Monday MOrning BLues!!!!!!!!!!!

Trial Run

2006-08-26T03:03:00.000+08:00

Have been thinking about moving this blog for a while now.
Am basically looking for something like blogger.com but with password protected individual postings for times when I just want to rant at the world in private.

Anyway, I think I may have found it here so I'll be gone for a while unless things don't work out between the new lover and me :P

StanChart 10km run

2006-08-09T00:41:00.000+08:00

I've just signed myself up for this year's StanChart 10km run which is happening on 3rd Dec 06. Hopefully this will be motivation enough for me to dig my running shorts out of the cupboard....

In the meantime, its 115 days and counting...

A fun filled saturday

2006-07-17T13:21:00.000+08:00

Courtesy of a photoshop class conducted by some flickr friends and a D70s Nikon camera loaned off another friend for the weekend

Stuff to ponder about...

2006-06-16T17:01:00.000+08:00

Go read this by smoot.

I wanted to leave a comment on her blog but I thought I will write it here instead. At risk of revealing my low IQ quotient, the first thought that ran through my mind was… “Errr, sperm got smell meh? Strong enough that someone from behind you can get a whiff of it when you stand up?”

Not that I doubt her story. No siree! (She’s a lawyer. I don’t want to be sued for defamation.) I’m just curious that’s all. As in like “REALLY? Can smell? What does it smell like?”

Yeah. I know. I am married and I should know but I don’t.

So, can anyone tell me....

“What does sperm from yesterday really smell like?”

I want to know because you know, I don’t want to walk around the office and have my colleagues thinking to themselves “Yep. She’s had SOME last night!”

Chickpea Chaat Masala Salad

2006-06-14T00:45:00.000+08:00

I have been obsessing about making this for about 2 weeks now after seeing it here

Though it didn't quite turn out like the original picture because I think I didn't quite fry it long enough, the flavours and textures were interesting enough to make me want to try this again some time soon and also experiment with the spice mix on some other ingredients.

This is really best served very cold on its own or with hot rice or a nice piece of garlic naan. Oh ya, I did the taste test on my Indian colleague and got a two thumbs up :D

Chickpea Chaat Salad with Banana and Pomegranate
Serves: 4
Source: adapted from 1000 Indian Recipes by Neelam Batra
Notes: To make this dish you'll need to track down one specialty ingredient, the chaat masala. You should have no trouble finding it boxed alongside other spice mixes in Indian grocery stores, but if you can't you can try your hand at making it yourself (assuming, of course, you can track down the spices you need). Other uses for this delicious salty-sour-pungent powder include sprinkling on pakoras, roasted potatoes and even nuts.

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon peeled minced fresh ginger
2-4 fresh green chilies, minced
1 tablespoon ground coriander
2 teaspoons chaat masala (see note above)
1/2 cup (125ml) cilantro/fresh coriander, finely chopped
2 14-oz (400g) cans chickpeas, drained
1/2 cup (125ml) water
1 heaping tablespoon tamarind concentrate (available at Indian or Asian shops, as well as many supermarkets)
1 small English cucumber, peeled, seeded and diced
5 scallions/spring onions, white and pale green parts sliced
1 large ripe banana, peeled and diced
1/2 cup (125ml) fresh pomegranate seeds

Heat the oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat, then stir in the garlic, ginger and green chilies, stirring until fragrant and golden, about 30 seconds.
Add the ground coriander, 1 1/2 teaspoons of the chaat masala, half the cilantro, and stir about 30 seconds more.
Add the chickpeas, water and tamarind, and cook, stirring as necessary, until the chickpeas are tender and all the juices evaporate, about 5-7 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and let cool.
When completely cool, stir in the cucumber, remaining fresh cilantro, scallions, banana, and remaining chaat masala. Sprinkle with the pomegranate seeds just before serving. Best served cold or at room temperature.

(From The Traveler's Lunchbox)

2nd Flickr Meetup

2006-06-04T00:15:00.000+08:00

Eyes
Originally uploaded by pfong.

Last weekend saw the second gathering of Sg flickrites.
More plastering of me in Flickr and solid proof that
(i) I need more sleep and
(ii) I have a terrible posture.

My mom is so going to smirk at these proofs since she has been harassing me about them since the dinosaur age. See lah! Don’t say I never tell you. Bad posture and no sleep will make you look like an auntie and now the whole world knows too.

Smell...

2006-05-31T23:05:00.000+08:00

What is it about a certain smell that just brings back memories, thoughts about a certain somebody who used to be in your life or just a general being of happiness?

I used to sniff motorcycle fumes and think happy thoughts of Taiwan. Of the thrill of going back to visit relatives and cousins. Of all the glorious food that I would get to eat. The excitment of going to a night market and looking at trinkets.

I used to sniff CK one and think of that ex whom I was so glad didn't last. The hurting words he said. Him asking me if I would buy discounted luxury goods if I was rich and the "wrong" answer I gave him. Of him following me home after school and wondering why I didn't beg him to come back into my life again like I always used to.

The jasmine in the garden have bloomed tonight and I remember another night in another place, another time where I stood in the moonlight with my eyes closed and filling my lungs with the intoxicating fragrance.

Happiness is .....

2006-05-17T17:18:00.000+08:00

when your dog rolls over this morning to let you rub his belly for more than 1 minute and then sighs in complete contentment.

Potatoe and onion gratin

2006-05-06T06:51:00.000+08:00

Potatoe and onion gratin
Originally uploaded by eyes1997.

Gratin is the theme for this week's Friday Food Fiesta theme.
I've occasionally eaten this at restaurants but having never made one myself before, I had to google gratin on the net for some help.
Anyway, having never been a stickler for following instructions, I've decided to improvise on the recipe I found.

INGREDIENTS:

4 medium potatoes
1 big onion
3 slices of streaky bacon
2 Tablespoons butter
1-1/2 cups grated Beaufort or Gruyere Cheese
1 cup grated Parmesan Cheese
1 to 1-1/2 cups milk
salt & freshly ground pepper
Freshly chopped rosemary and parsley

PREPARATION:

Preheat oven to 325°F.

1. Slice the potatoes and onions to 1/8-inch thick.
2. Lightly pan fry the bacon and leave aside to cool. Roughly chop.
3. Combine potatoes, sliced onions and chopped bacon in heavy large saucepan. Add enough milk to just cover. Bring milk to boil. Reduce heat and simmer until potatoes are almost tender and the liquid is reduced. Sprinkle liberally with salt, pepper and chopped herbs and mix well.
4. Butter a gratin dish or shallow baking dish with 2 tablespoons of the butter.
5. Arrange half of potato-onion mixture in a shallow glass baking dish. Sprinkle mixture with 1/3 cup Gruyere cheese and then 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese.
6. Arrange remaining potato-onion mixture atop cheeses. Sprinkle the remaining 2/3 cup of Gruyere and Parmesan cheese.
7. Bake gratin uncovered in 325°F oven until liquid is completely absorbed, about 25 minutes. Remove from oven. Preheat broiler. Broil gratin until top is golden, about 2 minutes

Sg Flickr Meet-Up

2006-04-27T11:32:00.000+08:00

eyes1997...
Originally uploaded by Steppen_Wolf.

An enjoyable way to spend last saturday afternoon and the best way to get myself plastered all over Flickr.

I got to meet the lovely MercerMachine family as well though I think I spooked them with my “Oh Yes. I read that on your blog already”. Really guys!! I’m not a psycho stalker. Just your regular rabid fan. Ok. That didn’t sound too right either…

Another meme.....

2006-04-25T11:44:00.000+08:00

which I am doing only because someone threatened me with a "otherwise I won't look you up next time I'm in Singapore"

4 Things about me
-----------------

Four jobs I have had in my life:
1. Student (Its the longest job of my life so far and I never got paid a cent for it)
2. My mom’s companion, translator, porter & jack-of-all-trades during holidays (I’m so glad my mom doesn’t read my blog…)
3. Tutor
4. Validation Engineer

Four movies I would watch over and over:
1. LOTR
2. Il Mare (Korean, chick flick)
3. Love Letters (Japanese, chick flick)
4. Sliding Doors

Four places I have lived:
1. Sydney
2. Jurong, Sg
3. Bukit Timah, Sg
4. Siglap, Sg

Four TV shows I love to watch:
1. Lost (Though I have yet to see an episode of it)
2. Desperate housewives
3. CSI
4. Charmed

Four places I have been on vacation:
1. NZ
2. Most of Malaysia
3. Taipei, Taiwan (Visiting relatives also count as holidays)
4. London, GB

Four (non work) websites I visit daily:
1. Flickr
2. My extreme tracker acct for this blog (To see what other XXX search words leads ppl to this blog)
3. Hotmail, Gmail
4. Other people’s blogs (Yeah. Don’t do much else on a daily basis)

Favourite foods:
1. Taiwanese street food
2. My mom’s Taiwanese beef noodles
3. Japanese
4. Every other edible thing on earth

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Anywhere other than my office
2. Anywhere other than my office
3. Anywhere other than my office
4. Anywhere other than my office

4 other people to tag:
Ermmm. I think I rather the buck stops here.

Off the record

2006-04-20T17:57:00.000+08:00

I just found an effective way to counteract the zzz monster visit every working day afternoon between 2 to 3 ish. Most times, I don’t even have to resort to method 2.

1. Not wearing my jacket in the office in the afternoon
2. Coffee during lunch

Or perhaps I am just reading more blogs during work than I ~~should be~~ used to..

2209hr
Sitting at the desk, surfing net and listening half-heartedly to the speech on tv by President Hu who is visiting in the states at the moment...
SNORT!!!
Who wants to be united with China anyway..
(To those who don't know, I'm a taiwanese. I think that should tell you what you need to know..)

Blog Updates

2006-04-19T12:52:00.000+08:00

Yep. Time for a little blog update for this site of mine.

I've went and came back from my Europe trip. The trip was realllly fantastic. Not just because quite a few expenses were paid for by my brother or that he managed to find us quite a good deal on the accomodation front and paid for that too. Its the sights, sounds, climate and every little thing all rolled into one great experience. They say one should see Europe at least once during their lifetime and now I truly believed that. Anyway, more updates on that later after I sorted out my photos.

I've gone and got the viral flu right before the flight home so my head is still a little stuffed up and I havent quite got back my usual energy. Drats.

Friday Food Fiesta (Waffles Week)

2006-03-25T00:26:00.000+08:00

I almost didn't get to eat waffles this week. My usual partner in crime *cough* food buddy has gone AWOL on me. Actually she had a day off work today.

The original plan was to go buy some ready made waffles, heat them up in the toaster and then perhaps drizzle some honey and nuts on top. However, I found a new food buddy today so I got to eat this at Bakerzin instead - crispy home made waffles with cream cheese ice cream and raspberry sauce.

The wait staff probably thought we were either photography addicts or just plain inadept with a camera because we were taking non stop photos of the dishes that were placed in front of us. Probably the latter coz he strolled up to our table, whispered "Try the macro mode!" and strolled off.

Movable Type Recent Comments

2006-03-21T23:05:00.000+08:00

I've always wanted my blog to have a recent comments list on the sidebar because it would then tell me who has been commenting and on which post. Unfortunately, blogger.com doesn’t have that feature built into its standard settings for some reason. The next best thing, of course, was to google for it and see if I could find a complementary gadget that would do the same trick without having to resort to moving this blog.

I did find something even though its not a complementary gadget. It’s a post by someone who found an ingenious way to get around this little oversight of blogger.com. The main gist of it is to set-up a second blog that would collect all the comments made and then add a javascript of the RSS feed of this second blog to your blog template. Its relatively simple and pain-free to set up even though I would prefer that the link to the recent comment points back to the specific post instead of to the second blog. Still, it’s a good start until something better comes along.

What does your birth date mean?

2006-03-19T00:39:00.000+08:00

Your Birthdate: July 5

You have many talents, and you are great at sharing those talents with others.
Most people would be jealous of your clever intellect, but you're just too likeable to elicit jealousy.
Progressive and original, you're usually thinking up cutting edge ideas.
Quick witted and fast thinking, you have difficulty finding new challenges.

Your strength: Your superhuman brainpower

Your weakness: Your susceptibility to boredom

Your power color: Tangerine

Your power symbol: Ace

Your power month: May

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

Now if only the strength part is true...

New Hair

2006-03-17T00:42:00.000+08:00

The old hair was getting a little too heavy for the head so they had to go. Not to mention they made me look like a convict/nerd/mad woman/village idiot in my visa application photos which render them totally unacceptable to my mom. The hair dresser promised that the new hair will make me look good in my Europe adventure photos so we shall see. At this moment in time though, they looked pretty funky tied up or let down and my head has never felt any lighter.

Homework

2006-03-07T21:39:00.000+08:00

I've never done so much reading up and researching on a holiday destination before. Ever.

I'm not sure if its because it is Europe or because me and my mom will be going to Paris where I was told speaking any other foreign language probably garners one more help than than if I was speaking fluent English.
Anyway, that aside, I am seriously seriously excited about going. I want to see all the art museums, natural science museums, palaces, cathedrals etc etc because I probably won't have another chance (excuse) to go again. Add to that, there is a huge probability that I will be meeting up with chocokat which is another major excitement in itself.

So do forgive me if I have to neglect my blog while I go practice my "Bonjour Monsieur.....une chocolat chaud s'il vous plait.....Mon dieu!! Manifique!!!" (Actually...is that last phrase italian or french? *scratches head*)

Diet 101

2006-03-03T23:58:00.000+08:00

Compiled for wata because
1. I think you are getting a little panicky over your diet
2. This is too long to go in the comment section.

The golden rule of dieting : Input less than Output

Simply put, this means the total calories consumed must be less than total calories expended. If we were holding a set of scales, input would go on one side of the pan while output goes into the other. We could, of course, eat nothing but carrot sticks and not exercise or we could consume 20 pieces of fried chicken and then spend the rest of our 24 hours cycling profusely on the stationary bike to lose weight. They would both work but we probably won't last too long on either plan nor would we look too good at the end of it. Finding the perfect balance is the key to it all.

Input
The amount and type of food we eat determines how much input we put into the above equation. 50g of various types of food does not equate to the same amount of input. This is like filling up a box with sand compared to another identical box filled with cotton wool. Same volume but different weight. As a rough guide (looking at the same volume), foodstuffs like butter, cream, cheese and oil are in the same category as gold ie. extremely heavy on the scales. Sugary food, meat and carbohydrates (think potatoes) are on the same scale as water while steamed plain vegetables and fruits are equivalent to cotton wool. This is the reason why a small salad drenched in dressing is probably not going to make too much difference from 3 pieces of kfc. Likewise a mug of black coffee sweetened with copious amounts of sugar compared to iced coffee with whipped cream on top. Here's some other examples:

Salad + creamy dressing = gold
Salad + vinaigrette dressing = water
Salad with no dressing or plain steamed vegetables = cotton wool

Baked potato + whipped cream and bacon bits = gold
Baked potato + creamed corn = water
Baked potato + fresh corn kernals/salt n pepper for taste = cotton wool

Hence, one could potentially stuffed oneself with food and still lose weight or eat salads thinking you are going to lose weight and find that you end up gaining instead of losing.
Here's some other interesting facts.

