Happy New Year!

Happy Chinese New Year! Today is Day 2 and I have just woken up, bright and cheery, despite sleeping at 4:20am this morning - I caught the 1.25am slot for "The Wedding Game" (The show was pure flat albeit the hoo-ha)

As for Chinese New Year Eve, I popped by Fat Boy's house for a reunion lunch of steamboat (I didn't want to go as I would prefer to have lunch at my own place anytime : P But since Fat Boy insisted...) I was so full from boiled prawns and pig liver that my system was congested - I felt so damn tired that I couldn't be too bothered about image. I took a short nap at his place and hey, that was the first time I slept on his bed (Can you believe it?!) I woke up feeling very groggy and sick because my head was spinning and my neck was ultra stiff; it was due to indigestion and his memory foam pillow (Too hard for my comfort..) Anyway, we went back home together for reunion dinner at my place and after watching some TV, we embarked on our temple tour!

Our first stop was at Tiong Ghee Temple (The main deity was Kwan Gong) which was a stone's throw from my block. We came back to watch the annual New Year variety show before going to Loyang Tua Pek Gong to offer incense. It was very crowded and it was very hard to move around with joss sticks in hand. I was so afraid of burning other devotees and of course being burnt : / Anyway, due to great perserverance, we succeeded in planting joss sticks in the urn of every deity : D Our last stop was at Kwan Yin Temple in Waterloo Street - As it was literally impossible to offer incense due to the very chaotic situation, we just placed our hands together and prayed : ) As we were about to go home, Fat Boy bought a packet of vegetarian vermicelli for supper and it was indeed delicious : D~ (Yes, I was starved from all the activity)

As for Day 1, we woke up at 12 noon and after realizing how late it was, we quickly washed and dressed up, lest there were visitors : / I went to Fat Boy's house again and together with his family members, we went to the Fortune God temple in Sembawang (His dad loves going there as he always strikes 4D by offering incense to the resident deities) before heading to the Kwan Yin Temple in Waterloo Street (This time round, we managed to plant a joss stick in the urn) We bought yu sheng at our favourite Chinese restaurant before rushing home for dinner : )

We also watched "The Little Nyonya Big Reunion" before playing cards with Gramps. Just as she was on a winning streak, Uncle Stanley called to say that his first wife was admitted to hospital for stroke. We rushed to Tan Tock Seng Hospital to see if there was anything we could help, but too bad, we couldn't see how Aunt Aurin was (Yeah, due to rules and regulations...) We met up with my cousin and we drove her to Yishun to pack some clothings before coming back. Though her initial plan was was to stay at our place for a night, she thought it might be better to stay in the hospital to accompany her mother : / After she left with Aunt Maddy, we proceeded with our movie, which we had booked tickets in the day...

I hope everything will be fine for Aunt Aurin and my cousin and well, life is short. I guess it's really important to live happily every single day. Don't you think so? Once again, Happy New Year : ) (I need to wash up lest there are visitors later on!)

Social Peak

Did some light running with Fat Boy and Boyboy just now. It has been such a long time since I jogged, hence it was kind of tough : / (Resistance eh?) To reward myself for the jog and for surviving at work today, I slapped some tea tree oil facial mask onto my face (Vanity, thy name is woman!)

Last Friday evening, both Fat Boy and I met up with Sworn Sista and her husband at Chinatown. We had claypot rice for dinner and we bustled through the noisy but happy crowd at the night market : D Though we did not buy anything (everything looked the same from stall to stall), we managed to absorb the happy atmosphere (despite the doom and gloom of the economy) It was really tiring trying to squeeze through the crowd of warm and sweaty bodies : ( We went to Maxwell Market to rest our aching legs and to have a drink before calling it a day : )

Woke up at 6:15am on Saturday morning for the bloody quarterly sales workshop >: ( I reached Oriental Hotel with a super long face and I must say I was rather passive about the whole session (Who cares about his 3-month plans? It was really time-wasting) I thought the best part of such workshops is the buffet lunch after that, but guess what? Lunch was not buffet-style at all - It was just set lunch of chicken soup, pan-fried seabass and tiramisu : / I headed straight home after that to wash up and catch a couple of hours of beauty sleep before meeting up with the SPI guys.

Dinner was at a coffeeshop in Zion Road. We had zi char of fried prawns in pumpkin sauce, prawn rolls, steamed fish ala Hong Kong style, spinach tofu cubes, marmite pork, seafood hor fan, sambal kang kong and fried pork knuckles! : D~ Feeling very full, we went to Chinatown night market to stroll and to absorb the happy atmosphere (again!) We proceeded to 汤水, a Hong Kong cafe in Zion Road (again!) to rest and relax. At about 1:30am, just as I thought we were going to part ways, one of them suggested prawn fishing at Taman Jurong! As I had never tried prawn fishing, I was excited about the idea and we went ahead with it : )

Prawn fishing requires lots of patience. Some of them did not catch even one damn prawn after 3 hours : / I was lucky; I caught about 5 prawns (Dammit! They do not cost 30 bucks!) and was the prawn fisherman that night : ) We went breakfast at MacDonald's after that and by the time we reached home and washed up, it was 7am (Arghhhhh....)

