M1 services

Was rather suprise with the services that M1 provided. As my plan had ended and i wanna change hp , i called them up last week to ask for loyalty benefits; discount which they would offer when you renew your 2 year plans with them. A forum fren of my sis said that they had just offer her a $50 discount voucher, thus i called up to try my luck. The customer service officer is not only rude and impatient, she sounded like i am bluffing her abt the $50 discount voucher thingy. I was damn pissed off!! After the call, M1 actually send a sms to my hp to ask me to rate their service. I of course gave her a 5 (for VERY BAD)!

I thought that would be the end of story. However this afternoon, i received a call from M1 following up on that bad feedback. I am suprised that they would even bother to call back to follow up, thus i explained to her what happened. In the end, she apologised and offered me 6 mths free caller ID and on top of that, 3 mths $10 rebates upon renewal of my contract! Haa...so i guess i would still be using M1, but for now, need to source for a phone first. My current hp is dying on me...

Divers gathering

Had a dinner gathering at my place for my diving frens last night. Just the right time as my parents were away on a cruise, so i have the whole house to myself.

Suppose to go for the Singapore Waterfest in the afternoon, but then my dear fren fly me areoplane last min....when i say last min, its really last min! I almost step out of my house alr....oh well, thus i spent my afternoon playing my PSP.

Ppl started arriving at 6+ . Actually i have a easy job for this gathering, cos i only ordered the curry chicken and bee hoon from 933 Goldenpillow. The rest of the food were bought by uncle Sing. Thanks and U're the MAN!!! It was a great gathering, knowing new frens ( i dunno more than half of the ppl who turned up yesterday!!)

Would like to say thanks to the following ppl:

Patrick for showing us such a nice diving DVD. I really hoped that one day, i would be able to see all those marine lives that you have capture in the video.

Uncle Sing and Uncle Jon who helped me to get the food and drinks. Uncle jon, glad that you are able to make if, even thou its only for a short while. But so sad that you still cant remember me...

Kelstorm for sharing with us your Nitro experience and ur encountered with that "oxygen-ed" nudibranch...lol...hahaaa....i still cant stopped laughing when i recalled what you told us!!

To all the ppl who turned up and to those who stayed back to help me clean up!

Too bad..forgot to take photos...

Foto Gallery

Was called up by a sales person from Foto Gallery to go for a free makeover. Was thinking why not since i am looking for a good studio to make a portfolio and the last time i made a portfolio was when i was 21. Thus i went down to their studio at beach road on wednesday. History of the company: Have 7 bridal shops under the company and they are branching out to do personal and family style photo shoots. The branch at beach road is quite new. Service wise not bad. Went i reached there, they would assign a image consultant to me. This person would follow me throughout the whole process from makeup to choosing of clothes and to the photo shoot. I was given 2 style shoot and in total over 50 shots.

I brought my own clothes, thus didnt use their. The whole thing lasted 2 hrs and after that they are persuading me to buy their package. Actually it sounds quite attractive as its a lifetime membership which includes yrly : 2 makeover, 1family portrait , resume photo shoot, free borrowing of clothes for functions. They also include one time off event shoot (4hrs), one time off ROM and wedding shoot, makeover portfolio albms, photography course and makeup course. What attract me are the yearly offers, ie the makeover, family portrait and update of resume photo. But the package is damn ex! Almost $3k. I said i needed time to consider but they dun allow, saying offer is only for that day only. Thus in the end i didnt take the package..got to save money...cannot anyhow spend. So, i was only given 2 photos out of the 50+ that i have taken. Quiet like the photos and asked if i can just make the portfolio without the package, but they say cannot... :(

Kuyishinbo

Haven been meeting Law often in the past few weeks. When i said offen, i meant not even once in 2 weeks, thus when he was off today, i took leave too. Been pretty slack in office nowadays, thus able to afford to go on leave :P

He went back for meeting in the morning (duhz..even off day also need to work...), thus only met up with him in the afternoon. Went for a liesure walk at suntec while waiting for the feast at night! We had a very little lunch so that we can eat all we can at Kuyishinbo. Its a jap buffet resturant at suntec. The food quality there is a bit below expectation if you are not into raw stuffs. The tempuras are nothing to shout about and their curry sucks! But on the other hand, their raw salmon is maverlous!!! Sushi, handrolls and paper steamboat are also very nice.

Look at the thick slices of salmon!!

Paper steamboat

Chawamushi and Kani ("crab")

Look at the handroll, the seaweeds still in their plastic wraps. You need to remove the wraps before eating the handroll. This is to ensure the crispyness of the seaweed!!

