Reunion Dinner

25th Jan - Reunion

The mood is finally setting in. My dad has put up all the CNY deco, minus the "Ying Liu" tree that we will get yearly, cos my niece's baby cot has taken up the space where we normally put the tree.

Today would be another busy day cos its REUNION day! Wake up early to pack my room (only a bit :P). Thereafter, we headed to IMM - Giant to get the ingredients for tonight's reunion dinner. As my aunt, Cheng Cheng gave us a steamboat set for Christmas, we decided to stay at home for our reunion dinner this year. There were a lot of ppl at Giant, we luckily we still manage to get all our required stuffs. Oh ya, also to introduce my granny's famous carrot cake. Its like a CNY food which she would for sure make for us every year!

The whole carrot cake (cantonese style) fresh from the steamer.

Our Yu Sheng that we got from Giant. Its very delicious and taste exactly like those in the restuarant. We got this from the Japanese section and were still deciding if we should get this or those that are pre-packed and in boxes. There was a yr where we get our own yu sheng from Cold Storage and it just taste horrible! Thus we decided to get this from the Jap section as its fresh (can see the staffs shredding the carrots) and luckily it tasted as good as it looks :)

Hee..my mom pouring the seasonings in and at the same time saying all those blessing phrases just like in a resturant.

The result before the tossing

The yummy food. This is to feed 5 of us (including the domestic helper) and we cant finish the food!! Its already considerably much lesser in terms of quantity as compared to the time we went to my sis's place for steamboat..but we still cant finish it. We even need to force one and other to finish the abalone. The soup tasted great though and almost not enough to go ard.

After my dinner and later in the night, Law came to pick me up and we headed over to his place. Its our annual practice to go fetch the God of Fortune on the eve of CNY. Luckily its drizzling a bit and the night is cool, so its still bearable. They say the drizzling is good cos "Shui wei cai" ie, water is money. So hopefully this new year would be a good one. After the ceremony, headed back to his place and continued to help him do some of his work and at the same time to "shou shui". Its say to bless the elders with longevity. I only reached home at 5am... -_-" and u can guess i was like a zombie the next day.

Look at all the goodie bags at the temple where we went to fetch the god of fortune.

Good New

Yahooo!!!! My Company has just announced that they are not going to cut our pay (for my level at least, managers and above has a cut of 2.5%; previous is 7.5%). That is after the government has introduce the Job Credit Scheme. But our OT would still be cut thou...but at least its better than nothing and i am happy with the decision :)

Anyway, met Ruowei for lunch today. She is back from Australia and came to my office to meet me for lunch. Sigh..she would be in Australia at least till mid next year. Cant confirm that she would be back in time for my wedding. Wanted her to be one of my jie mei, but now has to put her on hold first...

24th Jan

Today, i went back to Chinatown again where i met up with XH, JH, Daph, Val and Qingyou for CNY reunion lunch. We went to a Teochew resturant called Lee Kee (Ah Hoi) located at Mosque Road. Been a long time where all our us (also my wedding jie mei gang) met up together. Had a fun time eating, chatting and taking lots of photos. Would just let the photos do the talking.

JH baked some cookies for us

Teochew style Yu Sheng (dun quite like it)

Qingyou cant wait to get started

Their famous cold crab

Salad prawn. Yummy!

Assorted fried items which the boss assemble for us.

Omelette with oysters

Goose meat

Starting to "lau" yu sheng

With Daph

XH & JH

My group of bestie cum jie meis (yes, including qingyou...he keeps on nagging that he wanna be my jie mei too).

After lunch, accompanied XH to buy some new year decos after which, me, XH and Qingouy walked to TCC at Boat Quay for some coffee cum rest and relax chat. Really love the ambience there. We practically took off our shoes and lay ourselves on the bean bags, chatting and drinking coffee.

The 2nd storey is also an art gallery where u can purchase the paintings off the walls.

Nice

Guys, we should meet up more often ya!

