The Importance of Being Idle

Pre-V'day.

2012-02-12T09:52:00.000+08:00

Been a pretty busy, mood-swinging week, but my end-of-day policy worked well!

Friday night still ended up pretty good.

Chicken with olive rice

At Fig n Olive for the first time, and it was surprisingly not bad.

Breaded fish with pasta

i thought C's chicken was better than my breaded fish, cos after watching Masterchef, i've seen real, masterchef quality breaded fish and this obviously wasn't one of them.

His olive rice was really yummy too; tasted kind of like briyani, but good briyani nonetheless.

Yesterday was our early V Day celebration because it's quite improbable that we'll be free during the week itself for celebrations T_T and it is quite likely that we'll both be working like singles on V day itself.

So, a pre and post V day celebration is called for!

kicked it off at Wild Honey:

English breakfast

Tunisian breakfast

i preferred my Tunisian breakfast; the sauce was good imho, but C thought it was just a so-so tomato-based sauce.

i like tomato based sauces though.

the eggs were cooked to perfection, cos watching Masterchef (ahem, too much reference, i know, but it's damn nice to watch) taught me how to identify perfectly cooked eggs.

slicing it through the middle of the yolk should result in the runny yolk oozing out beautifully, just like that!

and i loved the toasted brioche, though it was much too thick for me. not that i dont like thickness, but it was too filling :S

super fluffy and soft though with an absolutely crispy crust!

i'll definitely go back :DD

then we indulged in haagen dazs ice cream a little later in the afternoon, where i felt so sinful after not eating ice cream in like dono how many donkey years.

i almost forgot how therapeutic ice cream was.

but the guilt hit shortly after.

seriously,

im putting on weight.

Al-ready.

2012-02-05T23:17:00.000+08:00

Lao Beijing Lo Hei

ate yusheng 4 times this year, not counting the level 44 lo hei, which i didnt touch because it 1) ive had enough 2) there were too many people 3) the food was more impt than the lo hei.

this cny ends silently.

it's already February!

the month of celebrations

i have nothing much else to say, actually.

My CNY.

2012-01-29T23:48:00.001+08:00

My CNY portfolio:

Day 1.

ASOS purple toga bodycon dress.

Face: Too big.

Hair: Bad.

Photo overall: CMI must filter for ugliness via Instagram.

looks like it didnt help much :(

Day 2.

MDS blue toga bodycon dress (notice the similarity)

Face: Too big.

but at least slightly hidden with Instagram filter. hehehe

Hair: Bad but can't really tell.

Verdict: Decent enough to put FB profile pic yay!

Face: I don't think it's big leh, but looks like compared to the rest it's still the biggest

-.-

Eyes: not exactly looking at the cam, cos i was looking at the button to tap.

Verdict: Slightly unnatural looking.

Verdict: Yay favourite shot of the year. Looks more natural like someone's taking the pic for us!

Head still the biggest but oh well.

There are certain things that can't be changed.

***

Dog:

CUTE.

***

i'm just fooling around.

back to work on Monday!

if everyday was CNY,

we'll all be fattified.

Reignited.

2012-01-22T22:01:00.002+08:00

receiving an ang pow from dad once we're working just feels funny.

the gesture is so lovable, especially since i know the ang pow is coming from the monthly allowance i just gave him on Friday. it's even presented in the UBS ang pow i gave him -.-
but he said if i didn't want the ang pow i could give it to my sis.

so i kept it.

ive always liked CNY, and ive always wondered why some ppl absolutely hate it. i can understand if its boring, going visiting and always eating the same food etc, but i love it not for its stoic customs, but more for the sense of family it encumbers. i like that at least once a year, we're "forced" to have the reunion dinner, "forced" to visit our extended family/relatives/friends and share food; open our homes to guests, "forced" to eat home because most places are closed during the 1st 2 days.

but i like it, i guess, because i find that i'm normally deprived of such so-called formalities. me, who barely have home cooked meals since like forever, who seldom visit my relatives except only on such occasions, who rarely feel such warmth in the familial sense.

a couple of hours interacting with extended family a few days a year, having home cooked meals for 2 - 3 days in a row, not to mention receiving ang pows and indulging in absolutely fatty junk food i'll normally kill myself for having - these are like luxuries in my context. i guess not everyone concurs.

my fav has got to be reunion dinner with just my family, when my dad attempts to cook the yummiest food of the year. this year, despite using the same fortune pot recipe as in 2011, he did not disappoint!

of course, it looks nth like what they photograph for the newspaper.

set deep beneath the broth lies tons of baby abalone, scallops, a few different types of mushrooms, lotus roots, broccoli, pea pods etc.

last year he cooked this recipe based on servings for 8 ppl wtf.

this year he toned down, but in typical dad style, he still managed to overcook and overestimate our stomach capacities.

new on this year's menu: crab cakes!

to be frank, its not just crab, but also prawn, minced meat, spring onions, and pears.

it was a good attempt! although the presentation is like that.

it's never easy to mould sticky paste into nicely shaped patties/balls with bare hands.

a different take on last year's vermicelli. this year, we tried to boil it in chicken stock with prawns and roasted pork instead of frying it. last year it was dry and tough with the crab. this year, it was sumptuously tasty. big NOMS

then of course there's the always essential vege and fish.

last year we had just the fortune pot and vermicelli and we couldn't finish.

this year we have 5 massive dishes and obviously we can't finish.

nevertheless it's still a dinner full of love. not unhealthy either, except for the crab cakes of course.

and to everyone out there, regardless of race, language, or love for CNY,

happy 2012, the chinese way.

Thirteenth.

2012-01-14T09:31:00.000+08:00

Friday the 13th, the last day with my current team.
The day of my semi-annual evaluation.
I can't believe how 6 months has passed in such a jiffy.

And on Monday, I have to start all over again, in a new role, new team, with new teammates. Even when the shift is just across the toilet, it marks a major phase of my program - the 2nd rotation.
I feel a bout of excitement, eagerness, yet apprehension, uncertainty, sadness -
I'm just confused.

This month's gonna be a another whirl of events, what with all the above, plus the CNY festivities - team lunches, lo hei parties, CNY visiting etc etc.
Excited! Yet exhausted at the thought of it.

I hope I still have time to breathe.
Cos currently I can't. My nose is stuck.
My ulcer is getting better, my sore throat's healed but a cough is revving up its engine somewhere around my esophagus.

***

Domani restaurant:

Love the soft shell crab pasta, with significant slices of crab meat, and a fragrant broth of tomato-based pasta sauce.

I liked the seafood paella, it was tasty, had significant amounts of seafood in it without smelling too fishy, but C said it was kind of tasteless.

We've been eating italian/spanish fusion quite frequently these days and C is sick of it already.

I'm not!

Pasta's ironically one of the few high-carb dishes that i love.

***

i think i'm getting fat.

i can no longer eat and yet conceal my one-month old preggie tummy.

and CNY is coming.

and both my dresses are sort of body hugging.

SIGHHHH

the new year's post.

2012-01-03T23:06:00.000+08:00

i feel responsible.
for marking the first few seconds of the new year with my dad.

it's been 2 years straight,
counting down with him, my sis and C
in the heart of my neighbourhood, with the aunties and fellow Khatib people with no better countdown plans.

its unlike everybody else, spending it somewhere more exciting, more groundbreaking, more fulfilling, maybe.

i don't know if i would ever have the heart, or lack of, to spend new year's eve counting down somewhere else, enjoying the hell out of myself while my dad stays home alone.

i'd feel guilty.
i'd be happy for myself, and for C, but how does that compare.

new years dont mean a thing i guess; they're just another count of our lives.

***

FOOD

this time at Trattoria Italian Kitchen for new year's eve.

my massive lasagna

and C's risotto.

i love how my OCBC has this perpetual tie-up with 313, so that everytime i spend, i get more points to exchange for vouchers at 313, and then i spend more, and get more vouchers to spend more, and then get more points to exchange for vouchers at 313..

and you get the drift.

***

new year's bbq at kenneth's place was a cosy affair that led to plans of the coming EUROPE TRIP

freaking can't wait for this short-lived little dream to come true.

provided we sync our leaves by this week and book tickets by next, and start our itinerary planning the following month at least!

-hyperventilates-

oh i didn't emphasize enough on the "Provided".

Simply Simple.

2011-12-25T13:48:00.000+08:00

Xmas eve ended up uneventful, simple, and yet just how i like it to be <3

At Changi City Point, away from the crowd, away from the long queues and away from the packed trains.

Yet at one of my all-time favourite jap restaurants, Ootoya.

the best part was the lack of the normal 30-40 min wait that we'll definitely incur if we did go to the OC outlet.

plus, for some reason, their Xmas eve promotion was 20% off the total bill with any credit card used, unlike their usual 15% off with UOB cards.

was that awesome or what!

C had the chicken katsu set, while i settled for some Norway bred horse mackerel.

Free flow of miso soup and rice was a nice bonus, although i didn't need it.

Just look at my before and after pics of the giant mackerel.

was it a bony fish? yes it was, but it was still immensely satisfying, and to me, the bones weren't that difficult to remove at all.

i'm a fish person, i guess.

all that for only 475 kcal for the whole set!

unbelievable right.

compared to the chicken katsu set, which had i think 1000+ kcal.

i'll never eat that set ever,

at least at Ootoya, where the calorific reminder stares unblinkingly at me, subtle but devastatingly real.

and thats it!

Christmassed.

2011-12-24T11:19:00.000+08:00

it's been a week since our department Christmas dinner, and now the real Christmas is coming, and i don't feel the Christmas-sy mood any more than i have felt it since the start of December. maybe it's because the whole of December has been engulfed in the holiday mood, so Christmas doesn't feel any different.

What's different is the state of our society. It's been a whole week since the train fault hoo-hah first occurred, and now it seems like something happens every single day. 1. Cab fares increase; 2. Train faults almost everyday; 3. and then Flash floods have to come into play.

Nice time to happen during Christmas period, when everyone everywhere gets to be inconvenienced.

that aside, we were so glad we had post-Christmas-dinner plans on that faithful day of the SMRT window smashing incident:

Kbox at Marina Square

kbox till i was so tired i felt like i exerted alot of energy and was so worn out; when all we did was sit and pig out at dinner and then sit some more with mics in our hands.

we sat till there wasn't any price difference whichever cab you take home.

but dinner was the main event!

and i have to start off with the humongous chilled lobsters because their fresh orange-red colour is too bright to ignore.

Next up, seemingly endless count of oysters.

Yummy mussels and scallops that seemed to run out too quickly for some reason.

Sashimi! my favourite station! but i was a tad disappointed with it. it was meh.

the smoked fish station, also my favourite buffet station, but again i didn't like it much.

buffets without C are no fun, because im so used to taking portions for 2, i realize everytime i fill up my plate that i've taken too much. then nobody wants to share with me and i can't finish up everything on the plate. -.-

the dessert station, decorated by this cute little cottage hut. if only it was edible!

the massive amounts of dessert, and this is only like one quarter of the dessert spread available.

again, another inedible cute little christmas cottage.

a little to the left of the picture above. yet again, these 2 photos make up 1/3 of the desserts. there was ice cream, choc fondue, ice kachang station, fruits, dessert shots, more cakes, etc etc i didn't even want to try everything by that time.

actually i didn't take any of those photos because i was too lazy. they were all whatsapp-ed to me by my colleagues. another sad thing about not buffet-ing with C is the lack of motivation to take any photos at all.

there were alot of other items not pictured, like the outdoor BBQ station, the indian station (which had yummy naans and gravies), the cheeeeeeeese station, the pasta, meat, etc.

and wine!

these photos were edited for colour. specifically to discolour my alcohol-ed face, which is red all the time. :(

im drinking so much more frequently and not liking it.

the extra calories, the extra red faced photos, what's there to like! argh.

plus thursday night at OverEasy gave me my most traumatic experience yet: horrible tummy cramps coupled with vomitting and diarrhoea. at first i thought it might have been the beer, but then i only had one glass, and since when did beer cause stomach cramps!

then maybe it was the food, but then i wasn't the only one who ordered that main, so why was i the only one affected?!

till today my tummy still feels a bit diarrhoea-ish (sorry to spam this word just after a sumptuous buffet entry), but yesterday i could still manage a fulfilling steamboat dinner without any major disruptions to my digestion.

so i guess im fine. :S

but even after running 2 consecutive days this week i still feel like a hog. a boar. a pig. and what with all the christmas chocolates ive been getting (feel so blessed and overwhelmed and yet horrified at the amount of food suddenly piled up in front of me in office), plus another couple of big meals to come,

it looks like i shld have been running 7 consecutive days a week.

so my biggest christmas wish is in fact to stay small.

within petite range! RAWR.

Merry Xmas,

xoxo

***

P is for powerful.

here it comes.

2011-12-12T22:52:00.000+08:00

here it comes!!!

all thanks to my wonderfully resourceful C.

see.

im so grateful for something i bought on my own ~.~

how kind am i.

on that cold, lonely weekday morning on the train.

when all i wanted was to close my eyes and catch the last few minutes of shuteye till a long day at work.

countless whatsapp messages prevented me from sleeping.

it was a deal too good to be true;

till now i still cant believe it.

well i did panic a little when DHL didn't deliver what it promised YESTERDAY.

i was about to hyperventilate in anxiety and proceed to subsequently slaughter the customer service through the phone with my most annoyingly annoyed tone.

but i guess excitement overwhelmed my fear/panic/grumpiness.

i am to be disappointed no more!

my christmas wish.

2011-12-09T23:32:00.001+08:00

the year is coming to an end.
somehow this year,
with its ups and downs,
has reached a pretty nice vantage point,
at least for me.

it's not the highest nor the best,
but something to be grateful for.
christmas is coming, and so is the new year.
and in no time, we'll all find our ages catching up.
so take the opportunities we have now, and give wherever we can.
cherish whatever we have.
love generously.
live gratefully.

exercise more and eat less.

*

the appreciation dinner with a rock theme!

hits and misses.

but all in all, i had a good night!

post dinner, that is.

this is rock.

i had a pretty surprising time discovering my closet rock persona; i didnt have to spend a single cent, and i owned everything i wore.

one colleague looked at me and was like 'you found a leather jacket in your closet?!'

it was pleather.

and it was a taiwan bought jacket in winter!

anyhow. no pictures yet but the best dressed of the night went all out.

i still took public transport so i guess that was a major restriction.

dinner with C one friday night:

at Tonkichi with his ramen + tonkatsu + tori karage + free flow cabbage set. how worth it is that!

i didnt regret my simple but powerful classic unagi don. it was major yums.

i still wanna try the sushi though :(

and finallyyyyyyyyyyyy

the whole inspiration for this entry lies here.

IT IS BEING SHIPPED.

FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER.

DIRECT FROM THE U S OF A.

ok not direct as we can all see it's at HK now.

but still!!

ive been trying for the longest time to get my hands on kate spade direct from the U.S without physically gg there. ive tried their online store that rejects SG orders, 3rd party stores with crazy shipping rates, even 3rd party concierge services that get rejected by them as well.

and finally.

if i get rejected again this time ill sink into depression 3 times as bad as all the other times ive failed.

please grant me my christmas wish oh merry ol' santa.

in other news:

2011-11-27T12:49:00.001+08:00

finally, after months of searching and disappointment,
i've found my nude heels.
i actually found it pretty long ago, but was hoping to look for a nicer/cheaper/more comfy pair, but it seems like heels rarely come in a nice nude simple design.
yay congratulate myself!
plus because of my prior rebates accumulated and the usual 10% rebate,
I CAN WELL AFFORD MY PRETTY NUDE HEELS (:

Brotzeit platter for 4

in other news,

Brotzeit's platter for 4 is

not exactly a platter for 4.

