April, 2008 | Marina's Bloggariffic

Sunday, April 27, 2008Wednesday, April 30, 2014

My experience at a marriage preparatory course

According to Statistics Singapore, the number of divorce rates has been on an increase. There was a stage when 1 out of 3 marriages will end up in a divorce.

This trend was a concern for the Muslim organization bodies in Singapore such that for the past 15 years or so, they have been implementing a compulsory marriage preparatory course for all Muslim marriages in Singapore to prepare and educate future marriages for the prevention of divorces.

Recently, I’ve attended and completed the marriage preparatory course at the Assyakirin Mosque. Prior to this, I did not realise that it was mandatory. I assumed that that the course was for knowledge for keeping a happy marriage. Thus, I did not have much expectations.

When I attended my first lesson, early Sunday morning, I was greeted by the staff-helpers at the mosque and was handed a schedule, a bridal magazine as well as the course textbook. I flipped through the textbook and though it was not thick, it looked comprehensive with the different modules laid out.

In my book, there were 8 modules altogether which was presented and discussed in depth by our various coaches from Kasih Sejati. The modules were as follows :

Personality analysis
Knowing the in-laws, money matters and wedding plans
Understanding solemnization and responsibilities of a wife and husband
The meaning of love, sex and intimacy
Challenges during marriage
Preparing for a family
Communication and the language of love
Conflict and resolution

I thought that the lessons were interesting and I realised at how unprepared I was before. I learnt a fair bit of information which I think will be useful in preparing myself for my future.

The entire course ended with each of us writing a love letter for our partners with words of affection, hopes and encouragement for our future which I thought that was very sweet.

I found out later that it was a requirement for all Muslim Marriages to be certified with a marriage preparatory course certification regardless of what nationality they are. Hence when Cart arrives here in Singapore in December, we’ll be taking it together before our solemnization.

I think it will be a learning experience for the both of us.

Canon out with new camcorders

On Friday, the 18th April and for the first time ever, I was at a press conference thanks to the awesome Brian and Tania of Ogilyv for remembering how much I love Canon products. Many of the pictures and videos in this blog itself are captured with the Ixus and 350D.

It was a classy event from the start at the regal Asian Civilisations Museum, being ushered in by the smartly dressed security guard to going up the charmingly vintage staircase. And then being greeted by a bevvy of pretty ladies in red dresses.

Soon-after, I reached the hall where the event was held. There were already a number of people mingling around.

It was kind of a strange experience and somewhat daunting being surrounded by editors of credible magazines and newspapers. Whereas I was representing the bloggers. Nevertheless, I tried to be as sociable as I could be and just smiled at the people that I saw.

I spotted out Tania who was sitting down – she was very recognizable with her short spiky hair. Lynette, whom I met earlier, swooped in and introduced me to her.

Tania was friendly and really cool we chatted briefly till the emcee stood up on the platform and announced the start of the event.

It was glitzy! It started off with Mr Andrew Koh, the director of Canon Singapore explaining about the features of the new camcorders. AND THEN there were 5 extremely tall catwalk models strutting around with the different camcorders. They were so tall that I had to crane my neck trying to look at them.

But the cherry on top of the cake was when Andrew announced the ambassador for their camcorder was what made me nearly gasp out loud. It was Wong Li Lin! I was so floored to see her. In front of me was an acclaimed actress! I throughly enjoyed her performance in Leap Years.

Unfortunately, she slipped out of the event pretty quickly that I don’t think that anyone had a chance to interact with her.

At the end of the event, the guests were invited to try out the new camcorders. I had a ball of a time, having a hands on session with the 5 different camcorders – The HF 10, HF 100, FS 11, FS 10 and FS 100.

Personally, I thought that it was rather impressive. All five of the models were lightweight and small. I could seriously stuff all the five models in my handbag and run away with it.

It took me about 15 mins of fiddling to get used to the interface but after that, it was relatively easy to use. It uses a mini joystick rather than a touch screen which would probably make it preferable for people who do not like to smudge their screens.

Having been used to working with camcorders using mini-DV tapes, I liked how it uses internal built in memory which makes it faster to transfer to the computer as well as to a SD-card directly.

And ultimately what was the best feature of the camera was the video and audio quality. I did a quick test and recorded on my SD card. It was so clear that you could see every pores on my face. Oh my!

Screenshot from video. No photoshop edit apart from resize and additional text

I’m amazed why many the other journalists did not grope the camera display models as much. They were like just touching it, flipping it around and thats it. I guess that was great cos I had ALL the time to examine and grope the equipment in close detail. I was most excited.

Here is a quick video clip of the event :

And my final conclusion?

I love it! I want one! It makes the video from my camera seem so dinky now. Canihascanoncamcorder? Please?

Sunday, April 20, 2008Friday, May 16, 2014

Rinaz and Cart in the Sunday Times :)

About two weeks ago, I was quite surprised to check my statcounter to find out that someone from the local newspaper surfing through my site. Soon-after, I received an email from a Ms Sandra Davie for a face to face interview.

