Last Day of the Year

It's 31 Dec 2009!!!

How fast it is. Just a glimpse and it is end of the year. This year my feeling for this day to come is so neutral. Neither happy nor sad. Is it good??? I do not know.

Do hope 2010 will be a better year for me and wish my health will be good, be more happier, lessor work problem, better pay & bonus, more savings, more leisure trips, cut down weight and.... well cannot think of more yet. Just everything to be good for me lah.

Although we could knocked off at 12.45pm today, we went out for lunch at about 1.30pm. After lunch, we went to National Geographic Store to see if there is any winter clothing we could get. The staff introduced to us those suitable ones for our Hokkaido trip next month and we decided to buy the inner layer top pullover which is rather light. We also bought a pair of gloves at another store. Hope these can keep us warm there. After the shopping, we went back to office to clear some urgent paperwork.

Went to our boss house this evening for year end celebration. There were so many kids running around and they enjoyed it. Finally I managed to play with my colleague's daughter. Carried her and many times, wanted to pinch her chubby face. Ha ha ha...

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1..... going to 2010!!! Happy New Year!!!

Count down to 2010

Time really flies. Christmas over and now year 2009 is coming to an end. Think of it, I did not know what am I doing this whole year except work work and work.

Usual year end is a happy occasion for me as I tends to start taking leaves and work from home on last few days of the year. However for this year, I can't do same for both Christmas and New Year eve. So sad....

Today I stayed late to complete majority of my work so that hopefully I can leave office early tomorrow. I do not want same thing to happen again like my Christmas eve where I have to work till 5pm when everyone was enjoying their eve elsewhere.

We are invited to our boss house tomorrow evening. Hence, plan is to have lunch and go for a little bit of shopping at VivoCity before heading to his house near Kovan MRT station.

Cross my fingers and toes that tomorrow will be a more relaxing day for me to enjoy the last day of the year.

Counting down now....

ONE°15 Marina Club

This evening, we had our year end gathering dinner for our team at ONE°15 Marina Club. Our barberque dinner was on board a non-cruising houseboat. Initially, I thought I could be excused by having to continue to work on some enquiries but my boss said no need to do and told me he will shutdown my pc for me. As I was on the phone, I quickly stopped him and told him I will be ready soon. In the end, I told them to leave first and I followed my another colleague as I was having stomachache. My colleague asked if I was too nervous and caused the stomachache. Hee hee.

No choice but to go for the dinner. When we reached there, it was drizzling and the way to the berth was rather slippery. My shoe had no friction and few times I almost fell down. Had to walk real slow.

As we were late, most of my colleagues already eaten. I did not eat a lot as it was so warm after the rain and no wind. In addition, the boat was not "still" and made us felt floating... Few of female colleagues got sea sick and had to stay at the lower deck with aircon, watching TV. One of them felt so bad that had to lie on the bed.

As it was going to 9.30pm, few of us left early as by the time we reached home will be very late. We bid goodbye to all and walked to the main building. Asked the reception to book cabs for us.

Did not eat much and felt stomach a bit "funny" when I was on my way home. Quickly took a bath and ate some biscuits. Felt better now and today I must rest early as I have so much things to clear tomorrow. If I can stay in office to clear the work this evening, it will be good as I need not rush everything tomorrow. What to do.... boss said must go....

Akashi lunch

This afternoon, we had lunch at Akashi Japanese restaurant. This is to celebrate Ah Thin's birthday last week. Due to Christmas holidays and she took leaves last week, we delayed our treat to her until today.

We ordered set lunch. Mine is a set with tempura, sashimi and fish. Ah Thin ordered cod fish set and 小珠 ordered grilled saba set. We enjoyed the lunch and chit chat about our Hokkaido trip next month. Ah Thin not going with us but she was interested on how was our planning. She can follow our itinerary if she wants to go next time.

Some countries were on holiday today hence we did not receive much enquiries. Therefore, I could use the time to clear my paperwork. Although yet to finish all by 10.30pm, we had to leave office as it was very late.

