phyls

my procrastination plan

2009-11-09T14:56:00.000+10:00

I opened up blogger, and decided to procrastinate, after not touching it for some time. went to edit posts, and saw this "my procastination plan" with these uploaded photos unpublished. ha, and i realised, everytime i wanna blog, i'm procrastinating!

well, i couldn't remember why i did the previous time, must be some assignment of some sort. and this time is, i just don't wanna start on my studying for exams. although it's the last exam! woohooo!

graduation is coming! i remember the start of this HORRIBLE sem, feeling so (*$)(#*& about the business and craziness. well, it was indeed crazy, working on one thing after the next every moment of this semester. one presentation after the next, never ending assignments, freaking ridiculous number of presentations we had to do, and honours drafts after drafts. and it's finally over!!! exams feels like a breeze (haha!) at least i've got time to just sit and stare and do nothing for a substantial amount of time! yeah, although this sem didn't go as well results wise, i just hope for the best! well, at least i tried. ha.

some photos from very long ago, uploaded previously when i found them in my harddrive. the beginning of the year! nice cafe with my favourite bunch of people :)

this year just flew by so fast. did so many things, captured so little on cam and my little brain can't remember most of the stuff.

me and alan went to random markets!

when we decided to drive down to cleveland for a spin.

some photos of cate's bday. her 21st. i feel old, heh! with a bollywood theme.

and just a random photo taken at home :)

finally, a good break!

2009-09-18T12:28:00.002+10:00

woohoo. i've finished a set meeting report presentation and a TWO hour seminar presentation this week!!!

although both went really quite mediocre, and not to the standard i had initially expected, i don't care, it's over. perhaps i was concerned about whether i would get first class honours before the semester started, now i really can't be bothered how i do, i just wanna finish this sem.

after the past almost 8 weeks of torture, ok, i did take many breaks in between, of doing the project for the hospital - including literature reviews (again), many many group meetings, researching on outcome measures, and many other research, talking to patients and what not. hours on end preparing for a freak 2 hour presentation (which ended off with a flat response, grr.), still trying to work on my honours thesis draft and in between still juggling with assignments and exams.

finally, it felt like some things were completed and never to look at it again.

me and alan went for a celebratory dinner! at La Quinta at oxford street next to our house. yummy. our second time there, no photos, but it was awesome! haha, i had something new (and adventurous yet again).. hehehe. something chicken with dark chocolate and chilli (yup a main meal). and first time when i tried such an adventurous meal, it was SUPER NICE! hahaha, much nicer than alan's boring fajitas. lol. love that place.

and toasted to sangria! it's pretty good, nicer than montezuma. judy i need u to come back to booze with me. haha. btw, the vodka mudshake is still in the fridge. lol.

and we relaxed and chilled out and watched 4 episodes of amazing race before sleeping!

winter trip to the country in july!

2009-09-05T15:40:00.002+10:00

one of the road trips i took in the july winter hols!

after browsing many many brochures and thinking and thinking.. we decided on a road trip right into the country to the granite belt! so our trip started from brisbane city with our trusty GPS (or should i say, not so trusty) to ipswich, past by cunningham's gap as we attempted to enter main range, to Warwick, to Stanthorpe, and passing Eukey (which is the only place that snows in queensland), to Girraween, Killarney, Mount Barney and back home through Beaudesert!

With my mini tripod handy (which edward loves so so much), the 3 of us in the countryside! This is one of the most beautiful country that I've ever seen in my 4 years. I've never been so far out from the city, and my my, the further away from the city, the prettier it gets :)

trying to take photos hiding in the bush. ha.

at times, the sky was clear blue, at times with simpsons clouds.. serenity! (not for the thousand remixes we blast in the car)

i really like this electric gernerator thing, haha, it just stamps country!

and we drove and drove. brought our car through this pool of water, ok, it's not a 4WD, but we did it anyway! haha!

what a unique playground! it's really a old-school merry-go-round.

i dunno whether we're too hungry or what.. but the food is absolutely divine! especially the fruit salad. one of the nicest tasting and refreshing fruits! country fruits are indeed different from those we get at coles or woolies! anyway, food just makes me happy! this was along what they called the prettiest streetscape in australia (no, it isn't, don't believe the brochures, haha)

after a long long day of driving around the country, we checked into a cheap motel at stanthorpe, lol. the town was dead. we settled for a lousy chinese restaurant cos it has the most people in it, in fact, it was the only one with people in it. lol.

we chilled out in the room, with edward entertaining gerard and me with so u think u can dance stories -.- till gerard can't be bothered and went to sleep. haha! and stupid edward was the last one to use the toilet, and he left the lights on the whole night, when i was the closest to the toilet and kept my mind alert the whoooole night (and ya, i attempted to kill edward the next morning).

the next frosty morning!! we didn't get to see any snow, haha, possibly cos we didn't wake up early enough for it to be frosty cold. anyways, it was still zero degrees i think, so yeahhhhh. normally not a big fan of too cold weather, but i do like it extremely cold once in a while for a short time.. hehe.

arrived at girraween national park!

i'm really into bushwalking and mountain climbing these days!

the granite arch!

and then we headed to the pyramid. it was a nightmare. we walked so manyyyy steps, we counted then, but i forgot now.. but it was crazy!

it was never ending, and i perspired so much in the winter weather.. hahaha... and to think that we thought we finally reached, there were no more steps, but a steep way up ahead.

check out edward's face.

cos it was maybe 50-60degrees steep? i dunno, it seemed almost vertical. cos we had to be on ALL FOURS.

check this out.

ok, so me and edward were quite loser-ish. we chickened out. mainly cos we didn't have proper shoes. both of us were wearing sneakers, and we were losing grip all the way. so we made it less than halfway up the steep climb, while gerard was gung-ho enough to reach the summit!!! he said the view up there was amazing!

a paranomic view from half way from the summit.
so we started photo-whoring while waiting for gerard to climb up and down. hahaha. we did however, attempt a second time to climb up, crawling like monkeys, but decided we kept slipping and we didn't wanna die. lol.

hehe, gerard took my camera up. but i couldn't really figure out what this shot was (like from which perspective and angle) even though he tried to explain. i guess there was a crack at the top of the mountain? lol.

although looking quite tired, the amazing gerard who went up!! well, he does rockclimbing, so that must be a piece of cake for him! haha. although he did slip and cut his finger a bit, so i think if we went up, we wouldn't have made it. ha.

and we made a much much quicker descent down the steep rock slope and the million stairs.

and to the waterhole! this is one of my favourite photos of us :) :) :)

seriously, i dunno what's up with them. that's the bottom of a fallen tree. it's quite the power of nature eh, and my, the roots of the tree!

at the waterhole, well, nothing much, literally just a waterhole. lol.

a hearty lunch at the winery!

all trip gerard and i were planning how to dump him. haha, even during pre-trip planning days, and ming ming witnessed our cruelty.. hahaha. and so edward said he could do just fine if we left him with his so called best friend/wife of gps. and... so we did!

hahaha. so there's edward walking for dunno how long with the gps. hahaaha.

headed down to applethorpe to the big apple!! i bought a liqeur and got 2 free really big apples. lol.

this somehow or another reminds me of lion king.

and this is simply GORGEOUS. and so, the sun sets.
we headed back to warwick to stay for the night, at a better motel this night. warwick was having the jumpers and jazz festival during that week, and we were glad we were there.

i think was it 100 or 150 trees were dressed up!!! was pretty unique, as they decorated all the trees along the main city streets with different things! although some did look pretty scary at night, hehe.

we attended a free jazz concert! it was great! they even played one of the tunes from borat, haha. but the atmosphere was really good, with people dancing and just enjoying the music.
and at night was spent watching a thriller/horror show. eew. it was scary at first, but turned out to be quite sci-fi in the middle. it's called 1408. well, it did give me shudders, cos the movie was set in a hotel room, and about many people dying inside, blah blah, dunno who slept on the bed before, and kinda not a good feeling when we were in the motel, and ya, who knows who slept on the bed before!

city of warwick in the day!

the catholic church.

then we drove through the towns of killarney, pretty.

and arrived at queen mary falls!

DON'T DON'T DON'T ever enter the toilets there. DON'T. As with all national parks, it's a compost toilet where u deposit ur stuff right into a never ending hole. BUT, this hole was half filled. I was desperate, and the cafe at the falls don't even have a toilet! and so i entered. post-traumatic stress after using it. i almost puked.

bird life at the park! at the bottom of the waterfalls.

just cos edward never climbed a tree before.

and it was quite a drive to mount barney, with sharp turns all the way through the mountaineous regions.

this is the MOST DIFFICULT CLIMB ever. it even has a warning sign before u enter the park saying only experienced bushwalkers should climb this. we went anyway. and apparently it takes 10-12 hours to reach the top, so we asked around, and we chose to go on a shorter route to a lookout.

which involves, climbing up very steeeeep slopes with little rocks that give way when u step on them. i slipped a couple of times, while edward slipped so many times and fell so many times LOL. well, also cos gerard was helping me throughout the climb, haha!

it's kinda this terrain. but the photo couldn't show how steep it was. u really had to plan every step of the way.

and so, here we go! i wanna go again to do the full climb! (next time with better shoes) ya, he died.

and.. goodbye country for now! :D

stop.

2009-08-19T18:09:00.003+10:00

today is a AH-HA moment for me. Despite saying a lot that this semester is crazily crazy, today i realised how crazily crazy it is.

this semester:
1 mid sem exam
5 reports
1 individual assignment
1 two hour seminar presentation
1 huge ass conference presentation
1 appraisal presentation
1 end of sem exam
1 crazy Honours thesis

i dunno if i missed anything.

the next two weeks is HELL. with full draft of honours due, honours discussion with supervisor, literature review for service development project, draft of survey for patients with PTSD for project, fieldwork at hospital, seminar presentation preparation, presentation of seminar outline to supervisor, set meeting report, exam.
yes, that's all happening in two freaking weeks.

mount tamborine & seafood buffet!

2009-08-14T15:53:00.005+10:00

that's our trip to celebrate our 3 year anniversary :) ever since we got together, we have been trying to go to many places, do something fun and exciting, or even try adventurous food and drinks.. hahaha. life's never boring with you :)

up at mount tamborine, we first went to the markets. it's a huge market, with lotsa people! Bought yummy macadamias to munch on the way, and strawberries. check out how the strawberry is bigger than my cheek. lol. oh i recently have an obsession with toy story, lol. i know it's a long ago cartoon, but i just watched toy story 2 recently with alan. hahaha, we thought that 2 is always very much worse than 1, but to our surprise, we found toystory 2 really good! in fact, i thought it was funnier than toystory1. haha.
also had poffertjes (little dutch pancakes! yumm) and german sausage roll and german burger.. hehe.

check out this hugeeee cactus, and hugeeee price. lol.

Breathtaking view. It's really very very very nice.

And it's a site for people to paraglide and hang glide. Here is a short video clip of someone taking off, but hahaa, i didn't catch the whole part of it, i was just amazed at looking at them, and didn't fish out my camera till the last minute.. hahahaha.

there were so many of them just gliding in the clear blue sky, whilst this little boy beside me was counting how many there were in the sky (more than 20 i think, lol). but it was an amazing scene. feels like many kites in the sky, heheehe. i would wanna do that someday, although i think it's gonna be freaking expensive. hehe, we were gonna take more photos, till this policeman came over and spoiled the day as he started to jot down the car plate number of the first car illegally parked. heh, so us and many many others there scooted off in time! phew!

then we went to a winery. for some (not free) tasting, darn. and so we bought a bottle of wine, if not we must pay -.-

then to some bushwalking!!!!!! as many of you know, one of my favourite activities now :D HAHA.

So this is the Witches Falls Section of the Tamborine National Park. The first national park in Queensland proclaimed on 28th march 1908.

And i was reading the board, the name Witches Falls because "nights hang over the forest and nocturnal creatures start venturing out. In the darkness twigs break with a sharp snap and leaves rustle overhead - an eerie place for children". And little children in those days believed that it was full of witches and giants and such frightening creatures. LOL. BUT, i could imagine that it would be very eerie when the sun sets down.

We wanted to take a short route to the lookout, but in the end, we ended up walking the long route (yup, we misread the signs), which was a bit scary, but quite interesting!! We walked in the rainforest on paths, till no paths when a fallen tree has blocked our way. We contemplated, but we still ventured in anyway! lol. there were so many HUGE fallen trees (that's why i must say it's pretty eerie when there's no sun!). And we walked past a seasonal swamp, and saw tall thin trees, tall HUGE trees, fallen trees, long above ground roots and many interesting flora and fauna.

Me with a fallen tree.

At the seasonal swamp but not very swamp-ish looking cos i think it hasn't been raining. Middle of the rainforest.

I was just so amazed at the trees. hahahaha. view from the bottom!

HUGE ASS TREE. it's damn tall, dunno how to take the photo to capture its size. haha.

Then went to Joolah national park, to visit the Curtis Falls. Well, nothing beats springbrook!
Final glimpse of tamborine before we go! oh, we checked out the spa too, might return some day for it! :)

Headed down to surfers for seafood buffet at the crowne plaza. hehehee, just stayed there the last trip with judy, and it's a fabulous hotel (and we got cheap deals then, lol). and we got a cheap deal for this too! got a free bottle of premium chardonnay. it was awesome!!!! very nice, got me a bit tipsy with both of us drinking the whole bottle in a short time.

seafood was great! with oysters, prawns, crabs, mussels. but palazzo versace was definitely better! as i did my research with the reading the reviews and stuff, it was pretty accurate i must say, the seafood was great, but the rest was just quite mediocre. and i realised palazzo versace is the ONLY versace hotel in the world!!! and if u even try to steal one of their cushions, it costs $300, hahaha. but anyway, i saw this great deal, that if u book a hotel room mid week, and it's very cheap for palazzo versace ($250 or so, instead of the $500++), and u get 2 for 1 at its seafood buffet (which is TOPS!!!!!!!!). Anyway, we couldn't make it for midweek, so we opted for this, just to try it out and satisfy our seafood cravings!!! So i strongly recommend people to go to palazzo versace! 6 star hotel by the way, ha.

oh and i too realise that crowne plaza is the only revolving restaurant in brisbane area. hahahahaa. it was nice earlier in the evening as we saw the sunset (while busy eating, LOL), but once it turned dark, i can't even tell that the scenery changed. lol.

Awesome time! I love you!

of graduation and magic!

2009-08-11T10:09:00.007+10:00

congrats ming ming on your graduation! hehehe. i almost forgot that ming graduated last year, and missed the ceremony for WYD. haha. ooo, i kinda like graduations somehow, always joyful and sunny! it's a pity that my own graduation will take place at night at the last session!! grr.

with many requests of back shots, side shots, shadow shots! lol. but i love this one in the great court.

after a hearty lunch and joyous celebration, enjoying the sunset outside my house :)

finally!!! david copperfield!!!! we booked the tickets since march! LOL. and almost forgot about it... hahahaha.

it was AWESOME. there were so many tricks and illusions. and yes, he did make people disappear. after my talking about disappearing after the concert, i never really imagined he really did it. lol. but so disappointed for not being chosen!!! lol.

of all the magic performed, what stunned me was this particular trick. he randomly selected 6 people through throwing a frisbee to hold the keys to this box securely locked and always placed right in front of the audience. then he threw a frisbee randomly to the audience. got the guy to name 2 numbers between 1-54, and something personal (so he asked him what underwear he was wearing.. black boxers, haha. ), then that guy threw the frisbee to another person in the audience, who chose 2 numbers and said something personal (he had sex 5 min ago, -.-), and then he threw the frisbee to another person, chose 2 numbers again, and revealed her birthday. and david copperfield was telling a story about his grandfather (who passed away) and always wanted this vintage car, but never got down to buying it, but bought 2 car plates number. And then he got the people holding the keys to open the box, and inside contained a cassette tape, and he got the girl to play it, and it stated the exact numbers and all the personal information. similarly, there was a piece of paper inside that wrote the numbers and personal info! and all that while the box was there in front of us before he even randomly choose the people who chose the numbers and revealed the info! and then, he pulled out a bag, containing 2 carplate numbers. and exactly in the sequence that the audience randomly chosen!!!! and copperfield said it was a one in a trillion chance. and i'm positive that the people chosen to say out the numbers were random, cos i saw one of the guys with his family before the show. and later he made the car appear. i am still baffled.

hehehe. my first magic show :) ha, and no, he didn't do any lavitation. haha. and our first show together :)

happy 3 year anniversary! :)

2009-08-05T11:08:00.004+10:00

4th August.. 3 year anniversary!!! :D

we've been very happy this year :) hehe, this is a picture from last year's toowoomba's carnival of flowers.. we've come a long way! it's a blissful feeling and no quarrels for a very very long time.. i love you!

judy was here!

