In this world...

Fever, Sore Throat, Cough, Flu, and finally recovering!

2012-01-18T21:57:00.000+08:00

For me, it’s always the same cycle. The moment I start to have headache and sore throat, I know the cough and flu will follow no matter what I do. I completed my medication yesterday. I guess I am pretty much over the headache and sore throat phase… Now I’m at the end of cough phase and the beginning of flu phase. Just hope that the flu phase will come and go quickly… I have 3 more days until the big reunion dinner!

I’m in my best behavior this week. I have breakfast so that I can take my medication. I skip my exercise so I can have proper lunch. And again, I’m forced to have dinner so that I can take my medication afterwards. In normal day, you will never see me seating alone eating Soup Spoon at 9pm. Never! I hate eating alone… but what to do :( It’s also a big change for me to purposely walk up to canteen to get a steamed bun for breakfast. The most challenging part was the 3 days without coffee and chili. I believe I dreamt about them.

These 3 days have not been the best days in office, but I believe the illness played a big part in my perception. My friends told me that they are going home for CNY. Instead of feeling the spirit of CNY, I was grumpy because I got no lunch company for the next two days! Illness is really bad for your state of happiness.

I’m feeling better now and started to see things positively again :) He is coming back today, there are only two more working days, and I’m excited about weekend! Will be going back to hometown this Sunday and return to Singapore the following Sunday.

Last few steps in Rabbit Year,
ED

Photoshop: Timestamp your Digital Photos before Printing

2012-01-15T18:51:00.003+08:00

If you’re old enough, you will know that old pictures (I mean, roll-film pictures) normally come with timestamp at the bottom right corner.

Well, timestamp within the picture is no longer a common thing in the world of Digital Photography. I welcomed the change. For me, having a permanent timestamp in a picture is like having a hardcoding in your program – it just makes things harder to edit / reuse.

Yet, apparently, the timestamp thingy is a BIG thing for mum and dad T_T I have been printing our holiday pictures for couple of years now… and they always gave the same comments “They are nice… but… where is the TIMESTAMP??”. This year, I remember and decide to timestamp my photos before sending them for printing.

One brainless way to timestamp is to right click on you photo, look at its metadata to find the date creation, open the paint program, add the date, save it back, and send it for printing. It sounds ok for one pic. But for 240 pictures? I don’t even want to imagine it.

I went to web to find some easy way to do it. To my surprise, there are not many well-defined methods! (Or my search power has degenerated?) I was kind of hoping that “Automator” would be able to do it, but apparently…. Not without some plugin and shell scripting.

Luckily, Photoshop didn’t disappoint me. Javascript + Action + Automate solve my 240 pictures issues within 5 minutes :D Credit goes to Retouch Pro Forum, member Csuebele!

For convenience sake (and my future reference), let me paste the Javascript here:

target = app.photoshop

var oldPref = app.preferences.rulerUnits
app.preferences.rulerUnits = Units.PIXELS;

var docRef = activeDocument
var dw = docRef.width
var dh = docRef.height

//Change the last numbers to adjust where text is placed.--------------------------
var inW = dw * .98
var inH = dh * .98
//-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

var dateString = ''
var timeDate = ''

for (var i = 0; i <docRef.info.exif.length; i++)
    {
        dateString = docRef.info.exif[i].toString()
    
        if (dateString.substring(0,18) == 'Date Time Original') 
        {
            timeDate = dateString.substring(27,29) + '-' + dateString.substring(24,26) + '-' + dateString.substring(19,23) + '  ' + dateString.substring(30,35)
        }
    }

            var artLayerRef = docRef.artLayers.add()
            artLayerRef.kind = LayerKind.TEXT
            var textItemRef = artLayerRef.textItem
            textItemRef.position = [inW,inH]
            //else {textItemRef.position = [2240,3100]}
            textItemRef.justification = Justification.RIGHT
            textItemRef.size = 40
            textItemRef.contents = timeDate
            artLayerRef.name = 'file date'

                
            
            
                
app.preferences.rulerUnits = oldPref

Step by Step:
1. Save the above as timestamp.jsx
2. Start your Photoshop. Open one of the pic you want to timestamp
3. Create an action (Windows: Actions: Create New Set: Create New Action)
4. Press the record button to start recording
5. Go to File > Scripts > Browse > timestamp.jsx
6. Optional: Do further enhancement to the timestamp to make it readable. For me, I add white stroke7. Press the stop button
8. Go to File > Automate
9. Select the folder of pictures you want to timestamp, then select the action you just recorded.
10. I’m done!! :D

Now all I have to do is to save my pics to thumb drive and show them off to my parents next week. Fufufu. I’m actually thankful to them. It has been a while since I tried to automate anything. This has helped me to realize that even though I haven’t been doing programming for the last 4 years, I’m still a lazy geek, deep within.

ED

Birthdays Party cum Reunion Dinner at Swensen’s, Plaza Singapura

2012-01-15T17:52:00.001+08:00

We decided to have one last reunion in the year of rabbit before we all go back to hometown for CNY; as well as to celebrate our friends who were born in the month of Jan, since it’s probably the last gathering until the next month.

Being a "dedicated" organizer, I went to Swensen’s at Plaza Singapura 30 minutes in advance, to queue and ensure that we got a seat at 6pm. Turned out that I overestimated their popularity. The place was almost empty when I reached, and they are able to arrange 20 seats easily within 3 minutes. Rather than waiting inside the restaurant, I decided to walk around and killed some time until 6pm.

The manager at Swensen’s didn’t look happy at all when I told her that we would start the dinner at 7pm once we’re done with birthday’s celebration. Yet, behind her iron face, she and her staffs were really providing us a superb service through the night (or at least that’s how I felt). She personally come and asked me how many candles I want for the cake. Her staff also offered to cut the cake for us. The dinner was served quite promptly, they topped up our water regularly, and quite speedy with delivery of our random request like tissue, spoon, chili flakes, etc.

Black Forest Ice Cream Cake!

The stars of the month - posing for cake cutting

The stars of the month - trying to figure out how to cut the ice-stoned cake! Lol!

Family Pic! :) missing Stefen, Fidel, Handy, who come later

We dine until around 8.30pm, had our fortune cookies and ice cream cake as dessert, and then walked out from Swensen’s. I wasn’t feeling really fit so I decided to go back early. Some of them stayed at PS, most probably catching some movie.

I love the CNY decoration at PS!

I had fun for the night… which I have to pay out the next day with the return of my cough. Duh! People said illness comes in by mouth. I couldn’t agree more v_v

Happy Birthday to Ivana, Fidelia, Winson, and Agung!
ED

Chinese New Year Shopping at Woodlands Terrace

2012-01-15T17:15:00.001+08:00

After a whole day of sleeping and eating on Friday, I felt so much better the next day! New respect for the Dawson Clinic!:)

So I decided to start my day fresh and joined the DB Rec Club for Chinese New Year shopping. I don’t have anything in mind to buy, but I’m just curious of what is this Woodlands Terrace looks like.

Apparently, the place is known as factory outlets area. I heard about fashion factory outlet frequently, but this is the first time for food factory outlet.

We reached the place at around 9am and was given time until 10.30am to shop at the whole stretch. It was quiet early in the morning, but there were already more than 10 big buses parked at the roadside. I believe the passengers were all here for the same purpose, shopping!!!

Our Chartered Bus! Is known as 137 on usual day :)

There are different factories along the stretch. Some, like Fragrance, are dedicated for the Chinese New Year delicacies. There are also Boon Tong Kee and Tiger Brand there, promoting their condiments for chicken rice and bak kut the respectively.

Fragrance Factory Outlet!

Secret Recipe! Boon Tong Kee!

From the crowd, I can see that the best buy and bargain come from the factory outlet Fassler. They sell all kinds of fresh seafood as well as readily packed frozen soup. All look so fresh and I can’t believe the price is within one digit. No wonder they have the longest queue in that area.

Fassler Factory Outlet - The best Factory Outlet in the area

I reached back to the bus at around 10.00am, bought a pack of wasabi peanuts for $6 (usual price: $7.8) as well as a pack of yu sheng for $10 (usual price $10.90 at Fair Price). Even with only 2 purchases, I have already saved more than 2 bucks! Some of my colleagues brought their mum along, and yeah… I can understand why they went crazy with shopping.

After shopping, we were further awarded with a lovely breakfast at Hans. At around 11.30am, we were drove back to Yishun MRT :)

Omelet Chicken with toast + tea

Will remember the place for future shopping if I ever start to learn how to cook! Hehe… for now... one week to CNY & home cook food!
ED

First Visit to Dawson Place Clinic

2012-01-13T12:14:00.001+08:00

I wasn't feeling really well since Monday. It started with a swollen tongue. I ignored the sign. Next day, I started to have sore throat. I ignored it and further had almost a pack of Doritos. Following day, I got headache, but I still stubbornly went for a jog and even had grilled chicken for dinner.

The next day, my body protested. Headache, sore throat, coughing; all come at the same time. As a bonus, I also got neck strain and started to sneeze. I was contemplating if I should take an MC... but I'm the busiest on Thursday. Taking MC on Thursday will be equal to more work for the rest of next week. In the end I decided to get a pack of lozenges and go to office. I felt like going back every minute, but in the end managed to stay until the end of my last call at 9.30pm. I slept at 11pm hoping that more rest will make me feel better the next day.

So here come Friday. I woke up and was greeted with cough T_T later I realized that my sore throat is not getting any better too. I showered and got ready anyway. At the last minutes, I decided to give myself a rest and went to clinic instead of office.

Well, I learnt that it's not that easy to look for doctor nowadays. I went there at 8.30am and they told me to come back at 10.30am as the doctor is already fully booked until then. I went back at 10.30am and still have to wait for half an hour =_=. Ok, lucky that the receptionist was pretty kind, and they were even showing Mr Bean cartoon in the TV, making the wait more bearable.

Misleading view. I thought there is no one waiting!

I met up with the doctor for 4 minutes, and he came out with 4 medicines. There goes $50 bucks. Haha.. I reached back home and had the whole lot of antibiotics with me. Now its time for me to sleep and hope to be well before CNY!

One for sore throat, one for phlegm, one for cough, and Panadol for headache

I supposed to attend the team Year End Dinner today... T_T Something I have been looking for since couple of months back. What to do :( Instead of Masala Art, I ended up with Dawson Place Clinic.

ZzZ,
ED

2011 Tzu Chi Year-End Blessing Ceremony

2012-01-08T18:31:00.001+08:00

It all started with my sis asking me to attend one of Tzu Chi events. Actually, “ask” might not be the right word. She basically reminded me every week over the period of 3 months to get involved in one of the activities.

Thanks to Kuan Seong, I managed to get two tickets to attend the Tzu Chi Year-End Blessing :) Really appreciate his help to pass the ticket in person to me, and even explained to me on what Tzu Chi is all about.

We went for the event on Sunday, 10am – 12pm at Kallang Theater. I can see that they have put a lot of preparation for the event. There was usher helping us with direction right after we step out from the Stadium MRT.

As you walked in to the Theater, there are people singing and clapping to welcome you.I wasn’t really good with estimation, but the Kallang Theater was 90% full (if not more), so I believe there are around 1000 people in the theater.

Stunning multimedia!

The event started at 10.30am. Everything was great, but I did have difficulty understanding in depth as all the ceremony was in Chinese (talk about regret of not learning Chinese properly v_v) luckily, most of the videos shown come with English subtitles, so I can understand 50% of the whole things.

If I understand correctly, the ceremony is similar to AGM. They played back what has happened throughout 2011, and what contribution has Tzu Chi done, globally and locally (Singapore). At the end of the event, we prayed for a better future, as well as given ang pao (red pockets) as our blessings.

The Blessing Pack - Really appreciate how the volunteers packed every single one with hearts!

After coming out from the ceremony, I was trying to find a donation box, but well, there aren’t any! So the best I can do is to buy something from their bazaar and hope that I helped them in a way.

During one of the Master Cheng Yen’ Videos, she highlighted that 1/3 of the food available in the world was actually gone wasted. I was shocked with the statistic for a while, but then remembering how people / restaurant throw excess food everyday, the statistic started to make sense. Oh what a waste! :( She further continued that the food would have helped to feed all the poor in the world. I promise I will reduce my food wastage to the minimum… not that I leave much of anything… :p

We went to Kallang Leisure Park for lunch (I finally remember to take vegetarian for this che-15!) and then went back home. The MRT was delayed for around 10 mins when we transferred to Paya Lebar. It seems like people are much used to the breakdown now – I didn’t see much fuss anymore. Haha.

No more wasting food!
ED

Shiyi’s Wedding at Bliss Garden Restaurant

2012-01-07T18:13:00.001+08:00

The first wedding I attended for the year of 2012! :) It has been so long since the last time I met Shiyi. In fact, this is the first meet up since graduation! Freaking 3.5 years! How time flies.

I learnt that she had her ROM back in 2009, and this wedding is for their marriage renewal. They have been married for more than 2 years but they looked so full of energy and love, like those newly wedded couple :)

The dinner was held at a restaurant at Singapore Expo. I started my trip from home at 6.15pm and managed to reach there on time.

Dragon @ Expo, can't resist to snap some pic even when I was almost late

I know Shiyi has changed quite a lot since university (from bob-hair-forever to feminine long hair lady), but I was still startled when I saw her wedding photography. She looks like an actress!

Kenneth & Shiyi - *Feel a bit guilty of taking pic without permission*

I was seated at table no#14. It was 7:30pm when I went to the ballroom. The event was planned to start at that time, but then… well: I was the first one on my table. Lucky for me, I can select any seat I want :) The table was actually really good, like only one table away from the stage after the VIP.

Table 14! - Looking at the condiments and I was already hungry

Later on, I managed to meet my Computer Science’s fellas – Lynn and Hai’an :D It was a really nice meet up. We started the catch up around marriage topic. Hai’an just got married two months ago. Hui Min was just married couple of days ago. Lay Sum is going to get married in next couple of weeks. And now we’re sitting at the marriage of Shiyi. It was really overwhelming for one-minute talk. Took me awhile to absorb and start recalculating how old I really am. After that, we also chatted about work. Apparently, both of them are also sticking with their first job. Phew! Finally something which I can say "Me, too!"

Happy to be among the geeks

The dinner started at 8.30pm, after a grand appearance of the couple. They come walking and singing at the same time. This is the most talented singer couple I ever seen. Their voices are wonderful!

The Groom dedicating a Cantonese song for his bride. And he is a Philipino! So sweet!

Apart from the wonderful performances, the food deserved a special mention, too. All of the courses are nyummy, but the cereal prawn was really their best menu, in my opinion.

Most Awesome Cereal Prawns - Have to pinch myself to make sure it's real

The dinner ended at almost 11pm after a nice warm yam dessert. I walked back to MRT feeling super full, and reach back home at around 11.45pm :) Didn’t have much energy after all the laughter, so I went to sleep early.

Feel good to catch up with CS friends!
ED

Lunch at Robert Timms

2012-01-07T18:13:00.000+08:00

Just a short post!

Never thought that I would be revisiting Robert Timms in such a short period :) It was for another gathering.

Robert Timms @ Orchard with Sarah, Adeline, and Ching-Ching

I tried the pasta before, so I decided to go for the Breakfast set this time. Well, I’m glad that I try it out. It was better than the pasta, and the portion definitely meets my standard :p

Sarah and Adeline are currently staying in Australia. Yet, for some reasons, they never heard about Robert Timms before. *Starting to doubt Robert Timms claims of "Australian Coffee"

Heartily Breakfast + Original Robert Timms Coffee

Anyway, till the next visit, Robert Timms!
ED

Dragon Year @ Chinatown

2012-01-06T16:50:00.000+08:00

Albeit being a short week, I found myself counting down slowly to weekend. There are so many uncertainties this month. It’s killing me to wait until next month knowing that I can’t influence anything. Or can I?

Friday was finally here and we decided to pay a visit to Chinatown. The decoration was all up. Is it only me, or the dragon decoration did look so much nicer than my bunny year’s? Not fair!

We reached the Chinatown at around 8.00pm. We had a walk around for 15 mins, and then decided to go to Yumcha for dinner. There was no queue when we first reached, but it was soon crowded within the next half an hour. Talking about Singapore’s dining time. We ordered its specialties Hor Fun, as well as 4 baskets of dimsum.

Yum Cha Menu - The best I can take when I'm hungry

We strolled out the restaurant at around 9pm, and then decided to check out Swanston to buy some essentials. Alas, the door closed just as we reached there. We then went for a walk around Chinatown, and left before 10pm.It’s two weeks to Chinese New Year, and the place is already cramped. We can hardly walk when we tried to make our way to MRT.

Big Floating God of Wealths - The left one was actually carrying a S$ 10,000 note XD

Cute Dragon Dolls available in every single shop!

Other Dragon Decorations for sale!

And lastly, the Grand Dragon spanning across the street!

I found a surprising statistic when chatting with my friends– 3 out of 3 Singaporean I asked NEVER go to Chinatown for CNY ^^; Anyway, it’s not as bad as Marina Bay during New Year Eve, so I guess I will still return to Chinatown now and then :)

Welcoming Dragon Year!
ED

First Jog @ Berlayar Creek Boardwalk

2012-01-03T23:51:00.000+08:00

The Berlayar Creek Boardwalk was officially opened on Monday. Lucky me, it's located just across my office. I have been noticing the development for awhile. Now that it's finally opened up, I decided to give it a try for my first jog after new year.

The path started just outside from Telok Belangah MRT. It was a nicely done path all the way to the Labrador Nature Reserve. I normally have to pass through road side, now I have a dedicated jogging path! Hah! I feel pampered!

My Jogging Path - Before (left) and After (right) Berlayar Creek Boardwalk opening

I followed the main path for 20 mins... and it actually brought me all the way to Keppel Bay! Looking at all the beautiful properties and yacht did make my run more enjoyable (so long as you can hold the jealous feeling).

All in sudden there was Keppel Bay!

Trying to figure out what the glasses for in the middle of the park

Overall, I had a run for ~7km within an hour. With the opening of this new path, now I can pick and adjust my running distance depending on my mood :D Thanks Singapore for a nice new year gift!!

Awed!
ED

Boly's Farewell Dinner at Mushroom Pot

2012-01-03T22:18:00.003+08:00

Even though we used the word "Gathering", all of us know what the dinner is about. I learnt that avoiding the word "Farewell" didn't make the good-bye any easier, so I decided to use the word anyway for this blog.

On the day after New Year, we agreed to gather for dinner at 5.00pm at Mushroom Pot. As expected based on 7 years of experience, almost none of us is on time XD. I reached at 5.20pm and was among the first 5. We waited for another half hour, and then started to look at the menu.

It was my first time there and the menu was oh-so-complicated. We started looking at the buffet menu. Since some of us are health conscious and don't want to have buffet, we asked for ala-carte menu. While browsing for the menu, we asked if they have any set menu, then they gave us the group set menu (like those wedding menu). Lastly, we asked for individual menu and they finally gave us a menu that we're familiar to order from. Phew!

The various type of menu - Buffet, Ala-Carte, Individual Set, Group Set Menu

I ordered some mushroom soup with pork ribs, which cost around SGD19++. The food was OK, but I don't feel that it worth the price. Well, at least the ambiance was good. We were given a quiet corner and we could chat until late while accompanied with slow pop music. The waiter was good and attentive as well. It's not easy to handle a group of 20 people, OK!

My Set Dish - Some Beef Mushroom + Pork Ribs for SGD19++


Group Pic @ Mushroom Pot, OG Orchard Point

We stayed there until around 8.30pm, then proceed for second round at Starbucks. We chatted and played some game until around 10.00pm before calling it a day.

Group Pic @ Starbucks, OG Orchard Point

It was all laughter and fun during the dinner & coffee time. Yet, I turned so sentimental during the good-bye itself. People come and go... I just really, really hope that we'll get the chance to meet again.

All the best, Bol. Will miss you, badly.
ED

Countdown at Leisure World Cruise

2012-01-02T15:32:00.000+08:00

Twelve of us decided to spend our countdown at Leisure World Cruise.

We gathered at Tanah Merah MRT at around 5pm and then proceed to take bus 35 to Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal. As expected, the bus frequency wasn’t really good (around 30 mins / bus). Thankfully, we knew it in advance and had some buffer.We reached the terminal at 5.45pm.

It was my first time at Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal. I never knew that it’s also part of Singapore Cruise Center! The look and feel is really similar with the one at Harbourfront. We went directly to the New Century counter, made payment ($42 each) and got our ticket the next ferry at 6.30pm.