1. If you are going to eat bread, pick whole grain instead of wholemeal bread or white loaf . Not only are whole grain more nutritious, they are also more filling, has more flavour and has less calories. Skip the cheese spread or jam. If you find plain bread too dull, eat them with fruits or dizzle a little honey on top.

2. The more opaque the liquid, the more calories it contain. Think beef and vegetable clear broth vs cream of mushroom soup or vinaigrette dressing vs thousand island dressing. To consume even less oil, drop a few cubes of ice on top of your soup and scoop them out before they melt together with the congealed fat sticking to it.

3. Anything sweet probably contains more calories than if its not. Watermelon has more calories than grapefruit or an apple. Sweet corn has more calories than celery or carrot. Having said that though, its still better to eat fruits and vegetables rather than meat or starchy or sugary stuff. Just remember to lay off the butter and cream when eating vegetables. If these are too dull, add flavour with herbs, black pepper and salt rather than butter or sauces.

4. Decreasing the total amount of food too drastically is not a good way to diet. Reason being you’ll always be feeling hungry and that makes you crave for more food to stem that hunger pang. Putting the body in a semi-starvation mode puts it in a standby mode. This means your metabolic rate slows down in order to conserve fuel which means the body in turns become less efficient at expending calories. The final result of this is that you might see some weight loss initially but that will soon stop and when you give up on your diet and go back to eating normally, your body puts on even more weight that what you initially lost. Another minus point of crash dieting is that your body does not get enough nutrients to maintain itself. This means the hair will not be as shiny, the skin will start to look dull and you will probably be in a bad mood or feeling very fatigued all the time

Output
Output is energy expended. Usually in the form of exercising and these are subdivided into muscle building exercising or cardio exercises. The best way to differentiate the two is to ask if the exercises you are doing sends your heart racing. If it does, then its cardio exercise.

Cardio exercises expend the most amount of calories in the same amount of time compared to muscle building exercises. However, the moment your heart rate slows down, so does the rate of fuel burning. Since we can’t be peddling furiously on the stationary bike or run non-stop on the treadmill for 24 hours, cardio is good when you want to maximize the total weight loss in the least amount of time or when you pigged out on the weekend and just want to expend all the extra calories. Some great forms of cardio exercising are running, swimming or biking.

Muscle building exercises is important if you are looking for successful long-term weight loss because when you are resting or just sitting at your chair surfing the web, muscles burn more calories than fats. Muscles give the body a prettier shape and makes you look better in clothing. The more muscles you have, the higher your average metabolic rate as well. While cardio builds muscles as well, that only happens after a long time. The best way to build muscles is to do weight training. Leg lifts, lunges, lifting of any type of weights and sit-ups all fall into the muscle building category. Exercises are to be performed until the muscle in question is slightly fatigued. Just remember to stretch after exercising so that the muscles won’t be too bulky.

God, that was a long post!
Anyway, hope the above helps and best of luck in your diet :P

Tagged

2006-02-21T17:12:00.000+08:00

From Baobei (not hubbz's dog)

Name five of life’s simple pleasures that you like most, then pick five people to do the same. Try to be original and creative and not use things that someone else has already used:

1. Have the whole house to myself while lounging on the sofa with a book, soothing music, hot coffee and snacks.
2. Shooting pictures of food and flowers with my camera
3. Flickring
4. Getting a good massage
5. Anything non related to work

Tag
Chocokat
My evil twin brother
MercerMachine

(Hmmm that’s about all the people I can think of…other than wata who is already tagged and so can’t be tagged again…)

Happy V Day!!

2006-02-14T23:49:00.000+08:00

Even if the day has almost ended..

Blog Update

2006-02-08T23:13:00.000+08:00

Yes I just got back and will definitely be blogging about taipei but it will probably have to wait til my stupid workload gets less busy.
I did ate heaps and bought heaps though. Also realised that I have a lot to be thankful for in life.
Only regret for this trip was that I didn't get to stay heaps longer.

True Human Nature

2006-02-08T23:01:00.000+08:00

The following story brings tears to my eyes everytime I read it.
Even though it’s a forwarded story and there is no way to ascertain its credibility, I would like to believe that this actually happened somewhere on Earth.
Living in a practical and mostly cruel world, perhaps we should nourish our souls more often with such stories so that we will remember how to act like a human.

At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves learning disabled children, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a question:

"When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does is
done with perfection. Yet my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand things as other children do. Where is the natural order of things in my son?"

The audience was stilled by the query. The father continued. "I believe, that
when a child like Shay, physically and mentally handicapped comes into the
world, an opportunity to realize true human nature presents itself, and it comes, in the way other people treat that child."Then he told the following
story:

Shay and his father had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were
playing baseball. Shay asked,"Do you think they'll let me play?"

Shay's father knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shay on their team, but the father also understood that if his son were allowed to
play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging and some confidence to be accepted by others in spite of his handicaps.

Shay's father approached one of the boys on the field and asked if Shay could play, not expecting much. The boy looked around for guidance and said, "We're losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we'll try to put him in to bat in the ninth inning."

Shay struggled over to the team's bench put on a team shirt with a broad smile and his Father had a small tear in his eye and warmth in his heart.

The boys saw the father's joy at his son being accepted. In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay's team scored a few runs but was still behind by three. In the top of the ninth inning, Shay put on a glove and played in the right field.

Even though no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on the field, grinning from ear to ear as his father waved to him from the stands. In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay's team scored again. Now, with two outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base and

Shay was scheduled to be next at bat. At this juncture, do they let Shay bat and give away their chance to win the game? Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat. Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible 'cause Shay didn't even know how to hold the bat properly, much less connect with the ball.

However, as Shay stepped up to the plate, the pitcher, recognizing the other team putting winning aside for this moment in Shay's life, moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay could at least be able to make contact. The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed. The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly towards Shay. As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball right back to the pitcher.

The game would now be over, but the pitcher picked up the soft grounder and
could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shay would have been
out and that would have been the end of the game. Instead, the pitcher threw
the ball right over the head of the first baseman, out of reach of all team mates.

Everyone from the stands and both teams started yelling, "Shay, run to first! Run to first!" Never in his life had Shay ever ran that far but made it to first
base. He scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled.

Everyone yelled, "Run to second, run to second!" Catching his breath, Shay awkwardly ran towards second, gleaming and struggling to make it to second base.

By the time Shay rounded towards second base, the right fielder had the ball, the smallest guy on their team, who had a chance to be the hero for his team for the first time. He could have thrown the ball to the second-baseman for
the tag, but he understood the pitcher's intentions and he too intentionally
threw the ball high and far over the third-baseman's head.

Shay ran toward third base deliriously as the runners ahead of him circled the bases toward home. All were screaming, "Shay, Shay, Shay, all the Way Shay"

Shay reached third base, the opposing shortstop ran to help him and turned him in the direction of third base, and shouted, "Run to third! Shay, run to third" As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams and those watching were on
their feet were screaming, "Shay, run home! Shay ran to home, stepped on
the plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the "grand slam" and won
the game for his team.

That day, said the father softly with tears now rolling down his face, the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love and humanity into this world.

Shay didn't make it to another summer and died that winter, having never forgotten being the hero and making his Father so happy and coming home and seeing his Mother tearfully embrace her little hero of the day!

Overheard on the radio (98.7FM) this evening…

2006-01-16T21:53:00.000+08:00

Life is about chances and choices.
Meeting a very attractive guy is chance.
Meeting someone you decide to spend the rest of your life with is choice.
True love is not about chance but all about choice.

Now that is one person who makes a hell lot of sense.

Flickr Addict

2006-01-08T23:28:00.000+08:00

You know you are a die-hard flickr addict when you pick a dessert based on how well you think they will photograph..

We had lunch with my cousin's family today at the japanese restaurant in Pan Pacific Hotel because my brother is back on holidays from UK. After the delicious meal, we stopped by the Gourmet Deli of the hotel to pick up desserts.

This is mango mousse with an almond biscuit base. It has a really nice name too but I can't remember what its called.

Taken with a Canon 50mm f/1.8 II lens I bought yesterday :P

2006

2006-01-04T18:06:00.000+08:00

All these in the past few days….

1 confirmed wedding in late Oct ‘06
1 very very likely to happen wedding in late ‘06/ early ‘07
2 new arrivals into this world.

This should be a rather exciting year…

Merry Xmas friends!!

2005-12-23T17:14:00.000+08:00

Its that time of the year again
When holidays are plentiful and the mood is light

To give thanks for the passing of the year with little mishaps
And to remember each and every lesson learned throughout

To start new resolutions for the coming year
And hope that we managed to stick by them til the end

Yes yes I know. I'm currently in a reflective/pensive/thoughtful/whatever-you-call-it mood. Must be the thought of the long weekend ahead...

Let sleeping dogs lie....

2005-12-19T08:38:00.000+08:00

I just have to share this story here after posting it on flickr.

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie
by: Susan F. Roman, Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul

One afternoon, I was in the back yard hanging the laundry when an old, tired-looking dog wandered into the yard. I could tell from his collar and well-fed belly that he had a home. But when I walked into the house, he followed me, sauntered down the hall and fell asleep in a corner. An hour later, he went to the door, and I let him out. The next day he was back. He resumed his position in the hallway and slept for an hour.

This continued for several weeks. Curious, I pinned a note to his collar: "Every afternoon your dog comes to my house for a nap."

The next day he arrived with a different note pinned to his collar: "He lives in a home with ten children - he's trying to catch up on his sleep."

Friday Food Fiesta (Potato week)

2005-12-09T23:51:00.000+08:00

Taken for the Friday Food Fiesta (Potato week)

This is one of my all time fav recipes - Potato salad

3 medium sized red russet potato
3 medium sized normal potato
3 tbsp plain mayo
chopped spring onions (amount depending on preference)
4 pieces of streaky bacon
Juice of 1/4 lime
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Boil the potatoes with skin in salted water til soft and cut into bite sized chunks
2. Fry streaky bacon til brown and crispy and roughly chopped into bits
3. Mixed all ingredients in a large bowl and serve

Notes: Red russet potatoes can be substituted with normal potatoes if not in season but it probably won't taste as good. Likewise with the streaky bacon. For a healthier version of the recipe, 1/2 of the mayo can be substituted with plain yoghurt in which case omit the lime juice.

I'm ditching my hubbz for a new man.....

2005-12-01T21:52:00.000+08:00

but I can't decide if I would prefer

Park Shin Yang aka Mr Daewoo. The delectable lead in "Lovers in Paris"

or

Lee Dong Geon aka The long suffering crush. The other equally delectable lead in "Lovers in Paris"

or still stick with

Ji Jin Hee aka Ye olde faithful aka Lord Min. The superbly delectable lead in "Dae Jang Geum"

Here is another look at Ye olde faithful in a non period look for comparison

Dammm I am a loose woman!

The tickets are booked

2005-11-26T15:47:00.000+08:00

And I am going off to taiwan for chinese new year!!!
Woohooo!!!

2 months and counting.....

I never thought I will ever say this but...

2005-11-25T00:12:00.000+08:00

playing with my new iPod video for the very first time can actually be quite orgasmic.

My beauty in all its naked glory!

Elegantly cladded in a black silicon skin...

You’ve been blogged!!!

2005-11-18T13:17:00.001+08:00

That is the content of the email sent to me by my uni mate, Robert or Rob to his friends. Go read his blog. It contains a super ugly photo of me. I seem to have that same expression on my face whenever I’m out with him. This is me out with Rob as well.

By the way, I’ve got heaps better looking photos than those. Those photos are a testament of his lousy photo taking skills in addition to his lousy ice-cream flavour picking skills.

I first got to know Rob because he was a transfer student from the computer science (or was it computer engineering) course. Everyone thought he was nuts to transfer over to the chemical engineering course but nobody wanted to tell him that in his face, mainly because we quickly found out that he has got superb computing skills (so useful during that stupid computer programming subject we had to take) and that he scored heaps better in his assignments than the most of us ever did. Having an extra person whom we can copy our assignments from was more important to us back then than telling said person the truth so that he won’t have wasted his youth and the best part of his life on something nasty like chemical engineering. The harm is too late to undone now.

Like Leia & Luke, the recognition of kindred spirits came much later during the course of our association. Topics like praying at the Goddess of Mercy’s temple and burning of photos frequently peppered our conversations, understood by none except for those linked in souls. It is definitely good to have found my long lost brother at last.

「仙劍奇俠傳」

2005-11-14T23:43:00.000+08:00

Update : K problem finally solved. Dang so much pain for a small little thing.

Update : Hmm yeah I just realised that the below looks like junk when NJ star communicator is not on so will be re-typing the below very soon. Anyone know why this happens btw? It looked fine when I copied it from a word doc where I typed the below beforehand and upload it on my home computer yesterday.

Wata 前一陣子在哈韓﹐而我卻迷上了「仙劍奇俠傳」。三十多集就這樣一個週末(和星期一)給它統統看完。沉迷的程度真的不是蓋的。連我自己都嚇一跳.看啊看﹐頭一抬﹐哇﹗窗外怎么這么亮？天啊！原來已經早上七點了！還好是星期天而已，可以小睡一下…………再繼續努力追。

會迷上這部連續劇一開始是因愛上它的主題曲，然后在网上不小心被我看到說有很多人覺得還不錯看，再下來又那么剛好有人在大陸可以幫我帶回來，所以就………

看后感嘛………像我這种“ 愛國份子“﹐對任何大陸出的東西通常是沒興趣的，居然會追到已經是早上七點了都不知道。還好，最后讓我發現戲是台商出資的，而且還有很多歌是台灣人唱的。小小的安慰一下。“豬腳” 有港，大陸和新加坡人(但不知道有沒有我們自己的人) ，都不是非常出名，不過男的俊，女的俏。故事是由一個電玩改編而成，很多時候是先笑死然后再流淚。戲里有三角戀，單戀，“男的愛得很痴，而女的還很木頭”戀，還有那种“原來你是我爸，你是我媽” 的劇情，外加有一個(以前是﹐但現在不知還是不是)XXX級的魔教教主……真的不錯看耶。結局很可怜，不過不要問我。自己去看OK!

最不可思意的是把戲追完之后，居然還戀戀不忘它的主題曲。不僅到處找CD，還把歌copy到公司的電腦里，從早到晚，天天播放。Anyway, 以下是主題曲的link, 去欣賞一下吧！

花与劍
http://love.hinews.cn/page.php?xuh=2786
殺破狼
http://love.hinews.cn/page.php?xuh=5165
六月的雨
http://love.hinews.cn/page.php?xuh=3197

Too funny not to post

2005-11-08T15:56:00.000+08:00

10 reasons why Singapore isn't a good target for terrorist attacks

1. Too confusing: is Singapore in China?

2. Too valuable: Singapore is the place in Southeast Asia with the best facilities to hold a terrorist conference.

3. Too risky - your robes might get caught in MRT doors and you could be dragged to your death.

4. Too expensive: to buy cars in Singapore to place the bombs in them.

5. Too little airspace: Trying to fly a plane into a building is too difficult as you're very likely to accidentally langgar either airforce jets practicing for the National Day Parade or the Starhubblimp.

