14 Highlights of 2014

With 2014 coming to an end, it's time to do a wrap up of 2014. There were definitely many milestones this year which (thankfully) were all met. 

It was not a easy year but it was smooth sailing enough with things falling in place. My schedules were jam packed to the brim and I'm glad it all worked out eventually. The sense of satisfaction is something which can't be found anywhere else. 

1) Keys Collection

It wasn't a long wait for both of us but I'm also glad we did not have to wait very long for it :) On the 6th of Jan 2014, we collected our keys for the new flat. 

For information related to my new flat, you may click on the "renovation" or 'hdb' label that can be found on the right hand side. 

2) Singapore Airshow 2014

I attended the first airshow of my life! It was on Valentine's day itself hence making it more memorable. It was memorable especially with my ever sporty colleagues. 

3) Officially Married

I'm officially a Mrs on 23rd February 2014. Very surreal and it's our 1 year wedding anniversary in less than 2 months time! For my ROM posts, you may click here!

And it's down to settling our customary wedding which is happening in nearly 11 months time. Though I don't foresee ourselves to finally do something until it's like 6 months left, I really hope we do not procrastinate too long. *cross fingers*

4) Start of Renovation 

Officially started the renovation on 15th March 2014, which is after 2 months of getting the keys (Had to get HDB to rectify the defects and too busy getting married)! 

It was the busiest 3 months of 2014. The to and fro to the new place, from office to the house during lunch time, after work to new place and then back home. It lasted for quite awhile and all our weekends are burn. Totally drained out not only financially but also mentally. 

But hey, I'm glad it's all over. Part and parcel of life that we have to go through. Oh well, nothing beats having a home of your own, rightfully under your name. 

5) Pre-Wedding Photoshoot 

In the midst of the busy renovation schedule, we went for our pre-wedding photoshoot.Glad to get it done and the results were better than what I expected. Of cause it was with the help of many kind souls around who have did us a big favor in making this pre-wedding shoot a success!

And because the photos turned out pretty good, hence the photoshoot caught the attention of many. 

Our pre wedding shoot was featured on Singapore Brides. It was also on 新明 newspaper this year.

                             

I've blogged about it here too! :)

6) 8th Anniversary and First Half Marathon

Celebrated our 8th anniversary and also the end of our renovation with a Staycation @ MBS. It wasn't our first time staying there but it was a good enough getaway after 3 hectic months. 

Ran and completed our first half marathon together on the 2nd night of the staycation. It feel really good to be staying so near to the starting point of the race 

The toughest race in 2014 but I'm proud to say that I've attempted and completed a half marathon in my life. More to come in 2015!

7) #projectmovehouse

The day which I have been dreading much has come.

Though lots of stuffs are still at the old place, which somehow gives myself the reason to go back often to get them if I need it, it gives me a chance to go back and lie on my good old super single bed. 

Having been through so much (fighting with my own emotion), I do hope on the day of my customary wedding, I won't cry or at the very least won't cry so much. Very often when I see brides crying when bidding their parents goodbye (in photos), my heart aches too. Sigh.

Oh well, emo stuff aside. #projectmovehouse took place early July (at night somemore) but we officially moved in in June on a auspicious date. Biggest event in 2014 has got to be #projectmovehouse. That's because handling renovation is much more tedious than handling a wedding.

8) Housewarmings/Gatherings

Yay to finally having gatherings with our friends till late at our own place.

Till date, we had a total of 5 housewarming/gatherings. 2 official housewarming (with buffet catering) and 3 mini gatherings with our friends.

The latest one will be the xmas gathering/housewarming with Derp's army mates :) I have yet to blog about but it was a very fun night! Everyone left after midnight and we do hope to have it next year again.

#welfie taken before our first buffet housewarming.

The pizza gathering with my besties of 13 years.

The potluck gathering with colis.

9) Doraemon Expo @ JB

Derp and I visited the Doraemon Gadget Secret Expo across the borders and it's worth going there for it :)

Relieving our childhood memories and it's our only overseas trip this year! A day of getaway is better than none.




10) First Birthday as Mrs Goh

What made my 26th birthday more memorable other than the fact that I'm a Mrs, will be it's the first birthday spend at the new place! 

Many more birthdays to come and just recently we celebrated Derp's birthday too. Will blog about it soon and I know I've a lot of backlogs to do.

11)  Becoming a Yogi

I plucked up my courage and finally took up yoga (after I shifted and got more time now) because of the many benefits yoga.

I've completed 24 weeks of yoga (2 terms) and am on the way to starting the 3rd term on the first week of Jan. I did my first ever headstand just recently and it doesn't feel as difficult as it seems to be.
Much more to improve on and my hamstrings are still horribly tight (something which I should work on).

A #throwback pic. For details on the yoga lessons I took, you can click on "jxyoga" label at the right hand side to read it. 

