broylim / catalog

04. Family dinner at some industrial area ~Lunar New Year~

YEAH!! I’m finally at the last post for the 4 days worth of celebrating Lunar New Year!! I know it’s way overdue but it’s better than not blogging about it at all, no?

And to all the blogs that I go to every day without fail, please update something because I want to read something when I’m bored~ I see the same old posts all the time and I get sad. Hint hint!!

Anyway, I doubt this will REALLY be the last of the Lunar New Year that you’ll see here because I’m going to my sergeant major’s house to do some visiting with the rest of my camp mates at 5:00pm. I can leave my home at around 4:55pm if you get what I mean. :)

Without further ado~ Pictures of the fourth day of the Lunar New Year WAR!! :)

I think old people do not really remember their birthdays since birthdays, I guess, were not really celebrated by the olden generations as much as we do nowadays so every year, we will just pick a convenient date where we can celebrate our grandfather’s birthday. We would normally go out for dinner and stuff so yeap. This year’s no exception. Before I left the house, I took this photo of the potted cactus outside my door because the rabbits made of red packets are so funny. Courtesy of Nick and Leon.

My family was pretty late because my father was dragging and taking his own sweet time. Not to mention WOMANIZER came to my house again for the third consecutive day for whatever reason. Maybe he’s been womanizing so much he has no money to get a house? Who cares!! So when we finally arrived, everyone was like “WEI!! LATE ALREADY LAR~” or something like that. And I just realized that Sheena actually put on colored contact lenses. Not really liking the lenses’ design but I love this photo~

The kids/teenagers table. And like all other family dinner, we always get the crappy food. Oh well~ That’s for not paying for your meals. At least this time, we get soft drinks and a better table cloth as compared to my grandma’s birthday. Let’s see….. http://broylim.tumblr.com/post/647045570/dinner-with-my-family Yeap! This is it! Flies and all and smokers and whatnots~ 

Even though this place is located in an industrial area just a 10 minutes walk away from Sheena’s house, it’s so much cleaner and more hygienic. Most importantly, it was relatively quiet so we basically had the whole place to ourselves (with a couple of strangers).

Laura enjoying her Pepsi. The drinks cost a whooping $1.50!! At least it’s refillable but $1.50 for a glass of soft drink? You can get ONE WHOLE BOTTLE with that money!

One of my cousins who I don’t really feature a lot, Guo Qiang. He’s my eldest aunt’s son and yeap. He’s really tall and really dark!! I may even look younger than him. What do you think? :)

iPhoning and Xperia-ing away while waiting for our food to arrive…

Laura and her not-so-glam smile.

The soft drinks!! Normally when we eat at these coffee houses or eateries, there will be this woman who comes along to take our orders for drinks but for this place, they will just give you either Pepsi or Orange. That’s not necessarily a bad thing because it helps fickle people like myself make up my bloody mind. But on the other hand, if you have a craving for a particular beverage, then that’s too bad!

Rena showing off her braces and her starry bracelet which is actually a hair band. Sometimes, I wonder why people design hair bands like this because won’t it trap the hair and make it a living hell to remove it? I’m not sure~ I never tied my hair before~

This photo was taken after we had our 鱼生 (translates to “raw fish” or better known as sashimi). Basically, it’s like a big plate of sashimi salad where everyone in the family gets to toss using chopsticks. The video’s on facebook if you are interested to see what the whole process is like. The person who prepared our 鱼生 was really nice but he talks a little too much.

I think she’s got something stuck in her braces.

The adult/kids-that-are-too-young-to-feed-themselves table. Well, they normally get the better food but I don’t really care. My father’s wearing the Carneyvale shirt that I got him from GAMBIT because no one wanted that shirt. What a pity, no? It’s a cute shirt. I would wear it if it was a couple of sizes smaller.

So if you are interested in bringing your family to an industrial area for a meal, you can come to this place. I don’t know the exact address but oh well~ 

The aftermath of the 鱼生. From here, you can derive that the salad consists of cucumbers, peanuts, carrots and some other things on top of the few, miserable slices of sashimi.

Sheena’s Hello Kitty organizer which she uses to keep track of her work place’s daily sales. I asked her why she bothers to do it and she said that her boss promised her that if she can hit a certain target, then she will get some incentives. Coolness~

And finally~ The first dish; Kang Kong! Not a huge fan of kang kong because I prefer veggies with bigger leaves but I’ll have it anyway. Better than nothing. This kang kong was not bad~ Crunchy and greasy (in a good way).

Qiang helping himself with the kang kong. I think I actually got to eat quite a good portion that day because hungry ghost Nick wasn’t at our table. Normally, he would clear the plates before I’m done with taking the photos of the food. At least everyone was co-operative that day. :)

This is Vanessa, my 小姑’s eldest child. I realized that I don’t really feature her as well so here she is, eating her veggies.

The next dish. Is this fish? I think it was… It’s fish covered with cereal and I love the cereal! Anything with that kind of cereal (be it prawns, crabs, whatever) is nice! I can just have that cereal because it’s so buttery and heavenly! The fish is good~ Sheena’s “favorite” dish!

Lemon chicken. Nothing special other than the fact that this is a good photo.

I think this was one of the best dishes of the day! Pork in sweet sauce! The pork is bone-free, unlike the ribs you have outside that makes eating it such a chore. The meat is really tender, unlike some places where the meat chews like rubber. The sauce is fantastic! I like!!

Tofu and veggies. I don’t really like cooked cabbage because it’s slimy and I don’t like slimy. But the mushrooms and tofus are good! 

Through dinner, Sheena’s Pepsi got more and more diluted. Just look at the color!!

And the final dish; CRAB!! I think this is butter crab but I don’t really care because I had a bit only. As usual, Vera would fight for the pincers and I’ll just eat the shelly parts. The crab was pathetically tiny and I don’t think I would have crabs at this place. Notice that the plate isn’t really on the table? That’s because Leon had to snatch the plate for me to take the picture before everyone snatch my subject away.

