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The most popular x'mas presents for ME in 2008

2008-01-05T00:56:00.000-08:00

mani x'mas presents

I have no idea why but i received many manicure related products as x'mas presents this year. Is either my friends think that I have pretty hands and want me to make them look prettier or they feel that my hands need maintainence. Haha... I hope it is the former. Hehe... The most of other x'mas presents I received are all beauty related like earrings, necklace, cosmetics and make-up kit. Last year, I received quite a few stuff toys. So it seems that my yearly x'mas presents have a theme on its own. Haha...

Pretty but not nice...

2008-01-03T06:21:00.000-08:00

Allow me to introduce 1 pretty cake & 1 pretty drink but dun taste nice...

1) Caramelittle

It looks really cute and it's description makes it looks good too. Caramel mousse with almond nutty sponge cake. U would thought the cake will turn out to be a sweet fragrance cake. But I think even our sugar free sweet is sweeter than the cake. The caramel mousse is no tasteless...the cake is quite hard also. It is not worth to waste your calories on.

2) A coffee which I forgotten its name

It look really pretty with rose petal on top, 3 layers of colours. But it taste like bandung. Unless you are a fan of bandung, you should not try. Even if you are a fan of bandung, it is cheaper to drink bandung than this expensive bandung taste coffee. But it looks really pretty.

x'mas celebration 2007 - epi 1

2008-01-03T02:26:00.000-08:00

My first x'mas celebration for 2007

22 Dec, my first x'mas celebration with friends...We tried to have a theme celebration but many cheated. The theme was "x'mas". And guess what, many came in green stating that it's the x'mas colour, while some had x'mas teddy handphone keychain, x'mas sock hadphone pouch, x'mas tag & even tying x'mas ribbon onto the shirt. Haha... The best dressed had to be Ricko & Shuhui who are Onz enough to wear x'mas hats & bring fairy wand. Well, I'm among the click who wore green but I made extra effort by wear brown skirt and white jacket. My explanation for the theme: "I'm the x'mas tree of course, haha..." White is the snow, green is the leaf and brown is...

We had lunch at RSVP at Park Hotel, previously known as Crown Prince Hotel. The buffet was delicious except for the oysters weren't too fresh. I nv tried any of the "fresh oyster" but my frens did. Hee... The lamp chop and beef stew were fantastic. The prawns were fresh. The strawberry pie and creme brulee were good, the strawberry n mango mousse were too sweet. Turkey was abit tough

After lunch, we exchanged presents among ourselves. The most creative present had to be Weiguang's. He kept saying that it is an expensive yet useless present which had our curiousity way up high. It was actually a doll with needles for you to poke to vent your anger. Then after lunch, we went to watch National Treasures, the first movie which we went to watch as a group after knowing each other for 4 and half years. Haha... Lastly, we ended our day with 4-hr KTV session.

At this x'mas celebration, my W910i found the love of his/her life. Haha... Yes, I'm holding a couple phone with Nijun. Hehe...

欣/新的 gadgets

2007-12-14T06:33:00.000-08:00

I know I promise to upload my HK trip pictures, especially the yummy food I ate. But I had something which I am so excited to share with all of you. I burned a big hole in my pocket and got myself new gadgets. Also, i realised I actually displayed the typical woman trait "flickle minded" quite well. I have been saying I wanted to change my phone. I shortlisted so many phones and in the end, the phone I got is nowhere on my list. Haha... Guess what I got? Yes, W910i, haha... a walkman phone. I have considered the Sony Ericsson K cybershot series (K850i & K770i) together with Nokia N series (N95 & N82). In the end, I got a walkman phone. I went into Hello Shop wanted to buy K770i and I walk out with W910i. But the angry thing is I couldn't get the colour I want. All Singtel outlets dun have the red colour W910i. Haiz... So I had to settle for the bronze one...

Then since I didn't managed to get a good camera phone which I initially wanted so I got myself a good digital camera instead. Hehe... This camera has a function which suits me a lot. It has IA mode. What does IA stands for? If you ask Panasonic or the camera salesman, they call it Intelligent Auto mode. But I'll call it the Idiot Assured mode, haha... meaning that camera is idiot proof. I juz need to switch on the cam n take picture. I need not do any settings at all. How wonderful... The cam will do everything for me...yeah! Very suitable for lazy people like me...haha... Save me the trouble of reading the manual. Hee...

All I have to do now is to charge all the batt n they are ready to get into action. :)

My horizontal expansion trip!

