Christmas Party 1 - 20 Dec 2008

It's the time of the year again for Christmas parties. This year is the first year that we are having it at our own house!

Our DHL Xmas Mini Xmas Trees and the pressies waiting to be exchanged:

The usual khakis of Deardear were invited, the click got bigger with some of them bringing their partners. I also invited Linda along to have a good balance becos i thought there were too many guys!

We had pot-luck and since this party is held at our house, i decided to make something rather than buy. Here's the Tiramisu i stayed up to make the night before:

We also had lots of food brought by everyone.....but unfortunately didn't really take a nice picture of all of them.

This group are all really onz people. We played games and well...i was the game master ... having been trained at cg before....putting good use the skills i picked up. haha!

All enjoying the game "Who Am I?" - i modified it to become cartoon names and it was quite hilarious!

We also played the other game where each team had to send representatives for descriptions such as "The longest ...., the shortest .... , the furthest...." without knowing each category before hand.

Here's YingLi on his way to "The furthest broadjump!" Thank God there was enough space in our house!

It was gift exchange time! Here's everyone with the gifts we received :)

Another group picture after we opened our gifts:

It has now become such an annual affair for us to organise Christmas gatherings with this group of friends. Its nice that the group gets bigger every year, as everyone start bringing their partners and friends. I totally enjoyed myself being the host and hope that we will have more of these !

Christmas Lightings 2008

After the short visit to Chunkfest, we headed to nearby Orchard.


The Orchard Road Christmas lightings were up by then. In the past, my parents will always bring us there to take pictures, such that it is a practice to do so even when my parents no longer bring us.

Everyone says that the lightings this year is not so good becos of the economic recession. I beg to differ. Perhaps it isn't as glamourous but the decor designs has used simple materials to make very cute and fairy tale like atmosphere for Christmas and i think it's really nice! Even a simple ribbon when enlarged and added with lightings, looks really sweet!

Though we didn't work down the whole stretch of Orchard road due to the crowds, we managed to take some pretty nice shots :)

Deardear with the male figurine:

Me with the female figurine on the other side! :p

What is Christmas without a Christmas Tree shot ? :)

ChunkFest @ Fort Canning - 6 Dec

I love Ben & Jerry's ice-cream a lot! Found out that they are having this event and decided to make time to go. It rained before that, thus the ground was all muddy and the carpark there was pretty jammed and everyone was literally parking everywhere.

Well...if you think they give free ice cream there......well they didn't! Why do people still go? Becos they have some 12 new flavours i think, that are only available in the US. Look at the long queues of people who are waiting in line to BUY the ice-cream....and they don't even have discounts there! It's the same as at the ice cream parlours!

There were games and entertainment by the DJ on stage....

There was this Flying Logos machine, that made cute shapes like the peace sign, leaf, heart shape, these cute shapes are made of foam like material that kind of floats in the air and flies away after being pumped out from the machine....

There are other fringe activities like balloon sculpting, nail and face painting etc.

I couldn't stand the crowds, the muddy floor and the fact that our car is parked at an awkward corner.....so we decided to go off.....afterall the only thing we would have lost out was to try those new flavours, otherwise, we could have easily bought the ice cream from other outlets at the same price and enjoy the dessert in nice air con and have a seat!

A last shot, with the background showing the crowds....

Hi-Tea @ Equinox

Pardon all my back-dated entries...my home computer went dead for quite some time and i was really busy...thus i am trying to catch up on all the key events that happened over the last few mths!

It was 2 days before our 6 mths wedding anniversary - 16 Nov.

We had to use up the dining voucher from Swissotel the Stamford, so we decided to go to Equinox for high tea. We also asked Sheena and James to go along as we felt that they were the 2 who did the most to help us throughout our year long wedding preparations and we wanted to thank them for it.

The timing was short, only 2 hours. The food was a simple fare, quite a lot of cheap items actually. Variety was also not superb. The desserts were not too bad, however, they do not refill the items once they are finished.....thus we didn't get to try everything. Service was good but that's just about it.

I guess if we didn't have the voucher, i would think it is not worth to pay such a high price for this high tea. Strangely, i have gone there in the past for high tea and i don't remember that the fare was so basic.....i think the standard has dropped unfortunately. Still, we had a great time enjoying the breathtaking views and taking pictures after pictures :)

Before we left, we decided to take a picture with NewAsia Bar....haha, that was one of the first places that dear and I went when we first start dating. We subsequently went there a few times during our courtship days, and funnily, this was the hotel we got married at. Just some memories for us :)

Honeymoon Day 15 - Arrival in SG

Home sweet home - we are back to Singapore. The familier T3:




1st thought - weather is so hot and humid!


2nd thought - miss the local food! and since it was nearby, we headed to tabao the famous Nasi Lemak from Changi Village back home.