I slept till 1:15pm until Aunt Maddy woke me up for lunch : P Lunch was mixed veggie rice of stir-fried cabbage and curry chicken (Yummy!) Watched some television and went back to sleep
: P (Oh yes, I can sleep alot!) I woke up at 6:15pm for dinner - Steamboat at Golden Mile Complex : D~ As if we were not full from steamboat and half a chicken, we even went to Tiong Bahru Market to have desserts (Aunt Maddy really has a sweet tooth!) before we went home to prepare for the next day : /

Daily Life

I have been rotting in the office these few days. There is really nothing much to do except for editing a few resumes and surfing Facebook (I've lost the drive in bringing sales for the company. All I hope for is to just cross my minimum sales target and of course, for January to come to an end) I guess I have reached my limit and I believe there is really no point in slogging my guts out for somebody whom I've lost respect for : )

Stepped out of the office at 6:10pm together with Yvonne and the new girl, Christine and we took the train together to Queenstown MRT station before we went separate ways. Met up with Fat Boy before we went home, changed into comfortable home clothes and went out again to have dinner, which was curry chicken with rice : ) We walked around Anchorpoint after that and browsed through magazines at Times The Bookshop. Feeling groggy from all the reading, we went home and here we are, fighting Literati - Whoever who loses the game must treat the other to "Ong Bak 2" and dinner >: (

By the way, I have recruited Amy, Rightie and Adeline to be part of my wedding entourage. I have yet to ask Yam Gal as she is on MC today : ) Sworn Sista will not be joining as she does not know anybody in the team : / As much as I want her to be part of it, I understand that she will not be comfortable and I guess the most important thing is that everybody must be happy (I understand how it feels to be with people whom I cannot click!)

Time is drawing nearer and well, both Fat Boy and I will be going to Humble House at Esplanade to confirm the details and once it is done, we will proceed with the wedding package and so on. It will be going to be an exciting affair! : D Stay tune!

The Weekends

Nothing happening today - Slept most of the time other than packing mixed veggie rice for lunch and watching an old telemovie : ) Went to My Humble House in Esplanade to look at the seating arrangement and decoration for our big day with Aunt Maddy. Yeah, everything was brilliant - We have decided to go for this : D Dinner was Sushi Tei in Raffles City before heading home sweet home (Sundays are fantastic for relaxing...)

Yesterday morning, both Fat Boy and I woke up early in the morning (His back carplate had fallen off the night before and well, it was impossible to drive to JB like that : ( ) for his back carplate and we were lucky to find Mrs Signage, a shop that specializes in all kinds of signages (Duh!) near my place. Everything was fixed in 15 minutes and we quickly rushed to Woodlands Customs to avoid the sickening jam after picking Sunshine Boy from the usual bus-stop at 11:30am. We reached JB in less than an hour and we had lunch at some HK cafe before embarking on my hairstyling session with my new hairdress who was recommended by Fat Boy (My previous hairdresser is currently suffering from cancer...hence, there is no way he can work)

Halfway through my hairdye session, Yam Gal and Isaac arrived and the former waited for her turn. Anyway, we walked out of the salon feeling happy with our new hair colours, but for the haircuts, we preferred our previous hairdresser :~( Our next stop was Holiday Inn Plaza where both Yam Gal and I had our toenails painted (Yeah, how pampered eh? Chinese New Year's coming, that's why!) before having our zi char dinner of stir-fried kale, curry fish head, sweet & sour pork, hotplate venison, fried calamari and yang chow fried rice! Feeling bloated from the massive portions of carbohydrates and fats, and since the night was young, we caught a horror movie "They Wait" at Tebrau City and we headed back to Singapore after that.

After sending Yam Gal and Isaac to the nearby carpark in Woodlands and Sunshine Boy home, Fat Boy suggested popping by to the Senoko Fishery Port to catch up with Godpa and Godma, who had earlier invited us to join us in their seafood purchase for the coming Chinese New Year, since we were around the precinct. We met up with them and though we were turned off by the strong fishy smell, we were fascinated by the bustling and hustling activity : D Initially, I had wanted to buy some prawns and fish home, but since almost all the seafood was sold in bulk (I am talking about 4-5 kg at one go) we went off empty-handed. By the time we washed up and turned in, it was 4:30am. Both of us were dead by then : /

Malaysia Holiday

All holidays have come to an end and here I am, back in the rotting office : ( It has been 3 days since I came back from Malaysia and it was hell lot of fun with the SPI guys!

