Just Ximply Me

BBQ at Maplewoods

2011-05-22T16:42:00.006+08:00

It has been quite a long while since i posted anything..
just gotten really lazy.

I shall try to go back in time and find a few interestings photo from each month that i had not posted anything.

Haha i wonder how many post i will be able generate until i become lazy again

January 2009
BBQ at Maplewoods
bingwei with an exceptionally funny pose

MJC 2009

2009-12-18T03:00:00.007+08:00

It the time of the year again for christmas celebration, and of course not forgetting mjc, many years in the running and still going on, thanks to js and rs for their hard work in organising it.Even though it seems like we always have different people joining the competition and celebration every year, it's still a very fun and entertaining evening.
And, i had to try out the hd video recording function of the new cam... so here's a clip of the "guess the right drink" game. this short clip took 2 hrs to be uploaded to youtube!!! you have to click on it and watch it over at youtube's page to see it is full hd (remember to click on the small hd button at the bottom right of the vid that says "watch in hd"), see it in full screen mode.

Defending champion was unable to keep his throne and the newly crowned mjc champion is kelvin!! lets hope that he will be back next year to defend his title, finalist below, from 3rd runner up to champion.
How can we forget zt's birthday!! finally joined the 30's club, with 30 neatly placed candles on the cake, some of them inextinguishable, leaving the cake cover with his saliva!!
Once again, thank you jsrs for another well organised event!!! looking forward for more in the future!! of course the one big even next month!! is definitely going to be an exciting one

New Toy

2009-12-09T12:29:00.003+08:00

Need to clear up some space in the dry box. the old cassette tapes and md will go into the rubbish bin instead

Space is needed for these

Happy Birthday to the Queen

2009-04-28T21:58:00.005+08:00

Went down to vivo for a simple birthday celebration for meili with sufang chunguan jiehong and bingwei..

The queen and mangosteen... very impressive setup... good view during the evening
The beer was good.. happy hour from 6 to 8 ... food was quite disappointing though... only the mini burger was nice.. the fish and chips dun seem fresh, the sausage was very tough, this special drink they have called pimm's lemonade was far from impressive... we even had to ask if it contains alcohol... apparently it does, but we couldn't taste it
Adjourn to adam road hawker centre for sting ray and dessert....

Happy birthday meili!!!

Switched to the other side

2009-03-17T14:17:00.002+08:00

Visited the current it show....

Walked around a little....

Took some brochures....

Got some numbers....

Thought about it a little....

Decided....

Pls welcome me to the club....

My first apple product....

Chinese New Year

2009-01-30T10:58:00.004+08:00

Yes yes... it has been a long while since i posted anything here... a little lazy to edit the photos... i shall try, i shall try... Reunion dinner this year was slightly different from the usual steamboat... we still have steamboat, but this year decided to add on a hot plate.. and gosh, food cooked on the hotplate taste much better then boiled in the steamboat!!

Butter and garlic taste filled the place, scallops are not as bland anymore, pork liver taste better a little charred, even portebello mushroom taste nicer with the bit of butter coated over it.. and overall we ate more this year... and sakae yusheng seemed to have dropped in standard.. not as nice anymore

Moontern 2008

2008-10-22T15:08:00.004+08:00

Sorry for the lack of posts... a little lazy to edit photos... i'll try to back post.. now.. this is from the day of the moontern celebration during mid autumn quite a while ago.

3rd year in a row we are having this event, although participants varies quite a bit, but the fun is definitely still there. lots of games, laughter, new friends, mooncakes etc etc...

Most interesting game, slurp the chinchow, i almost vomit eating the chin chow.. i wonder how the winning team actually finishes the whole big chunk.

Lantern is a must have.. and of course the yearly tradition of burning up lanterns.. haha

A big thank you to js and rs for planning the wonderful event..

Happy Birthday Sept Babies

2008-09-27T13:22:00.006+08:00

Bw and the rest have been talking about this jap restaurant called minoru at hong leong garden. finally got a chance to go try the food there with them. loved the place, nicely tucked in a corner, away from the crowds in town. food was not bad. more on the food on justximplyfood...
Small restaurant but cozy, nice food nice company, nice chat, nice catchup!!

Proceeded to mb and jh's place for mahjong and cake cutting!!

Happy Birthday to bw and jx!!

The Making of Cactus (Part 1)

2008-08-01T12:35:00.007+08:00

In march, kevin approached me to discuss on this project. and i saw the artist impression of the shop... it was impressive.. and he ask if i was interested to take it up to create it from paper to something we can see and touch. from then, we cracked out brains on the materials to use, how to build such a massive structures, how to have it flexible enough for changes in the display area etc etc.

Work started in june, from a bare shop, got the electrical wirings up, the air conditioning, the flooring, the roller shutter etc. (Click any of the photos to see a larger version)
Next, it was all the carpentry work to be done at the workshop, massive structures were built up, first it was the display shelves, took up a huge part of my workshop, but looks really nice with all the symmetrical boxy shelves..
The arches at the top of the display section is quite a headache too, had to have it sitting on the display cabinet but not topple over and we need to hide the existing roller shutters in it. actually i find the skeletal frames of arches looking very nice, even before the laminates are up.
Many sleepless nights installing at the shop, can be quite stuffy when they switch off the air con after 10pm.
Wasn't too long when the display section on the 2 sides of the shop was done up, next up will be the lights, the suspended ceiling feature and the runway.

New Members of the 30's Club

2008-08-01T11:49:00.005+08:00

Busy saturday, first it was leon's surprise birthday celebration at bishan.. but when he arrived, he dun seemed surprised leh.. perhaps we need to have like 30 guests in order for him to be shocked.... the birthday cake looks cool... 16 individual cupcakes with liverpool as the theme... yv went thru quite a bit to get it done up like that... i heard we nearly got blue coloured ones..

Birthday boy .. erm.. ok birthday uncle and the cute little nat nat... he's eyes seems bigger and rounder each time i visit him. i stayed for a while, had a glass of champagne, some snacks, a cupcake and then i had to rush down to labrador park for another celebration....

Next stop, the moon ladder cafe at labrador park, if you didn't drive, it would be a problem getting out of this place. cafe was cool, very spacious, huge seats nice cushion, just pray that it doesn't rain.Js' big 30 too, pre celebration as he won't be in sg on his bd. entertainer for the evening, kitty. sat for a while, had a drink, some games, some snacks.. and then we moved on for the next activity... mahjong...
A nice pool with a platform and glass shelter where you can hold small functions, like solemnisations, seems really cool.
End of the day... lost mahjong to rs zt and br... sianzzzz.. haha

Cactus

2008-07-17T17:18:00.004+08:00

It has been a busy month of june. was occipied with a project at marina square, numerous sleepless nights at the shopping centre and after a month of work and many months of planning and discussion, project cactus was completed.

Kevin got me to do up this shop which he and a few of his friends took up, it's a shop where they will rent out the box spaces for anyone who's interested to sell small items. instead of me explaining the concept, maybe you should visit their official site. so when you are at marina sq, remember to drop by cactus @ #03-367 to take a look. i will be posting the process of the renovation soon.. haha

Fastest Crawler

2008-07-14T22:12:00.004+08:00

Jerard had won his first competition!! mb and jh must be really proud.Click on the image for a larger version (it's in today's new paper). it's a little weird to see jh being addressed as madam zoe choo... congrats jerard!!

SoShiok Gourmet Safari

2008-06-15T15:57:00.002+08:00

jsrs was telling me that i should be participating in the contest on soshiok.com since i blog about food so often, so i decided to try my luck and posted a few entries there.. not long after, i received an email to too me that i have won a gourmet safari treat.. seldom win in contests and this was quite a shock to me!! so got along ripple jim and lawry and we went for a sumptuous lunch, after looking at the menu from the email, we decided to skip breakfast so that we have enough stomach space for all the food We ate from 130pm all the way till 4pm!! can you believe it!! check out the food on justximplyfood. it was a satisfying lunch. i wonder if there will be more of such treats coming!!

Simple Birthday Celebration

2008-05-19T21:37:00.004+08:00

Time seems to pass really fast this year (oops i realised that i wrote that last year too) .. it seems just not too long ago that we went for dinner for bangzhi's birthday.. and it's his birthday again...Goldie arranged for a dinner with the birthday boy together with sr cg and kel.. had a nice meal at mof after the long queue and waiting for latecomers.. and i'm guilty for being one, although i'm not the latest.. haha

Happy birthday bz.. and all the best for your upcoming exams!!

New Phone for Sale

2008-04-17T23:09:00.002+08:00

Chiver has a brand new phone he would like to sell at $450..

Sony erricson w910i (hearty red) click here to read more about this model

Let me know if you are interested, then you can contact him to get it from him...

Most Kissable Guy

2008-04-16T01:17:00.004+08:00

Girls and ladies reading this.. do take some time to cast a vote for stanley toh!!

Here's stanley's clip

This voting this open to the guys and girls... but only girls will win the date with mr kissable.. can vote here

Tomb Sweeping

2008-04-08T17:01:00.004+08:00

A very tiring sunday, woke up at 5am, washed up and left home at 5:20am to uncle's place (rendezvous point) to meet other family members and set off in dad's pick up to our first location, the choa chu kang cemetery. 6am traffic jam, road marshals everywhere, roads converted to one way... paid respect to grandpa and his mum there.Next stop, bright hill temple. grandma and her mum's ashes were place there. another long traffic jam, super crowded, warm, scorching sun.Next up, mt pleasant, this is the real challenge, bash through thick vegetation, search for tomb, siam all the creepy crawlies, found them after a while, cleared up the year's worth of growth over the tomb, lucky there was no fallen tree.Last location nearby, took a long time to find the tomb cos it was totally covered by growth, dad remembered the location and found the tombstone after searching under the vegetation.On the way back home, sudden downpour, totally drenched at the back of the uncovered pickup, umbrella was useless... totally shack out at at 3pm..

