First time shopping for a car

I have always liked driving. Even as a kid, I used to play Daytona whenever I went to arcades. The time has come when I decided that I have enough of the inconvenience of not having a freaking car. I managed to psycho the old cat to get an OPC car, then after much consideration, we decided to get a normal everyday use car instead.

We will be getting a 2nd hand car for now, cos wanna change to a new car only in 2014. We have initially agreed to purchase a car only end of next year since want to carry out Plan B. So what prompted this sudden decision to bring forward the plan? Correction. We are only bringing forward the plan to buy a car, not Plan B, lol.

1. Even though The EL has 2 cars, I have to share with Mdm Yik, and our schedule clashes more often than not. I am tired of compromising.

2. The journey to Hotberry is tedious. It is 3 hours to and fro and I hate going there cos of that. I usually will not go when the car is not available. Getting a car will make things easier though... I still don't like to go.

3. I am sick of cabbing and I hate watching the meter jumping every few seconds. Cabbing on rainy days is a chore. More often than not, calling for cabs doesn't work.

4. I am tired of going to far places without a freaking car. Its a waste of time.

5. If we get an OPC, how am I going to get to work when I am expecting (in future)? I have to take cab (no way am I going to queue under the hot sun for the shuttle bus), and cab fare a month amounts up to $500 at least. If I am going to pay that amount on cab fare, I might as well buy a normal everyday use car?

So I gathered up my guts and told the EL about our plan. We want him to come along when we go car shopping since he is the expert in this area. Boy, he is really good!

Yesterday after church, together with The EL and Mdm Yik, we went car shopping at Ubi. We are very impressed with The EL. All he did was to open the car's bonnet and one look at the interior, he could point out at least 5 points about the car (e.g. this one good, that one not good) and the salesman cannot even deny! Mind you, its just ONE LOOK.

After that one look, he proceeded to dismantle certain parts to check the engine, and pointed out more points. He went around inspecting the cars, pointing out really minor flaws that we couldn't even see. He pressed hard down on the boot to test the spring, checked this, checked that, also don't know how he check. And then he bargained for the price. We decided to keep our mouths shut. Let the king of bargaining do the work. For parts that need to be replaced, he could even calculate out the individual parts to the salesman and get him to give further discount plus fix those parts for free.

The interesting thing is, just by testing the car, he was able to tell what kind of person the car owner was. E.g. The owner has no passion for cars, only needs a car for driving and thats it. Blah blah blah. Amazing!

We were very impressed!

Anyway, we are now in the negotiating process for 2 cars, both Nissan Sunnys. Not very fuel efficient, but the engine and parts are good. It is within our budget for now too. Hopefully we can get this car thing over and done with soon. I will be able to drive to work, no longer need to suffer air pollution in the morning!

Home Living

The first week of Kitty's reservist training has gone by and I have survived pretty well haha. Kitty had Wednesday evening off as well. I met up with LYY on Tuesday evening and went for yoga on Thursday with Eve. On Friday, I went for Cardiolatino and.... skipped Jazz cos Kitty told me he would be booking out that night.

I have been thinking about getting the Osim uPapa for quite some time, but have never really got down to finding out more about the product. Since Kitty promised to get me one, I decided its time to take action and make good of his word. I thus went to Osim to try out the uPapa and yes, I like it, but the massage feature is not based on the traditional kind of kneading. More of pounding, lol. I decided to check out OTO, and was happy they have 2 types of back massagers - Power Back Plus and E-Bliss. The Power Back Plus is something like the uPapa, while the E-Bliss is based on traditional kneading massage. Haha, so I dragged the old cat to the OTO outlet after Cardiolatino and he bought it for me! Yay! No more backaches!





The purchase came with 2 free gifts too, the Neck Snuggler and Sweet Spot!







Since the old cat was so nice, I decided to be nice too. :)

I prepared dinner.

Stir Fried Beef with Spring Onions and Ginger:



Liver with Spring Onions and Ginger:



Sweet and Sour Pork:



Egg Tofu with Shimeiji Mushrooms:

Woke up on Sunday feeling shitty with all the bodyaches and the old cat forced a thermometer into my mouth. Ok, I got a fever. I was literally glued to the bed until the old cat forced me to see a doctor at Jurong Point. I hate it whenever I am diagnosed with gastric flu. It really makes one feel like shit. Its like "want to die yet cannot die", lol. I was a whiny patient, and every "meeee" brings the old cat immediately to the bedside. Couldn't eat much. At night, the old cat fed me some milo from a teaspoon and some grapes. 20 mins later, I threw up everything. I wonder how a few teaspoons of milo can result in a whole bagful of errr... puke. Old cat had to change the bedsheets since a bit kana the quilt cover, yucks. Since I was in such a pathetic state, he called his CO and requested to book in on Monday morning instead of Sunday night. Poor thing had to clear up the mess I created. I had intended to try out making chawanmushi since I already bought the ingredients on Friday night, but since I was sick... the old cat did it on my behalf haha! Surprisingly it turned out quite well! Poor old cat, by the time he finished clearing up everything, it was almost midnight, and he had to wash the dishes and pack his camp stuff. Think it was close to 2am by the time he got to bed? Poor thing had to get up so freaking early (5am) to return to camp too!

