The Weird Meme (Not to be confused with the "Weird Me")

Yes, I haven't updated in ages. Have been feeling really tired and uninspired. I blame it on the job & start of the new school term. Haven't had the mood to do many things lately. I guess I'm just going through the motions until something gets me going again.

Had to go to work this afternoon, great way to spend the last afternoon of the CNY holidays :(

Toyed with the idea of going to the River Hong Bao in the evening, but thought better of it and decided to go for dinner @ Katong instead.

On hindsight, that was probably the best decision I made today. From the bus, I could see that the place was totally packed! You could see heads bobbing everywhere, and all the seats at the performance area looked to be full. Ugh. I suppose the point of going to the River Hong Bao is to soak up some festive spirit - but the crush of bodies and the smell of B.O. doesn't exactly cut it for me.

Moving on to unfinished business. I was tagged by both Davienne and Vincent to draw up a list of 5 weird things about myself. Here's my uninspired attempt:

1. I have a strong fear of sharp items. I feel slightly ill when I come into close contact with needles, knives, razor blades and the like.

My fear of sharp items runs so deep that even the dinky little "test pens" that medical staff use to take a blood sample from your finger make me panicky. Ring-pulls (like those on Pringles cans and Bundaberg root beer bottles) make me nervous too, and more often than not I get a friend to open those for me.

2. Only flying bugs scare me. When they're on the ground, I can catch them with my fingers or swipe at them with a newspaper, but once they start flying that's a different story altogether. I have this fear that they'll fly into my ear or nose or something. LOL.

3. I like fire. I used to be quite a firestarter when I was younger. There was tin container in my room (legitimate purpose: for burning mosquito coils) and I used it for my little campfires. Sometimes, I would swipe raw meat from the freezer and cook it over my campfire.

Erm, of course I didn't end up eating the meat. I just wanted to see how long it would take to cook the stuff. (I probably got this "cookout" idea from the Beano, Beezer and Dandy magazines from my childhood)

4. I lose interest in things really fast. Sometimes, I get it in my head that I want to have something (e.g. an iPod, a camera) and start researching madly on which model to get, the best price, places I can get accessories, etc. But once I get my hands on the item, I get bored with it really quickly and it gets chucked to one forgotten, dusty corner. Months later, when I discover the item again, it's likely that the poor thing is a goner from lack of use.

This applies to collections as well. I have a 20-30 piece Swatch collection, 3-4 boxes of Beanie Babies, 10-20 Disney beanies ... the list goes on.

My latest interest is food blogs. I'm reading http://www.tastingmenu.com/ right now and getting hungrier by the moment!

5. I am a pack rat. I get more and more stuff, but I don't throw the old stuff away. So, my poor wardrobe is packed with old, never-again-going-to-be-worn clothes, my room is cluttered with old papers and trinkets, my dresser is stacked with skincare samples and almost-empty bottles of lotion ... you get the idea. I just don't like to throw stuff out, coz you never know when you might need it :P

A few days before CNY, I spent a few hours trying to tidy up my room. 3 huge bags of rubbish later, there was nary a dent in the mess that is my room :P I guess 10 years of rubbish accumulation can't be reversed in a day. Haha. I pity the person who's going to stay with me next time.

By the way, my current S.O. is also quite a pack rat himself. o.O

Takes one to love one, I guess. :)

Getting the best deal at the CNY bazaar @ Chinatown

The Sunday Times wrote an article on interesting stalls to look out for at the CNY bazaar @ Chinatown, and how the stallowners had been affected by the incessant rain. Hey, I wrote about that too! See, hamsters are good at sniffing out newsworthy matters :P

Anyway, one thing that caught my eye was a comment by a stallowner, to the effect that "serious buyers" usually came by in the afternoons, and those that came in the evenings were by and large there just to enjoy the festive atmosphere.

In that case, it implies that the best deals are to be had in the evenings, coz the owners know that you're a "non-serious" buyer and will cut their prices a bit more to make you bite.

Conversely, they probably will give you smaller discounts (if at all) if you're an afternoon buyer.

Wonder if my logic holds out. Haha.

Silence

Here I am, slaving away @ Raffles Place on a beautiful Sunday, trying to earn $ for my HK/TW/SH fund. Haha!

