It's black, it's white

Was scrolling my Facebook feed when I saw THESE!

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So pinterest & instagram worthy! *inserts hearts in eyes*

THESE, are the kind of feeds I follow in Instagram. Major love for muted colours, paired with black and white simple patterns like these. Am already doing some shopping for the decorative accents. Hehe. Will buy bit by bit over the months and *hopefully* be able to place it in corners of my home next time ;)

RECIPE: Dried Mee Pok

I got this recipe from a school mate from my alta mater some time back. Totally forgot about it until yesterday. Had no idea what to cook, and coincidentally, I have all the ingredients to whip up a plate of Dried Mee Pok. Thinking about it makes me salivate. Mmhmm yum!

Preparation & cooking time: Less than 15 minutes 

(WIN - for a lazy Sunday at home!)

Ingredients for the sauce:

1 tbsp of Oyster Sauce

1 tsp of Chilli Powder (varies according to your preference)

1 tbsp of sesame oil/spicy sesame oil

1 tbsp of tomato ketchup

1 tsp of fish sauce

Condiments - Up to your own preference:

Fishcakes
Prawns
1 ball of meepok (or bean stick noodles)

Sayur Sawi (Cai xin) 

Garnish:

Fried shallots

Daun sop

Chilli padi

Directions:

- Mix the ingredients for the sauce and leave it aside

- In a large pot of water, boil the condiments (until the prawns have turned pink)

- Remove from pot

- After which, boil the mee pok into the same water and blanch the vege for about 3-5 minutes. Add a few drops of sesame oil so the noodles wont be too sticky

- Toss the water & mix the mee pok well with the sawi and fishcakes

- After it has been well mixed, add the prawns separately

- Finish it off by garnishing with fried shallots, chopped parsley, & cuts of chilli padi. 

Are you salivating already?!

Guess what, it's DONE! 

You can now enjoy your plate of Dried Mee Pok. 

Share with me if you have tried it and let me know how it taste like. :D

Have fun!

How to buy from Taobao using Peeka

To continue from my previous entry here, I have started my search for the different types of forwarders to ship our purchases from Taobao, and Peeka seems to be a popular choice among Bloggers. (Additional information: Peeka is also the forwarder for TMall, Dangdang, Amazon.cn, JD.com).

In the order of Google search engine results, I have consolidated all their entries for ease of reference below:
- Monoxious
- Sugar, Spice, Everything Nice
- Little Red Cap
- Popiah's Life
  Psst! Popiah's Life also did a review of other Taobao forwarders and I even found out about buying things from Japan through her blog. Whoop whoop!

There was a short review on Renotalk regarding Peeka. You can read about it here.

In Summary:
Peeka ships the items that you have purchased according to the volume instead of the weight of the item(s), unlike other forwarders. Peeka also checks the items for you before shipping it to you. This is very important because sometimes, what the Taobao seller puts up for sale on pictures, can be very different from the actual item. You can read about it here. However, the downside of using Peeka is that it is not exactly cheaper than other forwarders........which boils down to the same thing; shipping cost. Hahahahais.

You know, it's like having a car, but we are all not very willing to pay for the ERP/carpark fee. Yep. We are all calculative like that. Haha.

Meh. :/

Anyway... In the thread from Renotalk forum, someone posted a Facebook page (closed group) for Taobao Deals here and I have just requested to enter the group. Hopefully, the admins accepts my request. :B

Till the next entry, insya'Allah.

How to buy from Taobao

With regards to my previous post posted justttt earlier today, I got intrigued and went to do my research on how to purchase directly from Taobao. Plus, I'm Malay. Lol. So, naturally I've got to research more comprehensively on how to buy an item from a Chinese website. I will split the entries to several parts since (like I said) I'm a Malay, and I need a more comprehensive research. Lolol.

Recap: My colleague's sister bought a number of stuff for her place from Taobao - bath tub with Jacuzzi features, floor tiles, wardrobes, to name a few. And these are not small items. Especially bath tub. Like who in the world would buy a bath tub online, allll the way from China? Right? So anyway, my colleague briefly shared with me the way her sister purchased and shipped the items from China to Singapore.

This is her way (in brief summary only):
- Set up your Taobao account.
- Set up your Alipay (e-wallet) account.
#1: According to my colleague, she has relatives residing in China, who has a China number (duh - but I'll explain why later). So she used her relatives' number to input in Alipay.
#2: When Alipay sees that the phone number detail is a local number, there will be no exchange rate from RMB to SGD, as opposed to when you register using a non-local number.
(This was what I was told. If this info is incorrect, feel free to rectify :)).
- Since Taobao is worded in Chinese, ensure you use Chrome as your browser & right-click to Translate to English. Sometimes, a pop-up will appear to ask if you would like to translate to English. Or maybe, it auto translates it for you. Either way.
- And since Taobao is worded in Chinese, you still need Google Translator to help you with searching for the item. Using English to search for the items could result in lesser search results.




Just utilise the one above as it is good enough. Select English and Chinese (Simplified) respectively.