The old cat went for his IPPT during his reservist. Everyone had to go through the IPPT together. Surprisingly, he passed and got $100! According to him, he was 4 secs short of getting silver! I told him to try again before his window closes, aim for $200, wahahahahhaa!

Do you believe in eating according to your blood type? "According to Dr. Peter DÁdamo, author of Eat Right For Your Type, a chemical reaction occurs between your blood and the foods you eat. This reaction is part of your genetic inheritance. This reaction is caused by a factor called Lectins. Lectins, abundant and diverse proteins found in foods, have agglutinating properties that affect your blood. So when you eat a food containing protein lectins that are incompatible with your blood type antigen, the lectins target an organ or bodily system and begin to agglutinate blood cells in that area." Anyway, according to both the old cat and my blood type, olive oil is supposed to be very good for us while canola oil is not. As such, I dumped the bottle of canola cooking oil and bought a bottle of Bertolli Extra Light Olive Oil for my cooking, haha! Cheers to a healthier liftstyle!

Not A Good Day

22 Mar 09 - Today hasn't been the best of days. Her Royal Majesty is down with gastric flu, and has alternated between feeling dizzy and nauseous throughout the day.

She started the morning with a mysterious queasiness in her stomach, which progressed to body aches, a slight fever, and an inclination to vomit. As she lay tossing and turning, I decided that she was in no shape to attend worship services today.

I then went online and found out that there was a clinic at Jurong Point that was open today. We made our way there, and found the waiting room almost fully packed. This was a doctor with rare business acumen, having had the sense to operate when all the rest of the competing clinics were closed. The doctor was bald, and dressed in a polo tshirt with jeans. Dress Down Sunday I suppose.

Back home, Her Royal Majesty lay in a semi-comatose state while I fed her with porridge and tried to ensure that she was as comfortable as possible. She swallowed her pills and finally managed to go to sleep at about 5pm.

Two hours later, Her Royal Majesty decided that her plans for chawamushi would proceed as planned. Except that I, the publicly acknowledged culinary idiot, would be the one cooking it. Undeterred, she duly pointed me to the recipe, which was reasonably straightforward.

Fortunately, the steps were very much fool proof, and the results were still acceptable:



Her Royal Majesty was still suffering from a lack of appetite and called for some grapes and Milo for her dinner. Even then, she could only finish half of the portion that I gave her.

I then tucked her into bed, and fed her her medication. She responded by throwing up the entire contents of what she had consumed during the day. I was extremely thankful that I had prepared a fairly large plastic bag just in case this happened.

On the brighter side, Her Royal Majesty felt slightly better after barfing, and was strong enough to take her shower. I helped her to bed again. This time round, she slept soundly.

Take care my dear, I will check on you again. Even though I may be running around in the forests of Lim Chu Kang.

Miss you.

Protection for our dining table at last

There is this love-hate relationship we face with our dining table. As much as we love our dining table cos its beautiful and looks cool, it is freaking good at attracting dust and within 2 hours after cleaning it, you can see fine specks of dust on it. And cos it is black, you can see the layer of dust lagi more clearly! Thats not the worse thing. As it has a glass table top, it gets scratched easily. Now already kana one scratch. Very heartpain cos this stupid table is one of pricier piece of furniture in the house apart from the sofa.

At first, we bought place mats to put on the table to minimise dust visibility and scratches. However, the whole thing looks ugly. The table looks best without anything but a centerpiece like this:

We have sourced high and low for transparent table covers but couldn't find anything suitable. I was actually wondering if they sell screen protectors in large sizes, lol.

Everytime we have guests, I worry whether our table will get scratched by accident, not to mention Kitty has to polish it with the glass cleaner cos our guests never fail to leave some memories of their prescence behind - hand and/or fingerprints. Because of the same reason, we always put newspapers over the tabletop whenever we dine there (very seldom though). Use already just throw, haha. In fact, since Chinese New Year, the newspapers have been placed on the tabletop permanently. It looks UGLY with a capital U!

I finally got sick of seeing our beautiful table being covered up and suggested to Kitty the next best alternative to screen protectors - book cover. Wahahahahaha! We went to Popular to shop for those transparent book covers and were pleasantly surprised to see that they sell "Table Top Covering" too! They look exactly the same as book covers except they are thicker.

