Small Update

I’m sick.

Like really sick.

Had fever for almost a week, and the tiredness hasn’t quite go away yet after one whole week.  I’m just still feeling so tired and weak despite resting more than usual.

Ugh.  Just hope I can get back to my normal routine again soon…

Anyway, a list of movies that I wanna catch for the rest of the year!

– Attack on Titans 1 (WHO could miss this, seriously?! I don’t have really high hopes for it though – after all Mikasa was supposed to be the special one in the manga due to her being Asian, but in the movie, all of them are Asians, so… *cough* We’ll see how it works out!)

– Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (I’m not a TC fan, but I’ve been following this franchise for quite a while, so it doesn’t seem right to give it a miss.)

– Pixels (OMG evil Pac-Man!  Who would have thought! :D  The trailer looks soooo much fun!)

– The Martian (Matt Damon is in it.  Matt Damon.  Heck, isn’t that reason enough?!  XD OK fangirl screams aside, I absolutely loved the book to bits – all that science really took quite a while and a few re-reads of the sentences to sink in – and it’ll really be interesting to see how Matt portrays all that wit in action, while the book had it down in logs.  Is he going to talk to himself throughout the whole movie?  Or will it be like a daily playback of what he had done – like how we are reading Mark’s daily logs in the books? Well I don’t know, but I know I can’t wait for the movie to be released!)

Staycations

I like staycations.  They are like mini vacations, though still on home soil.  But getting away from the familiar home/room settings makes it feel very much like a weekend getaway to some hotel overseas.

So far, I’ve only went for chain hotels’ staycations, mainly the AccorHotel chain, simply because I was their platinum member back then. But now that I was being “downgraded” to just classic member, I can just give up on their privileges and go for those boutique hotels which offer more interesting and quirky rooms.

My previous 2-weeks stay (not really a staycation but really a two-weeks stay due to my home’s renovation) at Hotel Clover The Arts was really a lovely stay.  It was super small, yes, but just nice for just myself.  I washed my working clothes by hand and hang them in the toilet to dry, and there’s also a small space for me to put my laptop if I needed to work or surf net (while not on mobile). The bed was awesome, and no windows in the room means I have no natural light and I can sleep like a log with the lights off, regardless of what time it was in the day.  The only con I could think of was that there were days I wanted to go out, only to find that it was raining and I had to head back to my room to grab my umbrella.  Other than that, the room itself was great, the breakfast included daily was awesome and filling, location was perfect (I walked to and fro from work everyday).

I fell in love with boutique hotels since then.  This upcoming New Year eve staycation, I’m also looking at another boutique hotel.  Not gonna reveal the name here, as Bear would read it!  I want to give him a small surprise.  =)

But there’s a list of boutique hotels in Singapore that I wanna try at some point. Since my overseas holidays have been reduced to just one per year, maybe I will just arrange for more staycations then!  =P

Bucket List

I don’t usually have a bucket list, but more like a wish list.

Though now, I do have a bucket list (though admittedly some of the stuff in the list is unattainable).

But here goes:-

  • To visit Netherlands’ fields of tulips
  • To embark on a solo trip overseas (anywhere)
  • To view and experience Northern Lights
  • To spend Christmas AND New Year in a winter country with snow.  Lots of snow.
  • Visit Japan, namely Tokyo (for cherry blossoms, Disneyland, Disney Sea, Ghibli Museum, Kiyosumi Garden, Akihabara, Shinjuku, Shibuya, Harajuku), Osaka (for Universal Studios, and maybe a side trip to Kyoto), Hokkaido (for Sapporo Snow Festival, and maybe a hot spring resort stay at Noboribetsu).
  • Visit Maldives before they disappear under the rising sea levels
  • Do a free & easy multi-city Europe trip just to take in the main sights – at mainly these destinations: Paris (France), Lucerne (Switzerland), Vienna (Austria), Venice (Italy), Santorini (Greece), Tromso (Norway), Prague (Czech Rep), Reykjavik (Iceland)
  • Go onboard a journey on Orient Express.

Now let’s see which one is attainable, and which isn’t.

To visit Netherlands’ fields of tulips – Can be arranged rather easily, actually.  Just that apart from the tulips, I’m not really interested in anything else, although I could combine a tulip field trip in Amsterdam with other Europe cities.

To embark on a solo trip overseas – I almost nearly do it for this year end, but I guess I should spend the money on a new rig instead… I can easily do this for either Hong Kong or Taipei at some point.

