Last Sunday, we had the "All-U-Can-Eat" buffet dinner at Seoul Garden (@ Downtown East) in celebration of Hubby's birthday. The good thing about dining at Seoul Garden on Sunday is kid (between 3-9 years old) dines for FREE with every paying adult. ^_^
Unlike going to the counters to grab your food and drinks, the outlet at Downtown East has monitors with the buffet menu where you can select your favourite meat, vegetables, yong tau foo, noodle/rice, desserts and drinks. The service crew will then bring your orders right to the table. Diners get to sit comfortably and BBQ their food, saving the hassel on moving around. On the other hand, there might be a longer time for your food when the restaurant is crowded. (especially during peak hours or if the system is down.)
We ordered a lot of meat and the kids had fun eating while Daddy and Mommy were busy BBQ-ing. Denver tried almost all the food and Gladys enjoyed her cup of milo and desserts most! It was a HEAVY dinner but the children still have room for CAKE!!
Birthday is never complete without a Birthday cake and singing Daddy a HAPPY BIRTHDAY song!
Even simple things like cutting the cake make the children so happy! Not to forget having a bite of the yummy Blackforest cake from Bengawan Solo. :) 生日快乐！
I didn't expect a blog post on the Earth Hour will give us an opportunity to be featured on The New Paper! It is our 2nd time participating in this event at home and the children have experienced how hot and difficult it was to spend the hour without the lights and fans. Through this event, hopefully it has created more public awareness and more families will continue the effort to this movement even after the Earth Hour.
Thanks to Linette for dropping us a note and giving us a chance for my family to appeared on the papers. Thank you Gavin for the photo-takings and Shi-an for the phone interview.
This is our 2nd time participating in the Earth Hour movement at home. Around 7 plus, we switched off most of the lights and electrical appliances. At 830pm, all lights and fans were off. I have prepared some handheld torchlights, fans, tealight candles in preparation for the lights off. How did we "survive" the 1 hour without TV, fans and computer?
Gladys seems to find it more exciting to play with her hand-held torchlight. She can't wait to start switching off the lights to make the earth happy (her way of interpreting Earth Hour). We played some games in the dark and did some simple housework together. The children have been a good helper by shining the lights at where it needs to be.
Time seems to pass fairly slow and the night is getting hot. Without their favourite TV programs and computer games, the children are starting to get bored. Although it is not a real black-out situation, Denver and Gladys had their first time experience trying to draw and write by the candle-light and torchlights. Gladys realised that she wasn't able to find the colours that she wanted under the dim yellow light. Her intended purple shirt became a brown-coloured top. Nevertheless, she did a nice drawing.
Denver on the other hand said he had no problem writing in the dark. He has outgrown the age of playing shadow games and suggested to play board games instead. We started with Scrabble and it wasn't too bad afterall. I still remember the times I spent playing chess, boardgames (e.g. Monopoly, Risk) with my brothers before we were introduced to computer games. I wonder how popular are Board games with children nowadays (apart from monopoly)? We seem to be very dependent on electronic gadgets (PSP, PS3, XBox) that we lost touch with the initial basic simple pleasure?
As soon as the Earth Hour is over, Denver and Gladys are definitely happy to see the lights and fans back on and be able to watch their cartoons again. As this year's Earth Hour's theme - Beyond the Hour suggest, we hope to substain this movement in our daily activities to save and conserve more energy. Hopefully that would means seeing a reduction in our electrical bills. Hahaha ^_^
Two weeks ago, we were at Downtown East for a movie and happened to be on time to catch the Strawberry Shortcake - Meet & Greet session. :) Coincidentally, Gladys was in her Strawberry Shortcake jacket and even though it was a hot, sunny afternoon, she did not want to take it off.
That sort of bring her some luck as the jacket helped her to be spotted and picked by the emcee to answer a question. In return, she was rewarded with a free Strawberry Shortcake cupcake sponsored by Prima Deli.
The main attraction was the show, games and seeing Strawberry Shortcake and Plum! Gladys has been a good sport as she stands up to dance with the music. She had loads of fun as she gets to take photo with the main characters and eat her cupcake. Triple Happiness! :)
Earth Hour 2011 is back and will take place in Singapore at 8.30pm, Saturday, 26 March 2011.
We can do our part in conserving energy and protecting the Earth. Switching off the lights on Earth Hour is a little step and commitment to this global movement. Of course, we can always make an attempt to keep this habit beyond the hour:
1) Switching off the lights/appliances when not in use. 2) Keep our air-condition to 25-26 oC. 3) Using energy saving bulb/appliances 4) Reduce the amount of waste. Keeping in mind the 3R principle. (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) 5) Whenever possible, take a walk or public transport. :)
Lights will also be out on many of our iconic landmarks like The Merlion, The Fullerton Hotel, Esplanade, Singapore Flyer etc. Various organisations will also be participating actively in this year's Earth Hour movement.