6. Too leceh: to hit a sizeable mass of people, you have to be constantly updated as to which part of the island is having a closing/ opening/ moving/ renovation/ mid-year/ end-of-year/ end-of-season/ anniversary/ pre-whatever/ post-whatever/ storewide/ Great Singapore/ Heartland Singapore SALE; or giving away free tickets/books/ gifts/ Hello Kittys/ balloons...

7. Too gross: you have to drink your recycled pee here.

8. Too complicated: before you conduct a campaign of terror, you'll have to make sure you don't clash with the Courtesy Campaign, the Speak Good English Campaign, the Speak Mandarin Campaign, etc, etc

9. Too late: by the time the terrorists get here, most of the Singaporeans would have emigrated anyway.

10. Too small: it takes too much time finding the small dot on the world map and they may miss it and hit M'sia instead. That's a no-no as M'sia is largely occupied by Muslims.

Big birthday bash

2005-10-31T22:11:00.000+08:00

28 Oct 05 - My first uncle's 80th birthday bash. There is a long and complicated history between my first uncle and the rest of the clan but that is another story for another time. Suffice to say, he is not somebody I particularly admire or have much respect for other than that he is the first-born of the clan and apple of my long passed grandmother's eye. All my other uncles were here for the big bash and they were the ones I was really excited at seeing again. Being the *cough* filial niece that I was, I took friday off and accompanied everyone around for the whole weekend. The real reason was because (1) I dont have to go to work and (2) big clan gatherings always mean good food and I really mean that...just the 2 days they were here, I had a north indian buffet lunch, a mega expensive seafood lunch (Alaska king crab, giant steamed oysters, 2 huge steamed fish, geoduck sashimi), breakfast at the prata cafe @ botanical gardens, a stuffed to the gills dinner at Tung Lok and the birthday bash dinner which also stuffed my gills.

Anyway, back to the birthday bash. It was a pretty elaborate(by my standard) celebration with great pomp and grandeur. There were 10 tables, a 9 course dinner that didnt end til 11pm partially because some guests didn't arrive til 9pm, a huge cake with heaps of peaches on it, a professional photographer that took non-stop photos, a big red banner that all the guests had to sign and my very dressed up cousins and aunt. However, the guests seem to be there just for the food and when the cake was being cut, everyone just stood by and watched with disinterest. It is a bit like going to a wedding dinner of a colleague that you know but don't work with. You stand when the mc says the bride and groom are walking in, you clap when told to and for rest of the evening, you were more interested in examining the menu and commenting on the standard of food that was being served.

Yep, it was a very entertaining and eye-opening event indeed. I am still trying to decide if my cousins are stupid or just plain egoistic.

Updates and a new baby

2005-10-19T23:55:00.000+08:00

Haven't been posting for a while now coz office work is getting seriously busy. Busy enough that I don't even have time for pee breaks. After office hours haven't been any more relaxed either but I did managed to find time recently to make a beaded ring for a friend's birthday. Yeah, its more economical and less time consuming to make something than to find a gift at Orchard. Hubbz said it was odd looking but I thought it was pretty unique. Anyway, he won't be wearing it so haha

Look weird meh?

Anyway, A gave birth to a baby boy today after 14 hours. Baby and mom were ok even though the new dad was very shaken. He is a doctor himself too. Tsk tsk.

Birth time: 1756
Birth weight: 3.355
Birth date: 19 Oct 2005
Name: Either Jac or Jake (parents still collecting votes on names. Jac seems to be the fav at the moment)

Notti boy made mom underwent an emergency C after 4 hours of no progress pushing for his arrival and scared the pants off his dad as well. Also bit the mom while breastfeeding but he is a good sucker or so the nurse says which made all of us rather relieved. Not only is he going to get enough nutrients to grow up big and strong, we also realised that he won't be turning out to be like his dad who only eats when he is near starving. Potential food connoisseur this little one.

Can't tell yet who he takes after but he definitely won't have a flat nose and he has 2 dimples so he will probably be a lady charmer when he grows up and he has the definitive Yim family chin :P

Anyway, will be visiting A pretty much every day these few days so even less time for blogging.

Caffeine overdosed

2005-10-13T23:16:00.000+08:00

Perhaps I am getting a bit senile these days...

I normally limit myself to a mug of coffee per day but I had coffee from freshly ground beans for breakfast this morning because I wanted to finish the pack of milk in the fridge. Went to the office, promptly forgot about my breakfast coffee and had another mug of coffee from the Jarrah coffee mix that my colleague pass along for me to try. .

I only remembered why I was this O.O awake the whole morning at about 11am and all that time I was still boasting to my uni classmate (over email) that I didn't doze off in the car today and was very alert even though I slept at 2am the night before. I even remember wondering vaguely why I couldn't seem to doze off in the car like all the other days.

30 minutes ago, I wanted to take shots for this week's friday food fiesta sugar week (see above) and chose chocolate covered coffee beans. After taking the shots, I promptly stuffed myself with a whole pack of the said candy and then only remembered 5 minutes ago that shit! that's another mega dose of caffeine for today.

Yeah...am definitely getting senile these days.

Thai Pomelo Salad n other news

2005-10-01T00:07:00.000+08:00

I made this on thursday night sort of on a whim.

The assignment for this week's flickr group friday food fiesta is fruits and I wanted to get a picture of a cooked food dish made with fruits rather than just a usual picture of fruits like what most people have got in the group. So anyway, the only two fruit dish I know of are both thai in origin. Papaya Salad and Pomelo salad. I usually go to Orchard Towers for the papaya salad and basement of takashimaya for the pomelo salad but ever since Thanying (the thai restaurant at Taka ) closed down, I havent been able to satisfy my craving at all. The thai pork green curry dish (and spicy basil pork) I attempted last week was really sucessfully so I thought I would try my luck again today which explains the making of the aboved dish on a whim.

I've researched the basic pomelo salad recipe on the web and tweaked it a little to make it more similar to what I had at Thanying. The results were surprisingly good (am very proud of myself) so here is the recipe.

Recipe

Pomelo (broken into small bits)
Cooked chicken breast (shredded)
2 tablespoon fish sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
Juice of a quarter lime
Deep fried chopped garlic
Deep fried chopped dried shrimp
Deep fried sliced shallots
Chopped chilli (seeds removed)
Slivered kaffir leaves
Dollop of coconut cream

Mixed all up and enjoy

Note: I've marinated the chicken breast in chinese wine and cracked black pepper before cooking for more flavour. Otherwise steamed plain is also fine. Ingredients which I havent got amounts for are meant to be added according to personal preference.

In other news, we went to Mag's wine kitchen to celebrate Hubbz's bird day. The food was really realllly good even though they werent of gigantic proportions. No pictures either (reasons below) but I do planned to go back there again some time soon so I'll promised to take pictures then. The place wasnt really quite what I had envisioned. I was thinking more of a calm super efficient kitchen since it was open concepted but I think (actually I know) the chef /owner (Maggie) was in a really volatile mood tonight.

The place was packed when we arrived. There seem to be a wine tasting group at the big communal table next to ours. Their bottles of wine were wrapped in foil and everyone was busy scribbling on the pieces of paper they had in front of them and having animated discussion. Not sure what was being discussed because it was all done in north european language. Another table had 2 couples that were perpetually going outside to have smoke breaks. Another couple came in right after us and halfway thru dinner, we realised that there was also another big party upstairs. Yep definitely very packed.

Not sure if it was the stress of cooking for so many people at one go or if it was because her staff were quite inefficient but we could hear the chef's raised voice the whole night. Scolding the other chef cooking along side with her, yelling at the waitress, cursing at the waiter...
When we heard the first faint "F" word over the noise in the restuarant, we thought it was one of the 2 couples sitting at the other end because that was the only table with women that I couldnt really see from where I was sitting but nope...it came from the chef. I guess this would be pretty normal in most restaurants. Afterall, restaurant kitchens are a highly stressed workplace but this did take some getting used to. After we got over our initial surprise, the rest of the dinner was "audio-ly" quite entertaining.

So, conclusion. The food was fantastic. I would definitely be going back there again even if the chef was still cursing and swearing at her staff. Patronising on a quiet, not so busy afternoon might be a good idea if you find the thought of hearing the chef sprout "F" words disturbing. 2 course dinner is $40 +++, 3 course is $55 +++, 3 course lunch goes at $35+++. Wine can be bought by the bottle but the ones I saw on their list were pretty pricey. Glasses of house pour wine at $12 were of pretty good quality though. Hee.

Mag's Wine Kitchen
86 Circular Road
Singapore 04943
8telephone: 65 64383836
email: mag@magswinekitchen.com

I'm that girl

2005-09-27T13:32:00.000+08:00

Inspired by that guy

I’m that kid who first wanted to be a policeman then a soldier and then an astronaut as my library of new words increased in that order.

I’m that sister who told you that there is no such word as skeleton because I am your older sister and if I have never seen the word before then it must be non-existent.

I’m that same sister who later found out that the word did exist but was too embarrassed to admit that it was my mistake so all I said was “hmpff”

I’m that woman who when the going gets tough wishes that she is still 15 and when the going gets tougher, wishes she is 2 years old.

I’m that toddler who apparently sat through a full 8 course wedding dinner in Taiwan and demanded to be given regular portions from all 8 dishes which resulted in you being scolded by your mom for trying to overfeed me.

I’m that same toddler who taught myself how to use chopsticks at 10 months because I was too impatient to wait to be fed.

I’m that little rascal who so exhaust my uncle and aunt after one afternoon of babysitting that they vow they will never have kids.

I’m that friend who makes a better listener than talker.

I’m that person who looks confident and collected on the outside but is actually a wimp inside.

I’m that same person who ran the stanchart 10km last year and will be doing it again this year even though I absolutely hate running

I’m that girl whose sense of direction is heaps better than most guys I know

I’m that daughter who found it easier to tell you “I don’t know” than to go into great details as to why I don’t ask my husband what investments we have at the moment, how much they are worth and how much the companies he invested in is making etc etc.

I’m that daughter whom you worry can be read by others like an open book or as you always like to say “Your intestines form a straight line from mouth to anus” (roughly translated from mandarin)

I'm that wife who wishes sometimes that I was still single even though if I had to get married all over again, I'll still choose you.

I'm that woman who married you even though all I ever wanted in life was my own car, my own house and my own dog and no husband.

I’m that daughter in law who is finding it more and more difficult not to roll my eyes and give a shart retort whenever you go into one of your how to be a good Christian wife sermon.

I’m that daughter in law who is wondering what will happen if one day I told you that I never was a Christian, am not interested in becoming one and only pretended to become one because your son says you want us to have a church wedding.

I'm that employee who wrote this during office hours when I should be concentrating on generating protocols instead.

Yes I'm all the above.

Friday

2005-09-23T13:46:00.000+08:00

Alright its friday!!!!!
Even though I will be busy this weekend, I’m still glad its friday.
Here is a little something to make the friday afternoon past a little faster…

And my favs out of the whole lot…

courtesy of my bored colleagues...

Hubbz's bird day

2005-09-21T23:33:00.000+08:00

Next friday is Hubbz's bird day.
I've already decided on where I am going to bring him - Mag's wine kitchen.
I saw a review of the place in Chubbyhubby's post and have been fascinated ever since.
So fascinated in fact that I called them up yesterday to make reservation for 2....for this friday
and sms Hubbz to keep this friday free...

Lucky I noticed my stupidity this afternoon...and called the restaurant to change it to next friday. They must be laughing at my sotong-ness after they put down the phone.

Haiz *palm to forehead*

No wonder Hubbz was asking me why he needs to keep this friday free.

年紀越大的時候

2005-09-19T21:51:00.000+08:00

幻想會不會越多
狂想症是不是會更嚴重
拋開一切去做心靈旅行的衝動會不會越大

還是

20歲所作的夢﹐30歲後連想都不敢想
20歲敢說的話﹐30歲後會越往肚子裡吞
20歲想做的事﹐30歲後會更不可能實現

Happy Mid-Autumn!!!!!

2005-09-18T12:16:00.000+08:00

Rubbish in my hole

2005-09-09T23:35:00.000+08:00

Have you ever felt like the whole world is having a party around you but you are stuck in a deep grubby hole that you can't get out of...and in the meantime, people are throwing all their rubbish over your head into your little hole?

I was feeling somewhat pissed at work today. And terribly disappointed in some of my colleagues. I guess it was to be expected. Afterall, its every man for themselves plus now that the company functions on fulfilling KPIs instead of just completing tasks, its been getting steadily worse. I can no longer count on my colleagues to perform tasks in the grey areas because everyone just tells you that its not on their KPI or that its not on their priority list. I understand that there are a lot of projects going on at the moment but hey, its not like I am asking for things which I should be doing myself.

Anyway, the result of this afternoon's major emotional overhaul is that I did something which I now feel is pretty stupid of me. I won't go into details but boy am I hoping that I can somehow reverse time. I really have to learn to just stay quiet when I am not thinking straight.

In the meantime, I will just have go burn extra joss sticks at the temple in hope that I win first prize 4D or toto so that I can quit my job, stay at home and shake legs.

2005-09-07T22:16:00.000+08:00

Haven't had much to blog about these days. Brain not in tip top condition as well since all I seem to be feeding it recently is work and more work. My life, at the moment, seem to be a perpetual cycle of work, dinner and sleep peppered with regular bouts of gym sessions. Hmm not good.

Since my brain juice ain't working at the moment, I'll just share a couple of things I discovered this past week.

1. Courtesy of the local tabloid news (TNP), I found out that mad cow disease could be now be blamed on Indians. Yep. Thats right. Apparently some scientists in Europe have postulated that because Indians have this funeral ritual of floating their dead down the Ganges river, the decaying bodies end up futher downstream where the bones were then collected by bone collectors who sold them to animal feed factories to be grinded down and shipped to Europe as animal feed. Weird huh that a country which, up til now, has never reported any cases of CJD is now the reason why the world has CJD.

2. Courtesy of my good friend in australia who is currently dating a kenyan, I found out that Kenya actually has Seoul Garden restaurants. For those who aren't familiar with the place, its a singapore owned mass market korean bbq buffet joint with branches as common as Starbucks. So yeah, I deeply apologise to any kenyans for ever thinking that Kenya is very ulu (backward). Now that I got over the shock that one can easily find asian cuisine in Kenya, the next question I would like to ask is if the Seoul Gardens over there serve bulgogi zebra or spicy ostrich or perhaps honey soy giraffe? I am currently trying my hardest to brainwash my good friend into marrying her kenyan hunk in the very near future so that I will have an excuse to fly to Kenya and find out for myself.

3. At a time where everyone is lamenting on the new low that humanity has sunk to (as seen on the various reports about Hurricane Katrina), it was very heartwarming to hear a story about how 6 year old Deamonte Love took care of his 5 month old brother, cousins and some other playmates in his apartment block after they got separated from their parents. There has been a lot of comparison between American hurricane and the Asian tsunami lately with many finding it vastly ironic that the most advanced country on earth has also got the prize for humanity at its worst. I guess memories these days are short. In the aftermath of the Asian tsunami, there were also looting aplenty, rapes and even stories of criminal groups trying to take the orphans for their own selfish gains. I suppose shootings werent that common here because most of the victims of the asian tsunami were poor farmers and fishermen rather than cityfolk who had easy access to firearms. With Hurricane Katrina, I've learned that history will never change. Crisis of any kind will always bring out the best and the worst in menkind. We should never forget that its only placed next to black that white will appear in its purest form.