12)  A new personal best

Run, Run and more Runs in 2014! A meaningful year because I've achieved a new PB during GEWR. 

The trainings around the park do help and not forgetting the breathtaking view which I faced whenever I run nowadays.

Still am loving this picture from GEWR.

I'm constantly reminded of how far I've come and to never give up. For my other blog entries regarding the races that I've attended, you may click on the 'marathon' label at the right hand side. 

13)  Cooking and Baking

Did lots of baking/cooking ever since I moved out. That's like the first thing to learn/to do after you have your own place. Can't possibly eat out every single day and to be honest Derp and I are very sick of eating out. Especially when we don't know what to pack home everyday for dinner and have to spend time thinking. 

Haven't really blog about the things I cook yet but I did blog about the kind of pastries I baked before :) 

I'm still keeping up with cooking twice a week and the on and off baking. Many space for improvement and I'm still exploring more recipes!

14)  Thankful and much appreciated!

In my 2013's highlights. the last point I wrote was about thanking my readers. And in 2014, I wish to do the same thing.

Thank you for the emails be it questions/compliments email! I'm thankful for the encouragement and I do hope I help you in one way or another regarding the questions.

Thank you for dropping by and I really hope my posts help readers in one way or another. I tried my very best to check for grammar/sentence structure mistaken but at times I do made mistakes. At the end of the day, I still hope that it's readable and informative for everyone who drop by.

I'm ending 2014 with 14 highlights. Has your 2014 been good or bad? Be it good or bad, it's time to put it behind and start looking forward to 2015.

What lies ahead is more important for now and may everyone end 2014 on a high note :)

Hereby wishing everyone a Happy New Year! 

Review: Cornell Waffle Maker and Redman Golden Waffle Mix Original

I've received a Cornell Waffle Maker from my girlfriends during the pizza affair housewarming few months back. 

I went to Phoon Huat @ Bunoa Vista MRT with my parents not long ago and I happened to chance upon this Golden Waffle Mix.

Can't really remember how much it was, I think it's $3.20 if I'm not wrong. 

The instructions are all there. It doesn't seems difficult at all so I decided to buy this and put my Cornell Waffle Maker to good use. A premix does save a lot of trouble because in this way I need not do the waffle mix from scratch, but yet get to enjoy yummy waffles! 

Cornell Waffle Maker

The interior of it.

If the green light is on, it means the waffle maker is not hot enough yet. Once the green light goes off, it means that it's hot enough and you can pour your waffle mixture in it. 

This show that it's ready. Once you poured it the mixture, the green light will be on again. When it goes off, it means your waffle is ready. You can always leave it longer to obtain a even crispier waffles if you prefer it that way. 

I didn't took a photo of what went on inside my waffle maker. They recommended us to spray some oil onto the waffler maker before pouring in the mixture. It's to prevent the waffle from sticking on the waffler maker during first use. However, we didn't follow that but we managed to have nicely cooked waffle :) 

Homemade brunch on a Saturday morning.

Nicely baked waffle by the Cornell Waffle Maker.

With the Redman Golden Waffle Mix, it's really easy to prepare and have yummy waffles for brunch or for dessert. A pity that we didn't have any maple syrup to go with our waffles if not it will be even better! 

A packet of this Redman Golden Waffle Mix can serves up to 4 to 5 pax.

And just lately, I saw this video on 7 ways to use your waffle iron for foods other than waffle. 

Everything seems so nice and I can't wait to try them out with my Cornell Waffle Maker!

Shin-Sapporo Ramen @ Orchard Gateway

It was a belated birthday meetup with Li Hua and we got our partners along at the very last minute for the dinner meetup. 

Now that I've shifted out, it's not easy to meet my west side friends so often. We will have to bear with the crowd and find a dinner venue in town area. Before our partners arrive, we actually went to Koh Grill and Sushi Bar to take a look but the queue really scary! Decided not to waste our time queuing and so we took a stroll to Orchard Gateway (since our partners were late).

We initially decide to dine in at Supply and Demand since none of them been there before except me, I find the food not bad especially the truffle fries but it's a little costly. My reviews are up here if you have not read it yet.

They have a small screen outside the shop which allows you to leave down your contact number and at the same time telling you how many people are infront of the queue. There were 30+ groups of people waiting before us. We were there around 7pm and I can't believe it's sooo long queue. The other time I went is not like that leh :( 

Perhaps it's a Friday night hence everywhere is crowded in town. Especially if it's Christmas month!

We decide to continue roam around Orchard Gateway to find a venue for our dinner since we are so far back in the queue for Supply and Demand. We chanced upon Shin-Sapporo Ramen.  

There wasn't any queue, we flipped through the menu and the price is reasonable, what's more there's empty seats for 4 of us. Yay! 

