Dying Art

It's been quite some time since I last saw this kind of traditional chinese opera. This was part of some chinese deity birthday celebration.

Although it's quite sad that this form of art is dying out but really...i don't think the young people or for that matter my generation knows how to appreciate such art form.

But it's still nice to just stand and watch and look at their costume etc

Subaru Challenge

Happened to be at Ngee Ann City on Saturday and realised it's the first day of the Subaru WRX Challenge. Look at the number of people there.

Coincidentally, we decided to go to the Subaru Showroom to take a look at the new Legacy. When we reached there, the physical car is not there but saw a lot of the sales people just lounging around. We approached the counter and asked if we can see the car. The lady replied in a nonchalant manner saying they are shorthanded (but the sales people are doing nothing) and if we want, just hang around till someone is free to take us to the car as the car is located upstairs and needs access card to go in and went back to her computer.

Don't you find that a very rude behavior for someone at the customer service counter? Even if those sales people do not have any access to the room upstairs where the car is located, the counter lady should at least ask someone to accompany us till access is being granted. The sales person could give us a brochure or something. She just brushed us off like this.

Don't think I will even consider a subaru now.

Virgin Attempt

At making yam dessert with gingko nuts. Not that difficult a dessert to make just that you need to constantly stirring it. Success. Thinking of the next dessert to make.

It's almost 3 months!!!

It's been almost 3 months since I last blogged. Baby Elisha has grown up fast and is now able to sit for a while before sliding down the chair...hahahaha. I am training her to push her neck up when putting her on her tummy.

She's been pretty naughty recently, refusing to sleep at night and keeps screaming till about 2- 3am. She was sleeping well before (like 11pm through 7am) and suddenly a mth back, she started crying and refused to sleep.

Hopefully, it's just a temporary stage and she will go back to normal sleeping pattern soon. My elder sis is going on a bangkok trip end of Nov and my younger sis is going on her bangkok trip during christmas period. But I can't go for any trip now as Elisha is still so young. Actually it's our parents who will nag if we want to bring him overseas.

Tune in for more updates...when I have to time to write, that is.

Finally

Finally, I have some time to write something.

It's been a whirlwind 2 weeks for me since the birth of my little princess.

Let's see...where shall I start....

I will start from the day I admitted myself into the hospital. With my previous history, my gynae advised me to do an induction from week 39. So I decided to choose the date 07/07 because it's easy to remember and even if the date format is MMDD or DDMM, its still the same...hahaha. But the flipside is, we can't have the surprise element of having waterbag burst and hurrying to the hospital.

I went into the hospital on 6th night around 10.30pm. Upon checking in, the nurse came and did the admission for me asking me a series of questions etc. Finally, the nurse inserted some pill in me to soften the cervix. Before inserting, the nurse already mentioned that my cervix had soften so the whole process will be pretty fast.

I couldn't sleep the whole night...maybe because I was too excited, wondering what will it be like the next day...anxious about being a mom finally or is it because the bed is really not comfortable for me. I was like walking around the room the whole night and thus making hubby unable to sleep as well.

I asked for a single room when checking in but was told the single room was fully occupied so they had me in a converted single room which is in fact a 2-bedded room but I will be the only occupant. Which is good because the room is bigger, there are 2 LCD TVs each for us and my hubby got to sleep on an actual bed instead of a sofa bed.

Around 4am, I started to feel some tightness in my tummy...I was wondering and wondering if I should call the nurse in. But since it will be another few hours before I will be pushed to the delivery suite, I decided to just "sleep" and wait.

Around 5.30am, I decided to go and take a shower and washed my hair. God knows when is the next time I can do that..hahaha

Then around 6am, the nurse came in and gave me something to make me poo.She asked me to wait 5 - 10mins before I go toilet but within 3 minutes, I couldn't hold it any longer and ran to the toilet. That was fast...remind me to get it if I had constipation next time. Heehee

Around 6.30am, the nurse came and asked me to get ready and we took a lift down to the delivery suite.

So while waiting for the anaesthetist to come, we just sat and watched the news on TV while they put the monitoring devices on me.

The anaesthetist came around 7.30am and administered the epidural for me. They started me on such small dosage that

I feel no difference. Still felt the pinch my hubby gave me..hahaha

So after that, I had to lie on the bed and we watched the news again for the next one hour before my gynae came.