Break time

2005-09-03T22:41:00.000+08:00

The computer at home has been acting up the last couple of days. Every time I tried to upload stuff to flickr, it tries to load for 5 minutes and then tells me the page cannot be found…#(&^%(@)&^]

Wednesday night was even worse. I couldn’t even get the flickr login page to work. Even msn.com couldn’t be loaded. I also couldn’t view any blogs at all. That’s when I decide it’s a sign for me to retire early for the night. Good thing I had an exhaustive workout in the gym otherwise I would probably still be staring at the ceiling after an hour. I am wondering if its all that anime stuff that hubbz been downloading that’s making my uploading stuffed up or it’s Hurricane Katrina that’s causing some problems with the connectivity with US sites or perhaps Starhub is angry with us for some reason or perhaps the computer at home just decide not to like me at all. Guess we will never realise how extensive and integrated the internet is with our lives until the day it doesn’t work. I can’t imagine living my life now without the internet (or the other truckload of electronic gadgets I use on a daily basis) and yet it wasn’t really all that long ago when I first got introduced to the internet via mirc.

Friday Night Out

2005-08-26T22:32:00.000+08:00

Haven't met up with A for friday dinners for ages so we arranged to meet after work today.

Dinner was at the basement of Isetan, Shaw House. Pepper Lunch it is called. Its a new japanese franchised high class fast food similar to Yoshinoya. High class in terms of cost per meal and also the quality of food served. Its kinda like a mix of Jack's place and Macdonalds. The raw meat and vegetables come served on their patented iron hotplate so that you can cook it the way you want.

My order - "Shimofuri" pepper steak set with rice and either a drink or soup

The rib eye steak that A ordered was pretty good too but it only came with corn, beans and carrots. PF ordered the doubled chicken set which was only average. The shake salad that we ordered to share was pretty nice but a bit pricy for the amount given. There weren't any pork dishes on the menu which I felt was a pity. This place is pretty good value for money if you want to have good quality steak served fast. We completed our meals by sharing the Kuromitsu Soft Ice Cream which is essentially soft serve ice-cream with raw sugar caramel sauce topping. Didn't get any pictures of the ice cream because I just couldn't resist taking a spoonful straight away. Ah well, I will remember to get a picture the next time. I really liked the ice cream because I'm such a sucker for anything made with raw or black sugar. The girls felt it was bit too sweet though. This place was super crowded when we got there but the staff were pretty helpful and we got seats as soon as we ordered. I guess the novelty of having sizzling hot plate fast food was part of what attracted most of the customers here. Still, I probably would patronise this place again in the near future.

After dinner, we walked around a bit trying out the mooncake samples at the food stalls. 3 more weeks to the mooncake festivals and everyone is already out hawking their wares. The crown hotel's yam & durian mooncake was pretty good. I also like hilton's ginseng snow skin mooncake and their baked mixed nuts with ham mooncake. Hmmm yes I can forsee myself turning into an "oink oink" in the next few weeks.

Leaving Orchard rd, we made our way to Meidi-ya hoping to find fresh horse radish. We are experimenting with a different way to pickling bamboo shoots. More on that later if it turns out well. Anyway, no such luck so we made do with powdered wasabi instead. I've also picked up some genmai tea and apple sweets that were on special. (^_^)V

On the way home, I got caught in a massive jam on the ecp. A mercedes car had caught fire (big fire it was too) in the middle of the road. The fire engines arrived 2 seconds before us to put out the fire.

That's taken from the cab I was in.

I can only just imagine the shock of the neighbouring cars when the mercedes suddenly burst into flames. The car was completely wrecked by the time my cab went pass it. No ambulance so I guess the driver and any passengers were ok. I don't think this is the first time I have heard of Mercedes bursting into flames while driving so presumably expensive cars aren't all that reliable as they are always made out to be.

Anyway, have pigged out in a most satisfactory manner tonight and indulged in my most favourite pastime --> supermarket aisle shopping so the office work that I have brought back to finish didn't seem all that bad now. Am going to bring my dad out for dimsum lunch on sunday. We are going to try the eating joint that chubby hubby has just patronised so expect more pigging out this weekend.

Good thing I've got gym session tomorrow morning...

Exercise

2005-08-24T22:57:00.000+08:00

Just got back from a kick boxing session with tintin (my aerobics instructor. That's not his real name btw) and a 2.5k jog at the gym. The effort would have been even more worth it if I had been a good girl and ate something light for dinner. Instead, I cancel out all that huffing and puffing with this..

mmmm fried chicken...

You know when your 魔鬼訓練 (exercise regime from hell) has paid off...

when you gone from stage 1 --> huffing and puffing 5 minutes into the session. By 15, you start to wish you were died and at the end of the 1 hr class, all you can do is crawl into the change room whimpering and swearing that you will never again take this instructor's class. Your legs have by now start to feel like jelly and you have trouble taking even the escalator.

to stage 2 --> Huffing and puffing only after 15 minutes of workout (not bad. got improvement). Curse and swear (silently) at the instructor 30 minutes into the session because he was standing at the stage repeatedly shouting "biceps, sides, push, all the way up, elbows, cross it, lift" while you are below trying to follow orders and not to die from the pain in your arms in the meantime. At the end of the session, you still wish you were dead and your legs still feel like jelly and you still have trouble taking the escalator but hey, at least you didnt swear that you never wish to see the instructor...ever again.

then to stage 3 --> Wondering at 15 minutes if instructor is sick today because the workout feels easy. Huffing and puffing at 25 minutes. Curse and swear (silently) at the instructor at 45 minutes because his abs exercise doesnt seem to end. At the end, your legs feel a bit like jelly but you haven't wish you were died and after 30 minute of rest, you feel fine enough to tackle some gym stuff.

to my current stage --> Smiling at 15 minutes because you can see the other participants from the mirror and you know they are at stage 1. Wondering at 20 minutes if you should switch from the purple (lighter)weights to the green ones next session. Start huffing and puffing only at 45 minutes. Rest for 20 minutes at the end of the session to go jog 2.5k.

Now all I have to do is to figure out how to lay off all that calorie laden stuff I seem to eat afterwards....

Don't worry

2005-08-19T22:39:00.000+08:00

Was having a chat with my colleague at lunch about her two daughters whose characters are as different as day and night. The older daughter is more reserved and quiet while the younger one is bright and chirpy. If you ask them both how their day was like, the older one would just reply ok while the younger one would regale you with stories about her teachers, her classmates and the various interesting things she did during her recess breaks. Her day might not always be hilarious but she seems to have a knack of making even the smallest event seem fun and interesting. The mom puts it down to a combination of high EQ and a sense of curiosity about life in general. She also wished that her older daughter would be more like the sister.

I remember a time when my own mom used to gripe about me and my brother’s indifference towards whatever is happening around us. She also liked to ask how our day was and when we said ok (period), she would go bang her head on the wall. Not literally of course. Sometimes she would ask (on purpose) what we did for the day and our answers usually won’t veer too much away from wake up, eat, go school, do work, eat, sleep. That’s when she will start to spew blood. Obviously, we didn’t see anything wrong with our answers. After all, that IS a general summary of what we did everyday. Perhaps that’s why I always find it difficult to find something to blog about unlike others.

Now that we are heaps older and earn our own money to ~~waste~~ spend, we no longer give “wake up, eat, go work, come back, eat, sleep” answers even though that’s how I still feel my life is sometimes. Some people even think that I have a sense of curiosity about life in general seeing how I always seem to enjoy whatever I am doing. So I guess I would just like to say to my colleague “Don’t be too worried about your elder daughter. I’m sure she would grow up to be just fine.”

Marriage

2005-08-15T16:56:00.000+08:00

In a couple of weeks, I will be celebrating 2 full years of married life. It may not seem like a long time compared to some other marriages I’ve known but it never cease to amaze me. For someone whose life goal is to own her own house, car and dog (note: there is no husband in the picture), my life has certainly taken on a very different path from the one I have envisioned.

It hasn’t always been a bed of roses nor was it only thorns, blood and tears. Sometimes I enjoyed the companionship and at other times, I sorely missed the freedom and solitude that I used to enjoy. Thinking you know someone but then discover facets that were hidden before. Having to adjust to a whole bunch of strangers, living under someone else’s roof and not being able to be there 100% for my parents are still some things that irk me.

I used to think that perhaps I was the only one facing problems but have now realised that every couple have problems as well. It’s just a question of more or less, trivial or serious. I’ve had people asked me if they should get married. It’s a tough question to answer. I’ve always felt like saying “Which stories do you want to hear? The happily ever afters, the in betweens or the ones which ended in a divorce? I know equal numbers of all three.”

I can only tell you how I came to mine: Examine it as if you are buying a house. There could be a 1000 and 1 reasons why you will or will not take the plunge. For some, it’s the gorgeous view or the prestige of the postal address or that it’s just a good investment. It could also be because it makes you feel safe or have a certain comfort feel about it. For yet some others, its because that’s the only house available to them on the market. The most important thing, however, is not to ever look back once you made up your mind.

Wooo snowleopard

2005-08-14T00:33:00.000+08:00

Havent done any quiz in a long time...

Not bad lah. Snowleopard. Would have preferred being a panther or wolf but this would also do. Better than being labelled as a cat or sly fox hehehe.

You'd turn into a Snowleopard! Like a snowleopard
you are quiet, shy and not seen much and find
it hard to talk to people, but dont really mind
being by yourself. However once you have gotten
over your shyness and are relaxed you are so
different it can be scary! You have a few close
friends who can grasp your strange ways. You
are generally laid back but when you get angry
you get angry and can be very vicious and a
force to be recond with, though few people ever
see this.

What animal would you turn into?
brought to you by Quizilla

WA Trip (Final)

2005-08-13T00:34:00.000+08:00

24 Jul 05
Perth

This is the last day of our WA trip. Breakfast was back at Pancakes at Carillon. Ate the same stuff again.

More shopping as well but my luggage is close to bursting so I had to refrain myself. That is so depressing. Lunch was sandwiches at David Jones. The food was superb.

"Pumpkin Focaccia"

"Smoked Salmon Sandwich"

Hubbz bought himself a pair of working leather shoes at a bargain. Good. Its about time he changed those shoes of his. Since it was a sunday, everything closed at 4 so we went back to the hotel for free drinks with the coupons we got from our hotel.

"Shot at the pub"

Dinner was in Williams street. This time we opted for vietnamese pho. The place recommended by G's cousins was packed and the food is fantastic. The pho was how it was supposed to be and we got repeat orders of the vietnamese spring rolls.

"Must try"

Fully satisfied, we walked back to the hotel to wait for the cab which is taking us to the airport. Seeing how we still had a full hour before its arrival, I headed off to Swans Bell for some last minute photography.

"Swans Bell by night"

"Swans Bell by day"

Heading back to the hotel, we were just in time for the cab's arrival.
Flight @ 12am.

So that ends the last of the narration for the WA trip. It has been great putting everything down for future reference and readings. The group has resolved to make such holidays an annual trip but then I could get pregnant by end of this year (HOPE being the key word here. This is also another story for another day.) so we shall see. I regret not doing it for our NZ trip last year. That was a pretty amazing event as well.

Now back to normal day blogging.

WA Trip (VII)

2005-08-12T23:06:00.000+08:00

21 Jul 05
Perth

Woke up nice and early as we had to visit Hubbz's uncle who lives in a old folks home in Perth. Breakfast at the macdonalds down the street in order to save time. Mackers here is so much better than that in singapore. They have very wonderful looking deli style sandwiches which made me drool.

"A little guest at our table"

This will be my first time meeting Hubbz's uncle so we brought him some fruits as a gift. Turns out that he was in hospital recuperating from some flu so I didn't get to meet him afterall. Its also the first time I heard about his colourful history. Interesting man indeed.

Meeting up with the rest at noon, we head out to visit Kings Park since we had the car. Got flower crazy again. Tsk tsk. Here's proof hehehe.

We didnt stay as long in the Park as I would love to as a suggestion was made to head out to Subico for a spot of shopping. Its a supposedly trendy little suburb with great shopping. Trendy yes but definitely a disappointing shopping spot unless you are pregnant. The pregnancy clothing here are definitely very interesting and very wearable but the rest of the shopping --> bleah :P

It was time to head back to return the car before 5. Walking back towards the hotel after that, a quick decision was made to adjorn to James street for dinner. A wanted to bring us to a restaurant they patroned a couple of years back on their trip to Perth so we hopped onto the free CAT service. Great place this city. They have free shuttle services that spans most parts of the city centre. Good for the tourists like us and really convenient for some of the local residents too who lived along the CAT routes.

Dinner @ A fishy affair. Greek seafood restaurant with a pretty nice ambience. The seafood though was just like the restaurant name - a fishy affair indeed. Perhaps the chef had a one-off terrible day with seafood (The seafood here is supposed to be pretty famous) but meat dishes are definitely recommended here.

22 Jul 05
Perth

Slept in late and had a huge breakfast at Pancakes at Carillon. Its the Perth equivalent to Sydney's Pancakes at the Rocks. The pancakes are definitely just as good and they sure bring back memories of my uni days.

Spend the rest of the day shopping at a huge discount outlet mall -> Harbourtown. Bought heaps. Essential and non essential stuff coz the discounts are so amazing. We didn't even finish walking the whole place when we had to leave so we vow to bring the guys along with us tomorrow.

Watched Quidam tonight. We were planning to go watch in Singapore but I have been so slack with buying tickets and now I'm very glad for my laziness. It does pay off sometimes :D
AU$79 for centre front row seats. Seats like that would have cost $220 back home!!!! It was a full house and so we figured that some corporate bigwigs probably didn't need or want the tickets and it was let out for last minute purchases. Yippeee.

"Illegal shot since photography not allowed inside"

The show was SIMPLY amazing. This is the 3rd Cirque Du Soleil show I've seen so far and I loved every one of it. A and hubbz thought the theme was a bit too dark and depressing but I thought it was pretty ok. Yeah I know I'm just bias. I even got 5 minutes of fame (perhaps less) when I got pulled up to "entertain" the audience during the clown segment. I was supposed to play a girl who had an affair with this hunk (played by another audience. Cute one. Too bad not tall enough.) and got found out by my fiance who got so mad that he shot my lover dead afterwhich I was supposed to get really depressed and killed myself off with poison. It sounded simple enough except that I forgot the second half of what I was supposed to do while watching the others prance around the ring. Forgot to get depressed. Forgot about the dying by poison bit and then when the "director" repeatedly shot me with a gun, I forgot to die. Thats when I realised I would never make a good actress. Ah well, Hubbz says "This is the closest you will ever get to having an affair so you might as well enjoy it while you can."

Dinner afterwards was at food court. Yucks. Never ever eat chinese in a Perth food court. Trust me.

23 Jul 05
Perth

Breakfast at London Court today. Quaint surroundings, good food. The caffeine fix was wonderful for warding off the morning chill.

