WII!!!

I finally took a breather after a long and tiring week. Had been stressed by inadequate preparation for my exam yesterday and work the whole week. But i can now happily announce that i'm now done with exam and work! Finally completed 1 year of uni and i should now look forward to my vacation in Hong Kong!

My maternal family had a small family gathering last week where we had dinner at this chinese restaurant near Chinatown. This dinner had 2 significance. One was to celebrate my eldest auntie's 60th birthday and the second to bid farewell to my cousin Huimin who has since now flown to USA for work.


Birthday girl with my mum!


With her gifts


The third generation people are out! I'm old!


More of the 3rd generation


Part of the 3rd generation Lindsey


Another part of the 3rd generation Rachel!


Yet another! Introducing Cayden!


The 1st generation lol


The whole family!


Rachel and i!


The group of cousins..the 2nd generation!

After dinner, the group of cousins i now call the 2nd generation decided to go down to Boat Quay which is just round the corner for a session of boardgames. With that amount of people, the games that we can play were kinda limited...They were Taboo!, Sorta! and Cranium just to name a few.


Us at the boardgame cafe


The nice little photo they took and printed out for us. Its pasted on their wall with vandalism all over

Think i kinda screwed up my paper yesterday, there were a few questions that my answers turned out really weird. I've no idea if i did them wrongly..anyone that learned business statistics before please lend me a hand lol.

After the paper, i can finally go out and play. So i met up with Sham, Valencia and Kheng Hong at Clarke Quay. After walking up and down Clarke Quay, we decided to go to Liangs Courts for some japanese food. And we really did find this really fine japanese restaurant at the basement call TamPoPo or something. Its realy authentic japanese food...even their posters and signs had english grammer errors in them...its cool! Haha. As usual, i couldn't resist the temptation of sashimi and i gladly ordered this 11 kind sashimi chirashi for $29.90. It was really good..just that with this price, i can have a buffet at Ikoi or Hamachi lol. But i think i'll go back there someday..they have some other dishes that i really don't mind trying.


My $29.90 dinner

After dinner, we decided to go down to Kheng Hong's house to play his Nintendo Wii. Had a bundle of fun there where we played the Wii till 2am. We were laughing at each other throughout playing the sport games. But it was really tiring both on the eyes and limps haha...i had to use up all my strength beating Sham in boxing, tennis, baseball and bowling lol.

Let me end this post with something about lifts...yeah elevators. There was one day last month that i bummed into this girl in my block's lift 3 times in a row. I can't remember where i was heading for those 3 times i took the lift but there were around a few hours apart. What are the chances i say? And to think i haven even seen her around before although i've lived here for the longest time. And there was this other time when i took the lift 8.30am in the morning. Then this middle age man walked in with sunglasses on. To make things even funnier...he had to put his face really close to the buttons on the lift to look for the door close button. Uncle ah uncle..you made my day haha.

Mizuno Wave Run 2007

Went out with my family on friday night for dinner and guess what we ate? No prize for guessing...you're right..we had steak again! Yummy yummy i love steak! It'll be great if my future wife can cook me nice steaks every now and then...the only way to my heart is through my stomach! Lol.

This time, we had our steak at Serangoon Garden's Friends @ Chomp Chomp. Unfortunately, i didn't enjoy my surf and turf. The steak was overcooked and burnt. The rest didn't mind their steaks though. Mum was the only one that didn't order steak. She ordered some chicken, and we were told by the manager that the chicken drank Yakult, and thats why its meat is extra tender hahahaha. A chicken that drinks yakult?! But true to his words, the chicken tasted super tender and was somewhat special, i'm sure they'll earn some money if they sell chicken rice with this kinda chicken!


Upon arrival


Mum and I


Kok Bin's beef ribs




Sis's Rib Eye




My surf and turf




Mum's yakult chicken haha

Thought you all might want to know which part of the beef you guys are ordering!



Upper Half
Chuck — one of the most common sources for hamburger.
Rib — Short ribs, rib eye steak.
Short Loin — from which porterhouse steaks, and filet mignon, the most tender, are cut.
Sirloin — less tender than short loin, but more flavorful.
Round — lean cut, moderately tough. Lack of fat and marbling does not allow round steak to tenderize quickly.

