Farewell for now...

This is my last publish for heaven knows how long... Currently I need a space for expression without any "censorship board"... Online journal clearly is not the best avenue for me to express & reflect on my love & emotions...

So long, farewell... ... ...

Random Thoughts

Chit chatting with Dar over the phone now... ... ...

just got off the phone... ... ...

Local bosses, especially Chinese are so stingy & calculative. Worse if emplyees are still under probation. Conclusion is, for as long as we are employed by someone else, we are all pawns & ikan billis of our bosses... the lucky ones will get bosses who treats them as assets to the company, which should be the case.

Not ready for a kid yet... but children's definitely one of the most recurring topic of conversations lately, be it with family or friends... I LOVE children... but still wanna enjoy the freedom I've been yearning for the past 4yrs, & have just been enjoying for the past 2 months... Think my cousin Guanru is REALLY cute & sensible! Credits must go to his full-time MUM! Of course, we can't forget Guohua Shushu who must've have, like Dar, made lotsa sacrifices for this to happen. With his qualification, or rather lack of qualification, being the sole bread winner for a family of 3, with a flat & big van to pay for, it must be tough & stressful... But I guess the greatest consolation is when he can be with his happy family, with such an obedient, adorable & sensible boy...

Holiday's Over... :(

It is clear that the long luxurious CNY holiday is over when I don't see Dar as much, I don't enjoy the luxury of Dar chaufferring me around as much, & we all start to go back to our daily & almost routine work everyday...

Love the sound of water created by the crystal fountain we got last Sunday, especially when I'm alone at home. In fact, I'm hearing it now... it's really soothing & relaxing... :) I can also see many angels "living" in all the crystals, especially the clear quartz ball, they appear like ancient wall paintings! It's amazingly beautiful! :) The cooling & soft green colour of the florite cave is also very pleasant to look at. :)

Had a new assignment to do a small landscape for the website of "The Story of Tea", plus few other artwork for the website & also packaging. Only spoke over the phone until yesterday when I met up with the couple, whom we share lotsa similarity :) It's really nice to meet such people, for then we can be each other's moral support :) After our discussion, had a better understanding of what Pauline wants, so will have to make changes to what I've already done.

Pa Mee - My 2nd VERY Successful Attempt :)

This time I used all the "more traditional" ingredients. Some more I got the red hot cut chilli buddy & most importantly, Mum's magic crispy cang yu. Wala!!! :D It was so good for Dar that he asked for more! hehe... but there was no more... :P

Bai Tian Gong

Sunday was the 8th Day of CNY, Tian Gong's Birthday. As a tradition, family would pay their respect to Tian Gong at 12am sharp to wish for Tian Gong's protection over the family. It used to be an elaborated affair with 5 types of candies, 5 types of cakes, 5 types of fruits & 5 types of meat as offerings, then the family will have something hot & soupy (mee suang or steamboat) for supper to celebrate Tian Gong's birthday! But with modernization & nucleus family within a household, everything's been very much simplified. Some even just pray in the temple. For my dad, it's still at home at 12am sharp, all dressed up, but with a much simplier set offerings.

Well, SIMPLE is NOT the word to describe the way Dar's folks' way of celebrating Tian Gong's birthday! Besides mee suang, they also had a pair of bamboos, paper dolls for each & everyone pf the family, special pineapple specially for praying to Tian Gong, Dar's dad even play chanting songs on his cassette recorder!!! It was such a colourful & interesting sight!

Our Busy & Unlucky Day

It was a busy day on Sunday, lots to do: return offerings back to Tai Sui Ye @Cai Shen Ye Temple, meet gals for farewell lunch with Sufen @Katong laksa, went Plaza Singapura to return cable box & buy yarn from Spotlight Sale, went Chinatown Point to get crystal water feature, have dinner with my parents, go Bai Tian Gong with Dar's parents, then Bai Tian Gong at my Parents'... Phew! SO glad when it was all over!

Unlucky Star #1: Forgetfulness
When we got onto the car in the morning, Dar realized he left another Manulife i/d card at home. Thought will come back home to collect after Cai Shen Ye Temple. But when we reached the temple, I realized I left another bag of offerings at our dinning table!!! So we went home to take the stuff, then return to the temple before heading towards Katong...

Unlucky Star #2: Traffic Monster
We made a wrong turning, so had to make another round to get around those complicated 1-way roads along Katong. When we reached the coffeeshop, Sufen SMS to ask for a lift from Parkway. At this moment, coz a STUPID FATHER holding the hands of a toddler was walking veyr far out onto the raod, & impatient Dar tried to steer towards the right so as to avoid knocking them down like bowling pins, misgauged & hit the rear mirror of a silver vehicle parked illegally by the road side! There was a loud bang! Fortunately Dar's rear mirror is mobile, so it just shuts inwards when it hit the other rear mirror, so there wasn't any damage... Phew! When we got to the drop off point at Parkway, the gals (as usual) are not there yet. So we had to make 4 rounds around the drive way!