The Tour Counter at Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal

I didn’t do much research before the journey (thanks to all the reliable friends I can count on), so I have no clue on how long will it take to go from Singapore to the cruise. I thought it’s a matter of 10 mins ferry, but I was wrong T_T. It was actually a 45 mins ferry from Singapore to Nonsapura Jetty (a location in Batam. Initially I thought the name was a short form of “Not Singapore Jetty”), and then we changed to a bigger ferry, which sent us to Leisure World Cruise (approx. 25 mins). Haven’t been in small ferry for a while, I felt a bit sea sick, but it was ok once we started to chat.

We reached the cruise at around 8.00pm, and then proceed to Level 5 to get our Cabins (3 cabins at $80 each). For a half-decade ship, the ship condition was pretty good. We put our stuff at cabin (which was super mini size), and then went to Starlight for dinner at 8.30pm.

Leisure World Cruise! - Lobby Area (Level 5)

Startlight Restaurant - Dinner

The impression was quite good, until after another hour and we started to feel it… there is no fresh air in the ship. The air con was blowing so hard and it actually made the air damp. The biggest complain was the smell of cigarettes in the air. People just smoked non-stop there.

After dinner, we toured around the ship, and then went back for supper XD After supper; we went to Paradise Lounge for a countdown, but can’t help to stay there for more than 20 mins, thanks to the suffocating smokes. Finally, we went out to the deck to get some fresh air, and celebrating countdown over some “Fireworks” from other ships.

A big "sweat" for the performance at Paradise Lounge ^^;

The live screen of the Paradise Lounge Countdown

Outside the deck - Taken in 2011!

In the deck - Taken in 2012!

After countdown, none of us felt like sleeping, so we went to get some tea, as well as started with our board games. Time passed quickly, and it was soon 3AM in the morning. Fendi, Boly, Fidel, and Endy decided to stay throughout the night to watch Sun rise. I was less adventurous and decided to go to dreamland.

Board Games Time!

I woke up at around 8am. Surprisingly, I was the first one awake. My cabin mate – Inche and Jess are still soundly asleep, and I didn’t have the heart to wake them up. I washed my face, changed, then went out to the only familiar destination – restaurant! :p I was glad to find some of our friends there, and then joined them for breakfast.

Soto for Breakfast!

After breakfast, we toured around the ship for morning scenery, as well as passed through the Casino (which was the highlight of the ship). The casino was not that big, but the bets certainly are. The smallest amount to bet is SGD 50!! The casino is crowded 24 / 7.

Morning View from the ship

Lido Casino - The biggest Casino in the ship

After a quick tour, we went back to cabins and got ready to check out. We managed to finish couple of rounds of board games, before finally checked out and went for lunch. We took the 2.45pm ferry and reached back Singapore at around 4.30pm.

Cabin Casino - Our very own game place!

Liong Tofu for lunch!

Overall, it was a nice experience =D Quite value for money, too. It’s only $60 for the ferry, food, and cabins (gym, KTV are also available, but we didn’t manage to try it out). No additional charge for New Year eve. They also have mini market with reasonable prices (e.g. a pack of Doritos for $3.8), as well as Internet service ($2 / hour). For us, the highlight in the ship was definitely the food :P We had dinner, supper, breakfast, and lunch, all within the less than 24 hours we were there in the ship.

Yet, the experience would have been much better if it’s a free smoking cruise. I washed my hair twice and the smokes stink still remain! =(

That’s for my not so typical countdown! =)
ED

Reflection of Year 2011

2011-12-31T23:00:00.000+08:00

Prologue:

This post is written over the period of 2 days (in office). I have to dig out couple of entries to find out what I was up to this year. I’m lucky that it’s not those years when I have more than 100 entries to read up.

Start of Rewind:

The year began after the countdown at Teck Whye with best friends over 7 years.For January, I was challenged to something I’m not so good at – Tour Guiding! It was a big pressure for me to make sure Alessa’s visit is memorable. I also managed to polish some of my Singapore’s landscape knowledge as my sister and her family came for 3 days visit.

February was a time for family gathering. I was back to home sweet home, getting some red pockets, and visiting my youngest niece, Jadyn – the latest addition to the big family. Come mid February, I went to Germany for a week to meet my team members. I’m thankful that I got to gather with them one last time before the changes which happened afterwards.

March was my birthday and the month of biggest roll-out (yet) for my project. Both of them fall on the last week of the month. I was so occupied that I ended up spending my first few hours of Birthday in office. The roll-out went out very smoothly. I was happy. But looking back now, I’m not proud of my decision to stay in office. I guess my perception about work finally changes :) On the same month, I had a gathering with previous AMGTO. I got a chance to meet up with Lisa sis when they came to Singapore, and went for a short break at Southern Islands in Singapore - Pulau Kusu and St. John.

In April, we had our high-school reunion at Cumi Bali Restaurant. It’s nice that we still stayed in contact after all these years (7 years after graduation!) We took our own path after high school, but now half of our class is actually staying in this tiny little red dot. Other than gathering, I joined Inche and visited Malacca for the first time. I will always remember the Satay Celup I had there :p

In May, we went to The Pulai Desaru Beach for a short gateway. We had Fendi and Tomy to thank for the nice trip :) It also marked the first time I bought something from Groupon, and then queued for an hour to use the coupons for my second buffet of the year at Joaquim. In office, we had a batch of Interns joining us and they can’t stop telling how old we’re. Oh well, I can’t be mad at them. I would have said the same thing to someone who is 24 if I were 19.

In June, we had our SCE reunion at Garuda Restaurant. While most of my high-school friends are coming to Singapore, some of our college friends are actually flying out from Singapore. I missed couple of faces, and we could only guess that they might have gone back to Indonesia. Couples of friends are attached, and some are getting married. Oh, some are actually married! Congrats, Maria and Freddy! In the same month, I also went to watch Badminton live match for the first time – Li-Ning Singapore Open. Indonesia won gold medal for mix double.

In July, I had my first 10 KM run at Jurong Lake Run. Other than that, we tried out the IMAX 3D for Harry Potter last installation. It was mind blowing! The movie was great but I believed the technology played a big part of the experience as well. At the same month, I visited Medy's house warming. He bought a condo near Bukit Batok. Congrats to the (not so) newly wedded couple!

August is the right month to feel patriotic (Happy Independence, SG, IN, ID, MY, CN!). I visited Istana, Asian Civilization Museum, and Art Science Museum. I had my first Chalet experience at Costa Sands Resort at Pasir Ris. Gathering is always fun :) It’s one of the biggest Blazers gathering for the year. In the later part of the month, my parents and I went to Australia to visit bro. He took days off and we traveled around Melbourne, Canberra, and of course, Sydney. I revisited Sydney Fish Market. The food was still as good as how I remembered it.

September denotes the start of spring in Australia. I was lucky enough to feel the transition from winter to spring. After another week in Australia, my parents and I bid good bye to bro, and we flew straight to Hong Kong. I attended my cousin wedding and got into VIP table! Wohoo! Back from Hong Kong, I went to Batam on the next weekend. I nearly passed out after the travel triathlon. Near Sep end, my childhood friend, Eka, came to SG and I finally got to meet him, after 10 years since junior high school graduation.

October marked the last quarter of the year, and about the time I noticed how the year is coming to an end. I went to NTU iGave Spooktacular – an event dedicated for those loyal donators over 3 years to NTU. I went there as a guest of Peko. The event was well-organized; the presenter was even more awesome. It's no other than Hossan Leong! Near October ends, my parents came to Singapore and we went to Korea for one week trip.

My November started in South Korea. I supposed to experience autumn, but the weather was warm and sunny when we was there. Seeing new place is always nice, but spending time with parents is something I treasured the most there. Back from travel, I went to the first DnD I joined since I started to work. I won a bread toaster (Gift #38 over #70 gifts). I called it beginners luck :) Other than that, I also went for a sponsored lunch with LadyIronChef (winner of the Nuffnang best food blog for 2011). Free food with favourite blogger. Thanks SMRT!

December wasn’t started as perfect as how I wished it to be. There were couples of late nights in office during handover and first week of my boss’ leave. Other than that, I’m thankful that my boss approved my last leave, which was a bit ad-hoc. I disappeared for couple of days, for something only few people know of. I finished my second 10 KM run on Standard Chartered Woman's 10KM Run. I also attended the first (and maybe last) baking session in my life. At the same month, one of our Fighterz Crew, Ratna, tied the knot in Singapore :D Happy Wedding!

Christmas was spent in Teck Whye, the same way we celebrate the start of the year. This time, we welcomed the addition of turkey, ham, sausages, and vodka! I really appreciate how we stick together throughout the years despite all the constant changes :)

End of Rewind.

Epilogue:

As the year is drawing to a close, I hope it’s safe for me to say that it has been a peaceful rabbit year.

I looked back at my New Year resolutions... there are give and take, but I guess I met the objective to be a healthier person:

I did limit myself to 1 KFC per month, but 1 buffet per quarter is really hard to judge, especially on those occasions (e.g. business trip, holidays, and trainings) where you have no other choice than buffet.
I was really pushing my limit when I said I would participate in 10 KM run. Yeah, never underestimate what a year can bring!
The promise to exercise at least 4 times a month was fulfilled with Distinction :D
My only objective which wasn’t really met is the commitment of no more office mails after 9PM :( I have my thousand excuses, but well… missed mean missed!

Now is time for a new set of New Year Resolutions!

Limit myself to 6 KFC per year! (It’s gonna be a tough year)
Participate in 21 KM run
As part of self enrichment… to learn all the country names with their capitals!
(Still) on my commitment to reduce overtime. No staying until 9pm more than 5 times a month

Lastly, a set of 24 pics for the 24-years old me :)

Once Upon a Bunny Year (2011) - Credits to Helios for main pics

Welcome, 2012!
ED

Last week of the year

2011-12-31T15:04:00.004+08:00

I love this week! This is a week I will remember and looking forward for next year.

There is no Monday blues as the working day started on Tuesday. I was a bit surprised that there are 40 new emails since I left on Friday (I was expecting less than 10). Apparently, Monday wasn’t a public holiday in India, and hence the mail traffic. I did most of my work on the first half of the day, and then went for exercise and lunch. Back from lunch, I was just on stand-by mode. I received couple of calls from fella PMOs, but nothing apart from that. I completed my Development Plan, and then took the earliest Shuttle bus to Red Hill at 6.15pm. In the evening, I had a nice dinner with Citra at Din Tai Fung, Raffles City :) Thanks so much Cit for all the delicacies! Love the cake and brownies and bean curd!

Similarly, I spent my Wednesday morning clearing up mails and received some handover from my colleague in India. In the afternoon, I went for lunch with Helios, Masli, Theresia (John’s sister), and Silvia (Theresia’s friend). All are Medanese and all are working in Merryl (and not all of them know each other before that) ^^; I had a nice lunch, and went back to office at around 2pm. I didn’t do much in the afternoon. It was raining for awhile, but then it stopped just in time for me to jog. For this time, I decided to run around the park twice. Alas, I was a bit late and it started to drizzle again when I was on my way back to office. I managed to reach back safely at 7.20pm. There are almost no people in office. As I have some time, I went to visit ARC for the first time. Most of the shops are not yet opened, but it does look grand. Soon it will be a favorite escape place for office people :)

Come Thursday, I run out of ideas of things to do in office. Some colleagues back to office from their leaves, so I managed to pass the morning somehow by chitchatting. I went for lunch with the grads in the afternoon, and then paid a visit to our office at Shenton Way to get some gifts from Tun Naung. I reached back office at almost 3pm, and notice that I got around 10 new emails. I can't remember the last time I felt so happy of getting some work. I work until 6.30pm and decided to call it a day. We had dinner at Pasta Mania, then did some shopping at G2000 and Crocodile. There are up to 70% discounta!

Friday passed rather quickly. I had lunch with Connie at a food court near AIA building. At 3pm, Madeline came and said that I need to surrender my laptop by 4pm because the team wanted to borrow it for production support. Oh well, I was more than happy to! :p In the end, I shut down my laptop at around 4.30pm. Do not know what to do, I went up and chatted with Xiao Hong and Jingxi for half an hour. After saying happy new year to everyone, I then went for another shopping spree at Vivo. We reached back home at around 10pm, then watched a Korean Movie - A Moment to Remember (2004). It was a sad touching movie (thanks Cit for the recommendation). I'm glad I didn't cry in my sleep last night.

OK, That pretty much summarized all the happening in last week of 2011. Happy New Year to everyone!

Going for countdown soon!
ED

Post Christmas

2011-12-26T18:49:00.002+08:00

So, Christmas is over :( I can see people tearing down Christmas decoration everywhere (and most probably getting up the CNY decoration soon). I thought if I blogged about the Christmas countdown, I can somehow slow things down. Well, it doesn’t seem to work.

Here I’m at the last 5 days of the year. I really hope to savor the last couple of days to the max. One last chance! After this I will need to wait for another 12 months T_T Duh!

Thanks that Christmas fall on Sunday, today becomes a public holiday :D I’m totally slacking around today. I slept until 10am, then woke up and spent an hour playing Monopoly, and then another hour playing the Sims. After shower and lunch, I spent another two hours playing Tiny Tower. Now I’m checking out if there is any new episode for Cause of Death. Yes, iPhone is a very dangerous tool =( Within a blink of eyes, it’s now 7pm and I have to think of where to go for dinner.

I just realized that my wardrobe begins to blow up. I will need to do some “spring cleaning”, sooner or later T_T

Till then!
ED

0 Day to Christmas

2011-12-25T18:44:00.000+08:00

Christmas started just like a normal Sunday for me. I wake up at 9am, got ready, then went to Clementi for Badminton. We played until 12pm, showered, had lunch at our usual Kopitiam, then went back home. I did my weekly laundry, relaxing, and then my roomie asked if I want to join her for jogging. I tried to find some excuse (lazy me!) but in the end can’t find any valid ones… so I went.

Well, I can’t thank her enough for it! I managed to jog for around 1.30 hrs, covering around 11km. It felt good! :D At night, I was able to eat the whole Nasi Goreng Thai at Spize without feeling guilty :p

I thought my Christmas was ending after the dinner, but no. Helios proposed to catch MI 4 at Tiong Bahru Plaza. Since we don’t have to work the next day, why not? We went for the 9.30pm show and it finished at around 11.45pm. The movie was awesome!! Why I never realized that Tom Cruise is that handsome? XD The movie was full of actions from beginning to the end, with appropriate mix of jokes. I love the movie :)

Back home, I don't really have much energy left, so I just tidying up and went to bed.

Bye, Christmas,
ED

1 Day to Christmas

2011-12-24T18:31:00.000+08:00

After all the sinful food that I had, I intended to wake up early for a jog. I woke up at around 7.15am. The wind was blowing hard and the sky was cloudy. I checked the weather forecast and it was showing as rain: 60% probability. I decided not to take a risk, and returned back to sleep.

I finally woke up at around 10am and further discovered that… there was no rain at all! I felt so cheated T_T and maybe sheer of disappointment of how my lazy mind ruined my plan =(

Christmas eve is also a birthday date for my roomie. I tried to find a birthday cake for her, but bumped into the same challenge like last year – there is only log cake available at most places. In the end, I decided to get a Christmas cake and ask the shopkeeper to give me a Birthday sign.

Double-Function Cake

After shower, we went to Tiong Bahru market for some shopping. It was one of the rare occasion when I actually go to wet market. Actually, Singapore’s wet market is not that wet ^^; Things are really clean and organized. Kudos to the management! After some time, we then went to Tiong Bahru food court for lunch. This is what I have been waiting for! Tiong Bahru food court is well known for good food. I had difficulty choosing my lunch for the day. In the end I went for the longest queue at that moment, which was the Pig organ soup. Helios joined us for lunch, and I ordered Ice Khacang + Avocado for dessert. Totally regretted the calories spent on dessert afterwards. Why am I so weak with food? T_T

After lunch, we went back home for half an hour, then proceed to NTU Alumni Club for KTV session :p It was raining and we got a bit wet, even with umbrella. We had a nice KTV session from 3pm – 7 pm (favorite song for the day was Mariah Carey’ All I want for Christmas), and then went for dinner at Tech Whye ”resort”.

Another Double-Function Cake

Happy Belated B'day Fendi!

For the last couple of years, we have been going to Tech Whye for almost all the major celebrations we have. I enjoyed it every single time :) It’s really nice to be together with friends, minus the crowd and rain and overpriced food. This time, we had Turkey, Ham, and Sausages set (thanks to Fidel + Boly), delicious log cake (thanks to Tomy), nyummy 933 golden pillow curry (thanks to Fendi), and a lot of other snacks + drinks + dessert all night long for $17.

Christmas Food! Lots of Meats! *Doh!

After dinner, we were divided into different groups: board games group, Wii group, and Xbox kinect group.As usual, time flies, and it’s soon 12am before any of us realized it. We wishes each other merry xmas, had our Christmas cheer with vodka (thanks Helios), then headed back home at around 12.30am. I slept soundly that day, can’t even finish restocking my Tiny Tower.

Merry X'mas everyone!
ED

2 Days to Christmas

2011-12-23T18:29:00.000+08:00

By Friday, all my cubicle’s neighbors within the 3 seats diameters have went for leave. I had my last two calls of year. I did some documents clean up (both softcopy and hardcopy), and didn’t really know what to do afterwards. I went off after saying Merry Xmas to the remaining 3 people in the office, then headed to Clark quay for dinner at Marutama Ramen.

Marutama - Vegetable Ramen

We walked around Clark quay after dinner. Nothing fancy except for the normal Friday crowd. There is no special performance for Christmas.

My last Christmas Tree Hunting Effort - Christmas Tree @ Central

We went back after a short walk, and watched an italian spoof movie of Da Vinci Code, Harry Potter, Twilight, God father. It was light comedy, nothing really fancy. After the starter, we continued with movie “Contagious”. The movie was trying to depict the different people reaction when unknown virus attacked. Some will be agitated, some will try to help others, some will try to get some profit out of the situation, etc etc. I can’t help but felt that I watched similar movie before, but where? Anyway, this movie was well-directed, with famous actresses all around.

I slept after winning a Monopoly game in iPhone. Man it was addictive.

I won a Monopoly game!

Addicted to games these days,
ED

3 Days to Christmas

2011-12-22T18:18:00.000+08:00

We had a small Christmas party in the office at around 4pm. They booked one of the big meeting rooms, put a small Christmas tree, lots of cookies, as well as playing Christmas song from Youtube :)

For once, it's a delight to step into a meeting room!

We have Christmas Gift exchange, and I got a pretty nice Starbucks cup from Xiao Hong! Fufufu… My gift of Passport holder went to Christina. Glen gave an alarm clock as gift and got scolded because of the inauspicious Chinese meaning. Sometime I wonder if he is really Chinese. Lol.

Gifts for the Xmas Exchange!

After the gift exchange, I went back to my seat for calls. Thursday is always a bleak day. I had continuous call from 4.45pm until 10.00pm. I was hoping that the call will miraculously cancelled… but no, Christmas miracle didn’t happen to me this time T_T. I went back at around 9.30 (thankfully the call ended early at least). Didn’t manage to get any Tang Yuan :’(

22nd Dec is a Mother’s day according to Indonesia’s calendar. Happy Mother’s Day, Mum! I love you always :)
ED

4 Days to Christmas

2011-12-21T23:14:00.000+08:00

Famous People Died in 3’s?

I know death is probably not the closest topic to Christmas right now, but… I like myths and the story I read today really piqued my curiosity :p

I recently know about the club forever 27 (the superstition that famous musicians died at age of 27) during the death of Amy Winehouse. I was surprised to find out that there is such a long list, and it’s growing each year.

This time, with the death of Kim Jong Il, I come to know the saying that “Deaths come in three” (in this case, for famous people). Couple of the examples are:

Princess Diana (31 Aug 1997), Mother Theresa (5 September 1997) and Mubuto Sese Seko (7 September 1997)
Ed McMahan (23 Jun 2009), Farrah Fawcett (25 June 2009), and Michael Jackson (25 June 2009)
And of course, the latest trios are:Christopher Hitchens (15 Dec 2011), Kim Jong il (17 Dec 2011), Vaclac Havel (18 Dec 2011)

There are lots of other examples cited, but I’m not that avid reader, so I don’t know most of them.

In my half hour research in this topic, I learnt that the number “three” means something for Christianity (e.g. The Holy Trinity) and that might explain why the myth is so popular. Of course, I did found a lot of mathematicians complaining that it’s all derivable through statistics and purely coincidental. Haha.. Well, we are pattern-seeking creatures, and we find patterns where there are none :)

Ok, that story aside...

