Life updates

This week has been a flurry of emotions and I need to get it out of my system!!

Song presentation for sisters’ fellowship at BLC

When Steff asked us to prepare a performance for this event a few months back, we were quite ok with it, being so regular in band/music that it just seemed quite... doable? I don’t know how time passed so fast but the event came so quickly and we only started to plan 1.5 weeks before the event hahaha. By this time, most of us were freaking out. 

We settled on a song that we played before (and sounded relatively good), “we long to meet”. I thought I was obviously going to play keys haha, I guess it’s become my comfort zone? But the guys said that the girls should be doing the singing since it’s a “sisters” event, while they take the instrumental. As much as I love singing, it was still so intimidating...! And what more, Jocelyn and I were tasked with lower harmony role. (Funny shifu said rehearsals will take 5 mins. Lol.) We were so stressed that we were singing this song non stop, we even had to figure out the lower harmony on piano, recorded it, and played it back multiple times lol. 

When the event happened and we reached BLC, we realized that there were 300plus people at the event and it suddenly felt so real and scary... Thinking that people were going to judge and hate the performance (lol irrational fears strike again). The moment when it really happened, we got into the realm of worshipping God, and when we stopped looking at how people looked at us, but how we are looking at God, the fears faded, it became such a wonderful worship moment! I usually find it hard to worship when I’m in front. After the end of the performance, many people said they enjoyed the singing! But then again, these bros and sisters are usually super duper nice and gracious and non-critical hahaha. Pastor recorded us and while watching, I was just so touched that God would use a sinner like me to minister. Even though it was a group effort and I was heavily relying on the rest, I honestly never imagined being able to finish something like this. Really, praise the Lord.

Revival discontinued

This week the church’s revival prayer core team made the decision to discontinue revival prayers. My attendance has became really bad these weeks because I’m unable to manage work. It’s been hard to manage life in general... having so much work, family commitments, social gatherings, ministry commitments, that things have started to fall off my very overflowing plate. Yet when the news came out that revival was discontinued, I was really saddened. It is such a pity. Because here was the place that I got revived. I felt the presence and power of God, I felt I was loved by God, I started to explore contemporary keys, and improved in it such that I can actually play much better today. We can only trust God that there is a time and season for everything, and that he has good and perfect plans for us.

Worship retreat

This was really wonderful. I actually started the day feeling grumpy about having to report at 8am (1hr earlier than the attendees) for band rehearsals. Also I had to work late the day before, knowing that I won’t have any time on labor day, and having to practice the songs after chionging work... but having a dream team made it a lot better though, they are so proficient that it is really quite enjoyable to play with them! The theme of the retreat was quite apt - the heart of worship. Pastor‘s exhortation was simple yet extremely impactful. He reminded us of the 2 ways we lead worship, 1. Playing to achieve perfection, concerned abt how well we did 2. Playing to help worshippers to encounter Christ. The first is a performance and the second is worship leading. The heart of worship is indeed, as the song says, all about Jesus. While excellence is important, we should seek nothing above pointing to Jesus. Uncle KP also reminded us abt the excitement of worship. When asked to served we can react in 2 ways as well 1. “Me again?” 2. “I’m so excited for a chance to serve God!”. I catch myself taking a first option many these days. I need to make an effort to connect back to God and realize the reason I’m doing all these. The afternoon sessions were technical sessions and I really benefitted, I realized I forgot a lot of music theory! There was also jamming sessions where random people were chosen to jam impromptu-ly, and realized the younger kids are so talented. Really had an old people moment when we were just admiring the young ones jamming. The retreat was a full day till 5 but I ended the day watching endgame with Em, it was relaxing and chill and had been so long since Dynamic Duo reunited. :)

Other things I forgot to update 

Good Friday Chorale 

So thankful for the opportunity to sing in the chorale. Always looked forward to wed nights because singing/listening to harmonies is so therapeutic. And it’s with BFF too. :) Although quite stressful because I had to take over piano role every other week when conductor was not around. I had no time to practice and the songs are super hard lol. To an extent where when I’m playing right, it still sounds wrong Lol, so I spent most of the time feeling quite confused and also unable to sing because, can’t multitask haha. But it was really a blessed time preparing for it, and the song presentation went really well too. This is surely going into a regular activity that Joce and I will continue with haha.

