Best IPL in Singapore

Ok so I embarked on this journey to find IPL since I realised I’m quite late in the game with regards to hair removal. So today I went to check out a few places based on recommendation from friends, online research and advertisements.

First up was Musee.

Musee has one of the cheapest underarm treatment deals in the market at $38 for unlimited lifetime treatments using IPL. I visited the oulet at Bugis+ and I thought the service wasn’t that great. They usually insist that you come on time or don’t come at all, they just made me sit in a room by myself and wait for 30mins. But when the consultant came in to explain to me the entire process, I thought it was not bad, they explained every part of the process together with the packages they had and the terms and conditions. Their Brazilian IPL was really expensive though. 26 large parts (which could cover the entire Brazilian area) was at $1791.20. I bought their underarms package with a referral from a friend and received an extra small part. Yaay.

Second stop I went to was Ginza Calla.

They have much better service but only one outlet in Singapore at Plaza Singapura (new wing). There were many Japanese customers who frequent this outlet and the consultant once again took be through the process of the entire IPL treatment. One thing I didn’t like was that they used curtains instead of doors for the treatment rooms. Granted that they don’t allow men inside, I still felt abit unsafe. (I know this because they stopped a guy from coming into the counter area completely). Nonetheless, this was still really expensive for underarms IPL at $471. I told the consultant about musee’s treatment pricing and she was super shocked at musee’s cheap pricing. I later went to groupon and saw that Ginza was actually selling at $48 for unlimited. Not sure why the consultant was so stunned haha. Nonetheless, their Brazilian IPL was quite affordable. 9 sessions were at $899, 12 sessions at $1163 and unlimited sessions for $1320. Honestly, best service but prices were too expensive and there was only one outlet unfortunately.

Third up, I went to Only Aesthetics.

They have many outlets which I was quite happy about. And their brazillian IPL was $388 unlimited! I was absolutely ecstatic about it. So they let me try it out but I found that it was actually quite painful! I didn’t like it one bit. Who says its not painful! Haha but it was bearable I would say. But Only Aesthetics also let me try some other technology, their Korean soft waves – which was absolutely painless. They glide across the area instead of how IPL is usually done by spots. Personally, since it was my first time trying Brazilian, I was nervous and shy but the therapist was absolutely professional and made me feel so comfortable doing it. I was relieved. In the end, I decided on the Korean soft laser which cost me $1095. Its really expensive but I told myself, its for future benefits and hygiene! Anyway, if you pay by UOB credit cards, you can pay in 36 months instalments which come up to only $30.42 a month. Affordable? I think so! I recommend the soft wave – its really alot more comfortable!

DIY Juice Cleanse Review

So I decided to embark on this journey of detoxing using a juice cleanse. There are a lot of them available on the market but I wanted to save money so I decided to do a DIY juice cleanse at home. Read more about it here.

Anyway, so I started on a Sunday for the 3 day juice cleanse. I heard from people that we need to drink in intervals of 2 hours. So 10am was my starting bottle. Remember not to drink any water 30mins after your juice. But drink tons of water after that cos it helps with the efficiency of the detoxing.

So bottle one was a green juice filled with green apples, celery, cucumber, parsley, kale leaves, spinach, romaine lettuce and lemon juice. I personally dislike the taste of celery and parsley. I cant finish an entire rib of celery without gagging. So imagine the smell that emerged from the green bottle. I wanted to give up on the spot. But thinking about how I had juiced for 7hours the day before and the $80 I spent on this DIY cleanse, I decided to persevere.

Okay so bottle #1: It was strangely sour, with the first gulp, I started thinking “hey this isn’t so bad.” But then  the after taste of the celery hit me – that’s when I started to swallow this bottle down quick.

A strange feeling came over me though; after drinking a few gulps of this juice, I felt slightly light headed and dizzy. Not sure what was the cause.

2hours later, it was bottle #2; consisting of Pineapple, green apple and mint. This was easy; in fact I could have drank more if there was! The pineapple was sweet, the green apple added a tinge of sourness to the drink and the mint added a little kick at the end. Perfect drink!