Raffles Place is really a ghost town on Sundays. Few people, Shops closed, ENTIRE BUILDINGS closed (e.g. Clifford Ctr). The escalators at Change Alley/Caltex House aren't in operation. The exit from the MRT to Clifford Ctr is cordoned off. The air-con in the office is off. (HOT!)

It's like the entire place just shuts down.

I feel as if I'm in the movies: Walking out of my house one day and realising that I'm the only one around. No bustling crowds, no vehicles. The escaltors and lifts don't work. Just stillness. Emptiness. Fear. Despair.

Ok, I'm being too dramatic. Back to work.

Dinner party at Chow House today, and meeting S.O. to go to Clarke Quay! I've been lemming for oishii okashi from Meidi-ya for a week now, haha, let's hope I don't spend too much there. :P

A bad case of wanderlust

It's barely a week since I returned from Hong Kong and already I'm planning for my next trip there. Haha. I love travelling too much for my own (bank account's) good.

Hopefully, this summer I can hit Hong Kong and maybe Taiwan. Shanghai is a consideration too (thanks to a recommendation from the GoonFather). If anyone else is interested, let me know! I'll bring you to all the places that sell trendy, inexpensive clothes in HK - Argyle Centre, Fa Yuen Street, the wholesale markets around Sham Shui Po, factory outlets (Esprit, I.T., Adidas, Nike) , cosmetic & skincare shops around Mongkok & Granville, the trendy shops in Island Beverly, Pedder Street ... the list goes on & on! I'm also now researching the potential buying areas in Taiwan. No boring "cookie-cutter" shopping centres & tourist traps (Ladies' market, temple stree) for my travelmates and I! We go where the good stuff is! Hahaha!

Hey, I pride myself on my research, ok? :)

A couple more pics from the HK trip:

This was the first pair of boots I bought in HK, only $30! The material is leather-like.

I couldn't resist this second pair because of the nice suede-like material and the cute fur trimming! The shoes cost just $17. (The pic doesn't do the shoes justice, the color is much nicer than that but I couldn't get a better pic because my room was dark)

Besides these, there was a pair of black chunky boots that I loved, it was what I had been looking for and the height was just nice too! The only problem was the price - it cost around $65 and the material wasn't of the greatest quality. It looked like leather but I suspect it was some synthetic stuff. In the end, I decided not to get them :(

Ok, on to other stuff.

My colleagues and I were commenting on the heavy rainfall this January - usually, the monsoon season ends in December, does it not - and how it would affect the CNY "trade fair" vendors in Chinatown. I think these folks hate the rain 100x more than we do. Each day of rain for them = low sales, no profits, loss in terms of rental & labor costs. And it's not as though they can keep their stock past CNY, coz much of their stuff is "nian huo" (festive stuff) such as CNY cookies, yang liu, potted plants, decorations. They either have to do a firehouse sale in the wee hours of CNY eve or chuck out the stuff.

So, if you're cheapskate and don't want to pay $1 for yang liu or $0.50 for decorations on CNY eve, go to Chinatown on CNY morning and the throwaways are yours for the picking :P

Anyway, the (kinda) good news is that, despite the rain, there still seems to be a crowd at Chinatown. My friend Qiaoyun mentioned she was there yesterday (Friday) and it was packed. So I guess this will be a happy new year for them too :)

Rabid adventures in Hong Kong

Some pictures from our vacation in Hong Kong!

Ok, you'll notice that the Significant Other's face is pixelated - my lame attempt at granting him a bit of privacy. Aiyah. Most of you know who he is, anyway, so ... :P

A huge LV bag! Susu, make Morte buy you a LV this size ok? Mwahahaha! :D

The S.O. and I decide to play tourist and visit the Mid-Levels escalators in Central. It's 800m long and is the world's longest covered escalator! Travelling the entire length will take around 20 minutes. By the way, HK folks stand on the right side of the escalator to make way for those in a hurry. Ikut kanan kecuali memontong.

In SG, we stand on the left side. Hey, who makes these escalator rules anyway? o.O

These dogs remind us of Erwin's 2 adorable ones! Almost the same colors too!

Warning: after taking the escalator up, you'll realise that it only goes one way: which means you'll have to walk all the way down ... o.O

We take a tram (only $2 HKD!) to Happy Valley racecourse. It really reminds us of the one in Kung Fu Hustle, haha! S.O. and I are tempted to ham it up and act like Stephen Chow/sidekick in the "tram" scene and take pics, but decide not to because we're too thin-skinned :X

It costs $10 HKD to get into the racecourse. Big crowd there. They have beer, hotdogs, McD's, dim sum, noodles, etc ... the atmosphere is really festive!

