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Rinaz the accidental coffee genius at the Carte Noire Coffe Event

Bon Jour! Salut! I had zee most lovely time last Thursday night, being with friends over coffee. What better way to spend zee time together? Oui?

I was initially surprised to receive the invitation by EastWestPR but after hearing the Carte Noire commercial on 938live for some weeks, curiosity got the better of me and I decided to attend the event along with my friends, Mintea, Chillycraps and NTT who were all coffee lovers themselves.

I just realised at how multi-racial this picture is

Thus, last Thursday, I attended the Carte Noir press event at the beautiful Old School building at Mount Sophia. Carte Noir is a leading coffee brand in France. Which explains why I’m wearing a beret – for that French feel.

Old School is such a beautiful place. I could not help but to admire how charming it looked with its bold black lines over white washes. If NTT had not mentioned that the place used to be the Methodist Girl’s School, I really could not have guessed it. Now it houses many Art and Design institution. I should really come here again to see the place in more detail.

At the registration counter we saw Aaron as well as Sabrina and after registering, we headed inside where I saw Chillycraps and Mintea already sitting down on a bench which seemed rather curious to me. Why sit there, when there are proper tables and chairs to sit on?

Chillycraps : Thats because we are at a school and we should sit on a bench like students!

In any case, the Managing Director of Kraft Foods, officially started the event with a short speech and the fashion show featuring the Paris-trained Cambodian designer, Romyda Keth started.

It was a little hard for me to see the fashion show though, with the guests and the photographers standing up, taking pictures of the models that we could not get a clear view. Regardless, looking at her dress collections is beautiful, elegant and most definitely wearable.

After the fashion show, each of us were given a cup of Carte Noire coffee for a taste test. Personally for me, I thought that the taste was very light, almost airy like. I preferred my coffee strong but I can imagine how this coffee will be very popular with the masses because of the light taste.

Mr Paris Arnold, the Managing Director for Kraft joins us for a chat session, where he seems genuinely interested in knowing more about us bloggers. I think that companies are starting to open up to bloggers which I think is great as it is a direct way of getting feedback from the very people who consume their products.

Sabrina started asking Paris, why a fashion show for a coffee launch. And with enthusiasm he replied :

“The French embodies style and sophistication and a fashion show brings that to our coffee to reflect that especially with a Paris trained designer”

Ah!

Later on, we proceeded to enter a room where we saw our favourite barista! Danny Pang! Danny was there to do a demonstration on how to create coffee as well as how to make coffee art. He makes it look so easy to make that perfect blend of coffee and with his extremely sexy, manly voice, I could just go on to listening to him for hours!

Later on we went to our seats to have our own go at creating coffee art. At first it was quite daunting as I’ve never done anything like this before and I had the feeling that my coffee art is going to turn out bad.

But I gave it a try anyway and swirled the milk foam and it turns out that the outcome wasn’t bad – it was quite decent actually considering that it was my first time. Maybe I’m a coffee genius without knowing it! 😛

Its not perfect but its not bad right? This makes me want to learn more about coffee 🙂

Here is a short video on the coffee demonstration :


Making Coffee Art from rinaz on Vimeo

We had so much fun talking about coffee that before we knew it, it was already 8 pm! Time really does goes by really quickly when one is having fun 🙂

And at the end of the day, we were given a door gift consisting of Carte Noire Coffee as well as their beautiful gold trimmed cup and saucer for us to continue enjoying a cup of coffee-love 🙂

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I love my new namecards from TommyPrint

It looked pretty cool when it first came out in 2005 but as time goes by, it started to get a little embarrassing to go around with my old name-card.

Being the frugal person that I am, I thought that I’d just use a marker pen to cancel out the outdated information like the job title and the phone number. It was only when I was at an event, handing out my cards that I realized at how unprofessional it was.

Finally I decided to design new cards. I got them from the printer last evening and I love it!

This was the front :

I wanted the front to have a simple elegance to it. I used the pic (which I love) that Farinelli took of me and omitted the phone number as well as the job status to make it evergreen. I didn’t want the typical name-card, hence I tried to made it more warm by being conversational.

And this was the back :

Here are some of the cartoon characters that I drew and am very proud of – Cart and Rinaz cartoon as well as the characters from the Nimmo and friends series

I printed the cards at Tommy’s Print after reading Claudia’s post. At $24 for 200 pieces, I think the price is even more competitive than the ones at Bras Basah Basah Complex which is a hot spot for digital artists.

What do you think of my card? 🙂

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An all women convoy at the Vespa Ladies Day Out!

On my trip to the Bike Asia a while back, I took a copy of the Freewheeling Magazine and while flipping through, I noticed a small article inviting all lady vespa riders for a day of fish spa.

Having already been to the fish farm about a month ago and thoroughly enjoying myself with the Vesporeans, I was definitely interested in attending this convoy. Plus, it is always nice to meet new people 🙂

Ladies at the Vespa Ladies Ride 2008

I reached the Piaggio Showroom pretty early and watched the people streaming in one by one. I saw familliar faces like Leonids and Moon_Star from the Vespa Club as well as many other new faces.

