a wonderful weekend

is the word I would use to describe my past weekend!

Saturday

After half a day's exposure to the sun for soccer and softball training (which left me rather burnt), I met up with my WAT (work and travel) babes for dinner at Sun with Moon at Wheelock place.

The food was REALLY good. I LOVE their salmon sashimi! Their prices are a bit steep (spent about $35 per person) but absolutely worth it.

Thick and fresh salmon sashimi

Oyster


Teriyaki chicken rice bowl

Assorted skewers

Green tea parfait (yummy....)

Buckwheat crepe with chestnut filling

Us~ High on food~


After dinner we headed to Tapas Wine Bistro at Holland V to chill out. Thanks to Yingni (whose friend is the boss of the place), we got complimentary membership cards which entitle us to 15% discount. Its a great place to chill, with little food TAPAs and a huge selection of wine and cocktails (among other drinks) to choose from. There are also 2 TV sets for you to catch soccer matches on screen.

French red wine


Meini's Minty cocktail

Yingni's Between the sheets

My Chi-chi, malibu with pineapple juice

And.......

Chocolate shots! so sinful.

Sunday

I went for Goodwood Park Hotel's L' Espresso afternoon high tea with the girls! I have been wanting to try it for a long time... and I must say I really enjoyed it, and would definitely come again! Though the variety was not alot(but adequate), the quality of the food was good, really good! I guess they focus more on quality instead of quantity. Alright, I shall let pictures do the talking....

I love my food! And couldn't really stop eating... haha!



My pretty girls~

Overall, the weekend was really enjoyable, meetin up with all my girls and eating good food.

Last but not least, greetings from my handsome boy.......

Mocha~!

paiseh, know there are a lot of WORDS lately.

a gastronomic affair

for this assignment, i have been standing and perspiring alot. and i really dread those moments when I have to overcome my fear of heights. but it sure has its perks.

for the last 2.5weeks, it has been a gastronomic affair.
in JB, we were brought to several well-known places serving really good food. though they weren't really some fancy restaurants, the food was yummy.
Since last week, lunch was packed by the client everyday(thus free).
Last friday we were treated to a meal at a seafood restaurant.
Yesterday, the client (a different company) brought us out for jap food at this restaurant called Hilltop near Jurong Birdpark, where we had things like sashimi, maki and bento sets.
And today, we ate at san zhong liang jian! their famous samsui chicken was naturally in the order list. we also had tofu and prawns in chilli crab sauce, sambal kangkong and steamed fish.
(oh great, i think i m putting on weight) ok, no pictures, must act professional in front of client laaaaaa.

And to top it off, I am having a rest day tmr! cos we finished our count for one of the warehouses one day ahead, so we dun need to go back tmr~

yea.. i just want to rest. having problem sleeping... again.

my dream sunday

i will live in
a cosy apartment with a balcony or
a small house with a garden or a roof top
where I will have a white garden table under a shelter surrounded by pots of plants and flowers

on sunday mornings
it is where we will have a lazy breakfast of
waffles and pancakes filled with blueberries topped with whipped cream and maple syrup drizzled all over

we will then head down to the beach
sip orange juice read a book eat tasty mini sandwiches
and watch the day goes by

we will spent the evening in the home couch watch a DVD movie and eat popcorn
and eventually doze off to dreamland in the midst of the show

how wonderful will that be.

my fear of heights

I had to overcome my fear of heights three times in the last 1.5years.

Last year (2007) in May/June, I was working in Cedarpoint, a famous themepark in the U.S. which has 17 roller coasters. I took my first ever roller coaster (i mean the really thrilling ones), the Dragster, which goes up vertically, make a u-turn right at the highest point, and comes down vertically, twisting at the same time. Then I went on to take the many many roller coasters in the park and seriously, had a great time. In comparison, I did not even dare to take the roller coaster in Hong Kong Ocean Park 6 months back.

Just few weeks back in August, I took part in my company's "amazing race" and had to go through this obstacle course (rope) whereby I have to do things like flying fox, tarzan swings and walk on swaying logs at a certain height. I was really scared initially, but I knew I had to do it... and I did (so proud pof myself la)! Still remember back in secondary one when I had to climb a rock wall at the Punggol obstacle campsite during a school camp, I gave up halfway and had to climb back down step by step because I just couldn't let myself hang freely in the air!

