Istana Open House

Istana Open House

We took the chance today during Istana open house to check out Istana Park and its premises, as well as to make a comparison with that of European palaces. Of course, it is incomparable, but good enough on a limited-land Singapore. The grass is exceptionally green and even! Will post the photos when they’re up.

Now, to start from the point we left for Istana. Together with Mama Papa, I went to HAN’s for lunch, then took the MRT from Tampines to Dhoby Ghuat. There were so many people in the trains, and once again, it was the time for some ugly Singaporeans to show their best characters again. My parents were in wheelchairs, waiting at the MRT platform, yet there were these two intentionally-ignorant girls blocking the way and not willing to give way. Dumbo schoolgirls. Then, when my parents were making their way into the train, there was a man rushing forward. I thought he was being helpful but he was just making sure he got in before everyone else. Come on, it’s not as if you could not get in even after my parents. The train door would not slam flat on you!

To add on, there was this man who kept knocking his baby pram wheel into my foot. Damnit. First two times I turned back and looked at him, but he pretended nothing happened. Third time I couldn’t stand it and turned and frowned at him. Totally deserved a fierce beating!

Despite all these irritabilities from the ugly people, I enjoyed the day lots. WW brought his four cousins (aged between 12 to 18) along to Istana, and the six of us just went around on our own, sitting on the greens, touring the statesrooms, commenting how popular our President is (managed to get a glimpse of him amid the crowd around him). It seemed like a mini-excursion and it gave me joy as I like excursions.

After the Istana tour, my parents went on for shopping at Chinatown while WW and I, with his cousins, went on to Plaza Singapura. Went to get some bread to fill up our hungry stomachs, and from that I realised how difficult a vegetarian’s life is. WW’s cousins are strict vegetarians and luckily BreadTalk have me as a loyal customer, thus I can recommend the right bread to them. There weren’t many choices, and the young ones had to take quite sometime to decide on their picks. If not for someone to recommend to them, how could they identify which bread they can buy?

So, I would say that some areas are still lacking in general public’s awareness. Things like facilities for the disabled and indicators (on vegetarian dishes) in food outlets or bakeries should be more seriously looked into. The “minorities” should not be left in their own communities.

Dinner was at Ichiban Boshi @ Esplanade with WW，while we tucked into udon and chasoba and enjoying the view from the window at our table. How I wish we can have the luxury of time every now and then!

做人要随便（随和）

这是我说设下的新年新原则！不能每样事都讲求完美，一切都需100%。打从昨晚我就开始实行，用在每个qing kuang下. (Okay, my Word has failed to chunk out more Chinese characters, I don’t know why.)

Why a new motto in life?

Yep, yesterday morning I was so mad with Mama that I slammed my bedroom door hard and blasted the music full volume. I was supposed to help her with clothes-hanging (I volunteered) before leaving the house, but I was still doing my make-up and intended to help her straight after. But as usual I was too slow for her to bear and she got angry with me, labeled me a “say-yet-never-do” girl and ended up calling my bro and sis to help out instead. She just doesn’t trust us and expect us to do things immediately. (!) And why scold the person who so willingly volunteered her help, yet not the others who didn't bother?

But a little while after the incident, when we were about to set off, she apologised to me and even gave me a small hug! That dissolved all my angers. I felt bad having Mama apologise to me, but don’t blame myself for flaring up as it’s all accumulated resentments built up in me. (I’m still wondering why I was the only one helping out in the last-minute housecleaning while both Shou Bi and TP can do their own things! It has got to be fair mah.) Commanding myself not to flare up would suppress these resentments further and next time I may just become schizophrenic or super vengeful!

So, for everyone’s happiness, I’ve decided to be 随便 (not in the bad sense, lah), to accept things as they wish to come. A mentality of bochupness helps too. Even as the bad things come, I can tackle!

Gimme the SUN

Mama is super naggy! We think she has menopause coz she can nag non-stop and complain about anything under the sun. At times it really pisses us off, when she asks me to do small errands now and then when I am doing my own stuff. She is so negative that no amount of optimism can change this trait of hers.

