AmeiZing World Tour 2012

I first learnt about her AmeiZing world tour when I was watching 康熙來了 last year and was really intrigued by it. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get back to Singapore in time for her concert, plus tickets were sold out soo quickly. BUT, lucky lucky me, Atlantic City was one of her World Tour stops! There was no way I was going to miss out this time! Interestingly, her concert timings were just insane - one at 1am and the other at 2pm. After some discussion, we and our crazy friends purchased the VIP tickets for the 1am concert on February 5th!

The crazy couple, embarking on the 2 hour bus ride to the Taj Mahal Trump Plaza, Atlantic City. Poor Sam was abandoned (AGAIN) for overnight boarding. The ride was pretty good with Mr Lim engrossed with his iPad game and me playing A-mei songs on repeat mode on my iPod.

 Hee, we were pretty close to the stage!

 An excited and weirdly high couple, considering that it was past midnight.

I didn't take many photos and since most of them turned out shitty, I'm only uploading the best shot I had. 

Watching a 1am concert was a first time for me and this was my first concert in a while, and guess what, I loved loved loved it. While I ain't exactly an Amei fan, I was quite pleased that I actually knew most of her songs (I got a little lost when she sang a couple of songs from her new album). Plus, there were lyrics in the side screens as well. My favourite moment.. was of course when she sang 掉了. Hee, her special guest was 阿蜜特 and it was AWESOME since I was obsessed with the 阿蜜特 Album! All in all, she was just amazing. Her stamina, her voice and the whole ambience just rocked! We were so ridiculously high that it was hard to imagine that it was actually 4am in the morning when the concert ended. (It sure is good to know that I don't always need alcohol to be high. LOL)

Once we got on the bus, we were completely knocked out. Miraculously, we managed to drag ourselves home to catch up on our beauty sleep before picking the little monster up. 

I would do this again in a heart beat! I'm just waiting for MAYDAY! *Fingers crossed*

Our weekend date..

On a spur of a moment, I signed us up for a day trip (13th February) of Winter Horseback Riding and Wine Tasting Event with Outdoor bound. I really enjoyed horseback riding while I was in Cairns and thought to try it out again. 

We arrived at Echo Lake Stable Hay Rides which is a 45-minute ride from the city.

Winter had been really mild and I wasn't really expecting any snow on the ground but lucky, well kinda, us, it snowed that very day!! While it felt really romantic, I was freezing my arse off in the cold. Thankfully we were smart enough to put on our ski gears!

 A quick picture while we were waiting for our horses to be assigned to us.

 Mr Lim on his horse. Geesh, he looked like a weirdo all covered up!

 Me and my horse, Ty.

 A little glimpse of the trail. The whole trail lasted for 2 hours and was really fun and at times, scary. Certain parts of the trail included really steep slopes that got me quite worried that my horse would slip and we were would roll down the slope. Fortunately, that did not happen! Unlike my experience at Cairns which was a little monotonous and controlled (we had to wear some really ugly helmet too), this was more hands on. We were able to control the speed of the horses and navigate the direction more freely. And that was how I walked my horse into a tree. Rather, Ty went so close to a tree that I ended up bumping my knee on the trunk real hard. -_- Despite that, I managed to get Ty to gallop a little and I loved it. Mr Lim was a little uncomfortable with the galloping though. =P

 At the end of the ride, we were both freezing and shaking. But it was really really fun.

And we met a couple of really great animals too! The stable cat who was amazingly friendly!

 The herding dog - Tex, who was so affectionate and just adorable.

 After the horseback riding, we headed to a winery 30 minutes away for lunch and wine tasting.

The lunch was surprisingly good but we totally over ordered. We ended up having to pack the pizza for dinner! The live music at the cafe was great too, though not exactly the best ambience for chatting. =/

Unfortunately, we were a little bored at the winery as we were stuck there for 3 long hours. We finished our wine tasting and lunch within an hour and a half and spent the rest of the time stoning in front of the fireplace. The big clinque in other group took forever to get ready and the guide just wasn't able to get the group to leave even after several attempts. We waited an extra 20 minutes (after the supposed meeting time) just for everyone to gather and leave. The ride back was pretty annoying as some of them did get a little tipsy after drinking as well. I guess the day trip was a little long and we would be happy to get back into the city earlier, compared to just doing nothing at the winery.

While I really enjoyed the horseback riding, I wasn't too thrilled about the waiting and time wasting. Now that we know where the stables is, we probably wouldn't join the tour again but instead head there on our own!

Nonetheless, it was a pretty nice way to spend a saturday! Just the two of us!

Food allergy...