The gynae came around 8.30am to poke my waterbag and found that there is meconium. This is not too good cos' if baby

swallows the poo, it might affect his lungs. So the gynae said, it was good that we decided to induce instead of waiting till

full term. What was worrying is that if the induction didn't work, the baby might go into distress and with the meconium, it does not bore well. By that time, I was 3 cm dilated.

The gynae said he will come back 4 hours later to check on me as statistically it took about an hour to dilate 1 cm. ABout 15mins later, the nurse told my hubby that his breakfast is waiting for him upstairs and so hubby went up to take his breakfast. Shortly after he left, I started to feel pain. I paged the nurse and asked her to increase the dosage. The nurse told me it will take 15-20mins for the next dosage to take effect...so i waited....after 15mins, the pain intensifies instead of subsiding. I paged the nurse again and this time the midwife came in and told me...this time round, it will take 20-30mins for the epidural to take effect.

Ok...this is not too good...I paid for something which is not relieving my pain at all. Thank God, I still managed to endure the pain with breathing exercises. The midwife then checked and found that I was 7-8cm dilated. That's fast for a supposedly 4 hour wait. She started unpacking the stuff needed for the delivery and I was thinking oh no...will Philip missed the birth of her daughter while happily munching on his breakfast upstairs...

Thank God, he came in around 9.20am and was surprised to see the midwife unpacking all the stuff. I told him I am feeling a lot of pain. So he was there holding my hand, helping me with the breathing exercises by letting me know when is the next contraction coming. The midwife did another check and I was 9cm dilated. She quickly phoned my gynae and told him I will deliver soon and then called the PD.

She asked me to push every time I felt pain and so I did. Strangely, when I pushed, I don't feel that much pain. In any case, when the gynae arrived, he could see the head of the baby and asked me to stop pushing. He quickly put on his gown and prepared everything and then together with the PD, both of them are cheering me on to push. Within 2 - 3 pushes, I delivered my baby girl at 10.07am.

It was a short labour to the surprise of everyone, including my gynae and the anaesthetist. He kept saying his epidural couldn't catch up with my contractions.

It was such a strange experience, seeing the baby that is inside you for the past 10 months in person. They cleaned up

the baby and we started to take some photos. Then the baby is whisked off for further checks as they fear she might have

swallow the meconium.

I was told to lie on the bed till they released me. So it was more news on the TV for me again. I think I was there till around 1.30pm before they pushed me back to my ward.

Soon after they pushed the baby back to me and seeing her for the first time, it was just so amazing. Well...the eveing and next day were spent entertaining friends, colleagues and family members. Thanks to all my friends and colleagues who brought so much blessings in gifts and congratulatory messages to us and our baby.

Then it was feeding time for the baby...hmmm...i paged for a lactation consultant to teach me how to breastfeed the baby. Thereafter, the first 2 times were pretty successful, after the 3rd time, it started to get real painful. Still I had to let her latch on. It was such a painful experience.

Back home, my MIL and Mum kept commenting is it because I have not enough to feed the baby, that's why she was crying all the time etc. The comments just kept repeating themselves many times a day that I was really feeling the stress and almost wanted to give up. Thank God that hubby was very supportive and stood by me all the time.

It's been 2 weeks since our princess was borned. My mlik supply has increased and I was glad I persisted. However, breastfed baby tends to get hungry easily as breastmilk is easily digestible so I had to feed a lot of times a day. In the first week after she came back, she developed jaundice and we had to send her back to the hospital for "spa" treatment aka phototherapy for 2 days. During those 2 days, they fed her formula and my expressed milk when I brought to the hospital the next day.

I gave her formula milk about twice a night so that she can sleep longer and I can sleep longer too...heee. During the times when she was awake drinking formula milk, I would be expressing my milk for her the next day. In this way, I can also track how much she is drinking.

So that's about sums up what has been going on for the past month or so. Tune in again....when I have the time to blog

Been a long time....

Been quite a while since I last posted. I can't even remember what happened in the past one month...hahaha....hmmm...is it a case of amnesia due to pregnancy...hahaha

Did a scan on my 32 weeks plus and baby is 2kg...good weight i suppose. My gynae recommended that I go for induction from week 38 onwards as he is worried that with my prev history of high blood pressure, it might not be good for the baby.

So now I have about one month before the big day. Did some shopping and I think I have like gotten most of the things required.

Sleep has been a big problem these days....it's so difficult trying to turn when I sleep. I know i'm supposed to sleep on my left side but sometimes I just need to turn and stretch a bit. I am still doing my prenatal yoga class and hopefully that will prepare me for the natural birth.

