I have decided to relocate my blog to Wordpress - the back end and app usability is much closer to me OCD palate.
If you wanna continue to know the mundane stories of my life, follow me here.
As we welcome the Year of the Rat tomorrow, I would like to think that this is the year where Mummy Ho watches over us wherever she may be. It’s more than 10 years ago she left us and I still remember what she tells me the traits of a people born in the Year of the Rat - the rat’s superpower is that they “pandai cari makan” - and I do think that’s pretty true. Well, as far as she’s concerned anyway.
She never relied on Papa for money to put food on the table or for her to buy her own things. From very early on I see her do lots of things that would allow her to earn or make money. Let’s see - catering, transportation for kids to school, kindergarten, tuition, weekend book-keeping and in between all that - watching Beritex (if some of you are old enough to remember, those days there were some TVs which you buy just for these extra special channels to check stock market shares and 4D number).
So mummy, here’s to you for your year! Hope you’re somewhere up there blessing us with your superpowers!
Here’s a couple of photos of our simple CNY eve dinner. Celebrating with different group of people now but still won’t forget our noisy families in the old days...
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| Some home-cooked, some store-bought. |
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| Jeff with our CNY eve dinner spread. |
My iPad Pro is almost like a Surface Pro with its keyboard and Bluetooth mouse enabled. Needs a bit more effort to get used to it though. I said almost. Not necessarily there yet. Haha.
We have entered the third week into January and just days before the Chinese New Year festivities. Not gonna be celebrating much this time round so it's gonna be a quiet weekend. Will just focus into going round collecting lots and lots of angpaos.
In the meantime, let's look back and see what I've been up to so far this year.
Spent the new year eve and the new year with family. Booked us into ALOFT Hotel hoping to catch some fireworks but alas all of them were quite far away. Will need to look for a more strategic and still inexpensive location the next time.
Followed with a New Year brunch with the old Proton gang (missing a few of them) at Blonde, Damansara Heights.
Continued with our first new year "date" at Huckleberry. Pictured here is Jeff with their famous burnt cheesecake. Fat die me diet obviously did not start that day.
Did dinner and coffee with the sistas couple of days later. It was a belated Christmas do for Mrs. Stevenson coz she's such a busy bee.
And guessed who did we bumped into? Our very own celebrity! Which spurred into conversations about having a CNY lousang dinner with the old Krisbiz gang. We even appointed the organiser there and then! Lol.
Had a TLC day of hair and nails. Just in time for Chinese New Year.
Had a rich rich rich meal. Most expensive dish ever eaten at this famous De Maw Restaurant somewhere in Cheras.
Our place is still a work in progress. Hopefully all will be done by the end of Q1.
Explored new outlets. Here's coffee and cake by Bookmark Cafe. So-so but they can do Snoopy-latte-art so who cares.
I'm part of the company's sports club committee this year and here's our first activity of the year. Bowling seems to be quite the favourite.
Company's annual trip site inspection. Can you guess where this is?
Our kitchen glass panels are up! Everything is coming along quite nicely. And we'll be quite broke by the time we've moved in hahaha. Not funny. Hahaha.
Till my next post, here's welcoming the Year of the Rat.
In the meantime, let's look back and see what I've been up to so far this year.
Spent the new year eve and the new year with family. Booked us into ALOFT Hotel hoping to catch some fireworks but alas all of them were quite far away. Will need to look for a more strategic and still inexpensive location the next time.
Followed with a New Year brunch with the old Proton gang (missing a few of them) at Blonde, Damansara Heights.
Continued with our first new year "date" at Huckleberry. Pictured here is Jeff with their famous burnt cheesecake. Fat die me diet obviously did not start that day.
Did dinner and coffee with the sistas couple of days later. It was a belated Christmas do for Mrs. Stevenson coz she's such a busy bee.
And guessed who did we bumped into? Our very own celebrity! Which spurred into conversations about having a CNY lousang dinner with the old Krisbiz gang. We even appointed the organiser there and then! Lol.
Had a TLC day of hair and nails. Just in time for Chinese New Year.
Had a rich rich rich meal. Most expensive dish ever eaten at this famous De Maw Restaurant somewhere in Cheras.
