belle*

2007-09-14T00:59:00.000+08:00

ipods are never enough. they never stop at just the simple ipod nano we had 1 year ago. before we know it, the new one is out! can play video too. my creative zen micro is no match compared to the new generation ones. though its still in working condition, i favour my N73 music player more..
i finally started a facebook account. yes, im one of the slow ones. others had the account eons ago and i just had mine fixed 2 days ago? i agree its cool with all the applications and stuff, but soon the novelty would disappear like friendster. have some fun with it when its still fresh i guess..

HS812-Emotions in Everyday Life, classes and weekly readings are taking a toll on my 'engineered' brain. apparently i'm not the arts caliber. *roarrr*

2007-09-04T23:50:00.000+08:00

money for me to do lasik please drop down from the sky. then i can say bye to infected eyeballs, no dependence on contact lens and specs.

2007-09-02T18:33:00.001+08:00

my skin is still in a terrible state since im back from china. the pimple scars are still there (damn stubborn), blackheads (my number 1 enemy!) and large pores...

i splurged on these...
heart pain ahh...they cost me $200+. they better work miracles on my skin especially the estee's skin refiner serum. its the most ex...*bleeds*
its mask time!
i'm back to promoting drinks at the supermarket again. its a dreadful boring job. but for the extra cash, just sacrifice a few wkends and more money goes to the overseas-travel-fund

he left on the plane last night, to london, again. why that guy is so lucky to go there twice in a year and he has a free air ticket and accommodation this time. *envy*
this marks the start of the LDR, again. you might think that we should be kinda used to it right now cos 5 weeks cannot be compared to 10 months. yet, i'm still reluctant to see him off at the airport.

2007-08-22T00:45:00.000+08:00

what happens when you think its a sin to eat? that's the thought that runs through my mind everytime after i have my meal. it feels like everything i ate is not gonna help me lose weight. yet i'm still eating. i wish i could just resist hunger pangs and skip a meal or 2, but my stomach just gave in to the churning. i want to be thin!
goshh..i sound like a sicko.

2007-08-12T18:25:00.000+08:00

its been quite a long hiatus. school started and it felt that my life has more purpose, even though the study drill has to start.

baking seems to be like the 'in' thing in my family now. first was brownies, char siew pau, then walnut bread, and more bread..but everything turned out good and tasty especially the bread but not the pau.
pau skins are difficult to make, there must be something missing in the recipe my dad got from his friend. the skin didnt turn out like the cantonese dim sum restaurant white n fluffy kind.

things was kinda shaky for us and there's another LDR coming soon. im so not looking forward to it..

2007-07-26T15:12:00.001+08:00

JR has officially graduated from NTU! 3 yrs just zoomed pass and the convocation day is here..
i tried on the mortarboard, had a feel of what's coming in a year's time..
The hols are coming to an end..back to school in a week. feels like im not prepared for school yet. still in the relax laid back mode. havnt been studying for exams since last year..argghh..im not looking forward to it..

2007-07-19T13:04:00.000+08:00

it was cafe iguana night last week. heard good reviews about that place so we went to check it out. they serve mexican food and their margaritas are good cheap and good! drinks are 1-for-1 before 9m. i love the peach flavoured margarita..slurps..
oh..n they serve tortilla chips on the house. im not sure if its free when you order the main course.
JR ordered the steak with tortilla flour and it reminds us of peking duck. ya have to combine all the ingredients with the sauces and wrap it in tortilla.

i love him:)

mum bought orchard hotel cakes last night and they tasted so good! its like bakerzinn for a much cheaper price. they were only around S$3+, there's 40% discount after 6pm :)

i have to slow down on shopping. keeping myself indoors is not helping, im shopping while im on my bed! back in sg and the online shopping syndrome is back again.

2007-07-13T12:33:00.000+08:00

Beijing - 24 to 27 June
Day 1. The beijing trip was down to the 2 of us, no more travelling with 18 people. we reached the airport in the afternoon and had peking duck for our first dinner in beijing!

ingredients for peking duck: thinly sliced roasted, crispy duck skin with a little bit of meat, sweet dark sauce, 'pohpiah' like skin, spring onions and cucumber.

Day 2: Forbidden City
The Mao Ze Dong museum, it was under renovation when we were there :( lots of places were renovating. even the popular 前门大街 (qian men street) was not open. the entire city is preparing for the olympics next year.

inside the bell tower:

Tian An Men square:
im amazed at the large roads they have around the square. 2 way, 16 lanes in total!

inside the forbidden city:
this palace is freaking huge. took us hours to tour the place. we left at the closing hour and yet we still havnt completed combing every part of the palace. damn tiring..

Day 3: The Great Wall - Hike from Jinshanling to Simatai
the weather was so hot that day, 40 degrees! bad day to do strenuous exercise. its a 10km hike on the ruined great wall. took us 4 hours+ to complete the journey and we had a great sense of accomplishment after that. its not easy okay...
see that ugly straw hat im wearing..bought it to block my face from the sun and UV i hope..
this is the renovated part of the great wall:
The ruins, damn difficult to walk on that kinda path. climbing the extreme up and down slope was INSANE. we even met up with an american lady who wore heels there! *salute

Day 4: Temple of heaven.
Its a boring place..haha..

it rained so heavily after we left the temple..more like a storm..an umbrella cant save you from getting wet, it was merciless..
we waited in the rain for a cab for close to 15mins, by that time we were drenched. i think the back seat was very wet too.

we went to the must try peking duck in 全聚德. we couldnt care less about the money, just splurged 70rmb on that meal. it was worth it. haha..70rmb (S$14) is considered a splurge ok, imagine the kind of food you will get with that little bit of S$!
that's all for my china trip! from 9 Jan to 30 June '07.
it has been a very memorable 6 months in the land of the cheena chinese and working with them. it was lots of fun too hanging out and travelling with the group of crazy GIP friends. it is an experience of a lifetime and i will never forget these 6 months :)

2007-07-04T12:51:00.000+08:00

Day4 - Panda Research centre and Leshan

The one in chengdu is the largest panda research centre in china. The entire park has only around 10 to 20 pandas. one of them is the mascot for the beijing 2008 olympics, it is like the celebrity panda in the park. it costs 800rmb to take a photo with it!! damn ex for a simple photo..

Leshan is next. nothing much there apart from seeing temples and the large buddha carved in the mountain by the river. the hands and feet are huge!

Day 5 - Emei Shan
we are at the golden summit of the mountain. this is another Buddhist holy mountain in sichuan.

2007-07-02T11:41:00.000+08:00

im back from china! GIP is officially over, so does the enjoyment. feels like back to reality again. back to preparing for the new semester, walking along orchard road, relaxing in my bed, humid weather of 27-33 degrees..

once again complaining that i feel super duper fat now. photos can tell. im gonna embark on the dieting, exercising and detox plan for july and i hope it works and it better work. at least 4kg please!

we went to sichuan and beijing for the final GIP trip.
our first stop was Jiuzaigou, northern part of sichuan. we took a 12hr rocky bus ride through the mountains from chengdu to jiuzaigou. it was madness, worse than a train ride, but sleeping helps alot on the agonizing road trip.

on our way to jiuzaigou, a pit stop:

in the mountains, that blurry white and grey area are clouds ok. not the faulty camera. its very cold up there. the jacket didnt help much.
fairy lake, check out the clarity of the water..

nuorilang waterfall
and more waterfalls..

mirror lake! the tour guide said the best time to go to the mirror lake is at 815am, that's the best time to capture the reflection in the water.
more about sichuan and bejing in later posts. im feeling giddy now, fell sick since i reached sg.
oh ya, one more thing, i permed my hair! in case u didnt notice in the photos.

2007-06-04T18:09:00.000+08:00

it's been gloomy and rainy in shanghai for the past 4 days. i hate this kinda weather.. the forecast says its gonna rain tomorrow too. that makes it 5.

i took leave tomorrow to shop! haha...naughty. i gave the excuse that i needed to settle my air ticket back to sg. he allowed with no questions asked! lol....=x
cos char n winnie wants to do some last minute shopping before we leave china. but seems like more people are naughty too. gerri, yixian and the rest of the tunneling people are not working too!
no work makes belle a happy girl..

my love is coming to shanghai this saturday! its this week and i still cant believe time can pass so fast :D

2007-06-04T17:38:00.000+08:00

one more week of IA and im going travelling! cant wait. work has been boring for the past 2 days. nothing to do at all with no internet, only my desktop. so i entertained myself with sex and the city and 花样少男少女. im into my 6th season of SATC and halfway through 花样. hahah...that's how bored i am.

im so happy right now, cos i just got my very last pay! my boss gave me a full month's pay for june though IA ends on the 15th. hahah..that means more shopping!

here's a little peek of the clubbing scene in shanghai. there are clubs which are like those that u can find in sg or even better, like attica or bonbon. drinks are freeflow in bonbon, great music in attica. both rnb or hiphop, and the company was fun. that's all for now. i leave u all with photos in bonbon..

we had japanese buffet for dinner last week. there were so many of us there man..we filled the entire 2 long tables in the room. the buffet was not bad, had variety. our table ate like 6 or 7 plates of sashimi! 3 plates of grilled mackeral (deelicious), 5 plates of prawn tempura and lots of other stuff, beer, sake, plum wine...all for 138rmb!
its cheap..that's the good thing about dining in restaurants in shanghai. we are now kinda afraid that we wont eat much when we are back in sg. cos everything is damn expensive back home..

one last week of IA and im going travelling! cant wait.
work

2007-05-30T17:43:00.000+08:00

20 things i learnt/experienced in shanghai:
(this is taken from char's blog. thought it was kinda fun to type this list out too. some of the points are similar as char's)

1. soya bean drink with 小笼包 or 蛋饼 (xiao long bao or egg pancake) for breakfast
2. squeeze up the bus or MRT during peak hours.
3. never say sorry when u bump or stand too close to someone in public
4. litter
5. eat cheap meals in restaurants so frequently
6. drink coffee every morning before work
7. speak alot of chinese everyday
8. shop damn alot and spend damn alot of money
9. talk loudly in public
10. use the red,blue,white bag
11. drink at least a bottle of sunyanzi red tea every week
12. eat a box of chocolate flavoured pocky almost every alternate day
13. be a 'pirate' - bitcomet (download shows), buy fake branded stuff, buy pirated dvds
14. drink alot of beer
15. club at places with free flow drinks
16. live with a girl with the same birthday 12Dec'85, that's my roomie, peiyi!
17. read chinese everywhere, on the roads, supermarket, shopping centre
18. use windows XP and AutoCAD in chinese interface
19. travel alot, as in holiday
20. miss everyone back in singapore so much like never before

2007-05-27T18:01:00.001+08:00

check out my new nails! we went shopping yesterday and discovered a huge section with manicure stalls. we decided to try since its so much cheaper compared to getting it done in sg. its 50rmb for classic manicure, fake nails, nail art, 26 little jewels pasted on the nails. cheap right! where to get that for S$10 in sg? but im super handicapped now. the manicurist said that i can have them last for a month unless i dont do any housework and take gentle care of them. right...its quite impossible. im so irritated. cos even buttoning up my jeans is no longer an easy task, cos my nails are so damn long. grr...but for vanity, just get used to it and pray that they can last long.

i have only 3 more weeks of IA to the end of GIP! hahaha...and 2 more weeks to dearie's arrival in shanghai. the day i've been waiting for is coming soon!

the new NTU hall system sux. alot of my friends didnt manage to get a hall. even peiyi who was an ex JCRC member didnt get allocated a hall at all. sad....they slashed her points cos she's in shanghai for half a year. so mean right..
i heard there will be 75% foreigners in NTU halls..so that's left with 25% only? including freshies, most of the seniors have no hall to stay man. horrible...imagine all hall activities run by mostly foreigners?

we are cooking hainanese chicken rice for dinner tonight! the rice is cooking in the rice cooker right now and it smells sooo good. haha...cant wait to try our first chicken rice attempt!
the other houses are making bah kut teh, lasagne, speghetti, chicken wings...etc...its gonna be a feast!

went clubbing in some armani 3 club last night. the music n the crowd there was horrible. old people there. i cant understand why darren n his friends chose that bloody place. we ended up hopping to BonBon at 1.30am for much better r&b n hiphop music and free flow drinks for 80rmb! it was still fun despite the time wasted at that stupid place.

