Another wedding

Yeah another wedding. Hmm... This time it's a female friend. It's Siew Wah, aka Xiuhua. She's now married to her husband, Zack. They got together while working in Japan. There's an interesting story behind how they got together, haha. Won't say anything here.

The wedding was held at Marina Mandarain Hotel. It's been years since I went there for a wedding dinner. The last one was probably 10 years ago when one of my relatives got married. Xiuhua invited all of us from the DSO lab. All of us were from different companies, ST Info-Soft, ST Info-Comm, DSO. But we all were around the same age, therefore we got along pretty well.

So who will be the next in the above picture to get married? Hmm...

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Kyo Ai - Distance Love

Just watched the short film from the DVD of Ayumi Hamasaki's latest album, Guilty. It features Ayumi Hamasaki and Shawn Yue in a romantic but tragic short movie. As mentioned, it's her first overseas short film, cool! The film is called Kyoai, or Distance Love. It shows how Ayumi fell in love with Shawn Yue, her Hong Kong bodyguard, while in Hong Kong.

Just love the scenes, probably cos Ayumi's in it. Hahaha! I got some pictures from her official website for this short film and compiled them into this:

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Something New, Something Old

Met up with Vanessa and Jiahao today at Chinatown today. It was supposed to be a treat from Vanessa because she wanna repay me for giving her sister computer engineering notes. Haha but Jiahao and I decided we shall just treat her instead.

Anyway we went to the hawker centre near Pearl Centre. Something new for me since I haven't been to this hawker centre since it was last renovated, which was quite a long time ago. We ordered "Buy 3 get 2 free plus porridge" set @ $22. I ordered 3 chilli and 2 normal since I didn't know what they wanted. The chilli ones were freaking hot, but freaking awesome. The porridge was also heavenly, and mixed with the gravy from the pot of froglegs was simply irresistable. YumZZzz... We also had guo tie, those fried dumplings to be dipped with vinegar and ginger. What a dinner it was. Shiokz!

Next up we decided to walk towards the real Chinatown area by crossing an overhead bridge. There were plenty of old folks on the bridge, with musicians basking, some Mickey and friends figures specially for Chinese New Year on display. We then crossed over to the other side and walk along the shops, mingling with the crowd. There were plenty of Chinese New Year stuff being sold, like those decorative items, foodstuffs etc. We didn't complete the whole area since it was so crowded. Then we left for home. Still got work tomorrow! Argh! Being in Chinatown is something old for me since I've been here before. But then, everytime I come, it's a whole new experience.

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Blocked, Plummeted, Disappointed, Disconnected

Blocked

Early morning, while walking towards Tampines MRT station, I witnessed an unusual sight. The main gate was shut, with several police dudes and some SMRT staff standing outside the station. There were several notices and dozens more people crowding around the area. "Cross the overhead bridge to for shuttle to Tanah Merah" Holy cow. I was wondering whether it's another case of "jumping onto MRT track and R.I.P." incident. It is actually due to a maintenance train kena stuck in the middle of the track between Tampines and Simei.

I crossed the bridge to the other side of the road and found a whole congregation of late-for-work/school/whatevers at the bus-stop. Traffic was slow like Level 1 Snail. I happen to meet Tat Chuan, ex-DSO colleague at the bus-stop, and he said he waited to get onto a bus since an hour ago. He also tried to grab a cab but failed. Therefore we were there trying to get onto SMRT shuttle buses specially prepared to ferry us to Tanah Merah MRT station. Eventually I got up the bus, but poor Tat Chuan was left unable to squeeze onto the bus I was on.

Reached office at 10+. LOL! Bobianz huh?

Plummeted

Holy cow!! The STI plunged a massive 187.10 points to close near to 2900. Awesome! ZZZzzz...

Disappointed

Jiahao suggested we go to VivoCity for lunch, since he will be going to DSTA later in the afternoon. We decided to try out the food at Terra Cafe. Conclusion: First and last time. Period.

