The last day of 2009

Spent the last day of the year celebrating my sister's birthday at the White Rabbit @ Harding Road, where we had a 'chi-chi' lunch with Xiao Yang, Gen and Sarah.







lazy to write... so just enjoy the photos folks. Happy New Year!

Btw, our wedding photos are up on facebook. =)

Happy Mothers Day and Happy Birthday

Yesterday the Tan family and the woman folk of the Lee family went out to celebrate a belated Mothers Day cum Birthday brunch. Having been to Jones the Grocer once just to look see look see, we decided that it was the place to bring our mom and Gen for brunch. 

What is Jones the Grocer?

Located at Dempsey Road, Jones the Grocer is an Australian chain that is set out like a grocery shop with an on site cafe. It sells wines, cheeses, pasta etc and also has a breakfast and lunch menu. 

Being a weekday, it was not very crowded and the service was attentive. the ambience was lovely too and got the approval of both the mother and the father, the latter announcing that we can come back again. 

Little sarah also enjoyed herself, wandering the aisles, picking up things within her reach and also playing with her organic oats; that she generously offered to us to share. 

Food was yummy too... Sorry no photos as everyone tucked in quickly.. 

End of 2008

After chilling out with my Dunman choir friends on Boxing Day, my family (minus me) left for another family holiday, this time, in Bangkok, Thailand; the land of shopping, eating, pollution and other stuff that shall not be named here. It is also I believe, Singaporeans favourite or second favourite place for a holiday primarily because its; 1) cheap 2) good shopping 3) good food.

Yeap it is for these very reasons (after all, we are Singaporeans) that the Tan family decided to spend our last family holiday of 2008 in BKK.

Some of you might be thinking, 'Wa you really have been traveling alot ah? Alot of family trips man.. didnt you just come back from HK?" Haha.. yes I did but well, its the holidays and since I wont be leaving the country at all this year once i start work (maybe just once in the later part of the year), why not?

Besides, other reasons for this trip was to celebrate birthday(s) as well as to usher in the New Year with a difference. So, while the rest of the Tan clan left on 26th Dec 2008, i stayed back over the weekend to spend time with the Doc and left only on 29th night, just in time to celebrate my grandaunt's (popo) and my sister's birthday on 30th and 31st respectively. We bought them a variety of cakes from this really quaint tea room at Central World, placed them artistically on a plastic white chopping board (low budget production and lack of resources) and surprised them by walking into the apartment with it. Have a look:

While we went out on the 30th for dinner, New Year's Eve dinner was spent at home since we reckoned that it would be crowded and expensive everywhere. So, a feast of Peranakan-Thai dishes was cooked up (dont expect anything less in this household). Here is the evidence:

Other Random Shots:

1) A shot of jie while walking from Platinum Mall back to Central World

2) A picture of the whole tea time set

3) One of my favourite shots

4) Trace and Wayne

While we went out on the 30th for dinner, New Year's Eve dinner was spent at home since we reckoned that it would be crowded and expensive everywhere. So, a feast of Peranakan-Thai dishes was cooked up (dont expect anything less in this household). Here is the evidence:

Photos:
prawns-Buah Keluak- Home-made Pomelo Salad- extra Buah Keluak (just the meat)- Thai fishcake + Ngoh Hiang + Roast Pork - Thai Desert
Some were bought some were homemade but regardless, everything was yummy-licious! (not great for the waistline but well...) This was subsequently followed by the watching of fireworks on the balcony as we counted in the New Year.

Though it was a pretty short trip for me, I actually had a craving for our usual Tan family return home meal of Fishball Noodles from Bedok South Hawker Center (i.e. Mee Kia Ta ai hiam). It must be due to the lousy airplane dinner and that I was hungry and craving for noodles. So off we went after picking up the car from home.. Here's proof of our greed and my first bowl of fishball noodles since coming back to Singapore.

My sis's fav... bbq chicken wings

Sarah Lee

Sarah Lee, is Ben and Gen's daughter and sister to Master Caleb Lee.

The Doc and I attended a birthday party thrown by her parents yesterday at their place as representatives of her God-Ma who is currently in BKK. We also attended as friends of her parents as well as fans of thediaryofanewdaddy .

Dressed in a pretty pink frock, Sarah was fresh from a nap and in a happy mood, mingling with all the numerous aunties and uncles who were more than happy to play with her.

