Ingredients for the Soup

I love to drink soup although I shouldn't be drinking it. Why? A yi shi once told me that plump people like me should avoid soup and thin people like my hubby should drink more soup. The reason... simply because all the goodness of the ingredients goes into the soup! I should avoid the hou liao (hao liao in hokkien) as I'm already quite plump, lol! Since both my children like to drink soup (really true Cantonese) and hubby should drink more soup, so I tend to boil soup whenever I have the time to cook meals for the family.

I love to put red dates and wolfberries (gouji) together with pork or chicken to boil the soup. I tend to use pork more than chicken as it's best avoided if one has cough (my little girl tends to have sensitive nose that may cause her to cough from times to times), and I was told that consuming too much chicken is not good, especially for the females (forgot the reason).

For the red dates, there's a lot of benefits from consuming them, which you can always look up on the Internet. One thing I would like to share though is that it is important to slit it opened so that you can remove the seed inside (can see from the following picture that my red date is opened), check and wash the internal portion. This was what my mum told me... She said that the seed has to be removed as it is heaty, which would make your soup or drink heaty. Maybe that's why I often feel heaty after drinking red dates longan tea ("double" heatiness from the red dates seed and longan, lol!) during confinement period as confinement lady usually not that hardworking to remove the seed (my mum noticed that my confinement lady for 2nd birth did not remove the seed despite repeated reminders). The internal portion also needs to be checked to see if it has rot inside (sometimes inside may be rotten but it still looks okay on the outside), and washed too.

For the wolfberries, it's also beneficial to include them in your soup as it's good for better eyesight. As for longan, it sweeten up the soup but I seldom put this into my soup as longan is heaty. I put longan this time round so as to balance up a bit of the cooling and heaty elements as I was boiling old cucumber soup that is cooling and red dates (with the seed removed) are cooling.

Another ingredient that I like to put into soup is dried scallop (gan bei), which is not in the picture, as I ran out of this for quite some time and haven't really gotten the time to replenish it at a reasonable price.

Since I'm on the topic of soup, I just thought I would share a dilemma that I have. Soup gets tastier and tastier after each reheating, so the soup tastes nicer and nicer on the 2nd/3rd day. However, I've been told that leftover soup can cause wind in our body. For sure, I won't let my children drink any soup that's leftover from previous night(s), but should adults be drinking then??? Sometimes it's just so convenient to use leftover soup to cook a bowl of tasty maggie mee as you don't have to put in any MSG at all...

More Tips on Buying from Amazon

After I blogged on AmazonGlobal Saver Free Shipping to Singapore on Purchases Over USD125 (you should read this other posting first before reading this if you haven't read it yet), the pageviews on my blog suddenly shot up, seems like many of my friends couldn't resist shopping? But then again, I didn't make my blog site known on my FB until now when I used Blogger to share about shopping on Amazon with free shipping to Singapore.

If it is your first time trying to buy from Amazon and want to ship via AmazonGlobal Saver Free Shipping to Singapore, you may wish to read the following tips as well:

1. Ensure that you only select items that are "Ships from and sold by Amazon.com". If you select an item that is not sold by Amazon, including those that said "Fulfilled by Amazon", it is very highly possible that such item is not eligible for free shipping.

You would have to take particular attention, especially when you choose an item from the list of filtered items that are "AmazonGlobal Eligible" and when you launched that item page, you realised that there are other colours available, which you start thinking of buying the item in your favourite colour, but before you do so, do check it out if other colour options are also sold by Amazon, which sometimes may not be the case and probably why those colour options did not appear in the filtered list in the first place. Besides the difference in colour options, the price is also different, and those sold by Amazon are generally more cost effective.

Take the example below, only the black one is sold by Amazon and thus, is eligible for free shipping while the blue and green ones are not eligible for free shipping.

However, not all "AmazonGlobal Eligible" and "Ships from and sold by Amazon.com" items are eligible for free shipping even if your purchase is over USD125, read the other Amazon posting to find out how you can determine if an item is eligible for free shipping. I hope Amazon can do something about it and make shopping less painful for us, then again, maybe it's a deterrent for us not to buy too much, lol! 

2. If you need some of the items urgently, you may wish to avoid eligible items that state certain delivery lead time as it would take much longer for your order to be shipped out.

3. I would not recommend using Amazon's exchange rate as I personally feel that the rate is less attractive than your credit card rate (unless your credit card is from a bank that charges high admin fees).

4. Do not spend more than total SGD400, which this amount includes the items charges and shipping fees, as you would need to pay for GST if you spend beyond that. If your purchase is eligible for AmazonGlobal Saver Free shipping, just need to ensure that the items charges do not exceed SGD400 and set a higher exchange rate for USD to SGD, just to be on the safe side.

5. If you would really like to get an item that can be shipped internationally but not eligible for free shipping, you may wish to purchase this particular item separately. There is no point lumping all the items together in one purchase and pay shipping for items that are eligible for free shipping just so that you can get this item as well? Of course, you can try your luck to get Amazon staff to help you waive off the entire shipping fees, questioning them that that particular item is AmazonGlobal Eligible, and hence, there should not be any shipping charge, but no one can guarantee the success rate of doing so. If you are purchasing that particular item separately, you can check it out if there's any on-going Amazon spree on singaporemotherhood forum as it's often more economical to poll orders to share out the shipping charges.

Hopefully the information I shared on this post helps as well. :)

AmazonGlobal Saver Free Shipping to Singapore on Purchases Over USD125

I finally have time to figure out how to shop on Amazon for items that are eligible for the AmazonGlobal Saver Free Shipping to Singapore, and just placed an order to get some Christmas presents and other stuff. *happy* For a start, it seems a little confusing to shop for items that are eligible for the free shipping. However, after you know how it works, it gets easier albeit troublesome. Hence, you would need to have patience and shop when you have time to browse through the site so that you can trial and error on the items that you are interested to get.

