Category: Retail/Services Reviews

Why I decided to laser my eyes.

It started innocently enough, in the 2nd year of college, I found myself having to move my seat to the front row because I couldn’t make out what’s written on the whiteboard.

I started watching television from the distance of an arm’s length rather than several feet away. I began falling asleep in the midst of supposedly good movies in cinemas (which pissed Gareth off :P). I dreaded driving in the rain. I gained a reputation of being arrogant because I didn’t smile at people!

All thanks to my deteriorated eyesight. Mostly genetics, but definitely accelerated by long hours in front of the computer.

Mom was crushed when I had to start wearing glasses. To begin with, I couldn’t be more of a disappointment of a daughter for my mom. I already didn’t take care of my appearance as much as she believed a girl should. I would go out into the sun and came home ghastly tanned. I would step out of the house with frizzy, uncombed hair. And now her one and only daughter had to wear glasses. I bet she was thinking, “She’s not getting married, ever”. Hahaha.

I didn’t really care to be honest. I was already experimenting with those douchebag glassless spectacles before so I was rather thrilled that I now had a legitimate reason to wear one. So I went with Dad to an optical shop near home and a week later, I got my first pair of prescription glasses.

The novelty of wearing glasses quickly wore off. It sucked! It kept sliding off my face, didn’t help that I was born with flat pudgy nose. It kept fogging up when I exited my car. I kept having to clean the smudges and fingerprints.

# – A rare picture of me wearing my first pair of glasses eating Super Rings. Must be around year 2004 here.

Thanks to all the hassles, I only wore it for driving at night. My glasses were pretty much untouched the rest of time. Till I went for a job interview where having good eyesight was a prerequisite.

The doctor told me to get contact lenses, otherwise he would have to leave a remark on my medical report about my eyes and he told me point blank – I wouldn’t be hired. I’d never worn contact lenses in my life then and the thought of it freaked me out. I think that was the first time I ever felt truly disappointed by my problematic eyes.

Left with no choice, I got myself a pair of contact lenses. I got the job eventually but I never wore them. Luckily I was never in a situation where my eyesight was truly tested! Phew.

Until this day, I still couldn’t put on contact lenses without spending almost an hour on each eye. My eyes would get so reddened and watery, it just didn’t make much sense to put myself through the hassle.

As years passed though, my eyes got worse. I just couldn’t tread along without any vision aid. At last, I made a decision to wear glasses full time. I was like, since it’s probably forever, there’s no point hiding the fact that I’m four-eyed.

So, I decided to just get the most outrageous pair I could get my hands on. Hence, the arrival of my “Chicken Little” glasses that you, my readers had either come to love or hate.

# – My glasses that should have its own fanpage.

They were converted from a pair of sunglasses. Heavy, but I loved that my line of vision was hardly obstructed by the frames. Mom, was of course horrified but by now she knew she couldn’t do much to convince her daughter when it comes to appearance.

I think it was around the same time that I stopped wearing eye makeup too, haha. What’s the point? Cannot see also!

With my large spectacles, the familiar pesky problems returned. Spectacles fogging up, sweat pooling behind glasses (gross stuff), constantly having to clean the glasses (took me 5 minutes everytime cause damn glasses were so big), kids crying cause got spooked by my abnormally large “eyes”, rude relatives making rude remarks, looking like crap cause no point wearing makeup…the list continued.

But it’s still fine. I didn’t have to fall asleep in cinemas anymore. I could drive safely. I could see my friends from far. I could function, you know. That said, it still pissed me off whenever I had to watch 3D films, man it’s hard to balance two gigantic spectacles on a flat Asian face.

Then I got itchy butt and went to get a scuba diving license. I love it! The feeling of being suspended underwater is indescribable, only fellow divers would understand. But I knew that I hadn’t truly enjoyed diving because of my eyesight.

Frankly, from my first dive till now, I’ve had pretty good luck with meeting rare creatures underwater. The operative word here being “meeting”, not seeing.

# – Diving with shortsightedness.

Everytime, my divemaster would be like, “Kim did you see that shark? Kim, did you see that trumpet fish? I’d be like, yeah I did *smiley face*. But truthfully, all I saw were greyish blueish blobs. I guess I could have gotten prescription mask but it’s already hard enough to find an ordinary mask that fits my face T_T

And that feeling of disappointment with my eyes came back, every single time I went diving!

Despite wearing a ginormous pair of glasses and still never really took care of my physical appearance, I got proposed. As in marriage. See, mom? Hehe.

