Start of Work... Again

I finally found work to do after resting at home for 1.5 months. It is with mixed feelings that I go back to work. Somehow, humans are contradictory creatures. When I have work, I longed for a break. When I was home, almost bored to death, I wished I can go back to work.

Since I needed more savings, I’m happy that I finally found work. At least, it will stop my hubby from nagging at me, complaining that I do nothing at home. The funny thing was on the morning before I left work, he told me to quit if I find the project too tedious… I guess he felt bad for all the times that he had scolded me, for staying at home, doing nothing, and not generating income.

Anyway, my first day of work, was the same as every first day at a new project. This is the fourth time I’m going through this. You will have to do a lot of admin stuff and then read a lot of project documentations and background, while everyone is so busy with their work. I feel helpless looking at them, being bored and unable to help them. If only, someone can just assign me work on the first day, even though it may just be a small task…

But I do know that tough times are coming soon, you can almost feel it in the atmosphere. Hence, I better enjoy it while I can :)

Bye bye facebook… Best wishes to all those who are stealing my harvest in Happy Farm and for those who are fighting me in Sorority Life!

New House - Kitchen

My kitchen is a small L-shaped kitchen. We initially wanted to redo the whole kitchen but found out that since the cabinets are still in good condition, we can save some money. It used to only have a sink and cooking area, with no workspace. Hence, we took out the refrigerator and built another tabletop and put the oven below.

In order for it to appear bigger, we also knocked down a section of the wall so that we can put slightly tinted sliding doors. There is also insufficient space for storage. Therefore, we used those IKEA clear boxes to try and organise the things and stacked them up.

We went to IKEA and found out that we can save a lot of worktop space by hanging things. Over here, you can see that the kitchen roll and some of the spices are hanging from a bar. My Zwilling knife set is also at the corner. The knives are of really good quality. I'm glad I bought them :)

This is the stove area. The microwave oven is in a box above the counter. I asked to place a black glass against the wall. It used to be a sheet of aluminium. I think black glass looks nicer and it gives the kitchen the black and white feel.

This is my Siemens oven and the Siemens washer-dryer. A built-in oven is really much much better. However, as I bought the cheapest model, it doesn't come with self-cleaning functions. Hence, the stains are quite difficult to remove.

Lastly, this is the washing area. We have a hanging dish rack on top of the sink to save space. As it is a small area, I will normally put them back in the cupboards once they are dried.

New House - Bedrooms

It's been awhile since I have blogged... Reason being I was on holidays. Will blog about my holidays later on :)

The houses in Hong Kong are well known for being tiny. Before we found this new house, I can never understand how people can squeeze generations of people into a less than 600 sq ft home. Well... We found a house that is less than 600 sq ft. It is cosy enough for 2. However, we can only at most accommodate 1 guest. And the mattress can only be laid in the guest bedroom after the door is closed! Hee... This means that my whole family will not be able to stay with us when they come visiting.

One advantage is it takes much faster to clean and tidy the house :)

This is the master bedroom. It can only accomodate a double bed and a wardrobe. We have windows on both sides of the room. I have boldly asked to have black day curtains (the thin ones) and white night curtains (the thicker ones). I didn't want it the other way as I think black curtains would make the room look smaller. I think the curtains turned out better than I thought. What do you think? The wardrobe is of the same wood as the bed frame, with frosted green glass.

Again, we have a ceiling fan in the master bedroom for energy saving.

This is the wardrobe for the guest bedroom. It is a much bigger one, exclusively for me :p

New House - Living Room

Today marks the start of my housewife days… again… Hopefully, I can be kept busy playing with facebook, chatting and blogging :) I have been occupied tidying up the new place. Here are some of the photos I promised…

The theme of the living room is modern black and white. I love the picture of the leaning Eiffel Tower in the background.

We spent a long time seaching for a black leather sofa bed but couldn't find it. Hence, settled for a non-sofa bed.

The black bar counter is very high, to cater for 2 door refrigerator below. In order to fit an oven in the kitchen, the refrigerator has to be in the living room. And my hubby refused to put it in the open, hence, we have to put in below the bar counter.

A clearer view of the Eiffel Tower.

We have a fan in the living room. My hubby said that it can save energy if you on the fan and set the air con to be at 29 degrees at the same time.

This is our new LCD TV, and we have a "remote control" box :)

Did you see the cute white umbrella stand we have?

Goodbye Gold Coast

We have finally completed the move to our new place :) The other day, when I was buying MacDonald for dinner at our old place – Gold Coast, I happened to be impressed by the views and took a couple of pictures.

When we first moved in, we were wowed by the beautiful views and relaxing environment. But honestly, I didn’t pay much attention to the views in the 1.5 years that we stayed there.

Beautiful Wedding

I attended a beautiful wedding last weekend. It was my sister-in-law’s wedding :) The wedding was held at a restaurant in Rochester Park, Singapore. They had a very beautiful wedding cake.

It was a sweet and simple affair, which celebrated the union of two wonderful persons.