Gor Gor Caleb was also busy playing hosts to the many little children invited to the party. He even helped ND in the giving out of door gifts for the kiddies who attended, remembering the names of each and everyone of them (impressive!). He also made the Doc's day by offering him one of the gifts. However, much to the Doc's dismay but glee, ND told Caleb that gor gor Chew Chew is a MAN not a BOY. But well, the little boy in him was already pleased.

Caleb, eating a piece of the 'fence' from Sarah's birthday cake

Caleb and Kimmie
Sarah and Mummy

It was quite fun watching all the kiddies running around and socializing amongst themselves. I guess you could say it was organised chaos. As I hung around at Ben and Gen's house and did my favourite past time of people watching, I realised how relaxed all the parents were. They were unfazed by the kids, taking everything in stride. I guess they were used to noise, mess and kiddies zooming around. Quite a sight.. =)

29 October 1948

A few days ago on the 29th of Oct, my Dad celebrated his 60th birthday. In order to celebrate this milestone in his life, he had a few celebrations... @ Hort Park, a dinner on the actual day with the immediate family and a birthday breakfast treat at Simpan Bedok.

Since it was his birthday, i decided to follow them to capture this 'treat' of bak chor mee. =) Photos were taken with a digital SLR loaned to me by Ben Ben.. Check out the quality of the photos!~

Waiting patiently for the noodles to arrive

Attempt #1 to take a photo of both of them

---> Attempt #2

i finally got it!

It was quite a wait for the noodles.. but it finally came and everyone tucked in... yes, this is the way we celebrate birthdays in Singapore, by treating ourselves to something we would not normally have on a daily basis. and for my dad's case, this was that bowl of bak chor mee for breakfast.

And since my Dad wasnt interested in having a huge birthday cake, yet wanted a cake, we decided to buy cupcakes for him and the guests.. kind of a thank you cake. We were initially going to buy custom made cupcakes at about 2-3 dollars a cupcake.. but while i was searching online for options, I realised how expensive they could get. So, I decided to make my own simple cupcake for my dad. Using my sis's rum cake recipe, I basically made it into tiny cakes, dressing them up with coloured icing and chocolate chip. It was really easy and quite pretty i must say. Here's the final product.

All in all, i thought it his 60th birthday celebration was a success... to many more years!

Keiko and Me

I dont feel like writing. but just want to share this photo with you guys. Heres a photo of me and Keiko at her birthday celebration. Keiko is a Japanese lady whom i met in ISM. She is a teacher back home in Japan , here to do a masters in education. I dun really know here very well, but i think she is a beautiful lady. what a lady should be.

Birthday Celebration, cycling. wedding. thank yous

I'm officially 25 years old. I never thought this day would come but when it did it was a little surreal. All those years of wondering, 'what would it be like to reach that age?' "would i feel a drastic decease in my metabolism rate?" "will i feel the effects of what my sis calls 'The downhill effect?" Well, I know none of them appeared at the stroke of midnight like an aging curse. Though they did appear in my imagination. (the vivid imagination of Grace Tan)

Cycling

Unlike my sis's 30th extravaganza, mine paled in comparison. I did however, do extraordinary things to commenrate this milestone; one of which is tandem biking with the doc. Granted this wasnt our first time but it was a first in tandem biking at night. Arriving at the bike store around 2030hr, rental of our transport for the night came at a cheap cheap price of S$0.70/hour/pax.

Objective: Exercise and Fun.

Itinary: mini food trail.

I believe we pushed the tandem bike to its maximum when we brought it out of ECP. I mean, have you ever seen a 2-man bike anywhere OUTSIDE ECP? Trust me, it was a sight to behold. If not for the doctor's heck-care attitude of what others think, I would never have ventured out of ECP. But thankfully for us, we did and enjoyed ourselves tremendously. Cycling through the Siglap Park Connector, we manuvered our way to a coffeeshop near my place for mee sua, where the doc happily slurpped and proclaimed its yummy-value.

Next, we hopped back onto our 2-man bike and pedaled towards the Suspension Bridge located near Indoor Stadium, via ECP>exit Fort Road>Tanjong Rhu Road.Cycling on the road was quite scary but thankfully for me, the doc never failed. confident and skillfull. phew.