Then it was back to then green juice bottle #3. Which was exactly the same as bottle one. I kinda dreaded this bottle more and more each time I had it. And it never failed to leave me bloated! This time, it was worst cos I drank it in front of my parents who had a whole plate of hokkien noodles and ‘char kway teow’ for lunch. Here’s me feeling sad that I can’t enjoy the awesome food.

Then it was bottle #4 – spicy lemonade. The bottle that I was looking forward to! It turned out pretty tasty. Really sour though and I guess I made a mistake and put too much cayenne pepper in my drink that it really became too spicy! I couldn’t gulp it down at one shot cos of the spices but it was quite a refreshing drink – I added ice to the juice so it was really nice for a hot day!

Ok so I took a nap after the fourth bottle cos I was really tired so I didn’t keep to my 2 hours interval, the fifth bottle was pushed back by 1 and a half hours. when I woke up, I headed for dinner with the family. They had Kenny Rogers while I drank my bottle #5. Beetroot, ginger, lemon, apple. To be honest, the drink was so difficult to drink! It was spicy from the ginger and the gloopy beetroot didn’t help. But it was as bad as I expected – I thought the beet would taste stronger, but I guess the ginger balanced it out. Here’s my bottle of drink juxtaposed against my brother’s happy face eating his chicken.

Most importantly, after this bottle, when I went to the bathroom, my output was reddish. At first I panicked, then I remembered it was probably the beetroot.

The worst bottle of all had to be bottle #6. We blended the cashew nuts together with water, cinnamon and vanilla essence. Well, it wasn’t that bad in the beginning but I became really sick of the taste real fast and because it was so thick, I wasn’t able to just gulp it down like the rest of the drinks. I only managed to finish ¾ of this bottle. Not that great.

The worst bottle of all had to be bottle #6. We blended the cashew nuts together with water, cinnamon and vanilla essence. Well, it wasn’t that bad in the beginning but I became really sick of the taste real fast and because it was so thick, I wasn’t able to just gulp it down like the rest of the drinks. I only managed to finish ¾ of this bottle. Not that great.

 

So overall, day 1 went fine. I wasn’t grouchy, I wasn’t really craving for anything in particular, everything was quite smooth. I went toilet a total of 10 times – most of which had great output. So far pleased with my detoxing.

Day 2 though, was a different experience. I started out ready to conquer the day, but by bottle 3, I felt slightly dizzy and not so confident that I could finish this – it started to be become boring and I was pretty sick of the taste of these juices. Perhaps it was because I was at work – sitting at my table, thinking about what I was going to eat on Wednesday when the cleanse was over; not such a good feeling.

Day 3 was alot easier cos you just look forward to the day when you can eat. But i was so sick of the juices, i skipped bottle 3 and only drank a bit of bottle 6. I lost about 2kg in total for these 3 days which was quite good i suppose! But i will continue to work out to lose weight 🙂

Sumikko Gurashi

I have been in love with these absolutely adorable Sumikko Gurashi (すみっコぐらし) characters since my best friend introduced them to me! What they really mean are, the characters living in the corner developed by San-X.

What I absolutely love are the stories behind each character – either left one corner or just loving the corner. I resonate with them completely!

Introducing the Sumikko Gurashi Characters:

Shirokuma (しろくま) Polar Bear afraid of the cold

A shy white polar bear that ran away from his chilly home in the North. He used the cloth Furoshiki (see below) to tie up his belongings. Sometimes he uses it as a scarf to keep himself warm (oh the irony!) He’s afraid of strangers and feels safest when he sips a cup of tea in the corner.

Penguin? (“ぺんぎん？) Penguin with an identity crisis

Penguin? is an insecure penguin that has identity issues. He has no confidence and used to wear a plate on his head that made him look like a Kappa (water spirits from Japanese folklore) He’s always questioning his identity and even puts a question mark behind his name.