2 girls and 2 guys couldn't finish the assorted sausages, humongous german pork knuckle, and 2 huge servings of pork schnitzels, which im concluding is really just pork cutlet.

the pork cutlet was surprisingly tender and not too oily though.

sausages were a tad disappointing.

the pork knuckle was, as i expected, extremely fatty, but the lean parts were good.

one person can definitely NOT finish that pork knuckle on his own.

***

in other news,

my annual appreciation dinner is coming up!

but im more looking forward to the department christmas dinner, rather.

because.

MELT the world cafe at Marina Mandarin.

unbeatable.

well hopefully, with all the reviews about it. i sure hope i wont be disappointed :D

all in Phuket.

2011-11-19T11:11:00.001+08:00

what i like about phuket?
the scenic imagery that i can conjure up with my photos.
my usual collages become so much prettier, much more awesome, more brilliant - im just praising myself.
but really, i love the scenery in phuket.
as well as the food.
as well as the relaxed atmosphere, like everyday is a weekend, like we're really on holiday, with no worries in the world, with no strings attached to our backs that stretch all the way to SG.

but we actually started off quite uncertainly. ahem. without airport transfer, we randomly walked up to a minibus booth and booked a minibus back to our hotel for 150 baht per pax. sounds too good to be true right?
in certain ways, right.
luckily there were 3 other people as clueless as us, and we waited for a good 15-20 min or so for the minibus, wondering at the back of our minds how they're gonna scam us, make us wait for another hour or so, or just desert us there or something.
so came the ultimatum *roll ultimatum music*: they had to fill up the minibus to cover their costs and make a profit, but there werent enough of us to make up the numbers, so yes, we had to top up an additional 50 baht each for them to fetch us immediately right then and there.

wait a minute.
that's not so bad!
it truly wasn't, and for 400 baht (we've been told it would cost anywhere between 500 to 800 baht! score!) we made our way safely back to our hotel: Novotel Patong Resort, up north of Patong Beach. A traditional, mildly secluded, yet gorgeous resort hotel:

i always snap photos of pretty hotel rooms to keep in my memory the beautiful places i've stayed at on all my trips, to reminisce my humble overseas abodes. except this time it wasn't very humble since it cost like almost 200 bucks per night.

but check out our hotel pool. with a great view overlooking Patong beach. snapped both in the day and in the night. my night photos are always super grainy, but i cant blame it for not being a DSLR, because it's not.

and i still love my camera nonetheless.

after checking in we walked down the streets of Patong. i like how it has a very kampung feel to it, unlike Bangkok, where i somehow find it like, dirtier and more polluted. maybe the fact that it being close to the beach gives it this pristine, sandy vibe. i think no one understands me at this point :(

being hungry as hawks we settled for a little roadside stall which became our all-time favourite stall in Phuket.

sidetracking a little: Jetstar delayed our flight not once, but twice, both ways, and on our morning flight there we thought we would reserve our breakfast for when we touched down. unfortunately for us budget airlines are unreliable, and by the time we checked in to our hotel it was lunchtime.

so yes we were hungry.

and we settled for the classics: Pineapple rice and Phad Thai.

what was surprising was how WELL COOKED they both were; just look at that humongous egg and everything piled on top of the fried rice, looking like it was stuffed into the pineapple that was too small. the best part about it was that you could really taste the pineapple juice in the rice.

phad thai was delightfully delicious too and it wasn't even a very filling meal, but we were both satisfied.

we walked from our hotel to Jungceylon, their big shopping mall filled with absolutely nothing, so much so that we spent most of our time there in Watsons, Boots and Big C supermart.

gosh we are really homemakers aren't we.

and we continued walking somemore. well it was day 1, and we were full of energy.

as the days passed the distance from our hotel to Jungceylon got increasingly long.

Patong Beach

We had a while to spare before dinner, so we had to take in the sight at Patong beach.

C decided to get a foot massage which i refused, so i got a french manicure instead. i thought it was pretty good at first since the result in the picture looks nice!

but such manicures dont last, especially when the nail polish used is some unknown korean brand. on the 2nd day my whole index nail broke off and i had to cut off the whole white part. it is now day 6 and my nails have more or less chipped off at the corners. i cant complain since it was a 200-baht manicure, and i really appreciated the masseur's efforts!

Dinner was at this seafood restaurant that looked quite popular. i think it was called Savoey if i remember right.

It consisted of tom yam goong, some fried flat noodles which had a smelly intestinal taste to it that we couldn't stand and so didn't finish, oysters fried with garlic and butter which were delish, and grilled/bbq-ed squid. it was nice, but not fantastic.

Day 2 was spent touring around Phi Phi island! there were a few stops; the CRAZY BEAUTIFUL beach pictured was i can't remember which part of the island. but it was the 1st stop. wait, or the last. i cant remember! sigh. tours are always like that for me.

the speed boat ride was bumpy till i might get sea sick, but i cleverly took half of my nausea pill before heading out, so i was fine for the whole day.

so fine i slept on the speedboat all of the 1h15min ride back.

so the 1st stop, we did some snorkeling. sad to say my lack of water training failed me miserably. even with the life jacket, snorkel mask and fins im still a cat in the water. i absolutely can't calm myself down in the sea.

HOWEVER im glad to say i saw a lot of fish where i attempted to snorkel. and im proud of myself for overcoming my fears of drowning. and C says i need swimming lessons for real. :( :)

that's a crab at the bottom left picture, btw.

we saw monkeys! we were supposed to see it from the beach, but it was high tide, so all we could manage on the speedboat were these zoomed in photos. we could almost touch them on the trees though, i didnt get any closer cos alot of people were in front of me and a bunch of monkeys were fighting and i was afraid they would jump from the trees and start attacking me.

the emerald green sea was AH-MAY-ZING. they let us snorkel off the speedboat at that particular part of the sea. i almost didn't go down because it was deep and my fears of drowning totally overtook me.

but then the speedboat operators persuaded me with the lifejacket. plus C was already happily swimming in the sea without me.

by the time i gathered my courage and jumped into the water, and by the time i adjusted my snorkel mask, i saw like a school of puny fish for like a few minutes before having to get up the boat again. in the process i drank alot of sea water and had alot of sea water get in my eyes, which were damn painful. SIGHS.

better luck next time!!!

im sure ill improve (:

i love the background photo, which is the same photo as the above. but our last stop is actually at Maya Bay. i only remember this for the fact that Leo Dicaprio filmed The Beach here. i dont even remember what this show is about, but since it was stressed so much i better rmb it.

it was pristine, gorgeous, perfect.

the perfect beach.

more photos of Maya Bay

C said to take a photo of our feet before and just when the tide washes in and covers our feet.

after several failed attempts all i got are thunder thighs :(

i just realized i dont have dinner photos.

i think they're all in C's phone ROAR.

we had dinner at a nice little restaurant next to the one my friend recommended lol. just because the restaurant he recommended was more expensive and didn't look as popular.

i didn't regret that 'betrayal'.

the view from our balcony.

gorgeous at difference times of day.

the 3rd morning we were heading out for breakfast when we came upon this strange crowd around Patong beach, so went to check out the commotion.

they were catching fish! hoards of fish. all stuck in the net in the bottom photo.

and they weren't small fish either. they all looked like big, edible, noms.

the top photo pictures a stingray. and some guy was removing the sting from it with his BARE hands.

commotion over; we had Macs breakfast, lazed around the hotel pool for a bit intending to spend the day just doing nothing. we ended up not eating the cup noodles bought from 7-11 but instead headed to Jungceylon again.

this time we took the hotel shuttle because the place became too far to walk all of a sudden.

Big Breakfast

all for the sake of eating this: The coffee club's big breakfast. we shared, luckily, because the portion is too big for 1 person. we weren't the only ones ordering their big breakfast for lunch. they also had eggs benedict etc. and compared to brunch or all-day breakfast places in SG, there, we really got the bang for our buck.

so i mentioned on day 1 i wanted to watch the sunset, and Phuket is so commercialised that the sunset view point is mapped out, and taxi fares to and fro are already made clear in laminated posters in the hands of all the taxi touts in the area. it was surprising how there are no metered taxis around.

regardless, we haggled our way to Promthep Cape, the real sunset view point, for 850 baht and back.

views of distant islands from the view point.

from our perch. it took us about 45 minutes to an hour's drive through meandering hills. it was all worth it.

the sun before it set! super bright it was hurting my eyes under my not-so-UV-protective shades from Uniqlo. some kind guy helped us take a pretty good shot, except that i look fat in it-.-

i loved how the sailboat was sailing towards the horizon at that very instant.

it gave me a perfect sunset capturing moment on camera:

and we watched the sun literally disappear.

it was 6.05pm in Phuket.

back to Patong we headed as the sky turned quickly dark.

dinner was at Marco Polo:

Smoked Salmon woodfired pizza

where we had a fantastic meal again. we had pasta as well, cream spaghetti not pictured because i dont have a photo of it -.-

we were super full already from the pasta and were made to wait for this pizza. so by the time it came i really couldn't stuff any more inside my tummy.

i resorted to eating the smoked salmon and the pizza crust.

DONT UNDERESTIMATE PIZZA CRUSTS. they were the best part of the pizza imho.

Mocha Blast

The last day came in the blink of an eye. we had to check out of our hotel at 12pm, but our flight wasn't until 10pm. that left us with the whole afternoon to spare. so we spent it the laziest way: we caught Tower Heist, then went for a facial, then lazed around Au Bon Pain cafe with their super large mocha blast till it was time to go get dinner.

our last meal in Phuket had to be:

back at our day 1 roadside stall. this time we ordered the phad thai again, glass noodles with seafood, nicely fried juicy thai fish cake, and the most perfect grilled chicken; it was crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. even the simple glass noodles tasted heavenly i still miss it now :(

travelling back to the airport was a bit of a rush; we booked a minibus at 300 baht, it arrived on time but went about trying to pick up other passengers; the driver couldn't find the hotel and we were driving around for a good half hour before actually embarking on our way to the airport. any later and we might have missed our check in, what with the unpredictable traffic and the sudden thunderstorm along the way. it ultimately is the cheapest way to get to the airport, but it is definitely a risk.

all in all,

one of my favouritest trips abroad <3

backdate.

2011-11-18T23:08:00.001+08:00

have a little backlog of posts (whoa, do i?!) from before i went to phuket and back.
but first, i need to declare Phuket as one of the best holidays i've had.
i didn't buy a single piece of clothing/souvenir over there, and i spent most of my money on food.
with still a little spare cash to bring home.
is that awesome or what.

okay, backdating now:

Marmite chicken and Ee Fu Noodles

dinnering at dian xiao er just to use up the extra Groupon duck that we bought. that was last weekend.

im not a fan of duck, so its not in the picture, though it was like the "main dish". but i found the marmite chicken and ee fu noodles delish.

Toufu, broccoli, and wolfberry longan osmanthus pudding

then sunday night was my sis's birthday dinner night out, and she chose Crystal Jade. had a very meh dinner, consisting of toufu, broccoli, and fish which isnt pictured cos it's not nice. i can't remember what was the last dish we had. i think it was braised/stewed duck or something. but after dian xiao er duck just 1 day before, i had had enough of duck and didn't touch any. :S
my brother tried to be adventurous and ordered the weirdest dessert on the menu: osmanthus with longan and wolfberry pudding. it tasted like herbs, it was sticky, and true to its weirdness, weird.

And last but not least, my Microsoft Touch Art:

drawn using the pretty art brushes, but with my normal microsoft laser mouse; i don't get the relation of this competition to the microsoft touch mouse.
but im hoping to win the mouse (okay, relation here) with my swirly pattern!
it's a pattern that takes alot of time and intricate cursor waving technique to carve out okay. and it'd be great as a tiled wallpaper or something.
but it needs VOTES here.

*im doing my phuket entry separately*

smells like team spirit.

2011-11-06T10:59:00.000+08:00

this week feels kind of long, and im not talking about the long weekend.
sad to say, im truly falling into the routine of work in my department; leaving later than some of my colleagues even. although im kind of surprised by myself, at how much i enjoy my team. maybe what my line manager said was right; that what really makes u stay somewhere for so long, is the people.

still, it's too early to say, and i have a penchant for changing my mindset too easily.

anyways, at least i still managed to get out with C for dinner once during the week amidst the pile of issues i was facing at work.

dinner was at this little korean restaurant in PS.

it was not bad, i would say, not a lot of korean restaurants that claim to serve authentic korean food serve it well, *cough* like the one at chevron house *cough*

what was cute was its menu!

for dishes that had a choice of beef, pork or chicken.

i couldn't resist a photo.

the texture is actually an edit by picfix, and i think it's quite cool.

really looks like paper, no?

the week ended on a low/high, depending on how u see it, as we bode farewell to one of our contractors. super sad that she was leaving, even though ive only known her for like 4 months.

but from what was planned for her farewell gifts and party, i could tell that that sentiment was shared by my whole team.

from the gifts;

*my buddy was super sweet in getting all of it! even the calendar's public holidays were all marked out by her. i had a vote in the coach wristlet, which i think is super pretty, more so in real life <3*

to the food for the pantry farewell party;

*we also had a farewell lunch the day before at supposedly the team's favourite jap restaurant at Millennia walk (Rakuzen or some similar spelling) and everybody except me and the MD ordered the same thing -.-*

to the yummy home made cakes courtesy of our department coordinator's friend!

the super creamy cupcakes were actually lychee martini and irish bailey's.

and of course there's chocolate;

and an assortment of banana, walnut, and blueberry cakes. it was humongous, and i cant believe i finished one whole cake by myself (after all the other junk food :( ).

group photo of the team minus MD and plus some other friends from other departments.

the sweetest touch, though, wasn't our efforts but hers;

she spent several weeks planting, yes PLANTING for every single one of us:

and we all now have a bottled plant each at our desk to remember her by.

of course, it's up to me to be the reminder for watering it every week -.-

and if i forget and everybody's plants die it might appear negatively in my evaluation lol.

mine's still a little seedling, snipped off and replanted from a bigger plant.

the pink stones are the ultimate.

with all that love sprinkled and diffused amongst the team,

how could anyone bear to leave.

Avalon.

2011-10-30T22:29:00.003+08:00

Random:

Steve Aoki, Avalon, taken with Instagram

Taken from somewhere over the Internet

Avalon is pretty nice.
If not for the rain, which made entry kind of screwed up - the advanced tickets queue was longer than the general admission; they didn't give us our free drinks; ushered us into the smoking room first; the worst part was that there were no BAG LOCKERS.

poor us with our work bags had to stand around helpless for what seemed like ages.

we actually scored a table (okay actually Fiona scored a table for us) but eventually we settled for something less expensive; at least we had a sofa to stack our bags and a little cosy corner where we overlooked the dance floor.

by the way, Steve Aoki was madness.

screaming, pulling people onto the stage, throwing helpless girls on to a life boat and surfing her into the wave of the crowd, pouring drinks all over front row folks - im pretty sure some of them got drenched in alcohol by the end of the night - , he was throwing the styrofoam stacks into the crowd, which promptly got torn to shreds, AND ~~jumping,~~ leaping into the crowd - and that was all in just under an hour of his appearance.

alas, we didn't hang around long enough to see what else he got up to for his set.

but as a club,
Avalon is pretty nice.
if we actually went without bags.

*

Guiltily, repulsively, sweet.

2011-10-23T12:08:00.002+08:00

The week's passed incredibly quickly for some reason.

no i take that back.

the week's passed incredibly quickly as usual.

i fueled my shopping urges on Friday while waiting for C to end work.

found amazing deals at F21 and Topshop/Topman.

and thus, im fine now, thank you very much

sighs. what a repulsive habit i have.