2009-07-31T14:06:00.000+10:00

anyway, just an update that i'm fine! thanks for many many concerns about my head, hehe :)

when judy came - one of my happiest week!!!! i'm so so so so so so happy judy came down (and her bernard, l0l). it feels like home all over again!! i wished u were here all the time (ok, and bernard too).

besties and their fluffs on a car trip!!!
so, these crazy people visited :)

me and my favourite on the citycat!! this was the start. start of all our booze and alcohol. hahahaha, we drank and drank the whole week. lol.

our tour of brisbane city

bernard helped me discover the long shutter mode in my camera. haha. at mount cootha

UQ at night. Movieworld!!!! i'm glad i saved this world to not go, so that can go with u guys!!! :D

i told this lightning man that his abs were fake. hahaha.

we were almost the last to take a photo with tweety and bugs bunny!! it's not a kids ride. hahaha. alan tricked us into thinking it was. so it ended up as our first ride.

after our ride at wild west falls. like a water log ride. but it's really high. we had ponchos. u can see how judy is so well covered, without a drip of water on her after the ride, and check out alan. he's really drenched. hahahaha.

batman show on the streets. only 5-10 minutes, what a disappointment.

Hollywood stunt drivers!!! i think this is one of the best parts of movieworld. really made it worth it. the show was pretty long, 30min? and it was AWESOME. we were wowed throughout the show. the pictures were fine, but they did this, like cars on 2 wheels. and lotsa drifting, chasing cars, cars broken into 2 and on fire. a short video finale of the stunt drivers.

the superman ride! scarrryyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!! it's super high. gulps.

just before the ride. look at our nervous faces!!!! we were next in line, gasps gasps. but the queue was freakingly long. we waited from very nervous, to not nervous, to very tired, to literally squatting down. hehe, but the ride was thrilling. i opened my eyes at the top, but it was scary. hahaha. we even strategised where to sit so that it's the least scary (it's the front). haha.

after a thrilling day of rides, we had a wonderful japanese dinner at gold coast. yummmm. love the beef sashimi! and checked into crowne plaza, which we got at a very cheap price, hohoho. our room was beautiful!!!! and a view of the sunrise from our balcony!

tweety!!! alan bought me a tweety from movieworld. it's my favouritest fluff now!!! it's big, round and cushiony!!!! hehehe, and i sleep with it everynight, very squishable.

and check out our booze again. hehehe. (i grew so fat after u came judy! grrr)

we went horseriding at numinbah valley at the gold coast hinterland! fun fun!!

us together in a picture, and us in action!

it's my second horseriding trip, and it's different! this time we went through the fields of green, and rode past streams. not much of fast action, but i love the serenity of it all :)

and guess what, my horse is greedy again. the trainers told me before we set off that my horse LOVES to eat, and i must control her whenever she does. oh man, that's really 100% chance of me getting a hungry and greedy horse so far. hahahaa, but i used the previous horseriding experience to control this greedy Ally! hehehe, the trainers did say i did control her well! hehehe, love horseriding :)

we stopped for a break next to the creeks. the trainers built a fire and baked us bread and tea. the next part of the trip wasn't so enjoyable. we got lost, and got so giddy from the turns in the car and lack of lunch.

after a very long time, arrived at natural bridge. and springbrook from the recee trip i did earlier with alan!

and my first time bushwalking after the sun has set, with torches and all. and cold.

sunrise the next day at byron bay!

2 of my favourite photos of the trip!!! :D then we had a hearty breakfast at byron bay! twisted sistas. i realised we went there the previous time too. hahaha.

and we did shopping! i loved that shopping trip.. lol. it was so impromptu, we just walked into the shop and never came out, until our loot of bikini, many many ripcurl thongs and cap! haha.

then travelled to nimbin. the town of marijuana. changed a bit since i last went there last year. apparently the laws are stricter now.

they went to moreton island! i loved their jumping shots :D

Home cooked dinner! Ber made fabulous kong ba!!!! YUMMMMY!! and i made my second yummy curry too :)

Morning before whalewatching! My ai xin gourmet breakfast, hehe.

on the boat to whale watching. different combinations of us.

the whale watching trip was not bad. but most of the time spent waiting for the whales to come. but they are very friendly and curious creatures, and they'll come to you if you make noises. it was pretty far, until all of a sudden the whales came so close in. my camera was on a zoom mode, and i only caught photos of just its body. lol. well, they said it's the closest the whales came to the boat so far, hehe, cos we need to be at least 100m away from the whales for safety reasons.

had a 5 for 1 lunch. lol. vibe hotel's toilet was gorgeous. even had makeup area.. hehehe. bernard with all our cocktails in the day! oysters and prawns in redcliffe at night!!! crazy judy wore shorts in the cold winter night. haha.

oh, and they went to sunshine coast too! :)

the last night was crazy again. we boozed at home, and played card games, till i can't remember what time.. hahaha 3am? fun and laughter! hehehe :D

the morning before they fly! bernard cooked up scrumptous scallops for breakfast! :D

it's a wonderful wonderful trip :D

a nightmare weekend

2009-07-27T14:50:00.003+10:00

well, in a gist, me and alan got into a car accident on friday night.

i just thought of writing it out, cos i'm filled with anger, pain, and a tinge of helplessness. we stopped at a traffic light, for more than 30 seconds already, and a car rammed into us at a relatively high speed. alan suffered a whiplash injury, whilst i hit my head and got a concussion and suffered a mild whiplash as well. i was angry, because the person that hit us was 80 years old. so much of the irony of doing my honours project regarding older people driving. while we are saying that they suffer the negative impact of stopping driving due to reduced social and community mobility, we were hit by these very people we were trying to help because they are still on the roads!

we went to the hospital. and the guy was still defending himself by saying he was changing lanes, and the car behind him was near him, and to quote him, he said he was in a dilemma, and he hit us. please, i don't care whether u were in a dilemma or whether it was ur fault while changing lanes, but the fact still stands that you hit us. he did not want to pay for the medical bills, insisting that we paid upfront and claimed from his insurance. he offered no apologies whatsoever, and no concern about our injuries.

i just felt a sense of helplessness and really, more of anger. we were in no fault, but at the end of the day, the people who suffered the short end of the stick were us. even though medical bills would be covered eventually, we suffered the pain during the weekend. and i had to go to the hospital emergency 3 times this weekend. on friday night, the doctor said to go back to the hospital immediately if i were to vomit. i vomitted on sat, and went back, and i freaking waited for almost 5 hours, yet i did not manage to see a doctor. and i had the first drip of my life (i'm scared of needles and it hurts). they tried 4 times before getting the needle into the back of my hand, and spilled my blood on the sheets -.- then i went home at 4am, feeling more tired than anything. on sunday, went to a private hospital instead, and i should be fine, at least by the end of today. could he ever have paid for these hassles and worries?

i am so pissed at the driver. he shouldn't be let driving on the roads. his reflexes were slow, and he constantly forgot our names or what information had he written down. while parking to exchange details, he almost hit our car again. great job. we certainly need to have tighter laws for them to be driving on the roads.

I love this present

2009-07-15T11:32:00.011+10:00

thank you edward for such a wonderful birthday gift for both of us! :) hehe, a little project that me and alan had to complete, putting our favourite photos in this beautiful photo frame.. hehehe. it sits in the living room perfectly now :D

hehe. we haven't developed photos since forever. hahaha, almost 3 years of photos now. as we browsed through the photos, it was great letting all the memories come back. the many things we did together, the many roadtrips we took together, and the laughter, fun and joy shared.

anyway, my long 3 months holidays is soon coming to an end!!!! gasps. i have been very blessed during this 3 months, hahaha, and doing a lot of travelling, and now being really really very broke. did 5 trips in total, and gonna do another one this coming friday. i'm still sorting photos from the last trip when judy and bernard came!! i miss u so so so so much!!!!!! haha, so 6 trips in 3 months, and i'm really thankful and happy. And i've been very happy ever since the start of this year, really happy :D

Singapore - end of autumn, ahh no, it's humid and HOT

2009-06-20T22:14:00.013+10:00

I went back to singapore at the end of this autumn, just the day before the floods came to brisbane. and singapore was so humid, the air was so dense, i felt that i was drowning (nobody understands this drowning concept!!)

anw i meant to blogged this earlier, but now, i kinda forgot what i wanted to say post-singapore trip. the trip was short and sweet. stayed for 2 weeks, was what my mum called a prelude to my singapore life next year onwards (and forever). i know, those who met me, i can't stop complaining about the ridiculous and insane heat and humidity. it was really hot and humid k, it wasn't like that in december! and i had to shower at least 3 times a day.

i just have to say it! it's 34 freaking degrees. and when i came back to brisbane 2 weeks later, it was 14 degrees, and then it plunged down to 3 degrees. i can harp on and on about the heat.

and i enjoyed this singapore trip (despite the heat). met up with almost everyone i wanted to meet, enjoyed every lunch time with my parents and every night out with my besties! too bad jingwen and constance are on their europe grad trip (envious!) whilst i'm back, yea, and their grad trip is longer than my trip back to singapore. hahaha.

not many photos taken this trip. didn't go anywhere particularly special, but it was special just meeting up with everyone in the middle of the year, in fact, it was only 4 months when i last saw everybody. hahaha. it was good nonetheless. i really enjoyed hanging out and chilling out!!! with my crazy cuz giving her my heated palms, twinny and fish catching up old times, judy and ber on our sashimi craze, judy with our manicure and pedicure obsession since last hols! and our trip down to pub, my wednesday night high with nini and all the best till long after when i see u again (can't believe u're gonna study again!), mingwei at ps cafe at dempsey - nice place, great company, and the newly weds stephy and vernon congrats again!

and the trip was made to see my dad too. whom, seems really fine and active now! :) and family's good. although the whole 2 weeks was all complains about my previous maid. well, i'm not staying in the house on a long-term basis, cos if i were, she would have driven me up the wall too. she has practically stolen everything she could have stolen, used every means to earn money (and i just felt disgusted mentioning the super ugly side of her - yucks - prostitution). it's not that i wanna despise maids, but hello, no sense of morality? i never did like maids, and the house never did have a maid until i went overseas, and i still can't grow on the idea of having a maid. still, hope the next one is better.

a doctor set that i bought for val. check out her expression. i told her that patients doesn't like angry doctors.

and this is what she gave me after i told her to smile at her patients. this is just classic. and she's getting way too smart for her age.

drinks at timbre! good band, good company, what more can i say! although on the same night, i was commenting to judy about lack of local university friends. i still wished that i have local uni peeps! but i guess, one can't ask for too much eh.

yummy sashimi!

hahaha. i know some of u think that this is very cool. LOL. pubbing with my family.

last but not least, to wrap it all up, oh sweet lovely (hot) singapore, this is my niece and her non-stop singing and talking.

reconnaissance trip for Judy - Springbrook Mountain!!

2009-06-12T15:50:00.000+10:00

Roadtrip!!!!!

Judy's coming end of this month, i'm SUPER excited!!!!!! hehehee, we've got most things planned out and i'm a happy happy happy girl :D

This is a reconnaissance trip for Judy, in case it turns out to be some flop, and she could skip this, i need to find another word greater than GPGS to describe u... hahahahhaa. But it was a fun trip, and u missed out on this!!! grr.

Drove up slopy mountains!! This time, our trip was to springbrook mountain, and i must give credit to mingwei for recommending me such an awesome place, thanks!!!! :D

Our first picnic together. Hahaha, we started preparing the night before, and hurriedly in the morning. Since i've developed a love for cooking since the start of this year, haha, i've been trying all sorts of different things! So we had a scrumptious picnic lunch!!! Grilled turkish bread with smoked salmon (inspired by shumei :p), toasted croissant with ham and brie cheese, egg mayo and ham sandwich, salad (my patient taught me on my last prac, lol), and a whole container of fresh grapes and strawberries! YUMMY! It was freaking cold the whole day. Brisbane is going into a cold snap! Temperatures are dropping to 5 degrees during the night time, reaching a low of 3 degrees in the middle of the night. Some places in the greater brisbane suburbs are waking up to subzero temperatures, very rare of Queensland i must say.

My bushwalking attire (ooo, our second bushwalk!), was quite retarded this time, i was wearing berms, and 3 layers of tops and scarf at one point. hahaha. but it was so cold, and luckily i brought extra layers! haha.

Recently i'm quite into walking i think, lol. Considering me and alan had been to most parts of the greater brisbane, haha, we decided to explore them in depth this time. and it was also partly inspired by previous colleagues bushwalking experiences! well, nice way to enjoy australia in my last year, and also a slow attempt to burn off my massive amounts of tummy fats. and i'm proud to say that i'm jogging more frequently now too! the thought of joining another standard chartered is popping into my mind again, what say you judy? hahaha. but no more full marathons again, lol, one is enough.

alan at the mountain top.

Halfway through the walk, this is a small waterfall. So small that the photos don't show any water, lol.

And then.... we reached the end!!!! the Purlington Falls!!!!

AMAZING VIEW!!!!!! Thanks to the huge rain that poured the day before, there was plenty of water, hence the waterfall is more massive too!!! It was an amazing sight. Check out the rainbow created through refraction of light (i think it's refraction? lol). Check out the video i took of the waterfall. hehe.

Yup, the view is really that nice. This is why i absolutely love the nature in australia. you'll never get such natural beauty in singapore, and it testifies to god's amazing creation! :)

And we walked BEHIND the waterfall. I have to admit that is retarded too, although i would still do it over and over again. Cos yup, it was freezing cold in winter, and we got ourselves wet.. HAHA. But i LOVED it. And cos mingwei told me about walking behind the waterfall and getting wet, hahaha, i wore a PONCHO! HAHA. I do look a bit stupid, but i don't care. haha. i'm just short of wearing wellingtons!

A video of us walking behind the waterfall. Although the real thing is that we got much wetter than shown in the video (and cold too). And i just risked my camera (it says it's splash proof, haha), although it came out dripping wet. But it's still working fine now! haha.

Alan chose to carry an umbrella instead of donning a poncho. hehe. and it overturned. lol.

Me and my yellow WYD poncho! hehe.

A shot that i took under the waterfall. :D

After walking back, we drove up to the top of Springbrook Mountain to see the lookout called "best of all lookouts". hehe.

I'm trying to increase my knowledge of flora and fauna, so i do try to read the signs along the way. This walk has this Antarctic beech, and this tree is 2000 years old. It's one of our remaining links with the ancient times (as it was claimed), and it's in the high rainfall areas in the east coast when Australia drifted north from Antarctica about 38 to 45 million years ago.

Here's a view from the best of all lookouts. And we're standing on top of a volcano!!!!

This was formed by volcanic activities and also due to the drifting of australia from antartica...

And a paranomic video of it.

Then we drove to this place called the Natural Bridge (and then we realised, we're just next to new south wales already) hehee.

In this place, you can see glow worms in their natural habitats in their caves. well, there's a glowworm research centre in springbrook itself that we can go and see glowworms, but the tour starts at 7pm, and we found ourselves too cold to wait for it. So, we decided to come here instead!

Anyway, the population of glowworms significantly reduces during winter, so, alas, we didn't get to see any in the end! Boos. But i actually feel abit disgusted at the thought of looking at many worms together at the same time hanging over our heads (albeit glowing helps alleviate the disgusting thoughts), and alan didn't understand why i was still keen to see it. but i just wanna... hahaha.

So here's natural bridge!

This is inside a cave. I must say, the view is FANTASTIC! A very magical and enchanted feeling. feels kinda like some WU XIA show though, where u have a cave. hahaha.

Yup, meant to see glowworms inside this cave, but nopes, not one spotted.

Here is where the water came from.
As i was getting so hyped up about seeing glowworms, this is a very random photo that we took on our way back, that KINDA resembles glow worms. yes, it does kinda look like that, hanging off the top of the caves glowing. but obviously these are just streetlamps taken by my shaky hands in a moving car at night. hahaha. anyway, the reason i took this photo was that the MOON WAS SO HUGE AND ROUND AND YELLOW that night. I wondered if anyone noticed, that the moon over the queen's birthday weekend was super huge? And nopes, no good shots of the moon either. hehe.

a time to relax

2009-06-06T14:05:00.005+10:00

I just thought, rather than constantly engaging in voyeurism (through facebook), I should just burn my idling time by blogging instead.

A little update.. just before i went back to singapore.. went to this nice coffee place with ming ming..

The drinks were quite mediocre, but the deco of the place is nice :)

and they sell pretty flowers (expensive though).. hahaha.

just a short entry, and i'm bored to tears trying to write up a draft for my honours thesis! *pulls out hair*

sunshine coast roadtrip 3-4may09

2009-05-19T10:50:00.002+10:00

Indeed blessed with a fun time this year. another roadtrip!

4th may, being our labour day, we decided to make use of the opportunity of the long weekend! one of my favourite patients at my previous placement has recommended to take a trip up to mooloolaba, and hence sparked the idea of just taking a road trip to sunshine! it's somewhere at the beginning of sunshine coast. and i love it :) also, during this trip, we went to explore some other places of sunshine coast that we never did the previous time..
our first time doing bushwalking! haha, we only tried for a level 2 walk (out of 6 levels) and it took longer than expected. Man, i can't imagine doing the 10km bushwalking, all the different terrain and nature, but would love to try!

so our first bushwalking at obi obi creek, which is in the region of somewhere between maleny and mapleton. we actually planned for another bushwalking after this, but man did we not expect the long to be longer, and the drive to be so much further. but very satisfied with the first bushwalking. i wished i knew more of plants, animals and nature. Nonetheless, it was great.

