Another Year Is Almost Gone!

Wheeeeeeee! Time FLIES!

Another year is almost gone now. Kinda speechless actually.

Ok, we had a few gatherings because we're all in a holiday mood. That's a good thing. Sometimes we need these occasions otherwise it'll be quite difficult to catch up with everyone.

I think I'll start with Fang's birthday. We celebrated earlier on a weekend. Went out with Sally and a group of friends for a drink. I think that birthday girl looks kinda happy. Of course we're all happy too ;)

There IS a reason behind that smile! ;) *ahem*
On X'mas eve, we're given half day off so I met up with Sally in the afternoon and we started our gift exchange immediately :P Haha! No need to wait for x'mas :P Too eager!

Mine's with the small small writing
I've got my kick ass Razer Naga!
And Sally's got her Coach!
And as usual, my second little surprise for Sally!
Some chocos on X'mas to sweeten it ;)
Later in the evening, we went over to Huili's place. Sally and myself had our dinner before heading there so we just played some games. Ok well I didn't really play because I can't drink (yeah, drinking games) so I ended up as a time-keeper :P It's kinda exciting too. All I have to do is look at the hourglass and scream "Yo, time's up!" and see those disappointed faces LOL.

ZhiWei took the photo so he's not inside
The girls also had a gift exchange session. And oh yeah, we did a count down too. But not sure if Huili's time was accurate onot :P Looks like we're the only bunch of rowdy people screaming Merry Christmas in Punggol. Too quiet leh :-/

Then finally on X'mas itself, we hang out Xin Lerh's place for dinner. Nice place and alot of yummy food and desserts. Everyone promised to exercise after that but not sure how many actually did it :P Definitely not me hehe. Totally unforgivable.

Kinda like the decorations :P Got X'mas feel!
Trying to make "popiah" but turns out to be slightly squarish
Cheesecake and fruits
This weekend will be the end of the year 2009. Woo hoo. Still holiday mood. Then Chinese New Year. Yey, another week long break. But once that's over, it's gonna be full steam chu chu train ahead.

Let's hope we all get a good year ahead. As for this year, let's try to remember all the good stuffs, throw away all the bad ones, and pass all the smelly ones to your enemies.

Enjoy the last few days in the year folks!

Food For Thought

Sally preparing the dishes
When I left GE, I told Sally I'll make it a point to see her on weekdays at least once a week. We used to see each other everyday, so in order to keep a healthy, loving relationship, some things gotta be done. That's when the whole "Sally's cooking tonight!" thing came about. I go over to her place, she cooks for me :D

Now, I kinda think that I should tell the whole world that Sally's done an extraordinary job. She cooks great dishes, I tell you - especially her humble-looking soup, damn good ah! And cooking for someone shows a great deal of love. So, really, she's been such a wonderful girlfriend.

Some fish :D Hehe!
Humble-looking but delicious-tasting soup
When I look back at some of the photos of the dishes she cooked, I think I should at least post a short blog about it. All those efforts must not go unnoticed and I appreciate every single bowl of soup she has cooked.

And not every guy out there gets these kinda treatments from their girlfriends :P Muahaha..

So yeah, love ya darling Sally!

Our Second KL Trip

Yep, our second annual trip! Haha! Our stay in KL is slightly longer, but that's because we deserve it :P

We flew in this time because taking a coach would mean a longer journey, so we thought we should try out something different. Turns out to be quite good :D The flight itself was like 30mins or so, and then the KLIA express train to KL Sentral was around 25mins so it's all good.

Our flight tickets :D
On the KLIA Express train
Imagine taking a 5-hours bus journey. Whew.

We stayed in Corus Hotel, which isn't the best hotel out there, but it's really convenient for us because we wanna run up and down. Hehe. After checking-in and rested for abit, we walked around Bukit Bintang. It was like a shopping heaven for Sally but the only place there that excites me was Low Yat. Hehe, big difference huh? :P Hahaha.

When I was studying/working in KL, I don't really hang out in B.B. but I've definitely come here a few times. Since then, alot of things have changed and everything looks almost new to me. Well, except Sungei Wang. Yeah, same old Sungei Wang. It was so nostalgic even when we just stepped into the building. Same colour, same smell :) Aww..

Inside Pavillion, but can't see what's behind :P
Christmas decoration outside Pavillion
Oh yeah, and we bumped into Greg and his girlfriend.

