It's Official

Yes, it's official. I'm pregnant and it's twins!!! However, the gynae said that the smaller twin is too tiny and not sure if he/she will survive. Just about 8 weeks and frankly, I am not having the best time of my life.

My morning sickness which don't come only in the morning, occurs several times during the day and even into the night. It's a really really terrible feeling as I vomitted everything I ate and if I didnt have anything to eat, I will be vomitting liquid. I looked sick for most times of the day.


And my tummy is so bloated that you must have thought I am at least 3 - 4 months pregnant. But the gynae said it's normal. Sigh, I have to practically revamp my wardrobe as I can't fit into my normal clothes.


But it's amazing to see 2 tiny little hearts beating inside of me. Can't wait for the next scan to see them again.

Singapore Marathon

The Singapore Marathon was held last sunday and when hubby took the "fun" pack, I was searching through to see if there is anything worthwhile in the pack which turned out to be a disappointment though. Maybe its the same every year just that its the first for hubby so thought there will be something special.

Hubby didnt take part in the full marathon, he took part in the 10km and thank god, he only took part in the 10km because i never see him train at all. I was already wondering how he is going to cope with the run when all he did was play badminton once or twice every week.

In any case, the night before, I was laying out his shoes, socks, pin the tag on his shirt and took out his shorts. Put the ipod into his arm-band and pack everything nicely so he won't forget to bring his stuff along.

He bought me McDonald's breakfast when he came back...and that was good because I have not taken McDonald's breakfast for quite a long while. When i asked him how was the run, he told me he run for about 2km and walked the rest of the way. Hahaha....but i can see that it was a good experience for him.

Phuket 2007

Its been 9 years since the first time I stepped into Phuket. I still remembered travelling on Business Class on Thai Airways to Phuket back then in 1998.

I was looking forward to this trip as its going to be a relaxing trip for us. Just going to do nothing and sleep and eat and grow fat.

My initial plan is to go Cambodia but hubby said will have to walk quite a lot and he preferred to just do nothing. So we settled for Phuket.

We took the earliest flight out and reached there at 7.45am. Managed to check into our hotel around 9am.

We stayed in Club Andaman Resort Hotel and this is our 3rd choice. We couldn't get the hotels we wanted and I thought this was the low season.

It rained pretty heavy on the day we arrived in the afternoon. We walked to this new shopping center - Jungceylon and had our lunch in this thai restaurant. It is thai fine dining and the food portion is so small that we were saying that we need to get other food later on...hahahaha.

We had brown rice, spicy soup, vegetables, green curry, drinks and desserts and it costed us 680baht in total.
After that we went to Carrefour and did some groceries shopping.

For dinner we went to this restaurant called Baan Rim Pa which is supposedly a famous royal thai cuisine restaurant. Total damage is over 1700baht for the dinner which includes, steamed rice, vegetables, chicken, spicy soup,drinks and desserts (sama sama as our lunch,right?). The dishes really tasted ordinary but the salvaging factor is the sticky mango dessert which is good.

The next day we went for a body scrub and massage at this establishment called Bali Hai..which is supposed to be the "clean" kind. It costed 1600baht which is not bad. Lunch was a simple meal near our hotel and it costs us only 300 baht...hahhaha.

Our daily itinery was go out for a walk after breakfast, come back around lunch, sleep in and then go out for dinner and walk around again. Haaha..

On our 2nd last day, we went to the beach and had to pay 160baht for 2 beach chairs and an umbrella. I was hiding under the umbrella away from the heat but I ended up burnt as well. So painful. Hubby was burnt even worse.

That night we went to this new attraction called Phuket Fantasea. Supposed to be a cultural show.
We bought the package which consists of ticket to the show, buffet dinner and transport. The buffet place was huge and can hold 4000 pax. It served international cuisine and you will be given table number to sit. The show is ok but I find that there is no coherence in the story line.

We decided to go for a foot massage on our last day there and that was really a decision as it was so painful on our badly burnt legs.

Our flight back was 8.30pm and we asked around if there is anything to eat in the airport which they mentioned yes but when we reached the airport and checked in, there really wasn't any much to eat. Cafes selling sandwiches which tasted horrible. There is a Chester Grill but due to power failure, they could not cook anything.

We reached singapore and had burger king at the airport before returning home and finally getting to bed around 2am.
And that concludes our trip...looking forward to the next trip...don't know where and when though.

Locked out of office

This morning when I reached the office, it was dark and just as I was wondering what was going on, the receptionist came and told me the security system on the door is spoilt and can't be opened.

The worst thing is my laptop is locked in my drawer in the office. After hanging around for 10 minutes doing nothing while waiting for the repairman to come whom the receptionist wasn't sure when he is coming, I decided to go back home. The rest of the people from my side of the office are all cramped in the conference room in the other side of the office.

Thank God, I got my home laptop which I can use to access my office network as well..heehee

A different kind of getai

I was at a chalet last saturday and there is this unit next door staging a "getai"

You can really see the effort they put in, decorating an area for stage and putting up skirtings on the balcony above to create a stage/theatre feel.

And the performers are....*drum roll*......transvetites.
4 main characters dressing as women together with a guy and performing dances with songs. They had very elaborate costumes and synchronised dance steps.

They sing in groups and as individuals performing mandarin and english songs. So entertaining although not really suitable for the younger kids.

Rainbow

Saw this lovely rainbow peeping from the clouds last evening on my way home.

Happy Birthday, Hubby

Didn't celebrate hubby's birthday this year, we went Bali last year for his birthday, as I am setting up a stall at our neighbourhood flea market.

