Hui:

here's a post from me! finally. have been really busy and lazy to blog for the past few weeks. spent my free time watching the tvb War & Beauty drama ting has passed me. 3 more discs to go (9 episodes)! either tt or im too tired from work. ahh... i mus remember to transfer 3 episodes to my own hdd and pass to keong so that he can help me convert and see if he can get the dual sounds and subtitles in.

haha jol's so cute in the pics that ting posted in her last entry. lol.. and i like e 2 pics where ber modeled.

to think too much sometimes is not a good thing. maybe i should jus take e plunge and decide wad to do after that =|

too much things to do and too little time for them. arrr...

ting:

i hate night shots. how come my red eye reduction function isn't stronger!?! but thank God for photoshop (which i'm too lazy to engage in now).

ting:

this is the only relatively decent shot i managed to get the whole time. sigh. nevermind. i promise my skills would improve.

ting:

at dinner tonight, bernard ordered a pumpkin soup he convinced me to share with him.


it looked like this.

and it tasted like this:




(if only my models would stop moving about. sigh)

but the best facial expression award had to go to our dearest mei, of course. :)







needless to say, ber ended up finishing the soup all by himself.

the best photo of the night?


jinhong with his giant prawn

ting:

heard these two songs on the radio, played back-to-back by my favourite DJ. the lyrics amused me to no end.

rosemary clooney - man

A man or a woman, we all will agree
To make life worth living is necessary

A man is a creature we can't overlook
As easy to read as a page in a book
He'll boast and he'll brag of the women he spurned
But just like a doorknob his head can be turned

Uh huh, (uh-huh), mm-mm, (uh-huh), uh-huh, (uh-huh), uh-huh, (uh-huh)

A man oh a man any woman will say
Whatever he is, we like him that way

Complains that he's henpecked and treated so bad
But if he's ignored, then he'll holler like mad
He knows all the methods of landing a fish
But still can't be trusted at drying a dish

Uh-huh, (uh-huh), uh-huh, (uh-huh), mm-mm, (mm-mm), mm-mm, (mm-mm)
A man, oh a man, any woman will say
Whatever he is, we like him that way

(Uh-huh), uh-huh, (uh-huh), uh-huh, (uh-huh), uh-uh, (uh-huh),uh-huh

A man or a woman, we all will agree
To make life worth living is necessary


johnny desmond - woman

A man or a woman, we all will agree
To make life worth living is necessary

A woman is something both evil and good
But too complicated to be understood
An angel when loving, a devil when mad
A woman can make you both happy and sad

(Mm-mm), mm-mm, (mm-mm), mm-mm, (mm-mm), mm-mm, (mm-mm), mm-mm

A woman, a woman, oh what can she be
Whatever she is, she's necessary

Uh-huh, (uh-huh), uh-huh, (uh-huh), mm-mm, (mm-mm), mm-mm, (mm-mm)

Afraid of a cricket, she'll scream at a mouse
But she'll tackle a husband as big as a house
She'll take him for better, she'll take him for worse
She'll bust his head open and then be his nurse

(Uh-huh), uh-huh, (uh-huh), uh-huh, (uh-huh), uh-uh, (uh-huh),uh-huh

A man or a woman, we all will agree
To make life worth living is necessary


how much of the lyrics do you agree with?

***

in other news, spent 4.5 days in bangkok. apologies for the lack of photos, we were all too busy shopping to be clicking away. the 50plus photos taken were all on the first day, while we were on the flight and when we were exploring our hotel suite with glee.

anyway, bangkok effectively blasted a crater in my pocket. i went there with an equivalent of S$500 and came back with not a single penny left. plus some purchases were charged to credit cards. ouch. it'll be bread and water for until i go back to melbourne.