I ordered the Hakata Tonkotsu Ramen - $ 14.80

Derp ordered the Wakayama Tonkotsu - Shoyu Ramen - $14.80

This 2 ramens looked the same! The main difference will be with the soup broth, one without shoyu and one with shoyu stock added.

Li Hua ordered the Hiyashi-Chuka Soba (Cold Ramen) - $13.80

A very interesting choice of ramen but I didn't get to try it though. But I did asked Li Hua how is it and she said it was good. 

Kenneth ordered the same ramen as I did hence there's only pictures of 3 mains instead of 4. 

The dining experience at  Shin-Sapporo Ramen was not bad. Service was good and they responded to us fast enough. Reasonable price and the ramen is tasty. 

Shin Sapporo Ramen (Orchard Gateway)

Address: #B2-04A/05, Orchard Gateway, 277 Orchard Road

We forgot to take any group photo and we parted to do our own xmas shopping with our partners. But anyway, it was a nice meetup with them talking about their korea trip. 

Li Hua also passed me my belated birthday presents, one of which is the towel headband which 多多uses in 爸爸去哪里2 :) A very cute towel headband to prevent your hair from getting wet while washing your face haha! When I first saw 多多 using it in the show, I was telling Derp I want to get it too because it's so cute. 

Derp and I went to see Xmas lighting after we parted from them. We decided not to do any xmas shopping because it's so crowded everywhere.

The tree outside paragon.

Can't remember where is this tree located at but it should be near The Heeren. 

Hereby presenting to you the biggest xmas tree I can find in Orchard..

The xmas tree at Ion Orchard.

Last but not least, a picture with Derp at one of the random xmas tree as background :)

Review: Vivre Active Wear

I don't usually go into details of the apparels I bought and this is the first time I'm going to review sports apparel. This is because this online sports apparel shop sells affordable and quality clothes. 

After running for 1.5 years and also practicing yoga for almost half a year, I've come to realize the importance of good quality sports apparel. Not only does it makes you feel comfortable in it, the thickness and ability to absorb sweat is also a important factor when comes to choosing the right sports wear.

I'm very skeptical when it comes to buying sports apparel online. This is because of the uncertainty of size and also the quality of the sports apparel . Very often, you might end up getting the wrong size and you won't know what to do with it. It's not easy to resell it too. Hence, a shop which allow you to exchange is a plus point. I've read on their website that they do allow customers to return the apparel as long the tag is on. 

I had read many good reviews (from instagrams/bloggers) of Vivre Active Wear and to be honest, the price of their sports apparel is affordable. I've always find their sports apparel fashionable, up to date and the color and prints that they manufactured are all very pretty! Pretty sports apparel makes a person happy :) Very often, I find myself caught in between and do not know which color/prints to choose. 

Months ago, I bought the Frolic Sports Bra because it's in my favourite shade of pink! 

The back of it.

The material is very very soft. It feels like a second skin when I wear it for my run and the ability to absorb sweat is really good. For a price of $36, I think it's worth it. A branded sports bra out there can easily costs more than $50. It comes with padding and it's removable, so you can add in your own padding for your own comfort. 

This sports bra is still available here: http://vivreactivewear.com/home/frolic-sports-bra-carnation-pink/

Just last week, I received a new top from them. They were having Christmas promotion hence I'm tempted to get sports apparel from them again. One can never get enough sports apparel especially pretty ones! They have recently launched many pretty prints tops/bottoms/sports bra and I'm tempted to get all of them!

I eventually carted out the Exhale Tank Top in baby blue.

I'm always a pink person but I decide to go for a change. I've been hunting tops that comes with attached sports bra. It saves the hassle of washing a top and sports bra rather than just a top itself. And also, you'll just need to wear this one piece and off you go for your exercise session :) The material is also very soft and light!

I aim to wear them to my marathon next year. Love the color of this top because it's striking enough which makes it easier to spot myself in photos. :) 

Love the back of it so much that I can't help taking a photo with the namaste sign. My palms still can't really close yet though but it's much better than the first time I tried it lol. 

The top is still available here: http://vivreactivewear.com/home/exhale-tank-top-baby-blue/

I haven't really got a chance to wear it out for a run yet because I fell sick since last week. On the route to recovery and I wish to resume my exercise routine really soon.

I hope that Vivre Active Wear will continue producing more pretty and good quality sports apparel in 2015! Definitely looking forward to their new collection!

To see the full range of collection from them, you can visit their website at http://vivreactivewear.com/. 

Song Fa Bak Ku Teh @ Seletar Mall

A impromptu dinner date with highness at Seletar Mall since she haven't been there yet.

I've tried Song Fa Bak Ku Teh once @ the Clarke Quay  branch and don't mind trying it again (to fix my bak ku teh craving) though I prefer Ya Hua Bak Ku Teh.

