Company's NY Countdown

Initially, I wasn't planning to attend this event since I was the committee member. But my mom insisted that it's once a year event to "mark" the year end, I should just go and have fun. Thus, a week earlier, Loo Ing accompany me to Indian Street to purchase my attire. Of course, it was a short period of time to allow me actually scan thru the whole street but I'm okie with the purchase as I do not want to actually spend a big amount of money on it.

Was thinking to take a day leave to get myself ready for the event but somehow, a little voice inside me said otherwise. Since my attire is pretty easy to get into and I'm not into make-up, I am the only one that actually wore the Punjabi-suit to office during working hours. Most of my colleagues are quite amuzed when they saw me wearing it the whole day at work and somehow, I was in the mood for holidays and looking forward to the Bollywood night.

I was the 2nd earliest to arrive at the Colonial Times at about 4.30pm but I do not really know why the committees are required to arrive 3 hours before the actual event kick-off. There isn't much to do other than putting up the backdrops and requesting the restaurant's staff to setup the tables & chairs accordingly. On my first impression to arrive, everything is so dull and ugly.

By 7pm, lights were dimmed and all the tables were lit with candles. Even the disco-ball were turning... and it's such a soothing ambience by then.

Overall, the night was kinda boring and I'm so tired. The music that the live-band sang was not really my type and not many people dance for the night either. Everyone were kind of laid-back, sitting & chatting away. Most of them left quite early as well. I left at about 1am which is the time that the restaurant allows us to have the last song.

Note: More pictures in Photo Gallery

^Tong Yuen^

For the Chinese calender and the Chinese tradision, today everyone will eat this special dessert "Tong Yuen" and it's everyone's birth day and I have my share bit to prepare my mini-marble size in pink & green. I even joke with my dad, we should roll out the amount of "tong yuen" according to our current age!! HAHAhaha... Imagine my dad had to eat over 50 balls.

A little about the history of this festival:-

The Winter Solstice Festival (pronounced "Dong Zhi" in Cantonese and roughly means "The coming of Winter") is celebrated when sunshine is weakest and daylight shortest. It is the time when farmers and fishermen collect supplies and food in preparation for the coming winter.

The meaning behind this festival can be traced back to the Yin and Yang philosophy of balance and harmony. After this celebration there would be days with longer daylight hours and this symbolized positive energy flowing in.

In modern times, it is a time for the family to get together. One activity that occurs during these get togethers is the making of Tong Yuen or balls of glutinuous rice. "Tong Yuen" are made of glutinuous rice flour and sometimes brightly coloured. Every one in the family receives at least one large "Tong Yuen" and several small ones. The flour balls may be plain or stuffed. They are cooked in a sweet soup or savoury broth with both the ball and the soup/broth served in one bowl.

*Gingerman Shortbread*

Since, I'm selected to be in-charge of the "gift-exchange" section for my CG Christmas party. Thus, I come up with the "fortune cookies" aka "gingerman shortbread" where I could insect a small piece of paper that has the gift no.# written on it. Well, it was just the fun of slowly chewing the cookie and not bite the paper into pieces in order to pick up your gift.

No cookie says Christmas more than a gingerbread-man cookie. That's why it was so important for me to look for the gingerbread-man cookie cutter. Went to ask around 5 shops but failed to get the cookie cutter at such a short notice. Thus, I had to make my own cookie cutter from the "thick-paper". Today, I think I spend about an hour plus in the office during lunch-time getting it done.

All I need to make shortbread are butter, plain flour, rice flour and sugar. Very simple ingredients and quite easy to prepare. Just the kneading need extra strength. Glad that I had my brother to assist me to give me that extra strength and baking the cookies.

~ Gingerbread-man : Am I cute?? ~

~ Gingerbread-man & friends ~

~ Gingerbread-man : Freshly baked, I'm ready!! ~

~ Butterflies-Shortbread for my brother's friends ~

Errands & Gifts

Left a few days till Christmas, I only had the spirit of shopping. Today, when I visited the shopping mall during lunch and after working hours, they had the Christmas songs on and I felt so jolly and merry just looking thru shelves of products. Happily singing along the Christmas songs, I spend looking thru my shopping list to buy the raw materials to prepare "macaroni salad" and "shortbread cookies" that I had in mind to prepare for my CG party.

Tonight, I started wrapping the gifts and also assist to wrap my mom's gifts for her. Took me hours and she still have a few that she needs to wrap but running out of wrapping papers. So, I had to go get them tomorrow. Okie, I'm gonna go sleep now... way pass midnight... Zzz...

Ruin Holiday

Date: 15th December

Venue: Phoenix Hotel, S'pore

Woke up feeling nausea and headed into the toilet in a lighting and vomitted everything I had last night. Got back into bed and continue to sleep until 10am and headed out to get some bread at Centrepoint. Pogi was waiting for me as I took the access-card when I went out.