Will plan where to go for his birthday next year..heehee

Movies in the Park

I took leave on 10th August so this is going to be a long weekend for me.

Friday was a pretty lazy day for me as i'm on leave but still working...replying emails etc as hubby sent his car for servicing and I was waiting for him to come home and have lunch...popiah lunch again...hahahaha

Headed out to Giant at Tampines in the late afternoon as I am going to make some food for picnic on saturday. We started off in Ikea where we wanted to get some standing mirror for our guest room but couldn't find any from Ikea so we went over to courts and still couldn't find any nice ones.

So we headed to Giant and bought all the necessary ingredients for the picnic and headed back home around dinner time. And guess what we had for dinner? More popiah...ok...the popiah lasted till dinner and I think anymore than that, we are going to scream...haha

Woke up pretty early today too as I need to cook for the picnic. I made prawn paste baked chicken wings, roasted italian vegetables and japanese gyoza. My sister is staying overnight on saturday as we are going to setup a stall at a flea market on sunday. Actually she agreed to go picnic with us but suddenly she told us her friends wanted to come my plc to swim so she will be staying with them. So we are left with one ticket and luckily my friend managed to get someone else to go. The picnic is actually at Fort Canning...should be called movies in the park instead. It's an event organised by my hubby's company...some sort of family event I guess. 2 movie screenings - charlotte's web and paris je taime.

We left the house late as I totally forgot to roast my vegetables...hahaha. Went to pick up our friend and headed for fort canning. Good that we decided to go there earlier so that we can get the carpark lot just next to the park. There was free popcorn and cotton candy till 9.30pm and everyone got to get a hotdog bun each. After the first movie ended, almost everyone left the park as most people came with their family and the second movie, being a french movie is also M16. So we had almost the whole of the park to ourselves.

Initially, I have no idea what the movie was all about although it features some famous stars such as natalie portman, wes craven,william dafoe, elijah wood etc. The whole movie is on 18 snippets of how love is potrayed in paris. Some of the snippets are really ridiculous and funny.

In the middle of the second movie, I saw this 2 men came into the park walking hand in hand and sat down on the grass. One of them even placed his head on the shoulder of the other. Brokeback mountain in action and the left the movie together hand in hand as well...hahaha

Happy Birthday, Singapore

Woke up this morning around 10am as I was going to make popiah. So i got up early and started cooking, preparing the prawns, eggs etc.

Looked delicious, isn't it? Yum Yum....so we had home made popiah for lunch. I was contemplating of holding a popiah party next time...heehee

Went to my in-law's place for dinner in the evening and to celebrate hubby's birthday in advance. And of course our nation's birthday. We can see the fireworks from my in-laws's plc.

And guess what? My in-laws made popiah as well. Pengzz....so I didn't touch the popiah at all. We had KFC and fried noodle and we bought sandwiches from Subway too. Hubby's birthday cake was the yam cake from Angie's the choice. Yam is not my favourite but the cake was nice.

Countdown to NDP...

Decided to head down to St. James on tonight as I'm at my mum's place and we had no programs after that.
So I "jio" my sister to go with us together with 2 of hubby's friends. It's good that Hubby has the St. James membership card so we need not have to queue when we reached Movida. We were there about 9.30pm and the whole place was jam-packed. No available tables and we had to stand near the bar counter.

As I don't drink hard liquor, my hubby's friend ordered a whole jug of beer for me and I am the only one finishing off the whole jug of beer except for my last 2/3 of a glass. I had my glass of beer on the table top and then this guy spitted out the ice he was chewing and threw it into my beer. I was shocked. I held up the glass...stared at the ice in the beer and stared at him. Thank goodness, he apologised and offered to buy me another drink. I didn't take the offer as I don't feel like drinking anymore anyway. It's the first time I seen someone spitting ice into my drink before. Amazing.

We left the place around 2.30am and went to chinatown for supper before sending a friend and my sis home. I only managed to sleep around 5am, I think.

I must admit...I haven't been exercising

Went cycling yesterday at ECP. I have not been cycling for a long time and frankly, I am really lousy at cycling. I have no sense of balancing.

Eventually after 20 mins of trying to cycle around the grass, I decided to go straight to the cycling path although hubby was not comfortable with me going on the track as I was like wobbly wobbly...

It turned out pretty well....I could cycle quite alright. Did almost fell a few times and I had to abandon "ship" just so that I won't fall on the ground. Got a lot of grease on my legs and some bruises and cuts.

And now my butt hurts....I need to sit on a cushion else it will be very painful. And my shoulders and arms are hurting like siao. I think it's because I am not exercising as much as I would like to.

It's even more painful not to miss someone than to miss someone

Something i "pirated" out of a movie called the The Sisterhood of the travelling pants. Its a movie about 4 best girlfriends who plan to stay connected with one another as their lives start off in different directions;they share the same pair of jeans which miraculously fit everyone.

And the story unfolds as each of them hold on to the pants for a week and the things that happened to them while holding on to the pants.

The sentence, it's even more painful not to miss someone than to let yourself miss that someone, it really touches a chord in me. I have that kind of feelings before and I can attest that it's true. Everyone has to go through the sad but painful stage and once you have crossed that stage, you will be better prepared to move on. You have to allow yourself to be sad....to cry....and then to move on

I envy the sort of sisterhood relationship the four girls have. Its the sort that will really takes you through life's ups and downs....together....