The entire afternoon was spent shopping. First at Harbourtown then off to a highly recommended swimwear discount outlet and then later in the city centre. Got myself so much stuff that I won't have get anymore for chinese new year! I must say shopping in this city is super cheap.

"Shopped but still have time for snaps"

We were craving for soupy asian noodles after that horrible stuff that passed itself off as chinese fare yesterday night and almost did a jig on the streets when we spotted this japanese noodle house (in a dodgy alley near our hotel) that was still opened.

We were the last customers but thankfully they could still do food orders. We had ramen in miso based soup, ramen in pork bone soup, california roll, tempura and katsudon. The food was devoured with great gusto and it didn't disappoint. Yummm.

WA Trip (VI)

2005-08-12T22:04:00.000+08:00

20 Jul 05
Margaret River/Perth

Woke up just in time to check out today. Watching the boys playing cards and toasting mashmallows in the fireplace til late at night is a very tiring affair. Just before we drove off, we dropped in at the farmer's shed to do some shopping for handmade organic soap that the farm owner's wife was making. They smell so divine and are all named after types of wine. I cant remember which ones I bought but I definitely cant wait to start using them.

"The local resident asking for a last belly rub"

Heading out from Angarrack Farm, we turn into Leeuwin Estate. Its an award winning winery that we were told is a must visit. Its definitely a very lovely place and guess what..we were just in time for a winery tour. Even though I've been on a couple of winery tours, the Leeuwin Estate tour was pretty good. The guide did try to speed things up a little on account that we are are supposed to reach Perth before 5 but we still didnt managed to finish the whole tour til almost 1pm. Tasted a fair bit of expensive wine though so at least we recoup the tour fees.

Heading off towards Perth, we made one last stop - Margaret River Choc Factory.

"Mmmm choc"

We went a little crazy in this place. Buying and stuffing our faces. It was a good way to prepare for the long drive back towards Perth.

The traffic on the highway (if you can call it a highway) was pretty bad. Throw in the city's fascination with one way streets and we didn't end up arriving to our hotel til 7pm. Good thing we had already decided halfway thru the drive to keep the car for another day so we were not too particularly stressed out.

A and Hubbz had to meet their relatives for dinner so the rest of us explored the neighbourhood in search of food. Korean bbq was our final choice. The food was pretty good with generous portions. Too bad the other couple don't take beef. Haiz.

After dinner entertainment was at the Casino. The boys tried their luck at the tables while the girls explored the place.

"Exotic flowers"

Final verdict : Big but utterly boring.

40th Birthday

2005-08-09T23:52:00.000+08:00

It's her birthday today and the celebrations were grander than any other years I could ever remember. Must be because we are celebrating the son finally taking over from the dad this year.

The only patriotic (even though I am not a citizen) thing I could ever remember doing was participating in the NDP when I was in sec 3. Our school was one of the few ~~arrowed~~ chosen to be part of the nation's celebration. A whole year of prep work and sacrificed weekends for one single day. Not to say it was all sweat and no fun. There are a lot of things that would easily captured the attention of bored 15 yr old minds from a nunnery school - like a hundred 20 yr old army guys for instance. Back then you see, 15 yr old pimply school boys were deemed too kiddy and were not worthy of our attention.

Information were traded like game cards. Which guy was the cutest, tallest, coolest etc etc. We were even prepared to secretly take pictures of the guy the whole sec 3 cohort was ~~secretly in love with~~ interested in. Actually, we did just that. Secretly take picture of the guy that is. That photo was circulated among the whole school and was the most sought after school photo ever. I still have that infamous photo in my picture album to remind me of my carefree youth.

The memories of raging hormones and unrequited schoolgirl crushes...

WA Trip (V)

2005-08-09T12:28:00.000+08:00

19 Jul 05
Margaret River

After some home-cooked breakfast with free range eggs courtesy of our farmstay hosts, we head out to explore the region. First stop - Berry Farm. A nice little place. Not easy to find but then we got pretty lousy navigation skills. The fruit trees were bare at this time of the year but the owners had grown quite alot of beautiful flowers.

"More blooms"

The cellar door stocks heaps of jams and chutney but we were mostly interested in the wine. The mango wine at this place is divine. Like ice wine but not as sweet with a delectable mango smell. Definitely not to be missed.

Chalice Bridge Winery was just around the corner so we decided to head in that general direction since we been seeing their products on display at alot of the restaurants along the way. Unfortunately for us, their cellar door is only going to be completed in the later part of the year so we veer off to the Rockyfield winery next door instead.

"Bare vines"

There was a lot to try here and we ended up getting quite a few bottles of whites to bring back. The owner pointed us in the direction of Augusta for lunch and a spot of whale watching at the lighthouse so that was where we went.

"Blooms outside the pub"

"Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse at Cape Leeuwin, naturally."

So named because the Dutch sighted the Cape in Mar 1962 in the vessel "Leeuwin".

Australia's most southwestern point with the Indian Ocean on the right and the Southern Ocean on the left.
Lat. 34 22 South Long. 115 08 East

This lighthouse is a working lighthouse at the moment and we joined the next scheduled tour that brought us all the way up to see the huge lightbulbs installed inside after a brief narration of the history and the lifestyle of the olden days lightkeepers. This is a good spot for whale watching if you can get used to the binoculars supplied and the strong winds. They sighted 40 whales the day before but we didnt see any while we were up there. Tough luck.

"Us at the top"

The area surrounding the lighthouse was pretty interesting to explore and we spent more time below than up at the top.

"We even went down to the edge of the sea just to get a closer look at some of the residents."

Heading back home, we were just in time for the feeding frenzy back at the farm.

"We were told these are goat-like sheep that are good for eating. Hur Hur Hur."

"The owner's youngest daughter with the orphan lamb that thinks its a dog."

Dinner that night was at the local award winning restaurant, Winos.

The food was really good and their wines comes in 3 different sizes - samplers (15mL), tasters (50mL) and glass (150mL). I thought that was a pretty cool idea. If only they have that in Singapore too. I ordered the Chalice Bridge and Moaning Frog to sample.

The food orders we had were given really funny names on the bill - the kangaroo (which I ate) was typed in as skippy, vegetable lasagne was known as no meat, duck was daffy and pork ribs was porky. I was cursing myself silly afterwards for not remembering to take a picture of that bill :(

WA Trip (IV)

2005-08-08T23:34:00.000+08:00

18 Jul 05
Busselton

We slept in this morning coz its not everyday we got to stay in a 5 star hotel ok. Good thing they allowed us to check out an hour later.

"That's the view from our rooms"

The sky today seem cloudy and a bit grey. Definitely not a good sign. We decide to explore the beach at the hotel and take some some photos just in case it starts to pour. *Touch wood*

"More flower shots from me. I am fast becoming known as the no human photo gal within the group."

Storm clouds brewing so we decide to head back to the car"

We decide to head over to Busselton Jetty even though its drizzling just to try our luck. Good thing the rain stopped as we got there.

"More flower shoots"

Since the weather looked pretty alright, we decided to take a stroll along the Jetty. It cost money to do that actually but the ticket gets you into the observatory at the end and also a 1-for-1 coffee at the nearby restaurant.

Some little facts about the Busselton Jetty.

Its 1841m long and is the longest wooden jetty in the southern hemisphere.
It ceased operation in 1972 and is now a major tourist attraction.
There is a underwater observatory at the end of the jetty and a little train that gets you there, weather permitting.

The wind was strong that day and we gave up walking to the observatory halfway along the Jetty. (I just had a look at their website. The observatory is really worth a visit. Too bad we were there at the wrong time. Best time to visit - summer) Turning back, we decided to head for some caffeine fix.

Warming up after hot coffee, the group decided to split ways. SW and hubbz had to go pick up her brother who is arriving in Margaret River by coach in the afternoon. The rest of us will make our way slowly towards Margaret River and join them at tonight's farmstay accomodation heaps later.

Next stop on the itnerary - Ngilgi Caves @ Yallingup

The caves, about as big as the Jenolan caves in Sydney, were pretty big and very interesting to explore. Our guide was really knowledgeable as well. Not only did he know his caves, he was also very well informed about other stuff with regards to nature. Like the current au conservation status and the native plant life in WA.

As usual, I was taking more photos again. The caves were set in a national park and had heaps of very interesting wild flowers that were in bloom at the moment. You would think that trees and shrubs would be rather bare in winter but nope...heaps were in full bloom with a riot of colours ranging from blue to red to yellow. According to our guide, there were a couple of pretty rare wild orchids that were in bloom just last week but unfortunately for us, the blooms had just wilted. Never mind. I bought myself a wild flower guide from the cafe as a consolation

"Pretty gum nuts outside the cafe"

Leaving the caves, we went in search of food. Fast food was our closest option and so chicken treats it was. That's similar to red rooster for those familiar with food joints in Australia.
I was pretty glad we decided to eat there as we were blessed with company from a flock of wild gallahs.

"Pink. A certain sg celebrity blogger's fav colour :P"

Following a tip off from our caves guide, we headed off in search of Canal Rocks.

"View along the way - pounding waves of the Indian Ocean."

Canal Rocks is a series of protruding rocks that form a natural canal that is both popular with photographers and fishermen. A bridge is build over the canal so that the rushing seawater can be viewed from above. This is the relatvely unknown spot that our guide in the caves tour told us about. It wasnt easy to find as it is right at the end of a little turnoff next to a winery. Awesome view. We were pretty glad that we didnt give up halfway.

"Thats the bridge which the seawater ran under"

"Canal Rocks"

After leaving Canal Rocks, we head to a nearby surfer's beach to wait for the sunset.

It was a wait well worth waiting for even if we had to drive to the our lodging in the darkness and without road directions :P The only regret I had was that we were unable to stop along the way for some photos of kangeroos that have wandered out into the pastures to graze. We even saw a kangeroo's silhouette among the vines. That would have made a reallly good picture. Guess it will just have to remain imprinted in my memory for personal viewing only.

Lodging for the next two days is at Angarrack Farm. Finding the place was a bit of an adventure for us. The beckoning lights and awaiting friends were a very welcome sight indeed. Entering the premise, the interior promised a very cosy stay for the next two days.

Dinner that night was pasta and roast chicken with salad. Home cooked with fresh ingredients from the supermarket in the town centre of Margaret River.

Suicide Bombings

2005-08-08T16:33:00.000+08:00

There is yet another suicide bombing reported in the papers. This time in the Philippines.

I haven’t yet read about the whole affair nor do I really want to know about the whodidits and the gory details. There aren’t many articles on the net about it nor has anyone mentioned it on any blogs so far, unlike the London bombings. I think I am getting quite numb about all these stuff. The same goes for all the other unfair and mostly illogical things happening around the world. Things like letting a paedophile re-join society even though he said he is sure he will commit once again if he is let loose. He did just that. Two days after being released.

I sometimes wonder if there is a limit to the number of things happening in the world before everyone gets so used to them that it is just as natural as breathing. Like say, 5000 tragic events happening around the world and then nobody will be shocked by any such news again. Have we reached that quota yet? Is the Philippines event perhaps event number 5001? I wonder…

Add-on: The gates of hell opened a couple of days ago but perhaps this year none of their residents will want to come to earth because its probably better to stay down there.

WA Trip (III)

2005-08-05T23:43:00.000+08:00

17 Jul 05
Fremantle

We got up nice and early today not only because we had to checkout by 10 but also because the girls can't wait to do more shopping at some of the retail stores we saw last night. Big loud posters screaming "SALE!!!" is not something to be trifled with. First order of the day, however, is to get some breakfast. We decided to locate the famous "cappuchino strip" for some caffeine fix. Turns out where we had dinner last night was THE "cappuchino strip". Bery small town siah!! After a quick walk around, we decided on Ginos coz the waiter walking past was carrying drool worthy stuff.

"The pictures on the wall were part of foto freo - an annual photography festival. Reminds me of Flickr."

"Thats my breakfast. "

After breakfast, we hit the streets for some serious shopping. So serious in fact that the boys got a bit upset at us for forgetting the time. We didnt head out for Busselton til almost 1pm.

The sky looked stormy on the way further down south so we prayed hard that it wouldn't rain. Not much to see on way down. Bunbery was the next big town on route to Busselton but this rather ordinary town was pretty dead when we got there at 4pm. There are supposed to pods of dolphins residing in this town but guess we wont be stopping by for a visit. Oh wells.

We finally hit Busselton at 5pm. The restaurant we spotted was just closing. -.-
Good thing we got instructions to our hotel before the waitress closed the door for the day. The view outside was fabulous. We will be back tomorrow for a closer look.

Reaching our hotel 15 minutes later, everyone was so hungry (shopped so much that we had to skip lunch in order to get here before nightfall) that we voted to satisfy our hunger first.

"Thats my dinner...big fat steak with fries. Hungry lah"

WA Trip (II)

2005-08-04T18:32:00.000+08:00

16 Jul 05
Fremantle

The view that greeted us in the morning was simply breathtaking. Who would have thought daylight would make such a huge difference to this place.

Clad only in PJs and with no shoes on, we were all running around the place like little kids on Xmas morning. We must have taken like a couple hundred of shots that morning of the view outside the apartment. The shallow waters of the bay right outside our balcony had undulating seaweed and schools of tiny fish. What a nice start to the holiday. I have a feeling that this holiday is going to be yet another great for all of us.

Hunger finally drove us out of the apartment. We decided to head to the famous Cicerello's for fish & chips.

Since this is our first day and I know for sure that I will be stuffing my face throughout the week, I've decided to go for the grilled fish & chips with coffee instead of their signature fried fish.

Looks good huh! Their signature dish as quoted by another in our company is "much better than Fish & Co and the chips are simply to die for". If you are there, do remember to take some time from the hectic ordering of food to take a really good look at the aquarium that is used to separate the dining crowd from the ordering mass. I didnt and I'm now regretting it. They've got lobsters, crabs and about 30 different types of fishes in the gigantic salt water glass tank. I wonder how the fishes looking out of the glass at the kitchen serving up plates of their species will feel. Will they think "Lucky its not me out there!" or will they get so depressed that they rather drown in seawater? Hmmm..

Since it was a brillant day, we decided to sit outside. The dining company were rather amusing even though all they probably can think of is "when the #$%&( are these people leaving so that we can feast in peace?"

"Leave soon or we will definitely S.O.Y"

Satisfying our tummies, we head off for the markets, located not too far from the restaurant.

The fremantle market is housed in a beautiful Victorian building with about 150 stalls selling all kinds of wares from fresh produce to trinkets to house furnishings. The boys got bored after 15 minutes and head off to explore the town a little further while the girls found themselves in heaven. Here is a list of stalls that I feel are a must see.

