Z-party

Belated Entry.

17 Oct, small gathering of us at Somerset Grand Cairnhill Service Apartments. Nice place with good facilities.

The guys played basketball, while Zhen and I went to the gym. Dinner was a spread of food, jap curry pasta, roast chicken and ribs, white wine, brownie..and potato chips..

Had a fun time playing mahjong on the coffee table, using a towel to shuffle the tiles.

20 Months

My parents recently came back from their one-month stay in Jakarta. Exclusive pics of my nephew taken with the digital cam that my father borrowed from me.

Weekday Treats

On the pretext of celebrating hubby's end of IPPT for the year (even though he failed),we went to Chip Bee Gardens and tried Da Paolo's pizza. It is a nice place but filled with snobbish waiters. The customers were mostly caucasians drinking wine and bottled water (think Acqua Panna / Fiji). No wonder we got snotty looks from the waiter for sharing one pizza , one dessert and asking for ice-water. The waiters also took care not to refil water even though they were not busy. Also, we were seated next to a noisy group of caucasians, their laughter drowned out our conversation every so often that it was getting irritating.



The food was delicious. We had mushroom truffle pizza (din really taste truffles) and Valrhona Chocolate cake.


Fed up with the snobbish attitudes, I bought my own Fiji water from Cold Storage to try. The one litre bottle cost only $3.05 (a 500ml bottle cost $10 at restaurants). Also found a packet of cornbread mix at 50% discount. My previous attempt at baking cornbread using Betty Crockers' Cornbread Muffin Mix wasnt ideal as it yielded savoury muffins (salty ones). This brand taste better. Also added corn kernels (sponsored by Jess) to the muffins.

101009

Couldnt think of a good title to blog about the past weekend. For simplicity, I chose Saturday’s date.

On Friday we had our golf PC. We played 5 holes. Terrible game. All sorts of embarrassing mistakes came out. Testing the instructor’s patience. Hot weather too. Though once we got into the game, I forgot about the sun. Rewarded ourselves with a basket of fried chicken wings after the game. Heavenly…




Saturday:
Woke up early and went to try Superdog’s pancake breakfast. Banana and walnut. Nice. It was thick (closely resembles the photo in the coupon) and I could taste the banana and walnut. Wonder if I can make this myself at home..should be easy I suppose. We were there at 11+, by the time we finished breakfast, it was lunch. Since our shared serving of pancake turned out quite good, it whetted our appetites to order lunch there as well (cheese burger and fries) to share. The fries were good, but the burger was not – bread not toasted, beef patty had a raw beefy smell.








The ship Doulos was docked just beside Vivo, selling books. For a rundown ship selling inexpensive books, they had pretty tight security checks.


Dinner was at Ichiban Boshi (Suntec). Every time we go there, we'll get issued a card with a stamp (for spending $25). However, we never managed to go back frequent enough to accumulate 3 stamps in 6 months to redeem the free stuff. Shared their chef recommendation set. Not bad, a lot of nice items - beef and potatoes, grilled scallops.




Kind of paiseh to reveal that we ate a lot on Saturday. Only thing is that two of us shared one portion most of the time. Passed by Marvelous Cream and finally got to try it. Pathetic portion and very average taste though. Disappointing. I ordered Golden Nuts Praline, and the nuts had a slight rancid taste. Blah…



The waffle cone had a strong Maple syrup flavor. Tasted more outstanding than the ice-cream.



Last but not least, a sinful indulgence that I bought at 50% discount from Cocoa Trees. Yumm, Truffles are nicer than Pralines.

Streets Cafe at Liang Court

This cafe restaurant looks expensive from their decor, so I never bothered to try their food, until i saw their $6.80++ promotion - one main + one drink (5 sets to choose from). It was very worthwhile and their ice milk tea is so rich and fragrant.. yummy.

Hubby eyeing the two ‘beauties’ in front of him… wolfberry lychee green tea with aloe vera cubes and ice milk tea with chin chow.



Shrimp dumpling noodles - the dumplings were chocked with ingredients. Soup not flavourful enough, noodles were not as springy as I wanted.



Macau fried rice with chicken chop - tasty chicken, plain rice.

For $8 per item (after tax), no complaints.


Saw this on Friday night, near my inlaws' place. An Indian celebration with chinese dragon as well..

