J is for...

…JPot and Jack & Rai!



I never knew Jumbo had a steamboat restaurant of its own till I was surfing the net looking for inspiration for J’s date. I had actually decided on Japanese charcoal grill at Shin Kushiya but stumbled on JPot and left it to the boy to decide…and he of course chose the steamboat!

Located at in a corner at Vivocity, the restaurant has been there for 3 years and for some strange reason we didn’t know of its existence. Anyway, part of the draw was that they offered 7 soup bases in individual bowls so everyone doesn’t have to have the same soup.

We ordered the $78++ set for 2 which came with a small selection of seafood, 2 meats, veggies with mushroom, rice and some tau kee rolls. I added an order of beancurd with spinach skin and we had a drink each which brought the total bill to about $100. Next time will try ala carte.




I opted for the Superior stock which was essentially chicken broth. He went with laksa. They also have bak kut teh, tomyam, fish head stock etc.


Service was fast and efficient, there was a counter with an assortment of sauces and condiments to customise your own dips.

By the end of the meal we were so full though I wouldn’t say there was a lot of food. I guess it was just nice. We walked off the meal at Gap and a few other shops. I bought some kids clothes on sale, now the girls have matching DVF for Gap tees and we can wear together.

For part 2 of the date, we drove over to Sentosa. The plan was to have a drink and catch a set or two by Jack and Rai at Sky Loft. I love their lychee mojitos, and the duo were good as usual though I think their talent is being wasted as the place is pretty quiet. But it was actually slightly more crowded than the Friday Swana and I were there.


Swana and Kevin did join us midway after the kids slept - we chucked them at Membina overnight. And John also made an appearance, he and Kevin had never been either and John loved it! I think another session is on the cards with the gang in tow.




At the end of the band’s set, Nick went up to say hi to Jack and Rai, his former Contiki ambassadors. They sat and chatted with us for a while, they know John from Timbre too and recognised the hat when he strolled in. He’s notorious!

1-2-3-4 Hi 5!

It’s been a pretty quiet week thus far. On Monday I was on half day leave to bring the kids for their respective pneumococcal jabs at SGH, plus a 4-year developmental check for Nat which had been postponed several times.

Her vision is ok, not perfect 6/6 vision but the nurse graded her 6/7.5 so close enough. I didn’t warn her about the jab and she gave me a pained look when the nurse poked her before bursting into tears. She milked her ‘injury’ for the rest of the day, pretending to limp and asking to be carried all the time…real drama queen this one!

Sasha also struggled the moment she felt the needle and cried a lot louder than Nat but she was back to normal within a couple of minutes. Sorry my darlings!

On Tuesday night, I watched ‘The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’ with Ma and Aunty Sarda at Lido. It was funny and heartwarming, not as funny as I was expecting but there were some memorable lines, like, “Everything will be alright in the end. If it’s not alright, it’s not the end!”

Yesterday, I met the boy for an impromptu lunch at Berg’s Gourmet Burgers at Far East Square. Been meaning for him to try it and he thought it was ok only, serves him right to order one with blue cheese, he felt it overpowered the burger. I had a small Miss Piggy, wasn’t as good as I remembered but still loads better than the one I had at Level 33 last week which left me wanting.



I just got back from an extended lunch, popping by United Square to surprise the kids who were there to catch Hi-5. I was told they shook hands with Casey and Lauren who walked past them when they were eating in the food court, but they were too shy and stunned to do more than reciprocate.




The 3 of them danced and sang along, I think Lita and Wendy were more excited to see the cast than the kids!

The Bachelorette

Second late night in a row for me, got home after 3 this morning. All for a good cause, it was Melissa’s hen night!

Swana and I were the first to arrive at Rachel’s house where the plan was to have some pre-dinner drinks and games. The hostess with the mostest had a banner hanging outside her door and on her big lamp too.

There was a platter of cheese, crackers and strawberries as well as vodka grapefruit juice cocktails she prepared, that were more vodka than juice! We each had badges to pin onto our outfits, as well as naughty wrist bands.



The dress code was black/navy with the bride to be in white/pink. Didn’t wait too long before the rest arrived, namely Yvonne, Monica, Merianne, Melissa and Melinda.



We kicked off with a number guessing game, where the winner could sabo someone to drink a shot of tequila. We all had our respective turns, I got away with just one shot and we were nice to Melissa, she wasn’t the target every round.

Next she opened all her naughty gifts, hope she and Derong have fun with them!