Happy Birthday Leng

2008-04-01T14:01:00.003+08:00

Time flies... it seems not too long ago that we had leng's bd celebration at vivo, this year, it's at vivo again, dinner at bosses, a restaurant that i have always wanted to try, cos there were many varying reviews about the food there. more reviews about the food on justximplyfood.We got a table at the side and the wallpaper there was really nice, makes a great backdrop for phototaking. the lights they have there also creates a nice warm ambience.Took quite some photos as usual, all came out nicely with the wonderful backdrop!
Nice cake, nice company, and as usual, jokes all round the table, this time it's about this new prc friend we have called zaina... and she loves the cucumber lemon tea at the bosses restaurant..

Salsa at Bikini Bar

2008-03-31T19:29:00.003+08:00

Libing was appointed to run this event at sentosa every sat evening. xen bar will be conducting salsa classes free, for those who happen to be at bikini bar and coastes at siloso beach on saturdays. so last week, i went down with bangzhi to check it out.
Libing invited other friends too, according to him, he told quite a number of people but only a handful of us turned up, so if you are reading this, please bring some friends down to the bikini bar on sat to support our friend here!!
Actually, he has improved quite a lot in terms of his teaching skills, dun play play, he has been dancing every day and teaching every week you know!!

Since we were quite late, decided to have dinner at the bar itself, food was quite good, just a little expensive, 6 chicken wings for $16, and bangzhi had to shuttle between the dance floor and the table cos he wanted to learn as well as eat at the same time!!

Nearing the end of the session, he perspired so much that the dance partners had to try to siam his sticky and slimy shoulders, and according to him, the girls seems a little turned off by his sweat.. haha

Well done libing, and to the rest... remember to go support him if you can afford the time, bring all you friends along, he'll be happy to see you people there.

Eddie's Married!!

2008-03-15T12:16:00.006+08:00

Attending eddie's wedding with hanyang and yanping, time really flies, it seems just not too long ago that eddie got attached.. and now he's getting married!!

Here we have the groom, all happy about the day, about the wedding.. but as usual, he had to give us some comic relief, during his speech, which he read from a piece of paper.. he ended with "i would like to think everyone for coming down to the church...." ...ooppss he used the same speech as the one he did for the church ceremony... haha

One thing we noted is that when eddie and stella smile, eddie's eyes will become 2 tiny slits while stella's becomes round and big and watery.. how contrasting..
Even the groom had a change of attire...

Congratulations, baby soon???

Leon and BB Nat

2008-03-15T12:00:00.006+08:00

It has been a long time .. i guess i'll just keep the photos of activities happening from cny till now in the hd first .. if i have time i'll back post them ... and i'll try to post updated stuffs... have been really busy with work and very lazy after getting home .. thus haven't been editing the photos..

Went to leon's place, after quite some time, and nat has grown quite a bit!! compare this to the last time i saw him!!

He's much more responsive now, and easily tickled.. but the most interesting part of this visit was to hear leon sing children songs, he even recorded it on vid!!

Gifts from Japan

2008-02-08T10:41:00.000+08:00

Met up with lawrence leng and regina . lawr and leng just got back from japan and got me more hard rock drumsticks.. heh heh!! Had dinner at this ramen place in central called marutama, not difficult to find, it has a basketball look alike logo, not a big place, food is quite expensive with little variety but it's really good.
Spent some time sitting around at starbucks before i had to rush off for another appointment!!!
Really outdated entry.. have been too busy with work, will try to finish up all post to get it more updated these few days

Flowers for Valentine's Day

2008-01-23T00:50:00.000+08:00

Click on the image fora larger version. If you are going to get flowers for your loved ones.. get it from terry k??

New Year Party

2008-01-20T14:27:00.000+08:00

Got as sms just a day or 2 before new year from cruz to inform of the new year day party which will be held on 1 jan 2008 at 2:30 am!! got a shock when i saw the timing.. he even did a nice invitation banner ... check it out here. Still has a theme to follow!! how to dress like an 881 character?? in the end i think and think, i decided to go as an audience watching a ge tai performance, and i see that i;m not that only one dressed like that!!

Had some party games like pictionary and charade, and most of it as in hokkien to suit the theme.. lots of prizes and goodies too!! everyone was wide awake even though the party started only at around 330am. and people were still arriving after that!

Even though he didn't win the best dress competition, i still think zt did the best, cos he really took reference from the show and came in almost exactly what liu ling ling wore in the show, just that he doesn't have her size!! even got a measuring tape!!!

The nominees for best dress ... and another thing i noted is that cruz's mum looks damn young man!!! you have a hot mum!!!

Boxing Day Performance

2008-01-18T07:41:00.001+08:00

Went down to victoria theatre on boxing day with bingwei zhenhong jerine mingbao and jiehong to watch a performance by the guys from xen bar. and of course tickets were from libing!! he's really improving fast, from casual dancing to street performance to teaching of small classes, and then international competition and now full scale stage performance. all if just around a year. impressive

Went over to lao pa sat for supper after the performance, looking forward for more of his performances coming up!

Christmas Day Gathering

2008-01-09T11:00:00.000+08:00

It's christmas day.. gathered at jiehong and mingbao's place in the afternoon, wine was served immediately.. and mahjong started early..
There was a short photo taking session for jerard.. jerard loves to take photo as we can see.. many photos of him from that day, if any of you want the photos, let me know. so here are some of the nicer ones i picked out..

Christmas Eve

2008-01-09T10:05:00.000+08:00

Christmas eve party was held at jiemin and james' place, visitors are not allowed to park in the condo.. gotta park at the public carpark, but with some tricks from jiemin, managed to get in and park inside. food was good, esp the satay from clementi, 100 pcs all gone even though everyone claim that they were quite full!!

Main game was guessing the present.. all present had to be somewhat linked to the theme of 'dirty'. some of the items includes toilet paper, brooms, washing power etc.. others includes cd rack (cos it unclutters the messy table), adult comic book (for the dirty minded) etc.. here are some of the more interesting pictures, lots more, but no time to edit and post them all.

It was a nice gathering, everyone had fun and food was good...

Pre Christmas Meetup

2008-01-05T20:42:00.001+08:00

Managed to get js ripple and borong to meet up just before christmas, passed them their gifts and had a nice dinner at sakae teppanyaki at bugis junction.the food was quite good, we ordered 3 sets to be shared by 4 person, and the amount was just right, price came out to be about $20 a person, satisfying dinner i must say.

Some interesting conversation that we had during dinner, but i'm writing this so long after the event, it might not be 100% accurate, but the jist is there. try to check out the food pix on justximplyfood before reading on, it'll be more interesting.

br: how come the butter on the hotplate won't melt one huh?
jx: because it is tofu and not butter

jx: the bamboo clams are really nice.
br: which one is the bamboo clam
jx: ... erm.. the one where the shell is long shaped like bamboo..
br: oh that one is the shell ar, i thought it's a decorative dish

jx: wah so much garlic for the fried rice, must be really nice.
br: wah, must have taken them a long time to chop so much garlic
jx: heard of the blender?

Proceeded to tcc for chit chat and to play with borong's new camera, now that he has a blog, he gotta learn how to take nice photos with his camera. remember to check our his blog here!!

SIM Bash

2007-12-24T00:00:00.000+08:00

Sim held a bash at zouk, and bangzhi got tickets for us cos he was performing at the event.Saw bangzhi and the dancers at the entrance, preparing to go on stage to show what they have for us!! if i'm not wrong, they are all students at sim, and this is sim's own dance team...
Performance was great, full of energy and power.. we stayed throughout and watched the pageant, i left after the event while chiver, yutong and bangjie stayed on to club..
While i was about to leave, this girl came up to bangzhi and said she was from strait times, urban section, and wanted to interview him, cos they are featuring 1 hot guy and 1 hot gal every week.. and she finds bangzhi hot enough to get on the papers... embarassing part came when she asked him where he got the clothes and how much they were.. and he had to answer.. "they all belong to my brother."..

Yutong's Birthday

2007-12-19T14:44:00.000+08:00

Was busy at work, so couldn't join yutong chiver bangzhi and bangjun for ice skating at the new skating ring in kallang. met up with them later in the evening for dinner at old airport road.
Food was generally good, and so was the company.

Happy birthday yutong!!

Terminal 3

2007-12-19T13:43:00.001+08:00

Yihan went on a trip to new zealand, so me and terry went to the airport to meet him for dinner before he leaves for his holiday, of course we had popeye's, even though the queue is very long... but it's worth the wait, they should expand their counter size.

Before leaving the airport, we took the chance to walk around the new terminal 3, i was really impressed by the glass baricades... the glass panels were really huge, i cannot imagine how they were brought into the building, must have be installed even before the exterior walls were up.. personally i like the use of glass in interior decor, terminal 3 is just fantastic, it really removes the usually structure where transit area is hidden away from the public area, with these glass walls, you can actualy feel yourself in the transit area. I wonder if the boarding experience is different from this terminal, hhmmm when will i have a chance to find out?

I wonder if this weighing mahine is well calibrated.. if it is, then i have to do something about the one i have at home.. cos when i stood onto this one, my weight was 2kg more that that of the one i had at home!!! i have been deceived for the past few years.. it's time to slim down!!.