Lower Half
Brisket — often associated with barbecue beef brisket.
Shank — used primarily for stews and soups, but is not usually served another way, due to it being the toughest of the cuts.
Plate — produces types of steak such as the skirt steak. It is typically a cheap, tough, and fatty meat.
Flank — Long and flat, the flank steak's best known application is London Broil. One of the most affordable steaks on the market, it is substantially tougher than the loin and rib steaks, therefore many flank recipes use marinades or moist cooking methods such as braising.

Caught the movie Invisible target starring Nicholas Tse, Shawn Yue and Jaycee Chan yesterday. Its full of action and i kinda enjoyed it. There were full of fighting, fisting and kicking throughout the show and they really smashed a lot of things while filming...including destroying a super cool Lotus Elise. After watching the movie, i had the sudden urge to go around swinging my legs and kicking somebody haha.

There's a misconception that watching Hong Kong movies are a waste of money since their DVDs will out on sale in stores only days or weeks after the movie release. But come on unless you have the same big screen and sound system in the cinemas there's no way you will enjoy the movie as much as in the cinema. Not to mention, watching DVDs at home you tend to be distracted by one thing or another once in awhile thus disrupting your show whereas you put in your 100% attention in the movies sometimes not even bothering to reply an sms. Enough said!



Woke up at 5.30am this morning to get ready for my Mizuno Wave Run 2007. It was pouring outside then and i was wondering if the event will be cancelled. It was so tempting to just continuing lying down in bed to sleep but nope i didnt! Eventually got up, washed up, got ready and met Philadel who came to fetch me. It was still raining while we were on our way there. Fortunately, the rain eventually simmered and stopped just on time before the flag-off of the run. Frankly speaking, it wasn't a well organised run...it was quite screwed up in fact. Other than the water logged tracks which wasn't their fault, they issued bottled water at water points (people drank about 1/5 of the bottle and threw the whole bottle away..can't expect them to carry their bottle and carry on running right?!), inefficient baggage handling and there was also an inefficient way of distributing the goody bags. It eventually resulted in a super duper long queue and very frustrated people haha. Proud to say though, i completed the 10km under an hour (56mins to be exact) but my ego was dented when some small girl go on stage for coming in top 10 in her category..she clocked 46mins haha.




The route today!

After the run, the 3 of us went to Ikea Tampines for a well deserved lunch. I had 15 meatballs and 2 chicken wings hahaha. After a short walk around Ikea, we decided enough was enough..we needed to rest. Here i am..off to bed now. ;)


Swedish Meatballs!


Chicken wings!


Wooh!

What kind of God gives a child fire but does not warn the child of its dangers?

Just finished a book 2 days ago, its Angels and Demons by Dan Brown, the same author that wrote The Da Vinci Code. It must have been years since i last finished one whole book but yeah i finished this book.

The book is so addictive and exciting that you find it hard to stop reading and put it down. There's so many things in it about faith and religion that i think makes so much sense.

Do you believe in God? I respect the power of faith, the benevolence of churches, the strength religion gave so many people having faith requires leaps of faith, cerebral acceptance of miracles - immaculate conceptions and divine interventions.

Then there are the codes of conduct. The Bible, the Quran, buddhist scriptures..they all carry similiar penalties. they claim that if i don't live by a specific code i will go to hell. i can't imagine a God who would rule this way. I agree totally!

Religion is like language or dress. We gravitate toward the practices with which we were raised. In the end, though, we are all proclaiming the same things. That life has meaning, that we are grateful for the power that created us. Faith is universal. Our specific methods for understanding it are arbitrary. Some of us pray to Jesus, some of us go to Mecca, in the end we are all just searching for truth, that which is greater than ourselves. Its like saying what religion we take depends on where we're brought up, or what kind of friends we mix with.

Hell i wish i can explain myself so clearly when asked by friends and family why i haven been going to Church. The whole 2 paragraphs are exactly my sentiments!

Our National Museum and Hani's engagement!

7th July 2007 was the day of my poly classmate Hani's engagement! She's well on her way to being the first among all my friends to get married, she has to be, unless another friend cuts the queue and overtake her! Lol. Anyway, was there with my other poly classmates to see the pretty bride. Haven seen her for the longest time and good to say she hasn't change one bit..so have the rest of us lah. Congrats Hani! Looking forward to your wedding! May you lead a blissful and loving life from now and start a happy beautiful family!


