MizReeney: 2015

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Thursday, December 24, 2015

Day 1 - Royal Caribbean Mariner of the Seas - 5 Night Spice of South East Asia Cruise

It has literally taken me forever to finish writing up this Blog, between packing to move houses and editing videos for our Vlogs on YouTube, and doing other household chores, I really have very little free time left. But Blogging does give me great joy, so no matter how long it takes, I know I'll complete my entries...eventually. So thanks in advance for reading, hope you enjoyed it!

Day 1 on Royal Caribbean Mariner of the Seas

We took this cruise on 24th December 2015 to 29th December 2015. It's only our second cruise ever and first time on a Royal Caribbean cruise, previously we'd been on Superstar Virgo. Our cruise is the Spice of South East Asia cruise, where we'll be making stops at Port Klang, Langkawi (both in Malaysia) and Phuket (Thailand).

On the day of our departure, we were so excited. Since we had never been on a Royal Caribbean cruise before we really didn't know what to expect. I did research a fair bit before our departure day and found that people said even though our departure info that was emailed to us stated that for our Stateroom we should be checking in at 3pm, we can actually check in earlier and go on the ship early and enjoy lunch and the other facilities. So we decided to arrive at the Cruise Centre at around 12noon. Our cruise was due to depart around 5pm and all passengers are required to be onboard by 4pm.

We weren't sure where the cruise centre was, and our family dropped us off at the wrong end so we had to walk quite a distance.

Walking to the Marina Bay Cruise Centre

Luggage

Upon arrival at the Cruise Centre, we made our way to the luggage check in area. A week or so before departure, they would've emailed you some info about checking in online and also attached luggage tags for you to print out. Save yourself some time and print them at home and attach them to your luggages. Once you've done that, all you have to do is drop off the luggage with the staff and that's it, your luggage will be delivered straight to your rooms.

Check In

After the luggage drop off, we went to the check in counter. I had read previous blogs saying how horrendous the lines are there for checking in and that it would take a few hours. Well actually for us, the lines were relatively short and the check in was a breeze! We managed to clear the customs and go on board by about 1.30pm.

On the Ship

Once on the ship, the kids are required to get this plastic wrist band that contained important information to help identify them in case of emergency. After that we went straight to our room to check things out. We had booked a Stateroom with Window so we were excited to see what the room looked like. When we opened our door though, we were shocked to find that they had given us 2 single beds instead of one king size bed as we requested. There's 3 of us, how are we supposed to sleep? After some time, we managed to call Housekeeping and explained to them the situation hoping that something could be done. Even with this mishap we were in awe of the room. The window was really big and the room in general was so spacious! It was nothing like the Superstar Virgo! There was even a seating area, a writing table and of our favourite features was the curtains that separated the living/sitting room with the sleeping area. It felt so cozy. Little did we also know that there was a 3rd bunk bed that they could open up and lower down from the ceiling! I really wasn't expecting that. Caelyn just loved sleeping on the bunk bed...or is it called Loft Bed? With her sleeping on the top, we had the whole king size bed to ourselves and it was so roomy.

For lunch on boarding day, the only restaurant that is open is the Windjammer. This is the buffet restaurant and I think almost every passenger that gets on board will head here. There was a long line and be prepared to share tables with other people.

Yummy Bread

There is also another place you can eat and that's the Promenade Cafe, but choices are limited. But if you get hungry anytime of the day, head over to this cafe, it has free water and food, all included in your cruise price! And the dessert served here is pretty good.

After lunch we just explored the ship a bit more and played a round of miniature gold on the top floor of the ship.

Then it was time for the mandatory safety drill. We were told that our luggage would arrive in our rooms at the latest by 9pm, but our luggage had arrived in our room before dinner.

There is also something called Cruise Compass that we get every day. It's basically a booklet that lists every activity and when it's on. We referred to it almost every hour and it was crucial in planning our day's activities.

There is so much to do on board, so much so till you run out of down time where you can just rest and relax as you're always chasing the next activity.

One thing that you simply can't miss is the Dreamworks Move It! Move It! Parade. It really is amazing that you can have a parade onboard a cruiseship. This is one show the kids will really really enjoy.

There is so much to see and do that would make this blog post too lengthy, so come and check out my video of our first day here to experience it through our eyes.

Stay tuned for Day 2 of our Cruise Diary when the ship docks at Port Klang!