Hmmmm

My colleague has quit his job after being one year in his job. Well...he's not exactly my colleague but my vendor but we have quite a good working relationship. In my 1.5 years with this company, there are 2 changes to the service delivery managers and the current one might change again. 3 changes to the desktop and infrastructure guys and 4 changes to the application support guys.

Maybe I should change too. Anyone wants to hire me?

Bangalore,India

My maiden trip to Incredible India.....took that off the India tourism advertisement..hahaha

There was only one flight out of Singapore to Bangalore and one flight back.

I took the wednesday night flight out and I can count the exact number of chinese ladies on board the plane. 3 - one is me, one is another lady whom I think also going for business like me and one is with her other half.

Reached the airport at 10pm and I waited for ages for my luggage to come out from the belt. Finally only reached the hotel at 11.30pm. The hotel was pretty nice, naturally for the price tag of US$400 a night. The room had a LCD TV too. And they provide essential oils to counter stress and enhance better sleep.

The next day we headed for our meeting in the office. The office is pretty small but they have like 2 - 3 people in charge of making tea and coffee etc. Wow and I heard most people there has chaffeur.

Lunch was pretty nice, at a restaurant near the office. After the meeting, we went back to the hotel. We decided to have dinner at the hotel and meet at the Irish pub for a drink before dinner. We heard the Afghan BBQ was good in the hotel and decided to go for it but was told there will only be table available after 10pm. That leaves us with 2 indian restaurants, a chinese restaurants, the Irish pub and a western buffet dinner.

In the end, the guys decided to go for chinese food. I do not find the quality and taste of the chinese food nice. The cost is pretty high too if I am not wrong, 6000 indian rupees.

We started the next morning earlier as we are driving out of the city to our research center and it takes an hour to go there. As you drove out further to the villages, you can really see poverty. You can see people begging for money and their living conditions were pretty bad.

Lunch at the research center is only vegetarian and now I can emphatise with my colleague who goes there for a week for product testing and all she ate was vegetarian food. She even said she brought maggi noodle there. The research center is big and the gardens are well-manicured with gardeners at work. And I saw a lot of candidates waiting to go for interview at the reception.

We ended the day earlier today and when we reached the city, its slightly over 3pm and the driver drove us to see the government buildings and parliament houses. Very nice architectures. We also stopped by a shop which sells local handicrafts, silks and jewellery.

My 2 ang moh vendor ended up buying jewellery, some handicrafts and silk ties while I didn't get anything as I don't really think it's that worth it. We went back to the hotel thereafter to get a shower, packed and checked out. After that, we had some drinks again in the pub and we decided to get ourselves a reservation at the Afghan restaurant. The waitress in the pub was really helpful in helping us get the reservation.

We were the first guests at the restaurant. We ordered a tandoor each, some naan, coke, 2 wine, 1 dessert, 1 drinking water and it costed me 5000 indian rupees and that is almost S$200. Pretty expensive I feel.

Soon it's time for me to go to the airport and my driver came just in time. As I only had 5000 rupees (which my indian admin told me it shouldn't cost more than this price), I was beginning to worry if it's enough for the transport. Fyi, the 5000 rupees covered the 2 days transport.

I didn't change a lot of rupees and I spent the other 2000 rupees I had on books and magazines. True as it is, the cost is 6000 rupees. I wanted to change money in the airport and was told only available at the arrival hall. So I had to call the admin and had the bill sent to the office instead. That was enough to make me late for check in.

I went to the check in counter and the person told me they had closed the check in counter as I was supposed to be there an hour earlier. Thankfully they allowed me in and asked me not to do it again. I think they used the same lines for everyone who is late...hahaha.

The airport was small and really pathetic. Nothing much there, just a shop selling food and a shop selling sourvenirs. In any case, I didn't really have much time to shop and went to the plane direct. I read the local newspaper and the new airport will be ready by April 2008 with shops, restaurants, wireless network etc.

I also read that Microsoft is going to setup an exclusive university in Bangalore to impart high-end computer education.

That pretty much concludes my adventure in the land of incredible india.

I just need one more day

One more day...i just need one more day. I'm so sad. I want to cry.

A Fairytale

I chanced upon a blog by my friend's friend's cousin's friend some time back and so happen today I went back to the same site again. A little background, the blog is about this girl who lost her fiance on a surprise diving trip he planned for her slightly more than a year back in Malaysia. It's in the papers back then.

Reading the blog brings tears to my eyes. They have not known each other for very long, I think about a year but they have shared so much together. So many trips together, so many fun times together and they even bought a new condo waiting to start their next stage of life. They really lived their life to the fullest, embracing each new day together.

This 5-letter word - Death...a taboo word. I remembered asking my husband what will he do if I died? He turned it around and started telling me if he died, where are all his insurance policies kept and that we bought an insurance for our house so i need not worry having to pay for it and so on.

Frankly, I do not care about the insurance policies you had or having to pay for the house. I know I will be lost. He has been with me for a large part of my life. Someone who came and changed my life (my life is still changing every single day). Life is so vunerable, so unpredictable. It was written that his frens did a scrapbook of him during sec to JC. His fiancee did one from his childhood to the magical moments they shared together and his colleagues did a scrapbook of him as a staff/colleague.

I really wonder... if something happen to us...will people around us bother to do the same? Will they put together their thoughts of us and record the memories we had together? I really don't know.

NDP 07 Rehearsal

Went to NDP 07 rehearsal last saturday. It was really a last minute thing. My sister smsed me in the morning and asked if I wanted to go to the preview.