Stall 22 (Soap Shop) - This stall sells everything from handmade soaps to moisturisers to shampoos to fragrance. Your one stop bargain beauty place. We saw body creams that were selling in Singapore at TWICE their tagged prices and a whole heaps of other aussie brands that I haven't seen elsewhere. I got a bottle of moisturising sunblock (SPF 30++) for about $10, everyday wash shampoo for only $7, travel pack conditioner for $2 and a pair of wash mittens for also $2. The owner even gave us a discount coz we were buying so much. Shiok!
Stall 92 (The herb & Spice shop) - This place stocks all the herbs and spices that you ever think of. I bought a pack of organic chamomile for less than $10 and 2 packs of 1/2kg flax seed for only $2 each :P
Stall 101.2 (Fremantle Markets Bonsai) - Yeah this place sells bonsai. They also sell alot of very interesting home accessories and (definitely must see) beautiful sun-catchers. If it wasnt that I can't find a spot in our rooms to place the sun-catchers, I would have bought one without hesitation.
Stall 322 (Onya Bags) - The greenies will love this stall. Looking like tiny coin pouches, the onya bags unfurl out into re-usable shopping bags. Made from parachute material so that it will last quite a while. Not cheap though.
Stall 89 (Coffee Connection) - D place for coffee lovers. We saw at least 20 varieties of coffee beans on sale here, including flavours that I can't even start to imagine. They also have choc covered coffee beans. If you havent tried this before, do go and get one. I also got a espresso stove top cooker for my mom for $20.
Stall 21 ($2 Stall) - Yep everything in here is only $2. Quite a bit of junk but then there are gems to be found too. We got very warm fleece scarfs for only $2 here.
The ying yang sea salt stall - Hehehe I call it this because I cant find the stall number or stall name on the fremantle market website. We saw him near the pub (stall 33) which is located in the markets. The owner sells 4 varieties of blended natural sea salt and spice grinders that he concocts himself. I bought 3 varieties myself and would have got all 4 if not because the last variety is too spicy. They taste sooo goood. Good news: They will soon be available at a local Cold Storage supermarket near you...except that it will be retailed here for twice what he is selling in au. Hur Hur Hur.
Stall 85 (Mosaic Art) - This stall has pretty amazing mosaic handicrafts. The mirror in the picture above is from them. Don't think the items are cheap but its good even for some plain old admiring.

As one can see, its never a good idea to let girls shop by themselves in a market.

After a thorough exploration of the markets, it was time to head back because seriously, we couldn't carry any more shopping bags. Along the way, we discovered this little quaint boutique accomodation called Port Mill bed & breakfast that looked so inviting that I just had to stop and take a shot.

Back at the apartment, the boys were playing cards (again). While everyone else was resting, I was going camera mad. It is just soooo good to have your camera to play around with.

Dinner was eaten back in the town centre again. The boys wanted to bring us to a charming (they say. I think they got hoodwinked by the clover image that is imprinted on the beer foam of all the beer on tap that they serve) Irish pub that they discovered in the afternoon for pub grub but along the way, we saw this stretch of street that seemed to be reallly happening. There was an italian place that had long queues and so the venue was changed there and then. After the food arrived, we found out why this place is sooo popular.

"Just check out the portions this place gives!"

The annual ~~notorious~~ fun-filled school graduation ball must be on that night. We counted about 3 limos filled with ~~drunk~~ highly excited high school kids pacing the short stretch of road where we were sitted. There were also a couple of highly modified cars doing the "beauty parade" as well. The owners (mostly young punks) would roar pass us, disappear out of view for about 5 minutes and then appear again on the other side of the road. This routine would be repeated for about 10 times (yeah we counted) before the car in question will be gone for good. We figured these people must either be (A) really bored, (B) lost or else (C) had no other happening place to go. C turned out to be right because we did a night drive around Fremantle after dinner and the rest of the town was totally dead. Oh ya..and the reason why they were doing the appearing and disappearing act is because they head down one way for 5 minutes, hit a roundabout, go around it, head in the opposite direction, drive for 5 minutes, hit another roundabout and go around it to head back where they came from.

WA Trip (I)

2005-08-01T23:33:00.000+08:00

15 Jul 05
Pre flight

Yes I am a flickr addict so photo taking started even before we landed in WA.
We took valuair for this trip. Some special deal we got way back so that tickets (w/o taxes) cost only S$150 each return. Anyway, was pleasantly surprised with the level of service we got and the to die for leg room space. Heaps better than the usual commercial planes like our national carrier for instance. Food was so-so and the portion is just enough for the average very small sized sg girls but no complains since its only a budget airline.
On a side note, they seem to like using humour a lot for this budget airline. Not only were the tuckbox funny, they even had an air-stewardess singing karaoke for us at the end of the trip.

16 Jul 05
12am

Touchdown at the international airport. Taking snapshots of our vehicle seems to fast become a tradition with us. We did that last year in NZ and now we are doing it again. The wagon we rented online looked like an old beat-up bomb but the actual car was actually pretty good. Came with cruise control and some booster thing that made the boys realllllly excited. Licence plate says that it came all the way from NSW which is at the other end of the "island". Wahhh seasoned traveller siah. I havent even done that before. Must try one day before I get too old.

After collecting the car, we made our way towards fremantle. Short enough journey on any normal day but we were all dead tired, cold and very hungry. After a couple of wrong turns and stuff, we found the place. Looks quiet and a bit dodgy because it was surrounded by water on all sides and we had just seen this couple of kids made off with a couple of wheels (car) at the roadside in their old beat up bomb of a car. The presence of the bay surrounding us and the closeness of fisherman's bay, however, kept our hopes high.

Depositing our luggage in our apartment, we head back out into the cold in search of food because the one very pregnant lady in our midst says her son will throw a tantrum if she doesnt feed him soon. There was a 24 hour macdonalds and some little deli selling pie we saw on our way to fremantle but we thought we will try our luck at some place closer to base. A couple of turns later, we decided that it was a bad idea to continue looking. A decision was made to head out for some macdonalds.
Final destination was the pie deli but only because we were too hungry to drive any longer.

The food was pretty alright. Actually we were too hungry to care but oh wells. I had the schnitzel burger with veges and I couldnt wait to stuff my face. I also picked up a bag of Red Rock Deli chips which I have been dreaming of since I stepped off the plane. Lime and black pepper flavour. Mmmmm. It became an instant group favorite. We head back fully satisfied.

10 signs of a hardcore blogger

2005-08-01T15:40:00.000+08:00

You go out for a movie/party/outing and then you come home and blog about it. Even if its 2am and its not the weekends.

You go on trips just so that you can blog about it.

You wish there was some way to do instantaneous blogging. Like getting your mind connected directly to the internet for instance.

Your ears perk up when you hear “mrbrown’ on a crowded mrt station and in the next minute totally lose interest because you realise the group of girls were only talking about this mrbrown.

You don’t meet up with your friends anymore. You tell them to go read your blog.

When your colleagues are only just starting to discuss the acidflask incident, you have already read it to death on other people’s blog.

You have more addresses in your blogroll than on your office outlook program.

You realised that the new friends you have made during the last year are all fellow bloggers.

You do not greet your friends or their other halfs by their real names but by their blog names.

Your blog is more current than the national newspaper.

Stupid thoughts

2005-07-29T13:16:00.000+08:00

Since mergers are the flavour of the month now, it seem appropriate to share what I got in my email just now...

Q: If Fed Ex and UPS were to merge, what would they be called?

A: FED UP

Back to work

2005-07-26T08:39:00.000+08:00

Arrive back tired but happy.
Good thing I decided to take monday off instead of going straight to work as I originally plan. I pretty much just spend the whole day sleeping and unpacking stuff. After that was the usuals: dinner with in-laws, dinner with my parents etc etc.

Quite a few things happened while we were away…
• The blogger.con that I missed. I saw the pictures for it and read all the articles. Dang!! it seem really fun.
• The new ruling on down payment for housing was reduced to 10% from the original 20%. This created a feeding frenzy on the stock market as well as on the property market. I made a bet with a friend that housing prices will not be up by 20% after a year.
• Another friend is 3 month pregnant and we didn’t even know it when she was here for a short break a couple of weeks ago.
• The new library was just up in the Bugis area and already there are heaps of photos of the place on flickr. Looks like I have major catching up to do :P

Anyway, I have been swamped with work since I got back. Looking at the current work schedule for second half of the year, it seems that we will be too busy to even take pee breaks. I’ve started to organise and upload my photos on flickr though so that’s a good start but write-ups of the trip will probably be a bit longer so be patient people.

Oh ya. After this trip, we are officially known as the couple who took pictures of everything except people hehehehe. Cant help it lah…new camera leh. Digital somemore…so shiok.

Anticipation...

2005-07-15T00:37:00.000+08:00

Leaving for Perth tomorrow for a 10 day driving holiday and I can hardly wait.
Coincidently Miyagi has wrote an article about trip blogging which makes for interesting reading as well as echoing the exact same sentiments that I was having. I can just envision myself dropping into every internet cafe along the way just to keep a documented account of the trip but I think the others will probably kill me first for making them stop and wait while I blog or check my flickr account. Guess the good old pen and paper will have to do til I get back and write a proper narration of the trip. Hope I dont get any withdrawal symptoms during this trip.

We are bringing along our new toy - canon EOS 350D SLR camera as well as my trusty companion, the ixus 700, so expect heaps of professional looking photos...if I can figure out all the cheem looking functions on the SLR camera that is. Some of my friends in flickr are already anticipating good travel photos from me. How stressful is that... *rolls eyes*

Anyway, no more blogging for the next 10 days (not like I blog daily but oh well)

In remembrance of the London bombings

2005-07-07T11:20:00.000+08:00

If Love Is Flower

love is endless
like flowers that keep on blossoming day and night
love is beautiful
like flowers with different different colors
love is growing
like flowers abundant in the garden
love is to give away
like flowers from my hand to yours

If love is flower
how many gardens grow your flowers?
how many flowers grow in your garden?
what are the colors?
what stories are they telling?
if love is flower

Aila El Edroos

Happy Birthday to me....

2005-07-05T22:28:00.000+08:00

I turn 32 today.
Unlike previous years where I always take this day off, I actually had to go to work today because we have an external audit from a client.
Its been a busy and tiring day but the well wishes I received from friends and family all day long made the day very memorable indeed. People I didnt think remember my birthday send me birthday smses and emails or called me on my phone to wish me many happy returns of the day.

After the 30s, gifts no longer matter to me anymore. All I want are heartfelt well wishes and quality time spend with good friends. Speaking of which, the cake above was the result of a surprise mini party last night with close friends organised by hubbz.

I have been a very lucky girl. My birthdays have always been memorable and this year more so.

On a side note, I found out that I share close birthdays with some of my fav bloggers - LMD and mrbrown. That appeals so much to the closet groupie in me.

Just look at the traffic jam this thing is causing....

2005-07-03T01:17:00.000+08:00

soldier 1: Eh..this silly slow poke vehicle why travel so slow one..
soldier 2: where got? where got?
soldier 1: Nah...see...the traffic backed up all the way to Suntec ok!

Men Tze Said .......

2005-07-02T00:47:00.000+08:00

Men Tze Said: When Heaven Going To...
Originally uploaded by CharlieBrown8989.

I just like the meaning of these words. Perhaps the stress-filled week is finally taking its toil.

天將降大任于是人也﹐ 必先苦其心志﹐ 勞其筋骨﹐ 餓其體膚﹐ 空乏其身﹐ 行拂亂其所為﹐所以動心忍性﹐ 會益其所不能﹐ 人?過﹐ 然後能改﹐ 困于心﹐衡于慮﹐ 而後作﹐ 征于色﹐ 發于聲﹐ 而後喻。入則無法家拂士﹐ 出則無敵國外患者﹐ 國?亡。然後知生于懮患﹐而死于安樂也。

This is the full translation of that paragraph of James Legge(James Legge,Mencius,Chapter 24,1895).

2. 'Thus, when Heaven is about to confer a great office on any man, it first exercises his mind with suffering, and his sinews and bones with toil. It exposes his body to hunger, and subjects him to extreme poverty. It confounds his undertakings. By all these methods it stimulates his mind, hardens his nature, and supplies his incompetencies.

3. 'Men for the most part err, and are afterwards able to reform. They are distressed in mind and perplexed in their thoughts, and then they arise to vigorous reformation. When things have been evidenced in men's looks, and set forth in their words, then they understand them.

4. 'If a prince have not about his court families attached to the laws and worthy counsellors, and if abroad there are not hostile States or other external calamities, his kingdom will generally come to ruin.

5. 'From these things we see how life springs from sorrow and calamity, and death from ease and pleasure.'

One month overdue

2005-06-28T09:42:00.000+08:00

A little something I got in my email....

Mr Jack comes home one night, and his wife throws her arms around his neck: "I have great news: I'm a month overdue. I think we're going to have a baby! The doctor gave me a test today, but until we find out for sure, we can't tell anybody."

The next day, Mrs.Jack receives a telephone call from MSEB (Maharastra State Electricity Board) because the electricity bill has not been paid.
"Am I speaking to Mrs.Jack?"

"Yes...... speaking"

MSEB guy : "You're a month overdue, you know!"

"How do u know?" stammers the young woman.

"Well, ma'am, it's in our files!" says the MSEB guy .

"What are you saying? It's in your files ...... HOW?"

"Yes ....... We have a system of finding out who's overdue"

" GOD !!!!!.. this is too much.........."

"Madam, I am sorry...... I am following orders.... I have to inform you are overdue"

"I know that ....... let me talk to my husband about this tonight..... he will speak to your company tomorrow "

That night, she tells her husband about the visit, and he, mad as a bull, rushes to MSEB office the next day morning.

"What's going on? You have it on file that my wife is a month overdue? What business is that of yours?" the husband shouts.

"Just calm down," says the lady at the reception at MSEB, "it's nothing serious. All you have to do is pay us."

"PAY you? and if I refuse?"

"Well, in that case, sir, we'd have no option but to cut yours off."

"And what would my wife do then?" the husband asks.

"I don't know. I guess she'd have to use a candle."

Everyone is busy. So am I

2005-06-23T15:52:00.000+08:00

Am rather busy with work and reading of my trashy Chinese novels these days so blogging has been put on the backbench at the moment. Will leave y'all with this in the meantime.

1) Project Manager is a Person who thinks nine women can deliver a baby in one month.

2) Developer is a Person who thinks it will take 18 months to deliver a baby.

3) Onsite Coordinator is one who thinks single woman can deliver nine babies in one month.

4) Client is the one who doesn't know why he wants a baby.

5) Marketing Manager is a person who thinks he can deliver a baby even if no man and woman are available.

6) Resource Optimization Team thinks they don't need a man or woman; they'll produce a child with zero resources.

7) Documentation Team thinks they don't care whether the child is delivered, they'll just document 9 months.

8) Quality Auditor is the person who is never happy with the PROCESS to produce a baby

Funny Anagrams

2005-06-16T12:51:00.000+08:00

Got this in my mailbox today
Someone out there either has too much spare time or is deadly at Scrabble.