Big boss is taking leave today and well, I'm so busy trying to act busy in office today XD. I still have to complete my development plan and draft objectives, but I got no mood to work, really. In the afternoon, I joined the lady lunch session held by our senior management. We got free lunch (McD! Any meal of your choice! I have hard time to pick between prosperity burger and McGrill) as well as got to listen about diversity and issues sharing (if you got any).

Personally, I can feel that the management is really putting a lot of effort in this diversity and equality for ladies. So much effort that I afraid the guys will soon protest that we're discriminating them. Well, ladies get all the gender-specifc perks - maternity, the woman conference, the ladies lunch with senior management, the free nursery consultation, etc etc... but I never heard any for the guys. Hahaha...

After the lunch, I had my daily call until 5pm, followed by another call until 7pm. I didn't get to run, but get to come home early and rest. Two more days for this week!! For some of my colleagues, tomorrow is their last day for the year. For most of my friends, Friday is a half day for them, but I haven't heard anything for my side T_T I want half day, too!!! It doesn't matter if I didn't know what to do, but at least I want to see some sunshine when I leave. Haha...

I mistook today as Mother's day and caused my sister to call home at the wrong date XD. Well, it's tomorrow for Indonesia... along side with the Tangyuan festival (glutinous rice ball). Maybe I should try to get some Tangyuan tomorrow.

I downloaded Justin Bieber's Christmas collection and it was... disappointing T_T For Christmas song, i still prefer Mariah Carey's "All I want for Christmas" and Britney Spears' "Santa, That's my only wish this year"

Till tomorrow!
ED

5 Days to Christmas

2011-12-20T23:19:00.001+08:00

I wasn't in the mood for a lot of things yesterday, including sleeping. I was browsing and playing games until my iPhone battery dropped to the red 20% before deciding to roll to my warm cozy blanket. It was around 1.30am.

The next morning, I got the present for my disobedient. What else if not the beloved pimples! I got 3 lined up on my forehead, which I swear wasn't there the day before. Why it's so hard for me to remember that staying up late is equal of getting pimples. Sigh!

Today, I exploded to my vendor counterpart (another side effect of not having enough sleep). After couple of emails back and forth, I decided to call him and explained the thing. My first intention was to talk, but for some reason, I blew up. Now that I think about it, it might be a good move. It wasn't the first time I told him about the procedure, but somehow he always forgot. After the incident today, he seemed to finally understand what I meant. Lesson learnt: Patience is a safe move, but not always the most effective one.

Apart from that, my day has been enjoyable :) I received 3 meeting cancellations for next week, which can only mean that holiday is very, very near. I went for my weekly exercise with Lynn, and also kicked off my jog regime again. The weather was so dark at around 6.30pm, but thankfully, it didn't rain! I run safely until around 7.30pm, came back to office, received couple of calls, and then left at around 8.45pm.

I brought my durian cake to office yesterday... and totally forgot about it until today. Luckily, the office fridge was quite good and the cake was still fresh looking. It took me much encouragement to finally decide to distribute it to the team. So the cake is settled. Now I only have to pray that none of them are on MC tomorrow.

Back home, I was 'slightly' addicted to Sims Free Play (I hope this is not permanent T_T) I promised myself to sleep earlier today. It's 11.15pm now, my roomie has already in bed since an hour ago... so good night!

To a healthier life style!
ED

6 Days to Christmas

2011-12-19T23:00:00.000+08:00

It was gloomy and raining for the whole day.

After the whole MRT saga last week, I got my share of frustration today as my bus broke down on my way to office. v_v. I guessed it was kind of a jinx. I kept telling people that I don't mind getting stuck in MRT once for an experience. Voila, this is what I got.

The bus engine was actually working, but I overheard the conversation that the doors couldn't be closed. They tried to shut down the engine and turned it on again, alas it didn't work. In the end, all of us had to get out of the bus. We waited for the next bus, and I was stupidly tapped my EZ-Link again (by reflex). I ended up paying double for a bus broke down v_v

I reached office at around 9.30am, and couldn't find anyone to complain to. I checked with our department secretary, and she told me that most of the people are already on leave starting this week. In fact, she and 75% of the other people will also be on leave starting next week. It seems like I will be very lonely next week.

My mood wasn't really good (for the reason I know of). The coffee didn't have any effect on me today and I just couldn't focus. My colleague came back from HK and gave me a cute moon cake for the small favor I did for him. Even that can't make me happy.

For lunch, Glen and I went to Bakerzin to meet up with Sab and Eve. It has been so long since the last meet up! It was really nice to see them after sooo long. My thanks to Sab for organizing this lunch :) This is my first time eating at Bakerzin. I ordered the Carbonara Spaghetti mealbox set, which tasted quite good. For some reason, I didn't manage to finish the Mango Mousse.

GTO SG Grads from 2008!

Back to office, the aircon + rainy weather really freezed my mind. I didn't manage to work for the first 15 mins. Lucky that I got some "urgent" tasks afterwards, so I was forced to focus. After couple of calls in the afternoon, I went off at 7.30pm for dinner with Ari.

Before I left, my big boss called me to his office and informed me one shocking news which makes my Monday ended bluer than usual. Sigh!

We had dinner at Skinny Pizza, City Hall. Poor Ari to be having dinner with me at the wrong day, I guessed I was complaining most of the time. I felt better after letting out the complains, and was soon occupied with the delicious pizzas. We had Ginger Butter Chicken and Smoked Turkey Swiss. Oh yes, the Smoked Turkey Swiss was REALLY Good. The butter chicken tasted like the usual indian butter chicken and I've tried better taste that that :p

Skinny Pizza - Smoked Turkey Swiss, $26++

He introduced me to Ladder Theory in relationship, which I found really amusing and hence can't help but to note it down here. It's said that every time we met someone, we did a mental rating and put them in a "Ladder" ranking system. Man lined up women in ONE Ladder, whoever on the top of the ladder will be the one they found most attractive of. Women placed man in TWO Ladders. One is Friendship Ladder, another is the real Relationship Ladder.

So now the criterion. For man, the position on the ladder is determined by: 50% looks, 40% how attracted is she to him, and 10% of other things. For ladies? The relationship ladder will be determined by: 50% of Power and Money, 40% unique characteristic, 10% other things. Any good guys will go into the Friend Ladder and not Relationship Ladder (poor god guy!) It also explained why woman feels that man & woman can be only friend, while man feels that it's impossible so.

If you're interested for more details, do google ladder theory and you will find some interesting articles :p hehehe...

We chatted until around 9.30pm, then I went back home, addicted to Sim Free Play for 30 mins, showered, and now getting ready to sleep.

Few more days to Christmas. I need some miracles!
ED

7 Days to Christmas

2011-12-18T01:00:00.002+08:00

Half of Dec has passed, and it’s 7 Days to Christmas! Oh please slow down the time…. I haven’t snapped enough Christmas trees for my collections this year =(

I took leave on Monday morning, and went to office in the afternoon. I started to appreciate the morning bus frequency when I experienced the afternoon ones. It took me 50 minutes to reach office, compared with the usual 15 minutes in the morning.

Because of my improper planning, I had to run to ensure that I catch the last Yoga class of the year. I reached just 1 min before the class start. Phew! It was indeed a class worth running for. I felt so relax at the end of the class that I almost fell asleep during the relaxation period. After a quick shower, I begin the work for the week.

Well, the rest of the week was a fast-forward for me. I remember going to JPot for lunch with Yoga partners on Tue, given a Christmas cake log on Wed, noticed the opening of ARC Mall on Thurs, and board games on Friday. The rest was not really important – a lot of morning, lunch, and evening meetings :( I can’t be more wrong about December. This supposed to be my extended holiday period! Why didn’t my big boss go on leave!!

Jpot @ Vivocity

Nyummy Choco Log Cake! I wonder what's the Axe for...


ARC is officially open on Thurs! Finally we got a mall in front of office!

Hol's Der Geier (pic), Jenga, and Iliad are the 3 games we played on Fri

Settlers Cafe - 3 Hrs games + Main Dish + Snacks + Dessert + Free flow of drinks for $15

I didn’t go for a run at all throughout the week :( I don’t want to sound like giving excuse, but I really didn’t have a free one our slot in the evening at all. On Friday night in the middle of my sleep, I had a leg cramp. It has been so long since the last one. I wonder if this is because of my lack of sport these days T_T

Saturday morning, we went to Marina at Keppel Bay for a breakfast at Prive. The surrounding was really posh! The restaurant was facing the sea / lake / whatever it’s called with private yachts lined up. I ordered the egg benedict. It came with burger bread as the base, topped up with ham, bacon, perfectly poached eggs, and finished up with its special sauce. Delicious is an understatement.

Marina @ Keppel Bay - Doesn't feel like Singapore anymore

Superlicious Egg Benedict

After the breakfast, we walked around the posh areas, and then I went to Prima Tower for the first baking lesson in my life. Oh well. It’s an event organized by Recreation Club. And since it’s free, I assumed there is no harm in trying it out. The place was a bit tricky to find. The place was a bit run down, with big truck anywhere. I'm surprised that the only revolving restaurant in Singapore is actually located there.

View around Prima Tower

The baking class is at 11th floor, the other 10 floors are occupied by Prima Deli. I never know that it’s the headquarter! (Now the tower’s name makes sense!) The baking class started from 1pm, ended at around 5.30pm. I’m lucky to be in the same group with very nice people. They were doing most of the work, while I tried to make myself useful by cleaning up the dishes as and when available =_=

Each of us made a durian cake. Mine was done after rounds of help from each of them. Hahaha.. In addition, we also baked some butter cookies. Both were allowed to bring home afterwards :D I haven’t tried them, but it’s hopefully edible…

Our Durian Cakes!

Ok, It’s 1am now on Sunday. Time to get some sleep for badminton. There have been multiple issues with MRTs this week and it’s now officially closed until 10am tomorrow. Need to figure out how to go to Clementi later. Oh well.

BTW! Nuffnang Blog Awards for 2011 Winners are OUT! I’m so happy to see all my favorite bloggers come out as winner :D :D Feel so good to see their happy faces. Keep blogging all!

Time to think of New Year resolution,
ED

The Last 1 ½ Days of Annual Leaves

2011-12-13T23:36:00.000+08:00

It’s annual leaves well spent :) Definitely better than my last year’s, when I donated two days to the bank because I don’t know what to do with the leaves.For some reasons (one is to try out the encryption method), the post is encrypted from this section onwards! Haha!

Enter the blog post

Till next post!
ED

Semi-Weekend @ Robert Timms

2011-12-08T22:34:00.000+08:00

It was a Thursday. Just like any other Thursday, I was expecting myself to stay in office until 10pm for weekly calls. Yet, my day had its unbelievable turns in the afternoon. One by one, my calls were rescheduled; some were even cancelled! At 7pm, I realized that I’m sitting in the office with no more calls! Wasting no time, I rushed out from office (before being dragged for unplanned discussion), pinged Tomy, and headed to Orchard to meet up with our old friend, Eric, who was on his biannual visit to Singapore.

We met up for dinner at Robert Timms, Wheelock Place. It was my first time visiting Robert Timms, and the first impression wasn’t bad. The café is quite cozy. The service was good and the food was pretty decent. The café is famous for its coffee, but I decided to give it a miss rather than risking my good night sleep. Probably another time if I get to go there for breakfast :p

Robert Timms - The nationalism is shown in the Menu Design

My Dinner - I forgot the name though! Some Spaghetti with meat ^^;

The hard working people!

Our dinner ended at around 10.30pm, then all of us went back home. Most of us still have to work on the next day. Most of us. I’m excluded :p Yeah, I took leave on Friday… so my weekend was officially started on Thurs :)

More on it on next post!
ED

Heya

2011-12-05T23:59:00.000+08:00

I was trying to see if I can have the discipline a blog per day. Even though it helps me to remember more details and reduce my thinking time during weekend, I can't really commit to it. It becomes harder now as my boss has gone for his one month leave and all the work has started to be arrowed to me - more OT.

On the first day of his leave, he called me up at 8am in the morning asking if I'm already in office =_=' Apparently big boss was looking for him for some urgent matter and he decided to delegate it to me. Not a very good start, but I hope it will get better.

I went to Vivo for lunch, both on Tue and Wed. Slowly but sure, the spending demon started to hit me. Yesterday I managed to get an umbrella for Esprit for $19.90 (with 10% discount). Today, I got 4 tops + 1 skirt from G2000 for $199.75 (after 15% discount). The cashier kept asking me to make it to $200 and they would give me a membership card. I told her that it's only a matter of 25 cents, why can't they just give the card to me? I also proposed to give them 25 cents cash to round it to $200. Unfortunately, the supervisor is not in good mood, and neither am I. So I stubbornly proceed to pay $199.75 without getting anything else. On the lucky draw, I got $50 voucher to be used by 15 Dec! Guess I have to go back after all.

As usual, my days starts at 4pm when Germany wakes up. I have called until 8pm, then I stayed for another 30 mins before deciding to call it a day. When waiting at the bus stop, I checked out the McD and hey! The 24hrs McD is already opened! It's only a matter of time until I become their regular customer :p

Ok, I'm ending the blog entry here. Want to find some supper. Till next post, whenever it's!
ED

When not to say Sorry?

2011-12-05T22:20:00.001+08:00

I noticed through movies (and song, and book, and real example) that “Sorry” is one of the hardest words to say. My cute 3 years old niece would rather than having to apologize ^^;

I guess it ties to the fact that by saying “sorry”, you’re acknowledging that you’re wrong, and you’re asking a favor from someone else to forgive you. It’s a big ego to swallow, even for kids.

The funny thing is, as long as I can remember, I never have issue to apologize and I’m glad for it (not sure if it means I have no self respect =___=’). I believe that we learn from mistake, and if you don’t dare to even acknowledge it, how would you ever learn? I stick with that principal and somehow, I think I have overused it – In two different situation today, I was told explicitly that I shouldn’t have said sorry!

First Situation:
My friend A asked me to buy lunch for her. I was going out with my friend C. Somehow my friend C actually helped to order the food for my friend and paid for it. The next day, my friend A said sorry to me that she forgot to pay for the food. I instinctively said sorry back and told her that it has actually been paid by my friend C and not me. She was silent for a while, and then asked me what was I saying sorry for. I said that I’m sorry because I forgot to inform her that my friend C has paid for it. She “hahaha” me and then told me that I shouldn’t be saying sorry so easily :x

Second Situation:
This is more serious. I responded to an innocent looking email without discussing it with my team members. Apparently, there were already separate discussion going on for the same matter and my email has actually ruined the rapport. I received an angry call from A and nasty email from B (both are my team members) for my act. I think through my actions. The next day, I decided to reply back to B saying that I now understand what I should have done, I’m sorry about it, and I will ensure the same won’t happen in the future. He was ok with my first and third point, but said that I shouldn’t have apologies because I did what I have done with the best intentions.

My reaction when I got both these comments in the same day? Haiya! Not saying sorry is wrong, saying sorry also got complained back. Life is complicated. ^^; That aside, I’m thankful that both the people above actually decided to take the extra mile to inform me about it. I believe that this is not the first time I abuse the word “Sorry”, but this is the first time people actually told me about it :) I will consciously monitor the way I used the word going forward. Guess overusing it makes the word loses its meaning. For now, I’m sorry for not knowing when to say sorry =p

The Monday is not so blue today because... all in sudden, no sun no rain; my colleague gave me his wife’s famous banana cake! The whole loaf! It’s the best banana cake I ever eaten, I’m not even exaggerating. Thanks so much, Alan :) It’s calories worth spending on :)

I left office at 8.00 PM today. As usual, I waited and flagged the 51 near NOL building. The bus stopped and – guess what - the EZ Link machines were broken and the bus driver told us that our rides are free! This is the first time I encountered this kind of thing ^^;

I had a lovely dinner at Dawson, and then went to Fair Price looking for my 4th umbrella for the past two months. 4th!! I didn’t eat umbrella, but somehow my brolly turned unrecognizable after two uses. Since there wasn’t much choice available in Fair Price, I decided to maybe search for a better umbrella tomorrow. Any idea of umbrella brand is greatly welcomed.

It’s a day after the 10km run, and I’m really thankful that there is no post-match pain at all at my leg. Maybe I have Tiger Balm to thank for. The official result of the run is out, as well as some interesting statistic: I was on 2553rd place out from 12044. For Women, I stand at 670th place and I was ranked 13th for Female Indonesia category (they are trying to hard to please me with the last statistic). I received an email saying that the official photos are also out, but the website has been down for the last 2 hours =_= maybe I will check it out tomorrow.

My Record from the Official Website - http://www.runpix.info

In the meanwhile - a clear pic taken by Rin2 for me! Thx a bunch Rin!!

Till next post!
ED

Standard Chartered Women's 10 KM Race

2011-12-04T16:23:00.001+08:00

The day is finally here!

I registered for this event reluctantly half a year ago (can't find a proper excuse to reject my colleague), and I must say that I'm thankful for that now. It has motivate me to practice throughout these months :)

My roommate woke up at 3.00am in the morning for her full Marathon run at 5.00am. I'm a bit luckier and get to sleep until 5.45am. After doing the daily morning routines, I headed out from home at around 6.10am. At the lift, we met one uncle who is also doing the run. At the Queenstown MRT, well, there are at least 50 people wearing the StandChart singlet. When the MRT was finally here, I can't believe what I saw, almost the whole train was packed with people going for the run (including sponsors, etc). It was around 6.40am when we reached City Hall... and well. Here is a picture to describe what I saw. The elevator queue was so long that we were still down there when the next train arrived (should have taken the staircase, I know)

City Hall MRT - 6.40am

I didn't really know the location of the run. So when finally getting out from MRT, we decided to follow the crowd, which apparently not as easy as people are splitting in different direction =__='' We walked, queued, walked, queued... guess what, it was in the end 7.15am when I finally reached the start point. Just nice! At the other side of the track, I heard they announced the winner of the Male Marathon Runner (2:14 hrs O.O) Was he flying or what?

The view from Start Line

I can't really run for the first 10 mins. There are people everywhere and I have to keep adjusting my speed to cut / avoid some bump. For person like me, who used to run in a hurdle-less crowd-less track at sport center, this come as a challenge. As expected, I wasn't able to stable my pace, and I lost my stamina at around 4km =_='' I walked for couple of mins, then continued running. I must say that the Distance Board sign did quite motivate me. The motivational word such as "This is what you trained for" did boast my spirit. The digital cheer board was also quite funny. There was a guy saying "Hurry up la Bob, do not make me stand here for so long" to support his friend. Hahaha...

I finally reached the finish line at around 1:14 after the start of the run (thanks to the Tiger Balm at #8km stand which put my legs on fire and forced me to run faster). The crowd handling was pretty good, and I was able to get the medal easily. Unfortunately, the place was kind of muddy after yesterday's night rain, and I actually dirtied my shoes there T_T

Almost forgot to snap a pic!

I waited for Tomy (who runs for Half Marathon) at the Meeting Point#2, rest for a while, then both of us headed to Clementi for Badminton. We played until around 12pm, showered, then had our usual lunch at Kopitiam, and headed back home.

At home, I did my weekend laundry chores, then relax by reading some news and watch some video. It's 5pm and we're soon heading to Somerset for Ajahn Brahm talk: Stillness - Medicine for the Mind. I have been wanting to go to his talk for a while, after all the recommendation I heard about him.

Ajahn Brahm - "Stillness - Medicine for the Mind" Talk

Logging off for dinner,

1 Day to Standard Chartered Run!

2011-12-03T16:14:00.000+08:00

I usually try to wake up early on Saturday for a morning jog. This Sat is the eve of Standard Chartered Run, and as it’s always advised to keep couple of days run break before the actual run, it becomes one of the rare valid excuse for me to sleep until late morning!

I woke up at almost 12pm, played the Surviving High School until almost 1pm, and then went for lunch at Dawson. Grabbed some fruits on our way home. It seems like the fruit season is changing. There is not that much of china pears anymore, and I can’t find golden Kiwi anywhere. We hence decided to try something new – dragon fruits! Hehe.. I was a bit worried that it would be tough to cut, but turned out to be as easy as cutting Kiwi.

Back home, we finished the movie “1911” with the company of Doritos and Ice creams (all the sinful snacks). Afterwards, I continued playing Tiny Tower, then go out to City Hall for a dinner with Boly and Fidel.

My roomie lent me her Canon SLR for the evening, which made me anxious and excited at the same time. It’s amazing how everything turned out to be so perfect with even in Auto mode. The whole perfect moments made me reconsider my choice of next camera. I was so determined before never to get an SLR due to its bulkiness, but I must admit that the quality is just too good to be missed. Sigh.

