YowCH & Grace

A busy weekend, starting on Friday evening, with YowCH’s company, T.Y.Lin, having the Annual Dinner with Peranakan theme. The company band played again.

The food is certified Halal specially for the event.


The food is peranakan style, and tasted pretty good for hotel food.

YowCH was the lead singer and played the electric guitar.

The band consisted of YowCH, Mark (vocals and acoustic guitar), Vincent (percussion), Arlinga (bass) and Sandi (keyboard). YowCH sponsored the Malay shirts for the band members. Click on photo below for link to the low-res video uploaded to Facebook. The performance was 30 minutes long, and the video is large file (unlimited Wi-Fi connection recommended).


The band played 1. Engkau Laksana Bulan, 2. Medley of Rasa Sayang, Lenggang Kangkung, Chan Mali Chan, Dayung Sampan – 甜蜜蜜, 3. When You Say Nothing At All, 4. Tetaplah Di Hatiku, and 5. Hotel California.
At the end of the dinner, we had a company group photo taken.

After the dinner event, we went to a nearby pub to have some fellowship with our foreign guests. Grace had a margarita while YowCH had a mojito, rather than beer.

Thanks to Grace’s parents for helping us look after all the children.

On Saturday morning, David continued his games in the soccer tourney disrupted last week by heavy rains. David played in Under-12 while YowCH managed and coached Under-10.


We had some snacks while waiting for the prize giving ceremony. Under-10 won bronze, but U-12 was sadly eliminated at the knock-out section.

After church, we had dinner with YowCH’s sister and family at Tung Lok Teahouse at Square2.


We ordered some strange food – pan-fried charcoal bamboo meat pao, and truffle crystal skin dumplings.

On Sunday, we went for swim, then YowCH, David and Joseph went to church for carolling practice. Grace took Esther and Samuel to Funan, for Esther’s ballet lessons and collection of the Hello Kitty Run Kit (Gene will run with Esther, 5km). This is Esther with the run kit.

We also bought another Fujifilm camera, the XQ1 (nearing end-of-line, since XQ2 is coming out very soon), for $300 to replace the spoilt XF1 (only 2 years old, but repaired several times, we decided to retire it).

The price when newly launched was about $500+.

Tags: David, Esther, Family, YowCH, YowCH's work by yowch
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We had a nice dinner at Shin Yeh (Taiwan food) at Liang Court on Sunday night. We ordered quite a large selection of dishes.


Here we are, all digging in:

We actually finished almost all the food!

And then, we had dessert (red-bean pancake and yam balls):

Later, YowCH sent Esther, David and Joseph to their grandparents’ place at Sorrento. Esther and David will stay over one night, then go to Church Youth Camp at Kota Tinggi on Monday morning, and return on Friday. With the older children away, we sent Joseph on a holiday-stay, too.

They will come home on Saturday, after YowCH’s company annual dinner on Friday night. We will also send Samuel to Sorrento on Friday for one night stay!

Tags: David, Esther, Family, Joseph by yowch
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On 26 Nov, Thursday (just before our trip to PJ), Esther performed at Victoria Concert Hall. Grace, David and Joseph went with Gene (YowCH was at a corporate event).
This is the combined choirs of several schools:

That’s Esther highlighted.

This is Queenstown Secondary School choir.


Esther in her choir gown (the gown is a little short, as she grew quite a lot in 2015).

And the family photo, with thanks to Gene.

On Saturday, YowCH brought David and Joseph to the Yuhua soccer tourney at Shuqun Sec school. That’s Joseph playing the goal-keeper:


YowCH helped with admin work for the West Coast Wolves.

And that’s David at training/warm-up.

The medal presentation for the Under 7 teams. The Wolves took 3rd place (5 teams participating).

Towards the afternoon, the games were stopped due to lightning and rains.

Sadly, our Fuji XF1 camera spoilt again during the games. The photos above are all from our soccer friend, Liew, except for the combo of Joseph.

Tags: David, Esther, Joseph, YowCH by yowch
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We stayed home on Deepavali (Tuesday) but Grace had work. While Joseph and David were having violin lessons at home, YowCH brought Samuel to the playground.

On Wednesday night, we arranged to meet the violin teacher, Joyce, at Johann Strings and with her expert guidance, bought a full-sized Johann violin (model 200) for David. This will be used until he complete his lessons, hopefully all the way to Grade 8.