2007-11-16T08:27:00.000-08:00

I just went to the land of shopping, eating, shopping, eating, shopping, eating, shopping and eating... If you still have no idea where I go then you seldom watch TV rite? I went to HK la. I ate a lot on my 5-day trip. Basically, my trip was eat, eat, eat, eat, shop, play, eat, eat, eat, eat, shop, play, eat, eat, eat... despite I ate so much, there are still a lot of food I haven try. If you are on a gaining weight mission, HK is the place to go. How much weight have I gained? I have no idea and I'm not intending to find out...but I need to start shreding some kgs before I expand too much horizontally. Hee... So those of you who are interested in going gym, exercising, playing badminton, tennis, squash, swimming...start jioing me, k? haha....

You must be thinking where is all the pictures. Wait! They will be uploaded soon. Hee... Good things are worth waiting...especially the pictures of those yummy food.

I hate upgrading! - seriously delayed post

2007-11-16T07:50:00.000-08:00

Upgrading done!!
The upgrading in my house is completed quite some time ago. For those who are interested to see what have been done, look down...

Welcome to my new toilets who love to leak...

Next, please come into my new utility room who has become the store room of my house until my mum has sorted out everything and paint the house. I guess all the great plan she has for that room will have to put on hold.

Beside my new toilets and utility room, I also like to introduce you to my new lift who stops at every level and is situation right outside my house. It definitely brings convenience to the families but what makes it unique is its hobby of breaking down. Since launched a few months ago, the number of its breaking down could no longer use my 2 hands to count. Next addition to my family also includes the 70 bucks lock. I can't believe a lock cost 70 bucks!!!

On our own, we also torn off our kitchen cabinets and changed the floor tiles. Maybe the difference in the picture is not obvious but I have never seen my kitchen so empty before. Haha... So I guess my "I hate upgrading!" series can changed to "I hate renovation" series, hee...

Updates to the painting of my house!
Living room: blue > dark green > purple > apple green > white who my mum insist is greyish white
My mum's room: baby yellow > ??
My room: baby yellow always...
My kitchen: baby yellow > let's pray that it wun change colour like my living room, haha...

As you could guess, till date my house is still not fully painted yet. So if your parents want to paint the house themselves instead of getting professionals, ask them to think think think and think again.

I hate upgrading! - Part II

2007-10-07T18:13:00.000-07:00

Toilet upgrading - stage 1
Knocked off everything!

Toilet upgrading - stage 2
Add in the cement!

Toilet upgrading - stage 3
Lay the tiles! And there you have it, a new toilet is almost coming my way...

Never did ever looked at the scenary from my room, at least not until my window was torn off. Actually the view is pretty good, it could be better if the new lift is not blocking the way. But in a day time, the window in my room is up again. How different does it look from the previous one? Not much different actually. Except that I have additional glass panel and less 1 metal panel. Come to think of it, changing of window did make a different...lots of dust and lots of cleaning to do lor...hee...

Upgrading diary con't
2 Oct (Tue):
My mum wants to repaint my whole house and is asking me what colour I prefer. So I told her how abt baby yellow? Then she say not nice. So I go on to say baby green? Then she commented "yucks, ugly". So I ask her wat colour she wants then. She immediately say "blue and white" coz it's her lucky colour for the year. Well, my first reaction was, if you already had in mind what colour you want then why bother asking me what colour I prefer?

She is asking for opinion when in fact she has made the decision. The reason for her choice of colour is so weird. Her lucky colour for the year but the year is almost ending...haha...

4 Oct (Thu):
Back on track...my kitchen cabinet is dismantled...gas pipe newly replaced...of coz these mean more money spent. But as long as it can lower my mum stress level...the money is worth it...lesser nagging for me ma...haha...

5 Oct (Fri):

Bathroom accessories shopping time...I guessed all aunties are the same...they like to "kek poh". Since the upgrading started, beside having lots of workers walking in and out of my house, I also have lots of aunties walking in and out of my house "kek-pohing". Some I know them but some I dun and my mum like all other anuties also like to go other people house and kek-poh. So when she was poking her nose into my neighbour house, she saw people getting new bathroom accessories and she also want to buy. It's like the primary school kids mentality. She have, I also want!!! I received a call once my neighbour told her that the place sells cheap bathroom accessories. So I have to call the shop to ask for exact location, rush home straight after work to accompany her to go bathroom accessories shopping only to discover that the stuff in that shop aren't really cheap. So we had to stay on in the shop so that my mum can bargain n argue with the person on how cheap my neighbour got the items, OMG... I dun even mind paying the listed price as once as I can go home and eat my dinner.