Urban legend #1 - after each race, you'll see a storm of confetti (torn-up betting slips) floating from the higher bleachers as the punters tear up/throw away their slips in disgust.

I actually saw this happen! :P But there wasn't much, lah. Maybe only 100+ pieces of it.

The S.O. and I try to decipher the betting odds. Got Qin, Tce, etc ... what do those mean? So you win $70.50 per $ you bet or per $10? We give up after a couple of races. I suppose I should be glad that he isn't much of a gambler. LOL.

The board even shows how much the horse won by! I wonder if they let you bet on this.

Here's something you don't get to see on TV. After each race, a bunch of people will come out with sharp prongs to chase away kaypohs who are too near the race track.

Ok, corny, I know. They're actually there to clean up after the horses (i.e. pick up horse shit)

We wouldn't want a flying turd to hit the spectators, or worse, land on your freshly grilled plate of hotdogs, would we?

A cool pic the S.O. took of the horses just coming out of the gates. So colorful!

Every night, at 8pm, there's a light show at the harbour from more than 20 buildings on both sides of HK harbour. Very pretty! :) Pity it was cloudy the night we went so we didn't see the full beauty of the lights.

Yummy! Dessert from Hui Lau Shan. The QQ glutinous balls in my dessert were delicious, and the mango was very sweet and fresh! I wish I could have this everyday :(

This guy is fishing on the ... road?! Actually, he's fishing via a longkang on the roadside. I wonder what he expects to catch. LOL.

We catch the fast ferry from Central Pier No.5 to Cheung Chau island ($21 HKD one-way). It's a small residential island with no motor traffic.

The first thing we see when we get off the ferry is ... McDonald's ...

... not to forget 7-11 and Circle K ... damn, commercialised siah ...

Still, it's a really nice place, quiet, fresh air, idyllic. We don't mind getting aplace there when we retire. And it doesn't hurt that they have cheap internet there too!

Well, time for me to retire for the night too :)

On the contrary, my dear Watson

My boyfriend is weird.

A few days ago, while shopping, I saw a few things I liked and pointed them out to him. He went something like "Hmmm, $25.00, that's like $100 Hong Kong dollars".

I gave him a funny look. Sure, when we're overseas we usually convert prices to our home currency, but we were in Singapore (duh!) and I couldn't see the logic of his reflecting prices in a foreign currency.

I told him as much.

His reply? "Well, I'm contrary!"

o.O

I think you're weird, dear. But I love you anyway. :P

Everything changes but you

I returned to Singapore to find out so many things at work had changed.

My job scope had changed.
My supervisor had changed.
I had new colleagues.

I looked at my surroundings, the people around me, my nearest and dearest, and they also seemed different.

I'm disorientated. I feel as if I don't fit in anymore.

Maybe it's time for a change.

Ironic, ain't it, that change is what has caused my present state of confusion. And that change is what I have chosen as a cure.

Freezing my a** off in HK

I'm back from Hong Kong! The S.O. and I had a wonderful time in HK and we already miss the place. We missed it so much that we headed to Hong Kong Cafe (in SG) the day after we returned home for dinner and to reminisce about our trip. LOL.

The weather in HK was great. Most days, the temperature hovered around 15 degrees and we were perfectly comfortable with some layering, a scarf and a jacket. I love winter fashion! Sweater, knee-length jacket, scarf and boots - sooooo nice - but totally impractical for Singapore's weather :(

The shopping wasn't all that fantastic, because 90% of the clothes on sale were unsuitable for SG's climate. There was a huge variety of boots and bags, though. The number of designs available was mind-boggling. The S.O. had to keep reminding me that the material used (kind of like suede/velvet) wasn't waterproof and would be hard to keep clean in SG, so I (very unwillingly) restricted myself to just 2 pairs of boots and 2 bags.