How I wish I can go home early at 7pm!!!

This is the set I ordered. It comes with soup.

Spectacles

This afternoon, I went to make my new spectacles. My current pair was made at least 3 years ago and I think it is time for me to make a new pair.

I don't wear it very frequently hence do not want to buy those very expensive kind. Mainly would like to get transition lens so that I can use it as sunglasses.

Chose a simple design frame and total added up to $260. It is still a bit expensive but the main cost is due to the transition lens. Shall treat this as a gift I bought for myself after getting my year end bonus. :)

Uhhhh... tomorrow has to go back to work... So sad.

Day at home relaxing

Finally I had a full day myself idling at home. Did not feel like going out hence stayed indoor for the whole day.

I managed to finish watching Tokyo Dogs last epi, 仁医 last 2 epi and Liar Game 2 latest 2 epi. With the completion of Tokyo Dogs and 仁医, I left Liar Game 2 to chase after from next week onwards. Shall look out for any nice new dramas coming up for me to watch.

The 2 which I will definitely watch next year are Bloody Monday 2 and Code Blue 2. Can watch Takeru, Haruma and Yamapi again on these new dramas.

I had also done some housekeeping of my stuff. Thrown those things that were kept in my cupboards for a long time. Since they were not used for such long time, it meant to me that they were already "unwanted" by me. Ha ha ha...

Better clear some now otherwise I will have headache clearing them again next year during spring cleaning time before Chinese New Year.

Shall relax today and so happy that there is long weekend this week. Will start to be busy on coming Monday but looking forward to 31 Dec as it is a half day for us again and will end 2009 with long weekend.

Merry Merry Christmas!

Jingle Bell. Jingle Bell.

Santa Claus is coming to town.

Rudolph the red nose reindeer.

I saw Mummy kisses Santa Claus.

All I want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth.

These are usual Christmas songs which we can hear during this festive season. So fast... that we have to wait for another year before we can hear them in the streets. Christmas come and go so fast. However, people enjoy the happy atmosphere and is a time to give and share.

Today we went to our aunt house. Not to celebrate Christmas but to visit her as it has been some time we did not meet up with her family. We chit chat and watched TV at her house and she purposely went out to buy some snacks for us and also desserts. We stayed until 6pm and went for dinner together at AMK central.

Dessert for all


Started to open up my Christmas presents and am so happy to see the X-mini speaker that I am eyeing on it for quite some time. 小珠 bought it for me! Perhaps she saw me so dilly dally and decided to buy for me. Hee hee... She also bought poker cards with my no 5 idol (Yamapi) photos on them. Good one as he is my latest idol and I did not not have any magazines with his photographs. These cards can replaced those magazines.

Received few other presents and this year mine are all that can be used. Got hand lotions, body lotion etc... Can help to make my skin smoother. Recently my skin is rather dry and I need to take good care of it before my trip to Hokkaido next month. So fast... next month I am going to Japan again!!!

2009 Christmas presents

Christmas Eve with hunger

Today is Christmas eve and our company allowed staff who were not on shift work to leave office by 12.45pm. 小珠 and I intended to have lunch first before going home. However, due to I could not finish my work as there were so much to clear today, we ended up leaving office at around 5pm.

This was the worst Christmas eve I ever had. We did not have our lunch at usual 12 - 1pm and were so hungry by the time we walked out of office building. Was deciding where to eat and finalised at White Dog cafe. Felt like eating western on Christmas eve.

We ordered Spicy Seafood Spaghetti, Mushrooms with Onions Pizza and Clam Chowder soup. The pizza was quite nice and it was first time we ate pizza with onions. The spaghetti and soup were nice too. Not sure if it was due to our hunger that we were so satisfied with this meal. :P

Finished our food at around 7pm and we headed home. As I was rather tired today, I decided not to watch any J-dramas and just concentrate on my facebook game ~ Cafe World. I was helping my sister and brother-in-law to take care of their Cafe. Ha ha...