Most of us were a little buzzed by the time we left, I had already had one vodka grapefruit, one sparkling wine and one shot. Our next stop was Jumbo at Riverwalk Galleria where we had a private room to pig out on crabs.

Melissa’s cousin Jennifer met us there, and we ordered chilli crab, pepper crab, venison, peking duck, mee goreng, kai lan, baby squid and salted egg yolk prawn. Mmmm….

We had some wine with our food too, but I limited myself to 1 glass of moscato. We were so stuffed by the end of the meal, and the heavy dinner killed whatever happy high state we were in so it was on to the next place.



We walked to Attica and got in just before 11pm, one of the bouncers was kind enough to give us 20 drink coupons, plus we ordered 2 jugs of Long Island Tea.

Melissa had bar challenges to complete and collect a family of cards from the ones Rachel gave out but unfortunately, the crowd was a little young that night and there didn’t look like many sporting people she could approach to help her in her challenges. She did collect a condom and tie a cherry stem with her tongue though.


The music wasn’t fantastic so within an hour, we were out the door. Pump Room was too crowded and Arena had a young crowd too so we ended up at IndoChine.

It was very empty but the music was not bad and we managed to get a big table near the dance floor. There was a complimentary round of vodka cranberry, thanks to Mel’s connections and we ordered a bottle of gin that was hardly touched because Monica and Yvonne ordered more jugs of Long Island.

In the end, we gave up on trying to complete the challenges and just spent the rest of the evening taking turns to dance.

But before we left, we couldn’t let the garter sitting on Melissa’s thigh go to waste so as soon as the DJ ended his set, we invited him to remove it from her leg, sans hands and he was a good sport about it.


I hope the bride-to-be had fun, I don’t know how many hen parties I’ll get to attend in future, most of the close girl friends and relatives are all married unless someone remarries. LOL!

Pool party

I got back so late from my D&D this morning, and had it not been for Jane calling my phone, I would have slept through the morning!

Had promised to bring the kids swimming at Rena’s but the weather was cloudy at my end, though Rena said it was clearing in her district. Decided not to let the kids swim in the gloomy weather but brought their stuff just in case.



When we got to Novena, the sun was shining and at first we thought we would get away with the girls just dipping their feet and splashing water with their hands but realistically I knew they wouldn’t stay dry for long so I changed them and off they went into the water.

Sasha was loving it and didn’t want to come out, Nat was a ‘fraidy cat and only felt more confident after putting on arm floats.




The boys, Joshua, Gabriel and Rayhan were naturals and played on their own, shooting water guns with Aunty Germaine. The twit evilly squirted the rest of us too, resulting in a very wet me, who had not brought extra clothes!



Jane and Albert appeared midway with Ethan but he was very shy and took a while to warm up. At one point when I sprayed water at him, he looked like he was going to cry!

After an hour or so, we went back up to the house to shower and change the kids. Nick bought chicken rice for everyone and the kids knocked out on the way home.

New beginnings

Yesterday marked the launch of a new rebranded Misys, after we were recently acquired by a private equity firm called Vista. They have merged us with one of their recent purchases Turaz and the transformation has been nothing short of extraordinary given the very tight timelines they had to work with.


We have been delisted from the London Stock Exchange and we are now private, and we have a new logo and website too. Our new colleagues from Turaz came over for the launch that we watched via video conference, I helped to prepare new banners and order food for the occasion.




We had our D&D later in the evening, the theme was POP Party and I helped to do all the invites and backdrops even though I’m not in the committee.

Just the day before I found a tee with Elvis on it at H&M, so I decided to just wear that and channel my inner Posh Spice. There was a ‘real’ Elvis at the party, as well as Prince, Michael Jackson, will.i.am, Bob Marley, JLo, Slash, Beyonce, Axl Rose etc.





The venue was KBox at Cineleisure and we had a decent turnout. Due to lack of budgets, everything was pretty much done in-house as we couldn’t even afford an emcee. Correction, the company can well afford it, but there’s not much budget allocated to social events.


Being a karaoke venue, there was plenty of singing, including a talent contest called M Factor. Some of the guys got pretty drunk and hogged the mikes, something about alcohol making them think they can sing!

I was pretty amused throughout the evening staying till 4am, observing from a distance some of the flirtations going on between people I know who are married or in relationships. Nothing indecent, just dancing exclusively together, holding hands, heads on shoulders, hugging…blame it on the beer!

