Garden By The Bay - Christmas Sugar Mountain Edition!

I got two free tickets to the Conservatories, thanks to DB Corporate Responsibility! Decided to use it this weekend, which was nice cause the Christmas decoration is all up at the gardens!

Reach there at around 12pm, bright sky = nice pic, but it was really hot!

The weather was really sunny, and we're glassful that the dome is cooled. Spend some time walking around adoring the creation of Kazuyuki Ishihara. A lot of cute pineapples and strawberries along the way ^^;

Greeted by Pine and Straw at the entrance

The infamous chair came with Christmas decorated!

Love the deers! They are made of sticks.

The picture from second floor :)

I like the Christmas decoration, but I miss the big flower patch which it used to have (of course, the garden can't fit all). Well, I guess it means I have to come back next time!

At the infamous fall! It was raining both inside and outside the dome!

These train is meant to demonstrate energy conservation, guess wasn't there before!

I thought I will spend whole day there, but apparently it took us less than two hours to cover both domes. By the time we finish, the rain stops and we walked to Marina Bay Sands for windows shopping.

Passed through the 36km mark! I remember how much I suffer last year ^^;

Experiencing the TWG Cafe! The signature 1837 Black Tea was really nice!

What better to conclude a nice saturday than... a KFC seat meal! Tried out the new Korea Flavours, but I still prefer the usual Crispy! And I didn't know that Cheese Fries' price has increased so much! It's $4 for ala carte! I have to agree though that the taste has significantly improved.

KFC Spicy Korean Craze!

Till the next date!

ED

Rec Club AGM @ Resort World Sentosa

I haven't been taking proper picture these days. I went to 5 hours at Sentosa and took less than 30 pictures. What's wrong with me!!

My team! Taken from Photo Booth. Hahahahahaha

Anyway, today is our Rec Club AGM. Well, it used to be called Dnd andAGM. But now that they did it in the morning, they have to remove the word DnD. Despite planned at 9am on a Saturday, it's still the most awaited event this year. We had it at Resort World Convention Center - I suspect that majority of the budget goes to renting the place and hence reduction in the lucky draw's prize. But I'm still pleased to get one tix of Universal Studio for the door prize XD.

Our Free Shuttle Bus to Resort World!

The theme this year is Hawaian. I opened my wardrobe and can't believe that I have zero flowery cloth. None. All my cloths are solid colours. I decided to go with a dress, which totally didn't meet the standard of hawaian look =.=

Trying hard to instil bits of Hawaian with Galland

Our table! during table game

Buffet Lunch! It was decent

I was quite engrossed with the whole event. There are so many familiar faces and I'm excited trying to see which one to talk to ^^; The event finish at 1pm and most of us went straight to the monorail. I don't think anyone actually used up the Universal Studio tix that day XD

With the pretty girls :D

I reached back home at around 2pm and sleep like pig until 5pm. I don't know what happen to me T_T I eat and sleep like no tomorrow these days. After awake, I attended some go-live calls until 9pm, and now going to watch some movies :D

Yay it's only Sat!
ED

The Bull Charge Run + Aftermath Dinner's at Medz

Is this my first run for 2013? I think so! I promised myself last year that I won't run unless it's a sponsored run. Well, apparently there are not so many people who want to sponsor me. I have to wait until end of Nov to get one. That's also only for 5 KM. haha

I start to like the bull after awhile. Especially the real mascot at the side!

The 8000+ of banker-looking runners

So this run is unique for me on its own way. I came really late due to some training at the other side of the country. I tried to get taxi for 20 mins but failed miserably. I finally took a random bus and asked the bus captain to drop me at somewhere more crowder where it's easier for me to get a taxi. Well, he was helpful. After another 20 mins, I finally got into a taxi. The driver was thankfully a super experience one. He avoided all the jam area and delivered me on time to the starting area at 6:00pm.

The first flag off started at 6:05pm. I quickly changed  and got into the pen onetime, but wasn't able to deposit my bag. Hence, well. I carry my bag along for the 5km run ^^; I haven't seen any picture of the event but I can guarantee that I will be silly. Since I was at the last pen, I have to wait for around 40 minutes before flag off =__= Thankfully, the weather is nice and the route was also happening :) We passed through the office district + Marina Bay Sands, and finished the run at Float @ Marina Bay. It was around 7:15pm when I finished the run.

After run and some briefing, Maria and I went to Millennia Walk for... free shower @ Fitness First :p Finished with the shower, I had dinner with KO at Medz - a restaurant with concept really similar to Marche!

