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...