Hotels - Various hotels (e.g. Pan Pacific, Intercontinental Singapore etc), have pledged to switch off/dim the lights at certain areas in support of the global initiatives.
IKEA - Join IKEA for a solar-lamp lit dinner at both restaurants at the Alexandra and Tampines outlets during Earth Hour. All proceeds collected at bothe restaurants will be donated to WWF Singapore in support of their conservation and outreach efforts in Singapore. The IKEA building facade and external lights will also be switched off!
Woodland Waterfront - There will be flea market, star gazing activities and movie screening of "Monsters vs Aliens"! Date: 26 March 2011, Saturday Venue: Woodlands Waterfront, Event Space Time: 5pm – 10pm
Earth Hour Night Walk - Singapore's first Earth Hour Night Walk starting on 26th March 2011 at 8:30pm at the Promontory @ Marina Bay. The walk will be about 3.5km long and takes around 1 hour to complete. It will pass by Marina Bay Sands, The Float@Marina Bay, Esplanade, One Fullerton, Clifford Pier and back to The Promontory. Registration fee is $15 and children below 12 join for free.
Mark your calendar for this Saturday's Earth Hour!
We were at Marina Square yesterday for a movie and happened to passby the Giant Balloon World event held at the Atrium. The creative and beautiful balloon sculptures not only attracted the children but also the adults for photo-taking. You can find fishes, lobsters, jellyfish in the ocean, tiger, monkey, elephant, giraffe on land and parrots, butterflies, bumble bees in the sky. They are so colourful and cheery that it brightens up the entire atrium. :)
Denver & Gladys were so engrossed watching the Kids Balloon Workshop on how the balloon sculptures are crafted that they did not want to take any photos! Every balloon sculpture is a masterpiece on it's own and how I wish I can bring them home. ^_^
March holidays are almost coming to the end and what have we been doing for the past week?
For a start, we brought the children to watch 2 movies. Rango and Gnomeo & Juliet. I seriously did not enjoy our first movie at all and even fell asleep in the cinema!! I believe this is the first time I actually DOZED OFF in the theatre! The storyline started out slow and it seems so ridiculous. I do not find it hilarious nor was it exciting. Sorry to say the entire show remained monotonous and boring to me. Gladys must have felt the same as she keeps asking me if the movie is over and when can we leave. I guess this movie is more suited to a different league of audience which I definitely do not fit in.
Gnomeo & Juliet on the other hand helps to bring the score back and gave us a fun-filled entertainment throughout the show. Unlike the well-known William Shakespeare's play where Romeo & Juliet's romance ends in tradegy, Gnomeo & Juliet had a happier ending. A simple, predictable story with little jokes cracked in between the scenes makes it a more family friendly movie for most to enjoy.
We bought a new camera in replacement for the old lumix model that has been with us for many years. Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ40 has pretty good reviews and comes with 24x optical zoom and 14.1 Megapixels. There are many features almost like a DSLR and it also comes with manual functions. It is relatively lower priced and suitable for beginners like us. Looking forward to taking better photos and videos with our new camera!
Hubby and I took some time off to see the Drama Performances put up by the Primary 2 students. Denver has been preparing with his classmates since a month ago and he is playing the role of Narrator 2 in the play - Ploppy the Penguin.
There are a lot of lines for Narrator 1 & 2 and Mommy has been practicing with Denver every weekend. Luckily our little boy has a pretty good memory and it didn't take him too long before he remembered all his lines.
In the past, Denver has been performing on stage in groups. This is the first time he will be standing before a crowd with so many solo lines in a play. That explains why he started to express his nervousness in the morning. We reassured him that he will do fine and he just needs to do his best which he did. :)
Denver does looked a bit stiff during the performance but I must say everyone did great! The students spoke through the microphone and it was loud and clear. There was good coordination, teamwork and everyone did their part. This definitely attributes to the time spent, hard work and effort every student and teacher has put in for the past month. Bravo! This has also been a good opportunitiy for Denver to display his courage and confidence on stage.
PS: Denver looked so smart in the black and white although he can't help scratching on stage. :)
Ploppy the Penguin - Peformed by students in 2 Charity and 2 Courage
Synopsis - An odd little penguin named Ploppy likes to do things his own way. He does not fit in but he does not seem to mind. He remains friendly and full of confidence. One day, hunters come to Ploppy's town to catch penguins. The whole village is terrified but little do they know that it is Ploppy who will come and save the day.
Hubby had a sudden craving for crabs and so he bought 5kg worth of fresh flower crabs! We brought it over to bbil's house where the crabs were steamed. No seasoning and sauces were added, the crabs are so fresh that the meat tasted very sweet on its own. It's super yummy delicious that I actually ate 5 of them! I wonder if there are any left-overs for tomorrow. ^_^