A paranomic shot of the creek and of the rocks. Yes, we walked the whole stretch, jumping and helping each other out walking from rock to rock, and i was more of like crawling -.- haha.

it looks different when u're there though. cos the left side of the paranoma is different from the right. hence, we decided to walk over the other side, but the photos below look like it's the same view-but it's different k! haha. i broke out in perspiration after that, considering that the weather is quite cooling.

alan is actually on the top of rock, blame my poor photography skills which couldn't really capture that.

and i just sat on top of the rock.
Tree with a hole. I dunno what's wrong with it, but alan said it's a lightning stricken tree. I have so little knowledge! rar.

Then we drove to Mooloolaba :) Didn't manage to take a photo of the row of shops, but it's quite refreshing to shop there though.. Although i'm feeling quite broke. haha.

And we visited the loo with a view! hahaha. apparently it became an icon there. but it's actually a platform above (us in the photo) and toilets below.

Had lunch at the sand bar.

A photo at Mooloolaba Beach.

At the rocks.. It was a BEAUTIFUL view.

And while we were there, there were THREE wedding couples taking photos!! omg. but yea, it was gorgeous!!! they were all fighting for the best spots.. hahaha. with the sunset and the light hitting their faces, plus the waves hitting the rocks behind them and shooting high up, the scene was just amazing. most of the time, we just stood and watched, hehee, until all of them were finished then we started taking photos.. haha.

Just one of the wedding couples.. they've got really good shots.. lucky ones! haha.

That's us with the waves behind us..

It was such an AMAZING scenery that we stood there for ages.. the feeling is so surreal, so close to the sea, and the water just shoots up high. I could stay there forever.

A video of the scene.. Although this might not be the best ones, there's one where the water splattered onto us, but didn't manage to catch that..

My current fav photo of us :)

Then we said goodbye to the rock and saw this steve irwin statue.

We headed to Maroochydore.. Drove around and went to Sunshine plaza. Looks SO similar to the pacific fair in goldcoast.. haha.

we had chocolate fondue! yummmm. Alan's first fondue! hehehe. they had pretzels and churros! yummy!! and it's nice to eat hot chocolate on a cold night :)

Then we drove down to Eumundi! Haha, we've actually been to eumundi in one of our trips, and wanted to stay the previous time, but it was too ex.. but i've got a cheap deal online this time! They had 4 suites, and we could pick our own choice!

Then we headed to NOOSA!!!! I've always heard from the locals that sunshine coast is much better than gold coast - it's less touristy and nicer! and i finally got to see that!!! hahaha, at first me and alan were doubting about the truth of this, cos the previous time we came to sunshine, we didn't manage to visit noosa and mooloolaba, we went to more of glasshouse area and montville.. we thought it was pretty, but it wasn't similar to goldcoast to make a comparison so as to speak.. but noosa, IS really like goldcoast, but nicer. although it doesn't have the worlds (which i don't care anyway), but the view of it is really nice.. And a nice place to walk around, feels very resorty-ish.

At the Noosa beach.

And then, more walking!!! hehehee, but this is not bushwalking lar.. got paved way to walk.. but we did walk for very long.. took us around 1.5hours or 1hr45min for both ways..

In Noosa National Park!!

So we walked and walked.. went to different points of the walking trail..

Here is alan at Little Cove..

And then we continued walking... hahaha. to dolphin point, and dunno what.. our destination was to reach Hell's gate.. and along the way, we kept guessing why the name Hell's gate.. haha. alan guessed it was rocks that looks like hell's gates? hahaa, i was guessing that it must be the sounds that sounded like hell, cos when we were nearing hell's gate, could hear the sound of the wind!!

Well, but seriously, it was such a long walk, we just thought to ourselves that it better be good. and after a certain point, there's no paved road anymore, just soil.. and both of us were in haviannas, so improper to walk in.. hahaha. cos the previous points that we saw looked pretty much similar..

And then, we reached Hell's Gate.

Words can't describe, but OH MY GOSH. It is NOT the scene of Hell's gate that blew me away, it was just the entire feeling. I dunno why it's so weird, but it's like a world of its own, once u step foot on the soil of Hell's Gate, it's a MULTISENSORY experience! The wind, was CRAZY. It was at least 60-70km/hr. It was close to or even stronger than the ones i experienced in the swiss alps.

And therefore, not a lot of photos, cos we can't even stand still, like seriously. We had to keep holding each other. And when one of us tried to take a photo, we had to literally hold each other to not fall off the cliff, and it's really u have to use your strength. So many times the wind just literally blew us off our feet, and we had to stumble to find our grip on the soil.

The wind was howling, and the waves crashed against the rocks. In your hair, right in your face, the wind blows towards you, showing no mercy. This is when both of us felt the power of nature. It is, really, the power of nature, it was so strong, and u could feel how small and little power u have as human beings.. It was beautiful, yet so surreal, so naturey, so strong, and so almighty. I felt god in the presence of all this, i know it's ironic since it's hell's gate. but u could see how powerful, and how flawless is the creation of god.

Here is a photo when i randomly snapped, can't capture much. haha! but i couldn't go nearer to the cliff. hahaha. Highly recommended place! i think it's quite rare to have this experience, so yea.... and it's free, cos it's a national park. haha.

Hehe, this is just a video to show how strong the wind is.

And it was so weird, just when we sorta "stepped out", it was all calm again. And when i meant "stepped out" it's cos there's no barrier whatsoever that separate the Hell's gates from the rest, but u could literally feel it, like u have stepped out of that zone.

Our messy hair after that. Alan's hair just totally ALL stood up. LOL LOL.

After that, we headed back to the main town, at lunch at Hastings street..

And went for the OCEAN RIDER!!!!!

WooHOOOOO. it was an exhilirating experience!!!!! Lasted for slightly more than 1 hour!! It was GREAT!! The person steering the boat said that today's weather and sea condition is very choppy, so we could bounce off the wave.. Hehehe. so during the ride, we had to half squat (za ma bu!) hahaha. and just bouncing like how u would ride a horse.. And it feels like a rollercoaster ride.. My heart went to my mouth everytime we were at the top of the wave, and then just before we plunge back to the sea.. it was AWESOME! and during the ride, not only did we bounce off the waves, but there were sudden turns and zooms, hehe, yup, and it's faster than a speed boat.. hahahahahaa. and yes, i screamed. haha.

It was so worth it!!!! I truly enjoyed every moment of it.. :D

And then, someone on our boat spotted a dolphin!!!! so we went towards it!!! The guide said that he didn't expect to see dolphins at all today cos it was so choppy, and the winds were so huge. And so we got the best of both worlds!!! Choppy sea for a tremendous thrilling experience, and dolphins!!!!!

This is how CLOSE we were to the dolphins.. Some of them manage to touch it, but i didn't.. but i've never been so UPCLOSE to a dolphin before... and man can u feel their endophins and happiness. They kept making the dolphin sounds, and it's so happy, and kept playing with us, going down into the water and up, and bouncing up and down. hehehee, looking at them just makes u so happy.

We saw SO MANY DOLPHINS! oh my gosh, i totally LOVE this trip. Hehe, and i didn't know the hole on top of the dolphin's head is SO BIG. hahahahaha. we saw big dolphins, and baby ones too.. hehehhee. they just all kept coming.. hehehehe.

and one of the MOST BEAUTIFUL scenes is that once we moved off away from the dolphins, they started chasing us, and they jumped right into the air, in a semicircle, i just had to say, WOW.

Happy all of us :D
God blessed us with such a wonderful trip, with such wonderful weather throughout the whole trip as well! Before the trip, i checked that it was gonna rain, and i was kinda disappointed.. but it was sunny throughout!!

Hehe, until on our way back, it started pouring like mad. and we watched the pouring rain with the sunset, in the car as we drove back.. :)

It's a short but AMAZING trip. The scenes, the bushwalking, the rocks, the Hell's gates, the ocean rider, the dolphins (and it's cheap too, haha, the dolphins was a bonus and free haha!). I LOVED IT!!!!! *BIG BIG GRIN*

our birthday celebration

2009-05-15T09:20:00.012+10:00

hehe. this is one of our sweetest birthdays :) this is our third bday together, and i enjoy celebrating with you so much :D yup, alan's just one day older than me!

we started off with having a seafood buffet at palazzo versace in gold coast!! everything's by versace. haha.

the seafood buffet was awesome!! we had big prawns, crabs, crayfish (moreton bay bugs), oysters, clams, squids, fish, roast pork, and many more.. as everyone would know, of course we had our worth! hahaha. and we ate oysters till we are so so satisfied. yup, i know we make such good buffet eaters. hehehe, and we got a special cocktail, called the strawberry bliss for our bdays! hehe.
and not to forget the wonderful desserts! hehehe. the variety was just so hugeeeee. we really ate till so full. hahaha.

around the hotel. everything looks so posh.

at the hotel lobby.

and on alan's actual bday. i prepared a little surprise for him! i lighted the house with tealight candles from the door to the dining table.. and i blew up balloons too. haha!

we had the tealight candles lit up for the whole night, till they went off by itself. towards the end, we sat there and enjoyed the flickering candles. i love romantic :)

i cooked for him prawn mian sian. haha. and bought cupcakes.

then on the night before my bday, alan surprised me with my bday present!!! LOVES. swarovski crystal pendant!! hehe. hugs!

and the next night on my bday itself, after i finish doing a stupid online exam, he surprised me with a baskin robbins ice cream cake!! i was so touched! i never expected toot alan to surprise me with anything ever, haha, but he did! i was more than happy! yup, and he said he can't believe i was so oblivious when he was sneaking around the house and putting the cake into the fridge first.. hahaa. i was doing exam mah!

a couple of days later, my edward, mingsia and gerard surprised me in the city!! thanks guys!!!! :D i really appreciate it :)

although this photo is quite blurry, hehee, but i like it, we were having fun! i love these people.. hehehe, edward gave me and alan this project to do as our present, will show once we're finished with it!

and thanks ming ming for the wonderful wonderful hand cream, haha, it's really effective! :D
i really enjoyed this birthday, i wished it never ended. hehee, in our birthday week, we also went out with jin jin and kay to the hyperdome, and we had a meal at the manors :D i like all these simple joys, and it has been a really meaningful bday with people i love :D

Melbourne - Easter 2009

2009-05-09T16:58:00.000+10:00

This melbourne trip is AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!! fun fun fun.

The first night i went to melbourne, met up with jiali. And spent the rest of my whole melbourne trip with shumei :) Needless to say, i had heaps of good chinese food, not to mention, the famous chomp chomp in melbourne. YUMMM! food is so good i ate so much. hehehe.

Next morning, went to St Francis' church with shumei for Easter mass, which is the oldest church in Victoria. Then we made our way down to rent a car for our R.O.A.D.T.R.I.P!! I absolutely LOVE roadtrips :) and this is the first time i'm renting a car!! and drove by myself, and it was successful - no accidents or speeding fines. hehehehe. and we got a free upgrade to a bigger car - HAHA. And drove 350km in total! :D fun fun fun!

First stop, we headed down to mornington peninsula. The last time i went to melbourne, i went to mornington peninsula briefly, and i didn't know it was like the entire big area, stretches over several towns, and there's so many activities around.

Beach houses at mornington peninsula. It is bright and sunny, which is gorgeous! hehe, the first few days of melbourne were indeed not cold at all, which is great!

Then we went down to portsea for snorkelling!!! It was FUN! There was supposed to be 6 people going for snorkelling, but they were very late, so we started without them! hahaha. so we got the snorkelling guide all to ourselves, muahahaha, which is really great, cos it's so personalised!

Well, i had my reservations about snorkelling in melbourne during autumn, cos it'll be freaking cold. But to my surprise, we weren't cold at all! although the water is at 18degrees or lesser, we were damn fine, haha, cos we got super duper thick wetsuits. It really made a lot of difference, cos i couldn't even feel the cold at all, not even the initial entering water kinda cold.

I enjoyed this snorkelling trip very much, cos we got to see lotsa lotsa things! Although the sea environment is not very nice, no sunken ships or pretty corals, but just to be able to see so many sea creatures makes it a very very good snorkel! And, of course, cos there's only 2 of us, the guide dived down and grabbed everything up for us to see, lol. and it feels like a private snorkelling trip. hahaa.

And my favourite is the puffer fish!!! HAHA. it's SO DARN CUTE. it looks cuter in real life than in the picture. hahahahaa. it squirts out water like a little kid, and though u can't really see its eyes here, in real life, the eyes are so small,round and beady. hahahaha. and when u let it go back into the water, it sorta inflates and deflates. hahaaha. loves loves loves.

We also saw seabiscuit (clockwise after the puffer fish), sea horse, cuttlefish. hahaha. the way the cuttlefish moves is quite funny though! hahahaha. And many sea dragons, one stingray, and something called feather something, i can't remember. hahaha. and we saw a abalone, which he threw back into the sea, which i thought, yup, fair enough, don't take anything from the sea. and the next moment, the guide saw a lobster, and he took it home -.- Yup, as evidenced by the photo, he was indeed pleased with his lobster catch..rarrrrrr. i ask him to catch another lobster for us, and he just said no luck..boohoos, then why throw away the abalone?! anw, we both look very bloated in the photo, i dunno why, just came up from the sea. haha.

Then we went down to mornington peninsula national park.

Cape Schnack. The lighthouse during sunset. This place kinda feels like byron bay, but i somehow felt this place is slightly nicer. :D Although i was there for sunset, and sunrise for byron bay, both places feel the same with the lighthouse. hahahaha. but ya, it is great :D

After sunset, dinner and a good night's sleep, it's the next bright and sunny day! :D

Hot babe with our car :D The car, well, indeed is our living place. we treated the car like a storage space, a changing room, a clothes airer, a shoe rack, and everything. the insides of the car is so messy, we took a photo of it, but i'm just too embarrased to post it. hahaha.

First up, we went to Sorrento Ocean Beach...

And then we went to the famous london bridge. Hehe, this is a particularly fun trip for me, as i saw Melbourne in a not so touristy way. My previous melbourne trip i went on the great ocean road, saw the 12 apostles (only left 8 when i was there i think), yarra valley, phillip island to see the penguins and other touristy stuff. But this time, i got to experience melbourne fully with all the fun activities. This london bridge is actually at the back beach, and it's along the other side of great ocean road, the left of melbourne is great ocean road that leads to 12 apostles, the right is the great ocean road that is mornington peninsula. Check out the bridge and the hole!

When we went under the "bridge" which was quite like a cave, i just thought it felt like the sun wu kong's that hua shan dong/hua lian dong? i can't remember the name. hahahahaha.

Then we headed down to point nepean! It is a fort built from the 1880's to the 1st and 2nd world war. and there's even unexploded mines! but of course there was barb wire fencing around it. and there are cannons, tunnels and fort like stuff. and this place wasn't open to the public till 1988.

Inside the fort.

Then the afternoon was spent HORSERIDING!!! WOOHOOOO!!! This is a once in a lifetime experience!! My interactions with horses have been to a minimum, and the most i've riden on a horse it's when it's slowly strolling with someone pulling it. BUT, this is the first time i'm actually RIDING a horse!!! heehhee. that means, we actually steer the horse and control their speed!!! my horsie's name is heidi, which is a really really naughty fellow. hehehe. she kept eating whenever we stop, grrrrrr, and it's not like owner like horse k. and before we started, she was so restless, she can't even stand still, kept weight shifting around.

gallop..gallop..gallop.. hehehehe. so fast, i love it when the horse actually gallops.... hehehehehe. although it resulted in sore butt muslces and knee cap due to the constant standing up and down while bouncing on the horse. hehehe. but this is a FABULOUS experience. everybody should try!! :D

we rode for 2 hours. through the bush and to the beach. it was gorgeous, and what a wonderful feeling is that! I really LOVE horseriding :D

some photos when we stop for a break at the sea.

through the bush.

and we headed to the beach at rosebud/ rye.

and this is our accomodation for the night! cheap and pretty, and free buffet breakfast, muahahaha.

next we went to sunny ridge strawberry farm! hahaa, we ate $20 worth of strawberry/strawberry icecream,fondue.. hahaa.

then we went to frankston. a very pretty place, i love how the bridge stretches across, and the sea narrows to a river through.

at frankston, we went to DINOSTORY, which is a sand sculpture. it's really quite amazing, cos it's all sculpted to such intricate details. shumei said last year was fairy theme, i could imagine how nice it would be! i guess this year is for the boys then. haha. but i got to increase my very minimal knowledge of dinosaurs.

Took a short tour around Melbourne university.

After another round of hearty chinese meal, we went to watch CIRQUE DU SOLEIL!!! My very first circus show. gosh, i have to say that it is AMAZING. and the humans contort their bodies till i can't recognise whether it's butt/ hand/ leg. and it's funny too! i didn't expect it to be funny, but yes, many funny elements, shall not say here to spoil the surprise element of it if anyone is going to watch this show (dralion). i had a smashing good time, the show is fantastic, and the audience and the atmosphere of the place is indeed great. i wanna watch more shows from cirque du soleil!

