On This Day - (11th June) #Reminders from FB#

11th June 2025

Been drinking too much cold drinks lately, so it's a nice hot bowl of ぜんざい.

Ps. only for now coz I'm eyeing on soft serve later 😜 sshh.. 🤫 don't tell my mom

* ate this in a cafe named Hayuwa in Kanazawa’s Higashi Chaya District. Nice to be alone, soaking in the place enjoying my dessert and looking out of the window to the throngs of tourists downstairs 

11th June 2025

Can't believe I'm doing this 🤣 Che-che would

usually glue herself to the TV and get ready with her phone to video whatever is on screen.

It so happened i was on a channel not paying any attention to it coz was on phone. Then I heard King & Prince.

Videos for her.

11th June 2016

Her 12th prawn!!

Gasp!

11th June 2014

早上：今天有一点勤劳。准备了这份四分之一的美国早餐。孩子们不吃 baked beans, hash brown 太大包

没买,bacon 太 fattening 了

小妹问我 “为什么我们有 ❤️ shape 你的没有？"

On This Day - (9th June) #Reminders from FB#

9th June 2025

9th June 2025

Girls, I'll bring these 🌾home for you both k? I'll be

back months later.🤣

* pic taken in Shirakawa-go. So peaceful here. 

9th June 2025 

I think maybe I can earn a snack by helping tourists take pictures. Haha! One couple asked for help, then commented it's so nice like a professional photographer (it's the scenery that's nice, i take crap photos), i was about to leave but 4 other couples asked for help. I jokingly said I should start charging.

9th June 2022

I should have a book titled "collection of 1001 funny things my daughter said"

Sometime in 2007 :

Overheard Athena saying "fish it" when she dropped something on the floor. I wanted to ignore her but can't help but ask her "what did you say?"

"Fish it"

"Fish what?"

"I drop something so I say fish it lor...."

Before you roll off the floor in laughter, she meant to say "oh shit!" - which I often did and she was trying to follow me.

*************************************

From my blog dated 15th Sep 2007

Athena overheard my conversation with Alyse (who out of concern called to see if l've escaped with Aricia to the big field on Wednesday when the tremors were felt) and then she started asking me

"mummy what shake? " "Why the eas (earth) shake?"

"How come our house shake?" "Then why you call

Aunty Zet?" "Our house got collapse?" Asked her if she is happy if it did, she gave me a smile.... probably she'll be too happy that she can stay in Tampines without finding any excuses.

When we were in TM's toilet, she repeated the same question over and over again. And then she started with "how did it happen?" Oh my! I explained to her about the tectonic plates and she stared at me

"plates?" "Yes, plates just like our plates. We put them together and then rub them together; they shake and there's earthquake." Stupid me with stupid comparison. Then she asked me "how come

Singapore no earthquake?" I was getting fed up with her question. Encouraged her to ask question, but when she did feel like shutting her mouth up.......coz' I couldn't pee....

Next day (Thursday) after school, she told me

"mummy, I told my children the eas (earth) shake becoz our plates rub together if never hold properly."

"Did your friends understand what you said?" "no.. but I know why" pause awhile "mummy why the eas shake? What is earthquake?" - there she goes again. 

******************************

From my blog dated 24th Jan 2007

Misinterpreted

I speak to Athena in an adult manner, using some words which adults use. (so hoping she'll speak in an adult way) All the time she understands me until recently.

On Sunday, we were on our way home after the Mozart concert. She was trying her luck to get me to bring her go gai-gai. No luck! I told her "It's late now, and you have school tomorrow. We'll talk about it next time." Immediately the girl started crying "why you tell me talk next time? I haven't finish talking now, you tell me talk next time. I haven't finish my sentence." * uh? * For obvious reasons she didn't understand me. Duh!

Today, she was hopping and wanting to run to the aisle which we needed to head to in the supermarket

- but yet she was delayed with this Ah-soh (me) walking so slow. Naturally I told her "Athena you can go ahead." "Orr..

....you tell me to go to my head."

*slap my own head *

So how? Speak to her in child-like sentences??

9th June 2021

Dinner time - all eating tapao food and all with laptops outside. Me - transferring pics from phone to laptop. Girls - watching their own shows

9th June 2021

Just coz the girls were craving for uncle wanton noodle.

Lil' one and me ended up in PP to do a quick grocery run n drop by my So Pho before going over to Uncle wanton.

Greedy me. So wanting to eat everything that I packed So Pho and slice beef soup from PP. And a double portion pork chop from western stall at Roxy.

Ehh…...it's like for my lunch n dinner and maybe tmrw's lunch (haha!) coz I double portioned everything. just want to eat everything! Feeling like a 🦖. Must make my trip to MParade worth it!

The only thing I didn't pack back from there is kimchoo dumpling n che-che's açai (becoz too bad only 2 pax permitted outside now. Plus she followed me on most trips, so I promised lil' one I'd bring her out today for a while. She was really happy 😃 .)

Satisfied!

They can't wait for dine in to be allowed

9th June 2013

My human owner is bringing me back to her country.

Ehh…... But I'm not taking my country airline. sob sob... I will miss my country.

Bye bye mama, bye bye papa.

9th June 2010

We left for yet another trip to China. This time to a more scenic route. 

- 中国-南宁,桂林，阳朔.

The kids brought along their new toy. Brother bought for girl as a reward for doing well in her exam.