Happy Birthday Gals

2007-12-17T22:02:00.000+08:00

Had an early chirstmas and birthday clebration for regina and joey cos zhiyi had to leave for the states for company training for many months... didn't bring the slr this time.. photos are all taken from the new a570is .. i find this camera takes quite nice macro shots.. but photos at low lit place turns out very grainy..
Birthday girls with their bd present.... they must be very happy... dinner was at spizza club street, the pizzas were so good that i started eating without taking photos.. so review will have to come another time when i go there again.
After hearing about this lychee martini cake from jt and js, i decided to order one to try.. love the lychee taste, but the cream felt very oily, they should think about using fresh cream instead..
Christmas presents from regina... playmobil... it has been so long since i played with playmobil and lego.. the figurines are really cute.. i got the magician. after dinner we proceeded to sing at this new karaoke place near bugis junction. the room setup very similar to the one we see in taiwan...
And these 2 cannot bear to be apart for so many months.... they had to treasure all the time they have left before zhiyi flys off for training.. hahahaha

Blu Jaz

2007-12-14T13:57:00.000+08:00

Met up with kaisi hansen and frederick at this nice diner called blu jaz at arab street area, it has been a while since i met them. supposed to meet fred for his bd.. until he got angry that he has to organise his own bd celebration and called it off totally... food was quite good and the price was quite reasonably, the place was quite dark ,so i didn't take photos of then food, and thus no food reviews on the place.
Had to brighten up the photos a little so that the faces could be seen, any more would make the photos very grainy... sorry if you had to strain your eyes to see the people in the photos.. flin joined us later in the evening, and i realised that i was quite outdated in terms of their lives.. hansen is busy building this huge bridge across henderson road, fred busy with fyp, flin busy with his numerous business plans, and kaisi busy flying around... flin has got a new bike and hansen & kaisi got a new sports car!! hhmm when can i change my car??

Nat Has Grown

2007-12-14T11:36:00.000+08:00

Nathaniel is one month old... natma doesn't need to take confinement food anymore.. but it also means no more confinement lady and natma and natpa will be really busy
Throughout the whole evening, nat was quite wide awake.. and i even got my hands on him.. carried him for a while!! even though it was just for a while, it was really tiring.. cannot imagine how it's like for natma and natpa..

Nat has been a good boy for most of the evening, didn't make much noise, and at the later part of the evening he decided that he should rest early, and that's when we left..

Like this photo.. even at a tender age of 1 month, he has learned to wink!!! haha cute right? .

If you wanna see more of his photos from the 1st month celebration, can check it out at nat's personal blog, or natma's blog, or shutterbug's.

Wonderful Dinner, Disappointing Dessert

2007-12-09T09:55:00.000+08:00

Met up with the gdis gang for dinner, and since nuanda highly recommended this jap rest in cuppage plaza, we decided to make reservation and give it a try. the place was a little small but cosy, food was absolutely fantastic.. check out the photo here. (click for a larger version)This place is called kazu sumiyaki, more detailed reviews on the individual dishes on justximplyfood.

We were there from 8pm till very late, i thnk it was 10 plus, and we had to top it up with a nice round of dessert, they have very good dessert too, we only tried the grilled mochi. i highly recommend this place to those who are reading this.

Price wise.. haha.. here's the bill for 5 person.. very seldom do you see someone holding up a bill so happily when the price is that high, but this time, the food was totally worth it.

After leaving the place, we decided to go holland village for some drinks. can saw this place that sells ice cream called cold rock. the idea is good for mixing up ice cream and crunches, but their ice cream cannot make it, only slightly better then the tub ones from magnolia and kings you get in supermarket. so we ended up sitting at haagen dazs for more ice cream..

One More Baby

2007-12-08T10:12:00.000+08:00

Dorina is back in singapore and we met up with the rest for s simple dinner at pu tien restaurant at kitchener road. and she's nearly 3 months pregnant, ok this is not new but i haven't wrote about it, so here's one more baby coming soon after little jerard and little nat.. jerard has been too busy to update his blog, so we can see that the last entry was quite some time ago, little nathaniel seems more regular in terms of blog updates right?.

Dongshu is back in singapore too, haven't seen him for quite a while, not that he's going to be based in sg, i guess we'll have more chance to meet up..

Food was quite good, at least for most of the dishes, dun really like the noodle and the bee hoon though. Food review here

Proceeded to island creamery for dessert cos pu tien ran out of yam paste and all other desserts they have are not to our liking.
I realised that the people in the front are quite blur, i need to improve on my skills when it comes to setting apperture size ..

Leaving for Turkey

2007-12-03T01:43:00.001+08:00

Cruz was leaving for turkey, he was tasked to lead a group for a tour in turkey by chan brothers.. it was his first time taking up such a task, totally not knowing what to expect, but i think it's a fun job, get paid to travel man!! he was so busy that the only time he's available to meet was at the airport for dinner before he flies... dinner was settled at crystal jade at t2 together with jan and ryan. super bad experience, expensive and totally not nice, coffee shop tze char stalls have nicer food!! details here..
Went over to t1 cos we weren't satisfied with dinner and wanted to have some popeye's butter milk biscuit, and got turned off by the horrendously long queue. though of having ice cream at swensons, and found out that swenson is no longer at t1...
Had to settle for some fruits at the food court, this small cup of fruits costs $5, wow!! but it's the most attractive dessert we can find at t1. now cruz should be halfway through the trip and he has been blogging quite constantly from turkey. check it out at his blog.

Also, we gotta congratulate him for clinching most popular 933 dj award at sra 2007 3rd year in a row!! clap clap..let's hope he's enjoying himself at turkey right now!!

On a seperate note, just knew that jan's an agent for suzuki, so if anyone is thinking of getting a suzuki, can contact her, see if she can give you good price.. then must tell her i reccommend one so that i can ask her for referral commission.. hahaha, she just got herself an sx4 sedan, interior quite chio, almost like a bmw with the orange displays.

The Mission

2007-11-28T14:52:00.000+08:00

Huanghui was telling me about her part in the show on the mission on selling prata some time back.. and not long ago, ripple suggested giving yunying a surprise visit for a belated birthday celebration, and yunying is involved in the same show.. wah jia lat, go there gotta buy prata from both teams...from sources, we got to know that they are filming on sat morning at fong seng prata. together with borong ripple js and bangzhi, we woke up early, met up and drove there. upon arrival, we realised there were no cameras, no lightings, no mediacorp people, hhmm did we get the location wrong? call up the info source, but no answer.. in the end called up huanghui to realised that it's the next day!!!

So we ended up going to the new balance warehouse sale nearby and we spent a total of around $700!!! huge damage to pockets.. cake was half melted in the sun, got it into the fridge and then brought it along the next day... woke up early again.. this time, filming crew could be seen even before we parked.. saw huanghui immediately after alightling and caught a few shots of her.. and with the slr attracting lot's of attention from the crew, i was asked to pose as her fan trying to take her photo and then the host will came over and get me to participate in their "most creative prata photo" contest to stand a chance of winning a digital camera and a photo printer.. the prize was quite attractive, so i agreed, before knowing that i have to buy 5 pieces of mushroom and cheese prata at a whooping $20!!Ok... paid up and waited a long while for the prata.. but there were free gifts.. 5 packets of vitagen collagen, 2 bottles of shokobutsu bady wash and 2 bottles of shokobutsu face wash.. not the $20 seems worth it.. and so with such a creative art director like ripple, we submitted this photo for the contest.

After finishing the 5 pieces of prata, we proceeded to the other side where yunying was.. she was really busy looking for customers, going all out to get curious people walking by to sit down and buy some prata, even had to get kids to go on stage for karaoke, and sing along with them..

Here, the pratas were cheaper, only $2 a piece, but it's prata kosong!! 10 pieces entitles you to a lucky draw chance to win a karaoke entertainment system!!
Other then lucky draw, they even invited a guest star, this person called wang chuan yi from taiwan, do you know him? i dun even know who he is when he walked in, but ripple went bersek on the sight of him, while we asked one another who this person is... they decided to give away his album if someone is willing to buy the pratas in huge amount... and ripple (the only one) offered to buy 20 pieces!!
So we ended up with 20 pieces of prata kosong for take away!! nearing the end of the session, it's time to surprise birthday girl with the half melted cake, cos it was a hot day and the cake was kept in the car for a few hours.. but it's the thought that counts right!!

At the end of the filming session, it was time to announce the 3 winners for the "creative photo" contest!! luckily there weren't too many entries, only about 12 photos to choose from, and from what we see only 1 other seemed more creative than ours!! haha our halloween mask entry got selected!!! yeh... new digital cam and photo printer!! if you want to try for the prize, you can go down this sat (not sun), same place. 9am to 12pm...

The Tattooist: Gala Premiere

2007-11-26T23:10:00.000+08:00

Remember these 2 posts from a year ago? here and here. finally, after a year's wait, the movie is finally out!! most excited person is none other that bangzhi himself. imagine watching yourself on big screen, a person who fear watching horror movie had to watch himself die in the show. how does it feel? weird? gotta ask him. i was invited by him to the gala premiere, with the huge camera, i think i look like the event's photographer, some people actually mistook me for the official photographer and wanted me to take photos for them.Lots of people at the premiere, posters of people with tatoos on their bodies was hung up, they even got a person to tatoo on the spot at gv vivo!! not many stars seen there though. but today's star is bangzhi, so let's not care about the rest.

Interview cannot siam, this group of students from i cannot remember which poly conducted quite a pro interview with him, and andie as well, win star search getting busy, need to go for interviews and lot's of photo taking with fans.. i lost count of how many people wanted to take photos with him and of him that evening.
The bang brothers, took me quite a while to photoshop the oily faces man!!
The tattooist is showing at cinemas from this week onwards, remember to go watch it, support bangzhi, support local talents. it's a good show...

For the Supporters

2007-11-26T23:05:00.001+08:00

If you have been reading this blog.. you would have known that andie won star search 2007, you can check on previous post of it here. to thank all his supporters, from family to friends to fans, he organised a gathering and had some food catered.Sweat baby article on zaobao, they purposely chose the photo where he looked really sweaty, or isit the oil on his face causing that. haha

By the time i got there, most of the people had left, i couldn't attend it earlier cos was in malaysia, wasted, didn't get a chance to take photos of andie with his fans.. but at least there are some small fans around, cousins, relatives, parent's ex student's children etc..

And since there's some time, it's time for some group photos, as of course it has gotta be the newest most in pose..

Congrats once again andie.. enjoy your holidays before work starts next year!!

Visit to Malaysia

2007-11-24T09:01:00.001+08:00

It's grandma's birthday, and we are having a simple get together lunch session at her place in kulai. if you have never heard of the place, it's in johor, around an hr's drive from the customs. on a sunday, we had to go early in the morning to avoid the jam, so we set of at 6, and by 7 plus we were there already, and how can we mis ba kut teh for breakfast.