Christmas Tree outside Suntec City

Christmas Tree inside Suntec City :p

We had dinner at Marutama Ramen. The noodle is awesome but the Yaki Char Siew is divine! The BBQ meat is so soft and it simply melts on your mouth! Even tough it’s a bit pricey ($6 for 5 slices), I might consider ordering it again when I go back :)

My selection - Spicy Ramen

The Heaven-Sent Yaki Char Siew

Next stop after dinner was.. shopping! This time I managed to get shoes (3 pair to be exact) from Everbest. One for me, one for my sister, and one for my mum. I was wanting to use the member card for discount, but apparently POSB was giving an even better deal =_= There are average of 20% and my bill goes to around SGD172.It was already 9.30pm when I was finally done with the shoes, so we headed to MRT and went back home. I wanted to watch one more movie but since it’s the big day tomorrow, we decided to be a good kid and sleep earlier (early = 12am)

Till Sunday’s post!
ED

Weekend comes Early

2011-12-02T16:39:00.000+08:00

I applied for half-day leave this Friday for my friend's ROM. For some reason, she informed us last week that the timing changed from 4pm to 7pm. I was considering canceling my leave, but after thinking of how difficult it's to successfully apply for one, I decided to stick with it.

So I left office at 1pm on Friday after saying happy weekend to everyone.

First destination was lunch. I joined Glen and the gank at Kim Gary for lunch. I didn't know that Kim Gary has promotion for lunch! It's main + drink + side dish for less than $10! That's super good deal for Kim Gary :D No wonder the queue was so long. I had lunch until around 2.30pm, then take a direct bus 145 to Alexandra post office.

Bus was really empty during afternoon. (plus point of running errands during non-peak hour) It was around 3pm when I reached the post office. I waited for around 10 mins, collected a letter, then planning the best way to reach MBS for Standard Chartered Marathon pack collection.

I decided to go through the least complicated way - MRT. I walked to Red Hill MRT and waited 8 mins for an MRT to come (minus point of running errands during non-peak hour =_=). Surprisingly, the MRT was quite crowded. I took the MRT all the way to City Hall, then cross over and took MRT to Marina Bay. Felt a bit stupid that I have to pass through Raffles Place twice.

So I walked all the way from Marina Bay MRT to MBS Hall F. I swear it's at least 20 mins walk. It's not fun when you walked alone and when your mobile battery is almost flat =( Can't even listen to music or play game or check the map. My roomie has actually helped me to collect the race pack on Thurs, but StanChart team goofed up and gave us both the Male Shirt. I called them up early Friday morning to complain, but got blasted back instead ("why didn't you check it when you're at the counter?") =__= The person then told me that it's very low chance that I will be able to get exchange, due to the crowd and they might not have size bla bla bla... But I told her that I'm going to try anyway. Afterwards, she did help me by sending our Singlet confirmation email, then suggesting me print it out and go directly to the helpdesk to check.

It was almost 5pm when I finally reached the place. I'm kind of lucky that the queue wasn't very long. I wait for around 10 mins, then addressed by an underage looking guy :p I explained and showed him the confirmation email, and I got the exchange without any hassle! Finally something goes right. This time, he requested me to check once more time before leaving the counter. haha.

Race Pack Collection queue! I like the design!

I realized that I was running out of time and rushing back the long winding path to MRT. On my way at MBS Shopping Mall, I noticed someone familiar... and they are my 5th Aunt and Uncle! What a coincidence! There just reached Singapore early in the morning, and will be here until Sunday. We chatted for around half an hour, then I bid them goodbye.

Coincidental Meet Up - Singapore is small after all.

Time was around 5.45pm when I reached MRT. I texted Tomy and told him that I won't be able to make it for 6.15pm at Buona Vista as I still have to go back home to change. As soon as I reached home, I did a speedy make up + change, then dashed out to Buona Vista. Funnily, Tomy was late as well and in the end we reached at almost the same time ^^;

The cute door gift

We reached the Venue (The Tanjong @ One north) at 7pm sharp. At around 7.30pm, all the Figtherz team are there, and the ROM commenced at around 7.40pm. It was a bit delayed from plan, and the pastor was jokingly said that he thought the couple changed their mind. The ceremony went on simple and sweet. After cake cutting, the MC commenced the start of dinner! :D We ate and chatted until around 9pm, took some pictures with the bride and groom, then left at around 9.30pm.

Fighterz Forever!

Vandalism at the signboard near lift

Back home, I showered and rested for a while. Our movie selection fell to "The Tree of Life" starring Brat Pitt. The movie started out pretty intriguing. Yet, after half an hour, we concluded that it's not our piece of cake and reselect the movie of the week. The choice finally fell to "1911" starring Jackie Chan. Oh well, the movie was pretty good, though I got a bit confused with all the different yet similar wars it depicted. After watching for one hour, we decided that the war should continue tomorrow and went to bed.

That's all for a Friday :)
ED

Grey Thursday

2011-12-01T22:39:00.001+08:00

First day of December turned out to be not-so-good for me for couple of reasons:
1. Difficulty in waking up (not new, in fact, this happened for the whole week)
2. Forgot my Yoga Class (this never happened before!)
3. Blasted by my boss in Germany for actually trying to help. Explicitly begged to do nothing.
4. Stayed late in office for one stupid call and hence has to forgo my dinner
5. Felt headache and started to have sore throat

Luckily, not everything was bad (hence the title "Grey", and not "Black" Thursday)
1. I managed to convince the lunch gank to have lunch at Canteen today and I got to eat the delicious mini wok :p
2. My leave has been approved for tomorrow and I have delegated all my afternoon calls! Yay!
3. I got people to listen to my complains (thanks all!)
4. My team member got a super nice banana cake to office today, and I was lucky to be one of the early bird :D
5. Glee is finally out with the new episode! signing out to watch now :p

Till tomorrow!
ED

Welcoming December

2011-11-30T22:28:00.001+08:00

The month that I have been waiting for the whole year… is finally just a day away! Normally, apart from people taking leaves, there are not much of other indication of the holiday season in the office. This year, our secretary decided to take it beyond the norm. She actually brought a mini Christmas tree and set it up on the table. Below the tree, she put small gifts, and even filled the table with candies, chocolates, cookies, and (ehem) some chewing gums. Now it feels like Christmas!

The Mini Christmas Tree!

We had lunch at Crystal Jade today and were talking about food. There is a promotion right now at juztoday.com for SGD 27 buffet at Yum Cha Garden. The promotion looks super nice, but alas, I have no more buffet quota for the rest of the year =( I hope someone who read this blog will go and buy the buffet deal and eat on my behalf, so the good deal doesn’t go wasted.

These days I’m really addicted to Tiny Tower. I think after the latest patch, they make the level easier, so I felt that I advanced much faster =__=’’ I have to reduce my addition or I’m risking my social life here.

Tiny Tower screenshot taken with the Assistive Touch. Look at the first comment in BitBook!

I would like to close the blog today by wishing everyone a wonderful Dec ahead! All is well!
ED

5 more days to StanChart Run!

2011-11-29T22:22:00.000+08:00

I’m running out of evening slot to practice. Due to daylight savings, all my calls that supposed to end at 6pm now end at 7pm. By then it’s already too late for me to start running =(

My call finished at 6.35pm on Tuesday When I checked out the weather, the rain has just stopped. I hesitated a bit, but in the end decided to go for a quick run. Either today or never! I started to run at around 6.50pm. I guess the monsoon season also means that the sky turned dark earlier. At around 7.15pm, my running path was pitch black. I can hardly see anything in front of me, most of the time I stepped into puddle. The road was also a bit slippery which made me even more cautious.I finished my 5.5km run at around 7.30pm. I’m glad that I made it, but I don’t think I want to do that again next time. It’s a nice weather, but the place around Labrador Park is way too dark to run around after 7pm T_T

My RunKeeper for the day!

At night, I chatted with my roomie about the preparation for the run before we slept. She is taking the full marathon and hence might need to wake up as early as 3am (whew!) That was the last thing we discussed before I finally fall asleep... and had a weird dream on the StanChart run...

I was in the 10km run. I started to run from City Hall. After 10 minutes, I realized that I have an exam to take, so I run into a classroom and start taking exam. My mind was split between the exam and run. At one time I want to do my best in the exam, at the same time, I know that I will be disqualified if I didn’t finish my run within 2 hours. I did the exam for one hour, then run out of classroom to continue with the run. At that time, most of my friends have already completed the run… I was trying to catch up, but somehow I can’t find much direction of the running path… in the end I got lost... I run around to find the correct path and ended up in a jungle.

Then I woke up. Hahaha. 5 more days to go, I hope things will be smooth in the real run!
ED

The Alternative to iPhone Home Button

2011-11-28T22:16:00.000+08:00

For iOS 5 user, you can go to Settings > General > Accessibility. Under the section for Physical and Motor, turn on Assistive Touch.You will then see a small button pop up to the screen and seems to float around the screen.

Assistive Touch near the left down corner

That’s my life savior.

For a barbaric iPhone user like me, I always have issue with the home button. Last year I exchanged my iPhone because the home button wasn’t responsive after couple of months. This year, I was thinking of changing to iPhone 4S for the same reason: the home button was getting harder and harder to activate. I have no problem with the battery or lag in response, but what can you do when you can’t press the only button in your mobile? It’s almost impossible for me to switch between apps.

With this Assistive Touch, I can now do whatever you need to do with home button with the virtual button on the screen. I can even double tap! I don’t know why Apple never mentioned about this awesome function in iOS5. Thanks to Chang Hong for letting me know :) This really chased my Monday blues away!

The virtual home button has exact same function with the real home button

Guess I will be able to survive until the next iPhone release now! Hehe.
ED

Rec Club DnD + Last week of StanChart training + Lunch with LadyIronChef

2011-11-27T21:26:00.001+08:00

I don’t know which highlight to pick, so I decided to squeeze everything to the title =_=;Lets start chronologically =p

My last weekend ended with me dozing off watching a Japanese movie “Elevator to the Gallows”. Apparently, it’s a remake of a French movie with the same title from 1958. The French’s release gained quite a high rating in IMDB (8/10), so I was kind of expecting the same for its remake… which, well, not the case.

Weekdays in office are OK. There is workshop happening in Germany and hence lots of our weekly calls were cancelled (Yay!) I did my weekly jog on Mon and Tue (the only two days which weren’t raining at 6pm), as well as my usual yoga on Thursday. Now that the weather is not as predictable, I started to see the benefit of having fitness membership – at least you don’t have to depend on the weather to exercise ^^;

On Wednesday, we went to Vivo for dinner. We were deciding between Kim Gary and Superdog, and finally agreed to give Superdog a try. The place was spacious (thankfully we’re not the only customer). The staffs are actually quite friendly and asked if this is my first time visiting Superdog (I didn’t know that I looked so confused).

The Superdog Cheat Sheet

We ordered the Superdog signature hotdog for SGD 9.5. The hotdog was good – the bread was soft and the sausage does taste like different from Fair Price’s sausages, but… the size was a total disappointment =( The size is similar to those $1 hotdog pushcart. I was expecting bigger for that price.

Superdog's Superdog!

After dinner, we went to the third floor to check out the Christmas tree. The tree was there but the lighting was, well, 90% off T_T Maybe they didn’t turn it on for weekdays… maybe it’s part of the green initiative… or maybe it’s just broken because a big rain just hit earlier on the day. After walking along the tree, we went down to Giant for some snacks shopping, then hit home early.

The not-so-bright Christmas Tree

Friday was pretty packed up with non-work activities. For one, we had the Christmas charities going on during lunchtime (somehow it's very hard to say "no" to your colleagues. Gave 40 bucks in total). In the afternoon, everyone was talking about D&D and not really in the mood to work. I myself started to pack at around 6pm and disappeared from office with the other ladies.

The D&D was held at Raffles Convention Center. The theme was “Crazy Color Crazy Hat”. The organizer predicted well in advance that not many will bother with the theme, so they decided to buy the hats for us ^^; We registered at around 7.00pm, got our door gift (a gigantic DB umbrella), and then entered to see what’s there for us. I chatted with couple of colleagues for a while, and then most of the ladies are drawn into one corner – photo booth!

One of the many photos we took

We were finally asked to seat at around 8pm at the dining hall, then the MC started the D&D with the opening address from Rec Club President. I kind of expecting the speech to be light (It’s RECREATION club!) but it turned out to be very serious with all about bank, chart, numbers, and target. It was almost 9pm when the speech finally finished, and we wait for nothing when they said “Dinner is served!”

D&D Table 18

The food was good. There are different buffets spread for vegetarian, non-veggie, and dessert. The non-veggie table really live up to its name – there was hardly any vegetable dishes there! All I can see was fish, chicken, mutton, squid… @.@

One of the buffet spread

The event continued with report from Rec club secretary and financial controller, then followed with table game (Song guessing – Shazam was particularly useful), stage games, and finally, lucky draws! Called it beginner’s luck (this is my first time attending D&D), I actually won something! It’s the #38 out of 70 prize and came in quite a huge package. I torn off the takasimaya gift wrap and revealed a… bread toaster. An exact similar thing with what my roomie has. Haha..The even ended at almost 11pm, then Olivia sent me back home (thanks!). I slept at 12+ after a shower.

I woke up at 7am on Saturday, felt super lazy, but decided to get up anyway for my Sat jog. The sun was shining brightly, and started to become unbearable as it hits 8am. Many times I felt the urge to stop. I felt tired after 5 laps, stopped for water cooler at the 10th laps, walking at the 15th laps, but finally managed to finish my target 30 laps! =D That’s my longest run, yet. It was around 9.30am when I reached back home. I showered, dressed up, then go for the next event: Lunch with Lady Iron Chef (Free)!

It’s a monthly event sponsored by SMRT, organized by Nuffnang, in an attempt to promote the eating places around Circle Line MRT. For this month, we went to Botanical Garden MRT and had our lunch at Swiss Butchery Shop (Coronation Branch).We met up at the MRT Control Station at 11.30am. At around 11.40am, everyone shown up and we all walk to the place together. There are 20 of us and guess how many are guys? 4!! And guess how many are older than me? 1!! (That’s Winson). All of them are still studying. I never felt this conscious about my age before.

Anyway, they are all nice (and pretty) people. LadyIronChef himself is really down to earth =) He looks so much taller in real life than the pic ^^; He was really passionate when sharing about the good restaurant and café… I just have be careful with his word affordable (“Prive at Keppel Bay has a nice view and surprisingly affordable! Only around ten-ish per dish”) Sometime I wonder if he ever at canteen. Lol.

LadyIronChef explaining the different eating places

So, back to the Swiss Butchery. We walked for around 10 mins from the MRT and reached there at 12pm. Man, we were treated like VIP there. They have arranged the table for us outdoor, but was happily re-arranged it to indoor when some complains it’s too hot outside. The drink was served really fast (and topped up continuously), and even the food was served within 20mins.

Hidden Gem - Swiss Butchery

Fresh Meat for sales

We had Salad, Grilled Chicken Burger, Grilled Cod Fish Burger, Beef Burger, Mash potatoes (I love the potatoes), fries, (plenty of) sausages, and last but not least mushroom pasta! No complain to any of the food. It’s a fine western food bistro and I would have loved to revisit it if I stayed around that area. Unfortunately, it’s more than 30 mins travel… so yeah… till our fate cross again! (or the next free lunch, whichever earlier).

Sausage, Sausage, and Sausage. The reddest one was the nicest (no idea about the name)

After lunch, we were given a goodie bag + quiz about SMRT. I was lucky enough to sit in the smart table, so couple of us got a gift. I got a S.H.E SHERO album. Hahaha.. oh well, my first original album =p We finally parted after some photo takings.

Group of Free Lunchers + Nuffnang's Staff + *GOH* Brat

With Brad! (Still very used with calling him ladyironchef)

Winson and I went to Bugis afterwards. The intention was to pray, but as it was raining quite heavily during that time, we spent most of our time shopping at OG =_= Thanks that we remember to cover the praying part as well. Bugis Junction’s Christmas theme was “Go Gaga this Christmas”, and things are decorated in black and white, which was surprisingly giving the exclusive look =)As much as I wanted to shop, my legs were hurting so bad that I finally raised the white flag. We rested at Swensen, had one of the sinful ice cream, then had dinner at Food Junction before going back home.

Go Gaga This Christmas @ Bugis Junction

My Dinner - Chinese Ayam Penyet

Back home, I rested for a while, then watched a comedy movie “30 Minutes or Less” and slept afterwards.

Sunday is the day for badminton, family, and relaxing at home. The weather was sunny in the afternoon, so I decided to wash my bed sheet. Within half an hour, the sky turned dark and it rained like no tomorrow =__=’ me and my luck. Somehow, I like the rain… it helps to breeze up the dry afternoon. Nothing much in the evening (except me addicted to Tiny Tower). we had dinner at Dawson, got ourselves some fruits, and now… ready for a movie to end the Sunday :D :D

Till next week!
ED

PS: Annoyed with Google for disabling the Sharing function in its Reader v_v

Sing Your Mind Out

2011-11-20T16:50:00.001+08:00

Ok the title doesn’t have anything to do with the rest of the blog entry. It’s the song sung by Sherina in the closing ceremony of One Young World conference. I found it when I was browsing, liked it, and so typing it here so that I can recall the title in the future :p

At the same week, I found out about Charice’s new album – “Infinity” :D I listened to her single “Louder”, and still can’t believe that such a young girl can have such a marvelous voice. Loving the album ~ How I wish she can be a permanent member in Glee.

I noticed that my music preference is shifting from boy bands to girl powers ^^; Most of them are also younger than myself. I wondered where were all my favorite-seasoned artists now. Where is Mariah Carey, Christina Aguilera, Whitney Houston these days? Christmas is around the corner and I do hope that they will come out with some Christmas songs compilation as usual =)

Christmas lit-up started this week at Orchard, and I’m seeing more and more Christmas trees around Singapore (mental note: to have my camera ready from now on). How can you resist the holiday mood when everywhere seems to be screaming holiday?

Random Shot at Orchard - The theme color seems to be blue this year!

Office has turned quieter these days. I received at least 4 out of office message for every 10 participants I sent to. Our performance evaluation period is over, people start taking turn in clearing leaves, and I can see more and more travels print-out in office’s printer :pAnyway, I passed this week similar to how I passed last week. How do I explain my feeling? I’m excited that December is coming in two weeks now, but at the same time scared that it will come and go before I savor it to the max. I have been waiting for it for 11 months! And now I don’t know what to do as it’s approaching.

It’s 3 weeks to my 10km Stand Chart run. I slept earlier on Friday and woke up at 6.30am for a jog with my roommate. I’m thankful that my roommate is in this together, so I have someone to keep me motivated :) (Not sure about the other way round).We run for around one and half hour (10+km), then I went back, showered, and go for my annual dental check-up.

After my bad experience with Tiong Bahru's Q&M last year, we decided to try out the Red Hill branch this time. Despite being the first client in the clinic, the secretary made us wait for 30 mins because we don’t have any appointment (why all dental secretaries are that hateable?) Having said so, the experience was better than last year. The doctor was kind (apart from all his salesman attempt to sell me implants, braces, and surgeries). He explained things well, and my cleaning doesn’t hurt as bad. Actually, the doctor even said that I have good dental hygiene (smile). For scaling, polishing, and filling, my bill went to the total of SGD 141 (undo smile).

It was around 11.30am when we’re done with the dental affair. We took bus 33 from Redhill to Queensway Shopping Center for… McValue Lunch! :p It has been really long since the last time I had McD, at least 3 months. I had Spicy Chicken Meal with green tea, which cost me less than SGD 5.5 (cheapskate mode on).

Back home, we got our annual aircon cleaning. The guys from AireControl were complaining that our aircons were way to dirty, saying that it should have been cleaned quarterly instead of annually. Knowing their hidden agenda (to get people to sign for yearly service contract), I just shrugged and said that annual is what mentioned in our Flat Agreement.