The queue have been so long ever since it opened at Seletar Mall. Highness reached at around 7pm and I asked her to queue up first. We went on a weekday hence the queue is slightly shorter but the wait is also around half an hour.

I reached at around 7.30pm and less than 5 minutes of waiting, we got our seats. Grateful to highness who went to queue first :)  The waitress took our orders before we were given a seat so as to speed up the process. 

The menu. Not much difference from the one at Clarke Quay branch.

So many people! 

The best thing about them is they have lots of waiters and waitresses on standby. Hence, your food will come fast too and tables are being cleared quickly to meet the demands. 

Highness don't eat pork ribs hence she ordered fish slice soup (6.50) at a bak ku teh restaurant lol. 

We also ordered the salted vegetables ($1.50) and dough frtters ($1.20) to share. I had my usual pork rib soup($7.00). :) Not forgetting our rice and barley drink.

Photos before we start digging in..

We spend around 10 bucks each which I personally think it's affordable.

Some people may think paying more than 5 bucks is expensive for eating bak ku teh but I'm those who will pay for good bak ku teh soup kind of person. It's not easy to find bak ku teh soup which suits my taste. I'm quite picky with the soup. Totally don't like those kind of black herbal bak ku teh soup.

Anyway, I personally find the bak ku teh soup not as nice as the branch in Clarke Quay. Maybe due to the blasting air con in Seletar Mall. The soup gets cold really fast. Despite them refilling the soup for me, it's still cold. :( Everything was fine except for that.

Nevertheless when the queue gets shorter or when I got the mood to queue, I will still go back there to eat again. Afterall, it's only a few bus stops away and 2 LRT stops away from my place and I can get good quality bak ku teh:) Hopefully I will have a better eating experience the next time round.

Song Fa Bak Kut Teh (The Seletar Mall)

#01-39/40/41, The Seletar Mall, 33 Sengkang West Avenue

Preparation for Christmas 2014

Derp and I have been hunting down a Christmas tree since mid November and we eventually bought one 4ft Christmas tree from NTUC. 

At first, we wanted to buy it from Metro, but either it was too small or too big and in terms of price. it's much more expensive than what's sold in NTUC. What's more the small trees come with all the decoration ornaments which we don't really like. We want to buy our own deco and hang it up ourselves :) 

It's more meaningful that way and this will mean every year I will have excuse to get new deco haha! Christmas has never been so fun before for the past 26 years. 

The very bare tree when we just set up. 

Though I haven't think of whether there's space to keep it in my store room, but nvm just enjoy first lol. *Cross fingers there will be space* 

When Derp's on ICT, I went to Japan Home to see the LED lighting. It cost less than 15 bucks for a 300 LED Lights. I consulted the sales person to ask  how many LED lights should I buy for my 4ft tree, since there's 200 and 300. 

The sales person told me it's good to get more LED lights  rather than lesser, because if the LED lights are not long enough to wrap around the tree it will be quite ugly (Some parts of the tree have lights, some part don't!) . I decided on getting the 300 LED lights and there's many modes to it (all conrolled by a small controller attached to it). All of them look so pretty! The very most one need to do is to go around the tree again and again if the lights are more than enough. 

I went home that day and set it all up myself. #trustmeiamanengineer I went round the tree almost twice because of the excess number of LEDs. I'm quite happy with the final results though :) 

I wanted to surprise Derp when he's back from ICT so I did it all by myself. I still remember the day he came back, I was out for a jog and he messaged me "the tree so chio" lol. 

Xmas tree lighted up on 1st of December. 

Some of the ornaments we bought...

A pair of snowman from Japan Home

A pair of Reindeer from Japan Home.

We bought a total of 2 packets of these colorful balls from Japan Home. 1 packet contains 6 balls. 

The little present which I found at Japan Home @ Seletar Mall. Bought a packet of silver and gold presents, 1 packet contains 4 presents. 

This is from Japan Home @ Seletar Mall too. One packet contains 2 of these "Merry Christmas" signage.

We were on the hunt for the big Star to put on top of the tree so we went to Daiso @ Rivervall Mall. 

However, to no avail, we still couldn't find it and simply find an alternative to it.   

The donut looking shape wreath is from Daiso. It doesn't comes with the Merry Xmas signage and we has 2 (used 1 for the tree) so another 1 should go here. All ready to welcome our guests for Christmas party! 

We have seen many of our neighbors decorating their doors too. The Christmas atmosphere is kind of there even though the place is still new. 

Final look of the tree! No star so we make do with a xmas hat then.

Not forgetting a #OOTD with the xmas tree the other day. It seems to be a good ootd spot! I should just decorate that area with some other stuffs after xmas/cny.

Now that the house is all ready, I'm looking forward to the christmas gathering this weekend! Lots of feasting going on this festive seasons and a need to work extra hard to maintain the waist line. A viscous cycle indeed but afterall it's only once a year. So enjoy it while it lasts :)