Anyway, we got straight to planning the wedding and then it dawned on me that I might not see Gareth clearly on our wedding day. I won’t be wearing contact lenses cause I don’t want to have red & watery eyes but I also CANNOT wear glasses on my wedding day. I just can’t bring myself to. I don’t want to be a four-eyed bride.

I want to have fake lashes so long Gareth would spot them first before he sees my face. The glasses would bend my eyelashes. Also, I would have nervous sweat pooled behind my glasses on my wedding day. I don’t want to be gross on my wedding day. The glasses would mess with my hair. Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

# – I wore glasses on our Registration of Marriage day. Prefer not to on wedding day.

And that’s basically how I decided that I would get my eyes lasered once and for all. The most important day of my life, the most important day of a woman’s life. Getting married to the love of my life and presenting myself to him without a gigantic structure perched upon my nose.

I want to be able to bury my face into his chest without having to kill the moment by pausing to remove my glasses. I wanted to, no, I needed to laser my eyes and bid adieu to my “Chicken Little” glasses. I think I was so determined that I wasn’t even scared by the prospect of having laser shot into my eyes.

I asked a few friends who have had the Laser treatment done and the place with the most positive comments were all for Optimax Eye Specialist. My friend Celine in particular, is very, very happy and she did it 6 years ago with them.

I gave Optimax a call and was so impressed by the call operator herself who was so knowledgeable, I immediately made an appointment for a full eye checkup, which basically is a checkup too see if my eye were fit for the procedure. You must have normal to thick cornea thickness otherwise it’s not recommended and there are other procedures for people with thin corneas.

Well, at time of writing, I have already had the Custom All Laser Lasik procedure done and I couldn’t be more pleased. I don’t know how to put into words as to how happy I am and how excited I am with the future. And with the wedding, of course :)

Next post is going to be about my eye check-up and the experience of having my eyes lasered. Woohoo!

My experience undergoing a full comprehensive health check.

Happy Valentine’s Day people! On this lovey dovey day I would like to share my personal experience of getting a comprehensive health check. Why? Because I think that the greatest gift for your partner (and yourself) is not a bouquet of flowers or a box of chocolates, but the promise of good health.

My last health check-up was in 2006. Yeah, I’ve had been a bad, bad, bad girl. I should be getting a medical check annually but you know what, it’s hard to blame myself considering my past experience.

I mean, just read this excerpt of that old blog post:

The clinic itself was a house of labyrinth, complete with winding stairs, long corridors and unlabelled rooms. It was more nerve-racking being at the clinic than at the job interviews; the place was seriously spooky. After asking a few members of the staff, I finally found the receptionist.

Anyway, I handed my documents to the surprisingly pleasant-faced lady and was asked to take a seat. But I went to the loo instead, courtesy of downing two big glasses of chinese tea at breakfast while watching my Dad devoured his delicious pork noodle. After that, I was called into a room and a girl handed me a small bottle reminiscent of Brand’s Chicken Essence. I told the girl I would try my best.

Shady clinic, unlabelled rooms, staff with cold demeanor and chicken essence bottle for pee collection??

Wow, no wonder I never gotten around to have another check-up. That was until G and I were considering taking the matrimonial plunge that we thought perhaps we should find out if either of us had any genetic incompatibilities (future baby making purposes) but most of all, we just felt that we had been pushing our lucks far too far by delaying this crucial task.

After a thorough research, we decided to go with BP Healthcare. It seems to have a good facility and it has all the tests that we want within our budget. Also, we’ve heard pretty good comments about it.

# – The main BP Healthcare facility is a large building in Glenmarie.

As I entered, I was completely blown away. I was expecting walls with peeling paints & watermarks, staff that hate their jobs, smelly stained settee and general scariness (yes, I can have a pretty grim disposition). But everything looked so clean and sleek and modern. WHAT IS THIS SORCERY???

# – Sofas that I want for my own home T_T

# – Reception cum pharmacy with cheerful staff.

We registered ourselves at the reception and were told to wait for someone to get us. Less than 5 minutes later, a nutritionist introduced himself and led us to a consultation room. I know it’s a consultation room because every room was labelled. Hah!

# – All the rooms were clean & tastefully decorated.

# – Being interviewed by the nutritionist about my lifestyle etc.

Besides gathering more information about my lifestyle, my height & weight measurements were taken as well as a sample of my blood.