I love the ba kut teh there, the herbal taste is strong, the pork is really tender, very different from the one we have in singapore. dad is a fan of the ba kut teh as well. but i think price have been increasing, now it costs almost like that in singapore. but for nice food, it's worth it. see more of the food on justximplyfood.

Grandma's place is away from the city, the whole place has a retro feel, the window, the grilles, walls, roof. the well which has already dried up, vegetables and fruits growing right outside the house... perhaps leon, ilona and rene will know what i'm talking about. this time round i went there and found another technological improvement, the manual gate to the house have changed to a remote controlled one, so much mroe convenient now.

Golden Birthday

2007-11-24T08:54:00.000+08:00

It was goldie's birthday, or belated birthday celebration, and it's supposed to be a surprise to her, she only knew we were meeting up for a normal get together dinner, but i nearly let the cat out of the bag. plan is the get a cake, then go for dinner at lemongrass at 7pm.. but miss gold said she had something on and wanted to change the time to 8pm, so fine, we arrived at 8pm, a couple were late, but golden girl was even later, i think she arrived sometime near to 9pm.. we were all famished.. luckily we got them to prepared beforehand, once she arived, the food could be served. you can see the food we had on justximplyfood.
At the end of the dinner, the cake was brought out and we had a simply birthday song session for her, by then, most of the customers have left the restaurant already, we were the last there..

After which we actually wanted to find a place for coffee and chit chat, but on a weekend evening, everywhere was crowded, and we had no where to go.. so we went home!! haha how sad right? anyway, before that , we took some photos along orchard road, and this might just be the next in thing when it comes to posing.. everyone has to act busy, as if you are doing something and not noticing the camera.. in a group, i find it quite cool..

Oh another thing, heard from goldie.. her brother came over to her and made a pact with her that he won't get her a present for her bd and she won't need to get him a present for his.. haha when did giving a present become some form of an exchange??

A Simple Wedding Dinner

2007-11-22T13:13:00.001+08:00

Attended richard's wedding dinner at riverview hotel. itwas was a small cosy event, just some family members and business partners. Food was ok, not very fantastic, but the mood was good. it has been a while since i attended wedding dinners with my parents though.
I was still exploring around with my new lens, and i didn't dare to move around too much to take photos, just in case i get in the way of the official photographer. but this is a photos that i like from that evening.

Congratulations richard!!.

Visitor from Hong Kong

2007-11-22T12:40:00.001+08:00

It has been a while since i met wenfu, the last time was when i visit hong kong, quite a number of years ago, and he didn't have any chance of visiting singapore too. finally he was sent here for a short business trip, and we took the chance to meet him with him and a few other jc classmates. wenfu still looks the same as i met him the last time in hk. many others who haven't met him since jc will say otherwise, becuase of his different hairstyle..

Everyone seems busy with work and family, some have new additions to their families, that really takes up a lot of your time!
Other than wenfu, it was also a while since i last met qiwen and jason, should be at jason's wedding that i last met them.. and i cannot remember how long ago was that.. i found out that jason blogs about investments.. something interesting, you might wanna check it out if you have some money and thinking of what to invest and you do not want to put your money with those financial advisors at the bank, but he suggest that you have to start reading from the beginning of his blog to follow on what he has wrote... 8percentpa.blogspot.com.
I find that it's always these few of us meeting up at jc gatherings, what happened to the rest of the guys?? maybe we need to make use of facebook to get the mia ones...
Proceeded to dempsey for some wine after dinner, and i realised that many of them haven't been there since the revamp of the dempsey area, can even get lost in there, we had a bottle of white and a bottle of red, and i still think i dun like the taste of red.. i should just stick to white..

Birthday Celebration

2007-11-18T15:03:00.000+08:00

Had a gathering with caiyun sumitra kianhong sebastian huijie to celebrate terry and yihan's birthday, i was really late because i was watching a movie before that and i didn't know the show was that long!! ..
I wondered if the 2 of them arranged it to wear similar colour top!! haha so interesting that they wore something so alike in colour even though the colour combi is not very common.

During most of the time of the gathering, terry and yihan were making paper cranes.. yar for some reason... if you wanna know why? go ask yihan, anyway, i still think that smaller cranes are nicer than the larger ones, the large ones looks very clumsy.. happy birthday to both of them!!

New Lens

2007-11-18T13:18:00.000+08:00

Was looking at reviews regarding a lens that i was eyeing.. the canon ef24-70mm f/2.8 for those who do not understand, it's ok .. it's just a better lens that the one that came with the camera with i bought it. last weekend, i went down to alan photo at sim lim and got it!! yeh!! Photos are really different from the kit lens that came with the camera. indoor photos looks so much better with f/2.8, loving the lens so much.. and there's no better way to test it out than to have a model to pose for the cam!! arranged to watch stardust with bangzhi at vivo, so i took the chance to take so photos with the new lens.

Walked around vivo to look for a place for early dinner at 5 plus, saw this thai restaurant called thai accent. the place is quite big, with lots of seats and it feels very spacious, but i wasn't impress with the food, the price is quite high for that kind of standard and ambience too, details here.

Here are some photos i took at the restaurant when we still had some time after dinner before the show starts. bangzhi got his hair cut... now he looks like an army boy

Stardust is a nice show, ok, i like to watch fantasy shows with magical happennings, like harry porter, so probably that's why i like this show. bangzhi felt that the lead actor and actress wasn't good looking enough for a beautiful romatic story like that, i felt that it was ok. michelle pfieffer acted really well as the witch!! if you haven't watched the show, remember to go catch it!

After the show, we proceeded to mingbao's place for 2 rounds of mahjong, together with bingwei and jiemin.It was jiemin's lucky night, laly luck was following her all the way!! someone threw her winning card, but she felt that it was too small, so she chose not to win it... a couple rounds later, she got a flower, 1 more tai.. and immediately got her winning card, another 1 more tai!! and 3 tai, suddenly become 5 tai, zi mo somemore!!

A happy girl at the end of the game..

Now for some updates of jerard, can see a substantial growth in size, but i realised that he still like to keep his eyes close, so difficult to get to see his eyes..
It's really not an easy task to take care of a new born, so much attention is needed but looking at the satisfied look on the baby's face after the feed, an looking at the baby as he looks around innocently is quite warm.. mingbao has been busy... or isit lazy. when it comes to updating jerard's blog! when can we see a new entry?

Baby Nathaniel

2007-11-12T15:13:00.000+08:00

You might have remembered on this post. I visited yvonne, leon and little nathaniel at the hospital on friday, nathaniel is a really active kid.. love to look around to see who are these aunties and uncles around him!! And whenever someone comes in and ask yv how's she, her standard reply "good, good, epidural is good", she can be the spokesperson for epidural, lets see if she blogs about it. anyway, you can visit nathaniel's blog often to check out how he is progessing..

Yihan's Birthday

2007-11-12T15:06:00.001+08:00

It's deepavali and it's yihan's birthday as well.. met up with the birthday boy and terry for lunch. initial plan was to go to this jap restaurant at paragon, heard a lot about their soba, but when we reached there, the queue was so long that we decided to go elsewhere.. ended up at this place where yihan claims has the nicest pasta (his standard) ... reviews of the food can be found here.

Lunch was ok, i should have order pasta instead of rice.. after that we went to shop for his birthday present.. in the end he settle for a pair of adidas sneakers..
Happy birthday yihan.. all the best for your big quest next week!!

Clubbing on Deepavali Eve

2007-11-12T08:41:00.000+08:00

It was the eve of a public holiday and it's wednesday, and what's happening every wednesday? mambo night!! it has been a while since we all went for mambo at zouk, so the plan was to relive the good old times, 10pm at zouk.. i was busy with work and was late, when i called bingwei at 10:30 pm to check on where i should meet them at zouk, there was a change of plan, the velvet queue stretches all the way to copthorne hotel!! and that's really long.. cannot imagine the main zouk queue.

We proceeded to attica at clarke quay, clarke quay is another place that i haven't been in ages, the place changed so much, and it's such a vibrant place now.. Paid $28, cos holiday, for cover with 2 free drinks, the drinks were quite sucky though. the crowd and the music were very disappointing, so we decided to change venue again.. across the river was brewerkz, since there's no suitable place to dance, maybe we should just sit down for some beer.. walked across the river and ..... how unlucky, they were closing in half hours time..

Some of us were hungry and all of us didn't drive because we though we'd be too drunk to drive back, and thus we gotta have more alcohol to drink.. in the end, me sufang bingsong jiemin bingwei and kenneth hopped into 2 cabs and off we go.. destination: 0830, at bt timah.. in fact we should have gone there from the beginning.

There was food, there was beer..
And there was personal entertainment system.. with retro programs on it.
And when you get really high and tired, you can just lie of the cushion seats for a nap, no one to bother you or to wake you up, you can even snore!! We clubbed till around 3 in the morning (i couldn't really remember the time) and went back to sleep..

Lesson learnt: go mambo only if thursday is a working day, just need to take leave for thrs...

Salsa at Marina Square

2007-11-10T11:22:00.000+08:00

Libing together with the guys from xen bar had a performance at marina square. and the photos i took are quite similar to the ones i posted on their past performances so i shall not post them this time.
During a break, this small kid actually walked up the stage and weanted to join the dancers, so they just played along and got him to dance a few steps on stage, absolutely sporting little kid.

After the performance, we went for lunch at azabu sabo, and i ordered my fav cold sabo again!! it's really good, you must go try it.. read it from my food blog.. and yes, libing walked around marina with his make up still on, even while he was having lunch...

News Flash

2007-11-09T11:17:00.000+08:00

MMS Received from leon at 1928hrs on 8 nov 2007

he is here!
Thanks be to God!
Nathaniel is here. :-)

Congrats to yveon!! check out their first family portriat here

Star Search 2007 Grand Finals

2007-11-06T16:38:00.000+08:00

I guess many are waiting for this post.. and since cruz had put a link to my blog and somehow he declared this as the official fan blog (later i get eggs thrown at me), i will put up this post first although there are still a couple that's supposed to go up before this.

