Bugaboo Cameleon 3 (2015 classic) vs. Uppababy Vista 2015

We own three of everything for Brevi, and this is NOT IN ANY WAY meant to come off as showing off, as it wasn’t by choice. (so no judgemental moms pls.) Because we aren’t merely “visiting” Korea and the US but actually staying there for weeks to months at a time, we felt it was necessary to buy separate baby items for each countries to save ourselves the trouble of lugging everything around. It sucked buying three of everything, but it also meant I have the opportunity to try out the other close competitor products that I couldn’t narrow down in my baby item search. This review is for baby strollers, which is every mother’s most talked about baby item! note: this isn’t a tech review, you can find specs of these strollers at youtube channels and other websites. It’s just an honest review of the pros I saw in each stroller after having used it for a year.

From the popular and the highly rated strollers in all three countries (listed at the bottom of post), we narrowed down our choice to Bugaboo Cameleon 3 (for Singapore) and Uppababy Vista 2015 (for America) because of their SMOOTHEST push. I am pretty petite, at only 100lbs, so it was important for me that this presumed heaviest deluxe stroller had an extremely easy push, preferably with one hand.  We bought, tried and tested both strollers on our own baby for over a year before writing this review and I can confidently say that YES, both are extremely smooth, and as most reviews state, they are extremely well made! it’s funny that I CANNOT bother pushing a market cart anymore after I’ve been spoiled by the stroller’s easy push around the market and just throwing everything down the underseat basket.

side note: For Korea and for easy transit between airports, we got an umbrella stroller (Emotion by Babyhome, more on umbrella strollers in another post!) because there was no way we are taking deluxe strollers on flights.

Our Maid Story (She didn’t return)

This is a belated post and an update on the previous post where I had sent my helper back to Philippines. I got several questions meanwhile in regards to the self-applying process and I hope it helped some of the readers out there! Super easy and I’d do it again next time (after the two year contract is up this time around, as you’ll find out shortly). But there has been an unfortunate and totally unexpected happening upon our return- our maid never came back. It was crazy and just totally unexpected because we had really trusted her, but as always, life goes on, and we’ve managed to find a new helper during the two months time and now living happily ever after again. Thought I’d share the story with some of the readers as I’ve written about the visa process!

How to Apply for “Home Leave” for your Filipino Maid (without an agency!)

Thought I’d share with you the steps I took in successfully applying for home leave on my own, without going through an agency in Singapore, bc we’ve just applied and received ours this week! I brought my dog Milk here from the US without one detailed in the post here (though it was a super frustrating and LONG process), so I figured I can do this too. It wasn’t easy as the philippine embassy want to make it as confusing for you as possible so that you end up paying up and hiring the agency to do it for you. But it can be done, with a bit of patience and persistence. I’ve tried to best summarize the steps so that you can just follow the steps below and not think twice about it.

Few things to note:

• Start this 2~3 months prior her departure date.
• If you go through a Lucky Plaza agency to do this for you, it’ll cost you anywhere from $280 to 400. You can have your maid go and compare the rates amongst the agencies. You do not and should not go through the agency in which you hired your maid (unless it’s one of the few that has this service in Lucky Plaza), as they will basically hire a third-party agency (yes, those in Lucky Plaza that you can find yourself) to do it for them and charge you another $50~100 on top for the referral fee.
• If you do this on your own, it’ll cost you anywhere between $100~180, depending on the documents that you already have.
• Despite what is generally known, you CAN apply without an agency even if your helper has not yet finished her contract. My helper has worked with me only for 3 months and we have successfully done this on our own.
• The maid can, during a weekday (Philippine Embassy hours: Mondays to Fridays from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.) go to embassy on her own and apply herself. You, the employer, do not need to be there.
• Make sure to make copies of all the documents (at least three or more for each, as it seems to differ for each officer), the embassy otherwise charges $0.50 cents per.
• Make sure your maid is dressed in pants below her knees and closed sandals, or she won’t be allowed in the embassy.

Back in Singapore as a Mommy!