All in all, we cycled a solid 3 hours before our bums were calling out for mercy and we retired around midnight. Yes, we are quite lousy in that sense cos we technically didnt do night cycling. But oh well, better than nothing.

The actual day wasnt as high on the wow scale. It was however extremely lovely as I spent it at home with my family. (doc came by in the morning cos we had to return the bike by 1000 that day) We went out for breakfast at bakery depot, went grocery shopping for my mom, had lunch at home, had a homemade birthday cake and finally had a wedding to attend at Chjimes.

Wedding
While it wasnt the first time in Chjimes for me, it was a first time i attended a wedding dinner in the chapel. It was also the first time i was meeting the doc's JC friends. Cool bunch of people, really enjoyed the company and was truly entertained throughout the night. oh! and i actually met my ex-DG mate there! Nat and I used to be in the same Discipleship Group in Sci during my NUS days under the BX. It was really nice to see a familiar face as well as catch up with her since we all kind of drifted apart after we all left Crusade.

Thank you
to Miss Yeo and her kids and Dr Wang for spending a great lunch with me today.
Explanation: Like any other Sunday, a bunch of us would usually go out for lunch. Dr Wang had msg the doc the day before re lunch on Sunday. Great minds think alike, so all three of us chio-ed 'the cher' out for lunch as well. 'The cher' in return brought her kids too. So off we went to Astons for a nice lunch of steaks, burgers, soups, fries, onion rings, pork chops, chicken cutlet and salads. We were making so much noise (Dr wang, miss yeo and the doc were shouting insults at one another. in love of course) but it was all lost in the noise of Astons. Food arrived and i must say it was super yummy and super affordable. The kids were highly amused by us i think but i'm glad they came. It was a lot of fun. After that, Miss Yeo and Dr Wang suprised me by buying me a cake to celebrate! Dr Wang really knows his cakes man. The blueberry cheescake was yum yum and apparently it wasnt the best cake they had in this shop!

I had a wonderful time at lunch. Thank you to you all! =)

birthday celebrations

Besides being New Years Eve, 31st Dec always bears extra significance for us as it's also my sister's birthday. And in true blue fashion, it was celebrated through... FOOD!

This year was a little more special than others since we were celebrating a milestone in her life. The celebration began with brunch at Halia Restaurant in the Singapore Botanic Gardens (www.halia.com.sg). A glass house located in the heart of the Ginger Gardens, this experience was absolutely 'chi-chi'. Teo kong and PoPo joined us for this occasion since it was also Popo's birthday on the 30th.

While the portions were not gastronomical, the food was not bad at all. My favourite dishes were the one's my dad and sis ordered (first two pictures). My Spanish omelettte was nothing special, just an open egg omelette with capsicum, mushrooms and lup cheong. (3rd picture). and even though we were in a beautiful French restaurant, that didnt stop my mom and Teo Kong from ordering the local special of the day - Nasi Lemak (4th picture). Sheesh.




The Birthday girls

My parents, Teo kong and popo

My family (minus me)


And as we were walking out, I couldnt help making them stop along the way to capture moments in the picturesque Botanical Gardens.






With our stomachs well filled, the next agenda for that day was to get my sister's ears pierced at Bedazzled (Wisma Atria) the old Isbella. Since her Xmas pressie from Dr Li and I was just a voucher to Bedazzled, she was able to choose the earrings she wanted. At Bedazzled, you are not technically paying for your earrings only, the piercing is free of charge. Disposable gun like things are also used which reduce the chances of infection. Wont tell you guys how much her earrings cost but do have a look at her ears when you next see her.... see them go 'blink blink'.



The next day, (actual day) it was round 2 for my sis. While visiting Gen Gen at Thomson Medical Centre, she was a happy receiver of Master Caleb Lee's rendition of Happy Birthday. this was followed by an awfully slimy kiss which she thoroughly enjoyed.



Then it was off for our CPK lunch at Forum Galleria where we shared an appetizer and a salad, and didnt finish (lousy).Our cousin on the other hand, managed to wolf down a half salad and a whole chesse pizza all by himself. =)

While Siew San and I headed for the movies and home respectively, the day wasnt over for my sister. She subsequently met I-shan for tea a Paragon and later on for Steamboat with 'the girls' at Violet's place at Toa Payoh. Talk about eating and feasting!

All in all, i'm sure she would have said that it was good birthday spent.