2007-05-16T22:44:00.000+08:00

I think i have only photos to show u all for this post. im lazy to do the description..

Inner Mongolia Day 5 - Gengis Khan Museum
Nothing much special to talk about this place. Its just another tourists attraction. the attraction is huge. i think the total distance from the beginning to the end of the road is around 2 to 3km.

Day 6 - Wu Dang Zhao
Its a tibetian buddhist temple in the mountains. the 2 hours bus ride up the mountains was extremely bumpy, cos there was a landslide and we had to take a detour on the rocky road.
its like a school for monks. monks there have to go through 13 years of tertiary religious education before they graduate. that's like a quarter of their life dedicated to studying there.

On the train:
We took a grueling 32 hours train ride from Baotou to Shanghai. that's more than a day. but time passed faster than we expected. cos we were all in the same cabin this time, unlike the xi an trip where we were all separated.
we stayed in the 硬卧 ('hard' bed) section. the bed its not exactly hard. this has 6 beds in a cabin, no door, more cramp. while the 软卧 (soft bed), the more expensive one has 4 beds in a cabin, a door and more space. we wanted to save the money, so we couldnt care less.

things we do when we are bored: play chinese chess, eat and eat, sleep, read magazine, chat. that's all we can do in a confined place.

2007-05-14T18:15:00.000+08:00

finally i got all the photos from everyone! we had tons of photos man..took up 3GB of my space and my laptop cant take it anymore. im left with a pathetic 2GB. i took an hour to sort them out, delete the repeating ones and collaging them. im so tired now. Back to inner mongolia..beware, lots of photos ahead.

Day 3 - Grassland
we took a long 4 hour bus ride from Hohhot to the grassland and we were greeted with the extremely beautiful scenery in the outskirts. the sky was clear, fresh air, infinite grasslands, sheeps, mongolian tents..

we went for a 3 hour horse ride when we reached our destination, 165rmb for the entire thing. it's not very cheap in terms of yuan, but for a once in a lifetime experience, its definitely worth it. we stopped by one of the natives' house for tea and of course, we took tons of photos in the field. the sunset is beautiful! im in love with that place..
if you are wondering what's that pile of bricks with branches on top in the photo, that's an 'aobao', for religious purposes.

it was dark when we reached our camp. the horses still lead us to the right place despite the darkness..we had dinner and some traditional mongolian performance after that.

we slept in the mongolian tent for a night and it was the coldest night i ever experienced in china, no heater, no proper bed and pillow, no bath. i slept in my jeans, winter jacket and 4 layers of clothes plus long johns, 2 thick blankets on top of me and it was useless, i still felt cold. i was shivering so badly before i slept. i wont want to go through that again.
that's the us, the girls, outside our tent
we all rented their traditional costumes and cam whored in the middle of nowhere in the grasslands..
here's the rural china toilet for u. its a hut built in the middle of no where, with 2 'cubicles', there's a hole dug out in each cubicle and which is filled with a pile of shit and other stuff. it stinks like hell when i was close to the toilet. i went in there only once and i never stepped in there again. haha..i did my business 'anywhere' after that.
Day 4 - Desert
it was another super long ride from the grasslands to the desert, we reached there at sunset. the tepee like thing is where we spent our night. its a hotel in the middle of the desert. we had to take a ride on that green vehicle in the photo to get to our hotel.

took a cable car ride to get into the middle of the desert.
camel ride..
more of inner mongolia in the next post.
coming up, suzhou...

2007-05-08T10:10:00.000+08:00

I'm back from my May block holiday trip! inner mongolia was fun. the grasslands n desert were unforgettable.
here's an outdated post of the nanjing weekend getaway.

Nanjing - 21 & 22 April
i think this nanjing post is gonna be quite brief, the trip's itenary was kinda boring, we didnt visit much attractions over there. the must go place, the nanjing massacre museum was under renovation.

Day 1: the day i sweated the most since i came to china. the weather was surprisingly hot, it felt like 25 degrees. we visited the sun yat sen memorial. its a long tiring flight of stairs to get to the tomb. the highlight of the day would be to climb to the summit of the mountain. it was no easy take for people who seldom exercise and lead a sedentary lifestyle. i almost died when i was halfway there. the long cable car ride was fun down the mountain, around 20 mins.

Day 2: 'nua-ing' day at the hostel. im kinda disappointed with nanjing. it used to be an ancient capital of china yet there were not much historical sites to visit. perhaps we were not resourceful free and easy travellers.

Inner Mongolia (28 April to 6 May)
Day 1: Hohhot 呼和浩特, the capital
we took a 2 hour china eastern flight from shanghai to hohhot. we were greeted with weird english when we stepped out of our plane..haha..worn for 警告 and honorific passenger.

From top to bottom, left to right,
outside the airport, at the reception of the youth hostel, in the bus on our way to the railway station, in the railway station

photos at the railway station and our first lunch in inner mongolia. we went to the railway station to get the return train tickets. lunch was 东北, north western cuisine again. it was our 3rd visit to a north western cuisine in 2 weeks. its not like we like it alot, its just coincidence. my favourite dishes would be fried corn with oat (tastes like cereal prawn), fried sweet potato with caramel (it is super duper deliciously sweet..haha)
dinner was at a 烧考, chinese bbq restaurant. they can bbq almost anything. the more uncommon ones are 馒头 (plain buns), 肉包 (meat buns), chicken heart (QQ one..very chewy), chicken head (i dont know what's in the head, but the friends who tried that said it was delicious. they suck out the juice from the head..eww..chicken brain juice?) , 羊排 (mutton ribs, i didnt try that, i hate mutton).
Day 2: another relax day in the city. we went for a boat ride in a park.

Day 3: the proper itenary starts. we had a tour in the 官府, ancient generals place.
Tibetian buddhist temple
王昭君博物馆 zhaojun museum. wang zhao jun is one of the 4 ancient beauties. the photos are kinda blur. i think there's something wrong with alvin's camera that day. its a long post, im taking a break now. there will be much more interesting stuff to come.

2007-04-27T01:42:00.000+08:00

hey peeps..before i could post a whole list of photos in nanjing, im going to leave for inner mongolia this sat and will be back in shanghai next sunday. yay! finally a long week break from work and school..all play in inner mongolia!

2007-04-22T23:23:00.000+08:00

hey people, i just came back from a weekend trip at nanjing!
woke up at 430am to catch the 630am train to nanjing on saturday and reached home at 11pm on sunday night. one word, tired.
i will blog more bout it when i get all the photos from my frens..

2007-04-17T18:53:00.000+08:00

its so free of charge to sound the car horn that it happens everywhere on the roads in shanghai. its so annoying and im very sure that the noise pollution factor is much higher than sg.
i was on the bus on my way to work this morning and the driver totally spoilt my 20 mins in the morning.
he sounds horn on the average of 30 times from bus stop to the next. yes its possible...i counted.

the bus driver horns when:
1. starts to slow down while approaching the bus stop
2. leaves the bus stop
3. stop at the traffic light
4. when the traffic light turns green
5. when the vehicle in front is travelling too slowly
6. overtakes a vehicle
7. makes a turn
8. changes lane
9. sometimes for nothing

he gets high on car horns

2007-04-14T20:41:00.000+08:00

i think the internet in shanghai has officially banned blogging. cos i cant surf any blog websites. sux big time...i can update but i cant read my blog. i dont know why these couple of paragraphs are underlined and i cant change it at all. the font settings in the tool bar has only bold and italic but not underline..i just dont know what it became like that. bear with the odd-ness..

anyway, here's a little update of a side trip we had last weekend. we were bored of 'stay home sundays' for a few weeks so we decided to explore the outskirts of shanghai. we went to the 7 treasures ancient city. some tourist attractions with the little river and ancient cheena buildings.

we paid 30 rmb to visit the attractions, 8 in total, we only had time to visit 6. it was so packed along the streets (free to walk), but when we paid to get into the attractions, it suddenly became so empty. seems like no one wants to pay the extra.

here are some of the photos and dumb ones that we took:

check out the crowd in the streets. we ate some little bites along the streets for lunch. we had to queue for almost everything we at there..too many people..we even waited for 20 mins for the food that was not tasty at all. we saw a long long queue at the stall, so we queue lor, should be nice - singaporeans' mentality. i suppose china people think the same way as we do. it was a waste of time..
it was stinky fried beancurd (chou dou fu) peter and i were eating. its obvious u know who detests the smell..
i gained 3kg ever since im here. amazing right..i was so shocked the moment i stepped on the weighing machine. im at my heaviest weight now. my face looks chubbier, love handles are so obvious when i wear my jeans. i ate too much...i must cut down ahh...orelse i get too fat until my friends and family cant recognise me. persevere is the word..

2007-04-02T17:51:00.000+08:00

sorry everyone for the short hiatus. cos blogspot.com is kinda screwed on mozilla. anw, im back..
i've been busy with work and school every week. its the same routine all the time. work on monday to thurs, school and play on friday to sunday.

the weather got warmer last week! i was glad that spring finally came and its bye bye to winter. cos i dont have to wear those thick winter jackets, long johns, turtle necks, scarf, woollen socks and sneakers. i could wear my birkenstocks to school last weekend! hahah...i never before was so happy to wear slippers out.
but shanghai's weather is ever so unpredictable. it feels like winter again this week. its back to 3-5 degrees :(

my fridays and saturdays are dedicated to lessons in fudan uni. we have lessons on chinese philosophy, culture and language. everything's in chinese, even the texbooks.
that's all of us at the school gate, including some of the jiao tong uni people:

check out the row of trees neatly lined up at the road. its winter, so they are all bare. the environment looks good right..so peaceful, with green fields, gardens, ponds.

we were shocked when we collected our student 'card'. that's their matric card ya know..its a little red book, like a mini fudan passport with different pages for the library, medical clinic etc.

we chilled out at the field just beside the arts building, which is where we had our lessons. its spring, so you will see students start to come out to sit in the field. its abandoned in winter.
it was so sunny until charlene cant open her eyes for the photo..haha..