6 Oct (Sat):

Hot and long day...that's the day I officially got cut off from internet access coz my mum cut off the internet connection wire...I'll just need to bear with it for abt 1 plus mth n i will go apply n install MIO or whatever internet package I'm getting. And besides new internet connection, I'm looking forward to buying new HP. Yeah Yeah!!! Any good HP to recommend? Hee...

The speech that nearly doesn't end...

2007-10-04T01:47:00.000-07:00

Aiyoyo, I have just met the super long-winded man in my life and the worst case is, he does not answer to your questions no matter how straight-forward your question is. The man can repeat the same useless point for like x number times (I lost count after awhile). And the man who pride himself for being smart and provide excellent customer service do not read my email which had all information written on it, do not answer my question straight to the point, say alot of irrelevant things which I dun care...I hv no idea which of the above reflects smart n excellent customer service man.

While he thinks we tarnish the professionalism of my organisation, I think he is already doing an excellant job on this aspect liao. hahaha...

Leaving on the dot challenge

2007-10-02T06:38:00.000-07:00

Recently, I have embarked on the leaving on the dot challenge due to my house upgrading, unfortunately I do not have much success as yet. Today is my closest try in my entire working duration in Nexus. Today, I was able to leave at 6.15pm. 15 minutes passed my official knock off time. I have been working for more than 1 yr liao but never once have I been able to leave on the dot.

Despite I left office rather early today, Mr 老天爷 decide to play a trick on me. My whole journey home took me nearly 2 hrs. Firstly, it took forever for the bus 145 to come. When it's finally here, I can't get on it. So I waited n waited for the next one. When I finally board the bus, it's already 6.53pm.

That's not all. The north east line decided to take its own sweet time to close the door at every station. So instead of the regular 20 sec wait before dooring closing, it somewhat extended to mins, defintely more than 1 min wait per station. Good thing was Uncle 老天爷 decided to 放我一条生路. The remaining of my journey went on pretty smoothly. Best of all, I managed to get my hair washed in the salon before it closes. :)

Tml is a brand new day and I shall attempt to leave on the dot again. Wish me luck! Hee...

Generation gap or ...?

2007-10-01T18:12:00.000-07:00

Generation gap or communications skill problem...that's the question. Recently, I found that my communications with my mum is often taking too long to make her understand wat I'm trying to say or the communications is just getting nowhere. When I tell her abt 'A', she will reply me abt 'B'. Is this wat most people call "generation gap" or simply my communications skill got problem?

I hate upgrading!

2007-10-01T09:06:00.000-07:00

My agony started with the packing of the house to get it ready for my flat upgrading. The upgrading started on 29 Sep but my agony begins on 24 Sep. My day start with the 1st shift in the office, then I continue my 2nd shift at home. All the packing was finished on 29 Sep at 4am.

29 Sep (sat):
Then after 3 and half hours of sleep, I took the last shower in my dear bathroom and the construction work officially started. It also mean that from that point onwards, sayonara to the 2 loyal serving toilets in my house. No more toilets, no more water, no more convenience. Lots n lots of dust, dirt, noise n workers in my house.

30 Sep (sun):
The workers stop work for 1 day and I had to bear with a temporary toilet with no water heater and no flushing system. The temp toilet is so small that if you can slightly "horizontally expanded", you will have difficulty turning within the cubicle. Well, it almost impossible to wash my hair in tt temp toilet so I just have to look for other alternatives. That is really an expensive alternative: wash hair in salon. It is the only way to ensure that I can hv clean hair.

1 Oct (mon):
Just wen u thought, no comfortable bathroom to take nice n clean shower is bad. Some thing worse happen on the 3rd day of upgrading. The old stupid gas pipe is causing me lots n lots of trouble. I need to knock away half of my kitchen wall to make way for the dumb utility room. And because the gas pipe is embedded within the wall, I had to get rid of it so that upgrading can proceed without "industrial hazard" - kaboom! Then the Citygas person knock off the whole stretch of my kitchen step and cut off my water pipe instead. He then told my mum tt he cut the wrong pipe and tt the actual gas pipe is hidden deep within the other pipes. My mum who freak out over the slightest matter...freak out big time...n is explaining totally nonsense to me...I hv a big problem on hand and a freaking out mum...all bcoz of the upgrading fault. haiz...This is only the 3rd day of the upgrading and I still need to survive 15 more days. Can someone explain to me why am I paying so much money to get myself so much trouble? Who are those stupid people who vote yes to the upgrading?