Ain't I a little too old to start developing food allergies? Well, apparently not. After two separate incidents of pretty severe abdominal cramps after eating lobster rolls (from two different sources over two separate occasions), I've had it. While I'm not 100% certain that the cramps were the result of a food allergy, no other possible explanations seemed to be applicable (Mr Lim had some of the lobster roll on the second occasion and was perfectly fine) and nope, I'm not risking another night of crippling cramps just to verify/confirm the claim. I hereby conclude that I'm swearing off lobster.

I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that this 'allergy' doesn't apply to crabs.. =/

Silly little boy..

Mr Lim had an early end to his work day in Philly and of course, I jumped at the opportunity to drag him out for a walk! As we were staying nearer to U Penn (rather than downtown Philly), we decided to bring the little boy for a walk to downtown where we happened to come across this interesting pet store. 

Yap, our stupid boy actually thought that the 'dog' was real. He was wagging his tail and trying to sniff it out. (I swear he looked confused when the other 'dog' was unresponsive!)

Sam's Greeting a dog 101:

1) Sniff the butt. No response?

 2) Maybe it's a boy, I'll sniff his d**k.

3) Still 'dao-ing' me?! I'll push u and shout in your ears...

Hee, both Mr Lim and I got a pretty good laugh at it. We showed the store owner the photo and she also burst out laughing. Of course, we bought the little boy a couple of treats to award him for bringing some laughter to our lives and no surprises, he looooved them!!

Sigh~ I love the little boy...

My Vintage find..

I've been obsessing with flea markets and refurbishing furniture for the past few months (Thanks to HGTV) and guess what.. I finally bought my first vintage item!!! I explored a couple of flea markets in Philly area and when I saw this, I just had to have it!

LOL. It's a rack used to put bias tape made by the brand Trimtex. It's apparently made in the 1940s. I could totally visualize it on the wall of my Senja flat, holding my sewing supplies. Isn't it amazing?!

Well, I showed Mr Lim (he was working when I went on my flea-market hop) and he just gave me a blank look, followed by "I hope you didn't pay more than USD20 bucks for it.". -_- such a wet blanket. But I loved it! (oh, in case you were wondering, I did pay more than 20bucks. It was USD25.)

Hee, but Mr Lim was really supportive and sweet when I explained that I wanted to refurbish the rack and even accompanied me to Home Depot to shop for materials. I guess he did have some fun too, afterall, it was a man's store (He bought some WD-40 to clean our herman miller chairs and I swear you could see a grin when he was done!). Anyway, I can't wait to get my hands dirty. Unfortunately, that would have to wait. Up next, our road trip to Boston!!

A little haven called Terrain..

The little monster Sam and I accompanied Mr Lim on his work trip to Philadelphia over the weekend. While Mr Lim was away at work, I took a short little road trip myself to a lovely town called Glenn Mills, a 30 minutes drive from Philly. After dumping the little boy at Petsmart for grooming, I used the free time to visit one of my favourite stores in the states - Terrain @ Styers Garden Center. Just a little background - Terrain is a home & garden lifestyle store from Urban Outfitters and is a 11 acre garden center blending home fashion and horticulture. I was first introduced to this place when I went with Ray and Yilin on a day trip and I loved it! 

 Lucky me..it was another beautiful winter day! (Hee, the winter's been treating us real nice this year!)

 I absolutely adore the outdoorsy vintage cupboard (well, it was priced at USD2000+ though. -_-).

 I was tempted to buy the 'dogs' sign but felt that the USD25 price tag was a tad bit high.

I went for a yummy lunch at the Styer's cafe which was well hidden behind the bar. It was a glasshouse cafe and was just gorgeous. 

 Probably the best ginger beer ever!

I love how they served the popover bread in a flower pot. It's definitely true to the store. And the maple and lavender butter (topped with a little sea salt) was heavenly~~~~ Oh, and yes, the bread tasted wayyy better than its burnt look.  

My main was a Lobster roll which was decent. Hee, I was so blown away by the the butter that I left half of my croissant. =P

After the heavenly indulgence, I shopped and bought 4 jars of Philadelphia-made honey and a chalkboard sign. Well, I really couldn't afford any of the furniture pieces and I would probably kill any plants I buy. But all in all, it was an excellent trip and very relaxing as well. Hee, here's another motivation to follow Mr Lim on his future road trips to Philly!

KeY's Craft Project #1

I went by Michaels' almost half a year ago and bought some Martha Stewart art paint and stencils (Yes, I am a HUGE fan of her products) with the intention to embark on a new project. After months of procrastinating, I finally did it. Miraculously, it was not time consuming at all! In fact, I actually completed the project in just ten minutes.

I used an empty/plain vase/container that I bought at Michaels' too.

After just ten minutes and multiple attempts (Luckily the paint washes off instantly, hence is really forgiving for a noob like me!)... TA-DAH~ Simple customization! Well, I actually left the finished product to dry for two days just to be safe.

Hee... guess the little monster approves~ I love how simple and easy this could be done!

 It will be used to put some treats for now!

