beloved bel

Even even more meetups! I think I can plonk on my bed and have a good sleep back in London (I hope I can too and experience minimal jetlag). This week practically whizzed past coz of 2 days of CNY holidays and then from Wed onwards, everything seems like a blur now that I am trying to recall. Hmm... ... met Wei Han for dinner at the Jalan Kayu prata place.. been so long since I've been here, can't tell if the prata here's nicer than the one at Thomson? ... met May dearie for lunch.. it was a good time catching up a bit and had one of my fav fishball noodles. Authentic ex Pickering Street fishball noodles. Nice. ... met my AIA gang at Pepper Lunch (I love Pepper Lunch- I think they shld bring it to London!) ... met up with Stanley at Helipad ... visited my piano teacher at her new music school and had a fun time hanging out with her 3 kids.. can u believe it that her two older girls in primary school now are on Facebook as well! wow kids nowad...

Happy Chinese New Year everyone! For me, CNY is just all about food coz the meeting up with (distant) relatives once a year doesn't interest me much and I kinda dread it. They ask the same questions every year don't they? But this year is unlike other years since I am only back for a precious 2 weeks, I have to treasure every minute of it. No time for dreading! This year, for second day of CNY, we went to Cor's sister Fion's place at Bukit Timah area.. to her new condo which is tastefully done by TCS artiste Bryan Wong. They had a gathering during Christmas but I wasn't there and her sis kindly invited me to her place since I am back now. We snacked so much (esp Wen!) and had fun playing Wii games and gossiping about my latest craze over TVB shows (yes yes now I go weak in the knees at the mere mention of Kevin Cheng, and Cindy and I plan to go HK soon since she is similarly obsessed with Ron Ng.. maybe we will linger around the TVB building or smtg.. ha...

Kwee Lin & Christine for lunch at Raffles Place near their office... Family dinner at Lei Garden...   Chilling out with my brother and cousins.. and having a game of tennis under the scorching hot sun on Sat morning   Meeting up with Irene who's working in Hong Kong but also back for Chinese New Year... Meeting up with my girlies again for a Jap dinner at Hanabi...   Chilling out with my FYP buddies at Long Bar where we chatted till almost 4am...   Probably the only place you can litter in Singapore.  Look at all the peanuts on the floor. and meeting Min and hubby to view their wedding photos... whew.. everything in a whirlwind in such a short period of time! *breathless*

hmm friends have been asking me what have I been doing since I've been back.. counting back, it's been 5 days! omg.. time flies just like that and it's damn scary... dreading the night I've to fly back and the airport scene again.. oh well, let's just shove that thought to the back of my head... first two important things are my facial and haircut appointments! I haven't had a facial for the past 9 months and esp after winter and cold weather, my face is super dry and so I was told by the beautician I need to super hydrate my face... and of coz, waiting for months to come back and have my haircut! haha I know that almost everyone I know are ultra reluctant to get a haircut in London coz of the price and so everyone just " tahan " and wait till they go back Singapore, including me! I went back to office for my "Amoy feast" yesterday. hmm.. I thought I'd be gorging myself crazy but oddly, as much as I was excited over it, my appetite shrun...

It's been 3 days since I came back, it's a great feeling altho it seemed surreal initially. A part of me couldn't believe I'm back and yet the other part felt the familiarity of the surroundings. Of course my family was thrilled to see me and I was too. Right after touching down, my bro and his gf came to fetch me from the airport and I had my first Mac meal heehee before going home to surprise everyone. After settling down, I took a shower and got ready to attend Boon Hui's wedding. Wow she was a really pretty bride that night and her gowns were so unique and lovely. It was quite an agonizing dinner though coz it was a 9 course dinner and I was so ready to sleep by the time we were served dish #4.   With the beautiful bride.  Lucky Jade with the ladies from our table Colleagues With the bride in the second outfit for the night Sunday - woohoo church service! It's grrreat to be back in my own church after 9 months. Nothing much has ...