To view and experience Northern Lights – OK this is somewhat on the mid-difficulty level.  Northern Lights are elusive; it doesn’t mean that you go to the right place and you can see them.  You need to be there at the right time too, and hopefully the skies are clear for you to view them, without any light pollution from the city.  And the places where there’s a high chance for tourists to view the Northern Lights are far away from tourist cities – you’ll need car transport or you  need to sign up with Northern Lights tours, which can cost quite a bit.  Tromso (in Norway) is a good place to view it, as it is up north in Norway, but it has become a tourist spot just because of that.  Food and accommodation are way overpriced… So unless I have a lot of money to burn, the best bet to strike this off the bucket list is to visit Saariselka (at least I’m slightly more familiar with this place) and hope for the best.

To spend Christmas AND New Year in a winter country with snow – Well this is already on my list of to-dos.  Just that I ain’t sure when exactly can I embark on that trip.  I have year-end closing to worry about, and that my mom still refused to let me travel by myself. I’m pretty sure I’ll get it done eventually.  Just not sure when.

Visit Japan – This isn’t that hard, but looking at the sheer amount of places I wanna go… I may have to split this into two trips.  One week trip just for Tokyo and Osaka, and another week’s trip for Hokkaido.

Visit Maldives before they disappear under the rising sea levels – Not too sure about this too.  Yeah Maldives is a place I’ve always wanted to go – but I don’t want to settle for a cheap accommodation just to get my arse there.  I want that perfect Maldives holiday – house on stilts over the water with glass floors, where manta rays and small sharks greet you every morning beneath your feet.  So getting there isn’t an issue – but the cost of staying there is.  Will I ever live my dream vacation in Maldives?  Not sure… maybe.  At least it doesn’t cost as much as the next two items on the list…

Do a free & easy multi-city Europe trip just to take in the main sights – Now this.  I’ll probably need one or two months away from work just to do this at one go.  Okay, I could break it up to several trips, but at the end of the day, each trip will take at least two weeks.

Go onboard a journey on Orient Express – This one – I’d say it’s just unattainable and leave it at that, lol. Just a 2 day 1 night train trip from London to Venice cost USD3,230 per person.  Yup, just for a 2d1n train trip, and it’s not even a round trip.  Just one way.  Okay if Europe 2d1n trip is too much, how about Singapore to Bangkok then?  But even so,  just a one way trip (2 nights) cost USD2,690 per pax. Yup.  And Scoot cost just SGD$39 during sale period, and it takes only 2 hrs 55min. I mean, yeah sure, all meals onboard are included, you are travelling on a luxury train, where breakfast is served to you in cabin at your preferred timing, where you get to sip classy tea with sandwiches and cakes in an afternoon tea setting in your own cabin too… but holy cow, that’s a lot of money.  Maybe when I win Toto first prize some day.  Maybe.  Which is actually not possible since I don’t buy Toto.  =_=

Sigh.  So much for a relatively unattainable bucket list.

Update… or not

I know I should be posting more updates, and I know I still have a couple of days to post regarding the Hong Kong Trip.  But I’m just so lazy!

Nowadays whenever I reach home, I’ll just spend my time D3-ing away.  Doing bounties, rifts, g-rifts, etc.. just to farm for shards to get the gear that my Wizzie needs. By the time I’m done, it’ll be time for bed, lol.

I’m so sorry!  I may only update the Hong Kong trip when I got tired of D3, haha.  =X  And I’ve been to so many food places with Bear lately, but I just didn’t bother to go update the food blog.  Gosh… that blog is probably gonna fail badly.

A little update about my life… I’ve been going for TCM for my gas issues, and there have been some improvements… but not too much.  Obviously I still need to watch what I am eating, otherwise it’ll still be a gassy affair for me.  And when I say gassy, I don’t mean farts.  I mean feeling the gas coming up from within, yet it doesn’t end with a burp.  It just stopped abruptly somewhere around my chest.  Try experiencing this every 3 to 5 seconds for about 2 hours, and let me know how you feel, yeah?  It felt terrible, really.

Yes I know TCM will take quite a while for it to take effects, so I’m still diligently going to see the doc every week, and taking the medicinal powder everyday.  Period was late for like, 11 days… I even called up and made appointment with the gynae for a check up in case I have cysts again (they do cause irregular or late or even missed periods).  I was supposed to see the gynae today, but I cancelled it yesterday because 大姨妈 finally came.  Yay?  I may still make an appointment to see him after the menses are cleared though, just for the peace of mind.  My period is irregular, but it has never been late for this long.

