Last Post of 2008

Gosh! Last 64mins of 2008... Time really FLIES!! i was reading my past posts as reflections for the year gone by, especially my resolutions for 2008... Anyway, for stocktaking, i shall copy and paste my resolutions then here.

Resolutions for 2008
1. Lose that 3-5kg i gained in 2007. (No, think i better just make it 3kg cos weight is easy to gain but hard to lose... Or better make it 2kg instead...) Erm... i think i gained additional weight instead of losing it! gasp!

2. Go to the gym at least twice or thrice a week. Trying to make it once a week!

3. Stop buying books. i've got a fetish. i like to collect books... books i bought which i think are useful and classics but which i've never got round to reading... Pull me away from Kinokuniya when they are having 20% off! Hmm... didn't manage to stop totally but i did successfully avoid Kino during sales time!

4. Stop buying wine. i've got 3 types of alcohol in the past week alone and i can't down one-tenth of a glass! Accomplished! YAY!!!! (^.^)

5. Think twice before buying a new pair of shoes. And clothes. And bag. Did that! This year didn't buy alot of clothes. Considered accomplished! Yay!! Woohoo!~

6. Clean up my room before the dust settles. Erms... hee.... enough said...

7. Do up the photo album for my Hokkaido trip from ...................... hee......................... this is embarrassing....... June 2006.... Oh.... i forgot about this... oops...

Haiz... since i'm not bound to keep resolutions, think i shall forget about them this year! But maybe just one! Same as no. 1 as last year! Sweat...

Happy New Year everyone! Have a 2009 filled with joy, peace, health, happiness, luck, prosperity and LOVE! (^^,)

Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea 崖の上のポニョ

Hypnotised by the awfully childish and insane "ponyo ponyo ponyo sakana no ko" jingle on tv recently, i rented the dvd when i chanced upon it in the shop. This latest anime film by Miyazaki Hayao really spells KAWAII!! i heard the scenes are all hand drawn by Miyazaki himself. This tale about a little girl-fish Ponyo who meets a cute 5-year old boy Sosuke and becoming a human is very Japanese in that it has no big ups and turns. But i think everyone will like it cos of the colourful scenes and excellent dubbing and just because Ponyo and Sosuke are so CUTE! hehe. (^^)

OMG!! At about three-quarter of the show, there's a silhouette of a person walk up and back from the toilet! What is this!? i rented a pirated dvd!! WTH! &$%#*@&! No more MIC dvds!

12 莲花

Unless you like colourful sets, nonsensical plot and hokkien songs, venture at your own risk. Enough said. Should have rented something else. Waste of time and $.

Mushroom Park (Revisited)

Went for a healthy meal after workout. :) i think the crowd doesn't do this place justice. There are only 2 tables (including us) at lunch today. We ordered the lunch set which is more affordable than their normal sets.

Added an order of the mushroom sashimi ($12). Contrary to my belief, this is cooked mushroom. i had thought that it is raw cos of the name of the dish. This is very refreshing cos it is chilled. But need lots of the sauce to make it heavenly.

Lunch set C ($16.90) - There are 7 items in the pot including 3 types of mushroom (don't ask me the names cos i can't remember but i know got the monkey brain mushroom), a mushroom rice, choice of meat (mine is the fish but i "borrowed" XX's pork cos i thought it photos better. :p). It also comes with a free desert. The plum pudding is nice.

Oh! The bras basah mac has renovated. i had the sinful hot fudge sundae. The perfect reward to a healthy day. hehe. :p

Mamma Mia! The Movie

Wanted to buy Kylie X concert dvd but it's sold out at ALL the shops at JP. Ended renting 3 dvds for $10. i didn't know renting is so affordable. It was a spur of the moment cos i had thought of buying one of this too - Mamma Mia! The Movie. Well, it's cheaper to rent.

Seriously after seeing the movie, i had thought this show was crap. It was a little slow along the way. Not much "action" and not much climax. But you just can't help thinking how apt the lyrics of the songs are for the show. Or how the producers are so clever to build a show after the ABBA songs. Frankly, i think i enjoyed / learnt to appreciate the movie more after watching the behind-the-scenes.

And i didn't realised that i've heard some of the ABBA songs all along! Though some are new to me. These are my fav from the movie. Pity the energy of my all time fav Dancing Queen is not up to standard.