Gynae said if the induction was unsuccessful or if my pelvic is not suitable to deliver the baby then I need to do a c-section. I was praying that I could do a natural birth then I won't need to suffer that much pain and I can do my post-natal massage as well.

So now...the waiting game begins and counting down to the big day where we will see our little angel...heee

Interesting 3 days

I attended a 3 days course which ended yesterday and it was really interesting (not exactly talking about the course but the people I met through the course) and the food is fantastic too. Heee

I met someone who is currently working in the same company as I did years ago. And I also met someone who is from Interpol. I don't think I have ever met anyone from Interpol before. He is a Singaporean but based in Interpol HQ in France. Being the curious me, I started asking him about Interpol and his life in France. It sounds interesting. Maybe I should go and look for a job in Interpol...hahaha.

You know the movie - The International where Clive Owen starred as an Interpol agent. It was shot at the Interpol office in France.

There are also several interesting characters in the class and we discussed about politics, education and everything under the sun.

Family Gathering

Decided to do a BBQ cum Min buffet at my place on Saturday and asked my family as well as hubby's family for the big gathering.

I don't recall I ever had a gathering like this except during my wedding. Hubby and I started the day with a nice lunch at the East Coast Park Lagoon Hawker Center. Wanted to try the pig's trotter after watching the show on TV. Well....hubby already tried it before and he finds that it's nice but I find that it's ok only.

Then we proceed to Tanjong Katong where we bought satays, ketupat, charcoal, wire mesh and firestarter for the BBQ. Yes, we are only BBQ-ing the satays...hahaha. I decided not to go full fledge BBQ cos' it will definitely take a long time trying to BBQ for so many people and the kids and old folks will definitely be hungry already. So I ordered a mini-buffet from a caterer.

We booked a few facilities including the tennis court and billard room. All of them came around 3.30pm. So my in-laws went to to play billard while my nephew, sis-in-law n bro-in-law went to play tennis. And what are the kids doing? Of course they will be at the pool...kids just love the pool.

It started to drizzle around 5pm and everyone had to go back up to my place instead. Half an hour later, the buffet person called and I directed the person to the BBQ pit next to the pool. It started to drizzle again around 6pm...thank God it stopped 10mins later. The food is ok to me but the rest think it's pretty good. I think I am having a weird tastebud.

The kids are having a ball of a time at the playground next to the BBQ pit. It's amazing how fast kids can make friends with each other. After the BBQ, all of us proceed back to my place to chat.
Not long after, everyone started to leave as the kids are tired.

After they left, it's work for us. We vaccuumed the place and mop the floor. Washed the toilets etc. It was not as bad as I thought it would be...logisitics-wise. I hope everyone had a good time.
And we are left with a lot of left-overs...hahaha

Teppanyaki....Shopaholic....Birthday.....

Had a belated celebration for our anniversary as hubby is not free on the actual day. So we took half a day off so that we can go and have lunch and movie together.

Had lunch at Sakae Teppanyaki at PS. The food is not bad....although I wished the set comes with fried rice and the veg should be cooked a little longer. Makes me think of the 50Euro teppanyaki I had in Netherlands...yum yum...expensive but its good. I had it 3 times in total...of course over a period of 2 years...hahaha

Decided to watch Confessions of a Shopaholic after that and well....the show did not meet my expectations. I thought there will be more fashion and buying but it got a bit slow and I almost fell asleep (maybe it's the lunch...I don't know).
After the show, we went for a little coffee and then it's to my mum's place for dinner. As it's her birthday and my niece's birthday so we went up to have dinner and cutting of the birthday cake.

As the baby was kicking me quite frequently, I actually asked my niece to put her hand on my tummy and see if she can feel the baby moving and she really felt it. She ran out of the room telling everyone that she can feel the baby moving. So cute. Then my nephew came in and tried to see if he can feel it too but too bad, the baby decided not to move for him. Haha.

What's in a week?

Went for hi-tea at sheraton towers on sunday to celebrate my mum's and niece's birthday. Well...as I can't take any raw stuff...I can't touch the salmon sashimi. So sad. But I don't find the variety any good.

I am now looking for some mini buffet as I am organising a gathering of the 2 families (my family and my in-laws at my place for a BBQ in April) Planning to have a mini buffet and a mini BBQ as I think it's will be quite a long wait to get BBQ food cooked and to feed 15 adults and 4 kids. I think it's going to be fun.

Met up with a secondary friend last friday for dinner and coffee. Been such a long time since I met up with any friends.

