Our Very Own!

The day we got our house keys! :D Happiness! Now waiting for renovation to commence.


Soon we'll have our own fridge. Our own TV. Our own air con. Our own study room. In fact, our own EVERYTHING! No more fightings for space in fridge. No more noise. No more toilet hoggings. YES!

Can't wait! :D :D

Another Year Older

Well, what can I say? I'm another year older now :D More and more exciting things are coming! Sally and me are now busy planning our dream home and we're getting married next year! :D And we all know how time can just zoom past very quickly so it's good to try to slow down and enjoy the moment.

Try this. When you're idling, instead of letting your thoughts dwell in the past or future, try to just look around. Stop thinking and just observe your surroundings. It feels different :)

Ok, lets talk about my birthday.

So last week was actually a busy week for me. But a birthday's a birthday, so as usual I celebrated with Sally. It was kind of a two-part celebration like we always do :P And we had an early preemptive celebration on Saturday in case I'm forced to work like a cow on my actual birthday. In the afternoon, we went to collect our wedding bands, which we then decided to send it back to resize for more comfort. Nonetheless, we were very pleased with the bands! Then we had our lunch at Out of The Pan.

Me presenting the fish masala crêpe. Ooooh nice.
And Sally with her much healthier sliced chicken breast
Out of The Pan wasn't too bad. In fact I loved the fish masala crêpe. Quite powderful. I was like going "Whoaaa.." with every bite! Really nice!

Right after lunch we went to watch 'I love you, Phillip Morris', a gay comedy. Well, ok, so there wasn't any other interesting shows to watch. Some scenes were quite funny. And most other were rather ... hm. You know. I didn't puke but I have to admit I almost fell asleep. ALMOST. And Sally slept soundly.

For dinner (you see, we're both always eating so much), we made our way to Valley Point to have our Kuru Kuru (sounds cute!) Japanese buffet! Ok, a picture speaks a thousand words, so here you go! Two thousand words!

Meeee.. The lady behind spoil this otherwise perfect picture :-/
And this possible lobster culprit
that caused Sally her hives! :P
We ate and ate so much I actually felt guilty. And my tummy was so full I had a walk very slowly after that :P Lovely dinner!

Three days after that (we're not done with food yet), on the actual day, we met up again for dinner at Pizza Hut. This time to try the over-hyped 7 Cheese Pizza. 7 different cheeses on a pizza. Sounds dangerous :o Or is it?

Err. 7 cheese? Mana?
7 cheese? Well, beats me. I can't see or taste the 7 different cheeses. You won't even know if they only mixed TWO different cheeses and go "Hey sucker! Here's 7 cheeses!". Nice try Pizza Hut. Verdict? 4/10. Fail. It would have been 0/10 if not for those little cream cheese balls on each slice. Damn. They didn't meet my expectations.

While waiting for our desserts, a group of people nearby started singing a birthday song. Another Libra at Pizza Hut :-/ So I thought. Then came this bunch of Pizza Hut staffs singing and presenting me with a small slice of brownie with a candle. Oh it's for me. Paiseh. Thank you Sally ;) How sweet.

My birthday brownie :D
But of course that's not the end. She gave me a birthday present too! It's small but heavy, with a nice little card stuck on it :D So what's small and heavy? I guessed it was perfume.

Nice little present with a birthday card!
So what was it? *unwrap unwrap*

Err, how come got a Gundam on the wrapper!
*unwrap unwrap*

iPhone4!
Ok, I was really surprised. Didn't expect that at all! But yey! New phone :D So now I'm officially one of you iPhone addicts out there. To be honest, I didn't think I'd need an iPhone but it's been a week now and I'm like a hopeless addict. iPhone itself is nothing, but the apps that power it are life-changing.

And now I get to FaceTime with Sally too!

That wraps up my birthday celebration nicely. Good food, nice present and a sweet companion :) Now who wouldn't want time to slow down just abit?

Long Time No See

Whoa, better blog now before I start to get busy again! Well, it depends. In the next few weeks, depending on fate, I'll either become extremely busy or I'll just sit back, relax and play some ps3 games I stole from my brother.

This month, we managed to catch up with a lot of our old friends and family. Some of whom we haven't seen in ages.