Neko (ねこ) Shy cat

This cat is super shy and loves to hide in the corner – she often sharpens her claws by scratching on the corners of the sofas.

Tonkatsu (とんかつ) Leftover piece of pork cutlet

 

Tonkatsu is that leftover piece of pork cutlet; an accident. He is 1% meat and 99% fat. His pink nose is that 1% of meat. He is greasy and oily… and is always left behind on the plate because of his fat content. His friends often help to put soy sauce on him to make him look more appetising.

Nisetsumuri (にせつむり) Deceptive slug

The deceptive slug carries a shell on his back to act like a snail. Sometimes, he carries a house on his back.

Zassou (ざっそう) Positive weed

This green week is left behind as decoration on the plate. He is always positive and cheerful. He dreams of someday being in a bouquet from the florist.

Tapioka (たぴおか) Leftover tapioca pearls in your bubble tea

These colourful Tapioca pearls are the bubbles from the popular Taiwanese bubble tea drink. They are left behind when the milk tea is finished because most people don’t finish the pearls – there are always a few left behind…

Hokori (ほこり)  Corner-inhabiting dust particle

 

This happy little grey dust ball is ultra-light and sometimes flies through the air. He can be found in the corner, peeking out of cupboards or under the sofa as well.

Furoshiki (ふろしき) Polar Bear’s bag

 

The pink wrapping cloth Furoshiki was used by polar bear Shirokuma when he ran away from the north. He is a type of traditional Japanese wrapping cloth. He sometimes can be used as a scarf to keep polar bear warm, otherwise, he just sits. In the corner. Alone.

Ebi furai no shippo (えびふらいのしっぽ) Tail of Ebi Tempura left behind

Ebi is the tail fo a fried shrimp, ebi furai. He is always left behind with a little bit of meat. He is best friends with the other discarded food like tonkutsu.

Suzume (すずめ) Normal brown sparrow

 

A normal brown sparrow. unlike the majestic eagles. Hes just normal. He often pecks at the tonkatsu as food.

Tokage (とかげ) Blue lizard who wants to be the lochness monster 

 

This blue lizard’s dream home is out in the deep sea. He hopes to be like the lochness monster.

Mt Fuji (やま) Small mountain hoping to be Mount Fuji

 

 

It is a small mountain that is left aside but hopes to one day be like Mt. Fuji with a hot spring.

Obake (おばけ) Ghost Housemaid

 

It lives in the corner of the attic, it doesn’t want to scare anyone at the Sumikko House so it lives quietly, cleaning the place.

DIY Juice Cleanse in Singapore

Okay, so I’ve heard plenty of people doing juice cleanses in Singapore and they are all EXTREMELY expensive. The usual we hear about the 3 day juice cleanses are HIC Juice ($308) Sana Cleanse ($320) and my friend introduced me to one of the cheaper options which was Daily Juice ($163). See more options below:

So I had a few that i was considering:

HIC Juice’s 3 Day Reboot Cleanse ($308): 
REBOOT 3-DAY CLEANSE
Day 1 – Popeye Smoothie, 4 Carats, Cool as a…, Lemon N’ Spice, Kale Tales, Nut Milk
Day 2 – Popeye Smoothie, Lemon N’ Spice, Green Lemonade, 4 Carats, Pure Coconut Water, Nut Milk
Day 3 – Heart Beet, Oh My Greens!, Cool as a…, Lemon N’ Spice, Kaleidoscope, Pure Coconut Water