The next day was SO COLD. so freaking cold. the past few days have been hot and sunny, as evidenced by our photos, we're just simply in tshirts and shorts. but it was freaking cold over night. covered shoes, jeans, jacket and scarf. not a big fan of cold weather.

we started off the day by visiting the museum. which is much better than i thought! it's big and huge, with lotsa things, better than singapore museum, and it's FREE. hahahaha. for people with a little time at hand, can go to the museum for a visit! :D

albeit freezing in coldness, we had icecream. Gelato Freddo icecream on lygon street. YUMMMYYYYYYY. Nicest icecream i ever had. Had durian icecream, which was heavenly. Missed it the last time i was in melbourne, cos it's closed during winter. heheehe, yummm yummmmm.

The day was spent shopping in Melbourne cbd. I'm really not a big fan of shopping during cold times, hate the feeling of having to pile on clothes and then peel them off when u're in the shops. so i kinda just avoid trying clothes as much as possible.

Then we went to the newly opened harbourtown. Although not all shops are fully open, i think that it will be a shopping haven when all shops are open! great variety :D Melbourne eye is in harbourtown.

At the pretty docklands during sunset :D Nice and tranquil environment. Admittedly, i was too cold to enjoy it fully.

More city sights. Federation square, flinders train station, wharf, and i forgot the last one.

Next day was spent CYCLING!!!! Our first stop, queen victoria gardens.

cycled on the grand prix track. but they're in the process of removing some of the tracks, so wasted!

then it's on to albert park.

Then we made our way of the city, and cycled to St Kilda!!

St Kilda's Pier

At St Kilda's beach.

Luna park! which is a theme park.

Then we cycled on further to Brighton Beach Houses! These are the original beach houses in Melbourne, and those featured in postcards.

Then we had a picnic lunch there :)

Our last stop of our cycling trip at Yarra river before we headed back to Federation Wharf.

St Paul's Cathedral in the city.

The insides of the church with the pipe organ.This is at the top of the ceiling, called "lantern" and so it lights up part of the cathedral naturally. It is the tainted glass above. hehe.
Last morning at queen victoria market! hehe. so near shumei's house, so we walked there. i love the markets, cos they have fresh seafood! man, it's just so hard to find fresh seafood in brisbane which is anywhere near the city. we had yumm yummm german sausages for very good hot chocolate for brekky!

Our last photo before i fly back to brissy! It was an awesome time!! Trips with you are always so so exciting and fun!! :D

my new house :)

2009-04-10T21:44:00.000+10:00

My new place!! I LOVE my new place! i LOVE my house! hahahaha. i've been here since december, and i've been loving it ever since. Love how cozy the house feels, love how close the ammenities are, love how good the facilites are, love how it's close to the city, love being next to the Brisbane river.. love it!

This is my room!

The view out of the window in my room.
Actually, this is my favourite part of my house. hahaha. i love how the mirrors are so huge. 4 panels! and so much storage space too!

Study area.

My kitchen.. love how we have gas stove (like finally!), and everything's so neat and dry now hehe. And love the long kitchen bench top at the sink area :D

My living area.

Balcony. Didn't take photo of the other part of the balcony cos i was doing laundry then. heh. My swimming pool.

Gym.

Some of the shops near my place. I live next to oxford street, which is just simply awesome :) Everything is just 2 minutes away! From the supermarket, to restaurants, bars, banks, shops. :)

and 2 minutes away from the ferry :)more shops. ooo. and the middle picture is the cinema! it's quite classy looking inside, love it!

My first bbq housewarming!

Some of us girls at the pool.
the OTs and speechies.

My 2nd potluck and bbq housewarming with my WYD friends :D

hehe. great times :D
I just wished this year could be longer! :D

lent

2009-02-24T22:08:00.002+10:00

tomorrow is ash wednesday. which also marks the beginning of lent. for those who might not know, or not familiar with, lent is a period of time (which starts tommorow) all the way up to good friday, and we celebrate easter with joy. honestly, i haven't given much thought to lent this year. in fact, admittedly, i haven't given it much thought ever since quite a few years ago. and i do want to think about it, and i do want to do something about it. last year has been slightly better, as i was made to think about lent in preparation for world youth day. and last year, my lenten promise is to make my daily prayers. it is no surprise to myself that that didn't last quite long. i wanna make a promise this year, but i dunno what. my new parish at saint peter and paul sent out an invitation to join ministries. it has lots and lots of ministries, which i'm quite surprised to come from an australian catholic church actually. i've been trying to make slow and prayerful discernment, and i more or less set my heart for st vincent de paul (organisation to help the poor and needy). last sunday when i went for mass, i was kinda hesitating, and i didn't hand that form back in. but i will do so this coming sunday.

before all these doesn't make sense, i shall talk about my 3rd prac. this time i'm working in a private rehabilitation hospital, and i have a caseload of inpatients and outpatients. it has been a steep learning curve, and this being my last prac, i'm determined to make the most out of it. the first few weeks have been not bad, learning lots, and still finding myself learning new things everyday, which i must say, is very different to my 2nd prac. as many of u would know, my 2nd prac, at a horrible place, was indeed horrible. this 3rd prac, would be the closest i could find to something that i would expect when i return to singapore. i know that's still worlds apart, but it's still based in a physical hospital context.

the rewards of this prac is satisfying. having my own caseload and patients, i received much words of appreciation. although i shouldn't have favourites, my favourite patient has just invited me to barbeque lunch at her place near the beach when she fully recovers from her stroke :) she's gonna be discharged soon, and she say that she'll be in touch. her recovery is amazing, and i've never seen someone half as motivated as her. yet, admist all the satisfaction, there is still something missing. it felt right, but not too right. i must say, i still loved my first prac with people with intellectual disability the most.

it just felt so right then. i always had ideas about what to do, what activities to conduct, how to go about trying new things, making things work. i had immense drive to find out more. i do have a desire for learning right now, but it's just not as much. and i guess working environment makes a hell lot of difference too. in an environment where we care for people with intellectual disability, we are not productivity or goal driven in that sense, that we didn't have a deadline for something to be achieved. everything is seen as a long term goal, and being there itself, doing simply something is therapeutic in nature for these guys. in a physical setting, u want to see results, the faster the better. colleagues are too busy for you. at least that's what i find. i love the patient satisfaction, but colleague interaction is nothing more than seeing people just stoning and trying to relax in the lunch room, talking about patients, and talking about their lives where nobody seems to really pay attention or care. i loved 1st prac, because it gave me a feeling of home, a feeling where people really did care. i loved my supervisor at my 1st prac, because she allowed me to develop my skills as a therapist i would like to be. my supervisor now is no doubt a very very good therapist, but i certainly didn't like the way i was forced to learn to be exactly the same. i don't want to be the same. every therapist is different! this lent, as it brings me back to my topic, is perhaps just overcoming the many obstacles i can forsee ahead i guess.

anyway, i'm partly ranting. and partly overflowing with thoughts. hopefully my thoughts will gather soon, and i will write something that makes more sense. lol. and my dad is doing good, returning to his job. which according to my mum, makes him better than ever. occupational identity i must say! and thank you everybody for prayers. :)

and, i'm having a wonderful time in australia now :) my new house is great. i've been going to the gym and swimming at my place much more than ever. the weather is turning good and cooling. and i must say, i am indeed fortunate. just one of the places, neither affected by the flood, nor the bush fires.

as i ponder through the clouds

2009-01-31T11:25:00.003+10:00

this time surprisingly, on my flight from singapore to brisbane, i had lotsa thoughts. i had feelings of sadness, as tears welled up in my eyes, i didn't really wanna leave. although i have been complaining about the busy hectic singaporean life, i still had many things i didn't wanna put down.

many of you will know, those that have met up with me, that this holidays was like a god planned holiday. when i arrived back on 13th december, my dad's radiotherapy started on 15th december, and when i left on 30th january, his radiotherapy ended on 29th january. for a brief update for those who doesn't know, my dad has been diagnosed with cancer a few months ago in november. but thank god, both the benign and malignant tumour has been removed successfully. it is near the salivary glands, and there's a big surgical incision from below the ear to the bottom of the neck. it is stage 1 cancer, so we're all thankful. and it was a blessing in disguise, as my dad went into the operating theatre looking to remove his big benign tumour, but in the midst of the operation, they found a smaller malignant tumour, which they prolonged the surgery, and continued cutting further down. the doctor said that this cancer is rare and difficult to find, and usually when it's detected, it's already in the last stages of cancer. so i would really like to express my gratitude to god, for allowing my dad to discover it early and get treatment.

1 month after, he had to go through radiotherapy to remove all the cells in the surrounding area as a prevention to the spread of cancer. radiotherapy is a milder version of the commonly known chemotherapy. in the first week of radiotherapy, all went well, as i was driving my dad to the national cancer centre in SGH everyday. he had good appetite, and we went to many good eating places for lunch during the weekdays. weekends were spent further driving him to see chinese doctor in chinatown. as the weeks progressed, i feel a lot for him. he has been balding in patches at the back of his head, and his appetite decreased so much. he has lost 6kg. thankfully, the ulcers which are side effects of the therapy didn't affect him so much. however, he lost all taste to food. my dad, just like me, are great food lovers. and he just took the all-or-nothing approach as he refused to eat because the food has no taste. many times i had to tell him to smell the food and imagine the taste and it pains me. one day, the balding got so bad, we went to sports shops all around to hunt for caps. and all caps have that stupid hole at the back which doesn't really help! in the last week, the skin at his neck started to peel. it is a burn, and it's a burn so bad u know it's painful to touch and painful to shower. :( towards the end, my dad got very tired. i was glad that this time i came back with a reason. i know driving from woodlands to SGH is quite a hike, and it can be tiring with the never ending jams on the singapore roads. i was glad i was able to drive him to and fro everyday.

after the last treatment session, he was put on a 5 year followup plan. for the 1st year, it's a monthly followup, 2nd year it's every 2 months, then every 3 months for the 3rd year, every 4 months for the 4th year, and yearly for the 5th. it's a long and ardous process. in the final session, on the drive back home, my dad said to me that this year (2008/2009) has been horrible. he has sleep apnea, which is the temporarily stopping of breathing for a few seconds to a few minutes during sleep. it is a dangerous thing to have, to stop breathing, to stop transporting oxygen to your brain for that time. he is put on an oxygen mask while he sleeps. however, during this time of radiotherapy, he has to remove it, as it will press on the surgical wounds. he continues to snore, and i worry. he said, over this year, he has been getting weird rashes in his body, it is so itchy and unbearable. i could only say that i understand. life is as such and life is not a bed of roses. i said i suffered a lot of stupid sickness of these years as well too. yes, it's not that we don't take care of ourselves, but such things happen! time and time again, i was angry, i am angry why i have asthma, why i have eczema and psoriasis, why i have all sorts of things people don't have! but life is filled with sufferings. i can only say that we should be happy to be able to live each day as it passes. life isn't always as planned. for the many bad things we have, we have good things to make up for it too. and i'm thankful that my family is wonderful.

i hope my dad makes a full and successful recovery. prayers needed.

for those that i haven't been able to meet this holidays, or those that i haven't been able to meet up that often, thanks for understanding! :)

on a second issue. many has been asking how is it going between me and alan. it's good! our love is going strong at 2.5 years and still going. many asked what's going to happen when i graduate. yes, i'm going to come back to singapore and alan's going to stay in australia as he is applying for a permenant residency. many people have differing views, some just said why don't we just break up? no. because life is not always as we have planned. in terms of relationships, i'm glad that i've grown and matured. not so emotional anymore, but i can say that if it's meant to be it's meant to be. i can't expect alan to sacrifice and come to singapore, as i know that the future is not bright working in watsons/guardian as a pharmacist. he is not interested in research or hospital work. he is now in one of the top pharmacy in australia, and i'm happy for him. i dunno what's ahead for me, or for us for that matter, but i know i'm really happy now. i never felt so happy with anyone before, and i never felt so comfortable. he makes me smile, makes me laugh and makes me feel so at ease. as i said, what's meant to be is meant to be. i will not ask for more, but wish for a great year ahead for the both of us :) i love you.

on a third issue. yes, i've been dreading to come back singapore to return to work. i shall not mention where and what (though most of you know). yes, the system in singapore is world's apart compared to the australia health care system. i talked about breaking my freaking long bond. but as of now, well, due to no choice and lack of finances, i can't. but things will change for the better! i will do my best to deliver quality health care services. but i also have a dream, to be able to make a difference to the current system. put more emphasis on intellectual disability and mental health services. it's a far far dream, but i hope god gives me the strength and opportunities to do so. :D

and to all, happy chinese new year!! i'm now back in brisbane! just arrived yesterday. :) :) :) it's hot. haha. equally hot as singapore (phew). adelaide is 32 at its minimum, and 44 at its max!! brissy is 25-32. same as singapore. lol.

despite trying times, thank you daddy for putting me on SIA. as i strolled through the amazingly long terminal 3 (which i actually had to take an internal shuttle cos the walk was 16 minutes, freak), i am very thankful that daddy always wants the best for me. these 4 years i have always been on a SIA flight. i really appreciate it. and thanks goes to the air hostress who served me while i had a bout of gastric on the plane. and i was in the front row (haha, for free! usually u have to pay $50-$100 more), so i had lotsa leg room! yay.

placement's going to start on monday! i'm going to hit the books for the readings now!! i will try to post up entries of previous events, from long time holidays before till recent meetings. i promise!! :)

holidays made fun with friends

2009-01-25T23:14:00.000+10:00

meet up with bestie from aust!! :) congrats on your engagement!! really happy for you!!!! :D

and of course, gives me an opportunity to bully the housemate during your wedding! it is a must! auspicious k! and hopefully i can be back for ur ROM too! but ya, really happy for you guys. when u all marry already, don't whole day WOW ok. hahaha.

had a great time catching up over high tea! it is a really nice place to hang out :D

As you guys know, food is my life. i LOVE food to bits. so just a random picture of geylang frog leg porridge i had during my time in singapore! YUMMY! hahahahaha :)

Class outing with 73! such a small size for class outing!!!! hahaha. blame it on many being overseas and not back!!!!!! and all the rest of the busy classmates. haha. but met up with mad ugly monster constance first! hahahaha. which is fun!

girls just happen to be all in black. and jiaho is still smeeeeelllyyyy as ever. lol.

meeting up with wenrong!! our southern ridges walk has failed, but we still met up for a good meal at a german restaurant :) had fatty pork knuckles and fatty sausages!!!! and had a really nice beer, it's called hefe-weissbier paulner, apparently the number 1 weissbier in Germany. hehe.

had steamboat buffet at M hotel to celebrate nick's bday. got big drunken prawns. hehe.

One of the supper at some pub (secret place! hahaha) with zhemin and jingwen.

Meet up with Judy!!!!! we went to swiss culture at suntec city. it's such a GPGS deal!!! hahahaha. with judy it's always GPGS. from facials to yoga! hahaha. anw, so funny lar, she just said that she is one of the girls (i shall not mention where) that came with a good friend of the manager. so apparently if judy go again, she will enjoy 10% off! hahaha. and so, she mentioned that she is whoever's friend. and yay! we got 10% off.. hahaa. and on top of that, we had free ice lemon tea drinks, and free dessert!! and at the end, we each got a membership card. hahaa. at swiss culture and beach culture.. hehehehe. anw, the cheese fondue is good!! i LOVE GPGS JUDY! hahahahhaha. anw, our timbre trip failed, we went to timbre, and the queue is freaking ridiculous. so ya, not willing to wait there and queue. heh. this year no lao yu sheng! so no more pretty wishes!!! oh man!! and no cny mahjong session this year cos i'm leaving so early!!! boohoooos. but, more to come when i'm back for good! :D

make time stop!

2009-01-25T02:37:00.000+10:00

it's just such a great holiday. to be able to catch up with a very good friend, yang nini, for 3 years! couldn't see u for 3 whole years cos u're in london while i'm in brisbane and our holidays never ever met. although i've met u quite a few times this hols, this night is truly memorable! lol.

just like u said, it has been so long, but doesn't feel so long. we agreed that overseas has changed our opinions and perspectives, but it just feels the same with you :)

tonight has been great! i haven't sat at the bottom of the void deck for a long long time. and u brought many things down from ur house! and sitting at a fitness park, and talking till the wee hours of the night.

it was great.

i'm really glad that i've friends like that who are always there. no matter how far away, no matter how long since we saw each other face to face. as you said, that's why we need girlfriends! hahaa. although i wonder how much of a girlfriend are u, or more like a guy, lol.

and yewtee never felt so far. although it's only 2 stops away from my house, i think i'm better off taking the mrt. never drive to this ulu place! cos i had to pass by canals, army camps, and railway tracks. hahaha. no wonder during amazing race we could walk out of the muddiness to your house, lol.

the drive home is great. i really enjoy driving :) although i've been complaining a lot about singaporean drivers after driving for 6 weeks everyday. because people just have no driving courtesy, especially to that car who refused to give way to an ambulance. and not to mention all the ERP gantries, which i do my best to avoid. once i tried to wait for the ERP to close at 11am, so i was driving so slowly, and when it switched off, i sped up, and horrors to horrors, suddenly out of nowhere so many cars appeared, and there you go, a traffic jam. parking is crazy, and i try my best to look for free parking, and by the way, i'm surprised geylang has free parking. haha. but i really love driving, as i felt this feeling as i was driving alone at 1.30am. no cars (finally!!!), no traffic. the road is all mine. so i had no lane discipline, was just driving for driving itself. and humming to the tunes from the radio, i love it. if only roads are always that empty.