DORMITORY:
When you rearrange the letters:
DIRTY ROOM

PRESBYTERIAN:
When you rearrange the letters:
BEST IN PRAYER

ASTRONOMER:
When you rearrange the letters:
MOON STARER

DESPERATION:
When you rearrange the letters:
A ROPE ENDS IT

THE EYES:
When you rearrange the letters:
THEY SEE

GEORGE BUSH:
When you rearrange the letters:
HE BUGS GORE

THE MORSE CODE:
When you rearrange the letters:
HERE COME DOTS

SLOT MACHINES:
When you rearrange the letters:
CASH LOST IN ME

ANIMOSITY:
When you rearrange the letters:
IS NO AMITY

ELECTION RESULTS:
When you rearrange the letters:
LIES - LET'S RECOUNT

MOTHER-IN-LAW:
When you rearrange the letters:
WOMAN HITLER

SNOOZE ALARMS:
When you rearrange the letters:
ALAS! NO MORE Z 'S

A DECIMAL POINT:
When you rearrange the letters:
IM A DOT IN PLACE

THE EARTHQUAKES:
When you rearrange the letters:
THAT QUEER SHAKE

ELEVEN PLUS TWO:
When you rearrange the letters:
TWELVE PLUS ONE

AND FOR THE GRAND FINALE:

PRESIDENT CLINTON OF THE USA:
When you rearrange the letters
(With no letters left over and using each letter only once):
TO COPULATE HE FINDS INTERNS

Yep! Someone with waaaaaaaaaaay
too much time on their hands!

Reflection

2005-06-16T10:51:00.000+08:00

Paths cross and uncross,
Meet, intertwine and go their own separate ways
Just like a tapestry with an intricate design
Part of a bigger picture and yet interesting enough to frame on its own

I am in a reflective mood recently.
A friend is relocating to Shanghai on a permanent basis.
It is an honour to be counted as one of his close friends
Although I never thought that I was one.
It is a surprise to find out that he actually has deeper feelings for me
Although I know that it will not be reciprocated.

When paths uncross, its usually a sad occasion
Just like leaves falling beneath the cool autumn sky
Even though he is moving for a better future
Even though I am sure we’ll probably meet up again somewhere

Which singaporean blogger are you?

2005-06-13T09:56:00.000+08:00

I couldnt help but play the game...

Congratulations eyes, you are...

Cowboy Caleb of cowboycaleb.liquidblade.com

You are smart, loyal and sensitive. You are also very caring towards other people and you help them out whenever you can. You are very passionate about your line of work. You fight for your beliefs and if someone doesn't agree with you, you argue your point of view across in a very convincing yet diplomatic manner. For that, you earn respect.

Which Singaporean Blogger Are You?

Theory of Relativity

2005-06-12T21:28:00.000+08:00

In 1915 Einstein developed the theory of special and general relativity.

The principle of equivalence holds that forces produced by gravity are in every way equivalent to forces produced by acceleration, so that it is theoretically impossible to distinguish between gravitational and accelerational forces by experiment.

In the theory of special relativity, Einstein had stated that a person in a closed car rolling on an absolutely smooth railroad track could not determine by any conceivable experiment whether he was at rest or in uniform motion.

In general relativity he stated that if the car were speeded up or slowed down or driven around a curve, the occupant could not tell whether the forces so produced were due to gravitation or whether they were acceleration forces brought into play by pressure on the accelerator or on the brake or by turning the car sharply to the right or left.

More here if you are interested but that’s not what my post is about.

Yesterday, I had the theory of relativity explained to me in the scientist's version of Aesop’s fable - The Hare and the Tortoise.

The Hare and the Tortoise have decided to hold a rematch. As such, the tortoise decided to start training for it by running from his home to the lake. While running, he passed a snail on the roadside. Being a polite tortoise, he greeted the snail and asked him where he was heading. The snail replied that he was heading to the lake. Hearing that, the tortoise said "Oh I am heading that way too. Why dont you climb aboard and I'll take you there?"

Delighted, the snail made his way to the top of the tortoise's back and off the tortoise went. About 10 minutes later, they came upon a second snail.
"Where are you heading?" asked the tortoise.
"I'm going to the lake." replied the snail.
"We are heading that way too. Climb aboard and I'll give you a lift." said the kind tortoise.

10 minutes later, the group saw yet another snail making its way along the roadside.
"Where are you heading?" asked the tortoise.
"I'm going to the lake." replied the snail.
"What a coincidence. Get onboard and I'll take you there."

As the snail made himself comfortable on top of the tortoise shell, the first snail was overhead saying to the newcomer.......
"Hold on tight. This guy runs like the wind!!!"

Daily Procrastination

2005-06-07T00:58:00.000+08:00

If anyone noticed, I'ved added a couple of new stuff to my sidebar --> tagboard and daily poison. Spend the whole night tweaking them when I should have been doing office work so that I can go for my mid july perth trip in peace.

Tomorrow's burned as well coz I need to go back home (my parents) for dinner coz mom is leaving for her china trip in a couple of days and wanted me to teach her how to use dad's camera and to get her a supply of natural laxatives. Wed's out too coz its my weekly date with the chilli padi at amore.

Great sg sale buy: benchtop 32L oven from tangs that cost us $9 in total.

Achievement: made my first batch of yoghurt last night and it actually taste great!

I am going to be sooo stoned tomorrow.

Don’t Panic

2005-06-03T15:14:00.000+08:00

Disclaimer: If you are planning to watch the blogger's guide to the galaxy which is showing in cinemas nationwide, please desist from reading any further until trip to the theatre has been accomplished. You have been forwarned.

Yep. That’s right. That’s exactly what I said. Everyone else been offering their opinions on the upcoming sgblogconspiracy that is taking place at the woodlands public library but this blog will be the only one that will offer you THE solution to the dilemma of “To go or not to go” or "I didnt want to go but I was forced to by some unexplained forces of galaxy".

Sgblogconpiracy, according to the blogger’s guide to the galaxy, is solely orchestrated by a pair of little white mice (LWM) for the purpose of finding the ultimate question to the ultimate answer of 42. Most ignorant humans think that they are the most intelligent lifeform on earth (of which they are completely wrong because any dolphin will tell you that actually dolphins are smarter than humans. Its not their fault that humans don’t have a clue as to what they are saying) and that LWM exist on earth for the sole purpose of being tortured by men in white coats (of which they are completely wrong again because its actually the other way around).

So what do the LWM want with bloggers, you might ask? According to the greatest computer ever built that gave the LWM THE answer of 42, they need to need to build another computer using lifeform materials in order to come up with the fundamental question of the galaxy. Are you starting to get an idea yet, intelligent readers? Yes. Earth is THAT computer and in order to compute THE question, the LWM need to find 100 brains and link them up to earth in order generate enough computational power. Not just any old brain running on the zest of lemons but creative brains. You can see why only bloggers will do the trick.

So, now that one knows what the Sgblogconpiracy is all about, what happens if one finds oneself unwillingly drawn to the ~~slaughterhouse~~ gathering at woodlands public library on that fateful day? This is the solution to the dilemma (Finally -.-) Since creative brains are what the LWM need, all one has to do is go to the gathering with a wet towel wrapped around their head to dampen the creative brainwaves. Yes, the only accessory of any seasoned blogger - the bathroom towel. Not brown paper bags or wet toilet paper or shiny foil mind you but WET towels. Oh yes and if spoken to by servants of the LWM, don’t forget to repeatedly chant “mmmmm donuts”.

(copied with no permission from the blogger’s guide to the galaxy)

Now, if you still don’t know what the above is all about, go read this and this.

Technorati tag: sgblogconspiracy

Nothing in particular

2005-05-29T21:50:00.000+08:00

Have been meaning to blog about my massive addiction on chinese trashy novels but as of yet, have neither time nor patience to compose anything. I've learned quite a few interesting things from months of voracious devouring of chinese trashy novels though.

1. I can read hokkien and 台灣國語 much better than I originally thought. Sentences like 我粉喜歡你 actually do make sense to me. Ok I dont have any other more challenging examples at this moment coz I'm old and I'm getting senile but I'll post something up and link back the next time I find something worth putting up.

2. I've also learn about how the japanese 招財貓 came about. This is a long story and I'll post when I finally finish typing the whole story. In chinese of course...and perhaps with an english translation if I am feeling generous that day.

3. There is actually a more interesting way to say 我在拉肚子 and that is 我的屁股在吐。So yeah....the next time hubbz is hogging the toilet, I can ask him.....你的屁股在吐嗎﹖

Help please!!!

2005-05-27T23:59:00.000+08:00

Okie. Now that I've solved the problem of my browser sprouting chinese when its not supposed to...will someone tell me how to get the chinese I typed appearing as elligible chinese words instead of "?????"

ARGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!

A book about blogs

2005-05-26T23:21:00.000+08:00

Was in kinokuniya over the weekend coz they had a 20% sale and found the above staring right back at me on the shelves.
Wahahahahahahahahaha...guess that really proves that blogging and all things related are the "IN" flavour of the month.

A book search on amazon.com turned up the following book description:

"Blog" is short for "Web log"-an online site with time-dated postings, maintained by one or more posters, that features links and commentary. But that is like saying a car is a means of transportation featuring four wheels. Millions are changing their habits when it comes to information acquisition, and the blogosphere has appeared so suddenly as to surprise even the most sophisticated of analysts. In Blog, best-selling author Hugh Hewitt helps you catch up with and get ahead of this phenomenon.

Up until now no influential blogger has written a definitive book about this phenomenon. Since Hugh Hewitt's blog site-HughHewitt-was launched in early 2002, more than 10 million people have visited this site. Why does this visitor traffic matter? People's attentions are up for grabs. If you depend upon the steady trust of others, suddenly you have an audience waiting to hear from you. The race is underway, though, to gain mindspace and to be part of the blogosphere readers' habits and to position yourself as well as your business or organization at the forefront of this information movement.

Sounds interesting? Think I'll park myself in kino over the next few weeks and read the book in greater detail. Thank god for speed reading skills and legs of steel.

Blogger.com has gone grober....

2005-05-25T22:36:00.000+08:00

Nahhh Just kidding...

All I wanted to do is to be able to type chinese characters..
So I downloaded NJ Communicator.
This is what it did to blogger.com!!!! @)#&%(@#$

Good thing my mandarin very powderful. Haiz

Update: Problem is now solved and the credit goes to wen. Thanks sweetie!! *muahz*

Self indulgence is good for you

2005-05-20T11:16:00.000+08:00

Was just having a conversation with a friend about Kylie Minogue's breast cancer - about how breast cancer can strike you at any age and any time and that we really should be more proactive about getting ourselves checked out on a regular basis. She also made a comment about how most times, it?s our partners who discovered that we have got a lump that wasn?t there before. This reminded me of a story that I?ve heard a long time ago and it goes something like this .

There was a young woman who likes to pamper herself by going for regular body massages and spa treatments. One day, her regular masseur told her that she should get her breasts checked out because she felt a lump that wasn?t there before. She did and found out that she had early stage breast cancer.

Moral of the story is
.
.
.
.
.
.
..

If you don?t have a sex partner then self indulgence is good for you BUT
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
either case, remember to do it regularly and stick to only one person hor :P

May the force be with you!

2005-05-19T11:33:00.000+08:00

Went to the movie, we did.
The force was out in full swing yesterday night at Great World. The storm troopers, the jedi masters, Sith lords and even Lara Croft was there I think, with her funky short fur lined white cape. We joked about watching the movie in full costume but we didn�t actually do it. Guess the force wasn�t that strong in us afterall.
Lord brown was there though and the force is strong in that one. I thought I might have been mistaken when I spotted the blog master himself standing at the ticket counter with his award winning lightsaber but I wasn�t coz I read this this morning. WOW! I actually saw the great master himself in real life. How exciting is that!!!!!!!! Apparently I wasn't the only one to recognise the brown one that night. Maybe we should have a "Spot the brown one" contest. Like that "Where is Wally Wallace" game...50 points if you spot mrbrown somewhere in singapore, +10 points if you got to stand next to him, +30 points if you managed to take a picture of him and upload to the internet, +50 points if you can do it without the master knowing it, -1000 points if he caught you taking his picture and then there will a monthly tabulation and the blogger with the highest score gets to be browned for that month. Hahahaha I think I sound like a stalker. The brown one is still the master though. He watched the 7 plus show and got home in time to blog about it while I caught the later show, got home at 1 plus, woke up exhausted and can only secretly blog about it at work. Learn from the master, I must. Coincidentally, another friend bought the 11 plus tickets at the same theatre and after many smses to and fro, we concluded that the earlier the show, the more sideline entertainment there was. His show time had many people appearing in full gear and accessories. Mine had a handful with gear and/or accessories. Hers had nobody in gear or accessories and there were very minimal cheering and clapping.

Anyway, another discovery I made yesterday was a new use for my cameraphone. We had fun trying to capture images on the big screen with our cameraphone. Here�s a couple shots we got.

Got the pirated vcd feel or not? Hehehehe

New Camera

2005-05-18T18:04:00.000+08:00

Am so excited that I am posting this as soon as I know.
You will be looking at the proud owner of a Canon Ixus 700 camera this weekend!
The camera is coming with a 256Mb card and the Canon 7-in-1 bag. No idea what the bag is but hopefully the goodies in it are good.
Will also be buying the all weather waterproof casing so that I can take my precious with me when I next go diving :)

Oh wow! Cant wait to get my hands on my new toy!

Stress Management

2005-04-20T09:06:00.000+08:00

This is soo true.

A lecturer, when explaining stress management to an audience, raised a glass of water and asked, "How heavy is this glass of water?"Answers called out ranged from 20g to 500g. The lecturer replied,"The absolute weight doesn't matter. It depends on how long you try to hold it." "If I hold it for a minute, that's not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, I'll have an ache in my right arm. If I hold it for a day, you'll have to call an ambulance. In each case, it's the same weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes." He continued, "And that's the way it is with stress management. If we carry our burdens all the time, sooner or later, as the burden becomes increasingly heavy, we won't be able to carry on. As with the glass of water, you have to put it down for a while and rest before holding it again. When we're refreshed, we can carry on with the burden." "So, before you return home tonight, put the burden of work down. Don't carry it home. You can pick it up tomorrow. Whatever burdens you're carrying now, let them down for a moment if you can. Relax; pick them up later after you've rested. Life is short. Enjoy it!" And then he shared some ways of dealing with the burdens of life:

1* Accept that some days you're the pigeon, and some days you're the statue.
2* Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them.
3* If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.
4* It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.
5* When everything's coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.
6* You may be only one person in the world to some people, but to one person, you may be the world.
7* Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once.
8* We could learn a lot from crayons. Some are sharp, some are pretty and some are dull. Some have weird names, and all are different colors, but they all have to live in the same box.

Obsessed

2005-04-17T19:20:00.000+08:00

Have been rather obsessed with taking pictures with my new (ok not so new coz its a couple of months old) cameraphone. I've got pictures of everything from fairy lights at the carpark, food to flowers and my dog. Fuelling this obsession is the ability and ease of uploading these photos to my flickr account. The only thing that isnt so great about the cameraphone is the lousy resolution of the photos and the super limited storage space. Its like trying to paint a great work of art using crayons and then finding out that the canvas is too large to go into the store room. This is why I am eyeing that digital camera that will fit into my pocket, that I can bring with me wherever I go. Anyway, here is a sample of what I have taking with my cameraphone. So hate that lousy resolution.

Oyakodon Attempt

2005-04-06T18:07:00.000+08:00

oyakodon
Originally uploaded by eyes1997.

I finally tested the oyakodon recipe that I posted a while back. Its super simple and fast to make. The only thing that required further adjustment was the amount of stock added coz I didnt stick strictly to the recipe. Not using the correct utensils probably also explained why I ended up with a soupy rice dish instead of a slightly moist soul food.

