Long Weekend Over... Huh? What Long Weekend?

Everyday is Sunday to me. No that's not a good thing! Aaarrgghhh!! The STI was down until below 1500 today! But it went back up to settle at 1,666.49. Crazy market now.

Wah actually I'm quite tired today. Coz I automatically woke up at 7am today! Then just now went to Boon Leong's house where we went to his swimming pool to soak around for one hour or so. Didn't really swim, only paddled a few rounds and enjoyed the jacuzzi effect at the side of the pool and other than that, mostly chatting. Now I still smell of chlorine lol.

25th October 2008, Saturday

Another random dinner outing. Yaokun and Siying were helping Peiyi with some volunteer work. So they decided to ask me out for dinner since they were in Tampines. We almost went to Tampines Mall, but seeing that the carpark was sardines, we thought of going to E!Hub instead. Peyyong and Uncle joined us but didn't eat dinner though. We went to New York New York. I haven't eaten at this restaurant before, and seeing that there's always a snake winding out from the outlet at CityLink, I suggested having our dinner there. Me and Yaokun ordered the Meat-lovers for 2 set. AND IT'S A HUMONGOUS PLATE~!

Compare the normal-sized plate on the left to the "washing basin" on the right!

Compare the size of the chicken to the plate!Candy floss! Haven't eaten it in years! Believe it or not: Uncle has NEVER eaten it before!

And so we ate our dinner until Peyyong and Uncle arrived. As usual, Peyyong wil finish up all the leftovers while Uncle will sit there and act Uncle. LOL. We even hung around until we're the last customers in the restaurant. Then we had candy floss! Woohoo! I seriously don't remember the last time I had it. Worse still. Uncle has NEVER eaten it before. Seriously he's a case of 没童年. LOL. Maybe that explains why he's Uncle. =P

So we walked around E!Hub and even went to the arcade. Saw some youngsters super pro at the basketball games. And I thought kids these days only know how to play PSPs and Wiis. LOL! So that's all for the night and so we went home after that.

27th October 2008, Monday

It's Deepavali! As if it makes a difference to me. I went to meet up with YK who managed to squeeze his time to join us after work, on a holiday morning! So Peiyi, Peyyong and I got onto his 小红 at Bedok MRT station. Along the way I passed the 9 free tix to SnowCity to Huiru at Geylang, cos she called me to enquire about the tix. Great! I gave out all the tix to her, so no wastage whatsoever. We then continued down to VivoCity. I went to meet up with Yong Seng first at the MRT station while they went to park the car. I had initially planned to meet up with Keng Yew, Yong Seng and Lim Leng for lunch at Vivo too, but thanks to KY's aeroplane-putting act, we had to cancel our lunch meeting. However YS was already on his way to Vivo and therefore I told him to join me and my friends for lunch. And also, Claire, one of my MapleStory buddies, also joined us on this Butterfly Park escapade. So we then all met at the Banquet foodcourt in Vivo to have our lunch.

After lunch, YS went off to join his army friends for movies. Therefore the rest of us proceeded to Sentosa. As all of us couldn't fit into YK's 小红, and since Claire had never been on the Skytrain, she and I went to take it to reach Sentosa. Then we all met up outside the Butterfly Park and we used my free tix to gain entry. It's like an educational trip, but it sure was fun finding out about the wonders of nature. I have no idea whether I've been to this place or not. Maybe when I was a kid I could have been there before. Anyway YK had actually been to this place for a long time because he was working on his FYP. Therefore he's very familiar with the place and therefore briefly explained a bit to us, like a tour guide lol.

Toucans. Feels more like Bird Park to me.

Ah-ee-ah-ee-ai, I'm a little butterfly.

Parrots. Am I really in Butterfly Park?

Butterfly Lovers. Triangle love, that is.