It didn't occur to me that it shouldn't be a preview until I was on my way there. Preview shouldn't be so early in the month and then I realised its a rehearsal when I reached

Rehearsal means no goodie bag. So sad. The whole event was pretty nice, as it's on marina bay this year, the navy got to show off their mean machines.

I think the highlight of the event was the F16s zooming in the sky. There was only one small little fireworks and not all artistes were around so you see the NS personnel holding cards with their names on the stage. Kind of funny.

Overall, it's still a nice experience.

Desperado...Mummy's Boy....????

This is really interesting. Recently, my hubby needs to hire a new guy for his team and went through the campus hire process.

From the shortlisted list, 95% of the applicants are from China and they hold really good academic and internship experience. Dean's List...Scholar etc.

Anyway, the interesting part is this. After the interviews and aptitude tests, hubby finally decided on one. And yesterday, hubby received a call from a lady and she said she's the mother of one of the applicant who didn't get hired.

She began asking hubby why his son is not chosen, what is the criteria, can hubby help him to look for another job in the company since the company so big, his son needs to vacate his NTU hostel and no where to stay (he's a malaysian) and that she used to appeal successfully for his son to get into the science stream in school so she is appealing now and so on.

I would be so embarassed if my mum did that. I wondered if this guy knew his mum called my hubby or he asked his mum to do that? No one knows.

I was telling my hubby, even if he's capable, I would not want to hire this guy. Imagine if he didn't get a promotion or a raise or a bonus next time, his mum will call up my hubby again and ask a lot of questions.

Lazy Monday

Hubby and I took leave on Monday. We decided to go the PS to catch a movie and at the same time have my McDonald's breakfast. Heehee.

We wolfed down our breakfast in 15mins as we were there pretty late. Before heading back, I wanted to go get the donuts that my friend was talking about from Burlington Square.

It's called Summer House and located at #01-05 at Burlington Square, just opposite Sim Lim Square. There wasn't much variety, the donuts are pretty ok, although I still prefer the ones I got from Bangkok. Yum Yum.

We went back home and guess what? We went back to bed!! Hahahaa...we are a couple of lazy pigs. We slept from around 5pm to 7pm before Hubby had to go for his badminton session. Initially, I thought of asking him to bring me to my mum's plc as my mum's plc is pretty near the place where he had his badminton. In the end, I did not go but stayed at home and do my work.

Teahouse at China Square

We decided to go for the dim sum buffet at teahouse since I have not been there for some time and Hubby wanted to go to Far East Square to look at his transformer toy.

We were there pretty late around 4pm but the place was like half empty. Not a lot of pple. We were told, we need to pay for chinese tea, I must have not been in teahouse for a long time. I thought the tea comes with the buffet?

Then we were told that all the items were on the area near the kitchen, I thought you can either ordered from the menu or take them yourselved previously? Never mind, I looked at the menu and some of the items I wanted were no longer on the menu such as chu chang fen and the luo mi ji (glutinous rice with chicken wrapped in lotus leaf). When I asked, the person said it's now ala carte items.

The varieties had shrink by pretty much and there was practically no service, no wonder they removed the service charge. I think it will be the last time I am going to go to teahouse, I would rather go Hong Xin at Chin Swee.

BBQ

We booked the BBQ pit for hubby's secondary school gathering but it was postponed so we were thinking of asking our friends for a BBQ. After we asked our friends who have agreed, my ILs and rest of the family decided to come over. So we had to tell our friends that we have to postponed the BBQ.

We wanted to go for McDonald's breakfast and bought the BBQ food at the same time but we woke up late and only managed to make it for lunch but not at McDonald's. We were deciding between Lemongrass and Sakae Sushi and finally decided on Lemongrass. We were the only customers in Lemongrass.

The bill came up pretty ok after 30% discount for UOB credit cards. After buying the chicken wings, hotdogs etc, we headed back home and dumped everything into the fridge. I wasn't sure why I felt so tired and I ended up napping until I woke up suddenly realising that I did not buy any prawns. Haha...so we went downstairs to buy some fried bee hoon and fishballs and prawns from the supermart.

That was about 4pm already and we booked the tennis court and pool table for them to play. Eventually they came only at 4.30pm. My niece loved swimming so much that she can spent the whole day at the pool. She even made friends with this eurasian gal who was at the pool with her ang mo father. They were playing and running around the pool. We finally asked her to get out of the pool around 6.30pm as we wanted to start the BBQ already.

No pictures of the BBQ as I was busy BBQing for everyone. Now I must start to think what I should buy for the next BBQ.

My new Coach Bag from USA

I got my new coach bag from USA from my friend last night. As mine is a new model, it was only sold in the boutique instead of the factory outlets.

I never realised it's so big. It's big enough to put my laptop in. Take a look at it yourself.

I also got myself a wallet and the wallet is a bit small. One is too big and one is too small. Hahaha.

What a weekend

My parents, my younger sister and my niece and nephew came over to my place for the weekend because my elder sister went for a vacation to phuket with her hubby over the weekend.

It started to rain very heavily on our way to pick them up but the rain stopped when we reached our place. As the kids are still recovering from flu, my parents don't allow them to swim in the pool.

But I think they were pretty fine with it, running around the house, taking out all my stuff toys and fighting over them.

After reaching home not long, we made our way to the function room in the club house as one of our neighbours (who happened to be our NUS course mate) was having a full month celebration for his baby boy. Met up with the rest of the neighbours and chatted a bit.

