Suburban gym observations

Music 

 

1. You cannot hear your gym instructor above the loud pumping music, even though he is yelling into his mike. But, you can hear every single word of the Aunty chatter around you. They are that loud. 

Community 

2. Aunty chatter is produced by a group of 50 somethings, who have bodies like 20 somethings (its like the cult Japanese anime, Akira). You are sweating it out at body balance right now? Good for you, but just to let you know, they do this class to relax, after back to back sessions of body combat and body vive. You know about this because they compare notes aloud. 

3. They will chat during class. Yes, even during a yoga session. 

You will come to know about the age of all their kids, schools+grades of kids and their favorite Korean shows. Occasionally, if you are lucky, you get cooking tips and recipes. 

4. Even if they are not in the class you are in,  they sometimes pop in mid lesson to pass packets of home made goodies to your instructor. Happened more than once.

4. Club hopping takes on a different meaning. After the body balance class, they discuss about hitting the paragon gym in the afternoon for another session.

Akira... 

Gym fashion 

5. Trendsetters in gym fashion. Nike and Adidas? Puh-lease, so passé. They can and will do yoga classes in denim skorts if they want to. 

I'm serious. I was next to her in class. Harrowing experience during leg lifts

Relaxation corner 

6. Yes, she is carrying a lunch box. I've seen uncles relak in their shirts and pants eating their chap chye peng, reading zaobao, while sipping on free flow green tea. Like a boss. 

Changing room

7. When out of hangers, you have fire extinguishers. No problem man. 

But if a fire breaks out, then you might have a problem. 

Tuesdays = waffles day!

Hello!! Ttw blogging on the go! I feel so tech savvy right now. (Though, Ttw's choice of blog host has drawn the ire of kx, her digital marketing guru friend.) Blogspot is not that bad la.. Why u lidat? 

I just did my body balance class at the fitness first in Ang mo kio, (probably their most unsexy branch). Fitness first is probably ashamed of this outlet as well cause there is absolutely zlich maintenance. The lockers are so smelly, they should be classified as lethal bio weapons. I spend at least ten mins each time, looking for the least foul smelling locker. Its a dangerous process. I've to take a quick sniff, hold breath, and move on to the next till I find an acceptable one. Linger a few seconds too long and you just might get knocked out by the toxic fumes.  

 

Anyway, I like the body balance class because it falls on a Tuesday, and there's a gelare at the same mall! Ooo boy!
If you went to VJ or any school near the Siglap Gelare, you know what this means.
Waffles day!! This is the best day of the week since Gelare has half off on their waffles.

I asked for whipped cream on the side. Damn healthy can.  Go me.

 

In the past, I used to have to share the waffle due to my pitiful allowance. Now I can have the whole thing to myself..

Awesome~

 

(L) Still the same promo after more than a decade. There is a dedicated pricing column for half off Tuesday. How nice are they!? They don't even want us to wreck our brains dividing prices by half.

 

(R) The weird ice cream chart looks super unappetizing though. Is it just me or do they look like used handkerchiefs? Pralines and cream ice cream looks like it has contacted measles or maybe some kinda unfortunate STD. Strawberry most definitely has chickenpox. I think it deserves 1 week MC (at least).

 

I've no idea how these polka dotted/ striped hankies are suppose to give me an idea of what the ice cream look like, maybe that's why the caption says "exciting". 

 
 
 



 I came home and 'inserted' the hanky into a sneezing pic. See... what did I tell ya.. (p.s. I apologise for the crudely edited picture. I've no photoshop).
Actually...... it also looks like something else. Maybe I should've chosen a picture where the person's mouth isn't open.

So, back to the ice cream. I've decided on the Oregon Mint Fudge, cause I'm interested to see how the stripes will turn out in the actual scoop.

O_O   bizarrely, it actually resembles the picture.

Then again, its only because I've asked for Chocolate syrup.

 

Gone in 60 seconds.

I've no idea why I asked for the whipped cream on the side since I cleaned up everything.

It was a good waffle. Nice, warm, comforting. Oldie goodie.