Radish fried rice

tried our Xi Men Ding restaurant at Vivo. wasn't expecting much out of it since it looks like another wannabe HK/Taiwan style restaurant, and the selection in the market hasn't been fantastic so far.

was rather pleasantly surprised by their food though.

i had the radish fried rice (smaller portion for only 6.90) and this hugeass plate is what i was served.

obviously couldn't finish, especially after indulging in sinful stuff like otah, sotong balls, satay etc during tea time omg. the thought of it makes me wanna puke at my own greediness already.

anyhows, i kind of liked the way the fried rice is cooked; but i think i have weird taste when it comes to fried rice. soft, moist rice, with lots of fried flat pea pods, no meat, just a huge ass egg on top, very brown but not very flavorful kind of fried rice lol.

C had the stewed/braised (cant rmb) beef noodles or sth and it was pleasant too. im not a stewed/braised beef person, but even i thought the soup broth was not bad.

and the best part was it wasn't overpriced <3

random pictures of Nokia N9 ninjas doing somersaults outside Chevron house during lunch hours. excellent marketing for Nokia's new phone imho. something to the tune of fluidity of their new interface.

not that i would get it anyway. :S

saturday morning i dragged myself up to MacRitchie Reservoir for a UBS Finance community event for kids from the Singapore Children's Society. it wasn't as fun as the other community events I've been to in the last couple of months, i guess mostly due to the venue and the timing. it was a good session though, especially with the colleagues from the team i'd be rotating to next January.

the best part was: lunch :)))

Peranakan desserts

Peranakan fare at this Upper Thomson restaurant called Ivin's.

We ordered quite alot of food, both spicy and non-spicy, and all of it was so deliciously delectable i can still remember the taste in my mouth <333.

the prettiest looking food still goes to Peranakan desserts! mostly tapioca/flour based sugary stuff with lots of coconut. immensely fattening, but none of us could resist them even after we were hugely stuffed from the mains.

will definitely have cravings to go back there one day, if not for the ulu-ness of it though :S

actually i have straight bus. but still! out-of-the-way much, hmph!

i will bring C here one day promise! <333

it was definitely a sweet end to. uhm. half of my weekend.

i hope this is just a phase.

2011-10-19T22:47:00.000+08:00

there's a funny feeling inside of me.
restlessness.
an urge.
im trying to suppress it; but it's tickling my insides.
like a cough.

and my mood is deteriorating as it grows stronger.
the tickling.
the suppression.

on one hand im trying to resist temptation.
on the other hand, the world isn't being fair to me anyways.

i am irritable.
i am explosive.

i am depressed. moody. listless. stressed.
exhausted. deprived. i am sad.

i have shopaholic withdrawal symptoms.
i can either fall into a spiral again, or fight this never ending battle, and hope that someday i will be free.
****
I'm updating my shopping list.

Mad for you

2011-10-15T09:23:00.000+08:00

Before you know it,
October is already midway through!
This means.
That soon Christmas is coming!

Time seems to fly when you start working.
Weekdays pass so fast, and weekends, faster. You don't even recall what you did the previous week.

So whatever i've been up to, if i dont update and save it here, i would probably forget.

But there's something worth remembering yesternight: (:

Garlic Steak

Garlic Seafood Pasta

yup!

Mad for Garlic.

we braved the queue, which was quicker than expected, compared to the 1 hr long wait we had at Watami last Friday night with the Lovelies.

and anyways we had a 1-for-1 entree promo coupon, so that's great news.

the food was great too, although 2 chillies is a tad too spicy for me, and i still asked for less spice. 1 chilli pasta would probably fare better. in any case, it was delish <3

im not a steak person, so i shant comment on the steak, but the piles of garlic on top was immensely delightful.

bad news for our breaths though.

im FOR SURE gg back to eat again!

and it's not just because i have another promo coupon for free pizza lol.

i have short hair.

2011-09-24T23:34:00.001+08:00

period.
takes me all the way back to JC/secondary years in a matter of minutes.

this hair will take forever to grow back.
not like i have a very strong attachment to my hair (since it's horrible in the first place). but after all, ive let it grow at its whim and fancy for so long.

***

came down with a sudden allergy to my perfumes, i cant even tell which was the one that caused the rash! rawr.

***

nostalgia fills me for some reason.

Blessed Birthday.

2011-09-18T16:29:00.000+08:00

News of the rogue trader might have dampened my outlook in the firm, but i guess it failed to dampen my birthday (:
the irony.

celebrations started 1 week ago, with a family dinner at Serangoon Gardens Country Club. Not my first choice, but with vouchers, why not huh.

Smoked Salmon salad

With a 4 course set dinner, starting with smoked salmon salad.

to me, it never tastes bad.

Grilled Sole

Then we had soup, some Russian Borscht with beef slices; it wasn't bad, but the photo turned out like shit so i guess no harm letting our imaginations run wild with the soup.

i had the grilled sole, which is some kind of fish, with some butter sauce and potato and veg for sides. i thought the portion was just nice. enough to stuff me and make me feel like ive eaten too much for a meal (typical), but apparently not satisfying for my dad and bro.

i cant remember dessert's name, but it was basically a scoop of ice cream atop a juicy peach. anything with peaches must be nice i supposed.

but again, for a 4 course meal, the serving was deemed 'not worth it' by the brother.

i liked it though, i thought it was a nice sumptuous meal that i might not eat v often lol.

during the week we had a team birthday lunch for the 3 september babies of the team. Additionally, i was granted a coffee club royalty card because of the amount we spent yay.

then we had a nice birthday surprise (maybe only for me because it was my first time) in the pantry, with a delish cake from Swissbake!

apparently it was a team tradition, but i guess i'll find out soon enough when the next birthday girl is shared!

on Friday i had another mini Swissbake surprise, this time by my fellow Finance GTPs, and another delish cake to nom on! Felt horribly sinful after that. no pictures, except for the sweetest whatsapp birthday message i received:

at Ku De Ta from like 1 month ago!

edited for photo chioness sighs Iphone cams stink.

then on Friday night, me and C randomly decided to visit my now declared favourite jap restaurant, Watami.

Teriyaki Chicken salad

where, because of the delightful Tiramisu cake i just ate before dinner, i decided on the healthiest of choices. but even then, Watami didn't disappoint.

i guess the only disappointment we had was in the time they took to serve up C's dinner. Which explains that grumpy gramps face.

Bibimbap

but when the food arrived, we had no complaints, period.

so on Saturday, for my birthday meal, i decided on brunch at Jones the Grocer at Mandarin Gallery, some place we've been eyeing for brunch for the longest time.

we chanced upon Wild Honey on the way out, but i think Jones was a better choice judging from the queue at Wild Honey.

anyway, we had my:

Poached eggs with toast

and his:

Jones' English Breakfast

and my little birthday..

Red Velvet Cupcake

cupcake!

as with all meals, brunch passed a little too quickly for us. walked around for a little bit, went home, ran a good 4+km in the evening (at least that's what i believe) and then bathed.

drove - omg after what seems like years - DROVE to Ikea to indulge in MEATBALLS and smoked salmon (now i think the 4+km run wasn't that effective after all).

randomly bought cheapo photo frames, which i now think isn't enough for my collection at all, walked over to Giant to buy Gardenia high fibre white bread for breakfast, went home, and finally lazed around watching our favourite anime till we fell asleep.

my very simple, uneventful, but blessed birthday nonetheless.

***

and for my birthday wish,

i wish

for us all to stay strong, healthy, prosperous and happy as a hippopotamus family (without the size).

Brighten you up.

2011-09-07T23:05:00.000+08:00

You start to think everything is going so smoothly,
and then a single mistake throws everything into perspective.
NOTHING IS FOR GRANTED.
Not my job, not my income, not my love, not my life.

okay "not my love" is just a statement with an impact. but still, it makes sense.
i can list 10 other things as well that cant be taken for granted. like my health, my hair, my weight etc etc.
ytd i just had a weird health scare of which till now i can't resolve the root cause.
but we should always look into the future, instead of sulking in the past, no?
in this case though...

reflecting on jap pasta at Marina Bay Link Mall can only be a good thing.

can't really remember the pastas we ordered, other than Qd's thick and creamy squid ink, but you dont really need to know what you're eating, as long as its good.

Ku De Ta further served to fatten us up not just with alcohol, but with its never ending flow of wasabi chips.

and im definitely fairer than the photo, though the flash seems to illuminate everyone nicely except me ):

am glad i was wearing my ever cheap bugis bought top to brighten myself up.

other than that life has been pretty much revolving around work and C.

and maybe it will, for as long as i live.

Like an undergrad.

2011-08-21T23:52:00.000+08:00

as soon as C's back, i suddenly felt like maybe we're still schooling. that maybe we dont have to wake up on monday morning and get dressed into work clothes and heels, and squeeze with the rush hour crowd on the way to work. maybe, just maybe, time will stop.

we spent sunday like we've never been away from each other for 5 weeks. we spent it like always basically. the comfort of having someone around returned to me again, together with that longing to meet every day. like when i was alone i would go ahead and make plans spontaneously, but now i think twice, and try to make sure scheduling is done properly. i know it sounds either really disgusting or like a horrible chain strapped around my neck, but i love my life the way it is like that, and im so glad im falling back into this weird feeling of security. i know. im rambling the world away.

Saturday probably added to that surreal feeling.

Saturday morning was spent building sandcastles with kids from Pathlight School for children with special needs. building sandcastles, taking care of the autistic children and trying to engage them in the activity, kind of made me feel like we're just students again, doing community service for the hours. didnt help that the sandcastle professionals referred to all of us (traders and all, some even with prior work experience) as children for the whole time.-.-

but it was really fun, heartwarming etc etc.

Friday night at Filter probably also contributed to that whole "im still an undergrad" feeling. gosh realizing we're all gonna be colleagues in the whole sense of the word made the whole night just feel wrong. im glad none of our trainers were there to see how it all went down, with some people at least. :xx

the best part of the weekend? spotting that guy in the cap and the backpack, and yes looking super like an undergrad -.-, wheeling the humongous luggage out of belt 18 towards me with a familiar smile and asking me to carry the giant hand-carry bag....

it was priceless.

COME BACK ALREADY!!

2011-08-13T21:11:00.000+08:00

Bugis is still shoppable after all!
i know, cos i just bought tops at 10 bucks each.
Bridesmaids is a strangely, unconventionally nice movie, i think. not your typical chick flick, but one that turned out quite enduring.
Hot yoga was, well, just yoga in a 37-degree hot room.
still, i am aching at my hips, i admit. the place where i stretch the least i guess.

it's been exactly a month.
and i still dont get used to the fact that i'm alone now, most of the time.
the feeling sucks.
IT'S JUST 7 MORE DAYS WTH.

anyways, updates with Yum Cha dinner we had last week:

at Serangoon Gardens, at a time when it wasn't particularly crowded.

guess it's more popular for its dim sum.

i thought the dinner was better fare than i expected coming from a midscale chinese restaurant though. most other places are just overpriced and mediocre.

Fish Maw soup

Baby Spinach fried with garlic

Spicy Fish fried with Asaparagus in XO sauce

This picture doesn't do justice to the food obviously. but i loved the giant asparagus.

Fried Beancurd

i like the beancurd that's smashed and minced, and then shaped again into small squares like these and then fried. i know because i tried it w dad before, except that our reshaped beancurd looked more like out-of-shape balls.

Roast duck

Usually duck isn't my favourite dish to order, but the breast meat (which is the only part of the duck i eat) was super tender without the strong duck taste that i hate, and the skin was crisp and there was no layer of fat underneath! uber yums.

all the dishes served made for one delectable family meal. the portions were actually sufficient to fulfill us, unlike most other similar mid scale restaurants *cough* paradise inn *cough*. and the price was reasonable, as long as you don't order seafood or the fishes at market prices i guess.

the fact that my dad could, and has in fact, made some of the dishes - like the beancurd and the fried asparagus, and the spinach is a no-brainer - goes to show how much the mark-up is at such restaurants.

of course, you get the service, the ambience, and the overall presentation of the food to add to that.

but all in all i actually liked that simple meal.

i think i've been really contradicting.

and i am getting exhausted of being alone.

i am sad and lonely, and about to start a monologue here.

come back already!!!

Jessie Square.

2011-08-06T18:21:00.000+08:00

The countdown is now 2 exact weeks.

had 2 nice catchup sessions this week, one with the lovelies and one with jane, and very surprisingly, hh from 11 YEARS AGO, in a mini peixin reunion among the 3 of us.

how cool is that.

but 2 consecutive days of late nights (now reaching home after 10 is considered late already cos i've been sleeping at 12 or before 12 every night) and i was drained already.

spent saturday morning and afternoon literally nuah-ing from exhaustion.

had movie plans but i guess next week's a better time (4 day work week yay let's catch it on a weeknight).

tried to workout but gave up after 3 sets. really no motivation when you're doing it alone, on an empty stomach in the middle of the day.

tomorrows my dad's birthday celebration and my virgin treat ever since i started work!

but tomorrow's also Sunday, so im kinda mixed about that.

~.~

missing ppl in my life like C, pris and even joseph,

while recovering long lost ones like hh (and maybe soon andy if there's ever a chance?);

life's pretty funny the way things work out sometimes.

Implication.

2011-08-03T21:04:00.000+08:00

funny how a facebook birthday reminder triggers the weirdest thoughts.

today's mum's birthday.
i was almost contemplating writing on her facebook wall. but it's obviously empty.
how weird would that be.

then i panicked for a moment because we didn't do anything to celebrate her birthday.
in another sense of course. like, more fruits on the table where her tablet is placed? a few of her favourite foods? burn some hell notes, or something to commemorate her birthday, at least. right?

my dad mentioned that birthdays are not part of the tradition because it's western culture.
yet i still feel a tinge of guilt knowing i didn't do anything today.
it feels almost too normal.
had it not been for a facebook reminder, i might not even have remembered.
and i wonder if the rest of my family remembers, and just simply don't want to mention it.
or are they too caught up with life to realize it today.

...what does that imply..?

15 minutes.

2011-07-31T11:41:00.000+08:00

Week 2 has passed, and I have officially embarked on a new phase of life. WITHOUT C. how sad! my commencement passed super uneventfully. i didn't go for Grad night, neither did i go for the after party. but i'd much rather be skyping him than squeezing with the crowd and attempting to club again since ages ago.

after all, Skype nights are all i have for the next 3 weeks, and i have to cherish them. ): i can't believe it's so hard to be alone; weekends are the hardest for sure. maybe it's because i haven't actually been single in the past 6+ years.

for this 15-minute post (because i'm too lazy to upload the commencement photos), i shall post my 15 Minutes dinner with mj and john during the week. it was a nice catch up, but we're still pending one with joseph and meng, hopefully as soon as he's back (and ideally with kate spade for me zzz).

the menu

cheese fries

actually that's all i have for the food photos, because the pastas we ordered weren't very nice. the cheese fries was shiok though, and i think i ate more of this than my own pasta ~.~

for the walk there and the price and quality, it certainly isn't worth it. but for the chillax atmosphere, maybe you could considering just ordering the housepours and cheese fries. it's a pretty nice hangout place.

more soon,

xoxo

C-less Photoday

2011-07-24T18:59:00.000+08:00

it feels like VERY FREAKING LONG, but it's only been a week DDD:
i can't believe there's still 4 more weeks to endure being cold, sad and lonely. Skyping every chance we have is the only thing that's making it less hard. although i think my internet connection makes it really frustrating sometimes with all the lagging and disconnecting.

the worst part is C missing photoday DDD: and kelly's absence shrunk our group to like just 4 of us, so it could have been alot more fun! hopefully the plan to organize a 2nd round of our own photoday in 4 weeks' time bears fruition.

anyhows, i did have some fun there! at first i thought the whole commencement/graduation is overrated, it's like just another day. but i guess being back in school dressed in your gown while seeing sad freshies to-be in their camps, never knowing how the next 4 years of SMU life would stretch and torment them; it's a moment of nostalgia for us, and yet also a moment to busk in their naivete and ignorance.

but i shall stop being mean. here's some of my favourite photos!