# – Less painful than a mossie bite :)

# – Used syringes are discarded properly.

And then it began. I was led from one room to another, each for a different type of test. In one room, I had ultrasound done on my breasts, abdomen & pelvic areas by a radiologist. In another, I had my bone density scanned. And stress test was also done in its own room by a consultant doctor. Oh, not to forget chest x-ray too. The machines were state-of-the-art staff, nothing I’ve ever seen before! *jakun*.

# – About to jog in my scrubs.

The funnest part of the check-up was running on the treadmill with about a dozen pads strapped on to my chest. I know it’s weird but I actually really enjoy running on a treadmill. *Major hint to hubby for new treadmill*

Before I forget, instead of being forced to take a bottle of yellow sunshine out into the public area, there’s actually a designated drop-off area inside the toilet where you can leave your urine sample discreetly. PHEW!

All in all, the entire checkup took a few hours. I’d recommend that you take a day’s leave if you intend to have the same checkup done (ours was called Head2Toe).

For women, the waiting time for results is a week, but for men is only 3 days. Something to do with the pap smear results or something taking longer.

A week later, we went back to the centre to collect our results.

I was a nervous wreck. A lot of questions went through my head, what if I have an incurable disease? What if I am barren? What if this? What if that? What if, what if, what if??

5 years of not having any checkup does that to you I guess :P

# – Species Name: Nervous Wreck.

Looking at preserved damaged organs that belonged to other people didn’t help one bit.

# – A scary looking tyroid gland.

# – I think this was just a growth removed from the leg of a poor man. Ouch :(

After what seemed like an eternity, although in reality it’s only 5 minutes, I was led to see a doctor who interpreted my results.

# – Explaining all the medical terms & answering my questions patiently.

Finally, she gave me a clean bill of health but not without advice of more exercises and healthier food :)

# – A heavy stack of documents containing all the result of every test. Even things like ultrasound printouts, heartrate chart, bone density chart and many more. All these were explained and interpreted by the doctor.

So there, my experience going for a full medical check-up. So glad we did it, we have since been more conscious & informed about our diet and exercise, now that we are educated about our own bodies. I totally recommend it!

Singapore shopping haul.

We were in Singapore over the weekend. We stayed at Hotel 81 Star in the middle of the red light district, Geylang. It was an interesting area.

The primary objective of the trip was to get myself a food processor. Since we started on a slow carb diet, I’ve had found myself pureeing and cutting ingredients much more creatively. Relying on just my old school blender and knife was more difficult than I had anticipated.

Plus, I needed a food processor to make short crust pastry…for those wonderful diet cheat days :P

Behold…my new Braun Multiquick 7 K3000 aka the Kitchen Machine.

# – The large box to house loads of accessories.

Our initial plan was to get something from the Philips Robust Collection or a Magimix, but to our surprise, none of the products were carried by the land of Singapore.

The Multiquick 7 caught our eyes and after reading 9 stellar reviews on Amazon, we decided to take it.

# – Wasted no time to test it out.

# – The french fries cutting blade was amazing! 3 potatoes cut to perfection in under a minute.

Unfortunately, as I was too engrossed with my new toy, I burnt my first batch of fries made with the Multiquick 7 :(

But it’s okay, I expect the machine to last me through to my mid 50s. That’s a lot, a lot of fries.

# – I cleared out a drawer specially just to store all the accessories so everything is within reach. The last thing I want is something to sit at the back of the cabinet collecting dusts.

In the midst of hunting for the food processor, we managed to do some unnecessary shopping too.

By the way, we dropped by DFS Galleria, that place is quite scary lor. Lots of ravenous looking rich middle aged PRC women shopping and their men dozing off in the plush sofas waiting.

I can’t say I wasn’t wishful but for now, my man & I happily crossed the bridge to Far East Plaza which is directly opposite DFS, hehehe.

This bag caught my eyes.

# – $49.90 SING for a full leather bag. SCORE!

# – It has baby skulls all over it. SCORE!!

On our last day in Singapore, we also checked out Bencoolen Plaza for cheap Casio watches.

While the man got himself a serious, features-packed G-Shock, I got myself a pink watch.

With pink illumination. Hehehehe.

# – My pink G-Shock.

# – <3

This was by far one of my nicest trip to Singapore filled with good food (yeah, I’m surprised too) and good shopping. The weather held up nicely for us too, not too hot or humid. Will blog about our food trail soon.

Have a good Monday!