I Like Lavendar No More

I used to love the smell of Lavendar so much that I stuffed my house with products with lavendar flavours... These now became my vomit inducer and I now can't wait for them all to be used up and replaced!



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大喜事 The Wedding Game

DC and I just couldn't wait for our missing ticket stubs to be found and we went with my sisters to watch this 贺年片. It is like a tradition to watch a movie during CNY... It felt like a fashion show and endorsement commercial flick more than a film. The plot was exaggerated, I felt that there was no point in bring the DJs and Singapore Team athletes to screen and Dennis Chew (周重庆)'s part was not funny at all loh. Luckily sis didn't bring ah Boy along, the content is definitely not suitable for kids. It's only bearable only. When we were on the cab home from new year visiting, the driver recommended Jack Neo's Love Matters strongly to us. Hmmm, wonder if that would be better?

Rating: PG
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Language: Mandarin
Director: Ekachai Uekrongtham
Main Cast: Fann Wong, Christopher Lee
Runtime: 103 minutes

A glorious, delightful and touching romantic comedy that unveils the truths behind the year’s most anticipated celebrity wedding, THE WEDDING GAME begins when Jack (Christopher Lee) publicly proposes to Vikki (Fann Wong) during the live telecast of a regional awards show. Surprised but happy, Vikki accepts – much to the delight of the public who has been following and rooting for the two superstars’ much publicized romance.

What the public doesn't know is that the entire love affair is an elaborate and meticulously planned ruse designed to further the careers and fortunes of the two ‘lovebirds’ by their ambitious managers May and Tom. In reality, Jack has disliked Vikki from the first day they met and vice versa!

But through it all, the two stars keep up with the charade. Both of them are sure they have nothing to lose – not when they’ve signed a pre-nuptial agreement to protect themselves and their fortunes.

Just when everything is going so well, an incident rattled some of the fans and the media. There is doubt now lingering about the authenticity of this love match.

Will they succeed in fooling a nation, and come away richer but not wiser?

What I like about Chinese New Year

What comes to your mind when Chinese New Year is approaching besides the plentiful cleaning up to do and the damages caused by giving out ang pow? For me, it must have been the festive goodies that I get to eat and the chinese tradition of dressing up for home visiting...


Typical Routine & Goodies for Chinese New Year:

Festive Goodies
There're the 肉干 Sliced BBQ Pork, Pineapple tarts (Didn't manage to get this year, so I'm going to attack it at the relatives'), the Love Letters and many more!

Reunion Feast
For my family, it has always been steamboat with pig stomach soup as the soup base (and I've always love the steamboat!).


It's slightly different for DC's family who will cook more sumptuous meal with rich seafood and chicken (recent years we've also had 盆菜). Like last year, we had our reunion dinner at DC's bro house.


New Year Day 1 年初一
Breakfast was:
Vegetarian dish with rice and the yummy salty "Fu Yu" (fermented soy?) at DC's family and it's a tradition to 添饭!


My mummy will cook the delicious red dates and dried longan soup and we'll drink a bowl before setting off to home visiting.

Lunch was at the relatives house:
At Ah Ma's house, my uncle will definitely cooked his specialty fried 五香, fried chicken wings, fried prawns and fried fish.


This year, at DC's uncle's house, we tasted a different new year food - Peranakan version of popiah. However, the ingredients are not wrapped into a roll, instead, they were all placed in a cripsy cup biscuit. It tastes heavenly yummy and reminded me of Ah Ma's popiah veg! :)

Then come dinner:
Always, there will be home made yusheng 余生 on the first day of CNY at DC's aunt house and there's also delicious Buhhda Jump Over the Wall 佛跳墙!


New Year Day 2 年初二
Lunch at my maternal grandma's house. I always attack the abacus 算盘子 and chicken wings! :) No black coffee for me this year as I'm forbidden to take coffee and tea.


New Year Day 7 年初七
DC family's tradition is to eat 7 vegatables on this day. Supposed to eat yusheng on 人日 with my family but we postponed it to Day 9, 3 Feb 09 because there was a baby birthday celebration on that day.

New Year Day 8 年初八
Funny tradition that the Hokkiens have, i.e. to pray to the sky 拜天宫 at midnight on the 8th day of the lunar new year. My parents always stay up on this day and prepared lots of offerings (two sugar canes included).

New Year Day 15 年初十五
There will be good food on that day.

There's also the Sentosa Flowers, the 河畔 and the Chingay parade during this festive period. Also, the lion dance and dragon dance that DC loves. We would love to catch them all this year... :)

I enjoyed this year as much as last year's. Hope you enjoyed yours too. Happy Lunar New Year! :)


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A free CK watch - to sell or not to sell?

I just got a free CK watch from the Standard Chartered promotion. It looks much better than I expected. I feel like keeping it ... since I will be entitled to another one, free as well :)

I wonder how much it will fetch on the market? Now it's to decide whether to sell both or just one ...




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Sony WS-120 takes superb pictures!

I have a free Sony WS-120 camera! It's been so long since I used these compact cameras. Boy, am I amazed by the quality of this camera. The image quality is fantastic. Clear, sharp, vivid, low noise! I'll use more of this in future, it's easier to get other people to take pictures of us using this as there's a live preview on the LCD, unlike my dSLR.

There's even a Smile Shutter mode which recognises your smiles and automatically snaps the picture!




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Afternoon Tea @ Chihuly Lounge, Ritz Carlton

What better thing to do than lazing around, drinking tea and coffee at the Chihuly Lounge in Ritz Carlton. There's ample natural light through the glass ceiling, a live band playing and good snacks. The theme today is Summer Berries.