Family booth

TOTALLY ENVIED THOSE PPL WHO WERE TAKING PHOTOS WITH THEIR PARTNERS AND LOVED ONES HERE.

nuff said.

but then i thought the lighting was super weird, or else the resolution is too high or something, cos everything looks too defined; the cheeks, the dimples. i didn't know i had such deepset dimples or huge Fann-wong-esqe cheeks it's kind of freaky.

maybe not my favourite shot after all.

Featured booth (1)

Featured booth (2)

the props were super cute! and i loved how the 2nd photo worked out. i was so genuinely happy smashing ethan's head with the squeaky hammer and i didn't realize it bent. and i didn't imagine it would hit right smack on the centre of his mortarboard, so it's quite funny.

but i thought we won't be able to see any feet so i was wearing my super casual wedges -.-

with The DEXTER <3

Law's colour is deep purple and actually looks quite nice but it's a tad too dark for photo taking, and it's almost unnoticeable.

love accountancy's gold trimmings, it's totally Gryffindor!

there's supposed to be some other photos taken in the library but they've yet to be spotted on FB so have to wait and see i guess. i was wearing a super cute HP hat that i contemplated sniping away to wear to watch HP later in the night.

btw, on another note, HP DH2 was awesome.

and Amy Winehouse's death is shocking, yet unsurprising, at the same time.

chew on that.

Day 0.

2011-07-17T00:07:00.002+08:00

Day zero started the night C flew off. we kind of slept for an hour and a half before he finally got ready to go to the airport. work somehow drains the energy out of you even if you haven't done much. so it wasn't a really eventful sendoff. basically it consisted of dinnering, napping, then preparing, gg to the airport, and it ended briefly with him sending me off (ironically) to take my 858 home.

i came back exhausted even after that 1 and 1/2 hour nap, went to sleep, and woke up still on Day zero. he reached Dubai in the morning.

surprisingly, day zero passed rather quickly:

i went to school to collect my academic gown, C's degree, then hopped over to Bras Basah Complex to pick up some GP papers for my sis (me being a responsible tuition teacher), whatsapped C during the whole time until he boarded his connecting flight to NY.

i reached home, ate the Barcook Bakery's custard milk bun and proclaimed it awesome (our 20min queue for bread was so worthwhile! more to come), and tried to figure out how to wear my academic gown. after prancing around in my gown and mortarboard for a few minutes feeling like i can cast spells with a wooden stick in my hand (speaking of which i WANT TO WATCH HARRY POTTER), i decided i was tired from all the early errands, and took a 1 and 1/2 nap.

woke up at 3+, nuah-ed a bit and ordered 2 ASOS dresses ("finalcall" 10% additional discount that lasts till Sunday only! i couldn't resist sorry WL). it was 4.20pm. i worked out for 20 min, bathed, {insert break}, and then 6pm arrived.

went out with my sis to J8 for dinner at:

Watami

only because my dad had a wedding dinner to attend, and we were left alone with a bunch of capita mall vouchers.

had some fried unagi rolls,

and chicken katsu with additional rice. 2 bowls of rice amounted to $5 zzz.

and this was actually before the egg was added in! the colour kind of looks nicer only because of the Instagram filter. the egg was yummy!

but for this, it cost $30, and i dont think it's very worth it. oh well, thats what vouchers are for anyway.

so anyway we walked around for a bit, contemplated buying Koi but then decided it would make my workout futile. reached home at 8 plus, {insert break}; started playing sims 3 again and time flew.

it is now 11:52pm and i am here. C has not reached! the flight must be so tiring and boring :(

so far my following week's been scheduled with meetups with Didi and Dexter. maybe im visiting my grannie on sunday, so that leaves the rest of the week empty. i have a couple of things to get done which i plan to schedule over the next few weeks, and i can continue my exercise regime very regularly!

It's just 35 days more.

Blistered

2011-07-09T10:00:00.000+08:00

After wearing covered shoes from dawn till late night for 4 days in a row, my feet has majorly suffered from blisters all around. even my new Itti & Otto heels cant save me on a comfort level. I wish Hush Puppies would come out with nicer designs! Nine West seems to be a next best option, but before my pay comes in i shall continue to be frugal.

the first week of work has passed! and i already feel like i've worked for very long -.- am getting used to waking up in the morning, but it still feels super weird to leave office before anyone else does. :( at least i know that in time to come i would probably be leaving the same time as them. lol.

anyways, snippets of the week:

Monday night dinner at Ma Maison, because it's Ladies' Night! and we get 20% off ala carte items. super worth it. but i think i always order more or less the same thing zzz.

Tuesday night dinner at Marche, and i don't see why it's so popular. i think its over-priced. but meeting up with some of the lovelies after work was nice. with almost all of us in the workforce already, such meetups will hopefully become more routine :)

after the successful curb of my semi shopping addiction, i thought id write about "how to control your spending" but then it doesn't suit the blog title and it has no link to this entry so i shall leave it for another time.

Caked up.

2011-07-02T00:40:00.000+08:00

ive always thought im a sweets person. loves desserts, cakes, pastries etc. i do love pastries, like bread, croissants, sandwiches, i think i can live on them. but cakes, thats a different story. after 2 consecutive days of high tea cake indulgence, i think im cake-o-phobic for at least a week. not because they dont taste good; in fact, theyre delicious. but i think ive overdosed:

From TWG:

unknown red berry like cake with macaron crust.

we were actually only there for the tea, and we had 2 pots to share: 1837 Black Tea and Silver Moon tea.

"1837 Black is a unique blend of black tea with notes of fruits and flowers from the Bermuda triangle which leaves a lingering aftertaste of ripe berries, anise, and caramel. A timeless classic."

Silver Moon Tea: "A TWG blend of green teas is accented with a grand berry and vanilla bouquet, suave, with just a hint of spice. A tea for that special moment."

okay i koped it from the TWG website because when the waiter was trying to explain it i couldn't catch his pronunciations. such is the bane of foreign workers. language (or rather, accent) starts becoming a barrier, especially to our ability to understand what we're ordering. both teas were nice, but we concluded that the black tea was nicer. more aromatic, sweeter and less of the bitter aftertaste the Silver Moon contained.

anyways i thought the cake was not bad, but it cant beat today's cake:

From Marmalade Pantry

Sea Salt & Caramel Cheesecake

Carrot Cake

it's cheaper, and the serving is un-finish-able. think PS cafe sized for the carrot cake. luckily we cancelled our cupcake order, if not i think i would have puked cake out. sea salt & caramel is surprisingly good as a cheesecake. i dont like the ice cream flavour, and still don't! i would like to try the cupcake next time though. Cupcake Hazel, no less. lol

Marmalade Pantry (MP the name is so freaking long) seems alot more crowded than TWG on a weekday, so i guess the service is slower and less amiable. they had an affordable looking high tea set though at 20 bucks per person, and a full meal consisting of tea, sandwiches, scones and cupcakes (and i forgot if there's anything else). but it was minimum 2 to order, and at the rate that we couldn't finish our cakes, i think we made the right decision to skip the set meal.

snippets of dinner at Far East, so far that we haven't gone in ages. Pontian Wanton Noodle! is like our cheap food safe haven when we're in town.

inflation has caught up with the shops, alot of them selling their dresses for like 80-100+ bucks? wtf. we might as well go buy from Zara right. or other high street label with more street cred. some of the material of the dresses look quite good though. so the solution is to buy such dresses at MDS, where, after Citibank 10% discount, i can get it for $28.80! yay finally have ONE wearable formal shift dress. (: thats an indication that i need more. i actually found other decently priced and relatively smart/sweet looking dresses at far east, but was too lazy to try them on.

besides, i no longer buy multiple items in a single shopping trip. ive learnt to spread out my shopping. the new non-shopaholic me is damn giam (stingy) when buying anything that i've not planned for. sometimes it leaves me thinking about my missed possession during the night, but at the end of the day i definitely see a steep improvement in the amount of clothes i buy on impulse. spending wise, its a different story, since saving on unnecessary clothes leaves me excess moolah room to spend on bigger ticket items. zzz so okay maybe its zero-sum after all. but that's gonna be left for another entry.

Universal Studios Singapore

2011-06-30T00:48:00.000+08:00

my dad's company had a subsidised rate for USS during this period, and so me and my sis grabbed possibly the only chance we got, before i get consumed by the corporate world, to go to Universal Studios!

us walking to Sentosa via the boardwalk, which is super convenient! cheaper entrance fee into Sentosa too.

okay we cheated on walking cos there's travel-ators all the way there.

we were trying to self take a photo of us with the USS globe in the background, but even though we failed, we still got a chio camwhore shot. so its not bad.

i was looking at the online map the previous night, and i figured it's a pretty small space. i was pretty much right! USS totally doesn't take a full day to complete, even if you went for every single attraction. the only way to take one whole day was if you queued 65min for every ride, which was the max time we saw. but that's impossible cos while it's crowded, it wasn't super packed, and during the off-peak hours the rides took like 5 min each. okay you'll only be able to spend a full day in there if you repeat the rides over and over again, which i don't really see the point of.

Betty Boop! she was roaming around Hollywood. actually i thought she's really out of place. like in-the-wrong-millenium out of place. do kids even know who she is?!

Far Far Away! watched the 4-D 'movie', and it was typical. i like this section more than Madagascar though!

Waterworld! it was part of The Lost World. pardon that maid in front. this photo is obviously not taken by me! btw, again, the lost world sounds kind of like an old movie.

venturing into The Lost World after leaving Far Far Away. if im not wrong that's Princess Fiona's castle? can't rmb wtf.

let me explain the kid's lunchbox:

we wanted to get a quick takeaway meal before we entered Waterworld, because there was a live show scheduled at 1pm. we didn't know how long it was gonna last, but we didnt want to delay lunch till later because then our food would be churning in our tummies when we took the more thrilling rides. and i definitely didn't want to end up doing a Merlion after a ride.

okay so why kid's meal: because it was the nearest restaurant to Waterworld when we were looking for food, it was the cheapest meal at $9.50. still freaking ex for a bloody kid's meal im. and me and my sis could share it easily cos it was just nuggets and criss-cut fries, and finally i admit, there was the super cute free lunchbox that came with the meal.

i am planning ahead! next time i'll force my kids to use it. ill pack their lunches inside and make them take to school and be the kids with the cutest lunchbox. but then i kept carrying around the lunchbox the rest of the day cos it was too fat to even fit in my already humongous bag. and then there were 1234567890!@#$ kids carrying the same stupid lunchbox around USS the whole day too. :(

and this was our kid's meal! dinosaur nuggets! made me feel happy eating them though they weren't v nice. so this is how they use visually stimulating tactics to appeal to kids when the substance is really mediocre. omg i was fooled.

anyway the whole point of all this is to watch the awesome live water show, which consisted of some of the following:

guns and speedboats

umm, stunts?

okay there were many stunts done by the cast that included dropping from a height into the water, free flying fox from one to another, hanging upside down and then dropping into a tank. just that it's hard to concentrate on the show and try to anticipate a camera-shot moment at the same time. and i don't know if it's my cam that's laggy or the too many explosions during the show that hazed up the air, but most of the pictures taken are super lousy, subjects too distant, and blur/faded out.

see got explosion and stunt captured in one moment. this must be one of the best shots already.

and just when we thought things couldn't get any more chaotic, out of the blue, some plane suddenly crashed into the scene. this was probably the climax. it was uber cool. but i think the bad thing is everything happened so fast and hectically, and there were so many explosions that you can't really hear what the cast was screaming about. so i didn't really catch the story -.- something about people trying to find dry land.

end of show! the protagonist and the damsel in distress that was saved by him. the show lasted a mind-blowing....... 20 minutes!! zzz i didn't even know so many things could happen within that short time frame.

then we entered Jurassic Park!

yes this pose is retarded cos of the lunchbox.

Jurassic Park i can't rmb had what but i think it was meh. we then entered Ancient Egypt, which consisted of these strange tall characters that i don't know were supposed to be what. you see, the Mummy was done in like 2000 who the hell remembers what it was about.

we decided to take a photo with him anyway. and i have no idea what i was doing but i think the lunchbox has a retarding effect on me :(

anyway my favourite ride was in Ancient Egypt, some Mummy roller coaster that was in total darkness. the best part was when it sped backwards at the beginning and dropped down a couple of metres. just as suddenly it jerked forward up again. i think i would love backward roller coasters more! the drops were super unpredictable cos it was so dark even though we were sitting right in front. okay maybe it was because we were sitting right in front that we couldn't see anything. im pretty sure the ppl behind us could see our heads and estimated when we dropped.

near the end, just at the last drop, there was a sudden huge flash and i was like OMFG GOT BLOODY CAMERA inside. and true enough when we exited we could see our psychotic screaming faces while dropping down. and even in total darkness the flash was like day. horrible photography that one.

Battlestar Galactica! that i totally do not relate to.

the Human (red) vs Cylon (blue). we only took the human cos the cylon looks mightily scarier, and it spun 360 degrees like 3 or more times. the aliens win hands down lor wtf. the human was scary too in its own way. it was so fast i think i almost snapped my head trying to twist it back into position.

the 1st time we rode it i was sitting at the corner, and during the turns my head would be flicked out of the headrest (cos i wasn't exactly leaning on it properly) and i would try to reposition it and the speed of the coaster made me feel like my head weighed 1000 kg. and when the coaster was gg down i dont know why i dipped my head down, and then i couldn't lift it up either! so after that 1st round i got a slight headache from all that unnecessary pressure.

the 2nd time though i was smart to lean right back on the headrest, and during the ride my whole body was paralyzed from the speed but securely stuck to the seat. so it wasn't as scary as the 1st time and that's why i never like repeating my rides over too many times. the 1st time's always the scariest.

this was when i was tired after all that screaming, especially in the Mummy, which again, wasn't as scary the 2nd time round. plus walking around for almost 1 whole day has taken its toll on the old me.

wandered into New York and chanced upon a musical! and i only wanted to go in for the seats and the air conditioning. another 20-30 min of live show, this time quite lame. about Monsters coming to live and singing rock songs. it sounded more like random clubbing songs actually, cos they sang Flo Rida's Right Round and i was wondering how the old touristy ah tiong sitting beside me was appreciating it.

the girls from the diner! i dono what their official name was but it was outside a Billy Bomber-ish diner, so i thought it must be some retro thing. my favourite is the one closest to us in the picture! she had the most sincere smile and the nicest dimples :)

this one was just a little too fat to me. the skinniest one (blond) at the far end looked a little creepy when she smiled.

this little boy standing in front of us had the most energy in the crowd!

UBER CUTE. and when the girls were close up and dancing towards us he would try to imitate their moves super cute.

by then it was evening and we had walked 2 rounds around the park, sat 2 rounds of our favourite rides (the Human and the Mummy), watched 2 live shows, and sat the other more mediocre rides. a total of about 6 hours? we still had more time to spare. actually we took a break and idled in the Lost World foodcourt for a while cos i suddenly felt very sleepy and felt like taking an afternoon nap. and i think that was also the partial cause of my headache. D: even weak coffee doesnt do it for me now omg caffeine addition ttm.

yes the hershey's syrup bottle is MUCH taller than me. and i was still holding my lunchbox. all the way home.

Manic.

