YowCH & Grace

YowCH took a 1-day leave on Friday, 14 Sept to spend some time with Joseph adn Samuel. Joseph was on holiday for a day due to PSLE oral exam in school. After sending Esther and David to school and Grace to work, the car was sent for servicing (37,868km). After servicing, we walked back and dropped by the Eco Park playground. then we walked to the market to buy some groceries.

YowCH taught Joseph to make porridge.


The porridge was great (a nice lunch!).

The car had oil-change, engine flush, gear and brake fluid change, air-con cleaning and tyre rotation.

Later in the afternoon, YowCH cooked dinner. Prawns, soup, vege, cod fish and fried chicken (by David).

YowCH also ordered a cool hip-pouch to go with his jeans.

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YowCH bought a piece of Tayogo WB01 headphones from e-Bay (China-made). It doesn’t cover the ears and he can safely have music while he runs or swims (yes, it is waterproof for swimming, IPX8 standard). The built quality is not too great, being a product of China, but at $110 including postage, it is the cheapest MP3 bone conducting headphones for swim. It has a built-in FM radio, too!
Here is the package:

Unboxing:

Wearing the phones, just like a hair-band. Light enough, but there is a bit of pressure on the cheek bones (perhaps necessary to ensure that the music can transmit to the inner ear through the bones).

There are only 3 buttons and one micro-jack data-charging point.

Here’s YowCH wearing it in the pool:

David’s Finis Duo sounds better and feels more durable, but that can only be used with googles strap.

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The older boys took the Swimsafer Gold Standard (Stage 6) test on Sunday 9 Sept 2018. After the written paper, they swam the following:

Swim (use standing dive entry for Front-Crawl, Breaststroke):
1. 100m Front-Crawl (within 3:00 min)
2. 100m Breaststroke (within 4:00 min)
3. 100m Backstroke (within 3:20 min)
4. 50m Survival Backstroke
5. 50m Sidestroke
6. 15m Butterfly

Dressed in swimwear, long pants, t-shirt, perform the following sequence
1. Enter deep water using a compact jump
2. Perform a head-first surface dive to a depth of 1.8m (and perform ear equalisation, if necessary)
3. Swim through hoops on pool bottom for 5m and resurface
4. Swim 45m quickly using front crawl
5. Then, swim slowly for a further 50m using any preferred survival swim stroke. Remove pants in deep water and make a float with it while treading water for 5m.
6. Demonstrate Heat Escape Lessening Posture (H.E.L.P.) technique for 1min with the self-made float
7. Then swim 25m with the self-made float and climb out of the water

Here’s the freestyle (David much faster than Joseph):

Backstroke:

Butterfly:

And they passed!

Esther swam 10 laps and then escorted Samuel for 8 laps, while YowCH did his regular 10 laps.

Grace was at work this Sunday.

Tags: David, Esther, Joseph, Samuel, YowCH by yowch
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YowCH’s runs improved from August, he can now cover 2.4km in 12 minutes, which is the Singapore IPPT grade A for his age. Not wanting to miss the regular training, he ran even during a rainy Saturday on 8 Sep, wearing his new compression tights (from Uniqlo).

After the run, we went to YowCH’s colleague’s wedding at Thomson Road Baptist Church. the service was conducted in Indonesian and English. David did not attend as he was in a stay-over with his church friends.


After the post-wedding lunch, we went to church, and after church, YowCH went to the same colleague’s wedding dinner while the family had dinner at Sorrento and then went home.

Tags: YowCH, YowCH's work by yowch
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YowCH ordered his new Samsung Galaxy S9 phone with a re-contract with Singtel. After discounts and vouchers, he paid only $48 for the phone.

The phone comes with a silicone case, which means more savings.

It was delivered to the nearby PopStation.

Grace got hers in May, dark blue in colour, while YowCH’s is black.

YowCH will do the transfer over the weekend (1 Sept). The S9 will replace the S7 (from July 2016) which is still serving well and will be kept as a spare.

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The Bible Church, Singapore celebrated Teachers’ Day on 25 and 26 August. As we attend Saturday service, we had a tea session before the church service.

Joseph lead the children and teachers in worship before eating.

The teachers took a group photo.

There were lots of nice food.

Later in the afternoon, during the main Saturday Service, the children presented a song, Thankful. Esther played the guitar (hidden on the left), YowCH played the ukulele and Joseph played the cajon (with Sean Koh) while Ryan (not in photo) played the piano to accompany the children.

Here is Samuel singing loudly and nicely!

Tags: Church, Esther, Joseph, Samuel, YowCH by yowch
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YowCH had to spend two days in KL for tender interviews for the Tugu Park project. He stayed at The Boulevard hotel, which is right next to the KL office building in Mid Valley. He reached KL on Monday night (9 July) and left on Wednesday night (11 July).

Managed to catch a morning swim before going to the meeting.

YowCH visited the KTP KL office which has moved into the SJ office.

Esther received a prize T-shirt as top performer for NAPFA test (Physical Fitness), scoring max grades in all 6 categories. The medal is for the most number of inclined pull-ups in this batch.

Tags: Esther, YowCH, YowCH's work by yowch
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YowCH had an eye infection started on Tuesday. He saw a doctor on Wednesday and got some medication. But the swelling got quite bad and pushed the eyeball, causing double vision. So he made an eye-patch out of foam card and black elastic band to wear to work.

We needed a replacement workhorse camera (with wide angle and long zoom) after the F500 (bought second hand in March 2014) started showing mechanical and digital problems back in October 2017. With a 50% discount on an old and discontinued model, YowCH bought a new unit of Fujifilm F850 EXR from Harvey Norman for $224.00. They had only white or red, and he chose the former.

Tags: General, YowCH by yowch
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We visited the zoo on 23 June, Saturday, with the Tans. Click photos below for the page:

Tags: Family, Grace, Joseph, Samuel, YowCH by yowch
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We bought some Transformers, the Minicons (15) are for Samuel and Joseph to share (but more for Samuel).

Rodimus Prime was on offer, got it for $80.00 instead of $99.00.

This is a 2-figures-in-1. Rodimus Prime is the combination of Hot Rod and the caravan. The Matrix of Leadership is inside the chest of Rodimus Prime.

Last Sunday, we went for swim and celebrated Fathers’ Day with a meaty lunch at Henderson Road Kay Lee.

Soccer training had a small turn-up, due to school holidays. We had some games and also theory lessons by the coach.

Here is David in his Gan Eng Seng School official school team uniforms, for home games and away games. He is officially in the school team now.

As part of the school holidays homework, we made a lantern using recycled materials – large 2L PET bottle, old hangers, ice-cream sticks and butter-paper.


The lantern is great, burns the candle very slowly and well shielded from wind.

Tags: David, Joseph, YowCH by yowch
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