DNA 290809

Yeah!!!!

Mayday is here for their DNA concert! :)

I hope tonight's concert would be a blast! Can't wait for that to happen!!!!!

新加坡 44 岁生日快乐!

国庆日又到了!

还好明天是公众假日, 不用上班.

44岁了... 是老了? 还是 "40 IS THE NEW 30"? 我们还算年轻呢?

年复一年, 国庆典礼总是越来越没有什么看头! 所以今年我也不是很期盼看电视直播的国庆庆典.

无论如何,还是要说声 "新加坡! 生日快乐!"

Disappointment...

Went to watch Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince today and thought it's quite a disappointment...

Firstly, the movie kept harping on the "LOVE" theme and completely forgot about the excitement of the battle...

Had an uneventful shopping trip in Orchard as well... Just thought that Takashimaya shouldn't make their SALE for the branded goods department so 'cheapskate'... The food fest held at the Basement was quite disappointing as well, but I managed to buy some tea to calm my senses and reduce my stress level when I go back to work on Monday to face the BEST ACTRESS & her LC clan!

Ended up having coffee at TCC and chatted till 1am+!!! OMG!!! I think my sleeping hours are a bit topsy-turvey!!!

Disgusted!

Some people are just plain DISGUSTING!

Firstly, there's T-REX, who came and wrecked havoc to the whole company! The management were so afraid of her that they gave in to her every demand!!!

Secondly, there's FAKE ANG MOH, who always likes to demonstrate her taichi capabilities, and thinks that she's the smartest woman on earth! If that's the case, why bother to take her MBA only now??

Thirdly, there's MISS USELESS, who's good at NOTHING except creating problems, and act innocent. Frankly speaking, we don't need childish people around. It would definitely be against the law to hire KIDS with an IQ of 50 to work in such a fast-paced environment!

We have also a trio of Bollywood actors in our company.

Sigh... why am I always so lucky to meet these kinds of disgusting people in all the places I go to?

To Italy & Back

Left for Italy on the night of 29th April.

We took SQ and flew direct to Milan. The flight took off around 12am, but I am glad I was entertained by the KrisWorld Entertainment System. Watched "Ink Heart", "Mall Cop", "The Reader" and "Desperadeux" (which I fell asleep since its quite a boring Cartoon).

Reached Milan around 615am and quickly rushed to Cenacolo to catch Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece "The Last Supper".

From Milan, we moved to Lake Como, Venice, Florence, Cinque Terre, Pisa, Siena, Perugia, Assisi, Orvieto, Rome, Naples, Pompeii, Capri Island, Sorrento & back to Rome to catch our flight back on the 17th May.

Reached Singapore on 18th May around 615am! GOSH!!! I didn't sleep a wink at all throughout the 12-hour flight back!

Watched "Departures" and thought its a good film! It truly deserved the Oscars awards for best foreign film. Also caught "Defiance" which I think suits Daniel Craig better than James Bond! Also watched "Doubt", "Last Chance Harvey"...

Gosh! its been such a hectic period ever since I came back.

I sure miss Italy! The pasta, the scenery, the architecture, the people....

I am definitely tanned by the Tuscan sun! :)

Planning my Italy trip

Yes! I am going to Italy in May! :)

Currently, I am reading the "Eyewitness Travel" Guide to Italy to plan my itinerary.

Will start from Rome, then to the islands of Sicily & Sardina, then to Florence, then to Venice & finally to Milan.

Hopefully I can cover all the places I want to visit! :)

The architecture in Italy is truly amazing! Not forgetting the sculptures & fountains! YEAH!!!

Dreaming of Striking TOTO!

TOTO is $12million!! Not $5million!

Anyway, I managed to buy the 32 tickets yesterday after work. It was raining so heavily okay!!!!

Water means luck.... so hopefully we will win some money!!!

Anyway, my receptionist damn lucky lor! She won 1st prize in the Big Sweep last night! DAMN! Why do people have such luck?? Maybe its because they have been buying 4D and Toto while I don't... maybe I should start investing in buying a HOPE for myself in future!

$5Million TOTO!!!

The $5million TOTO draw is happening this Friday!

As my luck has been quite good, my colleagues have asked me to help them buy TOTO....

Gulp.... I have a heavy responsibility now!!! Hopefully we will win something since most of us pulled in money to buy toto... This is the first time I am participating in a 'gambling' affair... hope I've beginner's luck!!!

By the way, I won an ipod touch (8GB) in the Amex Lucky Draw and collected my prize sometime last month.

