updates

its been quite a while since the last entry... i've been busy!

november: apart from the pre-wedding shoot, i was also busy prepping for a conference in bangkok. i was given the opportunity to present the study i conducted last year at a dietetics congress. i really thank god for this golden opportunity and of cos, the free shopping trip in bkk! i was trembling on stage and my hands couldnt stop shaking, which was pretty obvious when i couldnt hold the pointer still while pointing at the screen!

at the start of the congress...

my tag! *beams*

all the gifts that i collected at the congress - usb drive galore!

i spent a lot of time alone in bkk as my roomies were "senior" members of the dietetic association and had lots of meetings to attend... traveling alone can be quite daunting, and now i can say i much prefer having company!

this was my dinner for one of the evenings - stewed pig's trotter with vege & eggs. i think the thais really know how to cook their pork! the meat was tender, not overcooked, yet very fragrant! i haven't tried anything like this in singapore before!

that's the chef with his pot of pigs' trotter!

december was spent attending quite a bit of social events :P i think i've spent the last few saturday nights at gao's playing MJ with him, ah hu, bill and pern pern... lady luck has been with us for most of the time.. hurhur... i think so far its still net positive :D

i'm happy to announce that pern & i have successfully booked a flat! yayness... thank god for providing us with a place to build our home :) but we wont be able to move in until at least 6 months later cos of all the paperwork and reno that will take place after we get the keys to the place...

i've also successfully extracted the wisdom tooth that has been bothering me for a while! i have to say that this dentist is really amazing. the whole process of consultation and extraction took less than 20 mins. and the damage? a mere $60. the recovery has been pretty good so far. just mild headaches, no major complications!

these are the goodies that yiling bought for me from her recent business trip. as she has some airline membership, she gets 15% discount at the airport duty free... which means my usually cosmetics spending is drastically reduced. yayness!

and lastly, before i end this post... i wanna congratulate my bro for having such a beautiful baby!

ben is soooooo cute!

a fruitful deepavali weekend

it was a super long wkend for me :) the weekend started on wed night for me :P

we had our pre-wedding photoshoot on thurs. it was tiring but fun (for me, not so fun for the groom to be though!) special thanks to dean who took leave to help us take candid shots and to drive us around! thanks a million babe!!

some sneak peeks of our wedding pics below...

this was taken before dean arrived.. hurhur

our 80's look!

dean happily clicking away :)

outdoor shoots are extremely tiring and hot... freaking hot... that's a visibly irritated groom to be...

can you see the beads of perspiration on my forehead?

although it was very xinku... the photographer assured us that outdoor shots will be very beautiful and worth the sufferings... hurhur... so brides to be (eg. dean, xh..) must take outdoor shots hor... this shot taken by dean looks good!

our last outdoor location with the photographer... it was near sunset and i swear i had like 10 mosquito bites on my back and arms... rarr!

i think the photographer has lots of editing to do... remove double chins, sweat drops, flabby arms etc... hurhur but i can't wait to see the photos!

we spent friday and saturday afternoon checking out houses. we got a pretty decent queue number for our sale-of-balance flat. although not within the number of flats available, we still wanna be ready if we were called up to choose a flat! about 30% of the flats we saw were "ah long" units. meaning the previous owners borrowed $$ from the loansharks but couldn't pay up and hence hdb repossessed the flats. hope we don't end up picking these units. otherwise i needa invite kungfu experts to camp at my house for a while.. lol...

sneak preview

photoshoot this thursday! *excited*

now thinking of the props to take along for the shoot... guitar? soft toys?

one of my 5 dresses!

koi alternative?

one day while driving to pern's hse, i spotted a new bubble tea shop along yishun ave 5.

i haven't had good bubble tea for a while. the queues at the different koi branches were always too long... and when i finally queued for one (at clementi by the way), i was utterly disappointed with their lack of consistency among branches.

this new bubble tea set up is called cha dao (tea way, literally!)

the product is a pleasant surprise. the tea is fragrant enough and the tea to milk ratio isn't overwhelming. in short - not bad! their grass jelly isn't like the koi type - a big block of jelly, instead is the typical hawker centre type of grass jelly. not exciting, but acceptable.

if you're in yishun one day, do try it. its at chong pang area of yishun :)

random...

i always see this doggie at my market on sundays... he/she is never on the leash but he/she sits quietly in the corner... occasionally looking up at passerbys...

that morning, his/her owner decided to let it be "cool"

so adorable! i wasn't the only one who stopped to take a picture!

playing with my camera functions... and of cos acting cool!

new pictures from joyce... of ben ben! he's grown so big... and so cute!!!!

that's ben and his mummy...

someone made ben unhappy!

ben feeling at ease...

enough for now :)

the mystery physics text book

boi: i have tuition with D but i can't find the physics book!