According to andie, tickets were very limited for the finals, every contestants were only given 50 stalls and 30 circle tickets, i guess it must be because of the numerous guests and that it's the finals, everyone wanna watch it live.. An hour before the show starts, there's already a long queue outside the theatre, i think they arrived early, hoping for good seats, and later did they know that seats have been allocated, nothing much to choose from..
Everyone was really excited before the show, andie's supporters were all dressed in red, together with the red and gold banners and glitters, we look really striking as a block of red and gold glitters at the top corner of the audience crowd.Friends, family members including grandpa, grandma, the 2 bang brothers, cousins, parents, their students etc etc... all anticipating a good show and hoping for good results.
Yes... this is the reason why most of us ended up with sore throat, loss of voices the next day.

Andie performed very well in all the segments, and he had quite a number of costume changes.First a group dance, followed by iconic protrayal of willy wonka and he topped this round. he came in second for the acrobatic stunt section, which we feel so much like watching a charaty show. next was a test of eloquence, his performance with patricia mok was fantastic, getting him top again. and in the final round, acting, all of us can see that he's really putting in his best, under the many layers of clothes, he had to "fly" around the stage, engage in fights etc... oh and i found someone who blogged about all the items and the results, you can take a look here.

And the result announcement, this is the most exciting part, everyone of us had out hearts thumping really fast, and they hold on to the final result for so long. ok dun wanna type too much. relive the moment here..

And a star is born. andie did it, he's the champion of this star search. i think from that point onwards, his life will never be the same again. and i think it's really an honour ro be able to receive the award from our president, andie must be really proud, oh no, his parents must be even more proud that they have a son winning the star search and getting the award from the president!!

He was too busy after the show and we neer had a chance to talk to him at all, the press and the media people were too busy hogging him, and he went supper with the costestants and the production crew after all the ra ra... so we had to go supper withot him. but we had the throphy with us!! and everyone wants a photo with it!! how often do you get to hold a throphy like that!!
It was indeed a job well done by andie, he was interviewed on the morning show on tv the next day (without sleep) and then on 933 too, you can hear the podcast of the 933 interview on cruz's blog (click to get there)..

All the best to andie and we'll see a superstar in the making!! he's going to be the next king of caldecott (copied this from cruz)...

Andie into Finals

2007-10-29T01:24:00.000+08:00

It was the semifinals for starsearch last sunday, and i can see that andie has got more supporters in the studio this time. it was a sea of red, taking up the centre area of the seats, right behind the judges. everyone was excited and a little worried, he's injured, and 2 contestants will be out and not be able to go to the finals... will he succeed? we all have strong faith in him!

We all turn up in red, and this colour coordination really makes the supporters look very unified, i think this does help in boosting andie's confidence when he's performing on stage and looking at this whole big group of fans in red. of course, the cheers led by our cheerleader helped a lot too.

First segment was singing, he appeared in a totally dashing outfit, just like a prince, sang well, danced well.. even the judges thought so, and he topped the segment!!
At sebsequent segments, accumulated scores got him top in ranking too, and i felt that he acted really well in the final segment, and of course, he's on his way to the finals.. to be held on the 4th movember, remember to tune in to channel 8 at 8pm for the live show. and meanwhile, do support him for most popular award, call 1900-1125004, 60cents per call.. lets hope he'll clinch both the most popular award and the champion for the competition!!

Jia you andie!!

Happy Birthday Oct Babies

2007-10-28T22:58:00.000+08:00

Had a birthday celebration at this wonderful jap restaurant, gyu kaku at chijmes. The food is absolutely fabulous.. please go try it, good food, good service, nice ambience, of course it all comes with a price, dinner for 8 was nearly $600. i wrote about the food on justximplyfood.

It was a nice session and even got to know 2 new friends... sufen and zhenwei..

It was great that this place was selected for the celebration, totally enjoyed the dinner, good place, good company.. happy birthday oct babies!!!

Late Birthday Celebration

2007-10-27T00:47:00.000+08:00

After many weeks, i finally got the chance to meet up with jt for his birthday, there has been so many celebrations for him by his various friends who made advance advance booking that i had to be squeezed to so many weeks after the birthday... but anyway, still got to meet up .. together with js and rip, we had a nice dinner at va va voom.The food was good, click on the link above to see more reviews and photos of the food. had a nice chat after dinner at the cafe itself. and after playing around wih the camera, we realised one thing. js look like a celebrity... first it was zt now it's js..

Any idea who he looks like from these 2 photos?

For those who dun know, this is lin you jia, the winner for this talent serach competition called superstar avenue in taiwan..

Bryan and Grace

2007-10-24T09:34:00.000+08:00

It's the wedding of grace and bryan, hmmm i 'm still more used to calling him weihong. knew him from sec school band, and later, knew grace from uni band.

The bride was gorgeous at the dinner, and the groom was still as cool as ever, pilot is definitely a profession that's suitable for him.
The food was alright, but i think conrad's standard has dropped, i remembered the food was better. but the dinner was great, had lots of catching up done, it's always during weddings that you meet up with people you never see for long time and it makes a good chance to catch up with one another's lifes

Shared the table with sufang, chunguan, bingsong, jasmine, jiemin, james, liling, lianxiang, kenneth, mingbao, jiehong. other than these people, i got to meet up with quite a few friends from sec, jc and uni band too.. like shuhuai, shulan, miaoen, kelvin, mingmao, chaoquan, xingzan, xue'er, jiacang, jianxing, weitu. haha i'm just trying to see if i can remember all the names.. i didn't miss out anyone right?

Oh and we have a special guest at our table, and he's snatching quite a bit of the limelight from the bride and groom.. even though he was oblivious to all the people who greeted him. he's none other than little jerard..

Wonderful Chocolate Fondue

2007-10-23T14:35:00.000+08:00

This title seems like it's supposed to be on justximplyfood rather than here, but the fondue is so nice that i had to use it as the title for this posting. Met up with ex collesgues, zhiyi has completed his degree in aust and is back, sill enjoying his holidays before looking for a job. we had dinner at golden mile tower, the steamboat place with chicken rice. someow i felt that i prefer the one at purvis street. after that we proceeded across the road to the food centre for dessert. a friend recommended me the waffles with belgian chocolate there, and after missing it twice (read about it here) i just have to try my luck again.

Yes, it's opened this time round, and we decided to order a fondue set since there are 5 of us around. the chocolate was heavenly!! it remains liquid even without any heating element till the last drop.. cool right? and there's this super lemon ice cream that they have, it taste just like the super lemeon candy we used to have when we were young, absolutely sour, super shoik..

Moved on to dempsey for tea and chat, wanted to visit barracks again, even made reservation. When we finally got car park lots and walked there, this totally obnoxious (i hope this is the right word to use) lady greeted us,

lady: Hi, can i help you?
us: yes, we made a reservation under the name lengleng
lady: lengleng? (with a puzzled look)
us: yes.
lady: (without even checking) are you here for dinner or just drinks, cos i dun remember having a reservation under that name.
us: just for drinks
lady: we only take reservations if you are dining here.
us: but we called and the lady on the other line took down our reservation
lady: oh then she's in the wrong, cos we do not take reservations for drinks
us: ok then just get us a table
lady: sorry we are currently full, you might wanna sit by the bar if you want
us: ......@#$@%

We walked down the place and realised that the bar was really a small place, dun even know how we can chat. so we left and moved over to olio, and was greeted by staffs 10 times friendlier!

Regina just came back from japan and got us cute looking hair wax!!

Photos Lost

2007-10-19T22:38:00.000+08:00

Wanted to post on my birthday gifts, but.. i couldn't find the photos i took of the presents.. i guess i must have thought that i downloaded it and delete them from my cf card... sianzzz.

So.. i'll just write in words...

Thanks for all the gifts..

the adidas jacket from lawrence lengleng regina joey

the st. petersburg board game from bangzhi bangjun bangjie

the hartmann namecard case from terry yihan tracy kianhong

the mandarina duck coin pouch from terry

the picard card holder from laimeng and eugene

the astroboy t-shirt from zhentao and william

the crumpler handphone holder from chiver and yutong

hhmmm.. did i miss out anything??

and thanks for all the free meals!! from xingzan cruz zhentao william on top of those from my previous posts... happy birthday to me..

Birthday Celebration 5

2007-10-19T11:09:00.000+08:00

After the surprise wakeboarding trip, we adjourned to town for lunch and i have another surprise, there are more people meeting us there for lunch.. so other than terry yihan and bangzhi, we have jackson bangjun and bangjie joining us. woah, such a plasent surprise.. Fodd wasn't fantastic (wrote about it here), first time i'm having a meal there, not impressed by the food, but was very impressed by the staffs when they were bringing out the birthday cake, all the staffs gathered and sang the birthday song, really loudly and totally in tune(this is the main thing that got me impressed), when the cake was brougt out. i was sure everyone in the restaurant could hear them, it sounded so much better than those who play the bd song from cd, or worse, no music at all, just walk out with the cake.. and after the song, they were very quick in getting back to their respective jobs at different parts of the restaurant!! so they surprised me by coming out of nowhere, and then they disappeared in a flash again.. cool...

Thank you all of you for the wonderful lunch gathering as well as the cake!! awfully chocolate!! woo hoo.. i love the chocolate cake from awfully chocolate and lana cake shop.... keep this in mind for next year ok? hahaha

Birthday Celebration 4

2007-10-18T17:45:00.001+08:00

It was a sunday morning and terry had booked my time beforehand without telling me where we will be going to. early in the morning at 8pm, terry yihan and bangzhi came over to my place to pick me, and they blindfolded me!!! so took me downstairs into the car and off we drove!!!

the trip took around 20 to 30 mins, and we reached a place where i hear water like how it sounds in a fountain, and somehow the place smells like a fish market.. i tot they brought me to a market.. after some wait.. i was led somewhere else again, and i had to walk down this narrow bridge and then onto a boat.. and then the boat sped off! hhmmm are we going to have breakfast on a kelong? haha that was the thought that popped in to my mind then.