Disconnected

Searched high and low for solutions and spent almost two hours trying to link up the Father's new Windows Vista operated PC with Cindy's Windows XP operated PC. But STILL unable to link them up. Several articles have pointed out that it could be compatibility issues. Thanks Mr. Gates!

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When Did I Last Play Badminton?

I don't really remember. I think it was back at NTU where I played with the block people. That was probably in year 4. Then again when was the last time I really sweated it out on a sport? Perhaps the last time was doing my IPPT during ICT back in May last year. Wahahah!

Went to City Plaza where Mummy introed a shop which sold some nice clothing. Bought a few pieces from the shop. After walking around the place I realized City Plaza actually had some really cool shops selling plenty of fashionable clothing. Cool!

Then Father dropped me outside Bedok CC where MKG were supposed to meet for badminton. Uncle, Peiyi, Siying and Peyyong were there already, since I reached half an hour late. Hahaha! I think I'm getting old or was it because I didn't warm up. My thigh muscles started to feel a bit cramped after just half an hour. LOL Haven't been exercising for too long...

After badminton, we walked to Blk 85 market. It's been quite a while since we ate there. Think those lazy pigs were too lazy to move. I was the one who went around making all the orders. >.< We ordered Bah Chor Mee, satay, stingray, carrot cake. I even ordered 2 sticks of otah for myself cos none of them were interested. And also we had sugar cane juice. Yummy! I was the one who ate the most, cos I was REALLY very hungry. After the meal I could hardly walk. Hahaha! Awesome! But eating all those greasy and unhealthy food is so sinful. So where do all the fats go to??? Why can I never gain weight? >.< Really must wait until 30+ then metabolism go down meh? Hmm...

Very tired now... It's Monday again tomorrow! SianzZzzZZz..

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TGIF

It's the weekend once again!!!

Just had a long and boring day at the stupid Software Configuration Management course. I wonder how I managed to stay awake for the two days full of boring and dry course materials.

Just as I was taking the lift down from the 20th floor, somebody came in at a particular floor. It was Diana! I called her immediately when she entered the lift, as she failed to notice I was just right in front of her. >.< Anyway she said she was working in that building. Wow so zhun! Then I went to meet Hongsheng for lunch at the Hongkong restaurant along Bugis Street. There was a set lunch which you could choose a main course valued at $6 or more and you get free side dish and a drink. Cool stuff. Therefore I ordered some pork chop instant noodle. Ya INSTANT noodle. LOL! What expensive instant noodles!

On the way back home, I walked to the bus-stop just outside Sim Lim Square to take bus 23 home as usual. Before long someone familiar walked towards me. It was no mistake as I can recognize Zhangjing's small mole near the lips from a distance away. Hahahah! I called out "Su Zhang Jing!" And he was equally surprised to see me. Wow he's already quite rotund already but he's even rounder since the last I met him, which was dunno-when. Zhangjing if you read this, it's true lah! Hehehe. Better slim down! At least to the size when you were still in army. :P

I told him I met 3 friends by chance today. I met Shuqing, my primary school classmate, while we were taking bus 23 in the morning. That's so interesting. I recall I met up to 5 individual friends by chance on a single day. When can I break that record? Hahaha interesting.

The STI is hovering around the 3100 region these few days. Shish... All the major banks in the US are reporting dismal results. JialatZZzz. Recession imminent. Let's hope Mr Bernanke could do something about it. ZZzz...

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Bimbo Or No Bimbo

Just watched the Hunk version of Deal Or No Deal. OMG the girl playing was so cute, BUT so bimbotic! Same for the rest of the girls who were there to support her. All were cabin crew, or air stewardesses. Gives me a very bad impression of them already. The lady, called Xiaofen I think, kept talking about handsome guys and hating stingy men blah blah blah. ZZZzzz... Typical Singaporean girl I guess. Bring back the babes version already! Then again, 26 bimbos on the same stage!? Better than 26 hunks, for me that is. Hahaha!

