Rowie's Scribbles

I was introduced to loom bands by the bf's cousin; the cousin and her sis were selling loom bands for charity. I got a few then I quickly introduced it to other people; friends, colleagues, relatives etc. The loom band was invented by a Malaysian (Malaysia Boleh!), read the Wiki entry here . The craze boomed after Kate Middleton was spotted wearing a loom band (available from her family business Party Pieces)!  The engineer behind the idea The Duchess and the loom bracelet It is an intricate piece of art - I like the symmetry and you can mix and match your favorite colors! You can also add key rings to hook a pendrive or even your car keys. There are so many types to choose from: jelly, glow-in-the-dark, neon, metallic etc. There are various designs to pick from: classic, dragon scale, spider etc. Charms like hearts and mini doggies are also available.  Mini engineering Use it as a keychain Dragon scale design Spotted bands The girls have a FB pag...

Previously I raved about America's sad queen, Lana del Rey ; the songstress mentioned that she will no longer produce music after some of her music were leaked to the Internet. Luckily for her fans, she changed her mind and her latest offering, Ultraviolence is a sumptuous feat for the ears.  Lana has grown in many ways; her image is more unique than ever and more recognition is given to her skills as a songwriter; she produced Burning Desire to promote the new Jaguar F-type car and Disney's Maleficent featured her haunting rendition of Once Upon A Dream. These milestones introduced her to a new community of fans who want more of Lana del Rey and she answered.  Burning Desire Once Upon A Dream I feel her confidence has grown and there's a darker side to this new album. It seems she is not afraid to sing what she wants to sing anymore and Ultraviolence is the embodiment of this confidence. S ongs like Ultraviolence and The Other Woman shimmer with the essence ...

I purchased cash vouchers for food at Seeri Thai restaurant from Livingsocial, and I went there with family one Friday evening. The restaurant is on the same row as Super Kitchen pan mee in SS2, so do be prepared to fight for parking. The restaurant was not crowded on a Friday night, so we got a table easily. There was a homey feel to the restaurant; simple polka dot table covers and decor on the walls. We ordered lemongrass tea and sea coconut. The lemongrass tea was very refreshing, I preferred it more than the sea coconut. We ordered seafood tom yam soup, stir fried ferns, pork with basil leaves, green curry and pineapple fried rice. The tom yam was delicious but overly spicy. The stir fried ferns had enough oyster sauce to keep it savory without being too salty. The winner IMO was the pork with basil leaves: incredibly fragrant and the added chili gave an extra kick. The green curry was really good - the santan came through and there was a slight bitter taste from the herbs us...

I recently joined a weekly violin ensemble class and my teacher is open to trying different pieces, not necessarily classic, so I joined musescore as they had quite a variety of free sheet music and the software was relatively easy to use. Previously I used GuitarPro so I didn't have much trouble adapting to musescore software. I like how the interface is similar to Microsoft Visio; it creates a professional feel to what I was doing! :p Transcribing music was habitual for me during university; the orchestra was small so purchasing sheet music was impractical as we would not be able to achieve the same depth as a full orchestra. Good thing I've perfect pitch so we could write out scores and adapt it to our capabilities.  I've uploaded several pieces, both are transcribed by moi; feel free to browse and share pieces on this wonderful site :) Check out my profile here . If you have pieces you would like me to try, feel free to comment! 

Definition of wanderlust: I never expected to have wanderlust but I do; every journey adds another facet to the world as I see it. I'm drawn to different cultures, historical treks back in time and reconnecting back to nature. That being said, I'm anal about planning my trips: I plan down to the minute and provide contingency plans.  2014 has been a fruitful year in terms of travel: I visited South Korea with friends, returned to Siem Reap with my man, and organized the department trip to Lombok, which is relatively unexplored territory among my peers. In addition, I've about 9 days of leave to use before the end of the year so I'm making plans for Hanoi and Bangkok!  I generated a map via Interactive Visited Countries and I can see that I've a lot of ground to cover - literally! So far, I learned that the following factors come into play when I plan a trip: 1) Traveling companions I'm not one to travel solo, partly due to security. I also l...

Day 2 was pretty hectic so it was a good thing I slept early; breakfast at the hotel starts at 6.30am. I'd packed the night before so I headed straight to breakfast after a quick shower. The spread was decent; you can order other items like porridge (pretty good!) and yogurt! The pastries were really good too! I'd some toast and yogurt, as I didn't want to eat too much before a 3 hr flight home!  The hotel staff informed us that Sunday traffic can be busy as many people like to have weddings on Sundays, so they encouraged us to check out early. In hindsight, I think they also wanted to clear the rooms for other guests. Oh well. We managed to make time for a souvenir shop (our transfer agent got his friend to open the shop early for us) so I got some T-shirts and keychains! Our agent clarified that weddings aren't held early in the morning so we reached the airport about 2.5 hrs earlier than departure time. We walked around but the airport is small so t...

After a good start , it was time for the busy second day! We signed up for the waterfall tour with Charles and we left the hotel at 8am. We headed to Bawon Pusuk (Monkey Forest) to feed the monkeys. They were pretty cute and clever at catching peanuts tossed at them!  Monkey salon Enjoying life to the max yo Then it was long ride to a traditional market; I got 1 kg of the local mandarin oranges for 10000 IDR, it was quite sweet and the skin was easy to peel. We passed by rice paddy fields; green green green everywhere! The farmers use plastic strips to fend off birds. We passed by beach villas; Charles explained that many foreigners buy land because it's cheap and build holiday mansions. We saw some villas under construction underway; hmm how nice to have a private beach getaway!  That's a rice bowl there Plastic strips fluttering in the wind Glimpses of the sea Then it was a REALLY long ride to Mt Rinjani National Park and to the traditional vill...