2007-03-23T23:35:00.000+08:00

i dont now what's up with the internet in china. i just solved the mystery of me not able to surf wikipedia since i came to shanghai, its because china blocked it. i wonder blogspot has the same fate too. i can blog, but i cant see my blog..what the hell...
now i feel im kinda detached from some of the people in sg, cos i cant visit their blogs..argghhh..even jo's xanga is down. arrggghhh!

2007-03-20T21:22:00.000+08:00

distance makes the heart grown fonder
this phrase kept lingering in my mind when i got home today. things kinda happened and i feel that too much distance makes the heart numb.

im so tired of my 'broadband' at my shanghai home. it sux big time. i have to wait for eons for my page and videos to load. now relying on the shows that some people downloaded and dvds that i bought. i miss surfing cable in sg.

2007-03-18T14:19:00.000+08:00

we had a surprise birthday celebration for pauline last saturday at our house. its just another ordinary party. nothing much to say. so just posted some group pictures.

the girls from level 11,16,23- some in sleepwear, and some who looks very 'off-form' like me..

the guys from level 2,3,9:

the whole lot of shoes at our door when we had the 'open house'

The people who got dirty in the childish whipped cream fight. i dont think the white cream stains are obvious in the photo
i went to the site on every tuesday mornings since 2 weeks ago. its a project my supervisor is in charge. the construction of the MRT interchange of lines 9 and 11.
its my first time taking part in project meetings and monitoring the progress of the site..its rather cool.

im now designing the steel and structure for the ceiling, floor and column for the station and multi storey underground carpark! im doing this for real, whatever im doing now is gonna be done by 2010 in shanghai. that's gonna bring immense sense of achievement when its done!
i feel like an engineer and i love my job :)

2007-03-11T22:28:00.000+08:00

my uncle came to shanghai last week for work. he managed to have some time last night and we met up for dinner at a steak house, cos i said i was craving for western food. it was chinese food all the time since i came, the dinner was extremely satisfying.

there was a long queue outside the restaurant when we got there. didnt expect it to be so popular. we waited for around 20 mins for our table. the food was cheap! 98rmb (approx S$20) per person for a 8 course dinner - bread, 2 starters, soup, sherbert, main course, desert, drink. it was value for money, the food was not bad for that price.

from top left to right then bottom: fresh prawns with asparagus, fruit salad, some baked salty pudding, creamy clam soup.

our steaks. the fillet was good and the portion was large. his request for medium rare was just nice.
that's my pumpkin pudding and his cranberry fruit jelly
our drinks, hot and cold coffee. the cold coffee i ordered was kinda different from what i expected. it came in that round pitcher with dry ice at the bottom. the milk with froth at the top was seperated from the little glass of black coffee which im supposed to mix into the milk myself.

it feels so good when a relative or a family member comes over for a visit :)

here are a couple of photos i took of the quite rundown places in shanghai. it was some kinda like a wreck, felt like we went back 20, 30 years in time.

2007-03-07T17:42:00.000+08:00

Xi an Day 2 (20Feb)
our programme the next day was to 华山 (huashan), a mountain not in xi an itself, we had to take a 2 hour bus ride from the city centre to the mountains.

the tour bus dropped us off at the huashan tourist centre and we took the centre's bus to take the cable car to halfway up the mountain. the cable car ride itself was 110rmb (S$22), izit ex? if you choose to save the money, you can hike your way up. the view was breathtaking on our way up the mountain.

the same announcement kept going on when we were on the mountain - 走路不看景,看景不走路. which means dont look at the scenery while walking, vice versa. yes, its dangerous to walk while looking at the scenery, and its quite difficult to do that too. cos the steps are irregular and there are no sturdy railings at the side to fall on, only a thick shaky chain to hold on.

check out the padlocks in the collage. its like their lucky charm. they engrave the names of their loved ones, lock it high up in the mountain and believe that it will peace and prosperity will knock on their door. i dont know how true is that.

climbing the mountain is no easy task. dont know if u can see the super long flight of stairs in the picture. i almost died when i was on it.

Day 3 (21Feb)
the programme on that day wasnt very interesting. we went to a temple with a pagoda, n some tablet museum.
our day was spoilt when our tour guide gave out our train tickets and realised that everyone's seperated and we are not sleeping in the same 6 people cabin. the excuse was because of the chinese new year when everyone's travelling.

2007-03-03T23:50:00.000+08:00

didnt blog the past week. cos i was kinda busy with work and school. lessons at fudan uni started this week.

Xi An Day 1 (19Feb07)
we took a 16 hour train ride all the way from shanghai to xi an. it was madness. i doubt i will take long hour train rides again. our tickets were the 'hard bed' section kind. so 6 beds in a cabin and the cabin is open, no doors, so anyone who walk pass the corridor can see u. i dont really like that, but kinda got used to it in a while, cos everyone was minding their own business.

i think most china people sleep and wake up very early. their lights-off timing is at 9.50pm, which is a time where we think that almost all singaporeans are still awake at that time. at 5-6 am, you will start hearing noises of people waking up, going to the toilet whatever. and by 7, almost all the china people are awake and the speakers starts to play music which is something like a morning call. they are early birds.

the 6 of us travelled with a tour group of around 32. that was quite a large group. 1st stop was the terra cotta soldiers, the infamous qin shi huang tomb, the '8th wonder of the world'. it was a breathtaking sight when i first stepped into pit no. 1 - the first photo in the collage. its the largest pit that was discovered, around the size of 4 or 5 football fields.

next we went to the hot springs of the emperors and concubines. nothing much fantastic there. its just the little history knowledge that we get and the beautiful scenery from the pagodas on the little hills.

some group photos..

i want to continue with day 2 but im so sleepy now, its 3am.

2007-02-25T13:32:00.000+08:00

we went for a day trip to Hangzhou yesterday. it was quite bad, the rain spoilt everything in the afternoon :( i'll blog bout it next time. gotta finish the last day in rome and europe before i move on to trips in china.

Rome Day 2 (1 Jan '07)
it was new year's day! we were lucky yet not so lucky to spend it in rome. not so lucky cos there was no massive celebration in the city. no fireworks, no crowd, no countdown.

lucky because we chose the right day to go to the vatican city. we saw the pope! ok..kinda saw him, he was real far, up in the building at the window. the saint peter's square was packed way before his appearance at 12 noon. he made a new year public address, for world peace, prosperity etc..
that speech was in so many languages! they were english, italian, french, german and perhaps some others that i didnt not catch. no chinese.

the window with the red flag in the collage, that's the spot where the pope stood. you should know by now how small he was from our angle.
the food van that u see at the bottom left, is everywhere in rome, like one in every 50-100m. they are all selling the same stuff, pizza, sandwiches, gelato, drinks. that's intense competition.

after that we made our way to the city centre. there were lots of people hanging around the squares but all the shops were closed except macdonalds and some cafes. its like 1st day of chinese new year in sg. even tourists attractions were closed. we went to the pantheon and it was closed. what a disappointment, i wanted to see the 'devil's hole'..
that's the Fontana di Trevi by day in the first piece of the collage.
we took the metro to circus maximus, its behind the palentine hill. its the ancient roman emperor stadium. right now what's left is bits of the walls and nothing left on the horse running track, its just a plain green field.
i miss the belgian waffles in maastricht.

2007-02-23T20:58:00.000+08:00

happy chinese new year people! im back from holiday getaway in Xi an. leave the trip aside and i shall talk bout new year's eve.

new year here is much much better with fireworks and firecrackers here. but spending the reunion dinner away from your family kinda seems weird. but the company we had here was great that for a moment i forgot im away from home. 25 of us went to the level 4 people's new home. they shifted out of our current place due to some problems. we had potluck for reunion dinner, something different from the usual steamboat, and had tangyuan and dumplings for supper.

the large box in the collage is the fireworks, definately we didnt buy that. it was some other people's rubbish, its all burnt. that was my first time i knew they come in this form. i always thought it was massive and not very portable. fireworks and crackers are not very cheap here in terms of rmb. that big box costs around 1000rmb. ex right! but of course the more you pay, nicer the display. we bought around 500rmb worth of fireworks and crackers.

we can dont spend so much on those cos fireworks are everywhere that night especially at midnight. its like war, the sound of explosions everywhere, almost non stop. you can see fireworks bursting right outside your window, and we all got so high when we saw that. hahaha..

the china government dont have to spend so much on fireworks display like singapore. the people buy that themselves and its all night long. save gov's money.

that pathetic small box on top of the large one is ours. that's 300 rmb already. but it was still beautiful. the joy of lighting it and see it bursting right on top of you was priceless.

the group photos:

this was kinda 'scary' to take this photo. cos that thing was burning right in front of everyone, so close that the sparks could hit us.

once again 新年快乐!

here's a little preview of xi an..i love this photo!

2007-02-18T13:29:00.000+08:00

happy chinese new year everyone!
new year eve rocked last night. will blog about it when im back from xi an
im gonna be gone till next fri, 23 feb.

see ya all!!

2007-02-15T10:11:00.000+08:00

happy lover's day everyone. no JR to celebrate with me this year. but im not forgotten :)
he told me on the 12th that he wants me to stay up till midnight on 13th to wish me happy vday on the 14th, so i did, pushed myself to stay awake for an extra hour (i sleep at 11, cos i need to work).

on skype:
JR: what's the time on your laptop?
Belle: 1158
J: ok..wait until 12.
at 1201
JR and belle: dear..happy valentines day!
J: open your door
B: huh? ask me open for what? nothing outside what..just the dining area.
J: just open..

i thought he just wanted me play a prank on me, stupidly open the door n see nothing then he will go 'hahah..you got tricked' that sort. with much hesitation, i opened and i started crying. yea..it was an unexpected bouquet. i was super emo...
no wonder yekai and friends disappeared to buy flowers after dinner.

roses or rather flowers can last very long over here. i guess the room itself is already a fridge, so they still survive and no signs of wilting or nua-ness even on the 3rd day.

2007-02-12T20:55:00.000+08:00

chinese new year is this week! im gonna celebrate a cheena new year in china! *excited* we are going to 西安 (xi an - the place with terra cotta soldiers, qin shi huang's tomb and palace..etc) during our new yr break and perhaps a weekend trip after that to hangzhou if we still have the energy.

i love some of the MacD's deserts over here! not available in sg.
red bean pie - its new. just introduced cos vday's round the corner
yam pie - my favourite! too bad there's no MacD near my house or workplace, orelse i can see myself buying that very often.

we went to people's square for shopping last saturday. i spent quite alot in yuans.
i think you all should have heard of ajisen ramen in sg right, they have outlets here in shanghai. we had our lunch there. the ramens are so cheap, the price is similar in real terms, around 20-30rmb (S$4-6) for a bowl! there's definately no discount on the portion, its equally big.

i bought quite alot of unneccessary stuff that day: caffine slimming cream, stickers (cos they are cute), jewel stickers for my handphone and camera, ginger shampoo and conditioner (supposed to improve blood circulation on the scalp, for stronger and shinier hair..etc)

people's square by night:

our dinner was at 永和豆浆 (yonghe soya bean). the food we ordered was good. that's 烧饼夹油条 (2nd top quarter), 小笼包, 豆花, 豆浆. i give the 油条 a thumbs-up, very crispy and fragrant..
apologies for those who dont know chinese, i dont know what's their english name.