But as usual, that whole B.B. area is totally crowded and when it started raining, the traffic was horrible. There's mud and water even on the pedestrian walkways so it's kinda difficult to move about. Not surprised. Nobody bothers about pedestrians in Malaysia anyway. LOL :P

Oh yeah, somehow, that kinda reminds me of something which I MUST say. The first time I came to Singapore - and the first time I took the escalator here, I felt that it was abit ... too fast. No seriously, the escalator in Singapore is FAST. When I go up an escalator in Malaysia, I can almost doze off.

It ... is ... very ... the ... slow.

Yeah, or maybe it's just me. But try it for yourself. And the LRT .. it smells. The lights are dim, maybe because they don't bother to clean it. And when you take a train, it's almost like you're in a dark/horror movie setting. Like from Max Payne? Have you seen it? Yeah something like that. Ok enough complains. If you wanna read more, try this and see what I think about the KTM service in Malaysia on our first trip. Not gonna repeat the whole story again.

Anyway, on the same night, we went to Petaling Street. Weee, crowded as usual but we're there for the food! Unfortunately, quite a big part of it was closed down due to renovation. But guess what? We still managed to get this so called famous Air Mata Kuching, which is reaaally good. So good we bought 4 packets and 1 extra cup to drink while we waited for the famous Wantan Mee and famous Hokkien Mee. Nabeh, everything here seems to be famous.

Sally @ Petaling Street
Yeah, that's the famous Air Mata Kuching :D
I highly suspect all these famous stalls are self-proclaimed :P Don't trust them k? But the famous Wantan Mee is damn good. The char siew is totally heavenly!

Looks disgusting, but trust me it's reaaally good!
On Day 2, we hanged out at Sunway Pyramid to meet my ex-colleagues. Had Hong Kong food for lunch. Not too bad, but the star of the day is this cute little boy. Check him out! So cute eh?

LayKhuan and KiatHin's baby boy.
He kinda look more like his dad though :P
I kinda took a few photos of him but totally forgot about our group photo :-/ Too bad, gotta wait until next year then :P Hehehe. My fault. Right after lunch, we went shopping and then stopped by A&W for tea break. Yep, there's no A&W in Singapore so this is like our only chance to eat it!

Root beer float, curly fries and ice-cream waffles.
What else can be better?
Around 4pm, we headed back to prepare for my cousin's wedding dinner @ Hotel le Meridien. So yeah, this is the first time I introduce Sally to the family members on my dad's side. The food and ambience was really good and comfortable. And we've got a live band too. Here are some photos:

A quick couple photo before we left the hotel ;)
Together with my dad, mom and bro
Sally and mom after the dinner
Another couple photo after the dinner
Day 3! Our most exciting day, which we planned a Genting trip. We bought a 9am bus ticket and when we reached the station at exactly 9am, we saw the bus departing right before our eyes. Holy shit. A bus departing on time in Malaysia? I almost died laughing.

Fortunately, there was a couple of seats left on the 930am-bus so we took that instead. The bus journey was OK and it took us like 30mins to the Genting Skyway, which we then took a cable car up to Genting. Overall it was quite smooth and convenient.

Yeah we love couple photos!
Nope, not afraid of heights ;)
Feels like heaven!
The air up there is cold and refreshing but that whole place looks old and worn out. Again, I guess nobody bothers to maintain it. Even Sally mentioned that the colours of First World Hotel is dull. The theme park looks boring and totally lifeless.

We had lunch at "Restoran Good Friends" but I don't wanna be friends with them anymore because their food sucks. Dry and tasteless. Don't ever go there.

Good Friends? Well, it depends..
Ok lah, the claypot chicken rice is not too bad
After lunch we headed straight into the casino for some little exploration :D But that's when the problem starts. That whole damn casino is filled with smoke. Everyone is puffing off some cigarettes. We wanted to see the whole places and the games they play so we stayed about an hour, but Sally started coughing and choking on the smokes so we went out for some fresh.

Sally looking sick :P
Sally's coughing didn't get any better, even after we had some hot tea and went through her shopping-therapy. She looked sick and a fever came so we headed back to KL. I went out to buy some cough medicine for her, thinking that she'll be fine. But it didn't seem to help and she coughed throughout the night.

But as sick as she was, Sally still drag herself out so we could have dinner. And guess where we end up?

Sushi King! Who would have thought?
Golden Ball! I haven't had these for ages
Looks damn good right?
The next day, which is our last day @ KL, Sally seem almost strength-less to go shopping. Even her favourite malls failed to tempt her to walk in. We had a simple lunch @ Spring Garden and sat outside of KLCC for some fresh air. But again, there were lots of people smoking outside so it didn't really help.