Now our table looks like this:

Ok, still not nice, but better than newspapers right???? Plus, its easier to clean (just wipe with a damp cloth) and can prevent scratches!

Inspired to cook

Last week, Ferene aka Olivia wrote an entry about cooking. Don't know whether it is because she was talking about food and all but my mood to cook struck, lol.

Actually, I had wanted to cook 2 particular dishes 3 weeks ago, but somehow, I always end up procastinating. Finally on Saturday, cos of the sudden inspriration to cook, and also to "reward" Kitty for slaving like a dog by cleaning up our MBR as well as the whole house, I decided to put aside my lazybones and prepared dinner.

Dish 1: Chicken Mushroom Steam Rice aka 'Dong gu mum gai fan" in Cantonese

Before steaming

After steaming

This is one of my favourite dishes. Not only is it yummy, its a one pot thing, so convenient for lazybones like me, wahahahahhaha!

Dish 2: Old Cucumber Soup with Spare Ribs aka 老黄瓜排骨汤

This is Kitty's favourite soup, and mine too! Put more dried scallops than usual and let it boil on "high" for 20 mins before switching to "medium" and let it simmer for the next 2.5 hours. Kitty said it was very flavourful, and I love it too! This was the very first soup dish I pestered Mdm Yik to teach me when we first moved into our new home, haha!

Dish 3: Sambal Kang Kong

Last minute decided to cook this kang kong dish cos the shrimp paste I bought 2 weeks ago is going to expire in May. We will be eating a lot of kang kong from now till May, lol.

Was in a relatively good mood yesterday cos Kitty brought me to Zhou's Kitchen after church for high tea to celebrate our 52nd month anniversary in advance. Our 3rd floor neighbour was telling me over Msn that the food was good, so I went back and told Kitty, haha. Well, ok lah, not bad, but I think I still prefer International buffets at hotels. I miss my fave salmon sashimi! Anyway, since I was in a good mood and we were both too full for a proper dinner, I made dessert, lol.

Gingko Barley dessert with Foo Chuk:

Part 2: Newlyweds die as feature wall caves in on them in the middle of the night

4th March - The laminate guy came in the afternoon to insert the laminate skirting along the edge of the wall. As Kitty and I are both working, we asked Mdm Yik to help us out. Not only did she help us to supervise the work, she also helped to clear up the mess left behind. Haha this is the advantage of staying near to the folks! This is how it looks like:

7th March – The guys from Europa were supposed to come between 10 – 10.30am to install the wallpaper for our MBR. They came at 9.45am instead, and I was still taking my own sweet time in the shower! We were told that the installation would take about 3 hours, but they only took 1 hour! I guess that’s because they sent 3 workers down, haha! Anyway, we are very happy with their service and workmanship! Even though we ordered 3 rolls, the workers told us that only 2 are needed, so that saved us $120! There were leftover materials too! Interestingly, I wasn’t very confident of the choice of wallpaper at first, but now that I see it on our wall, I think its really very nice and matches well with our bed head design! Red flowers plus leaves at the background, haha! Even though I like the original brown and white tiles, the design of the tiles is too subtle to be seen, probably cos of the dark brown colour. I realise that wallpaper brings out a different look and feel of the room. Somehow, it’s a “milder, softer” look and feel. Tiles are like… too “strong, hard”??? It’s the FEELING lah! Plus, I love the texture on the wallpaper! Wahahahahahahhaa! I love our new Mbr wall!!

One of the workers from Europa. The other one is squatting down, so can only see his head, haha.

Tools and materials

The workers did the cutting outside. More spacious, haha!

After the guys left, Kitty got started on his many tasks: vacuuming and cleaning the room, bedframe, floor, skirtings...etc. It was night when he finally finish cleaning up the room. It was a really thorough cleanup! We shifted the heavy king-size bed from the guest room back to the Mbr and Kitty proceeded to change the bedsheets. I helped out by wiping the TV and Dvd player, then he carried them back into the Mbr and hooked up the cables.

Just after the big clean-up...

Yay! Our Mbr is finally restored to sleeping conditions! It feels so different to sleep on the mattress without the bedframe! I prefer the elevated height, haha!

Before:

After:

Newlyweds die as feature wall caves in on them in the middle of the night

We are officially into a 2nd round of reno, despite moving in barely 2 years ago. In short, we are renovating our master bedroom (aka mbr).

Here's the scope:

21 February (Sat) - I noticed some hairline cracks along the right side of the feature wall that our bed was against. I didn't think much of it. As long as it doesn't worsen, who cares? I did not check on the other side of the feature wall since they are only hairline cracks and I thought they are common.

23 February (Mon) - Kitty found out that the hairline cracks I discovered 2 nights ago became a big gap! Quite a shock since its become so jia lat within a span of 2 days!


