Friday, September 14, 2007

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*

belle * 12:59 AM

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

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.

belle * 11:50 PM

Sunday, September 02, 2007

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.

belle * 6:33 PM

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

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.

belle * 12:45 AM

Sunday, August 12, 2007

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..

belle * 6:25 PM

Thursday, July 26, 2007

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..

belle * 3:12 PM

Thursday, July 19, 2007

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.

belle * 1:04 PM

Friday, July 13, 2007

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 :)

belle * 12:33 PM

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

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.

belle * 12:51 PM

Monday, July 02, 2007

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.

belle * 11:41 AM

Monday, June 04, 2007

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

belle * 6:09 PM

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

belle * 5:38 PM

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

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

belle * 5:43 PM

Sunday, May 27, 2007

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.

belle * 6:01 PM

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

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.

belle * 10:44 PM