Last Tuesday, we had dinner with Alicia and Roseanna at the legendary GuoFu. Yeah, it's like everyone's favourite :P Both of them look happier and more relaxed now. But, of course, everyone who left GE indeed looked better than ever :P Working there with all the cowboys can be so unbearable :P

Anyways! On Friday the same week, we went for another round of steamboat, buffet this time at Joaquim. Met up with another bunch of ex-colleagues from GE! Well, some are still working there :P There are about twelve of us, everyone turned up so I was kinda glad. Half expected some of them not to turn up, but everyone did! (not in order): freaker, Sally, Chan Yee, Wan Yee, Chee Yong, Merwin, Naing, Amy, Mai, Mai's hubby Willy, Tony and his very tall girlfriend which I forgot her name.

Steamboat buffet @ Joaquim
Before we parted
Everyone look different now. More mature I'd say. Or old? I don't know. But everyone's still very chatty so it's a really good sign :) Sometimes it's not easy to maintain these kinda friendships. Everyone has a dream to pursue and that naturally causes people to drift apart.

So, I'm really happy to see everyone. Hopefully we can continue this for many more years to come!

The following day, me and Sally flew in to KL to attend my brother's ROM. It's a mass ROM for the 10.10.10 couples. On the morning of the flight, Sally suffered a nasty tummy ache and ended up eating very-drowsy-pills that made her sleep almost the whole day. She slept like a baby during the flight, in my brother's car and at home. Zzzzz...

Chiang's home in Setia Alam
We had dinner in a restaurant and celebrated my dad's birthday at home afterwards. We ate too much as usual, so no big deal. Too bad my elder brother isn't around to celebrate this event together :P So the very least we could do is to upload the photo to Facebook and tag him to the cake. Taa daa!

My dad cutting the cake with his
trademark I'm-very-serious look
Ok, that's everyone minus my elder brother
The next day was the 10.10.10 mass ROM thingy. A staggering 285 couples. Luckily my brother was .. erm, no.25? But yeah, it was pretty fast so there's no hassle at all.

Chiang and Irene before the event started
Family group photo. My dad looked surprised
We flew back on Monday and now it's all back to work again. Sigh... And all of a sudden, I have this urge to go for a holiday in Phuket again. The beach, the spa :o Yes, we're definitely going back there!

Ok, that's it.

Mom's Birthday 2010

Earlier this month we made a trip back to Segamat. It's been the longest time! Things look the same at home. Both my parents are still busy as usual, in fact busier than us. Good to know that because an idle mind is the devil's workshop.

So me and Sally went back to celebrate my mom's birthday over the weekend. It's kinda short really, but still good enough. Here's some photos of the food we had :D

My mom with Fuon and Sally
CURRY! Eat, eat, eat, eat...
Simple and delicious!
Looking forward to our next trip back! But the next stop will most likely be KL first :)

A Quick Update :)

Hey all, ok so it's been a quiet August. Actually we've been busy running up and down settling our house matters. Weekends are totally packed. Whew.

Anyway, it's still too early to blog anything about it now. Still going through the official paperworks and also exploring various ideas for the internal design. Modern contemporary. Cosy. Affordable. Hmm, hopefully it's all good.

Work, as usual sometimes busy like mad, sometimes not too bad. Can't wait for another trip wherever it is. It's been some time already and we miss phuket very much! The Deluxe Plus room :o :o

I've been playing Peace Walker recently and that somehow got me very interested in the Cold War topic. It's an era of tense relationship between the US and Soviets, the age of spies and espionage, and the situation was so bad it almost led to a nuclear war. It's amazing I only learn about it now. I wonder why our history lessons didn't teach us about it? Or I wasn't paying attention?

And more interestingly, we'll be heading to Segamat Resort this week. Yes! It's been a long, long time. Home sweet home. It'll be only over the weekend but it's definitely something we look forward to. No tall buildings, quiet streets, spacious and relaxing home, away from the hustle and bustle of everyday city life. Sweet.

The next few months will see us continue to run back and forth all the way until we're officially hubby and wifey! Time flies. My proposal to Sally 6 months ago felt like yesterday. The whole Mount Faber thingy. Amazing :)

Alright, more to come soon!

Second Year Together!

Ok, this entry is way overdue! Freaker & Sally is two years old, exactly two weeks ago! Great thing is we're still as mushy as ever and it seems like only yesterday we first held hands at Clarke Quay. And now, two exciting years just zoomed past!

So we've been busy looking for house :D Yey that's a really wonderful thing though the whole process can get a little bit tiring at times. But we'll leave that for another time.

