Happy Birthday Lar Lar!

Yesterday was Lar Lar's birthday and we celebrated it just like an old couple :) He is not one who will fuss over such celebrations (or so I thought) so we had a simple dinner at Plaza Singapura. Till the end of dinner, he asked me 'so where's my surprise?' and I was dumbfounded. It caught me by surprise instead of me giving him the 'surprise'.

So luckily he really wasn't hoping for a surprise from me although I thought that it would be a nice gesture. Point taken and noted :P Then it dawned upon me that despite being together for years, we should still make an effort to shower each other with pleasant surprises and small little thoughtful gifts. To give that little more sparkle and life into our marriage. It is really quite easy to slip into this '老夫老妻' mode and take things for granted many a times.

Now it's high time to crack my head on how to celebrate our 1st year Anniversary come this Halloween. Gosh, time really flies! It has been almost a year but it feels like we are newly married. Better make it a memorable one this time!

Office celebrations

After the long weekend of celebrations, I was greeted with another wave of celebrations in office with all the gals! I am entering into my sixth month into my new job and all my wonderful colleagues have helped me sail through and made the smooth transition into the working environment. I am thankful that they have made my working life more interesting and 'less miserable'. Without them, I would not be able to pull through my work from day to day!

Thank you all!!!

Yummy hot chocolate cake!

Our lunch at the newly opened Pizza Hut at T1

Our team of ladies, lined up in front of my cubicle.

Thank you for the lovely digital photo frame!

Off to Singapore Flyer... finally!

I have been talking about the Singapore Flyer for the longest time and since I have the discount voucher, we (or rather I) decided that we shall spend my birthday at the Singapore Flyer! As it was a on a weekday, the place was not crowded and we only had to share the capsule with another Korean couple. Although we didn't have the privacy of a capsule for our own, it was still good as we had someone to take a photo for us!

Nearing the top of the world!

Lovely couple shot!

After the 30 minutes ride, we went on to do shopping for my present. After looking around, I settled for a watch, which was within lar lar's 'limited' budget. Although it was a short afternoon out, we felt washed out when evening drew near and we made our way home before the evening peak hour kicked in.

Nothing felt better than spending a great Monday without work and with lar lar by my side!

Sunday brunch and dinner

We started our day early at Millenia Walk for Sunday brunch. Caleb highly recommended this German restaurant, a big part that was due to the free flow of beer. Yes, we were potentially looking at 4 men getting drunk early on Sunday afternoon! But of course that didn't happen as they had proven to be great drinkers and the beer probably felt like plain water to them.

What added on to the great celebration was mama Tracy and papa Sean was back in Singapore! Besides welcoming them back, we were greeted with another piece of good news, that was mama Tracy was really going to be mummy come March!!! We were all so elated with the news and we couldn't stop interviewing the soon-to-be parents. Now, our family is going to get bigger and bigger now!

Durian cake from Emicakes, which we concluded were nicer than the desserts served there.

Wonder gals of five!

Our big 'family'

After our brunch, we proceeded back home for more board games to spend the remaining of the Sunday afternoon before the rest started to turn blue with the impending Monday. For once, I didn't turn blue that fast as I took leave the following day. After our games, we proceeded to my jie jie's place for another round of dinner, durians and cake cutting!

Love you all for the well wishes and showering me with so much love, care and certainly not forgetting the presents!!!

Welcome to Club 31

I have been lazy, not been updating my posts lately. Besides getting bogged down by work, there isn't much happenings lately either to share. Till recently that my big day came and my weekends start to look and feel more exciting. Yes, I have officially stepped into Club 31 and I can only say that life's getting better . I am surrounded with a loving husband, great family, wonderful friends and nice colleagues, so what else really matters more?

So I spent a fantastic weekend with all these people and it certainly lifted up my spirits, especially since my hectic week of work prior to all the celebrations. I started my Saturday early at Universal Studios Singapore for my company's family day and we were blessed with good weather. To think that the weather forecast the day before was showers with thunder! Although I had to work, it didn't really feel like work as I had a great time with the committee members. It wasn't that tough being part of the committee afterall.

