Aquafarm - Day 3

It is the third day of using Aquafarm. My newly air pump is doing well. My wheatgrass is growing pretty fast and strong. The roots has grown out off the net pots too. Hopefully by next week I will be able to havest the wheatgrass.

Aquafarm

My Aquafarm finally arrived to Singapore! Have been waiting for a month to receive this. My DIY hydroponics set isn't doing to well. But most likely due to the seedlings aren't in good condition and I didn't add air pump to it. Anyway, hopefully I can learn more with Aquafarm.

 

When I opened up the box, there is a brief introduction about the concept of Aquafarm at the inner box. You can see there is 3 gallon tank, net pots, chemicals, piping, gravels, grow stones, fish food & some seeds. I got 3 wheatgrass & a basil. The instruction manual is very easy to understand and we are able to set it up very quickly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

I have 6 tropical fishes & 3 shrimps for the tank. It is still quite spacious even though the advice is just 1 betta fish. But later I would buy some plastic plants to decorate the tank. We are soaking the wheatgrass overnight. Everything is working fine. The setup is running, my fishes are happy. Then suddenly the pump stopped working. It is just one hour after the whole setup is working!

 

Lucky I have a spare pump which I have bought earlier for my DIY hydroponics set. But the spare pump is too powerful for Aquafarm. The water keep on spilling out from the net pot. Next day, my bf went to buy another air pump with lower power. Now the Aquafarm is working fine. I expect better quality since it's all made in USA, but still the quality is like from China.

 

Next morning, I have planted my wheatgrass and now all we have to do is wait.

 

First month using OPK

This's our 3rd month trying for a baby and we have bought OPK to catch my ovulation period. As I mention earlier in my blog, I have been taking birth pill and I'm not sure whether my ovulation has began yet. I didn't want my bf to get disappointed especially if my ovulation hasn't began yet.

 

Sadly I didn't capture any LH surge at all. I do have some days which has testing line appeared. But the line is not darker than the control lines. 2 days ago, I start having spotting. I guess AF is coming, and I will try again next month *HAIZ*

 

Lunch at Old Street Bak Tuk Teh at Westgate

After trying Sushi Express, my bf & I decided to try Old Street Bak Tuk Teh just beside Sushi Express. Heard from my colleague that the shop is kinda famous, so I have high expectation for it.

 

When we went in, we are waving around for someone to attend to us. But no one even bothers about us *SERIOUSLY* So my bf walked up to one of the waitress to ask them take order for us. Surprisely, the waitress asked all orders are taken using Ipad which is stored at the table's drawers! At least inform us when we came into the shop, don't just ignore us. Not alot of shops are as high tech as you *roll eyes*.

 

I patiently click here and there using Ipad. It is very user friendly and I doubts anyone would have trouble using it. After 15mins or so, our food is served!

 

The soup is quite yummp. But the ribs are kinda disappointing. The meat is rather dry & stick to the bone. The pig trotter is too fatty for my liking as I prefer leaner ones.

 

Total bill cost us SGD49.90! Which is kinda expensive. If we have ordered the same food at our favourite Bak Tuk Teh @ Lakeside hawker centre, it would costs us around $20. And lakeside hawker centre is tastier than this.

 

Most likely I would not be coming back.

 

Cai Xin seedlings

I have started on my hydroponics project last month. Grow some cai xin seeds on soil before transplanting it to my hydroponics system. I choose cai xin because it suppose to be easy to grow & short harvest time (about 1 month).

Below photo is taken on 29 Jan, you can see the seedlings is quite small even though is already 2 weeks old. Currently my 3 weeks old seedlings are taller but the size is still the same. I definitely cannot harvest it within a month =(

Nevertheless I will transplant these seedlings into my hydroponics system and hopefully it can grow into adult cai xin for harvest.

 

Below is my lavender seedlings which I have planted in December. It didn't died which is a surprise to me. Hopefully it will eventually grow into an adult lavender plant *pray* But I guess I couldn't give it to my bf on his birthday, which falls in March.

 

Vday card

As Valentine Day is approaching, I decided to do a Valentine card for my Oppa. While my bf is busying gaming GTA5, I went to my table and start my scrapbooking project. After 20mins, I have completed the card for my Oppa (right hand side). Happiness tagged to wish him to find his happiness soon.

 

After completed my Oppa card, I decided to do one for my bf too. What I hate most is tying ribbon. I always find it as the most difficult craft (beside cutting & trimming papers of course). I still thinking what to write in the card for my bf though... hmmm, waiting for my muse to come...

Cat cafe in Hongdae - Cats Living

My bf is a cat lover. Not that he hates dogs, he just prefer cat (so much more). Hence I make it a point to visit a cat cafe when we are at Seoul. I guess cat cafe is very common in Seoul, we were just wandering around and bump into one - Cats Living. When we reached there, there isn't any people. We just peek into the glass door, the cats are already 'standby' to welcome us. The 'entrance' fee is won8000 and comes with a free drink. As compared to cat cafe in Singapore, it is really cheap.

 

We have to remove our shoes & sanitize our hands before entering the cafe. The money loving cat is the first cat who greeted us. He keep sniffing and biting the wons when I flashed it to him.

 

 

I not sure what happen to the below cat. He was greeting us but when the owner came out to greet us, then return back to the kitchen to make our drinks. He jumped and hang onto the window grills. I "plucked" him out and put him on the floor. But he jumped and cling to the window grills again!

 

 

Below is my favourite cat. Look at his innocent looking face! So adorable right! *melts* I think he is long haired scottish fold. Super duper shy but very curious. He was looking thru the window grills at us. When I took his photo, he is frightened by the "click" sound and stay a distance away from the window grill.