I wasn’t sure if I should meet her because sometimes some journalists tend to skew the article to fit their own point of view. But in the end, I thought to myself, why not? And last Wednesday, I made an appointment with her at Geek Terminal and met her for the first time.

Rinaz and Sandra Davie

And I was so glad to find out that she was very nice. It was a casual and relaxed interview that before we knew it, two hours had passed by.

And this is what materialised out of the interview :

Rinaz and Cart in the Sunday Times

Cool!

Its interesting to note that the article is very romanticised to the point of mushyness. And I’m not 31! She made me older than I actually am. Eeek!

Regardless, I’m totally going to laminate this. I wonder how my family and friends would think 🙂

Related links :

What started it all – Video of Cart and Rinaz SL home
An Italian Vacation
The Engagement
Rinaz in the papers 2007

Updated : It was really funny to see Mum’s reaction at her first view of the article. The next day at work, a number of colleagues and even the heads were asking about the article. One student even came up to me and told me that the article was being passed around during assembly period. Oh my! 😛

Saturday, April 19, 2008Friday, May 16, 2014

If you love cats, you’ll love the Catopia Exhibition

It was one of the most uplifting art gallery that I’ve ever been to. There were so many gorgeous paintings of cats, that it just made me feel so happy.

Last evening, I was out with Juzzy Wuzzy, Weiren and Check in Chinatown to visit the ‘Catopia – Oasis of Calm’ exhibition at the Forth Gallery. After walking for a while, Juzzy just stopped and said that we’ve reached the place. But I did not see anything remotely gallery-ish about the area. It was very nondescript, being hidden behind this!

Nevertheless, we went up the stairs to the second floor and we were transported to a new world altogether. There were a number of people already there, admiring the different paintings being displayed.

And immediately, I was taken in by the beautiful cat paintings. There were two artists being featured there – Gwen Lim and Ng Ling Tze and it being opening night, both of the artists were there! I was fortunate enough to meet them.

Below is Gwen Lim and me posing next to this incredible piece called, “Haven”.

I asked Gwen, how long it took for her to paint this piece and was amazed to find out that it took her only a week to complete this. The leaves, she added, took her one morning to do.

Gwen Lim’s pieces were very expressive and focuses on the subject. I asked her, what inspires her to paint in the style that she does and she replied that she was a calm and easy-going person that takes things nice and slow, thus it reflects in her paintings, in soft, muted colours.

I love her paintings. It was very easy on the eye and for some reason, it induced calm and serenity when looking at it. It was just beautiful.

There was another artist called Ng Ling Tze and she’d done this amazing piece called, “Sweet Revenge”

Her pieces had more intense colours and it was more surrealistic – one of the genres that I love. This piece in particular, is a take on cats judging back humans who were cruel to them in real life.

Ling Tze tells me that her works were inspired by what she sees and her perception of what the cats were thinking. There were a number of cats that were living in the area that she lived and she observes them to have inspiration.

I loved this piece, “Day Dreaming”. It makes me feel as if I were lying down in a field of flowers, looking up at the sky and getting ready to float in the air any time soon. Gorgeousness!

This piece was pretty trippy! I loved how the fishes are flying out of the elevator. This piece is called, “Lift Watching” and it describes how Ling Tze would observe a group of cats, living near the lift. Every morning at about 9.30, they would always be transfixed, looking at the elevator, moving up and down.

It was an amazing evening and I enjoyed every bit of it. It’s not every day that you get to a beautiful gallery such as this as well as meeting the fantastic artist behind them! If you are a cat lover, I’d urge you to go as seeing the pictures in this blog-post really doesn’t do justice to seeing the real thing.

Thank you Juzzywuzzy! If it weren’t for you, I would not even know of this gallery! And thank you Justin and Eva for kindly allowing me to use these beautiful scans 🙂

Forth Gallery
69A Pagoda Street (2nd level)
Singapore 059228

Links :

Ng Ling Tze online portfolio

I want to make it with you

Monday, April 14, 2008Friday, May 16, 2014

Sexy two wheelers at the Bike Asia 2008

The first thing on my mind when I was there was, “I’m in two wheeler heaven!”

On the 12th of April, I was at the Singapore Expo to see the different displays of motorcycles (and a couple of bicycles) at the Bike Asia 2008 event. This event was jointly organized by the Italian festival 2008, which would explain why there were a lot of Italian brands there.

I was supposed to meet the Vesporeans but in the end, after not being able to spot any members, I decided to enter the hall by myself. There were already a large queue forming at the ticketing booth.

It costs about $8.50 per entry and when I was just about ready to pay for my ticket, the lady at the ticketing booth said, “Ladies enter for free today 11am – 3pm”

It was such a pleasant surprise.

And the first display that I headed to was the Piaggio display where the Vespas were being displayed. There were a number of upcoming models like this LXV 125. This model was physically different from the LX 150 that I was used to seeing mainly because of the handlebar.