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23rd Jan (Fri)

23 Jan 09

Our company has declared half day today even though its not the eve of CNY. Supposely to go down to Tuas since i have already done my reporting (for one of my client) yesterday which was due today. However as ah dear is off today but he would be going back to sentosa (yes again!) to settle some of the CNY operation preparation, i decided to go to office in the morning so that its easier to meet him later.

Its impossible to work in office. There just isnt any mood! Everyone are counting down to the 4 days long weekend! And yes, none of us are planning to come back to work OT (tsk tsk tsk..that shouldnt be the attitude..). Left office around 1pm and went to vivo to kill time before meeting ah dear at 3+ Went for lunch and after that went to Chinatown for some goodies shopping as well as to get ourselves into the "mood". Nothing much to buy actually. Most of the stuffs doesnt look nice. Passed by Lim Chee Yuen and the queue is impossible!!

After the shopping, ard 7pm, guess where we went and what we did??? We actually went back to the car to get our laptops and headed to Mcdonalds at Chinatown Point, where we stayed till abt 1030pm to help Law "balance" his P/L which he did up for the Volvo Ocean Race. Hai.. guess there are no one more suitable other than me to help him "balance" it right... -_-" After more than 3 hrs of hardwork and gg thru every single receipts, we manage to balance the report after which we left and headed back to sentosa. And...this is to continue "the work" where we laminated 50 A3 size menus in order to be ready for CNY. Guess other than being a gf .. i am also useful in work wise :P

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Today marks the last day of the 4 day public holiday. Feeling damn blue at the tot of gg back to work tomolo. Anyway, the past 4 or rather 5 days (cos Company declare half day on friday) flew past. Its celebrations everyday!! Will update abt them when i have the time. Just a short post now to introduce the MV of The Wedding Game, titled, Wo Meng de ai. Its nice! Love the lyrics. Btw, the show is not bad too. Its more of a comedy romance show.

stupid company

Yesterday, my company send an email, firm wide, to inform us about a Townhall meeting at Orchard hotel. They make it compulsory for everyone to attend. So from the sound of it..we already have a rough idea on what our big boss is gg to say. So today, with a heavy heart, we attended the meeting. And yes, they dropped a bomb on us. Not only are we going to have a pay cut (only affect those from Senior grade and above), they are going to abolish the OT system!! Yes, this means that we can no longer claim OT hrs in the future! This really crushed our moral...with no OT claims, who would wanna do anymore OT! If cannot meet deadline, then so be it. Not our business anymore. Some firm practice pay cut but make it a 4 days work week. Less pay, less work..at least it sounds reasonable. But for us, we are doing the same amount of work, with pay cut plus no more OT claims, then who the hell would wanna "slave" for the company...employer of choice?? ...absolutely NOT!!

Charity event

Today is the 2nd part of the charity event, where we pack the stuffs and delivered it to the various families. Cheng Cheng together with Satish (my auntie and cousin) came to help out too. :) As quite a few of the volunteers for last week couldnt make it this weekend, quite a number of them are new faces...this include Bernard who came to pick Xuehui and me up :)

We met the rest at a void deck to pack the stuffs into plastic bag according to the respective families' needs. We are being splitted into different groups where each group would be incharge of a few blocks.

Xuehui, Bernard and me were in 1 grp. We pasted our list on the wall for easy reference.

We line the stuffs in 1 line.

Lynnqi taking stock with the provision shop uncle

The pillows, bolsters and mattresses section

A few of the bags that we have packed

Xuehui, Bernard and Boo Boo rechecking the list against the bags that we have packed.

Thereafter, me, Cheng Cheng and Satish grouped together and deliver the bags to a few families.

Us

After about 5 and a half hrs of work, we finished all the deliveries (minus those who are not in) around 7 pm. A grouop of us went to TPY coffee shop for dinner, under the recommendation of Lynnqi and Percival. And of cos to try Percival's dad's famous "Orh Jian"..fried oyster with eggs. Its delicious!! The food at the coffees shop are cheap and tasty too!! Thanks Percival for the dinner treat. :D its really a tiring but fulfilling day.