A group photo with the bride


And another

After the event, i suggested to the group to watch a movie and we ended up watching My wife is a gangster 3. Turned out to be a really hilarious show with good acting and good jokes, there were lame moments too of course..like any other shows. It was enjoyable nevertheless. After the movie, we had dinner at Katong's Stone Grill before we decided to go Kheng Hong's house for a round of mahjong haha. But the mahjong session had to end abruptly because Kheng Hong had something on at the last minute. Won some money so i didn't mind! Lol.



After watching a good show, I just had to watch another..one of the most hyped up movie of the year. And it turned out to be one of the crappiest and most boring movie of this year...yes don't be surprised...its Harry Potter and the order of the phoenix. It was so boring i literally fell asleep during the movie. Sham, Weijian and i had gone jogging before the movie and thats probably why i've been so tired. I didn't fall asleep unknowingly though..i was so tired and the movie was so uninteresting that i told myself i'll let myself sleep for awhile. And by the time i opened my eyes, Valdermoord has already appeared and was somehow fighting with Dumberdore..duh...boring..



Went to the National Museum yesterday with my Mum and Sis. If you all don't know by now, our very own National Museum has reopened and its pretty cool. There's an extension to the building right now and its really nice. And there's a History Gallery there that you get to see the history of Singapore. They have this electronic personal guide too where you get to listen the narration and story of whatever gallery you're at just by looking at the number and keying it into the guide. Loads of fun just for $10...do listen to Lee Kuan Yew's speech too..saw the side of him that i never had the chance to because i was probably not bored yet. Now i know why he's so well respected ;)

Some pictures from the Museum




Me and my personal electronic guide


A closer look






Swinging lanterns

Xtina!

Got a last minute pleasant surprise from my sis last thursday. She told me my mum had 2 free tickets to Christina Aguilera's concert. If you people know me well enough, you would have known that i was once crazy over Christina and Sun Yanzi haha.

It was a nightmare trying to find a parking lot near the Kallang Indoor Stadium that day. So happen it was also the farewell day to the Kallang National Stadium and there was a soccer match between Australia and Singapore going on that evening too. In the end, because we were already slightly late, i parked my car illegally like many other cars there that night.

I was surprised to find that many of her fans were females rather than males, and they were pretty hot chicks too lol..melody chen was one of them. Christina didn't disappoint that night at all, she was full of energy dancing and jumping even though she's already 3 months pregnant. Her costumes were mostly revealing too, not that i mind that, i can admire her nice tone sexy legs all night! Towards the end of the show though, some limelight was taken away from her when this really hot and pretty looking oriental dancer came out. I was looking at the big screen hoping the cameras will focus on her but they didn't..it was a Christina Aguilera night afterall.




And again


Yeah there were quite a lot of Xtina fans


This is the best my lousy camera could capture lol

After the concert, sis and i had dinner at Aston Steakhouse in Katong. They are famous for their cheap and delicious steak, they do have some more expensive Wagyu beef too though..and they sell out pretty fast too. I'll definitely frequent that place more from now...really liked it.


Yummy


Yum Yum


My sis's Sirloin steak


My Wagyu steek

Had been a tiring week for me because of work. Had been staying in camp the past 3 nights and how much i miss my computer and bed lol. Went out for dinner with mum and sis again just now at Oosh down at Dempsey Road. There was a Nissan Fairlady thingy going on that this evening and there were really quite a number of decent babes there haha.


Mum and I


Some alio alio something pasta that i had


Sis had tenderloin steak


Mum and her ox tail

I need a good rest now..i need my bed...oh and anyway i've registered for the Mizuno Wave Run which will be happening on the 22nd this month. It will be a 10km run at Bedok Reservoir. Its about time i start running again!

Caught transformers the movie that day, it is one of my most eagerly anticipated movie of the year because of its awesome trailer. And of all movies i had to be half an hour late for this movie, all because of stupid jams! After a long jam to Lido, i had to endure the wait for a parking lot at Lido too. We were so pissed off with one car that parked 2 lots there that Puss left a note for him on his car hahaha. The movie turned out to be exciting, action-packed, really enjoyable...just that the storyline was a bit kiddy and lazy on the scriptwriters part. I shall wait for the dvd to come out to watch the 1st half an hour. :(