5 days more and i'm going back to brisbane. can't wait to go back, cos i do miss the peaceful and nothing to do lifestyle, yet at the same time i'll miss all my great friends and how i feel that if only time could stop and we could talk forever. :)

8 years of absence

2009-01-10T14:59:00.001+10:00

Have you had the feeling when you are wondering where that childhood friend of yours have gone to? I had that feeling a few years ago, tried to make some contact, but it was a futile attempt. All thanks to the invention of facebook, i managed to find a good primary school friend.

I was filled with apprehension before meeting her. And, so did she when we talked about it when we met. Remember the days when we talked about the imaginary basketball line, and the hours of conversation we used to have on the phone. After primary school, we didn't manage to keep much in contact, except for going to the zoo once, and i forgot what else was there. I remembered how her mum used to tell us, please please please don't laugh so loud in public. lol. I guess my laughing traced way back to last time. haha.

Fortunate are the younger generations now. We didn't use to have a handphone, oh well, we had pagers i remember! Haha, so it was really hard keeping in contact with your primary school friends. Moreover, we came from a neighbourhood school, so everyone went everywhere after PSLE. It wasn't like we were at a prestigious primary school where you know most of your classmates will continue to attend prestigious secondary school. At least i do remember when i first entered NYGH, i did have some feelings of being different, as i was from a neighbourhood primary school, where we played games all day long, and boys were swearing at a tender age of 7, while many others came from nyps and rgps.

Anyway, the meet up was better than ever. We talked about our lives that flew past us for the past 8 years. A little part felt disappointed that we missed each other through our puberty and teenage years, but it still felt good to catch up. We both had the fear that there will be awkward silences during our meet up, but hell no, it was just talking, catching up, laughing. And i can't believe u remembered so much! I thought i had a not too bad memory. haha.

Here's to 16 years of knowing each other! :)

Later that evening, meet up with the catholic high colleagues! This is a bunch of friends that i'm glad to have, and surprised that our friendship is strong! Can you imagine, i only taught at the school for 2 months? And us, intern teachers have built a bond so strong! And to my once little short cute students (whom now we realise should be going to army soon), who says english and chinese teachers can't be friends!

Though it's a once in a year meet up for us, nevertheless, it was great. We said, after i finish my studies, there will be more than once in a year definitely, but... we will have heart attacks. lol.

Ended this day pretty late as i met up with jingwen for late night supper at upper thomson road. This might be the last time we meet before i fly off, oh man. YOU are always so damn busy. Haha. Despite your busy life my best lessy, thanks for making time for me always. :D

wedding bells in KL!

2009-01-07T21:48:00.000+10:00

This is how i spent my first 5 days of 2009!

Took a flight down to KL, which is cheap! Relatively cheaper than taking a bus, sort of, since it was only $20 more expensive than the bus ride.. haha. Of course, it was all thanks to budget airlines....

Well, and so i was bored at the boarding gate, waiting for the time to pass by quickly. Fiddling with my phone, i heard a familiar voice. A voice that i seemed to know, but not from someone that i actually spoke to. And so, to top it off with the little nyonya craze in singapore, i saw her:haha! what a surprise. on jetstar. haha. and she was just sitting next to me all this while without me noticing until she spoke on her handphone. I must say, she looks like how she looks like on TV, but her complexion is superb! Ha. I must say, everyone, yes, it's everyone in singapore is obsessed with the little nyonya. Well, for some unknown reason, i've also been catching the first few episodes on tudou.com. Can see how it's captivating, but yet it's those all-too-tragic drama serial. What was funny even was that when we were at KL, in the apartment that alan's family has rented out for his relatives and friends, his aunt came down from singapore, and one of the first thing she said was, "does KL TV have singapore channels? I want to watch xiao niang re". LOL.

After sometime of not seeing you!

The first night that i arrived, met up with Justin and May! Had mamak! :)

Dinner on the first night. I hated bee tai mak (lao shu fen) since i was young. Never did like those white thick things. but man was it DELICIOUS!!! yum, want to go back for more!

The wedding morning! The poor guys - had to wear diapers, drink from milk bottle, lick the fudge off the banana from strategic positions lol, waxing, and eat chilli!

Congrats to the newly wed couple! :D

alan's brother-in-law's brother's daughter! hehehe. so cute.

The wedding dinner! :)

The next day shopping!!! Went to sungei wang, lot 10, pavilion. my fav is still pavilion. it's new, and it's freaking so similar to vivocity. sadly, things are not as cheap as i would think it is. In fact, it's quite expensive i must say. Now i finally understand alan's secret recipe story, which he can't stop harping that he is right from the very start. grrrrrrr. well, somethings after u convert to SGD, are still more ex! and others, well, they might be the same after u convert, but i can't imagine how people there can afford to buy.

combed the pavilion with justin!!! the pavilion is so singapore. the food court is FOOD REPUBLIC. -.- and it has toast box, and surrounding restaurants such as ichiban boshi, crystal jade. and to top it off, even the toilets look like the singapore pattern. ya, unlike sungei wang, bad toilets and need money somemore. pavilion toilets even have hand paper towels! haha.

and after some good shopping, or rather, quite crowded shopping at sungei wang (which i don't really fancy!), we were FAMISHED!!! justin and his heavy car. we went on an ultimate fun car ride!!! wooohooooo. love it! it was the longest tunnel i've ever been through. from KL all the way to PJ! and the start of it has a bit of rollercoaster thrill with the slight slope. lol. and 3 huge fans! hahaha. i absolutely loved it!

and here's to bak kut teh!!! YUMMMMMMY. Justin has finally passed his SMILE1101 course :) We felt SO HAPPY after the meal. Satisfied tummy's the best!!!!

After finishing our hearty meal, alan came and joined justin and I. To...... more food! haha, i know that's kinda predictable of me. but I LOVE FOOD. Was at a SS2 hawker centre, and alan was eating i forgot what, while justin and me are slurping on chingteng, when we saw this queue forming. The stall wasn't open, but the queue spanned the breadth of the hawker centre. And so, like a true blue singaporean, i went to join the queue. lol. It was quite long before our turn.. hahaha.

Baba's Nasi Lemak. The first thought that came to my mind was XIAO NIANG RE! hahahaa. Look at the huge variety of food!

Hehe, in the end, we chose assam stingray, otah, and spicy long beans! :) :) :)

Met with bear bear at night, didn't get to talk to him much, u owe me one!! And then sweet alan and justin accompanied me shopping, hohoho. And then played pool, i watched obviously, and was supper! me love food :)

holidays thus far

2008-07-13T21:26:00.002+10:00

it has been awesome and great!

lots of cleaning up, going out, getting on the curls, and world youth day prep!

spiced up with mount cootha for a lovely tea and dreamworld, byron bay and nimbin with dear friends! :)

will be leaving for sydney for world youth day in 7 hours! sleeping time!! and so so SO excited! hopefully can meet up with tootitarian!

WYD prep thus far has been mediocre for me. wasn't really spiritually enriched, and thus did a lot of physical preparation for the pilgrimage and the night out. just had a commissioning mass with the Polish and UK overseas pilgrim, and i was somehow quite moved by their enthusiasm and spirit! that's surely a sign. and i surely felt more prepared for WYD.

can't wait!!!!

will be back to upload photos since may and the wonderfully relaxed and happy holidays and WYD of course!

:)

tootitarian

2008-07-04T01:38:00.003+10:00

tootitarian pointed out to me.. that... tootitarian is an unique word!!

try googling it! currently the only search results are my blog! and maybe toot's blog. hahahhaa.

i miss my tootitarian!!! hopefully can see u in sydney during world youth day!! can't wait :) u make my days happy, cheery and giggly. hehe.

i love my telly

2008-06-06T17:28:00.002+10:00

totally bored with studying, can't even get myself to study, and exam's just 4 days away. and i'm not even half way thru. and i haven't started studying for my first paper (aren't i just brilliant?) and so, i decided, my room's such a lousy place to study, and i parked myself at the sofa. the first 30minutes was great, until i started to switch on the telly. and guess what, i realise an inner obsession of mine - kid's show!!!

and i saw the new macdonald's farm! seriously, they always say kids emulate adults, but that quirky niece of mine got me watching this show almost everyday in singapore that i realise (sadly) i'm kinda addicted to it.

heh presenting to you.... max and millie! and all the other farm animals. i could name everyone of them, except i kinda forgot henry the horse. but here's daisy the cow, dash the duck, percy the pig, shirley the sheep, charlotte the hen.
and.. what's more? i even know their personalities!! with percy the pig being the most mischievous and oinks all day long. i'm seriously seriously getting quite obsessed.

anyway the point is, it all boils down to my short attention span. that's why i don't really fancy watching movies, unless it's really good or really popular (2hours is a really long time for me). i love watching those brainless 30 minutes show (kid's shows are the best!!! hehehee) and unless it's grey's anatomy. haha. good looking people just make u drool. anw grey's gonna come out at the end of my exams!

anyway i'll get around to uploading other photos when i'm done with kid's shows.

the sweet CT bench

2008-05-23T15:24:00.009+10:00

suddenly this song popped into my mind. and that spurred me to find the lyrics as well as download the song.

because, no school has a better school spirit than hwa chong. and seriously, i don't think any school would have their students dance their mass dance and sing their school songs so happily.

admittedly, i forgot how our school anthem sounds like, but i will never forget all these school songs. they are not your cheesy i love my school song, but are those songs so close to you and dear to your heart. somemore a lot of our songs are composed by liang wen fu ok!! in case u dunno who is liang wen fu, he studied in hwa chong before and writes songs for people like stephanie sun, kit chan, alex to..... erm, therefore the songs are particularly nice too. hehee.

those were the best days of my life.

songs have this ability to make you reminiscence and bring you back to another world of its own. songs, that we sang during the huang cheng performance. never felt such a pride until we bowed to the audience in victoria theatre. all that hard work and fan he days.

on a side note, i dunno where all my photos are. heh photos are taken from my class blog. ha. and i'm proud that my class blog is still active after 4 good years and 6 years of friendship :)

anyway. i miss JC days, not the crazy amount of work load, but just the fun and laughter. i must say, being in one of the top schools, there's this stereotypical view that it's just all study and no fun. but i beg to differ, and must say that hwachong is one of the most fun JCs. and my class was just awesome. those days where we just sit at the CT bench to chill and the guys playing cards while watching out for mr pang. twinny, the best who pon class and stone her days off the CT bench. hehe, identical faces! i am still amused. hehe. and our class is the most enthu during PE sessions, and we would have double PE sessions and endless amounts of netball, badminton, tennis, waterpolo games. the badminton court is kinda always occupied by our class, and in those times we shared lotsa laughter and fun.

although uni is liberating, without the need to go for classes everyday, and classes are not as crammed as in JC, i still love the JC days. love those days where i hang out with my girls and remember there was this point in time our hair grew to almost the same length? hahahaha. tootitarian and her toots ways and fishy in her fishy way. hehehe. days were fun with the woodlands kaki, as we took a 1 hour long journey back home. but we'll end up pigging at bukit timah or munching our way in cwp. of course, how to forget kap, serene centre and adam road! 6th avenue icecream and curry and he brews which is nonexistent. bukit timah food centre is always a good place to fill our hungry souls. and of course, a long break, or when we pon school, it's always good to head down to town. i think me and lessy walked down close to town before, hahahaa. and from queensway we tried to walk back too, or issit the other way round? haha.

remember the volleyball competition? hahaha, i think we got 3rd right? good on us girls! hehe. it was just unbelivable cos none of us knew how to play volleyball properly and we just anyhow whack.. was during sports festival? heh i can't remember the name properly.. and mid autumn festival is just awesome. cos we bring chinese traditions to a greater level, and much more fun! those random sparkles and pretty lanterns. and the many funfairs we did, and how we're just so slack we just go visit other people's booths. i seriously don't remember what our class did for those fairs, but i remember haunted house, and was it alex tan inside? and the big rolly polly sumo games and usual water dunking games.
lessy and her tan tan. as we had our windsurfing, pigging out and ktv sessions. and how can i forget those paparazzi shots. they are classic. talking under the moonlight in the cemetery is an awesome experience that i would never forget. those 'people' in the cemetery are seriously more scary than the cemetery itself. those walks with lessy and zm and telling him how to be a good bf. haha. and judy, u're not missed out. although u're in the stone jc next to ours, u do still bake me stone cookies from time to time. hehe. now i expect better quality cookies from you and jw! haha.

oh those good times before adulthood :)

twinkle in the eye

2008-05-22T00:18:00.003+10:00

it's always interesting to hear the love stories of others, the excitement, the chase, the downtimes, the confusion, the thrill, the special feeling.

love transcends many boundaries, and it's such an unique thing that no one can fathom. to the ends of the earth, to the depths of the seas, love can represent anything and everything.

i'm glad, you're not just a story, but the most wonderful part of my life :)

anyway, this cute lil baby came into my mailbox one day. a clear illustration of innocence and simple joy. let these moments keep us going :)

how now brown cow

2008-05-14T21:37:00.003+10:00

This is taken from the uq pharmacy newsletter:

"Why do cows moo? Sometimes, at the appearance of a stranger or an aeroplane high above the pastures, a cow will moo. On occasion, however, a cow has been known to moo for no reason but to fulfill the unwitting desire to be happy. By suddenly creating a sound - the ominous moo - the slack-minded cow elicits an automatic 'startle response' - delivering a jolt of excitement and relieving, at least for a moment, the monotonous depressive state of a cows life. In essence, this cow is self inducing happiness - as a force for creativity - much as we humans induce Prozac to elicit much the same feeling.

Yet in our ongoing pursuit for happiness, does it ever reach the point of prescribing only to fulfill and satisfy the patients' psychological need to have a physical medication to treat their 'so-called' symptoms? Where should you draw the line for people who seriously fulfill the qualifications for antidepressants and those who abuse their right to drugs because of society's obsession with happiness?

By inducing ourselves with Sertraline - to a cow its moo - we are choosing to modify our mental state through devices that alter our mood and feelings in favour of happiness. These wondrous pills are, in fact, the result of a group of economically savvy professionals (aka, drug companies) who were able to take advantage of society's insecurities and class depression as a disease state. So why this Kodak moment in favour of melancholy? Depression is disease mongering that is either caused from a genetic predisposition to obsessive happiness or environmental factors.

So for some people - where the realisation of happiness involves digesting pills, such as Prozac - the psychological need to medicate in order to acquire this state of contentment has outdone the actual need to be medicated. They are in a state of self induced melancholia because of their obsession with happiness. But even though as potential Pharmacist's you will be forced to endure a patient's down-time before their 'moo', you will always have the pleasure of distributing that little box of 'happiness', or Prozac, thanks to those wonderful economic-savvy advantage-securing professionals."

Before the discovery of Prozac, where do people get the feeling of happiness from? Surely, as new things are discovered everyday, there's a drug for almost everything. There are drugs prescribed to increase your motivation (no joke, it's advertised in the States), and other whacky drugs present around us. In the pursuit of happiness, are we just obsessed with the fact that we need to be happy? Or are we genuinely happy?

Joys come in big and small packages. Drugs might be able to give people a boost of energy, adrenaline and euphoria, but is it just this? Or, would you rather have the warm fuzzy feeling in your heart and all around your life? That, i'm quite sure drugs won't be able to achieve.

craft it with words

2008-05-13T00:35:00.002+10:00

the brilliance of transforming ideas, thoughts, feelings, opinions into words. complex concepts woven into a succinct phrase, difficult feelings outpoured as melody. would you tell your wrath and pray that it ends? or would it, like blake said, blossom like the poison tree, only to find your foe outstretched beneath the tree? behind those facades, shoot it with directness yet with a tinge of subtlety. that indescribable relief cannot be otherwise achieved.

happy mother's day

2008-05-11T21:33:00.002+10:00

happy mother's day mummy! you're the world's greatest and bestest mummy! as many would know, my mum never did try to control me or restrict me throughout my whole life thus far, as she believed that not only should children learn to have roots, they ought to have wings too. and, i'm very grateful for that :) just like a friend, my mum would gossip with me, would go shopping with me, would drool over makeup and clothes, and it's awesome. i just have an overwhelming feeling that my mum's so great and i miss her so much. i love you mummy :)

and together with mother's day, today's Pentecost.

An abstract from the sunday bulletin:
" It is particularly when we are troubled or anxious that Pentecost is such wonderful news. The Spirit is given as Jesus had promised before his departure. The Spirit that Jesus breathed into the disciples is the same Spirit breathed into us. We are asked not to be afraid but rather to receive the Spirit of peace, joy and life with open hearts and to be led by the Spirit to new possibilities of living. We are also given a mission to share our experience so that others too may come to be touched and transformed by the Spirit. "

moreton island and twins in the city :)

2008-05-09T17:50:00.001+10:00

phew. i finally manage to upload all my photos. while doing this SUPER LONG ENTRY, i realised that i actually quite like blogging and arranging all my photos. blogging makes me scrutinise every photo, and with every photo brings back good memories which puts a smile on my face. it's nice to relieve the same experience while looking at the photos with reminiscence.