The weather’s so fine! Wanted to fly kite this morning at West Coast Park with WW, then help him wash his car. But as usual, all plans remain as plans. Mama wanted me to help her with last-minute housecleaning – vacuuming and mopping the floor. I lament being “trapped” in the house with the sun outside shining brightly. Staying indoor gives me a sense of loss, not being able to enjoy the weather I love most. Staying in the office all day is bad enough, I want to be spared the agony of being beside something yet couldn’t feel it.

Next three days will be off-work days. Surely would not want to just 拜年, but want to do out in the sun too. Perhaps cycle to East Coast Park tomorrow morning and hopefully can visit Istana during its open house on Tuesday. Tian and I have decided to explore places and go gai gai once we are done with house-visits. Not going to stay in relatives’ place and rot… what a waste of time doing something we used to endure terribly!

Vitasence

Bought my second Vitasence product yesterday, just before its 20% discount ended today! Got the Revitalising Tonic (toner) and hope it does good to my skin. I trust Vitasence from the reviews on its website (http://www.vitasence.com) and have got a friend to verify it from her own experience. The first product I got from them was a Pore-clarifying essence.

For those who have the intention yet don’t know what to get, can get me Vitasence Cleasing Mousse or Protective Hydrator. Hee BHB me.

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Saw this on Sher’s (http://shoezgal.blogspot.com) and thought it looks interesting, and did one for myself!

4 jobs you've had in your life:
- accounts assistant
- Mobil speedpass promoter (petrol kiosks and roadshows)
- private tuition teacher
- internal auditor

4 movies you could watch over and over
- 15 first dates
- LOTR
- (no more since I hardly watch movies)

4 TV shows you love(d) to watch
- Sex and The City
- 秋天的童话 (Korean show)
- 同在屋檐下 (Japanese show)
- 世间路 (Taiwanese show)

4 places you've lived
- Singapore
- (that’s all, I’m a rooted person)

4 places you've been on vacation to
- Europe (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden and Prague)
- Hong Kong
- (no more, not even Malaysia)

4 places you would rather be
- Home instead of work office!
- Beautiful Switzerland
- Scotland islands
- actually there is no where like home

4 of your favourite foods
- 豆沙包
- steamed golden promfret
- orangish food – pumpkin, papaya, persimmon
- 男人煮的爱心面！

4 of your favourite beverages
- papaya juice/milk
- teh
- McCafe’s Himalayan tea latte (hot)
- Magnolia low-fat milk
- Avocado milkshake (I used to love them, but don’t dare drink anymore coz of its high fats content)

4 (or more) websites you visit daily
- http://www.channelnewsasia.com
- msn newsonline
- Blogs (own, sis’ and some close friends’)
- http://www.singaporepools.com (看爽的)

Decorations to amplify the mood

3 more days to CNY! The feeling's right in the air~ Got these deco to add on to the atmosphere at home:

May fortunes knock on our door
Such a happy and jubilant Prosperity God
Spring coming through our bedroom door
New change of bedsheets, no more maroon satin comforter.. for now
Little hanging ornaments tell a lot
I knew Mama likes round gold fish
Piano top's full of little black bad-badtz Maru, hee

What will keep us alive?

Not a good day at all at work today, where even at one point I thought I’ve landed up in a totally wrong office. I go into the office to start handling all sorts of minute tasks, all involving chasing after people for confirmation and information. TMD. Gotta organise an offsite for TEC Management, prepare a set of slides for boss to present to EXCO and HR, arrange bus trips and arrange logistics (human as well as physical) for a series of workshops.. endless! Really see no value in the work I do, all sai gang and no deliverables! If it goes on like this..

On the way back home, my head was pounding away coz of all the stress and coldness in office. Seems like headaches are common thing on Mondays. And I’ve gotta squeeze with the crowds in the MRT, where people stick so close together that intentional molestation may be mistaken for incidental bumps or knocks. So I blasted music max to drive off all this craziness, let my mind be free, let my soul lose its sense of rationality. At that point, I could have stepped hard onto anyone’s toes if I get offended. It was insanity at its best.