"New" song - Voulez vous


The song that appeared only behind-the-scene. Doesn't the prelude sounds familiar? i didn't know that this is ABBA! Gimme Gimme Gimme.

The Cathay Basement

Since we couldn't stay long at Astons, we adjourned to the basement "food court" for drinks and our gift exchange.

Got lots of personalised gifts this year.

Forever friends keychain and piglet container from YV, bookmark from SL and nametag from SY. :) They said the girl on the bookmark looks like me... does it?!

Btw, can you guess what is this?

A red and white cup?

Give up?

Seats!

Astons Specialities

Heard lots of raves for the Joo Chiat branch. Since that is a little out of the place, decided to try the branch at The Cathay. Super longggggggg queue even at 1820hrs. (-_-")



If SY had not wanted to eat something cheap, i would rather pay a little more than queue... After waiting for 1hr(!) 10 min and shortly after SY and YV arrived, we finally got a table. The food had BETTER be GOOD!! The place was quite small. Thank goodness we got a booth seat after queueing for so long! Yay!

The servers took our orders before we went in. Or rather, we had to order before we could go in. But the place is so popular quite a number of the items were sold out. So the servers had to come out and ask if anyone had ordered this and that to change their order. Service was relatively fast. In fact, SL said that they seemed more like fast food than restaurant. lol.

We all ordered the soup combo. Soup + iced tea = $3.50.



The garlic bread that came with the soup is quite nice. Generous with spread and the bread is soft yet crispy at the top. One of the nicer garlic bread i've eaten. The soup is quite decent too. Way nicer than Hans.

We all had chicken for mains. For $6.50, it also came with 2 sides. i had the house salad and baked potato. A flying ant landed on my salad and the server replaced it without a word. (although we were told that there were only 5 sets of house salad left when we went in... hmm...)


The chicken are all the same except for the sauce. If you like something spicy, go for black pepper chicken (right). If you like something sweet, go for the BBQ one (top). If you like something salty, take the chargrilled chicken (left and bottom).

For the prices (nett btw), the food is quite good. But i wouldn't queue so long for it ever again. There were some i think who had queued for 2 hours! Completely nuts!

Merry Christmas

This year's office tree.

Japan Day

Main aim for the day was to get a hair cut. i got a japanese hair cut (again) :) YZ commented that my last few hair cuts looked similar. Hmm.. funny but true... Even though i had requested for them to "omakase" cut what they like for me, somehow it all turned out similar. Maybe my head and face shape is most suitable for the bob??

Since it's in the vicinity, went for a massage at Healing Touch @ Tank Road. Been here once before. i like it that they do not hardsell unlike ALOT of other places. In fact, there is no selling at all. And the massage is good for my stressed-up body.

Somehow the day turned out to be very Japanese. (other than the massage)

1. Japanese ramen lunch @ Marutama


2. Haircut by Japanese stylist


3. Japanese pork loin cutlet curry rice dinner @ Liang Court basement (must-try!)


4. Japanese custard pudding & lotus salad from Tampopo Deli (must-buy!)


5. Japanese cookie chou cream puff from Cookie Chou?


6. Wassant from Petit Provence Japanese bakery (must-buy!)

Only thing that i resisted getting is Japanese gelato from Haato. Was very pleased with myself that i managed to pull myself away from the counter. But i tasted the new flavour of the month - cinnamon. Let's just say that i still prefer cinnamon on bread.

But my verdict after spending the day around Clarke Quay area is that Central and Liang Court are really boring places other than the food, of course.

Petit Provence

For all who always felt exasperated whenever the ooh-so-soft-and-yummy wassant from Provence bakery @ Holland V is sold-out by lunch time, do not fret! The Central mall has this quaint, petit bakery counter that sells the very same and nice chocolate and cream wassant!! (there're from the same company). And never have to worry about it selling out as early as noon! Yay!! A must-buy if you are at Central! Psst!! In fact, i think it is the only reason i'm at the mall! (^^,)

It's a bread, it's a croissant. No! it's wassant! hehe...

Curry Rice

Finally tried the curry rice at the Basement "food court" @ Liang Court. Ate the pork loin cutlet curry rice. Although the price is pretty steep ($12.30) for a food court and the presentation is quite plain (it's just the cutlet and rice on an ordinary "food court" melamine plate and the curry on an Aladdin lamp-like dish), but the food is yummy!! :)

The pork is nice but i think the chicken cutlet is nicer!