- Once you like the item, you can Add to cart, and continue shopping. But if you still would like to shop for more items, you can continue browsing. If not, you can proceed to Purchase.
- When you purchase, you log into your Alipay (e-wallet) account and proceed for payment.
- There are two times that you have to pay; one is during purchase, another is prompted during shipping.
- Taobao will notify you once the items have reached their warehouse. With the help of her relatives, they would visit the warehouse to check the item for her.
- After they have checked and the items are okay, it will be shipped via Cargo. Here, there will be another step for payment that will be requested. The good thing about this method is that you don't need to worry about the weight of your item. As long as your 20/40 (or whatever-the-size-is) footer Cargo has space, you can buy the whole Taobao and ship it over to Singapore. Haha! Take note that this shipping method will take about a period of 1 month for the item to be delivered to you. But it's worth the wait I guess, especially if you do not need the items urgently.
Note: I haven't gotten the details from her yet like how to select shipping via cargo and how do we pay for GST once it reaches the Singapore shore. But yep, will check on it too and update accordingly. After all, this is just a brief summary of how she does it.
- That is basically it!

So, having her way in mind, I actually read every single blog that appears in the search engine on ways to purchase items from Taobao. Semangat ke pe!

In the order of the search engine results:
- Child of the Riot
- The Baking Biatch
- Online Shopper
- The Elusive Sleuth
- Qwerty Kiss
- Moneysmart.sg

After reading these blogs, I think that the first part of purchasing (read: from searching your items all the way to adding it to cart and purchasing it) isn't that challenging. The challenging bit comes when you start choosing your method of shipping because this will add cost to your wallet. Haha. It's always the shipping cost, huh?

lolololol.

Why so pathetic seh kita semua?!

So, yup. Let me thoroughly read every single one of the blogs and try purchasing something from Taobao and maybe do a review of my experience. Manalah tahuuuuu, ada bloggers sekaki nak beli barang dari Taobao jugak ke........ 

Oh, tak eh? :p

Virtual window shopping

There's a down time in the office today, hence calls for a good time to slack browse for any potential decorative items for our future living space. Hehe.

Background: My husband and I will be expecting approximately 11 guests to our (temporary) humble abode this month. He also gave me an extensive list of food items he would want me to cook as he said it tasted good. Hahaha; bukan aku cakap ye - suami aku yang cakap. Alhamdulillah.

That aside, we realised we do not have enough plates and cutleries for the no. of guests that we'll be expecting. We only have 4 plates, 2 bowls, few mugs, and that's about it. You know what this means? It's a call for shoppinggggg!

I then decide maybe I should start buying cutleries that I would bring over to our own place next time. Hyperventilated when I landed myself to these in Taobao.

[Note: I am currently learning the ropes of buying items from Taobao from my colleague, whom her sister purchased her house items from Taobao. And I'm not talking about small decorative items ok. It's as huge as a bath tub with Jacuzzi features. Yes, bath tub! Floor tiles, wardrobes. So, insya'Allah once I have fully understood on how to buy items from Taobao, I will dedicate an entry on how to buy items from Taobao, and hopefully benefit us all.]

Anywayyy, I digressed. These are the items that I was talking about:

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Tak ke mata rambang tengok?! Especially since I am into Minimalist Japanese Scandinavian. Whoop whoop! The natural wood grains... ahhh love. 

Which reminds me... The other day, my elder sister brought me to Hommage Lifestyle at 40 Jalan Pemimpin. The wooden natural oak furniture, the kitchen ware, the mattresses! Kira macam love at first sight gitu.

The price tag is not that cheap though. But we learned from the owner (who walked us around the showroom), that there's a reason behind the hefty price tag. It was due to the fine workmanship and the long lifespan of the items. The Japanese make their furniture solid and strong for the following reasons:

- They can bring the furniture over to their new place if they move. 

- They often have earthquakes. 

So let's say in an event of a mild earthquake, the Japanese are to take cover under their sturdy tables - which she tested it out (for us to see) by standing on a knee-high coffee table and using her body weight to swing left and right so as to shake the table. It was really very sturdy! Wow, really impressive, I must say. We went ooohhh... ahhhh... when she explained to us patiently regarding the furniture that was displayed in their showroom. 

Actually, the reason we were there was all thanks to a Chabatree warehouse sale that was located at the same level, just another unit - and conveniently, was under Hommage Lifestyle too. Hahaha. So kita apa lagi?! The inner makciks in us came out to play. 

As you can see, I loveeeee all these natural Japanese wooden trays and the likes. So, kita pun mata rambang and terrrrbeli satu chopping board. I told myself that we needed a new one to replace the one at home. The one we have at home - the handle dah putus. So, I am buying this as a replacement. Hahahaha. Tak salah kan? #attempttopujukdiri lololol. 

Ahhh... So excited. Can't wait to have my own place, so that I can slowly purchase all these items over the months and years and call the unit, home. :)

Or maybeeee, start buying them and store them inside the store room instead?.

Here's to a new beginning

I started blogging since the first launch of Blogger way back when I was only 14 - which was 13 years back. Wow! Time flies.

Nubbad.

I started from Blogger > Wordpress in my teenage years > my passion dwindled > a new Wordpress URL to record my wedding preparations > And now here I am, back to Blogger.

I'm 1.5 meters in height Singaporean Hijabi. Don't expect me to be some sort of a Fashionista because I dress moderately. By what I mean moderately - still wrapping my head with a square hijab when everyone else have transitioned to Shawls. Hur hur.

I am married to an awesome man, last May. A boy I first met at the bus stop when I was 9, and himself 10. Heh. Would love to continue blogging at Wordpress but I think it's time I breathe a fresh air after the wedding.

Someday, I'll elaborate further but we'll make do with this for now.

To a new beginning, insya'Allah. :)