For this entry, I'll just recap on the nice little dinner we had to celebrate our two year old relationship :D

So the best way to celebrate is to go back to where it all started! Clarke Quay. Nothing beats the riverside view at night but more importantly, this place carry so much sweet memories of our earlier days :)

So we went to Peony Jade and ordered a 6 course dinner. While waiting, I passed my bag to Sally and told her to get the camera inside. And inside, I hid a present to surprise her ;) Well I've used this kinda trick before, hiding a box of Brilliant Rose ear studs under my pillow for her last year. But hey it still works :P To my surprise, Sally actually bought something for me too. And that's really sweet because I actually didn't expect it! :P

So let's see what we had!

Our gifts for each other!
Godiva chocolates for Sally
And a watch with a FoxHound emblem for Freaker!
Never mind if you don't get it :P :P
Ok, I actually bought a card for Sally this time and guess what? It'll probably be the last time I buy a card. No, not because I won't be giving her cards anymore, but I'd rather really buy materials and make my own. Why? Because commercial cards come with pre-written messages which, unfortunately do not convey what I truly want to say.

So next time, Sally will be getting hand made cards from me, but they will be simple ones like the previous few that I did :) Ok. Now. The food!

Stir-fried Boxer Chicken and
Crispy Soft Shell Crab
Braised Shark's Fin with Crab Meat
Baked Cod Fish with Chef's Sauce
Baked Pork Rib with Garlic Sauce
Crispy Noodles with Seafood Soup
This dish is actually quite potent despite its humble look!
Pan-fried Pancake and Lemon Grass Ice-Cream
Hehe! I'm having nice food!
Two year old Freaker & Sally. Still the same!
Hanging out after dinner to enjoy the night view

Alright! That's it. I'll be posting again soon!

Oh. One more thing. I actually wanted to put up a new banner for our blog to mark our second year, but I kinda like the current one, so we'll leave it for now :)

Sally's Birthday!

Last week was Sally's birthday. We celebrated earlier on a weekend so that we can have the whole day to ourselves. Since we're both on super-savings mode now (for our wedding and house), celebration also have to tone down abit la :P

Fortunately, a small celebration is not necessarily uninteresting. Haha. So, Sally came down to town around lunch time because I wanted her to have enough sleep. Then, instead of my usual tricks of hiding things around, I left her a self-made birthday card on the table. And inside, a list of dates (important dates!) of the memorable milestones in our almost-two-year-old mushy relationship!

Kick start budget celebration with Gummy!
When I wrote down the list, it didn't all just come naturally from my memories. Two years is a long time, so I had to dig, double-check and confirm the dates were right from MSN chat histories, SMS messages, blog entries (here!), letters, train tickets, etc. And some from the dark recesses of my subconscious mind. But I still got one of the dates wrong (the xmas eve event), which was quickly spotted by Sally. Oh well. :P My bad.

For lunch, we went to Crystal Jade, which we both love for its steamboat, minced chicken with tofu and fatty pork :D

After that we went to Cathay for Toy Story 3! Now, the first two movies were shown so long ago I even cannot remember their storylines. Not that it matters anyway :P

Highlight of the day is our dinner of course! I did a little bit of research to find a nice, quiet place for the both of us. And I wanted something different. So I brought Sally to the Old Parliament House to have Vietnamese cuisine @ Viet Lang. Not too bad at all! Nice and cozy couple seat. We had their unique Imperial rolls, braised cod fish and mango salad with shrimp. Here's some pictures, though I missed out most of the food :P

On the outside!
On the inside!
The mango salad with shrimp :P
Both of us sitting on a nice and cozy seat!
Our second year together is about a week from now. Let's see how I can plan for another small and nice celebration :)

Our Phuket Trip

Hehe, both of us have been very busy recently. Wedding's a year away but we're already on full-steam planning for our big day. Piece of cake? Hardly. It's no easy task but to be involved in the process itself is quite enjoyable, though tiring. Appointments, decisions, dates, budget, etc. It's like managing a big project. Mission critical too. Hehe :D

Two weekends ago we manage to find time to make a trip to Phuket. Well, actually not exactly the case, because we planned this all the way from January this year. It was a 5d 4n trip. We stay at Baan Karonburi for the first night and then at Hilton Phuket Arcadia Resort for the subsequent nights. We made it a point to relax the entire trip because we didn't wanna go back feeling tired from running around. This in fact is a very much deserved break from our work and wedding plans.

