17 Days' Trip to Europe

How i hope it's me going for such a long trip... hai.. it's actually js and rip, they have planned for this trip months ago and finally going for this long holiday.
Mr nice guy me decides to send them to the airport, and in exchnage, i get a free dinner at popeye's (my favourite food joint at the airport). Wonderful dinner we have, and i can see that they are really quite excited about the trip.. i think the excitement comes from the fact that they dunno what to expect from it becasue it's a free and easy. will they miss trains? miss flights? cannot find the bus service? dunno how to walk back to hotel? etc etc? .. but it's these adventure that makes a backpack trip interesting isn't it?

It's almost time for takeoff, just a few more silly photos before leaving singapore for the next 2 weeks... hhmm by now, they should have arrived in paris, i wonder if they will find internet connection, if so, i;m sure we'll see comments here cos they 'll sure surf up here to check out their photos..

Here's a funny photo... it's the first time i have js doing the multiple continuous shots.. he did a total of 21 expressions.. impressed.. this gif looks like he scolding some vulgarities.. haha
I hope you 2 will have an enjoyable trip.. will be waiting for your stories about the trip..

Absolut 100

Bangzhi went china to visit bangjie and did some touring around.. and when he came back, he got me the absolut 100!! i thought it was a limited edition, but apparently, they decided to make it permanant, so for those who haven't got it, no worries, it'll be around.Next in the list is the absolut pear... any kind soul out there?? haha
Here's another photo of xiaobai with my new absolut 100... not easy to get him to look at the camera and the lighting at the void deck was not good for a nice photo. it always feels good when you get presents from friends when they came back from overseas.... merci

Anyway, the show is finally coming out, should be in sept. can't wait to see bangzhi in the movie!! i can actually go to the cinema and point at the screen and say.. "hey, that's my friend!!"

Lunch with Grandma

Grandma came to singapore for a few day's stay at my place. and on sunday, we dicided to bring her for lunch at ah yat abalone forum restaurant as she has never had abalone whole and eat it like you eat a steak. actuallym i haven't had that too, it's my first time too.
Didn't make reservation and it was a big mistake. the place was really crowded, but the staff was patient and got us a table. but we waited for slightly more than half an hour. at least she didn't tell us full house and stopped entertaining us. she even gave us a name card and said if no one answer the phone, we can actually call her on her handphone.. impressed...

Throughout the whole meal, i was constantly impressed by the level of service they offer in the restaurant. so good you cannot believe you are still in singapore.
Mum... and mum's mum...
How can we forget a group photo at the showcase of delicacies!! the manager volunteered to take a photo for us too. oh and while eating, she brought me a extra chair so that i can put the camera there and have more table space for my food.

Dinner at Geylang

Very outdated post because i have been really busy since last thursday. this happened last wed. met up with ripple js zhentao and borong for dinner at shun kee eating house in geylang. the dinner was wonderful, we have frog's legs, crab prawn, stingray and kangkong. actually we meeting up to try out the cupcakes made by js and ripple and they are quite good, a little more practice and improvement, they can start setting they own cupcake still and see if the queue can beat that of donut factory.
Borong is on block leave and he's now officially a private. and gotta congratulate him for being posted into the navy, the only problem is that the camp is so very far from his place..

Didn't stayed there for too long cos all wanted to rush home to watch the last episode of to get unstuck in time, it's the last chance we can see zt look alike on tv. Thanks rip for the wonderful meal.. or rather thanks ripapa for the meal!!

Found a Partner for New Toy

Remember my new toy?? i got him a partner!!The v450 laser cordless mouse. i love this as much as i love the partner..

Simple Birthday Celebration

It's libing's birthday, and we are lucky he's free on the exact day and he's in singapore, decided to have a simple meal at rail mall together with mb jh and bw.
There wasn't much choice there so we chose this italian restaurant called galbiati, quite a small place, they also serve takeaway, probably for those staying nearby.

A major part of the time there, we were browsing through the photos from the performances he had over the weekend, as he was telling us his dancing stories...

Food was quite expensive for the standard. we weren't impressed by the food as much as the place itself. i'll probably go back there for the lagsana takeaway since it isn't far from my place..

Took a photo of their antipasti bar and only after i check out the photos today, i realised that there was a little girl looking at me when i was taking this shot.She had the most innocent look on her face, maybe curious about this huge piece of equipment i have in front of my face.. loved the photos, loved the colours from the antipasti bar..

Happy Birthday Libing...

To Get Unstuck in Time

Just finished watching this tvb serial on channel u this evening.. and since around a week ago, js rip and br said that one of the character, zhigao, in the serial really looks like zhentao.. then i thought to myself, if you look carefully, really have some resemblence, but not that alike lah..

until just now.. near the end of the episode, zhigao gave a really wide smile .. and that's when he looks almost totally like zhentao!! hahaha .. i spent some time to find photos off the net so that you people can check it out!! so here they are...

This one is "zhigao", i dunno how to pronounce his real name, cos the last chinese character is too cheem for me, click on the link above to see the name. deng jian something.. it took me a while to find a phot of him smiling like that!!!