After a while, one of my favourite piece came on in the mp3 player and it dwindled my irritation. Then, as I was reading an article in The Economist, evil humour got into me and I started laughing at the pitiful plight of others (I’m most evil when irritated). It was about the plain boredom of Saudi Arabia folks’ lives, and how when a new store in Jeddah handed out gift vouchers to promote its opening, 15000 people turned up and created a stampede killing two. What attracted the people was “the utter lack of anything else to do”.

Such a tough balance. Do you want simply nothing to do, or get swamped with endless work? Why can’t we live a moderate life, to be equally able to smell the roses and pump the adrenalin?

Some weekends round-up

Blur me left my mobile phone at home today. The first emotion I felt when realising my forgetfulness was a sense of handicap. I have no means of connection today! But it may be a good thing after all without this dependence on the handphone to fiddle my fingers on in the MRT or to check for sms every now and then. Hmm, but how forgetful can I get. This is the first time!

Saturday I was free for the day, thus went to IMH (Institute of Mental Health) with Sher for volunteer work. The work itself wasn't that much, just playing games and accompanying the folks there, and it was pretty relaxing and mind-easing. We visited a ward of middle-aged men who have schizophrenia at their rest & relax room, but from what I see they are an okay bunch of people. There were two or three sleeping on the floors, and a handful being with themselves and not interacting much. But on the other hand, there were those who are friendly to us bunch of volunteers and some of them are really smart in their own ways. There's James who is damn good in chinese chess and dumb (he ate three of my seeds in one go!); Alini who draws so well, I think he has a special talent for minute things and he wanted one of my dangling earrings which I gave to him; Francis who reads the chinese papers and is so street-wise, knowing all the areas in Singapore; and Joseph who plays good 3D tic-tac-toe. Rather impressive.

In general, it's more a fun session with them rather than putting in hard work trying to do manual and dirty work. Although we may have to put in more concentration in understanding some of their words, in all it is still relaxing on the mind. Those folks have no ulterior motive and you don't have to put on guards against them like how you would against your colleagues or some peers. Thinking of going there again!

Also happy that Apa Ama agreed to have dinner out last night, at the coffeeshop downstairs. The only thing that peeved us was the extremely long waiting time - around an hour! The zhu chao business is good, yes, but they shouldn't let customers wait to damn long. We heard people cancelling orders.. must have be filled up with anger in their stomaches to eat their main meal. Next time we'll really consider hard if to eat there again. But nevertheless, all members of the Wong family were able to have dinner together today! Happy.

Breakfast, I like

There's always this feeling I have while eating breakfast out. It's like getting a good headstart to the day by giving myself a pamper. Would be nicer if there is someone for company. It's heart-warming seeing each other's semi-sleepy faces, raw from waking up.

So now here I am, having my breakfast of kaya toast and teh at the coffeeshop downstairs. Around me are mostly aunties and uncles. To my left there is a group of aunties who seem to have just came back from exercising; to my right there are middle-aged couples and another uncle by himself, reading the papers. Above my head blasts the music - Chinese New Year songs. And around the coffeeshop are a lot more people walking around towards their various destinations, people setting up clothes stalls (cart-style) and attending to a handful of patronisers. I wonder why people (those who don't have to work) wake up so early!

I like my neighbourhood for its vibrancy, there are so many activities and movements around!

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Okay, it's another trip to California Gym today, though I've mentioned by dis-preference for it. The weather was perfect for a jog along Esplanade and Marina Promenade, but my poor kaki is down with flu. So I saw quite a handful of fully naked women changing at the ladies, right in front of their lockers and many other women. It's quite gross actually. Imagine changing halfway and someone you know walks in and sees you. Disgusting, isn't it? Dunno if it's the same culture at other branches, perhaps only urban city-dwellers do this kinda thing. That's like very shameless, tsk.

I do things for you, but what do I get back?

So much for helping do the marketing every Sunday morning, tagging the bulky trolley basket behind me and squeezing with the crowds of aunties and fishmongers and all. I was still telling myself how nice it is to go “shop” around in the neighbourhood every week, easing my parents’ burden of buying fish, meat and vegetables. But when I came home with the load of groceries, I get only complaints, first from my mum then from my dad.