Err.pic a bit blurr but this is a section of the leg of the kani. Japanese crabs are a bit diff from the normal crabs that we eat. The body of the crab is very round and small and the part with the most meat is actually the legs. The rest provide scissor and a long, thin metal stick for you to cut the crab and use the stick to push the meat out. Its a very neat way to eat crab and also enable you to eat the whole leg instead of the miserable messy way that we normally eat when trying to squeeze the meat out.

Another special item of Kuyishinbo is that they have hourly specials whereby special dish would be cook on a limited basis. The would ring a bell and announce over the PA system on what dish is out and at which station. We are lucky as we were sitting in front of the Tepanyaki station and we saw the waiter took the bell and standby at that station. Hee..thus we knew something is coming out and got ready for it. Its actually a slippery lobster. Law qucikly went to queue for it. Taste quite nice.

And lastly is the desserts. Nothing fantastic too. Some mochi and soft cream ice cream.

But at least i got to taste "Tong Luo Shao", the snack that doraemon love to eat!!

Dragon Boating

Went for dragon boating with Qingyou and Jiahui yesterday. Its my first time and its quite fun! The team that we joined are made up mainly of Hong Kees...they are a fun bunch, very "warming", friendly and "comical". Most of them are much older than us and boy are they fit! My arms and right shoulder blade are aching like hell now..Might join them for regular training..still considering :P it would be a very good form for exercise too! :) Most of the members are guys and they are trying to form a women's team, thus asking us to join. So any ladies out there interested in giving it a try? It can surely help to tone your arm, waist and chest..yes ..chest...haha....

These are the boats we used for dragon boating. Its actually quite hard to boat it the right way. Got to use the strength from the right muscle. Obviously i have not yet master the skill, thus my right arm is so aching now (should be my left arm that is aching instead of right). Also with the glove that one of the lady lent me, my thumb is still sore and raw from the holding the
See that red patch...That was taken last night which were abt 7 hrs after the session,...and its still red!

After dragon boating, we went to Marina to watch fireworks. They are late this year! Suppose to start at 9pm, but it ended up starting at ard 925pm..made us waited there for almost 45 mins..duhz...Some pics of the fireworks.

Qingyou, Jiahui and Me

Oh ya, before the dragon boat session, jiahui and i went for a mini steamboat lunch. They serve fried durian!! Its quite nice actually, but it would be better if its hotter still!! $4 for 2 quite worth and is a must try! Its at Tiong Bahru Plaza at 2nd level..forgot wats the name of the shop, but its right at the end (the side with McD).

So delicious!

KPMG Annual Comm Day - 17/08/07

Today is our KPMG's Annual Community Day. Its my 3rd Comm day with KPMG and infact its the best Comm day so far. On a typical Comm day, we would bring our VWOs out for the day.. The VWOs for my unit is Grace Orchard School, whereby they provide education services to physically/mentally challenged kids. On my first yr with KPMG, we have a carnival at ECP and last yr was a day's outing at the Singapore Zoo. This year however is carried out in the school premises itself whereby we set up game booth for them to play.

We were being allocated tasks to do, being either a nanny whereby the nanny would bring the kids around the game booths to play or the game I/C. Me together with 2 colleagues were in-charge of a game called "Happy Birthday To Me". Haa..at first we thought that it would be a relatively easy job, cos all they need to do is to blow out the candles and they would be entired to a prize. But boy were we WRONG!! Its very tedious to relight all the 20 candles each time they blew them. And you would be amazed at how much they love our game...keep coming back to reblow the candles! So we have to relight and relight and relight. Its quite easy at first when we use the "gas stove lighter" to light the candles, but soon, before the kids ran out of breath, the gas ran out first! So in the end, we have to keep one candle gg, and use that to relight the rest...at first my colleague did warn me abt "flying saliva", but then, the thing we need to be warn abt is "FLYING WAX!!!" Got splattered all over my shorts!! Duhz...

Our booth

Look at all the prizes!!

The booth beside ours : Water Gun!!

So its lighting.....and

Relighting...and

Relighting!!! See all those wax!!

As the kids come in in classes, so there were interval between each class. Ssooo...thats when the child in us surface! Haa..we went ard the room and play with the other games!! We ended up doing Sand Art. Its my first time doing it!! So shuak ku right!!

Concentrating....

I choose a My Melody pic

When we were halfway done, any batch of kids came, so we got to rush back to man our booth!! So thats our half done pics.

The end result. Nice?

My department!!

Online course

Being in the midst of my off peak season, we are being send for courses to improve our technical knowledge. Some of these courses pertain to web-based course, meaning we have to study online and do the test straight after we finished one module.