 

 

Hokay, once again, it is now time for the abrupt ending to a post.

 

On the way to get waffles, I went to Watsons, and remember the horrific eyeliner that just wouldn't go away?

 

 

Now, there is a serious contender, 1 DAY magic eyeliner.

PLUS! It claims to be as good as cosmetic surgery, at least that is what I deciphered from the top left circle (omg, I know Japanese).

 

 

There is a before and after picture on the packaging!

Apparently, after the eye liner application, you will get a new hairstyle, be happier and attract flowers.

Love and eyeliner,
TTW

Under appreciated body parts

So. I've got a couple of hours to burn before an evening course that I'm attending. I've got nothing to do. Why am I not shopping you ask? Cause I'm sick of shopping , that's why. .

Ahahahhahaha. 

That's a good one. 

No la, there is a little truth in that. I've had a rewarding GSS, annnnnnd I'm going italy next week. (Woot! Woot!) so I need to take a break and be a bit more prudent with my spending. So here I am sitting in a Starbucks in town, milking their free wifi, like some secondary school student (secondary school, because by the time they hit college, they can afford to upgrade to the hipster coffee joint next door). I feel my age at this place.While the kiddos are ordering double shot hazelnut lattes with extra whipped cream, I'm asking for a hot beverage with no caffeine. It's 6pm, I'm old, no caffeine after 12noon for me or it will be a sleepless night.

It's fun to sit here and people watch. In fact, one of my newfound hobbies ever since I've embarked on my break is to eat alone and either people watch or eavesdrop. Oh, you won't believe the gems I've come across. It's much better entertainment than movies sometimes, especially since they are playing Michael bay crap  in the cinemas now. 

At this point in time, the table of 3 boys in their late teens are discussing about their night out last Friday. 

Bro 1- "bro, y u no ask for her number, bro? No balls la, u... 不要怕，要敢敢” . 

Bro 2-"oi.我不是没人要ok" 

Ahhh, smells like teen spirit. 

Oh yes, but back to the title of the post. Yes, so, this particular Starbucks is located next to a gym, so you get the occasionally gym bunny/hunk slipping in to grab a cuppa. This particular Ang mo lady with short running shorts just came by, and boy, I've got a serious case of leg envy. To be specific, thigh envy.

You know, when you are a runner and you've got muscular thighs, and there is this specific line/definition that runs down each of your thigh.
 

Here, I've googled for female running mannequin (the second most popular search suggested for me was, female circumcision, *eeps) . Therrree... Can you see it? Can you?? (I'm blogging on the go, so I can't attach a red arrow to point it out for you)

I don't know if that has a name, ok for ease of reference, let's name it, thigh line for now.

(I think the person next to me saw me googling for mannequins. She will most probably think tht I've got some sick fetish going on. maybe she's blogging about this right now, "dear diary... Today at Starbucks..." 

Everytime before I leave a nike store, I stroke the much envied thigh line on the mannequin and sigh. Kw usually distances himself from me when I do this. 

I'm not the most athletically inclined person, I was the chubby kid who cldnt pass her 2.4km running test back In school. Thankfully, I've since lost some weight (not as much as I'd like) but a new problem *gasp* cellulite, has surfaced (pun not intended) with age. It's super annoying. I'm very conscious of my dimply thighs and have hit the gym to try lessen the problem. 

Sigh, thigh lines are very unattainable and very desirable to me right now. 

That got me thinking to other lesser known body parts, the ones you've never noticed. But once you do, you're like..
Oh yeah... That's nice. Very nice.

The guy's version of the thigh line/under appreciated body part, is probably the drains.

Wtf are drains?? Well, thanks to an ex-colleague who came in one morning and shared with his team mates (a team of innocent girls) about this revolutionary body part. The whole team then spent the whole afternoon googling and sharing pictures of celebs with the best drains. I think the top ten list is still sitting somewhere in the recesses of the company's network

 

P.s. - I've googled Ryan gosling topless for my example of drains for you guys, but my eyes my eyes!!! Let's just say there are a lot of creative RG photoshopping out there  that is NSFW. Don't google it!!! Noo.. See? What did I tell ya. 