They asked me to buy a 黄白 (can you tell what the heck this is??), which appears to be a kind of Beijing cabbage. I told them I am not sure if I can get the right one, since there are so many varieties of white cabbage in the supermarket. Then they described it as whitish-yellow, oval-shaped like an egg but wth, don’t all cabbages look like that? So in the end I still got it wrong, and had to listen to their grumbles. I countered Apa saying every Sunday there are so many people downstairs in the neighbourhood, I have to squeeze through the crowds and bear with the waiting time at each stall. Sometimes Ama wants to get a lot of stuff k. Pork ribs, braised duck, vegetables, fish, chicken, fried bee hoon… can you imagine the agony of visiting these stalls one by one and waiting at each, while my empty stomach growls loudly away?

Then Apa said I could have gone to the market earlier in the morning, rather than at 9 plus am. Come on, I need my precious beauty sleep during the weekends, the only time I can catch up on my neglected sleep! He is super insensitive and inconsiderate. I help them with household chores every weekend, yet they take it for granted. I could have just gone out the whole weekend, not iron the clothes, vacuum the floor, do marketing and sometimes accompany them to NTUC. Sometimes I wonder why I should bother this much while my brother is treated like a prince.

So, it’s time to set my priorities right. Time is precious and I don’t want to waste it doing things I don’t get appreciated for or even get blamed for.

My extended weekend flew past just like that!

Lunch at Ichiban Sushi with VJC 98S26 clique. Beside me are Fang and her bf, Mark. His first appearance in our gathering.. more of him to come! :p
Lovey-dovey Stephie and XZ - the rather-newly-wed couple :)
The whole group of us. WW and I took the centre-stage heh.
Sophia and me. One to be respected (coz she's super nice and good) and she's very observant, just like me!
Sophia and Stephie - the "S" sisters
Nan Ren yeah :)
This is a damn weird butterfly!! Two wings with a worm attached to each wing; their butts stuck together. Very freaky indeed.

Can you see it?

It’s nice meeting up with the S26 gers, coz I can just be myself and engage in meaningful conversations with them. Although we gers gossip about those we know, we do talk update on each other’s life and it’s cool to see how they progress. Two of them are married happily, and I must say they lead a very different life from the rest of us unmarried ones. Happy for Fang too; she has found a very suitable guy who’s able to connect with her emotionally and make her hard-ice heart melt.

Appreciate very much that WW spent the whole day with me, firstly rushing to Parkway for lunch with us even though he had to fetch his family around the whole morning. Then, had to bear with me being frustrated while waiting for free table at Yakun. I think he has a lot more patience than me. Kudos! And me felt apologetic that he couldn’t enjoy dinner coz Papa decided to order Thai food for dinner instead of zi cha. That’s the thing with coordinating with the other family members; you really couldn’t get a fast and good decision. Everyone’s opinion has to be taken into consideration.

Talking about family, it’s also a very fortunate thing that my parents have each other and that they are getting more independent. Now they are free on their own to go out and explore new places, with Mama’s wheelchair and Papa’s motorised wheelchair. They are able to do what they want, and even do some exercising while travelling around. Previously Mama used to stay at home all day, all week and could even not go out in a month. That’s really unhealthy; one time she was so yellowish (due to sunlight-deficiency) that we thought there was something wrong with her liver. Now the worry is on Papa’s health. He needs more exercising to get rid of that pot belly and lower his cholesterol.

Soon WW will have to start work proper and may have to work late hours. Wishing him all the best at work and find that motivation to look forward to work. Most importantly, one has to find what makes him/her tick in life, to hold on to own beliefs in life and be happy. I hope my loved ones stay healthy and happy, to find the thing that makes them go on with life each day full of satisfaction and pride.

It's a Happy Happy Saturday

Itchy butt - seriously thinking there may be bugs in our cushion on the chair coz Tian and I have itchy butts after sitting on it.

Anyway I am supposed to be on the bed sleeping now, but decided to come blog instead since.. I have the next 3 days free from work! Woohoo.