By small, I mean REALLY SMALL!! The pincers are only the length of your index fingers! Where’s the satisfaction from eating such a small crab?

Leon playing with his food.

Shortly after we were done with the crab, Sheena had to report for work. In fact, she was terribly late for work because of this dinner. Poor her~ Have to work on weekends and during the new year. So, Rena and I saw her to the road to catch a cab and on the way, we had lots of fun snapping cam-whorish pictures. :P

Sheena waiting for the cab but to no avail. Probably because she looks scary… Probably because the cab drivers think we are playing a fool because I was walking around with a camera on a tripod. Who knows?

We were doing everything but waiting for a cab. :P

Seriously… I look like a little boy… :( But that’s not a bad thing, yes? :)

So while Sheena was frantically waiting for her job-saver to arrive, Rena and I attempted to take jump shots but we failed. :P What we got instead was a ghostly Rena.

This road leads to Ang Mo Kio, in case you’re wondering.

Sheena got tired of cabs rejecting her so we walked a little farther down to try our luck again. In order to make the cab drivers less suspicious of my tripod and camera, I stood slightly farther away from them so that I won’t attract unnecessary attention, like what Rena’s doing here.

Sheena looks like a ghost.

One of Rena’s famous poses, “I’m a waitress”.

Shooting at night is fun because you always get opportunities to shoot the more artistic side of light, like how cars zoom past your camera to create these amazing streaks of light.

When Sheena finally got a cab, Rena and I started to head back to the coffee house to rendezvous with the rest of the family, until Laura came over to see what we were doing and we started to cam-whore all over again~

Funny faces~ For once, Rena looks more glam than me.

We tried shooting solo shots! Laura’s pose is nice but her right hand seems a bit stiff. Did I mention that it was extremely windy by the road and that we always had constant wind in our hair? I was really fun to shoot our hair flying madly. Well, I don’t have much hair to begin with but…

Rena’s solo shot was more of her crazy personality.

And we’re back!! After cam-whoring, we went back and my family was about to leave. So before that, we tried to take family portraits since we don’t really get the chance to go out together as one whole family often. Laura snatched the shot with her big nose.

This was actually a test shot. Somehow, I feel that during test shots, the people are more relaxed because they know they can do all sorts of stupid things and that’s when their personality and character really shine. Maybe I should tell them that I’m always doing test shots to get their real emotions.

This is the first time Vera can give me something good! Her long hair made her look slimmer and the way she puts her arm by her hips and the way she positioned her clutch made her look so much slimmer. Her 3/4 “cheat” to the camera also worked in her advantage. If she arched her back a little bit more, she will get more curves and it will reduce her size even further!! Now that’s a tip for y’all if you want to look less of your weight in photos~ :)

My family~ Had Rena to take this photo using the camera+tripod+control. The control is such a magnificent invention because it gives people who don’t know how to use the DSLR less of a hellish time when it comes to helping me take portraits. Just hit the button and you get a good picture!! :)

Leon, Vera, Laura and Rena. I really loved the colors of the shots~

My 小姑’s family as well as my grandparents. And yes!! My grandma’s eyes are opened even though she looks a bit lost in the picture! When I get my printer, I’m so going to develop these family portraits and give it to them as gifts~

The whole family, less Sheena because she abandoned us to go to work. :( Kaka helped us take this photo using the controller. Really love this photograph~

One of the reasons why Sheena went to work so late was because she thought she had to stay for the portrait taking. I had no clue who told her about it but oh well~ She left anyways. So I told her that I will photoshop her face in. This is the first version where she snatches the limelight.

Let’s play “Spot the Sheena”. Can you see her? I did my best to make her fit into the lighting but that was about the best I could do. If you’re sharp enough, you can immediately tell that she don’t belong in the picture at all~ 

Anyway, there are some who asked me why I picked this picture of her. Firstly, because she looks FUNNY!! Secondly, because it’s about the only face-on photo I can find of her that fits into this family portrait. I know very well that she will not give such a hideous smile during such an important photo but… 

WHO CARES!! :P It’s not me! :P I’m just living to my reputation of taking unglam shots!

My aunt was complaining why we kept taking photos in front of someone else’s car as opposed to hers so I took this picture of her and my uncle to make her happier. Maybe you should try buying Toto or 4D with those numbers. :P

Xander and Xavier (Banana~ In pajamas~) taking a photo with their family car.

And to end the post, Aik Hin and Vera~ I think their faces appear a lot on my blog and I think I’m like their official photographer because I have SO MANY of their shots together. -_-“ 

“I’m your biggest fan I’ll follow you until you love me… Papa~ Paparazzi~~”

Maybe if I don’t become a photographer, I can go be a paparazzi because I’m so damn good at it! :P But nah~ Singapore is a bad place for paparazzi because the news are boring.

That marks the 4th day of the Lunar New Year celebration and probably the last which I celebrate with my family for this year. Hopefully, next year’s would be so much more fun and hopefully by then, I will have new photography toys to play with to get even better shots!!

Imma go find something to entertain myself while I wait to go to my sergeant major’s house. Going to take pictures so stay tuned yes? Because I’ll probably not post the photos on facebook. :) 

03. Visiting at my House + Marina ~Lunar New Year~

While waiting for my video to be converted, I shall blog on the third day of the Lunar New Year and fingers crossed… I hope my laptop doesn’t overheat like just now and go amok again.

Normally by Day 3, the students would have returned to school, the working adults will start their mundane orders again but this year, Day 3 is on a Saturday and that means, we get to celebrate a lot more!

This year, my friends came over to my house to celebrate the new year and I took lots of pictures. Surprisingly, this post will contain more shots than Day 1. Probably because there are more interesting shots on Day 3.