*frantically flipping papers and books... and sweating profusely*

girl: *nonchalantly* maybe its at my place... look for it later

boi: rarrrrr *irritated*

one week later...

boi: i have tuition with D tmr and i still can't find my physics book!

girl: did you even buy the book? i thought you said you only bought bio & chem?

boi: oh yah hor... hurhur no wonder cannot find

-.-

wedding journeys #3, #4, #5

wedding journey #3

the date has been decided...

you better keep that day free!

wedding journey #4

the venue has been decided...

solemnization with a sea view!

banquet with an oriental touch... fusion maybe?

wedding journey #5

the bridal studio has been decided...

their name a bit cheesy... but they have a super good reputation :)

ahhh... only left with the music!

adelaide 2010

i am back!!! i hope you missed me :P

its been a good 8-day break... out in the cold country side.

the highlight of the trip is benjamin, he's the cutest baby! look at him!

i think dad enjoyed the trip most, cuddling benjy everyday, every moment :)

i enjoyed my trip too... catching up with friends, feasting (yes, i ate so much my tummy sticks out) and cuddling benjy too :P hurs

met up with lampee on my first free day. he took me to have yummy brekkie! and introduced me to the tv show chuck. its really not bad, and the girls in there are damn hottttttt

lam pretending to be camera shy...

and then hes not shy anymore....

super yums brekkie... loved the mushrooms cooked in truffle oil!

met up with the newly weds s & s... they treat me really well, like a vip :) brought me to have (the best?) chinese food in adelaide and made me my favourite shanghai-nese dumplings... yum yum...

also met up with my ex-housemate... she's the person who introduced stick date pudding to me. now my favourite dessert of all time... ahhhh sinful...

the sinful dessert...

i apologise for the limited pictures... i packed the charger & cable but i forgot to bring the camera! these were all taken from the iphone cam :S

wedding journey #2

"choped" !!

eee i got short stubby fingers :P

wedding journey #1

the beginning of the wedding journey/planning:

boy: where should we buy a flat? near your place or near my place?

girl: i got say i wanna marry you meh?

boy: i very bad meh?

girl: hurhur... where you prefer? mid-point more fair right?

bahhhh... so un-lomantic :P

hong kong dec 09

this is a wayyyyy overdue post... its because a couple of my colleagues are heading to hong kong and i realised i didnt blog about my trip last year! ha.. whooopssss

that trip i crashed with yl. she had to be in hong kong for a work trip for 2 weeks and... who minds free lodging right? heh... its mandarin oriental afterall... its an invitation hard to resist :P

i really love the bathroom... i want a rain-shower in my home too!

hong kong is about shopping eating shopping eating... and shopping eating! heh... i was lucky to have my hk classmate to take us out for a night and he took us to this amazing dessert place at causeway bay. i had their yang zhi gan lu (mango with pomelo) and it was probably the best i've ever had! generous serving of mango and pomelo, the sauce (soup?) was thick but not overwhelming and not too sweet! yl and i went back the next night to have it again... hurhur

(i got this pic from someone's review of the place)

another food that left a deep impression on me was the gong cha bubble tea. at that time i havent tried koi in singapore. so to taste the authentic milk tea was a pleasant surprise! i gobbled one biggggg cup on my own... and of cos, i had another big cup the next day :P

singapore has this brand of bubble tea too... they have one at city square mall and another at novena square 2!

there were alot of westernised fast food version of "cha can ting" in hk... i guess that's the result of a very fast paced city!

a typical cha can ting brekky... *yum* and cheap!

because yl had to work during the day, i went sightseeing alone... i found stanley from the web and since its only a 30 min bus ride away from the hotel, i decided to check it out. i realised "traveling" alone can be quite therapeutic. i walked down the breezy beach and even sat there for a good 20 min watching the sea and just... relaxing... i was good :) there's also a street market at stanley, selling a lot of artwork and calligraphy souveneirs...

view of stanley beach...

while waiting for yl to finish work, i had lunch at her work building. i think it was the ifc. its a fancy-mansy mall with loads of shops selling branded items... i was very big from what i recall... the food there also very expensive! i was craving for dim sum and porridge and thank goodness there was an affordable restaurant on the 4th level and these were what i ordered. they were absolutely yummy!

century egg and pork porridge and chives dumpling - porridge was super duper smooth with relatively generous serve of century eggs (actually ratio was perfect!) chives dumpling's skin was thin and of cos, loads of chives :)

of cos i had to end the post with all my shopping!

my food weekend

this is a delayed post actually... a couple of weeks back we took leave on friday to enjoy a long weekend... window shopping, eating and nua-ing.. heh heh

we went for a dim sum buffet at harbour front... dragon palace or something like that... obviously not worth remembering :P it was pretty affordable, except the food wasn't exactly up to standard...

this is the sweet and sour fish and some sotong balls and radish cake in in the background... the fish is dry and the sotong balls are over fried (urgh) the radish cakes are alright though...

my favourite siew mai and har gao... and dunno what nonsense dumplings... i would give it an average score of 6.5/10

this is a curry-bao... errrr its weird

that same weekend was dad's birthday... so we took him to our favourite restaurant! golden spoon at seng poh lane. we went there for pern's birthday and my birthday too :) hur hur... i really like the food there...

this is my favourite local spinach, cooked with garlic in a broth... looks yum?

my favourite favourite cereal chicken in pumpkin sauce... every part of the chicken is soooooo tender!

we ordered this fish for dad who loves fish... (i think he's like a cat... hurhur..) again, no qualms about it. fresh, steamed to perfection and cooked with yummy cai por and soy sauce... 9/10 !

okie, means i gotta exercise more now!

my nephew - benjamin keiren huang

this is the new addition to my family. on 8 may 2010. he's like the cutest baby i've ever seen in my life (so far!) and its not because i'm biased.

look at him! isnt he adorable??

this is one of my favourite pictures of him... he looks so peaceful...

i think this is his favourite pose...

keke..

awwww!

benjy's proud parents :)