Lovin' Each Day

I’m back to blogging only once a week T_T

I’m hungry but I’m determined to finish my blog before dinner… so let me go with the highlight of everyday.

Monday I had a nice dinner and reached back home at around 8.30pm. Then, we heard few door knocks from inside the house! There were 5 seconds of scary moment for me, before I realized that it’s Fieda trapped in the toilet! T_T

Broken Common Toilet Door

We tried all we could to help her out, passing her screwdriver, card, etc to open the door but failed. In the end, we get a door smith and he got it open within 30 seconds! That’s a quick $50! After that, he explained that the mechanic is already faulty, so he changed it for us for another $40.

Parts of Knob. Never know it's that complicated

Tuesday

I got to know a new application called Fatify from Inche. It’s not as scary as Oldify, but still bad enough to make people hate it. I’m posting a picture of me before and after Fatify – because I think they still deserve some credits for their superb image processing. The image can even move like a video!

Before Fatify

After Fatify - OMG!

Wednesday

I went to Regent Hotel for the first time for training. The hotel was located around Orchard area, but not very near to MRT. I’m lucky that it took me only 15 minutes to reach the place from home via 111. Kudos bus!

Training Room - with Video Taping during the Role Play

The training was good, and the food was of course good :D I liked their buffet, even though the variety is slightly less than the other hotels.

The Appetizer :p

Thursday

It has been awhile since the last time I watched a movie. We finished watching Sherlock Holmes 2. It was thrilling from beginning till the end. Loved it!

Friday

There was 1-1 promotion for Starbucks and my friend gave one to me for free ^^

Starbucks Mocha Cookie Crumble Frappuccino

I got a meeting at 8pm but decided to take it via Skype while enjoying the Pizza Hut at Harbor front. Skype is really convenient. Exactly the same like calling via phone, but free (they have free call to US numbers)

Pizza Hut Meat Galore! The pizza was served late and they gave us free garlic bread!

Saturday

It was raining heavily in the morning, but I decided to get up and went to gym anyway. With that, I completed my 6 days streak of Fitness First :p

Monday – 8KM Treadmill (Woke up late T_T)
Tuesday – Pilates + 6KM Treadmill
Wednesday – Body Step (@ Paragon – like neither the place nor class)
Thursday – 10KM Treadmill
Friday – Gentle Flow + 5KM Treadmill
Saturday – Swimming 25 laps

Went for Big Mac after swim =_= it has been few week streak of junk food for me.

Big Mac with Seaweed Shaker!

OK, that’s all for the highlights of the week! Dinner time now!!
ED

Run350 – 10KM Women’s Open

This is my first 10km run of the year and I was really enjoying it :D Thanks DB for sponsoring the run for 100 of us :p I like everything from the goodie bag to the shirt – if only they were in any other color than orange… hahaha! (greedy human nature =__=)

Finisher Medal for Run350! :D

I was kind of excited and I woke up at around 4 even before my alarm rang (then of course go back to sleep again until 5 something). Unlike Standard Chartered Marathon, there is no special extended MRT for this run. I tried to register for their $5 shuttle bus, but even that is not covering Queensway. I was about to call a cab, but suddenly my friend told me that he would be driving and could pick me up. I’m so lucky!

I went out at around 5.40am and reached there before 6am. Few people told us the bad experiences about the shuttle bus – some got cancelled and some were late for 20 minutes… so late that few people have to take cab instead. I imagine the bus company will be getting lots of complains. It’s the first time I reached a run place early and got a chance to look around. I got to see the flag off for 21km runners, as well as stand close enough to get pictures of the start gate. It’s also the first time that I joined a race which start before 7am. The sky was still dark!

At the Start Gate - Pitch Black at 6.30am

The run started at 6.45am. It was an enjoyable run – it is definitely not as crowded as Standard Chartered. I got to see few pacers in front of me, with balloon tied to their shirt – it’s really cute. My target time was 70 mins, so I tried to stick around with the 1hr 5 mins pacer. Unfortunately I lost them in my 4th KM or so when I stopped to drink T_T

The Run Path - at around 9KM

The whole run finally took me around 1hr 13mins (exact time still need to wait for the official announcement). I didn’t meet my target of 70mins, but at least few mins faster than the last run :) I’m surprised that I can actually finish the run without the urge to stop and walk. I’m guessing that my mind hasn’t been really awake yet and hence I just run without thinking.