Athena's Sparkle (bigger one) and Aricia's Snuzzle

🥹

Updating the monthly calendar. And ….. boo hoo hoo 😭. Both the man and che-che will be travelling having fun while I’m stuck in SIN end up more sulky and wrinkly. Will be holding the fort for the month of September to Oct for 5 weeks. No joke man! I would be so exhausted 崩溃. You may think the girls are older should be easier right? No ah…Princess #2 starting school in June and not sure of how her school schedule is going to be. School is so far then altho we say she needs to take bus it will take a long time to reach school/home. When everything from housework to cooking to certain chauffeuring is left all to me, it means one thing - I’d be crawling to bed everyday. Although this is what I do now, but when hubby is around I can leave chauffeuring to him and sometimes he will help to vacumn the floor and clean the master toilet dry area while I do the rests. When he’s away it means everything on solo with no help. 

Cello #2

1st June (Mon) 

It’s PH so tutor able to put it in the afternoon (3.15pm). Again lil’ one and me sat in the studio coz we needed the aircon 😬. Hubby wandered around in the nearby mall until I went back for him an hour later. The girls had to sit with the cello on their legs, indeed it is not easy to have 4 pax and one huge cello in our small car. 

Tutor is so encouraging, always complimenting “very good”. I would have screamed and scolded her for making those mistakes 😬. 自己的父母亲 are very critical. I take it that I can’t be an educator at all, I don’t have the patience and I’m very harsh / critical. 

Learnt a new song from Suzuki Book 1 - Lightly Row. Hey! She learnt this song too! Somehow at the back of my long term memory I could sing out this phrase “A123EEE”. 

Tutor was excited over a new Ghibli music book he just got hold of and showed her the book 😂 asked if she knew Ghibli. Hmm….he probably didn’t notice the bags we were carrying - Kiki Delivery Service. It was nice of him to start playing some songs, not the full song but briefly. I started to wonder when che-che will reach that stage? Actually also why can’t Ghibli have more songs for the cello, piano and electone? It’s always the same pieces - トトロ, いつも何度でも, あの夏へ ,  海の見える街 etc etc. Someone needs to program more songs in the MDR for the electone. 

On the way to pick hubby up, che-che found a way to put the cello in the car with the two of them squeezing behind. One skinny and one ahem ahem 😂. 

6th June (Sat) 

🎻 purchase day.

Met tutor to choose her cello. 

Tutor told her on Monday to prepare scales to yi yi orh orh first if he’s not around. Tutor was running a little late being caught in the jam, the staff told her she can play something first. That very instant she said that che-che and I locked eyes together and she gave me her trademark puppy-look pathetic face 

and we both laughed. I knew what she was thinking “what the heck?I run out of tune most times”. She tried yi yi orh orh a little (but she was paiseh) after some persuasion from me coz it’ll be so dumb to sit there. She keeps looking at the door, waiting for tutor to push open the door. Lo and behold when he pushed opened the door, it was ‘my saviour 来了’. 

Immediately he got down to business. 手脚很快 he tuned and dunno what else he did then yi yi orh orh. Then took another model which che-che was eyeing, immediately we could hear the difference! I love the deep sound. 

Can you guess which model she chose? 

He helped to select bow. I didn't know there's a way to select bow 🤣. Even chose the better rosin for her. When I bought her her one and only violin I didn't know what to do and took whatever rosin they had.

The cello comes in a thick cloth casing that is almost similar to a laptop bag material. Decided to get a hard casing here, which even with tutor’s teacher discount at 50% is more expensive than what I can get in Taobao. I was more worried about cracks in the case if I had Taobao-ed and I can’t refund if that’s the case. Who was to know that the staff had to drill and push back something to the wooden end pin wooden holder just to fit into the case. Wah! If I had purchased from Taobao I wouldn’t know that the cello she bought won’t be able to fit nicely into the case. 

While waiting for the staff to do whatever he had to do, tutor was sharing with us the Vettori Paolo cello priced at $100K. 我听到了价钱眼睛都要掉下来。His sons' crafted cellos are priced $15K cheaper. Still we can't afford anything more than 5 digits (lemme rephrase that even for a 4 digits price we need to set budget lor!). The cello is in a transparent case, the space I wouldn't dare to step closer incase my bag sling catch a part and topple the cello over. Only they can play that cello and asked if we want to hear. Of course! I was more excited but dare not voice out, #27 che-che said she wanted to hear. My goodness! The sound is ... I don't know how to describe but it's just so 迷人, so rich. 

I asked a rather dumb question if anyone new would buy this expensive cello or usually one will slowly upgrade. I'm thinking for our piano we also started with the basic model then subsequently we changed to a much better piano, so it works the same for cello? There are people who are willing to pay that much he clarified.太有钱了.

His sons and daughter 

Good to know : other famous luthier

Her cello! 

Here’s to more cello days ahead

What was I worried about when she said she wanted to learn cello? I was worried that she might give up halfway as she did with her violin. Her reasons was (as if she remembers) she was so bored with playing open strings for a very long time unlike now doing in first lesson. Infact she didn’t play open strings that long, otherwise why would I remember a few songs’ fingerings. Of course to a group of 4 year-olds they had to practice open strings first coz (1) young and mostly would be holding violin for the first time and it’s the beginner part of yi yi orh orh to make sure they press the bow hard enough (2) most would have started with violin as the first instrument unlike her who already had some music background so maybe that’s why she was a little faster than the others in her class. (3) it was a group class, progression is slower coz teacher has to make sure everyone moves, if she’s faster than the others she has to wait for them. 

Now she is fast with cello coz (1) she plays so many instruments, just need to make small adjustments and have strength to press fingering now, (2) individual class she didn’t have to wait for anyone (3) hate to say this but coz she played the violin before so it’s the same. Almost wanted to tell her if at age 24 with musical background and having seen how cellos are played and she’s still doing open strings for a long time, she’s going to be embarrassing herself.