Unlucky Star #4: Loud Bang!
1st loud bang that shocked us was of course the one mentioned in the Traffic Monster. Then while we were having lunch, chit-chatting away at the air-conditioned Katong laksa place, there was a sudden loud explosion & blackout followed! Everyone was shocked. But the most amazing part is how almost immediately after the shock, everyone just laughed & went back to their laksa bowl, as if nothing had happened! We were jokingly asking the engineers & architect among us if this is safe & if we should be running for our lives! haha... Isn't it amazing how Singaporeans (including ourselves of course) are taking security for granted. If this were to happen in other country, think most likely everyone would've fled out of the place! Who knows it might even be some terrorist attack?!?! The other loud bang that shocked us, or rather me, took place when we went to my mum's, we took the other lift that we don't usually use. When we reached our floor, the lift jerked up & down & the door jerked open with a very loud bang! For a moment, I thought the lift cable was gonna give way!

Unlucky? Luck?? Star #5: $$$
Went to Spotlight sale & got $113.64 worth of yarn! Happily brought everything up to show my mum, only to realized the cashier had forgotten to give me VIP discount!!! 30%... that's $30 over!!! Called them up to verify & had to go back to Spotlight to void the previous transaction & make a new payment. After discount, it was $33.78 cheaper!!! Luckily we decided to go over to my parents' after Crystal shopping, otherwise, to make a trip down from Sembawang, don't think it's worth the effort at all! Hmm... so probably we should look at it from another perspective... it should've been our lucky $$$ star that day afterall! :)

Happy Birthday to All Mankind

Today is the 7th Day of CNY, ie. Ren Ri. So happy birthday one & all! Met up with mum to pass a baby booties to an Indonesian Knotty Fan. Dad had mahjong session, so we went to Vivo City to meet Dar for dinner. Yes, Vivo City again... Like Dar said, we can apply for membership to Vivo liao! On the way to Vivo, ran into Cindy & Ian who were going to Central. On the train, ran into another fellow MAADsters, young guy, didn't get his name :P It was like a mini MAAD gathering on the train! hehe... After all the tiring shopping around Vivo, Dar called to say maybe we won't have dinner at Vivo! Iyo! So we went to Tiong Bahru Plaza instead, had steamboat at our favourite place! haven't been there for so long! But amazing that the waitress still remembers us! It was a peaceful & satisfying meal. :)

Fatty, Prosperous & Happy Golden Pig Year!

What a busy week! Busy EATING!!! Must've gained at least 5kg! Yah, I know & everyone also noticed that I've put on a lot of weight since end of last year. :P Strangely, I'm not disturbed at all. Feel quite neutral or even happy about it! hehe... don't know why...???

Anyway, been pigging out since last Fri, eve of CNY eve. Was at my mum's to bai ah gong. Had our 1st lou hei this year, also had a sumptious dinner. Look how my aunt is pigging out to welcome Mr Golden Pig this year liao! :D

Then on CNY eve, Sat, Ed & I were home the whole day to do our last minute Spring Cleaning. We have a few new neighbours moving in & were doing lotsa reno for the past few weeks to rush for CNY, so our house is VERY DUSTY since our place has an open concept. It was so dusty, Dar was sneezing non-stop! We cleaned up Oreo's catch too. Oh, check out our Chinese New Year Innovation - the One & Only New Year Tree!!! hehe... It was so funny! We've been wanting to do this since 2 years ago actually... :P Then we went to Ed's parents' place for dinner.

Sometimes Ed's folks can be so strange. Apparently they ate before we reached their place for reunion dinner! Well, we did reach there later than expected due to our Spring Cleaning, we reached there around 7pm, but isn't reunion dinner supposed to be eaten TOGETHER, that's why it's called "Reunion" Dinner right? Anyway, they did join us in eating the dishes & finger food while we eat la. Our families are so different. For my side, usually we will wait for everyone no matter how hungry we are, unless the family member mentions not to wait for him/her for dinner. But for Dar's family, his mum will just place food on the table & then it's "own time, own target". I still prefer my family's way... :)

On the 1st day of CNY, as usual, we met at Marina Mandarin Hotel to see the Annual Lion Dance Performance. We've been doing this as a family for as long as I can remember! It's become part of us. Think Dar & I will carry on this "tradition" with our kids, even after my parents are gone. Somehow this tradition always mark the start of CNY & always adds a lot of festive mood to our CNY. That why even though sometimes, like this year, the Lion Dance may start very early (8.27am this year), we'll still make it a point to wake up early to catch it.

Another "tradition" of our family is to go Neptune for lou hei & dim sum lunch after the lion dance. Unfortunately, Neptune has recently closed down. This is so saddening :( I think I can even feel a little sense of loss in my dad, now that we no longer going to Neptune for our Annual CNY Dim Sum Lunch. He always likes that place. He's even brought my mum there for a date before! then we've been there for our Annual CNY Dim Sum Lunch for as long as I can remember! Now Dar-Dar is determined to use this 1 year to hunt down another nice place where we can have our Annual CNY lunch :)

The rest of the CNY break is just lotsa FOOD, LAUGHTER & of course, GAMBLING, especially MAHJONG for both of us!!! :)

This year's CNY is also very special to the Gals, since this is the 1st time the 7 of us get to get together after a long long time! It's really something worth celebrating! We've been close friends Since Sec1! Wow! We've actually known each other for more than 16years already!!! I'm sure we'll be friends for a long, long time... & I hope our kids can also be friends in future :)