Baby has been kicking more this week. Sometimes when the baby is not kicking, I would get paranoid and starts to pat my tummy. Hahaha. The instructor at the parentcraft class told us that babies have emotions too and sometimes they are also too lazy to move or just want to rest.

Sometimes the baby kicks or punches so hard that I will go oooohhhh. So funny. I am still attending my pre-natal yoga lessons. The instructor will be away for a holiday the whole of April so I am thinking should I continue the class at somewhere else or wait for her to come back. But the exercise does help in the relieving the backpain for a day or two.

Had the scan today at my gynae. It was a long wait. Finally saw my baby darling again. She has grown so much...double her weight since last visit. She weighs about 730g now. I can feel her kick twice during the scan. Doc asks me to keep my blood pressure and diabetes in check else I might need to induce the baby around 32 - 36 weeks. My blood pressure has been very good...even better than hubby. Diabetes control depends largely on my diet...if I am naughty then my blood sugar will go up..hee.

So far, everything seems to be within normal range so it's good. Baby is doing fine and I am looking forward to seeing her again next month. The best part is I only gain about 200g since my last visit and that makes a total gain of about 3kg in total. I amazed myself. I guess it is also partly due to my diet for diabetes control, lesser carbo and sugar stuff.

So angry

I was pretty pissed off with a comfort cab driver and the taxi operator yesterday. I made a booking for a cab to the lobby of my place.

I went down and found no cab so I called the hotline. The operator after checking with the cab driver (I assumed as I was put on hold) told me to wait at the guardhouse for the cab to arrive.

I started to get pissed off when I heard that. Why would I want to go to the guardhouse and wait for the cab when I made a booking? I might as well go out and flag down a cab myself. Not wanting to waste time as the cab was like 15mins late, I walked out to the guardhouse.

The cab driver didn't even apologise for being late. Along the way, the driver drove in a really dangerous manner which caused me much stress throughout the whole journey. First up, he was driving in parallel with this mitsubishi lancer on the right most lane. I was thinking, there was no car in front of the cab nor the lancer, if he wanted to overtake, it's a pretty simple thing to do.
But he didn't, he just kept driving parallel to the car and staring at the car driver. And he would accelerate and brake (or releasing his accelerator) and made the whole journey so jerky.

After this incident, he did the same thing with other cars. He would turn his whole head to look at the drivers of the cars to the left and right on a highway....I really have no idea what he was doing. He didn't even like focus on the road in front but turned his head left and right for God knows what reasons.

I was so glad when the journey finally ended else I would be so stressed and giddy. This is bad for baby....relax...relax....

Home-Vacation

Actually wanted to drive to Malacca and KL over the weekend and had already taken leave.

But doc advised me not to walk too much so I decided not to go ahead with the trip but took the trip in Singapore instead. Hubby was saying it was such a strange feeling.

We actually booked a hotel room in Meritus Mandarin for 3 nights. So funny,right?

So all we did during those 4 days were laze in bed, watched TV programmes, go makan, go movies..hahahaha

Strangely, I only gained 100g throughout these 4 days. I guess it was because I had diarrhoea on Thursday and Friday morning. I even vomitted. Not sure if its the food from the wedding dinner I went to on Wednesday night.

The pain was excruciating and I was so worried it might cause contractions. Thank God, everything was well.

And yah, we went to the IT show on Sunday. It was a hit and go kind of stuff...in and out in 15mins...heehee.

Saw 2 of my ex-colleagues there as well. This is the first time I saw the huge crowd for the IT show. Look at the picture...amazing. That was only at 12.15pm...15 mins after the show opened. I heard it got worse. What recession are we talking about here? The earnings even went up this year as reported.

It's a girl

Had a detailed check today and the baby's gender is a girl. So happy...
I can imagine all the cute and lovely clothes I can buy for her..hahaha

It was quite a scary experience initially....mostly because of my past experiences.
I was praying hard the night before....praying that the baby will be healthy and well.

I was like concentrating hard on the baby's brain when they are scanning her skull and brains. I was praying I won't see the same thing again. Then the attention went to heart....the sonographer spent quite some time on the heart and I wasn't breathing at all. I was so scared something might happen to her heart. She stood up and mentioned she need to get the Prof in. I can tell you, for that moment, I almost feel like breaking into tears. The last time that happened one of my babies was diagnosed with excessive fluid in the brain.

The prof came in and started off with the sentence - your 12th week scan was perfect. I was like....you mean it's no good this time round. He went on to scan the brain and started explaining the measurements etc. Thank God, he was just trying to reassure us that everything is fine. He then tells me that he needs to check on more things to ensure that everything is ok because of my previous incident.