These three weeks, I was on a job to do stock take of metal ingots/bars. These metal ingots are tied together in bundles and stacked on top of each other, side by side. The stacks came up to about a storey high and I was made to go up on a forklift and walk on these stacks. This reaffirmed one thing: Yes, I am still scared of heights!! I practically froze at certain points in time, and my feet even went numb because I was so still I wasn't moving AT ALL.

Work really puts me to the test, man. Bless me for the last week!

Birthday

Birthday celebrations, to me, is a thing of the past.
No more packets of sweets and chocolates for the classmates.
No more fanciful birthday parties where all your relatives are invited.
No more shared presents by groups of friends.

My 21st birthday, honestly, wasn't the way I wanted it to be initially. It just... got big.
It was like ages that I had my last bday party, and my mum thought it will be good to have one for family and relatives to gather. Not being very close to my aunties/uncles and cousins, I decided to invite my friends to the party as well... and it was just hard to leave anyone out. Then came the catering, big birthday cake to serve everyone... and the fun of decorating the place. Yea, it just got rather big. Really, I would have enjoyed it equally if it was just a simple dinner with my family.

These days, birthday "celebration' is not that important to me anymore. Clearly, there is nothing to celebrate.

Rather, i feel this day is an annual re-assessment of your life.

What makes me happy is not someone gathering everyone else (who otherwise might not actually have remembered), then calling you up to see which day you are free so that we can gather for a meal and have a drink, simply because somehow it was done for everyone in the group the last couple of years or so. And I rather not meet up this way, cos I dun really see the point, when there is not heart in doing it. Its not supposed to be a ritual.

But when people do remember (on their own, not through facebook or friendster or through someone else) and simply send you a text message or even bother to take time off to spend time with you, its heartwarming. Simply because you know you are not forgotten, and there are people who do care.

It doesn't have to be a fancy dinner, but the company and sincerity, are the most important.
And this birthday, I had the best times with my family, Ah C's family and of cos, my dearest girls!

And special mention to the girls who had an unexpected lunch with me at the Moomba Tuckshop. Cos the company was great, the sandwiches and salads was great (i love sandwiches and salads!) and I love my brownie with matchsticks 'birthday cake' =).

Had dinner with my family at a fish steamboat place near my house... which my mum had been finding an occasion to have for some time. The food is not nice as before but the night was special. Just when we were about to go home, it started raining really really heavily and we had to walk in the rain. So I shared an umbrella with my mum while my dad had one to himself. I dun know how to describe, but being able to hold on to each other, watching out for each other under the pouring rain.. I have not felt so close to them in a long time. Others may have very close relationships with their parents and be able to tell them everything. But somehow, my parents are not really the mushy kind whom I can tell discuss everything with. They just care in a different way. So, yea, that meant alot to me. And my brother got me a timex digital watch which is really useful to me at this time as I am training up for the Stand Chart run in Dec. I was actually quite surprised and touched that he got me something that I needed and wanted, without me saying a word.

Ah C's family brought me to Swenson's for dinner on a Sunday evening. They were telling me to try something else, afraid that its boring for me, but I love Swenson's! Particularly for their baked rice, crayfish pasta and rodeo wings. And I must say I really appreciate the fact that they took time off to have dinner with me the last two years even when Ah C is not around. Oh... and they got me a Pooh and friends ice cream cake!

Yea, and just Sunday, I went to Canele at Raffles City to try out their famous desserts.
The crepe was not bad at all!

I dunno why, maybe I have been trying quite some famous and good cakes recently, the ones at Canele didn't really make an impression on me. Still, they looked good..

Tracing back a little, my st nicks clique came over to my house for a pot luck session just before Tiffy anf Joyce went back to Ireland and Shanghai respectively. And Tiffy bought these cakes from Gobi dessert (located at the Central Mall)...

I quite like the strawberry shortcake cos the sponge cake is very soft.. the other good one that I tried was from The Patissier's. Though they are quite different in texture, because the one from The Patissier's had more alternating layers of biscuit crumbs and sponge cake.

It will probably be another year befor I see these girls again. Hopefully I have the chance to visit Joyce in Shanghai this Oct/Nov if I ever get to go there for my work!