I got dragged onto the dancefloor by a French colleague who kept playing with my shawl, but he’s just a little boy really.



Another one came over to chat at one point with a confession of how he was only telling me stuff because he was drunk and had the courage because we’ve never spoken otherwise.

Don’t worry, it was nothing romantic, just professing an admiration for my sense of style and how tastefully dressed I am to work and that he loved my outfits. And no he’s not gay, I’ve seen him with a girl in our lobby.

He’s a snappy dresser himself, some people call him Superman because he has a Clarke Kent quality about him. Glasses, dark hair and I’m guessing probably a 6-pack but he’s not as geeky as he looks. Caught a glimpse of his tattoo as he changed earlier in the office…nice bod from the back, heh heh! Oh, and he was a really good dancer with breakdance moves so I was quite impressed by his hidden talent.

Sasha at 26 months

When Nat was 26months, she had become big sister to Sasha. She was still a baby herself and suddenly had to share her parents with a tiny blob.

I can’t imagine Sasha as a big sister although now at 26months herself, she is quite motherly with all her dolls. She wraps them up in blankets, pretends to feed them and pats them to sleep.



On the flip side, she’s still as fierce as ever, sometimes hogging a tune by not letting me sing along with her i.e., “I sing I sing, you don’t sing”. And when you ask her what’s her name, she says ‘Natasha Sonali Lim, tiger, monkey!’ She has stopped calling her sister ‘Nat-Nat’ and refers to her as ‘Natalie’ instead…so grown up.

Ironically despite her temper, she lets Nat bully her. The big sister is always threatening to take Molly the doll from Sasha if Sasha doesn’t give her she wants. This happens on a daily basis and Sasha will quickly cave. Gigi gangs up with Nat sometimes too.


I’ve lost count of how many times she’s bumped her head, she can accidentally walk into the door frame out of the blue even if it was in her line of vision.

She’s had numerous bruises and scrapes, the thing is that when she has a scab or bite, she doesn’t like to leave it alone. Whenever the skin is rough, she will peel and scratch causing it to bleed or till the raw skin is exposed.


She deliberately calls me and Aunty Sarda ‘Lady Gaga’ and will keep saying ‘Ah-doy’, something she picked up from Nani. She loves to show her ballerina twirl, she will cross her ankles then raise her arms and spin. She can sing a few Chinese songs, her pronunciation is better than Nat’s.

Potty training for Sasha has just begun after she successfully pooped in the potty a couple of times. She’s wearing training pants during the day and Wendy will ask if she wants to pee every 30-45 mins. There’ve been a couple of accidents on the floor but I’m sure she’ll get the hang of it soon enough.

We have a new thing, I will rub noses with her on a daily basis and I call it the ‘nose kiss’. Her current weight is 12.7k and her height is 88cm.



I found that ever since we came back from Holland, she’s a bit less resistant to my affections, looking less for Wendy even when I’m around and doesn’t put up a fuss when I put her to sleep. She’ll sing a song that Nat and Gigi learnt in school for Mother’s Day and it melts my heart whenever she does that. Here are the words and the envelope Nat made in school.


Nat is 14.7kg at 4yrs 4 months and her height is 102cm. Unfortunately she’s still peeing very frequently, if we’re lucky the interval is 60-90 mins.

Sometimes it’s still 20 mins but in the absence of other symptoms, another doctor has concluded/suggested that it’s attention-seeking behaviour because she knows it’s making her daddy anxious.



She’ll say things like ‘If you carry me, I won’t pee’ or she’ll threaten to pee on the floor so I am inclined to agree that it’s attention seeking behaviour. So I’ll just treat it as a phase she is going through and hope by next month she’ll have gotten over it.

When she had her UTI, I had to ask Wendy to hide all the leggings and tight clothes because she doesn’t like loose clothes.

Her Chinese is still quite half past six, ask them when they come back from school what they learnt and they will say nothing! Gigi also pronounces better than her.

I have to admit I am quite slack in teaching her how to read, we haven’t learnt any new words so will have to make up for lost time during the holidays by teaching her 3 new words a day from their storybooks. Their current favourite bedtime story is ‘Baba Yaga the Flying Witch’.



Sasha and Nat both love to sing along to One Direction’s ‘One Thing’ and ‘What Makes You Beautiful’. They can sing the chorus though it sounds slightly massacred but they’re just too cute when they bop around to it. Also, they like Fun’s ‘We Are Young’ and will sing at the top of their voices, off key!