God has been so good so I really needed to type down all these moments. :)

x

Post Christmas 2018 thoughts

Haha typed this right after Christmas but forgot to post... now that audit peak started, there’s a huge contrast in my life. Here goes:

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The past few days had made me so happy. Christmas is the best season! To recap:

20 dec: chorale practice (the most relaxing and therapeutic time of immersing in singing and harmonizing, probably one of the ministries that make me the happiest and not stressed. This year it’s even better with my best friends around!!)

21 dec: caroling at gardens by the bay (succeeded in getting a record in the Singapore book for records for the Largest group of carolers) 

22 dec: Christmas exchange with YACG and steamboat with gym gang 

23 dec: joce’s baptism (indescribable joy of seeing the fruit of faith blossom)

24 dec: Christmas Eve chorale performance, so much fun!

25 dec: Christmas Day and annual lunch with family

26 dec: USS. Enjoyed the thrills and bonding 

27 dec: JB trip 😍 this was by far the most fruitful one! So many things we can do in a day 

28 dec: gym at joce place, cooked wraps and went prayer meet at St. James church

29 dec: band practice with the ace team where people are so nice, friendly and accommodating and makes it a joy to serve 

30 dec: church and then escape room with bro, biow and aunts! We escaped! Then HTHT with the gym gang till late

31 dec-1jan: staycay and more HTHT, this time with the gals

A record breaking of 13 days of fun and enjoyment, and this community is the absolute best. I really thank the Lord for it.

I had been in church for a long time, actually since I was born... but after many years, still couldn’t find root and a sense of belonging here. My priorities were always on thing that are outside church - studies, work, friends, myself. I would even say that my “faith” was my parents’ faith.  

Things changed in about 2016 when I was willing to be mentored by Shien. Through our session I really started to think about faith seriously and read the Bible more regularly. She even invited me to the CG to expand my community and I finally got to know my church people better.

With the community support, I became keen to join other ministries like revival and alpha in 2017.

Revival was phenomenal as it started off very charismatic, I really felt the Holy Spirit in our midst and the experience of God’s love “dropped” from head knowledge down into my heart. It was amazing, I was overwhelmed... I felt my walls being broken and also a fire for God that I never had before. My faith was being built up! 

Alpha was also very amazing. I actually participated in the earlier runs of alpha but never managed to complete the series as I would lose interest somehow. But alpha 6 had the the young adults group (which was mainly the CG people whom I was getting close to) so I managed to stay all the way! Shifu also started to teach me and Em drums which was a wonderful experience and I got quite close and attached to them. Playing drums relieves all kinds of stress and is very rewarding when we successfully play a new beat correctly. 

At the start of 2018, after being nagged 😂 for really long by shifus to join the worship team in playing contemporary music, Em and I finally agreed to do so. Being classically trained made contemporary style very difficult to grasp for me, however, shifus constantly encouraged us (they are seriously immensely kind), put up with my mistakes and inadequacies, and the fact that they were always physically around was very comforting as well. Thanks to them I was able to develop a new skill for service. Honestly i feel I owe these people too much.

Because I was finally opening myself up to people, I finally felt the sense of belonging in church that I never had before. I also wanted to do more of God’s will, and became more evangelistic this year, inviting more friends to church because I’ve experienced how the joys get multiplied when people join in the family.

God allowed me to experience such grace through His love. The fact that this didn’t come that easily to me makes it feel a lot more precious, and opens my eyes more to people who are struggling and do not have a support group. 

I hope 2019 will also be a year where I learn and grow and be a blessing to others. It is going to be difficult considering how crazy work is and my tendencies to crawl back into my shell at times... but I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Nothing is impossible 😀

Japan trip 2018

I decided that I must blog about the Japan trip to keep the memories forever!
 
Day 0: Arriving in Japan!

We took the subway to Kyoto for our accommodation of the night, 9 Hours Capsule Hotel!

 

 

The first impression that we had was that the place looked very sterile and clean. Everyone was given the same set of pyjamas to wear and all the toiletries that we needed! Joce said that it looked like a high-class prison LOL. The capsules are in this room which is always dark so I couldn’t get a good picture.

After settling down, we went to buy our first meal, but it was so late that every stall was closed, except Family Mart (our 7-11 equivalent). So we had a luxurious meal of ippudo Maggie mee + peach flavored cider which was very nice! I think this started our mad obsession with peach-everything in Japan.