It's been a boring day. My project leader called me last night (at about 11pm?) to tell me to replace him to go for a 2-day course held at Fortune Centre, near Bugis Junction. Somehow I always get these last minute thingies. Very very dry course materials. Think I'm gonna fall asleep tomorrow. I went to meet up with Hongsheng for lunch since it was near his office. We had lunch at this Vietnamese restaurant near his workplace. The food was quite ok. And after lunch, on my way back to Fortune centre, I met Olivia on the road! So conincidental. She was walking back to her office at Midland House. Haven't seen her for sooo long. And she said she's now at her 3rd job already. Looks like I should really start looking REAL seriously.

Went to Sim Lim Square to get my PSP silicon cover. Don't want it to concuss and game over so soon. I must have dropped it at least twice throughout its entire lifetime. Luckily it's still working fine... Ok that's all for today...

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Bear Beats Bull

Holy sh*t! The STI is down by 69.20 points to 3218.14, an all-time low since the credit crisis started last year. Waiting for a good opportunity to buy in. Keeping too much cash on hand is also quite useless, since bank interest rates are not worth mentioning. Are we gonna see a bearish 2008? Hope not... It's the year of Olympics, Formula 1 Race, Singapore Flyer, opening of T3. With so many events coming, the bull should be fighting his way back.

It's the start of a new week. Gonna be a boring week cos the whole of my team are not in DSO. Nobody to compete Sudoku with. Hahaha! For the past few months, I've been playing Sudoku from Today and MyPaper with Jiahao and Yann Ching almost everyday. We even have an Excel table tabulating our scores! LOL

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Busy Weekend

It's Sunday evening, and it's pouring heavily outside. It's been raining almost the whole day. I woke up at 2pm, as usual. Had lunch, and watched The Battle of Wits, or Mo Gong, starring Andy Lau. Quite an interesting movie indeed, as recommended by many who watched it.

Here's a recap of the last 2 days:

11th Jan 2008, Friday

Right after work, I went straight to Hall 4. I actually reached very early at 6:30pm. Went to knock on the doors of the guys' rooms but I think everyone wasn't around. Therefore I went up to check out whether Yat is around or not. Luckily she and Lilin were there already, therefore I went in and chatted with them until 8pm or so.

Then we went down and looked for the rest of the guys, who finally returned from their IHG etc. Then we all started BBQing. Most of the graduates arrived, except Chester, who said he was feeling unwell the moment he reached home. ZZZzzz... Adrian and Jiajun also didn't come due to various reasons. Charles and Junie joined us much later at 10pm+ or so. We BBQed and chatted with everyone there. Seems like we haven't been back to hall for quite a long time. Everyone's got stories to share, cos everyone has started working.

It's quite a shock having realized that Zhongming and Patrick, as well as Lilin and Yat, etc, are now final year students! I was telling them it was like not very long ago where I was the final year and they were just year twos. Time really flies...

Anyway Charles and I went to Zhongming's room to kapoh the many movies he downloaded. He sure carried on our tradition of the sole distributor of movies, animes, dramas, etc. Back then I was the one to share all my stuff in the block, then it was Shenggui. And now we have Zhongming. Who can we rely on when Zhongming leaves? *sobs* No more movies, animes, dramas. Oh well... All good things come to an end. But Zhongming REALLY got a whole stash of new and old movies. I downloaded as much as my portable harddisk could squeeze in. Awesome! That explains why I watched Mo Gong this afternoon. Hehe... Too many movies to watch.

Later on at night, the guys were playing mahjong in Ken/Yok Hian's room, which was previously Andy and Wilson's room. And we heard that Chin Keat got a 13 Wonders! Awesome! Then we decided to look for a movie in Zhongming's collection which none of us had watched before. Alas we managed to find one which indeed nobody has watched before: 28 Weeks Later. I watched 28 Days later on Channel 5 at home some time last year, and I thought it was a stupid and slow movie. However, this sequel was much better in terms of suspense and gore. Totally gruesome and bloody shots all throughout the movie. Kinda revolting rethinking of the scenes.

