Watched "Wonderful Days | 참 좋은 시절 | 美好时光"

A rather long (50 episodes!) Korean drama on family and forgiveness. With quite a few typical K-drama makjang elements. Initially watched it for the female lead, Kim Hee Sun, after watching her in "Faith", but was glued to the finish for the bromance between Lee Seojin and Taecyeon.

Planning for National Day/ Jubilee Weekend

We are not the super ardent fans of the annual National Day Parade, although YX watches and re-watches the video clip I downloaded from youtube(?), of NDP 2014. Somehow she loves the pageantry and the music.

Since 2015 is Singapore's 50th birthday, we decided to try and ballot for the NDP tickets. We were not lucky enough to get selected, so I'm now back to the drawing board on what to do for that weekend. 

Thankfully, with the attention and Govt funding for #SG50, there are a whole plethora of events out there on the same weekend, whether organised by the public sector or private organisations. 

I guess I will be ploughing through the singapore50.sg website very soon! 

And do check regularly on my SGEvents calendar, as I add more events there. Meanwhile, I am also searching for a (not-so-technically-challenging way) for me to share that listing. 

Jubilee Winds and Percussion 21 June 2015

Jubilee Winds and Percussion 《鼓吹狮城庆金禧》

by City Chinese Orchestra 狮城华乐团

21 June 2015, 5pm  Victoria Concert Hall

It has been a while since I last watched a CityCO concert (previous attendance was at "Footprints", if I'm not wrong). This year, the mid-year concert coincides with Father's Day, and so I delayed purchasing my ticket as plans with the extended family were not firmed up. It was not until 3 days before the concert that I was able to confirm my availability (as well as alternative toddler-sitting plans). By then, tickets for the cheapest category were almost all gone, and I was pretty horrified to hear the SISTIC counter lady tell me she could only offer me the first row of stall seats. I was adamant on going (and hubby wasn't), so I bumped up to Cat 2 and got myself a single Circle seat ticket. There went my $49...

It has been a long while since I stepped foot into Victoria Concert Hall as it was renovated. I took the opportunity to arrive earlier and walk around the place. All those memories of the concerts I performed in my teens flooded me. The physical surroundings outside the concert hall and theatre looked cleaner and classier, but still with all the lovely architecture feels. 

Above: The backs of the seats from the former concert hall were re-used in refurbishing the Theatre next door.  The seat numbers were shown on the back. I recall having to peer behind the seat to double-check that we had the correct seat. heehee

Above: Today, a spiral staircase brings the audience to the Circle seats at the 3rd floor. Gone are the two flights of staircases that we sat on to chat in-between rehearsals, eat our packed lunches/dinners/snacks, or just to hang out. 😞

All photos are my own. 

My selfie stick purchase

Finally got down to buying a selfie stick (from qoo10). The purchase came in via normal mail safe and sound, and looked sturdy.

I made the mistake of opening the package in front of YX, and so she was bugging me for it the next few days once she saw it.

Here are some pictures taken by her.

Home Bakes - Hershey's Perfect Choc Chip Cookies

My niece wanted to prepare some cookies to gift her school CCA seniors, and so we tried a recipe taken off hershey's website.

We experimented with the size stated in the instructions ("rounded teaspoons" of dough) as well as the easier-but-larger size using my small ice cream scoop.

Verdict (which I could predict anyway): the smaller cookies tended to be more crisp, and larger ones had softer centres. At least that was the case on the actual day of baking. We will have to wait a few days to see if the flavour and texture changes after some days of storage.