Well, enjoy~~

My bestest friends, Chua Ying Ying and Alvin came over to visit me and we took pictures with the Space Aliens! Jessica was kind enough to help us take this shot~ :)

Miss Jessica Peh, Catwoman, and me with Maomao~ Maomao looks so fat, no? :P And the table behind us is in an epic mess, as usual.

Well, to entertain my guests, we played Mahjong. Yes, you didn’t read this wrongly. WE played Mahjong.

If you know me on a personal level, you know that I have a hatred for gambling (well, it’s apparent in the previous blog entry) because I find giving away my money through luck is just plain stupid because you get nothing in return. Cheap thrills don’t satisfy me through gambling. 

But for the first time the few of us played Mahjong, we played with no cash; in other words, there was no gambling. I mean, you don’t have to play with money to enjoy a game, yes? I had lots of fun playing with Alvin and Ying Ying though; because we were all new to the game and we made lots of stupid mistakes. :P

When evening fell, we headed to Sheena’s house for dinner. Normally, we rarely visit their house during Lunar New Year (I don’t know why. Rena, care to share? :P) but last year and this year, we did~ Took this picture downstairs while we were heading towards the car park and edited in Lightroom to give it a toy-camera effect.

Took pictures of Nick, Vera, Jessica and Ying Ying (Fine!! I’ll call you Raven in this post because Ying Ying is so difficult to type again and again~) while waiting for my father to drive his van down.

Did you know that it was Raven’s first time in a van in her entire life when I took this picture? According to her blog, she enjoyed the bumpy ride and I find that crazy. We never liked sitting at the back of the van because it’s hot and stuffy and sometimes dangerous because often, we get thrown from the back to the front and back again due to gravity. Raven asked for this photo to commemorate her first time at the back of a van. 

Raven blinded by the camera’s flash.

Arrived at Sheena’s house shortly and we had home-cooked dinner round this table. My aunt is an excellent cook because she used to work at a store at some coffee shop and her food is delicious! In fact, it’s been awhile since I had such tasty home-cooked fares.

My favorite broccoli, mushrooms… veggies in general! The soup was good too! I didn’t have a lot of rice because I was trying to control my intake of carbos though but I ate lots of those yummy mushrooms!

Close up of the mushroom dish. This dish consists of various kinds of mushrooms dressed on top of the vegetables. And guess who’s the artist of this dish…

Bimbotic she may be but she’s damn good and patient at laying out the veggies at the base of the plate so that the wonderful mushrooms have a nest to rest in. I really applaud her patience though because for me, I will just chuck everything together. Kudos to my aunt for this marvelous dish!! I want more!!

After dinner, I went around taking pictures of random things as usual and Rena gave me this really disgusting smile. Children, this is what you look like when you smile/talk with your mouth food. Not nice and very ugly.

My aunts, grandparents and cousins watching the show where half the time, the characters are either yelling in each another’s faces, fighting or being sarcastic to each another; LOVE (爱). COME ON!! Where’s the love when the characters are fighting with each another constantly?! And the show ran for over 500 episodes and I yearn for the day it will finally end because the Hokkein song is so annoying!

How can I miss out the little dog, Qiqi? Qiqi’s so LIGHT!! Do you know that Maomao is so much heavier and to me horror, BIGGER than this dog? I would expect dogs to be beefier and larger but no~ My cat wins Qiqi in these aspects. This shows that Maomao is really becoming Garfield. Alvin was playing with Qiqi and I was trying to get a portrait of them but Qiqi kept moving.

I love this shot!! Qiqi’s so adorable!

Xander drinking tea from a packet.

Taking photos at Sheena’s house made me kicked my own butt a little because I should have gotten the external flash! The lighting in her house was horrible and extremely challenging to take photos and honestly, I was getting impatient. Good thing my models are more patient, like Alvin.

Raven’s always very busy with work and it’s a rare opportunity that she gets to come over to Sheena’s house, or even my house for that matter, to celebrate the New Year so a photo is definitely worthy. Portrait of Raven and Whela Lim.

One of the most challenging people in my family to photograph is Sheena because she is often uncooperative and she gives the weirdest faces all the time, as shown above. There’s a better photo of Raven and Sheena on facebook if you want to see but this one is definitely more blog-worthy. :P

Vera and Jessica. Even though life had separated them, they still keep in contact with each another and I find that admirable. My father likes to play Blackjack with Jessica because she gives funny reactions. Typical her.

Oh well… Gambling again…

The cards that they used. My father work with Carlsberg so he gets these merchandises all the time. In fact, the whole storeroom is filled with random Carlsberg stuff!

Yong Xiang and Laura; the love birds.

My aunt was watching the annoying show when she suddenly turned and look at me when I was taking a photo of her. Her expression is reaction then was priceless~ Tip to taking unglam photos: Strike when they don’t realize you are taking a photo of them. Best: Take the moment they go crazy that they realized you had taken an unglam moment of them.

Is this unglam or…? I think it’s very RENA. “Rena” should be an adjective.

And this is very Sheena.

Back to the gambling den which attracted more people…

And now… For the more interesting part of this blog entry; MARINA!! 

After dinner at Sheena’s, Alvin, Raven and I rushed over to meet Daniel and the rest at Marina and we were horribly late. We were supposed to meet them at around dinner time but we only arrived there at almost 9pm. Rushy rushy!!

The night scene at Marina was GORGEOUS and I did not regret bringing my tripod and remote to capture these wonderful scenes.

Thank you Daniel for organizing this outing~ 

I love this shot of Raven because it looks so catalog! Used her as a test subject for our group shot and she looks really amazing in this photo! You should set this as your display picture, Chua Ying Ying!! 

Erm… Her face here is a bit… -_-“

Ain and Yahya joined us too~ Fun-loving lot.

The people walking behind us created an interesting background for my shot with Raven and Alvin.