We watched a bird show which lasted around half an hour or so. Then walked around the park. Spent quite a long time inside. So after the tour ended, I was frantically looking around for people to pass my four remaining tix to. However the angmohs I approached all rejected my offer. It was only when Peiyi said, "try the Chinese!", before I realize that yeah, Chinese should be willing to take anything that's free. So I looked around and saw a family of four. They sounded like Taiwanese though, but I managed to give it to them. Mission accomplished! All my free tix were used up/given out!

So we then took YK's 小红 to Siloso Beach. However the dark clouds had begun to float towards the beach area and raindrops on the windscreen gave us second thoughts about going to the beach. However I die die wanted to use the frisbee that I purposely bought for this trip. Costs me $3.90! LOL. So we just got YK's car parked and we walked down to the beach and started playing. There were a few bikini girls around, but TONNES of Indians/Bangladeshis all over the beach. Not to be racist here, so I will save on the remarks I heard from them wahhaha. We merely played for 10 minutes or so before we had to run back to the carpark to get out of that place. Bad day for beach games. So we ended up at AMK for our crab dinner as planned.

We reached the place, Mellben Seafood, quite early. We actually had our dinner at 5+pm. Ok lah cos I was already freaking famished from all the walking. We ordered several types of crabs, like the Chili, Curry and Creamy Butter Crabs, plus several other side dishes. The chili crab tasted normal, just like any other chili crabs. The creamy butter one could be compared to the Defu Lane one. Both just as nice. But I think I prefer the Defu Lane to this one. The curry crab, however, didn't taste as good as I thought it would be. That's because the crabmeat didn't actually absorb the curry flavour and therefore there was a lack of taste. But you can of course manually pour extra curry over the crabmeat. Overall I guess it was a rather good seafood dinner, except for the price! It costs us $180, for 6 people! That's $30 each! Therefore I think I will not go back there anytime soon, some more it's in AMK. So it was home after dinner, since we were all tired from the crab-biting ordeal. It's a real chore eating crabs man.

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Long Way Home

Song No. 21: Long Way Home
Artiste: ATB

Comments: Another ATB song. No doubt one of the best producers of dance music. Hmm Wikipedia lists the song as Electronic. I think it's more of progressive trance. I dunno. It's actually kinda hard to categorize such songs. But it's still a masterpiece from ATB himself nonetheless. The version in this YouTube video isn't really the one I like. However I don't think I can find the correct Mix on YouTube. Too bad.

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Total Recall

17th October 2008, Friday

Went to discuss with Yipeng about the graphics design project at his company. Then it was decided that we go to Bugis for steamboat. And guess who I saw. It's Naizhu. Everytime bump into him outside. And so he tagged along for the steamboat dinner to make it just nice of four people, because Yipeng brought his colleague, Natalie, along. So we went to the 天天火锅 place for steamboat. It was my first time there even though I've seen the commercial on TV millions of times. But I never get to eat there cos of the long queue. That day the restaurant was pretty empty. Think maybe cos it's still quite early. So NZ and I waited for the other two to arrive. We sat from 6:30pm to almost 9:30pm. Wahaha! Eat until shiokz. 3 hrs of steamboat buffet. And I must say the wanton chicken soup base is pretty nice. The crabs there were also quite clean compared to some other steamboat restaurants along the stretch >_<. So after dinner I went over to Paulaner just opposite Suntec. Charles, Jiajun and Zhongming were already there. Charles' classmate, Lily, a cabin crew, reached the place at the same time as me. So we talked cock over some beer before Jiajun left. We were sitting on the outside at first, but then we shifted inside and ordered some more beer. ZM left and so there were only Charles, Lily and me left. Felt a bit too bright wahahha. But then again, the girl is already attached. LOL. So we finished up the beer and went home. ZZZzzz... Another drinking session. I'm not working but still spending on beer OMG.