I'm very sure that the calories are more than what I burnt during the run

Finish with dinner, I went back home and well, login to office to monitor our major release. It's busy busy weeks ahead! I really can't wait for Christmas to come.

One more release and One more run for the year!

ED

Bloomberg Training

Thanks to Kanika, we got to visit Bloomberg Singapore earlier this week. Official objective is to get a quick training on Bloomberg terminal. Side purpose is to check out the legendary Bloomberg pantry :P

A really nice guest card

The training started at 4pm, where a very nice lady from analytic team running us through the Bloomberg history. It was an interesting one. So Michael Bloomberg the founder is currently the Major in New York City. He loves fish tank a lot and it's available in each Bloomberg office around the world! The other signature is of course the pantry. Saying that it's like 7-11 is understatement. It's mini market and beyond! They have like 6 type of cornflakes, chocolate from M&M to Hersey, drinks from marigold to jia jia liang cha, peanuts, prunes, and many more. I really wanted to take a picture of the pantry but not allowed T_T So I did a quick browse on internet and find something similar.

There are at least 8 sections like this at the pantry

Pantry aside, I really like the office setting. I though our office is open, but their office is even more transparent. There was long table without any divider. No room for managements. Glass doors for all the meeting room. They event have a news room where they shot live to Bloomberg channel. It was really cool!

When we about to leave at 6pm, we saw the whole bunch of office people dressed in costume - snow white, batman, etc. Turned out they have a company-wide event that day, with games and free food and drinks. Oh man. It's not even Friday!

The training itself was an eye opener as well. Bloomberg is such a powerful tool (with USD 1800 / month for subscription, it better be) and it makes me feel that I know so little about financial industry. I definitely want to go to the pantr.. I mean, go for the training again if there is chance. So much to learn!

I love visiting other company's office :)
ED

Welcome back, Macbook Pro!

I haven't been blogging for the whole Nov!!

Well, I had some technical difficulty. My Macbook Pro went to hospital (twice!) and just came back this week. Lucky that I bought an insurance which covers its surgery. It would have otherwise cost me $800 easily (for the logic board + memory). Ha! Just when I thought I wasted $350 for my Apple Care.

It was all started one fine day near Halloween. I was watching clicknetwork and reading mails. Suddenly my laptop restarted by itself. I was quite taken as it has never happened to Mac before (even though it's a very common trait in Windows). I decided not to overreact, letting it finish restarting and continue doing my stuff.

Then it happened again the next day. I thought the OS might be corrupted, so I decided to take the chance to install Mavericks. Well, bad move. The installation kept getting stuck in the middle and I can't even to into the login screen after a very dubious installation =_='

After all those misfortunes, I decided to run Apple Hardware Test (for the first time in 3 years). True enough, it showed memory error, within 6 seconds of diagnostic.

Memory Error - Why is Apple also using blue screen? 

Long story short, I carried my laptop to QCD @ Funan, one of Apple Authorized Service Providers. I explained to them what happened and they took in my laptop. Within 3 days, they called saying that they changed my logic board and issue has been fixed. I happily went to collect and brought it back home.

Out of curiosity, I run the test again and well, guess what. Yes, I still encountered the memory issue =___='' Despite all my detailed writing of the memory issue in the form, they didn't even bother to check the memory and just changed the logic board? I went back to the store again the next day and passed them my CD so that they can check on my behalf.

So this week they called me again, confirmed that they changed my memory and things are now OK. I went back to Funan for the 4th time and hope it to be the last for this issue! Well, I did a clean install of Mavericks and things seem to be OK for now. Just pray that nothing major will happen after Nov. The Apple Care is expiring this month XD

When I was browsing at Funan, I did a quick check on how much they priced second  hand Macbook Pro (mid 2010). Make a guess! ... It's $300 =_=' I bought it for $2000++! Can't believe how fast thing depreciate huh... I'm still quite tempted to sell it off and buy myself a Macbook Air... but it's working well now... so... Maybe I will just continue using it until it dies before I buy a new one.

Alright, I missed blogging lots of things - farewell, birthday, Halloween, Deepavali, new foods... but I'm hungry now... so bye!

Suddenly year end seems so near!
ED

[Back-Up Post] Hello Dayre!

First post on Dayre!

I woke up today at 5.30am. Cant believe that happened, especially after yesterday's midnight movie session until 1am (watched Steve Jobs, kind of dissapointed).

My sore throat and coughing and flu aren't recovering. Well, Im not expecting much after the big feast at Morganfield's the other night. Just hoping that it wont get any worse! I was contemplating if I should go Badminton. Maybe I should now that Im already fully awake.

Morganfield's

Nyummy ribs! The culprit of my sore throat