The Christmas Elves are here at Tampines 1 (situated just next to Tampines MRT)! See! Even the heartland malls have cool christmas decorations!!
They greet you as you descend the escalator to B1.
The ceiling decorations. Festive red and green balls with golden glitter. They have a video game on the 1st floor with the elves as the theme. It works like the Wii but no one seemed to be playing at the stations except for 宝贝 and me. We were getting queer looks from the shoppers….
Sleigh bells ring, are you listening,
in the lane, snow is glistening
A beautiful sight,
we’re happy tonight,
walking in a winter wonderland.
I love Christmas!! The festive feel, the carols, the decoration… Except that it’s no winter wonderland here. But the strong air-conditioning everywhere kind of makes up for it. What’s lacking is the fluffy white snow!
The streets and malls have started their annual ritual of Christmas dressing up. They have quite outdone themselves this year! Maybe it’s due to their overflowing coffers of the bumper year. I wish it’s my coffer that’s overflowing though. But if you walk down Orchard Road, it’s truly a sight to be behold (minus the ever present traffic snarl).
I’m starting this series featuring Christmas decorations. We are happy to receive any picture of Christmas decoration, be it of your home, your office, the streets or the malls.
Let me kick start it with :
Suntec City!
Candy theme! Kids will love it, why I love it myself! Feels like a section of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory (I was a huge Roald Dahl fan! I still am!)
Close ups of the yummy candy bars. (well, as close as I can. It’s only a phone camera and not a dslr)
Little ones on the ceilings.
The finale – Christmas tree!! I still like the huge candy bars dangling from the roof best! I’ve seen grander Christmas trees though.
The GoggleBox is indeed a fascinating device. People would rather glue their eyes to the flickering screen than to pay attention or communicate with their loved ones.
It’s a weekly ritual that we visit 宝贝’s Ah Ma (grandmother) every sat/sun because that’s the only time she gets to see her. Theoretically she should be showering her with attention in that short 1 hour. But in reality, this happens :
18:30 we appear at the door. Greetings and hugs exchange.
18:35 we start on dinner. 宝贝 drags all the toys from the room and starts playing with them. Her cousin will play with her or if she’s not around, the helper will look over her. While Ah Ma keeps her son updated of the weekly gossips and lamentation.
18:45 we finish dinner. Ah Ma watches 宝贝 play on her own or with her cousin.
19:00 goggle box is switched on and a sappy Taiwanese drama plays. All the aunties are watching it! I simply don’t understand the draw of it. The storyline is so stereotypical and absolutely crappy. Everyone gets drawn in. 宝贝 sneaks a peek once in a while as she’s still under a tv ban at home. I end up playing with her which I really don’t mind. But I’d rather play with her at home where all the appropriate toys are and not having to drag her away from the goggle box ever so often.
19:30 we hang around for another 30 mins and leave for home.
30 mins drive there and 30 mins drive back for 15 mins of interaction and 30 mins of tv watching sounds like a totally bad deal to me. All that time wasted. We could have go for a swim, a walk, whatever!!!
I still can’t understand how a crappy television program can appear to be more interesting than interacting with a bubbly, chatty toddler.
Yesterday I didn’t know about the existence of Valley Point at 491 River Valley Road, but now I’m sitting here, enjoying my lunch, blogging in peace and basking in solitude.
I had a meeting here 2 hours ago at Starbucks. Nowhere to go, as it’s raining lions and wolves outside, I slipped into a little cafe (after checking the prices of the food on the menu. I’m a cheapo yah!) as I wasn’t too keen to eat sandwiches at Starbucks. It’s named Cafe in Action at #01-06. The rest of the patrons looked like they were enjoying their food -a good sign to me.
I ordered a curry chicken with baguette. The baguette was warm and crispy. The curry was spicy but not overly so (great for me as I am, somewhat allergic to spicy food and get a stomach upset after it. I pay dearly for it after every single indulgence.) but for spice lovers you probably wouldn’t like it. It had just the right texture, not too thick nor too thin like some curries that I’ve tried.
Best of all, the cafe was quiet and cozy, great for reading, blogging and simply get away from the hustle and bustle. Run by very friendly aunties, I doubt that I’ll come again though. It cost me a hefty $17.80 cab fare to get here and it’s not in the vicinity of my usual haunts.
But if you are here, give it a try! I’m sure the other stuff on the menu must taste just as yummy.
I love it! I love it! I love it! Every time I add a new post, readership shoots up! This is surely motivation to write about more interesting stuff and of course more often?? It feels more satisfying than working!!