18th October 2008, Saturday

Had to pick up my parents at the airport. Cousins Wilson and Vivan were there to pick up 大姨 too. Used the Fring application to connect to msn at the budget terminal. And immediately my iPhone got FLOODED by Jane and Teddy. They told me to log into T-1(MapleStory private server) asap cos they wanna get married. -____- My iPhone kept buzzing and vibrating like mad. Crazy girls! LOL... And soon my parents and auntie came out and all I saw was bags and bags of stuff. They sure know how to shop. Two words. 恐怖

19th October 2008, Sunday

Peiyi saw an announcement on the newspaper that there will be some photographer sharing some of his experience taking photos at some place in Sabah. Therefore we gathered at Outram MRT station and we proceeded to some ulu cafe on the 2nd floor at Oriental Plaza. His pictures can be seen from his website at 223 GO! And I must say they're pretty awesome. Very nice pictures. And din know there's such a beautiful place in Sabah. This guy organizes trips to that place, for people to learn, and to take pictures. He explained every single picture in a slideshow presentation. How he took it. What were the conditions. How he felt. Kinda interesting. There were like 20+ people in that small little cafe. Since we were late, we had to sit on the floor lol.

After the presentation, we left the place and went on to the Chinatown hawker centre for desserts. Along the way we saw a middle-aged man sitting on the floor. He was doing some Chinese calligraphy, but in a rather unusual way. He uses his left hand to write some words, while the right hand does some weird circular motion along a circular metal bowl. This is to show he is able to control both hands to do different things at the same time. Impressive!

Next, he even wrote some Chinese characters upside down, using only one of his feet holding the brush!

After he finished writing, the people surrounding him all this time remained as still as statues. Nobody applaused. The man then asked whether anyone wants to buy his work. Nobody gave a damn. LOL. How sad. I guess no Singaporeans appreciate this kind of art. Therefore the crowd dispersed and we went up to the hawker centre for desserts.

After desserts, we walked all the way to The Central and went to have some more drinks at TCC. The interior decoration was quite beautiful. Nice lights and decorative walls. There we ordered drinks and Peyyong took out his lappy to share with us some of the pix he took in Cambodia. I was half asleep because I didn't have much sleep the previous night. We spent almost two hours at TCC.

Then we got Yaokun to pick us up and drove us to Ikea at Tampines. It was my first time there even though I stay in Tampines. LOL. I've also not been to the Giant and Courts over there. We had dinner at the Ikea foodcourt and I ordered the meatballs set. Shiokz! So we went home after dinner. ZZZzzz... Tiring day.

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A Day Of Mourning

We actually got the news just a few days ago only. One of my granduncles passed away on the 17th of October 2008. Attended his Christian funeral today. Even went to see him being lowered and buried into the earth at Choa Chu Kang cemetery. It's at one of those plot of cemeteries next to where 公公's ashes were placed, the Garden of Remembrance, if I remember the name correctly. All his children and grandchildren were present. Of course, me being quite free since I'm not working, I tagged along with my parents. It was the first time I attended such a ceremony. I am actually closest to this granduncle and grandauntie. We often visit them during Chinese New Year. But recently they've fallen sick. Granduncle has kidney failure and has to undergo dialysis every now and then. Grandauntie has deteriorated into a state of unable to speak properly. I dunno the exact illness affecting her, but I think it should be Alzheimar's disease. And so today at the funeral, which was held at the void deck below their house, the pastor read out a speech and everyone proceeded to walk around Granduncle's casket to see him for the last time. There he laid motionless, but I could still recall all the moments chatting with him during those festive periods. He looks pretty much the same thanks to all the makeup. My uncles and aunties, who are Granduncle's children, wept and cried. And then the casket was lifted onto a van and brought to the CCK cemetery. Father then drove me, Mummy and 大姨 to the cemetery where the burial was carried out. Most of Granduncle's immediate children, my uncles, lost control of themselves and cried like mad. But of course like what the pastor said, we should all rejoice because Granduncle has gone to be with the Lord. Poor Grandauntie kept wailing, but we all know that even though she's got Alzheimar's, she still does know what is happening. We all threw flowers into the pit, where Granduncle was lowered. Then a Bangla dug up the surrounding soil and covered the pit, while another guy used heavy machinery to cover up the soil more quickly. That marks the end of the ceremony. One of my closest Grand-relative, now gone. He's gone to keep 公公 company, so that's something good I guess. He's relieved of his endless suffering too, which is having to go for dialysis every so often. It's good news after all.