After a busy morning, my afternoon was pretty relaxing – tidying up stuff, watching my weekly clicknetwork episodes, responding to personal emails, and soon enough, it was time to go to Somerset for evening agenda :)

We had dinner at Coco Ichibanya. It was pretty crowded, I guess because of the 10% discount until the end of Nov. Thanks to Jess who arrived early, we didn’t have to queue at all =P I ordered Mushroom Cream Omelette Curry based on the review I saw in forums. The curry wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t above-average good. In fact, it taste exactly the same with the instant Japanese curry block you can find in Fair Price, which is also the same taste you can have in any coffee shop for SGD 5 =__=’’ Coco Ichibanya is known as king of curry in Japan, so I didn’t regret trying it out. If I ever go there again, it will be to try out its Level 5 spicy curry :)

My Mushroom Cream Omelette Curry (SGD13++)

We went to Cathay Orchard after dinner to catch “You’re the apple of my eyes” Taiwanese movie. The setting was mostly in high school, with last part in university. Oh well, I know I’m – a bit – too old for puppy love story, but the movie was really funny. Nothing really special about plot though, and again, I would have preferred the movie to be happy ending :(

那些年，我們一起追的女孩

This week, we seem to be clearing up the Chinese movies stocks. We watched The Sorcerer And The White Snake, followed by My Kingdom. The first movie story line was well known, so there is no much WOW element. The graphic was good, the girls are pretty, but it still weird to see snakes floating in the sky. The theme of the second movie was quite unique. The movie was talking about Chinese Opera, but the actors are those boy band singers. Those amateur singers were surprisingly quite good actors. The story was nice but the ending was kind of lame. It leaves me wondering of what the movie actually wants to convey :s

My sunday schedule was kind of empty, which I'm thankful of as I don't think I'm on my best of mood. After the morning badminton session, I just stayed at home, watching the weather turned from extreme hot to raining and now windy. I was lazying around playing Tiny Tower for the whole afternoon, and I guess it's time for me to get up and do some home chores... =__=''

Plan to start my year end planning by next week,
ED

PS: Does anyone see elephants all around Singapore lately? I just learnt that it's part of Elephant Parade exhibition - in an attempt to bring awareness and conservation of Asian Elephant.

Red Devil Elephant!

November Rain

2011-11-13T17:26:00.001+08:00

So I reached back SG from Korea last sunday. It was 7.30am in the morning as we dragged the luggage across the HDB area. The weather was so good till I had the crazy idea of going for a jog straightaway. Of course in the end my lazy mind took charge and I ended up spending my morning unpacking my stuff.

There was actually nothing much in my luggage except for the cosmetics stuff. I finished unpacking at around 10am, then showered and laid on my bed while reading through my feeds through iPhone google reader. Soon enough, the Z virus hit me and I was unconscious until 2pm. I jumped up, freshen up, then went to Dawson for late lunch. Oh, the food in Singapore tasted like heaven compared with Korean food in Korea (sound weird, I know) After lunch, I remembered doing laundry, catching up with my games, feeds, clicknetwork videos, until it was time for dinner. After dinner, we watched Disney Cars 2, and then have an early rest.

Monday was a public holiday. I forced myself to wake up early and went to jog at Queenstown stadium. Winson joined me for the first time and I thought I could show off the result of my 6 months running regime. As it turned out, he was still able to run passed me effortlessly =__=’ We run + walk until around 16 laps, then went back home to shower.

Afternoon activity was KTV at Teo Heng NTU alumni club. I know that Ten Dollars club is cheap, but Teo Heng is the cheapest one so far. The big room (with capacity of 10 people) is SGD 36 net for weekend. Since there are 8 of us, each is paying SGD4.5 for 3 hours of KTV. Wow! For weekdays, the charge is SGD 22 for big room. It means SGD 2.2 per person for 3 hours KTV! I wonder how they make money. Even the drinks are only SGD 1 / can.

Random Shots at the Future Singers

In the evening, we decided to try out Al Afrose restaurant, which is just couple of steps from Spize. It turned out to be total disappointment =( the bilis in my ikan bilis fried rice was so tough that I can hardly swallow it. The chicken in Winson’s mie goreng was full of bones and no meat :s Oh how I missed the food at Al Ameen =( We might give this restaurant another try for its indian food before abandoning it forever.

Not so good looking / good tasting Ikan Bilis Fried Rice - Al Afrose

Tuesday was my first day going back to office. Apparently lots of people were on leave and just returning on the same day – a lot of greetings and exchange of stories. Things were not as bad as I expected =p I was still able to do my jog before taking a 9pm call and went back at around 10pm.

On Wednesday, work started to pile up once people knows that you’re back in office. I stayed pretty late in office, but still reach back before 12am. Hehe..

The Thursday this week was surprisingly free for me. My weekly yoga wasn’t happening as many members are on leave. I intended to go for another running exercise, but my other call was rescheduled and clashed with my running time v_v. I left home at around 8.00pm after knowing that my weekly 10pm call was rescheduled to Friday.

Friday - Happy 11-11-11, whatever it means! Not sure why, I wasn’t in the mood to work at all on Friday. Even when people are asking me serious questions, I was answering half heartily. Maybe it’s because my boss was again taking sudden leave and rescheduling my performance review T__T I left at 7pm after my call, and spent the evening at Vivocity. The Christmas decoration is everywhere! So does my holiday mood =p We reached back home at around 10pm, then watched “Overheard 2” until midnight.

Saturday, I went for Queenstown stadium for another jog. It’s 3 weeks to my 10km Standard Chartered run, and I felt so unprepared! Out of my kiasuness, I ran and ran and run until my iPhone battery ran out =__= It was a total of 12.44km within 1hr 45mins – my furthest distance so far! (Last record was 11km before the Jurong Lake Run). After running, I was busy with my housework chores until time for lunch.

Lunch was at Sizzler Toa Payoh. We got the cash voucher of SGD 20 for SGD 14, thanks to In Sing. You just have to order one main and will be provided access to all-you-care-to-eat salad table. The salad table is not a normal salad table. It’s comparable to that of Pizza Hut, with free flow of soups, noodle, spaghetti, and even with a booth for yogurt and ice cream. Simply said, Sizzler is actually a buffet for SGD 14. The staffs are friendly, and the quality of the food is also above average. The fruits are all so sweet, and never did I see mushroom soup with mushroom as big as ping-pong ball. We ate from 1.30pm to 3pm, then happily rolling to MRT.

Own-picked salad + Superb Cheese Toast

One view of the Salad Table (before the waiter told me that pic is not allowed)

On our way back, we stopped at Raffles Place to meet up with Citra. We walked around Raffles area, then stopped at Rotisserie for lunch. The lunch looks good (even when looked at with full stomach). I ordered coffee but it doesn’t seem to help my after-lunch-sleepiness. We left the place at around 5pm, and I was unconscious until 7pm. My sister called me right after I was out from shower. We chatted for almost an hour, then I spent the rest of the Saturday continuing the “Overheard 2” and big-bag theory. “Overheard 2” is a disappointment compared with its first movie. The story was predictable and it doesn’t show much of wits =(

Sunday I woke up at 8.30am and then went to JE for badminton (there is no chance to sleep until late these days!) There are 12 of us – lucky that Inche booked 2 courts. What I waited most is the after badminton treat – Sarawak Kolo Mee! Lurve it max. We celebrated Inche's B'day as well at the coffee shop. Happy Birthday, Che! Stay innocent always =p

Happy 17th B'day to Inche :D

The weather turned weird once we reached home. It was unbearable hot for couple of minutes, then raining like no tomorrow, then stopped in 10 minutes, and then started to rain again =_= It’s now 5.30 and song of thunders are still playing outside the window. What a nice time to nap... :p

Fighting against Z virus,
ED

8 Days Korea Discovery + Jeju

2011-11-08T00:47:00.001+08:00

Sat, 29 Oct 2011 – Day 1 - Singapore - Seoul

After an unexpectedly easy Friday in office, I finalized my packing on Sat morning, and then went to airport after lunch at around 11am. I reached the airport just in time to meet the tour leader, grab my ticket, and then go to the departure hall to join my parents. They have been waiting since their flight reach Singapore at around 11.30am. We had a quick bite at coffee shop near by, and then proceed to the gate for the 2.30pm flight.

Our flight to Seoul!

The flight was smooth. I had “Singapore style” Kimchi fried rice and finished two movies: “Captain America” and “Planet of the Apes”. Captain America was surprisingly good, and Planet of the Apes was boring as expected. It was a 6 ½ hours flight to South Korea, and we reached before I even got a chance to feel sleepy.

Delicious Kimchi Fried Rice for lunch!

My Entertainment Guide

A quick walk around Incheon airport made me wonder how it could beat Changi Airport as the best airport in the past. The airport was indeed huge, but it’s not anywhere close to Changi in terms of convenience and service offered. Changi is the only airport so far that I see offering free massages chairs, napping area, as well as free mobile charging. Oh well, maybe there are more criteria which are not visible to the end customers. At least Incheon has free wifi and I’m already happy enough with that =p

It was around 10.30pm when we finally met all our tour people. There are 23 tour guests + 4 tour agencies people– the driver, the tour guide, the Korean representative, and the tour leader. In total, we’re travelling in the group of 27people most of the time. Our tour guide is Annie (a bit disappointed to get an auntie as our tour guide T_T) and she was rambling more about her family history rather than what to see and eat in Korea (complain mode :p)

We reached Harbor Park hotel at around 12.15am after making a quick stop at convenience store. We had our supper: 2 cups of Korean delicious instant noodle, then went to a soundly sleep.

Eating Korean Noodle in its country of Origin! Nom Nom...

Sun, 30 Oct 2011 – Day 2 - Seoul - Yasan Farm - Deoksan Spa Castle

We woke up at 7am and had our breakfast at the hotel premises before starting the tour. A bit different from other hotel, the breakfast location is at the top 15th floor rather than ground floor. We got a nice view, but at the cost of 10 minutes waiting just for the lift (I’m complaining too much, aren’t I?)

View from the dining table

Our first itinerary for Korea was Ice Gallery. Despite being quite small (10 mins for full ice gallery tour), it has quite some interesting ice sculptures. There are things from living room, computer, piano, and ice toilets!

Icy Living Room - Complete with the TV!

After the tour, we were invited to create our own ice glass. The presenter did a demo for us before leaving us to sculpt our own. Out from the 23 participants, mum won the first place!! Ha. I never know there is art blood in my family.

They gave gold medal, ice flower bouquet, and even the head trophy ^^;

The second destination was… Korean Shabu Shabu Buffet lunch “Mor Mor”! I was quite surprised that there is only such a short break between breakfast and lunch. We had breakfast at 9am and now lunch at 11am? :( I wasn’t able to really savor all the food there, but at least I finish the premium pork / chicken plate which was not replenishable.

Korean Shabu Shabu Buffet - Steamboat #1

Third destination was Yasan Agroland Farm, where we got the change to do calf feeding and cow milking. The weather was warm and I confirmed beyond 28 degrees! Who told me about 10 degrees during autumn in Korea? I want breeze!!

Feeding Calf - The bottle was indeed huge!

After a tractor ride tour around the farm, we proceed with ice cream making. Well, the experience was ok, but I still prefer to buy than make my ice cream. Hehe.

Strawberry, Banana, and Chocolate Hand Made Ice Cream - made and eaten

Fourth destination was Resom – Spa Castle. Too bad I didn’t bring my camera there, so no pic as such =( The Spa Castle deserved a WOW. The place was huge with indoor and outdoor spa. The indoor spa was further differentiated between mixed spa and naked spa. The outdoor spa was something like Sunway Lagoon, complete with the various attractions, all for free, and gosh - there was almost no queue! I went for the mixed (Swimming suit) spa as well as the outdoor adventure. The warm water was so relaxing, and it was soon time to get ready for dinner before we realized it.

We concluded our second day with steamboat at the Resom Hotel. After a quick shop for mineral water at convenience store, we went back to hotel to rest. That day, I got to sleep with the Korean style tatami =) That night, I felt like Nobita.

Tatami!

Steamboat dinner at Resom Hotel - Steamboat #2

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 – Day 3 - Deoksan Spa Castle - Mt. Sorak - Yongpyong Dragon Valley

Our morning was kicked off with American style breakfast at the hotel. After breakfast, we proceed with 4 hours bus ride before we reach our next destination – restaurant for lunch =__=’’ By the third day, I realized that I haven’t been doing much rather than eat, sit, and snap. It was a steamboat lunch, and I started to consciously counting how many steamboats are we having in for the tour.

American Style Breakfast

Yet another steamboat lunch - Steamboat #3

After lunch, we proceed with our first and only destination for the day – Seoraksan National Park. We visited the Shinhungsa Temple, then took a cable car to the top of the mountain and walked up to Kwon Kum Seong Fortress. After awhile, we went back to the park and were given one hour to walk around and enjoying the park. The autumn red leaves were indeed very beautiful. I learnt that there are different leaves colors for different trees. The yellowish leaves are Ginko tree (remind me of a story in Conan!) and the red leaves are maple tree. The park is kind of romantic, and would have been perfect if the weather was not so hot T_T

Love the color of Autumn!

Kwon Kum Seong Fortress - mostly rock and stones

Infront of the Entrance Gate of Seoraksan National Park

Our dinner was another steamboat. Fish steamboat to be exact. The soup was a bit too salty even for me, but the rest of the things are ok. We stay at Yong Pyong hotel for the night, and I finally got a bit of breeze. It is a skiing resort for winter, and the only resort that has free wifi. Kudos, Yong Pyong! I got to do video call with sis and bro before we slept soundly at night. Oh, we also went for a quick look at the Winter Sonata Café across the hotel. I didn’t watch the drama so I don’t know much, but apparently it’s true that all aunties are crazy about the lead actor Bae Yong Joon – proven by aunties in my tour and confirmed by the auntie tour guide. Anyway. Halloween for whoever cares!

Fish Steamboat - Steamboat #4

In the Winter Sonata Cafe

Our hotel room at Yeong Pyong Dragon Valley - There is another bed behind the wall for me

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 – Day 4 - Yongpyong Dragon Valley - Jeju Island

We had our buffet style breakfast (yay!) at the resort. After another round of walk around the resort, we took bus back to Seoul, and had our lunch before proceeding to domestic airport for Jeju Island.

My breakfast plate! Basically the whole menu they have in the buffet spread

Posing at the not activated ski train

BBQ for lunch!

The souvenir shop beside the lunch place - cute dolls!

The price for Face Shop mask in Korea! W1,500 is less than SGD 2!!

I felt that Jeju’s itinerary was so much more happening than the earlier couple of days. We reached at around 4pm, then proceed for our first itinerary of the day – Teddy Bear Museum. I heard that it’s a filming site for Princess Hour, but again alas, I didn’t watch the series, so I was just enjoying the teddy bears… I don’t find them extremely cute, but I guess it worth a visit. They have bears miniature for famous movie / animation like Alice in the Wonderland and the Shrek!The Shrek Bears!

Happy Shrek Bears Family!

Our dinner was a normal rice dinner (thankful for no steamboat), and then we proceed with our second and last itinerary of the day – Nanta Show. It was a one hour non verbal performance based on the rhythms of samullori (traditional Korean percussion). The show has been there since 1997! The show was quite engaging, and it was soon the ending before we even realize it. After dinner, we proceed to our hotel T.H.E hotel, which is our hotel for 2 days at Jeju Island.

Tour Guide "Come come eat, all are replenishable, except the egg" O.O

At the Theater for Nanta Show

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 – Day 5 - Jeju Island

The morning routine was a bit different for Day 5. We didn’t have to pack our stuff, so we just showered and got to the bus for our breakfast destination. Finally, a breakfast outside the hotel! We went for so-called Abalone porridge. “so-called” because the said abalone was chopped until nothing was really visible in the porridge… and the abalone porridge simply taste salty.

Excited over porridge

After breakfast, we proceed with first itinerary of the day: Seongsan Sunrise Peak. It supposed to be a place to watch sunrise, but since we reached there around 10am, we were just wandering around the area without specific purposes. I went all the way to the top of the peak (around 500 staircase steps!) but was disappointed to find the place fully packed with nothing much to see =(There are lots of tourist at Seongsan Peak, mostly from Taiwan, China, Japan, and local Korean. Despite being all asian, I can easily tell which country the group of tourist are from based from their behavior. Japanese are all so politeee!! They will let you pass through first and queue even for taking pics. The rest acted like it’s the world of their owns, blocking you from taking picture, pushing around, and conveniently blocking the road to take 50 different poses pics. Roar!

Long queue for going up and down the peak T_T

For the second itinerary of the day, we went horse riding nearby. It was not actually a horse, but a pony. Well, it still looked quite huge, and it felt quite high to be on its top. The session was more of photography sessions rather than real horse riding experience. We were on the horse for around 15 mins. There are 3 mins when the horse actually walked, the rest was standing still and horse trainer asking us to pose for picture. We spent 45,000 won for 3 bad quality printer pictures. I won’t have taken the pictures if the quality is that bad! What a waste T_T

On a Pony - The Ponies are all well trained!

We went for BBQ lunch at a restaurant called Yetjeoungui Gol (It’s very tough to find any English name for restaurant since most are conveniently written only in Korean). By that time I was so sick of Pork and Chicken BBQ ^^; I had mostly salted fish to compliment the rice during the lunch.

Another BBQ Lunch

After lunch, we proceed with our third itinerary: Seongup Folk Village – where the famous Dae Jang Geum series. Mum and Dad know the story, so they explained to me the main story line. The village itself was quite small. After a quick tour, they started to sell honey, ginseng, and some-five-flavors like the usual MLM sales. Mum and dad got a pot of honey (W 40,000) while I refused to try anything after my experience with Ling Zhe at Taiwan.

Seongup Folk Village

Fourth itinerary was Trick Art Museum. It's similar to Ripley's Believe it or not - Korean Version. In door was filled with 3D painting on the walls, while outdoor was filled with animals replicas.

One of the 3D pictures at Trick Art Museum

I got a pair of wings!

Fifth itinerary was Chocolate Museum. Despite voted as top ten Chocolate museum (#7) in the world, it’s a far cry from Penny’s Chocs Museum (#3) at Phillips Island.

The Chocolate Museum & Statue of Jeju's God

Sixth itinerary was Glass Castle, which was more fun for me – maybe because it’s the first glass castle I ever visited, so no comparison as such. It was around 5pm when we reached there and the sky has turned a bit dark. We had less than an hour to look, see, snap, then proceed for dinner.

View of Glass Castle Park

The seventh and last itinerary of the day was a visit to TopDong Shopping Street. Mum wasn’t feeling very well on that day, so we just have a brief walk around before going back to hotel to rest. Mum got a flu that day. All started because there is a Korea policy that hotels are not supposed to turn on AC during Autumn period. Our hotel room was very warm, so we requested for a fan and voila – mum caught flu because of the fan T_T so sorry mum…

Dad and I went to the Casino in the hotel, which was pathetic as there are only 2 people playing :s. Afterwards, we tasted some Choya's like drink (which was recommended by tour guide), along with snack from Paris Baguette (which is really famous in Korea)

Seafood (Abalone) Steamboat Dinner - Steamboat #5

Jeju's Choya & Tofu Chips from Paris Baguette for supper

Thurs, 03 Nov 2011 – Day 6 - Jeju Island - Seoul

The story for the rest of the tour was a bit short as we skipped some of the activities so that mum can have more rest.

Our 6th day started with breakfast at the hotel, then we packed and proceed with the last two attractions at Jeju Island. First is the Mysterious Road, where we experienced the phenomenon of going uphill with the vehicle engine turned off. I wasn’t really interested with the explanation, so I went to shop nearby and snap some pictures of the souvenirs. Second itinerary was Yongduam Dragon Rock – just another rock for me who can’t appreciate the nature beauty. We spent around half an hour there, then proceed to Domestic airport for flight back to Seoul.

Buffet Breakfast at the T.H.E Hotel

Cute version of Jeju's Gods

Yongduam Dragon Rock - Not sure where is the Dragon though

Seoul was all warm and shiny. We had (tasteless) Ginseng Chicken Soup for lunch, then proceed with spending the rest of the day at Everland Theme Park. Samsung Group apparently owned the park, so the tour guide started to tell us the history of Samsung, which was pretty interesting (please google if interested). We were given 4 hours at the theme park (from 4pm – 8pm) I spent the first one hour queuing for the famous T Express 3-minutes roller coaster ride. It was worthy of every single second of waiting! Apart from the ride, I only managed to catch the Safari tour + Everland Parade before leaving for dinner.

Korea Ginseng Chicken Lunch - very disappointing =( Tried once at Crystal Jade Korean in SG and it tastes so much better

The T Express Ride view from Sky Train

Korean "Night" Safari =p View from the bus

The all light shimmering parade

Dinner was yet another BBQ at the seashore. After dinner, we went back to hotel – Lotte World Hotel, where we’re staying for our last two days. That was definitely the best hotel we ever got in Korea! Where all the rest only have blocky soap at the toilet, it has complete range of amenities from shampoo, conditioner, liquid body wash, comb, even razor and body foam! I know that this might be a common amenity in other countries’ hotel, but it’s a real luxury in Korea.

Pork BBQ Dinner

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 – Day 7 - Seoul

There were 2 days left and my parents and I were already counting down the day to home sweet home ^^; the rest of Day 7 and Day 8 were spent in Seoul. Our energy was pretty much used up, so there were less of asking people help to take family shot, and more time spent sleeping in the bus.