 

 

 

Below are the cats they have in the cafe. As compared to Singapore cat cafe, Cats Living has alot of different breeds of cats. Hopefully one day Singapore cat cafe can have the same standard. In terms of the breeds of cats, and the pricing of the 'entrance' fee as well.

 

 

Trying to conceive

Few months ago, my bf had suggest that he hopes to have a family. I wasn't ready then. But few months later, I decided to give it a try. I'm no longer young so maybe having a baby isn't that easy too. I have stopped my BCP in October 2013 and have been trying since. Unfortunately, there isn't any good news, so I decided to buy Ovulation Testing Kit from Qoo10.

 

Will start to test for my ovulation, and hopefully it already kick start...since I have already stopped my BCP in October 2013 *pray*

 

My bf also been 'feeding' me with magnesium vitamin for a month or so. He read somewhere that some of my 'chronic' sickness maybe is due to lack of magnesium. When our magnesium pills finished, we saw Blackmore Conceive Well so we decided to give it a try.

 

There isn't much review about it. But the reviews I read is kinda good. You have to take 1 tablet & 1 capsule per day. The size of the tablets & capsules are quite huge. So if you are not used in swallowing medicine, you might have some problems with this. The smell of the tablets are also quite stinky. I let my dogs smell it, they just turned away! I feed my dogs with salmon oil capsules, and they will swallow with ease and love their salmon capsules tons. Imagine they are turned off by the tablet, you can imagine how stinky it is. Each box cost about SGD45 (if I remember correctly), so it is consider quite expensive. Lucky Guardian having promotion so there is 20% discount.

 

I have been taking the capsules & tablets for 2 weeks now, and with my ovulation strips on hand, I'm ready for my fertile period to come in another few more days.

 

REVIEW: OF Betta Flora

I planned to buy Aquafarm and one of my friend recommend Betta Flora to me. He said it kinda have the same function as Aquafarm. So I went to buy it with a very good discount as my friend's friend is working there.

 

As you can see from the photo,  there is 2L flask (but actual water which the fish would swim in it would be lesser), a divider, a flow tube, sponge, plastic pebbles, plastic flooring, LED light cum cover and the plug.

 

 

 

 

After 'installing' all the parts, I start to pour the water into the flask. The pebbles & plastic flooring starts to float out! I quickly put them in place and pour the water into the flask. This time much slower. When done, I put my betta in. I named him Fighting. Because he is really angry most of the times. He will push out his gills and stare at me every now & then.

 

Personally I find it is still not really consider aquaponics. Firstly the sponge cannot absorb alot of water. Secondly the flow tube doesn't pump water. Is only when we pull in additional water, water at the bottom of the flask will flow out to the waste water 'cabinet' thru it. Lastly since there is lack of water & air flow, how a growing seedling able to survive? However some houseplant would work, like money plant. The plant is served more towards decoration purpose rather than cultivating plants.

 

I will get the Aquafarm once I got my HSBC credit card since there is a $50 cash rebate. Hopefully Aquafarm won't fail me as there is quite a few negative feedback regard it. *Cross finger*

Ciabatta Bread

Currently one of our favourite past time for my bf & I is baking breads & stuffs. Saturday we bake, Sunday the part time maid cleans and we have a week supply of breakfast. Mainly breakfast for my bf though because I don't really take breakfast.

 

We were planning to give the pumpkin bread a second try but realize our spare pumpkin has grown mouldy. Flipping my recipe book, my bf decided to bake Ciabatta instead. The steps are pretty easy and not much kneading is needed. But LOTSA time needed for the 'yeasting'! 4 hours needed for the yeast to work with the dough. After adding in one more cup of flour into the 'liquid' dough, another 1.5hr for it to rise again. After shaping the dough on the baking tray, another 0.5hr to rise again!

 

When we finally put the dough into the oven, it is nearly ten in the night! Next time we definitely try to bake earlier!

 

Fortunately Ciabatta tastes exactly like the ones my bf ate in Italian restaurant and he loves it. When he offered some to his colleague, his colleague also comment that it is same as Italian restaurant! At least this is a successful attempt as compared to the pumpkin bread.

Con Case: Brazilian IPL at Posh Wellness bought from Groupon

I'm always been 'fan' of Groupon and has been buying their vouchers many many times. But this time is really false advertising. Let's take a look at the voucher I bought.

 

 

Everything seems plain and simple right? Things only start to unfold during my first appointment with them. During the briefing, I was told that I must buy the hygience kit which cost $10, for every session. In the voucher, it is clearly indicated that hygiene kit may need to be purchase, if required. I guess every salon would have these small fine prints whereby they mis-interpret, so I just closed one eye and go ahead with it.

 

Now is the eyeball-dropping part, the staff told me the voucher includes only 10 shots. But the whole Brazilian IPL will needs 30 shots. I need to buy additional 20 shots which cost $60 for every session! That's totally extortion as clearly the voucher did not include this limitation! Unfortunately, I purchase 9 sessions for SGD145. So I asked the staff whether can I combine the sessions as I have 9 session which equal to 90 shots. The staff told me that they cannot combine the sessions. Either I pay additional $60 for full Brazilian IPL or just accept 10 shots of partial IPL which will not have any results at all!

 

End up I went ahead of partial Brazilian IPL with 10 shots as I'm not prepared to pay more. I still have 8 sessions more and I really don't feel like going back and paying $10 for the hygiene kit and there will not be any results at all. After discussing with my bf, he told me not to visit Posh Wellness anymore. $145 just take it as lesson learnt. Posh Wellness is totally dishonest and try to con people to buy their Brazilian IPL whereby they are only offering for Bikini IPL.

 

Nevertheless I wrote to Groupon and hope that I can claim back some money.