After dinner, we proceeded to giant supermart at tampines. The kids loved the outing, running around the supermart and pushing the trolley. I guessed the outing sort of tired them out as they fell asleep shortly after we made our way home.

Started the next day pretty late as the kids were up only about 10am, my mum was quite surprised that they slept till so late as they were usually up about 7am. My parents went exploring the neighbourhood and I asked them to pack lunch for me as my hubby was out attending an indian wedding in the morning.

We were going to go to the airport for 2 things this evening. One was to meet my sister and her hubby who will arrived around 6pm from Phuket and the other was to have father's day dinner with my in-laws and family while waiting for my hubby's sis to arrive from Shanghai about 10pm.

We were slightly late in meeting my sis as the kids were playing in the playground downstairs and my parents had to drag them up and gave them a shower before going to the airport.

I got my sis to buy listerine for me from phuket as the listerine there were much cheaper than singapore. A 750ml bottle costs about S$5 there whereas it costs about S$8.50 here. My sis also bought my favourite seaweed flavour potato chips from Lays. Super good but not found in Singapore. What a waste.

After saying goodbyes to my sister's family and my parents, we went to queue at the soup restaurant because the restaurant doesn't allow reservations for weekend. So there I was queueing at 6.20pm and waited till 7.20pm before I got in and guess what? None of my in-laws or bro-in-law's family reached yet. The lady was trying to get us the table asap and kept telling us the family occupying the table was there for over 2 hours and were still taking their own sweet time. In my mind, I was thinking, never mind..take as long as they want as the people from my side weren't here yet.

I was pretty embarassed as we were supposed to have 10 of us and only 2 of us were there when we got in. We did tell the rest to come at 7.30pm. I did not want to give up the place because there were so many people behind us who have 10 or more pax as well and if we gave it up, we would have to wait again for another hour. At 7.30pm, my in-laws came with my niece. So we called bro-in-law and they were still at home at 7.30pm....we waited and waited....at around 8pm, we called again and they were still at home. The waitresses were like keep popping in to see when they can start serving the food and I was telling my hubby, they must be gossiping that we were exactly like the table previously.

Eventually, I asked that we start eating first and bro-in-law's family only turn up at 8.30pm. By the time we finished, it's already 10pm and they were asking us to foot the bill as they were closing for the day.

We picked up my sis-in-law and then headed home. What an exhausting end to a weekend.

My first McDonald's Birthday Party

My niece held her 5th birthday party at one of the McDonald's restaurant last Saturday. It's the first time I attended a birthday party at McDonald's. It was pretty fun watching the kids playing although the games were a bit lame to my point of view. Hahaha..

But it must really be quite a task to get the children to pay attention to what you said. It's an interesting party.

Time to move on

When you dread getting out of your bed and drag your feet to the office every morning, it's time to move on.

Melbourne Trip

This is my second time to Melbourne but this time is for work. Took SQ business to Melbourne but was not impressed with the seats on the business class. I wanted to have the fish special on the menu but was told they ran out of the fish. What a disappointment.

It was pretty late by the time we checked in and decided to go out for dinner. We walked along the Yarra River and eventually stopped at this italian restaurant for dinner. I had seafood risotto and the portion is really huge. I just polished off the seafood but not the risotto.

Next morning we were off to my office in Melbourne. It was a pretty short ride to the office. Met up with the people and had a really good discussion. Dinner was organised for us that evening and dinner was wonderful. The steaks that my aussie colleagues ordered were really huge. After dinner, we went to a hotel which has a good view of the city skyline for a drink and that concludes the day.

The next day went on pretty well too. We managed to finish everything around lunch and I had the chance to go to the DFO for a walk and bought some stuff. We met up with another colleague in the evening to visit this new tallest building in Melbourne called the Eureka Tower. http://www.eurekatower.com.au/

It's the tallest residential building as well. I can imagine the prices must be pretty high. There's an observation deck on the 88th floor which you have to pay an entrance fee to go up. There is also this portion called the edge which is a glass cube which slides out from the building and you are like hanging in the air in the glass cube. This needs a separate entrance fee as well. They will take your picture and if you want to purchase the picture, it will cost additional as well.

It's a pretty amazing experience to stand on the glass with nothing beneath you, 88 floors down.

The next day I went to walk around Queen Victoria Market but only covered about 1/4 of the market and I have to get back to the hotel to go to the airport.

The flight back was better. It had the spacebed and was more comfortable.

Hong Kong... Hong Kong

Hubby and I decided to take a short trip to Hong Kong. Our initial plan was to go on a cruise but the travel agent said she can't confirm availability of the cruise for us and if we can't get it then they will refund us the money.

To avoid disappointment, we decided on going to Hong Kong instead and since none of us has been there before, we decided to just sign for it. Our package includes air fare on Cathay Pacific, accomodation and a free pair of Disneyland tickets with a meal each in Disneyland. It also includes a trip to ShenZhen and a half day Hong Kong City tour which we didn't want to use it.

A day before we were to depart for Hong Kong, the travel agent called to say the original flight we were supposed to be on was re-scheduled to 6pm. I was pretty shocked but was glad that we were put on a 2nd flight out for the day which is at 10am.

By the time we reached the airport and then to the hotel, it's already almost 5pm. We walked around the area and reached the Langham Place for dinner. I was told the wanton noodle at this place called Ciji restaurant was not bad and went to try it. It was not too bad except the portion was pretty small. Next to the restaurant was a dessert restaurant and we had dessert after that as well...