Early on Thursday morning, 27th May, we took a cab to Changi airport. It was already pretty crowded. Public Holiday on Friday (Wesak) so not too surprising. We had a quick but yummy BK breakfast before flying off. Actually any breakfast is yummy to me :P

BK breakfast!
If you like Coke Lite, you'd probably
wanna try TayHongHuei Lite too!
On the way!
We reached Phuket around 930am. After checking out and grabbing a Phuket map from the airport, we took a cab to our first stop - Baan Karonburi. We reached by 11am after a wild & bumpy ride and manage to check-in immediately because there were few customers :P Nice. Everyone loves early check-ins and late check-outs.

Fooooooood. Ok, actually this one abit extreme.
Too many things on the plate we didn't know
what we were eating :P
mmotthh..thoof..fummll
(That's exactly what I said)
Seaview from our room
Small swimming pool
After our meal, we rest for a while before heading to Jungceylon. It was one of our shopping destination and we wanted to see the night life @ Patong. Here are some pictures.

Sawadee Ka.
Bet a million you didn't know Ronald McDonald is a Thai!
Me @ Jungceylon
Elephant engraved onto the wall?
Live Thai kick-boxing. But quite expensive ah
Fish spa is cheaper :P
Looks like Ikan Bilis. It's quite ticklish too!
Oh, and when you walk into Jungceylon,
the security guard salutes to you.
But that's me :P
Some small night market behind Junceylon
The stall owner deep frying some food for us
We walked around Bangla road and managed to buy some food and souvenier for our friends before calling it a day. Patong is more lively at night compare the Karon beach, where we were staying. And the traffic is horrible too. There were zebra-crossings but motorbikes and cars zoom past them like nobody's business. Something like what you will get in Malaysia too. Perhaps they think it's really for zebras :o

The next morning, we had breakfast before heading out to the beach. The sea was quite rough and there weren't many people.

Hello superstar!
By noon, we had a quick lunch before saying goodbye to Karonburi and made our way to Hilton Phuket Arcadia Resort. It was a short distance away so we carried our bags and walked all the way there. But by the time we reached the back entrance, we were already drenched in sweat. To make things worse, the resort was so huge we lost our way inside looking for the reception. Really.

Back entrance
Fortunately, we bumped into a staff there who told us to wait for the next erm.. transport (actually a bigger version of tuk-tuk) to take us around to the reception wing. Whew. Hot. Sweating. Need aircon.

After I checked-in, the receptionist told us that we had to wait for 30 minutes before the room is ready. It was 2pm (check-in time) and we have to wait another 30mins?? Out of this world. We asked for another room but were told that it was impossible because they were already full. Seriously, a 5-star resort telling a customer they had no choice although this booking was made since January? We even requested for early check-in! Puit!

Sally was so furious her eyes were blazing with fire. The receptionist trembled with fear and had no choice but to get the manager to talk to us. The manager tried to explain but it wasn't acceptable. Reputable hotels like Hilton shouldn't even try to explain! They should solve the problem immediately, which fortunately the manager did :D - by upgrading our room to a Deluxe Plus and giving us a complimentary bowl of fruits. OK, that's better. No. Actually that's how it should work. Customers are always right!

The very comfortable bed
The "in-door" reading area
The bathtub. My favourite
The wash basin
The shower area
The bowl of fruits we deserve
The balcony
The seaview from our room!
Ok, I missed out a picture which is the small pantry area. Damn! Never mind, next time we'll go back there again :P After a quick shower, we're venture out to Phuket town. Well actually to be more precise, we went to Central Festival Mall. It's .. erm like a big shopping mall that you can find in Singapore actually. Haha.

Tired. Need a drink :P
Then we had yummy food again.
Here's a sample. LOL
Highlight of the day - Cheraim Spa
Yes, we did a 3-hour super satisfying Spa. Amazing. Though quite ticklish for me at some point. After the 3 hour massage, we felt totally relaxed! This is my first time doing massage/spa and I was quite reserved at first, but the experience is so good I'll definitely do it again :o

After the spa, we went back to our resort around 11pm and watched TV until we fell asleep. We spent the next two days hanging around the resort relaxing, eating, swimming, reading, sleeping, etc.

Paradise is right here!
Love the pool and waterfall!
A huge lake in the resort
Small lil' hut for spa
Someone enjoying life
Tea time!
Followed immediately by dinner :P
Thai girl showing some skills

On Monday, 31st May early in the morning, we dragged our reluctant asses out of bed to catch breakfast before heading to the airport. Like all holidays, there's always the time when you have to pack and go back home. Well, it's not all bad really. More importantly we managed to relax and spend some quality time together.

After this trip, it'll be awhile before we fly again. Now we're back to our busy schedule and I already can't wait for our honeymoon!