I also got a $200 shopping voucher for referring a friend to a company where he has successfully stayed on for 3 months!

Best part is - I won a lucky draw by Asiaone - where I won 1 week worth of Catfish Banners on SG Forum worth $9K!! How I wish they can convert that into cash!!!!

Year of the Ox

Chinese New Year is here at last...

Boy! This CNY was so rush!!!

During Chinese New Year's eve, we went to a coffee shop near our house for Reunion Dinner. The set dinner as $388 but the food wasn't really that tasty... This was the first year we tried their food since they were newly set up in the revamped coffee shop.

It was a hard time for me to springclean the house as its filled with lots of rubbish!!! I didn't manage to clear all my old magazines. I think I will do it from now on...

So far, I've collected almost $450 worth of ang paos... Not a bad start :)

Hopefully tomorrow when I go back to work, there wouldn't be too many problems. It's supposed to be a good year for me!

Wish me luck!

Boiling Point

I was at boiling point today!! ARGH!!!

I was at a client meeting at 10am and the meeting lasted till around 12:30pm. The night before, I had already worked till almost 11pm at the office, doing something which is on top of my current job scope, and I walked to HIS office before I left and told HIM that he should get someone to work on the R&F of the mock TV Schedule which I had drawn up because I would be in only in the afternoon and that pitch document is due at 4pm.

Hence, HE started SMSing my colleague and asked her to tell me to go back straight to the office after the meeting as he needed my help on the pitch very urgently.

Around 11am, HE SMSed my colleague again and told her that I need to work on the pitch 100% this afternoon as its a very important pitch... OMG!!! HE is really disrupting my WORK!!!!

Can you imagine how much I already have on my plate and to help him with something that is beyond my job scope would just kill me!!!!!!!

Not only that, HE REFUSED to listen to any logic..... and the best part is ----> HE didn't even bother to check with us how loaded we are currently and start throwing pieces of work to us to work on!!!

HE Can't even brief properly and HE didn't know what he wanted!!! In the end, he kept coming back and forth asking for different permutations!!! GOD!!! HELP THIS MAN!!!

Obviously, I tried very hard to SHED SOME LIGHT onto him, but he still insisted on remaining on the DARK SIDE... can't be blamed since no amount of light I shed will make him BRIGHTER.... HE's still DIM... and getting DIMMER....

Oh well... I rest my case.... shall not burst my blood vessel when its so near Chinese New Year!! I still need to do some spring cleaning & collect my ang paos!!!

The only good thing that happened today was ---> GOT MY BONUS, MY SALARY & ANG PAO!!! HOORAY!!!

16th Jan 09 - My First Make-up Workshop

Went to this Make-up Workshop with my friend this evening at Orchard Building.

Initially we thought the building beside California Fitness was Orchard Building but it turned out to be Orchard Centre Building. Then our discovery was - the building where California Fitness is located is ORCHARD BUILDING!!!

And the next surprise was that the workshop was held in Shiseido!!! Ok... paying $15 for the course and testing out free products from Shiseido was too good to be true.

In the end, the workshop turned out to be ZA. They actually belonged to the same group, the trainer, Pamela, mentioned that the products are all from Japan, hence, ZA products are actually quite good.

We had to first cleanse, tone and moisturise our face before we learn how to apply make-up to our bare faces.

We used most of the ZA products. I was quite interested to get that cleanser which is very convenient for lazy people like me as you don't really need water to rinse your face. You can just wipe off with a piece of tissue (of course you can rinse off as well if you are super diligent and not a lazy fella like me!).

After that, we learnt to apply concealor and then choose a foundation that is close to my skintone. As ZA is popular for their two-way foundation, the lady picked "23" for me, which blended quite well into my skin, but was a bit 'flaky' after I've finished applying it to my whole face!!! I guess the foundation wasn't suitable for me... It can't be my face is too dry as I have super oily face!! I need to blot my face many times a day man!!!!

Following that, we learn how to do "point make-up" - eyes, cheeks and lips. I really had a hard time doing the eyeliner as this is the first time I'm using it! I also don't really like the selection of eye colours and chose something super light! haha.... the mascara was also a bit difficult to apply as theirs is not those brush types, which is again a convenient tool for lazy people like me!

On the whole, I learnt something new about applying eye-shadows, as well as blusher.

I will put those tips to practise next week! HEHEHE

Shop Shop Shop...