My Hari Raya Long Weekend Feast

The long weekend started off with a Dim Sum lunch at Man Fu Yuan (Hotel Intercontinental) on Saturday. An early birthday meal for Ah Gek, whose birthday will be celebrated grandly yearly with F1 Singapore Grand Prix.





We ordered a long list of items. Only captured a few pics. The food was very good.

On Monday, treated my parents and inlaws side to buffet at Straits Chinese Nonya Restaurant (Queen Street branch). Also a birthday treat for my folks who are both September babies. The food was impressive at the beginning (great appetizer dishes), but plunged down in the middle and recovered at the end (good desserts). $18.80++ per pax . The good thing was their consistent price for lunch, dinner, weekend and public holidays.

Trying to Look Stylish

Last week I attended a one-day course on Business Etiquette and Projecting a Corporate Image . The trainer, Ms Elaine Heng, is very pretty, slim, approachable and friendly. She’s a beauty queen too.. check out her website at www.elaineheng.com.

The one day course, while useful was too short to cover much. We learned general tips on colour matching (Cool-cool and warm-warm), dressing for body proportions and hairstyles for faceshapes, but all these were just a rough guide. Eg: Body proportions doesn’t talk abt bust size, while faceshapes doesn’t include facial features in recommending hairstyles.

Nevertheless, here are some quick tips to share with everyone (and to remind myself). The tips are meant to help everyone look stylish (and not fashionable).

Hair
Messy Hair is deemed the number 1 image destroyer for both men and women. Women with long hair should tie their hair back and keep it away from the face. A quick test to determine how long is long: Look down on the floor and look up, does the hair come down on the face and requires the hand to sweep it back?
Styling hair – use hair mousse before styling. It gives volume. After styling, use hairspray to fix the style.

Colours
Cool colours go with cool colours, warm colours should match with warm colours. Simple as it sounds, determining which pink, which brown, which green are cool / warm / neutral shades can be a big headache as it is so subjective. Contrary to general knowledge, black and pure white are more towards cool colour family rather than neutral.

Blue and purple are good colours for work wear as they project the right authority and image, while pastel colours should be avoided as they signal ‘gentle, meek, weak, powerless’.

The other thing about colours , is also looking at its depth – light, medium and deep colours. Bright vs Muted.

Colours that suit everyone (and can be matched with warm/cool colours)
1) Soft white/ivory
2) Medium Grey
3) Taupe
4) Medium Navy
5) Dark Chocolate
6) Medium Purple
7) Buff
8) Salmon
9) Teal
10) Periwinkle
11) Turquoise
12) Watermelon Red

Now I know why LV bags look good on anyone who is carrying it. Cos they use these universal colours which matches with all colours.


Faceshape
The ideal face shape is oval. Hence whatever faceshape you belong, the hair style aims to balance the face to make it look more oval. Eg. I’m heartshape face. Need to have some curls at the chin to balance the narrow chin.

Clothes
Length of pants should touch the floor without shoes on.
Length of jackets should touch the wrist bone with elbow at right angle.
Length of skirts - shortest you can go is up to where the thigh lines start to widen. Longest length of skirt is up to widest part of calves. Otherwise, just wear a long skirt that ends at the ankle.
Length of belt should be just nice to buckle at the middle hole

Shoes
Colour of shoes should be same as hemline or darker (to look taller).

Posture
When sitting down or getting up from the chair, back should stay straight.
Walk with legs as close together as possible. Best is to walk in an imaginary straight line (but not to be exaggerated).

Applying what I have learnt

Started off by reorganising my wardrobe. Though the trainer did not analyse for me, I think I am more towards the warm colour family, bright colours and deep tones.

I started off by reorganising my wardrobe into the various colour schemes. Unfortunately, about 2/3 of my clothes were wrong - cool colour family, light tones, muted colours. A good reason to revamp my wardrobe?


Next, hair do. My current hairdo is passable. But let's look at the past - wedding photos.


Right colour (warm), wrong tone (light) and wrong hairdo (too straight).
Fail



Wrong colour (cool), right tone (deep) and right hairdo.
Just passed



ROM pics
Right hairdo , neutral colour (ok).
Passed.
No wonder I prefer my ROM look to my wedding album pics. But I think I was constraint my sizes, design and colours available during my gown selection for photo shoot. Better to go for customised gowns.