3 weekends ago, i had a great time in the country with alan. and 2 weeks ago, i had a BLAST with shumei and shuyun who came down from melbourne. hehe. i just feel so happy :)

they came over from thursday night and left for gold coast on monday morning. albeit short, it was a fabulous time as we spent our time in brisbane city and moreton island, but more so for the soothing company, great laughter and stupid jokes.

it's such a blessing when u're far away from home, yet can enjoy the company of old friends once again. as we bring our jokes from TLL to here, our friendship encompasses more than just fun and laughter, but to our support for each other while we're both in australia, but in different states.

on friday, we headed down to the city to watch anzac day parade. although we've been in australia for our 3rd year now, shumei and i never did went down to any anzac day parade. it was touching to see patriotic aussies stand by and cheered the veterans on, but we seriously and honestly did not really have any feelings for it. maybe if it was singapore it would be different. heh. the twins in front of the casino.
walked down to southbank, went to the newly renovated streets beach and southbank markets. as they were saying, it's so cool to have a beach in the middle of the city, overlooking skyscrapers, relaxing beside the brisbane river. hehe, i secretly feel proud of brisbane, although i'm not born here, but my undergraduate studies are done here at a nice and relaxing environment.

hehehe. never did think much of the rocks in southbank or really the sights. but these girls made the town come alive! hahaha. it's just so fun doing stupid things :)

shumei trying to throw a pebble into the water to create splashing and ripple effect (erm, to no avail) haha.
haha. shuyun trying to eat a rock. seriously, it really looks like bread.
hehehe. we were kinda afraid to jump and land on the rock which is submerged in the water. ha, some effort in jumping!
at the southbank markets.
hehe. then we headed back to the heart of the city, had a great meal at hanaiichi and walked around the city. went to the church of st stephen and around the story bridge all the way to sydney streets at kangeroo point.
shumei. with SM.
we had LOTS of jumping shots in this day. hahaha. but most of the shots look kinda faded (overexposure?) so i didn't upload most of them. haha. we walked so much!! then we took a city cat back home. yea, transport here is pretty good, firstly it's cheap, and taking a ferry is a means of daily transport, and thus adds tranquility to the city :)
after lotsa chatting and laughing throughout the night....... MORETON ISLAND the next 2 days!!!!!!! :) it's the third largest sand island in the world. grins. it's one of my most fun trips so far :) hehe. seasports, sandboarding, gossiping, bitching, laughing, photowhoring!
1st stop upon reaching moreton - climbing up mount tempest. so many steps lar. the view is not too bad, but doesn't beat the view overlooking whitehaven beach in whitsundays. heh, the climb was long, but the girls made it fun by running in short sprints! haha.

ooo. and it's my first time taking a 4WD. the tour guide made it fun by driving so darn fast, creating mini rollercoasters as he called it. and, how to forget the countless "hee HA" that he screams.
next stop, we headed down to cape moreton and saw a lighthouse.
ooo. then we did body surfing!!!! it was great fun, we went quite far out into the sea and then caught the wave.. hehehe. ha, so much easier than surfing. hahahaa.
and we saw many creatures on the way. starfish and a whole swarm of hermit crabs. it was like an army of hermit crabs, and once they got scared, they start digging holes in the sand..
we also saw dolphins!! at cape moreton as well as on the way along the beach.. there was once we spotted a dolphin quite near to us, and all of us jumped out of the 4WD. the guide was saying previous group had the opportunity to swim with dolphins as they are just friendly creatures, they just happily swam among the people. but we only had the opportunity to see the dolphin without them swimming towards us.. ooo.. and we also saw sea turtles :)
and..... SANDBOARDING!! this is my FAVOURITE part of the whole trip!! it was so awesome cos the thrill of it is just exhilarating! look at the hill in the picture, the ultimate sand dune we climbed was 3 times the height of it. it was so freaking hard to climb! yea, by the time we were up there, no strength to take photos. hahaha. hehehe, we went to the biggest sand dune on the island :)

and.. it was so awesome because we were sandboarding at SUNSET. the guide was saying he purposely brought us here at sunset cos the view was gorgeous, and indeed, it was breathtaking! while painstakingly climbing up the sand dune, looking at the picturesque scene just pushes u to continue climbing! it is the most beautiful sunset i've ever seen..
the height was scary, but as scary as it is, it is so fun!! it's like rollercoaster without seatbelts!! hehehe. wearing sunnies, i opened my eyes and enjoyed the view of the sunset while sandboarding down :) love it love it love it!!!!!
at the end of sandboarding, when we trod down, this is the view we saw, no photoshop required :)
headed back to the campsite for dinner. meals are great, much better than we thought it would be! :) and somehow, showering in the cold was not too bad at all! slept in a tent and it was great :)

hehehe. the trip is activity packed, full of fun, yet it's so relaxing and enjoyable!! we woke up pretty late and enjoyed lovely pancakes and sandwich for breakfast..

then we headed down to the shipwrecks to snorkel!!! GRINS.
one of the 15 shipwrecks behind us.
before snorkelling, we played on the beach and suntanned. hehehe. this shot of me and shuyun are after we landed on the ground, trying to take a fighting pose. hehe. particularly like this, although we are not in the air cos we simply looked so happy.

photos taken while snorkelling!! the sunken ship over the years have created a great environment for fishies and marine life to survive and reproduce there. and thus, became a site for snorkelling! hehe. the fishies swimming in the shipwreck were plenty and swam so close to us. wa, they look like CANG YU lar. make me feel hungry. hahahhaa. i saw a parrot fish, very pretty, got lotsa colours, didn't manage to take a photo of it in time before it swam away. we also saw a shark, but i forgot what's the exact species of it.
shumei and her attempt at creating a sand angel. haha.
back at our campsite waiting for lunch.
hehehe. then headed down to blue lagoon which is a freshwater lake.. hehehe.. we did lotsa stupid things in the lagoon. hahaha. the guys were all playing ball while the girls are either relaxing in the lagoon or suntanning.. hehe.
then it was time to head back to brisbane.. but cos the ferry was late, we had more time on the island :)
shuyun and shumei
3 of us with our tour guides
and then we watched another sunset back home.

it was great. really great. really awesome. happiness to the max! :) GRINS.

you make my heart melt

2008-05-06T10:46:00.007+10:00

cos even if you don't have time, watch this.

just as i was listening to connie's album, i happened to be packing one of the shelves and saw the 2 books that jingwen and beelian made for me before i left for australia.

as i flipped through the pages, i saw the really really toots picture we have in secondary school, those i can't even bear to look at it one second more, yet i smile at them. hehe, dunno if u remembered, u pasted quite a few paparazzi photos in there, which was really funny to look at. those ubin days and those windsurfing days. and we haven't been to windsurf for eons. though we're both busy, and we lead our own lives now, u still have a special place in my heart :)

and twinny wonderfully said,
"an adventure without a plan, headlights, map, directions.
an adventure truly called once-in-a-lifetime.
an adventure only you and i have been through.
an adventure - 060206/070206"
this adventure of ours, nicely summarizes all the big and small things we've gone through together. u're the only one that i can call my dear twinny :)

to add to all those sweetness, i watched p.s. i love you a few days ago (ok i know i'm retardedly slow to watch it), but, everybody should watch it if u haven't!!! it made me cry lots lots lots.

and and. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY FAVOURITESTTEST COUSIN!!!

power of a heartwarming conversation

2008-05-03T23:58:00.003+10:00

tonight i had the most amazing heartwarming conversation this year thus far. brings me back to alot of thoughts about friendship and how strong or fragile they can be, how they can surpass time and distance yet remain strong whilst some just cannot withstand a gentle blow.

Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self seeking,
it is not easily angered, it keeps no records of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes always perseveres.
Love never fails.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.
But the greatest of these is love.

As we always hear about this bible verse, we do not really apply it in all aspects of our lives. Love transcends boundaries, and it's not just about a boy and girl love, but even more precious, the love amongst family members and the love amongst friends. busying ourselves with unnecessary stuff, even uni students who claims to have a vast knowledge of facts and current affairs, can't even understand the simple concept of love.

as we are in the peak of our youths, having lotsa friends, hanging out and an eventful life must pose to be something of great importance to us. but as we old and age with time, we find ourselves treasuring those who mean the most to us, those who can hear us out and empathise with us fully, those who see you for the way you are, without judgement, without criticism. why can't we be like those wise old people now? personally i do value the strength and quality of a friendship than the quantity of it.

i also thought about the issue of how some people can bring out the best in you while others bring out the worst in you. encompassing the value of love, i can say nothing more or better than the bible verse.

anyway, i'm just thankful that i've got a great bunch of awesome friends in my life. although the frequency of meeting is low due to the distance we have in singapore, or the business we experience whilst pursuing our studies here in brisbane, i take heart that these are the people out there that still genuinely radiate the fullness and greatness of love in our relationship. you know who you are, i love you. :)

thoughts aside, i'll just post up random pictures that happened over the past few months that i've photographic evidences of. and, i still don't have my birthday celebration photos with the gang. rar. i'll blog about moreton bay trip with shumei and shuyun which i'm still super excited and happy about in the next entry (shumei quick send me photos!!) hehe.

the night that i arrived back in brisbane, alan welcomed me with flowers and a sweet note :)
went crabbing with the IH gang at shorncliffe!! had oysters and prawns that day from redcliffe and yumcha after midnight, ha. we caught HUGE crabs (although lesser than last year rar rar) and we deliciously turned it into chilli crab the next day with awesome steamed fish and bak kut teh!
our fishing and crabbing expert busy at work! actually the whole day, the girls were just posing, taking photos and doing random stuff while the guys do all the hard work! hehehe. my jie mei housemate likes to pose too. hahaha. sorry steph, i can't help it.
on a fine weekday when i have my thursdays off, hanged out with my lovely girls by first heading to dfo jindalee, their house and fish and chips for dinner!
the house!!! omg. ming would know how much i'm in LOVE with her house. it's just so awesome. she says, yea, it's better than those typical uni students houses in st lucia, where is the excitement?! haha. her house i told her, looks like those in wisteria lane (however u spell it, the one in desperate housewives). they have different coloured themes (they look really cute). and it has a swimming pool. a garden in their porch. 2 levels. oh and their rooms are so nicely decorated. i particularly like the sign outside the toilet, hahaha. and it's directly opposite DFO. and and and, the rent is cheap. how unfair can it be!!

celebrated shunwei's birthday at WAH.
watched phantom of the opera. i liked it. i just love musicals, and brings back memories of mary poppins!! cuz, i wanna watch it again!!
on a separate note, just a random day in school.

over easter, went for mildred's confirmation at jindalee. i tell u, everything of jindalee is so cute, including the church at jindalee! it's small, quaint and very cosy indeed. and i'm really happy for mil!! welcome to the family :) she's really amazing, i always admire at her faith:)stupid housemate photo. me and alan were trying to take a nice photo!! see my hair behind vernon's shoulder?! and stephy happily laughing behind. oh man. vernon and alan are gay. they have so many gay activities in the house it's unbelievable.
by some chance, we got a car at the last minute, cos stephy, vernon, alan and me were dying to go harbourtown (i think more of vernon), that we rented a car. minimum of 3 days needed. vernon was busy with lab, so me and alan went on a short easter roadtrip! we went out of brisbane to Esk and Kilcoy.
at wivenhoe dam. the dam's really pretty :)

then we headed down to this ostrich farm. the owner of the farm, barry, was telling us how he used to have a lot of ostriches, more than 100, but due to the drought and increased prices of feeding for the ostriches and stuff, he's only got 2 left. it's really quite sad telling from his love for the ostriches. and his wife is amazing, she actually makes ornaments out of the ostrich eggs!! it's REALLY exquisite and intricate. so gorgeous that i'm so tempted to buy, just that it cost almost $200.
the trip's pretty fun. although both of us did huge amounts of driving till we got pretty tired towards the end.
hakuna matata!!!! hehe. i can't believe i saw this! very happy to pose with it as a die hard lion king fan. headed back to brisbane for the night and went over to angie's place for housewarming.
next day we woke up pretty late and then we did some shopping and had seafood at morgans.

check out the cute pretty little keds i got for valencia!!!! just a photo of her curious and kpo face. hahaha. i miss u little naughty girl.
hehehe. and harbourtown the next day! shopping was great. and the scones here are yummylicious! and the 4 of us headed down to ktv later that night :)
i miss u stephy!!! when u're here, it just feels so good, like year 1 all over again. hehehe, i'm glad i found a true friend in you!! hehe, hope u can come again, maybe graduation? :) i really miss hanging out with you girl!
and to conclude my super long entry, birthday celebration with my xiao de. hehe.

so blessed!

2008-04-29T23:16:00.002+10:00

hehehe. i really wanna blog about shumei and shuyun being here, our fun time in brissy as well as in moreton island for the past weekend!!! but but, got assignments due on friday which i totally forgot about until when i came back from the trip! hehe. and yet to get some photos from them!

anyway, i just feel so blessed that these past 2 weeks have been awesome. a great rural luxury to spend my birthday and then smiling in the company of a old friend with a great trip to an island - sandboarding, body surf, snorkelling in shipwrecks, camping, chilling, relaxing. it's just awesome. :)

happy birthday to you and me

2008-04-23T15:27:00.001+10:00

one of my most enjoyable birthday celebrations!!! :)
as many would know, alan's just one day older than me, and so we celebrate our birthdays together! this year was a great one, we decided not to get each other anything, but got each other a trip to the country :)
renting a car always gets me excited as we packed all our stuff into a backpack, with jaychou cds to play on the way, with sunnies, lotsa water packed in my jaychou bag. hahaa. it was a great trip!! was supposed to rain, but once we're out of brissy, it was a bright and sunny day!! :)

drove to ipswich and came across this rose farm, so we decided to head in for a look! alan claims that taking photos with roses are gay. so yea, no photos of him with roses.
hehe. then i drove down from ipswich to boonah. getting a licence is just oh so good, u can drive whenever u wanna and there there, the liberation i talked about. hehe, alan trusts me with my driving now, so it's fun and relaxing! hehe. they always say u have to pass ur daddy's driving test even after u passed the school's one, and, well, i didn't have trouble passing my daddy's one but passing alan's test took quite some time. heh.

we headed down to the lavender farm at kooroomba! lavender's aren't blooming, so it's rather sad, but i still enjoyed the tinge of lavender smell in the air. together with the lavender farm was a cellar and a restaurant. bought 2 bottles of great white wine :) usually a fan of cabernet or merlot, i was surprised that both of us chose the white wine which has a funny description to it. yea, something to do with citrus and honey and whats not tempted me to try it and eventually buy it! one bottle to bring home for my daddy and one bottle that we opened and celebrated later in the night. :)
had a great meal at kooroomba and here's a picture of lavender icecream. weird that there's lavender icecream, but it tastes really good, the lavender taste is quite subtle.

and because i am OBSESSED with our bed and breakfast suite, i'm gonna upload heaps of photos of it!! hahaha. i was bouncing around, happy snapping and just couldn't get myself to sit down. hehehe.
this is branell homestead bed and breakfast in laidley!!
a view of the dining area view from our balcony!! where u can see the lovely sunset, plus u catch yellow tinge of the sunrise at the balcony with a lake behind for fishing and swimming. hehee. and a picturesque view :)and ALL of our suite. heheheheee. our suite has not only just the normal bed and dressing area, there's also SPA and a media room and a library!! awesome.
there's 10 pillows!! hehehehehehehee. and it's what i call high class pillows, some embroidered with lace and all.

and the towels are sheridan towels!!!!!!!!!!! plus, complimentary ferrero rocher and lindt chocs! swiss lindt chocs! just reminds me of the pretty zermatt house :) ooo.plus we have very warm and comfy bathrobes!! i will kill for a dressing table like this. plus scented sticks and scented potpourri. as u can see, alan doesn't display much excitement compared to me.
the toilet's really HUGE plus they've a spa inside, a shower recess, a toilet bowl, a butt washing bowl(which i didn't use,haha), 2 basins! and the toilet's heated, so it's warm and toasty!!
oo. and we have a kitchenette as well!
after dinner at this quaint restaurant in forest hill, we went back and opened the bottle of white wine and enjoyed it! and we got a complimentary cowboy shot of butterscotch and some alcohol in this unique looking shot glass!

we spent the night on the 2nd level of our suite watching liar liar. attic with surround sound is good :) oh. check out the library, which was also in our suite. i'm totally in love with the place.

the breakfast was awesome!! we had personalised breakfast and anyway it was just us, and it's just such a nice feeling. to sit on the deck, having breakfast, slurping down coffee, looking at the awesome view, and a random cow walks past.
i had rashers of bacon, chipolata sausages, hash browns, fried eggs, grilled tomatoes and mushrooms served with thick buttered toast! while alan had poached eggs served with rashers of bacon and tomato, set on toasted low fat Turkish bread and drizzled with basil and pinenut pesto dressing! hahaa.
they are such great chefs! it's totally yummylicious food, beats coffeeclub/shingles inn breakfast anyday anytime! this is such a lovely and cosy place, and i just don't wanna leave!

then we drove further in to Gatton and visited the other uni of queensland campus. mostly animal studies students and all.
then we went to the town of toowoomba! toowoomba's up on a hill, so we have to drive up to that town. it's really a nice place, though it's a pity we didn't have much time to stay on longer and explore the place. the buildings are fantastic and this place is certainly not rural at all! then we went up to picnic point, and soaked in the awesome view of the Great Dividing Range. this range's huge and divides australia with mountains :) my camera could only catch such a view, but i tell u, the view when u actually see it is million times better than this.

i had a great time :)
happy happy birthday :)

Mighty Is the Power of the Cross

2008-04-15T16:59:00.000+10:00

What can take a dying man
And raise him up to life again?
What can heal the wounded soul?
What can make us white as snow?
What can fill the emptiness?
What can mend our brokenness? Brokenness?