In the afternoon, I went back to buy all the stuff for the potluck session in the evening. And we were so engrossed with all the food that we forgot about the photo taking till we were almost done with it!

We had food like pizza, curry chicken, satay, chicken wings, mango pudding.... and the list goes on and on and on..........

I had my wish granted, which was the cake from Awfully Chocolate!

Our group picture, taken on self timer, which ended up with a 'wu lian pai' :P

We missed the company of Eileen and family as Lecia was down with HFMD. Poor gal and her fast recovery was certainly in one of my birthday wishes! Hope to see her up and about soon!

MIA - Missing In Action

No new posts for the month of June. Been missing in action and not much exciting stuff in my life, except for work and work and work. So tired that sometimes over the weekend, I just want to stay at home, rest on my bed and watch senseless shows on tv. Just to let my mind rest and think of nothing. And this cycle continues till the next weekend comes.

I wonder how long can this go on. Only one word, PERSEVERE. Period.

Fun filled road trip

I didn't realise that my last post was on 1 May till I finally found time to blog. Since our last outing to Sentosa, we finally managed to find time to go to Pulai Springs Resort! We have been talking about it for the longest time and glad that we put our plans in actions. We met early in the morning at 6.30am and whisked through the Woodlands checkpoint as there was hardly any traffic.

We reached our breakfast place shortly and had our pratas and mee. It was still early so we went to do grocery shopping.

Posing after filling our stomachs in the morning.

We were so early that some of the shops were not even opened yet!

Stealing a kiss from Lecia when she least expected it!

After the shopping at Jusco, we had KFC for lunch. Somehow it tasted much better than the chicken in Singapore. It was not long before our check-in time approached and we made our way to the resort.

The two Rav 4 that brought us safely to the resort :)

Entrance of the resort

One of the three rooms in the apartment

Just after we got ourselves ready for a swim, it started pouring! It felt like de jevu as it was exactly what happened during our Sentosa trip. While waiting for the rain to stop, we roamed around the resort and had our favourite game of table tennis. And without surprise, Mike emerged the winner after a tough fight with Rich.

After the game, we proceeded to have our dinner before our real drinking game back in our apartment. It didn't take us long to finish all the beer and wine that we bought and we had to resort to mixing all the remaining drinks to serve as the forfeit. Glad that Lar Lar was always around to take all the forfeits for me. Luvb lurb Lar Lar!

The next day after we did our late check-out, we made our way back as Tessa had to be back early to celebrate Mother's Day with her m-i-l. It was so far our first road trip to Malaysia with all the gals and hope that there would be many more to come soon!

Busy, busy and still busy

Since the last post, I didn't manage to find time to update my posts till today. It has been a long week for me, with packed activites over the last weekend as well as late nights during weekdays. By the time I reach home every night, I will be wiped out and all I can think of is heading straight to bed.

But I have to say that it has been a hectic yet fruitful week for me. Last Saturday, sweetie pie booked the Sentosa hut for a BBQ session. So we headed straight there after lunch. By the time we settled down and got ready to head out to the beach, it started to pour! Arghhh... so we cramped inside the tiny hut and spent some time getting 'entertained' by baby Lecia. She is now at an age where she is getting herself busy by venturing around and being curious about every single thing. We just cannot get enough of her funny quirks and tricks that she is very capable of doing now.

When the rain stopped, we dashed out to the beach and managed to catch some sun before it started drizzling again.

Baby Lecia's first trip to the beach.

It didn't take long for the rain to come back and haunt us. Nonetheless, the guys started the fire and we had a 'romantic' bonfire at the BBQ pit. This is so far my second BBQ session in the rain with many umbrellas. The only consolation was that there was an event at the beach and there was constant loud music accompanying us throughout the night.

Isn't this a sight? :P

It took us a while to realise that the event was the World Gourmet Summit and we decided to take a stroll down to the beach to check it out. We 'gatecrashed' into the event site and helped ourselves to the free flow beer and vodka. It was a pity that the food was gone by the time we 'smuggled' in. They had also invited the live band from Timbre and it was indeed a great performance. What can be a better way to end the night with free drinks, great performance and cool breeze at the beach?

Chilling out at the beach.