Porridge. What choice does a sick person have? :P
My special fried rice (not sure if it's famous)
And some yummy soup!
Hmm... Nothing too special actually.
Finally when it was time to go fly back to Singapore, we headed back to KL Sentral for the oh-so-convenient KLIA express train. We checked in just in time and flew right back to Singapore. Sally went to see a doctor immediately when we got home. She was diagnosed with bronchitis and was given 2 days MC. Hopefully she'll get well soon!

At KLIA. Sally still look sick :P
Fantastic view from the sky
So yeah, that's our trip this time round. Fun and enjoyable. Only the last day was abit unexpected. But now I'm back to work and will be going full steam ahead in the coming weeks. Jia you ah!

Oh wait...There's More!

I love the SEIKO watch. And I'm soooooooooo happy with it.

But just when I thought it's over, I got a second round of presents from Sally! This time she really surprised me. She actually dropped by my office around 8pm (while I was still working my ass off) to personally pass me the gifts.

How sweet! ;) Best girlfriend in the whole world.

And guess what was inside?

A pair of Murlocs and a Succubus!
Ok, no worries if you don't understand (or can't appreciate) the gifts - that's probably because you don't play World of Warcraft. LOL.

Nice!

Watch Me Celebrate

Whoa, been a really busy month! Recently I've been working my ass off daily. Tight deadlines, endless list of to-do items, and a missing colleague. But well, work's like that. Ok, enough about work.

This month is my birthday. And I know very well that Sally would plan something for me :P So weeks in advance, I told her to make it a small one. Small like you know, just a simple dinner. No presents, no trips. For two reasons - First, we gotta save alot of money for our future (well, more for our future home actually) hehe. And secondly, we had a really big and wonderful celebration last year so .. lets be a bit humble this round ha!

So Sally made an arrangements for a quiet dinner at Satsuma Shochu Dining Bar @ Gallery Hotel. I kinda like the ambiance and the food was quite good (I enjoyed the cheese-rolled pork. Yes, how can I say no to cheese). And yep, that's it for my birthday celebration. Nice, sweet and simple.

Or so I thought.

Then Sally said "Oh yeah I have something for you". Taa daa. Hehehe, I didn't quite expect a birthday gift because I ... well, I told her not to buy me anything. But she thought that it was really important to buy gifts so let's see what we have yeah?

Nicely wrapped!
Oh and it comes with a card ;)
From the look of it, I can't tell what's inside the box. If there's anything I need, it's $1,000,000 in cold hard cash. But a million dollars can't fit into that box. So I decided to just open it and see what's inside :P

Unwrapped
Nice!
A watch! A SEIKO watch to be specific.

Here's a closer look.

Can't take my eyes off it!
I love it! That's actually the last thing I'd expect to receive from her because we've been on a month-long hunt for the perfect couple watch. It's really difficult because we both have kinda different tastes for watches. Maybe she gave up and decided to just get me a watch because I always complain about the inconvenience of using my phone as a watch :P Haha.

Need to know the time? Take out my phone, remove the cover, look at the time.

Need to know the date? Take out my phone, remove the cover, look at the date.

Rinse and repeat daily.

BUT, now it's different. Need to know the date or time? Just look at my watch. LOL. Really nice. And I think the watch suits me too. Personally, I think Sally made the right choice :)

In my whole life, I have only owned 3 watches. The first one, I got it when I was 15 years old. That watch stayed with me for a good 8-9 years. My second watch was a gift from my mom just before I came to Singapore. And I actually still have it with me, although it ran out of battery already.

Looks really simple and humble
but it's one of my favourites too!
Hehe, now the third one is a gift from Sally. How sweet :D It sure takes a bit of time to get used to the new watch, but it's definitely going to make my life alot easier! :D

Say Cheese!

Whoa, long time since I wrote an entry.

Anyway, we both made a trip back to Segamat last weekend to see my parents. Well, actually it's been a while since we went back and when it comes to Segamat Resort, there's always the relaxing environment and good food to look forward to.

But this time, Sally specially made a blueberry cheese cake (ooh sounds familiar? heh) for my parents :D and they fell in love with it almost instantly.

Sally presenting her best cake yet
Cheese cake up close and personal. Ooh, blueberries :D
Mom and pop enjoying the cake.
Look at my mom's happy face :D
My mom loved it so much she actually intend to learn from Sally how to make it. I thought it was really, really good too :D And yes, I'm such a lucky person :P blek

And my dad of course, again cooked some really amazing food for us. And it's a pity again (think I mentioned this in one of the older entries) that my elder who is still stuck in Canada don't get to eat all these :D Muahaha. Happiness.

Nothing beats home cooked food!
And the chee cheong fan too!

Ultimate chee cheong fan
If you like food, try Segamat Resort :D