Breathe in, Breathe out, Breathe in, Breathe out...I should stop my bitching session, oops...I mean my upgrading 全记录 la. So look out for more of my upgrading sequel, hee...

Mystery solved!

2007-09-18T00:11:00.000-07:00

The mystery of "What's the flavor of the big can of Campbells soup?" on the cardigan is finally solved. For those who has the privi to see the shiny can of soup, it's actually a can of Tomato Soup, haha... For those who did not have a chance to see that "impressive" artwork on the cardigan and has no idea what I'm toking about...If you have heard from me tt in my office, there's someone who has "unique" dress sense and love shiny stuff...there's a particular cardigan which had the whole of the right front part sew with a huge can of campbells soup on it (made of sequin). Previously when I saw it, I only recognise it is a campbells soup, but yesterday, I managed to solve the mystery. It is campbells tomato soup! Lucky is not my personal fav of cream of mushroom, haha...

As you have guessed, nv buy me a cardigan with any campbells soup sew on it, haha...

Breaking personal records

2007-09-02T14:35:00.000-07:00

Just when I thought I broke my personal record of leaving the office at 1am in the morning, I managed to break 2 records in a row within the week. I actually stayed up whole nite from sun (2 Sep) till mon (3 Sep) to do work. And in about another hour or so, I will have to leave for my event early in the morning. The best thing is that my event wun end till around 10pm tonight, afterwhich I have to rush home to prepare my presentation for Tue morning. This will also mean I cannot go in late on Tue morning. Yawn...

Signed,

Panda eyes

Ps: I'm now the cat wif the bear in front (熊猫) haha...

Damned lousy day for me...

2007-08-22T23:34:00.000-07:00

I just had to pour all my anger somewhere... I am having the lousiest day and it hadn't even end yet...

Of all days, Lao Tian Ye had to pick on me today. Crazy workload is enough to drive me nuts, then going to NYJC for nothing n now no more K750i for 2 weeks. Plus the DSTA giving me trouble, I have to do contract variation just to made payment to my vendor... Actually, is not Lao Tian Ye giving me trouble, is M..... giving me all these troubles and problems...

Angry ah! Angry ah! Angry ah! What adds on to my lousy mood was my relative visit! Wah Piang! How bad can the day be?

Tip for event organiser - every little bits counts!

2007-08-20T06:58:00.000-07:00

I attended an event today and the event was very funny despite the long wait made me very sleepy. But I learned an important lesson from today's event. Music plays a big role in an event, especially in creating the right mood.

The event today was suppose to be serious and solemn but the music played was damned mismatch loh...while waiting for the event to start, music was played to "entertain" the guests. Hee... Initially was Kenny G, then it slowly moved on to Romance Oldies 101. The most hilarious part was the intro music for "important people". They played Starwar music. I guess the whole event was just a step away from becoming the chinese wedding at some old restaurant which will play Wong Fei Hong for the opening dish. Haha...

Celebrations!

2007-08-14T20:54:00.001-07:00

Part II to my macau and zhuhai trip...

2007-08-14T20:06:00.000-07:00

The long awaited post... My Macau - Zhuhai trip!!! (Part 1)

2007-07-31T01:54:00.000-07:00

First stop: Changi Budget Terminal...

My very first visit to the budget terminal... Looking fresh and awake...actually I only slept for 2 hrs the previous night...is not the excitement that kept me awake through the night but the last min packing I had to do...hee...

Lucky Gate 9, we are a few steps closer to Macau...Yeah!

Looking at our happy faces, work is long gone and off our minds, haha...

There's our plane...if you think it's big, it is not...haha...

There's little red dot from up above...don't ask me which part of Sg is this coz I have no idea...come to think of it...now I'm not even sure if this is Sg, our dear little red dot, hehe... But who care, it's the view from up high above la...haha...

2nd stop: Macau...

Yes! I've reached Macau and is on my way to my hotel...Metropark...N bcoz the taxi auntie dun understand English n refuse to look at the map n kept insisting tt she know where it is...we ended going to the wrong place n had to 游车河, haha... But nvm coz we are in good mood...hee...

We have reached our hotel n are busy doing our research on how to get to our destinations n as there was a delay in the arrival time...we had to replan our iternary for that evening...so like my poly lecturer used to say "anything can go wrong will go wrong" so must always have contingency plan which me n eileen are busy working on, haha...although a bit last min but nvm...better late than never, haha... Side track a bit, the information counter of Macau Tourism Board not very helpful, most of the questions asked got no answer for us one...