Tea with ice cubes made from tea! Now the ice won't dilute the tea.


There's a sampling of some special alcoholic concoction but CP shall have none of them.


Live band.


A satisfied me.

All Ready for the Lunar New Year

The Chinese New Year is approaching fast and we have done the essentials to welcome the 牛 year, the Year of the Ox! :)



Checklist for Chinese New Year:
1. Clean up the house - Checked
2. Stock up Chinese New Year goodies - Checked
3. Buy new clothes - Checked
4. Decorate the house for Chinese New Year - Checked
5. Prepare Ang Pows money - Checked


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Where're the ticket stubs?

The ticket stubs that we could exchange for a free movie were gone! We have been searching for them since Day 1...where could they be??? *Pray* Let us find them quick before the offer lapses!


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A Cross in the Sky

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I love my new keyboard

Yep, Apple makes great aluminium keyboards, no doubt about it. I'll probably buy one more, so I can use it at home and in the office.




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I spent today with my parents

Don't feel like working and don't want to repeat last year's tragic of working OT on my birthday, so I went on leave today! :)

Since DC was still overseas, I spent today with my parents! First, they took me out to Geylang for a Bak Kut Teh lunch with my sis, then, we went shopping at Bedok Central and got a basket full of chinese new year goodies home - expenses all on my parents (though I tried to reimburse them without success). It was definitely a well-spent cosy birthday! :)




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Home Alone

First night alone without DC... I miss him.

Luckily technology is so much advanced now compared to my mum's time. I am still able to sms, msn and call him if I need to... and don't have to wait for him to post letters to me!


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Lunar Birthday

Mummy specially dyed the eggs red and brought them to my house.


Here's what we always do during my lunar birthday...

She'll roll the eggs one by one and speak good wishes while rolling the eggs. My job is to catch the eggs! :)

Then the eggs became part of our nutritious salad dinner, yummy!



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Celebrating the big 3-O

Yep, you know it when the time comes when the Immigration sent you a notice to renew your identity card. It means you are ... old ... :)

It's a pity I'll be away on business trip during CP's birthday. To make up for it, I brought her to a shopping spree before I left for Dubai.

Yes, her favourites:

Epi Ivory Lockit


Mini Lin Manon MM




Probably it's near to Chinese New Year, the manager gave us some complimentray gifts as well.

I thought the envelopes look like CNY red packets, maybe we'll use some of them when giving out to relatives.

Plus also a pack of Damier Graphite playing cards.







Then, of course, she treated her family for dinner at No Signboard Seafood@Esplanade.

The sharks' fin soup and noodle was a disappointing. They were too salty. We enjoyed the chilli crabs, it was a little too hot for CP :)

Wanted to organise a drinking session after dinner but all are too full for drinks. That ended our celebration, a simple but warm one. :)



Once I came back from my business trip, we had a mini celebration at a Japanese restaurant.



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Ip Man

Rating: PG
Genre: Action, Drama
Language: Mandarin with Chinese and English subtitles
Director: Wilson Yip
Main Cast: Donnie Yen, Lynn Hung, Simon Yam, Fan Siu Wong, Lam Ka Tung, Wong You Nam
Runtime: 108mins

Official Website: http://www.ipman-movie.com

The movie is adapted from the life story of Ip Man, the grand master of the Wing Chun style of Kung Fu and Sifu (master) of legendary Kung Fu superstar Bruce Lee. Ip Man - martial art’s unyielding follower, whole-heartedly devotee to the free learning of Wushu. The fight to be top between the Wushu schools in the southern and northern regions of China did not stop him from goodwill matches with other practitioners. Nationalistic bad feelings and racial hatred did not lessen his respect for Japanese Kung Fu warriors. In a great era of hate and tragedies, Ip focused only on Wushu. His enthusiasm for martial arts saw led to devastating street fights with various elite practitioners. To this date, neither movies nor publications about Ip Man exist. This movie is the first important record of the master’s life. Ip’s persistent devotion to Wing Chun is a classic example of the love and respect for Wushu and the freedom and spirit it represents.


Go watch the Ip Man - It's nice! It's not the usual serious fighting show that you'd expected. The funny characters and silly conversations did bring the audience to the lighter side of the film. DC likes it, my bro likes it and even my father-in-law likes it. :)

Halfway into the show, there was an interruption. At 6:30pm, the cinema screen suddenly went blank and classical music played in the background. This lasted for about 5 minutes. After the show ended, the manager came into the threatre, apologised and offered us a complimentary ticket each valid for 1 month. We are only required to show them our ticket stub. The whole threatre cheered! Yeah, free tickets, why not? This is not the first time this happened to us... Why didn't the XX company done the same previously?

Sad News

DC will be on business trip during my birthday week! What a heart-breaking news! :( Initially the trip was planned to be in Feb after cny but then, DC's boss suddenly wanted him to go with him next week...

I guess my birthday celebration would have to be either brought forward or postponed...


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Planning for my birthday bash

My birthday is one week away and I'm planning a birthday bash for myself...

I've toying the idea of having a different birthday celebration this year because it's my 30th birthday this year! :( Sad but it's a milestone that everyone has to cross, I'm no exception and I want to do it gracefully and happily... :)


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Pre-birthday dinner

I think it was more of me wanting to eat steak and part of me always wanted to try out Black Angus. Anyway, birthday should be celebrated the whole month, so I'll start with CP's.







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