2011-06-28T10:59:00.000+08:00

a couple of updates:

work starts in 6 days D:
have been/am going for high tea in the afternoons because ill probably never ever have the luxury of time to do that EVER.
FINALLY changed my phone! or swapped it with C rather. am glad we're one of the first to grab hold of the Galaxy S II before it sold out like within 5 min of its launch -.- . but C's furious that we didn't get the free casing, screen protector AND Carousel high tea vouchers that the starhub shops were offering with every purchase. Note to Starhub: your inconsistency in service standards is horrendous. my data plan is somehow still not activated yet (why?!), so im confined to using wifi-only access. D: the only salvaging factor for Starhub was its free delivery for online orders of the phone, and its lower price compared to other telcos. still, shouldn't service be its number one priority? they never ever follow up with online feedback either.
C's leaving me for US for a whole freaking month.
i still don't have a new work bag :(
i still need comfy work shoes :(
i need to do my nails before i start work.
i still have vouchers for brow threading, a facial and a Paradise Inn dinner to utilise.
i quit my tuition, so that i can use the Sunday time to tutor my sis instead. am i noble or what.
my Sims' Zombie family has experienced another whole new drama:

so the last time i played Leanne Zombie died. i went to create a new family called Shrek - don't ask me why i always create weird characters but isn't it just so much more interesting than your typical Smith family - consisting of a single mum, Sally Shrek, and 2 boys, a teen Grumpy George and a child Fat Freddy. my initial plan was for this single mum family to meet and marry Mudd Zombie eventually. so i was playing Shrek for a while, and i didn't realize that my Sims were in storymode, which means the other families in town continue to progress as i played!

so when i went back to play the Zombie family i realized that Mudd was/had been in a new r/s for 22 days! with some default Sims character called Jamie. so okay i decided to develop the r/s further, and Mudd proposed. they got engaged! then one fine day Mudd received a call from the Science centre for an experiment to revive a recently dead loved one. i was omgggg excited so i immediately sent him there with Leanne's tomb.

i was totally anticipating Leanne's return cos she's my favourite character so far: can cook damn well and can upgrade all the household appliances to unbreakable/self-cleaning etc. but lo and behold the experiment failed D: but i was left with the ghost of Leanne. i could actually control her! so technically the experiment revived her, but still in ghost form. -.- i didn't know the game could get so elaborate!

so anyway i was back with the semi-revived Zombie family, but alas, Mudd still wanted to marry that damned Jamie. so i thought ok let's see what happens. they had a private wedding, and wa-la~ now this household consists of a newly-wed couple, a ghost of an ex-wife, and a kid. and with Jamie's occupation as a trauma surgeon, the household funds increased significantly! i shifted them out to a nice new Victorian home, and grew the kid Evelyn up to a teen.

now Evelyn's dating Fat Freddy Shrek. so my initial plan of marrying Shrek with Zombie isn't so failed after all. unfortunately i made Fat Freddy fat, so he grew up to become damn fat too. i tried to make him swim to build up athleticism but then i realized i gave him a hydrophobic character trait too -.- my Sims are horribly unfortunate i know. they are nevertheless happy :)

sounds like a very long story - yes in Sim days it is - and okay maybe i've been playing Sims too much. i can spend one whole day just playing it and forget about everything else like lunch and stuff cos in Sims life they eat already. it's a weird, surreal feeling.

My Tragic Sims' Life

2011-06-23T14:50:00.000+08:00

have been playing Sims 3 recently after being freed from all my tutorials. i created a lovely Zombie family, made up of Mudd Muscle Zombie and Leanne Zombie. they're lovely because even though Mudd is supposed to be super evil, technophobic, daredevil and all the lousy traits, he shared a loving r/s w Leanne. Leanne was supposed to be a normal girl transformed into a zombie by Mudd, who would resolve to delve into research about cross-breeding from then on. but when i was playing it turned out that she picked up cooking and handiness so quickly that i made her a stay-home wife instead. Mudd was to fulfill his lifetime achievement of being a level 10 criminal! he's still on his way there now, but things have changed SO MUCH since i started playing. so i decided to do a little scrap of their life (since i have nth better to do at home):

Phase 1: moving in

Ghostly apparitions wandering into the new home

Confrontation with Ghost

Fight with ghost

i made them move into this minimally furnished house cos i couldnt be bothered to create a new home. they're supposed to be zombies anyway. but their house was surrounded by gravestones, so right after they moved in all 3 ghosts decided to come visit (Pic 1). they wandered around for a while, so i made Leanne quarrel with one of the ghosts, and it ended in a fight (Pic 3), while Mudd was busy mopping up strange puddles around the house.

Phase 2: honing skills

Being arrested

Electrocuted Leanna

i started honing their skills, letting Mudd take up his criminal career, while Leanne stayed home and tinkered with stuff and cooked. she was earning simoleons from accomplishing random opportunities, like joining the neighbourhood grill-a-thon, preparing dishes for people and repairing stuff.

In Pic 1, Mudd got arrested one time during work and had to spend the night in jail. so i made him work out while in there to continue training his essential athletic skill. Pic 2 shows Leanne being electrocuted while repairing their lousy comp. she turned soot black, though a shower cleaned it up nicely. later on it was a lesson she would never have gotten to learn...

Randoms:

Arguing with Ghost 2

Slap Ghost 2

Ghost 2 eating

Peeping Tom Ghost 2

Dish washer Ghost 2

so random snippets of what the occasional ghostly visitor would do to disturb the Zombie's wonderfully progressing lives. the most regular visitor was this old man ghost. he keeps stealing food from the fridge and eating it. which was why i made Mudd slap him (Pic 2). one time he walked through the wall into the toilet while Leanne was peeing (Pic 4). and it dampened her mood for a while so annoying. sometimes though, old man ghost would clean up after he ate (Pic 5), so he's not so bad.

Phase 3: having a baby

Leanne vomitting

Finding out she's pregnant

Pregnant walk

Giving birth

finally giving birth!

it's a girl!

the loving r/s between Leanne and Mudd needed regular woohoo-ing. okay i make them do it cos its the quickest and easiest way for both of them to have a full bar of social and fun satisfaction. cos stupid Mudd was a technophobe, playing computer games or watching tv actually worsens his mood. increasing his fun quickly increases his chances of promotion. and because of my awesome playing i grew the family fortune from a mere 4000+ simoleons to a reasonably comfortable 9000+ simoleons. and Mudd's criminal career was doing superbly well!

anyway i digress. after alot of woohoo-ing Leanne started vomitting from unknown reasons (Pic 1) and i was sure they weren't eating any spoiled food. soon after she found out she was pregnant! (pic 2). and at first i thought oh no, cos i gave her a 'dislike children' character trait, so i was wondering how it would affect her. but she seemed even happier, and started behaving like a pregnant lady, including going for regular massages, having cravings, and walking like a pregnant duck. (pic 3).

after a while, she finally gave birth! Mudd was at work, so i decided it was too much trouble to send her to the hospital, and let her give birth at home.

it was a girl!

she was born with an Evil trait, just like her father. so i named her Evelyn Evil.

Phase 4: Death comes knocking..

Electrocuted once


Electrocuted twice

the family was growing well. everything was too good to be true. then one day Leanne had an opportunity. help upgrade a neighbour's stereo, return it and get a cash reward! perfect for her handiness skill. and gave her something to do apart from dealing with Evelyn Evil, which she really dislikes.

somehow she had the unluckiness to be electrocuted again (pic 1). and i thought oh well, who cares. she's almost finished with the upgrading! so i made her continue with her work.

who knew, she was so suay, or maybe im too naive. but she got electrocuted a 2nd time (Pic 2). and this time..

i knew it wasnt good.

Death appears. Mudd calling for a 'memory'

the appearance of Death wasn't a prank. :(

Mudd ran over and started mourning, at the same time calling for a 'memory' as shown by the icon. everytime this icon is shown it calls for a snapshot to be recorded because it's an event worth remembering.

Leanne dies

Death chanting sth. Leanne's grave appears

Leanne's body disappears

and transforms into a ghost

Leanne ghost resurrected

so the start of Evelyn Evil's life brought about the saddening end of Leanne's. her death was so sudden; i had great things planned for her! sighs. its not the first time my Sim died in a freak accident.

anyway it went downhill from there. Mudd was heartbroken for days and it affected his mood. so i accelerated Evelyn's growth into a young girl without properly training her. she ended up with characteristic traits like hot-headedness, daredevil-like, technophobe, very similar to her dad's.

subsequently, Mudd also got electrocuted while repairing the same stupid old comp, resulting in a fire that almost took another life! it ended with him hugging Evelyn tightly while covered in Soot. im too lazy to upload these already cos im late! my poor once wonderful Zombie family now has alot to recover from.

so the moral of the story is, call the damned repair technician everytime your electronics spoil, or just buy a new one. its v troublesome to recover your sim from a tragedy. except that now Mudd wants to get married again -.-

Finish Up

2011-06-20T12:15:00.000+08:00

Day 8:

Guadix

Day 8 of our journey saw another stopover on the way to Valencia - at Guadix! this little town was just outside Granada, and supposedly a cathedral town. because of the huge cathedral in the photo. it was super pretty, but i was quite glad we werent going inside for the tour. lol.

instead, we were taking the train (bottom left hand corner) up the mountain (or was it a hill i cant differentiate) to see the Troglodyte cave houses. we were thinking what kind of train we had to take up the mountain that cost 3 euros per person, but it turned out to be just some tourist-y Sentosa-ish tram. -.-

trying to snap a chio photo on the train but was deeply irritated by my brother, obviously.

on the way up the mountain, the sights that i shot. okay they're not connected at all but i'd like to think the collage tells a story of some sort.

Cave House!

we got to visit the inside of one of the cave houses. what's so special about these houses is the fact that the temperature inside doesn't change at all, for 365 days of the year. it stays the same, regardless of the weather outside. i wish Sg houses were like that wtf. perpetual coolness. along the mountain everybody lived in these Troglodyte quarters. im too lazy to wiki the facts or history, but i think this sounds interesting enough already lah. the inside of the cave house is cosy and quaint, yet spacious enough to live comfortably. envy countries with massive land space!

at the top of the mountain, the view was, of course, spectacular. as with every scenic view in Spain! even along all our bus journeys the scenery can be super picturesque, but if i were to snap pictures of every time the scenery changes i think my camera would run out of space. besides, i spend most of the time on the bus sleeping zzz.

Cooking our Paella!

after Guadix we just continued travelling to Valencia, and by the time we reached, yes, it was dinner time! 6+ hours on the bus and just eat and sleep whole day only. damn active lifestyle. anyway lunch was along the rest stop cafeteria again so it was just meh.

our Paella dinner was another tourist-catered restaurant, so we weren't expecting much after that disappointing tapas tourist trap. but i was quite pleasantly expectant when i saw this huge platter of Chicken & Squid Ink Paellas waiting for us! they specially took it out before serving our portions cos they knew we would want to snap away with our cams. every family from the tour group had at least one giant DSLR cam lor.

finally dinner is served! apart from the gross cooked peas appetizer that i didnt touch, the rest of the dinner was one of the best meals provided yayyyyy i was so relieved. they actually served us 3 portions of squid ink, seafood and chicken paella. we got a much better deal than the other Jap tour group (same tour grp as during the Flamenco performance and tapas dinner ...) cos i saw they only got the seafood paella. i liked the chicken paella most! and unfortunately i only finished that portion. i ate some of the rest though. and i finished my prawn and mussel.

but i was leaving space for..dessert! pictured at top left hand corner. best dessert of the tour imo. 3 big orange slices topped with hardened caramel for that sweet sugary taste. accompanied by 2 large triangles of some hazelnut ice cream. the orange juice + caramel mix coupled with some chocolate fudge made for some delicious syrup pairing. i didnt touch the whipped cream duh.

and that marked the end of the night!

Day 9:

Hotel Olympia

i liked our Valencia hotel too cos of the giant mirrors. apparently its bad fengshui or sth, but hey, what you dont know wont kill you lah.

Valencia!

city of the Arts & Science! tts according to the itinerary. these were, i think exhibition centres and museums. designed by some famous architect (i fell asleep on the bus when the tour guide started talking sorry). but i rmb tt this famous architect always designed his works with reference to animals, so you can see the 'blue whale' building (big pic), the sort of skeletal like structure (small pic right hand corner) and the alien shaped building (small pic at left hand corner). okay technically alien is not an animal but i cant rmb what reference animal was used to describe it. ikr my dad wasted so much money paying for a tour and we end up not remembering half of what all the tour guides told us.

Mercat Central

can you believe how freaking NICE their central market is?! imagine Singapore's, say, Chong Pang market. omfg Chong Pang is like a drain compared to this magnificent architectural building. when i already thought the country spent so much effort on their buildings (library, post office, bank etc), i didnt think they even did that for their markets! it was so pretty, even the ceiling was decorated with paintings of oranges. somehow orange trees grow everywhere in Spain. but anw the market was divided into sections of course, with the wettest section being the seafood as usual, but even that's not all bad compared to what we have as markets. ive always hated wet markets for its smelly and wet gross-ness, but i think if i lived there i would love to go grocery shopping in the market everyday. another classic dangling ham pic on bottom left.

old Stock Exchange building

another famous architect designed this. the 2nd right small pic is the Valencia crest. on 2nd look i think its too small to be noticed, but oh well. i cant rmb what's so interesting about this building.

random pictures of the Valencia city centre! where we finally had time to seek our own lunch apart from dull rest stop cafeteria lunches we've been having too much. i love how Spain has bakeries and pastries selling everywhere. i think i can live on croissants and bread.

me and my sis were looking for lunch sandwiches and there were a couple of cafes that looked super popular w the local crowd. unfortunately and stubbornly and SELF-CENTREDLY my brother wanted ham. GRR. so we ended up with sub-standard lunch again, at this empty, unknown place. me and my sis still chose sandwiches but they were pathetic like plain-bread-with-tuna-spread or just ham-and-a-few-slices-of-cheese kind of lame sandwich. the ham was also sub-standard, and okay everyth was lah. i had Sangria tho which helped better the lousy lunch abit.

after lunch, we went on our way again, this time back to Barcelona! i love this collage. that random rest stop overlooked the sea on one side, and mountains on the other. it was so pretty. and my sis decided to walk to Barcelona, hence the inspiration for this collage.

Tapas Dinner

when we reached Barcelona we were so glad to be FREE from tour like finally, and after loot-less shopping for a while, we decided to go for the 2nd best tapas dinner of our trip. this one i really liked. although we ordered pretty standard tapas like mushrooms, squid, fried chicken wings, meatballs etc (total 6 tapas plates omg), every plate tasted good! i was happy! at the bar counter seats though they had an assortment of like premium tapas or something. like those sushi counter where you order the red plate. the big right pic is one of them. caviar, prawn and ham on a slice of garlic bread for like 3+ euros a pair. even about same price as red plate sushi ~.~ there were plenty more but we only tried that one before leaving.

Pizza

yes, we left tapas restaurant and went for 2ND ROUND DINNER at this pizzeria that looked popular. damn shagged from eating. my brother was laughing at my tortured look when digging into my share of pizza. we ordered 2 to share among the 4 of us, and it was nice but i cant tell the difference between the 2 pizzas. anw i was so full i barely ate 1 slice. wait or did i even finish it i cant rmb. nb: there's alot of Asians in Barcelona's city centre for some reason.

Hotel Alimara

cabbing back to our hotel was the worst decision we made on our last night. not only did it take 10 min just to cross from one side of the road to the opposite side (which we could have taken 10 seconds if we just walked), the total cost added up to about 20 euros. another family told me they took the metro, which took 10 min + a bit of walking, and 1 euro per person.

nevertheless, i was so happy to see another cool contemporary decor for the hotel, this time in a Black theme. uber stylish.