And now…. I’m cramping up as I typed this in office.  THank goodness I’ve cleared EVERYTHING that I need to do… and there’s basically nothing for me to do now, except for the ad-hoc invoices that come in every now and then.

Sometimes being TOO efficient isn’t a good thing…

Still Alive… But Barely

My aircon broke down since last week… and it’s really not the best of time in the year to break down.  Temperatures have been unbelievably hot lately, and it was a torture just to sleep at night even though I have two fans blowing at me.  My dad’s aircon broke down too, and the repair guys came and said it was the motor that broke down.  No point changing a new motor since our system is already 10 years old.  They say we should just get new ones.

And get new ones we did.  My mom and I in the end bought Mitsubishi tri-split system, but the earliest they could come over to install will be on this Thursday.  So 3 more torturous nights, oh my God…

I know I hadn’t been updating this blog lately ever since I came back from Hong Kong.  I have been trying to update the travel blog every now and then, but I’m just so lazy.  Haha. I’ve got the entries and pictures posted up till Day 4, so you can make your way there to take a look if you wish to.

Besides the Hong Kong entries and pictures, there’s also quite a few makan places which I went with Bear that I still had not post them up.  Maybe I will do short entries of each places instead of consolidating them by the “days” we went. I can remember where we go and what we ordered, and how the food tasted – but I can’t quite remember the date we went already, unless I look at the EXIF data of the photos lol.

Last Saturday, I finally went down to Goodhealth Clinic at Ang Mo Kio for a proper diagnosis / check up / treatment of my gas issue.  After listening to my experiences and listening to my pulse, the pretty TCM doc deduced that my upper body 热 and my lower body is 寒, and my digestive system has been weak at birth, and is now further weakened as time goes by.  Constant intake of antibiotics and western medicine, lack of sleep and high intake of coffee/caffeine had also contributed to the deterioration rate.

The doc prescribed some TCM medicine to first help strengthen my digestive system, before after that’s done, she will then eventually prescribe some medicine to help 补血补气 so that I can slowly wean off coffee/caffeine.  Yellow noodles are a no-no food for the time being, and she said I should be avoiding chicken as well, as chicken is considered to be “heaty” meat.  (Goodness, and I’ve been eating chicken quite a bit for the last few months.)  Rice is actually okay, and so are things that are made from rice flour (aka hor fun, bee hoon, rice vermicilli, etc).  As long as I don’t overeat them.

Hopefully the doc can help get my system back on track… I really want to eat pasta and ramen again.  :(


Chanced upon this thread while surfing EDMW.  Although I’ve only been to London once, it’s not really a place I would wanna revisit.  Of course I’ll go there again with Bear someday because he hasn’t been there before, but I’m not entirely sure if I’d want to go back there again and again.

Food in London was generally bad.  The pasta dishes in the restaurants that I dined in were all way too salty.  Fish & Chips were supposed to be like the “national food” there, but the ones I tried were pretty bad.  Okay, not bad as in real bad but, mediocore. Starbucks totally sucks there – Costa was definitely better.  Shopping at Oxford was overrated.  M&S food hall was all right – definitely cheaper than in SG.  The best food that I tried in London was really that Lemon cake which I bought in Borough Market. Can you imagine?  Best food found in food markets / bazaars.  LOL.

But safety-wise… maybe because I always went back to the hotel early, I don’t feel particularly unsafe even though I stayed around King’s Cross / Euston area.  It is always rainy but I don’t quite mind the weather there, to be honest. As long as the light drizzling don’t turn into something really heavy.

I like their tube map.  It’s a challenge trying to get to the correct platform, and even more challenging to catch the correct train on that platform lol.  Well at least it was a challenge in the first few days when I totally didn’t get the system.  After understanding it, it became a piece of cake.  I just hated the amount of dust in the train station…. you get black gunk in your nose at the end of the day.  Argh.

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Although I’m here in Hong Kong, still enjoying my holiday, every time I switched on the TV and saw the advertisements showing the late Mr Lee KY’s past speech and quotes, I will feel sad.

I feel sad that I’m not back in Singapore to pay my respects to him.  I feel sad that he had done so much for Singapore, yet there are still so many detractors who put him down and made a big hoo haa about how the general public mourns for him.

I feel apprehensive.  I don’t know what will happen to Singapore now. Mr LKY has indeed built a successful Singapore, left a legacy, but I seriously doubt his son’s capability to continue with the legacy that was left behind by his father.