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Sash!

Song No. 20: Together Again
Artiste: Sash!

Comments: Sash! is one of the most well-known DJ/producer team from Germany back in the 90's. I'm pretty sure everyone has heard of their songs like Ecuador, Colour The World, La Primavera. Those who were born in the early 80's would surely have heard of their songs. Their unique style of music is no longer heard in the current dance tunes. How sad is that? I actually only get to know of this song when I bought Sash!'s greatest hits album. And I must say this track rocks! Once again, it must be emphasized that you must plug the earphones into your ears as much as possible to feel the effects of the song's beats and rhythm. Euphoria!

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Last Week Was Black Monday... Today Is White Monday?

Whole week of market turmoil. Today finally see some reversal. But that doesn't mean much...

Been quite busy lately. Got a special assignment to do some graphics designing. Although I do some website or publications back in uni, and also for my own homepage and stuff, but this task seems to be a bit more demanding. Cos it's to design posters for MOE. Somehow I seem to get myself associated with MOE recently. Previously I almost got an assignment to shoot an ad for MOE. Wahaha. Luckily I didn't, otherwise I'll be seen on TV everyday. Then now doing something for MOE again. Maybe it's a hint for me to join the education industry? Hmm...

12th October 2008, Sunday

And it's Zhangjing's idea that we come up with a dinner outing. Actually Boon Leong wanted it too. This Sunday gathering was meant to fit nicely for his schedule, but alas he only got notified he got work to do just few days before Sunday. Therefore we just went ahead as planned. There were supposed to have at least 12 people turning up. But Lionel said he was sick, and Li Tar, Leonard, Kok Yew, Norman didn't turn up as agreed. (Read PUT AEROPLANE) LOL. Nevertheless still got 8 people turned up: Elgin, Elvin, Kat, Li Teng, Yipeng, Fangyao, Zhangjing and me.

We walked along the street of steamboat restaurants. OMG the whole street is like Chinatown. All the restaurants were operated by mainland Chinese and so were the customers. So we walked along until we reached the Sinma Live Seafood Restaurant. Ahh.. lucky I made reservations. We got a table reserved for us on the air-conditioned second floor. So we ordered their signature dishes. There was this salted egg crab! Sounds awful, but when we get to taste it, it actually tastes rather unique. Tasty! We also ordered frogs, oatmeal prawns, sambal kangkong, black pepper venison, sweet and sour pork. Quite a decent spread. We (ZJ, YP and me) actually had a hard time ordering food, because the rest of them were busy chatting with each other. LOL. It's been 6 yrs since we last sat together in our bunks chatting back in army. There're definitely plenty of things we can talk about. And so we enjoyed our fill and also talked about everything under the sun. YP is planning a bigger gathering at the end of the year, so I do hope those absent could make it then. Quite a cool thing to meet up all the old buddies. Made me remember all the shyt and fun we had back in the army days.

Oh Li Teng took pictures with his Canon DSLR. Better-quality pix are available from the album he uploaded onto Facebook.

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Another Black Monday

SGX has hit another new low of 2168.32. Holy crap. Holy sh*t.

30th September 2008, Tuesday

Wah it's last month's stuff. But anyway a good day to mention. Cos I PASSED my IPPT! Muahaha! No more RT! And the best thing is, I passed 2.4km run by a mere 4 seconds! And I think I should thank the chao ah beng (with one whole leg full of angkong) running next to me after the 5th round. I was taking the lead for all 5 rounds until the CAB caught up with me.

Then I told him "last round".

He said "ya, wanna qie or not?"

"I cannot make it liao. You go ahead loh."

But he didn't pia. We remained side by side until about half a round to go, he started to walk. I told him to "come on, a bit more only." Then he started to chiong with me. At the last 150+m or so, I chionged as fast as I could and chiong to the finish line. And was relieved and felt super lucky I passed with a timing of 12 mins 36 seconds! The CAB got 12:38! If not for him, I guess I wouldn't have passed. LOL.