Day 1 (1 January 2009)

After New Year countdown at Godpa's house in Ubi, we set off in an 8-seater Ssangyong Stavic and though it was kinda squeezy, we had great fun laughing and chatting and of course, a couple of hours later, we snoozed until we reached Muar. They had wanted to find the mysterious warehouse where a motorbike accident occurred (Sounds stupid right? But guess what? The 2 male casualties were born on the same year, month and date. Creepy eh?) Ultimately, they couldn't find the place as it was too dark and they had no idea where the location was, despite with the help of a GPS system : / We were also fined for 50RM for beating 3 red lights
: ( We continued sleeping until it was time for breakfast - bak kut teh...at 7am @ . @

After a super hearty breakfast, we proceeded to Genting where we took pictures and had Starbucks. Some of us had wanted to try their luck at gambling, but due to a lack of time, we stuck to our schedule by going recceing at the Highland Towers, which experienced landslide decades ago. According to statistics, many children and women fell victims to the natural disaster. The atmosphere was sad and stagnant and to be frank, I was quite anxious to get out of that place : / We continued with our gourmet trail by having Ampang's yong tau foo for lunch and too be frank, it has never been my love : /

We finally reached our service apartment in the afternoon and it was good to wash up and rest our tired legs : ) Dinner was at a popular hawker centre - We had juicy BBQ chicken wings, sambal kangkong, grilled Portuguese fish, sambal chut chut, fried vermicelli and rice : ) We burned the excess calories by walking around in Bukit Bintang and we headed straight back to our service apartments with plastic bags of Carlsberg, fresh orange juice, coffee mix and Chinese tea bags : P My head only touched the pillow at 4am as we spent the night tucking into nasi lemak and playing card games.

Day 2 (2 January 2009)

We woke up bright and cheery despite several hours of sleep : D We went to KLCC to take pictures and it was fun coming up with all kinds of funny poses. The best part of the day was we had A&W for lunch! Both Fat Fat and I had fried chicken wings, root beer, waffle with butter and maple syrup and Coney Dog! (Yummy!) As we were about to head to Mid Valley for shopping, one of the guys realized that he had lost his wallet and we had to go around Kuala Lumpur to look for the police station and Singapore embassy (Boo) By the time everything was settled, it was already coming to 5pm and we decided to head back to the service apartment to have a short rest before going for dinner and the ouija board experiment in front of the Highland Towers : ( (Hey, no shopping!)

Dinner was at a small eatery which was famous for its claypot mee tai mak : P~ We had that, their version of char kway tiao, batterfried shrimps and stirfried kale. It was extremely delicious and there is no way to get such divine cuisine in Singapore. As usual, we burned excess calories by strolling around the night market (There was nothing to buy, for heaven's sake!) We went back to the service apartment to gather the investigation equipment before heading to Highland Towers for the ouija board experiment (For your information, I was just an observer-cum-videographer) The whole session took about 2 hours and we doggybag nasi lemak on our way back. By the way, we slept at 4am once again after debrief (ZzzzzzzZZZzz)

Day 3 (3 January 2009)

We woke up at 7am to wash up before checking out from the service apartment. We headed to Malacca to meet up with another couple before checking into the 5-star Renaissance Hotel : D Lunch was ala-carte dim sum buffet (Guess the lack of sleep made everything taste bland) and imagine my happiness when they announced that we could rest for an hour before going shopping! : D Then again, there was nothing much to buy there - I bought a pair of shorts from Brand Outlet and Fat Boy bought 3 T-shirts (Do you consider that as shopping?) Dinner was nyonya and baba laksa, ngoh hiang, baba salad and chendol! Chendol! The lingering fragrance of thick golden gula melaka mixed with the fresh coconut milk (Awwww...I am dying now) After dinner, we went to stroll in the night market and we bought many packets of dried cuttlefish (For Daddy!) We went back to the hotel to wash up before we went to Bukit Cina for another round of ouija experiment (Yes, I am the observer-cum-videographer again) After that, we had a short debrief session at a nearby coffeeshop and we went back to the hotel to sleep.

Day 4 (4 January 2009)

Fat Boy woke me up at 10:20am (Could have been earlier for breakfast provided by the hotel) and we hurried to buy local products before checking out from the hotel. Lunch was nyonya cuisine which consisted of braised cabbage, curry chicken, "Golden Pillow" and sambal ladyfinger : D (Reminds me of "Little Nyonya") We drove back to Johor (The journey took about 3 hours) where we continued our shopping at a nearby shopping centre, however, there was nothing much to buy : ( Everybody gathered and we had dinner at a Chinese restaurant, where they served poon choi, ayam fish and pumpkin rice! It was definitely a good dinner to wrap up the whole trip before we drove back to Singapore : D *thumbs up*