Christmas 2012

The war has ended since I have simmered down. It was barely a fight actually. Cool. Simba initially advised me against the intricate battle, fearing that I would be totally worn out from it but since I insisted, he told me to fight for as long as it takes until they know I'm definitely not a pushover. But he added that no matter how frustrated I am, I am not to blow things out of proportion and allow myself to be vanquished eventually.

For this 2013, I wish more than anything else for Simba's health to be good. I'm very worried about his health as his sudden weight gain and some other symptoms he has now has a striking resemblance to a medical condition. He's gonna be reviewed by a specialist soon and I really hope it doesn't turn out to be something serious. Let's keep him in our prayers alright?


Hope your 2012 xmas was good!

Here to write about my Christmas with friends. :D


We met at Chomp Chomp for dinner and made a few orders that everyone would have if they were there too!




Kangkong

Took out my new camera to give myself a head start in my photography for the dinner and my guy friends teasingly went wow loudly and instantly. Hard to imagine them singing the same tune but they always did when they are in the teasing mood.





Fried sotong.




Omelette.





Satay.





We separated ourselves into 2 tables due to the large turnout. Though we usually don't like being separated as being involved in one conversation together will be more fun, but this time it was fine as the guys were palling around; they brought their food to our table sometimes to hear what we were conversing.

Mao Mao was at the table behind us and photobombed the other 3. His expression is so one of a kind!




Joe helped us with a group photo. 
:D




And then Jun Wen helped; It's always been our friendly boyfriends to help the group leave memoirs.





They are really good at photobombing. Lol.




Jun Wen ordered Sambal Sotong from the wrong stall but luckily for him this one wasn't too bad since it incorporated a different flavor (curry)!

After the fulfilling dinner, we decided that Starbucks at myVillage would be a great hangout to practise the art of gift sharing.




Large candy canes decorated with gold-rimmed draping ribbons stood high at the seating area to give us a bit of christmassy.




While the others were ordering their caffeine drinks, we were hoping to get a taste of the candy canes.




Jun Wen and his best friend Joe.





Horsey looks have cultivated themselves into a form of entertainment for many whenever my friends met Jun Wen.




He was the first to open his gifts since he has got the least to open. Ying, who is always unconditionally thoughtful, bought cute wrappers to hold our presents and tied a small ribbon to make a neck out of them, but unintentionally reminded the guys of the Gardenia bread wrapping.




Ying bought him a coin purse with a small horse brooch attached to it. Ling and Calvin shared a PS game "Ghost Recon" for him. He was brimming with enthusiasm when he played it that night after he got home.




Next up was our sister Joe. He happened to open my gift for him in this picture. My wrappers were all from Gift Greetings, a contemporary gift shop which I thought has the best gift wrappers!





The first thought that came to mind was that he expressed incredulity when he saw the bottle of Body Mist. I didn't know why I had that thought but I could only hope that he would use it. Anyways, the Body Mist is Orange flavoured so he would smell like orange soon, and would be just in time to go for house visiting on the coming Chinese New Year. Bringing mandarin oranges aren't enough anymore, you need to smell like one to get loads of angpao!




Ultimate present of the day was Joe Boxer for the Joe!
Chocolates, Reebok shorts and handphone cases were his other presents. This time Jun Wen joined in the gift giving and chose his presents for my guy friends. :D




Like a child anticipating to open his gifts under the Christmas tree, Calvin totes reached his head into the bag!




The pair of Reebok shorts was similar to the one Jun Wen bought for Joe. :D I really haven't got the slightest idea what to get for Ling's boyfriend until Jun Wen came up with this gift thought. Every guy would need a sports shorts for gymming!
Body Butter and socks were also gifts to prepare him for the gym and post-gym.





Mao Mao opened his pressies gingerly which was as expected since he was such a gentle boy :) Lol.




Ling bought him a tool to hold the wine glass or something, omg I couldn't remember no matter how much i tried. :( 
I bought the same bottle of body mist for Mao, so joe and him would smell the same from now on. 
Jun Wen bought him a towel that has the smoothest texture (I used my unhygienic hands to touch it again and again, good luck to Mao lol). He lingered too long in Isetan trying to choose a towel for Mao that I nearly faint of exhaustion. 
Ying bought him a Everlast pencil case I think (can't see too clearly from the picture).