2007-02-09T17:07:00.000+08:00

no work yesterday! i stayed at home the entire day entertained myself with tudou.com shows and dvds. we had a name card of a authentic chicken rice some where in shaanxi road and we all met up at the MRT station nearby just to satisfy our craving for singapore chicken rice. who knows even with the address, we cant find the restaurant :( we cant even get engaged on the restaurant's telephone number on the card. we ate mac in the end..sighhh...

since i have some time now, i shall blog about the super outdated trip to rome.
oh.. finally i downloaded the picasa programme! yea i know everyone's using it since eons ago, cos i was lazy to do it. tried it today and it was so easy! hahha..i've been meddling with photoshop to create my collages. old fashioned me..

Rome Day 1 (31 Dec '06)
mac cafe was our best friend for breakfast at florence. the food there was cheap and good. cuppuccino was fantastic. 1.20 euros for a medium! the pastries were fresh and tasty too! This was our breakfast before taking our train to rome.

It was new year's eve on our first day, so the attractions close at 3pm. we reached there at 1 and we rushed our way to check into our rooms and rushed to the colloseum. lucky we made it there on time, orelse i wont be able to see it before i leave. we were lucky to join in the last english guided tour over there. we paid 30 euros for entrance fees, for the guide and shorter waiting time to get the admission tickets. but we kinda felt cheated after that cos we heard that the entrance fee for the colloseum and palantine hill is only 12 euros. the guide told us that 12euros excludes the hill. nonetheless it was great to have a guide, we had a much clearer picture about the place.

the entire place was flooded with tourists, its obvious in the photos. that's the constantine's arc and some other arcs in the roman forum. arcs were built to celebrate each victory the romans made.

inside the colloseum:
palantine hill, the ruins of some i-forgot-who-emperor's palace. there were orange trees along the pathway. some tourists even took down some of the oranges and ate them.

the ruins, it was like the city centre of ancient rome. i love this view! its magnificent..the metro station in rome. the lines are not as extensive as paris'. we were on foot most of the time, took trains for less than 3 times a day. its very easy to get a free ride on the metro. cos they have their side gate open for those transferring people, but its open for everyone unless there's a guard there to check the tickets. we were free loaders for a couple of rides..hee..
The big fountain: Fontana di Trevi. we tossed coins in there. the instructions were: stand with your back facing the fountain. hold your coin on your right hand and toss over the left shoulder, and wish that you will come back to the eternal city of rome. yea! i want to come back to rome again.
The spanish steps - lots of people there, tourists and locals. the atmosphere felt dangerous too. quite a number of shady people and pickpockets around. there were lots of artists gathered at the top of the steps. we had a portrait each for 40euros. kinda ex right just for the experience of having someone drawing you..S$40 for each piece...*heartache*
more of rome, day 2, in the next post..

2007-02-07T17:46:00.000+08:00

this is about my haircut experience last sunday as promised.

charlene, tiong and i decided to check out the salon near our house since it was so crowded when we passed by it the previous time. wash+cut+blow = 18. its only S$3+!! so we decided to get our hair cut and trimmed.

we were surprised by the hardsell. its something like when you go to facial, the lady would try to persuade you to buy their packages or upgrade you facial treatment or add this add that to improve your complexion..blah blah..
yes, that happened in a hair salon.

the wash was good at first, comfortable massage and service. i told my stylist what kinda hairstyle i want to cut while getting my hair washed.
he came back later and told me that im not suitable for short hair, i should perm to give it more volume unlike the thin, flat hair i have now. i didnt even consider that option and i said no, just go ahead and cut my hair. from then on, he kept selling the perm to me, psycho me to do some changes to my hair.
he pointed over to tiong's seat and said, "see, your friend did something new to his hair, you should do it too." i looked over and omg... HE PERMED HIS HAIR! tiong said he was told that it will make his hair look more spiky or whatever..
i still stayed with what i want to do - cut my hair only and cut it short. he started the selling story again and finally he gave up. my stubborn-ness won the little battle.

then he started snipping away, (the conversation was in chinese)
Hair guy: im not cutting your hair, just snipping away the split ends. your hair texture dont suit short hair.
Belle: what??
H: your ends are very dry, our store can help you do a treatment for dry hair and its very good, just spray on the lotion, it can be easily absorbed and it can last you for a few months.
(hairguy went to take the lotion and showed it to me, its loreal and everything's in english, except for a little sticker that translates into chinese)
H: this is very good for hydrating. you can read and see for yourself if u want to do it
(he think i dont know english ar.. what's written on the box: colour power dose. i read everything on the box and there's nothing written on it that's for dry hair)
B: this is a after-dye process to make the colour last. i never dye my hair, use this for what? just cut my hair
......

the debate went on and he still insisted on trimming my hair only. argghhh...customer ask you to cut then you cut la! so stubborn for what.
FINE, i was tired of arguing and i just sat there and let him do his thing. grrrr.....

2007-02-04T21:54:00.000+08:00

after a boring week in the office, it was time to party after work on friday.
we went to 'windows' that night to chill out after dinner till late. cover charge of 50 rmb which includes a drink. the drinks are cheap in terms of sing dollars, a jug of beer costs only S$5.

Charlene, Geraldine and I made our way down to 南京西路 (west nanjing road) on saturday afernoon. we intended to shop at that area and just when our day became boring, we discovered a food street by accident! that was our happiest moment of the day im sure. very cheap and very delicious food!

the street is PACKED when we first reached there. everyone's pushing around, it felt like the peak hour MRT ride. but we dont care, we just went ahead to fill our stomachs though its still too early for dinner at 5pm.

we ate ALOT and lots of different food. we were trying out almost every new food we came across along the street.

the food list (according to the collage):
1) grilled oysters topped with garlic, ginger, chilli sauce - they were massive, larger than those raw oysters we eat in restaurants.
2) 章鱼小丸子 (takoyaki) - 3.50 rmb (S$0.70) for 6 balls, cheap! they were topped with seaweed, mayo and some jap sauce
3) 臭豆腐 (fermented, stinky beancurd) - not bad, crispy on the outside, soft on the inside. we bought it cos there was a long long queue at the store so we thought it must be good that's why so many people are queueing for it. but the store at the bund was better than this, much more 'stinky'.
4) grilled chicken wings - deelicious and juicy. 10rmb (S$2) for 8!
5) 臭豆腐 stall
6) chocolate fountain - fruits coated with melted choc. i didnt expect to see it there cos it doesnt seem like a cheena food.
7, 8) 麻花糕 - its like hot red bean icecream. i looovee this, my favourite 红豆 (redbean)!!
9, 10) 煎包 - pan fried buns. 3rmb (S$0.60) for 4. its the combination of 锅贴 and 小笼包 (panfried dumplings and steamed soup buns), very tasty. a bite on the crispy skin and it will send all the juice oozing out..mmMmMmmMm....that's our favourite. we will definately eat this when we are there the next time.

click to enlarge cos i think its too small to see like this.

went to have a hair cut this afternoon and it was a lesson learnt. i'll blog bout it next time

2007-01-30T10:50:00.000+08:00

its tuesday and its my 2nd off day of the week. its not pleasant news to me at all.
where got people IA like me one..its the 3rd week and i havn't done real work yet. i was learning AutoCAD last week, how to draw the MRT station layout. most of the time i was zuo boh-ing - surf net, watch show, read book..

i've planned what to do for the rest of my day, im not going to sit at home and watch dvd like yesterday.
1) go to 城隍庙 to eat 南祥小笼包 (xiaolongbao) for lunch - i had the craving for that since morning.
2) 人民广场 - shopping
3) meet charlene, geraldine for dinner at 龙阳

ohh..and i added a shoutout box too. lets see who's the first to tag ;)

P.S. for those who dont read chinese, please pardon me, im in china

2007-01-29T09:55:00.000+08:00

we cooked dinner last weekend.

went to the market near our house in the morning to get ingredients for dinner. the 'wet' market was better than we all expected. much cleaner than some of the existing markets in sg. no worries about dirty, fishy water getting onto your shoes and jeans.

Friday night - bah kut teh, broccoli and carrots with oyster sauce, scrambled eggs
Sunday night - abc soup (potato, carrots, tomato, corn, onion, pork ribs), fried rice
the food was delicious and tasted like home, 有妈妈的味道 :) it was much much better than eating oily, salty, unhealthy food outside.

Saturday:

the crowd in the metro station during the weekend is neverending. i dont know if you can tell in the photo below. perhaps u can see how fast the people were walking.

the 人民广场 interchange:

L to R - Peiyi (my roomie), yekai, peter, junqin, charlene:

we explored 徐佳汇 (xu jia hui). its a shopping area in 浦西 (puxi). it felt so much like some other major city that we kinda forgot that we were in shanghai for a while.
the steel ball in the photo reminds me of 科技管.

the guys spotted this statue in the middle of no where in the square and the mimicking act starts.

i love the dry weather here. you can just leave a box of chips, biscuits, whatever in the open and it still tastes fresh. no ants, no houseflies...

but dryness is showing on my skin. it becomes kinda white and flaky outdoors. body butter is not helping much. lucky my face looks resistant to the dry enviroment.

2007-01-26T12:44:00.000+08:00

www.tudou.com/ is my new love :)
its the china youtube. we cant watch youtube cos its non china and it takes eons to load a video.
lots of taiwan variety and drama series that u get on SCV! hahhaha...

work was boring for me this week. our company is in the midst of shifting to a new building, so there's no work for me to do until we shift to the new place. it was depressing news when i heard that though i can do nothing at work and still get paid. its a pain..

Florence Day 1 (29 Dec '06):
its no doubt a very arty city, the birthplace of so many famous artists. you see lots of local artists selling their artworks or doing portraits at the squares or along the river.

me on the train from venice to florence. it was a 5 hour ride. europe trains are clean and quite comfy. but i hate the 'headrest' thingy, see the grey piece of thing there? it sticks out and doesnt support any part of my neck or head. 'short' people wont like this, probably if you are 1.75 and above, the seat is for u.

the duomo - it looks beautiful at sunset. the exterior is painted red, white and green (the colours of the italian flag), but the colours are not very obvious. the red looks more like brown to me.

many people come to florence to see david, the statue. the one below is one of the replicas. the real one is in the accademia in florence, people queue to get in there. we didnt go in to the accademia, cos david is not my type and we are not fans of art.

Florence Day 2 (30 Dec '06):

We took a side trip to Pisa. The famous tower of pisa is no where near the train station. we had to take a bus ride there. Just spot the bus with lots of tourists boarding it and it will get you to the right place.

for a memorable photo of the leaning tower, everyone's doing the same action. you know what i mean. its a pity we forgot to take a photo of all the people there with their hands up in the air.

another cathedral:

europe has too many cathedrals and lots of palaces around.

we went to have gelato ice cream for desert that night. the shop sells up to 60 different flavours. that's what i call variety and its tasty too..yum!