I then shared a cab with Ken and Wilson and reached home at 7am. Tired!!!

12th Jan 2008, Saturday

Woke up at 2pm, as usual. Had lunch and slacked for a while before going for Japanese lesson. It's been a two week break. Forgot almost 99% of those I learnt. LOL After lessons, Edwin offered to walk with me to Boay Quay together, while he was pushing his bike. We talked about our job prospects etc. He's found a job at Fortis, doing some operations work or something. Just hope everything is going well for him.

I then met Alan and Zhenhao outside Mind Cafe at Boay Quay. We then went in to book a large table first. Later on, everyone arrived. There was Kim, Nana, Fusheng, Wenyao, Kaiwei, Naizhu and Eng Tat. This gathering was actually meant as a farewell gathering for Kaiwei, who is flying to Utah, USA, for half a year of training under his new company, IM Flash. Looks like an awesome trip with great prospects. We had dinner while playing Taboo! Then we finished off the remaining of our two-hour package with Snortle. Both games were suggested by me cos I thought Taboo! and Snortle could be easily played by a big group of people.

After the game, we decided to go to the TCC branch behind MacDonald's at Boat Quay. We went to the second storey and found that it was a very cosy and relaxing place to gather and chat. We sat on cosy sleep-inducing beanie cushions. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the second storey area, cos I think it's because there were many paintings all over the walls, priced from $1,800 to $2,800 each. ZZZzzz... It was really a nice place to hang out after a meal, with plenty of exotic drinks to choose from. Next time I know where to go to when everyone has no idea where to go. Hehe...

It was really fun to meet up with the good old pals from our GIP group, whom we spent half a year in Beijing together. Hope we'll have more gatherings soon. =)

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Taijia's Wedding

Another friend's wedding. This was Taijia, my army friend's wedding. He's now wedded to his girlfriend of 10 years or more, Peilian. They've been together since secondary school or JC. Another happily married couple. Let me see... First was Glenn, my secondary classmate; second was Kevin Michael Sim, army friend; third was Sia Leong, MKG friend; and now Taijia. All guys. Hmm... looks like some of my guy friends get married quite young. The next one would be Xiuhua, my DSO ex-colleague, a girl at last.

At Taijia's wedding dinner, held at Orchid Country Club at Yishun, I saw many familiar faces. This could be due to the fact that both bride and groom are of the same age, which are also of my age. Therefore most of their friends would somehow be my friends or my friends' friends etc. Boon Leong and some of the other guys also saw some of their friends at the dinner. I saw Hwee Suan and Wanjun, both JC friends, at the wedding. They were Peilian's university classmates. I also saw Gabriel, my Hall 4 block 22 blockmate. I even saw one of the girls in my Japanese class, but forgot her name. LOL

When we arrived at the dining tables, the whole area seemed very grand. Even the entrance to the ballroom was a flight of staircase similar to the one in Titanic, where at the finale Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet were seen kissing with everyone all around them. The entrance music and display was also quite interesting, whereby one of the waiters was wielding a sword or something set on fire. Then he held the flaming weapon in front of him and led his army of waiters and waitresses down the tables to the beat of some up-tempo music and disco lights.

The food was pretty good too, although not very filling, I felt. I'm feeling hungry already as I am writing this entry. LOL At our table, there were the few of us from A Shift and B Shift, FDS-PLAB, our army callsigns. There were Elgin, Elvin, Kat, Boon Leong, as well as Yicheng, Tianfa and 2 other guys from B Shift. Liyang was supposed to be coming but they said he couldn't come because he was sick. Anyway it was a pretty nice meetup with the old guys from army. We chatted a lot on our latest happenings, as well as laughed on our army days.

