Rabbit galloping

Was playing with the DSLR when the rabbit was captured looking like it was galloping. He probably was having fun tearing around the garden. He does look a bit like a horse doesn't he?

Kirin Milk Tea

I was walking around the still new smelling Bedok Mall after dinner. I was strolling around NTUC Finest when Michelle noticed something new. I do notice that NTUC does change its selection in a never ending bid to grab our almighty dollar.

This time we found something interesting:

Someone in that drinks/brewery company must be having some nostalgia....

It gets even better at the 2 different "sides":

 

I must admit I am one of the suckers who fell for it then, but in my defence I must say that I do like this drink too so for SGD$6.90, I bought 2 so that I could pair both Donald and Daisy together in the fridge.

Dinner on Christmas Eve and a quiet evening gathering

So every year with stuff ourselves with loads of food, so let's see what is usually on the menu and not bad indeed the selection is wide and the quantity is huge.

Since it is Christmas, there is no sparing the turkeys out there.

Of course we Chinese cannot do without pork in our meals, so here is a chunk of ham.

My favourite is the sausages and they did not last out very long. Most of them were consumed by the end of this dinner and there were not leftovers for lunch today.

Potatoes here act as fillers.

Strangely there was a Chinese style dish among it all but this i avoided eating since it was green.

After dinner my niece set out to the raid the Christmas tree for her presents. Most of what you can see below I think are hers...

To round it all off, we had a nice log cake for dessert and shown here by my niece.

It was pretty good so there was not much left.

Downpour in December

Today in the mid to late afternoon, a heavy downpour just came right down just minutes before I alighted from the bus stop opposite my home.

As you can see, some ponding can be seen at the grass areas near the bus stop.

The drainage along the estate was quite full as well.

The amount of water flowing into the drains is quite incredible as show in the video link below.

Mid-Autumn Festive 2013

This must definitely be one of the reasons why training to pass IPPT during this period of time is so hard for many male folks in Singapore. There are simply to many occasions to celebrate with food. The Mid-Autumn Festival is no exception.

Before that, every year for the last few, we light up a few lanterns strung up on a pole.

Following that, we all take photos of them, like some male K-pop stars are in town...

If you ask me they do look quite nice this year.

Except this year the colour variety is a bit less, most of them are pink

 Onto the food and drinks!

The moon cakes this year were made by Mum after a long hiatus but I must say they are still great.

Close up each lantern features quite nice looking designs.
 

It was only much later I noticed there were some Chinese characters on it but was not sure what they meant exactly.

 Someone was busy with her iphone all the way.

Finally the candles went out and we all packed them up for next year.

So that was pretty much it, almost the same every year but it was all great fun still though I did not get to see the moon this time round, I think it was hidden behind all the clouds.

Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0

So it was time for Michelle to renew her mobile phone plan after 2 years. So instead of getting a new handphone, we got a Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 for her. The packaging has a nice tan colour probably trying to associate the it with wood and all.

Close up, you can see the environmental "friendliness" aspect of the packaging which will never redeem the environmental destruction caused by making this device...

So someone is quite excited by it all...first new electronic gadget of the year!

Inside you would be first greeted by the phablet itself. The temporary screen protector they provided has those pesky words on it and is actually black in the background. So one cannot use that protector temporarily before going down to a shop to get a permanent one. So that kind of sucks.

Under the phablet, there are the accessories which are pretty standard and no extra goodies inside. Again with the environmental thing in mind, all the cardboard and paper are probably unbleached, giving that nice wood kind of look.

The phablet works well and is quite comfortable to use. I think it is of a just nice size for anyone and works great as something to read the news with before falling asleep on the bed. The extra few inches more than what I have for my Note 2 really makes reading articles great and have no regret getting it for Michelle, except she needs to use it more instead of her iphone!

Lego 850425 Desk Business Card Holder

Prologue

A short interlude to my Diagon Alley builds. I finally got the Desk Business Card Holder from Secret Chamber when they finally managed to restock it.

The back of the box show the list of parts you would be getting in this set. I feel the amount of letters given would not be enough for Indian and Thai names. Thankfully for my case, they are sufficient though I wish that Lego would give just slightly more so that one can put a bit more on the name plate.

The sides are rather unremarkable.

As the set is quite smaller, we get an instruction sheet instead of an instruction manual. Build looks pretty straight forward.

Contents

For me, once I opened the bag, I found printed black tiles spilling out. To my surprise, one of the bags had a small split at its side. Also the polybags are not like the usual ones we get from Lego which are made of a material that tears really easily and more like a wrapper kind of material. The one that came with this set are the type that are polypropylene (PP).

The Build

Pretty fast but satisfying nevertheless. I like the nameplate and really wish I had more letters to use. No way I am buying another set just for a few more letters. The 2 minifigures on either side are pretty generic.

Taking a closer look at the nameplate, you can see that I had a shortage of the "O" and "N" letters which I improvised.

The name card holder is made up mostly of 1x2 bricks of red, green, blue and yellow. Overall it is simple but effective. Have not figured what I would actually put in there.

Final Thoughts

Is the set worth it? Well mostly to decorate and denote yourself as an AFOL, this set is more if you have some spare cash. In comparison, one would get more parts in a standard Lego set. Though we have to remember this is not a standard Lego set and there are a lot of printed tiles which naturally add quite a bit of cost.

So this is more of a good to have set rather than the must have type. Also, I wished it gave a bit more printed letters as well. Fast build and not really meant to give you the kind of feeling when building a standard Lego set but adds a nice touch to your home decor for sure.

MacDonald's Hello Kitty Fairy Tales Collection: The Wisdom Owl

So with the whole Hello Kitty Fairy Tales fad having being extinguished and the Minions taking over the mantle as the Latest McD's Fad, I finally received the MacDonald's Hello Kitty Fairy Tales Collection: The Wisdom Owl. Got it for SGD17 which was pretty decent compared to what people were paying for on eBay.


Okay so The Wisdom Owl is not noticeably different from all the rest from the front and back.

The theme colour for this round is brown.

As always, the artwork is top notch as always and it looks like the rest with that has nice trees and shrubs.

Again the same book pattern is used for the box packaging but this time we can see it is much thicker than the others.

Somehow one has little owl faces all over the yellow rim.

Now looking at the kitty itself, one can see it is not like the base shape of the rest of the Hello Kitties. It is fatter, round and is cannot remove its hood to show the ears. It comes with a little card as well which talks about some app but I was not able to find and download it from the Google Play Store.

On the back, it is like looking at a grizzly bear than an owl...

Finally, we end off with the artwork. The owl costume looks somewhat creepy as there are 2 sets of eyes there. itt seems like Hello Kitty is emerging from the owl becuase of the way it is drawn.

Alrighty, so this is the final piece to my collection. It is the final chapter I guess until the next theme come out...

Here are the links to the other Kitty Dolls in this series
Wizard of Oz Hello Kitty
McDelivery Hello Kitty 
Little Red Riding Hood Hello Kitty
The Frog Prince Hello Kitty
The Ugly Duckling Hello Kitty
The Singing Bone


Here is a link to a set from last year's series
McDonald's Hello Kitty Series 2012