 

Day 1 – Kyoto

This was probably the most intense day of walking in the whole trip (while we were still energetic). So we went to see the more popular shrines and temples in the area, walking everywhere by foot in the blazing summer heat.

 Places covered: Kiyomizudera Temple, Otani Hombyo Cemetery, Ryozen Kanon Temple, Kodaiji Temple, Higashiyama Street (shopping), Maruyama Park, Yasaka Shrine.

So. Many. Attractions.

We were really looking forward to sushi lunch at Izuju which was so raved on Trip Advisor and really expensive as well, but turned out to be a flop. Singapore sushi beats this in so many ways…. The sushi rice had a ginger taste and everything had that same rice so just…. no…

Dinner at Okonomiyaki Kiraku was much better! We were also starving from all the walking haha.

 

To conclude the night, we went to the Kyoto station’s sky garden observation deck lvl 11 to see the Kyoto tower!

Pro tip: (lol inspired by https://thetravelintern.com/ultimate-usj-guide-universal-studios-japan-planning/ to give pro tips for Japan trip): it is free to look at Kyoto tower from afar than to see the skyline from Kyoto Tower! But that’s good enough!



Day 2 – Kyoto
  

We woke up very early in the morning to queue to ‘catch our lunch’ - Hirobun Nagashi Somen! This activity is only available in summer so we had to go for it! The somen would flow down bamboo pipes with flowing water and we had to catch it with chopsticks and dip it in the soy sauce! The wait was quite long at 1 hour but no fret because the area was so cooling (due to the waterfalls giving out natural air-con)

 

Pro tip: Joce downloaded the whole Harry Potter series movies to entertain ourselves every time we needed to wait lol.

 When it was finally our turn, we were initially dismayed to find out that we were at the end of the line, because… what if everyone kopes the noodles too fast and we have nothing to eat?! But the restaurant ingeniously assigned each group one ‘lane’ that we can eat from, so we definitely would not be left hungry!

 The duration of the somen experience was only about 15 minutes, so it was very hectic trying to feed ourselves and take photos and do the instagramming haha. Such first world problems lol…
 
After the experience, we saw there was Kifune Shrine beside the somen place so we went to take a look and take pictures – tourists will be tourists.

Next stop was Nishiki market at Kyoto. There were many nice snacks to buy and we surely stuffed ourselves silly. Found peaches going for about $20 SGD for 3 and Joce wanted to buy all 3 for herself (peach obsession alert) while me, HC and YL shared 3 peaches.

 

Next was our adventure to Fushimi Inari (probably the most famous/touristy shrine in Kyoto because of the very social media friendly orange Tori gates). A lady came up to us to offer a kimono rental services at 2000yen which was really cheap compared to the market rate so we took it up! The lady patiently and painstaking tied on the kimono for us and it was so beautiful! Lol she then offered hair-setting services for 1000yen and we decided to pay for it also since our hair was getting very frazzled by the end of the day (ahem especially Joce).

 

We then started the hike up Fushimi Inari in hopes of catching the sunset. It was sooo hard to climb, what more in a kimono which restricted leg movement (plus my kimono was tied on too tight so I couldn’t breathe in fully also)… We stopped at many place to take photos and continued huffing and puffing up the many many stairs. A few other tourists expressed their concern and pity at our miserable state hahaha. Alas, we climbed to the halfway point where the sunset was supposed to be visible but…. It was too cloudy and we couldn’t catch a nice sunset…

 



view from the top

Back we went and had dinner at Musoshin ramen which was another flop. I ordered “black ramen” thinking it would be the black garlic oil in pork broth which turned out to be ramen in sesame soup?! Joce ordered thai green curry broth which tasted just like mee rebus sauce?! The Liu siblings cleverly ordered the original broth and theirs tasted the best.

 

Pro tip: in moments of doubt, choose original ramen broth

 Remember the peaches we bought in the afternoon? The sad outcome was that, when we went back to the Airbnb accommodation, Joce’s peached had spoilt and tasted horrible… so that’s $20 down the drain XD

Pro tip: don’t put all your eggs (peaches) in one basket.
 Day 3 – Arashiyama

We woke up early to try and catching the Arashiyama bamboo groves without the tourists but got distracted by the quest for good wagyu beef at Otsuka. The beef was soooo incredible and flavorful and soft – recommended!