This is not the best group shot but we were against time and rules because this security guard came over and told us “No stands”, meaning I cannot use my tripod. Well, I ignored him and went on using the tripod because it was the only way to get a reasonable shot. Anyway, throughout the thing, I continued to use my tripod because I’m such a rule breaker~ :P

We proceeded to the floating platform and instead of smelly people wearing green, it was flooded with people visiting the beautiful displays on the floating piece of land. The mock grass was covered up with this plastic shutter-like thingie and on top of the platform is the God of Fortune; a symbol that the Chinese are money-minded people.

These colorful lanterns lit up the edges of the floating platform. Almost felt like the Lantern Festival that night.

On the floating platform were 12 huge coins, each featuring an animal from the zodiac. The horses, like myself, took a picture with our coin and I’m blurred. :( Probably because I ran into the shot and Raven snapped the picture too quickly.

The snakes~

They had this dragon/bird looking thing too. Weird design though…

This is definitely a dragon.

Even though the Youth Olympic is over, they still have things relating to this event on the platform. Probably because the Youth Olympic Park is just a stone throw away from the Floating Platform. Ain and Yahya wanted to take a photo using this backdrop.

And Yin Zhi wanted to pose like the torch bearer using a water bottle.

Red lanterns!!

Besides coins, there were oversize stamps on display as well, featuring the zodiacs again. I believe these stamps were on sale but I’m not a stamp collector so I’m not really interested.

To be honest, there weren’t much to see on the floating platform. I think it’s due to the weight limitations that they have to limit the number of exhibits. If not, everything will sink into the Singapore River and that ain’t cool. Once we were done, we returned back to the solid ground.

There was a fun fair nearby and we all went gaga~ Too bad the queue was too long and the rides look too scary so we didn’t go on any. Raven wanted to go for this spinning top ride but decided not to because the queue was way too long. Now~ For slow shutter speed fun~~

Weeeeeeee~~~ I wonder if anyone actually vomited on these rides before and what happened after that.

The lights are so pretty…

If you think the spinning carousel thingie is scary, you haven’t seen this Inverter. It spins you round and round in this capsule at great heights. Just watching it is scary enough.

The Fullerton Hotel at night. If you’re sharp enough, you can spot the Merlion in this photo too. :)

Another photo of Marina Bay Sands in the night. What is that roundish white structure in front of the MBS? Anyone knows??

While watching the rides, I took this photo of Raven who was incidentally leaning against the railings and I liked the lighting~ So, I decided to take a portrait of everyone~~

But before that, COTTON CANDY! I don’t really like cotton candy because it’s too sweet and it makes my mouth really dry but it’s fun to watch people eat it.

Alvin looks so charming in this photo!!

Yin Zhi looks good too~ I think I’ll go for another shoot at the Singapore River at night when I get the chance and when there are lesser people walking around. Though it’s challenging, it’s really fun!

Yahya in a modelish pose.

Daniel HAH~

While shooting, this old man came into the frame shamelessly and STOOD there! What the hell~ He is either blind or he is asking to be photographed so I took a picture of him anyway. Of his butt at least…

Since the old man refused to budge, I shifted my camera so Ain gets a new backdrop.

And I was forced to take this photo… -_-” NECK!! :)

After shooting, we decided to go home because it was getting really late. Raven saw this stand selling snacks and went over to get something.

And she treated me to cup corn!! My favorite!!

On the way to the MRT station, I saw this lantern emitting light and got Yin Zhi to pose for me by it, just to borrow the light. :P Light is so fun to play with at night~

We took the route via the Esplanade to City Hall station where I returned back to Sheena’s house again to meet up with the rest. On the way, I saw this piece of art lying on the steps within the Esplanade. It’s made of thread that looks like blood vessels. Actually, you have to look closely to marvel at it’s beauty because this shot just makes it look like a huge pile of red spider web.

Well, that’s the last photo of this post, and probably the second last post of this Lunar New Year edition. I can’t believe it but I have yet to edit Day 4’s photos! Normally, I would edit all the film the moment I go home but these few days, I lack of time so I’ll be working on them later.

Until then~~

I missed out this photo of Raven but here it is~~ :P Taken before we headed towards the multi-storey car park. 

2. 小姑’s house ~Lunar New Year~

And yes! I’m home again on a Wednesday! Good thing I get offs now and then so I can continue to maintain this blog… Otherwise, it would be collecting dust already.

I did promise that I will blog the rest of the Lunar New Year when I get the time and I’m doing so right now, even though I have a whole day worth of pictures left untouched but that’s tomorrow’s problem. Not in the mood to edit the film now anyway.

So, as the time goes by, my memories of the Lunar New Year will start to fade away so I will do my best to entertain the few readers (hi y’all!!) with the rest of the posts. I just want to get them done soon so I can keep them as accurate as possible.

The Lunar New Year is not over yet, as of today. Today’s everyone’s birthday, apparently; the 7th day of the new year. HAPPY BIRTHDAY EVERYONE!! :)

And a side note, the visitors for today…
#01 - 31.82% from US
#02 - 22.73% from UK
#03 - 18.18% from Canada
#04 - 13.64% from Singapore
Rest of them are just a couple of percents…

LOOK SINGAPORE PEOPLE!! SHAME ON YOU!! :P

Moving on…

On the second day of the Lunar New Year, my family would normally visit my 小姑’s house (aunt’s house) and just stay there for half, if not the whole, day. Most of them would be playing cards and gambling their money away while I would normally just sit in a corner (literally sometimes) and entertain myself.

Or, take pictures…

But this year, before heading over to my aunt’s house, we went to visit my mom’s friends whom we haven’t seen for quite some time. We call one of them godma and the other one “Aunty White”, simply because when we were young, she used to wear white a lot.

Well, we visited them in a Chinese Astrology store in People’s Park Complex at Chinatown. Yes, they are into the astrology business and they were open for a short while on the second day of the new year to do some feng shui reading for a Caucasian couple who were in desperate need for divination. This is how creepy the old shopping mall that normally smells like bad Chinese herb looks like when all the shops were closed.