I’m actually a little surprised at how naturally easy it was for us to bond with each other even though many of us are meeting each other for the first time.

Azizah ET8 Vespa Ladies Ride

One of the first ladies that I met was Azizah, whom I admired the embelishments on her ET8 Scooter. It looked so royale!

Azizah's ET8 Embellishments

Azizah tells me that it was a handmade job where she bought the stickers at DIY shop and sticked the embellishments herself.

I also met Glynis, whom was one of the winners for the Coke contest. The flowery decoration on her blue LX scooter was quite recognizable.

Glynis on her LX

We headed in the showroom for the registration of the event and I looked around the area with all the Vespa related items.

Vespa Showroom, Singapore

After registration, we got a free goodie bag! It was pretty nice loot, considering that we only paid $10 for the fish spa admission alone.

FREE! FREE! FREE!

I got some perfume vials, a Vespa notebook, a spa voucher and a Vespa T-shirt. I couldn’t wait to change into it 😀

Sera, Piaggio Singapore

The organizer of the event, Sera, later briefed to all of the participants on the itinerary following a short message on the procedures of the convoy.

Vespa Ladies Ride 2008

And soon  we were off! It was such a beautiful morning, blue skies and fluffy clouds made the journey lovely.

For some reason, we were also accompanied by the media crew of Asia One which made me feel as if we were part of a reality series. Not sure if you can see it in the picture, but the dude on the right is carrying a very large video camera.

Media Crew, Asia One

I couldn’t help but notice them whizzing along crazily on the road. Slowing down at one point and then speeding up.

In no time at all, we reached the Qian Hu fish farm!

Vespa Ladies at the Qian Hu Fish Farm

We did not explore much of the fish farm area due to time constraints. Instead, we proceeded immediately to the fish spa area and waited for our turn to use the facilities.

Rinaz at QIan Hu Fish Farm with Vespa Ladies

As it was a public holiday, the area was more crowded than usual, with families spending time together. I saw dads trying to catch little fishes in the pond, children looking at the turtle pond and even more people at the fish spa area.

Qian Hu Fish Farm

We dipped our feet in.

For some reason, the ticklish feeling was not as strong as the first time that I was here, even with the larger nibble fishes. Maybe I’m used to the sensation already?

Vespa Ladies at Bollywood Veggies

After the fish spa, we proceeded to convoy to the Bollywood Veggies Farm where we were welcomed by the owner, Mrs Ivy Singh-Lim. What a treat!

Ivy Lim-Singh with Vespa Ladies at Bollywood Veggies

She was larger than life with her crocodile dundee outfit, complete with a huge hunting knife. It was scary! She joked that she was the reason as to why Mas Selamat would not dare to hide in her farm.

We were treated to such a sumptuous lunch. I’m not sure whose treat it was, but it was very kind of them so thank you so much! There were so much food that my eyes boggled at the sight of everything

Vespa Ladies Ride to Bollywood VeggiesVespa Ladies Ride to Bollywood Veggies

I felt so stuffed at the end of it and we were still given desserts after that. It was a mix of various types of cakes. One of my noted favourites was the Banana Cake as well as the Jackfruit Cake. They were both so rich and flavourful. You could tell that it was homemade.

Lucinda shows off her banana cake

Lucinda immediately bought 3 loaves of Banana cake for herself!

After lunch, a couple of us proceeded to enter the farm area to take a look around. I’ve never been inside here before, so I was most excited to explore the place.

Bollywood Veggies Farm

There were plentiful of different types of plants and crops around. The area was divided into different plots of crop. There were many signs showing the names of the plants.

Eco Toilet at Bollywood Veggies

As we explored, we stumbled upon plentiful of props there that we had so much silliness and fun with!

rinaz, glynis, deanna and azizah
Rinaz, Glynis, Deanna and Azizah salutes Bollywood Veggies

Meichun and Azizah
Meichun and Azizah playing on the mini-tractor

In the end, we were just chilling around and enjoying the scenery.

Bollywood Veggies

I think that it was a most tranquil place. Even with the sun shining harshly at us, the surroundings still looked serene and peaceful.

Lilypad Pond at Bollywood Veggies
I bet this place would look gorgeous when the cooler season comes and the red lilies bloom.

It was such a spectacular day. I find myself bonding with the others as we spent the day together that we were sorry to leave each other at the end of the event.

Thank you so much organizers and thank you everyone! I’m definitely looking forward to our next convoy! 🙂

Vespa Ladies at Bollywood Veggies

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Other convoys joined :

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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 :

  1. Personality analysis
  2. Knowing the in-laws, money matters and wedding plans
  3. Understanding solemnization and responsibilities of a wife and husband
  4. The meaning of love, sex and intimacy
  5. Challenges during marriage
  6. Preparing for a family
  7. Communication and the language of love
  8. 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.

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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?

 

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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 🙂

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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! 😛

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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

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