• POPEYE SMOOTHIE
  Packed with antioxidants and vitamins, this blend of Red Dragon Fruit, Pineapples, Bananas, Spinach and Ionized Water is the perfect start to your healthy day!
• 4 CARATS
  This cold pressed blend of Carrots, Apple, Cucumber and Celery will be your next best friend with the glow it gives you, sans diamonds!
• COOL AS A…
  Keep cool and juice on with this hydrating blend of Celery, Cucumber, Apple & Lemon.
• LEMON N’ SPICE
  The refreshing and tangy blend of Apples, Lemon, Cayenne Pepper, Himalayan Salt and Ionized Water gets your metabolism and circulatory system going, while boosting immunity!
• KALE TALES
  We heard so much about this Super Veg! Cucumber, Apple, Pure Coconut Water and the elusive Kale completes this delish drink.
• GREEN LEMONADE
  The sacred seven of detoxification – Apple, Cucumber, Kale, Celery, Romaine Lettuce, Parsley and Lemon.
• HEART BEET
  This fuchsia medley of Carrot, Apple, Beetroot, Lemon and Ginger promotes cardiovascular health, fights cancer and is a super tonic for the liver!
• PURE COCONUT WATER
  Highly regarded as Earth’s natural Gatorade, you will be amazed at the many wonders of Pure Coconut Water.
• OH MY GREENS
  Oh My Greens! – Celery, Apple, Pineapple and Brocolli makes up this juice which is designed to fight inflammation and boost energy!
• KALEIDOSCOPE
  The upgraded version of the Sacred Seven, this juice has nine amazing ingredients to gently rid the toxins in your body.
• NUT MILK
  A hearty but healthy non dairy milk for dessert with Raw Cashews, Raw Almonds, Vanilla, Medjool Dates, Himalayan Salt, Cinnamon and Ionized Water.

Daily Juice 3 Day Cleanse ($163):
Krypto, Barnie, B.Smooth, ‘Sup Doc?, Pepplemint and White Rabbit (Nut Mylk)
3 sets of 18 x 530ml bottles

• KRYPTO
  Green Apple, Romaine, Spinach, Cucumber, Lemon & Parsley
• BARNIE
  Beet, Carrot, Apple, Lemon & Ginger
• B.SMOOTH
  Mixed Berries, Banana, Apple, Natural Yoghurt, Chia Seeds
• ‘SUP DOC
  Carrot, Pineapple, Orange, Lemon & Turmeric
• PEPPLEMINT
  Apple, Pineapple & Mint
• WHITE RABBIT
  Almonds/Cashew, Agave/Dates, Vanilla, Himalayan Pink Salt, Alkaline Water

Then as I continued to research and calculate, Hic Juice would cost me $17.77 per bottle and Daily Cleanse would cost me $9.05 per bottle. Outside fruit juices are usually max of $4. I decided that I didn’t have so much cash at the moment to splurge on these luxuries – though it would be ALOT more convenient, I decided that I will do my own DIY Juice cleanse. So I started looking for Recipes online and found that most of them follow the Blueprint cleanse.

These are a few links I found useful:

• Stylelist.com
  
• Oliver & Kingsley.com (1st attempt)
• Oliver & Kingsley.com (2nd attempt with other juices)

So im going to try the blueprint cleanse on stylelist this weekend. Will update on my progress and verdict!

Update: my friends and I went to a nearby plastic shop at golden mile hawker centre – bought 60 empty bottles for $12! Okay so we juiced on a Saturday after buying all the stuff from the market. We spent a total of $230 for 3 people which worked out to be about $80 a person on our fresh produce. We kinda spent a bit more also because we didnt want to peel the pineapples ourselves.

We spent a total of 7hours juicing though – which was absolutely insane. Perhaps because we only had a small juicer but also because we had to slowly peel and wash all the beetroots for 3 people (mind you, thats 27 beets in total!) Not to mention the fact that we had a million other things to wash and cut cos of the small juicer.

We had 4 people helping with the cutting, juicing, blending, pouring, washing which was insanely tiring – so i honestly dont recommend you do it all yourselves. Spend a bit more to get the items prewashed and pre-peeled would be my suggestion. You’ll thank me later!

Anyway, we followed this chart to create our juices. But bear in mind that their final shopping list is slightly wrong. The apples should be 18 apples instead of the 15 written on their complete shopping list. 