Finally remember to take a sign this time. One KM to go!

After run, we got medal and banana and 100 plus (enjoying the free welfare). I tried to find some colleagues I know, took few pictures, and then went to have breakfast at McD at Marina Square. Not everyday I can relax and enjoying McD breakfast with friends. Hahaha…

Taken with my lousy iPhone 3GS T_T 

Taken with Ranga's iPhone 4 :D

I feel my passion towards running grow every time I finished the run. Guess it’s the atmosphere. There are around 10,000 people in the run this time. My next run will be in one-month time! Better start training if I don’t want to lie down flat for the 21km.

Happy Earth Day everyone!
ED

Whatsup, April!

I welcomed April with a brighter mood than Feb and Mar. Finally comes the month with public holiday! Falls on long weekend some more :p

First week was quite a hectic week – I was staying in office until almost mid night on Wednesday and Thursday. But, you will be amazed with the motivation a long weekend can bring. Time flies when you have something to look forward to :) On unrelated note, all my sisters + brother finally got Whatsapp! Now we can chat whenever we want!

Second week was a short week for me. I spent the first two days attending training at Marina Mandarin Hotel. Training was good and food was superb. It’s a week after Easter holiday, and most of people in Germany and UK are taking leaves, so there were no evening calls. We finished at 4.30pm and I got to spend few hours at the gym :D The rest of the days are pretty standard. Few tasks piling up but most of people are on leave so there is not much follow-up can be done.

The training room is so cute! With receptionist desk!

2 days buffet lunch *blurp

This rest of the days have been filled with some concerning news. For one, my brother was down with 2 days of severe fever + sore throat. Then it was my sister’s kids who were down with flu. After my brother, it was his kid’s turn to be down with fever. It’s really not easy to be a parent! Other than that, a prominent earthquake happened in Aceh, which felt in both Medan and TB. So worrying! The Tsunami alert has been removed, but I still feel restless :(

My gym regime has been boosting my eating appetite, which is kind of worrying, too. I had 2 BBQ Chickens meal, 2 Soupspoon meals and 2 KFC meals all within the same week. With all the sickness news around, I’m supposed to avoid fried stuff, but the temptation was just too much! Sigh!

Discounted Fish & Chips from BBQ Chicken - Nyummy!

Free KFCs from Doritos & Lays (Cheapo mode :p)

This week was quite a roller coaster week. People are back from leaves, I got more follow up to do, and so, so many adhoc meeting setup everyday. I got almost no time to do anything after 3pm as it’s filled with meeting, meeting, and meetings… all the way until 9pm. I was really drained out. Maybe I’m still lucky that boss is on business trip, so there is no additional thing added to my plate, yet.

On unrelated note, Circle Line was done this week and they start to issue MC - MRT Certificate lol (credit: Citra)

Good news, we finally settled for our accommodation until May 2013. The owner decided to give us another discount of SGD 100 and we managed to sort out the breakdown comfortable for all of us :) :) The owners are based in UK, but they were here this week to paint the house. Initially, we were all grumpy about how messy the flat will be, but it was surprisingly a pleasant experience. They come only after we left for work and they left before we reached back home. They did much more than just painting. They fix our heater; buy us new gloves, new table, new Microwave, new clock, and lots more stuff. I don’t understand why would the owner do that, knowing that we’re not complaining even with the current situation. Anyway, should not be questioning too much, just be thankful for it :) I’m quite curious to meet up with the owners, hopefully will get a chance next time.

The flat after painting (can't really tell the difference) - They are really pros!

The sweet note they left for the tenants :p

This is my last week of practice before the Run350 this coming Sunday. I went to gym for the first 4 days for Body Combat, Pilates, Body Pump, and personal trainer. I was knocked out on the 5th day when I supposed to be doing my treadmill T_T Felt a bit ill and decided not to push myself too much. I’m quite nervous now for Sunday. The last running I did was last Friday morning! Wish me luck! 

Did cycling after Pilates on Tuesday - Nice view outside!

Coming up next week, my boss will be back to office. Monthly reporting deadlines are coming up and I hope that I will be able to continue the passion towards gym (my $133 per month!!) :p Other than that, I started to read Steve Jobs from Kindle, which is really captivating :) Loving it!