Cruising Tips
Day 2 - Port Klang
Day 3 Cruise - Langkawi

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Saturday, December 19, 2015

Dinner at Kazokutei @ Bishan Junction8

Do you have a kid or kids who always eats the same food all the time? Well I do. My one will always choose Udon over anything else. I wonder if she'll one day get sick of it. Coz I sure am!!

So there's this restaurant at Bishan Junction8 Shopping Center called Kazokutei that sells authentic handmade Japanese udon. Price is pretty reasonable with most items being under $15.

The Udon served here is of the thinner variety. But even though it's thin it still retains the chewy texture that Udon is known for.

Baby girl had the Koku Udon ($7.90++). It's basically plain udon a hot seaweed soy broth with one slice of Japanese fish cake. The broth was tasty and comforting. You can add on a side dish to your meal for a price. She opted for the Chawanmushi ($3++), Japanese egg custard, which is her second or is it her first favourite food? I don't know, can't keep track. The Chawanmushi here is really good. It was smooth and savoury with a hint of umami which seemed to taste a bit like crab.

I opted for the Tsukemen ($12.90++) which is Udon served with a warm dipping sauce. You can choose from 3 different dipping sauces: Black Tonkatsu, Spicy Tonkatsu, or Nutty Miso. I opted for the spiciness and it was really good. It was spicy but not blow your head off spicy. The only thing I don't like is the layer of oil that coats your lips. With the udon there was some shredded sweet prom, 2 prawn tempura, half a marinated egg and some veggies.

The curious thing was that there was a free upsize for the Tsukemen Udon. You could choose from Medium, Large or XLarge which, if I remembered correctly was about 320g of noodles. So me being the glutton I am and Caelyn being the Udon lover, I chose the XLarge :) and um...it was a bit too much for us >_<.

Anyway service was good, friendly and welcoming and no doubt Carlyn will be asking us to eat there again...and again...and again.

Just look at this happy face...and the size of that bowl!

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Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Orchard Road Pedestrian Night - Christmas Edition 2015

The Orchard Road pedestrian night has been on once a month since late last year and I had always been meaning to go and check it out, but somehow never got a chance, until now. The 5th of Dec was the last day for the Pedestrian Night this year and I knew I had to set aside that night to go and check it out, especially because I also wanted to check out the beautiful Christmas lights. And it really didn't disappoint :)

If you do go to the Pedestrian Night and you're driving, you need to figure out where you're going to park. Factor in how long you're planning to stay there for, and if you stay until the end think about the bottleneck of cars all waiting to get out. Obviously avoid areas where entrance to the carparks are from the main Orchard Rd strip where the road will close since that would mean you'd really have to stay there till the end of the event where they'll reopen the roads again. For us we parked at Shaw Centre and it was a breeze getting out. Getting parking there was a little difficult, after many rounds we found empty lots but the space was very tight.

We started our walk from the front of Ion. There is a ton of free activities to do and entertainment to see. On that night we got free ice cream, free movie ticket and popcorn combo, free Coke, and free water all just by installing the Orchard Rd business app on your phone! The best way to see everything I think is to go down the centre of the road, then once you've reached the end go onto the footpath and go back the other way. There are also activities and buskers on the footpath for you to check out.

I'm not sure what the other nights are like, if it's anything like this night, I definitely will come back and check it out. But if you do want to attend just one Pedestrian Night, be sure not to miss out the one in December (that is, if this event continues next year).

If you've missed it this year, you can check out our night via the video below.

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Thursday, December 3, 2015

Pancake Art Fun at SlappyCakes Singapore

You know that 'Pancake Art' becomes a trend when you see countless videos of it on your FB feed. Whilst we're no artists we decided to go back to Slappy Cakes because hey it's actually quite fun to draw your own pancake art :)

So we headed to Slappy Cakes at Turf City or is it officially called The GrandStand now? Slappy Cakes offers 5 different types of batters for you to choose from ranging from Chocolate to Zucchini to Wholemeal, $8++ for an 8oz bottlle. After choosing your batter or batters you then choose your toppings. There are Sweet toppings, Savoury Toppings, Creamy Toppings and Syrupy toppings. These toppings ranged from $1.50 - $3++.

We chose the Buttermilk batter with Cheese, Chocolate Chips and Bacon as our toppings.

Our Sweet and Savoury toppings. The butter is given for free to grease the hot plate.

Buttermilk Batter

Once your toppings and batter arrive all you have to do is wait till the hotplate is heated enough and then begin making your Masterpiece! It's harder then it seems to, um, make pretty pictures. So we pretty much just settled on drawing simple stuff. It would probably be good to get the Chocolate batter to compliment your white batter. The Chocolate batter would be good for doing outlines etc. But we didn't feel like filling up too much on just pancakes, hence we just stuck to the one batter.