Mighty, awesome, wonderful
Is the Holy cross.
Where the Lamb lay down His life
To lift us from the fall.
Mighty is the power of the cross.

What restores our faith in God?
What reveals the Father's love?
What can lead the wayward home?
What can melt a heart of stone?
What can free the guilty ones?
What can save and overcome? Overcome?

It's a miracle to me
It's a miracle to me
It's still a mystery
And it's still a mystery
It's a miracle to me
The power of God
For those who believe

Mighty, awesome, wonderful
Is the Holy cross.
Where the Lamb lay down His life
To lift us from the fall.

Oh and mighty, awesome, wonderful
Is the Holy cross.
Where the Lamb lay down His life
To lift us from the fall.
Mighty is the power of...
Mighty is the power of...
Mighty is the power of the cross.

Thank You for the cross.
Thank You for the cross.
I love the cross.
I love the cross.
It's a powerful cross.

What can take a dying man (thank You Jesus)
And raise him up to life again? (thank You Jesus)
Worship You Jesus (wonderful cross)
By Your wounds we are healed
By Your wounds we are saved

Mighty is the power of the cross (echo)
Mighty is the power of the cross (echo)
Thank You Jesus
For the Holy cross
Oh

this is a good year

2008-04-12T03:35:00.000+10:00

some days ago we were celebrating 1 year 8 months. actually, not celebrating, we never did celebrate any monthly stuff, but always competing to see who actually remembers it. haha. and this month i won! but last month he won although he was late by a day cos it totally slipped my mind. i just like how the relationship is so relaxing and happy. hehe.

Good Singapore Service (really?)

2008-04-10T07:56:00.000+10:00

well, the title wasn't made up by me, but it's one of the articles in today's straits times home news. experienced a range of service attitude back home, i'm just as surprised as many that singapore is rated 7/10 for good service.

i feel that if you wanna be in the service industry, u ought to have certain prerequisites like being friendly and all. who would wanna walk into a store and be faced with a grumpy person who stares right into you? the reality of singapore having relatively not so good service hit me when i first came back for my summer vacation 2 years ago. it struck me that nobody in the shops bother to greet u, give u smile or even some sort of acknowledgment.

well, at least i thought it was just back home. until i experienced some really bad service here too. a friend was trying some clothes and when she came out, the first comment she received from the lady at the counter was "so what's the deal now?". seriously, does it even hurt to ask politely? yesterday i called up some company and i told her i haven't received my confirmation email. and she shot me with "obviously u didn't check ur email" when i was right at the moment staring at my screen with my email page at full screen. feeling sleepy in the morning, i didn't bother to argue, and i just said, i'm at my email inbox now and there's nothing. she offered to re-send the email and the ironic thing was she ended off the conversation with such a bubbly tone and telling me to enjoy my day. well, that sorta startled me and i didn't know how or what to think of it. is that considered good service? well.. "obviously" not.

seriously, think about it when u're planning to enter the service industry.

anw, this is today's article from the straits times.

Good S'pore Service (Really?)

But 50 locals polled by ST give it a thumbs-down Thumbs-up rating from first customer-satisfaction survey

By Tessa Wong and Lee Pei Qi

MANY Singaporeans are surprised that the country has scored nearly seven out of 10 in the first national customer-satisfaction survey, which is being taken as an indicator of service standards here.

Those who took part in a Straits Times straw poll generally conceded that service standards have risen, but said they would give it only a passing grade.

In the poll of 50 locals aged 15 to 69 from all walks of life, 34 said they would award 50 points or below, out of 100.

Among the 50 polled, 42 said nearly seven out of 10 was clearly too high.

Most griped about sales assistants' lack of product knowledge, even though some had nice things to say about those who went the extra mile.

Accountant Chia Kok Hsiang, 39, for example, was pleasantly surprised to be given two free drinks at a fast-food restaurant last weekend, after he carelessly spilled his own.

He said: 'The staff there were not at all upset and they were very efficient in helping me clean up my mess.'

The Customer Satisfaction Index, released by the Institute of Service Excellence (ISE) at the Singapore Management University, gave Singapore an overall score of 68.7 out of 100; in parallel polls abroad, the United States scored 75, and South Korea, 72.

The survey here, the results of which were released on Monday, polled over 12,000 people, both Singaporeans and tourists, on the service they received across sectors, from telecommunications to transport.

Respondents had to rate various aspects of their experience - from the way they were served to how complaints were handled - on a scale from 1 to 10.

ISE's survey, the first one to give a holistic picture of customer satisfaction here, will be conducted annually henceforth.

Going by ST's straw poll to gauge reactions to the ISE study, bad customer experience seems to cluster in food and beverage outlets, taxis and retail shops.

One common grouse: Service staff here need to be more familiar with what they are selling.

Administrative executive Nooraliza Rahim, 28, said: 'It is very frustrating when you ask waiters about their menu and they just give you dazed looks. It is as if they are not sincere in serving you at all.'

Bad attitude, ranging from rudeness to lack of initiative, also riled some respondents.

Student Gordan Tan, 23, said he met a rude cabby two months ago who took his family problems out on his passenger, a complete stranger.

Surly shop assistants get the goat of housewife Sheryl Teo, 52: 'I was in the fitting room a couple of weeks ago, trying on a blouse and I needed help to try on a medium-size one. But the sales assistant just gave me a sour face and ignored me.'

Knight Frank's director of retail Danny Yeo said such lapses in service are not surprising, given that the industry is plagued by a staff shortage and a high turnover.

The staffing crunch has led businesses - in particular, retail ones - to hire part-timers and school-leavers. With the high turnover, spending on training takes a back seat, since bosses expect their staff to quit soon anyway, said Mr Yeo.

However, some of those surveyed told ST that service standards here were not a lost cause.

Teacher Winston Goh, 46, said: 'I don't think service staff even smiled at you in the past. Now, some shops are open to even greeting you and it really makes one feel welcome.'

when it hits u real hard

2008-04-08T17:59:00.000+10:00

and when assignments seem never ending, coupled with reports and exams...

u become a... TOOTITARIAN!! in all randomness in uni today. joyce had this zero degree glasses, yea for fun, like wth. toots!! at least only toots on me. hahhahaa.
well, joyce trying to act cool and claire excluded from photowhoring cos she's on an "important" call while we shouted that she hadn't washed her hands whilst in the toilet. haha.
and in all whiny-ness, i hate my assignment.

who is the killer?

2008-04-06T06:08:00.000+10:00

never thought i would play warcraft, haha, but played who is the killer with the entire household last night. anw each game only lasted 5 minutes. and i had the greatest laugh in the last game when i was the killer. 30seconds into the game, they could all guess it was me.

haha. anyway, the point is, i feel great being in the house. this year is quite vastly different from the last. much cheer and laughter, much involvement of the entire household of 6. lots of games and happiness. lots of mass cooking and pigging out. lots of hanging out and togetherness. and, not to forget, new additions to the carmody hill residency! it's just so lively and that makes me happy :)

stephy came and left. made me happy and sad. it feels surreal to have her back in brissy and it was great to hang out with her. reminds me of the good old IH days. had lots of fun laughing and hanging out. crooning to our fav jaychou songs at ktv. buying m.a.c makeup and what not. hehehe. i miss u girl. i wished u were always here.
lots of photos, but just way too lazy to upload. or rather, lack of time seeing the huge amounts of work i have (not that i'm doing it also). argh, man do i sound contradictory. but i'll get to uploading that soon enough! i just need to get my work started for my 45% assignment!

draw me close to you

2008-04-01T16:17:00.000+10:00

as i was showering today, this song suddenly just popped into my mind.

Draw me close to You
Never let me go
I lay it all down again
To hear You say that I'm Your friend

You are my desire
No one else will do
'Cause nothing else could take Your place
To feel the warmth of Your embrace
Help me find the way
Bring me back to You

You're all I want
You're all I've ever needed
You're all I want
Help me know You are near

it has been so long. i felt that i've neglected god as my friend for a very long while. i remember the days in SV and the days in praise and worship. i remember how i used to faithfully attend every single practice session. i remember how i used to bring every music score back to practice so that it's nicer during mass and praise and worship sessions. but it seems like it's all gone. it took me effort to attend youth sessions now. and it even took me some effort to attend the youth bbq.

lent came and went away. i was supposed to have a lenten promise as made during the lenten programme. i knew, very well, that it was within my means to fulfill what i've promised. but i've broken it again and again. i carry it with me into the confession box and out again. i put my heart into thinking how world youth day is like. how father was discouraging about the event as well as the toughness of it makes me think about it further. the thought of sleeping out in the cold in the middle of nowhere in sydney in winter scares me to death. i told god, maybe by faith, everything will turn out right.

but it wasn't until the song came into my mind, that i forgot that, maybe, i just needed to pray really hard instead of thinking about it. i've decided to go ahead with the whole week. i really pray everything turns out fine.

just a little while more

2008-03-31T01:48:00.000+10:00

as i lay in my bed, feeling disorganized and tired, i drifted into dreamland with a nice bedtime story, and needless to say, with a smile.

loves :)

what irony

2008-03-12T17:27:00.000+10:00

have u ever had the feeling that you just wanna shout those thoughts out so loud that the whole world would hear it, yet, at the same time, wishes that no one would ever hear it?

this is just to gek judy

2008-02-28T12:35:00.000+10:00

haha. i'm super bo liao. after seeing judy's long not updated blog and since she updated recently with how many words she can type and a challenge to beat her, i decided to!!
bwahahahhaa. i think jw might be able to type faster. hahaha.

78 words

Speed test

so surreal, till then.

2008-02-27T06:42:00.000+10:00

hehe. some updates that now i'm back in brissy!! first night i was back, it was horrendously HOT. it was 37degrees that day, man, is it horrible!! now that it's drizzling the past few days, it makes me kinda sian.
the airflight back to brissy was quite good, chatted with this old man a bit and i enjoyed a few movies, plus now the SIA seats got 2 reclining buttons, one for actually reclining and one for support for the back. great :) hehe.

going back to my room is kinda surreal. it's weird when u actually call 2 places home. it's like leaving home to go home again. oh well. somehow, i think i'm going to die of boredom soon. it's only been like what, 3 days and i'm like roars. anw, i drove a manual car the second day i'm back, ha, and i totally forgot the existence of this thing called the handbrake. haha, but i love driving :)

i'm feeling homesick already. too fast aye. called back yday to hear val val call me gu gu. haha. and i miss my awesome friends in singapore.. here are my besties during chinese new year!! :D

hehe. jw baked yummylicious brownies for us!! yipeee :) munch munched on them while we played mahjong. you know, the thing is, whenever i use real money to play mahjong, i always lose!! roars. all profit to judy. and another thing is, whenever i use real money, i always lose the max, 5tai x 2. where is lady luck?
at judy's place while her parents are still out, but we got angpaos still!! hahaha. just that had to bainian to judy! heh heh. after mahjonging, we went down to eat sakae sushi, and did our traditional laoyusheng!! hehee. i love it when we lao and say all the darn crappiest things on earth so that we'll always stay pweeeeety!! hahahaha. anw, we gobbled up quite some food. judy and jw came over to my place for cheapo pubbing. wanted to go clarke quay or dragonfly for some proper pubbing, but due to unforseen circumstances, heh, it ended up at my place. hehe. opening the bottle actually took some time. it was really funny though. hahaha. well, post drinking activities are not meant to be disclosed :p

driving away from home

2008-02-23T03:45:00.000+10:00

heh. yesterday marks the first day that i drove all by myself!! bwahahahahaha. it was supposed to be the day before - sending my brother to the airport at terminal 3. scheduled to leave the house at 6am, my dad frantically woke up at 545am and claims that he couldn't fall asleep, and so he asked me whether i needed him to accompany me. i said no, but he came anyway, insisting that i would somehow get lost. the journey there was easy, just follow the signs that points to changi airport. luckily dad was there with me, cos for the trip back, he didn't give me directions at first and i almost missed 2 turns. bleah.

ha. but yesterday dad asked me to pick up my mum from work. yay. so i drove to my mum's work place without getting lost. *beams* all along i've always said that driving is a kind of liberation, a kind of freedom and a sense of power. well, at least i could say this now before i get sick of driving prob in a few year's time. and i did 4 perfect vertical parkings yesterday with just 1 try each!! in multi-storey carpark too! haha, considering they don't teach vertical parking in australia, i'm quite proud of myself. hahahaa.

can't wait to go back and operate a manual again :)

well, talking about going back. today's the last day i'm in singapore. and i'm down with asthma and sorethroat. all started with my cute lil niece, and it got me and my da sao sick too. haha. or maybe we just all spread to each other within the house. and sickness is hindering my packing progress, although i really don't feel like packing or going as well.

this hols has been way too good. and it has been eventful! full marathon run with judy, awesome europe trip with my family, cycling trip to desaru with great friends, alan being here and many many meet-ups with many awesome friends! :) and of course, val, who is ever so cute yet naughty. who never fails to call gu gu everytime i wake up and go downstairs, who insist on listening to lala and sitting on my lap to read storybooks (well, look at pictures). and my dad who taught me how to vertical park, and gave me many daddy driving lessons when i'm back! hehehee.

i'm loving it all too much to go back.

chingay

2008-02-22T05:11:00.000+10:00

headed down to chingay this year with mingwei and dave! haha, my first time watching chingay with tickets and seated comfortably.. hehe. hehe. most of my pictures are blur though :( hehe. yet to get them from mw and dave.. heh heh. i saw F1 finally!!! hehe, not that i'm a huge fan of it, but yea i guess it's kinda fun to watch them zoom by, with the loud sounds and all. but it was too fast for my videocam to take it properly.. anw, because of the F1 car coming, the start of the parade was delayed by 1 hour.. heh heh. i thought the chingay this year was not too bad, think mw would beg to differ, haha. anw my first time actually watching it, so i can't really comment as well.. hehee.uploaded this video of the lion dance. the taiwan performance was very sleezy! hahhaa. but i guess i can't upload it due to infringement of laws.. (obscene video) hahaha. anw looking at so many lions dancing at the same time at close distance is kinda scary.

whitsundays 19-24 november 2007

2008-02-20T05:04:00.000+10:00

haha! i'm addicted to adobe photoshop!!! ok, i admit, these 3 months break has been too good, brain too idle, and so i decided to edit the photos. hahahaa.

anw, the whitsundays trip was AWESOME! man, i really love it :) but suayness of suayness, i think i'm the queen of suayness, i bought a disposable waterproof camera, and smart me, DROPPED it down the cliff!! rarrrrrrrrrrs. so, gone are the pictures where we went sea kayaking on the huge waves, snorkelling and diving with the fishies, and the very very picturesque whitehaven beach.

anw, just a brief intro, whitsundays is made up of 74 islands, and u can snorkel and dive around the islands. it's at the border of the great barrier reef, so fishies aplenty!

day 1: that's us at the train station going to the domestic airport
a great big thanks to stephy and vernon!! they won a 2 night accommodation at clubcroc resort and they gave it to us :)
hehe. the bottom right hand picture, a coconet!! hehe, a net to catch the falling coconuts.
day 2: we went SEA KAYAKING! heh. it was great riding on the waves, but i admit it's quite challenging, well, at least for the both of us. real different from kayaking in obs/camps. much energy required to overcome the waves, but it was fun nonetheless. we were supposed to see sea turtles, but sadly none appeared. snorkelled a bit at the island we stopped at. again, photos of our kayak riding the waves and snorkelling photos gone!
after a morning of fun, we headed down to airlie beach. ta pao kfc to the beach and laid on the sand. we baked in the sun for a while and alan was already complaining about the scorching sun.
then we took a stroll along the bicentennial walkway from town centre back to clubcroc.. it was a scenic walk as we leisurely walked along the sea, with yatch parked at its bay, across green fields, hand in hand :)later in the night, we went for dinner and some drinks at this mexican pub. hehe. i ordered a "female viagra" hehe, it's strawberries with Midori and some juice. and alan ordered a "playboy", also Midori with Jose Cuervo and Blue Curacao.. yumm yummmm. had a great time :)
day 3 & 4: packing our bags, we shifted to magnums backpackers. it was a great deal, we signed up with a sailing package with this backpackers, and for $200, we got a 3day 2 night sail, with one free dive, many snorkelling trips, additional one night free stay at the backpackers and a great experience on the sail. not a lot of pictures of the sail trip, cos it was all in the lost disposable waterproof cam. heh heh. sadded.
it was such a waste, as i saw the MOST BEAUTIFUL beach ever in my life!! many people on board the boat who were touring the world said that this is the most breathtaking beach they've ever seen!! it's really awesome, the water is so shallow that it extends all the way into the middle of the sea, which also means that you can walk all the way to the middle of the sea.. the water is crystal clear. although it's not magnificent with huge waves at surfer's paradise, it's still by far the best beach. i would love to go there again!! this is more beautiful than anything else. then there were baby sharks!! hehehee, and alan started chasing after them, and they got scared of him. hahahaha. the feeling of lying in shallow waters, yet being in the middle of the sea, is so surreal, so magical. try it try it!! :) remember WHITEHAVEN beach okies. think it'll be great for a honeymoon trip :)
hehe. i took and edited this photo of sunset on the sail! :Dday 5: was back at airlie beach and we rented a car. the deserted path.
day 6: at the markets. ha. we saw camels.
drove down to another beach. at a waterfall. but no water! heh.