After work, I met Dawn at Marina Square to shop around at the Wing Tai group of companies since Dawn is a member of Dorothy Perkins and received an email about the exclusive 20% discount on items at all their companies - G2000, Fox, TopShop, Warehouse, Dorothy Perkins, Miss Selfridge, Adidas, etc...

I didn't manage to get anything from the Wing Tai Group of Companies... most of them were pretty expensive. I liked a few of Fox's tops though.... but mostly tshirt materials...

I managed to buy a top from BEGA.... and I saw that pair of shoes I wanted to buy from URS!!!! DRATS!!! They only have size 39 and I tried it, but felt that its a bit loose.... I wanted to try 38 but they don't have it there! BASKET! They had to deploy the shoes from Takashimaya to Marina Square... I sure hope 38 is a better fit since the shoes will expand with more walking.

Strange though... I'm beginning to look at shoes which are a bit frilly... and blouses or skirts too!! Is this a sign of ageing?? YIKES!!!

This Sunday is Godson's 1st birthday party!!! We had already bought his present for him. Right now, we are having a headache as to what to buy for the mother, our good friend, Yen.

We also don't know what she can do for her birthday celebration.. sigh... life really changes when you are married with kids! I think marriage and kids are not options to me now... I still want to enjoy life and travel and do things I really want to do!

Let's hope I can do more shopping tomorrow and over the weekends! HEHEHEHE

Shocking!

Today, my CEO sent an email saying that my GM resigned and that her last day is just next week! WOW!

I really wonder what's wrong with my company.

And we were very pissed off today by one of the Directors who came and made us work on a pitch when everyone of us have so many things to clear! What does he take us for? Sitting around waiting to take orders? We have exisiting clients' requests and campaigns to handle, and he just dumped the work onto us like nobody's business!! Why can't he have the decency to ask us what's on our plates and if we could help out with a small portion of the pitch! BLOODY HELL!!!! Made me work till 8pm this evening when I had to rush to the library to return my books!

I was glad I managed to borrow 2 books, and at the same time renewed my book on Digital Photography which I had borrowed last month.

Tomorrow I am going shopping with Dawn & Ah Leng. I hope I can go off on time!

Cinderella - The Musical

Went to watch Rogers & Hammerstein's "Cinderella" with Dawn this evening.

Lea Salonga stars as Cinderella, but she is so petite that we were so worried the towering prince (Peter Saide) will have difficulty dancing and kissing her in the later scenes! PHEW!

The 2 stepsisters were super clumsy and disgraceful! haha... the costume Portia wore was damn hilarious - it made her looked like a pumpkin and that Joyce has joints that will creak and needs oiling!!

The stage was really pretty, and I particularly liked the horse carriage (though I think the 4 horses looked scary!!!)

Although this sounded like a fairy tale, children are best advised not to watch as I saw too many of them lose focus, start to fidget about in their seats, or WORSE, kicked the seats in front!!! I think its really too DEEP for them to understand (even though its Cinderella, but please bear in mind this is a MUSICAL).

Disappointing Ending to Little Nonya

Sigh... the 2 of them never got together, but I am glad Yueniang had a happy marriage despite her 2 miscarriages...

The shocking thing is --- are they short of actors? The baddy (Robert Zhang) became the 'adopted son' of Yueniang (who happened to be the son Yuzhu 'left behind' cos of her mental illness).

Anyways, I think Robert Zhang and his father died too EASILY! Basket! Should be more dramatic than that man...

I was quite amazed when Yuzhu can 'recognise' Yueniang during the fire... She was so hysterical when she thought that Yueniang perished in the blazing hut...

I also don't understand why that Xiujuan came back to return the money she 'squandered' from the Huangs...

Oh well... I think the ending was pretty badly laid out and not very dramatic.

Mayday Mayday!

Today's concert was a BLAST!!!!!

OMG!!! Guanyou's father-in-law passed away, hence he did not make it to the concert today. But the stand-in, who is the drummer for "Champion" did a good job! HAHA... poor boy! He had to dye his hair darker and wear a black-rimmed glasses so that the crowd below can't make out that he's a 'stand-in'.

Anyways, we had lots of fun jumping and singing along to the songs just now. Right now, my whole body is aching.... especially my legs and arms....

We've already booked the tickets to their concert at the Indoor Stadium on 29th August 2009!!! HOORAY!!! They are coming back again! I really missed them although the last I saw them was on 29th November 2008 for the "Lee Guitar Concert".

Today is definitely a night to remember as this is the first 'open-air' concert Mayday held in Singapore!!! We were really sweating like mad! Like wat Masa said "Having it in the Indoor Stadium where its fully air-conditioned has already made us sweating like mad! Now, having it in the outdoors will make us MELT!"