Something to say about the wedding was that they even had a mini golf-wagon or something to ferry the two newly-weds into the ballroom. Quite an interesting idea. Taijia and Peilian were waving at everyone in the room, like our President parading down the stadium during National Day. LOL

This is one of the nicest wedding dinners I've been to so far, in terms of presentation. The service was very good too. Our drink were always filled to the brim. But then again I'm HUNGRY! Time to grab something to eat. Hahaha... Signing off...

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Amazing discoveries

Look what I've found? As I was looking for some PSP software, I chanced upon these series of Japanese game show involving human tetris. See it yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll2kajMH2u0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qqa4SmML0E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bekQU9l8hk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPFZl59_OZ4

There are many more of those videos on YouTube. Just search for them. Enjoy!

And here's a recap of our MKG outing on 30th Dec 2007, Sunday.

30th Dec 2007, Sunday

The few of us, Huimin, Albert, Peyyong, Peiyi and me met early in the morning at Changi Village. We had brunch before we set off to Pulau Ubin. It was one of the few unusual outings we MKGians always organise.

Little did I know that the place to get onto those bumboats has been changed into a new and much more beautiful place. Last time it was some old and smelly area, but now everything is brand new, including some metal detector and X-ray scan machines to scan for every passenger that arrives through that area. We paid $2 each to get onto a bumboat. It's been years since I set foot on Pulau Ubin. I think if I remember correctly, the last time I've been there was during the Hall 4 Freshmen Orientation Camp back in university. Brings back all the memories.

We decided to travel on foot throughout our journey to Chek Jawa instead of cycling because Peiyi wasn't very confident on cycling on the bumpy roads. Actually it wasn't a very bad idea because we really got to see every detail of Pulau Ubin when we traveled on foot. We stopped many times to admire the intricately woven webs of many spiders along the way. In fact, we spent most of our time taking pictures of spiders. LOL! And while we stopped to take pictures, many mosquitoes also had quite a feast. I'm still feeling itchy right now. Argh!

We walked on and explored many parts of Pulau Ubin, as well as Chek Jawa. It's like a science excursion back in primary school. We encountered many lifeforms (as well as deadforms) throughout Chek Jawa. There were mudskippers (see image), tadpoles, hermit crabs, attap chee (see image), as well as the mangrove trees around the area (see image).

Quite a magificent trip it was. I happened to discover a dead sotong, while the rest also discovered a dead crab in the waters along the way. But what's most amazing was a Leaf on Ecstasy. I've captured in on video and even posted it on YouTube. Enjoy!

We left Pulau Ubin, very tired and all sweaty. But it was all worth the effort. The next time we go there, we'll definitely travel on bikes. LOL

Right after we reached the main island, we traveled to Still Road for CRABS! Sia Leong and Heyu met us there for the feast. We had to wait from 5pm to 6pm for a table. And we actually ate until 8pm. I'm only gonna give it 3 stars. The chilli crab's gravy was a bit too gooey, but really damn hot. As for the pepper crab, pretty hot and spicy too. But I guess as long as there's the taste of pepper, all pepper crabs taste the same. You actually have to book very early in advance via telephone, otherwise there won't be any crabs left for you, even if you come down personally to queue up. Many people who turned up were turned away by the auntie who took orders as soon as all the crabs were sold. SOOO good business. But I don't really think the crabs were THAT fantastic.

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Welcoming The Year 2008!

Happy 2008!

Hmm... Looks like I have no choice but to use blogger.com instead. I've always been creating my own homepages with my own designs. However, I can't find any good webhosting sites no matter how many times I searched on the internet. Thus I ended up here. And I thought, oh well, since it's a new year, might as well start something new. Therefore no more NaFiMuYa's homepage, just a simple blog. Let's see how much difference I can make using a blog instead of a self-designed website.

It's the year 2008! Let's rock on!

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