ABBA fever

We have caught the ABBA fever!



But more of that later in this post....

Da and I celebrated TGIS (Thank God It's Saturday) by going on a little excursion to People's Park Centre, which is a shopping centre in the heart of Chinatown. The shopping centre has four floors of retail shopping and a pair of towers which are used for office space and residential usage. The shopping centre is located at the junction of Eu Tong Sen Street and Upper Cross Street.

(photograph source: Wikipedia)

As we arrived at the shopping centre around lunch time, we decided to have our lunch at the food court in the basement. Da ordered Bi Bim Bab from the Korean stall.

I ordered the yong tauhu. I was very pleased to discover that the stall offers unlimited cooked beans - you simply scoop the amount of beans you want into your bowl.

It is amazing how time flies when one is browsing around the shops! All too soon, it was time to adjourn to the home of the Three Musketeers for dinner.

The family has started preparations for Christmas! They have not put up a Christmas tree yet but they have put up colourful light bulbs and arranged them to resemble the outline of a Christmas tree. It is delightful to look at.

When we arrived, ET was teaching Calla Lily how to cook Chinese food. You can see the preparation process in the slideshow at the end of this post (I am sure that Tiki will also be posting her own slideshow, so do check out her blog as well). I must say that the pig stomach in its un-cut state looks rather gross. Once cut, though, it looks like pig stomach that you can find at kway chap stalls or pig stomach soup stalls.

Dinner time! We brought along some belinjo snacks that we bought from a mobile stall at Amoy Street. For the uninitiated, gnetum gnemon is a species of gnetum native to southeast Asia and the western Pacific Ocean islands, from Assam south and east through Malaysia and Indonesia to the Philippines and Fiji. Common names include belinjo (Indonesian language). It is a small to medium-size tree, growing to 15-20 m tall. The seeds are ground into flour and deep-fried as crackers. The crackers have a slightly bitter taste and are frequently served as a snack or accompaniment to Indonesian dishes. (Source: Wikipedia)

The fish was steamed with home-made Thai sauce. Although lemon-grass was not added to the sauce, the sauce had a pleasant tangy flavour.

We are all more health conscious nowadays and as such, the steamboat had a lot of vegetables in it. Blackninja and I try to limit our rice intake to 1/2 a plate of rice each.

The more interesting food would be, naturally, the after-dinner snacks! The Hello Kitty design shortbread cookies were very tasty.

We also enjoyed a large plate of cut fruits comprising persimmon, longan, rambutan, fragrant pear and peach. Nining in particular enjoyed the longan.

Da and I had actually bought some sushi from Amara Shopping Centre to be eaten at dinner. However, as there were sufficient dishes for dinner, we decided to eat the sushi after dinner with coffee and the cinnamon apple raisin cupcakes that I had made. I declined to eat the sushi and Supercute ate my share on my behalf.

As promised, here is the slideshow.. enjoy!



So, where in all this does ABBA feature? Well, ever since Nining watched the movie MAMA MIA (a few times, actually!), she has caught the ABBA fever. Throughout dinner as well as after dinner, she kept saying, "I want Mama Mia!". She is not even 3 years of age but she can already sing ABBA songs. (Actually, she can also sing "Way Back Into Love", the theme song of the movie starring Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore.)

For the benefit of the little ones who have never heard of ABBA (shame on you! They are one of the best pop music groups ever, next to Bee Gees. Oops, you have never heard of Bee Gees either? tsk, tsk...), ABBA was a Swedish pop group active between the early 1970s and the early 1980s. The band comprised Benny Andersson (from Sweden), Björn Ulvaeus (from Sweden), Anni-Frid Lyngstad (from Norway) and Agnetha Fältskog (from Sweden). They topped the charts worldwide during their reign. The name "ABBA" is an acronym formed from the first letters of each of the group member's given name (Agnetha, Björn, Benny, Anni-Frid).

(photograph source: google.com)

For the benefit of Nining (and also because we were all walking down memory's lane), a VCD of ABBA music videos was played. As each music video was shown on the television screen, everyone sang along. It helped, of course, that the lyrics were shown on the screen, much like a karaoke session, I guess.

Such a pity that ABBA disbanded in the 1980s. Even till today, their songs are evergreen and even though two generations have gone by, even the current generation of children are able to enjoy their songs and sing along.

Some music groups arrange for a reunion tour. If ABBA were to ever have a reunion tour and to perform in Singapore, I would definitely not miss it! So, here's to ABBA!