Movie time

It had been few weeks since we last watched a movie. Partly due to I was too busy and also due to no good movies to watch. Finally, today we went to watch "Avatar".

I was tied up with work and ended up getting into the theater 30 mins late. The movie showed time is 7pm Usually the movie will start 20 mins after some commercial advertisements and trailers. Therefore, we missed the first 10mins of the show. So pai sei that 小珠 missed it because of me again... :(

Although I was a bit confused when I started to watch it once we were seated. However, as the movie continued, I was enjoying the movie. The 3D effects were so good that I felt like I was in there. Story was good too and is a really worth to watch movie. MUST WATCH!!!

The movie is 161mins long and it ended at 10pm. As majority of the restaurants and foodcourts were closed at this time, we decided to eat fastfood. Initially thought of LJS but it was closed. Next available one will be Mc Donald.

This time round, I decided to eat Fillet-O-Fish burger. It had been a very very long time that I did not eat this burger. I kept ordering my favourite Mc Spicy burger whenever I dined there.

I got the set meal and the burger tasted good. The bread was so cute that I took a photo of it. So rounded and puffy. :)

Something missing??? Yeh, it's cheese!!!

Zombie

I was like a zombie today. Woke up with tired eyes and wishing today no need to work. However, that was just a wish that cannot be fulfilled. I had to work extra today... My colleague was on leave hence need to cover her work.

Whole day trying to clear my work as I knew I will be super the busy during evening time. Finished clearing my work at around 10pm and went home taking a cab. So pai sei that 小珠 always have to wait for me.

Tomorrow we are going to watch movie Avatar. Hope I will not be so busy tomorrow evening (still have to cover for my another colleague who is on leave) and can leave office timely for the movie.

Count down... left 3 days and it's Christmas!!! I am looking forward it. Not because I want to go partying but.... I can have more sleep!!! Ha ha ha...

Trip is confirmed

This morning, I called up the travel agency to check status of our waitlist flight from Sapporo to Tokyo Narita airport. I was so happy to hear that the seats are confirmed for us and we need not pay extra $$$ to travel from Haneda airport to Narita airport for our international flight back to Singapore.

The deadline to issue ticket was today hence we went to pay for our bookings and collect our E-tickets. Finally our trip is confirmed and we can start to do the itinerary. This trip is rather last minute hence we only left 3 weeks for us to prepare. I foresee no problem for us to plan our itinerary as we already have a rough idea on where to visit.

Accommodation is settled too and left the purchase of rail pass. We need to compare whether it is more economical to purchase the Japan Rail pass or Hokkaido Rail pass. The difference is 8800 yen. Shall see how is our itinerary and decide nearer to departure date (ie 14 Jan).

We went to Lau Par Sah for lunch. We walked one round and finally decided to eat the Hong Kong style stall. I ordered Roast Duck noodle and 小珠 ordered wan tan noodle. I was craving for the 水饺 and bought it as side dish. Yummy. This stall's food is not bad. Price is same as normal foodcourt.

Came home late today as I had to finish up my paperwork. Have to tolerate until the new girl can handle on her own. Telling myself that now suffer first and enjoy next month. :)

Birthday cake

Today we are celebrating my niece's birthday. Her actual day is boxing day but as she will be flying to Sydney tomorrow midnight, we celebrated today. Instead of normal cake, she asked for log cake.

She was so happy to eat the cake and was even happier when we gave her the present. We shared to buy her an i-touch. She wanted to have a Ipod Nano but I told my sister that it will be more practical to buy i-touch. She can listened to music, watch video and play games with it. For Nano, can only play music and watch video with small screen. Just knew from my sister that Nano has camera and radio function but overall I still think i-touch is better.

My niece was very happy but she did not show it out. She quietly told her dad to help her transfers songs to her new i-touch. Although it was expensive but we actually treated it as her birthday cum Christmas present shared by 5 of us. Hope she can take good care of it and enjoy it during her trip.