Feeling a little better, took a long walk to Dhoby Ghaut MRT Station thinking that we could get a free bus ride to Little India but only come to know that it's only for the weekends. So, we took the MRT station to Bugis as Pogi wanted to go Sim Lim Square to purchase electronic gadgets. 20 minutes in that place, I felt nausea again and I vomitted again. As I could feel that my blood pressure is reducing and I'm feeling dizzy, I took a cab back to the hotel while Pogi continue with his shopping.

The rest of the day was spend bed-ridden. Body-aching and fever and just feel lifeless. Everything I eat, will eventually ended in the toilet-bowl. By mid-night, I gave up in taking anything not even Panadol.

Date: 16th December

Venue: Aunt's place

I decided to call my aunt and tell her my condition and she adviced me to see a Doctor. So, I took a 15minutes MRT ride to her house and struggling to walk up-hill to her house from the MRT station. Was just in time to visit the clinic as I was the last patient allowed for the morning. Doctor Carol Lim adviced me to have an injection for speedy recovery and I was diagnosed to have "stomach flu" which is a contagious virus and not due to food-poisoning as we all thought earlier.

At night, I called mom and told her my condition and she told me that she is having the same symptom. And all this because of Little Samuel who bring us the "virus".

Date: 17th December

Venue: Aunt's place

On medication, there is nothing much can be done with my "holiday" but to sleep due to the drowsy pills. Slept the whole day and it rain the whole day too. Have not eat any meals for the last 2 days and I slowly had some food today. But I still do not have appetiate to consume much.

Date: 18th December

Venue: Home

Decided that I should head home and bought the earliest couch departing Singapore. My cousin brother dropped me off at Golden Mile Tower at 7am and he accompany me until the bus driver starts the engine. So much for a "bus-ride to Singapore and back"... Mom was laughing when I got back home and yes, I just can't wait to get home to be honest... Because I wanna get well and start eating again by Christmas, I had so many dinners @ parties to attend till New Year.

Crossing Border

As I had no plans to go anywhere this Christmas, I have decided to pay Singapore a visit for the 2nd time this year. Also, the very last minute I made plans with Pogi as he is in town for training.

This time, I decided to take the couch and I chose the Konsortium Express. Dad sacrificed his golfing this morning to drop me at the bus station at 9.40am. I board the bus at 10.15am and it departed sharply at 10.30am. I was quite delighted because the seats are in Christmas colours – green & red. But, was a little disappointed with the promise that its direct-route to Singapore from Klang but it turns out that it stopped at Shah Alam (Section 17), Kajang and Larkin.

The South-Highway from Kuala Lumpur to Johor is having a major highway expansion from 2-lanes to 3-lanes therefore currently; there is only 1-lane at most part of the highways. Come to think of it, it’s pretty sad that you pay the same amount of toll fees but the traffic is so slow. Due to this, my journey into Singapore took me extra few hours as its supposed to be.

Finally, I got into Singapore at about 6 plus and I reached Beach Road about half hour from Woodland Checkpoints. The bus let us down at Golden Mile Complex and to my much surprised, this complex are full with Thais shops, from wet market to dry market to supermarket. There are lots of Thai people and they are all speaking their mother tougue.

After walking around, I decide to head the opposite road of the building and enter a 7-eleven to ask them for direction to Orchard Boulevard. The shop owner exclaimed, “Oh… it’s very far from here, you had to take the Bas No.7 at North Bridge Road.” In the map, it looks kinda far, I think I walked like 15-20 minutes slowly to the nearest bus stop, waited for about 5 minutes and I hopped into the bus after paying 90 cents.

All the way in the bus, I took the map I printed from the website to refer and kept checking the buildings’ names. Somehow, my instinct asked me to get down at a stop after I sat in the bus for about 30 minutes (or it feels like that long). As the bus left, I saw the lighted-red-neon of the Hotel Phoenix’s name. Thank God.

I entered the hotel and tried to check-in on Pogi’s behalf but I failed to do so. Thus, I went lingering around nearby and Little John was just around the corner. I checked out the ladies department and the price is rather reasonable. About 8pm, I decided it’s time I get some food into my stomach before I get any gastric pain to ruin my holidays. Again, Singapore never stop to amaze me, Little John is actually in Specialist Shopping Center and I came out the other entrance, I’m standing right at Orchard Road.

Had my dinner at Emerald Orchard’s Food Court, I ordered Mee Pok Noodle but doesn’t taste good. But, I still forced myself to eat it because I do not wanna waste it. After that, I went back to the hotel’s lobby to wait for Pogi. As, I’m writing this, I’m also observing some good looking foreign guys who are walking in and out. Hehehe…

Finally Up

FINALLY, the Christmas tree is up...