Volvo Ocean Race

Met up with Law at 9am. Today is his off day but he still need to go back to help out in the opening for the Volvo Ocean Race's function. Original plan would be to reached Sentosa Cove at 9.30am, do set up and leave ard 10am+...and in the end, i waited for 5 HRS!!!!!!!!!!! We only managed to leave at 2.30pm!! Arrgghhh!!! This wasnt my first time waiting for him.. just felt like an idiot, sitting there, doing nothing and waiting for him! If i know earlier, i would have brought my laptop and wireless or at least my PSP with me..

Today sat..but still have to wake up so early...duhz..

And we are here at Sentosa Cove - The main stage

Setting up of the Woof Ball. Its actually a gigaintic round shaped "plastic bag" where a person can climb in. They will inflate it and VO-LA, really to go. :)

Its a bit hard to balance, but you will be floating up on the water without getting wet.

So while waiting for Law, i went looking around the area. Then i saw a little "fairy" and got my arm painted with a butterfly :P

The little fairy - a very chatty and nice gal :D

Look at the crowd

The Pumpa supporter

The Pumpa team. Below are some of the vessel setting out for that day's mini race (didnt take a lot of photos of the vessels):

I managed to keep myself occupied for an hr, walking ard, looking and taking photos...there after is 4 hrs sitting in the cafe ard waiting for law..duhz..

See..machine spoil..or no paper also need him to fix..duhz...its his off day leh...Law, must learn to let go...

Well, at least after the lllllooooooonnnnnnnggggg wait, i still get to eat my fav loh mee at Seah Inn hawker. Before that, we went out to the other side of One Degree Fifteen to take pics.

Yatch at the "parking lot"

See my pretty butterfly :P

Us - pardon the messy hair..the wind there is extremely strong!

After lunch at Seah Inn..we did something incredibly sinful!! We shared a pack of Lays chips ..lol...been doing a lot of sinful things recently... -_-"

But the craving is so strong that i really cannot help it!!

After lunch (and while having the chips in the car), we headed down to Bows. Its a wedding fair at Clark Quay. Actually i didnt expect Law to be able to get off today, so i didnt register for Bows and was not expecting to get the goodies bag. But surprising, they do give the goodies bag for walk in couples. :) Nothing much to look ard since we alr booked most of our wedding required packages. My Chocolate Mousse was there too and we saw Sumi. And guess what, she still recognise us and not only that, even Hannah, whom we have nv met before (only talked over the phone) recognise us too. They brought along the photo CD which we have taken at the My Chocolate Mousse wedding couple contest. Haa..they are expecting us to visit Bows. Here are some of the photos taken by their photographers on the dinner itself.

The VIP table - the five finalist couples

Together with the owners of MCM and judges.

A closer shot..see Calvin and Joyce in the photo as well.

After Bows, we went over to The central for some shopping. There is a wedding shop at The Central that sell pretty Ring pillows and wedding favours. As its located at some small "alley" of the shopping center, its a bit hard to find. The trip to central is quite rewarding, cos saw a few suitable jie mei dresses that are quite reasonably priced. Will keep that in mind. Me and Law bought a pair of shoe each. Then Law bought me something to "pei zui" for making me waited for him for so long this morning.

And its huge Eeyore soft toy!!! :P Love it! Thanks ah dear..any anger is now gone..haha!

Its my new toy in the car companion :P

After dinner and dropping me back home, Law went back to work. duhz..wat kind of off day is this right. Sentosa simply doesnt practice "Work Life Balance". Maybe its fated..Law went back to work and after that while on his way home..abt 2am in the morning, he got into a minor car accident. Dont worry, he is all right, just that the other fellow didnt check while changing lane and hit his car in the front, right side. So its a week with0ut car. But the lucky thing is that, its the other party's fault, thus Law dun need to pay a single cent and would be able to get back his car before CNY. Also previously, his car was being hit by another hit and run driver (while his car was parked in the carpark), so there are scratches and a little dent on his car front left side. so with this accident, he can change the whole front bumper without paying a single cent! hee..blessing in disguise. :P