We suffered from jetlag! Couldn't sleep...spent the whole night unpacking......The end of the much dreamed about Honeymoon.....already looking forward to our next trip together :)

Honeymoon Day 14 - Travel to San Francisco Airport

This morning, we woke up, realising that we got confused by our flight timings, and had to rush to pack our luggage - all the shopping stuff and head to the airport.

After all the packing up....GOSH! my luggage somehow cannot close! It wasn't exactly filled to the brim, so we wondered why. Shian was meddling with it for like almost an hour and we were really running late to go to the airport. We even removed some stuff from the luggage to make it even more empty,but it seems that the lock got jammed and cannot lock even when the luggage was half empty.

Desperate, i prayed to God to help us becos there was no time for us to buy a replacement luggage if this was damaged. After the prayer, i just reached my finger to lock the luggage, and it did! Praise the Lord! But half the items were still laying on the floor and we had to put it back in. Shian didn't want to take the risk in case we can't close it again. But i told him that if God can do it once, HE can do it again! So i pluck up the courage to open the suitcase again, dump all the things in and again called out to God to intervene. I reached my finger forward and locked it again...and so it happened! My God will not disappoint me, i am sure of that!

We immediately rushed down to the BART station and took the train down to the airport - supposedly as fast as if we had taken the cab and much much cheaper!

At the BART station, just bought our tickets and having to lug all our luggages:

Reached the airport station:

At SF airport.....about to board the plane.....all the memories of the honeymoon with us.....couldn't bear to leave the US:

Honeymoon Day 13 - Cyling, Golden Gate Bridge

Started the morning with Starbucks and a picture with the last hotel we are staying at for this trip - Renior Hotel, kind of unique in the way that it is angled along the road.

This morning, we went to take the Muni (something like a tram) towards Fisherman's Wharf.

We decided to rent a double bike and cycle towards the Golden Gate bridge.

First stop, Ghirardelli in the background...haha now we know why this brand of chocolates is so famous in SF.

Saw this cute dog along the way....i was kind of scared cos its quite big...but Dear managed to take a picture with it....the owners were really proud to showcase their cute dog!

Along a beach......view of the Golden Gate bridge in the background.

It was a leisurely cycle. Lots of beautiful view, we kept stopping to take pictures. Weather was cooling and nice. Caught this view - these 2 ladies had so many dogs with them!

Caught this globe - message was something about saving the earth and keeping it clean and green....

We carried on cycling and got nearer and nearer to the Golden Gate Bridge. Another view of the famous bridge at our background. We were so glad that the weather was awesome that day. Enough sunlight for us to capture the scenary, yet it was cool and breezy.

Deardear presenting Alcatraz once more.

We managed to come to the peak of the Golden Gate Bridge, where we were here the first day withe the tour guide and it was raining cats and dogs then.......to take the picture indicating the materials used to make the bridge...

And with the statue of the guy who constructed it...

We are finally on the bridge.....where we had driven past the other day!

We went on cycling back towards Fisherman's Wharf and saw this cute dog, Maggie on our way back. The proud owner allowed us to take a picture with her dog. Haha, what a nice view with Golden Gate Bridge at the background!

Stylo picture of dear with the nice background of yacht behind :)

We returned the bike and were astonished to find out that the 4hour rental of the tandem bike cost more than 24 hours of renting the car! Nonetheless, we enjoyed ourselves and have many nice pictures to remember the wonderful day! It's back to hotel to pack and enjoy our champagne and last night of our Honeymoon in the US!

Honeymoon Day 12 - Union Square, Chinatown

Again, first thing we had to do in the morning was to switch hotels, to Renoir Hotel just further down the road as it was pre-booked. Lugging our luggages down the street was no joke as it was at the till end of our trip and the bags were getting heavy from shopping.

This hotel knew we were honeymooners and had this for us in the room. How sweet:)

This day we shopped along another stretch of shopping area around Union Square. Many US Brands stood out. Their stores are huge, like 3 storeys each and the space within is huge. Very nicely done branding on the outside of the building as well.

We took a long walk and eventually walked all the way to the Chinatown in San Francisco. This is one of the most popular Chinatowns in the Western cities...particularly becos a lot of HongKongers had migrated here in the past. Thus, this is an area very rich in the chinese culture and cuisine. In fact, within this area, you actually can forget that you are in San Francisco...becos there are so many chinese and many of them speak in cantonese.

Still....its a rare site to see very authentic english road names with ancient chinese roof decos behind....

Along the shopping stretch in Chinatown:Chanced upon this church with a streetname : California within Chinatown....

Citibank in Chinatown:And finally, its back to union square area.....our last stop for the day: Abercrombie & Fitch before heading back to the hotel...a brand we both love, but things are just too pricey... causal look but costs a lot! We love the smell of the perfume concentrate whenever we walked into the store ...haha....managed to grab some sale steals :)