Talking about weddings, I wished that I had a garden wedding instead of the normal oriental-style wedding dinners. Hmmm…. Maybe I can persuade my hubby to have a garden ceremony when we re-new our vows probably 10 years later! Hee… Something to dream about…

Moving House

Introducing my sis's dog... Minnie!!! Haha... She looks so adorable with this expression. She loves eating toothpicks, tissues and chewing walls!

In case you are wondering why there are no food posts yet, well… it is because I am too busy with packing house to consolidate all the food pictures. We are moving house on the 19 June and the current house is in a mess now.

When you first moved into a new house, it seems like there are some procedures to follow. I have compiled the following to be done:

- Bring over salt, rice and sugar, bottle of cooking oil and vinegar

- Boil water and turn on all lights
Besides the above, water is boiled immediately after entering the home and all lights in the home are turned on for at least 15 minutes. If one is staying in the house, turn on the `balcony' light or if there is no balcony, the living room light for that night.

- Red Packets
Red Hong Bao packets are also placed on the kitchen stove and keep a Red Hong Bao in each bedroom's cupboard drawer. The money should be even numbers. For example, it can be 6 cents. For the Hokkien, 6 sounds like luck. For the Cantonese, they may use 8 cents for luck.

- Rice
Since the stable food of the Chinese is rice, than it is natural to go into the home and sprinkle (scatter) rice all around the various rooms of the home. (REMEMBER: Don't spill it out of the window).

- Green Beans
Green symbolise the East or rising sun. And again scattering green beans in the home is symbolic of seeding the home (with children). Just imagine - the hope is that green beans sprout in the home and this symbolic gesture has to do with this.

- Salt
Especially if the house is a second-hand one, often, salt is sprinkled around the home to supposedly cleanse away bad qi or old qi. And it is also sprinkled in the toilet.

Getting a new home is really something exciting, especially since we are very much involved in the renovations and decorations. I will definitely take some nice photos to show you our sweet home after we have moved in :p

Living in HK...

My husband and I are Singaporeans. We were married for a year, before he had a job posting in HK. So, we packed our bags and moved to HK about 1.5 years ago. When we first came, I was jobless and had a lot of free time to explore how to cook and do housework.

I can’t even fry an egg, can’t even iron a single cloth, etc. However, after 3 months, I was able to do all these and much more… My daily routine as a housewife (not Tai Tai! Tai Tai doesn’t need to perform any household chores) was to wake up early, prepare breakfast for my hubby. Then, clean up the whole house – Clean furniture, vacuum and mop the floor. I will then go explore HK supermarkets, shopping centers and wet markets. After that, I will prepare dinner. Sometimes, I will try out the dinner dishes by preparing them for lunch.

After some time, I grew bored and became very obsessed in maintaining a clean home. I can’t stand a single strand of hair or even a speck of dust. It got so bad that my hubby says I got 洁癖. Finally, I found a project and it doesn’t matter now if my house has 100 strands of hair :p

At first glance, HK is actually quite similar to Singapore… Same tall buildings, same shopping centers, same workaholics. However, after some time, you will notice some distinct differences. The language is mainly Cantonese. However, they are more proficient in Mandarin recently.

The maids in HK have defined working hours and they have their own free time on Sundays and public holidays. The rich/poor gap is larger in HK. And HK is really a shopping haven! There are so many varieties of brands and they are so much cheaper in HK. There are some things that you can’t even buy in Singapore, even when you have money, as the brands are not available in Singapore.

As for food, the quality in HK is much better. However, I still miss Singapore local fare – Laksa, Roti Prata, Curry, Hokkien Mee etc…

At the Beginning...

This blog is set up with the sole intention of revealing what my hubby, Vin, is having for dinners. When I started cooking, I was not even able to fry an egg. The first egg I attempted was when I was staying at a service apartment. It was an electric stove and the level was from 1 to 10. I tried the number 5 setting. I poured olive oil onto a saucepan and it immediately turned black... I should say that the saucepot looked like it has a black coating! Well... I thought it was "normal" behaviour and broke an egg into it.

The whole thing turned black and the whole room was filled with smoke. By then, I knew... that this was not normal behaviour and turned off the stove. I was so worried that the smoke detector would go off. So, I used the main door as fan and hoped that the smoke will dissipate soon! After that, I’m left with just a black-coated saucepan that no amount of scrubbing can remove. I was too embarrassed to call the staff for help. (After that, a friend of mine said that I could have easily asked for a change in saucepan from the hotel staff.)

I had to source for help from my aunt who taught me the power of WHITE VINEGAR! All you need to do is pour in white vinegar with some water and boil it. After some time, it can be scrubbed off easily. And white vinegar is very useful in getting rid of oily stuff, especially useful for cleaning kitchen walls and cabinets.

Lessons learnt in frying an egg: Use number 1 or 2 setting for cooking on electric stove; white vinegar is very powerful in the kitchen; consult Aunt when in doubt :p

Well… As time passes, I learned how to cook edible dinners and have become very interested in cooking. As how Vin puts it, it is one of the rare tasks that I can spend a long time doing QUIETLY, and not bother him at all. So, it proves that a pampered girl can still become a cook. Hope this will be an inspiration to the rest of the pampered girls out there!