Day 10-11:

La Roca Village Outlet

on the last morning before we headed to the airport for our flight back (and that wld be considered day 11 in the cheating tour package), the bus took us to this outlet. but it wasn't a very fruitful shopping place unless you're interested in mostly european brands like Pepe Jeans, Camper and so on. some of the US brands there included Polo Ralph, CK, Dockers, Timberland...nothing very exciting either. and it wasn't much cheaper than here actually. the only semi-excitement i got was when i saw Burberry and ALMOST impulsively bought a bag there, cos it costs just 400+ SGD after conversion. im glad i thought twice though, cos the patent strap is in BLUE, and i would have mightily regretted it now if i did buy it. burberry print and patent blue totally dont go! i dont even like blue! but i was pretty sad that day cos i thought i missed out on a super good deal. doesnt help that my dad asked me to just get it lah. walao super bad influence this father.

my sis was the one who angrily stopped me. sighs, which is why a work bag is at the top of my need list now.

and the day ended, the trip ended, 9 days of bliss in Spain gone poof, into mere memories at the back of our heads. i was still happy obviously cos i know what im coming home to. my sis, on the other hand, was coming home to studying for her mid-years, poor thing!

so apart from finally finishing this exhausting spain triple entry, ive also finished all my pre-work tutorials!! yayyyy i can finally nuahh away my final days of freedom.

now the real countdown starts.

España parte 2 fotos

2011-06-18T01:20:00.000+08:00

i literally google-translated Spain photos part 2. at least it doesn't sound as boring!

Day 5:

Toledo

this was the day we set out to toledo, another great town/city just outside Madrid, and it's my favourite town! not only because the weather was great. the scenery was spectacular, though my collage is more focused on random "artistic" shots of us and tiny tiny scenery. im crapping cos i cant rmb a single thing abt the places we visited; and its not elaborated in the itinerary lol. except for the fact tt Toledo is a UNESCO Heritage Site, and a formal capital city of Spain, i didnt really take much away; the view took my breath away rather.

more Toledo

okay probably better scenery collage. see BREATH-TAKING. the bottom right corner is a picture of another cathedral, i think. i must be 99% correct.

Train Station

i like my more creative than usual collages! this one was made black&white, distorted to an illusion, and then just lumped 2 other photos on top, and framed. okay i guess i cheated cos its really much easier than it looks with the help of Photoscape, the best photo-editing tool ever.

anyway. train station looks nice! if only all our above ground train stations look like tt. btw this was taken at lunch, where we were tortured with horrible Chinese food for the 1st time during the trip. DISGUSTING. PERIOD.

Dessert/Afternoon tea/Pre-dinner snack

so to compensate for the lousiest meal ever, we got back to Madrid and had some free time. call it whatever, but we indulged basically. because dinner was gonna be late. so we went into this cafe (cant rmb the name) with only 1 waitress, and the 3 of us ordered a delectable chocolate gooey goodness muffin while my bro ordered the extremely filling spanish omelette. they stuff all their omelettes w potatoes everywhere; its like our zhi char standard onion omelette there. except that its under Spanish starters.

The Arena

evening came and we and another 2 families + 1 couple + our tour leader met up to go watch the Sunday bullfight! it wasnt in our itinerary but the bullfight coincided w our last night in Madrid, and since there's no programme at night, we might as well do sth worthwhile. and at 26.50 euros per person (for a Sun seat only! no shelter) it better be worth it!

we took the metro for the one & only time in Spain. not only was it smaller than our trains, the doors were not automatic! so if u wanted to go in or out u had to twist the handle to open the door yourself. quite amusing. it was packed, though it looked as if every person on the train was heading to the arena on tt day.

okay i wiki-ed this, but Spanish bullfighters are actually the people on horsebacks and not the ppl in bright costumes with the capes. they have diff names for the diff types of matadors but lets just call them clowns. the clowns would distract the bull while the real bullfighter receives his spear from the sidelines, or like to make it more interesting when the bull is released into the centre, before the bullfighter appears.

theres a total of 6 bulls for slaughtering each session, but we only watched 3, which lasted for an hour or so. each bullfighter would come in, and upon receiving his spear, would use his unique attacking style to entice the bull to charge. then he would try to get the bull close enough to spear it. the bull needs 6 or 7 (i cant rmb) spears before the bullfighter stabs it for the final kill, and when the bull finally collapses everybody cheers (okay everybody cheers everytime a spear is stuck into the bull).

but then everyone starts waving white cloths/handkerchiefs, and apparently its because the judges were present; and depending on the judgment of the skill of the bullfighter, the judge may or may not raise the white cloth, which is to grant permission to the bullfighter to keep the bull's ear or sth (some part of the bull). kind of like gladiator style when the judge decides whether the slave should be finished off or not, but in this case its like to keep a trophy piece of the bull or sth.

bullfight action

those white dangling things are the spears sticking out fr the bull. of the 3 bulls that we watched, 1 didnt seem particularly interested or provoked, 1 tried to jump the ring (which was most interesting & scary at the same time), and the last collapsed pretty early on in the game. but it was still hell of an enjoyment to watch for a first timer. although much of the time we all admitted to rooting for the bull instead of the bullfighter. the horses though had to be given the most credit, cos they were actually trained to move sideways so they can sidestep the bull and avoid its horns at the critical moment.

unfortunately my camera battery died before the 1st bullfight ended so these are all the pictures i have of the 1st bull! in the background blood can be seen generously oozing out of the bull. i think it was pretty tired at that point, panting and all. but they literally charge till the very last spear that's pierced for the kill. thats when all the clowns will simultaneously run out to provoke the bull and further disorientate it until it finally collapses on its knees. and thats when ill shout in my heart "POOR BULL!" :(

anw the 2nd bull had blood spilling out of its nose and it was pretty gruesome; and at 1 pt i was pretty sure i saw bull gut lying somewhere at the side that someone failed to clean up! so bullfights are definitely not for kids.

oh then it rained after we left and we seeked shelter at this pretty awesome tapas restaurant that was declared best tapas meal by my brother in Spain. it came at a cost of 70+ euros for 3 dishes to share. plate of ham, assorted smoked fish tapas (like sushi but on top of garlic bread slices), and seafood paella noodles. but i have no photos of it on my cam (cam batt died!). its on my dad's phone but im too lazy to upload, shall do so next time if i rmb.

and abruptly, Day 6 arrives:

Cordoba

we did a short stopover in this small town called Puerto Lapice, where there was a legend of a man who fought against a windmill because he was so lame he imagined it to be a monster or sth. the story's so lame i cant be bothered to collage any photos. anw we arrived in Cordoba! which was another small town.

Patio de los Naranjos

according to itinerary, this would have been the courtyard with lovely gardens and orange trees. and theres the alley of flowers called Calleja de las Flores, which was quite pretty. i think i wasn't paying much attention to the tour guide during the walk through Cordoba.

Mezquita

This was the famous mosque converted to a cathedral in Cordoba. actually theres so many famous mosques converted to cathedrals in Spain, at least 1 in every city. but i cant rmb why this was more famous than the rest. anw i really tried to pay attention to all the facts thrown at us during the tour, definitely more so than the rest of my family, who are like kids with short attention spans. but still, it was info overload cos of the CENTURIES of history tt the guide was rambling on about. yes the cathedral like many others took centuries to build; and each section of the massive place represented a particular century's architecture and history. i think the whole place took like 2 hours of lessons to complete.

Hotel Ayre Cordoba

finally ended the day at our hotel, which was like a quaint little resort with its own patio. pretty nice for a small town, but then, so are all our other hotels.

dinner was again in the hotel, this time buffet style. pretty decent but nothing fantastic. oh wait, my collage is fantastic! self-praise is no praise, whatever.

Day 7:

Sunflower fields!

the pictures say it all. all of it! a massive land area of sunflowers! they may look small but they were as big as my head. or even my brother's head! and obviously as tall as me, i found out when my bro made me wade deep into the field to take a photo. this was on the way from Cordoba to Granada! never-ending sunflower fields in the middle of nowhere, maintained by god knows who.super pretty!

Alhambra, Generalife Gardens

finally reached Granada! i was so glad i checked the weather forecast the night before, because it rained throughout the day, and i cleverly wore my jeans out; otherwise i wld have frozen to death in Granada. the place would have been much prettier if the ground was dry and it was bright and sunny though. we visited the Alhambra, which is some Arabian place. Spain has alot of arabic influence cos it used to be occupied by Muslims before colonization by the europeans. the Generalife gardens are pronounced "Hen-a-ra-lif" and not "General Life" if my hearing is sound cos thats how the tour guide pronounced it.

Arabian architecture

love the architectural detailing. the reason spanish cathedrals/structures take centuries to build is because of its detailing i think. everything, from walls to ceilings, to floors in some cases. this one in particular, in the Alhambra, is all Arabic details. mainly we kept seeing gothic, baroque and renaissance architectural styles everywhere else we went.

love this because it reminds me of a certain Pau (top) and Fish (bottom) that i was severely missing in Spain. cannot be compared to the real WLML though.

Tapas Dinner

we had another sorely disappointing dinner: Tapas, supposedly a spanish specialty, was served in a tourist trap restaurant that only seemed to serve tourist groups. if we hadn't eaten our own Tapas dinner in Toledo the night of the bullfight, we would never have guessed how sorely under expectations this dinner was. the tapas of oyster mushroom, baby squid and clams was pathetic. the ham appetizer was no match for our 20+ euros ham platter, and the ice cream was just like the 1-dollar ice cream every uncle on the street sells.

spanish beer's not bad though.

Flamenco

Flamenco was another "optional tour" for us, like Toledo. it cost the same (35 euros per person) for so much less value. the show lasted an hour, with 2 teams of performers for the night. i almost fell asleep so i didnt bother to take any photos of the 2nd team and besides, the old woman (in red) from the 1st team didnt want anyone taking photos (but she said no video -.-) of her when she did her thang. i expected more, but oh wells when i saw the calibre of the dancers (old, bald, fat) i knew it couldn't be anything spectacular. the 2nd team was actually more entertaining but i was alr falling asleep by that time. the other japanese tour groups watching with us were full of old people, who really fell asleep during the show. the voluptuous younger dancer in yellow (or actually just plump) failed to wake them up, tho i think she was the best of the lot.

part 2 ends here!! cos i underestimated by rambling ability. i thought i cld finish everyth in 1 hour but apparently, i still have a few more days to go! and i need to slp alr tmr must wake up early to mlml with my wlml. and run.

My Personalized Skin Concoction

2011-06-17T15:14:00.000+08:00

im loving my new giant-sized (30ml, normal's 20 i think) skin inc serums, BOTH OF THEM! :D

very much love to C because it's my anni present! yay. but until now we havent actually properly celeb our anni boooooooooooooooo

was supposed to purchase the smaller serums but after i did my skin survey, the proposed skin concoction in the picture were all not under the current 1-for-1 promo, so the skin woman, i mean the salesgirl persuaded me to get the giant premixed brightening serum, also on 1-for-1 promo, + i get a free Miracle Oxy Peel Treatment bcos we spent more than the min sum yayyyyyy good deal or whatt.

ill have the wonders of Vitamin A, Hyaluronic Acid and Placenta in the brightening serum working to brighten up my skin for probably a whole year! (hopefully can last longer) can return the bottles after using for rebate somemore <3 muchhh.

vit A is essential for me cos of my dark eye circles. i cant even rmb when i started having them D: supposedly Q10 is for more aged skin, and altho it came up in my skin concoction survey, it doesnt mean im aged D: maybe its to enhance my alr youthful face. :D

okay this is a totally random entry. im takin a break from ALL THAT STUDYING for UBS. its gd i guess cos its alot of revision work + new stuff here and there. n its supposed to be interesting and relevant, and that i will admit. but i cant get over the fact tt i just finished my exams like 1+ wks back and i have to start studying again alr.

im also updating my shopping list to PRIORITZE NEEDS over WANTS.

headaches and misses.

2011-06-16T01:02:00.000+08:00

PASIR RIS BTO PLS GIVE US A GOOD UNIT TYVM! otherwise it will be long before we can finally own a house of our own and go back home to each other's arms everyday :( looking at C start work scares me SO MUCH. i alr feel drained from all the pre-course modules that i have to complete before work starts and its NOT EASY wtf. i thought it would be all basic stuff but NO, they expect us to have knowledge of US markets, UK markets, bond strategies, derivatives pricing, complex calculations of complexity and duration omg what did i sign up for im gonna dieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

OLA from Spain! the 6 hour time lag did not bode well for our bodies, for the 1st night we returned, we all slept at 3 plus, 4am and woke up at 1pm (spanish time 7-ish); we were hungry at midnight (spanish dinner) and ate lunch at 2plus 3pm. zzz.

well after these few days it's getting better but im still having a splitting headache i dont know from what, waking up too early or sleeping too late or trying to complete the pre-work course modules, or maybe stressing over work clothes, bags and shoes. im gonna have to do up a want vs need list v soon.

before that, SPAIN HOLIDAY PICTURES TT TAKE ME SUPER LONG TO UPLOAD AND EDIT COS THERE'S A TOTAL OF 1000+ of them:

Day 1 - 2:

Sagrada Familia

Tour packages sort of cheat u because Day 1 is actually the day we meet at the airport and take the plane to Barcelona; and the last day is actually the day we spend on the plane back -.- so the supposed 11-day tour is actually only 8 full nights in Spain.

anws so the 1st day, super jet-lagged us followed the tour guide around famous Spanish architect Gaudi's works all over Barcelona, the most famous of which is the Sagrada Familia: a massive church slated (but unlikely) to be completed by 2016 purely from donations of the rich.

Park Guell

Another place was some park, famous for its Guadi-designed, again, Disney inspired (or was it the other way round) gingerbread house in Hansel and Gretel; it rained here and there and it was actually cold; i was like the only one of few retarded tourists happily in my short skirt.

Salad w ham appetizer, Chicken w baked potatoes, Creme Brulee

We stopped for lunch, and to our surprise and horror (to me), the salad w ham was just an appetizer! the plate was as huge as the main course plate btw. so i could finish barely half my chicken and guess what, my bro ate everyth up for me. creme brulee dessert was okay i guess, but for the 1st meal in spain, the enormity of it simply fulfilled me already.

more Gaudi

Barcelona's filled with Gaudi's works, from some houses (tt ppl actually pay 14 euros to go into), to furniture, to even the pavement. or was tt another architect i cant rmb. but it was definitely gaudi overload for us. what's supposed to be interesting was that gaudi liked using curves so one of the houses totally had no straight lines in it (think spiral staircases, rounded edges etc). it was so curvy it was claustrophobic. period.

some minestrone or onion soup, pork fillet w fries, some carrot cake w frosting

dinner was less of a surprise to know it was 3-course again, but we feared for our tummies by the end of the tour. will we expand thrice for the amount we're eating!? gladly i can say no my appetite has actually decreased for some reason since i came back. anw they hang their tonnes of ham all over the shop; they're probably preserved cos close up it looks oily and gross. and they sell it in supermarkets for 100+ euros a leg. i think we can eat that leg for months.

Hotel Porta Fira

after a day of nauseating Gaudi, jet-lag and stuffed bellies, we were so glad to find this uber cool hotel room waiting for us. styled w a red-white-black colour scheme, it was ultra modern. n they provided individual bathrobes! i was damn happy, and sad that we only got to stay 1 night there. but it seemed tt day 1/2 was worth the exhaustion.

Day 3:

Rest stop

next morning after breakfast (which consisted of smoked salmon goodness; confirm some executive-level-targeted hotel) we set out immediately to Zaragoza, and then Madrid. Rest stop on the way. and i snapped a pic of our lovely bus driver Juan, who was born in Portugal lol.

Rabbit, chicken, salad, cooked peas, grilled calamari

lunch was at the rest stop restaurant, which, for our first attempt at ordering food in a Spanish restaurant, wasn't that bad. but it wasn't that good either. my brother had RABBIT MEAT GROSS. his classic review, though, was that it tastes like chicken. urglhk. a 3 course meal for 10+ euros, we thought, wasn't that bad after all.