Here's huang zhentao.... i think it's at least 90% similar man!!! check out other photos of zhentao by typing his name in the search bar at the top of the blog. so when's zt going to appear in a local serial(less those care-ler-fare ones) ? or better, hk serial??

More on Salsa

Following the preview at xenbar, libing and the rest of the dancers staged the same performance at tampines on sunday, this time round there was a much larger crowd watching as it was during a dance competition open for the public. generally i prefer the photos taken at the bar cos the lighting is warmer. but still, here are the photos from sunday (click on the images for a larger version)

Here's libing preforming the number he did for the competition he did in taiwanThe crowd loved the dance, probably because of the skimpy costumes worn by the dancers. there were some old men looking and cheering and whistling at them.. haha.. must be all the chee ko peks.. but on the whole, they did a good job in entertaining and drawing more crowd before the actual dance competition starts. we didn't stay for the competition though.

Together with mingbao jiehong and bingwei, we decided to go parkway, cos the parents-to-be wanted to check out kiddy palace as there's 20% storewide. and we had dinner at this steamboat place, apparently it's quite famous, there was a long queue, and it's not very cheap, at the basement foodcourt, mini steamboat delight, do not go there if you are expected good service, the staffs are generally quite rude and if you want to add soup, you gotta go do it yourself. all these at about $20 per person, ala carte, no buffet here.
Here's another update of jerard's development, i hope the person who requested for these updates do see it here... september is coming soon.. we'll all get to see jerard soon!! .. just 3 more months!!

Salsa @ Xenbar

If you could recall, i wrote about libing going overseas for a salsa competition some time back. finally, we get to see him dance, cos he's staging a performance with the rest of the dance team at his "school"
A nice cozy place situated at pagoda street in chinatown, xenbar offers dance classes or you can just buy and drink and sit at the bar while you watch the people dance salsa.

Libing was involved in a few dances that they were going to perform. i was expected a short performance cos how many dances can a few people remember? but i was surprised and thrilled when they staged more than 10 dances!! a feast for my camera.

Here are some of the shots i got of libing in action, he seems pretty cool for a person who only picked up dancing half a year ago, i'm really tempted to learn too, if clumsy libing can do it, it shouldn't be there difficult right?
Now for the rest of the performers.. among them all, one of the dancers was really captivating, apart from the powerful dance steps and beautiful posture she has, the expressions on her face really shows that she's enjoying every single bit of the dance, and eye contact with the audience was always there. to a photographer, you really want to capture the many faces of this dancer.
The dances were really entertaining, never knew salsa was this fun. here are a few of the other dancers, there were too many of them, i couldn't get photos of every single one, these are a few of the shots that i like.
It has been a busy weekend, so i need more time to prepare the photos from the second performance.. salsa anyone???

Treasure Hunt

The guys planned for this sentosa trip many weeks ago. usually when we go sentosa, it's just volleyball, dipping in the sea, walking around, lying on the beach and that's about it. but this time, i was surprise that sebas and huijie actually arranged for a treasure hunt game!!
I gotta say that they did a super good job, so well that when we arrived at the first station, we were so shocked that there was a booth set up and a task prepared for us by a stranger that we asked him if he had made a mistake, there might be other "more organised" groups playing a similar game on the island. we were only sure when he told us that sebas just called him.

Explored some parts of the island that i have never been, like the dragon trail, herb and spice garden etc... it was a fun afternoon, although it was raining, we had lots of fun hunting..

Impressive... Again

If you have watched the youtube clip of the post on superstar avenue, you might be impressed at the singing talents like i had. they might not look very good, but you cannot deny their talents when it comes to singing. bookoh saw me on msn and gave me another link on an impressive contestant on another talent search show..

impressed again...

New Toy

Around 10 days ago, i went to squeeze at the pc show to get a laptop. they ran ouy of stock then so i was asked for 2 weeks for the delivery.. i called them up this afternoon to check out when i will get it. they said next week.. but if i need it, i could go down to collect!! flew to funan centre immediately!!

The last time i got a new laptop for myself was in 1998, and i still have that laptop, windows 98. and the last time i got a desktop was in 2001, now this new laptop has better specs then my desktop.
i have always liked toshiba and ibm, so choice of brand was simple, the difficult part is which model to choose



i wanted good specs but it comes in a package where i dun really like, cos the whole laptop is so glossy, from the top to the screen to the sides... everywhere.. but i guess specs still matter more to me, so i just have to get used to the glossiness.

Presenting my new toshiba satellite m200 with intel core2 duo 1.86mhz 1.5gb ram 80gb harddisk and windows vista home basic ...

Super Star Avenue

Don is so free now since it's school holidays and he have been spending lots of time on you tube.. and he told me about this contestant in the taiwan version of project superstar. it's called superstar avenue over there. these 2 contestants had to go on for a pk, the loser will be out of the competition. listen to the first contestant, you will feel that it's the end for the other one, cos it's astonishing good!! then.... see it for yourself,


Wah.. i wonder how are the rest of the contestants in the show!!?? these 2 can already beat any of the past winners of our local shows flat down!!