Huh... tomorrow is Monday again and will start to be busy again. So fast, Christmas is approaching...

Hearty Dinner

Today I woke up at 10.30am. Finally I could sleep longer and wake up late late. So Shiok!

Went out with my mum and sister to Chinatown. Main purpose was to buy clothes for my mum. Her favourite place to buy her clothing is OG. She was so worried she could not get any as initially there was no suitable ones. In the end, we bought 4 pieces of blouse for her. Lucky uh!

After OG, we went to the Peoples Park Complex to buy some daily necessities. They were rather cheap there. Since my sister was driving, no harm buying heavy shampoo, conditional, soap etc.

Next was to go Marina Square for our shopping. However, we could not get any parking lots and my sister decided to get out of the mall carpark and headed home to fetch our dad out for dinner. She was so angry that she had to pay $2.00 plus just for looking for car park lots there. In fact, it showed there were 120 lots available but we realised that the management blocked a lot of the lots there. They should indicate the balance lots instead of adding in those blocked ones.

After fetching my dad, we decided to go for buffet dinner at Crown Plaza Hotel at Changi Airport. This was the 2nd time we ate there. The restaurant name is Azur. We had a very full meal that includes lobsters, oysters, sashimi, drunken prawns soup, roast porkloin and many more. Not to miss the desserts and ice-creams. Ice-creams are Haagen Dazs. Yummy yummy.

Buffet selections



Christmas tree at the hotel lobby


Gingerbread cart


Christmas decor


Changi airport decor

Finally its a day I am looking forward

So glad that it is Friday today. Finally I can have a break. I have been so tired and busy this week.

The only motivation for me is that our flights to Sapporo are confirmed. Except the returning domestic flight from Sapporo to Tokyo has not really been finalised yet. We are on waitlist for the flight that leaves Sapporo for Narita airport and confirm the flight leaving Sapporo for Haneda airport first. Hopefully we can get the flight that reach Narita airport so that we do not have to waste time and money to travel from Haneda airport to Narita aiport to take flight back to Singapore. Tickets have to be issued on coming Monday and I shall keep my fingers and toes crossed. :P

Since flights have no problem, we go ahead to book our accommodation. Have booked all the 7 nights stay at Toyoko Inn. We will stay most of the nights in Sapporo. One night will be at Asahikawa and 2 nights at Kushiro. Although will be travelling alot but believe we will enjoy it since this will be a relaxing trip for us and everything should go "slow". Therefore our planning will not be very hectic. This will be a "food tasting" trip too. I want to eat the crabs!!!

Shall continue to research on where else we can go by reading traveller's blogs. Shall do so now...

Bee ZZZ

Uhhh... Super the bee zzz this week. No time to update blog for 2 days.

Past 2 days were so hectic for me that I left office very late after clearing my work. Finally today I could "breathe a little bit" as my colleague is back and I had more time to do my own work. Friday will be another busy day for me as my the other colleague is taking leave. I will be doing quite a number of days to cover my colleagues who will be taking turn to take leave. Will tolerate now and looking for next month as it will be my turn finally. :)

Had discussed with 小珠 and we decided to plan for a trip to Hokkaido next mid month. We were choosing between Hokkaido and Tohoku and finally fixed for Hokkaido. Planned some of the places we would like to go, which is another part of Hokkaido which we did not visit on our last trip few years ago.

Shall now try to get the tickets. Hope there will be timing which will be best for us to fly there and back. Tomorrow must call the travel agency and need to book asap before flights not available. Heard from JTB that domestic flights are limited hence better book early.

Well, hope we can get good fares and flights. Yokoso Japan!!!

Bankrupt!!!

My elder sister called before she came to our house today. Asking if we have monopoly board game at our house as my niece wanted to play with us. It is too boring for her to just play with her parents at home. We have a set here hence decided to play with her when she arrived.