Breakfast for Day 7 was 4 types of porridges. I can’t really remember the different flavor now; I guess there were chicken, seaweed, ginseng, and one more that I can’t recall.

Four Type of Porridges for breakfast - quite nice!

First itinerary after breakfast was tour to Kimchi school, where we learnt the different types of Kim Chi, and also practice to make Kimchi. Boy, the instructor was very strict and direct. Couple of times we were busy chatting while she was explaining, and she scolded us! Haha.. Good teacher indeed. After making purchase of 6kg of Kim Chi (I don’t know why dad is so crazy about Kim Chi), we went to downstairs for Korean traditional costume sessions.

Kimchi Making Class

Family Snap in Korean Traditional Wear

Second stop was Ginseng Monopoly Showroom – another scary MLM-like practice. It’s hard enough for me to stay away from their sales pitch, but then it becomes triple hard when I had to remind mum and dad about the scheme and convinced them not to spend US 2,000 on a pair of ginseng root. Well, I did it afterall. I guess the sales person must hate me to death. Actually, I’m really impressed with those sales person. They seem to be able to speak any language required. They presented in perfect Chinese, understand English, and even started to speak in Indonesian when she knows that we’re from Indonesia. On top of that, of course they know Korean and Japanese since those are the majority of tourists there. Kudos!

Random shot at the Ginseng Showroom

Third stop was Nature Republic and Skin Care course, where I spent most of my Korean won on ^^; Everything there was really 1/3 the price from those in Singapore. I can’t help but fall into buying almost everything that they promoted. The worries hit me when I realized that the brand – Odbo, wasn’t really a brand that we saw anywhere in Singapore, even in other retail store in Korea! When I did a search on google, I realized that I can’t really find the connection between Odbo and faceshop or nature republic. I started to wonder if this is another MLM trick, but at least, there has been a lot of compliments of the products and no complain seen so far.

The Odbo Sales Person explaining the products

After the crazy shopping, the next stop was Bibimbap. It was so far the best meal I ever had (tear of happiness). Fourth stop was a shopping at Dongdaemun Market. As we were quite broke after the cosmetic purchase, we were just wandering around without nothing much to buy.

Bibimbap lunch! My favourite for the whole trip, comes with Steamboat #6

8 Floors of Fashion stuff at Dongdaemun Market *faints*

Fifth and last stop was evening at Lotte World Adventure Park. It was conveniently located near the hotel (or to be exact, the hotel is inside the park), so we were told that we can come and go as we wish. Mum was not feeling well that day, and we decided to leave early at around 7.30pm after parade. In the hotel, we chatted and started packing for tomorrow’ last day.

Parade from Lotte World Adventure Park - 3x smaller than Everland

Our last Korean noodle Supper :(

Purchases from Nature Republic! =_='

Sat, 05 Nov 2011 – Day 8 - Seoul - Singapore

We checked out at 8.20am and went for breakfast at Taiwanese Restaurant. Another day with porridge =) The itinerary for the day was a bit boring for me. We started with a visit to Amethyst Factory – yet another hard selling that I hate.

Taiwanese Porridge for last day breakfast!

Random shot at Amethyst Factory, which looked abit laid back

Second destination was Seaweed Showroom, which showed us the processing of seaweed from beginning to packaging. The seaweed doesn’t taste anywhere near Tao Kae Noi, but we bought it anyway.

The seaweed maker Machine =D

Third destination was another attempt to sell some medicine – Bo Kan Showroom. Everyone was so bored that we actually stormed out the showroom after 10 minutes. The unity of tour members! Yay!

The only picture before the sales girl dramatically said no to photography

When we went back to the bus, it was yet another hard selling of photos from the Korea Representative T_T He prepared a DVD + album photos for each family, which price tag attached to the cover of the album. Mine has 45 photos!! He charged W 5000 for each photos, so it goes to whopping number of W 225,000 for photos! Or SGD 270 if converted to Sing Dollar. I refused to spend so much for photos (plus I was already broke la) so I told him that the photos are nice, but I can’t really afford all, so I gave him W 50,000 and return him the rest of the photos. Guess what, his warm attitude change right after the incident (Apparently, I’m the only one who didn’t buy the full set). He didn’t even want to talk or respond or serve my family food anymore. Oh well. Lucky I’m trained for Self Service in Singapore.

Pork Ribs Steamboat - Steamboat #7

After our steamboat lunch, our fourth and fifth destination were not other than two shopping destination – Myongdong Fashion Street and Sichon Fashion Alley. I wasn’t really in the mood to buy anything, so we were trying hard to kill the rest of 4 hours. In the fifth destination, I given up walking around and decided to go to coffee shop and wait for the time to pass.

Look what I found at Myondong Fashion Street!

One of the last attraction listed in the itinerary - Star Avenue which filled with Korean star's pictures

Random shot from Coffee Shop at Sichon Fashion Valley

Dinner was dumpling steamboat, and we had our last round of duty free shopping before proceeding to the airport. We were early. After an easy check-in, we said farewell to our tour guide and money-driven Korean representative, then proceed to take internal shuttle bus to departure hall. We walked around and it was soon 11pm where we’re requested to board the plane.

Dumpling Steamboat - finally, last steamboat! I swear I got steamboat phobia now - Steamboat #8

Mum & Dad luggages - from 2 to 4 pieces ^^;

Trying out the Korean Fastfood Chain - Lotteria Burger for supper - It's very very similar to McD. Taste good, too.

Unlike the outbound flight, the inbound flight to Singapore faced lots of turbulence. Lucky that I was too sleepy to notice most of them. I slept before the plane took off, and only awake for breakfast, before concussed for another hour till the arrival in Singapore.

Sun, 06 Nov 2011 – Prolog

Well, the plane arrived 25 mins earlier. It was around 5.45am when we walked out from the plane. Oh how I missed the familiar Changi scent. After sending Mum and Dad to terminal 2 for the connecting flight to Medan, I took MRT back to Queenstown.

Changi Sweet Changi - Bit blur as I was still half awake

Conclusion:This is the first time I was taking SA Tour (normally I stick with Five Stars). The experience wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t amazing either. There is few “additional” cost – tips for tour guide, driver, tour leader + 5 meals of pre-arranged meals + hard selling photos - in the end we have to spend another SGD 600 for three of us. Well, maybe it’s also dependent on where you go :)

Till the next post!
ED

NTU iGave Spooktacular 2011

2011-10-26T17:52:00.004+08:00

It's just so hard to keep tell myself that today is not a weekend! The weather is nice and relaxing, just like how a weekend suppose to be :p

I went to office on Monday with my usual Monday blue mood. After a while I noticed that half of my team members were missing! Well, my big boss is on official leave, so the rest seems to be on an unofficial one. While checking my calendar for the rest of the week, I realized two things: 1) Wed is a public holiday! (sweet surprise!) 2) It's for Deepavali! (which means that tomorrow is most probably half day! :p) My mood was better afterwards. There was no late night call for the day, so I left at around 7.30 and went to Tiong Bahru Plaza to run some errands and had dinner at Kopitiam. I had a great chicken claypot rice. I can't resist the tempatation of Ice Khacang, so we got one to share after dinner :p

Tuesday, as expected, no one was in the mood to work (including myself). My team mates asked if I want to join them for lunch, so I just tagged along. We went to Anjappar at Little India, which served superb Briyani :D I had so much food that I felt so sleepy when I reached back office at 2.30pm. When checking my inbox, I saw an email from our head of department saying that people celebrating Deepavali can leave NOW! At around 4pm, the office was 75% empty. I tried to complete some work before finally leave at 6.30pm for dinner with duck.

Briyani Feast at Anjappar - Little India

It was the NTU iGave Annual Giving Appreciation Dinner at Marriott Hotel. I didn't expect anything more than dinner, but apparently the event had more to offer. We were welcomed with an accessories booth, where you can take any Halloween accessories, for free! They even helped you to match it with your attire. Coming next, they have the tatoo, glitters, and eyes painter booth. Of course, there are also professional photographer roaming around taking pictures of you, with printing booth next to it.

My first Hallowen Party :p

After having fun drinking and wandering around with my friend, Duck; we decided to go into the restaurant at around 7.30pm. The event started not long afterwards with the presence of new NTU president - Bertil Andersson and the MC - wait for it - Hossan Leong! I almost can't believe that I actually see Hossan Leong Live! Hosting an event I'm in as a guess! Whoaa~ NTU is rich :p

NTU iGave Spooktacular 2011 - I forgot my camera so this is the best I got with 3GS :(

Good food, superb MC, nice companion - time flies and the event was over before I even realizing it. I think I'm converted to be a loyal donor because of this event. Hope that it means the event fulfill its objective :p I reached back home at around 11pm, feeling so sleepy and knocked off to bed at 12am.

Wednesday morning, 7.15am. The sky was so blue and sun was shining brightly. I lost my excuse to ditch my trekking, so I woke up quickly, got ready, and went to Bukit Batok. Bukit Timah Nature Reserve is probably one of the last sites which I haven't trekked in Singapore, and famous for being the most challenging one. Fortunately, the weather was nice and we have professional around us, so we still got to enjoy the reserve. We started at around 9am and finished at around 11.30am. I went home afterwards, while the rest continue with movie at CCK.

Bukit Timah Nature Reserve

Back home, I had lunch, showered, and then started to pack for my trip this weekend. My parents told me that they got their Visa - thanks God. Nothing much else to prepare as it's a guided tour travel :) Just got a call from the tour lead today, requesting me to stand by at the airport at 12.30pm on Sat. Well - I'm getting excited!

Coming Thursday and Friday will definitely be the most challenging days of the week - I just have to keep telling myself... this too will pass :p Now it's almost 6pm. Time to think about dinner!

In the midst of Disney Car 2, and I'm totally loving it~

ED

PS: Just notice that this is my 600th Post! Whoa..

Happy Birthday, Dad!

2011-10-23T21:49:00.000+08:00

Another week has come and gone. I'm glad that my mood is back to normal and I didn't spend my week counting days. Weekend comes before I realized it (and now it's almost gone before I noticed, too).

On Monday, I received the weekly 1-1 meeting invitation with my boss in Germany, even before I have to request for one! Voila. I was so glad that I accepted the invite with thanks. She must be thinking that I'm meeting-holic. (I just hope that she didn't schedule it because she read my blog). Other than that, I had my Monday routine: felt a bit blue, planned my schedule for the rest of the week, then ended my day with a dinner at Anchor Point.

On Tuesday, things start to get crazy. In fact, I can't really remember what happened from Tuesday to Thursday. Just lot of calls and discussions and almost no time for real work. I reached back home at 11pm and just threw myself to bed after shower. There were no jogging nor yoga this week - weather has been wet and my yoga instructor is on holiday. Ah, it was Dad's b'day on Wednesday and I'm glad to hear his healthy voice =) Wish you wonderful healthy years ahead, Dad. Love you.

Friday was the birthday of the two twins in our office (quoting Adelene: One is made in China and one is made in Singapore). We went to Thai Accent for lunch, and I was in for a sweet surprise. Sabrina was there as our GOH! Ha. I didn't even know that she is in Singapore. Even better, she is starting work in Singapore from next week onwards. Wew, how time flies...

After lunch, I went back and drowned by my usual calls until 7pm, then started to get calls from Glen and Baggi and Sapna asking where I was. I rushed out of office and went to Holland V (Cha, cha, cha) through Labrador Park Circle Line (first time!). I was at Buona Vista when I suddenly felt that something is missing. It took me another minute to realize that I.... forgot to bring Glen's Birthday Gift!!! T___T How can someone go to a b'day party yet forgot to bring a gift for that person T_T I worked really bad under pressure T_T I almost went back to office to get the gift, but then they assured that it's ok... In the end I got teased by Glen all night long.. Oh well. Lucky the food was good so it was worthy of the embarrassment :p

Happy Birthday Uncle Glen @ Cha, Cha, Cha - Holland V

I went back home at around 11.00, then settled down for "Hangover II", before sleeping at around 1.30am.. Weekend!!

Saturday, I was on total shutdown until 11.00am. Once awake, I showered, then we both went to Vivocity for Long John's Silver lunch (for the sake of utilizing some coupons ^^;) It was my second time having Long John's, and I'm yet to find anything which can make me go back for more. After lunch, I went around hunting for jacket, and finally fell in love with one from Uniqlo. They come in so many different color - white, grey, choc, pink, purple, black, etc. After hundreds of tries, I finally settled for purple :)

From Vivocity, we moved to Chinatown. I exchanged some Korean Won for next week's trip. Who knows that Won is almost similar with Rupiahs? After the exchange, I became a millioner and my bag suddenly felt so much heavier. We spent the rest of the day walking around Chinatown, then took our dinner at one of the restaurant before going back home.

Night, we watched "The Smurf" - which I realized in the end - was totally for kid =__='' I still love seeing Barney (HIMYM) and Ema (Glee) in the movie though :) So, no regret.

Sunday, I woke up by morning call and went for Badminton at Lake side. The location was ok, but I swear I will never take shower there again. The water was as sharp as needle punching through your body T_T After lunch, we went back home, and I spent the rest of my day browsing, playing iPhone games, and picking some pictures for mum and dad. Oh, we also started watching the new TV episodes "How to be a gentleman". The title sounds nice but well, the episodes don't seem to get lot of compliment so far.

For dinner, we went to Tiong Bahru's Soup spoon with Helios. I went for Cream Chowder Bread Bowl... and boy, that was filling! We were discussing about what to do with remaining day-offs for the year, and I'm yet to find answer for mine. After a quick fruit shopping at Fair Price, we went back home and enjoying the last bit of weekend before it ends.

Now I guess I'm ready for "What's your number" :D There have been quite a lot of romantic comedy these days. I watched "Crazy Stupid Love" and "Friends with Benefits" recently, and now there is a new one coming up "One Day. Does it relate with the wedding seasons?

It will be a short week next week and I can't wait! It's only one week for my family trip and my parents' visa are not out yet *panicking* Anyway, Happy Deepavali for those who celebrating :)

While he was away

2011-10-16T02:54:00.000+08:00

Recently, I felt left out in the office. After the recent arrangement, I become the only team member in Singapore; while the rest are based in headquarter. Slowly but sure, there are lots of things happening which I wasn’t aware of, and the discussion in team calls started to become alien to me :( I felt frustrated as I sent mail asking for support but never get responded. Even in the team call I was never able to get much of airtime. They know hardly 10% of what I’m doing in Singapore. This new arrangement really made me questioned my own importance in the team. Why would I work until 11pm if they don’t even know I’m working, and don’t even care what I’m doing?

I shared my frustration with my colleagues and they reminded me on the point taught in my training couple of weeks back. I can blame anyone as much as I want, but in the end it’s myself who is responsible for my career. They suggest me to either request for weekly one-to-one call with my new boss, or do share with her my task lists of the week so she knows what I’m on. I found that really implementable, and will see how it works for me in couple of weeks from now :) This is my first time having lady boss again after more than 2 years!

Anyway, here is how I spent the rest of my week:

Monday – wake up as usual, it was raining as usual, and I was surprised to know that my Singapore's boss was already on leave (I thought it was on Thursday!) My initial reaction was to call him up to discuss on some pending topics, but after second thoughts, I don’t really want to bother him… So in the end I took the decision and intended to update him once he is back – Que Sera Sera. I had my Monday exercise and left office at 7pm (yes I typed it right). Glen and I went to Spize for a dinner with Ifnu & his wife. Baggi, Sapna, and Venkat joined the dinner as well. We chatted until around 10.15pm before finally calling it a day. Glen cursed me in and out as the café location was really remote for him, while it’s just 15 mins away from my flat… Oh well, I owe him a lunch.

Cheese Fries - The loveliest Finger Food ever Created

Tuesday – I went to office, not really motivated, but managed to run through all the back-to-back calls scheduled. I finished at 6pm, and then went for a quick jog. I had not much energy to work after back from jogging, so I went back at around 8.30pm. Managed to get the last shuttle bus to Red Hill, buy some bread (3 for $3), take it for dinner, shower, and went to bed after finishing one season of “IT Crowd”

Wednesday – It was raining again, and I had my favorite hotpot. Again I had back-to-back calls from 2pm to 7pm. I intended to stay late, but I wasn’t really in good mood, which means I wasn’t able to work efficiently anyway. Top up with the fact that there are not many people left in the office, I in the end decided to have a dinner along with friends at Pondok Rasa, Bugis. I felt so much better after the nice medanese dinner + desserts, and feel ready to face the work again tomorrow. Sometimes laugh and friends are all you need =) Back home, I went browsing… I realized that blogger have new templates for blog, and accidentally deleted my template while trying out the new templates =___=’’ So.. Here I’m with a new template skin… first time without a proper plan. Sigh!

My New "Template" Blog Skin T_T

Thursday – is the 4th day in ta row that I had difficulty to sleep soundly. My body felt warm and I kept waking up at night. My head felt heavy and I wasn’t really able to clear my mind. The week has passed pretty slowly. I went to office with my usual exercise gears… but in the end realized that I forgot my shirt!! T_T No run for the day. My last call ends at 10pm, and I continued to work until 12am. No pain no gain. All for a better Friday. Back home, I didn't feel like sleeping, so I finished the IT crowd session 4 before putting myself to bed.

TGIF – I went to office earlier and get my things done. I need to present it to the team before sending it further out. Meeting was set since couple of days back and everyone agreed to participate. Last minutes, they decided to ditch my presentation and asked me to reschedule one for next week. They conveniently delay my project for one week!!! That too was being done through a messenger. Again the feeling of being “unimportant” hits me hard :( I decided to act ignorant and went to enjoy my weekend.

It was Sapna’s belated birthday celebration, and we went to Little India for dinner. It was an Indian Chinese Restaurant, but seems to serve more chinese food than Indian food (Singapore-Chinese-Indian food as how Baggi called it). The fried rice was really good and reminds me of Indo’s. We dine and chat until around 11pm, then took mrt home after 15 mins of unsuccessful attempt of getting taxi.

The food so good that I want to keep the Restaurant name a secret :D

The time was 12am when I reached Queenstown MRT. I walked to my flat as usual. All in sudden, I noticed a shadow following me from behind. I looked back, saw a suspicious guy, and my nerve tensed up. I walked faster, crossed the road, took the staircase, and in the end I can still see the shadow behind me at the near distance. I started to panic. What happen if he joined me at the same lift? Alas, as I looked around; I can’t see anyone else at the neighborhood. I increased my walking speed to max (almost small run), and as I reached the lift, I made a brave look back – the guy wasn’t around. I quickly entered the lift and hit my floor’s button. Thanks God nothing really happen. I was quite surprised that I can actually get so scared. It’s not the first time I went back late at night ^^;

Saturday, I woke up at 10am, played my Surviving High School game, did my house chores, then went to Chinatown for Korea’s trip briefing. I was late for 15 mins and had to wait for the next briefing session T_T The briefing was quite typical. Weather to be projected around 10 – 19 C, plug type is similar to Indonesia’s plug. The weird thing is – some of the hotels at Korea didn’t provide toilet amenities! We’re encouraged to bring our own shampoo, body wash, and tooth brush =__=’’ After the briefing, I paid the rest of the travel fee, then went for late lunch at Suntec.

TCC High Tea Set - SGD 12.90++

Ari and I went to TCC. Out of curiosity, I tried out its High Tea set, which turned out to be really good (and value for money too! :p) After the lunch slash high tea, we went to do some shopping at Suntec City. It was soon 7pm and I set to Changi for someone special :) It’s really amazing to see how Changi evolves every time I go. They have opened so many restaurants (KFC is also there!!!) and it becomes quite a challenge to decide on a dinner. We finally settled down for Killiney Kopitiam for quick dinner before we go home. It was 10.30 when we reached. I showered and slept at 3 after waiting 3 hours for iOS5 download =__= (and now it's restoring all my 15 GB musics.. it will take the whole night!)

Changi with Deevapali's decoration

OK. Shall cut the blog post now that he is back :D Going to sleep now for badminton later!

Hi, iOS5!
ED

Bye, Steve Jobs…

2011-10-09T16:39:00.000+08:00

New iPhone was unveiled this week. I was kind of disappointed the moment I heard about the word “4S”. I knew it means there is no change in the phone design :( I was wishing that they would remove the home button. It’s the only thing that I thought would be better without.

The next day, I went to office getting ready to complain about the iPhone, while suddenly, I heard the even bigger news – Steve Jobs has passed away. My heart skipped a beat when my colleagues told me that… how is it possible? There has been no news about his condition, and all in sudden what we heard is his death! I didn’t even get a chance to pray for his recovery :( I went through the denial stage, anger, before in the end come to acceptance. Steve, thank you for all your creations. I don’t think I need to say more than that. There are million of webpages dedicated for him. Reading through his biography, I know he is the example of someone living life to the fullest.

