YowCH & Grace

The Gan Eng Seng Primary School Choir performed at Amara Hotel (Sentosa and Tanjung Pagar) for Christmas on 21 Dec. Esther is standing on the left (front):

YowCH and Grace got 3 sets of 2nd-hand Hotwheels Wall Tracks for the children at $50 (these three sets totals about $130 new) after studying them while on holiday in Malaysia. The advantage is that the tracks are all on the walls, minimising floor space, and allows fast action at the slopes. The bad news is that Tomica cars runs better on the tracks than Hotwheels cars. Note that the tracks can go round a corner!

Tags: David, Esther, Joseph // 2 Comments »

Last night, 19 Dec, the left front spring stiffener fell out of the strong coil and was ground by the tyre. Thank God it happened at our home carpark. So YowCH jacked up the car, and with Joseph’s help (holding the torch light), tied whatever was left of the silicone stiffener back into the spring coil.

Today, YowCH took half-day leave to visit E-rev to get this replaced, changing to stiffer and taller red ones on the front. The rear ones are working fine.

While being there, we also stocked-up on the Redline 5W30 engine lubricants (bought 6 bottles of 4 quarts each) for ourselves, Gene and Daren. And as E-rev workers were unpacking a new shipment of strut bars, YowCH asked about having a strut bar for the Isis, and was advised that the Wish bar will fit, and in any case, there is not cost in trying. So the Isis now has a new front strut bar which costs $150.00.

With the very high COE of close to $100,000 for 1.6L and above, it is worth improving our current car :)

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We took a short holiday to visit YowCH’s parents in PJ, and to do some year-end shopping.

We left Singapore at 5:00am on Saturday, 15 Dec. Grace drove from home to Pagoh R&R, 2 hours in the dark and foggy pre-dawn, covering 180km. Then YowCH drove the rest of the holiday.

We brought along the in-line skates. Esther and David practiced ‘jumping over a drain’ at the neighbourhood badminton court (the drain being the two ‘out’ lines of the court).

We had lots of great food, mum’s cooking, chinese nasi lemak, roti tisu and maggi/indomie goreng (supper with friends Chee Kean, Thean Seong, Vooi Lee and Ai Lin), Japanese food Yakuzen at Tropicana City and Bak Kut Teh at Sunway.

At One Utama, our regualr shopping mall, Shell-Lego had a booth, here’s Joseph standing alongside the not-so-mini-fig.

YowCH also had some time to visit TYLin KL office on morning of 17 Dec, catching up with some colleagues and MD Mr Wong.

On Tuesday, 18 Dec, we drove to Pontian Kechil after lunch to meet up with Grace’s parents and sister. The children had a nap in the car.

We then had dinner with Grace’s uncle and 4th aunty, very nice and highly affordable seafood at Mawar. There’s even free wifi at Mawar.

Uncle also got us some local fruits – langsat, rambutan and pulasan.

Pulasan is very much like rambutan, but not as sweet.

We reached home on 18 Dec at 9:30pm. We thank God for good drives (we covered 889km), great time with family and blessings of friends and food.

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We took a trip to the zoo on Monday, 10 Dec (Grace and YowCH on leave) to visit Pandas, recently opened to public.

Please click and and on photos to the page.

Kai Kai:

Jia Jia:

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YowCH brought Joseph along to the driving range on Monday (3 Dec) to try out golf. He can hit the ball, but unable to keep the posture. The club also seems to heavy for him, maybe next year.

Esther and David continued to train, perhaps best to get a professional trainer for them soon.

Today, we took some time to cycle, also to let Joseph train on 2 wheels, but he is not yet ready for 2 wheels yet as he can’t balance. We had to raise the seats on Esther’s and David’s bikes, they must have grown taller!

But he is great on the Y-Glider.

We also updated an earlier post (TYLin 40th Anniversary Dinner) with a group photo of the TYLin Pricipals on stage for the birthday cake. Click here.

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Chee Kean came over to Singapore for the Standard-Chartered Marathon on 2 Dec. He completed within time to claim a finisher T-shirt and medal. The night before his run, he coached Joseph to start off on 2 wheels on his bike.

Chee Kean also brought along an item ordered on-line by YowCH (Malaysian internet sale), a solar powered fan for car cabin ventilation when parked in the sun.

Under direct sunlight, the fan works and quite effectively reduce the stuffy air when parked under the sun for long period.

Joseph received from Sze Wee and Hong Kian a Y-Glider for his birthday, you can see it in action here:

This was at West Coast Park while David (number 40) was having his soccer training session.

Joseph also went with Esther on in-line skates.



Esther went 2 rounds (about 1km each round), Joseph 1 round on skates and 1 round on Y-Glider, Grace 1 round on skates and YowCH 2 rounds on skates.

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Today, Joseph turns 4.

We had lunch at Suntec City Turkish Deli (thanks to Yan and PQ) with all our family members staying in Singapore. Very nice kebab meal with fantastic desserts Künefe and Baklava.

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YowCH and Grace attended TYLin’s 40th Anniversary Annual Dinner at Singapore Island Country Club – Bukit Location on 23 Nov. We were in black ‘leathers’ and chains…
. YowCH was voted (by the overseas guests) best dressed man with prize of $100 Metro vouchers.

After dinner, YowCH and Grace hosted some Malaysian office guests for supper and drinks at “Oyster Bar & Grill wharf” at Robertson Quay, Quayside. We had a great time chatting, sent them back to Miramar Hotel, and reached home at 1:30am.

Updated 9 Dec:
.
Principals of TYLin (from left): C Xu, CH Yow, Thomas Ting, FL Yong, Kenneth Liew, ST Ng, advisor – General (ret) Han, Serena Yap, advisor – Terry Hulme, HS Teh, Bernhard Kraft, G Tan, TC Lim, KP Lim, KS Khoo, Desmond Chew, AK Soon. Absent: Timmy Mok, YS Ng, John Oehler, Mohan, EH Tan.

Tags: YowCH's work // 2 Comments »

Today, we celebrated Joseph’s 4th birthday (2 days early) in his school. He wanted a football-strawberry cake and that’s what we got him.





And for his friends, instead of goodie-bags, we gave Lego favour-packs instead. The packs each builds a bunny and a chick. These 20 packs were rather affordable (US$2.60 each) and thanks to Gene for bringing them from the States as they only deliver to US addresses.

And after that we went in-line skating at the carpark under our flat.

Tags: Family, Joseph // 2 Comments »

On Sunday evening, 18 Nov, YowCH conducted the Cook-out session for Church Junior Camp (16 to 19 Nov), which is the Sunday Dinner for those staying overnight (Primary 4 and 5 children). The menu was Mothballs Earthworms and Garden Mess. Actually, they are fishball/meatball noodles and mixed vege with pork and eggs.

The children with some help and guidance from youths and young adults, cooked their own meals in mess-tins and most of them produced very tasty food.

Esther specialised in frying eggs with vege and pork, very tasty.

David did not cook (he is not yet Primary 4) but he was really helpful.

Grace helped with the session and so did Joseph.

We all had a great time at church for this cook-out and it is now strongly suggested for future junior camps.

Oh, we managed to collect all 7 packs of the Shell-Ferrari Lego special limited edition sets (1 truck, 5 cars and 1 set of minifigs):

Big thanks to Grace’s colleague who pumps Shell for getting the cars and to Grace’s parents who got us the set of minifigs.

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