He also asked me not to walk too much as it might trigger off contractions and scheduled me for the next visit. Then he said our baby has long legs. Cool.

And i can feel baby moving quite a lot recently...it can get pretty uncomfortable at times but I rather I can feel it else I will become paranoid if I can't feel her movement.

Thank God for this wonderful gift and I know He will see us through this pregnancy and gave us this gift.

Happy Valentine's Day

This is the second Valentine's Day that I spent being pregnant. What an interesting thought. Anyway, this year we are checking in to the Ritz Carlton for Valentine's Day. Before you think it's such an extravagant thing to do.....let me tell you....the stay is FOC...hahaha

I got a free hotel stay voucher when I attended the Mariott Vacation Club thing last year and was trying to see if I could use it for the Valentine's Day and I can.

We went to Isetan at Scotts first to see if I could get the thermal magic pot thing and saw that it was selling at half-price now and i still have a S$20 voucher so in the end, it was quite worthwhile to get the pot. I am not sure what happened when I was in Isetan but suddenly I am out of breath and I felt really giddy and I can tell you if I did not manage to sit down in time, I would have fainted. Both my hands were numb and I was perspiring cold sweat. It was terrible. After a short rest, I finally felt better.

Then we made our way to Ritz Carlton and what greeted me shocked me. The queue to check in was so long. Talk about economic crisis, but maybe they have vouchers for free stays as well..hahaha. You see couples and families queuing up and the staff there kept serving drinks to those in the queue. I was asked 3 times if I wanted to sit and wait instead of joining the queue with Philip which I declined politely. I think we stood in queue for about 45mins before we finally reached the check-in counter.

They did not have a ready room for King size bed but offered to give us an upgraded room to a marina bay view room instead of the kallang bay view room hat comes with the voucher but with twin beds instead. I was so tired by then that I don't want to wait another 2 hours for my room so decided to just take the room.

It was exactly like the one I stayed in 2 years back for Philip's birthday. So I didn't bother to take any photos of the room. We brought along 3 DVDs to keep us occupied for the stay.

Initially we wanted to order room service but when we tallied the total cost, it would cost us like S$250. Then we decided maybe we could try their buffet in the restaurant but there are oysters, raw salmon which I can't take now so we decided it's better to go out and eat. We went over to Millenia Walk and decided on Outback Steakhouse as Philip wanted to have steak. But we are faced with yet another long queue. So in the end, we went over to this Japanese restaurant called Raku-zen. The food is pretty good and reasonable.

We had lunch instead the next day at Outback Steakhouse and Philip got to have his steak although he said it's not too good. As we had late checkout till 4pm, we lazed around the room till it was time to check out. The checkout was super fast. And I even got the complimentary parking coupon which otherwise will cost us almost S$30 for the parking.

And that concludes our Valentine's weekend. Looking forward to the next one where we can spend with our little baby.

CNY 2009

Just a month after the Christmas and here comes the Chinese New Year.
This CNY is pretty quiet for me as I opt not to go for any visitations this year also because I do not want relatives to ask me where is my baby.

So I only went to my parent's place and parent's-in-law's place on the first day of new year. We visited my in-laws first and when they left to go for visitations then I adjourned to my parents place.

On the 2nd day, we just stayed at home and watched DVDs. We actually rented 4 DVDs before the CNY...hahaha.

I took leave on the 3rd day and went out for lunch with my Uni fren who came back for CNY from Zurich and at the same time met another Uni fren who is also in town for the CNY from California.

So it was a pretty relaxing CNY for me this year...no stress....less tired and less ang pows to give...hahahaha

How fragile life is....

I chanced upon a particular blog one day (when I was reading another person's blog) and after reading the blog, it makes me really ponder upon the fragility of life.

The blog talks about a young woman who faced life ever so positively after she discovered she had stage 3 cervical cancer. She was quite a high-flier too...becoming a branch manager at age 25 and drove a Saab. She also appeared in an article in the new paper on 4th Jan. Sadly, she passed away on boxing day last year at the age of 30 just 6 months after she was disgnosed with the cancer.

I don't think I will ever be so positive like her since all along I have been quite a pessimist. She never once complained about the pain she gone through with all the radio frequency treatments, chemotherapy and several kidneys and what sort of procedures she had to undergo. In fact, she even made jokes out of them.

It's heartwarming to see her facing life with such energy but alas her life is so short-lived. I know she is with God now, watching over all her friends and family. And I will pray for her family and friends who grieve for their loss.