Have been busy busy packing my luggage for the past few days and I am soooo excited to go home to see my family and friends (and my bunnies) after 9 months! =D And with Chinese New Year round the corner, there's gonna be so much fun, FOOD and laughter for sure! To everyone at home, see you all real soon! *wheeeeeeee

Last Saturday Cynthia and I decided to have a nice relaxing home cooked breakfast as we wanted to finish the German sausages Pris gave me over Christmas (it's so yummy, thanks Pris! Plus factor - it's low fat too!) Eggs, ham, German Sausages, toast with Tews' homemade apple jam complete with some grapes and orange juice! We had to skip lunch for that day. =P ~~~~~ Cynthia has been having this craving for home cooked popiah (Indonesian style since she is a Chinese-Indonesian) and so on Sunday she began her huge task of cooking her popiah dish. The Indo version has sooooo many ingredients in it - turnip, carrots, tofu, long beans, leek, to name a few, and fried a huge wok of it (I think she can eat it for a week). Side ingredients to complement it are pound chilli, grounded peanuts with sugar, egg and some lettuce. It is massive task (or project I call it), I can't imagine myself doing it. I think I'd just dream about it and hope the craving goes away. So I w...

hee.. see what I captured on my camera last Sat! The small water channel beside my apartment has totally frozen. It has been so so cold (but thankfully this week it is turning a bit warmer to the close of highest 10deg) I heard that ducks, swans and friends are now all either walking or sitting on the ice. Must be so cute! Unfortunately didn't see for myself, if not I'm gonna capture a shot of them as well! a closeup of the frozen water

Friends who know me here might have heard me complaining about my difficult trader who hasn't really been very nice. Bossy and everything, she made life not easy for me, but thanks to my manager who always comes to my rescue whenever she's being difficult to deal with in terms of "hardcore PnL analysis". Thing is, this desk is now one of the biggest in my team, in terms of currencies and volumes to some extent, and maybe my manager thought my experience in SG office could prepare me to deal with them... but then soon I realise it seems my character clashes with her and we have a mutual feeling of dislike for each other. Honestly, I get all nervous when she asks a simple question coz I always want to make sure I get my facts right before answering her or else... and it gets to me. Thankfully she has a more sane assistant J who looks at the PL too and he has apologized a couple of times for being rude and all, asking me to understand given the current market condit...

This morning when I left the house I was greeted with a white blanket because it snowed last night! I was pleasantly surprised and then when I reached office, it was snowing quite heavily for about 10-15min.. woohoo~ definitely took away some Monday blues. Very excited too coz I will be going back for two weeks in second half of Jan... seeing family and friends again after almost 9 months, no work for 2 weeks, and of coz not forgetting project "Attack Local Food"! Just thinking about it keeps me awake at night!!

Just a short post of dinner tonight! Learnt this simple dish from Pris when I was there - Chicken and Mushroom HorFun. yummy yum yum (thanks shifu ) fyi.. weather is very freezing now!! We need hot soup!

Happy 2009!! Since everyone's back in London after our Christmas holidays, we decided to hold a New Year's Eve mini countdown party at our place. Themed a Pink Party , everyone turned up in pink and with pink balloons, it looked such a girly night! There was sooooo much food and still, hospitable Cynthia kept worrying there wouldn't be enough since there were about 10 of us. Food for the night Grilled Chicken Wings (thanks to JL and Alicia) Salad (Potato/Chicken & Tuna) Sausages Shephard's Pie (pretty impressive since it was made from scratch - thanks to Yijiang and his friend) Fish Fingers and of coz lots of drinks contributed by Eric & Gin (chilled in our balcony since it is colder than our fridge) * might not seem a long list but everything was in such big proportions we had leftovers and also 3 huge untouched pizzas in the fridge coz we could not eat anymore After dinner we watched an old school movie starring Stephan Chow (very hyped up by the guys) which ...