Crack from the 2nd quarter onwards

Close up view of the 2nd and 3rd quarter. The crack along the bottom part (pic on the right) is not as jagged though.

Even though only hairline cracks were spotted along the upper part of the feature wall, Kitty didn't want to take the risk of sleeping in the Mbr. I was telling him for all we know, we would make the headlines in The Straits Times "Newlyweds Die as Feature Wall Caves In On Them In The Middle of the Night". Lol.

As we didn't know how to dismantle the bedframe, we proceeded to shift the heavy king sized mattress into the guest room. Who would have thought that we would be the first occupants of the empty guest room! The mattress was freaking heavy. Thankfully there were handles at the sides to hold on to! Kitty covered the bedframe with white plastic sheets lest the wall collapses and ruin it with dirt, tile chips and cement.



Getting in touch with the ID firm that did our renovation was a pain. Apart from fixing an appt for the tiler to come down to take a look, we had to do everything else by ourselves. After we got the tiler's hp no. from **sy (the person in-charged of doing our reno), we had to make arrangements with the tiler ourselves, as **sy always promised to call us back but didn't. Either that, or he doesn't pick up his phone. He never reply our smses too. You can imagine how liasing with him was such a pain! Thankfully we managed to get the tiler's contact no!

We contacted the tiler and arranged for him to come down on Wednesday night. Better get him to come asap before the wall collapses, lol.

25 February (Wed) - The tiler came to our place at 7.45pm to check out the situation. He said it was the first time he encounted such a problem. According to him, his workers must have used too much cement when they were installing the tiles on the wall, such that over time, the thickness of the cement plus the weight of the tiles weighs down and causes the crack. He was at a loss how to remove the tiles without having everything come tumbling down. I suggested having 1 worker to remove the top tiles while 2 other workers support the bottom tiles to prevent them from tumbling down.

27 February (Fri) - I left work at 4.30pm and went home to wait for the tiler and his workers. They came at 5.30pm and started to lay cardboard sheets over the floor to protect our laminate flooring. I helped out by providing a ladder and 2 stools for them. Liew, as they removed the top tiles, chips flew in all directions. I was so worried about the glass door that was just next to the wall! Luckily I made Kitty remove the TV and DVD player too!






The pics above show the tilers in the process of removing the tiles.

After 45 mins, this is how the wall looks like:



The room was freaking dirty. The men packed up the broken tiles and packed them into canvas sacks. One of them asked me for a broom so that they can sweep up the remaining chips. I told them we only use the vacuum cleaner, lol. Just as they were wondering how to clear up the mess, I suddenly remember we have this broom that Kitty used to wash the toilet last time. Haha and I managed to find it in the storeroom! The pole was not attached to it though (don't know where Kitty chucked it), but the men were saying, "nevermind lah, better than nothing lah!" Wahaahhahaha! So they cleared up majority of the mess, but the house was still very dusty n dirty. I didn't know what to do except to wait for Kitty to come back from work. I tried not to move around the house.

Haha, it is during such trying times when I realise the advantage of having a man in the house. He tabao-ed dinner for me, and proceeded to clean up the mess. That took almost 2 hours!

28 February (Sat) - We were given the option of replacing the tiles at no cost, or topping up to do something else. We decided to do wallpaper instead, thus the tiler came in the morning to smoothen the wall with cement.

The removal of the wall tiles brought along other problems:

- the paint on the ceiling got dirty and the edge of the ceiling wall uneven due to the remnants of the feature wall cement on it.

- there is a gap between the laminate flooring and the original wall cos of the feature wall that was removed. The thickness of the feature wall used to fill up that gap.

We had to call the guy who did our laminate flooring and arrange for him to come and check out the problem. Luckily we still had his hp number! As for the wall, we decided to buy white paint and DIY. Bought a 1 litre can of Nippon Vinelex Matt Plus white paint, 2 paint rollers, 1 brush, roller tray, sandpaper and masking tape. Since there are water marks on the ceiling in the WIW, I asked Kitty to repaint the ceiling in addition to patching up the ceiling wall in the Mbr.


Kitty patching up the edges of the ceiling


Ceiling at the WIW, look at the watermarks.

Kitty the painter did a wonderful job! No more watermarks!

In the afternoon, we went to Europa to view wallpapers. Decided not to order from **sy's sub-contractor for the wallpaper as dealing with **sy was such a pain. I rather source on our own! We spent 1 hour at Europa choosing wallpapers. It was so hard to choose, but we finally decided on a purple wallpaper with texture. The guy will be installing it for us this coming Sat! Heartpain, another $700++ gone. Just when we are are saving for our US trip!

Yay Kitty completed the painting yesterday. Now we are left with fixing the floor (closing up the gap by filling it with laminate skirting) before we can install the wallpaper. If everything goes as planned, we'll be able to move back into the Mbr this weekend. Yay!

- Phebe