Haha... I really hope 29th August is just next month... but FAT HOPE!

Ashin has recovered from his bad flu slightly. He was being criticised by the media for singing out of pitch for the New Year Countdown concerts. However, I think he really performed better tonight... well, at least he managed to remember the lyrics!! ahah.... but there were still some parts where his voice was quite strained...

Monster and Stone really showed off their guitar skills during the solo parts. OMG!!! Monster can play the guitar slung to his back lor!!! Genius!!!! Look at how deft his fingers were... I really admired their passion for music!!!!

Heng the dark clouds were blown away this evening as it rained in the afternoon :)

They will be having their autograph session on 5th Jan 09 at Central 7pm. However, I don't think I would be able to rush down after work. Tomorrow happens to be the last episode of "Little Nonya" too!!!! OMG!!! I really wonder if Yueniang and Chen Xi will end up together, happily ever after?

Shopping Spree... Again!

Today I went to the library to borrow some books with my niece. Was elated when I found "Veronika Decides to Die" by Paulo Coelho, "Train Man" a Japanese book by Nakano Hitori (which was later developed into a movie) but translated by Bonnie Elliott, and "The Great Railway Bazaar - By Train Through Asia" by Paul Theroux!!!

After that, we decided to do some shopping! So we headed to Tampines Mall.... Thank God the crowd was not too bad today!! PHEW!!!

Our first stop was Music Junction as I wanted to look for Debbie Hsiao's latest EP (which I saw at HMV, but couldn't find it anywhere else! DARN!). However, I was quite disappointed when they didn't carry that EP. Nevertheless, we bought 1 CD for Eunice which featured all the Disney Princesses theme songs for her birthday. I had bought a VCD "Bratz" for her on 31st December and thought I should get her something else since that VCD only cost $6.95.

I also bought Lee Hom's new CD - Heart Beat - which came with a calendar FREE!!! I haven't started listening to the CD yet. Think I can only do so on Monday since tomorrow will be a hectic one as I have to helpout my mother at the Pau Stall, and then at night I will be attending Mayday's mini concert at Indoor Stadium!!

After that, we went to Mini Bits and I bought 2 pairs of earrings and 2 necklaces. The designs were so CUTE!!! I actually spent $49.95 there!!! Phew! Luckily I had the Minitoons Membership Card and am entitled to a 15% discount! They are actually giving a mirror & comb set (super exquisite, and looked a bit like Anna Sui) if you made purchases more than $80. I don't think I want that set since it will just sit at one corner of my cupboard to collect dust! Furthermore, there's nothing much I would like to buy there to chalk up to $80!

Charles & Keith had this End of Season sale but I couldn't find that bag which I saw at Vivocity which I am very keen to buy!!! I wonder if it is also on sale?? That bag cost $89.90!!! My God!!! Why does that bag have to be so expensive?? I also couldn't find the pair of sandals which I thought looked pretty interesting at the Tampines Mall branch just now... Strange... I saw it earlier.... I think they must have hidden those sandals since most of the items on sale belonged to the past season... Maybe I will just have to wait for the next sale...

After which we moved on to Century Square and shopped a while at BHG... Somehow, I think the stuff in BHG are pretty boring... I still think Metro has better variety than BHG. The same goes for the BHG at Bugis... Anyway, we tried to look for the shoe which I was particularly interested to buy at URS but couldn't find that. So I gave up and went to "Craft Jewellery".

"Craft Jewellery" is having a SALE now too! I managed to get a pair of earrings, a necklace & a bracelet at $49.32.

Next, we went to BEGA. I had wanted to buy a bag, but in the end, I bought 3 tops, 1 skirt and a brooch as well!!! THANK GOD!!!! I think I've bought enough clothes to last me for the whole of 2009!!! On 31st December when I was at Jurong Point with my friend, I already spent $200+ at BEGA on 4 tops and 4 skirts.... today I spent another $160 on clothes & a bag... Okay... I must start eating bread from next week onwards...

We had wanted to go to Cafe Cartel for dinner but there was a queue forming. Hence, we decided to go into Century Square again and headed straight to Billy Bombers. Strange... the Billy Bombers at Century Square was always quite vacant. I don't think its the issue with the food as we had the "special set dinner" just now and it tasted great! The cream of cauliflower soup was really tasty!!! I had the spring chicken while my niece at the Cajun Fish & Chips. I would avoid Cajun Fish at all cost because everytime I ate that, I would vomit and have diarrhoea!!!