A few friends had asked me how do we know which items are entitled to free shipping to Singapore. I did some screen captures and going to do some kind of step-by-step instructions, as follows. Hopefully these instructions would help people to understand how to go about shopping on Amazon with free shipping to Singapore.

Instructions to shop on Amazon to get AmazonGlobal Saver Free Shipping to Singapore:

1.  Logon to Amazon. Create an account if you don't already have one and make sure you have a Singapore shipping address saved in your account.

2. In the search bar, type the item that you want to search for. In my example, I used "hello kitty toys".

3. The search results which are considered as "hello kitty toys" would be displayed. Scroll down the page until you see "AmazonGlobal Eligible" under International Shipping (see the black arrow), and checked it. Once you've checked it, the search results would be refreshed to show only items that are eligible for AmazonGlobal; however, note that this does not mean that all the listed items are eligible for free shipping.

4. From the list, select the item that you would like to buy and add to the cart. To test out if the item is eligible for free shipping, select the quantity so that the total cart amount would be more than USD125 as you need to buy at least USD125 worth of items to be eligible for free shipping. In my example, I used Mega Bloks - Helly Kitty Treehouse that costs USD19.99, so need to buy at least 7  (see the black arrow) so that the total cart amount would be more than USD125. 

I choose this item as an example as it's currently selling in Takashimaya as an "exclusive toy to Takashimaya" at SGD99.95, so you can see the amount of savings that you can get if you buy from US website, e.g. Amazon instead. For the price that you pay in Singapore, you can buy 3 from Amazon and yet, still have balance amount to buy yourself a decent meal or get McDelivery to deliver a late night supper while you shop online, lol!

5. Proceed to checkout the cart.

6. Select the Singapore shipping address (see the black arrow).

7. If the selected item is eligible for free shipping to Singapore, you would be given the option "Free AmazonGlobal Saver (averages 9-14 days)" as a shipping speed (see the black arrow). In my example, the item is eligible for free shipping. If you do not see this option available, it means that this item is not eligible for free shipping.

8. Continue your shopping spree and do steps 2-7 as above until your actual total cart amount reaches USD125. Actual total cart amount means the sum of your intended purchases, and not based on the amount that you test out if the item is eligible for free shipping (see below picture which shows the testing amount as one is unlikely to buy so many pieces of the same item unless it's a consolidated spree by few people who are buying the same thing). Hence, as you proceed with the shopping and when your purchases have finally reached more than USD125, do remember to adjust the quantity to the actual quantity that you intend to buy. Do a thorough check on the quantity of all selected items before you make that final purchase.

A little bit of caution... the prices on Amazon are rather volatile, they may change faster than the stock exchange, and sometimes at quite a significant difference, so if you are browsing the site over a couple of days, you may be prompted several times of price changes in your item(s). Sometimes, if the price increases too much, you might wish to hold back your order and wait for the price to drop; however, doing so may cause the price of other items to go up, so do prioritise the items that you really want and be prepared to drop any item that has gone up too pricey for you.

Hopefully, you would benefit from my sharing and enjoy a better shopping experience on Amazon for free shipping to Singapore! :)

Nama Chocolate on 16 Nov 2013

I bought the ingredients at least 2 weeks ago, and now finally gotten the chance to make Nama Chocolate, lol! I'm using the recipe from Angela Chia, which you can find it at http://chiaangela.blogspot.sg/2013/08/nama-chocolate.html.

You don't need a lot of ingredients for this and not too difficult to make.

The output looks alright, isn't it? I have to confess that it doesn't look as good before coated with cocoa powder. I think I didn't warm the whipping cream enough as I was afraid that it would boil, and didn't break the chocolate into much smaller pieces than I should (lazy, lol), so the mixture wasn't that well mixed. They taste fine though. There's definitely room for improvement but it would be my 1st and last attempt, haha... simply because hubby prefers to eat the chocolate by itself without the cocoa powder, even better... save my trouble of making this.

Crucial Conversations

I recently just attended a Crucial Conversations course conducted by True North, and find that this is really a good course. The cost materials include a toolkit that contains the contents taught during the course, a book and a set of 6 CDs, as shown in the follow picture.

The course taught us to differentiate facts (e.g. what you see or hear yourself) versus stories (e.g. other people's opinions that you hear from them on what they see or hear). It taught us this important word - STATE and to use this during our crucial conversations.

S: - State the FACTS (facts are facts, more persuasive and least consulting; feelings and stories often keep us from facts)

T: - Tell the Stories

A: - Ask for Other's Paths (the magic sentence - "Can you help me better understand?")

T: - Talk Tentatively (e.g. saying "In my opinion" is more tentative than saying "The fact of the matter is" as the latter is too forceful)

E: - Encourage Testing (sincerely inviting differing opinions)

Before attending the course, many participants, including me, felt that we jumbled up the facts and stories, and said facts and stories together instead of saying all the facts first followed by stories. This often leads to the other party thinking the stories you said are real, which may not be real in reality, and indirectly causing the other party to be defensive. After attending the course, we concluded that we should really try out "STATE". Hopefully I would remember this and many other useful things taught during the course, and apply them in work, with family and friends.

It's hard to share with you in details of what I've learnt through blogging, considering that I've learnt via 2 days of classroom style learning with a trainer guiding us through learning scenarios. If you are keen to know more, you should really consider attending the course! :)