Days in office have been gloomy. I hate my situation of uncertainty. Different bosses gave me different expectation and I don’t even know whom am I supposed to escalate to. The best resolution I guess is to act busy – blaming boss A to boss B while complaining about boss B to boss A… :p Of course, that has to be used with discretionary, and it doesn’t always work. Next week, my boss and colleague in Germany will be on leave. They conveniently put me as the delegate for all their meetings!!! I checked my next week calendar’s and I’m pretty much convinced that I won’t be touching my bed before midnight.

One of Ah Loy's Signature Dish - Fried Calamari - soft and nyummy!

On Friday, I sneaked out from office at 7pm for a dinner with friends at Ah Loy Thai Restaurant. Boy, the food was awesome! Everything was so delicious I can’t even tell which one is my favorite. Thanks Helios for the recommendation :D Would love to go there again if possible. Weird thing is, the restaurant closed at 8.15pm, which is super early for Singapore’s restaurant standard.After dinner, we spent the rest of the evening with TV series “Big Bang Theory” and movie “Friends with Benefit” starring Justin Timberlake. The movie was not bad~ I like how Marcell from HIMYM was featured there :p After movie, we slept at around 3am.

Saturday morning, I forced myself awake at 10.30pm. If only I don’t have a wedding to attend… duh! I showered, had a quick lunch, and then went off to Bukit Batok. I went by Taxi as I thought the ceremony will start at 1pm sharp... but then… it started only at 2.15pm! =___=’’ Give me back my $10! Haha.. I met WK there, as well as other friends I knew of. Thankfully, I thought I would be all alone :) I tagged with WK for most of the time, and he has to introduce me as “Hi, this is my friend, Erlin, but NOT my girlfriend” =___=’’ Sounds weird but it works. I also met up with Alvin and Ai… it has been awhile.. and I’m quite surprised to know ALL of them are already engaged and looking for wedding next year. Man! I better start saving up now for red pockets.

The happy couple - Yudi & Farica, watching the dragon dance

The ceremony took around an hour. It finished at 3.30pm, and then continued with photo taking and dragon dance. It was around 4.00pm when we finally went down to the foyer for high tea. Oh yeah, the food was satisfactory :p I had 2 helpings, then said congratulations to the happy couple, then left for… dinner ^^;

The awesome spread of goodness

It was 5.45pm as I reached City Hall. A bit early, but it wasn’t a long wait as the rest of them reached on time at 6.00 pm. Kudos, ladies! We went to Raffles City, wandering at the basement looking for restaurant, and finally settled for… Thai Express. (Two thai dinner in a row!) Nice food, comfy private couch, refreshing drink, great companies – we chatted until around 9.30 when we realized that the restaurant is closing ^^; We parted after a nice cup of Gong Cha. It was around 11pm when I reached back home. I slept after watching some short clips in clicknetwork.

Ladies Night with SCEians :) :)

Sunday, I woke up at 9am, and then went off for badminton at Clementi. I thought I would be on time at least this time… but it was 10.20am when I reached the court +_+ the indoor stadium was quite crowded, there was basketball tournament happening and hence the badminton courts are squeezed to only 2 lines instead of 3. We finished at 12.00, showered, had pig organ soup for lunch, then went back home. I felt sleepy when I reached back home, but decided not to nap.

Inche and I planned to go for shopping, but I backed down last minutes… for good reason :p In exchange, I will go with my rommie for a jog at around 5pm :)

RIP, Steve, you are missed,
ED

10th.

2011-10-02T18:39:00.001+08:00

It’s the 10^th month of the year! Where have the last 9 months gone? *Read back previous posts. Well, this has been a peaceful year so far, and I’m thankful for that :)

I recovered from my flu today (Or at least, I declared so). It has been an on and off thing throughout the week. Despite all my perseverance (e.g. eating only soup and healthy stuff, avoiding chilies, showering with warm water, stop jogging), my nose still blocked at night and I still spent one pack of tissue everyday. So yesterday, I decided to go back to my cool water shower and yoga and hey, I actually felt indifference =__=’

This week is again a short week for me in office. I had training on Tue (full day) and Wed (half day). Despite those, I felt that the week passes very slow… I don’t know why. Maybe because I didn’t have all the exercise activities to fill my time, or maybe… I just don’t have enough work these days :p

… which is actually not true. I had a page full of To-Dos in my Notes. Yet, I decided to go back home early and worry about those on the “next day”. My perception of work is slowly changing. I now care less about optimal solution but focus more on bare minimum effort to finish a task. This is NOT how I preferred to handle things, but I guess I adapted to increase my level of ignorance to suppress the level of stress. There is no point after all to spend my energy thinking of optimal solution if things change every fortnight *excuse mode on.

Having said so! I had this quote I learnt from my recent training and I'm loving it:

"Be Response-Able! No Deny, Justify, Blame.” – You can blabber about your boss and colleagues and work circumstances, but in the end of the day you need to realize that you’re the one responsible for your own success.

What else at work? Nothing much. I'm jumping to weekend now.

On Friday, we read about the opening of King of Japanese Curry Rice CoCoICHIBANYA at Somerset and decided to give it a try. Alas, the opening ceremony was happening during that evening and we didn’t get to go in T_T there are couple of idols at the premises, but we were only able to identify Utt. Guess the rest are too young for us (talk about feeling old T_T)

Youngsters surrounding Utt at the opening of CoCo Ichibanya

Failed to try on the new Japanese curry rice, we went to another Japanese shop – Yomenya Goemon. Their slogan is “eating spaghetti with chopsticks” which is quite unique… and delicious too! I'm quite surprise that I can pick up Spaghetti with chopsticks as easy. After a nice dinner, we went back home and indulge ourselves with home theater – Zookeeper. The trailer looks quite promising, but the whole story line was so mediocre :( We slept after the movie.

Japanese Style Spaghetti - Meat Carbonara

Saturday, I woke up at 10am and did my room cleaning. Afterwards, I went for a double date (:p) at Pasta Inc. It was a fine dining style lunch, so the service was superb. The portion is just right and I love the Tiramisu the most! Hehe…

Citra & I @ Pasta Inc.

After the lunch, we went to Chinatown to pick up my Visa, and then went back home to rest for a while before we proceed to Toa Payoh for KTV session. The session was fun, and always filled me in with the latest songs. Only complain is that the session was too short =( It was soon 10pm before we realized it. After a sinful chocolate sundae supper, we went back home and slept.

The usual KTV Gang

On Sunday, I had a weird dream (which I can’t really remember now), and it took me a while contemplating between continuing my dream and waking up for badminton. Badminton won, so I woke up and dragged myself to JE for the session. We finished at 12pm sharp, showered, and then went for the delicious Sarawak Kolomee. It was so nyummy I felt reborn! :p Back home, I had my relaxing afternoon – watching clicknetwork, playing surviving highschool, and typing blog.

It’s 6.30pm now, time to shower and thinking about dinner. Planning for Green Latern screening tonight!

My appetite is back!

The Return of TV Series!

2011-09-25T21:22:00.002+08:00

It was 9.30PM on a Tuesday might in the Office.

Me: Were you looking for me? Sorry I was on call earlier with my sister

Big Boss: No worries it's OK. Oh you have sister?

Me: Yes elder sister, I'm the youngest in my family.

Big Boss: Oh yes, that one I know for sure

???

What could it possible mean? am I emitting such a strong youngest child aura? the spoilt, weak, and alway-dependent-on-someone-else traits? Well thinking about it, that might be true T_T

Anyway, this is one of the weeks which I wish could have been better.

I started my Monday and Tuesday pretty much alright, took my exercise and kick off my running again. I felt a bit of sore throat, but instead of taking medication, I ate heaty snack every single day (what to do, chips + TV series came as a pair). Adding to the fact that I haven't been eating any fruits and kept staying late for the past few weeks, my body finally protested and I got sick!! Worse than when I was in HK. My Wed and Thurs went with me wishing that I would get better. On Friday, I almost fainted during lunch because of headache. Worst thing of all? I can't taste anything that I eat. It's all bland :( Lost my appetite (but of course I'm still eating. hehe)

Apart from that, office has been pretty much standard. I'm trying my best not to stay too late in office UNLESS there are any calls I need to take. As it turned out, I got call until 10pm for Mon, Tue, and Thurs this week =.=' I went back at around 7pm for Wed and Fri, so I guess my commitment still stands.

On Wed evening, Glen and I went to Chinatown to meet Susan. Finally! We have planned for this gathering for months. She is still as cheerful as usual, and I can sense that she is quite enjoying her new work. Meeting her just make me miss the days office used to be when she is around. Sigh.

Dining at People's Park Complex (Can't read the Chinese Restaurant name)

On Fri evening, we went to Clarke Quay and finally managed to try out at Tampopo, which said to be serving the best Ramen in Singapore. I want to go for the Tonkatsu Ramen, but the fried chicken looks too much for my sore throat, so I decided to go for the Hokkaido Ramen with corns. Well? I can't really taste much due to my blocked nose :( but I can say that I prefer this than Ippudo, in term of service, price, and quantity! hehehe... I guess I will go back for other items when I recovered.

Hokkaido Ramen @ Tampopo, Liang Court - SGD15++

Saturday was a well spent day, despite me running here and there with running nose. I started the day with house cleaning, then went to Chinatown for lunch at People's Park Center. After lunch, I went to submit my Korea Visa application at SA Tours, then went to Dhoby Ghaut for Johnny English Reborn. The cinema was almost full house, and the movie was pretty entertaining till the end. Had a good laugh and didn't realize that it was already 5.20pm when we came out.

After movie, we met up with our gangs for dinner at Good Thai Restaurant (more known as Sbey Sbey Thai Food) at Sunshine Plaza. The food was OK (again, this is as per by malfunction taste bud T_T) I must said that the portion was crazily huge, even for my standard. There were 8 of us, and we had to stuff our self to max to finish the 7 dishes. It's more like all you can eat for SGD 15.5. Haha.. During the dinner, Helios suggested Ah Loy at Shawn Tower, which said to serve the best Thai food. OK, shall keep it in my to eat list!

The Happy / Hungry Faces at Sbey Sbey Thai Food

Our dinner finished at around 7.30pm, and I went back afterwards, while the rest went to Play Nation for some sports after the sinful dinner. I wasn't feeling at all well, so decided to take some medication and sleep early at around 11pm.

Sunday, I woke up at 10am. I kept waking up on midnight and couldn't really fall into deep sleep =( Gosh I just wish that I can recover soon. I don't want to keep spreading the viruses to people around me. My childhood friend gave me a call at 7am telling me he is currently in SG and I decided to go out and met him for lunch at Orchard. We haven't met for 10 years since he moved to Jakarta for high school. He is all well. We had a good lunch at Food Republic, chit chat, got them Royce Chocholate for gift, sent them to Chinatown, then I went back to home for a nap.

A meet up after 10 years! I'm looking forward to the wedding invitation :p

At around 6pm, we went for dinner at Yoshinoya, Dhoby Ghaut, did some shopping, then came back and watch F1 from TV. I really want to see Charice's performance T_T but of course those are not broadcasted in TV. Sigh. After F1, I took shower, and now ready for the movie of the week: Horrible Bosses! Hehehe...

Yoshinoya - Beef Vegetable Rice Bowl + Scallop + Drink - SGD7.5

Welcome back HIMYM, Big Bang, and Glee!
ED

Batam Getaways

2011-09-18T22:42:00.002+08:00

OK. I'm totally overestimating myself. or underestimating my work. Either way, my planning skill was horrible. I learnt so much about giving buffer in project, but never really thought of giving buffer in my life planning.

So I started with planning the schedule to Australia. Then I planned my training to be one week after the trip. Ad-hocly, I agreed to extend my leave to accompany my parents to HK. It still gave me one day in office after holiday before going to training afterwards. Well, the one day in office is root of all my sufferings.

The moment people saw me in office on Wed, they started to give me task to be completed before Monday. I kept explaining to them that I won't be around on Thurs and Fri for training, but guess it goes in from left ear and goes out from right ear. In the end, on my both training days on Thurs and Fri, I stayed until 2am just to finish what has been asked for. I felt so tired and I still have 1001 of things to do: my flat and toilet to be cleaned, my neglected emails to be replied, my cloths to be washed, my sister to be called, my friends' birthday to be celebrated, etc etc.

It would have been nice if I had weekend to handle all those, but alas, smart past Erlin planned for a Batam trip instead, which took away my whole weekend. In the end, I was so overwhelmed with work that I finally had to forgo most of my To Dos, even my friend's birthday party :( I'm really sorry, friends...

But! It doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy myself in Batam. I had been wanting to travel somewhere around Indonesia for awhile and it's finally realized :D

So on Sat, 7 of us (Fendi, Tomy, Handy, Henry, Inche, Winson and me) took Ferry to Batam at 10.20 AM. I felt sleepy and was quickly unconscious until we reached Batam.

We met our pretty guide, Florence, after we passed through the checked point. She seemed to be a bit surprised that there are Indonesians taking package tour to Indonesia ^^; After gathering all the people, we went to our first destination - Batam Layer Cake - to see the making of layer cake... which is a delicacy originated from Medan, Kue Lapis =__='' The taste wasn't even half as good.

Afterwards, we proceed for lunch @ Golden Prawn 933. The food was OK, but the service was kind of slow :(. It was almost 3PM SGT when we finished the lunch. The rest of the itineraries include Taman Mini Indonesia, Aroma Massage, GTS Local Product Shop, Factory Outlet, as well as Maha Vihara Duta Maitreya, before we finally went to Batam City Square Mall for dinner and shopping. It was around 9.30 PM when we finally checked in hotel - all tired and I finally slept at around 11.30.

Chili Crab! One of the 7 dishes from Golden Prawn 933 Restaurant Lunch

Taman Mini Indonesia with 27 different miniature houses from Indonesian Provinces

Ginger Tea after my first body massage!

Maha Vihara Duta Maitreya Temple

Our superlicious dinner at Citra Pempek

Cozy Mecury Hotel

Sunday, I woke up at 4.30AM, then decided to go back to sleep. At around 7 AM, we went for a swim, then proceed with buffet breakfast at the hotel. Guess what I found! Out of so many different local food, the hotel decided to serve NATO! I loved it to the max. I think I finished half the whole nato myself. Thanks Winson for letting me know :D

Watashiwa Nato Gasuki

After a filling breakfast, we went to Nagoya Hill for anotheround of shopping. We were there until around 12.00, then went back to hotel, check out, took a ride to Batam Center, and took our lunch at Bakso Lapangan Tembak. After one last round of shopping at Hypermart, we finally said bye to Batam and took the ferry at 5.10PM. Again I was unconscious throughout the ride and waken up only as it reached SG. After a dinner at KFC, we went back home and rest.

Bakso Campur - Bakso Lapangan Tembak

So that marks the end of my insane travel marathon. I have really no energy to plan my next trip to Korea right now T_T Hopefully the spirit will recover after few weeks. I'm missing my routine life of spending evening watching movies. haha...

Now let me take a look at long abandon mails,
ED

Lei Ho, HK!

2011-09-17T01:39:00.002+08:00

Thursday, 8 Sep 2011

So our flight to HK was delayed for half an hour. I suspected it was partly due to the delay in luggage transferred from some of the connecting flights. I had my dinner on board, then browsing through various movies before deciding to go for X-Men (first of trilogy). Unfortunately, I only managed to finish half of the movie when they asked me to return the headset :(. It was 11.15pm when we reached HK, and by the time we got into Taxi, it was already 12.10AM on a Friday.

The stressed SIA officers trying to get passengers to multiple transits

Friday, 9 Sep 2011

Our hotel (Eaton) was around half an hour ride from airport. Our taxi driver was a 30-ish guy who came in shorts and slippers. Shorts and slippers for work?? I thought. After couple of days, I realized that it's really common in HK.

It was around 1AM when we finally get into our room at floor 8. The room was - omg - super tiny. It was the smallest hotel room I ever seen (Complain #1). My dad almost bumped to the big mirror thinking it was some space. When I asked the bell boy, he told me that my room is not even the smallest one yet. Oh dear. After 2 hours of struggling trying to fit our luggage in the room, we finally slept at around 3AM.

Time was 7AM when mum and dad wake me up for breakfast. I was not really refreshed, but also not in the mood to sleep so I showered and started the day anyway. After an heartening warm Congee at Nathan Congee and Noodle, we paid a visit to uncle and aunt, who run a cafe at office compound. I never knew that! We shopped at the shopping mall near by - Megabox, before going back there for a free lunch at the cafe :p My uncle was such a great chef! It actually feel really nice when you can go in and order whatever you want regardless of the price :p

Jidi Congee - Nathan Congee and Noodle

Infront of Uncle's Cafe Sans Souci

After lunch, we continued with shopping near the MTR shopping mall, where I learnt my first lesson in HK. I got a pair of jeans from boutique for HKD 1,200, and then found the very similar thing in Giordano for HKD 150 (Cry!! Complain #2). Later on throughout the days, I realized that there is really no standard price in HK for anything, except Mc Donald, perhaps. You can get discount for almost anything, even in Yue Hwa department store! Gosh!

Done with the lesson, we went back to hotel to rest for a while, then went out for (another free) dinner from uncle and aunt at their house at Kowlon. Afterwards, we pay a visit to his son at his new apartment at Tiu Keng Ling. We took MTR to go back to hotel, which was super crowded and I didn't manage to secure any seat for my parents (Complain #3). It was almost 12AM when we reached back hotel. All tired and wore out due to lack of sleep (Complain #4).

Saturday, 10 Sep 2011

I decided to have a better sleep and woke up only at 9AM. At around 11.00, we went for lunch at Cafe de Coral, then proceed to Lantau Island for the Ngong Ping 360 Cable Car and Giant Buddha. The weather was super hot (Complain #5). We bought an umbrella for HKD 130, but it didn't even work due to the strong wind (Complain #6). Afterwards, we proceed to Tai-O where Mum and Dad did some shark fins shopping, then Ladies Market where I did most of the shopping. The price marking was quite crazy at the Ladies Market. I started with asking for 10% discount. Later on, I realized that I can actually get everything with 50% discount (Complain #7). There is no way they allowed people to try on the cloths before you buy (Complain #8), and they threw tantrums when you decided not to get anything from them (Complain #9). Having said all those, I enjoyed the window shopping as they have lots of unique stuff. It was again almost 12AM when we got back to Hotel.

We didn't go to Disneyland due to time constraint, but did manage to take the cute Disneyland MTR and pay a visit to its station. I felt that the station is actually nicer than its entrance gate! ^^;

Ying Yang Fried Rice - Cafe de Coral (Reminded me of Kim Gary)

Ngong Ping 360 Cable Car - The whole cabin only for us!

Giant Buddha - Super Hot. Forgot my sunglasses. Wrong Attire

Tai O Fish Village - Rows and Rows of Shark Fin!

The Infamous Disneyland MTR Cabin! All for myself! :D

Sunday, 11 Sep 2011

It was 3 more days in HK and all 3 of us are down with flu, cough, sore throat (Complain #10). Dad even lost his voice and Mum had to take medicine every few hours. Guess it was quite tough after all to go on 15 days holidays. In addition, I guessed we didn't had enough water as we weren't able to find any supermarket nearby somehow (Complain #11).

For Sunday, we went to Hong Kong Island for the infamous Roasted Goose at Yung Kee (even though it's only one bite for each of us due to sore throat), then to the Peak for sightseeing and Madame Tussaud Museum. Afterwards, we went to Sun Kee Noodles for dinner and Victoria Park for the Mid-Autumn Carnival. I stopped at Temple Street for a quick look at the shopping, then got caught with rain where we again had to buy umbrella =__='' two umbrella in a week!

The Famous Yung Kee's Roasted Goose Rice - HKD 60

The Victoria Peak - Family Photo!

Lucky enough to see Jay Chou!!

Diana and Diana at Madame Tussaud Museum

Sun Kee Push Cart Noodle - HKD 42

The so-called Largest Sculpture made of Laterns in Guinness Book of Records

Throughout the journey, we spent at least an hour halting, looking at map and trying to figure out direction. This HK trip reconfirmed my unsuitability for free-and-easy and my vote for package tour. I felt really guilty when mum and dad had to walk back and forth with me under the sun trying to figure out the location. It doesn't help also where each of the street has three pronunciations - English, Chinese, Cantonese. Most people are only familiar with the Cantonese name and don't really know what we were looking for T_T (Complain #12)

Monday, 12 Sep 2011

It's the Mid-Autumn Festival, as well as the day we have all been waiting for - the wedding day of my Uncle's Son - Alex. Actually, it's the only reason that Mum and Dad insisted on coming to HK.

