Sydney for our honeymoon and mummy had asked us to visit her old friends,Aunty素贞and Uncle锡万, who had since migrated there. During then, they were very nice and had brought us out to the beach, casino, lunch and also their house.
1997 - With Aunty素贞and Uncle锡万during honeymoon
2016 - Dinner with Aunty素贞and Uncle锡万
I was lucky to bump into them again in the Sydney Casino this time, even though they took a while to recall who I was. I took the opportunity to buy them dinner and updated them on the family. Before parting, I also had uncle to write something for Papa just to link up these distanced friends.
3. Capturing the plane taking off. Although I had taken the plane numerous times, I never really took the effort to capture a video during the take off. This time I did, it was amazing.
Time really flies and En turned 9 this year. Juz like her older sisters when they turned 9, her pa asked her if she would like to have her very own birthday party this year. To our surprise, she said yes. The first people on her invitation list were all of us in her family, and her Ah Yee Mama's family and Megan!!
I remembered Qi's and Xuan's birthday parties to be cozy and fun affairs with their close friends at our place.. We had food, we had fun, we prepared games and gifts for our guests too. But those were humble affairs and way before we experienced Dor's fanciful and indulgent birthday parties for Ally.. When En's Qmama heard that En's throwing her own birthday party, she really made En think hard - what is the theme of your party, who do you want to invite, what games do u want to play with your guests, etc..
Upon her Qmama's drilling, En began to explore.. Eventually she settled on the Candy theme. Like Xuan, En has always enjoy and love candies but she is also very conscious of my disdain for candies and knows exactly the bads of candies. Hence, she must have thought this as the perfect opportunity for me to say yes to all her candy requests - in the name of the birthday party... Arggh!!
For her candy themed party, En had me constantly on the Internet rummaging for do-able and affordable ideas for her party. Of course I will never be able to match her Qmama's standard, but I really really want to give En a memorable first birthday party.
After my WDFD on the last Sunday of June, my anxiety and stress immediately turned to En's party. Date, venue, deco, guests, food, games.. every item on the list was a challenge!!
Venue was the biggest challenge. Of course the most convenient place would be at home. But the cons of holding En's party at home are plentiful; non-spacious and non-aircon top the list. This was one occasion I wish we were staying in a condominium with a fully air conditioned function room.. Luckily I was able to get their Aunty Florence's help to book her condo function room. It's perfect -- nearby enough and just the right size with sufficient tables & chairs!!
After I eventually accepted En's guest list, my worry turned to deco, food and candy. Mulling in front of the laptop for a couple of days and nights, i finally found and ordered some party room deco hoping to make En's party Instagram-worthy; I worried slightly too if they would arrive in time.
Food - just cater or buy since it's really just close friends and family.
Candy - where to buy and how much to buy such that wastage is kept to a minimal and plentiful enough to upkeep a candy-themed party..
E'nuff said! After all the planning and preparations are said and done, the massive prep on the actual day itself was still the nightmare..
En'en and her presents
Looking back, it was pretty fun and satisfying. Happiest was that En had a happy and memorable 9th birthday party. I probably wouldn't do it a second time tho..
Les Misérables - one of the most highly-acclaimed and longest-running musicals in the world; adapted from Victor Hugo's 1862 novel, hailed as one of the greatest novel of the 19th century.
Victor Hugo's Les Mis was first introduced to me when I was in the NTU Student Division when we were all urged to read this wonderful novel. Sensei had mentioned it in his guidances and had encouraged the youths to read it. I bought a softcover and it had remained as the thickest storybook on my shelf for the longest time!! I had made several attempts to read.. to plough through the pages, but sad to say, I never got to the end.
When the Les Mis musical last came to Singapore 22 years ago, I remembered joining my NTUSD friends to watch it at the Kallang Theatre; that was in 1996. Although I was not able to see everything very clearly being seated rather far from the stage, I could however hear all the songs sung with such power and deep emotions. My very first musical. Worth every dollar and cent I paid, which wasn't little considering I was still a student! I left the theatre in awe.. with all the songs ringing in my head.
Since watching the musical, I had always wanted to buy the 3-discs original soundtrack each time I roamed into a CD shop, but did not because of its steep price. I eventually owned it and that was one of the first CDs I put into my first-owned car!!
As a family, we have listened to the CDs on a few occasions and I believe we each have our personal favorite songs. We have also watched the close-to-3-hours Les Mis movie at least twice!!
Les Mis Singapore 2016, 31 May-24 July
Frankly, I had no plan to watch the the Les Mis musical at all even as I saw the publicity posters and advertisements. Because it's juz too damn expensive to pay a few hundred bucks for one miserable decent seat!!
It was only when a fellow SNCO member offered his staff offer for the tickets that I began to seriously consider.. maybe can watch with Laogong? In the end i bought 4 tickets as I recalled how En was so impatient for the Wicked musical to end when she was the one who pestered us to bring her watch it! However nearing our musical date, En began to show great interest in the musical and even bargained with her pa to let her go in his place instead!!
In the end, we bought an additional ticket from sistic just so that all 5 of us can watch it together, although can't sit together.
It was damn good!! We all love it!! It was surely a most worthwhile experience!! Laogong & I were most glad and happiest that we were able to bring all our girls to watch this simply amazing production!! 😊😊😊
This June holidays were particularly busy for the kids. Although I had taken 3 days leave, I could not find much time for us to go out together, Qi was busy studying her exams in July, Xuan spent most time in school preparing her street sales and En got a part-time job as an extra in a movie. Nevertheless, we tried to make the best out of break, enjoying the limit time we had. And if the kids were not around, we would just go "pak-tor". :-)
Watching a Chinese Orchestra at Esplanade with Enen
Cycling for Enen and Jogging for us
Lunch with Enen after her Chinese Opera Practise
Breakfast together before Xuan heads off to school
Ah Tui passed on peacefully on 16-Jun-16 (Thurs) at the age of 82. Although it was not a happy occasion, in my view Ah Tui had one of the best way to pass on. He was living his life as per normal, up to a week before he was admitted into the hospital during his regular checkup and then falling into coma 2 days before he passed away. No burden for the family and not much suffering for Ah Tui too. All his sons and daughters were also back to send off his last journey this life and departure to his next journey.
During the June holidays, Enen had a chance to participate in acting for a movie as a extra. In one of the scenes, she would be performing along with the main cast in a Wayang (Chinese Opera) performance. Her role was a monkey around the monkey god, and the crew had also arranged her to attend about 2 days of training prior to the filming. It was Enen first Wayang experience but she was having good fun learning it. To improve on the performance, i also spent a bit of time to impart some of my experience to her, and she did well.
Tried pressing my second polymer clay figure, this time the Japanese devil, 般若 face. The outcome did not come close to look like a 般若. Well, practice would make me do better next time...
It was a Sunday afternoon where Ling and Qi were out and we were 'trapped' at home with nothing planned. I could sense Xuan and En boredom was building up and coincidentally Hong messaged and jio us to a Theme Cafe called Pompompurin at Orchard. The girls were surprisingly fast to get prepared, and I booked a cab quickly to bring us there. When we arrived, we were glad to be 'greeted' by Thea who was queuing together with Dor. We waited about 20 mins before we got a place and entered the beautiful restaurant where they served beautiful, expensive and average tasting food. It was a refreshing experience and Xuan even bought one of their water bottle, most importantly it killed our 'boredom' on a hot Sunday afternoon.
