Cheng Ming.. March 31, 2008

Every year, there is an occasion where families visit their lost love ones’ tomb to clean and tidy up their tomb and to pay respect. Normally this day falls on early of April. During the 2 weeks, many people will flock into Malaysia to pay visit to their lost relatives or ancestors tombs.

Last weekend me and a few of my relatives went back to our hometown for the same reason and so happen it coincide with my birthday. Was a very good trip as we get to eat many good sinful stuff: ice kacang, U-mee, fried carrot cake – BP style, kangkung with cuttlefish, fried oyster from a hawker centre, we had home cook food as well which is the best meal of all. We celebrated my birthday last night in one of the restaurant where we had fish curry, vegs, toufu and frog leg. yum..

Of course before coming back to Singapore today, we had my favourite food for branch.. Bak Kut Teh.. yummy.. Everytime when we go back to my hometown is everytime eat non stop.. coz there are so much yummy food to eat!

Tummy upset… March 21, 2008

Normally we would hope that our days, weeks years will go smoothly while staying healthy. But often the case it will not be so.. that’s is what makes life more interesting with its ups and downs that we have to go through. 

Even though I do not expect everything to go on smoothy but these couple of days, I am so unlucky.  Last week I sprained my ankle, however before the ankle has really recovered, due to my gluttony, me and a couple of colleagues went to Bukit Merah for Curry Rice this week and the next day, I had diahorrea. Kept visiting the toilet whenever I drink or eat anything. Sigh.. After working half day, without lunch or breakfast, I made my way to the doc.. Was given 01 day mc (What a waste of a half day… but at least get to go back earlier to rest)

Thinking my tummy has finally settled and my ankle has recovered, I entertained my client for a buffet lunch on Thursday. I was  also looking forward for dinner as we are having our annual dinner and dance on that night as well.

This year, our theme is “Olympics in Sentosa” Geez.. of course being supportive, we went in our sporting attire.. sports shoes, shorts, shirt & a vest. The activities are quite fun with games and songs that they played. Had a different way of presenting the last 10 prizes compared to the previous years.  However, maybe due to the excitement of the games and the huge variety of food that I had consumed, I started feeling a little uneasy in my stumoch. Oh no… trying not to think so much, I continued with my dessert.. yum… As the night turn late and I have not even won any of the lucky draw prizes, my tummy starts to give me trouble, it crammed! Trying to wait it out, till they announce the winner of the 1st prize – which sadly wasn’t me..

I left the place and made my way back to office and to call for a cab home. Half way through, my GM secretary saw me and asking how am I. Out of concern, she helped me to call for a cab, was very touch and really appreciate her help. Went home with tummy ache without any medication on hand, had a hot milo with my housemates and finally felt much better. whew! What a week! Hope this and last week experiences that I went through will never be repeated again!

10000 bc.. March 16, 2008

Today at least my foot feels more or less 90% back to normal. Able to go up the stairs and down the stairs with minimal of pain or discomfort. Whew! Spraining of ankle is one experience I do not wish to repeat.

Which is quite good, this afternoon I managed to catch another movie with a couple of friends KY & SH. The movie we managed to catch is 10000 BC. This is movie is based as the title of the movie: 10 000 BC, where all the animals are all bigger than human beings.

It is about in a remote mountain tribe, the young hunter, has found his heart’s passion and when a band of mysterious warlords raid his village and kidnap the lady, the young hunter is forced to lead a small group of hunters to pursue the warlords to the end of the world to save her. He went through battles with saber-tooth tigers and prehistoric predators and, at their heroic journey’s end, they uncover a Lost Civilization where they found with the evil leader and manage to free the lady and save the slaves. (well.. hero always wins.. )

Another – Pai seh moment for me.. March 13, 2008

Today I started the day very nicely and even had a sumptious lunch with my colleagues at Chinatown. We had fishball soup, shared a plate of “or jian”- fried oyster, fruits and even followed by dessert. By then, we were all stuffed.

After that all of us went for our appointments, I ended up in Science Park II. So was doing some walk ins in some of the buildings around the area, the day goes on normally up until I went to this building. After seeing the board and seems like there is no company that I can go and meet, I decided to leave the building. On my out, once I push open the glass door, I miss a step and my foot twisted. Once twisted, my whole body goes down to the floor.. hopefully gracefully, wasn’t really paying an attention to it as all my concentration is all focus on my foot.

When I tried to get up, I felt my right foot has no strength and managed to sit on the step, while trying gain some strength back to the foot. Then I realized that before the glass door there are some people sitting down at the launch having their coffee.. Shit! Have they seen my embarassing moment? Most probably.. oh boy.. very gently I tried to stand up and tried to walk. Bit by bit, step by step I managed to walk out from there and able to get a cab to bring me back to the office.. Whew! what a relief… Thinking that it might be alright, I managed to limp my way back home.

But as time goes, my ankle is getting worse. Even now when I put my leg straight to rest it, my ankle is getting more and more swollen and even now when I tried to walk just a few step it is even more painful now.. sigh.. now really wondering.. how do I get to work tomorrow with a swollen ankle.?