When they finally took down the blindfold, we were on a boat and going out to sea for wakeboarding!!! it had been so long since i last rode on a wakeboard. the weather was wonderful, we all had got a little more tanned. and i got a free wakeboard session!! woo hoo...
All 3 of them managed to ride quite well, definitely an improvement from the last time they went riding, i believe the last time they went was with me as well... didn't take much photos, cos i was still recovering from the shock. but it was a really refreshing sunday morning..
Here's terry in action.. not bad hor? got seh right??

Thanx for the surprise!! and they were really thoughful, cos they even brought my underwear so that i have a fresh clean one to change into after the session!! they took it from my wardrobe when picking me up from my place!! without me noticing!!

Birthday Celebration 3

2007-10-17T14:04:00.000+08:00

We were looking out for new places to dine at dempsey hill since so many eateries have sprung up sin the past few months. finally, decided on oosh, and managed to get reservations. the place looks very good every time we drove past and it's a good chance to check out the food and the place. read more about the place and food on my food blog. but as a general comment, ambience is good but food is quite disappointing, esp the mains.

Lawrence, regina, lengleng and joey got me a wonderful birthday gift as well as a nice cheese cake from swissbake.

Swissbake never fail to deliver good looking and good tasting cakes. this one was just nice for 5 of us, and how thoughtful of them to put just 1 candle, when you are a kid, you cannot wait to have more candles on your cake, the more the merrier, but at this age now, you always hope the the number of candles remains the same year after year..

After the disappointing food, we decided to skip dessert and proceed somewhere else for tea and cakes. ps cafe was fully packed, as we walked around dempsey hill, we say this place called house. it's a spa on the 2nd storey and a restaurant, cafe with a bar on the ground floor called barracks. decided to give it a try.
The place is cool, they have private rooms which you can reserve, no extra charge, as long as you can spend more than $300 in a bill. But most of the non-uniformed staffs seemed quite stucked up, maybe you gotta dress well in order to get them to pay more attention to you. the uniformed staffs were all fine.
We ordered a pot of tea each, they have interesting ta mixture. i ordered something with spearmint, and you know how the tea taste like? imagine this, you take a wrigley's spearmint gum and chew it for an hour.. that's when all the sweetness has gone off.. the tea taste exactly like that... and after adding sugar? hhmm.. the chewing gum is back to the fresh unchewed one.. haha. The lavander tea was quite funny too, very nice smell but not taste. Read about the food and dining experience here.
This guy here is one of the staff there, he's called desmond, he wears the uniform like the non bosses there, but he's one of the boss we think. a really friendly person, really good at cracking jokes, he was the one so reccommended us the items to get and telling us more about this place. so if you guys are thinking of going there, remember to look for desmond, cos we tried going a second time, he wasn't around, this lady looked at us, talked to us as if we were didn't fit the culture there and shouldn't be sitting in her cafe...seems like we do not have the class to step into her place. i wonder if anyone else got the same treatment.

Birthday Celebration 2

2007-10-14T13:24:00.001+08:00

Date: 8 Sept 2007

Thanks to ripple and js who organised a mc birthday party for me and kelvyn...

rip called up mac to make the reservation

rip: hello, i would like to make a reservation for a party on 8 sept
staff: ok what time?

... blah blah ..

staff: what's the age of the child?
rip: errr...... 30 ....
staff: ??!!??

And so a handful of us arrived at kallang mac on this sat afternoon. location was chosen cos there might be less people there, but wrong, the place was packed, there were 2 party rooms, and we used one of them, the room had glass walls, people were looking in cos there were this group of overgrown children in party hats sitting on mini chairs..
Other than the fantastic nuggets and fries, rip and js made cupcakes and even included a mini angel, supposed to be my bride.. hahaha
It was a wonderful afternoon spend at mac to relive our childhood dreams. having a party at mac was almost everyone's dream as a child!! ..
Thank you all of you for being there for the bd party!!!

Birthday Celebration 1

2007-10-14T13:13:00.000+08:00

I have kept these photos until now.. will post them up event by event..

Date: 6 Sept 2007

First birthday celebration was just a simple dinner at tony romas with bingwei, alvin, leon, yvonne, zhenhong and libing. mingbao was supposed to be there, but he was too tied up at the hospital because it was his son's day of birth. this celebration was for bingwei and my birthday, since our birthdays are only 5 days apart.

If i didn't recall wrongly, we celebrated our birthdays at this exact same place 12 years ago!! gotta go dig out the photo, it was when we were all still in jc.. long long ago.. it was a nice dinner, and after that we went back to the hospital to see little jerard again.

Andie Into Semifinals

2007-10-11T22:42:00.000+08:00

Date: 25 Sept 2007

It's an evening at mediacorp again, it's round 2 of the competition at star search for andie. this time, 2 guys and 3 girls will be competing and 2 of the 6 will be dropped out. First segment was dancing, and the 3 guys are dance quite well, andie was quite impressive though. next was question and answer, and he did very well, he definitely left a stronger impression as compared to the rest of them..

Ok a little sidetrack, i was quite shocked to see more and more photographers in the studio as the show progresses, i dun remember seeing them in the last show, why does mediacorp need so many photographers? later i realised they were not interested in the show, they are interested in the judge who has been getting on the headlines... alex man...
Ok, back to the competition, last and most important segment, acting. andie was fabulous, because unrehearsed situations were put in to tekan the contestants, he handled them really well.. some of the other contestants couldn't handle them and even laughed.. he really deserved the top ranking for thos round!! looking forward to more exciting performances from him.This time round, i managed to catch hold of him for a pose after the show, the previous time, he was too busy being interviewed.. this was his nerdy look for the act, i wonder what image will he sport for the semifinals!!
Kelvyn with the most provocative poster of andie.

And here he is after changing out of his costume, as usual, the reception was full of fans waiting for them to come out so they could talk to them, take photos etc. hhmmm, oh i did that too.. aarrgghh .. so i'm labeled as a fan? haha.. will always be a fan of the bang brothers

2nd Annual Moontern Party

2007-10-04T12:00:00.000+08:00

This was held at js' place on 22nd sept this year. check out on the 1st moontern festival party here.A year has past really fast many things has changed too, ok let's not go into that. back to the moontern party, met some new people at the party, they were js' classmates.. couldn't remember all their names so i shall not try to list them here.. but we took lots of photos.. and as js had done such a good job on the writeup of the whole event, i shall not write too much here, please read it from there.
I was amazed by the spread on the table when i arrived. the prizes were nicely wrapped and labeled, high class mooncakes, very retro looking lanterns with candles and home made cookies as door gifts!!
Js and rip baked cuppy cakes and this time round they did not do the decorations on the top of the cupcakes, as we hav to decorate a cake each.. and the worst part is that at the end, we will have to eat one of the cake, lucky draw style.. 2 lucky ones won't have to eat it.. dun misunderstand, the cake is nice, but as you know, when you let people like us do the decoration, we will add whatever there is onto the cake, making it sweet like hell!!
After making your own cupcakes, it's time you make your own lantern, kk submitted 2 entries and he made them the night before, he's all out to win, oh and he did.. while most of the rest made our lantern only there on the spot.

Here's my creation being held by js.. we had lots of fun playing with lanterns, photos finding the right spot for photos, playing with sparkles, at around midnight, people walking past must be thinking that this group of people must have deprived childhoods, still carrying lanterns, playing with sparkles like little kids in the middly of the night in the middle of a quiet estate. but who cares!! having fun is more important..

It was a wonderful party... all thanks to jsrs.....

JSRS

2007-10-04T11:17:00.000+08:00

Remember some where in may, i was talking about ripple and js on a big secretive project? if you cannot remember, please read that posting again.

They have finally completed the big project after 4 long months.. and here we have...

Presenting.... jsrs!!
A lot of details in the painting, check out the details from js' blog here.. you just have to be impressed by the kind of talent rip has right? ok gotta give js some credit too, he did help out...haha

Dark Alley

2007-10-02T23:06:00.000+08:00

This photo has been shamelessly grabbed from cruz's blog... even without askingFor the fans of fm933, you would have remembered the 5 episode long radio production called dark alley in april this year.. if you have no idea about it, you can read all about it here.

The reason for this post is that, starting monday next week, dark alley 2 will be airing on 933 and it will be staring cruz, of course, he's the producer and also zhentao!! after not being in the media for some time, this ex superhost is back!!! so remember to tune in every night k? there's repeat telecast around noon on the next day too!! and the theme song of this production is very nice.. it's xiao qing ge by soda green!! and it's dark alley (first season) that made the song popular!! soda green should give cruz a big treat for that!

Dirty Dancing?

2007-10-02T17:38:00.001+08:00

21st Sept 2007

Met up with libing at xenbar again, they were having a party, quite a number of people turn up, i think it's all their students, free flow of lychee martini, and some performances from libing and gang. it's the same dance as what we saw previously (see here, and here, and here, and here) so i shall not post too much on the dance performance.. cos it's the same faces too...

This time, i got something interesting. i wonder what kind of dance this is... we gotta ask him.
Here's one of the 2 performances they did for the people who were present. really not easy to take photos of people dancing, cos they move very fast and the lighting is not very good there, luckily they had a powerful spotlight at the front. and the mirrors around the sides of the walls aren't helping, difficult to find a position where i won't catch the reflection from my flash.
As the music plays, everyone will look for a partner and find a nice spot on the dance floor to show what they have got. there are quite a few of them who dance pretty well..
And for people like me who know nuts about salsa, we can stand by the balcony for a fish eye view of the dancers, it's quite enjoyable to stand there and look at people dance too.

Jerard's Birth Day

2007-09-28T22:25:00.000+08:00

Very delayed. i think i gotta put in the date of the event in order not yo mislead people..

6th sept 2007...