Soneva Gili

2005-03-27T18:23:00.000+08:00

Soneva gili2
Originally uploaded by eyes1997.

Yep I know I just recently (not really all that recent coz it was in early Jan but oh well..) came back from a holiday in Sydney but after seeing this on the "Top 10 best bedrooms" show on cable, I think I can use a holiday again...in this place to be precise and in one of their crusoe residence to be exact and when I have the moolah in reality. Haiz. (sung to the tune of "I wish I was a rich man..lalala..")

After exploring the hotel's website a little further, I found that the resort is closed at the moment due to the tsunami. Their last update was on 5th Jan so hopefully they are back in business by now. It would have been such a waste if this beautiful place is forever lost.

Baby Faith is born

2005-03-10T17:09:00.000+08:00

Just got an sms from Netty. Her new daughter has arrived and her name is Faith.
Mother and child are fine and doing well.
Am hoping that I will get a chance to go visit soon :P

Super Sianz

2005-03-09T16:12:00.000+08:00

Yes I am super sianzzz
even though I have heaps of work to do and heaps of deadline to meet.
I should be a busy little bee but the love for nectar is gone
I should be a humming bundle of energy but the fizz seems to be missing

A is pregnant

2005-03-07T23:45:00.000+08:00

Yep she is finally pregnant after trying for a couple of months. Congrats babe!
Does it make me want one of my own? Hmmm dont know. Too many issues still not sorted out yet.

The Haze is back

2005-03-01T11:58:00.000+08:00

Today is the first time I've seen the haze so bad.
The PSA container cranes were invisible from Sheares Bridge while the Suntec buildings looked as if they were veiled in a white shawl.

On a lighter note...this is what a friend sent me:

Cultural Differences

Two Italian men and a lady stranded on a desert island; - The two fought and one KILLED the other to have the lady.

Two American men and a lady stranded on a desert island; - They both had the lady TOGETHER.

Two French men and a lady stranded on a desert island; - They killed the lady to have EACH OTHER.

Two Indonesian men and a lady stranded on a desert island; - The first man claimed that island is independent and took the lady as his advisor. The second man swam to another island to search for jobs.

Two Thai men and a lady stranded on a desert island; - The first man rented the lady to the second man for 2 baht a night.

Two Filipino men and a lady stranded on a desert island; - The first man kidnapped the lady and asked for ransom from the other man.

Two Malaysian men and a lady stranded on a desert island; - The lady ACCUSED the first man of sodomizing the other because she was rejected by both.

Two Singaporean men and a lady stranded on a desert island; - The two men are still waiting for instructions from the GOVERNMENT on how to proceed.

Gals bits

2005-02-17T15:47:00.000+08:00

An ang moh told me what he had to eat for cny.

Him: We had the dept CNY lunch today � some interesting things that wouldn�t be out of place on Extreme Gourmet (which was gross last night � think the gal really enjoyed eating the bulls penis)

Me: ooooo you ate interesting stuff for your cny lunch? What did you have exactly?

Him: Yep the tossing thing, some fish, a cute lil� piglet�s skin, some soup with no taste, a big prawn, some veg with seafood bits that looked like a gals bits, some cakes or rather kway and a green sugar ball in almond flavoured milk.

Me: I like your description of the vege dish...the "gals bits" is black and looks like hair? Thats a vege not seafood though...its called a hair vege (typically translated) and cannot be harvested anymore in the world.

Him: Ok, trying to be delicate here. Yep we had the hairy bits, but there were some brown bits that I initially thought were mushrooms. However, they tasted of seafood and when I picked them up they opened up slightly like�.. you get the picture!

It turned out the gals bit that he ate was chopped up dried oysters :P

Now I know what to tell the maid if I ever wanted her to cook dried oysters....

Oyakodon Craving

2005-02-03T23:25:00.000+08:00

I have a sudden craving for oyakodon (chicken and egg mixture on rice).....huge craving......which I cant satisfy coz there is dinner at home.
I bought some mirin from taka though.....just in case the ILs decides to go away again for the weekend....*fingers crossed*
This is one of the more promising recipe I found online. Will attempt to try it sooon.

Oyakodon (4 servings)

4 cups cooked rice, keep warm
4 chicken thigh fillets or 2 chicken breast fillets
1 onion
2 cups dashi stock
10 tablespoons soy sauce
5 tablespoons mirin
5 tablespoons sugar
4 eggs

1. Cut chicken in small chunks, slice onion
2. Put the stock, soy, miron and sugar in a pan and simmer for a few minutes.
3. Put chicken chunks in the pan and simmer on low heat for a few minutes
4. Add the onion to the pan and simmer for a few minutes more
5. Whisk the eggs in a bowl
6. Bring the soup back to the boil, pour the eggs over chicken and onion
7. Turn the heat to low and cover with a lid
8. Turn the heat off after 1 minute
9. Divide the hot cooked rice between 4 bowls then place the chicken mixture over the 4 bowls of rice

Note: it will probably taste better if the ingredients are divided and cooked individually. At least thats how they do it in Japan....which reminds me....I need to go get one of those japanese flat pans for making this. A small saucepan or flat frying pan will also do if the high class tools of trade cannot be procured.

Baby Poem

2005-02-02T16:10:00.000+08:00

I am not yearning for a baby....I repeat.....I am not yearning for a baby...
There are so many births in the company recently that I was surfing the web to find something to write about instead of the usual "congrats on having your baby", "Cant wait to see your baby" or "rest well, hope the baby is fine.." stuff. This is what I found and I thought it was rather nice. Couldnt find the author though.

There is nothing to compare
to the miracle of birth.
Few words to share
that will equal it's worth.

In the twinkle of an eye
a new life is formed.
And for a lifetime
a mother's heart is warmed.

Who says Science is Boring

2003-07-30T10:46:00.000+08:00

28 Jul 03

Read this off the online version of The Scientist today..

Off the Cuff The Comeback to a 6th Grader Who Says, 'Science is Boring'

"In two years, science will rule your dreams and desires, and you will have no control over it. Hormones are great intellectual stimulators."
Frank A. Snyder, MD, Wilmington, NC

"Scientists travel into jungles to study cannibals, crawl into active volcanoes, play with dinosaur bones, and blow things up! How can that be boring?"
Thalles R. de Mello, The University of Western Australia, Perth

"Better hand over the video games then; we wouldn't want science to influence your life anymore!"
William S. Mellon, Madison, Wis.

"Do you like animals? Sports? History? Ice cream? Science is part of all of those things. Now, go bother your mother."
Gary Rosenberg, Seattle

Kenna sai

2002-08-24T13:09:00.000+08:00

am pissed. am also starting to think my mom's words are right. really "de dao le then kenna sai."

Malacca and KL trip

2002-07-09T15:56:00.000+08:00

Just went on a weekend trip to Malacca and KL. Must say that Malacca is definitely more fun than KL All the little roads with antique and craft shops. I bought some incense and stuff at really good prices (about half that of Singapore but apparently they are even cheaper in bangkok.) The historical peranakan houses were beautiful. I especially like the air wells that are situated in the centre of each houses. Most of the air wells had clay urns of various sizes filled with lotus pads and cute little guppies. One had quite good sized black gold fishes swimming merrily in it. One shop was selling 3 pewter figurines of buddha in the classic poses of speak no evil, hear no evil and see no evil. So cute!!!!!! but quite expensive too. The whole set was selling for $380. Even though it was ringgit and pewter, it was still too expensive for my pocket. Sigh. Wandering along the streets, we stumbled across this little boutique hotel that had REAL swallows nesting in the display rooms. Its a really nice hotel with heaps of antiques and yet still managed to look pretty modern. The rooms look pretty nice (from the pictures that we were shown that is) even though we werent allowed to go up and take a look at them. They were quite reasonably priced too, about 110 for twin including breakfast. The hotel converted its large air well into a quiet little bar area reminisent of the basement area in Chijmes complete with a small water feature and wooden tables and chairs and lots of greenery. Think we will definitely be staying here the next time we visit Malacca again.
The trip up to KL was more to see the fireflies which were located quite a way off from KL actually, in Kuala selangor to be precise. It was a good thing I decided that we should be staying in the firefly resort and not in KL. I think the driving back to the capital would have just killed everyone. Driving there was bad enough with the hot weather. At first I thought that Malaysia is a lot hotter than Singapore until I realise that its cooler driving in Singapore because of all the trees that we have on the roadsides. Thank god for big road side trees in sg. I will definitely appreciate them more from now on. On the way to the resort (along highway 54), there were a couple of places selling bak bu teh. One of them had quite a lot of customers. Should have stopped and have dinner there instead of at the seafood restaurant at the resort. Oh well. There are also quite a number of nurseries and fish shops around that area.The firefly tour was quite surreal, decorating the trees like xmas lights. Combine that with the quiet and dark surroundings, they were actually quite impressive. Too bad for mossies and annoying tourists who insist on taking pictures with flashlights. DUH like the photos will turn out to be any good with the flashlight outshining the fireflies. The resort was quite cheap with the usual amenities all available except that the water was a bit weak. Thank god that didnt happen to me while I was showering. Anne and Greg got themselves locked in their room in the middle of the night. That made quite a interesting conversation for everyone in the morning. Everyone just couldnt stop laughing. Thank god it didnt take them too long to open the door otherwise we would have been stuck there for quite a while. We headed off to KL at about 9 plus in the morning and didnt get there till like almost 12. Whew. thank goodness the firefly tour is not something we will be doing again. KL was just like any big city. There wasnt really much to see and as it was reallly hot. We decide to to visit somewhere with air-con ie KLCC. That stands for KL city Centre bTW. That is also home to the Petronas Twin Towers. Tickets to go up to the tower were all snapped up before we got there so we decided to take a break and have some coffee instead at Dome. The whole place just reminds one of Suntec City except that its probably a lot more crowded. Oh ya, the towers were quite impressive with their metal and glass cladding. Very high tech. It was decided while sitting down for coffee that we would head back to Malacca for dinner and more wandering. On the way back, we passed this really impressive building near the mines hotel built like a castle. Apparently that is also a hotel. Wow. I wont mind going there there just to vege hahahaha although its probably a bit far from Singapore. Sam said he prefer going to the Bintan kind of hotels ie Bayan Tree hahahahaha. Well if he is not complaining I definitely wont mind going hehehehehehe. There were preparations for a night market when we got back to the antique street. Too bad we couldnt stay for that. We did managed to sample some poh pian though and those were quite delicious. Dinner at Capitol Satay (or lok lok as I remembered it from before) was really good but it probably would have been better if the weather wasnt so hot or my throat wasnt so scratchy. Oh well. I still managed to enjoyed it though.
All in all, I felt it was a pretty good trip. I just hope that everyone else felt the same way too.

�Who�s your Spaghettio?�

2002-07-01T17:06:00.000+08:00

Another hotspot article

Apr. 1, 2001 Sometimes in a moment of carnal bliss when my body is about to lose itself over the cliffs, I look deep into my husband�s eyes. He asks me: �Who�s your Spaghettio?� After two years of marriage, utterances like this seem normal. I once told Bart I thought the phrase �Who�s your daddy?� sounded sleazy. He made it his mission to come up with alternatives. Some memorable ones include �Who�s your Pizza Papa?� and �Who�s your Snausages?� If anything will save Bart and me from marital staleness, it will be our inherent silliness. We have adult playtime, if you could categorize any of our behaviors as adult.

I have had more than my fair share of �serious� sex, ranging from prolonged drunken hook-ups to long-term relationships. Sex was never silly. It was usually quite dramatic. We were having sex and we were going to do it in every way we thought grown-ups were supposed to.

Example: One of my first boyfriends had a penchant for soft bondage. Which is fine, in its place. After about the 10th time I heard, �You�ve been such a bad girl, so I�m going to have to punish you,� the shock wore off. Besides, the preparation was labor-intensive and the lingerie was itchy.

Another paramour from my past loved acrobatic sex in public. I�m pretty fit and far from shy, but the reality was sand in my panties (and close regions), friction burns on my back from the hood of my car, and trips to the chiropractor. There are some things you just don�t want to explain to a doctor!

So, when I started dating Bart, I was unprepared for the level of zaniness we would eventually achieve.
Our first few trysts were very serious. The more we got to know one another, the more we realized that wasn�t what we needed. We�d both been in enough relationships to be tired of the sex we�d been getting. We carved out our own pattern. Our sexual behavior lost the imperative to constantly behave like a porn star.

I say �constantly,� because saucy behavior certainly makes our sex life fun. We�ve done it in the passenger seat of my VW (no small feat, given the size of the seat), and I adore sporting sexy stockings. Yet, our sex life isn�t built on extra frou-frou. It�s pretty much built around our wackiness.

Take for example, the newest addition to our repertoire, �The Boob Buzz.� The proper technique to master this advanced foreplay maneuver is to sneak up on your mate (for example, when he or she is drying up after a shower). Then expose their greater chest region, lock your lips over a nipple and make a raspberry sound. Escape is the key component, as your mate is likely to be quite startled. Cackling �Beware the shame of the Boob Buzz,� is optional, though my husband would argue that it is an integral part of the process.

Overall, language is very important. If Bart turned to me on the couch tonight and said, �Why don�t you go get your vibrator, so I can shove it inside you,� I would feel a bit put off. I�ve had guys suggest this before and, shockingly enough, it was never a turn-on. On the other hand, when he asks me to, �Go find Mr. Bumpy so we can go lose him again,� that is a different invitation entirely. The absurdity lightens the mood. We are just going to play. I lose some inhibition and am ready to try new things.

Another one of our marital oddities is Bart�s �Butt Dance.� This one requires no language at all.
Sometimes when I come home decrying the injustices the world has committed against me, Bart walks over silently, turns his back and drops his pants. He then begins to gyrate his naked bum back and forth. The element of surprise here is paramount. Music also helps. Tom Jones is a good start. After about 30 seconds, Bart�s pants go back up and he walks away as though nothing has happened. I am usually quite stunned, but feeling better as well.

I don�t think Bart and I are alone in this type of behavior. I recently related our escapades to a close girlfriend. It seems she and her husband have their playtime too. Each morning before work they hide a little, sentimentally significant plastic statuette somewhere in their condo. Until it�s found, they are not allowed to leave the house.

Maybe marital oddities aren�t really so odd after all. Rituals help make every relationship unique and special. They bring a couple closer together and help create a world in which only the people involved are a part. From a butt dance, to ridiculous nicknames, to running after each other around the apartment naked smearing each other with grape jelly, every successful relationship has its own playful side that keeps it interesting and light-hearted. People planning to be together for a long time, or even a few fun minutes, owe it to each other to explore that side. If you can play well together when things are sweet and cute, you solidify your interactions for the times when you need to work well together. The absurd creates a foil for the serious.

I don�t regret the un-silly sex of my early erotic encounters, but I like the freedom of being able to define my own sexuality. People joke about married sex being boring. But for me, it�s really the ride of my life! There�s innocence to it, and a variety I have never had.

While I will admit that I am the straight one in this comedic team, I have to remember it wouldn�t be funny without me. As long as Bart continues to dish it out, I am right here to take it.

But maybe tonight, in the heat of passion, I will cry out that age-old question: �Who�s my Red Ryder?