si ling and ccis gathering

on sunday, after the kayak, i received a complimentary ride from alvin to vivocity. We were late for 40 minutes, thanks to my guest, the jam at the vivo car park entrance, and then finding a lot after the jam. Then we talked about someone which i didn't really want to talk about. Since we have nothing much to do with each other anymore...

had dinner at Hong Kong Kim Gary cha chan teng. Not bad, and certain stuff are adapted to the local taste. For example, my supreme curry is real hot. In HK, even finding curry is a problem, not to mention about the chilli spices etc. The milk tea is alright, i'm not fussy and thus found it to be close to what i had there. Ambience wise, it looked like the typical restaurant, no reservations allowed though.

HK cuisine is still better to be experienced in HK itself... another example is imported dessert shops in SG. Taiwanese Ice Monster 冰馆 vs. HK Hui Lau Shan 许留山? Forget it... have both in Taiwan or HK instead.

but, hope to use the free 30% voucher by end of this month...

Many branches in HK itself, Malaysia and finally SGP


Ordered an appetizer - egg toast at $2.80 (NICE!)


yup, the chicken curry baked with swiss cheese - $9.90


Closer look...

had a heaty talk upstairs at the open area. Then received another ride thanks to JF's boyfriend. Not bad to drive for this kind of situation..

vesak day was largely spent with army kakis. Met at AMK, bought our housewarming gifts (all wine, sadly) and cabbed to Jason's new place. Very nice 4 roomer, simple yet a nice place to call as home. The original master bedroom was modified (toilet access, 1 side of wall and door hacked/removed) into an entertainment room, with glassed partitioning. Then the adjacent room was again modified (open toilet access and hacking of store room) into the master bedroom. Overall, very spacious. I think i'll get a resale next time too.

The host was cooking when we arrived


Pizza too!


Entertainment room, with PC, Wii, etc


I looked happy in my sleep

i think i'm not a good drinker. Drank around 1 cup of red wine, then felt so sleepy. While the rest were busy eating in the living room i silently opened the glass door, sat on the sofa and went to lalaland. Even when they came in, i continued to sleep. The same as my father in this aspect - drink beer/wine, then crash into bed almost immediately.

dining at waraku

it was a long time i met up with them for a (no-stress) meal. The last time was in Sept 2007, before sh!t started. Maybe there's some small gatherings in between, can't really remember. This time, we went holland again - wanted to find out the route to Waraku East Coast, but my mind slipped under a heavy load of to-dos. My poor advice saw the car going all the way to Fort Road, then turning back to Carpark C. =x

the ambience is excellent this time - no bustling marketplace of the typical Waraku dining scene. I managed to book a private room, with a view of Long Beach's entrance. Had to remove our footwear before entering too.

had a short chat after dinner, the car driver voiced out the concerns of NS. Every man gotta go through it, so bite the bullet with bravery. It's really where boys come out to be men, minus a few screwed up cases. After you come out, we can start discussing about what men really do - work and girls!! =x

limited photos with me, so the rest of the photos will be posted by the rest.

They called lots of curry, i stuck to my favourite paper steamboat


Dining in comfort - large table with own air conditioning control

my HTC touch's camera is really notches away from U600. Should i bring my U600 out again??


i'm few days away from flying off, but much work has been piled up. Scary. No, i must do something about it.

blog is back to normal - major updates

let's close the chapter on studies (for the next 30 mins of typing this entry) and recap what happened this week.

Insurance
WG informed me about an business practice for his insurance company, that made me disgusted. In a summary, we assume there are 2 agents in that same company serving you, A1 and A2. You purchased policies P1 from A1, and P2 from A2 (both commencement dates less than a year apart). Then you felt that the A1 was not attractive after all, so you killed it. The company will actually penalise A2 for that, although it was supposedly none of his business. This meant that the commissions for P2 are taken away, to some effect.

i'm definitely having 2nd thoughts on buying products from this insurance company, since it stifles the freedom to switch (now i know why agents can spend a whole day persuading a customer to take up or to retain a policy).


Lunch out
the second part of saturday was spent with some poly peeps. They are now so free, and i'm just the opposite. But had a nice time out with them. Vicky seemed to be putting on weight =x

Andrew had this sinful mudpie

i settled for my favourite instead, plus choc fruity fondue

Us

We

before i forget, Vicky i need your mobtv's id. *grin*

Jac's iriver is just back. Compugate is no longer doing distributorship for iriver products, quite a waste actually. However if iriver's support really sucked, i have nothing to say too. Already got quite worked up while over the phone with them.


Nice makan after project
then i went back campus to touch up the CS3214 system proposal and slides, and was again at the lab in less than 12 hours. sigh....

Holland V XO Fish Head Bee Hoon - tok kong!!!

steve recommended our pack to this stall at Buona Vista, near the 4D betting outlet. What's so nice about this fish head bee hoon? The XO is really gao-gao. The fish is also very generously cut for us, all in all for just $20 (shared by 4).

do try it if you drive or pass by Buona Vista. It's worth the trip.


New monitor for bro
i spotted a fantastic offer from spinergy in VR-Zone. After some bargaining, i took over his 20inch LCD for $250. It's worthwhile because the panel used in this Viewsonic model is MVA/PVA. The colours are better.

did some cleaning up and reorganised his table. Just in time when he comes back for his week long break on Tue.