There was a plan to meet up for dinner this night. but early in the morning, got an sms from bw saying the jh is on the way to the hospital, jerard can't wait to come out... haha.. so everyone was anticipating.. and just a few hours later, we got news that he's out, even got an mms from the dad. so evening plans was changed. we'll all meet at the hospital and then decide if we are going to go for dinner at the same time and same place...
Jerard was sleeping all the while, i didn;t get the chance to see how his eyes looks like. but while he's sleeping, he'll yawn, sometimes cry, have small movements.. etc etc.. very cute!! are all babies like that?
Mb carrying the fragile looking jerard, no one else among us dared to carry him, cos he's so tiny and we do not know how much strength to use to carry him up.
I've chose a nicer photo of jh, cos she felt that all the photos taken that day didn't feature her very well.. esp those with the double chins.. but i think this one is not bad, just that the hair is a little messy, but sleeping on the bed sure messed up right?

Btw, little jerard has already started his own blog. do visit him and check out on his progress at littlejerard.blogspot.com...

Star Search Round 1

2007-09-25T15:14:00.000+08:00

Bangjun's first round of the competition was held a few weks ago at mediacorp. i had to post this now, cos there will be more updates after the next round which will be held tonight.It was quite obvious that bangjun's supporters are more than the rest, it was a sea of red in the studio. there were lots of banners and small items made by friends and family to be distributed to the supporters before th show begin, everything was red and gold, it was quite a wonderful site, you should be able to see it from your tv screen at home.

He did quite a good job in all the segments, esp the dancing one. and he got through to the next round, let's hope that he'll continue the good work and work his way to the final round!! remember to tune in to channel 8 tonight for the show!!

Keeping the props after the show, to be used in the next round. and i waited quite a while to get a photo of him, but he was busy with the interview and didn't look up, and before he showed us his face, someone came over to me..."sorry no photos!!"
As usual, we proceeded for supper after the show. some time ago, when there was superhost, the super had to be chop chop cos it's back to the studio at 11pm for the result. this time, no voting, thus results are released immediately, so we have all the time after that for supper. but the star had to stay back for briefing, and he couldn't join us.Jia you bangjun!!

Support Kel

2007-09-24T18:31:00.000+08:00

Sorry for the lack of posts recently, was too busy with work and with that little bit of free time left, i filled it up entirely with activities... now that i have a little more free time, i'll start to post pics from the past 3 weeks.. gotta give me a few days...

Anyway, kelvyn is going on a community service trip to nepal to help the kids in terms of education and he's currently doing his bit by doing some fund raising so that they will have more funds to help these kids... you can read more at his blog here... but to summarise, he hopes that we can donate a small token and then he will get the kids to write their thoughts and send the postcard to us from nepal... sounds cool right? i donated $20.. to many of us we can spend $20 easily in a meal, but i think this money means a lot more to the kids there, if you ask me to take time off my busy schedule to go there to help them, i think it's very difficult for me, but if my $20 can help them, i think it's going to be for a good cause.. so if you see this and feel that you wanna help them too, you can either email kel (his contact is on his blog) or you can let me know and i'll pass the message to him.. or you can donate and then request that the kids write "happy belated birthday to jx" and get the postcard posted to me... it would be really nice.. haha

photo taken directly from kel's blog

ok .. will definitely try to get some photos edited and posted tonight!!

Italian Dinner Anyone?

2007-09-14T11:43:00.000+08:00

Zhiwei will be storming up an italian cuisine with his team from shatec @ Charcoal Restaurant from 17th to 22nd sept this month.

Theme: EXQUISITO ITALIANO
Place: Charcoal @ treasury building. (Cityhall, next to Funan center)
Price: $28 nett
Dress code: Smart casual.
Date: 17th to 22nd sept
Seating timing: Monday to thursday: 530pm to 10pm (last order 930pm)
Friday to saturday: 1st seating: 530pm to 745pm, 2nd seatings: 8pm to 10pm (last order 930pm)

Prelude of dishes:
1st course: Trio of antipasto
2nd course: Zuppa di italiano
3rd course: Soursop Sherbet
4th course: Choice of main course 1st: Roasted Duck leg served w orange sauce, summer greens & parsley mashed potatoes OR 2nd: Seafood squid ink pasta served w salsa di burro
5th course: Lavender & passion fruit mousse with strawberry sauce
Coffee or Tea with petit four

I was really busy, and i realised that today is the last day for reservation. Saturday 8pm onwards is full already. You can walk in too, if course makig a reservation will give you a guarantee of seats. I hope the food lovers out there will give him some support!
Thanks!!

(you can let me know if you wanna make a reservation, i'll help you with that)

Quarter Life Celebration

2007-09-10T08:35:00.001+08:00

Everyone have been asking me for the photos... sorry, i have been quite busy with work and other stuffs.. and there are lots of really backdated photos to post.. here are those from stanley's birthday celebration at food for thought. I was a wonderful celebration. stanley got around 20 plus friends and the whole cafe was for us only, it's not a big place, but quite cozy. and here we have yy presenting the big ang pow present to birthday boy.
The food looked fantastic, the garlic mash potato was marvelous. the other items are so so.. but the staffs there are really very service oriented, even though the food wasn't that good, i'm sure going back again, hopfully they will have improvement everytime i go back there.
From left to right, there's yunying, borong, js and rip.. waiting to dash over to the serving counter for the buffet dinner..

Surprise visit from superstar diya, something that stanley did expected. when he was asked to turn around, cos there's a special visit from a guest star, he was so shocked and excited, cos he thought his all time fave idol was going to appear.. but to his slight disappointment, it wasn't. but still a super star right? i have no superstar appearing for my birthdays??!! oh but i have a bunch of superhosts though ..

I group photo before the party ended.. i still have many more photos. still very messy in my harddisk, i'll send them out once i'm done with shrinking their sizes and simple touchups. so far i think there's birthday boy, andy and js who wants the photo, if you want them too, send me an email or an sms to let me know.

Comex 2007

2007-09-08T02:20:00.000+08:00

Went down to comex to check out external harddisks, meili requested for us to help her get one as she's running out of storage spaces for her serial videos...

Cruz was there hosting a show and cos i was late, i didn't get a good spot for photos. but i guess with so many more pro photographers around, there shouldn't be a lack of nice photos of him.

Got the seagate free agent Go 80Gb for meili. comes with 5 yr warranty,and it looks really chio in black and orange..

During every computer fair, you never fail to see this huge wastage of paper.. and this is only a small little part of the 2 big hall. i wonder how much of these brochures are collected and thrown away at the end of the show.

Salsa at Double O

2007-09-08T02:02:00.000+08:00

Went down to double o bar last friday with bingwei to check out a dance performance by the xenbar guys. and of course i have a task, to take nice shots of libing in action.. Firstly we have libing with justin and yanqing
And here we have libing and more friends who went down to support him.
They performed a total of 2 dances, i didn't get good photos of everyone as the place was quite small and there wasn't a lot of space for me to move around. here are the better ones that i got from the preformances.There are more photos, interestings ones were taken when everyone was a little high.. but i won't be showing those here... and we can all see that libing has indeed improved from the last time we see him perform. on his way to becoming a pro dancer!!

Fresh from the Oven

2007-09-06T14:57:00.000+08:00

Postings will be interrupted for a news flash
(postings will resume in cronological order after this)

mms from mingbao
(received 6 sep 2007 13:54pm)

Hi! I am Jerard Tan.
I am in Thomsom Medical Centre with my Daddy now.
He says Mummy is fine and will be at Room XXX later.

Woo... welcome to the world jerard... can't wait to go meet him in person

Yeah, one more september baby!!

Salsa Pro in Action

2007-09-04T18:23:00.000+08:00

Libing performed at double o bar last friday on their invitation. ok not him alone, but the guys from xenbar... haha

I haven't got time to do up all the photos yet... so here's one of him first.. more to come in a few days time!!

Poor Guy

2007-08-31T20:24:00.000+08:00

Poor zt, after a visit to nuh for a check, he ended up with a big bandage around the head. the kind where you usually see on a person who just had a car accident or a bad fall and suffering from severe head injuries.
This photo was self taken when he was at the hospital, and while he was walking around the car park, he couldn't remember where he parked his car, a staff actually asked if he was ok, most probably thought that he must have lost some memory with the head injury. it looks really serious right?

So i was telling him jokingly that with this bandage, he'll not be able to perform at the getais, and there's not many days left in the lunar 7th month. but i was wrong, according to him the performer usually go on stage with a headdress, so he can actually have the big flower petals headdress from 881 papaya sisters to cover up his big bandage... then going on stage wouldn't be a problem..

Of course, having mindy ong as his partner on stage will be even better...Remember to inform us on the date and venue for the performance, i'm sure all of us will be there to support you.

Getai Craze

2007-08-31T20:04:00.000+08:00

After watching 881, i really felt thaht i should go take a look at a getai performance. a few days ago, i was in yishun and there was a getai set up at the carpark. so i decided to go take a look to see if the performers were as entertaining as the papaya and durian sisters.There's this guy from taiwan, and he could sing a duet by himself, and he alternates between the male and the female voice. his costume was interesting too, when he first appeared, he was wearing this funny gold colour cap that looked like an oversised cook's cap(is there a term for the headdress?), and he had a cape, all in gold like some sort of a superhero. immediately i thought to myself, if he can go on stage to perform, i'm sure zt can do so too, with a mum being able to teach him singing techniques, he just needs to get some costume and go on stage. i'm sure cruz is more than willing to help him get a slot from his getai manager friend.

A malaysian singer.. claimed to be the lizhi of malaysia

After staying around for a while, i felt that it was not even half as entertaining as that we see in 881, or are there famous getais that actually have better performances, anyone knows about it?

Another scene you see quite often if the getai it set up in the car park. you get makeshift box seats!!

And not forgetting the lighting man.. without him, the performers' glittery costume will not be shimmering in the dark.

Por Dor

2007-08-30T01:19:00.000+08:00

It's the hungry ghost festival again. i'm sure we all know that, esp this year cos of the movie 881.. as a annual company event, we decided to have our prayer session last week, for those who do not know, this is called por dor in hokkien, i dunno what it means, just hear it year after year. some photos from the session here.