basically, we shopped till we dropped, then picked ourselves up and shopped somemore. dragging ourselves back to the hotel every night was torture. we rationed our money, hid reserves we were suppose to "forget about" in our bag, but still returned (almost) penniless at the end of the day, with adel's bulging "mamasan" bag we aimed (and always succeeded) to fill. we were so broke we survived on cup noodles for two days (because we'd rather spend our money on tangible items to bring back to singapore) which by the way, were really cheap! and what a wide variety of flavours too... tom yum, tom yum and tom yum. adel was one happy camper, with hui and me settling for the only other non- tom yum alternative.

to prove how much i bought... i left singapore with one small bag (which wasn't even a suitcase) and returned with ten (suitcase included). the two fellow shoppers i went with couldn't help continually harping on the number of bags i bought. heh.

by the time the 4th day approached, we more than earned the massage we went for. it was awesome beyond awesome. my only complaint is that it was way too short.

other than the awesome shopping, bangkok's other main tourist attraction is its traffic jam. sheez man, irregardless of the time or location, there's a permanent jam going on. we even manage to overtake taxis and buses while we were on foot. am i glad i live in singapore, where jams don't consist of total traffic standstill and last for only several minutes.

watching amazing race made me think china has the worst taxi drivers, who can't seem to tell north from south. after bangkok, my list has altered, with bangkok's claiming first place. the one sole taxi ride we had there was a total nightmare. we wanted to go to chinatown (the guide book said it was good for imitation bags but when we finally finally finally got there, there were no shops other than eateries. misrepresentation!) which was in the middle of nowhere, so that was our only option. our dear driver not only didn't understand a single word of english (not even the word 'stop'), he didn't know how to read a map (with thai words on it even!) and nearly got into a fist fight with some "toot toot" driver (that's what they call them there.. it's also a taxi service, just that those drivers are driving something resembling a rickshaw with a motor attached to it). our hearts nearly stopped when he unbuckled his seatbelt and opened the door to shout thai vulgaries (i'm assuming) at the other driver who, in my opinion, was really courting death.

thankfully, he eased back into position after half a minute but his mood wasn't any better than the whole situation. he kept making the annoyed clicking sounds with his tongue, shaking his head and saying some word which sounds suspiciously like "die". not very good for the hearts of his passengers. i really wanted to throttle him. in the end, we could take it no longer (especially after being stuck in the cab for almost an hour and still going around in circles) and got him to drop us off somewhere. our next course of action was to take out a map, figure out where we were, then continued on foot to our destination. even on foot, we weren't spared. the second our map came out, we were mopped by "toot toot" drivers who kept wanting to take us on some city tour to see the sitting buddha and the likes. we got so put off we tried memorising the map (once even going to hide in a telephone booth to consult it so the "toot toot" drivers wouldn't spot us) to avoid further encounters.

but all in all, it was a good trip. very happy with the bags i purchased. :)

***

if i say something like "7.30pm J8 okies?", it can be considered as me telling the person the exact time to meet right? sheez. trust ber to argue i'm ASKING him, not TELLING him. -_-

***

it's only been 18 days into the new year and i'm already in danger of breaking my one and only resolution for this year.

sigh.

of all things, i clearly never expected this. doesn't help it's not something i want to admit to myself.

ting:

from now on, i'd only watch hongkong dramas which are guaranteed to have happy endings. am tired of crying through last few episodes time and again. still, there can be no happy ending to such a story.

polished off war and beauty in a span of 3 days, which i think is pretty impressive, considering there were 30 episodes in all and that i still managed to go out with friends. what a record. it's an awesome show (though you probably shouldn't watch it if you're the emotional type like me), pretty predictable (then again, i think it's coz i know how hongkong scriptwriters work. they're sadistic people who simply refuse to let anyone else be happy) but so fast paced and with so many twists it'd leave you breathless.

though i still can't figure out why bowie lam got all the girls. then again, i suppose with only 2 lead actors, it's either him or the other fella? still, 5 vs 2 seems like an unfair split. they could have made it 4 vs 3 or something.

a sentence uttered by one of the characters i totally agree with: "all the regrets in this world start with the word 'if' ".