We had a field day at Esprit Warehouse though. The place was huge (at least twice the size of the Esprit @ Raffles City) and prices were good: $22+ for men's shirts, $25+ for sweaters, $30+ for pants. They also had a few racks of "samples" for really low prices. I managed to get a shirt I was eyeing in SG (retail price - $79) for just $20! My colleague brought us to a Timberland sample sale in SG before, according to him the manufacturers usually make a few pieces of each design as "samples" before the items go for mass production. I guess I was pretty lucky to be able to get a piece in my size! In all, we spent around $175 in Esprit for 4 shirts, 1 jacket, 1 pair of pants & 1 keychain. Not too shabby, I'd say :)

One thing that struck us when we were in HK was the large variety available for almost everything. A typical teahouse (cha2 can1 ting1) in HK has an A3 size menu with hundreds of items available, and we're talking about "normal" teahouses the size of a typical 1-storey shophouse unit in SG. We were really spoilt for choice. The variety is huge even at fast food joints like McDonald's, Fairwood and Yoshinoya. At McD's, they have 3 kinds of foldovers (vs. our miserable 1 grilled chicken foldover), and at Yoshinoya, they have 12 items on their regular menu, not to mention breakfast sets, tea sets, and special items. It might seem silly that we ate at fast food joints while in HK, but the stuff there was too special to resist. For e.g., at Yoshinoya, the S.O. tried their tobiko & salmon rice bowl and I had a mushroom, tofu and beef sukiyaki set. Yes, sukiyaki! The beef was really fresh (you had to cook it yourself) and the set came with a small burner to keep the soup boiling throughout the meal.

The variety didn't stop at the food and clothing. Even their transport choices were pretty impressive. Travelling around, we could choose between their MTR, bus, tram (reminded me of Kung-Fu Hustle, haha) and cross-harbour ferry, mini-buses, taxis and railway. Tram and ferry rides were inexpensive and fun - only around $0.45 per trip! All their public transport was really crowded though - with a population of 6 million, I wasn't really surprised.

I guess the folks in HK demand variety, and the service providers are able to provide it because the population can sustain it - economies of scale and all that.

Oh, and we found out about this cool MTR promotion known as the "fare saver" scheme. If you're at a shopping centre that has a fare saver machine, just wave your Octopus card (it's like our Transitlink card) on the scanner and you'll save HK$2 (around $0.45) on your next MTR trip! So cool! It's like the shopping centre is giving you a rebate for frequenting their complex. It would be nice if we had that in SG :)

Enough of my trip for now, haha, I'll post some pics when I get the chance. My friend Chong told me about flickr and I'll probably try to use it to post my KL and HK pics.

Oooh my aching head

Ok so it's 4am and I'm still awake coz I've been busy planning the itinerary for my upcoming vacation.

I've always tended to 'over-plan' and seems like this trip is no exception. There are soooo many things to see, eat and shop during my short 5-day stay there, and it's tough working out a "relaxed" schedule that covers most of the stuff that we want to do.

I can imagine the look of horror on the Significant Other's face when he sees how much shopping time I've factored in. Haha! That's what you get when you allow me to do the planning, dearie. :P

So anyways, we'll be away from Wednesday to Sunday, and I'll see you guys when I get back! Don't miss me too much!

(Yes, I know no one's going to miss me, but I just had to say it anyway. Hamsters are such suckers for punishment. So bite me.)

:P

Things that ruin your mood

It's been a fun weekend - partying, fun & games with a great bunch of friends, plus an afternoon of cycling with the Significant Other. Pity that I'm now in a reallly bad mood because people have been stepping on my tail all evening, and it didn't help that I've been swamped with office affairs the minute I stepped home (I'm on leave! Don't bother me!! How would you like it if I kept calling you when you were on vacation?).

On a 'happier' note, I surprised myself today by snapping back at the annoying people who tried to get smart with me. Haha. I'm not going to be an easy target anymore, you morons. Just try me. :P

Oh well, busy busy busy these few days. Soooo many things to do. I'm supposed to edit my KL trip photos and make a copy for all my friends, but I haven't the time to do so. Sigh. Sorry, guys. Here's a few pics of our KL weekend to appease you in the meantime. :P

Supper in JB

Our X'mas presents!

Bak Kut Teh!

Crab fried with salted egg

"Tempura" style crayfish

Crab fried with sambal and curry leaf

Chee Cheong Fun + meatballs + tau pok (interesting combo ...)

Spicy chicken @ Nando's (for experts only! gimps stay away! :P)

Man, all this food is really getting me hungry :)