I really, really worry about Singapore’s future. Singapore is not ready yet for opposition to rule.  Or should I say the opposition is not ready yet, to rule Singapore.  However, at the rate the current PAP is going, many people are going to vote them out, just for a change and to see what opposition can do.  That, will be a risk for Singapore, if opposition is gonna take up more seats in the Parliament.

But yet, the current PAP leaders are not up to the task.

No one can replace LKY.  In terms of “having that iron in him”, in terms of ruthlessness, in terms of hindsight, no one can replace him.  Who else can bring us forward to the next level, or even just maintaining whatever we have left now?  No one.

Singapore can only go on auto-pilot for so long, before something will drastically shake things up for the worse.  I really dread for that day to happen.

If only there is immortality, and if only there can be one person on Earth to attain immortality, I honestly (and selfishly) wish LKY will be the one.  No one loves Singapore more than him, no one dedicates their life to their country more than him.  After all, this is his legacy and he would want to protect his legacy for as long as he lives.

But alas, that was not to be.

After all his sacrifices and contributions to the country I call home, I can only bid him farewell now while in a foreign country.

Thank you, Mr Lee, for what you’ve done for Singapore.  Thank you, for bringing Singapore from a “slum like” country to a first world country.  May you reunite with your wife happily ever after… and may you finally have a good rest.  =(

 

RIP…

… our most influential leader of Singapore.  You might not be THE founding father, but Singapore would not have become where she is now without you.

Although you ruled with an iron fist, although there were people who disagree with your policies and the way you destroyed people with a different opinion from you back then, you did it for the stability of the country as Singapore really could not afford to have political instability.

Although there are people who do not agree with this, and refused to acknowledge what you had done and sacrificed for the country, I wish you’d know that there are many others, including this small little household of 3 people, have appreciated what you had gone through and done for Singapore.

Rest in peace, and farewell, LKY.

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Oh gawd I’m so sleepy! Barely one and a half hour into work and I’m already dozing off.

Bah, guess the sleeping pill effect hasn’t worn off yet…

Now I’m getting a headache while trying to stay awake.  Nuuuhhhh T__T

Recap on Monday!

So, went to the eye specialist at SNEC on Monday, got a perfect eye test (yay!).  Doc checked my eyes and said there’s no more spots now (yay!), but she’s very wary of asking me to stop putting the eye drops, because every time I stopped, the spots will come back 3 weeks later.  So this time, she told me to continue putting the eye drops for 3 more months, and then stop for one month before going back to see her again.

Meh, $200 gone just in a morning.

Went over to Project Paleo for lunch, and was slightly disappointed with their food again.  The broccoli and carrots were so raw, and there isn’t much taste to their sauteed mushrooms.  The prawns and squids were okay, but the serving was obviously a lot smaller now.  I added two eggs, and they were all right, I guess.

I had Jewel’s coffee at Clifford Centre before PP, and then I dropped by Jamaica Blue for another cup of coffee after lunch. I was just trying to spend my time while waiting to meet up with Swordsman over at Boon Lay a few hours later.

After the coffee, I started to make my way down to Jurong Point.  It was still pretty early, but I thought to just walk around the shopping mall while waiting.  Nothing interesting there, really.  The new wing was like… nothing much?  Yeah the place is huge, but it just doesn’t feel interesting at all.

While walking around, I started to feel like, really gassy all over again.  It was so bad that I thought I’m really gonna puke again and be sent to hospital lol. I grabbed a cup of hot mint tea at Starbucks and tried to rest and calm my tummy a little, but the feeling was a little too overwhelming.  Well in summary, I was breaking out in cold sweat, feeling hot yet cold (thanks to the air con) at the same time.  It really felt like the night when I puked twice before going into A&E.  I quickly tried to down a few more mouthfuls of the tea, and made a beeline for the toilet.  You know, just in case.  I sat in the cubicle for god-knows how long, before it started to feel slightly better.  Thank goodness, otherwise I really don’t know how the hell am I gonna meet Swordie lol.