If you have the time, you can read about her
http://shandysim.blogspot.com

It's been quite a while....

It's been quite a while since I last blogged about anything.

What has been happening these few months....hmmm.....work is still the same as usual.
The economic crisis seems to be getting worse, many people are getting retrenched.
A couple of my friends have given birth to their 2nd babies.

Tried to have a bbq at my place with my friends but it rained so I had to cook all the food in the kitchen. I am pretty happy that I managed to get all the prawns, sotong, chicken etc cooked in an hour's time. After that we played wii...we played the most stupid games but had great fun.

Had christmas gathering at my in-law's place and we played cluedo...that was an old old boardgame but my first time playing it. Then we opened presents so it was quite fun.

Went for a buffet lunch at the pearl orient palace at suntec. My mum offerred to pay for the lunch to "celebrate" the return of her dentures. Her dentures were out of action for a long 3 months and she really suffered not being able to feast on great food...hahaha.

I am a year older now....and my niece drew me a birthday card impromptu style when I was at my mum's place for dinner a few days before my birthday. That was really sweet of her.

My sister returned from her holiday at HCM and raved about the food there. Maybe I should go there one of these days. I bet she will like cambodian food as well if she were to go to Cambodia.

Last but not least, I am pregnant. When I did the home urine test kit, I couldn't believe it so I did another one just to confirm. Both turned out to be positive. At that moment, I was happy but only for a moment cos' the fear starts creeping in thereafter. I started to think will the same thing happen to me again? Will I lose my baby again?

I know it's not good to have negative thoughts but I guess it's pretty inevitable considering you had the bad experience before. This pregnancy is also pretty bad. Nausea feeling lasts whole day and I feel sick most of the time. Can't get out of bed on a lot of occassions. Walked for a while and I will start to feel sick and out of breath.

Now I can only pray that everything will be fine and I will have a smooth delivery and a healthy baby.

Beautiful Bali...Again

This is our second visit to Bali. Decided to do this after the Angkor Wat trip to rest and relax. This time round we stayed at the Jimbaran region.

We booked a villa with a private pool with this villa called The Jimbaran villa - http://www.thejimbaranbalivilla.com/. The villa was much smaller than I thought it would be and the pool is also very small but nonetheless, its pretty private. It also has this open concept shower area. I think the 2 or 3 bedroom units will have a bigger pool.

We were told that the beach is 5 mins away if you cut across the hotel intercontinental which is directly opposite us. But we were told that we can't do that as the security might not allow us in. So its a pretty long walk to the beach. We had seafood dinner at this place which is recommended by people on the internet. We had a kg of fish, half a kg of tiger prawns, half a kg of squid and they will throw in stir fried veg and rice. We also ordered 2 beers. The total cost is only about S$31.50. Cheap right and the food is nice.

Breakfast was served in our villa every morning so we had to make our orders the previous day. We started the next day only in the late morning and got a free shuttle service to the beach from the villa. It was terribly hot and we walked to the four seasons resort which is not very far from where we dropped off at the beach.

After which we had lunch at one of the seafood restaurants along the beach. We decided to have local fare instead of seafood and ordered nasi goreng and mie goreng. After lunch, we took a dip at the pool in our villa and I spent the afternoon reading by the pool.

We started the next day early as we booked ourselves on a one day tour around Bali. Started the day at 8.30am and our first stop was at a batik making place, the person explained how they actually make the batik etc. Ended up buying 2 batik shirts for my dad and my FIL. It's not cheap...each shirt costs S$40+.

Next stop we went to a silver and gold making place and you can see the people soldering the silver onto the jewellery and I ended up buying a silver frangipani flower ring for USD29. At this rate, I can feel I'm going broke soon.Haha. We went to an art place in Ubud and you can see the painter doing a traditional balinese painting in just black colour on the canvas.The place housed a lot of paintings and some paintings can go up to several thousands USD.

After which, we went to a place where they grow and sell coffee.We sampled their coffee and teas and even had the famous luwak coffee which we need to pay extra for. Its USD100 for 100g only. We saw the luwak cat who eat the coffee beans and then poo them out again so we can enjoy the famous luwak coffee. But seriously, the coffee does taste better.

We went to this volcano called Mount Kintamani where there is this lovely lake next to the volcano. We had a buffet lunch at a restaurant that overlooked the volcano. Nice. While on our way to Tanah Lot, we also passed by this lovely rice terraces. I was actually looking forward to Tanah Lot after hearing reviews of how beautiful the place is but when I reached there, I couldn't really find anything to be wowed about.