The next day, we went for high tea at Merchant Court as a farewell for Tracy. Just when we got Cheryl back from New Zealand for good, it is now her turn to leave. It is really so hard for the five of us to be together! But we still wish her all the best and we will miss her terribly, especially now that we don't have enough gals to play mahjong!

Power of five!

Another marathon

We finished watching the Taiwanese drama serial recently and there was a momentary sense of loss. Nothing to look forward to at the end of a working day and over the weekend. But we moved on and decided to continue with yet another Taiwanese serial. We caught the first episode on tv and decided that we shall watch at our own pace over the internet :) Another show for us to watch together while cuddling each other in bed!

My thoughts

I went through another night without cuddling Lar Lar to sleep and another morning waking up without Lar Lar to kiss good morning. A feeling of emptiness inevitably creeps in whenever I am inside our room all by myself. Hopefully he can come home by tomorrow night and I will plant kisses after kisses after kisses on him, just like a woody wood pecker :P

Come home soon Lar Lar, I MISS YOU! 米修, 米修!!!

A big bed

It didn't quite dawn upon me how big our bed was till I slept through the whole of last night all by myself. It was the first night since we tied the knot that I was sleeping without Lar Lar by my side. He didn't run away from home, neither did we quarrel. He just had to do his part for the nation and serve the country as well as the people ie. fulfilling his reservist requirements.

Last night, although I was still feeling drowsy from my medication, I sent him back to camp. He kissed me lightly on my lips before stepping out of the car, I guess with much fear that I would pass the flu virus to him. With lingering looks, I watched him slowly dragging his feet to the guard house. I waved him goodbye before I sped off to catch my much needed beauty sleep.

Back home, I stared blankly at our big bed and jumped straight into it. I was just wondering what would Lar Lar be doing at this moment when my thoughts of him slowly fade away and I succumbed to the effects of medication. That quiet moment didn't last long as my phone rang and it was Lar Lar calling to say goodnight to me. It reminded me of our dating days when every night he would call to say goodnight to me. After the phone call, it took me only seconds to fall back into deep sleep again.

Tonight, once again, I am blogging away on my side of the bed, leaving an empty space by my side, imagining him by my side playing his PSP or iphone. I am starting to miss his presence and his noise and how he likes to irritate me and almost everything about him. Hope these few days will pass quickly and I can get to see him again. And I promise this time round, I will let him irritate me without me showing any signs of frustration :)

Our weekend of shopping

Without much surprise, I woke up with running nose on Saturday morning. That was despite sleeping early the night before. Nonetheless, I went for my facial as it was the last session and I had to finish it within the month. The facial therapist had to endure my sneezing while she was busy with my face.

After my facial, I headed back home straight, giving up the shopping opportunity in Orchard! I had to resist the temptation as I walked past boutiques like Prada and Burberry. Looking like a rudolph, I decided against stepping into any of them and hurried down to the carpark. Thinking I could rest more when I reached home, Lar Lar wanted to have lunch in Bishan and catch "Clash of the Titans". Seeing that he would seldom suggest such activities, I grabbed the opportunity and agreed without hesitation. Armed with packets of tissue paper, I braved the strong airconditioning in the mall and the movie theatre.

At Bishan, we also bought a humidifier, which was supposed to help achieve recommended humidity levels in airconditioned rooms and let one breathe well, especially after adding essential oil blends. So we bought one, together with lemon and tangerine essential oil blends. Lemon can supposedly ease cold and flu symptoms while Tangerine helps to relax your mind. On the same night, we added the lemon essential oil blend. After switching on the humidifier for one whole night, I could not really smell the lemon. Not sure if it was due to my blocked nose or I did not add enough. Hope that it can indeed help to relieve the agony of my running nose.

With the humidifier, we need to find something to place it on. So we headed to Ikea. It was a fruitful trip as we came back with a storage box to place our humidifier as well as a shelf to place our laptops and all the electrical coils that had been laying on the floor for the longest time.

Now, our room looks more complete and tidy, with the laptops placed neatly on the shelf and below our tv. Top it off with the humidifier, hopefully it can help to keep the flu virus away from me!