It's been delayed for about 1 week because my dad refused to have it this year with his reason that its tedious to keep it later. Just thinking of his excuse kind of make me sad and lost all the Christmas mood. My brother insisted that we will be putting the tree up together but because he is so busy with church camp that I could not wait for his any longer.

Since today is a public holiday and I had nothing better to do. Being "home-alone" with dad golfing and mom went out for a facial, I decided to give both of them a surprise by having the tree up! Just to get me started, I put up my favourite N'SYNC : "Home for Christmas" and start taking out all the bits and pieces from the storeroom. Dusty and heavy, deep inside the storeroom... I was sweating away... but managed to pull out 4 big & small boxes.

I wanted to setup the tree at the french-windows so I need to rearrange the whole living room to make room for the 6 feet tree. I hope mom won't kill me with the new arrangement. The leg of the tree took me half an hour to setup because the screws & holes are not really matching and a little rusty. What to expect and complaint about since it's already more than 5 years old. Hehehe...

~The Naked Tree~

~Still Naked Leaves & Branches~ ~Peak of the Naked Tree~~It's Lighted~~With Ornaments & Bells~

My parents came home around the same time and my mom exclaimed, "Aiyoh... how you setup the big-tree all alone?" when she saw the christmas tree. But, she did not realise that the leather-sofas were being rearranged until my dad highlighted to him. Hahahaha...

All in all, I managed it for hours but I had the Christmas mood slowly creeping into my veins as I was singing along the songs and going round the tree, fixing the leaves & branches and the lightings.

A Dab of Vain

Every year, without fail, I will reward myself with a Christmas present; simply just to pamper myself and look forward to the new year. Today, after looking at my colleague's new re-bonding hair. I was so eager to do it myself. Not like the whole year that I had not try doing it. Since beginning of this year, I had started growing my hair long again. And ever since it was shoulder length, I had visited 3 hair-salons that turned down my desire to strengthen my hair. Instead, I only managed a trim for every visit.

Surprised, that my visit to the home-salon finally promise a fruitful desire. After the hair rebonding, I was grinning happily and this spirit will live thru the whole month of Christmas season. This is the second time after so long that I am very satisfied with my hair. Looks like tonight, I'll had to sleep face down to maintain it for a while. A little vain, I took a few portrait pictures of myself but somehow, I did not dare to post it. Hehehe... *shy shy*

More of my blurry images: Shot1, Shot2, Shot3

Girlie-Night

A few colleagues decided to have a girlie-night out after work. Probably when everyone already got their pay-cheque and it's the 1st day of the last month of the year. Guessed, we are all looking forward to some party-mood...One newly wedded-wife just couldn't want more of her personal time-out and another mother who had not been out for a jolly-time. The rest are just singles...

Initially, we all planned for a karaoke section since I had not done this for a long time either. But it somehow finalise to a buffet dinner at Hartz Chicken Buffet and a drinking night at Bar@Cafe Flam.

The "All You Can Eat" American Buffet boast of their fried chicken. Cost about Rm17++, we were looking forward to a meal of unlimited serving and one word to sum everything - "Normal". Not planning to recommend to anyone nor planning to step that foot of mine in there again. Nevertheless, I had 5 crispy chicken wings, some coleslaw, some salads, 2 glasses of Sarsi, some cakes and lastly, 1 teaspoon of vanila ice cream. And, I was too full to continue to sit there and probably not eating chicken wing for a while too... *Burrpp*

We settled down at Cafe Flam after a short little stroll, got a bottle of Black Label as we are pretty too poor to get something better *chuckled* Seriously, I had never actually seen Liquor menu in my entire life before and just thinking of last night, felt a so embarrassed that I'm actually scanning thru it and looking at the 3 digits figure. My entire life, "drinks" were never an issue and never need me to decide/order either. Felt a little strange...

~ 3 of Us: Jolly & Spiked ~

I won't exactly said this is a nice place, probably I didn't quite feel it because my colleagues are just sitting down drinking and chatting away. After the 5th glass, I felt really blotted because the sitting really "kills". Yes again, I had always drink at bar-top & high-chair, so last night was kinda awkward and weird. I just cannot sit still.

~ Loveable & Bubbly: Juz' wanna have fun ~

Everyone has their own first time in everything... This morning, I have my share of "drunkness". I won't say it was the maximum limit but I knew I could not take in another gulp. But, I was challenged to drink 2 glasses "bottoms-up" one after the other. Since, we are all out to have a good time... this is an experience to step into a new comfort zone. A time, I felt the sense of emptiness inside of me... a chance to know my colleagues a level higher...

~ That warm cuddle ~