 

So when we finally peeled ourselves back on track to see the bamboo groves, it was already filled with tourists and super hard to take photos without being photobombed! But it was still a very pretty sight!

Pro tip: go at sunset hours when the enthu tourists have left
 Went to next attraction which is the Kyoto Toei studio. We had very low expectation for this place but was pleasantly surprised! There was many ninja related activities – physical challenges like climbing up and down wooden obstacles, making our way through laser obstacles, watching sasuke ninja shows and more! The place is used to film period dramas also so it was cool!

 

 

Our dinner was at Tempura komefuku where the served hot fresh tempura sticks and it was an awesome meal!

Day 4 – Tokyo Disneysea

We took the Shinkansen to Tokyo for our Disneysea experience! The place was so picturesque and the best place ever for photos! Staff were so friendly and helpful. We analysed that we couldn’t do their job because how is it possible to be so exuberant non-stop?! Haha. The rides that we took were all quite tame until the final ride at the Tower of Terror, a horror themed ride with free fall drop! This was awesome! At night the wind also became extremely strong and because of my low immunity, I almost fell sick from being tossed in the wind like a ragdoll. Spammed Panadol and water and thankfully I survived.

 

Day 5 - Tokyo

In the morning we were shocked by someone ringing on our doorbell. YL answered and we understood that we needed to pay the electricity bills, or else “electricity cut-to desu”. But the electricity bill was $60 and it was our Airbnb host’s responsibility to pay it so we didn’t want to fork out the money. (we also half thinking that this was a scam). However, to our horror, the guy really went to cut off the electricity!! A hilarious moment I rmb is when HC came out of the blanket with frazzled hair and asked “is this a nightmare?” hahahahahha.

We texted the Airbnb host to settle this and continued with our itinerary lol. Went to the city area for our shopping – Akihabara, Shibuya, Shinjuku. Had lots of snacks and walked a lot as always.

Met up with CC for okonomiyaki dinner. It was one of the best meals, and what more, we cooked it ourselves! So fun. CC has become so proficient in Japanese after going there for 7 times. The way he ordered was so pro that we looked on in amazement and joce took a video too.


 When we reached our Airbnb at night, we got news from the host that the electricity couldn’t be restored for the night… much to our horror. Even if we could bathe and sleep in complete darkness and heat, we really needed to charge our phones, if not it would be very hard to get around the next day… 
In the end, we decided to move out of the place and find another place to sleep at for the night in Shinjuku. Researched and found a manga café. People actually play video games overnight at such places. It was about 2000yen per night, but we had no choice so we took it.


It was the worst night ever. The space given to each pair was very cramped, like a baby’s playpen? And there was a table in front where people sit cross legged with a huge computer screen (for gaming). We had to put our legs under the table to sleep and the table was so short that I had to come out of it every time I wanted to flip over lol. Before day break I already gave up on sleeping and was waiting for the alarm to ring LOL. It was truly traumatic.

Pro tip: none… how do you prepare for your Airbnb electricity being cut-off?!


Day 6 - Tokyo to Hakone

The initial plan was to watch the auction at Tsukiji market at 5 am but we decided that we couldn’t wake up and reach that early, especially after the previous night’s manga café fiasco. So we went at a humane time of 9am! We chose to lunch at sushizanmai (mainly because it was airconditioned) and the food turned out to be great! I picked the ala carte to choose what I really wanted – the fatty tuna (normal and seared versions), octopus, salmon and mackerel and they were delicious! Price came out to a reasonable 1338yen.

 

Next was Asakusa to see Sensouji temple. We started to lose count of the number of temples we have seen.




Sky tower covered in fog!

And walked by the Sumida river to … the attraction that the Liu siblings was most excited about - Tokyo Skytree Pokémon center! Haha they had their fill of shopping for all the pokemon plushies at a cheaper price as compared to Singapore. It would be appropriate to put a picture of HC cuddling the plushies but it’s probably not for circulation TTTT



We then took the Shinkansen to Hakone. When we reached, it was quite sad because it was raining very heavily. But we reached our hostel (K’s House) and it was so nice and spacious and awesome! A nice place that beats the traumatic manga café experience. There was also a common space where people could just chill with games, books and even a guitar. Some tourist was playing the guitar so awesomely in the morning and it was so cool.