Ok, girl next to me just left, she must have caught a glimpse of my iPad screen and freaked out. 
 

 

Adam Levine has solid drains. In case, you haven't figured out what part that is, it's the lines ard the pelvic area. And this pic is also a bit NSFW. But it's the one that I quickly grabbed off google images amongst all the photoshopped ones
(Update - I came home, logged in to my computer and cropped this pic to make it more PG).

 

(Update- In the privacy of my own home, I am also able to google for Ryan Gosling (this time I wisely omitted the word 'topless'. And for the very first time, I realised that RG, in all his perfection, does NOT have defined drains. ohh.... that's a shocker. It really is. RG not so perfect after all.)

 

Ok this abruptly concludes my post. I was going to cover toe cleavage, but it's time for my course. Ta ta! 

Tai Tai's Week in Review ( in Pictures!)

Hello! Its been some time since I last said hi!

 

Hi! This will be a quick post/ update.

 

There are so many other things that I've been busy with (I can't really justify that the use of the term 'busy'' since i'm supposed to be bua long long now and I think the use of the word 'busy' will incur the wrath of many), ok, distracted by.

 

Here are some of my distractions -

 

Painting

 

My blog entry last left off at lesson 3. I'm actually at lesson 7 now. I've got much catching up to do in terms of blogging about the lessons. But you didn't miss much, since it was mostly on the kpop duck.

 

Here he is :

All he needs is a MCM backpack to complete the KPOP look.

 I found my duck's doppelganger! (left pic)

 

Honestly, it was difficult for me to feel inspired by a duck that looks that way.

After working on this painting for 3 weeks straight, I've now officially developed an irrational fear of porcelain ducks and the colour, purple. 

 

To rescue my fast declining interest in painting, I felt like I needed to paint something else on my own, something classic, timeless and beautiful...

 

 

 

 

Like this..

 

 

Ahh... there is nothing more breath taking then the pristine white snowscape of Planet Hoth.

(P.s. Ignore the weird little rebel soldier. I didn't have the right brush to paint him and he came out off. I intend to paint over him. Yes, He will soon be buried in snow).

 

Interest in painting restored. Phew. 

The battle of hoth painting is for sale by the way. I gotta earn shopping money! If the price is right, I might even throw in the duck for free. Aren't you lucky! 

 

 

Doraemon x Glico JP

 

*quivers in excitement*  I can't wait for the movie.

 

 

In collaboration with the movie, Glico has introduced a series of snacks, which contain awesome AR features. Check it out here.

After reading the article, I've stationed myself at Liang Court Meidi-ya (SG's quintessential Japanese supermarket) every weekend, waiting for the release of these Glico snacks.

And every weekend, I go home disappointed. Disappointed, but with many magazines. There is a Kinokuniya in the same mall, and as a member, I get 10% off magazines. I feel like I need to maximise my membership by taking advantage of the discount everytime I see a Kino. Surely you'd understand. But I digress...

 

Then... I found these special collab snacks at NTUC finest, Bishan. Finest, indeed. You guys rock la...

 

I bought 3. I returned for more the next day and everything was gone. Do we really have that many Doraemon fans here? Hello, If you are not a Doraemon fan and you just want some Collon, can you please go for the regular packaging ones?

 

 

 

There was a lot of drama and tears (mostly me) involved in the downloading of the AR app, which was restricted to the Japanese market. I coerced KW into figuring out a way to download it.

Luckily he came through, and our marriage was saved.

 

 

Hello Tigs, meet Doraemon.

The cat was not very pleased. I was chasing her around the house, holding a paper box next to her that she was not allowed to touch (Note to non-cat owers, cats are obsessed with boxes. Any kind of box. So yes, I was being quite an ass)

 

As you can see, my paltry collection of Glico x Doraemon is unsatisfactory. I need to complete my collection. So, ever since my discovery of these elusive snacks at Bishan, I've been doing grocery shopping at all the NTUC finest outlets in Singapore.