Bought Shi Xing 3 pairs of boxers lol. The gift inspiration came to me when I recalled that he asked Ying to get a pair of boxers for him from Bangkok so yea Boxers. 
He also was given a water bottle, a pair CK socks and an Everlast Tee.





Ying's presents that come in all colours, shapes and sizes.




My gift for her was a My Melody purse. I didn't give a second thought of buying it since it's really pretty; not only My Melody was sewn onto it but ornate lace details were decorated all over it.




For the sake of those who still don't know, Ying has been my colleague for about 11 months now! She is working as a Patient Care Assistant at National Cancer Centre, so she would have lunch with me at least once a week and would bring along her lunch most of the time, making the lunch box a perfect gift. :D






The present Ying ordered for Ling hasn't arrived and so in order to create an illusion that there was indeed a present, Ying still tied the empty "Gardenia Bread bag" with ribbons but slipped in an apologetic note. 
A scarf, a Hello Kitty pencil case and shot glasses were what made up the rest of her presents. :D




Really like this candid since it showed that friends were indeed paying attention to the others who were opening their presents. 




Got a pink cardigan, necklace and earrings from Ying, Mickey Mouse towels from Calvin, Victoria's secret underwear from Ling and shower gel from Joe.
This year's presents were the best ones for me. Lol. :D
原来，真的是一分钱一分货。I remembered telling PH how comfy the Victoria Secret's underwear felt (lol). Quality of Topshop's and La Senza's is nothing next to it.





:D

Anyways, since we were at Starbucks, do u often think that coffee choices in Starbucks are so few? That's prolly one of the reasons why I prefer Coffee Bean.. until Bi Er told us that we can ask for customisation of our order. Hazelnut Latte is one such order which smells great and is not on the menu! 

War Survival Tips

The war is on.

Here to share 2 war survival tips with y'all.

Tip #1. Minimise contact and communication. Talk only when necessary. :)
Tip #2. Be prepared for any rude comments coming your way. Flare up the moment you are hit and don't feel the least guilty about it. (If people take your kindness for granted, it's not cool. Time to fight back. For people who don't respect girls at all and are bent on humiliating you all the time, don't feel guilty about getting angry.) 

Hurling verbal abuses back in defence is not my forte, so I would just make sure people don't hurl them at me anymore by showing some anger.


If people say things just to upset you and make your life a misery, don't let them win. If people don't change, YOU CHANGE. You are changing for the better, to be stronger. Add a piece of titanium to yourself everyday. :D If you have been made a target all the time, it's time to show that you are not one people can offend and get away easy with.

Have been a part-time educator for 6 years now, and it's time to teach you how to respect women. The Bible says, "Bless those who sinned against you." I'm blessing you by teaching you to never judge a woman and to respect her. 

I'm not going to depress my self esteem because of someone like you. You are so not worth it man.

If you think I'm someone who will never fight you and you can go all out to ridicule me, you're wrong. I'll fight you now, thanks to you pushing me to my limit day by day.

Will share more tips when I discover them. :)
I'm sorry dears, I'm losing myself but I can't help it. I can't recall the last time I got so aggravated. When I spent some nights feeling sorry for myself because of those unkind words people say, I know it's serious. If you don't do something, they will never stop using you as the topic of a conversation where they can get a good laugh.  

Now embracing myself to come face-to-face with the challenges and not fearing them is really all what I've got. 

Gardens by the Bay II

After a weekend of rest, I felt much better. Lol. If everyday is a battle, so be it. Let's put on our armours and fight it! Bring it on. We're formidable and undefeatable!

Got Simba to take me to Gardens by the Bay and here is a short post about my 2nd time there! My sole purpose for going to the Gardens was to use the night scene function of my camera, not really due to its burgeoning reputation.