2007-01-22T17:23:00.000+08:00

i need to stop snacking! seems like a gained some weight (but not alot) by eating so much a day. its winter, metabolism increases and that makes me hungry just 2-3 hours after having a meal. eating is making me broke, soon its making me fat.

it was shopping day yesterday at 上海科技管 and 七浦路. these are one of the few places where they sell lots and lots of cheap bags, shoes, clothes etc etc...

we were out from 10am to 9pm. it was a very tiring day...and i spent alot in yuans. its no more shopping at these places for me for the next few months. im getting sian of 七浦 already. we went there 3 times in 2 weeks and that's more than enough.

the 1st stop, 上海科技管:
that's a beautiful steel structure at the back. the beautiful building there is not the shopping area. shopping is beside the science centre. there are lots of shops selling fake branded goods including tiffany jewellery! the quality is not bad too.

all of us jumping for joy (junqin, peter, ni tiong):

geraldine wasnt coordinating well with us...haha.. (charlene, me, geraldine, shuying, huiyun):

七浦's next:
the guys found imitations of The North Face winter jackets. each for only 200rmb and it looks and feels like the real one.

gonna shop again at the supermarket later tonight. shall blog again bout the rest of the europe trip if i have time.

2007-01-18T19:11:00.001+08:00

its food talk now.
the baos here are very very cheap. we were so glad to see that one costs only 0.80 yuan. its only S$0.10+ for a big bao lahh!! i bought one at the street stall for breakfast on my way to work yesterday.

this is how it looks like when i ate half of it away:

its a thick-skinned bao. felt like i couldnt taste much of the meat unless i bite it on its right. i think china people like to eat food with thick skin. xiaolongbao, guo tie also like that. but singaporeans like to see alot of meat inside.

next, is guo qiao mi xian. we ate it for dinner 2 nights ago. nothing very fantastic bout its taste. i just took a photo of it cos i dont see this dish selling in sg. it is a huge huge bowl of noodles, but its obvious in the pic the meat is kinda pathetic. 2 slices only!

but something different about this dish is that the soup stays hot no matter how slow u eat it. there is still steam even after we finish eating n left it there. they say its bcos of the oil in the soup.

2007-01-16T16:12:00.000+08:00

Took a look at my blog just now and i realised i forgot to blog about the rest of europe! paris was the lucky unforgotten one. hahha..

Venice Day 1 (27 Dec '06):
we loved the city when we first stepped out of the train station in venice. it was like 'discovery travel and living' came alive. it was like what i saw on tv and much much more.

photos we took of the river with the buildings and the sky looks picture perfect though some of the buildings were kinda old and run down.

i like this photo, it looks so venicey. anyway, we didnt take the gondola when we were there.
most of you must be saying, "huh?!? the gondola is one of the icons in venice! why dont you all take a trip around venice in it?"
yes we didnt, cos the price for only 2 on the gondola is expensive. i think its around 30-60 euros per person if there are only 2 of us on it. we both thought the money can be well spent elsewhere which could make me equally or even more happy.

we made a trip down to the st mark's square in the afternoon. the basilica's exterior doesnt look like a typical basilica i think. it looks more like a palace or something else.

the square is invaded with pigeons. im afraid of them. i would never go too close to them, so i took this photo from a distance. the uncle standing there sells bird feed and those girls there bought the bird feed and they were 'attacked' by the pigeons around.
i think its gross having so many of them crowding around you and pecking on almost every part of your body. those girls are brave. please never ask me to do that.

gelato icecream stalls are almost everywhere in the busy streets of venice and the rest of italy. the singapore version is 95% fat free. i wonder if those in italy are similar. its winter, the icecream wont melt, so i took my time to finish up a cone without worrying that the sweet streaks getting into my hands. hahah..

it got boring when it turned dark. the sun sets at around 4-5pm. that's very early and your sightseeing day ends there. shops close at 6 or 7pm. its dinner after that and back to the hotel.

Venice Day 2 (28 Dec '06)
we kinda did not know what to do on the 2nd day cos we felt like we visited all the hot spots in venice on the first day. is venice that small or JR and i are fast walkers? we decided to cover the rest of the little areas in venice.

that's me with the rialto bridge:

the weather was bad that day, it was so foggy. this was taken on the waterboat. it looked like the other boats were disappearing into nothing. i suppose the gondoliers didnt have much business that day.
there's very cheap wine there! we spotted a shop in some ulu street. all the wine is in barrels and you have to bring alone your own bottle to purchase. you dont need a wine bottle, mineral bottle also can! so we emptied one of the bottle and filled it up. we got 500ml for only 0.90 euros!

i like the sandwiches there. they are prettily wrapped or rolled. i dont think i see sandwiches sold this way in sg right?
i shall blog bout the other cities and shanghai some other time. its quite tiring. hahah...

2007-01-15T17:44:00.000+08:00

we had the entire week free last week. so everyone of us went out in our own groups. went out with the 'shanghai urban construction' group last thursday after our job orientation to Cheng Huang Miao for the famous Nan Xiang xiaolongbao.
we had to queue to buy the baos. its that popular. we were amazed when we saw the price outside the store.. 10yuan for 16 xiaolongbaos! cheap right!

outside the kitchen (me, yixian, qiaoli, ni tiong) :

after trying that, we wont want to go back again. its not that fantastic. hahah..cos the skin is very thick, and there's not alot of filling inside. maybe that's the shanghai type of xiaolongbao. cos i ate from a few different stalls here and they are about the same.

talking bout food, you can get a decent, filling dinner at a restaurant for less than S$10. the food there is much more tasty than those in sg, even the plain rice. its like a combination of thai and jap rice.
but its everyone's complain that its too oily and salty. their rice, salt, oil are like freee...you can get a large bowl of rice and its almost overflowing.

we went to take a walk around that area after that. the buildings there look ancient and run down.

notice the change in my coat? bout it at this place called qi pu with lots of cheap bargains in the shopping mall. got it for S$23 only! yixian got a new pair of boots for only S$18. if anyone of you goes to shanghai, shop there. but u need to know how to bargain.

2007-01-11T22:45:00.000+08:00

now im blogging in shanghai. for those who didnt know, i left s'pore on monday.
i've been here for 3 days already and im still not used to the weather.
though the weather forecast says its 8 degrees but it felt colder than that. my roomie and i need to buy 2 heaters in the room, cos its too cold to sleep at night without waking up shaking.

these are some shots of our apartment.
living room, the green door at the back is the door to my room:

my bedroom:

One of the most unfortunate things happend to us on our first night. the key broke in the keyhole. sounds impossible cos the key is some kinda thick metal right, but we made that happen. we were locked out of our house after a long, tired day, for more than 1 hour.
finally we called our housing agent to open it for us. we got our door knob destroyed. hahah..

on day 2, went to the city centre to shop, look around.

went to walk along the river with the skyscraper view. i still dont know what's its name. beautiful view over there...

some of us went to eat the cheap cheap steamboat after that. around S$5 per person. that's yinhong warming up his hands over the hotpot. yea..its cold. the steamboat stall didnt install a heater in it.

2007-01-04T22:53:00.000+08:00

met up for tea with chermaine and libing this afternoon. went back to max brenner for a dose my favourite brownie before i leave! its still as delicious as before..
we ordered something else different this time, chocolate mocktails. they are not super tasty though..just ok. but they come in really cool glasses with cute prints on it.

these darlings prepared a little farewell surprise. im so touched :)
they bought a super cute piggy soft toy.
my mum saw the soft toy when i got home and she went, "ahhhh!! so cute!!!! ...blah blah...cute!...." she took it and showed to my dad and he said, ".....so round so cute!"

2007-01-03T19:15:00.000+08:00

after a long long winter holiday in the northern hemisphere, im back! the christmas and new year wasnt that exciting as expected. now i do feel that the singapore tourism board is trying to do a hundred-and-one things to celebrate the holidays over here.
i was expecting a massive countdown at one of the downtown squares in the touristy paris and rome, but there was none.

in 5 days i will be in shanghai for the next 6 months. its gonna be a busy 5 days. meeting up with friends, spending time with family, attending a relative's wedding, doing last min GIP stuff...

back to europe, there are countless things i can say bout my experience. but im just keeping it short cos im lazy.

Paris (23-26 dec) Day 1
its a different place compared to what u see in the media. a beautiful, romantic city with lots of couples displaying affection on the streets.
not that romantic i think, and its kinda dangerous cos there are lots of 'shady' people hanging around near tourists attractions.

ok, enough of my little complain. photos next.

The paris metro station:
there metro system is extensive. stations are almost everywhere. you are just at most 10-15 mins walk to a station. JR and i even timed how long it took to get to one stop to another, its only 1-2 mins!

you can get 'discount' on your metro fare too. just get one pass, it admits 2 and nobody cares.

went to the louvre museum on day one. the is one of the most recognisable thing in the world. every tourist would go visit this when they are in paris and we are no exception even though we are not art fans.
there's magnificent architecture and its a massive building, but it only took us around 3 hours to finish our tour there cos it got boring and stuffy after looking at art and statues.

That's the pont neuf bridge behind me.

Notre dame cathedral, a church with a gothic exterior and took an extremely long time to complete bulding. its the most beautiful cathedral i've visited so far.

Arc de triomphe. we didnt go up the arc just walked under and around it. i think most of u should know that this thing is in the middle of a roundabout. extremely busy traffic around there. its almost impossible to jay walk to the arc in the middle. you have to take the long route by walking through the underpass to get there.

went to take a walk along champ elysees after that. its a major shopping street in paris. flooded with tourists and local shoppers. the LV shop is along that street and you have to queue to get in. A cheena lady approached us and asked us to help her queue to buy the limited addition LV wallet cos each customer can only buy one. the tourists seemed like they had so much money to splurge on luxury.

That's all for now. Im still jet-lagging, got to go to sleep. i'll blog the rest when im free.
Au revoir!

2006-12-21T23:16:00.000+08:00

sick in maastricht. great..im now sick on my holiday getaway.
JR took me on a nature walk yesterday afternoon. 2 degrees C and it became unbearably cold for me on the way back.
i was down with fever after dinner with his mates in hostel. my head was heavy, dizzy, cold from the inside.

slept almost the entire day away and i still felt horrible.
please let me get well soon tomorrow. i need to enjoy my trip in paris.

2006-12-18T23:49:00.000+08:00

Greetings from the netherlands!! im here for around 5 days already. been to the netherlands (amsterdam, maastricht, roermond), belgium and germany (aachen).

Day 1: Amsterdam
We took a train from the Schipol airport to the city central. I always thought amsterdam is a dangerous city with the drugs, mafia and crime. In fact, its safe. No encounter any con-man or pickpockets in the city even when we are walking around at night.
Tip: dont respond to anyone who approaches you and speaks to you 'nonsense'.

The day over here is very short. Gets bright around 9am and its dark around 4 or 5 pm. Kinda sian cos when it gets dark it feels like the day its going to end and less day activities.

Amsterdam central station:

Anne Frank house:
Yup, its the young lady who's diary was discovered and her experience was made known to everyone in the world.
We visited the house which was the hideout for her and her family during the war.

Boat ride along the canal:
It explains almost everything about amsterdam during the 1 hour boat ride.
That's the house boats along the canal, there are lots of them.