standard chartered full marathon!! 2 december 2007

2008-02-16T04:07:00.000+10:00

running running running!!! man. i can't believe i completed the FULL MARATHON!! hahahahahahahaa. although timing wise was quite chui, but then man, personal achievement! and this makes phyllis a really happy girl. (forget about the post-marathon pain).

well, i know this has been like more than 2 months ago. but still! haha. hehe. proud owner of the finisher tee but the tee is hard to get. anw, me and judy just can't believe that we were crazy enough to sign each other up for this freaking full marathon without any training. in our "training" the months prior to the race, we only got up to 8km. haha! we are lazy bums.

hehe. judy stayed over at my place the night before so that we can catch the 430am bus at woodlands stadium.. the previous year when we ran the half marathon, we forgot that we have to hydrate ourselves the night before and we actually woke up to do so. the full marathon this year, deja vu!! aiyah. some things just don't change. and so after doing a lot of pointless stuff, like madly hydrating ourselves and pinning our number bibs to our shirts, we slept at 12am. it is ridiculous. cos we had to wake up at 330am!! man. and so i was whining, "why did we do this to ourselves?!?!?"

arrived at padang at 5plus, then by the time we checked our baggage in, went to the toilet, and did our warm-ups, it was close to 6am already!! keke, can't believe we're late for the marathon!! hehee. ran with my dear dear judy and ginny, but ginny ran pretty fast, me and chui judy were struggling! haha.

hehe i dunno why me and judy found the marathon so damn amusing. we were laughing in all our photos lar. hahaha.

the first 15km was awesome! ran at pretty decent speed, the weather was fantastic, the breeze aided in our running, and i gobbled down 2 bananas. hehehehehehe. hungry hungry. oh ya, when we were at 13km, the first kenyan runner was at 30km!! gasps gasps. considering we were 30min late in starting, but still!! gasps gasps. cos at this point it was a loop, so they were running towards us, they are like sprinting can. omg.

then we decided to take on the run-walk approach as suggested by many running articles. the easiest way to complete a full marathon (except for elite runners) is to run and walk at intervals so that you get enough rest and energy.

it was good all the way until 25km. the stretch at east coast park was unbelievably difficult. it's such a long straight road, the sun was out. not good for running. to amuse ourselves while running, we named people like the yellow man, the yellow socks, the last man, the fat guy. hehe, anw the full marathon was majority guys, no good looking ones though :( hehe, darn.

upon completion of race at the finishing line. yea yea. we held hands for half the time during the entire marathon. heh. friendship rocks :)

from 30 - 37km, we were going to die. kept meeting up with the fat guy whom we eventually made friends with. haha. stupid story. deep heat muscle rub was our lifesaver!! it's amazing how the deep heat rub is so effective. from 37km onwards, every km is like killing me. our legs are like not our legs anymore. it's at this point that i kept feel like i wanna give up. it feels like a waste to give up given that we have ran so much, but then again, the bus load of people that gave up whizzed by us with most of them sleeping with mouths open wide is such a great temptation. but i was very glad to have judy to run with me. without such great encouragement and support, i doubt i would be able to finish the race..thanks judy!!!! :) Even to the last metre, it was difficult. but yay!! finished hand in hand with judy!! haha, i would never do it again! it's just way too torturous, way too difficult, way too tiring, way too painful. throughout all my runs, i never felt pain while running, post running pain is common, but never during the run. this time, it was painful throughout the last 10km of the run, it's as though ur body screams for rest and yet u continue torturing ur legs. oh btw, i got really big calf muscles for 2 weeks after the race, then it became fats again, haha.
however, it was a great experience, and it's not all about the race. perseverance and determination play a great role in the completion of the race. albeit a long distance, i believe anyone with enough determination is able to do it!! :) and of course, a great friend who's willing to travel the distance with you :D

all smiles :)

never a full marathon again, but a half marathon anyone?

valentine's day :)

2008-02-15T17:34:00.000+10:00

happy valentine's day everybody!! hehehe. phyllis feels very happy with 9 roses delivered to her doorstep in the morning :) hehe. love u alan, thanks for making me so happy :)

then headed out to meet stephy!! hehe, as planned by vernon. had a great meal, did great shopping, had a fab time! and i bought a dorothy perkins bag for sch, hehe. many loves to my bestie :)

wonders of kranji 30 January 2008

2008-02-14T03:37:00.000+10:00

we decided. me and mr wenrong decided we shall not visit boring orchard ever since the last visit to the slums. now, we visited yet another slum. at kranji! stemmed out of boredom, but it was a great trip. hot, nevertheless.
our first stop to the Hay Dairies Goat Farm. hehe. we didn't buy any milk. i remembered my previous neighbour ordering goat milk that gets delivered to the door step everyday. and i remembered trying it, well, not to my liking.

next stop, to the dragonfruit farm. very very sadly to say, most of the dragon fruits are like dying? wrinkled. hahahhaa. like i care anyway. haha.
then we saw the miracle tree!! was telling rong that it costs like AUD$1 thereabouts or issit AUD$0.50 for one miracle fruit. haha.so. erm. he started plucking it. hahaha. he plucked around 10 i think? miracle fruit as the name suggests, makes u able to eat sour stuff but feel that it tastes sweet! hehe. i was thinking of washing it then eating it, but he just popped one into his mouth. how unhygienic!! hahaha. wanted to buy lemon to test the effect later, but we forgot too. towards the end of the day, i forgot to eat the fruit!! also, we forgot to wash it, and i refuse to eat things stained with soil. had lunch at bollywood, not too bad!
and this place was filled with butterflies.. eeeks. i practically ran through the whole vegetable farm (towards the exit sign that is).
the kranji express! hehe. good service for $2 that drives u around the whole place. let's not talk about how talkative the bus driver is though. after kranji, we headed down to haji lane.. heh. didn't get any great finds, but we saw these quirky signs though.

ha. unglam shot. :) strolled and stumbled upon the malay heritage centre. heh, but it was closed already. my fist is always damn big.
ended off with a meal of bak kut teh along beach road. hehe.

ice age coming soon?

2008-02-11T18:30:00.000+10:00

well just the other day, i was watching the news about CNY in various parts of the world, i noticed the thick jackets donned by people in china. not that it's surprising considering that there have been much recent reports of the drastically cold weather. on top of the fact that brisbane is also not hot for summer, ranging a temperature of 19-28 degree celsius on average everyday. it really makes me wonder, is it time for another climate change?

check out these reports. Mini Ice Age predicted in the middle of the 21st century. i figured out i will still be alive (if nothing goes wrong). gasps.

click the following:

article 1
article 2

desaru cycling trip 7-8 january 2008

2008-02-11T15:45:00.000+10:00

cycling trip to desaru!! preparing to board the boat at changi jetty to go to Tg Pengilih..
upon reaching, we cycled to Kampung Sungei Rengit, and checked into the Millennium Hotel. haha. sounds very sleezy. but it's really good, and worth it!! for us 8 people, we have 5 or 6 double rooms, i forgot. heh. but anw, there's spare rooms! and there's a living room, which was great. can put our bicycles. got sofa for us to sit and chat. everyroom got TV, got singapore channels. haha. private bathrooms. queen size bed. aircon. and it's like VERY VERY cheap :)
jw can't control herself. haha. cycled all the way to desaru :) oh btw, most of the shots are taken by jw, her cam is so damn good. :) imitating super heroes.
this is jw. *envious*
peigeok staring into space.
then cycled from desaru back to our village. started pouring so we cycled like almost twice the speed that we went at. no rest breaks.
dinner at night was yummylicious hehehe. that's what me and constance do all the time during our hwachong days. hahaha. i love the bowing man. must have sportsmanship!! hehe. at night was spent playing games, watching tv. zhemin can't play uno for nuts! and he'll kill me if i upload a horrendous photo, so i shall not, see i so nice. heh heh. (it'll be a good bribe though)

prata and coffee for breakfast. it was raining so the boys went down to get for us. hehe. zhemin and his beautiful legs.

on the way back. it was leisure cycling as we were still early. we were enjoying the scenery, and till the last 5km or so, it started POURING HEAVILY! oh man. soaked to the underwear, haha. hair dripping wet. on the boat back, look at the dark clouds above the place we just left. my mosquito gun from mustafa!! doesn't work loh. i knew it's a waste of money!! hahaha. boat back played stupid games, fun :)
great trip :)

alan was here! jaychou too! 14-20 january 2008

2008-02-10T17:32:00.000+10:00

alan was here in singapore!!
hehe. as usual, i was jittery. so nervous i almost headed the other direction when he alighted the coach and came towards me. it's just this very weird feeling, not seeing each other for 2 months already and suddenly seeing him, it makes me feel weird, and butterflies in my stomach. he never gets this feeling somehow, and he concludes i'm weird. roars.
then we went down to the chicken rice stall opposite novena mrt to makan. same as last year though. haha.
at night, had dinner with my family at turf city. oh man. the oysters are HUGE. it's palm size can. oyster burps! lovin it. hehe. then we took a night stroll in my neighbourhood :)
met stephy and vernon at katong to have katong laksa and more chicken rice. hehe. and then headed down to bugis.. he wanted to get some stuff from simlim.. so we cut through the bugis street market, then it started pouring!! oh man. we didn't have umbrella, the rain was horrendous, so we were stuck there. so many people, it was suffocating, and so we decided to sit down to have coffee. hehe. alan ordered the ah meng muffin. just as his name yong meng. hahahaha. the muffin was horrible.
hehe. didn't get anything from sim lim in the end, except for some random blank DVDs.. heh.
then met up with stephy, vernon, angie, jianzi, elisa at newton circus. most of the stalls were closed, so didn't get any decent food. ate penghe and those random things. then we headed down to geylang for more food!!! heheehe. frog leg porridge!! alan's first time eating it, hehee, he said it's delicious! man, of course! :) then ate dou hua.. then we headed home quite late..

the next day! down to the famous durian. and random singapore stuff. haha.
check out his weird expressions. inspired by me. haha. inspired by me... cos, hahaha i was super hyper that day. so i started waving to tourist on that boat thing. many did wave back to me! yayness. but when alan tried, he wasn't reciprocated well. hehehehe.
hehee. the day was spent doing a lot of stupid, silly but fun things :)
randomness is always good. hehe. this angmo was looking at us, hehe, we weird singaporeans, but too bad alan's from brunei. haha. loveloveloves. met up with judy and bernard.. munch munch munch, talk talk talk :) had great deal of fun! thanks guys :) awesome.
next day spent cycling at east coast park. then rollerblading.. hehe. i can't balance for nuts. darn. reminds me of iceskating. i suck at this. heh. then evening head down to chomp chomp with twinn, cons, chew and robin. more penghe and food.

then comes.... sentosa! hahaa. check out alan's expression. classic. same as the weird guy next to him. ha. hehe. bought this photo of us on the skyride. i scanned it into my comp, the colour turned out a bit weird though.
sentosa was awesome. heh heh. i think it changed quite a bit. it has the LUGE ride!! hehehe. it's a part go-cart, part toboggan thingy that they described it to be.. and together with it, we took a skyride too.. quite cheap for both! the day was great. hehe. the sentosa staff were so friendly. it was quite nice, quite weird too! hahaha. great day!!!
then we went to vivo to shop.. my 2nd time at vivo!! hahaha. 1st time was last year with alan too. i just can't seem to go vivo, it's confusing for me. haha. last year he bought a pair of jeans from topman, this year he bought another pair of jeans from topman again!!

then we headed down to chinatown. no prizes for guessing wat. penghe again!!!!!!!!! faints. the boy just can't get enough of penghe. faints somemore. hehehe. so yummy. so yummy that we just ate and ate and ate. this is ridiculous. this time only 2 of us, but we ate SO much.... then after that, i was too bloated by all the ridiculously yummylicious food that i didn't even take any photos of the cny deco, or us, or the food. hahhahaha. this week has been the week i ate the most penghe, charkwayteow, hokkein mee and u know, all those kinda food. heh heh.

by the time we got back to woodlands, we met justin and donna for supper!!! wa. i can't believe we didn't stop eating. hahahaha. :)

sat met up with alan's cousin at orchard.. and then went to JAYCHOU concert with stephy!! :)it was so AWESOME........ HIGH!!!!!!!! hehehehehehehehehheehe. it's so entertaining. it's so good. it melts my heart. especially tian tian de!!! man!!!!!!!!!!! heheheheehee. he's really an awesome performer.
i can't really get good pictures though :( but we were seated much closer than the picture seems. really close, we can see his expressions. which was awesome :) hehehe.
sunday! the day that alan left. was pretty sad, and he suddenly got fever before he left, must be the penghe!! cos the very same night i was down with a fever too.. till then, i'll see u in australia. :)

1st day of CNY!

2008-02-08T17:33:00.000+10:00

happy chinese new year everybody!!!

hehehe. this is the beginning of the lunar cycle again, starting the mousey mousey squeaks :) CNY has always been filled with the festive mood, although this year has been significantly reduced, i'm very happy to spend time with this little thing, also known as my niece, this cny! val val can't really talk or walk much last year, so this year has been terribly fun!! she is yakking nonstop and she keeps running about. i guess that adds to the festive mood aye?

hehe. val val was so hyper this morning!! she kept taking oranges from the table, 1 in each hand, and started saying gong xi gong xi to everyone. and after the gong xi, she will give a bow. hahahaha!! so cute. then when she receives angpow, she will say xie xie. hahaha. and she just learnt the orange plus bow thing today. and i dun think anybody taught her that! smartypants!!

me, val and my bro at lao sim's house. hehe. i really love this year's family photo :)
this year is weird!!!!!! everyone is taking photos in the family!! 150 photos?! can u believe it, and that's from 4 cameras only!! out of the nan nu lao shao, half of my relatives started taking out their cameras/hp and photowhoring begins!! amazing. i thought only me and cuz would do that. apparently not this year!!! somehow, it feels nice too, got lotsa photos taken. lively mood!! even matthew (or muthu as we lovingly named him since young) was here snapping photos, and videos!!! man. it's unbelievable. technology!!
all the family photos!!
sham and family
winnie and family
yoke chee and family
we're missing aunt lilian!! cos she took with her cam and i didn't get it from her in time!

clockwise, 3 pretty cousins :), with muthu which is REALLY rare, all my paternal cousins, with my lovely grandma.
talking about my grandma, she's really cute. just the other day, we had a 1.5hour conversation. my granny is really chatty!! we chatted about almost everything under the sun. from her love story (which is really funny!!) to how i shouldn't think about slimming down, to serious stuff like tsunami!! and she tells me how she likes to walk and shop in orchard by herself. haha. really funny. loves :)
this is such a SWEET photo.
my sweetheart :) gosh i'll miss her so much when i go back. don't grow up too quickly k?? wait for gu gu. :D
in val's eyes, i think i'm more of a playmate than a gu gu. hahaha. i'm always there to tease her to make her laugh and make her irritated. playing "mine" with her toys. singing nursery rhymes. hooked on youtube. and she pulling me around to beat the walls in my house and walk up and down the stairs (good way to lose weight though). u are just so adorable.
big big family photo :)

trip to kukup! 3rd february 2008

2008-02-07T11:40:00.000+10:00

on a lovely sunday, drove down to kukup in malaysia with a few friends! :) actually not that lovely, it was raining all day long but luckily when we reached kukup, it toned down to a slight drizzle or almost no rain.
on the boat trip to the fishing village. dave, who came down from aust to visit, and mingwei :)
this fish, apparently, whatever the fish name i forgot - is amazing. apparently, as our little tour guide explained, it's currently under research that its blue blood can cure cancer or something, pretty impressive. a group photo. mingwei, me, steve, pauline, dave, junming.
check out the toilet!!!! hahaha. i was asking for the toilet, then some person guided me to this door. and yea, when i opened it, glorious toilet hole!! haha. this was on land by the way, not in the fishing village itself. somehow when i took a photo of it, the toilet hole just shone. hahaha. it stinks btw. so i didn't use it. haha. the houses there hehe. this cute little girl. hehe. :)