New bonding activity

The long weekend came and left in a flash. Nonetheless, I felt grateful to enjoy the long break without any virus as I tend to fall sick whenever weekends come. Although I had a bit of running nose on Friday night, I felt better when the next morning came. It was also a great relief as it was a good break for me to recharge from work. My work has been hectic but so far I have been enjoying most parts of it. It sets me at a faster pace and provides me with more challenging tasks but I am not complaining. At the very least, I wake up every morning looking forward to work and not having to endure the feeling of having to drag myself to work. Thank God for giving me this opportunity and the courage to move on in life. I should have placed in my faith in Him and believed that the plans that He have for me will always be the best.

My lar lar and I have also found a new activity where we can bond. We started watching this Taiwan drama serial and we couldn't help but got hooked on it to see what is going to happen to the lead actor and actress. We are still halfway through it and we are enjoying every bits of it! We will laugh and cry together over the scenes, and during lovey dovey moments, it will bring a smile to our faces as well. So for those who have not watched this, what are you waiting for?

My darling Baobei

I miss my darling baobei so much lately.... don't be mistaken, he's not my new boyfriend but my darling nephew. Having stayed together with him since he was three, I have watched him grow up from a toddler to a young handsome boy now. I remember how I used to love carrying him in my arms, stealing kisses from him, holding his tiny hands when we were watching tv or sleeping and the times when I have to babysit him when my sister were taking her part-time course.

Now that I am not staying with him and working in the far eastern side of Singapore, I hardly get the chance to see him. And I miss all the funny things that we are capable of doing.

This was taken during our first trip to Bali back in 2003. I thought it would be tough bringing along such a young kid but turned out that he brought us more fun!

Check out his cheeky looks. He never fails to amaze any photographer.

This was taken during CNY, when we were competing to see whose eyes were bigger!

Our yearly pilgrimage

Our family went for our yearly pilgrimage last weekend. It is our yearly Bintan trip!!! Last year Lar Lar didn't get to go with us but this time he joined us as part of the Tai family :)

We woke up bright and early on Saturday but nearly missed our ferry. We actually got lost.... even with our GPS. Luckily we got there in time just to board the ferry. The ferry ride was quite bumpy as the it was raining and the waters were rough. Even when we reached, the weather didn't turn for the better and the gloomy sky didn't clear till evening came.

We took the opportunity to have our game of beach volleyball. And we all know that age is catching up on us when we woke up with aching bodies the next morning.

My darling bao bei & me

We were blessed with good weather the next day and we went out to the beach for another round of beach volleyball and beach activities. Before we left, we were already talking about our trip back next year! Hope we will be lucky again for the balloting next year :)

Me and my dreams

Of late, I have been having dreams about work almost every night. I wonder if it is due to work stress, especially last week when the team was caught up with the launch of our promotion. It felt like fighting fire on a daily basis. In the beginning I had difficulty falling to sleep, now I sleep like a log. Every time I close my eyes, the next thing I know is my alarm screaming away.

One really bad dream that I had made me wake up crying like a baby. I dreamt that Lar Lar and I had a heated argument and the only way out was a divorce. My heart tore into pieces and I could literally feel the pain in me. And this lingered even after I woke up. Lar Lar was just getting ready to sleep when he heard me crying. He shook me hard to wake me up from the dream. I guess he had a great shock as I kept crying uncontrollably. He thought that I was in pain, little did he know that it was just a horrible dream. And he said that I fell back into deep sleep in no time after he 'sayang' and hugged me haha.... Glad that it was nothing but a dream and I hope it will be something that will only take place in our dreamlands.

New beginning

With the start of a new year (although we are already in March now), I am happy that it is the start of a new beginning for me as well. After being in a rut for more than four years, I am so glad that I took a huge step out of my comfort zone (which is really not that comfortable a place). Lar Lar played the role of a supportive spouse, but of course with some level of resistance initially.

Delighted to say that so far the environment is good and I can once again feel the rush of adrenalin and enthusiam coming back to me. Hope this is a good sign for me :)

Our new toy

I had wanted to buy this long time ago.
Lar Lar was anti this for a long time.
In the end he bought it almost one month ahead of me!