We walked further on and we hit the ladies market. It's just a stretch of street which I thought will have more stalls but apparently not. We then went to the Avenue of Stars and walked around. It's about 12am when we finished and we took the MTR back to our hotel.

The next morning, we started the day early as we wanted to get to the disneyland as early as possible to avoid the crowd. We bought breakfast along the way to have it there. The resort was just opening when we went in but we were stopped from bringing any food in so I had to come out and finished the food before we go in again.

The disneyland was pretty small. We went through most rides and took a great deal of pictures with the characters. Queues weren't particularly long. We went through most of rides and shows available. Had lunch at one of restaurants that looked like a fast food joint and we used the meal voucher for lunch else it would have cost us about 120HK dollars for fried chicken and a drink.

The parade was held around 3.30pm and it was scorching hot. Both hubby and I got sunburnt from out in the sun the whole day. The fireworks started at 9pm and everything ended around 9.30pm and then it's back to reality...leaving the magical kingdom.

We started the next day pretty on a lazy mood. We went to a restaurant for dim sum and decided to take the star ferry to the other side to take the tram up to the Peak. We boarded the bus thinking it would take us to the tram station but ended up on the Peak instead. Walked around and took some photos and we took the tram down from the peak. Walked past the garden and to the MTR station where we stopped at Mongkok for dinner at a place called Ji Zi Hao for Che Zai Mian. After dinner, we walked all the way to Temple Street Night Market before calling it a night. The temple street night market is much bigger than the ladies market.

And it's back to Singapore the next day...and guess who we saw on the plane back to SG? We saw our neighbour. She's a stewardess for Cathay Pacific but was not on duty. She's on the flight from Dubai and transit in Hong Kong back to Singapore. Such a coincidence.

Lazy times at my place

Had jeri and leanne over at my place today. Jeri was super punctual, arriving at 1pm as scheduled.

I went to get some fried bee hoon and fried mee, some chicken wings, some indian rojak and made dessert (which tasted horrible but hubby insisted on the strange combination).

It was good to see Iain again. He was so cute...always smiling whenever you talk to him. Love him so much...heee. Isn't he adorable?

It was good to catch up again as it's been quite some time since we last gathered together.

After leanne and company left for their dinner appointment, Jeri and I sat down to watch the videos of Leanne's wedding and it's almost 2 years ago. Hahaha.

Time really past by so quickly. Leanne is already a mother and we are all getting older by the seconds....

Picnic and BBQ

Organised a picnic cum BBQ session with my family today at Pasir Ris Park. The weather is cloudy but the ground is damn wet and muddy.

My niece and nephew were having a great time. There were a lot of tadpoles on the puddles of water on the ground and my bro-in-law scooped 2 of them into a container and my nephew was so intrigued by the tadpoles.

They went cycling with my dad and bro-in-law while we set up the BBQ pit. We started early as the weather doesn't look ver favourable. Towards the end of the BBQ at about 6pm, it started to drizzle and not wanting to take any chance, we quickly finished up all the cooking and then back to my place to eat instead.

As today is also my bro-in-law's birthday, we also had a cake for him. All in all, it was really fun.

I can't wait to go home

Yes, I can't wait to go home. After 2 weeks here with meetings and discussions everyday. I am really tired and I really want to go home and not back to a hotel room every night...watching the TV programmes till i fall asleep.

Mandoruam and Keukenhof

Decided to take it easy today and started the day around 10am. First stop, Mandouram which is a mini Netherlands. Took a train to the Den Haag station and board a tram to the venue.

The place was amazing, everything was so real and so cute. You can put in coins to get a sourvenir from a clog-making factory or mars chocolate from a chocolate factory. You can also see the ferries moving, the trains hooting along the railway tracks and even a place preparing to take off at the airport. Had lunch at the cafeteria-sort of restaurant there and headed for my next destination.

Next stop Keukenhof, the famous tulip garden. There were so much flowers and it’s really therapeutic walking around the flowers. I bought some bulbs of flowers (not tulips though, tried tulips last year and they didn't survive). The place is huge and I almost got lost.

The flowers were really beautiful and there were so many species of tulips.

Brussels, Belgium

I signed up for a day trip to Brussels and Antwerp today but I missed the train and I missed the whole day trip…I literally watched the bus left when walking out from the train station to the meeting place. Sigh…that was 50 euros, ok. So I bought myself a train ticket to Brussels and that cost me around 48euros. The whole train journey was 3 solid hours and I thought it’s faster. I later realised I should have taken a fast train but never mind.

Reached the station and was waylaid by these people who is sort of touting…asking you to join the city sightseeing tour. In any case, I joined one as I thought its quite a good way to know generally the places of attractions in a quick way.

The first pic is the Palais Royal de Bruxelles and if the flag is there, it indicated that the King of the Belgians is in the country. The Parc Du Cinquantenaire in the 2nd pic is a public park and consists of 3museums - the autoworld, royal museum of art and history and the museum of army and aviation. Lastly, I stopped at the Atomium which was built in 1958 for the Brussels World Expo. The Atomium, which had been closed to the public since October 2004, re-opened on 18th February 2006 after a much needed renovation work which sees the old aluminium sheets fading off.

I took a ride up to the top level where there is a restaurant as well. It took me 15 mins to queue to go up and 15 mins to queue to go down and just 30 seconds around the circumference of the balls.