Finally i can get rid of all my CRT monitors...anybody want?

there's no heading for this, because i don't want to discuss in great length. During the weekend, we were finally able to get beyond our invisible barriers, and started talking for the first time in more than a year. Although it was naturally not as personal as before, i was happy because i thought such a situation will never happen. Last month, i translated my heavy thoughts by posting up 品冠's songs.

if there's any wish that i hope, i hope we can maintain contact. And both of us will find our happiness, whether or not our paths will meet again. I learnt many lessons and will never make sacrifices i would live to regret, again.

david's treat to waraku

it was a super duper late afternoon yet again, and i couldn't wake up in time to go down to Chinatown to repair Jac's iriver. No choice lor, i promise i'll do it on Monday!!!

had my lunch at cwp, then went to NYP to be briefed on the handover of the internal inventory management system. My colleague and school mate of about a year plus is graduating from NUS and thus is looking for a better job soon.

bought a second hand Asus P4GD1, which i have been looking for over a year. Why so precious, because it uses the Intel 915P chipset that supports my Pentium M mobile chip + PCI express graphics. don't understand? it's ok :D

tonight at waraku was free thanks to David. He is going to be posted to Australia for a short stint there, along with a promotion and some incentives, good for him! i fully exploited his $40 limit by calling the BBQ set ($19.80), hotate miso soup ($9.80) and salmon teriyaki ($6.80)... hehee.

Some yummy pictures to follow:

The smaller hotplate is yakitori, bigger brother is the 5 type sashimi, below is my hotate miso soup

The BBQ set kay and me called. Consists of 3 prawns, 2-3 crab legs and 1 body, 3 meat balls or something like that

Simon and the man of the night

meanwhile kay brought up about IPPT... sigh. Window is closing on 21 nov 2007, how?! go for 8 sessions of IPT and can fail IPPT or fail IPPT then go for 24 sessions of RT!? headache.

after the big bang, we went over to millenia walk hoping to sit down and chill (simon wanted to treat dave to some alcohol). No space, then over to Harry's Bar at esplanade. I last drank in nov 06, but after i told myself to try to stop myself from sinking into depression then, i never touched beer again.. till now.

Anyway.. sat down and ordered 1/2 pints of Heineken and Erdinger and admired around, since it was my *first* time in a bar. Initially i found the place dark and noisy, but perhaps due to the booze i felt better. Even saw a guy fingering his girl's lingerie... omg.

got to work tomorrow!

lunch, shop and roam

Went out for lunch with Andrew, Jac and Vicky at MS. As usual we waited quite long for Andrew, but the ride in his Kia was comfy... when can i get my own set of wheels? But it's hard to balance financial stability nowadays. Throughout the ride i was having fun (and a bit of stress myself) guiding him around town. oops.

At CA vicky ordered an extra seafood basket, which was rather ok. However it turned out that my stingray was too filling, Jac's baked rice too oily, you get the drift. The seafood basket was too much for us to finish. Overall the meal was nice IMO.


Poor Andrew, his mood changed because he had a quarrel with his girlfriend. But the most comforting sentence he said was he still loves her. Great!... love overcomes all odds. Don't ever give up something, especially because of pride.. it isn't worth it.

He had to go to settle some work issue, so i went with the girls to shop in Bugis Street. Jac bought a Puma bag, after much consideration. Actually wanted her to walk around somemore, but it was too warm in there. Then we roamed around Bugis Junction, and went for dessert at Ah Chew since we weren't really hungry. We had these:


The first one from the left was "Mango Sago with Pomelo". Recommended Jac the best offering from Ah Chew lah. I tried the "HK Iced Red Bean", not too bad. ThaiExpress' tasted sweeter. Vicky drank Peanuts, which looked really potent from the picture.

While roaming around, we came across Peilin! We thought she was not until we got closer. haha...

We actually managed to wander from Bugis to Suntec, then Esplanade. Talked quite a fair bit, and all of our legs were aching. Soon we left for home.

I received a wedding dinner invitation from Kuanfu, one of my friends from DBI and CS now. Pansy is also throwing her wedding dinner in July! Oh my... feeling happy for them. When can i walk down the same aisle with my loved one?

So tired. zzz.

fixing the blog widgets and chilling out

Was trying to beautify my blog, by adding a tagboard and some misc stuff.

BUT the "Add Page Element" thingy is missing! And all my home computers have this problem regardless of browsers! Only my office PC and laptop (connected via NYP LAN) are ok. Gave up and slept.

Around noon, Wenqun came to pick me up to meet up with Hadassah (my IFA). Actually, she sent me some mementos from Taiwan. Here it is (next 2 photos taken by my bro):


Poor Wenqun, slept only from 11-12pm, just before he came. As he had already made some personal planning prior the discussion, he had to consider some proposals put forward. Better than me... haha. We had a late lunch at Simlim Sq foodcourt before he left to meet Gil while i went back to NYP to take my laptop.

Met Kay, Simon and JH for dinner at MS... it's the first time i dined at fin. And we waited darn long... in the meanwhile we chatted with the owner's friend (a real estate agent) and looked at how the staff created space for a group of 20-30 SMU diners. In the end, the owner gave us a redemption card each for the extra wait. Not bad!


Had the usual coffee session at PCC (er... not that PCC):


Gay said i put on weight. Got meh?!