Day 2: Zaanse Schans. A little village with the windmills ,clogs, cheese etc.

Day 3: Aachen christmas market.
This is one of my favourite places so far. its like the european pasam malam, much better than the singapore one. It has lots of stores selling christmasy stuff, food...and very rich in christmas atmosphere.

This is gluewein. Its warm, sweet, tasty wine. only available in christmas markets i suppose.

JR planned surprise belated birthday after dinner with his friends in the hostel. I was really surprised. when the cake came into the room for a few seconds i thought it was someone else's birthday.

These are the little gifts he bought for me during his trips in europe :)

2006-12-13T13:46:00.000+08:00

Its my turn to be 21.
had forever 21 vouchers for my birthday. how appropriate!

Finally received news that im waiting for from the GIP office on monday night.
Im going to Shanghai!!! i was so worried i would end up with my 2nd choice, the suzhou company.
yes, i got what i wanted and im looking forward to a smashing winter holiday in europe and a happening chinese new year in china!

2006-12-10T20:29:00.000+08:00

i just explored this cool new feature in my camera 3 months after purchase. its colour accent.

its now green. so only green stuff captured will show, the rest will be black and white.

now red. haha..chicken little is peeking out the camera behind the basket. my table is MESSY

i lost 4kg in 1 month! haha...i was so glad at first. cos i didnt do anything like control my diet or exercise. but im now below my expected weight so its time to stop losing it.

2006-12-03T11:10:00.000+08:00

i had a visit at my optician yesterday. bad news....

he checked the condition of my lenses and he said there was a layer of protein on it (bcos i didnt use the protein removal tablet). i thought i didnt have to use it when i changed my solution, so i wore it for 2 1/2 years without removing protein.

the result: cornea inflamed. little bumps on my inner upper eyelid...etc etc

i cant wear contact lenses for the next few months! can only get to wear them when im back from china *cries*
i dont have the mood to shop now

2006-12-01T21:34:00.000+08:00

im back! so glad the exams are over. felt like it took forever for this day to come.
2 more weeks to meeting up with dearie! 1 month and 9 days to china!
im a happy girl!!

i want the stila holiday lipglaze set!! its selling like hot cakes over at the tangs counter.

the stila counter at paragon is gone! arggghhh...it disappeared at the wrong time. cant use my metro voucher on this :(

2006-11-18T22:35:00.000+08:00

Hungry Ghost Festival in NTU

i was in awe when i saw this. these people are crazy la

2006-11-07T23:59:00.000+08:00

exams starts next week. the madness has begun and i cant wait for it to be over.

its so annoying when you wake up early to head to the library so that there are seats for you to sit and mug the entire day, but all the table are occupied with notes and books without people at the seat. what the hell..

2006-10-29T22:11:00.000+08:00

i just realised i have so many sticks of lipbalm idling in my drawer. i ordered 2 sticks from the spree and they arrived in my mail, the Apple Pie A La Mode plus Strawberries and Champagne. Boss gave another Lipsmaker's Strawberries and Cream, one of the gifts from her US trip.

right now i have 6 tubes, 1/2 tub and one pair of lips..hmm do u call them a pair?
i need to stop ordering from MLS.

here are some of the photos taken on sof's birthday outing..

the banana chocolate truffle cake was delicious :) but i cant finish my slice

2006-10-28T18:29:00.000+08:00

exams in 17 days. crap
did badly in my quizzes, so tell me how to do well for exams??!?! no more As, no more B+. give me a C+ at least and i will be satisfied.
sighh...horrible semester with tutors from hell..
i wish there will be a miracle

celebrated sof's birthday at girraffe restaurant that day. better food and better service compared to the previous trip with JR. haha..it was the tandoori chicken that spoilt everything then.

that's the first time i saw the most ambiguous toilet sign. pardon my phototaking skills. haha..took so many shots of that n i just cant get it right.

2006-10-21T00:06:00.000+08:00

the time of the year is back. im having my 1st paper in 3 weeks time. im feeling so insecure bout my revision now =/ this is a horrible semester with so many core modules.

but libing and i decided to catch a movie and take a walk around vivo city yesterday to relax ourselves.

yup, its the english version of 'wu jian dao'. the movie is not my type. too much vulgarity and lots of headshots everywhere. the chinese one is much better.

another event of the day, i was offered a seat on the train in the morning during the peak hour. why? cos some guy thought i was pregnant *rolls eyes* i was wearing a long babydoll top that day but it doesnt make me look fat and pregnant right?? not like he can see my tummy bulging from the loosely fit top. im not fat and i dont have a tummy!!

2006-10-15T22:56:00.000+08:00

i dont know what's wrong with tagboard. maybe free loaders are not allowed anymore. so removed the tagboard so the annoying password popup wont be annoying. when im free i will either get a new board or add the blogger comment tab.

i was surprised this morning by the thoughtful one in netherlands :)

the haze is horrible. i bet no one will say that it isnt. my dad is complaining bout it everyday. he doenst believe the PSI figure flashed at the corner of the tv screen. he's sure that it exceeds the 120 mark. the windows in my house were slightly opened with a little gap so that the stench doesnt get in and he turns on the air purifier to full blast. this is the perfect time to test if the air purifier is working. it does, i can smell the difference.

im sick now. thanks to the haze. the coughing and sneezing was contagious in school, now its spreading in my home. first my grandma, now my mum. so when is dad's turn?

i tried the famous clementi claypot rice last week. alvin said the business is so good that at times its sold out at 7+pm. so we called to reserve the day before. not very fantastic leh...

1 more month to exams....2 more months to europe!

2006-10-11T18:31:00.000+08:00

winwin and the red plastic bag

i love my bird cos its so adorable! it just cant stop staring at the plastic bag and thinks that its going to fall through the cage and onto its head.

dad suddenly became interested in winwin's gender, cos he wants to get it a playmate.
after doing some looking up online, we kinda agree that its a male, because it loves to make adventurous moves in the cage.

2006-10-03T23:13:00.000+08:00

i made my own tinted lip balm today! im very happy with the result ;)
bought the tub of lip balm from The Natural Source and its been sitting in my drawer for a long long time, cos those in tube form is much more convenient to use, instead of dipping my fingers into the pot n 'scraping' off the balm. haha..

stuff needed: the balm, an empty tube, approx 1/8 teaspoon of pigments, ladle.
transformed all these from this:

to this!

now it sheer pink lippie in a tube :D

2006-09-30T00:28:00.000+08:00

check out the aluminium bridge model my group made! its a project for the structures 2 module. everyone has to go through the pain of designing, drilling the holes, riveting, cutting. with 4 people, it took us 2 days to finish this 1.8m thing (taller than 3 of us). we are proud of ourselves :D

had a ktv + shopping + chillout session with dear libing today! retail therapy didnt hurt at all though i spent quite alot today.
did i mention i have a new camera?

im going to china early jan next year for exchange! im so looking forward to it. but this means its gonna be another Long Distance Relationship Part 2 coming up.
part 2 is going to be 6 months :( and i havnt even get pass half of part 1 yet.

2006-09-26T00:21:00.000+08:00

JR's back from oktoberfest from munich! here's some cute photos of him over webcam. he's wearing one of the festival's hats.

the horns are detatchable. lol...

2006-09-15T23:46:00.000+08:00

good news. my structures tutor postponed the quiz! so its left with 4 next wk :)

i skipped sch today. it was only 2 hours of lecture, skip also never mind la. haha..it was pouring like crazy this morning, the visibility was poor. so i thought it was impossible for me to go out not getting drenched. lazy me =x

anyway, JR updated his blog with loads of photos from europe. so go check it out if you're interested

2006-09-13T22:49:00.000+08:00

i have a whole lot of quizzes next week! stressed! 5 quizzes can...omg..what's up with the professors? they just have to plan all the tests the week before the 1 week break..grr..

2006-09-08T23:43:00.000+08:00

i always wanted to do a review on the Max Brenner chocolate cafe. i procrastinated, until now.
back to the review, Max Brenner serves one of the best brownie! had a shot of it below and the hot chocolate. the brownie is served warm drizzled with fudge, strawberries, chocolate shavings and a scoop of vanilla ice cream. a mouthfull of the warm chocolate brownie with the ice cream will definately make your day :)
the hot chocolate is delicious too. they have quite an extensive list of flavours, from white to dark, different countries, fruit and even flower flavoured hot chocolate.

its located at esplanade level 1, diagonally opposite harry's bar.
note: the brownies may get sold out on friday and weekends' nights, so do pop by earlier to have a slice.

im taking an elective in sch right now which is 'Women in a Globalised World'. lecture after lecture, the professor kept filling us in with the cynical view of globalisation. but i would still continue embracing it cos it 'makes the world smaller'. haha..though JR and i are half a globe apart, we can still make calls and see each over the internet without paying a single cent =D

2006-09-04T18:57:00.000+08:00

beware of the cosmetics you try at the tester bars!
i was walking around the cosmetic counters in the shopping mall yesterday and i was appalled with what i saw.
an auntie in her 60s (i think), was 'testing' the lipsticks directly on her lips. gosh..i know such things do happen at some counters but this is my first time seeing it in action. its totally disgusting. perhaps ah-ma didnt give a damn about the hygiene, dolling herself up was her aim. was observing her for a while more, she applied another few coats of lipstick of different colours and then started attacking the bottles of perfume in the same counter.

weird people are everywhere.

i saw an uncle wearing a bluetooth handsfree set on the bus without his bluetooth turned on =/

2006-08-26T11:31:00.000+08:00

im overjoyed!! hahha..i shall share this piece of good news to you all =D

"URECA (Undergraduate Research Experience on CAmpus) is available only to undergraduates who have excelled in their academic examinations. These undergraduates will be eligible for a stipend and if they choose to undertake URECA, they will be known as NTU President Research Scholars (NTU PRS). ....... If you are eligible to be an NTU PRS, you will receive an invitation in late August 2006 to participate in URECA."

i received the invitation for the ureca! im eligible! i never expected to be selected for this thing.
lol..now i dont have to work so hard on weekends to be promoter at supermarkets. im paid $10/hr to do research! which means more moeny for my europe trip

2006-07-24T12:25:00.000+08:00

happy 21st birthday perrine!

its been a while..
JR is leaving for europe in 3 weeks time! im gonna miss my boy :( and of all days he has to leave on the 15th..sorry dear for ranting this publicly..haa..
school is starting soon, and im amazed that my timetable next month is very slack compared to the previous 4 semesters. i only have 2 hours of lesson for 3 days in a week. too bad there's no way i can plan a 4 day week cos lectures are standard :(
travelling all the way to school from home for 2 hours of lesson only can be a pain. please make me an obedient student next sem. dont skip classes!

the air tickets are booked and im going to europe this december! wooOoOo!!
its gonna be a romantic trip for JR and I to paris, venice and rome. *anticipates*
if im able to get to china for exchange next year, then there will be a trip around china for both of us..haha..im thinking too much for now.