It's a happy day!

Not sure what Daddy was trying to draw....hehehe.

Aside from pancakes, Slappy Cakes also offers an All Day Breakfast menu as well as pasta, all with very generous servings.

Slappy Benedict $16.50++

Country Fried Steak $18.50++

Carbonara Pasta

Caelyn's beautiful treble clef!

Great place for birthday parties and gatherings. Seems like whenever we're there there's always some kind of celebration or party happening there, so if you're coming with a big group I'd suggest calling the in advance as the seats at the Turf City outlet is a bit limited.

See our video below to see what fun we had!

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Saturday, November 14, 2015

Love my Purple Hair....But.....

So about a week and a half ago I took the plunge and coloured my hair Purple. I've been contemplating it for weeks, if not months...hmm...ok I think months and I even booked an appointment at a salon to get it done but by chance and luckily for me the salon miraculously closed down!! (fyi, it was Kimage at Nex Shopping Centre).

When I finally decided to just do it, I went to LeJean salon at Far East Plaza (Sg). My friend who had previously used a Groupon voucher to get her hair coloured here said it was pretty good. Salons really make me apprehensive, first coz I'm always afraid the colour or cut won't come out right, and second usually I get a stylist who doesnt speak much English and that day was no different....I got stuck with 2 stylists who barely spoke English (they were Mandarin speakers). Lucky I had a picture of what I wanted done and I could still communicate in basic Mandarin.

Basically I didn't want a whole head of purple hair. I just wanted like an ombre purple look.

So first thing they had to do was bleach the lower half of my hair. Bleaching does scare me but hey you gotta do what you gotta do right?

The 2 hunky guys putting on the bleach. I could actually feel the 'heat' from the bleach on my back.

I can't remember how long they put the bleach in my hair, I think about 30 minutes?

And this is what it looked like after they washed it out and blow dried.

What do you think of this look? I look a bit like a poodle :p

While they were blow drying my hair I instantly knew that I have damaged my hair with the bleach. It felt coarse and rough and they were pulling and tugging at at it so hard just to brush it out.

Next they applied the purple dye. They double checked with me using the colour swatch the colour that I wanted to do. The guy explained that up top will be darker while below will look lighter.

With all the purple dye in my hair.

The dye again was left on for about 30-40 minutes. It did sting my scalp a bit. Once time was up they washed my hair for quite long. And they put some kind of ice gel or menthol shampoo or whatever. Not too big a fan of that because it was literally too cold for my head! Once my hair was dry and blown out I actually wasnt sure about the look. I could hardly see the purple. My hair just looked dark....black.

You can see the colour a bit.

where's the purple?

Then the stylist decided to curl my hair. I was like, cool. I don't usually get curls after I get my hair done. Most of the stylist, if not all, that I've gone to would just blow my hair straight. I was quite excited to see what the finished look would be like.

Ta Da! I loved the final look! Still looked too dark for me.

I only realised how purple it was after I stepped out into the sunlight and omg, I was totally in love with it!

The colour with the sun reflecting on it whilst I was on the bus.

This was taken with my digital camera rather than my iphone and this is more accurate of what the colour is.

So all in all it took about 4 hours of salon time and I felt that it was well worth it! So what's the But that I mentioned above? Well as much as I love having purple hair, the problem is it doesn't last. From the first time you wash your hair and every time after your water will resemble grape juice. Even though I'm using a Redken shampoo made just for coloured hair, every single time I wash my hair purple dye would be running down the drain. To make the colour last longer I'm only washing my hair every 2 or 3 days and use a dry shampoo in between washes. 3 days is a real stretch for me because by that time my hair is so greasy....ewww....tmi right? :)

Up close this is what the colour looks like today. I can see some yellow bleached hair coming through and I think the purple is now fading to a light magenta colour or even a dark pink. Which is all fine by me.

So I'm sure if you stayed reading this post all the way till now you're curious to know how much it costs to get this done? Well at the salon I went to, inclusive of colour and bleach, it was SGD$150. This by far is the cheapest I know. Prior to this I've asked around at lots of different salons and the quoted price ranged from $180 to over $200.

Would I get it done again? Heck yeah! You only live once so why not :)

Hope you've enjoyed reading my hair journey. Be sure to check me out on the various social media links below and follow me on Youtube!

Post Edit: Well this colour washed out super fast! It barely stayed in for a month.

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