I bought a nice purple bag from Osmose as well. I thought the design was simple and nice, and what's more, the colour was pretty unique. Guess what? There's only 1 piece in the shop and I am so lucky to buy that! There's a black one as well but I thought that's pretty common. That bag is 49 bucks! But ok lah... Charles & Keith is $89.90 leh!!! I can 2 bags at that cost!

I think I really need to curb my spending when I go shopping the next time!!!

6th to 7th December 2008 - Tunisia Part 1

The most painful part of the trip was the time spent at the airport waiting for our transit flight...

We took Turkish Airlines to Istanbul on 6th December 2008 which only took off around 11:30pm. It took us about 13 hours to fly to Istanbul, after which we had to adjust to the 6 hours time difference, and then wait for another 5-6 hours for our flight to Tunis!!!

Damn! There's only so much we could do at the duty free shops. After a while, we decided to find a cosy spot - Starbucks - and began to order some coffee and cakes, and take out our books to read. I had brought along a copy of Readers' Digest, as well as a book which I've borrowed from the library - a mandarin one, and the waiting thus began.

AT last it was time for boarding.... upon reaching Tunis, we were really very tired... It wasn't easy for me to fall asleep on the plane as the ride was quite bumpy, and we sat near the wing, so we could practically hear the engine 'roar'....

Anyways, that's beside the point. Maybe its the excitement that's keeping us awake!!!

Tunis is the capital of Tunisia, and it didn't feel like winter at all since the weather was about 16 degrees celsius in the day. Our local guide is Ahmed, and the drive is Mohamed.

We were immediately shuffled to lunch at this restaurant Le Phenix De Carthage and this was located near the Roman Aquaducts. As we arrived 1 day prior to the sacred day - Hari Raya Haji - where sacrifices were to be made, a lot of people were on holiday and we had to make some changes to our itinerary.

We went to Sidi Bou Said instead. Sidi Bou Said was a pretty sight and reminded me of the picturesque white houses with dome shaped ceilings in Santori Island which I've always wanted to go!!!! The doors to every household bore different designs and motifs, and the door knobs were also of various designs! How interesting and pretty the doors of Tunisia are!!

The black and white arches reflect the day and night. According to our tour guide, the reason behind the white walls was to reflect the sunlight, and blue was a symbol of good luck and warding off evil spirits. There was a famous cafe - Cafe des Nattes - in Sidi Bou Said and a lot of people actually visited this place for a fine cup of mint tea!

After visiting Sidi Bou Said, we need to take the coach and head down to Kairouan. We stayed at Kasbah Hotel for the night and it was pretty grand!!!

Happy 2009!

Phew! 2008 ended just like that...

I really hope 2009 will be a better year, especially when we see the bleak news everywhere about negative economic growth, the financial crisis, high unemployment rate, war, diseases...

I watched "Bolt" with YS on the last day of 2008 at Jurong Point... Well... We were not out of our minds, just that we heard that there's a new extension of Jurong Point, and we thought why not go there to shop?

We ended up spending hundreds of dollars buying clothes from BEGA, as well as picking the birthday present for our dearest godson, who will be celebrating his birthday on 11th January!!! We bought him a cute caterpillar (an educational toy), as well as 1 CD full of Nursery Rhymes, 1 VCD on Sesame Street and 1 DVD on Hello Kitty & Friends. We want our godson to be a super intelligent baby and do us proud in future!!!

After that we proceeded to the airport for our usual coffee session and had our 'countdown' there.

The airport has becomme a favourite haunt amongst Singaporeans for after dark activities... We reckon that its clean, safe, quiet, air-conditioned and at the same time contained numerous eateries. Every cafe was crowded!!! We had initially wanted to crash in at Coffee Club since they have better cake selections.... but there were already RESERVATIONS!!!! So we proceeded to TCC and horror of horrors!!! The place was pretty crowded too! In the end we went to Coffee Bean to try our luck.

Managed to get a sofa seat :) Ordered my Original Ice Blended and a Toberone Cheese Cake! YUMMY.... Tasted good! Although I find it more cheesy than chocolatey....

Anyway, I hope that in 2009, I can achieve the following:

1. Travel more!
2. Lose weight
3. Get a pay increment!
4. Better health
5. Learn a new language
6. START my Travel Blog
7. Update my Blogs (Photo blog, Blog, etc) regularly...
8. Take better pictures!
9. Save more money

Well... I shall not call the above NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS since I NEVER keep them!! HAHAHA