Increase time in gym = reduce time in blog post. That’s as much as what I can multitask =(
ED

Dinner cum Vera’s B’day at Mad for Garlic, Suntec

You can always rely on Jess to come out with fresh idea for dinner - Like this one. Even though I have been going to Suntec for many times, I never know that a restaurant called “Mad for Garlic” existed. Surprisingly, it actually served a good tasting food!

Location of Mad for Garlic. Models: 2 hungry guys

We came at their last day of operation before going through massive renovation until further notice. As I stepped into the Bistro, I was quite excited with its decoration, which is basically filled with garlics. I don’t really understand why they still need to do any renovation, while the restaurant still look perfectly posh and fine.

Closing from the next day until further notice

The one pager menu!

The decoration - filled with glittering glasses and onions. Surprisingly the mix is good

The GOH of the day!

There were 10 of us. And we happened to order 10 different main dishes without even planned for it. I got to taste different people’s main… and my favorite is all their pizzas! I ordered rice, which taste good too, but not very fancy.

Here are the food! In order of arrivals:

Cipto's Calzone Pizza ($18.90++) - The healthiest of all. The small plate is the garlic dip

Helios' Garlic Snowing Pizza ($19.90++) - The favourite of all. A bit taste like garlic Naan :p

Winson's Chili Curry Chicken ($18.90++) - I love the chili flavour!

Henny's Garlic Butter Shrimp ($24.90++) - Whole lots of Shrimps!

Fredick' Seafood Rice ($18.90++) - Looks good! but Seafood is not my cup of tea

Juli's Meat Lover's Creamy ($18.90++) - A better version of Pizza Hut Meat Lovers

Jess' Suicide Rice($16.90++) - There is a story behind the ordering of the dish

Vera's Dancing Salsa Rice ($18.90++): The best in their Rice selection, in my view

Tatsu's Seafood Cream Risotto ($19.90++): The portion looks a bit too small for me :P

Finally Mine - Garlic Sizzling Rice ($17.90++): Taste OK but the garlic is not as strong as I wish

Complimentary dessert - Thanks to Helios! :p

After dinner was the birthday celebration. Jess came out with a cake and 3 big candles. I was stunned. Is Vera 30 now??? Time is flying in the speed of light! Quick enough, I heard Vera complained that she is not even 29! Then Jess explained that the 3 candles represent the 3 people who just had birthday in this table. That includes me!

We're 30!

Blowing one candle each

Cake cutting :D

Thanks to Jess for organizing :) It's really nice to meet Vera also after so long. She is still as bubbly and even prettier than before! I learnt to play some games and get to know some secrets from the truth we played afterwards. Heheheee...

10 of us!

Till the next gathering :D
ED

3 Days 2 Night Trips to Kuala Lumpur + Cameron Highlands

Yet another trip purchased from Groupon! (the last one was tip to Batam half a year ago). I must say that all these online discount websites nailed their advertising really well! All the promotions look so good and so cheap so alluring. We purchased the ticket few months ago for $110. Thanks Fendi who has been following up with the Travel agency from the start to the end :)

The Groupon Deal we bought few months ago

Friday, 6th Apr 2012 – Singapore – Johor Bahru – Kuala Lumpur – Putra Jaya 

Waken up at 5.30am by few messages from Fendi, saying that he is all packed and ready to go! Turned out that he partied until 3.30am the day before and didn’t get a chance to sleep at all. Man, that’s the youth spirit!

Winson and I left house at around 6am, then took a taxi to bukit batok to pick up Fendi and Inche. After all complete, we headed to Woodlands Checkpoint. There were few goofed up – taxi driver who wasn’t familiar with the location, tour guide (ASA) who wasn’t able to explain clearly where is the meeting point, as well as train which was cancelled last minutes =_=’’ Luckily, all still went as planned.

The tour arranged a bus and all of us (around 30) departed at around 8am. Johor isn’t that far, but the crowd was so bad that we were stuck for more than 2 hours. It was 10+am when we finally reached Johor, change bus, and headed to KL.

The Custom at Johor

My first meal in Malaysia - Laksa! RM 5. Like it!