We started the game at around 2.45pm and would end it by 4pm. If no time stated, the game will continue to carry on and no ending. There were 4 players and I was the first one to declare bankruptcy. So bad luck that I kept having to touch on lands that had cottages built. I said cottages instead of houses because the version of our board game is on disney characters hence theirs are cottages or castles. The big winner was my niece who owned all my lands and happily continuing to build cottages/castles to collect rental...

My mum not cooking today as my parents went to my cousin's daughter full month celebration. We went to Playground @ Big Splash to have dinner. My elder sister recommended the ramen there. No objection by all so left early to avoid crowds.

The restaurant name is Yoshimaru Ramen Bar. The choices there are limited and there is only one type of soup base. The difference are just the ingredients added to each choice. Most of us ordered the All-in ramen. Overall taste is good.

So fast tomorrow has to go back to work. How I wish I can take longer break. :P


Restaurant namecard


All-In ramen


Self-grinding of sesame


Side dish ~ Ebi tempura

Another eventful day

This morning, I woke up at 7.45am and got out of house at 8.45am to take a cab to Adam Road. Was attending a church wedding there. I reached there too early as the traffic was very smooth and waited for 小珠 at the bus stop near the church. So embarrassed that the wedding ushers were there looking at me and wondering why I was standing outside the church but not going in.

We went in at about 9.45am and got seated at around 10am. Was sitting and feeling a bit tired and bored while waiting for the ceremony to start. Just before it started, we decided to get out of the church as we felt a bit "out of place" since no one we knew were there yet. In the end, both of us and Ah Cheng went for breakfast instead. Felt a bit bad in leaving before the ceremony but I think it should be fine since we did actually go. Just that we left "a bit" early.

Wedding souvenir (A coaster)
After having breakfast at Holland Village, Ah Cheng drove us to Buona Vista MRT station and we took a train to Bugis. Went to Sim Lim Square to shop for any suitable X'mas presents. I did not find any gift but bought a notebook read/cool table. Quite good as it can be adjusted to suit the sitting position. We walked round the complex for about 3 hours. Legs became tired and took breaks in between to have a drink before continuing. Finally my legs could not tahan the long walking and we ended up sitting in KFC having a drink for almost 45mins.

We went to Iluma shopping mall to shop and also to take a look at the quite new mall. I went there once with many shops still not open for business yet. When entered the mall, we saw these exhibition in celebration of 8 Days 1000th publication since 1990. I was more interested on the earlier issues and took some photos.

First 8 days magazine (1990)


New Kids on The Block. My idol during school days.


"Fresh" Aaron Kwok


"Bo Bo" look ~ Zoe Tay


Parts of the exhibit




We did not really shopped around the mall but actually spent the most time at the arcade (Tornado). We enjoyed watching people trying to catch those stuff toys etc. I was so amazed by the high tech arcade where the screens are LCD, games are so "chim" that we do not know how to play and also many many new games. We spent about 2 hours there!!!

There was this cosplay characters posing for photographing and I took one picture. While we were sitting at the sweets machine (actually was sitting down as our legs were aching), we were talking and suddenly I heard some noise from the machine in front of me. Ha ha.... there was a pkt of sweet and biscuit "dropped down". Since it dropped by itself, I took it lor. Hee hee...

Cosplay


Free sweet and biscuit


Machine giving me Free sweets


It was already near to 7pm and we walked over to Bugis Junction for our dinner. Went to MOF and we ordered soba and ramen set for sharing. Plus Unagi Onigiri. Yummy yummy. As this month is my birthday, there was a complimentary dessert for me. Although we were full at that time, we went ahead to order the ice-cream. In the end, we were super super the full and I had difficult walking with big stomach plus aching legs.

Unagi Onigiri


Soba and Ramen set


Dessert : Hokkaido ice-cream (Sesame/Green tea/Hazelnut)


Shopped for a while before going home and took some photos of the Christmas trees at Bugis Juction street.