2006-07-07T14:11:00.000+08:00

handphones with mp3 players and loudspeakers should be banned!! grr...
ok..that sounds drastic. or they should consider removing the loudspeaker function. what's the loudspeakers used for? i can only name a few.
in my opinion, its useless. so remove that bloody function! its getting on my nerves. i encounter countless incidents where kids (especially secondary sch students, who perhaps just got their hands on a new handphone with the mp3 cum loudspeaker function) 'broadcasting' their mp3s on buses and even trains. its darn irritating!

i count myself lucky if i board a bus that doesnt have tvmobile installed. so i get some peace while travelling. but some kids just dont let me or other passengers have their peace.
i see nothing else i can do but endure, rant here or go up to them and say 'hey kid, not everyone likes what you listen to, so be considerate and turn that f*cking thing off'.

im pissed.

2006-07-03T11:35:00.000+08:00

it was the martel party last wk. i was there for work, not party. but nevertheless still got a dose of martel with coke. its free...free flow of drinks the entire nite.
anyway, i was there ushering guests at the cable car tower. boring..but the company was fun. we were made to wear an extremely fugly martel tshirt which is battery operated. the plastic martel label was tad huge to be obvious and its flashing.

almost every guest/tourist has something to say bout that tshirt. comments like "very unique", "can i buy your tshirt?", "can i take a photo with you?", "wow.. your bossoms are flashing", "blackout also can see you"

we get to take the cable car! its been years since i was on that. but no fantastic view from there.

JR and i tried the godiva chocolixir (dark chocolate iceblended). its $8 for a cup. but its worth your every cent. it feels like drinking chocolate. delicious..

2006-06-26T11:08:00.000+08:00

woOOoo! finally the SK2 roadshows are over. no more standing for ultra long hours on heels. tried the sk2 cleansing oil. its ultra good but ex. its $88 for a bottle o.O
its ok..my kose cleansing oil still works as good which is half the price.
took some photos while closing. with the limitations of my handphone cam, nothing much was taken. check out audrey's cam! so irresistably pretty. its gmask-ed.

2006-06-22T13:29:00.000+08:00

went to uber burger for dinner on tues night. the restaurant's funky style doesnt really appeal to me. the deco is really very cool, but when it comes to the menu, its not cool at all. im very sure that they have one of the most unique menu among all the restaurants in sg. cos its the most non-readable menu i've seen. for example, $14 is written as 4teen$.
caution: think twice when u want to add cheese to your burger. its $3++ for that miserable slice. the price is not stated in the menu.

the verdict:
food - 4 stars
service - 2.5 stars
ambience - 3 stars

we went to new asia bar after dinner to chill out cos JR said that drinks are 1/2 price from 3pm to 9pm every weekday. but i have no idea why there isnt happy hour that day when we went even though its still before 9. bad luck..
by the way, its at swisshotel on the 69th floor! the view is lovely.
i ordered mojito and i love it. its lime with mint leaves and dunno what kind of alchohol.
JR had 'gentle testicles'..lol..weird name. it tasted weird too..

2006-06-15T23:20:00.000+08:00

i got a pair of wedges today from charles & keith today! haha..so happy. it looks like new arrival cos i didnt see it in stores last week.
had french exam this afternoon. yay! its the end of the GE. no more going to school till august! lol..looking forward to many more activities ahead. there will be bake cheesecake day, DIY accesories day, KTV day, shoes day and never-ending shopping days.

celeberated nad's 21st bday on monday at a KTV. it was a success! singing english songs with horrible mtvs can be fun. cant wait for my bday to come soon! cos my wishlist is getting longer n longer.
clipped my hair back that day n i think my face looked ultra long, cos my forehead is ultra high. im not used to looking at myself like that. weird..anw, here r some pics..

2006-06-04T22:43:00.000+08:00

its gonna be a busy and tired week. work at the SKII fair with ultra long hours on black covered shoes, and 2 days of school with quizzes and oral test.
nevertheless, im still looking forward to working at the beauty fair!

2006-05-24T00:24:00.000+08:00

going to watch Da Vinci Code tomorrow! finally. JR and i actually planned to watch it on monday, wanted to book online, but all the cinemas for the timings that we can make it are all filled except the 1st row. even tuesday's are 3/4 filled. went on to check the availability on wednesday, error. grrr...
so i made a trip down after french this evening to buy the tickets and i got the couple seats on the last row at the back! haha..so that's the privilage for people who buy tickets from the counter. u get to buy the couple seats minus the $0.50 online booking fee.

french is getting quite difficult, the grammar is crazy, and there are some 'rules' that they set which i just dont get it. like why is a car, house, swimming pool female. Je ne comprend pas.

my bowels are not friendly to me at all lately. constipated, abdominal pains..im feeling horrible inside. JR saw it in the papers today about some irritable bowel syndrome which sounds similar to what im experiencing now. perhaps turning to TCM for a cure. hope it helps.

2006-05-14T20:35:00.000+08:00

its mothers' day! i suppose most sons and daughters brought their mums out for a meal, that includes JR who brought his mum to Crystal Jade Palace for lunch.
but mum and i spent this special day at a 'special' place. no meals at a posh restaurant, no shopping for mothers' day present.

we were in Tan Tock Seng hospital the entire day.
she had some kinda 'heart attack' this morning. ultra high pulse rate which was about 200+ and low blood pressure. went down to the nearby clinic and the doctor called for the ambulance cos it was an emergency.
it was scary, worrying.
its my 2nd time on ambulance. the 1st was last december after the horrible accident at the chalet, was the patient and sat at the back.
sat in front this time, cos i wasnt allow to sit at the back. so dont be duped by those drama serials where they can accompany the 'dying' patient at the back of the ambulance.. its not allowed.

i waited in the hospital for 6 hours!! it was damn boring. mum felt bored too lying on the bed in the observation ward for that long. she couldnt sleep. so she stoned there. haha..
cos she had to be under observation for 4 hours on the ecg machine and 2 hours for misc stuff. lucky JR was there to keep me company.

she's ok now. nothing serious :)

here's something interesting. the top 20 list of the best cities to travel:
1. Barcelona
2. New York
3. Paris
4. Rio
5. Rome
6. Sydney
7. Dublin
8. Cape Town
9. Istanbul
10. Stockholm
11. Amsterdam
12. Berlin
13. New Orleans
14. Mexico
15. Lisbon
16. San Diego
17. Copenhagen
18. Reykjavik (Iceland)
19. Dehli
20. Tokyo

its kinda disappointing to see only 2 aisan countries in the list. perhaps the board of judges are biased.

2006-05-10T14:31:00.000+08:00

met up with JR for dinner at NYDC last night. we ate their mudpies a few times before, it was exceptionally good yesterday. haha..dunno why.

bought this yesterday for mum's day. my hp camera sux. cant take close up photos properly. its time to repair my fugi camera! its been sitting in my drawer for ages. anw, they are Estee Lauder cleanser and anti wrinkle radiance cream. i think the radiance cream is a little too small, 15 ml only. should i get one more EL item for her?

ordered this from the TW auction spree. i've been waiting for the spree to open for a couple of weeks. finally it opened! haha..i hope it looks ok when it arrives.

ordered this pair of non-authentic LV padlock earrings this morning! hahaha...its so pretty!

2006-05-07T21:07:00.000+08:00

my legs feel so tired now. worked today. promoted Allswell drinks at clementi seng siong. that supermarket is damn far. it took be an hour plus to reach there. its just a day work so i just heck care.

bought the blackhead remover yesterday at best denki! i was delighted when i saw such a thing in the store. cos i have super stubborn blackheads that cant be removed by any brand or pore pack or deep cleansing mask (my nose is like a strawberry). its $69, cheaper price cos of the mothers' day promotion. hope it works.. *cross fingers*

received this in my mail recently! the taiwan auctions lace top. my mum doesnt like it. she said it looks like a sexy pyjamas top. is it the lace that makes it look like that?? this explains my last line in the previous post. please tell me your comments on the top (if u have), especially JR.

im posting photos of food again. this is the best chendol i ever ate in sg. check out the generous scoops of red bean!! its deeelicious. the desert store is at orchard point food court. this sinful bowl is $1.60 only!

this is what i had for dinner just now. its home cooked food btw. haha..i love my parents. cos they cook deelicious food at home :)
1st pic: steamed chicken in prawn paste, soup with fish, tofu and egg.
2nd pic: prawns in green curry, braised sea cucumber and fish maw, stir fried cabbage
feeling very full now

2006-05-06T00:35:00.000+08:00

exams were over yesterday! finally...that one week to the last paper was a looong wait.
went out with JR after the paper for dinner and movie.
it was 'korean night'. haha..we didn't deliberately plan it before hand. dinner was korean food in a restaurant at heeren followed by a korean movie.
some pics:

appetisers: kimchi and ikan bilis with tau pok (i didnt know koreans eat that). kimchi was delicious. plus, its free flow! didnt know that till we settled the bill. the waitress asked if we wanted a refill. that term sounded rather skeptical. it tasted good so we just requested for 1 more refill only (in case they charge us)

ginseng chicken soup and chicken

grilled mackeral (on the menu): doesnt look n taste like its grilled

ordered the set menu for 2. food was just ok. not fantastic. the portion was kinda small. we think with $38.50, we could have a better meal at crystal jade. oh well, who knows until we try it. not gonna go back again.

im not gonna buy any lace tops again. people dont like.

2006-05-01T01:03:00.000+08:00

i've not blogged for so long.
exams are ending next thursday. its such a long wait. its a week break to my last paper. gosh..cant the sch bring it to an earlier date so that we dont have to live an extra wk in agony??
i dont care. i have to go out n breathe some fresh air. went out with JR after his last paper on thursday and friday.
watched a movie, ate lunch at imperial treasure which wasnt very fantastic..the meat in the xiao long bao was pathetic and had some offline retail therapy. i only bought a top from mango cos spent too much on online shopping =x

yup..im kinda addicted to online retail therapy for the last 1 month plus. haha...
here are my list of stuff i bought if u are interested:

ARRIVED:
- 4 'my lip stuff' lip balms
- papillos (vanilla wonderland)
- accessories from amegus.com
- crochet cami from wetseal.com
- 'kiss me im famous' tee from aeropostale
- babydoll lace top from taiwan auctions
- tshirt from american eagle (ae.com)

stuff im waiting to arrive in my mailbox:
- lipbalms again from lipstuff
- polkadot bag from taiwan auctions
- bag from target.com
- cosmetics from eyeslipsface.com
- eyeshadow pots from twisted fayte for my mum

i need to work. too bad i have french classes and project next month..cant get the admin job. haii...
i need to save money. cos....
im going for a europe trip with JR end of this year!!! *jumps around* hahahah...my parents allowed me to go. weeee!~!~

p.s. i will update more often

2006-03-16T16:46:00.000+08:00

it will be a crazy week ahead!
i have 2 presentations on monday and tues.
2 demanding quizzes, CE materials and structures on monday and thurs.
have to mug for my quizzes, plus compile the tech comm final report, plus do the powerpoint slides for the presentation, plus prepare for 2 presentations. need to complete all these by this sunday.
please help me pull through this. then i can study for my exams in peace.

my face is in a very bad condition now. zits and pimples are filling my face. ewww...
i need a facial. but i dont have the time to travel to park mall to do so.
i think i'll have to bear with the 'pimply' plus tired face till the exams are over.