another awesome show (or rather, movie) i watched is death note 2. i got mighty upset when rem died. he's so sweet! :( and i think just by bearing witness to how much sugar L was ingesting, i probably already have gotten diabetes.

ting:

ever since i got my nikon coolpix s8 (which, by the way, is the new love of my life), i've been particularly trigger happy. throw in all the photography books i've been flipping through and the fact i've an expert (in the form of my dad) to give comments on what i did right and what i could do to further improve, it's click-click-click (almost) everytime i leave the house. of course, people like adel are immensely unhappy that i can actually take more interest in a pile of rocks than her.

so okies! photos up!

these were taken during the pre-christmas celebration dinner i had with my two favourite girls from JC:




took this shot through my wine glass, thus reducing everything to a blurry mass of lights.



the following photos were taken from our christmas celebration in gallery hotel. it's a pity i only discovered it after daniel made his trip down to singapore. i think, given the cool architecture and funky designs, daniel would love going there for a bit of an eye opener.




the shower stall. see the pane of glass just beside the shower? it freaked us out pretty bad, because though frosted, you could still see through it relatively clearly. don't believe me?


here's the proof. jinhong went to check it out and we were horrified when his face came up so clearly.


and they surprised me that night with a very belated birthday celebration! i must say, it took me about 2 minutes to comprehend what was going on, because firstly, mei chose the moment where the movie i was watching over HBO hit its climax to come out with the cake and lit candles (i still don't know what the ending to that movie is. sigh.). and secondly, i was overly consumed with the idea that it was wei kee's birthday, especially seeing i just finished wishing him.


the birthday cum christmas log cake! their idea was pretty cool, half the cake was dedicated to christmas, the other half was for me!


an overview of the hotel's restaurant cum cafe. i know what expert photographers will say about this shot. i crammed too much detail into one photo and could have done better by just focusing on a specific subject.


so i made up for that error (though experts would now probably say my background is overly distracting)




my dad said this photo was taken from an interesting angle because of the horizontal lines (the bricks), the vertical ones (the building) and the roundness of the "fountain". hmmm. as far as i was concerned, i was just shooting the photo from a different angle. why is expert photography so difficult!?

adel and i spent a day in sentosa, she rambling on about how dolphins have us all fooled with their marketing strategy of being friendly mammals and me taking the opportunity to practise my photography.






i don't quite like the singapore sky. it's not dramatic enough for added flavour in a photo.








successfully incorporated the rule of thirds here






the fish was just..... gigantic! and it was a shocking bright blue!


and then we spent 40 minutes in the shark section, because we were so fascinated by the teeth we wanted a good shot of them


presenting to you singapore's underwater world





am currently addicted to the new hongkong drama "war and beauty". and after just one episode too! am also immensely interested in watching death note 2 (especially after watching the first one the other day). managed to talk ber into watching it a second time with me. go me! :)

Hui:

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

woo~ am in augus' place now.. using e internet. i've terminated my singnet and signed up as a new user. dun ask me y i din jus recontract.. actually i wanted to sign starhub, but found out that e promotion had ended. but luckily there was a better offer from singnet, so i signed up for singnet again. =P will be able to come online when i'm back from my trip to bangkok! =)

stayed over in ber's house with ting, augus, mei, and e guys on new year's eve. had food, watched death note 1, and finished watching e tvb drama which ting passed me. e ending was sucky.. woke up the next morning and all the ppl were gone. kelen, zihao, mei and hong went off liao.. leaving ting, augus, ber and me in the house. ate a plate of sucky chicken rice at a stall near ber's place. hai.. my first plate of chicken rice in year 2007..

ahh sian, tml have to start work liao. anticipating heavy workload coming for my team liao. first day of work in 2007.. hope everything goes well!

hmm.. realised that i din take much pics with ting =| and we all din take any pics while we were in ber's house.

anyway, i "injured" augus' leg on sat. accidentaly stepped on a packet of tomato sauce and this is wad it looks like.