Zaragoza

Zaragoza was just a one stop destination on our way to Madrid, but we did a short 1-hour tour of their town centre and the massive mosque-church, the pictures which im too lazy to collage. standing in the middle of the town was amazing though, because of the sight of all the architectural structures surrounding. there were also tents all over the area, a mark of protestors. one sign read "Capitalismo is GAGA".

Bull

on the way to madrid, this is my favourite collage! of the massive windmill fields that i only snapped 1 pathetic photo of cos i was just staring dreamily the whole way past it. it was massive. like bigger than singapore massive. the bull is just a sign we passed, not an unusual sight along all our road trips.

Hotel Nuevo Madrid

we travelled from morning, but we only reached madrid in the evening! and we had dinner at the hotel restaurant at around 8pm. typical spanish dinner time, sometimes later. it was my favourite meal of the whole trip imo. my bro and dad seem to think otherwise though. maybe cos i like fish best, and all the other meals we had was porky and stuff. we had this cold leek soup which sounds gross and is not pictured but it was great; then the fish w cheese and potatoes, and a tiramisu cake slice for dessert. the hotel was good, but no other hotel could match the Porta Fira in Barcelona for the rest of the trip.

Day 4:

Hotel breakfast

breakfast: the only breakfast where we took our camera down. love the pastry spread, especially the churros! which i thought was some special Spanish snack (okay to be frank it is) but is actually just you tiao. they even have the bigger version of churros which look exactly like you tiao but i didnt try it.

Segovia

Segovia! it was outside of Madrid, around an hour's drive or so i think. one of my favourite towns, famous for their old Roman aqueduct and the Alcazar Castle, which was the inspiration of Disney castles or sth. the top left corner photo is actually another mosque/church, but i was glad we didn't go in there. our whole itinerary wld otherwise have been a church/cathedral tour instead. scenery was great; weather was great in madrid.

Suckling pig

one of Spanish delicacies is the suckling pig which we had for lunch in Segovia. they have this ritual to follow, which starts off w flaming the poor little dead piggy. then the woman used a plate to cut up pig dramatically, supposedly to show how crisp the skin is it doesnt need a knife to go through. then the plate has to be dropped on the floor and allowed to crack for good luck. but when she did it for our tour group the plate didnt crack! so i guess we didn't receive much luck from eating it. all those calories for nothing. :(

again, the 3 course meal consisted of a ham-sausage-potato omelette-potato croquette-tomato appetizer (i know right! i was already full from this). then came the real main course of tender, surprisingly lean suckling pig with ultra crisp skin served w fries. and a whole fruit platter for dessert. whole fruit like a whole orange and a whole pear.

oh this is just a random collage of all our shots in Segovia, during lunch and the Alcazar Castle tour.

and then i got tired of collaging so im saving the rest for another entry! 5 more days worth of pics coming up. for now i can only miss Spain, miss being in Spain w C when i was there or me being in Taiwan when he was there, and miss C all the time while he's at work. gosh im needy. must be the headache causing irrational thinking.

FREEDOM

2011-06-01T19:52:00.000+08:00

and so it will last...

for one month.

the first thing im gonna do to enjoy the last of my freedom:

ESPANOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL HERE WE COME ~~~~~~~~~~

the 2nd thing im gonna do:

wlml with my wlml zha ji pa when i come back. and send him off to the end of his freedom sighssssss

the 3rd thing im gonna do:

well i haven't thought beyond that, but i have a couple of ppl to meet, including DEXTER QUEK and also DIDI :):):) and hopefully the other peetsies. and JANE :) and i'd love to meet audrey & joseph but they're gonna still be in US :( and i have the lovelies to meet minus ethan who will still be in france i think.

im very scared of the e-coli bacteria though D: apparently even if you don't die from it you'll develop chronic kidney disease suay ttm. gosh. im gonna be praying hard. and avoiding all tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuces in spain.

until i come back, i would have spent a total of 16 days without C now.

RECORD BREAKING.

emo nemo.

2011-05-26T16:47:00.000+08:00

day 1: absolute despair. studying is a distraction, yet i study SAD AND LONELY, tried to nap but closing my eyes just fills my mind with thoughts of what he's doing, what's happening in TW etc, im sitting all day waiting for the phone to ring, i react to every SMS tt comes in immed, the day passes SO SLOWLY, im hungry but i dont feel like eating anything, and im rambling cos i cant be bothered to org my thoughts. and i think to myself OMG what am i going to do WITHOUT HIM and its only 2 weeks, no technically only 5 days before i myself fly off to spain but thats not the pt ill still be away fr him, what about when he goes to the US for 1 MONTH.

the things i wld give up to be in Taiwan right now: everybody else? yes. my exams? no lol. sighs. reality trumps love.

i can only sit here and hope for safety, SMSes/calls and TAI YANG BING. 2 weeks later :(:(:(

to distract myself i shall post photos of my 3rd cousin's wedding at Peony Jade Restaurant in Clarke Quay just last saturday:

the morning after the tea ceremony which me, my dad and sis totally missed cos my sis had unfortunate Chi AO oral exams fhl. we made it for lunch though hehehe.

i know this photo of me looks like another photo of me in Phuture sometime back and i was wondering how i could strike the exact same pose w/o realizing it. its like i cut and pasted my whole body and photoshopped the clothes. even the hair looks identical. love Photoscape's 'clear skin' noise reduction function TTM.

i was trying to put eyedrops for my horribly drying out eyes. it's so bad i had to go to the doc, and all he gave me was some eyedrops, saying, there's no infection, its just dry. I KNOW its dry duh. sighs. but the sudden bout of dryness (even when im wearing specs!) cld be due to the pills, and im only gg back to my raffles place doc after im done with my 3rd mth of pills. hopefully i wont go blind by then :/

stupid girl so tall already still purposely wear 4-inched heels and be taller than me in 3-inched heels :(

me and wang wang

love subtle shiny nails, altho i think ive done that colour too many times before.

weird BROKEN ARM EFFECT it looks freaky.

classic trio shot! must-have at every occasion lol. somebody tell my sis she's NOT fat. -.-

bride and groom (my cousin) with flower boy and girls! super cute but all the bride and groom photos are super blurry so im lazy to upload.

2nd gown of the night for the 2nd march in. wedding dinners are so *yawn* predictable.

overly enthu old man hogging the mic for the yam seng toast. again flower girl & boy looking uber cute.

my favourite pic edited for cinema effect

dont judge this unassuming prawn by its looks. it was coated with super yummy pumpkin.

have no idea wtf im doing but it looks like im about to punch you.

so ive come to end of my emonemo (maybe not so much after all) entry and wasted/distracted me for abt 1/2 hour of my day yay. i swear time cannot pass any slower right now.

but if i'd seen you in the bakery,

you probably wouldn't have seen me.

Tight-lines.

2011-05-17T09:24:00.000+08:00

among studying for my finals, which ive come to realize i REALLY NEED TO, i still have to

do my nails before saturday
attend my cousin's wedding on saturday with my beautiful nails
cut/treatment my hair before the Essensuals promotion ends by the end of the month!
submit my project zzz

okay doesnt seem like a lot when i list it down but the literally tight deadlines for everything are driving me up the wall.

plus, a horrific shameful failure on my tax planning mid terms is a sore reminder of the realities of my tax foundation: i have. NOUGHT.

nydc dinner last night was nice. too bad we didnt stay for the desserts. ive been eyeing it from the back of my mind for a long time now. :(
oh wells.

im late for my meeting.

fever

2011-05-01T00:53:00.000+08:00

went for the premiere of Thor at the cathay last week (wednesday right), and couldnt resist trying to see how we look like in 3D glasses.

i bet nobody else knows how they look in 3D glasses lor.

okay i bet nobody wants to know how they look anyway, cos we look like retards.

-.-

so anyway, at first i thought Thor was some typical action flick cos ive never read the Marvel comic cos ive never been a geek or been interested in geek stuff until, you know.

hehehe.

but after i watched the movie i cant wait for the next avenger to come out, and that is Captain America!!!!!!!!!!!! cos the guy lead looks uber hot.

unlike thor.

i googled the actor, and apparently, he's just some zzz okay i just googled him and ive forgotten his portfolio of movies and tv. in other words, forgettable.

but look at this:

2011 InStyle/Warner Brothers Golden Globes Party

taken from Zimbio, and then this:

Thor

OMG WTF BBQ BICEPS

apart from the rain and mud,

those are grossly huge bulging biceps

***

i got distracted watching xiaxue's guide to bras -.- now ive lost my train of thought.

***

election fever is mounting.

so is my exam and project stress.

i shouldn't be here!

new year in BKK is OKAY ONLY

2011-04-22T15:04:00.000+08:00

so for the first and last time, i sneaked a trip to Bangkok during my mid term break, after which i felt super guilty and offered to do alot of my projects, which i now proceed to regret cos i really don't feel like doing anything. i have no confidence in any of my work this last semester, and a part of me really can't be bothered. the other part of me is still, and will always be, freaking scared i will fail my module overall and NOT GRADUATE FML.

but for now, yes i still have time to happily edit and collage my bkk photos yay photoscape ftw:

Asia Hotel

Asia Hotel was pleasantly and surprisingly nicer than what we expected, after hearing some really horrible reviews online and off! (according to my bro it's most haunted or sth). the whole hotel had like a 70's vintage vibe to it. well there were some eerie dark and deserted parts of the hotel, but the general lighted areas were great! the best part was it was super convenient - 10 min walk to the MBK/Siam area. plus the BTS station was on the 2nd floor of the hotel so it was da best.

oh yeah, and our room was large for a standard double room.

and for some reason we woke up looking forward to the hotel breakfast spread every morning, even though they just alternate the variety every 2 days.

Pad Thai at Yum Saap

supper on the 1st night at Yum Saap, and C's miserable scallop w rice isn't pictured here cos it would be a very sad photo. my pad thai was not bad, though nothing fantastic. obviously from the happy smiles they were taken before food was served.

Destroy the old, to make way for the new

across the road from our hotel there's an empty patch of puddle/grass, where evidence of a building that used to exist stands as a vandalised, half-demolished piece of concrete. behind that a magnificent residence stands tall and proud.

then i don't know why we had to take a photo there.

Erawan shrine; meatballs from a street vendor, Platinum Mall food centre

highlights of our 2nd day basically revolved around the Platinum, Chit Lom areas trawling the malls (mostly me trawling Platinum). alas, alot of stalls weren't open for the Thai New Year cos they're all holidaying zzz.

lunch was a super duper crispy oyster omelette that owns Bedok 85's pathetic 3-oyster omelette, for half the price. C had some tom yum glass noodle soup i think. and meatballs, which were the only street food we dared to try.

Shopping in Bangkok

deceitful picture of a happy couple in a giant high-end mall. high-end/high-street label shopping in Bangkok is disappointing. it really is only known for its cheap wholesale Platinum and street stuff all going for 200 baht. high-street label shopping in Asia is best in HK during sale season, period. missing it muchhhh ):

Pat Phong Night Market

the lack of clarity in the photos zzz.

the Thai New Year is famous for its Songkran Festival, which is characterized by massive water fights mainly in the Pat Phong area. everybody was armed with waterguns and mini buckets (wtf) coupled with clay. all the Thais were soaking wet, the ground was soaking wet, the BTS station was soaking wet, and we prayed to god that we wouldn't end up like them.

so guess what. we spent the night dinnering in our hotel restaurant, which was incidentally the best meal i had in Bangkok, and snuggled under the sheets for the rest of the night.

Giant reclining Buddha

3rd day and we thought we should do some sight-seeing since shopping wasn't all that fantastic after all. the giant reclining buddha, and the nearby temple-like places took all of an hour and a half max. we cabbed there and cabbed back to the hotel for an afternoon nap lazy much!

Chinatown

then at night, Pat Phong was supposedly still "out of bounds" because it was the last day of Songkran celebrations and the hotel concierge warned us it was gonna be the biggest and wettest day of the new year. so we cabbed back to Chinatown in search of some good food.

oh and on the way there i got splashed with water twice by random Thais with buckets wtf. was quite pissed cos i am in no way affiliated with the Thai New Year and have no interest in their cause for celebration. let alone any interest in being the target of their celebration. sorry, i respect whatever tradition they have but just don't get me wet in the process. i don't even know what water they use to splash gosh.

anw, so we found a reasonably popular restaurant and were mainly attracted by the Thai ang moh that was ushering us in.oh and the shark's fin that they generously served in copious amounts and we were so happy, but later learnt that it was apparently fake. lol.

oh well at least i feel less guilty eating it then.

rmb sharks are endangered stop eating shark's fin!

we also had Har Gao, shrimp dumpling, fried rice (which was awesome-est), kang kong and duck. heaviest meal of the trip, excluding our super heavy breakfast every morning that is.

Chatuchak

Chatuchak weekend! the day awarded most walking/shopping done. i love how Thailand has an abundance of pink cabs, and they're pretty all lined up by the road in the morning. we didn't stay long though, and coffee break was at Black Canyon Coffee back in Central World Plaza. after C's remark though, i realized everywhere in Bkk is the same regardless of whether it's in Platinum, Chatuchak or the streets across Siam. you can find the same clothes for the same prices, so what's so special about Chatuchak shopping.

Food

above, the aforementioned hotel restaurant, that served a small but kickass portion of olive fried rice and fried chicken noodles. their chrysanthemum tea and ginger soup tang yuan with gingko nuts were equally satisfying. for a relatively cheap price range in SGD it was well worth the THB splurged. i think it was like 530 baht in total. best value for money meal.

the worst meal we had, on the other hand, was one in some Pig restaurant, where the grilled pork w fried rice was really just grilled fats with plain rice; the curry fried rice w seafood was really just briyani w seafood; their tom yum was exceptionally spicy cos they like dumped a whole bowl of chillies inside; and even their ice lemon tea tasted suspiciously charred.

all in all it was an okay trip, i guess, but definitely doesnt beat HK and Korea with C. for the rest of this year at least, it will probably be our last o/s trip tgt ):

-_-

this is still my favourite collage <3

it's FRIDAY, FRIDAY

2011-04-10T11:32:00.000+08:00

highlights of our 1st ever girls' night out at Phuture included:

weird solo guys trying to dance with us
2 groups of protective guys surrounding and enclosing us, pushing away other people and helping us squeeze through the crowd on the way out of the dancefloor
1 annoying baby-faced guy (who claims he's 22) trying and failing to pick me up hehehe
1 disgusting guy trying to feel us up RAWR v angry never slap him ):
1 group of GE people letting us have a rest at their reserved table (: working adults are a nicer clubbing crowd.
2 free drink coupons by random nice guy.
1 protective guy almost getting into a fight with an ang moh guy that was collapsing onto us and he pushed him away and the ang moh guy got riled up when provoked; the whole thing seemed very immature to me like he's just trying to pick a fight for the sake of it. and then we escaped.
1 irritating girl smoking on the dance floor by squatting under the counter in the deepest area of the dance floor she should have been caught ugh
1 bunch of security guys running out to the bus stop when we left in a cab; someone probably got hurt and we were hoping it wasnt the group of guys and that ang moh cos it would be because of us and we would feel bad
staying in the smoking room for the longest time in Phuture ever. like more than 10 min! and inhaled more 2nd hand smoke than i have in my life in a single night. and came out with smoke-smelling hair for 2 days fml. oh yah and met a bunch of guys in the smoking room whose names i cant rmb.
saw someone on the way out that looks suspiciously and unfortunately like my neighbour !@#$%^&

okay i think that's enough for 1 night, maybe there'll be more next time (:
now for pictures with bad lighting, colour and quality.

nice security helped us take photo (: even though we were sitting at someone's reserved table

2nd shot closer up

then try to take ourselves but dono why the colour is worse

and another one that makes me look fat D:

and a shot that has to be converted to sepia to hide the HORRIBLE lighting and colour

i realise we never took a group photo ):

its week 8! i have 2 projects to complete in a matter of weeks minus 1 in bkk, and 1 test to study for BUT IM SO UNMOTIVATED. and i think UBS doesnt want to send us overseas T_T. seeing everyone else's 'last day in school' and 'last presentation in SMU ever' photos annoy me to a certain extent. ending sch on a modified term is one of the worst planning decisions ive ever made.