So yeah, I managed to meet up with him without any hiccup.  He kept telling me he is a 200kg big show, is “disfigured” (he has psoriasis) , etc etc.. but duh, he looks just fine.  Big sized (around same size as Bear?), and yeah his psoriasis is quite visible, but not to the point where I’d say “disfigured”.  Yeah his forehead was being hit quite badly, but he covered it up with a cap, so it wasn’t that obvious.  Oh yeah and he was wearing a Nat Pagle shirt!!!  HOW COOL WAS THAT!  Haha, and he was surprised that I know who Nat Pagle is.  I was like “eh hello, I play WoW too, you know?”  Which he replied “But not everyone who plays WoW knows Nat Pagle.”  And then I said, “How would I not know, when I don’t play end-game content and has nothing to do except levelling professions?”  To which he laughed.  XD

Although we talked quite a bit on the forums, I thought he’d be the kind who’s a little difficult to chat with. But hey, it turned out that I thought too much.  I think we hit off pretty well (since I already told him I’m a chor lor auntie so that he won’t have too much of an expectation =x), didn’t have much of any awkward moments, etc.  Maybe it helped that we have chatted on forums before…

We did asked those usual questions like “actually how old are you ah?” and “So what do you exactly work as??”, haha, but at least the conversations didn’t just die there.  We went on to talk a bit about EDMW, about the people we’ve met up with, about food, about work, about Bear, about Bear and I, etc…

It was funny that I thought he knew I’m a girl, but he actually doesn’t.  He said he got wrong information from someone that I’m a guy.  Until I gave him my number via PM and told him my real name, he was like “omg you are a zeh zeh?!?”  I was like “ehhhh… I thought Bear told you guys in that Whatsapp group already?!”  He said he couldn’t remember…  haha.

He’s really a huge eater though!  Although I seriously think Bear can eat more… but Swordie isn’t weak sauce either.  I told him to bring me eat good sio bak, which he did!  We ordered roast duck and sio bak combo, some siew mai and har gow.  The sio bak is AWESOME, but the rest of the food are just so-so.  Oh yeah, another similarity between him and Bear – both love ice water.  =_=  I wonder why!

After Round 1 dinner, it’s time for his Round 2!  (Yeah he eats two rounds of dinner everyday.)  We wanted to go Din Tai Fung, but it was closed.  =_=  So we end up at Eggs & Berries, where he ordered salmon and I ordered bratwursts.  The sausages are SALTY omg.  I can only finished like 1 and 1/2 of it before I gave up.  Bleh.  We chatted further… but hmm.  I actually don’t exactly remember what we were talking about now.  Maybe it’s really just random stuff.

What I found out was that we were pretty similar in terms of character.  We are both fussy with food (he doesn’t like a lot of food, whereas I couldn’t eat a lot of food), we are anal about people we can click with (as in we would rather dine alone than to go eat with someone we can’t click with), we both don’t know where our passion is and what we want to do in life, in terms of career (which is sad, haha).

He said I’m the first girl he has gone out alone with in probably the past 10 years. I was like “WHAT! Are you serious??”.  But then again, for him it’s just work, food, and back home to play games… I guess its hard for him to meet up and go out with girls anyway.  As usual, we took photos of the food we ordered, and he posted them up in the forums.  One of his photos captured my arms, and suddenly he was swarmed with questions like “WAH who’s the zehzeh”.  LOL.  He got bombarded with questions like which girl did he dine with, is it his girlfriend, does his girlfriend eat as much as him, etc etc etc.  Hahaha… he did a good job in fending them off though.  But I really had a good laugh reading at all the questions thrown at him.  He said he posted the photos on his FB and even his friend is questioning him.  Haha… I told him next time he should just crop me out to prevent such headaches.

He seems to be a very considerate person despite his tough replies in the forum some times.  I explained to him a little regarding my gas issue, and he seemed to remember everything.  And every now and then, he would ask me if I could eat this or that, have I tried this before, have I tried that before, etc.  He asked if I had tried Omakase Burger before, and I said nope.  He said he’s interested to try it, and before I can say I might not able to eat the buns, he already said “you just eat the patties ok?”  =__=  I was like “oei then it’s not called a burger liao leh…”  Then he laughed and said that the staff can probably find something to substitute the buns with.  He even said next time it’d be his turn to come down to my turf (east side, that is) and I must bring him around to eat.  And then he was asking about my lunch hours and said next time if he’s going for his TCM, he can drop by and lunch with me. Hmmm, knowing that he’s anal about who he dines with, I guess he can click with me too if he has plans to makan with me again?  =x

It’s not that common for me to be able to click with someone the first time I see them.  I guess I’m just comfortable with Swordie because 1) he’s a trusted friend of Bear, 2) we are slightly similar, 3) I know I’m not his type (he goes for those 气质淑女 style), 4) he knows I’m attached. So its just a pure friendship thing… which is rare! We’ll see when we can arrange another meal again, and this time with Bear too!  Feels weird not having him around when it comes to eating… a lot of food.  =P