To make it even freakier, I made Leon and his girlfriend walk down the corridor and made this shot ghostly; almost Silent Hill-ish. Yeap. So while waiting for the Caucasians to be done with their astrology reading, we took random photos. While waiting, I heard some of the divination, saying that this year is the year of the METAL RABBIT; whatever that means…

And we finally went in!! My apologies for not taking pictures of these awesome people (godma and Aunty White) because we were too busy chatting. They were really humorous; in fact, I don’t even remember that they had such a good sense of humor! Every statement they made made me grin or laugh because it’s so funny. Anyway, I had this bandung (rose syrup) drink.

The 8 treasure box thingie filled with preserved fruits. Tell me, who actually eats these during Lunar New Year? I know very well that when people offers me these, I will kindly reject them because they look ugh! But the preserved mango was really good though!

After visiting creepy building of Chinatown, we headed over to my aunt’s house for lunch and all (the usual new year drill) and I took quite a number of photos of random things because I was THAT bored. Caught my cousin, Xander, on candid camera when he was preparing to launch an attack on my father’s butt.

While we had curry rice/noodles for lunch, Sheena’s mom had strings. She found this piece of elastic-band-looking piece of string in the noodle she ate. She was commenting that the noodle refused to break no matter how hard she chewed and when she took it out, she realized that she was chewing on string. Well, my grandma accidentally threw that in apparently.

I don’t really fancy the yellow noodles so I had rice with curry instead. The curry was YUMMY!! Made by my grandma and thank goodness there were no nasty surprises in the curry.

While I was having lunch, my other aunt was peeling the pomelo. Do you remember that I mentioned the pomelo in my previous post? Yeap, this is how you peel a pomelo and how the flesh looks like, in case you haven’t seen one before. I didn’t have any though; wasn’t in the mood for that.

When I go to my aunt’s house for visiting, I will DEFINITELY attack her new year goodies because they are so good! Especially the cookies and pineapple tarts that she makes. They are marvelous and sometimes even better than commercial ones simply because she uses the best ingredients!

Her mouth-watering pineapple tarts made from scratch! I don’t know whether she bought ready-made pineapples or made them from scratch as well but the pastry is good! She used good butter and therefore, the pastry is flavorful and really tasty. The pineapple is chewy too and unlike the normal ones sold outside, she packed each tart with a generous amount of pineapple. I crave for more even as I type this entry.

So much for food. Now let’s talk about people and everything else that cannot be placed in your mouth. This is Leon and his girlfriend, Yihui. Say hello!!

After lunch, my uncle gathered everyone on the floor and they started to play Blackjack. I think the term “gambling” seemed more appropriate though. In my family, it’s legal to gamble even though you’re like 5 - 6 years old. Odd, no? What lessons are the parents trying to teach? I myself do not gamble at all. I rather save my money for something else.

And so, while they are gambling their money away, I went around the house to look for things to photograph. Found Serene-bear-bear (this classic Pooh that my cousin named Serene, after his mom) on the study table and took this shot. The colors were manipulated in Lightroom but the sunlight was genuine. Love this photo of the lonely bear.

For once, Xander didn’t shun away from my camera. He was really sporting that day and allowed me to take lots of photos of him! It’s too bad his eyes appear quite small on photos but his smile is so cute!!

The chrysanthemum flowers were part of the decorations of the living room and they were gorgeous! I was really tempted to pluck at the petals but I didn’t because I didn’t want the younger children to follow suit and I will get the blame for dirtying the floor.

WOOOOO~ I forgot to resize this image but marvel at nature’s patterns! I was bored of staying indoors so I went out into the corridor and went shutter-happy; snapping pictures of plants and whatever nonsense I can point my camera at. Found the sunlight shining through the leaves really cool and took a close up of one of the leaves. This is enlarged digitally so yeap… But it still displays the veins which are really interesting.

Xander, being way too young to gamble (or maybe because he doesn’t know how to play the game in the first place), followed me to the corridor and snapped photos with me using his sister’s Samsung Galaxy S. Well, I’m not very fond of phones’ cameras but this camera is fun to use because of its sweeping panorama function. 

Another willing shot. If you look closely at the phone, you’ll see the photo of me taking a photo of him taking a photo of me. Confusing much? :)

This was really cute!! Normally when I want to take photos at a lower angle, I will high-kneel on the ground to get the angle and that day, I wanted to take a lower shot of Xander and this is what he did; he copied my pose! Looks like I’m grooming a future photographer! :P

When I found it too warm outside, I went indoors and saw my father being obscene. The photo explains all.

My grandma did not play Blackjack (OF COURSE) because she was watching TV. If I didn’t remember wrongly, it was the show where senior citizens sing on TV. I admire their courage because… well, you get what I mean don’t you?

If you think babies and children are hard to photograph, you had not tried my grandmother. Half the time when you take pictures of her, her eyes are either closed or she looks away even though you told her to look at the camera. I had to take a lot of shots before I get this slightly more successful one of her and Rena. Maybe I should jiggle some toys in front of the camera next time to grab her attention… :P

Apparently, Rena got bored of losing money and became my model to shoot. That’s her new phone, a Sony Ericsson Xperia. I’m not a big fan of Sony Ericsson phones but this phone is neat~ I love the big screen and the color. Rena got this phone just so she can tweet non-stop and flood my inbox with her complaints. :P

HAVE YOU TRIED THESE? If you haven’t, then you probably have no childhood!! I remember having these when I was young; “ice-cream”!! Basically, it’s just a tube of cream that looks like ice-cream when you squeeze it into these mini cones. They are really sweet (which candies ain’t?), adorable but not cold… Unless you leave the tube in the fridge. Really interesting candy. Pei En is squeezing out the cream into the cone in the above shot.

Rena about to devour the cone of calories. I refused to have any because I believed I ate too much that day and didn’t really need that extra sugar.