Simba loves experimenting with new things, so this time he got me a Peppermint Milo from Long Johns, though he doesn't fancy anything with peppermint taste in it at all. Lol. Being a loyal fan of Peppermint, I must say this combi of peppermint and milo is impeccable! :D




Him discussing the possible errors made in his phone bill with me.


After going to Gain City to browse through its collection of air-conditioners (my mum has asked me for sponsorship omg), we went for some scenery viewing. 





He got down on one knee to take a low angle shot of me with the MBS hotel. Really like that I stood out in the picture as it looked so much like I was photoshopped into it.








All of our night scenes shoots failed thoroughly, as we didn't seek the help of a tripod stand. I read online that photo taking at night require lots of stability on the photographer's part. Without a stand, all our photo taking efforts were negated, so please bear with me.




Looks like I would have to make another trip here again after I got a stand. :D




The Supertree Grove.
Standing in awe of the amazing Supertrees. These uniquely designed vertical gardens of 25 to 50-metres tall have large canopies that provide shade in the day and come alive with a exhilarating display of light and sound at night.




I was shadowed by the glow illuminated from the towering Supertrees.




Had to do a little bit of retouch for me to be seen.





Oops, gotta learn how to let ourselves be seen in pictures of the night.
:')

Nights everyone! Gotta sleep! :D

My 2013 Resolutions

Hi dears,

What are your resolutions this year? :)

Wanna proclaim mine by first telling you a summary about my 2012.

I used to only write posts that are happy but as I got older I felt that being truthful to myself, not deceiving myself that I am happy, is also a kind of happy.

My 2012 was bad.

Yes, the severe fall and subsequent repeated falls due to kneecap instability are what made up the most part.

But of course, the physical pain is always more bearable than the emotional one that greatly affects the self-esteem.

Do you sometimes think you should altogether stop being nice? Cos people hurt one another and you even though you try hard to love and accept everyone as who they are.

You are so fat and sorry I have to use the word, fugly, that you scare the hell out of them so they inevitably detest you and gang up to verbally attack you all the time. Your self-esteem is so badly beaten that it has hit the rock bottom, no I mean the bottomless pit. 最后剩下的只有遍体鳞伤。The society is not meant for weaklings like me, so I very much want to hide at home sheltered from the harms the world could bring, which is most of the reason why I just want to be a dutiful wife and wonderful mum and enjoy the simple things of life.

People put you down. People hate your skin. People hate that you are fat. People hate your hair. No they hate everything about you. You don’t understand why they treat you this way, why they are so critical over how you look, when you tried your best to be their friend. But you must know that kindness is at times not reciprocal. People only see the speck of dust in your eye but not see theirs. As much as you want everyone to like you and accept you for who you are, a few still detest you.

I could only run back in tears to Simba and be in the comfort of his words. I wanna quit these asap but why am I still thinking of others before me so much so that I have to live in misery for another few more months?

Dear Simba, I want to be like you. I want to be as kind as you, as nice as you, as forgiving as you and as beautiful as you but I’m sorry I can’t. Ultimately I’m not you. :(

So the year of 2013 is a brand new year and a significant one cos it’s the year I decide wholeheartedly to love myself more.

2013 will start with this first and most important resolution: Love only the right people. This resolution was quoted from blogger PXDKitty. Here are two of her encouraging posts you can read: To only love the right people and Everything happens for a reason.

She also said these,

“People who matter don’t mind, people who mind don’t matter.” (I don’t know who came up with this quote but it is so inspiring and comforting. I should really live by this.)

“You will meet a lot of wrong people in life so that when you meet the right ones, you can appreciate them better.”

Second resolution: To do everything and anything for my knee to not suffer another dislocation.

Third resolution: To do something I enjoy. To choose a job I like, not to accept one in a haste and regret later.

And lastly, Fourth resolution: Work is secondary. Kinship, worthy friendships and Simba are primary. 

Oh oh one more before I forget: Wear less make-up. Use the right skincare products. :D

Thanks dears for listening, tears have dried up on my face now (disgusting I know lol). Friends, if you are also suffering from low self-esteem, I know it's hard to love yourself knowing by heart all your flaws but you just have to start trying. You could love yourself more. I love you, so please start now.

The day we counted down to 2013.