Marutama Ramen (Revisited)

Didn't mean to eat lunch but since i had to wait for my haircut so grabbed a quick bite instead of idling around.

Ate the Marutama ramen. My memory might have failed me but i thought it taste better than my first visit! :) Yummy! Or maybe i was hungry. The shop's not as crowded as before too.

No pictures for the day as i had forgotten to bring my cam out.

Annual Xmas Gathering

Met up for our annual Christmas gathering at Waraku @ Heeren. LF couldn't join us as she's off to Japan (again!) But XX's finally could!

Our presents... Coincidentally i'm supposed to get a present for XX so i gave what she had wanted to get from me. hehe.

scissors not included of course!

Think Waraku is getting from bad to worse with all the mass invasion. They're everywhere! gasp!

Witnessed an accident on my way back. i saw the sparks when the bike in front of my cab went out of control crashing into a bus stop. i hope the rider is ok... cos my driver didn't stop...

Sotsugyou Omedetou 卒業 おめでとう!

Managed to scrape pass the school exams again. Hope i have the same luck with JLPT... hee... S-san and XJ-san are asking if wanna continue again... haa... mou chotto kangaete...

私の先生だ

Makan Places

Selected 新瑞记 as our dinner eating place cos it was one of the cheapest along Seah Street. And YZ mentioned that this seemed to be featured on the papers recently. We both had the 1-person set meal which is an ordinary chicken rice with vegetables, soup and drink set. The chicken was the bloodiest i've ever ate. The waitress changed it without any hooha. Think they must have encountered lots of such requests before. Rice not fragrant. Soup no taste. Unanimously the nicest part of the meal was the chilli. And i'm not even a chilli person! lol. Verdict: Won't be coming back again.

Realised that there's a 老瑞记 along the same stretch of shophouses too! Confused. haha. Couldn't remember which is the original copycat. This seemed to have more customers than the 新. But anyway neither the 新 nor 老 are the original.

Popped by Ah Chew's for desert. Had my fav boiled papaya in milk. Verdict: The deserts just don't seem to taste as good as before. No wow factor any more.

Japan Media Arts Festival in Singapore 2008

Had thought that this was all anime but saw an advert on tv and decided to go. The exhibition was rather small but still spent more than 2 hours at 8Q sam. i wished there was more of the interactive media art in Zone 1 even though spent more time at the other zones. Came out hoping that i have a Wii set at home too. Wii sports is pretty addictive! :p Should i blow the aws on it??

Oh. There are painting classes at the Art Loft, an art studio at the ground floor in 8Q. Feel like taking art classes too!! i seemed to have tons of stuff that i want to learn! Jackie of all trades but master of none. lol. keke. :)

5 Firsts and 2 Mosts

First visit to Four Seasons. SL and i walked a big round cos we were not sure where it was. I presumed she knew and she probably presumed i knew too. Hee...
First dinner with choc fondue for cocktail and kept flowing throughout the dinner.
First dinner that served white wine.
First dinner that i managed to finish my glass (usually there would be like four-fifths left in the glass...)
First dinner that there's no yum-seng. Only cheers! lol.

Most longest and natural (i.e. raw) video clip ever.

Most slack dinner i've ever been. Shhhh... dun tell him!

BUT! The wedding dinner is just so YK. Congrats!

La La LaLa La Lala Lala Laa...

If you are wondering what i'm la-ing about, well, it's the theme from SMURFS! Suddenly got reminded of this retro cartoon from the yesterdays cos saw this Smurfette selling at More than Words yesterday. Almost wanted to bring her home BUT!!! Haiz... it does not look like the Smurfetty i had n-years ago. The nose was smaller AND cuter. The hair was in plaits. Not like the 不男不女日本兵 smurf in skirt smurfette they are selling... i still like my old Smurfetty... *sob sob*

<<海角七号>>

Predictable plot in a better than average Taiwanese movie. But the relatively slow pace found me fidgeting in my seat in waiting for the finale of the concert.

The constant Jap dialogue keeps reminding me of the exam earlier in the morning... haiz... -_-"

心花朵朵开II

The other plant i brought back from the Garden Fest finally bloomed!! :) But the first one wilted.. :(