I hopped on the bus again and went back to the station. Decided to take the next train, I took a walk around the market and the square. Passed by the St. Michael and Gudula Cathedral which is located at the Treurenberg hill on the edge between lower and upper town. Further down you will walked into a small market place (3rd last pic). Not the famous Grote Markt - Market Square though. Bought some souvenirs, famous Belgium waffles and plenty of chocolates (last pic, the choco from jamin are bought from Amsterdam though). So that concludes my own day trip to Brussels.

Tulip Land

After 14 hours long flight with a crying kid besides me on the plane, I was super tired when I reached the airport on Sunday. Nonetheless, I went to book a day trip out to Belgium this coming saturday.

Hopped on a cab and to the hotel I go. Along the way, I can see beautiful tulips on the fields....so beautiful...there is a tulip field directly in front of my hotel.

Before I continue, the blogspot that I'm using now is all in dutch...cute..

Ok, so after I checked in at 8am, I decided to take a shower and rest. The seminar started on sunday with a social event of getting to know each other and then a bowling session and a sort of hotstones dinner. It had a similar concept like hotstones just that you cooked the meat yourself. It's also similar to the meat fondue I had here in Jan.

I was really feeling the jetlag at dinner time and I can't wait to get back to bed. The weather was pretty warm...hovering around 27 deg cel...which was good weather for the pple here but bad for me as I wanted a more cooling temperature. The sun was so shiny and the room had no air-conditioner so it got pretty warm in the room.


The picture above was taken when I am on the way to the office. Beautiful isn't it? I am going to visit the famous tulip garden this weekend.

I also took this picture of the windmill while stuck in the traffic.

Today was where the real action begins...gone through so many presentations that I am going to be information over-loaded. We ended the day with a nice dinner at a thai restaurant which had pretty much the standard we had back in Singapore.

The weather started to get a bit chilly later in the evening. So I am now in the hotel after returning from the dinner...logging in to check emails....which costs me 10euro an hour for internet connection. It's 11pm here which is 5am back home.

And I just received an sms from my hubby...saying he misses me....heehee

This is what I intend to do

I have decided. I'm going to join a day trip to Brussels and Antwerp from Amsterdam.

Chanced upon this website -> www.viator.com and they have a departure on 21st April.

I am also switching hotels, from Noordwijk to Leiden for the 2nd week.

My new iPod Shuffle

It's so super duper tiny and cute. I got my new iPod Shuffle from Oracle yesterday.

It's not for free as I need to do a survey for them. Ok....I know that's not that too difficult to do...hahaha

My colleague has been passing me songs which can last her for 5.5 days to me. My ipod can just hold 1 GB....need to try to maximise the use of it.

This came just at the right time when I will be away for 2 weeks and I can use it on the plane or on the road...

Pasir Ris Park

While having lunch today with hubby, i stumbled upon the idea of having a picnic.

Actually I have been planning to organise one with LeAnne & Co one of the days. It's been a while since we had one and now with baby Iain as well...it will be fun.

Ok ok....back to what i wanted to say. So I decided that we should go to Pasir Ris Park for a picnic. It was a last minute thing so we didn't really prepare much for the picnic.

We bought some fried bee hoon, had some leftover mei2 cai4, some gyoza I made and I cut some really sweet mangoes I bought 2 days back. So off to the park to we went...

Found a nice spot near the beach and put out our mats. We brought along some magazines but hubby was too pre-occupied with his new gadget...yes...he just bought his new dopod 838 pro on friday. He was meddling with it till 4am this morning before he decided to go to bed.

Men and their gadgets....sigh

We saw this group of 3 girls and 1 guy pitching a really small tent (think the tent is meant for 2 only) somewhere nearby and then came an extended family of malays who built 6 tents directly behind this one tent and sprawl a huge mat just next to the tent for picnics. The 4 people were like squeezing inside the tent. It was an interesting sight. They left not long after the sky turn dark.

Finally, we left around 8.30pm. It was fun....I should consider doing it more often.

Qing Ming

It's the annual Qing Ming Festival....don't ask me what's the real meaning of Qing Ming as I only started this practice when I got married.

We had 3 places to cover this year as usual....Choa Chu Kang, Mt. Vernon and Mandai Crematorium and Columbarium.

Choa Chu Kang is the burial ground so you get to see the tombstones and some really are very fanciful.














The Mt Vernon site, I heard is going to be gone so the family of the deceased are being asked to move the deceased's urns elsewhere.

Mandai is the new guy in town although there is a new and old section to it as well. In there, our former president Dr Wee Kim Wee's urn was placed there as well.

On the left is how the old section of the Mandai Crematorium and Columbarium looked like.

What Should I do???

I have a weekend in Netherlands on 21st april and am thinking of where to go. Dilemma....

Should I stay overnight at a neighbour country or should I just take a day trip or should i just stay in Netherlands??

What should I do? Arghhhh....

Hotspots.Com....Me!!!

Ok, I just discovered I am on this website called www.hotspots.com and i'm featured on the single sites page for asia.

I didn't know it until my friend told me so. This is really strange.

Our 2nd Anniversary

Time really past by so quickly. It's our 2nd wedding anniversay already. I surprised hubby by bringing him to Ritz Carlton for a night stay. It was pretty expensive though as I had requested for a marina bay view room.



There is a 37 inch LCD TV in the room but the resolution doesn't seem that well and it's a sharp AQUOS. Maybe the cable isn't that good. The comfortable bed with lots of pillows...heehee

Selections from their mini bar. They have this really cute candies from their mini bar but costs S$15 each.

We went to this place called Tent - Mongolian Grill Restaurant at Clarke Quay for dinner. They only have buffet dinner at night. The concept is pretty simple, each of us had a token which represent our table numbers with an alphabet suffix.