The day started with us going to the tea ceremony. It's similar to what I saw in Bro's wedding, except the fact that it HAS to be done at the Groom's parent's house, and not in hotel. Remember when I said that the hotel room is tiny? My uncle's flat is no different They actually have to fold tables and shift cabinets to give some space for the groom and bride to bow. The ceremony was short and sweet and we went for lunch afterwards.

After the tea ceremony - Thumbs up to the photographer to fit all us in the pic

We had lunch at New Harbour Pearl restaraunt, which is just 5 mins easy stroll from my uncle's flat. The restaurant was full house. Even though we have made reservation earlier, we were still requested to wait for around 5 mins. But anyway, the food made all the waiting worthwhile!

Fabulous Dim Sum at New Harbour Pearl Restaurant

Infront of us is what they named as "Singapore Style Noodle". It's basically noodle with curry powder =_='

After a filling lunch, we went to Tsim Sha Tsui for shopping. It was around 5pm when we finally reached back hotel. After shower and everything, the car picked us up at 7pm sharp. We reach the restaurant Whompoa at around 7.30pm.

Now there is something I want to say about their dinner reception. Apparently, most of the guests are already there since 4pm! For what? Photos and Mahjong. When we reached the main door of the restaurant, there is a big poster with numbers and names. There is no one to send you to your seat, you're supposed to read your name and find your seat. After finding seat, you then go to the stage, where the groom and bride will be waiting for you. They did another round of tea ceremony for those who didn't make it in the morning. After some photo-taking, you can then proceed to your seat OR you can go out and have some snacks, cake, fruit punch, while enjoying the small photos gallery of the happy couple.

Guess what? I got seated at Red Table! the only 2 table in the whole room!! (Actually, there are only 11 tables in total :p). I got the best view of the stage, and was actually sitting just across the groom and bride. It's really nice to be at VIP seat. Food are served to your plate, and FAST! We started the first course at 9.30PM (I almost fainted), and they managed to finish serving the whole set of 12 kinds food before 11PM. After that, my cousin sent us back home, while I heard the party actually continued until 1 AM++.. That's happening!

Red Table! Finally!! First time in my whole life (Tears of Happiness)

With one of my relatives - Her face is 90% similar with one of my high school friends

Tuesday, 13 Sep 2011

It's the last day in HK and all in sudden, I don't feel like leaving. We woke up at 7AM, showered, packed, then went for the last breakfast in HK. This time, we went to the cafe across our Hotel (literally 1 min walk). The food was surprisingly really good! All of us had a satisfying breakfast before finally leaving for airport.

Fish Curd in Vermicelli in Fish Soup + Coffee - HKD 23 @ Tsui Wah Cafe

The airport checked in went fine - we managed to get the seat we want. After some chatting, we finally said bye to uncle and his son, which went all the way to pick us up and send us to the boarding gate. Thanks a lot for all the hospitality :) After a while, we flied off and I eagerly waiting for lunch. This time, we got Haagen-Dazs for dessert!! Wow! SIA is rich! (So unbelievable that I actually checked the expiry date). We reached SG on time, I accompanied mum and dad for a while, then finally said good bye to them as they proceed to the transit area while I proceed to MRT to home sweet home.

Vanila Haagen-Dazs for Dessert on flight back to Singapore

Epilog
So it was my second time to HK, and my impression has changed from OK to... well, not so good. I would admit that my judgement might not be very objective due to all the built-up fatigue from Aussie and the fact that we were all down with illness :( The last time I went there was almost 4 years ago on Dec 2007 (how time flies!) which might have been better as it was a fully guided tour and in winter, so I wasn't really bother with the planning and the heat. Due to the situation, there are quite a number of attractions we missed: Disneyland, Ocean Park, Macau... but I was quite satisfied with this shopping heaven.

Anyhow. Enough of travelling.... not! Coming soon this weekend with Batam tour :)
ED

Bye, Aussie!

2011-09-12T00:44:00.001+08:00

We said bye to Princess Aurelie at the Airport on Thurs, 8 Sep 2011. My holiday was over... not! HK awaits.

The last week in Aussie had been pretty much relaxing, lots of home stay, bearing in mind that we still needed to save our energy for our travel to HK (... and for bro: to Taiwan). Here was the rest of the travel log in Aussie:

Sunday, 4 Sep 2011 - Sydney City Tour

I woke up at 10.00am and welcome by the warm sunshine through the window. Spring is really here! I took my breakfast (chee cheong fun), showered, then continue with my lunch (fried kway teow) before finally leaving for our own city tour.

"White" Char Kway Teow - Mum and Dad's Version

We started with a quick shopping at pharmacy for some vitamins and order from sisters. Afterwards, we went to "Red Roll" for a delicious Vietnamese sub. It was so good that I only remember about taking picture after I finished the sandwich T_T It really reminds me of Subway - the Vietnamise Style. It even has the meatball menu!

Menu of "Red Roll by Hong Ha" - The queue was never ending!

We continued with Paddy's Market for quick browsing. Didn't really find anything to buy, we decided to proceed to Queen Victoria Building as the next tourist spot. Along the way, I gave a try to "Easyway tea indulgence" pearl milk tea. It was similar to Sweet talk in Singapore, except the fact that it cost AUD 4.8 for regular cup instead of SGD 1.5 T_T Oh God I miss Singapore. Similarly, Easyway has its very close competitor, ChaTime. This kind of reminds me of competition between Gong Cha and Koi. Hehe.

After 10 minutes of easy walk, we reached QVB which is actually a... shopping mall! =__='' I thought QVB is a historical site or at least something of elegancy. To be fair, it was actually some kingdom / government place before converted to a shopping mall. Oh well. At least the inside was not disappointing.

The Statue of Queen Victoria outside the Shopping Mall

The Infamous Clock inside the QVB Shopping Mall

After half an hour and hundreds of pics, we took a free shuttle bus to Circular Quay, from where we walked all the way to Customs House, Sydney Opera House, Harbour Bridge, Royal Botanic Garden, Mrs Macquarie's Chair, before finally taking a rest outside of Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Princess Aurelie on the Replica of Sydney @ Customs House

Must-Take Pic of Sydney Opera House + Harbour Bridge

Spring at Royal Botanic Garden!

It was almost 7pm before we decided to go back for dinner. After some debate, I managed to get Domino Pizza for dinner :P Their ordering system was quite advanced. You can track whether your pizza is being prepared, in the oven, or ready. And since I was there, I can see that all the pizzas were freshly made from the dough upon order. The pizza was still steaming hot when we reached home. The taste? It's so soft and cheesy and nyummy that I can almost finish the whole large pan myself.

Domino Pizza - Cute Packaging

I slept at around 12am after doing some ironing and supper.

Monday, 5 Sep 2011 - Another Princess

I woke up at 10.30am and seemed like mum has given up waiting for me for breakfast. I had toasted bread, then went out to the city for lunch at Umi Kaiten-Zushi. It's the rotating table style and gosh, there were so many choices! At least 100 of different styles of sushi. And while in Singapore we had it in either normal plate or red plate, they have it in green ($2.5), orange ($3.0), red ($3.5), blue ($4.5), purple ($5.5), and grey ($6.5). After around 20 plates and noodle and rice, we went to next destination - visiting another princess - Claresta! She is around 1 year younger than Aurelie and just as cute =D We played for around an hour then move on to the next destination - Bondi Beach!

At Umi Kaiten-Zushi

At Maestri Tower - with relatives

The weather was really nice at Bondi Beach. And since it's weekday, we pretty much have the beach for ourselves. After having fun with the beach, we went for dinner at Hurricane's Grill (my favourite!) before going back home feeling full and sleepy. No more staying up late on Monday as I needed to wake up early the next day for Canberra.

Bondi Beach (read as Bondai Beach - Initially I read it as Bondi =_=')

Hurricane's Grill @ Bondi Beach - The Ribs are amazing!

Tuesday, 6 Sep 2011 - Canberra

I set my alarm at 6.30am but it didn't ring =_='' Thankfully Aurelie managed to wake me up at around 6.45am. I quickly went showered, breakfast, then went with mum and dad for the one day Canberra tour. The bus arrived at the pick up location at 8.00am sharp, and I quickly asleep along the way.

The tour was a miss compared with what we had in Melbourne =( For one thing, it was raining. And since this is still early spring, we don't get to go to the flower festival, which is the biggest attraction in Canberra. The worst is the driver. He was super rude, kept talking loud in phone while driving, looked down at people who bring their own lunch, pushed people to go out on raining time without providing any umbrella, threatening to leave us behind if we are more than 5 mins late, and 1001 things which made me hate him to the core by the time we finished the tour =_=''

Complain apart, we did manage to go to few places: Cockington Green, Royal Australian Mint, Embassies, Parliament House, Australian War Memorial, and some other places which I don't really know the name. The next time I go to Canberra, hopefully it will be for its flower festival!

Cockington Green Garden - Where it's the little things that count

Royal Australian Mint - Create your own legal coin!

Parliament House - Where laws are made!

A massive collection of Great War 1 and 2 at Australian War Memorial

Back home, we ate the warm cooked dinner, watched some episodes of HK movie: The Drive of Life (quite captivating), then went to sleep.

Wednesday, 7 Sep 2011 - Resting

Since it's the last two days in Sydney, I decided to wake up at 7am and it actually surprised everyone =_='' I had cheese toast, sorted some pics to be developed for mum and dad, relax, then went for last lunch in Sydney @ Kingsford Chinese Cuisine. After a filling lunch, we took a stroll along Kingsford area, which is also known as "Indonesian" town. True enough, I can hear people chattering in Indonesian :D

After a quick shopping for dinner ingredients, we went back to home and relax for the rest of the day - packing, watching TV, taking pictures, chatting, etc. We had steamboat dinner at around 7pm and then rest early for the day after playing COD.

Thursday, 8 Sep 2011 - Bye, Sydney!

I woke up at 7.00am, had breakfast, packed, then left for airport. We arrived early, got our flight and seat arranged to HK, walked around, then departed on time at 11.30am. This time I managed to complete Disney's Cars :D Actually, I had my own movie marathon and finished Bridesmaids, Something Borrowed, as well as Hoodwinked within the 9 hours flight. I like Cars the most. Somehow Disney's movie always so touching for me. We reached Singapore at 6.30PM, delayed from the earlier scheduled time of 5.45PM =_='' It won't have been an issue usually, but since we still needed to catch our connecting flight at 7PM, well, we had a small run for the HK flight.

OK, more of HK on the next post! For now, Happy Mid-Autumn Festival to everyone! :)
ED

Welcoming Aussie's Spring

2011-09-03T23:48:00.002+08:00

12AM. It's now Sunday morning in Sydney and I'm still not willing to put myself to bed. So here I'm browsing through my mails and decided to note down some of the events this week. Honestly, I really lost track of date and time here. I now realise how much I have been looking at calendar when I'm in office ^^;

Anyway, let's start this blog with where it ended last week.

Sunday, 28 Aug 2011 - Bye, Singapore!

So after blog, dinner, and some last minutes tidying up, I left home for Changi Airport at 9pm. Took the MRT all the way to Changi Airport for SGD 1.1 (I started to appreciate how thoughtful is the fare after being in Sydney - AUD 15 for Airport train!!!). After the hassle-free check in, I carried along the 3 boxes of Boon Tong Kee chicken rice (special order from my brother) and went to the liquor shop to get the Hennessy XO (another request from my bro, ticked). I wanted to get Bee Cheng Hiang too, but the seller told me that I won't be able to get through the Australia's immigration... so... :(

Never knows that Airport comes with Mini Playground now! Gosh!

After shopping, the timing was just right for me to get a quick 10 minutes OSIM foot message then went to pick up my parents at Terminal 2 Departure Hall. The flight arrived 20 minutes ahead of schedule but thankfully I still managed to find mum and dad before they make a move to another place =D Good news, mum didn't complain about me looking thin this time. Bad news, they seemed to bring at least another 30kg in their hand carry luggages. Added with my chicken rice and Hennessy XO, I struggled a bit in counting and making sure that we carried everything and in the end forgot to text my sister (which led to multiple calls the next day)

Monday, 29 Aug 2011 - Hello, Sydney!

It was already a Monday when we finally flew off. The flight was smooth and there are quite a lot of movies that I wanted to watch. I started with Disney's Car, but fall asleep after the supper =( =( I woke up only when it was time for breakfast, and even then, I didn't manage to finish the movie. Next flight must be better!

Breakfast - Omelette, Sausages, Yogurt, Bread, Coffee, etc

After the flight touchdown in Sydney, we took our luggages and followed my bro's advice to go to the Red Line for checking. Apparently, we're in good luck. They simply asked what we had inside (I don't even know what mum has packed inside), check one of our uncountable luggages, and declared us as passed!! I should have bought the Bee Cheng Hiang to see how far can my luck bring me :p As we walked out from the airport, the cool breeze greeted us. It was the end of winter and temperature was around 15 degrees. Bro picked us up from the airport shortly afterwards. As expected, we overwhelmed the back of the car and had to carry some to the passenger seat. The day continued with unpacking, greetings, quick shopping, resting, and packing for our trip to Melbourne on the next day.

Tuesday, 30 Aug 2011 - Happy Birthday, Sis-in-Law!

I woke up a around 7am in the morning and saw that my breakfast was already prepared. I told mum that she doesn't have to be so busy as I didn't normally take breakfast - which was totally a bad move as it followed with 101 advices and reason why breakfast is important T_T We left at around 9am to Sydney Domestic Airport, took Virgin Airlines and arrived at Melbourne at around 12pm.

Street of Melbourne, before the start of Melbourne Tour!

We took the big taxi for half an hour ride to our apartment - Darling Towers. The apartment's location was surprisingly very convenient. It was around 5 mins walk to Chinatown, 10 mins walk to a mall + our tour gathering place, and 15 minutes walk to most of the attractions in town =D. After a quick rest, we went out for lunch @ Mekong Vietnamese Restaurant, then went for our own city tour. We indeed covered quite a few attractions (even those we don't really know of). We went to Victoria State Library, Melbourne Town Hall, Federation Square, Flinders Street Station, Crown Casino, and of course, Chinatown for the steamboat dinner.

Famous Steamboat - Chinatown, Melbourne

We reached back apartment at around 10pm, had a small birthday celebration, then went to the cozy bed at around 11pm.

The addictive Birthday Cake from Ganache Chocolate

Wednesday, 31 Aug 2011 - Hi, Penguins!

After a good night rest, we went for our first day tour to Phillip Island. The highlight of the tour was the penguins at night, but I much preferred the Chocolate Factory (where I got to eat free chocs as much as I want) and the Amaze'n thing (something similar to Ripley's believe it or not) In addition, we also went to Churchill Island, Koala Reservation, and couple other itineraries - A fully packed day! (No pics of penguins since there is no pics allowed ^^;)

Taken after the delicious Fish and Chips Lunch

Penny's Chocs Factory - I wouldn't have mind staying there a bit longer...

Dad & Me in one of the attractions in Amaze'n thing. I look just... weird!

Thursday, 1 Sep 2011 - Hi, Spring!

It marked the first day of Spring, and true enough, the sun was shining brighter, the wind wasn't blowing that hard, and finally I can get rid of my thick brown jacket for awhile. We went to Great Ocean Road tour that day and went to see those rocks at Twelve Apostles. The scenery was good, but the journey there wasn't easy. I was wondering why the tour guide gave us a plastic bag at the start of the tour. I figured it out after a while - the route was similar if not worse than the route from Medan to Brastagi - a lot of turning and turning. Thanks God the return route was better.

At the entrance of Great Ocean Road

Finally away from my jacket! Ha! - Feeding lovely Parrots on the way to Twelve Apostles

View from the Twelve Apostles

That night, I managed to get KFC for dinner! :p

KFC All Stars Box - AUD 9.90

Friday, 2 Sep 2011 - Bye, Melbourne!

We took our last Gold Trail tour to Sovereign Hill on this day and followed by a fly back to Sydney at night. The tour was good, but I guess 3 full days tour in a row was a bit too much - we were exhausted and decided to skip some of the tour itinerary. As the tour ended quite early (around 4.40pm) we went to Queen Victoria Market, but it was unfortunately closing as we reached there :( In the end, we just went for dinner around that area and went to the airport. The taxi fare was AUD 80 for less than half an hour ride!! Everything seems so much more expensive compare to SG, I don't know how if I tried to compare it with ID...

Kryal Castle - don't even know what is the castle for...

Saturday, 3 Sep 2011 - Weekend!

I slept at around 1.30am and woke up the next day at around 10am. After shower, we went for Sydney Fish Market for the fabulous seafood. I went there once two years ago and I can't stop thinking about coming back for more. The place is exactly the same as it was two years ago, and the seafood was exactly the way I remember it. Nyummy!!

Fried Platter - AUD 34.50. Simply Awesome!!

After lunch, we went to Star City Casino, where I got $20 with my $5 bucks capital =p. Follow through, we went to Chinatown for some shopping, Darling Harbour for some sightseeing (bumped to Festival Indonesia event ^^;;), dinner, and finally clearing my shopping list at Coles supermarket before reaching back home at around 9pm. We had one more round of supper before calling it a day.

Festival Indonesia - Performance with lots of stalls selling Indonesian Food at 10x the normal prices

Sunday - To be continued.

It's 1.30am now. Shall sleep and see what tomorrow brings :)
ED

To the Family Gathering of the Year!

2011-08-28T16:39:00.004+08:00

OK I’m feeling restless. The day is finally here. Less than 12 hours and I will see mum and dad… in the next 24 hours I’m going to meet bro and sis-in-law and princess Aurelie.

Surprisingly, office has been forgiving this time (or it’s me who has developed new attitude towards work). I used to stay in office until 1am or even 6am for the last day before holiday. This time, I didn’t even have to stay until 12am for any day and manage to leave office before 10pm on last day (new achievement unlocked!)

There is nothing much apart from my normal activities. My boss took sudden leave on Wed, Thurs, Fri and left me clueless. How am I supposed to do handover when he is not even around? I felt like calling him but don’t feel right to disturb people on their off day. In the end, I managed to make him come for half a day on Friday for the handover without me calling him :p ha. Power of escalation.

This Saturday, I started back with Badminton (before again going for a break) at Jurong West Sport Complex. There were at least 15 of us playing! Good that Juli helped to book 3 courts. After badminton and lunch, Inche and I complained about our hair and we decided to get a haircut. My second haircut in Singapore after being here for more than 7 years! Hahaha.. We went to Boon Lay and tried out a small saloon just beside the MRT. Guess how much is the cut? SGD 3.8 Nett. Cheaper than KFC! So I can’t complain much about the style… :P at least it served my objectives – removing the dried ends and reducing shampoo usage :P

Back home, I did my usual laundry and get addicted to Tiny Tower until dinner time =.=’’ For dinner, we went to Malacca Celup for my third buffet of the year! Haha… We purchased the vouchers from Groupon couple of months back, and I have been waiting for the day ever since! Unfortunately, I must say that the food is a let down compared with the real Malacca’s Satay celup, and it’s not even meet up to the standards shown in its own website. The satay sauce was diluted, the satay choices were so few, and you have to pay separately for the drinks and seafood. Yet, I must say that the service is excellent. Overall, I’m ok to take it as one time experience. If there is a next satay celup eat out, that will be at Malacca itself!

Malacca Celup – basically all the choices available

After the filling dinner, we took a direct bus to Vivo and had our dessert at Honeymoon Dessert. I tried the dessert with green tea ice-cream… The icre-cream was surprisingly very good! The green tea flavor is really strong and I loved it!

Grass Jelly in Vanilla Sauce with Green Tea Ice-cream – SGD 4.5

After the nice dessert, we decided to call it a day and go back home… for a movie! First we wanted to go for Zookeeper. Then he showed me a preview of “Secret” as I said I never watched it… in the end we watched it till the end =__=’ I quite like the movie… 8 out of 10! Has been a while since the last time I watch romantic high school movie. The other movie we watched last week was “Love, Wedding, Marriage”, starring Mandy Moore. The story depicted was quite realistic and that’s why I like it =D 7 out of 10! Somehow I remembered Mandy to be better looking than the way she is in the movie… Anyway, not important.

Today is the last day of the 7th Month in Chinese… it means no more scary story about wandering late at night… it means that wedding months are around the corners (already 4 invites for Oct)… it means 5 more months until the end of bunny year! :p (Don’t know since when I become so superstitious)...

Oh, today, Singapore also got a new president. Welcome, Mr. Tan. I’m not in politics really, but I’m impressed how all the candidates are in their 60s and 70s but still look so fit. Respect!

Ok I better go iron my cloths now before flying off… Till then!
ED