So things we had trouble with: how do you count 3 kale leaves? We bought two types of kale leaves large ones and the organic packet ones which were tiny. So we kind of just took a handful. Likewise for spinach and parsley (not too sure how much is one handful so we just estimated). Our cucumbers were also very big so there was alot of juice.

We tried to simplify the process by doing juice 1 and 3 together (just add them together) but instead of getting 2 bottles, we got 3. Maybe also cos our ‘liang teh’ bottles weren’t particularly large (about 500ml i’d say), it couldn’t fit that much. Most of our juices came out more than expected following this list. With the exception of the second bottle. We only managed to fill half a bottle with the recipe above.

We also had trouble with the last bottle as the cashew nuts didn’t have juice so we blended it – but it came out so chunky and thick! So it wasn’t so easy. The spicy lemonade, we also kinda put too much cayenne pepper (bought from NTUC) – so it was extremely spicy when drinking haha. (didn’t realise the bottle says extra hot OOPS)

Another random point to note is that we used honey instead of agave nectar cos i read some negative reviews on the artificial sweetener and it works perfectly fine 🙂

Well, so we finished juicing and unto our drinking days. Please click here to read my review on our DIY juice cleanse.

Planning a wedding

I’ll be very honest, I love weddings but when it comes to coordinating, planning and executing, it can be such a pain!

But I’ve learnt a few things which I believe can be helpful for future weddings.

Here’s an example of the wedding schedule which we used for one of our friend’s church wedding: Wedding Schedule Sample

As we tried to plan stuff, we also had issues trying to come up with a script. So here’s a church wedding script in English and Mandarin: Wedding Emcee Speech Sample

If you’re looking for wedding speeches for wedding dinners, here are two samples you can check out: Wedding Dinner Emcee Speech Sample and Wedding Dinner Emcee Script Sample 2

Disclaimer: these are very Singapore/Asian context so you might want to tailor them to your needs.

Updates after the church wedding – lessons learnt:

• Put the timing on your invite 15-30mins early cos Singaporeans are always late (if you want people to come at 11am, put 10.45am)
• Have a box with all the essentials – Marriage cert, pens, wedding bands, ring pillow, corsages, bridesmaid flower, flower girl flower, eyelash glue (trust me this is important!) and make one person in charge of it.
• Prepare spare ang pows or envelopes at the reception (people tend to forget to bring)
• Prepare a large paper bag for wedding gifts (easier transportation)
• Guests books shouldn’t be so thick (there’ll be tons of empty pages in between which is not nice)
• Write specific dress codes on the invite (people often dont know what to wear especially if it’s not a typical wedding; smart casual is not specific enough give examples)
• Prepare your hashtag and flash it early in the wedding so people can share their pictures and you can easily have an album from instagram
• Take pictures of the place beforehand so your ushering team will know exactly how to set it up after the wedding
• Remember to book your church for rehearsal dates and the day before (for set up) – send a formal email so they are aware
• Two photographers are necessary! So you can take both the front and back at the same time
• People remember funny speeches. So make it funny!!
• People love wedding favors – a great way for them to remember your wedding! (Use companies that do customised labels like www.collabtea.com)
• Block out seats for usher
• Prepare flowers for parents (nice to give after the speech) 
• Staircase decor is important – gives it the ambience
• To be honest, program sheets are unnecessary
• If you’re not taking pictures with friends in the sanctuary, make sure you have a nice place for photo taking – a nice background & photo wall (cos people will definitely want to take pics with you; a fan would be most ideal) 

Updates after the wedding dinner – lessons learnt:

• Have an alphabetical order guest list for easy search (if your wedding has alot of guests)
• Ensure your ang pow box has a larger slit (sometimes people might have written cards)
• Dont use black table cloth for anything – the adults will nag
• Google docs are actually very useful for reception tables (if you have wifi) so you can easily find people and count the number of people that have arrived

Happy wedding planning!

Reason for this site

Compiling the usual questions and lessons in life that I have gone through – might be for future reference of someone else might benefit from this! 🙂 have a blessed day!