First Promotion! :D

I'M PROMOTED!!!

This has got to be the greatest and bestest news of the year for me!!

It happened yesterday morning when I was in the midst of having my breakfast, and saw my Director's name blinking on my phone. After a second of hesitation, I quickly picked up the phone and the next 2 minutes, I was on my way to the Director's room. It has got to be the longest walk ever man walking from one end to the other end of the branch.

Once I reached her office, I saw her and a few managers in it so I loitered outside for a second before my manager saw me and waved me in to the room. It certainly felt weird knocking, opening and closing the door. I said hello and there was a 1-2 second of silence with the bosses grinning at me. Thankfully, Director spoke before the awkwardness settle and she handed over the above letter to me!! I was still feeling quite surreal that it is actually happening and I'm being promoted! After received a bout of Congratulations from them, I'm out the door. I was once again greeted by another wave of Congratulations by my colleagues when I was out of the door.

My heart was beating so fast when I returned back to my workstation and frantically whatsapp the boy of the good news with my trembling fingers. Haha. It took me awhile to collect my nerves and get to work properly man. News seem to travel fast though and I received several Congrats as the work day goes. It was a total red carpet moment to have people congratulating me la haha.

This being my 6th, coming 7th year of work, the hard work and effort put in along the way is definitely not easy and I am super thankful for this great recognition. Nonetheless, with this promotion and the change in designation, I believe the bosses will have more expectations in my work performance. I can only hope I live up to their expectations and standards.

The day ended with a celebratory dinner with Dearie at Coca steamboat! Albeit it being a super rushed dinner and him suffering a little bit of indigestion and bloatedness thereafter, it was all good and I truly am really happy beyond words!

Melbourne ✈ Sydney, Australia Day 6 // Last of Melbourne, First of Sydney //

Took urgent leave today to accompany the boy to the doctor cause he had quite a bad bout of gastric pain at 3am in the morning and it still hurts even after he had his med, then it continued till he developed fever and backaches. Headed to the doc and she said he's down with food poisoning. Sucks big time to see him so weak but gotta take good care of him! He's having a nap now after having an injection so hope he wakes up feeling better!

So I thought I should do some blogging to spend some time so I'm here putting up another entry on Australia.

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Day 6 was our last morning in Melbourne so we woke up earlier to catch the last few glimpses of the city haha. This is the street just across our hotel!

Had our breakfast within Queen Victoria Market and there were already patrons waiting for their daily dose of coffee

Mini pancakes is how cute! They mix up our order of whipped cream to ice cream so it feels kinda weird to have ice cream at 8am in the morning. :/

Detour-ed for a cup of caffeine for us too! Market Lane Coffee is recommended but it's too strong for me.

Just taking in the sights

Then it was time for the airport as we were catching a flight to Sydney!

We booked the skybus with our hotel so it will bring us to the Domestic Airport. Definitely way more convenient and fuss free than us lugging our baggages and taking public transport.

Caught a glimpse of the Etihad Stadium along the way

It's actually quite luxurious that I took a nap in that hour's ride hehe.

Dearie was starting to feel abit flu-ish so he did not have much appetite for lunch. I had a pie while the boy napped when waiting for our flight.

He spent most of the waiting time snoozing and me reading on my kindle. Time flies though, and before we knew it we were boarding on our 4pm flight to Sydney with Virgin Australia!

Cool lightings in the aircraft haha.

It was an hour's journey so we reached Sydney around 5+pm! It took us awhile to navigate the arrival hall trying to get the Opal card (something like our ezlink) for us to take the train to the city.

After getting kinda lost in the airport, we finally bought our cards at an agency kiosk and made our way to the city. Checked in to our hotel and we headed to a nearby Vietnamese restaurant for a quick dinner. It was dearie's choice of dinner hoping that the hot soup will clear up his nose fast.

Dinner was at a kinda popular eatery - Me Oi

We ordered vietnamese spring rolls and pho! Honestly, I don't quite know how to appreciate vietnamese spring rolls so its quite meh for me but dearie likes it.

The portion for pho was huge. Thank god I ordered the smaller size else I would not be able to finish it. Dearie had the larger size and was struggling.

Thereafter, we takeaway a chicken pie for supper from Harry's Cafe De Wheels as it was recommended for their pies. The pie tasted quite normal though but probably cause we had it cold.

Back to the hotel for an early night's rest and that's how our first night went in Sydney haha. Definitely not very exciting lol.

(picture credits to google)

Taiwan, Again!

Oh my god this travel bug addiction is getting real man. Met up with the bestie for dinner 2 days back and she was telling me the tickets to Taiwan is really cheap and ask if we would like to go for a couple trip together in August during her birthday week.