The JB – KL trips took around 6 hours with few stops. It was long, but I hardly felt it. Five minutes into the right, I went to dreamland and only woke up when it’s time to stop and eat. The cycle repeated until we reach KL at around 4pm. Once at KL, we wasted no time and headed to Putrajaya with the taxi pre-arranged by Fendi. The trips took around 40 minutes.

Leisure Inn - Our accommodation for our stay in Malaysia

Ready, Set, Go! We're ready for a city tour!

I didn’t read what is Putrajaya before I visited the place, and I was awed with what I saw. Apparently it’s a planned city built not so long ago, and served as the federal administrative center of Malaysia. It’s filled with delicate-looking building. Amazing! We made few stops along the way (the taxi driver was really kind), with final stop at the Putra Mosque. We explored the area, have some dinner, and headed back to KL at around 6.30pm.

At the lookout area across Putrajaya

Isn't this building look amazing? 

I think this is the President's Residence

Two guys acting lame as usual

First time getting into a Mosque! We need to wear the coat to hide "Taurat"

Awesome architecture inside the Mosque

Delicious Briyani for dinner :p

Some wonderful Malaysia Financial Building

More stunning building. It's there in Jay Chou's latest movie Viral Factor!

Clean city - I think it looked even cleaner than Singapore. Maybe because it's new

The building looks like our Indo's DPR Building, but it's apparently an exhibition hall

Us enjoying sundown

Reached back KL, we went to Sungai Wang, did some shopping, bought some breakfast, and then headed back to hotel to rest. We played Saboteur until around 12am and then finally calling it a day. 

Look what we found at Sungai Wang Mall!

... and look at the price! It's HALF than Singapore. I want to stay in Malaysia!

For some reason, the guys laugh everytime they see this advertisement

Saturday, 7th Apr 2012 – Kuala Lumpur – Cameron Highlands 

We woke up at 6am and prepared for our one-day trip to Cameron Highlands. The coach trip started at 7am, and it took another 6 hours for us to reach Cameron. We stopped at one of the transit location for lunch – I had beef noodle soup, which was very satisfying at the price of RM 4.8. The meat was really tender, and a lot!

Beef Beehoon Soup - RM 4.8. It would have been easily SGD 15 in Singapore

Our first real stop was Cactus Farm and Strawberry Farm. The Cactus was really cute and cheap (3 for RM 10), but unfortunately not allowed to enter SG. The Strawberry looked really fresh. We bought a small pack of RM 10 and shared between us. They served so many of Strawberry flavor stuff – from ice cream, cocktail, muffin, fondue, coffee, yogurt, pancake, cake, until curry! So creative! Feel like trying everything, but I have only one stomach =(

Various kind of Cactus!

Three big non edible strawberries!

Group pic before we left the place

After delicious snacking time, the second stop was lunch! We asked what is popular there and the tour guide recommended steamboat. He explained that the cool weather makes people like to eat steamboat to warm up the body, plus they won’t sweat as much. Well, I kind of disagree that it’s at all cool (more like 29 C?) but we decided to try out steamboat.

We went for RM 15 “conditional” steamboat buffet. Only one serving of meat is allowed, but the vegetable can be topped up as much as we want. We go for Ying Yang soup (Tom Yam and Chicken) and had fun eating until it’s the time to go back to bus.

Buffet Steamboat at Random Restaurant

After lunch was Honey Bee Farm. There was nothing much, really. Few stalls selling Honey, a small stall selling dessert, as well as a shop selling some candies and stuff. There is also a small Bee Farm, which path can be completed in 10 mins. After Bee Farm, we decided to go for Rose Valley. Since it’s not free (RM 4), only very few of us actually went in. Despite its name as rose valley, all I see was mostly green plant and fake roses =_=’; The real roses look small and kind of wither. We don’t really care and still take lots of picture within the given 20 mins.

Walking around Bee Farm was kind of scary. Look closer and you can see the bees at the wood

Rose Valley!

The last stop was the main attraction of the tour – Cameron Valley Tea plantation. It was around 4.30pm and the weather was really, really hot. Everywhere we see is green scenery (even though I’m not sure if it’s grass or tea). We felt the urged to go back to the comfortable café area, but since everyone else was busy taking people, we just followed and did as many pose until we’re satisfied. Done with photo shooting, we relaxed at the café, ordering one pot of their original tea and one pot of strawberry flavor tea. I love the strawberry one! The strawberry smell was really strong and fragrance. 

