beloved bel

This trip to Germany was a relaxed one with no trips made outside Stuttgart. Pris asked what I wanted to do and I just said one word. Nua. (meaning chill n relax. do nothing.) So we had some free time at home and we finally got down to baking the pandan chiffon cake (which we've wanted to last Dec) and in addition, we tried baking cookies too. We spent a good few hours in the kitchen and I was sooo tired at the end. We started with the pandan chiffon cake. The cookies took us a long time because the recipe was meant for super a lot of cookies... and we decided to seperate the recipe to 3 different types- raisins, choc chip, raisins and choc chip. After 4h, Number of pandan cakes? 1. The green gooey looking stuff sure doesn't look very appetising... Number of cookies? 145. Nonetheless, we were glad our pandan chiffon cake was a success. A taste of home. Perfecto. wala!! It's done. Sprinkle some icing sugar to decorate it. Doesn't it look nice?! yum ...

If you recall, I ordered 2 pairs of shoes online from the Kurt Geiger sale which Jos sent me last week before I left for Germany... so tonight I went over to her place for dinner as well as to collect my shoes since she's in London over Christmas. omg 2 big boxes!! Let's see... The first pair is a pair of gladiator sandals. I didn't have much of a liking for them but when Cynthia bought a pair from Singapore last year, I thought it looked pretty cool. I tried looking for a similar pair when I went back to Far East Plaza but to no avail. Guess what- I spotted the perfect pair in the sale.. reduced from a hefty £ 75 to £19! Plus it is made of soft leather (lush!). Unfortunately I can't wear it now but it's definitely a good buy. So happy with it :D The second pair was more of an impluse buy. Well, not really impulse impulse... it started off with Bridget wanting to get a pair of nice knee high boots and from helping her look for a nice pair, I ended up with a ...

Got a surprise email from Cynthia wishing me a merry Christmas so decided to share this lovely collage here on my blog :) (Time really flies, I realised she's gone back home for 7 months now.) The first photo was taken during our Easter road trip to southern Spain (I think it was in the town of Rhonda, a beautiful place), the second was taken in Amsterdam in the Keukenhof gardens ironically not of tulips but cherry blossom hehe, and the third was taken outside Musee d'Orsay in Paris.. when we realised it was closed on Mondays and it was such a sad moment for us, esp me!

Merry Christmas everyone! :)

Wow it has been a busy month, or so it seems! Christmas shopping to be done, keeping warm at home, wrapping of presents, meeting friends to exchange presents, keeping warm on the way to work, connect group Christmas dinners, keeping warm on the way to meet friends, and work Christmas parties! On a personal level, it's busy like crazy. I love it. Work wise, it is quiet like anything. omg it's soooo nice! Everyone's in holiday mood... no one's really working!!! And Bel is loving it. I remember before coming over to London, colleagues back home always say "aiya London office is dead in December.. forget about asking them to do things... everyone's away... they are very relaxed" And now, geez I am actually part of that gang that they complained about..! hehe "eh what's wrong with that?" Day 10. Tuesday I had my Bermonsey connect group dinner party at Richard's place. He and Phillipa, both being English, prepared a wonderful roas...

Everyone's talking about it, it's all over the news. There's heavy snow forecast for tonight and tomorrow, with up to 20cm of snow. Managers at work were discussing about plans for tomorrow if we can't get in to work. Unfortunately Askar and me live closest to the office so theoretically we could walk in to work if the tubes are down. (I hope not!) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8416010.stm In the evening after work, people were all shuffling quickly wanting to get home fast. Kat who lives in Richmond was worried that she couldn't get home and told me where her bf works, it was already snowing heavily. Most of us didn't feel like going for tonight's finance Christmas party since we had one last night (total of 3 work Christmas parties this year - too much I think). So for me, I came home, cooked dinner, did some housework and kept peering out of my window to see if the snow's coming... Will I see a blanket of white tomorrow morning when I wake up? I...

Temperatures have dipped all of a sudden and we are entering the sub zero zone.. brrr... and today it snowed!! So happy!! You know the docks in front of my house? Yes that is completely frozen. Frozen!! Last year the small Albion Channel beside my apartment was frozen.. that is understandable since it's a small narrow channel.. but this is the docks we are talking about!! The water body that eventually flows into the Thames. The birds and swans were gliding on ice this morning when I left home.. really cute. I spotted this white bird gliding and pecking its beak on the ice. It must be wondering what the hell happened overnight. I will take a photo to show you next time!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2040577&id=1094966172&l=90075e7b85

So looking forward to today's special church service! I know it's gonna blow me away like how it did last year :) (Oh it was amazing amazing!! We had to Q up in the freezing cold for 30min -all worth it- before we went in to the theatre. So glad Jos came with me!) *************** And guess what... I spent the whole Saturday at home... wrapping presents! What a lot of wrapping!! I cleared up some stuff and finally put out my white orchid fragranced potpourri, candle and threw some leftover chocs around for that Christmas feel.

Brunswick Quay see even the birds are happy :)

Yes Christmas is round the corner!! lalala... In 2 weeks' time, how quick is that??? Are you all geared up to celebrate Jesus' birthday?? The Christmas spirit is everywhere and to get my home into the festive mood, I got some stuff tonight from Tesco on the way home. I spotted this small-ish beautiful christmas wreath and decided to get one, and also this box of cinnamon ornaments. Cynthia and I didn't get anything last year when we were staying at our old place but this year, I thought I'd spent a few pounds to make myself happy :) what's more when it's my fav holiday of the year! Heehee guess what.. because of the size, the christmas wreath turned out to be a candle trimming (you put a big fat candle in the middle which makes it really beautiful too) and the cinnamon ornament is... well, really made of real cinnamon! I thought they were fake stuff, didn't expect them to be real haha actually like that I also can make my own. I have cinnamon stic...

I guess I haven't been mentioning about work stuff for some time now. One piece of good news which I have been meaning to put on my blog is.... remember the nasty trader who made life really difficult for me and Kat on that fateful day when he unwound his trades? Yep he's gone now - HURRAY! - sorry if I seem mean but it was like a huge burden has lifted off my team! :)) Anyway he has got a much better deal with another IB so... conclusion is it's a win-win situation. Another big change is that we have all just moved down to the trading floor last Monday. Apparently it's to build better relationship with the front office since we are all very reluctant to go down to the trading floor to talk to them directly, and so perhaps the bosses think putting us seated side by side is the solution. And to do that, we have to forgo our cosy little corner and forgo our big L-shaped tables *sigh*. Now, we are seated in rows just like them. Only difference is that they have like ...

I've been in such a hibernation mode after coming back from Singapore. Everyday after work, I just wanna go home, quickly have dinner and then head off to bed but only managed to do it for 2 nights (I slept at 930pm can you believe it). Wednesday I had connect group which I was looking forward to seeing Gabby, Sarah and Kine. When it ended close to 10pm, I just felt so sleepy knowing it's past my bedtime *yawn* And then Thursday we had a team dinner - this time I voted for Chinese since we all have enough of Indian team dinners - at none other than Four Seasons restaurant at Leicester Square. It was 2 girls (kat and myself) and 4 guys. Seriously it was a meaty dinner. We ordered so much and amazingly we all finished everything - one roast duck, one soya chicken, honey pork chops, hot plate beef with spring onions and ginger, one plate of fried udon noodles, 4 portions of steam rice and one small dish of stir fry veg with garlic which was the only dish which wasn't wip...