This unit costs $380, there are cheaper and more expensive ones, but as a start, the sound is good and the teacher liked this unit, too. Here’s David playing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and Variants, his practice piece.

Tags: David, Samuel by yowch
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With Grace’s parents having moved to West Coast, we have been preparing our own dinners after work, here are some examples:

Grace has been busy with her revived hobby, knitting:

She has made some beanies, pull-overs, and soft toys, here is Esther with her pull-over and a bear in progress.

On Sunday, after the weekly swim, David played a friendly game of soccer against ACS Barker Road. He was the goalie (given his basketball training, he was the best candidate). It drizzled for about 30 minutes during the game.

Joseph had his regular soccer training.

In the evening, we went to Bishan Park to meet up with YowCH’s sister for dinner. Samuel was happily rolling about on the Y-glider, although he is not really driving it yet.


Joseph was really fast on the Y-glider!

Dinner was at Cornerstone, we had a great time with the Yong family.

Tags: David, Family, Grace, Joseph, Samuel by yowch
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With David and Joseph agreeing to committed lessons to learn the violin, grace contacted a teacher from on-line adverts and found Joyce, a Singaporean-Korean lady, to teach.

We will need to get a 1/4 violin for Joseph, and a full-size for David (currently, we have a 1/2 size and the full-size is electric, not suitable).

Our family band will be richer once the boys are able to play well.

Tags: David, Joseph by yowch
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Esther’s school works include machine-craft. She used some heavy machineries and built this nice pencil holder shaped like a peacock. One of the best in class, it seems.

Here is a photo of our very large terrapins, and they are eating the cuttle-bone imported from Australia (we brought the cuttle-bone back from Melbourne). This will save us some money on turtle chalk.

And here’s the big surprise, David suddenly wanted to try out the violin. after 30 minutes of very basic training, he can play Twinkle-twinkle Little Star!

Tags: David, Esther, General by yowch
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Today, the boys played in the first game of the Junior League. Here is the team, all in the uniform!

This is the new jersey in detail. The West Coast Wolves name and logo were YowCH’s ideas.

West Cost Wolves are the hosts for this round, and we played at Kent Ridge Secondary School. YowCH was in charge of crowd control and first-aid. The weather was very hot!

Here is YowCH washing his hands after treating a case of a player having bleeding nose after being knocked on the face. The inset of the photo shows the red bag, which YowCH painted the White Cross and wrote FIRST-AID. YowCH treated 4 cases (kicked at the shin, kicked at the ankle, spectacles pad-arm pushed into nose bridge skin, and bleeding nose).

Here are some photos of David.



David sprained his left wrist, and therefore in bandage with splint (the splint is a wrist-guard for in-line skates).
And some of Joseph.



Joseph scored one goal, even when he is playing the under-9 age group (he should be playing under-7, but there wasn’t enough players for under-9).

Both David and Joseph did well this Sunday!

Tomorrow is Malaysia’s anniversary of Merdeka! May God bless Malaysia with leaders who are clean (bersih).

Tags: David, Joseph, YowCH by yowch
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Grace got Samuel new school uniforms and T-shirts. He looks so smart! The clothes are very large for hi, but hey are already of the smallest available size.

While David was playing basketball ins school, he fell and sprained his left wrist quite badly. That’s bandage wrapped by YowCH.

In the evening, TYLin took part in the inter-consultants futsal competition organised by L&S. The team played well, but we were just not strong or skilled enough, and didn’t win any of the top positions.

Here are two photos of YowCH in action during the gaems.

And these are photos of the team and the supportive colleagues, taken before and after the games.

Grace and the children were there to support YowCH. The photos were taken by Esther.

Tags: David, Samuel, YowCH by yowch
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On Saturday, after sending Esther to Church for worship leading practice (she plays the guitar), YowCH took the boys to West Coast park for playground fun:

That’s the boys resting on the bouncy wave bridge.

Samuel gets zip-line with David’s help.

David climbed the high tower.

And Joseph climbed the smaller one.

We met Oliver there, with Anya and Timothy. Kelly brought Sarah along for shopping.

At home on Sunday, after the usual swim, football and ballet, Esther practiced piano for upcoming exam.

Tags: David, Esther, Joseph, Samuel by yowch
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