The Cameron Valley Tea Plantation

Tea time: Cameron Valley Original Tea + Strawberry Tea + Sausage Bun

Lots of real Sun Flowers around! So huge!

After a relaxing tea, we took the couch back to KL. The returning trip was slightly faster, around 5 hours, because we didn’t make as many stops as before. We reached back KL at around 9pm, and asked the coach to drop us at Bukit Bintang area. Oh, the area was full of awesome restaurants. It was so hard to make a decision, and in the end we settle for… KFC :p I love my friends!

The restaurants crowd are like this for the next 200 meters

24 Hrs KFC!! Why not in Singapore? But honestly the service was really lousy. Queue for an hour then they tell us there is no more rice =(

The "So Goood" chicken

Pure happiness

We reached back hotel (inn) at around 11.00pm. Browsed via phone for around half an hour, and then have a sound sleep for the rest of the night. 

Sunday, 8th Apr 2012 – Kuala Lumpur – Singapore 

Another day, another adventure! We woke up at 6 something, showered, packed, checked out, and went hunting for our first meal of the day – breakfast. We walked for around 5 mins and found a open coffee shop. Went in and ordered wanton mee – RM 4.2, which tasted really good :D :D

Nice noodle, nice meat, and nice wantoon. Satisfying breakfast!

After a filling breakfast, we took a taxi and went for Twin Tower. We intended to buy the ticket to go in, but got rejected by the officer even before we can queue for the ticket “Sorry, the ticket is sold out for today. There are already a lot of people started queuing since 5am”, said the officer. We felt quite sad. The counter is supposed to open at 8.30am. It was only 8.00am and they said that the ticket is sold out? Isn't it a bit misleading? After some disappointment, we decided to go around the mall area - Suria KLCC, as well as taking some free picture from the outside.

In Suria KLCC Basement

Outside the mall - the sun was really glaring!

From KLCC, we walked all the way to Bukit Nanas, passed through Winson’s office and my office, and then went straight to KL Tower. KL Tower actually looked higher than Twin tower because of the height of the base. We bought the ticket RM45 to go up the tower and look around Singapore – it’s so much more organized and hassle free compared with KLCC! Hump! We have a good half an hour audio tour, then headed down for a brief video on the creation of tower, as well as F1 simulation game.

Deutsche Bank in KL!

Menara Kuala Lumpur Welcome Board

Taking picture outside the entrance

On our way to 40+ floor!

Twin Tower view from the Menara KL

F1 Simulation Zone. I actually got number 1!

After all those, we took taxi to Pavilion. Pavilion is something similar le Paragon – expensive brands which doesn’t really suit us (in fact it’s more expensive than SG!). After a while, we decided to go for lunch at Isetan Supermarket. Nyummy basement filled with good food!

To the food paradise!

My nyummy claypot rice!

After lunch, we got one more hour for last shopping trip. We walked around Time Square for an hour, went to giant again to get last groceries, and then walked back to hotel.

Titanic Movie Poster - Good at least they made effort to recreate the poster

Amusement Park within the Mall - Looks good, actually

We were 30 mins early, so we just rest at the lobby while waiting for the bus to come. Before really going for a long journey back, we made one stop at Beryl’s Chocholate Kingdom, which is famous for having chocholate of all flavours – berries, chili, tiramisu, durian, you name it. I bought a box of durian chocholate for RM 25, which is actually quite expensive considering that it has only 9 pieces inside.

Beryl's Chocholate Kingdom - Entrance

It's specialities - Durian Chocholate - good only for 3 months

The travel back to Singapore was quite painless. There were few toilet stops where we went down and get some snacks as well. We reached Singapore at around 7pm, but waited for more than an hour to get into the immigration. Finally, we reached Chinatown at around 9pm =_=’’ Winson and I decided to take a quick dinner, and then headed back home. It was around 10pm when we finally reached back home.

So the trip was officially over. Overall, I spent $110 for the groupon + $20 for the tour guide + $15 peak period surcharge + $145 for food and other sightseeing activities. All in all, it’s around $300 for the 3 days getaways, which is not bad, considering that I get to go to new places and eat as much as I like! :p

Kuala Lumpur - Twin Tower

Can’t wait for the next trip!
ED