We decided to make our way to Uluwatu temple which is like 1.5hours away to see the sunset. But it rained heavily when we reached there so we had to give it a miss. On the way back, I wanted to eat Babi Guling and the guide stopped at a local restaurant and we had babi guling and beers and spent the time chatting. Our guide is really chatty and has a lot of friends around the world.

After a hard day of sightseeing, we booked ourselves some spa treatment the next day. I booked a 5.5 hours spa treatment consisting of body scrub, massage, facial, yogurt wrap, milk bath, hair cream treatment and mani and pedi.It only costs USD48. Had a really good time at the spa and the place even do complimentary pickup and dropoff.
We told the driver to drop off at the beach area for dinner and the driver dropped us off at the Kedonganan beach which we have no idea where it is but there are seafood restaurants there as well. It's dark and we didn't know where we were so we decided to just eat there and get the driver to bring us back to the villa thereafter. The seafood dinner which consists of fish, king prawns and mussels with complimentary veg, rice, welcome drinks costs nearly S$90. Wow, the next day we were talking to our driver where we had dinner and he told us that that is the expensive seafood area. But the person at the restaurant told us if we go back next time with a large group, he will come up with a special package for us. The other thing is that most restaurants in this beach has a stage for balinese performances where you can even go up and take a photo with thereafter.

Before leaving for the airport the next day, we had lunch at a local roadside eating place and had their traditional meals which is something like our local veg + rice. Then we did some sourvenir shopping before checking in at the airport. And that is the end of our holidays. Time to go back to reality.

Angkor Wat - Temple City

Have been putting off travelling to visit Angkor Wat for the longest time because the thought of having to walk around the temple makess us feel that it's going to be a tiring trip. Finally decided to do it as I heard they might close off the temple for restoration cos too many tourists there are spoiling the architecture. It is also the UNESCO world heritage site.

Got on to silkair website and saw a pretty good bargain for the tickets at $S298 with taxes and bought the tickets. Next, I went on to search for hotels in Siem Reap. Found a reasonably good one called Prince D'Angkor at S$80 per night. It's supposed to be the low season thus the cheaper hotel rates. Decided to go online and search for a reliable guide to take us to the temple and the booking was made. Everything was booked and then it is the counting down to the day.

The day finally arrived and when we arrived at the airport, we decided to have lunch in T3 transit area and took the skytrain to T3. After walking around for a while, we decided to have lunch at Imperial Treasure. Soon, it was time to board the plane. We sat in the second row from the back and the flight was pretty empty. Food served was quite ok.

Upon departing from the airport, I could see my name clearly in the airport transfer that I booked. The person told us that he had to be there early else someone would use my name and snatched me away although I am wondering how would the person know my name.

Anyway, the driver is a pretty young chap and was driving at such a snail speed that I wondered how long will the 10 mins drive took. The driver even recommended us a local restaurant at the famous old market area. The hotel is well-hidden from the main road and I don't even realise that there is an hotel there. The hotel looks ok, our room is on the first floor and that means no lift access and we need to use the stairs (lobby is groundfloor) which may be difficult for those who have big bags.

Our room faces the pool and has a balcony which we didnt make use of at all. The room is big and bathroom is pretty clean as well. We decided to take a walk outside and will attempt to find the restaurant recommended by the driver. We got some directions and a map from the reception and started walking out. Along the way, there are many massage shops (very similar to those in bangkok) and the people who tried to get you to use their services sound exactly like those in bangkok/phuket/krabi.

We reached the pub street area and was greeted with lights and sounds that jazzed up the whole place. We past by the famous dead fish tower and the red piano. The roads there are closed every night just for tourists. Just as we were about to give up trying to look for the restaurant, we turned the corner and saw the restaurant.

We tried their famous amok fish (taste like green curry of thailand but its not that sweet and its not made of coconut), sour soup (like tom yum goong but not spicy), some fried vegetables and beer. It costs us USD13 for the meal. A short walk and we landed in the night market. A bit like suam lum night bazaar in bangkok kind.

We started the next morning very early as we tried to catch sunrise at Angkor Wat. The driver came together with our guide (our guide couldn't make it as he is still occupied in Phomn Penh so he sent his brother here) at around 5am. There are other groups waiting at the lobby with their guides and all ready to make that trip to the temples.