So naturally I was sitting on the fence because we have only been back to Sg for a month and flying off again in 2 months time is like abit too fast and damaging to the wallet?! Haha. But then half of me was like "Yes yes!" cause we have never go on a trip together and we always talk about how we should go but it just never materialise haha. 

And she was saying how its only $250 flying by Jetstar and I was like wa really good deal! Cos I paid $500/pax the first time I flew with them to Tw, which was double of the price. But of course I don't believe that it could be that cheap and she started mock booking the tickets with her phone in front of me. LOL. Never see this girl so on the ball before. So, I asked the boy if he's keen because I thought he would be saying stuff like his account haven recover from Aussie yet and we are leaving again.. but surprisingly he don't mind going!. But of course subject to his boss approval.

Anyway, he checked with his boss yesterday and its approved! We immediately bought the tickets and yes, our first couple trip is happening in less than 2 months cause we will be flying on National Day! It's gonna be a short 5d4n trip so we are just sticking in Taipei but I know it will definitely be awesome! This trip is so super imprompu, spontaneous and YOLO! I quite like our spontaneity but better don't happen too often cause the bank account wont be able to take it haha.

Cant wait to take pretty photos and eat all the street food of Taiwan! The photos from our first time there was rather poor due to the camera quality so I'm quite excited to take better photos this time! Don't mind doing the touristy places all over again too cause its been 4 yrs since our last time there.

So meanwhile I shall aim to complete my Aussie travelogues before Taiwan happens!

And pray that the weather will be good to us then because I googled and August happens to be the hottest month in Taiwan and it might be even hotter than Sg. Just cross fingers it wont be thattt hot~

Melbourne, Australia Day 5 // Queen Victoria Market, Outlet Shopping at DFO South Wharf //

Day 5 started with breakfast at Hardware Societe. We were there at approx 9+am and the cafe was already bustling! Thank god we did not wait long for a table hehe.

#ootd while waiting for our table

Finally seated!

Dearie had scrambled eggs. AGAIN! with smoked salmon. There's pancakes underneath it too. Definitely wholesome.

Lobster Benedict for me! It was so yummy and they were really generous with the lobster chunks! #onlycaneatlobstersforbreakfastoverseas lol

Breakfast was super duper yummy for us despite the steep prices but we forgave ourselves since its vacation! Thereafter, we headed for Queen Victoria Market with happy bellies.

Chanced upon a florist with really pretty flowers along the way.

Queen Victoria Market

Our main purpose of going there was to get some souveniors back home. QVM is a huge market which sells a variety of stuffs such as clothing, food, accessories, souveniors, hardwares, glasswares and even the daily produce. I'm sure we did not complete browsing the entire space!

After we are done shopping for souveniors, we rested our legs at the cafe within the market. Dearie bought a dozen oysters for himself. See his excited face lol. 

Horse carriages along the street

Some grand architecture which we saw as well. Really in awe of the details.

We had so much western food that we were starting to miss our typical asian food. So we start googling for decent Thai food in the vicinity and settled our lunch in an eatery located within a mall.

Tom yum soup, phad thai and pork basil rice never tasted so good lol. The chysanthemum drink sums everything up hehe.

More photos with Flinders Street Station as we made our way to Bourke Street, Colin street, Emporium and the various malls for some shopping!

Haigh's Chocolates which we bought a tiny pack to share. I'm definitely not a chocolate lover but they taste good :)

Rested our legs at a cafe and had tea as well. Mocha and Cappuccino with a slice of Lamington cake to share. Lamington cake is an Australian dessert which is basically a sponge cake, often layered with jam within, coated with an outer layer of chocolate sauce and rolled in coconut flakes.

Despite the hype, it tasted pretty normal to us.

Street snaps

In the late afternoon, we headed to DFO South Wharf for some outlet shopping. They have brands like Nike, Adidas, Kate Spade, Michael Kors and the likes. Its just another massive space with everything under one roof. 

This view greeted us by the time we are done with our shopping haha.

Took the bus back to cbd! So vintage looking.

Pardon the bad photo!

What a huge T&C shopfront!

We settled our dinner at a simple Japanese restaurant cause we still need more asian food haha.

Salmon everything for me!

Curry Katsu for baby. But we shared towards the end la hehe.

Back to our hotel and that's our loots from Melbourne.

Scored 2 Pandora charms - the sydney opera house and a blue murano charm for AUD$50 each! That's $40 cheaper than Sg. Also bought a light blue kate spade card holder for AUD$89 which was fairly cheap from the brand.

Dearie scored a pair of black jeans from G Star Raw for $220 which is $100+ cheaper than Sg! And a Nike kicks which he got for AUD$68 in the outlet mall. So happy with our new buys!

Also bought nougats, candle holders, some magnets, melbourne tee shirts and a snow globe from Eureka Skydeck.

And this sort of marks the end of Melbourne travelogues! Sydney up next woohoo!