Just to get that previous post out of the way:

2011-04-05T13:42:00.000+08:00

MID TERM BREAK STARTS NOW.

BKK HERE I COME

again!

fat days.

2011-04-02T23:33:00.000+08:00

there are days when i look in the mirror and all i see are the horrors that make up my body.
every tummy bulge is like an explosion waiting to burst out of my seams; two wooden chunks look like they're mighty support pillars for some major building; flabs throb with a heartbeat of their own with every ounce of pressure exerted on them; cellulite dances; thunder becomes an adjective; pear becomes a shape.

on days like these, every mouthful of food bitten into is a sin; every run skipped is a meal barred from indulgence; and every constant reminder about my unfortunate body parts is torture to my self-esteem. it's a tear in my heart.

how trivial, you think, are my problems.
how shallow.
how pathetic to shed tears over some marginal, negligible insensitive remark that holds no value.
how incredibly, laughably, stupid.

but its impossible to understand.
its part of my sanity.
its what makes me feel good.
because beneath that there's nothing to keep me from breaking down and sinking into some disgusting, wallowing-in-self-pity slob, depressed about every underlying trauma and tragedy i've been through.

but on days like these, it's exactly what i become. what i want to be.

and i hate.
it.

i need to feel good.

because i don't.

Dull Life

2011-03-23T23:54:00.000+08:00

//by Yeah Yeah Yeahs. it's nice go listen.

sums up my days with C

today we slept from 2 to 5.

i havent taken such long naps since i was a kid. hehehe

excuse me for announcing my period again, but i cant stop bleeding and its annoying the hell out of me!
RAWR. when i started on the pill the doctor mentioned about light spotting initially. it didnt occur to me that light spotting = extended period? sian TTM
MORE THAN 8 DAYS AND COUNTING FML

these pills better work.

Colour Burst

2011-03-05T22:04:00.000+08:00

i love it when my plate of fruits bursts with colour.

P.S. no i dont eat everything!

only the strawberries, persimmon, half-kiwi, 2-slice-orange and a few grapes lol.

heres a random photo of me at my aunt's house surrounded by her 3 Maltese dogs! i know right, they totally love me. ~.~

IWANTMYOWN D:

and my hair is not black its violet.

- abrupt end -

the clock is ticking.

2011-03-03T23:20:00.000+08:00

so school's started and im still in my internship mode: i go to school, i go back, i do nothing. suddenly i realize the perks of being at work. but for the 5-day work week with minimum free time and sleep?

not worth it.

so as the days go by and another week passes the countdown timer is ticking off to the end of the semester.
the end of freedom.
the end of social life.
the end of school.

graduation.

it's such a big term. full of emotions, apprehension, uncertainty, maybe relief, for some people.

as the experienced people like to call it, to make themselves feel superior to the next generation of aggressive go-getters - eager to impress, their overconfidence brimming, hiding their inner self-demolition trigger that threatens to make them scream like a maniac and go crazy from the overdose of reality - the real world.

it's almost like it's coming for me, and not the other way round.

at this point,
i feel
it's surreal.

eat-sleep-eat vday.

2011-02-17T11:55:00.000+08:00

I'm very much enjoying my break week between the end of internship and start of school.
VERY VERY MUCH ((((((((((: i don't want school to start ):

that said, i do miss my intern company very much too! mostly the people, and the clubhouse. FANTASTIC clubhouse KPMG has; me and angeline went over for the "lo hei" lunch just to visit the clubhouse again. okay and of course all our managers and seniors. we had a blast playing Monopoly Deal, Table soccer and darts. Too bad we didn't get to try out the Kinect, the pool table, and the PS3 and massage chairs in the VIP room that nobody currently has access to, not even the Partners.

Interns' farewell was at Oosters, Belgian bar. the food was so-so, too many fried tapas - in fact, there was only fried tapas and no real food. the beer was good though i was sick in the stomach and it further tried to kill it. kbox after was a cosy affair in what we affectionately call our shady $10 KTV in chinatown. a pity everyone else is heading back to Aus! wonder if we'll ever meet again ~.~

***

on valentines' day,

i forgot to bring my kite.

we ended up having a full-day program instead, consisting of lunch, naptime, activity time and dinner.

lol.

i loved it, nonetheless <3

lunch was at Eden Sanctuary Floral Cafe, a quaint little restaurant hidden in a cosy corner at the far end of China Square. The 3-course set lunch menu changes every week, and at $14.90++ per pax, we had a taste of the friendly Chef Clement's delights.

For starters, we both had the fruit yoghurt salad (top right); yoghurt is a refreshingly healthy twist to the usual salad cream and it goes really well with the salad filled with juicy watermelon slices, grapes, cherry tomatoes and lettuce.

C's main was the chilli crab pasta, which had a totally different taste from my lemon butter fish. i LOVED the fish. it was SUPERBLY THICK (almost like chicken), and the lemon sauce gravy with whatever toppings gave it some zesty oomph. i dono how to describe lah just very nice. it was also a huge fish. BIG AND THICK what more can you ask for. until now we still dont know what fish it was cos we forgot to ask.

dessert was the red wine jello and the 'some fancy french/european name' mousse cake. both were delightful to have, but i preferred the jello cos it was a lighter end to my greatly fulfilling fish. C complained the dessert was too small, but i like it that way.

i know very contradicting a while big a while small.

but must balance what.

the highlight of the meal was in fact the Butterfly Blue Pea tea, with an added hibiscus flower added by the chef to give it 'more taste'. the colour of the tea won me over completely.

it was almost blue at the top, lavender and gradually a deep red and then violet at the bottom. it was like my favourite range of the rainbow was transformed into this beautiful tea and we couldn't get enough of it.

so the pictures were all taken before we finished 2 pots of tea, and like some drugged retards we both felt extremely sleepy after the lunch.

still not sure if it was the full lunch or the magically strange tea that was spiked or something.

we both slept like sleeping beauty on the train all the way back home, and slept somemore until evening. like more than 2 hours worth of afternoon nap.

so then we woke up, went for a run, and decided to head to Xin Wang for a light dinner.

well a light dinner was what we wanted, but not what we got:

the Mt Everest ice mango tower came with free mango pudding, and we still ordered the humongous french toast. hello french toast is supposed to be breakfast and mango, dessert, but what we got was like another full blown meal wtf.

eat until damn full, all that running before was totally wasted.

and that concluded our eat-sleep-eat vday, which wasnt exactly vday since its more or less what we do on a daily basis, aside from the fact that we dont eat so much usually.

speaking of eating so much, got another birthday buffet coming up must eat alot again.
DAMN.

Me and Papa Lee's Sunday Cooking Adventures 2

2011-02-12T00:40:00.000+08:00

So this post is super outdated by now; but my CNY wasn't as pleasant as I would have liked it.

Update: I suffered from the worst cramps for the 3rd month in a row now, and after a relatively long discussion with another doctor, i've scheduled for an ultrasound to the pelvis! for the detection of possible fibroids growing in me that might have been causing cramps. but from my previous doc's description it's more likely a hormonal cause, so I might end up home with the pills after all. the good news is, there are certain brands of pills that dont cause weight gain YAY. they're also the more ex ones duh. but then again i might not have to take them for a long time, if all i need is to "reset" my hormones so they dont swing so much next time round. we'll see how it goes.

Double update: Apart from monstrous cramps, this period also somehow brought about a horrible uncomfortable, pain inducing buildup of gas in my tummy that i cant get rid of! so it's that nagging shitty feeling and it destroys my appetite and spoils my day blablabla and the doctor says my intestines are moving too fast so it becomes irritable bowels; the bottomline is my stomach doesn't like me and i dont like it either.

okay then here was my CNY eve dinner!

Spinach with abalone

Crab Tung Hoon

Prosperity Pen Cai closeup

Prosperity Pen Cai with fish maw, prawns, sea cucumber, broccoli, giant chinese shitake mushrooms, and chicken chunks

That was our reunion dinner menu, painstakingly whipped up by me and dad. the Pen Cai was sumptuously delightful because of the mix of gravies at each layer of the pot, from the chicken at the bottom, followed by the broccoli, sea cucumbers and mushrooms, and the prawns and fish maw were there just to soak up the rich flavours. the recipe was from some newspaper and it was awesome. the only caveat: it was supposed to be made to serve 10-15 people wtf. my dad still wanted to cook some giant fish and i was glad i stopped him in time.

crab tung hoon was my dad's specialty for that day; im not a huge fan of shelly crabs because i'm a fuss free eater literally, i hate getting my hands dirty and i hate troublesome-to-eat food. sue me, but i skipped the crab. the tung hoon was great, though a tad crumbly because the noodles all broke apart and became v short strands. i dont know if its the brand of vermicelli thats lousy or the way we cook it that always makes them break up so easily!

spinach with abalone was my specialty because my dad's been training me to cook vege since i started being his kitchen assistant. im still amateurish but then i think i can cook spinach damn well HAHA.

***

then CNY was only great on the 1st day before my cramps paralysed me on the 2nd:

and i was all

***

My internship has just ended! I'm so gonna miss all the people in our team, as well as our awesome advisory interns, but more of that sooooon because my body clock can no longer withstand staying awake late past 12 D:

Me and Papa Lee's Sunday Cooking Adventures 1

2011-01-30T21:49:00.000+08:00

bcos my poor wlml didn't come over on this cold, rainy, faithful sunday evening for a sumptuous dinner that me and my dad decided to put more effort in than usual, i generously provided this: me and papa lee's sunday cooking adventures journal entry 1!

Uncooked: Tofu rounds stuffed with minced meat and salted egg whites

Cooked (steamed) version!

Chinese spinach boiled with century eggs, salted eggs, and normal egg whites plus wolfberries

Baked teriyaki salmon

okay presentation can be improved but we no prepare food to be judged; we prepare food to be eated.

so there!

the tofu was my favourite cos it was marvelously salted by the meat and salted egg whites.

the spinach would have been better if we didnt add starch into the supposed-to-be soupy broth, but my dad cant seem to remember what we had the other time at the restaurant!

and the salmon was baked like how i like it, plain simple teriyaki salmon that was just a little bit too charred lol.

the best thing was that nothing was fried! i especially love meals like this.

hopefully this journal's set to continue for the better!

Next up:

probably CNYE's dinner.

CNY woes

2011-01-29T16:31:00.000+08:00

i haven't done my nails and everywhere i go there's extra surcharge for the CNY period fml. Even Jean Yip package holders are not spared from an additional $10 for nails wtf.
im running out of time, my previous french is all but pretty and im panicking omg.

im retarded i know
but my heart sinks a few metres with each time i think of wearing bare naked nails for CNY.

and my kate spade wallet is TRAPPED with that evil MJ who is holding it captive till i drag myself to go meet him ROAR.

HELP ME.

did i mention i was selected to be involved in this year's SOA admissions interview? each student is gonna be paired with a faculty member, and for once, be able to experience sitting on the other side of the interview panel!

uber cool i cant wait for that. XD

xoxo
happy CNY!

Pearls before Swine

2011-01-19T22:23:00.000+08:00

started reading my favourite comic strip at work!

Zebra, Rat and Pig, the 3 cutest comic strip characters ever.

it's bliss.

Pon and Zi kept me occupied too, amidst youtube, scrabble on lexulous with angeline, and ebuddy.

THEY'RE UBER CUTE!

3 more weeks till this internship ends, i can't wait!

but at the same time, i think i'll kind of miss the people.

last thing:

im gonna sign my contract tmr!

wish me

LUCK

and thanks.

for blessing me.

distraction.

2011-01-16T23:14:00.000+08:00

the key to sanity is

distraction.

but once in a while, when nobody's watching,

you drop your act.

allow yourself to break down.

the only person who can see you lies behind the mirror.

what triggers it is

ironically

insanity.

the crazy obsessive compulsive need to have all things fall into place nicely as you expected, as you anticipated.

that lack of patience to tolerate any single little change

because any time lost

any minute lost to aimless waiting

represents

a part of you that is lost

that you will never

get back.

i used to be more patient, laid back, less motivated.

but ever since,

life has been a race for everything.

results,

grades,

material things.

ever since i dont know when.

when you realize society doesnt give a shit to those who dont join the race and keep up with the pace.

then you'll forever not catch up, and forever be cast at the bottom of the seabed, and get more and more unnoticed as time goes on.

but i digress.

when im distracted, life seems perfect. everything's going smooth, and i have everything going right for me, for now. everything is in order, everybody is the same, and life is like a calm vast ocean stretching across the horizon; you can't see past the edge, but everything is so nice and peaceful and theres no ominous sign anywhere you can imagine.

then once in a while the distraction disappears like this picture that falls off the wall; the hook breaks off and it swings, hanging by one corner, exposing the darkness that it covers behind it; and all of a sudden you're sinking back into reality, with the realization that the calm vast ocean had long been drained and there's only a vacant, empty hollow in its place.

and before you know it the picture is re-hung, restored like a momentary patch; the distraction comes back to replace the filthy, undesired realization. but for a while you feel the void behind the picture, the depression that it hides, until the distraction becomes so large you forget the past that you have felt; and the cycle repeats itself.

i wonder

if im the only one who experiences this.

Birth control

2011-01-05T10:26:00.000+08:00

for the 2nd consecutive month, i was totally incapacitated by cramps. this time, for the first time, the doctor got a direct view of my reaction at its worst. pale, breaking out in cold sweat, stomach churning out gags but with no actual food to vomit out, the pain too overwhelming to speak or think clearly.

she did a quick check: blood pressure's normal; womb's not swollen. so its a very bad hormonal reaction, she concluded. but to be safe, here's a letter of referral to a gynae.

and you should consider taking family planning pills.

amidst my cramps and gagging i tried to comprehend the words that were coming out of her mouth.

"bi4 yun4 yao4". have you heard of them?

no, i shook my head. but somewhere at the back of my mind some realization was striking me, but it was too weak to reach my frontal lobe, which was at the moment still partly consumed by the signals of pain coursing through my nerves.

family planning pills, she repeated. to stabilize hormonal swings and regulate your periods. but one of the side effects is WEIGHT GAIN, which you can afford, since you're quite skinny. but it's really worth your consideration, better than being incapacitated like this every month. i'll give you the pamphlet, and you can go home to think about it.

the words WEIGHT GAIN registered in my head and i sort of knew what she was talking about. the pieces were falling into place gradually. i thought about a fat me as she brought a needle in preparation for the injection. she was giving me one to eliminate the pain, because i only vomit from the pain, and the pain is worse than the vomiting, i told her.

so i'll give you the pain injection, and tablets for nausea/vomiting then.

i turned over, closed my eyes, braced myself, and did not notice the size of the needle.
it protruded my skin, and my whole arm went numb and limp.

a few minutes later i was up and walking again, still weak, left arm lifeless, and all i can imagine is a fat me.
excess fat over the face, tummy and thighs. who cares about pigmentation, breast tenderness, nausea/vomiting, deep vein thrombosis, or even the formation of breast lumps.

WEIGHT GAIN is what scared me the most.

you already think im fat! if i grow any fatter you will dont want me.

i dont think you're fat!

but you just said im fat!

you would rather suffer this every month than gain a bit of weight.

to tell you the truth, it was a really hard decision.
but one time i did a quiz and it calculated that i was only 30% anorexic, i swear!
the pros and cons whirled around my head.
i am terrified.

but i think ill start taking them.
birth control here i come..