 

KW is still trying to figure our the reason behind the jump in grocery bills from my NTUC Plus supplementary card.

 

I'm not afraid to write this here because he dozes off every time he 'reads' my blog entries at night on his iPad- without fail. Usually, paragraph 1 gets him doze nodding, paragraph 2 induces deep slumber, which in turn causes the iPad to smack his face ( I like to watch this happen). I'm that boring meh? 

I'm bringing them shopping posts back. Ooo boy, and trust me, there will be a lot cause it has been a bountiful GSS. 

 

This screen cap is too cute not to be included.

 

(Story behind this scene - Nobita was going to sit for an exam the next day. In true Nobita style, he did zilch studying, panics and begs Doraemon for help. Doraemon produces these awesome bread slices which allowed the user to copy and remember information from the book, simply by ingesting it.Nobita spent the night cramming info/bread slices. The next morning, just before the test, he lao sai (had diarrhoea) and lost all the information.)

 

Speaking of bread, there was a lot of food in the past couple of weeks.

 

Cafes

 

Beautiful brioche from One Man Coffee. Mmmm.. Check out the oozing cheese and egg. 

Waffles, which all the youngsters are so obsessed about. The food love demonstrated for this dish is just too much. The last food item that received that much love was probably truffle fries.

Gorgeous mentaiko pasta with onsen egg. ok, fine. If you are wondering why this dish doesn't look up to standard, it's cause it's from me. But trust me, the taste is heavenly. Recipe in another post!! 

Camera

 

Speaking of food. You might remember me whining about taking pictures of inferior quality with my iPhone. I decided to take action and go camera researching. I got carried away man. 

I went to funan mall, but soon realised that not many retailers understood my needs- like the importance of wifi upload. They keep harping about the sensor size and how great it was to have the flexibility of setting every single function manually -- errr the latter is not what I deem as a plus point. I took my research online. Now, I can confidently advise anyone who wants the best value for money entry level mirrorless camera.

I ended up with the Fujifilm XM1. I'm still playing with it though. For some reason, I can get the autofocus to be err.., auto. 

 

This photos from this camera are quite decent, so I'd encourage beginners to give it a go. And err... Not be put off by their strange brochure (below), which was probably google translated from Japanese. 

Come on man, your camera is targeted at "women who want a high class camera"? Really? 

(Ok, even if it's true, I don't think it's something that you should shout about In your brochure). 

Ending off, I really want to talk about how awesome guardians of the galaxy was. But I think I will leave it for the next post. 

NAFA oil painting progression (or the lack thereof)

I just went for Oil Painting lesson #5, a couple of days ago.

It has been a chop chop curry pok course so far, where we went from this in lesson 1 -

 

 Cube

I can still feel its mocking stare - "you will never get my lines straight without a ruler, you will never be able to make me look 3D!!!" 

To this -

Lesson 2 to 3: Bottle with weird vines under spot

 

My art teacher, L, artistically arranging the vines, making it impossible to draw

 

I had to draw this.

In my mind, I was thinking "SMLJ!* How did we go from a cube to this? What happened to the other 3D shapes that I've yet to learn, like drawing cylindrical shapes? Or even if we were to start drawing still life, shouldn't we start with the fruits, you know, the banana, apple, orange?

L explained that she wanted to challenge our ability to use gradation and .... (actually I wasn't paying attention at this point, cause I was trying not to pee my pants).

 

* Definition based on Takingcock.com:

SI MI/SI MI LAN /SI MI LAN CHIAO(see mee)

Hokkien for “What?”. With “lan” or “lan chiao” (penis) tagged on, it becomes much more belligerent, not to mention rude; less a question than a warning not to complicate matters.

 

 

 I was such a noob, that I had to get help with my easel. I had no idea how to set it up.

 

 

 

I was incredibly rusty. I've always thought drawing would be like swimming, a skill that you will never ever forget. Boy, was I wrong. I've not held a pencil for so long, that my wrist was stiff and I can't seem to get the sketch right. Come to think of it, I don't think I've even written properly on a piece of paper for the longest time. But it feels good to be getting in touch with this long lost hobby of mine, its like reacquainting with an old friend.