After that, don showed me this.. we have all heard and seen people play and sing a song at the same time on tv, or even in some cafes where you have live performances. but it's usually the catchy tunes you always sing in ktv. now you should see this. he played and sing "huo yuan jia" with rap!! and this is the person who lost in the pk above!!


Totally impressed

More Movies

Have wanted to watch ocean's 13 since we saw the trailer. but i've totally forgotten about ocean's 11 and 12 so me and terry decided to get dvds for them and watch it before we catch 13 in the cinema.

Got 12 from leon and couldn't fine anyone who has 11 so i rented it. watched 11 on sat and there wasn't time for 12 cos mahjong kakis have arrived and after 4 rounds it was 5am in the morning. since i heard that 12 is not good, so we decided to just catch 13. probably 12 will come later.

Watched the show with terry and zhiwei at cineleisure, and they suggested dinner at the indonesian place there, hhmm never heard of it. it's actually hidden at some corner in the basement, called es teler 77, fried chicken set was good!! The show was not bad, siliar to 11, enjoyed it as much as 1 enjoyed ocean's 11.
Zhiwei passed me this box of scones to try, he made it himself, i have never tried scones, always sees it on menus and at cafes, but never ever ordered it. and no one else i knew have made it before. when i opened the box, the nice pastry smell emerged, wah!! but there's only 1 problem, there's rasins!! and i dun take rasins, so i gotta try hard not to bite onto the rasins.. it was really good!! it's good to have a chef-to-be friend, hoping for more good food to try from his hands!!

So many nice shows coming up. transformers is one that i will not miss.. brings back good old memories of the past where we will not miss any eposides of the transformers cartoon, although my favourite is still mask, but it doesn't seem as popular as transformers. there's still fantastic 4 too, gotta rent the first part now, since i haven't caught it. tatooist is coming out in sept, must watch, see how bangzhi acts in it!! harry potter too. yeah!!

Place to Nua

Went down to demsey road a couple weeks back on a sunday night to find a place where we can sit down relax and chat... and i found the ps cafe. i never knew it was there, although i heard quite a lot about it. it looks very nice from the road side with the glass facade and the warm lighting and the surrounding is very soothing. so we decided to go check out the place.. it was indeed a fine place for chilling out, but the i didn;t bring my camera on the first visit.

So i went over on another occasion and this time with my camera prepared.. took quite a few shots before the staff actually approched me to tell me that taking photo in their premise is not allowed... hai .. sian.. have such a nice place but dun let us keep a nice memory of it.
For both visits, i ordered the earl gery tea cos you can refill it with hot water and you get unlimited supply of tea!! haha, cheapo right? but usually by the 3rd refill, it's more or less like plain hot water cos the tea leaves have already been stripped of it's flavour. but here, they give such an generous supply of leaves that even on the 3rd refill, the tea still taste as great!! on my second visit, when i was asking for a 3rd refill. the waitress mumbbled some things and gave me a funny look. seems as if she's thinking i'm so cheapskate.. sianzzz.. isit wrong to ask for refill in your tea pot? are we not supposed to do that? anyway, it's a nice place, go check it out.

Candy and DHL's Birthday

The usual nus band group decided to meet up for a meal and the excuse was to celebrate the birthdays of candy and dhl. gotta thank huimin for organizing, reservation was make for 10 i think, but only 7 could make it, junlong, benham and chenying other than the ones already stated.
The venue was suggested by candy, she tried this at marina sq and found it not bad, it's good that she chose this place too, cos then i would have another review on my food blog.

We were there early, 630pm, and our seat was by the window, so the view was fantastic, an unblocked view of the road leading to sentosa.if you walk out to the balcony, you can see the people strolling by the waterfront, you can also see the huge cruise liner waiting for it's passengers to board.

Had quite a good time catching up with one another, junlong had to move whenever i tried to take a photo of him, so too bad, there's no photo of him for this post, only the others..
The food was not that good, see more reviews and photos on my food blog. quite expensive though, $31 per person with no drinks and no dessert. anywhy the birthday celebration really seemed like an excuse, cos throughout the dinner, nothing about their birthdays were mentioned, the only significant thing that happened was chen ying passing a present to candy. so what's the next excuse to meet up again? oh and the girls are interested to take up salsa class!! .. hhmmmm

Largest Note I've Seen

Went terry's place for mahjong on sunday.. and realised that he actually collect singapore notes. from old currencies to present ones. in a small little file. and it's the first time i knew that there's actually a $25 note in the past.Only knew about the $20 yellowish brown one, $25 seems like quite an odd amount for a note..

Anyway, the main thing about this post is that as terry's parent's were about to leave for work, they showed us this.It's an old $10,000 note (the bird range), quite big in size, somewhere in between a5 and a4... it's the first time i've ever seen real singapore currency in such a big denomination. and it's not a fresh new note, meaning it has exchange hands many times... btw, am i supposed to post this? or do i have to put the word specimen across the note haha..