So you take a big bowl and a small bowl for food and sauce respectively. There are rice, bee hoon, noodles, kway teow etc to choose from and then you move forward to the vegetables section where there are various kinds of vegetables and there's the meat and seafood section where there are prawns, mussels, squids, lamb, beef, fish etc. So you put all these in a big bowl. As for the small bowl, you can choose from over 20 sauces such as black pepper sauce, their house special, sesame oil, satay sauce etc. Give these to the person with the token and they will cook the food and bring them to your table. Attached pic is a concortion of vegetables and squid...yummy

And a very nice night view from the hotel room overlooking marina bay, the skylight of the city and fullerton hotel with part of the esplanade in sight.

Villa Bali

Heard so much about this place called Villa Bali and finally I'm going to go and take a look at the place.

Let's see...they have an indoor and outdoor section. And they have individual huts where you have to spend a certain amount before occupying one. As there are only 3 of us and the only option given by the waitress was indoor, there isn't much choice.

So we settled for a spot in the air-conditioned area, seats are pretty comfy although i hoped for more sofa-like chairs (the bigger tables have huge comfy-looking sofas and cushions as well)

We ordered this white wine from Chile - Limari Valley. It was lovely and sweet aftertaste. We were served this tapioca snack which has a strong lard taste in it. Yucks.

The overall atmosphere of the place is pretty cosy and nice.

Rude Neighbour

I had an unpleasant encounter yesterday and just wanted to get it off my chest. Both hubby and I returned home from my in-law's place last night and after parking our car at the basement of our place, we walked towards the door to the lift.

There was this mother with her son who was walking to the same block as us. I went in first and waited for Hubby while Hubby held the door for them to come in. The mother didn't even say thank you. Never mind....they stood in front of the lift and never even push the button for the lift so I had to push the button myself.

When the lift opened, they just stood at the back of the lift. Hubby then asked which floor they are going and pushed the button for them. Again, no thank you. I was getting really pissed.

Then when we were out of the lift before them, they also didn't want to push the close button but just stood there and waited for the lift to close.

What the @*^*(@*(&%#)%*().&#^&%^&6!!!

I know one should never expect any returns for kindness rendered but to ignore kindness given is simply uncalled for.

Congrats Jeri

I was glad to be part of this wonderful event as we witnessed the exchange of vows between the lovely couple. Frankly, it's the first time I saw the groom (seen his pic a couple of years ago but everyone was so small in that pic) but I knew Jeri will be well-taken care of.

Hubby and I were talking about the wedding later in the day and realised we both felt exactly the same way about Jeri's wedding. We were sharing about how long we have known her (about 11 years I think). Her whimsical ways caught my attention then in NUS where we were studying on the benches outside the Terminal Rooms, going for dinner together when we were mugging for exams and I remembered she was always so jovial.

We had fun times together even after graduation...going on picnics and even clubbing together.

Through the years we have seen her "grow" and have witnessed the things and relationships that she had gone through. And finally yesterday, we seen her moving on to another stage of her life. To me, I felt as if I am marrying my daughter...felt so happy and proud for her.

I'm truly happy for you, girl. May you always be surrounded with love.

(No pics as I realised I looked terrible in the pics I took with my camera phone...hahahaha)

Most Embarassing Moment

I had my most embarassing moment last evening. I was in a shop trying on a new dress. The zip refused to go down when I tried to remove the dress. So I was like struggling inside for a long while before I smsed my hubby to come in to the fitting room. He tried hard and still can't get it to move so eventually he called in the sales person.

She can't get it to move as well and called for another sales person to help. So there I was half naked with 2 sales ladies trying to unzip me. The thing was the zip did not catch on any part of the dress but it just refused to move.

In the end, the sales lady had to destroy the dress by cutting the part with the zip. I felt so bad that they had to destroy the dress that I bought the dress ( a new one ). And I was the last customer in the shop. They closed at 10pm and I was there till 10.25pm. They had very good service attitude though, I didn't want to try on the other dress as it was already late but the lady said it's ok and even helped me with the new dress. Thumbs up for the service which is ever so needed in the retail business of Singapore.

Last but not least, the shop is called Club Marc at Vivocity. Cheers for the good service.

Carnivore Night Out

Had a sudden craving for meat so decided to head down to the Carnivore Brazilian restaurant in VivoCity. Ala carte menu only available from 6pm - 7pm so we had to settle for the buffet dinner which costed us $34+++ per pax. Wanted to have Japanese food actually but Hubby going for Jap dinner this evening with his colleagues so decided to have meat instead..heehee

The salad buffet was not bad, like the spicy eggplant, the pasta and vegetables. We were waiting so long for the meat to appear that we had to ask the waiter to get the "meat" man to come..hahaha.

First up: chicken hearts...not my favourite but I tried. It tasted better if I ate it with other vegs. Second was roast beef...a lot of fats but it was tender. Then came another beef (I can't catch what the guy was saying), it's not bad too. Then it was lamb which I didn't like. Then chicken followed by some pineapple, then chicken breast in bacon, tenderloin in bacon and lastly we had beef ribs.

It was nice but it was too filling ....

New Baby....

Was told that my friend had just given birth to a baby boy this morning and visited her during lunch just now.

It was an emergency caesarean as the blood sugar in my friend's body is quite high and the doctor was worried it might affect the baby. Thank God the baby is healthy and well. The baby weighs 2.88kg and is so small. I was so worried when I was carrying him just now.