10 years ago, I would have ripped the canvas apart in frustration. Today, it feels good just to enjoy the process, even if the end result is not what you want it to be (cue song, Let it go, let it goooo.... now its stuck in your head and you hate me don't you?)

 

Imperfect -  my bottle looked like it was made of rubber instead of glass. True story, that's what my teacher said.

With oil painting, you want a very rough sketch, all details should be painted in later, since the paints will cover all pencil markings. I use willow charcoal for sketching since its a lot easier to erase and kinder to your canvas (and also because kw bought a big box of it during his painting days and I didn't want to waste it).
Oil is also extremely forgiving since it takes forever to dry and I really do mean forever. My painting was left untouched for close to 2 weeks at one point and it was still wet. Since it doesn't dry, you can take your time to mess with  your painting till you are satisfied. You can layer paint upon paint to correct any imperfection.

 

My typical set up

Opps.. my brushes are missing from this picture. 

Here is a picture of the cat watching the world go by and the brushes dry. Its the only close-up picture I have of my brushes. Note that the bristles are rough and not the smooth tapered kind.

For ease of reference - here is a handy guide from NAFA if you want to pick up painting on your own :

Oil Painting is difficult - Myth!

 

Before I started the lessons, I thought oil painting was difficult. Myth debunked! Its cumbersome, but not difficult. The main difference between oil and normal poster paint that we use as a kid is that water is not used in the process at all (science lesson 101- oil and water do not mix). To dilute the paint, use just a drop of turpentine and linseed oil. Similarly, to clean your brushes, you need copious amount of turpentine. For cleaning purposes, I've sneakily used the coarse turpentine (not just me la, from the smell in the class, I suspect there are many others who do too). It reeks, even though we paint in a well ventilated room.

 

Oil Painting is expensive - Maybe...

 

Coarse turpentine is actually very much frown upon by L , since it is bad for your health (here, scare yourself silly by reading about its terrible effects. It is advisable to use only distilled turpentine. I would too, if distilled turpentine doesn't cost S$16.50 for that tiny bottle below!! I'm too poor to paint healthily.

My way around this is to clean the brushes really quickly with coarse turpentine in the bottle and recap it immediately (do everything while holding breath). I can now do it in 3 seconds. booyah! 

 

What's unique about Oil paints?

 

I experimented with acrylic paints for my 2nd drawing (more on that later). The main difference is that oil paints just DO NOT DRY, you can hang a perpetual 'wet paint' sign on your painting. One of the most annoying process for me, is mixing colours to get the shade you want. Theres a lot of trial and error involved. So the major upside about oil is that once you get that shade, you can pretty much take your time to paint without worrying that it will dry up. In fact, you can cover your palette with alu- foil and the colours can last for a couple of days.

 

 

 

End of lesson 2 - Ok, this was a perfect example of what not to do. It was way too wet and L had to dab it with a piece of cloth cause my paint couldn't adhere to the canvas.

 

Lesson 3 - The final piece with a lot of touch ups from L. Notice the neck of the bottle and how L miraculously straightened it by filling in on the background and making it more 'glass-like".

 

If you are wondering why the top left corner is left unpainted, its where my thumb goes when I port it back home from class. I'm practical that way.
I poor, I take mrt.

 

 

It was amazing how different our paintings looked, even though we were painting the same subject.

L, "It is important to place paintings under the spotlight" 

KW, "Why their paintings so good, why yours like that".
See! I told you guys that there were many pros in my beginners class.

 

That concludes lesson 2 and 3!
(I need to work on my abrupt post conclusions).

In lesson 4 and 5, we are asked to paint this weird mix of items, including a duck who might've been dressed by a kpop stylist..

Duck rockin' its polka dots, flowers, and ombre colours.
oh yeah..so swag

I can see where it got its fashion inspiration from.
Source: http://voguemagz.com