So after the run I went to collect my result slip and joined Zhangjing and Lionel in the gym. Told them the good news and that I no need to go to Phase 2 lol. So ZJ and I then went to the Bedok Market for dinner, as usual. It would be my last time there. I thought I could finally get to eat the Cheng Teng there, the one with a super long queue. However the stall was closed! I still didn't manage to get to eat it after one month of RT! Totally crapz man.

1st October 2008, Wednesday

It's Hari Raya. And also Children's Day! The guys from Blk 22 planned a dinner gathering at MOF @ Bugis Junction. Plenty of them turned up. Too many to mention here. I realized I ate at MOF too, but it was a Marina Square. It's Japanese food again! I think I should ban all Japanese food gatherings man. Getting quite sick of them hahah.

5th October 2008, Sunday

Yeah it was Zhangjing's idea that we go to JB for movies and seafood since the days we were having RT. It materialized finally. Boo Han, Boyi, Boon Leong, ZJ and me. We met up quite early in the morning because ZJ and I had planned to watch two movies at first. But the other 3 of them think we're nuts and therefore we went to watch one instead lol. We decided to watch Mamma Mia! since no one had seen it yet. Then we went to Kenny Roger's @ City Square. The taste was a bit different. The sauce was quite unique and nice, but the chicken is less succulent and smaller. The 3 sides dishes to go along with our Kenny's Quarters meal were a bit small too. But still quite ok for the price we had to pay lol. So right after lunch, it was just nice for the movie.

From what I heard, it's a musical something like High School Musical. And indeed it was. And I if I'm not wrong, all the songs in the movie are from ABBA. Yeah there are some of the more famous tunes from this retro band. There were a few Malay aunties behind us who kept laughing at every single detail of the movie. They must have really enjoyed themselves watching the movie. Not too much an enjoyment for the rest of us though lol. Some of us even fell asleep during the movie. Wahaha! But still it's quite a fun movie. Low budget but entertaining. I think it's worth a 3.5 stars.

After the movie, we went to Holiday Plaza for some window-shopping. Yeah, only Boon Leong made quite a good harvest from there. The rest of us just had some drinks at Mac. And I must say that building now contains more nail spas than pirated DVD shops! At least 5 is to 1! Amazing. Girls in JB really know how to pamper themselves.

Next, we took cab to Taman Sri Tebrau for our seafood dinner. We got hotplate tofu, oatmeal prawns, butter crayfish, beggar chicken and kangkong. Scrumptious! Oh we even ordered 5 sticks of satay each at the end. Total cost was about S$12 only, quite worth it. So then we went back to City Square to do some last minute shopping before we headed back to the customs. To our horror, the 160/170 bus-stop was so congested that we decided to walk across the causeway. First time I walk across the causeway. It wasn't very long at all. Just about 10-15 mins to walk across. Luckily it was quite good weather at that time, with cool breezes blowing at us. And so we made our way out of the customs and back home. Tired legs...

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OMG Super LATE

Guess I'm old and forgetful. Nolah...actually I'm just too lazy to update. Wahhaa! Always lump everything together then upload a new post.

Song No. 19: Dreamland (Extended Party Mix)
Artiste: DJ Ross

Comments: They call the genre Italo Dance, which is derived from the Eurodance genre, cos the genre originated from italo disco. Considered an invention by DJ Gigi D'Agustino. Perhaps I will introduce a song from this artiste too. Such an energetic song this is. The song featured in the YouTube video is the normal radio edit I suppose. But the Extended Party Mix is what energetic is all about. Almost 7 mins in length, whenever I feel a need to have a burst of energy, this is the song to blast my eardrums with. To me, I think you need a powerful set of earphones and plug them right into your ears as deep as you can so that you can feel the full effects of the drums and beats of a dance tune. Will be truly euphoric. One word... SHIOK!

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