The motivation for the project was my frustration of being unable to find treat storage jars that are nice (not tacky) and inexpensive. Hence, I was intrigued when I saw the paint and stencils at Michaels'. Hee, I'm really happy with the end product! Now that my trial attempt is successful, I'm ready to go shopping for plain cookie jars to customize into treat jars for the little monster!

Happy family...

I love my family!!! (The little monster more than the other guy though. =P)

Home Improvement Project #1!

I signed up for another sewing class with a different sewing studio, Make Workshop NYC!

After spending a couple of hours at The City Quilter, I finally found the right fabric!

 The Completed project!

 And yes, it's a pillow case!!!! (As usual, the little boy has to get in the action..)

It's a perfect fit for a 16 inch by 16 inch pillow!! Of course, I'm happy that he's enjoying it...as long as he doesn't tear it up. 

Now that I am able to sew my own pillow cases, I can't wait to go fabric shopping (and yesh, I still needa buy a sewing machine too) and get started on more home improvement projects!!!

My Herman Miller Obsession..

YES...I finally acted on my Herman Miller Obsession. 

Well, the original Eames Wire Chair that I 'die die' must have cost about USD400 each (even after Black Friday sales) and I just couldn't bring myself to purchase any. And of course, Mr Lim strongly objected to spending that kinda money on chairs. However, I wanted them so bad that I started checking out the reproductions (Which came up to about USD180 each!) and concluded that I would order them a couple of months before we head back for good. BUT!!! After window shopping on websites for a couple of weeks, I stumbled over two used eames wire chair on ebay! It was going for USD200 each. As it's pretty impossible to differentiate an original from a reproduction, I wasn't sure if I wanted to purchase them at that price. After tons of internal struggle, I decided to let it slip and the deal lapsed. (A little part of me died when that deal closed. Okay, yeah, I'm just kidding..)

Anyway, lucky for me, the seller reopened the deal and even reduced the price to USD150 each!! I couldn't resist and decided to purchase them, well, not without a little fight bargain. I submitted my offer of USD130 each. And guess what, the deal is sealed!

Well, it's a gamble. While the advertisement on ebay stated that there are original eames chairs, I was unable to verify. Despite that, the chairs are in excellent condition and even if we were 'cheated' and these chairs turned out to be reproductions, we still got them at a good price. Of course, in my mind, these chairs are definitely the originals! *Winks*

Woohoo~ Here's the beautiful eames chair!!!

Don't they just look excellent with the Parsons Mini Desk from West Elm!!

The look I'm going for and I'm 2/6 there! I've no idea how I'm going to find the other 4 chairs (maybe I can miraculously convince Mr Lim to pay full price for them..), but still, I'm so excited about it!!!

Hee, now that I'm quite sewing machine savvy, I'm gonng figure out how to sew cushions to complete that look!!!

Pit stop @ Tokyo - Quick visit to MeiJi Jingu Shrine!

On our recent trip back to Singapore, we decided to pull a pit stop and stayed a couple of days at Tokyo. Boy oh boy~ I am IN LOVE with Japan. 

Anyway, on my request, we made a quick visit to MeiJi Jingu Shrine in Harajuku, to give some blessings. Zim (being christian and really NOT superstitious) was really sweet to agree to bring me there. It was a little out of the way but thankfully, the weather was awesome. Lucky us, the shrine wasn't overly crowded and we enjoyed a nice stroll around the area. 

A happy us!

 For 500 yen, I bought an ema (small wooden plaque) to write my prayers.

Somehow, I thought writing in Mandarin would increase the blessings on my prayers. Afterall, the chinese characters do resemble Kanji. Well, I made it pretty far but got annoyed with my ugly handwriting and struggles of finding the right word (or rather, words that I could remember how to write) that I decided to write my fourth prayer in english. -_-

Of course, the number 1 on my prayer list was for the little monster to have a good long life! (PLEASE!)

After being done with my ema and hanging it up on the wooden planks by a large tree at the courtyard, we decided to stock up on omamori (charms/amulets). Hee, I got one for everyone in my family (and a few lucky friends) while Zim got one for his mom. And yap, we got a en-musubi for Zim and I for a happy marriage too! (It was pretty costly actually! But if it works, it's definitely worth the bucks!)

The most important omamori was for the little monster! Not surprisingly, there were none specifically for pets. I settled for one (meant for children) that states :兒童健全御守. 

Since it wasn't edible, Sam wasn't very thrilled about it. Hee, still, I left it hanging at his little corner. Hopefully, the prayers would be answered!

Well, after wiki-ing a little more about the omamori, it appears that it is valid for one year and should be burnt after one year (since it kinda absorbs 'bad luck', burning it will destroy the 'bad luck' too!) and should be replaced with a new piece. 

Hm, sounds like a good excuse for me to head back to Japan again! =P