Another 8 treasure box!! Just that this one has lesser compartments but still filled with weird things I dare not put into my mouth. I only had those chewy candies and the plums (orangey ones at the bottom of the frame) because they looked less yucky. I was too lazy to have those 瓜子 (I forgot what they are called in English… Sunflower-seed-looking-nuts-things??).

OOO!!! My grandma made another huge boo-boo that day! Well earlier in this post, I mentioned that she cooked strings with noodles? Well, around the time when I took this photo, she made coffee using 7-UP!! She mistaken 7-UP for plain water and added that into the coffee and everyone went crazy~ I had a good time laughing though. 7-UP with coffee!! That’s a first. I wonder how it tastes like but I’m not very keen on finding out.

My aunt trying to annoy Pei En, who was watching TV.

Xander’s elder brother, Xavier. He had this weird white stuff on the left eye. Probably some ointment or sort. Everyone was asking if he peeped at someone bathe and that’s why he needs to put ointment on his eyes. Did your parents say that to you to discourage you from peeping at people?

Aik Hin fell asleep, just like I did when I was too bored.

But being bored is actually good because you will look at things that you never noticed before and take pictures of it. The sunlight was shining through the patterned glass window and I took a picture of it to capture the texture and the patterns. Applied a preset in Lightroom and ta da~ Got this shot!!

The final shot of the day. Rena sat on the floor and the light was hitting her really nicely so I took this shot. Well, it seems like I’m giving reasons for why I take photos but actually, sometimes I just feel inspired so I want to take a photo. Sometimes, I’m just too bored. That day, I was really bored out of my skull so might as well use that energy to do something productive. Anyway, Rena looks good in this photo, less the pimple on her face though.

All in all, the second day was a bore because I did nothing but eat, sleep, take photos and repeat. Nothing much to it. 

Stay tuned for Day 3 (hopefully I will finish Day 3 by tomorrow) to find out what else I did. It will be really beautiful, I promise~ :D

1. Visiting on DAY 1 ~Lunar New Year~

Weeee~ I have the whole afternoon to stay at home and blog as much as possible before I meet up with my family in the evening for dinner to celebrate my grandpa’s birthday. 

Actually, I doubt that it’s really his real birthday but we’ll still have dinner anyway.

Back to the topic…

Every year on the first day of Lunar New Year, my family would go visiting. It’s almost like “Trick-o-Treat”ing except that we don’t play tricks or wear outrageous costumes (though that would be so cool!!) or visit strangers’ homes. We visit homes of relatives to clear their homes of goodies!! :P

For this year, we woke up at like 12pm?? Sleep is important y’all know~

Had steamboat (again) for lunch. This time, the fare was much simpler because we were basically having leftovers from the previous night’s dinner. Furthermore, there were no guests so who cares?

After lunch, we dressed up (not in costumes, like I said, but in new clothes) and went out to visit. Ain’t my shoes cool? I think I’ve gotten one size too small because it’s slightly tight at the front and I don’t really feel comfortable in them. Oh well~ That’s what happens when you don’t buy shoes frequently; you don’t even know your own shoe size.

Rena came along to go visiting with us too!!

Busy woman still on the phone; probably calling Laura to ask where the hell she was.

There she is~ I love what she was wearing, by the way. But I know of another pair of shoes that Sheena has that matches the look even more. Laura just came back from visiting Yong Xiang’s family and was just in time to go for her second round with us. This photo was taken from the top of the multi-storey car park to “celebrate” her arrival.

Off we go on my father’s van to the first location~

The roads were pretty packed on Day 1, probably because everyone’s out visiting relatives and friends. I think that a Lunar New Year without visiting is meaningless and no fun because I’ve been doing that since my very first new year when I was just a baby and it means a lot to me.

And we reached our first location; my grandma’s house along Marymount road. This terrace is really old (I think since my mom’s times). This whole pile of literally trash is collected by my grandfather, much to everyone’s dismay. The entire house is filled with trash and random stuff which my grandfather refuse to throw away. He has a bad habit of collecting nonsense just for the sake of keeping them. Weird hobby much?

We were pretty late… But oh well~ We had been late for the past few years because we are such sleepyheads. And no, that clock was not picked up from some garbage dump, much to popular belief.

The back of my grandfather and my adorable grandma… I think they were discussing how much money to put inside the ang pao or something in our presence. Not very subtle right?

You know what’s really cool about my grandparents’ house? They have a jackfruit tree that they had planted many years ago (probably decades) in front of their terrace and it actually bears fruits! Vera is enjoying one of them. Apparently, the tree plays an important role in my mom’s childhood because they used to play around it or throw things at it (so they said…).

You’re on candid camera!!

When my grandma is seriously watching TV…

If I’m not mistaken, I did blog about Lunar New Year on this blog last year, did I not? Or was it on another blog? Oh heck~ Anyway… Every year when we visit our grandparents’ terrace, we will be praying that it doesn’t rain because we will always go for our annual photo shoot at the playground. This is the re-interpretation of one of Leon’s older photos.

And Rena re-interpreted one of Vera’s older shots with a more cheeky face. :P Well, this is one of the 5 (I think 5…) interpretations that Rena did. The rest of them are on facebook (restricted to friends only :D), if you want to see. 

See-saw made of metal. I still remember the days when see-saws were just made of a single plank of wood in a sand pit.

A few years back, we managed to squeeze like 6 of us inside that hut but now, squeezing 4 adult-sized teenagers into this hut meant for kids proved to be a challenge.

Vera’s look for Day 1. Somehow, it looks nicer on photo than seeing the look in person. I don’t get the top and the “Ali-baba” pants because the overall shape is all over the place.