First overseas assignment

First overseas assignment!! Johor only la...

I was there for 5 days to count inventory of metals!
Though the warehouses were rather dirty and walking between stacks of metals was quite dangerous, I had a great time because the client was VERY nice and I had fun seniors with me!

On monday, we checked into Mutiara hotel, which was located just beside Holiday plaza in JB. We each had a room to ourselves and the room was big! Not too bad! The buffet breakfast was better than expected (of a JB hotel) with a variety of american breakfast, chinese porridge, japanese breakfast, breads and cereals etc.


After a tiring first day, we settled down at a Hong Kong cafe in Holiday Plaza for dinner... i spent just RM11 for a bowl of wanton noodles and iced yuan yang, cheap!
And these were what my 2 seniors ordered..

One of my seniors, Angela. She was not on the same job as me, but we were there in the same week and stayed in the same hotel, so we get to hang around together after work. She came with another senior Rachel, who went back to sg to celebrate her boyfriend's bday and hence did not join us.

This entire trip was like a beauty and body wellness vacation for us. Especially for Angela la!

On the first day, 3 of us went for pedicure/manicure at a shop called Summer Nails, which I would recommend cos both their service and skills are good. [Classic mani at RM25, classic pedi for RM35, and both for RM55.]

On day two, the two seniors on the other job went for pedicure/manicure (again!!). Angela did manicure the previous day, and decided to do pedicure too!

On the third day, the same two seniors went for hair treatment and hair cut, and then two of us went to join them for Thai foot massage. After standing for 3 whole days for the stock count, the massage was super shiok! [RM45 for a hour]

As we were a bit behind schedule, we got another senior to come help us out on Thursday. Her name is Zhenyu, a very sweet girl! That night, we went for Thai foot massage.. again! Melissa (front) and Zhenyu(back) at the foot massage...

Then we went to have sushi at Sushi King, a sushi chain in Malaysia. Hmm.. dun bother to try it out la =P.

After 4.5 days of standing, walking, climbing on metals and standing on the fork lift and doing lots of mental calculations, we finally we finished counting 9 warehouses of metal. YEAH!

We finished early on Friday and the client brought us to this famous, crowded place for bak kut teh, it was really good and cheap! We also had vege, tofu and fish, they were simple yet super yummy cos of the sauces. My client says that during weekends, this place is filled with Singaporeans. I would want to recommend you all to try this place out, but I seriously dunno where it is and how to get here.

After the meal, we went back to the hotel to have a quick shower and check out, deposit our luggage with the concierge and headed to Holiday Plaza for our last round of pampering.

The night before, as I was flipping through magazines, I felt like doing somethine to my black boring black, straight hair. Told Melissa the next day and she had the same thought as me! So.... we went to the salon to highlight our hair! And Zhenyu did her Shisedo 5-step hair treatment.

We bought dragon beard candy and haha, took a picture against the backdrop of a pirated DVD shop. Anyway, she very cute right!!

My streaks of red hair...

Looking forward to my next overseas job already! I hope they dun re-schedule my job leh.. I want to go Beijing!

When do you consider a person successful?
Standing out in her career, getting praises from employers ?
Earning much more than her fellow peers?
Exceling in other areas besides her own job?
If so, then I would say that I am very unsuccessful.

Back then in school, things were much simpler and better:
getting the highest score in class for various subjects,
getting into the first team of netball/basketball/softball,
getting 8 A1s in 'O' levels,
representing the school in inter-school competitions, be it academic or CCA.
Ya, I may not be a scholar or a player in any national sports team, but whatever I tried, I did well.

Now, its just so difficult. At work, I am really just an average worker. Not a fast worker, not technically well-versed with all the standards, not a wonderful presentation speaker. Played several CPA games and I realised I am much slower nowadays, no longer having that burst of energy. Where did all my energy go to? Many people have commented that I look tired on many many occasions - but I dun work late and I have adequate sleep every night. I also find myself isolating from people. I feel myself falling into this pit and struggling to get out. As much as I want to do well, i don't see myself performing.

This being said,
do people need to be successful to be happy?
Will I be happier if lived life one step at a time, do a job I love (which may not earn much), lead a simple everyday life, and go travelling as and when I want with whatever money I have?