A great day.. March 9, 2008

Today is a happy day, after waking up in the late morning, I visited one of my friend who has just given birth a cute 3.9kg baby boy at Thomson Medical Centre. I have always very fascinated in babies (except for the shrieking part, which I can’t stand it the most), from the time they are born where everything is so little – tiny nose, ears, toes, and fingers and gradually day after day the grew up and you watch them going through all stages, crawling to walking, started pronouncing a word till they are able to form a sentence. It’s amazing on all the stages human goes through from the time we enter into the world till the time we bid farewell to it.

Then in the late afternoon, I made an inpromptu decision to catch a movie – The Leap Year. It’s a love story.. ok ok I know some of you must be thinking.. again?! yup. Its a local production acted by Vanessa Lopez, Wong Li Lin. The movie is based on a novella by well-acclaimed writer, Dr Catherine Lim, the story talks about a young Singaporean girl having chance upon her special someone on 29th February. She decides to base her intuition on an Irish leap year tradition that no man will refuse any request of a lady and invites him out for a date. Together, they made a promise to meet on every leap year – 29 February.

It also shows how the lady (Li Lin) went through all her dissappointment, heartaches while waiting for her Mr. Right (Ananda Matthew Everingham). One of the scene when she ask her good friend (Qi Yu Wu) how he knows that his fiancee is the right one, he said he is happy when he sees her, and she makes him forget her (He was chasing after her but Li Lin only treated him as a good friend).This makes me ponder, to forget the one that you like and to letting go of the feeling is not an easy task, really hope that I will meet my Mr Right and hope the theory is right!

Awards Nite.. March 4, 2008

Everybody also wish to have a night that they are able to shine, to be appreciated by others on the effort that they put in their job – of course mostly wish to be appreciated by bosses so that able to get higher salary increment or potential promotion. But if there is a chance, they would also like to be star in front of the entire industry!

Yearly, STB – Singapore Tourism Board will host an award ceremony to celebrate the winners from many categories in the Tourism & Hospitality industries – Hotels, Travel Agent, Leisure companies, Transportations, winners being nominated by the public and will have judges going around to judge their service levels. The winners will then be announce in this ceremony.

 For the 2nd year, I had attended this ceremony hosted by Mr Phua Chu Kang himself – Gurmit Singh! It was a great pleasure to be able to attend such a grand ceremony where you see all the hoteliers, press, stars and even the President of Singapore and his wife!

Not trying to boast – ehem!.. last year we won 02 awards which are the tourism host for spa and another for the dining experience. Previous years we won the Best Spa Experience 03 years consecutively but we lost to another spa last year. But this year, we were being nominated in 2 categories: 01 Best Spa Experience & 01 Tourism Host under spa categories.

All of us keeping our fingers cross.. But, all our wishes and hopes has been granted, we won both awards! Really a double celebration tonight! Yahoo…!  My colleague who won the Tourism Host is one of our therapists and she is from Burma - she is a very friendly lady, whenever you see her, she is always smiling! A happy going lady.. Very happy that she won the award! Congrats Khin Lay! Way to go!  – ok ok.. I am not drunk ok.. just had 1 glass of red only – Just being too happy.. la la la..

A solo outing.. March 2, 2008

Coming to weekend, most people will think of what to do, how to spend their weekend. When we thought of activities, we will then ask who do we do the activities with. Some with friends, some with family members, normally will be with their partners and of course there are some we do it alone.

Even though it may sound very pathetic doing things your own but it was kinda fun as well.. You don’t need to wait for people, don’t need to ask them if they want to do it or not, you can just decide it on your own, which I did today, I went to AMK hub and just catch a movie – The Water Horse. The movie has a similar story line like the Free Willy. The only thing is that this movie is based during world war II eras. They do have some comical scenes and some touching moments. Not bad to spend the Sunday afternoon.

Some weekend activities that able to do it alone:

- Watching movie

- Sports: Swimming, yoga, running, roller bladings, cycling

- Going library or Borders to catch up with your reading.

- Just sitting down in a cafe, drinking a cup of tea/coffee while watching  

   passer-by/reading your favourite book.

- Beauty: mani/pedi, facial, spa

- Window shopping.

Crappy week March 1, 2008

We do not aspect that every week is a smooth sailing ones, of course that’s what everyone hopes for. But with a week with its ups and downs brings some excitements into the life or life will be very dull and meaningless.. But no matter what, we always wish to start the week (monday) good without any mishaps or problems.

Unfortunately, for our department, Monday is our Sales meeting, this is also the place where we might get buttered by our Director of Sales which I did last monday. Its kind of a depressing way of starting of the week

But as the week goes, my week gets better and better even though is quite tiring. For one I manage to catch up with a friend who I had not been in touch with for a many months. We went for dinner at a restaurant in Mohammad Sultan, a very nice place for steak and wines at quite a reasonable cost. From there we proceeded to a place for some drinks – Jump room with a live band that plays R&B songs which was the type of songs I like..

Eventhough the next day I still have to get to work the next day, but it helps to bring the week to a better light. So hope that the weeks to come, will get better and better!