 And dinner was the most fantastic yakitori I’ve tasted just 2 minutes away from the hostel. 1 x chicken meatball, 1 x spring onion with chicken, 1 x chicken thigh, 2 x fatty pork for 700yen.

 

We then went to the Tenzan onsen (most famous onsen in the area) where there were 5 hot pools and 1 cold pool. The hot pool was amazing at relieving our muscle aches from all the walking. We went back to the hostel feeling 50% recovered!

 Day 7 – Hakone

We filled our tummies with the recommended lunch ‘Tofu Katsuni’ where it was very yummy tofu in a hotpot before starting our adventure.

 Pro tip: get the Hakone 2-day free pass for 4000yen to go through the course (railway, cablecar, cruise)! Very worth it.

The railway brought us up to Owakudani volcano, where the wind started blowing like crazy. One of the must-dos there was to eat the black eggs, we tried them and… they tasted like normal hard boiled eggs lol.

 The Lake Ashi cruise was also very fun because the scenery was fantastic. Hakone has such a nice chill vibe! We ended up having oden from Family mart which was yummy in the rainy weather.

We spotted another Tori gates and there was a queue to take pictures.

Pro tip: be very prepared for phototaking to NOT incur the wrath of the people in the queue behind. We became very systematic – joce will snap for me, YL then HC, then I’ll grab the camera and take photos for joce XD
   

It started raining so we went to a café for some café latte and café mocha while enjoying the scenery.

We went back and had to have yesterday’s yakitori for dinner again! Still fantastic.

 Day 8  Our last stop at Hakone was the Odawara castle. First up, lunch of curry udon at the mall, random pick which was nice!

There was more dressing up at Odawara castle, Joce became a samurai and I became a damsel in distress (Hime-sama). Gosh the outfit really suits joce lol so cute. Only 500yen each!

  We then took the shinkansen to Osaka and it was already going to be night!

 

 

 

Had dinner at Dotonbori eating very nice food like kushikatsu, takoyaki before calling it a night at our cute hello kitty accommodation.

 

Day 9 - Osaka
Woke up really late (I think this was the peak of our tiredness) and went to queue for lunch at Kani Douraku. This was highly raved by Joce’s sis even though it costs like $80 per pax!! So being kiasu we had to try it too. Surprising there was no queue and we got in immediately.

 

Pro tip: going japan in summer makes for smaller crowds!
The crab was seriously the freshest I have tasted. It was really really delicious! But for $80, still slightly ouch.
We then went to Nara deer park, expecting to pay 600yen to enter the park to play with the deers. But turns out that the deers were out at the entrance so we could save on the entrance fees into the park lol! We just needed to buy the deer snack for 150 yen and they will come charging to us.
Pro tip: spot a docile chill deer who will sit there and allow unlimited selfies

We had dinner at a random ramen shop in Osaka and it was good! (strangely the randomly selected shops seem to be better than those on trip advisor)
Day 10 - USJ

 

Our final attraction was USJ! We were all looking forward to playing with the roller coasters and it really didn’t fail us! The rides were extremely thrilling. Our favorites were the flying dinosaur, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, and Hollywood Dream. The flying dinosaur was so cool because we faced down and swooped like birds in the air, there was one point where we came so close to the water! The rides are really well thought out and themed nicely. Lol another one of HC’s epic comments was that he didn’t really like flying dinosaur because when facing down, the gravity is pulling down his face LOL.


Yeye energy level cmi haha

Lunch and dinner of the trip were bentos because the food in USJ was too exorbitant. The only downside is putting the bento in my bag and having it smell like fried chicken for the whole day. But we did have the butterbeer and butterbeer ice cream at Harry Potter land and it was so so delicious.

 

Our accommodation at USJ was the Singulari Hotel which was super shiok, 3 people could fit comfortably on the huge bed. A pity that we were too tired to try the sky spa which is like an onsen with a good view! But still, it was one of the best accommodations we had.

Thus ends the very exciting and packed Japan holiday! I have always wanted to see Japan for myself and it was very eye opening and amazing. The culture is very rich and there are so many picturesque places! Totally tanned by the summer sun though, wanna visit again when its spring!  

Phewwww.... I under estimated how much effort blogging takes! At least the memories are now recorded properly!