Leon and Vera. Just to claim some credit, I helped Leon with his sleeves~

Nick has been offering his butt for photos these few days and I think it deserves a good kick. :P

There’s this big web structure at the playground where kids get to weave through it and climb up high. Nick did that and didn’t get stuck (surprisingly). For the more arty-farty version of this creative, visit: http://broylim.wordpress.com/2011/02/06/webbed/ (Yes~ I’m shamelessly promoting nega+ive all over the place)

Despite breaking his arm, being hospitalized and being temporary disabled once, Leon still went ahead to do this “flag” thing. I’m not staying in the hospital to accompany him if he ever breaks anything else again. >:)

Well, here’s me and probably the only me you’ll see in this post. I think photographers are more interested in taking photos of others than themselves. Anyway, this year, I chose to wear shorts because they are so much cooler and they are more ME. I hate wearing jeans because they are uncomfortable and their pockets are too small. :P

LOVE THE LIGHT!! Laura’s look consists of this “dress”, accessorized with a belt and heels. If you remove the belt, the whole dress looks like an oversized denim shirt.

Something like this.

Laura and Rena.

Cool eyes no? In case you didn’t noticed, Laura has a weird issue with her eyes because one of her eye has a double eyelid while the other is single. That makes the shape of her eyes slightly different. But she sure can smile with them anyway~

Time for group shots!! When Chua Ying Ying was looking through the photos on facebook, she said I managed to steal the limelight in most of the group shots. HAHAHAHA~ Must be because of the outrageous poses. Anyway, my Kaka helped to take the photos using a tripod and remote.

Ain’t my legs slim? :P

Another one…

That’s the advantage of wearing shorts; your legs won’t get restricted and they draw more attention to yourself!

More shameless legs…

The only group shot where I didn’t manage to steal the limelight because there were no legs. :P

And how could we be so mean to leave my Kaka out? Took this picture despite my father constantly calling me to go back to my grandma’s house because we were about to leave for our next location.

After cam-whoring, we went back to my grandma’s house and before we left, we went upstairs to my uncle’s bedroom (which is on the third storey) to say goodbye. We are well-mannered people, no? While walking down the stairs to the ground floor, I took this photo. Did you know that even my mom is afraid of this staircase because it’s so narrow, dark and steep? And it’s also filled with trash, just like the rest of the house.

Off we went to the second location of the day. Aik Hin went with us for the first time and he drove, which was convenient for my sister. They didn’t know the directions to the next location so they followed behind my father’s van. Managed to take this photo of my sister from the back of the van.

I don’t really know where the second location is but it’s one of my mom’s aunt’s house (or so I believe). Laura gave this diva-ish pose with the bag of tangerines and her face is funny.

Rena loved my mom’s aunt’s house simply because she can clear the stock of the Ferrero Rocher there and she wasn’t shy to announce it to us when she said “YES! 有Ferrero Rocher吃了!” And the few of us cleared almost the full box of Ferrero Rocher!

And every year, my cousins, aunt, uncle and nephews will visit this household too. Somehow, we are always able to meet up with each another here and it’s one of those rare moments where we actually meet them. Few years ago, they were all single but not available but now, they are all married and that means more ang paos! :P This photo is my cousin-in-law and cousin with my youngest nephew, Javen. :)

Vera did her hair in a messy bun. Well, it’s beats letting her monstrous hair down.

The aunt knows that we love our Ferrero Rocher and brought refills! :P So kind of her~ *pops one into my mouth while typing this sentence*

This is one of my favorite shots of the day! Blissful mom and baby who has no clue what the hell is going on.

BAAAAAABBBBBBBYYYYYYY~~~~

In case you think I’m showing favoritism to the youngest nephew, I’m not because the elder boy was playing with his father downstairs when I went shutter-happy. Managed to get a splendid shot of grown up Javier and his father just before we left for our third location.

While waiting for my father to drive his vehicle down to pick us up, Laura was first like this…

Then she went like this… Evil look~

While I was on the van, lying down on the freshly spread cardboard and cushions, I managed to take a very blurry yet ghostly photo of Rena and using Lightroom, I made her inner monster shine~ I told her to set this as her display picture or something as deterrent.

And we arrived at our third location; my father’s uncle’s home at Ang Mo Kio, just across the road to my old house (which is now gone). I LOVE THIS POSE by the way~ The angles, the legs~~

This looks like some shoe advertisement. The photo is not posed because She was really trying to get her shoes on. Just look at the feet that’s on the ground; the shoe’s undone.

I don’t think I showed off Rena’s look for Day 1 yet right? She wore this white dress with heels that were chucked in the darkest corners of her house and had finally gotten to see daylight for once. 

Happy people.

This looks like an ad for some casual boutique~ Again, Laura’s workin’ it!!

Queen of Unglam meets Explorer of under arms.

This is a little Rated R, don’t you think? :P

There are times when you suddenly feel like there’s nothing to photograph of and that’s exactly what happened at my father’s uncke’s (which is also my uncle, what am I talking about~) house. Sometimes, I get discouraged by bad lighting… But this little bunny cheered me up a little.

We didn’t stay long at this uncle’s house because there were nothing much to do. So basically caught up a little, sat down and entertained ourselves a little and eventually left for our next location which was just a couple of blocks away. Took this photo from the reflection of the ceiling of the elevator and realized that I was using the wrong lens so only I got caught in the frame. :P

More Ferrero Rocher!! Visited a distant relative house and just sat there and stuffed our faces some more. Lunar New Year can be translated to “You can’t help it but get fat”.

My father complained that I’ve been snapping pictures of everything but him so this photo is to make him happy a little bit, using Vera as a prop. :P

If you followed me on twitter (shame on you if you didn’t!!), you would have known that I took family portraits of people I barely know. Heck~ I never even talk to them at all!! But my father went around telling everyone that I can take family portraits so okay, here’s one!! And I actually like it because of the energy and radiance from every single one of them despite them not knowing who’s photographing them.

But~ I do know that they are SOMEHOW related to me but you know, family connections are complicated so I rather not learn about it. Some of them are uncles that I’ve seen before while some (especially those cool looking teenagers), I’ve never encountered. Well, if you’re one of them in the photo, don’t be a stranger! Tag in my tagboard and tell me!! :)

And the last location of every Lunar New Year; my aunt’s/grandparents’/little monstrous cousins with their matured sister’s home. That’s where I had white hair noodles called mee sua for dinner. Honestly, I think Kaka makes better mee sua because there’s more veggies in it. :P

How the mee sua looks like with the soup, minced meat, mushrooms and sausages. It’s not bad but where are my veggies?!

