YowCH & Grace

Loon, Daren and YowCH’s parents came over to Singapore for a short holiday. We met up for dinner last night at Star Vista Morganfield’s, together with Yan and family.



We had good ribs, roast chicken and lamb chops, plus margarita and virgin mojitos.

The Fujifilm F550EXR camera, always with YowCH, died mechanically (the lens cannot move) on 12 March. We took 9000 photos (with some videos) with this F550. After arranging with a seller on Clubsnap, he picked up another 2nd hand Fujifilm F500EXR (no GPS compared to the F550) for $150.

The F500 is in the foreground in both photos below:

Tags: Family, YowCH by yowch
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Praise the Lord for a very exciting Christmas day.

We went to Church and YowCH sang with the Hospital Carolling team at the 2 English services and the Chinese service (one song each).

Then we had some fellowship time with church friends over the Christmas kenduri.

We then drove over to Marina Square and met up the Yongs and the Loos for shopping and lunch at Jia Xiang Sarawak Mee Kolok.

After lunch and shopping, we all returned to our home for fellowship time. These gingerbread stuff is from Yan (IKEA things, of course) and the Loos.

We then ordered pizza from Peperoni for dinner, very nice.

Here are some photos of the children playing (these are the closest relatives)

Interesting side news: we are indeed thankful that we salvaged from the garbage that someone at our block threw out, a box of Junior Engineer and lots of Lego and Duplo pieces, including the box and 2 base plates.

Yan had also returned the Aprica, Samuel can now ride a pram when going out from home (the Graco stays with the car). We planned the Aprica for 6 children, and Samuel is the 6th (after Esther, David, Joseph and Yan’s 2 children). Here is the very old page we made for the pram.

Tags: Church, Family, YowCH by yowch
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The day started with the 13th servicing for the Isis.

After lunch, YowCH went to church with Esther and David for carolling to Alexandra and National University Hospitals.


As with past years, it was a joy to see the patients happy with the Christmas songs and the package that church gave to them.

For dinner, we met up with the Yongs and the Loos. We ate Western food at Canopy (Bishan Park) and all the children ate nicely and behaved well.

Joseph completed his Lego Advent set as soon as we got home. Opening only 1 item a day for the past 24 days, Joseph patiently put the set together with some help from Esther and David.

Tags: Church, David, Esther, Family, Joseph, YowCH by yowch
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TYLin Management organised a golf game at Ria Bintan Golf Club (Indonesia) from 9 to 10 Nov 2013 (Saturday to Sunday). There are 2 courses, Ocean (18 holes, very pretty) and Forest (9 holes, rather normal). The players (8 total) left Singapore at 11:00am.

Once we reached the Resort, grabbed a quick lunch and started the first 18 holes on Ocean Course at 12:45pm (Indo time). The photos are of holes 8 and 9, very pretty sea view.


This faraway photo is the first flight, the better and faster players. YowCH is of course in the second flight.

The first game ended at 5:15pm, with YowCH losing 12 balls and scored nothing (5 actual +3, the rest more than +3). We then left for seafood dinner at Restaurant Kampoeng Nelayan, and the food was great. The 8 of us drank 4 bottles of wine at the restaurant and after dinner, another 2 bottles during chit chat (one colleague did not drink, being Moslem).

We slept at 11:00pm.

The next morning, we started playing at 6:45am, but it was drizzling (rather heavy at times) for the first 3 hours.

Again nice sceneries on the Ocean Course.


The first 18 holes on Ocean Course was completed at 11:45am. After a short 15 minutes lunch, we played the next 9-holes on the Forest Course, ending at 2:00pm. YowCH lost 13 balls in the first 18 holes and 6 more in the second 9 holes. But scoring wise, there were 7 actual +3 and once a +1!

After a quick shower, we departed and reached Singapore at 6:45pm (Singapore time), and YowCH reached home at 8:15pm after dropping off the overseas colleagues at their hotels (having shared a cab).

Big thanks to Grace and the children for supporting this outing. Also big thanks to Grace’s parents who helped out and sent David to the Scouts campfire, and to Quincy for fetching Esther to ballet and back, and to Hong Kian who took the boys to soccer. Not easy to get away for a game of golf! And also to Fen Leong for lending YowCH his golf set.

Tags: YowCH, YowCH's work by yowch
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ACES-YPC, which YowCH is a member, organised a trip to Chek Jawa at Pulau Ubin today from 1;30pm to 5:30pm. YowCH brought the children along.

Please click photos below to get to the page.

Tags: David, Esther, Joseph, YowCH, YowCH's work by yowch
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We prepared the baby’s clothes and drawers next to the cot.

YowCH’s head injury is healing very well after 6 days, some bruise still visible, but the wound has fully closed.

Yesterday, the naked chef made pancakes with his sister, while the younger brother set up the table. Pancakes for lunch was a great idea, tasty, filling and nutritious.

Tags: David, Esther, Family, YowCH by yowch
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YowCH had a bad dream on 9 Oct 2013, and at 4:30am, rolled off the bed and fell on the ground. Unfortunately, the dumbbells were right at the bed-side and his head hit the metal in the fall, resulting in a deep gash on the right eye-brow. After a stunned 15 mins and applied pressure to stop the bleeding, he went back to sleep. Next morning, with a plaster stuck, he sent the children to school, Grace to work, sat in a meeting at work, and attended the SITCE conference in Suntec City. By the time he saw the doctor at about 2:45pm, the wound has clotted and closed up, so no stitches needed.

Today, 3 days later, the swelling has reduced and the bruise is improving.

Thank God that the damage was not serious and missed the eye. Lesson learned: keep the area around the bed free of any hard objects.

Tags: YowCH by yowch
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The maintenance cost is rising, we added a larger filter ($12) on 25 Sept to keep the tank cleaner in order to change water less frequently. You can see it in the left side of the photo.

Today, we visited the new site at Jurong West again to look for some old structures, and here are our trail biking photos:



That’s a big ‘frog’ looking at a real one.

On the roadside drain top (and this drain is really a huge canal), YowCH managed to clock 35km/h on the mountain bike. The children reached 32km/h.

Tags: David, Esther, General, YowCH, YowCH's work by yowch
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YowCH needed to visit a new earthwork site at Jurong West which is still very wooded, and the children are on school leave for PSLE Listening and Comprehension Exams, so we went to the site for mountain biking. Grace and Joseph went to work/school. We had breakfast at Block 37, then went to TYLin office for a short while as YowCH needed to sign some drawings and give some instructions. We reached the site at about 10.45am and took out the bikes.


The trails are partly metalled, partly dirt path and sometimes very rough.

We crossed a very rusted steel bridge.




We left the site at about 12.15pm, drove round the site boundary and then went to Colbar for lunch at 1.00pm.

After lunch, we reached home at about 2.15pm.

Tags: David, Esther, Work, YowCH by yowch
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It is mid-autumn. This year we did not buy any mooncakes, spending about $500.oo less! We ate only a little mooncakes from relatives and friends.

Yesterday, Thursday, Joseph joined Esther and David in the Gan Eng Seng Primary School mid-autumn celebrations, and they made some snow-skin mooncakes and lanterns. The children went with Grace, YowCH was at the Association of Consulting Engineers (ACES) Networking Night.

Tonight, we had some standard mid-autumn fare: yam, water caltrop (菱角), pomelo, ‘pig-basket’ cake and of course, mooncakes.

The pomelo was peeled by David, although he doesn’t eat it.

This is the water caltrop top (菱角车) that YowCH made.

Tags: David, Esther, Family, Joseph, YowCH by yowch
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