2006-03-07T17:59:00.000+08:00

belle belle is a happy girl!! *beams*
received my belated vday present yesterday. its the Guess watch i wanted!!
JR had to order from the store so it came late.
its so pretty! with all the 'bling blings' around the face :D too bad my phone camera spoilt the photo. it cant take nice close up pics.

retail therapy at home is also great too!
ordered lip balms from the MLS spree. its doublemint and hot fudge sundae flavour if u cant see the words clearly in the pic.
both of them are moisturising and smells great too! but i prefer the doublemint. its cool n refreshing :)
u all can check it out: www.mylipstuff.com
they have tons n tons of flavours to choose from.
i just ordered another 2 flavours, sex on the beach and malibu from another spree..cant wait for them to arrive!!

i ordered a pair of papillos from german foot shopping! its another spree..so no shipping charges and its really cheap! $68 a pair..
i wanted to order the garden party design..but its out of stock..so settled with this which looks equally pretty :)

2006-03-01T16:08:00.000+08:00

Today is horrible for me.
received the matrics quiz results and i failed....terrrribblyy
cos i made a fatal careless mistake at the beginning of the question. i lost all the marks for the 1st question.
great...say goodbye to the A for CV2002 and i have to struggle for the exams and full marks for the next quiz to secure a B.
im stressed :(

2006-02-27T11:39:00.000+08:00

happy birthday Jo! *muacks* it must be a great party that day right? so many presents and so much love from family and friends.
girls, please send me the chalet photos when u see me online ok?
i want to see the 'neoprint' pics we took! haha..i think we looked like dumbos plus my bad-hair-day look..eww...

2006-02-09T18:47:00.000+08:00

oh..finally i know what nadine meant about "i tagged you on my site" after reading elisia's blog.
since im kinda free now, taking a break for studying for my quizzes, i shall do it.

# the tagged victim has to come up with 8 different points of their perfect lover.
# need to mention the sex of the target.
# Tag 8 victims to join this game & leave a comment on their comments saying they’ve been tagged.
# If tagged a 2nd time; no need to post

target sex: male

1. he loves me too
2. spends quality couple time with me
3. offers me hugs and kisses anytime when i need them
4. he shows care and concern
5. never fails to give me a pleasant surprise me on any special occassion
6. shares his joy and problems with me
7. listens to me
8. has pretty eyes :)

2006-02-05T22:24:00.000+08:00

went shopping today and now im a member of The Natural Source. haha..
i get 15% discount and 30% on my birthday :D
bought a tub of tropical sugar cane body whip, it smells super sweet hope i dont attract ants..haha, eye cream, vanilla lip balm.
i still have a pot of diet lip balm from Skin Food in my wardrobe and i doubt i will use it cos dries my lips instead...bad....
hope the one from TNS works.

it will be a couple of busy weeks ahead. projects, presentation and quizzes coming up...and valentines day :)

2006-02-03T01:52:00.000+08:00

Happy chinese new year everyone! this year's cny wasn't very fantastic for me, cos my parents decided to take a break from visiting and stayed at home through the holidays.
but definately i won't just sit at home during the festive season and not collect hong baos from relatives.
anyway, here's a shot of the yu sheng my dad made for reunion dinner. its different this year, we used the top shell instead of the salmon that we used previously. cheap and good. haha..a great alternative for people who don't take raw fish like my mum.

here's a shot of win-win (my pet bird) in the napping position with eyes open. cos the sound of my handphone cam woke it up. heee...so cute.

alvin and marcus shifted to the new hall 16 recently so i decided to take a look over there. its so much better than the old halls. ya..its new right, got to be equipped with better facilities and finishings. it has better security too. every block as a gate at the first floor and only residents with the 'block key' can scan at some sensor to enter. and one thing that i really loved about the new hall is that the laundry lines are not public in the corridors. the clothes and erm..underwears dont get stolen!

2006-01-23T00:53:00.000+08:00

went for 'ma la' steamboat buffet with JR and friends just now.
finished dinner at around 10 and im still feeling full 3 hours later.
im so going to gain some fats if i sleep right now. but im so tired...

ate dim sum for lunch today at the fortunate restuarant. the food was good especially the XL size 'har gao' (prawn dumpling). check this out,

its huge right..i think it has about 3 prawns inside/ it was deeelicious and crunchy.
*thumbs up*

retail therapy helps. i feel happier now *grin* even after buying $100 over worth of clothes today.
went to Candle (some shop in far east, one of the sponsors for our hall dnd) and i bought almost everything that i brought in to the fitting room to try.
their clothes were much better than those ah lian-ish shops in the mall.
i spent $109 in that tiny shop. i didnt expect that. lol...and i became their member cos i spent $88 and above.

2006-01-19T16:49:00.000+08:00

its been a month, finally im posting up something.
seems like when you stop blogging for a while, the momentum stops. that's why it took me a month to log back into blogger and type something after some people told me to update my blog.

life sux now.
i feel like the most boring person in the entire world with nothing else to do other than school work.
i hate going back to the small room of mine in hall, alone.
i hate going back home on weekends and see no one cos everyone's working. im alone again.
aaaaaaaarrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh
give me some love.

2005-12-20T09:58:00.000+08:00

i was shaking before i checked my results just now. so worried to see disappointing results again. but it was a huge relief after that. hahaha...i cant stop smiling :D
a big turnoff this year was that they implemented all the plus-es and minus-es in our grades. i dont know what grading system is that. anyway, i still do prefer the grades without the suffix.

im into sequins lately. went shopping around and i happen to think stuff with sequins looks prettier. haha..i think the shoes look like a pair of chinese dance shoes.

2005-12-13T23:47:00.000+08:00

it was a day of sweet nothings and a heartbreak the day after.

2005-12-12T23:55:00.000+08:00

im 20! JR prepared a barbeque dinner at the beach for me. it was a pleasant surprise :)
we had salmon, chicken, stingray, satay, cheese hotdogs and mashmallows.
it was one of the best barbeque i ever had. the company, the seaside, great food and no stinky smell like those that u get from the bbq at the chalet..haha..
ok..im lazy to blog about the details..so lets move on to the photos!

2005-12-01T12:30:00.000+08:00

bought this yummy kiwi yogurt pack yesterday. its from the face shop. by the way, its a face mask, not to be eaten. i tried it this morning. when i opened it up, it smells and looks exactly like yogurt. haha..it smells delicious. but it doesnt seem kiwi-ish at all. expected it to be a little green and smells a little sour, instead i smell berries. its ok, im not a kiwi fan bought it cos the kiwi flavour is the only one that is for exfoliation and moisture.

i met a super annoying bus driver yesterday. i bought the bus consession, so it shows "pass usage.." on the screen. that uncle kept looking at the ez link machines to check if every passenger tapped their cards. that's ok, alot of bus drivers do that. but that uncle was even looking at the screens to look out for people who use the consession. i tapped my card and he stopped me. i was so embarrassed. i thought i didnt tap the card properly and it didnt went through. i went back and he told me to show my student pass. grrr...what's his problem?? then i realised he stops every person that uses student pass and checks if the person and the photo match.

omg, i think he's super paranoid and crazy. where got so many students lend their friends the ez link card to tap for free? he's not tired of checking?
i think he's new, cos bus uncles who work for very long cant be bothered with that at all. its so trivial.

i miss you, every single part of you.

2005-11-26T16:03:00.000+08:00

exams were officially over yesterday. but my relax mode was turned on tuesday cos all the core papers were over.
but so what im done with all the exams this sem? there's still not much of hard core partying or whatever. perhaps hanging out with friends, working on weekends (again..grrr), reading, celebrating my birthday, christmas.. but things seem to turn ugly for me right now. hope things will get better

2005-11-04T17:42:00.000+08:00

i will be on hiatus for a while cos exams starts next monday.
i'll be back after 25th nov.
see ya!

2005-10-31T23:13:00.000+08:00

this was taken during Sof's birthday celebration. i look super fat in the photo. ewww...i look even fatter in another group pic, even more gross. that's why i put this up even though a few of our faces (including mine) were distorted.

next up, its jiahong's fish tank:

can u see the words in the image? those were the names jiahong and xinhui gave to them. haha..so amusing. Bola is the cutest one in the tank. its so fat and round.
poor weilian is right at the corner of the tank. cos both of its eyes were bitten off by other two inmates called dong li huo che. the two naughty ones were sentenced their life imprisonment in the NIE pond. for those who watch project superstar, u should know why he's called weilian. lol..
the other one is stephanie sun cos of its red head.
the rest were S.H.E, zhang hui mei, landy wen and something else.

i had my first facial in my entire life today. had my stubborn blackheads and white heads squeezed out of my face! hahah...i always wanted all of them removed but i never succeed. the biore pore pack didnt work very well.
finally i saw my blemish free nose today without all the ugly black dots.
but the process was really painful. that's the price to pay for pretty skin.

2005-10-27T23:22:00.000+08:00

oh yea!! JR dearie has Desperate Housewives 2, Lost 2 and OC 3 in his laptop.
they are now our before-sleep-entertainment.
watched the first 4 episodes of Lost and im kinda disappointed. its getting absurd, dumb.
but for some people like JR who loves the suspense still thinks its quite good.
i will still continue watching it anyway. cos im interested to know who are other dumb people living on the island - 'the others', and blah blah blah..

after watching the 1st episode of desperate housewives, it still looks as good as the previous season.
i think there's gonna be some other people dying in this season. haha..that's my guess. cos it seems like the creators of DH likes such stuff?
or perhaps some other murderer or psycho appears in the neighbourhood.

as for OC, there's nothing much interesting to follow up. we downloaded it just for fun. watched the first 2 seasons, why not continue with the 3rd one?

JR just laughed at me after reading my previous post about me not knowing that convenient key on my keyboard.
zzz....he knew it before me.

2005-10-25T22:34:00.000+08:00

im tired.
can 25th nov come soon?
mugged in one of the tutorial rooms since morning 10am till bout 9pm. wow..didnt expect i survived almost the entire day there. im drained...

oh ya..i just discovered the function key on my laptop!! woah...it took me like a year to know what's that 'Fn' key for. im so slow...grrr....
so now i know how to adjust the volume just by hitting the function key and the up and down keys without clicking at the tiny volume icon at the bottom of the taskbar tray.

yay!! im looking forward to seeing the girls this friday!! [minus pwen :( ]
i miss u all...

2005-10-21T11:11:00.000+08:00

SHIT! i am freaking out. i have a 2nd autocadd project to hand it next monday and i totally forgot about it till last night.
i dont have a flair for autocadd so its NOT an easy task for me to draw 3 steel structures. i thought i was saved from the gruelling drawing when alex sent me the model project. BUT the dimensions are all different!
bcos of this, i have to carry my heavy laptop home with textbooks, notes. omg, i hope i can survive the trip all the way home.
good luck to me man...hell week's over, now its the project from hell!

2005-10-17T16:35:00.000+08:00

im feeling happy today, i dont know why :) weEeeEeeEE!~!~
if u want to make me happier, offer me the Halls-honey and lemon lozenges.
you can buy me the entire tube if u want to. i wont reject it ;)