After buying the tickets, we enter the temple. It was so dark that I couldn't see the surroundings at all and I had to use a torchlight. The day was pretty cloudy so there wasn't much of sunrise to see. So we went back to the hotel around 6.30am for breakfast before meeting our guide at 8.30am to continue our adventure in the temples.

Angkor Wat is just one the temples on the whole area. The place is simply too huge and consists of so many temples, sculptures, carvings etc. Our guide carefully explained the stone carvings on the temple walls which unfolds a story of the ancient wars between the different reigns of kings and emperors. You can see evidence of Thai influences because they were once invaded by Thai which is why the name Siem Reap. Siem - an ancient name of Thailand in Khmer and Reap means defeat and together it means Thailand was defeated. There is also the french influence after being colonised by the French in the 19th century.

The guide took us through the various temples and explains the rich history behind the temples. You can feel the magnificence of the place when it is in its glorious days. You can also find a lot of cambodian kids near the temples peddling stuff like guide books, fridge magnets, post cards etc. They can speak very fluent english and some even spoke in mandarin to me. I was told that we should not get anything from them else they would think it's easier to earn money like this and refused to go to school.

We stopped for lunch at a local restaurant near the temple and had the local fare as well but this time round, it costs us USD22. After lunch, we continued our journey to Ta Phrom where the first Tomb Raider was shot. You can see a lot of tourists trying to take pictures there. As the day past, I can feel tiredness settling in. Finally, we ended around 4pm after a shopping trip to the center market where we bought some sourvenirs and an oil painting of the Angkor Wat. We signed up for an apsara (known as celestial beings in their culture) dance and buffet dinner that evening. The dancers are all quite pretty especially one of them with big round eyes and a lovely smile. The buffet was so-so only.

The next day was a relaxing one. Started the day late and went around the old market. The old market only operates during the day. It's like our wet market in Singapore where they sell vegetables, live produce etc. There's even makeshift stalls on the cement floor where I saw a stall selling shoes next to a stall selling fish. Interesting sight. After more shopping, we went back to the hotel to have a nap before going out for dinner. We had dinner at this place called Angkor Palm near the pub street and the owner seemed to be a local chinese as he spoke to us in Mandarin and showed us the website he is surfing which is on his restaurant reviews. Apparently, his restaurant is listed in the lonely planet as well.We tried the angkor platter at his restaurant which consists of honey ribs, vegetables, fresh spring roll (like vietnamese paper rice spring roll). It was not too bad. I guess overall I quite like the food in Siem Reap.
That more or less conclude our trip to the ancient city. I must appeal to all to help to preserve the temple and do not attempt to take any piece of the place home with you.

The uploading of pictures to the site is not working properlyso I can do much uploading here.

Auckland 2008

It's the first time I am in New Zealand so I was pretty excited about it. It's also a good time for me to visit my branch there since they are acquired by my company about a year back.

The Melbourne airport enforced a strict 20kg baggage rule on every passenger and I was really scared I would hit the limit as I had 2 bottles of wine, my laptop and my boots etc inside. The weight was 20.6kg....phew...the counter staff was pretty lenient. It took about 3.5 hours to fly from Melbourne to Auckland and the flight was pretty ok on Air New Zealand. The sandwich served was hot and comfortable for a cool day.

Taxi ride in NZ is very expensive...it costs me NZD72 to get to my hotel in the city (a 30 mins ride). There are many taxi operators in NZ because the market is open for anyone to come in.

The hotel which I stayed in is pretty good. Near to the SkyCity and behind my hotel is the shopping and food atrium. You can get all sorts of food at the foodcourt.The room is pretty big too . Above is a pic I took from the Sky Tower.

The following 2 days were spent at the Auckland office as well. It's a good visit as it's my first time meeting the people there and letting know more about how we function.

As I am leaving on a midnight flight, I spent the saturday morning visiting the Sky Tower...the tallest tower in the southern hemisphere. And in the afternoon, I signed up for a wine tour as well. Wine region in NZ is not as grand as Australia. I visited this gannet colony near the Tasman sea. Very big and beautiful sea birds.

I also find that Auckland is a melting pot of different culture and races. I can find a lot of Asians there. Every corner, you can hear people speaking in Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Japanese and Hindi/Tamil.

After returning from the wine tour, I went back to the hotel for dinner and then asked to take a shower in the gym and stayed there till time to leave for the airport. Bought quite a lot of sourvenirs and food from the airport back home for family and co-workers.And guess what? My checked in luggage weigh 22kg and I have a hand luggage of 6kg but I didn't do any shopping in NZ. Can't explain the increase in my baggage.