I’m back in Singapore! I’ve changed around the look of my site and bought an official domain, so hopefully this will get me into the habit of updating my blog more frequently. I get a lot of messages in regards to Korean weddings (not to worry, the older entries are continuously updated) and I hope to also expand this blog to Korean beauty blog and Korean-style-mixed-with-western motherhood blog as well. I am a total skin care fanatic, as many Korean girls are, and have tried thousand of masks, pore cleansers, sprays to maintain the radiant glow most Korean women in Korea seem to have.  On a visit to Korea, It’s definitely not so easy choosing from thousands of brands out there. So I hope to take the stress off and share one product at a time with you! Korean women believe once your skin glows, any type of makeup will suit you well. So before anything, work on your skin first!

Singapore at 10-months

This is a long overdue post. I had spent too much time at work being in front of the computer screen… that I wanted away from any social media for a bit. But here goes another post before it gets any more delayed! thanks for some of you readers who’ve pushed me to update again. 🙂  random thoughts:

• feels good to commute with hubby to work since we work at the same area and have similar work hours
• joined yoga right across the street from work so I can go during lunch/after work. It’s way more expensive than the centers i’ve attended in New York and Los Angeles and the teacher quality is worse.. & ended up paying two years up front to save a bit on high monthly costs. fml
• found my hubby a personal trainer that comes to our condo. hoping to see some results!
• attended intensive Mandarin course in City hall after work every Monday/Wednesdays from 7~10pm.. but we got too tired too fast and decided to go private. We laughed to ourselves that we need everyone to have to come to our condo in order for us to accomplish anything…
• finally found decent online organic market that sells grass-fed meat/certified organic veggies. I was so used to eating mostly organic back in America at home.. but it’s hard to find decent stores here and the prices are outrageous. I guess it’s not a Singapore thing?
• still haven’t found a good spa for facials as the ones I get in Korea. tried three spas and still looking…
• We are traveling to Hong Kong, Hochiminh, and Phuket later this year!

hubby wrote “wo ai ni” in Korean haha.. we’re too tired to concentrate in class!

I’ve spent majority of the time since my last post looking for life-necessities in Singapore: fitness, organic groceries, language center, hair, skin care, etc. Everything was as expected 1.5~2x the cost back in LA/NY/Seoul, and sadly, the quality was worse. We had essentially downgraded a lot of aspects in our lives (car, house size and quality, retail service, groceries, fitness/skin care/salon quality and price) being here, but I am still thankful that I’m having the opportunity to live in yet another city. my daily motto is: think positive (or at least try)!

plants i bought for our home 🙂

From what I’ve observed thus far, Singapore isn’t as foreigner-friendly as we’ve been told though, with introduction of new government measures that further restrict foreigners, high expat living cost (to enjoy even a little of what we’ve had back at home), difficult education enrollment for expat’s children, to name a few. and I wonder at times if the government really made the right choice in pushing Singapore to become an international hub. If they hadn’t- yes, there wouldn’t be as many MNCs, which created jobs for the locals, which partly lead to the tremendous economic growth that it enjoyed, which created the highest number of millionaires per capita, blah blah blah- but perhaps the majority of locals who weren’t so lucky to ride up with the rest would’ve been happier living in a country that they can afford? The local salaries are surprisingly low (I’m on local pay) and I feel it’s unfair to locals that their salaries are much lower than those with the same positions in America, when the cost of living is much higher here- just an opinion. American expats have to get paid almost double to even match a small bit the lifestyle they’ve lead back at home, and I understand that Korean expats usually mostly get their children’s education fees and housing covered by company, in order to consider relocating.

One thing that’s cheaper in Singapore is food at hawker centers. I’ve noticed that most locals eat at a hawker during work lunch, where everything is mostly under $5. As a lover of trying new delicacies, I’ve also happily joined in with my coworkers and now frequent hawkers during work lunch, eating dishes including but not limited to: fish soup, chicken rice, pig organ soup, and yong tau foo. It grew on me after awhile and they’re delish! At first, the place seemed a bit unsanitary (truthfully speaking- no offense. will change the view setting to private, if asked), it’s kind of like run down food shops you’d see in scary neighborhoods in the states that are in need of renovation. but i think it’s all part of the culture here. I wouldn’t mind paying more for better quality ingredients and new sets of bowls/utensils/trays though.

I forgot to update my bali trip and that’ll be my next post. Our next destination is Vietnam 🙂