Yes it's the much raved about iphone. Although he got it way before me, he didn't use it till I got mine as he had problems transferring over the contacts. Nonetheless, it is a road of no return for us as we simply can't get our hands off it as we just can't get enough of it :P We will discuss about the applications and trying to beat each other's scores in games. Apple is indeed a genius to come up with such a phone! If I lag behind in my updates in the blog, you will know the reason now.

CNY

Chinese New Year has always been a festive season that I look forward to every year, besides Christmas. Other than receiving ang baos, it is the time of the year where families and friends get together and catch up. However, this year is special as I am now the giving end! This is our first year giving out ang baos and this being our first year, we did receive some ang baos too. It is a strange feeling, as I felt that I am now a truly grown up adult. My nieces and nephews queued up patiently for my ang baos and all the new year greetings came flowing smoothly out from their mouths. They were truly well trained and prepared for it!

Valentine's Day happened to fall on the first day of CNY, so it kinda dampened the spirit of Valentine's Day. Nonetheless, we had some time in the afternoon and we caught the show 'Valentine's Day'. It was a heartwarming show and was especially meaningful to watch on this special day. But this year, I did not receive any flowers :'( Does this always happen after marriage??

After the show, we settled our dinner at Kenny Roger's as not many places were open for business on the first day of CNY.

Me & my darling bao bei



The four pretty flowers in the Tai family :)

Day 5: TPE - SIN

On our last day, we (or rather I) decided to sleep in as I switched off the alarm the first thing it rang in the morning. We woke up at 11am, just in time to pack up and check out by 12 noon. As the transport to the airport would only come at 1pm, we decided to have a quick lunch at Ximending. Certainly before departing, we took pictures at the hotel entrance.

After days of taking street food, the Asian in me longed for rice. So after roaming around, we settled in a Japanese restaurant, eating my favourite curry katsu, yummy.....

For someone who doesn't put Taipei high as a choice holiday destination, sometimes I wonder why I decided to go there. I guess as a short shopping & dining destination, this makes it an ideal choice. Shopping and food is great and cheap, coupled with the cool weather, I certainly didn't regret coming here. Furthermore, great scenery and nature is not far away from Taipei city for nature lovers like me. Personally, I like Jiu Fen and Yang Ming Shan. Both are away from the hustle and bustle of the city and one can enjoy the serenity and scenery.

But I guess it will be a long while before we would come here again as to Lar Lar it's too hectic a trip for him! To him, beach resorts would still be his all time favourite destinations! This being the case, perhaps we can consider Maldives this October :P Deal?

Day 4: Yang Ming Shan, Taipei 101 & Wu Fen Pu

This being our second last day in Taipei, we already felt beaten, after days of walking and walking AND walking. As if that wasn't bad enough, we chose to go to Yang Ming Shan since the weather was pretty good. We walked to the main road near to Ximending for a bus to the foothills of Yang Ming Shan, without realising that the frequency of the bus was on an hourly basis after 10am. So we waited more than 30 minutes out in the open, weathering the strong and cold winds.

It was a relief that the bus finally came and it took us about one hour to reach Yang Ming Shan. We then took another shuttle bus within Yang Ming Shan to Xiao You Keng. It was one of the more popular routes and when we were there, we spotted the spouts of sulphur smoke emitting from amongst the rocks. I believed another characteristic of this place would be the steep flight of stairs, that seemed to be never ending.

Halfway through, my ears were hurting, so were my knees and ankles. I nearly wanted to give up. But Lar Lar used reverse psychology and said "It's so unlike you to give up halfway!" So ahead I went and brought my tired body up to the top of Qi Xing Feng! I was glad that I didn't give up halfway as it definitely felt good to reach the top after overcoming all obstacles.

All in all, it took about two hours to complete the route. And after the long walk, we made our way to the next 'must-go' destination which was Taipei 101 and did the usual touristy stuff. By evening time, the cloudy sky musked much of the sights from the vantage point.

We then took the cab, which the locals named them as Xiao Huang, to Wu Fen Pu. It turned out to be another shopping haven but I actually left empty handed! Nonetheless, it was an experience and definitely an eye opener to see so many shopping destinations and late night markets. It definitely lives up to its name of a city that never sleeps!