Our place is still a work in progress. Hopefully all will be done by the end of Q1.
Explored new outlets. Here's coffee and cake by Bookmark Cafe. So-so but they can do Snoopy-latte-art so who cares.
I'm part of the company's sports club committee this year and here's our first activity of the year. Bowling seems to be quite the favourite.
Company's annual trip site inspection. Can you guess where this is?
Our kitchen glass panels are up! Everything is coming along quite nicely. And we'll be quite broke by the time we've moved in hahaha. Not funny. Hahaha.
Leaving behind the memories of the last decade, both the good and the bad. It's time to make new ones.
Happy New Year!
Note: This post has been in "draft" for like 2 months. Insanely duh.
Yes. Yes. I'm like 2.5 months late posting this... Been busy...
So the story is this.
Late April early May this year (yes still within the same year *sarcasm), I made a quick trip with Boo and some of our pals to Boracay.
Flight was a new route Air Asia introduced to Kalibo Airport. It's slightly more direct than flying to Clark, Manila and then another flight transfer to Caticlan Airport.
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| All aboard! All excited! |
So, we arrived Kalibo airport and had to take a 2 hours (or was it 1 hour) land transfer to the jetty. At the Caticlan jetty we had to take a ferry transfer to get onto the island.
This was the view that greeted us!
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| Beautiful! Right? Right? |
So, by the time we arrived it was fast approaching sunset. We decided to take it easy (we will be there for 5 days anyway yay!) and took our time getting to our resort, checking in, freshened up and rested a bit before our tummies insisted we go look for dinner.
What did we ended up having as our first meal?
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| Yellow Cab Pizza!!! |
Haha! At least it's not McDonalds (inside joke).
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| Liked the way they served the pizza. |
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| Sand castle? |
This was done very nicely but you will be charged if you wanna take a photo of it or with it. Managed to sneak a couple of shots before I realised that. Whoops!
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| As declared by Mama D! |
Happy New Year peeps!
Oh wait. Hold on. Is it May Already?!? (Omigosh!)
*Blushes*
Was so busy did not even notice time flies... real fast! Been an eventful start of the year so far.
Random holiday morning where I wake up super early (even earlier than when I'm supposed to go to work!) coz someone had to leave town to head down South for whole lot of fun (jealous mode on) and I thought might as well catch up with my HKD drama which I missed out for almost and entire month!
Going to have some salmon sashimi goodness later (oh nyums!). Lemme show you what I mean!
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| Oh nomnomnom... |
February was tulips for Valentine! Had a quiet day. Lepak-ed and had a simple teocheow porridge for dinner.
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| Yay! Tulips! |
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| Yummers (but super mahal) dinner at Marinis! |
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| The portable instax printer! |
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| Pink for girl! |
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| A younger me... |
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| BORACAY! Best beach holiday ever! |
Hmmm... ok... blog updated. Now I'm gonna zzz for a bit before salmon time! Toodooloos!
In the spirit of Chinese New Year... here's wishing everyone (this wish is also meant to tempias to everyone I know but who don't know me and everyone I don't know but knows me) a super duper Happy New Year!
Yeah, I know. I have not been blogging for months! So since I'll be back to work tomorrow after a two week hiatus, getting the "work-wagon" moving in preparation to more work tomorrow! Meh...
So, let me first entertain you with my woogie antics I managed to catch on camera...
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| Woogie love... |
September
Mel's friend introduced her to this awesome place selling fresh imported fish and also serves salmon sashimi, to eat in or take away! Problem of having it there is, the shop does not have a sitting space so customers who pre-order will need to look for a place to sit outside (sharing with the chinese coffee shop customers) and order a drink or two from the coffee shop, let the salmon shop know and they will bring over the salmon sashimi platter, complete with wasabi and chopsticks! So yummy!
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| This platter was for 6 people! All gone in 10-15 mins! |
Yums... Need to do this again! Soon!
About a week plus before our Bali trip, he got an email from the bride telling everyone that there is a theme colour for her wedding! OMG! I always like to try to dress up as I can to the theme so I was stressing myself out to get an Emerald Green dress within my budget, body shape and good material. Tough especially when the colour is not in season, and my body shape is not the standard mannequin measurement so lots of dresses looks like a sack on me (meh).