Happy New Year dears! How did 2012 pan out for you? I hope it was great!
2013 will be a marvellous year, don't you think? For this year, let's make our resolutions as realistic as possible so that we can really achieve them and next year when we look back and summarise our 2013 we will have endless achievements to be thankful for! Let's be critical on themselves and do some self introspection to make our lives in 2013 wholesome alright?

Tell you a secret, Simba has a new year resolution that has everything to do with me! I'm feeling so touched since he had always been persistently keeping mum about all his past year resolutions and birthday wishes, but this year he chose to voice it out. (Something u may not know about him is that he is pretty strong-headed! No matter how much I tried to talk him into telling me something, he just won't reveal a single bit of his past wishes.) 

Talk about serendipity, I didn't go to school with the expectation of meeting someone but I met the most wonderful person in there! He is more like than a friend than a boyfriend, the thought which never fails to amaze me when I think about it. Him being a boy friend more than a boyfriend gives me lesser burden of keeping up with his maturity in the relationship. Lol. I guess his awesomeness has something to do my biological imperative to seek hypergamy; he is someone I look up to and will ask for advice whenever caught in dilemmas.

Jun Wen has gotten a iPhone 5 and installed Whatsapp. Now you can add him into our whatsapp! I find it funny to teach someone how to use iPhone 在这个年头.

Spent my last day of 2012 and first day of 2013 with Jun Wen! What's so special about 2013 was that this was my 1st New Year's eve spent with him. Cool~

I made the decision on where to dine this time. In the pursuit of impressing Simba, I went through a few food blogs, filtered out restaurants that are out-of-the-way (normally those themed and unique restaurants are not too convenient to find), and finally got down to Poulet at Bugis+.





The queue was ridiculously long and while waiting we were presented with the menu so that we place our orders first.





Still waiting at 8pm in the queue and he was undeniably famished. :D






When we were given seats after about 20 minutes of waiting.

It was pouring when we were about to leave the house and he brought along our free Body Shop brolly (Yes, I bought enough xmas gifts from The Body Shop to qualify for its membership and its valuable good quality brolly!).

Evidence of him being a farmer, Sonic the Hedgehog, a Smurf and unleashing the Katniss Everdeen in him (practising archery on virtual birds) all in just that pad. iPad.




The Prata Factory which is located behind him was empty; you can't find a single customer in there. 
Love his shirt. Chose it for him during one of our vacations. Am feeling downright guilty of being his personal shopper for the past 4 years or so; now his collection of clothes are all that I have approved. Lol. Omg. But of course he would reject everything and anything too loud and fanciful and make critical comments about my fashion sense afterwards. Everyone has different fashion choices and I respect that. But to me, if you always dress casually, you are missing out big time in your twenties and thirties as you only have now and a couple more years to dress up!




The amazing french roast chicken!




Dinner is served soon after. The roast chicken with mushrooms dipped in cream sauce was the speciality of the restaurant. Every part of the dish was omg awesome!

Regardless of how disobedient his stomach is, he would always wait patiently for me to finish snapping pictures of the food. I think that's very cool of him. Lol.




Told him to take a picture of the dish requesting for it to appear as appealing as possible and this was his work. If you couldn't make out what the dish was, give me a high-5!





My turn to be revengeful about the time he took blur pictures of me. Lol. Now he is blurred.




What's a New Year countdown without the New Year Horsey Look? Anyway, I was told that the expressions Simba make resemble an impression of the Dark Knight Cinema killer James Holmes and was asked to be more wary of him. Lol. Do you think so too?





The tiramisu which has earned itself high ratings in hungrygowhere.com but PH recalled that it was only mediocre. I, on the other hand, thought it was good and worth a try. :D

The roast chicken was the best I've ever tasted and I urge you to try it for endless times.




Other than Cineleisure and 313, Bugis+ has become my next favourite place to shop in! It carries some brands that I really like and they are New Look, Lowrys Farm, Sephora, Bershka, Furr Muse and Pull & Bear! Everything I love all in a place. How cool is that?