By now, we have settled on our plan, so is take picture with our lovely hotel room before we dash out to have fun.

We are so hungry so we decided that the first thing we do in Macau is to eat...so following our itinerary, we went to Red Market for makan. Yes, Red Market is really red, haha... We thot Red Market got food to eat but guess what we found there?

Red Market turned out to be really a market, haha... N Catherine is not cooking tonight! Hee :p Though the market look similar to our local wet market, the market has 3 levels: 1 level for veg, 1 level for seafood, 1 level for meat...very organised right? We also discovered something interesting...see below

There is a priceboard stating the price of every item so no need to be afraid of the seller overcharging you!

View of the residential area... It's quite different from our HDB flats.

Before your eyes falls onto the Mac ad, there's a shop that is crowded with people called "come buy". Guess what are they selling? It's actually a Taiwan Bubble Tea shop so I guess the bubble tea craze wind had blown to Macau.

Our first dinner place in Macau...we are so hungry that we decided to settle our dinner at a nearby eatery around Red Market. Not sure if the food was good but we took our chances n the food was great! It could be that we are too hungry but as long as the food taste good...the reason for the good taste does not matter.

Yes, wanton soup, pork chop in claypot with ham and egg...every bite of it tasted so good...yummy yummy...

There's no more red bean so I settled for coconut milk with grass jelly. It wasn't fantastic but still decent...

You guys might not have any idea of where this place is. It's the hound racing turf but unfortunately we missed the hound racing...It was damned disappointing as we weathered through the confusing bus journey and hot weather but we didn't get to see the hound racing.

But there's a saying "塞翁失马，焉知非福" so although we couldn't catch the hound racing, we discover something else instead...pasarmalam aka nightmarket n there were some yummy food, hee...

I called this the macau version of yong tau foo...tasted a little spicy with a little fragrance of curry...there were so much variety, we were spoiled for choices!

Well, macau is famous for being a popular spot for gambling so we definitely will not miss visiting the casinos. It was an eye opening experience though the smoke was too much for us to take...2nd hand smoking...sucks!

Alternate choice of experiencing the nite life. We wanted to go clubbing but after all the travelling n walking around, we were all too tired to travel to the nite spots of macau thus we decided to settle for 5 star hotel cafe in Grand Lisbao called the "round the clock coffee shop". But as you can see, it is a much classier coffee shop than our kopitiam, haha... comfy seats n air-con plus some background music, we are satisfied!

Their cakes look really nice rite? It tasted quite good too. Best of all, it's not as expensive as we thot, around TCC or Coffee Club pricing though I wun recommend eating cakes at coffee club.
Our first selection, cherry passion fruit drink wif vanilla ice cream...refreshing

Next on our menu, rose tea mousse cake...pretty n tasty...
Lastly, the nourishing steam milk with bird nest...good for skin sia...
Zzz... n it was my 2nd day in Macau!
Breakfast at Metropark...if u think tt's all we ate, you are wrong man...we ate more than these n all are very nice. From the fact that we got engrossed in our food n forgotten to take more pictures, u should know the breakfast was good.
That's not Macau Airport behind me, it's the ferry terminal of macau. Alot of pp travel btn HK n Macau at this ferry terminal. You also get to see many many many buses of the different casinos awaiting for their potential suckers here. I'm here to go on my half day tour in Macau, it was a frustrating experience trying to book a half day tour the day before, in the end we were directed to many different tour agencies. In the end, we should had to go to the ferry terminal to book the tour on a first come first serve basis... The agencies are forming cartel (economic term I learnt in econs) for the half day tour as all of them are charging the same rate and allocating different days for each agencies. There is no competition at all.

As there is still some time before the tour start so we decided to jalan jalan around the ferry terminal...
We always hear in the HK drama tt people who are living at "ban shan" are rich people. See the yellow house behind us, tt's a ban shan house...it will make a nice summer resort for us, haha...
Opposite the ferry terminal is also the F1 race course but the race track are the normal road "ma lu". It will only be converted into race track when a F1 race is on. As you can see from the banner, 15 - 18 Nov is the F1 race. Anyone going Macau during that period? My half day tour will be starting very soon...the pictures below were taken during my half day tour
Portuguese interpretation of Goddness of Mercy...

It's scotching sun out there and most of us were wearing shades n caps. There are lots of people carrying umbrella. But guess what we saw, a man carrying a minnie mouse umbrella...major mismatch!

欣 欣 物 语