Just now WW and I had a hard time trying to settle our dinner. We wanted to go Queenstown food centre for some simple fare and satisfied our respective food cravings, but we had to wait for free lots at the car park there. Me know WW don't quite like waiting at car parks, we then gave Queentowns FC a miss. Next wanted to go Chin Swee Market, but couldn't find it! Hidden in some small corner. Lastly we decided to go somewhere with food, definitely. Didn't want to get all disappointed and having to look for alternatives. So we settled for Parkway, and it was horrendous to see the many cars waiting for free lots (again!) at the HDB car parks opposite the main shopping buildings. Why does all Singaporeans crowd at the same few places during the weekends? So jam-packed!

Despite the hard time trying to get our nice dinner, the day was well-spent coz we washed the car together. People must be thinking how foolish we are to wash the car in this perpetually rainy weather (it was pouring somemore when we were washing the car), but they don't know that the wash was all-needed. Can the satisfaction of accomplishment after the wash.. seeing the car sparkling white. That's damn shiok.

Earlier in the morning me had encounters with some relatives. Drove papa to ah-bo's house to help her repair her 20-years-old Baby Belling oven which she's going to use to bake her pineapple tarts (yummy!). We had to send the oven for repairs since they don't sell separate parts anymore. Then ah-bo wanted us to wait for her tarts to be ready, which required another hour or so, before she heads down to the repair shop with us. But that was not needed since as long as we manage to carry the duper-heavy oven into the car, the others are a-okay. At most call the shop uncle out to help carry.

Then I was thinking, how come some of our relatives can be so stubborn and wanted things done their way all the time? Some advice the older relatives give are no longer applicable in this modern world and the youngsters definitely won't hear from them. How, then, to engage the younger ones?

Brr. Weather is superbly-cold. The chilling wind is even worse, sending shivers down the bones. And best part is that Mama opens the living room windows to the max! That's crazy la... making us all suffer the extreme coldness. Can't take it!

Quirky Habits

Kana tagged by shoezgal to write down five quirky habits of mine, but I can only think of three (I'm a "prim and proper" lady mah).

1) Kneading with my fingers the thickened toenail on the last toe of my left foot
2) Eating my sunny-sideup or hard-boiled egg only after I finish my rice and other vegetables
3) Squeezing blackheads, including those on my cheeks, and leaving behind a little patch of skin bruise (so ugly)

Who wants to get tagged? Self-volunteer :p

Welcoming 2006

Happy 2006!

Good start to the new year with a clear blue sky first workday and a sunny weather. I love the sun!

So happy to step into the new year together with WW, with much merry and fun. We were at Kallang Stadium Cove snacking on our bread and blackforest cake, taking night photos and racking our brains on the code-breaker game. I just can’t seem to beat WW at all these games! Perhaps with the exception of Scramble (which needs lotsa patience) and tiao4 qi2 (which I’ve started playing with Mama since young while WW never tried it before hoho). But I still lose big time at Reversi, with as few as 5 seeds left. So back to New Year’s eve, we were sitting on the steps along Stadium Cove, waiting for the new year countdown and with WW asking ourselves not to expect any fireworks (coz he’s scared of being disappointed :p).

On the strike of midnight, we heard people in the indoor stadium behind us cheering and saw beautiful fireworks in the skies in front! Initially we thought there was nothing new about the fireworks as the first few minutes comprised of those we have seen last year. But as how things usually proceed, the display climaxed towards the end with new and impressive fireworks. We named some of the fanciful ones:

1. Cauliflower – small yellow ones with mini-bursts and have small streaks coming down
2. Porcupine – as its name suggests, this is one round ball with short spikes at its outer sphere. There were varying sizes, but there was a mega one which I like a lot
3. X’mas ball (my naming) – with red, green and yellow spots and seems to be running towards us. Very big and is my favourite

And there were others which mostly had been featured in last year’s Singapore Fireworks Festival. Hope CNA online can post some nice photos!

After the display, WW and I played with sparklers and left one tiny white mark from the burning at one of the steps. Around us were people screaming away happily (dunno why they got so happy at the turn of the year) and also groups of friends celebrating. It was indeed a very fun way to welcome the New Year and happy to have WW with me.