Basket of tangerines by a pomelo. If you don’t know what a pomelo is, google “Lime Cat”. The pop culture internet meme has a pomelo on its head and it’s so ADORABLE!!

We didn’t stay long at my 小姑’s house because we were all tired and stuff and besides, we normally reserve the whole of Day 2 (Stay tuned! I’m still rushing the post out!!) just to chill and nap at her house. So, we left shortly after dinner to retire back at home. Well, my family retired while I was rushing out photos until 3am in the morning…

Before ending, I shall show off the amount of red packets I got on the first day which amounts to around 2 ayumi hamasaki Love songs limited edition. :P Not much as compared to those rich ass-es out there who receive over a thousand bucks annually but good enough for me. :)

And when I knew that my finances are good, I hit pre-order for ayumi hamasaki’s ayu-mi-x 7 LIMITED COMPLETE BOX SET, set to be released on the 30th of March. So excited!!

Well, shall end here and take a break before I continue on to Day 2~~ Must finish everything before I book in tomorrow morning… Not looking forward to it… :(

0. reunion ~Lunar New Year~

Sometimes, I wonder why I blog because chances are, not many people will actually read it. But~ I do know that there are strangers who drop by just to take a look or two and HEY THERE!! WELCOME!! :D

Especially you guys from US~ You guys are the ones who rank second in terms of number of visitors here (first being Singapore because well, that’s where all the people I love are, YES?! :D)

Well, to entertain the few of y’all who still visits my humble blog, enjoy your stay!!

Enough of the emo-talk; I’ll save it for later.

Chinese New Year’s here again! And this year, I’ve taken over 400 shots so far and I’m lovin’ it! That’s not to say that all my shots are stunning but at least I’m pretty pleased with some of them. Unfortunately, due to my inexperience with my new lens and manual focusing, some pictures might seem a little blurry.

But anyway, here’s the first post of my Chinese New Year “tour”!

DISCLAIMER: Imma show off lots of pictures so are you ready?

For starters, Maomao would like to open the post. He’s been such a good boy; entertaining the guests and all during Day 0 (the day where we all have our reunion dinner). This year, reunion dinner is held at my place again.

And the guests arrived in the evening. I had no clue why they want to pick the smallest house of all to hold the reunion dinner though but I won’t complain because it means I can save effort on travelling. :P And I get to use my laptop and stuff. And Leon gets to annoy Rena in his own territory.

Okay tell me. Who here doesn’t have steamboat for their reunion dinner for Lunar New Year? I’ve seen people who did pizzas but I think steamboats are the most common ones, no? Tell me if you didn’t have steamboat!! :)

Well, the food this year is so much better because we get lots of new stuff. For instance…

Mussels!! I wonder where my father got these though but THEY ARE GOOD!! Ain’t the color appetizing already? Would prefer it with cheese though but steamboat’s just fine~

My uncle and grandpa enjoying dinner. I bet some of y’all might recognize my grandpa if you frequent a provision truck that’s located around Seletar years ago until my grandparents decided to retire. Hardworking lot they were…

My cousins, siblings and the rest~ Good thing the couch is big enough for everyone’s butts.

The night sky in front of my block. I was emo-ing at the corridor with my tripod and remote control while I took this shot because the house was simply too noisy and crowded. I don’t really like crowds but oh well~ And considering that the clouds were big and fluffy, I thought it would make a good picture.

The epic mess of shoes outside my house. If we were in Japan, this would be a big NO-NO because the Japanese are particular about tidiness when it comes to arranging your shoes. And because of this, I couldn’t find my slippers and I ended up wearing…

These… Pretty much? I wonder whose slippers are these though…

While I was taking photos of the night scape and entertaining my bored and lonely self, Sheena arrived and I snapped her face and Yuan Biao’s in the process. The wonders of flash~

The adults stuffing their faces. Normally, at our family, we have this unspoken rule where the adults will eat first before the younger generation (myself and gang) will eat. Well, old people are not as patient as we are even though we are equally hungry. Another reason is because we want to have the whole table all to ourselves!! :P

For a model, she is not giving a very glam face… Right Laura? :P

And it’s finally our turn to have dinner! Steamboat consists of all the goodies like fish balls, veggies (only I find veggies good apparently), crabsticks, mushrooms, etc. But these few days, I have been having steamboat for meals and honestly, I’m getting sick of it already. I rather just eat food that’s already cooked for me than to cook my own because I’m just pure lazy.

What I don’t like about steamboat is that the table is forever crammed with bowls and plates and stuff and it’s very troublesome to help yourself. And~ There’s the tendency where people throw food into your bowl unknowingly with the evil intention of making you fat!

Om nom nom nom…

Sheena’s nail art… Just a random shot because she popped her hand into the frame while I was trying to take a photo of my dessert.

Ta da~ Longan and rambutan and almond jelly and syrup and ice in ayumi hamasaki’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Circus mug! Are you jealous? :P

And the last photo of this reunion dinner post; my very first ang pao. For my US readers (if there are any~ :P), these red packets (literally ang pao) contains some cash (YES!! MONEY!!) and they are given by seniors who are typically married or too old to get married. Kinda like a blessing thingie and teenagers like myself LOVE getting these because it means MORE CDs!! Ain’t being a Chinese fantastic? :P

Anyway, this was given by my grandpa~ :D 

Okay. Shall stop here now and go bring the lost Chua Ying Ying up to my house because she wants to play with Maomao. Speaking of that, this is the very first time she’s coming to my house!

Stay tuned for the later parts of the Lunar New Year posts, yes? Photos are still being taken as I speak so I wonder when I will finish documenting everything~