Should I *”fry my boss cuttlefish“?? So tempting! And recently 宝贝 has been begging me not to work but spend more time with her. She’s been sticking to me like super glue on
my short stints at home during her waking hours.
But but blogging can’t bring in enough money (although so many people have been telling me to monetize my blog. But I simply don’t blog often enough for that). Sigh! Earth to Zhiwei! Earth to Zhiwei! Back to reality please!
Ok back to work….. Sighhhhh….
fry my boss cuttlefish – direct translation from Chinese 抄老板鱿鱼 = to sack my boss aka resign from my job.
This is surely my very first Halloween party! I have never thought much of Halloween. To me it was more of an *”Ang Moh” festival, a big dress up party. Well it still is! hehe.
Halloween happens on the 31st October and you can wiki it here. In short it’s the western version of our “Qing Ming”, during which, the spirits roam the earth and it’s also a time to remember our loved ones who have passed on.
Anyway, on that fateful 31st October (just 2 weeks back. I know. It took me 2 weeks to put this post up. I had wanted to, but…) evening, 宝贝and I were enjoying the evening breeze after her dinner at the porch. I was home on sick leave as I had caught an Australian bug on my last day in Western Australia. 2 little monsters (1 dressed in ghoulish black from head to toe and holding a huge red fork, the other with a “terrifying” mask and holding a grand big hammer) came up to us.
“Aren’t you going for the Halloween party at the function room?” said the little monsters.
“Erm… What party??” I said.
“There’s a Halloween party at the function room today. They dropped the invitation in your mailbox. Don’t you check your mailbox??”
He’s right. My mailbox is always overflowing. Sometimes, I do admire the postman for being able to stuff things in, up to the brim. “Oh. I haven’t checked it yet.”
“That’s right. You just came back from Australia. You can get prizes for playing games at the function room! And there will be trick-or-treat later and you can participate by sticking the pumpkin on your door and the children will come trick-or-treating. But you need a Halloween costume.” They eyed 宝贝and me from head to toe. We were dressed in T-shirts and shorts. Not very Halloween appropriate.
“She doesn’t have a costume. Sigh…”
“We have a Halloween hat. She can wear it. I’m sure they will allow her to participate.”
They ran back to their house and I vaguely heard some yelling and rummaging and emerged with a huge orange hat and thumped it on 宝贝’s head. “There! She’s dressed for Halloween! But she needs a bag to hold the sweets.”
宝贝 insisted on carrying her Strawberry Shortcake knapsack. 2 year olds now have their own opinions! I wonder what I was like when I was 2! So dressed in her Halloween hat, Wellington (it’s drizzling) and her pink bag (not exactly Halloween colour though), the 4 of us scrambled to the function room.
And wow! There were so many children and parents (?? Children I can understand. But so many parents! Is everyone on sick leave, or do these people not need to work? Envy!) dressed up to the nines in their costumes. They took this very very seriously. We’d probably missed most of the games because it was goodie bag distribution time. Our ghoulish monster helped 宝贝 collect her goodie bag. She’s one of the younger ones, who didn’t quite get the picture of the on-going.
The experienced monsters told us that it’s time for trick-or-treat. Of course, we followed the instructions of the experts. We were told to look out for doors with the orange pumpkin stickers. There were extremely elaborately decorated homes, complete with orange carved pumpkins, placed eerily along the steps. Dark lighting, “blood splattered” walls, Halloween banners etc. I was utterly impressed with my neighbours. It’s my first Halloween party after all (*suaku mah). There were adult witches, Hannibal, ghouls, you-name-it-you-get-it. And I was in… still T-shirts and shorts…
Coming back to the trick-or-treat, the 2 little monsters led 宝贝 up the stairs, flanking her at both sides (they really look after her very well), knocked on the door and yelled TRICK OR TREAT! Doors opened and the adults pretended to cringe in fear and offered trays and trays of sweets and small toys to the fearful monsters. 宝贝was initially very reserved, but after a few trial runs, she was also yelling TRICK OR TREAT alongside the older kids.
It was pretty tiring to comb the entire estate (it’s really big!) and 宝贝’s legs weren’t very long. Her little knapsack was full to the brim with sweets and toys, and she was laughing because she participated with the older kids. As usual, it ended with a scary photo shoot.
Happy Halloween! Monsters Unmasked!
2012 Halloween Checklist
1. Halloween costume for 宝贝
2. Halloween costume for moi
3. Carve little pumpkins for landing decoration
4. Get a cool pumpkin basket for 宝贝’s treat collection
5. Prepare goodies for the kids
*ang moh – hokkien dialect. Direct translation : red-haired. Fond nickname for Caucasians.