Just started off my series of courses today by doing my online course module, Ethics and Independence. It consist of 3 modules and we were given 4 hrs to finished it. At the end of the course, we are suppose to do a MCQ test, comprising of 31 qns. Passing mark is 70% meaning I must get at least 23 correct to pass. But in the end I finished in just 2 hrs (at the same time msning my frens :P) and I only got 1 wrong!! Haa.. so proud of myself!!

This would mark the start of my “training season”. More would come only in Oct as I would be on leave in Sep….offpeak season….my favourite time of the year!! :D

Ravi's wedding + OneRochester

Attended Ravi's wedding last sat. It seems more like a sec school class gathering rather than wedding. Ravi used to be my sec 1 & 2's PE cum english language teacher. He was the only teacher that we have close contact with. Our classmates took up 2 tables and more than 20 of us turned up (that makes up half the class alr!!) And when we were taking photos with the bride and groom, it really feels like a class photo with the teacher in the middle! lol...

Haa..as usual at "class gathering", we would update each other on our progress in life. Some of them are married, engaged and one couple (both are my classmates) even has a new born baby boy! how time flies. It has been 17 yrs since we first know each other (opps so old alr...) It has been a great night catching up.

After the wedding, some of us went for a second round of drinks at OneRochester. Have heard abt the place, but have not been there before. Its my first time. Its actually a concept pub whereby the owner bought over the villa and converted it into a drinking place. Its a little like Villa Bali, except that this is a real house/villa. I love its garden area where there are huge couches which look extremely comfortable! The area where we sat is called the "Playroom". Its very nice too with decorative toy chest (with real toys inside!).

My sec school frens

Xuehui, me, Huiping and Uma

Me and my best bud!

Me with my Summer Rochester Martini

OneRochester

Taiwan here i come

Booked - 11/09/07 - 17/09/07

Yippee!!

Child from Far beyond

Was just commenting to Law that it has been a long time since world vision update me with regards to the progress of my sponsored child and yesterday, i received a "report card" from them.

Haa..a big boy now

I have been sponsoring Tegshjangal (his name) for almost 2 years now. He comes from a poor village in mongolia and live with his parents and sister. Its just $45 a month and he would be able to go to school, to have better medical care. $45 isnt a lot of $$. Just lesser shopping, eating at rest, movies can easily save u that $45. Interested to do your part? Can visit their website and check it out.

Flowery End

My first try out at nail art. Just a simple design :)

The waiting game

Just when i thought that i was safe, i received a call from my manager asking me back to office..."For just an hr" she said, to go through some stuffs with me. Today is PH man! Why cant she go thru them earlier and have to wait til now! Damn it...waiting from mon to wed, no news and now on a PH then needs to go back.

Really sicken...i just seems to be waiting and waiting and waiting these few days. Even for a simple ans also must wait from 7+ to 9+ then to 10+, sms to remind also no reply..Dun expect me to wait forever ok. Finally i called at 11pm to end the waiting game.

False Alarm

Even though i am on leave this week, but i am also on standby mode..in which any moment might be called back to office. But up to now..wednesday, still no news yet and tomorrow is a public holiday, dun think would have any "action" for the rest of the week. So its an uneventful week for me. They are actually having a 24hrs party at Sentosa...how i wished that i would be going...but no one to go with...most frens not into partying and also not into sentosa...haa..so it would be a boring PH for me.

Was chatting with Xuehui last night and we concluded that my most happening day of the week would be on sat and sun. As sat would be the wedding day of my sec school teacher. As promised, would be there early to help out. As for sun, would be going for the travel fair at suntec with xuehui to source for good bargins before joining the rest for badminton session. Haa..xuehui has always asked me along for the badminton session. But as its always on sun evening and next day still need to work, thus dun feel like gg. But seems like i cant run away this sun :P

Next week would be back to work alr...on leave sian...go back to work also sian...hai...how?????

Nutella Cupcakes

Baking has always been one of my passion in life, but in the last 2 yrs, due to busy schedule, this passion was being "kept in the cupboard". Seeing its my off-peak season now and am on 1 week leave, decided to surf the net for some good receipe. Found one and decided to give it a try. Its a butter cupcake spread with nutella. Its relatively easy to do too.

First, get all the ingredients ready at room temp

Then mix all the ingredients together to form the "mixture". Scoop the mixture into the cupcake holders using a ice-cream scoop (easier than using spoon, at least it wont stick to it).

Put a tsp of nutella on top of each cup.

Swirl the nutella in by using a toothpick

End result - Haa..looks like a mini marble cake hor.

Verdict: Easy to do, but too buttery. Gg to try with lesser butter next time.