Finally, after long and many many hours of dress-shopping, finally shortlisted to these 2 dresses!
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| Emerald Green dinner dress |
So the story was, was randomly walking in Debenhams, Starhill looking for a dress and stumbled on the one on the right. A floral design with emerald green still on it. Loved the long flare skirt and somehow the design and cutting of this dress suits me perfectly. But, price tag was an "ouch" for my wallet. He loved this dress too and offered to buy this for my birthday present (what?!? no!) but I decided to go around some more and look for other (and cheaper) option. So, the next few days saw the green dress on the left at 1/3 of price of the the former dress. OK. Just need to go get some ehem corset coz the material super clings to every curve and spare tyre on my body. Meh. So, he got this dress for me. And it's not gonna be my birthday present (hahaha).
Our Bali Trip - This was his first time and my second time to Bali. He says he wanna do this every year. I'm fine with that idea :)
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| The 101 Legian - booked via Groupon |
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| Coconut at Tanah Lot, while waiting for the sunset |
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| Amused with this dog chilling on the sand at Tanah Lot |
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| The tide was low at Tanah Lot |
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| Me with him and Mini UJ at Tanah Lot |
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| Our first dinner in Bali at The Kopi Pot, Kuta |
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| He wanted to soak in some Bali culture, so watched the Barong dance on our way to Ubud |
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| Stone sculpting, pit stop on our way to Ubud |
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| Was waiting to try this again, and he gave this a thumbs up! Babi Guling Ibu Oka, Ubud for lunch |
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| Dinner was grilled duck and smoked chicken at Bebek Tepi Sawah, Ubud |
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| Yes - succumbed into buying this expensive dress for myself! |
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| Main reason we came to Bali was to attend the wedding in Uluwatu CONGRATULATIONS JOJO & MICHEAL! |
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| My (impromptu) lobster birthday dinner at Jimbaran |
So, some snapshots of our activities in Bali. There were a bit more shopping and monkeys involved, and also temples but was too busy with the monkeys to Instagram them :)
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| After a long day at work, TWG tea after dinner to wind things down |
And then, it's back to work. Sigh.
October
The story goes on that 2 weeks after we came back from Bali, I had to go off-work again, but this time not for a jolly holiday instead I got infected with dengue fever. I was down with sudden super high fever one night and the concerned BF insisted that I go to the ER the next day. The doctor listened to my story and ordered up a blood test for viral and also dengue fever.
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| Blood test ER day 1 |
The viral test result came back negative, but took a while for the dengue test results to come back so we went home first. He called up the clinic that evening for the results but somehow they could not get back to us then and so he called again the next morning. Clinic asks to come back for another blood test coz the results came back with dengue detected.
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| Blood test ER day 2 |
Doc says I have dengue fever but my condition was still mild enough to not get admitted just yet so I was allowed to go home first, to come back for another round of blood test in two days time. Got an MC for the week so had to skip the company's team building (apparently I did not miss much anyway) and was out of commission in bed for the next few days.
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| Friski Ho - my companion at home |
The next visit to the ER for my blood test finally got me admitted into the hospital. My blood pressure that day particularly was super low and the platelet count dropped further.
Thus, the story of my virginal stay in the hospital.
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| UJ my loyal companion in the ward |
Was in the hospital for four days. Luckily my dengue fever was not very serious and I did not get all the usual symptoms like scarred rashes, nausea, vomiting etc so I was thankful for that. Just did lotsa eat, sleep, tv, sleep and more sleep. Thanks to my friends and family who visited, and the BF for sleeping over on the last night to keep me company :)
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| UJ was glad to see me discharged |
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| Daily blood test needles and my arms now looks bruised |
My doctor gave me another week of MC to recuperate at home. So my woogies were my daily companion during this time.
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| Woogie love! |
During my down time at home, had to go tapau lunch on my own (no hospital food service meh) but tried to cook dinner for myself and also sis and the BF every evening to keep me busy. There were only two occassion when I cooked for more than one person. The other times I did a simple stir fried kangkung with white rice just for myself.
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| Salted fish fried bean sprouts and asam pedas fish - nyums |