The entire front was much smaller. Aesthetically, I think that it will take some adjusting for those who are used to the GT and the LX, as shown below.

Moving around the back of the Piaggio display, I saw a couple of Gilera scooters.

This scooter was 3 wheeler, giving it that unusual look. I’ve seen 4 wheeled motorcycle on the road before and this feature is probably useful to have as it wont topple during those wet and slippery days. But the design reminds me of the Brain Bug from Starship Troopers.

Not all of the bikes had an overly unusual look to them. This one looked as if it was going to transform into a robot.

There were most certainly many Italian motorcycles from what I can see. Like this moto guzzi two wheeler, as posed by this cute kid below.

Other Italian bikes that I saw was a large number of Ducati – which is a rather sexy machine.

Man, look at that body. So sexy.

“We are the Ducati Avengers – protectors of evil”

This is the Aprilia

This is the Cagiva

And this is the Husqvarna

While they do look really sexy, the style is a little too fierce for me personally as I prefer something a little more conservative.

There were also a number of non Italian two wheelers like this adorable Yamaha Fino. I saw this bike for the first time about last year and thought that it was superbly cute. This was something that I would own, but one thing that I didn’t like about it, is that the storage compartment was really small.

There was also a scooter that I noticed and I just cant help gushing at how adorable it was. I would not mind cruising down the road with this little cutie!

This is the Demak Beetle which at first glance, made me thought that it was the Fino. But upon close examination, there were some subtle differences in them. Both Beetle and the Fino are both made in Asia – I’m guessing that these are quite affordable.

And there was the one motorcycle to rule them all.

This is official Singapore traffic police motorcycle – complete with a siren! This motorcycle is even more powerful than some cars and small enough to squeeze through traffic and to catch offenders. You’d better drive carefully if you spot one of these one the road!

Apart from motorcycles, there was also some bicycles being displayed.

This is a rodalink display with a simulated screen – probably for the next generation of the Wii.

After gawking at the different two wheelers, I found myself at the stage area looking at two men practicing on their motorcycles. They were doing bike stunts.

These two guys, Sergio and Fergo(?) are from Italy and they called their team “Motorlife”. It was quite exciting to watch them doing their stunts, which would be impossible to do on a regular bike.

Here is a short clip of the stunts :

All in all, I thought the event was quite interesting as I could admire the different motorcycles. But I prefer events such as the vivo vespa and the Bike Bike Festival as not only I could admire the two wheelers, I could talk to the owner of the motorcycles, which makes it more personalised and interactive. Nevertheless, I still had fun 🙂

Unboxing the chocolates

Thursday, April 10, 2008Thursday, July 3, 2014

Taj Samudra – Affordable Indian Food

I’ve always enjoyed eating Indian food. So when Daphne suggested a ping outing to Taj Samudra last Sunday, I just could not pass it off.

The Place

Getting here was quite a cinch as I’m familiar with the area – it was in the same main road as my favourite Indian Restaurants like Ananda Bhavan and Komala Villas. With the restaurant being close to Mustafa Center, makes it very easy to spot – especially with its distinctive orange signboard.

But being on a Sunday, the area was extremely crowded and the roads can be quite scary with the vehicles squeezing and honking. Trying to get parking can be quite of a challenge – I had to risk parking illegally next to the already fully occupied motorcycle lot.

I entered the restaurant and I liked the cosy environment. On the walls were some interesting looking decorative tiles and there were some attractive hanging chandeliers. There were modern glass tables and chairs. The entire combination made the place appear quite classy.

Unfortunately for us, the air-conditioning was not working on that day and we had to suffer in the heat.

The Service

The entire affair was pretty much a self service as it was a buffet. There were two tables with food that you could help yourself to unlimited amounts of food.

The staff were pretty friendly and full of smiles when we were dining there. However, they need to be more attentive. Ironicgamer had to wait for 30 mins for his drink to arrive and I noticed that the staff tends not to notice Malique and Chillycrap‘s request. Personally for me, I did not have any problems and the staff were very attentive to me.

The Food

Can you believe that you can have unlimited Indian food for about $12? This was most impressive to me. Here are just some of the foods that I had. I’m not very familiar with the names, my apologies if I got the names wrong :

Briyani Rice – Wonderfully flavourful and fluffy rice

Mixed Vegetable

I guess this is the special vegetable?

Daal – I prefer if it was thicker, but this was good too

Rasam

Mysore mutton

Masala Chicken

Sweet and sour fish – I like this one a lot! Tasty!

Papadam

Payasam

Thats a lot of food for $12 right? Where else in Singapore can you get this much food at that price? My only qualm is with most of the food is that its a tad salty for my taste and I’ve had better Indian food than this. The rest of the group seemed to like it very much though.

Here is a quick video of what pingsters think of the restaurant :

In a nutshell

Very affordable Indian Food Buffet