I think I have told you about Furr Muse several blog posts ago. Furr Muse was set up by a group of young local designers and has apparels so inspiring and creative that may just sweep you off your feet. Being exaggerative here but let me tell you proudly that a fashion blogger, Pxdkitty, loves the shop too! I was so proud of myself when she said in one of her videos, "Let me show you a shop of my preference and it's Furr Muse. I think if you are a guy and you like Furr Muse's designs, you have really great taste!" Yea! I'm not a guy but I chose some shirts for Simba to buy in there before, and always lured him into the shop whenever we passed by it.





Random shot #1.




Random shot #2. He hung the umbrella over his neck. I used to do it too. Lol. We are such cool kids!





Couldn't hold out his love for the umbrella any longer and flaunted it in the sheltered mall. I very much wanted to walk away at that moment.

My initial plan for the night was to try out an Irish Pub since none of us has ever been there but I wasn't very sure of its actual location, so he suggested heading to Dempsey Hill to seek some ambience for the countdown.

The reason that we chose La Salsa Mexican Restaurant & Bar was simple; it closes at 2am. The other bars close at 1am, which was pretty early since it was already near 11pm when we finished our window shopping at Bugis+.



We cabbed our way there only to be rejected by the waiter as the policy of New Year's Eve in the restaurant was that the diners have to spend a minimum of $50 per head and we wouldn't be able to drown ourselves with that many alcoholic drinks. As we turned away, the waiter saw my knee brace and feeling both touched that I came all the way for the experience there, and sympathetic like everyone else, he let us in despite their policy. Lol. How nice!

We were both given door gifts once we entered.




Party hats were also given. He put it on as soon as the waiter handed them to us but I found it too embarrassing to wear since they were nothing like a fashion icon. I told him that he didn't look good in it (I mean who will look good in the shimmering gold bowl-like cap?) but he said he wanna be part of the atmosphere at all times!




My Long Beach Party drink was a mix of gin, rum, sour mix, tequila and vodka which tasted abit like cough mixture. This is why I always hate broadening my choices for drinks! :D
I forgot his drink name but I remembered it having some pineapple and tequila taste which was absolutely refreshing and edifying (Exaggerating again)!




Truffles fries were a recommendation from the waiter and a good one. It's like the Macs salty fries, only better.




He opened the door gifts like a kid opening up his Christmas gifts under the Christmas tree.
And yup that was my party hat which I refuse to wear. Red hat with yellow stars? Over my dead body.








Playing with the contents of the door gift and keeping up with the beat of the music played by the band.










The interiors of bars would always be dimly lit but our photos turned out to be quite bright even though the camera was set to no flash. :D





The masquerade mask was also part of our door gift.




He also took some candid shots of me and this is one I like the most.




Lol. Magician waving his wand.













It was almost midnight and we counted down to 2013!
Found a full-length mirror for a photo of us while the others in the bar danced to the beat of the music celebrating the beginning of a new year. :D
He said I dressed like a pregnant woman this time. Lol. Flare dresses are only for people who knows how to appreciate them. I like flare dresses cos they remind me alot of Victorian fashion. I'm always fascinated by dresses of the Victorian age; they make the girl look so cute!





Checking out Facebook for updates of how friends spend their last day of 2012.





Nice effect. He was sipping away his first glass of cocktail and already having in mind the next thing to drink. 




Moved to another spot with better lighting. Like what I've said in the last entry, DSLR doesn't require you to do any retaking since most of its works are so nice!












Our next order was his Magners beer and my Butterscotch liqueur. My liqueur was in a glass barely filled to the brim but was satisfying since the aroma of Butterscotch makes me so adequate!




I saw some people wearing the party hat this way so to make him look less silly, I told him to wear it this way too. But somehow, he reminded me of the farmer in Hay Day. #muahahaha




This was worn with much reluctance but the effort made him happier. 








Since our main objective of the night was to eat as much as we can and not worry about either gaining a few pounds or burning a hole in our pockets, we ordered desserts too. This dessert was like goreng pisang with vanilla ice-cream at an exorbitant price. 




Dempsey Hill.


And that was how we count down to a new year! Hope your New Year was wondrous too!