Dad lighting the joss sticks...

Mum praying for a better future for the company...

Offerings and food(our workers love this session for this)!!..

This year, we have more staff and thus more people at this event. check out photos from last year here.

Have been blogging for more than a year, slowly more annual events will start to repeat and we can start comparing photos from the previous year
After all the praying and burning, it's time to enjoy the food.. here's my nephew from malaysia, cute right? i realised that i have so many cousins that i cannot keep track of the nephews and nieces i have..

The Search for Stars has Started

2007-08-26T15:00:00.000+08:00

Ok .. i have picked a few photos of andie from the roadshow to be posted here, cos come friends read my last post on star search and asked "so who is your friend?" ...

Here's him posing for the wild crowd while the hosts are interviewing the rest of the contestants. during the roadshow, they contestants go one stage in groups of 4 to interact with the audience with some games. and andie's game was charade.. i'm sure he mist have enjoyed it totally, moreover he was the one acting!! look at the photo below and you know why so many people says that he looks like jim carey, i wonder if he will be tasked for such a role in the competition.
He and his naughty pose while waiting for the finale where they all go one stage for some photo taking. and look at the girl on the far right, i felt that she resembles a hk actress, but i cannot remember the name. anyone think so?

Last tuesday was the first studio live recording for the competition. mainly to introduce all the 20 contestants to the public viewers and also the 3 judges.
I arrived a little late, so i ended up with a lousy seat at the side. and it was so far from the stage, i couldn't get a decent photo of andie from here, thus i shall not post photos of him. jeremy, another of andie's supporter from mdc was late too, and he sat beside me, and during the waiting times we chatted a bit.. but only after the whole event that bangzhi told me he was one of the members of g-force, one of the contestants for superband. i guess when he introduced himself to me and i just chatted with him casually made him felt like "hmmm so you do not know that i'm a member of g-force". ok other than the 2 of us who had to sit on a seperate block because there's limited seats, here are the rest of andie's supporters, mostly in red.. Including his grandma, in a hip hop pose showing her bling bling ring.. and look at her bling bling shoes!!!

At the end when the recording ended, andie's aunt who saw me carrying a big camera, asked me to follow her down to the stage cos she wanted me to help her take photos. i was thinking to myself "no point lah, cos the contestants won't be allowed to waste time posing for phototaking, moreover they are all walking into the baskstage already, and there're lots of chance for her to take photos with andie next time" it was only a while later that i realised that she wasn't intending to take photo with the contestants, it was the judge she was eyeing on, and she even got andie's parents into the photo.. Remember to tune in to channel 8 every tuesday at 8pm for the competition. no votes required this time. the next show with him will be on 4th sept!! if you want tickets for the recording, do let me know, but i dunno if he will have enough tickets, but i guess no harm asking right?

Wii Sports

2007-08-26T12:21:00.000+08:00

It was sunday, and the plan was to go sentosa for a day of sports, sun and fun.. and the it draws nearer to the stipulated time, the sky became gloomy.. hai .. met up ay vivo city and decided to not go sentosa, just in case it rains when we got in. after some light snacks at vivo, we decided to go goldie and shengrong's place for wii! i have never played on a wii although i have heard quite a lot about it.
Wii bowling, where you swing your hands like you are holding the bowling ball, intersting man! i was quite impressed by the handheld sensors!! next we tried wii boxing, and shengrong gave us a demostration. it seems very easy, he was sitting down and he just waved his hands a little here and there!
Bangzhi and kelvyn decided to play against each other and instead of just waving their hands to control the character, they decided to play it like they are really in the boxing ring, with fall scall hand and leg movements!! it can be really tiring!! so i guess they got some sports although we were indoor and sentosa plan was cancelled.

The Silkair Monopoly Challenge

2007-08-25T13:07:00.000+08:00

Went down to ngee ann city with bangzhi and kelvyn for the silkair monopoly challenge, cos bz registered and is participating for it in hope to win to top price of $10,000 cash and 1 yr of unlimited flights on silkair. It was really crowded, the area infront of the building had a large tentage erected and around 50 tables of monopoly sets set up.. the aim was to collect as mush money and assets as you can in 1 hr, and the top 16 contestents with the highest nett worth will get into the finals.
4 rounds has passed when i was there, i thnk there were about 200 to 250 participants for each round. and the top 16 has assets worth more than $100,000.. it's so impossible, try playing monopoly yourself and see how much you are worth in 1 hr. after some tips from bangzhi, i realise it's not just about luck.. lot's of skill involved, esp in terms of negotiating with the other contestants.
It was quite sad that bangzhi was at a table with 3 very new players and they were slow in throwing the dice, meaning money flows into the game very slowly, with a very new auntie (doctor) player totally un-negotiable, and always wanting very good deals for herself... in the end, he won for the table, but his nett worth wasn't high enough for the finals!! i'm starting to find the game interesting, maybe i should start playing it leisurely!!

Listen to This

2007-08-24T19:16:00.000+08:00

你最近不说话
怎麽了为什麽
是不是有什麽事让你不快乐
听说你最近很孤单
有点乱有点慌
可是我却不能够在你的身旁
你想要的我却不能够给你我全部
我能给的却又不是你想要拥有的
我们不适合也不想认输
好几次我们抱着彼此都是想要哭
你常解释这样的一切都只是开始
我觉得是所有的一切早就已结束
不想再约束
不要再痛苦
下一次会有更好的情路
....

Star Search 2007

2007-08-20T23:52:00.000+08:00

If you have been watching local channels, you should have seen the promo clips for this next talent search programme. the one where zoe tay was found. went for the roadshow at plaza singapura over the weekend.. going to town on a sat afternoon is really not easy of you are driving. jam at cte, jam at newton, jam at cairnhill, jam at orchard, jam at the carpark entrance. sembawang to ps takes more than ah hour!! next big question you have is why am i doing this.. cos andie is participating mah, so gotta go support .. so here are the photos and some interesting people...
The 2 beautiful host for the event, peifen and xuqi. xuqi was emphasizing that she got into the media circle through star search too... 10 yrs ago.. wow, i was a little shocked, she still looked really young after 10 yrs..
Went there with bangzhi, his dad, stanley, his friend, kelvyn and there were a group of andie supporters. they had self made posters and banners in their hands.. art teachers will be so proud of them if those were their art projects.
Here's an interesting person beside kelvyn, read the details on kel's blog (click to open).

Another interesting guy is this one, totally enthusiatic, especially when the hosts were trying to get volunteers to go one stage for some games with the contestants. he was frantically waving and shouting to xuqi (who wasn't very far from him. but with such enthusiasm, i guess any host will be afraid to get him on stage, just in case he gets too wild and uncontrollable.

Xuqi: we need a guy for the next game, is there any guys who want to volunteer?
Guy with tie: (raises hand high up) me! me! me!
Xuqi: (looks across the guy) where are the guys, how come no guys are willing to come on stage?
Guy with tie: me! me! (waves wildly) i'm a guy (nan ren)!!
It's really difficult to be a host.

Will post more photos of andie later, took too many, haven't decided which to post. Watch out for the show tonight(tuesday)!! (8pm channel 8) this time round no need to vote. it's 100% by judges.

Unusual Growth on Salivary Gland

2007-08-20T19:27:00.000+08:00

As promised, i shall update on my friend who was warded. he found an unusual lump somewhere behind his ear lobe, and it started growing bigger, being worried, he decided to check it out with the doctor, and it's actually a tumor!! shocked!! the doctor had to test to see if it's belign or malignant (i only got to know these 2 words now, if you do not know, check dictionary.com). doctor advises to remove it before it becomes cancerous. so he was scheduled for a day surgery to remove it, and it sounded simple.. wrong.. the operation took 7 hrs and he woke up in pain, all over the body, who knows what was done to him (his body) when he was on general anaesthesia.
The wound was bandaged up and it seems like a very big cut around the ear right? i guess they really have to open it up wide to take out something as big as an egg... so according to him, he now feels that there's this hollow around the ear, like having a tooth missing. a really big tooth.

Oh and if anyone who knows about insurance is reading this, is there any policy where one can claim for a surgery like this? cos it's $7k!! not including ward charges yet... and who knows when would any of us get something similar.. cannot be borrowing from loan sharks to pay for medical bills right?

Today, he went to the doc and got the bandage removed... and he took a photo of how his ear looks like now.. view it at your own risk... if you think you will freak out, please do not click anything and the posting ends here... btw.. no prizes for guessing who this unlucky guy is. and another btw, this thing is called pleomorphic adenoma, i wonder how doctors can remember all these terms.

Click here to view the photo

881 Yo Ah Yo

2007-08-19T19:09:00.000+08:00

Have been reading many reviews about the local production 881. and i realised that no one wrote bad reviews about it... so i felt that it's a show i must watch.
Caught it with jl on one of the weekday and realised that more than 90% of the show is in hokkien. luckily there was subtitles. if not i would be coming out of the theatre totally blur. the hokkien songs were nice.

Loved the song that they played at the end of the show, singer has a nice voice too, totally suitable for a song like that.

Another song that created quite an impact on me in the show was the song on 12 lotus flowers. it's a very sad song. here's a version of the song not from the movie posted by cruz. zt has been singing this song a lot this week...

After the movie, we had dinner at terra cafe in vivocity. a very wrong choice. only when i sat in there and jl asked me if it's the same on as that in bugis junction that i recalled reading a bad review about this place.. decided to give it a chance. and regretted!! dun eat there...Just when we were done with dinner, got a call from a friend to say that a supposed day surgery took longer and more complicated than expected and he has to be warded. so we rushed to nuh to see how he's doing..will post more on that later...

Another Birthday

2007-08-19T19:02:00.001+08:00

It was xingzan's birthday and he was on half day, so i met up with him for afternoon tea at this small cafe called house of bread in simpang bedok. very quiet place, suitable for tea and chat. and he always trys to block himself when i want to take photos of him, this time round, he didn't but the photos i got wasn't really clear, but anyway, here's one of them... This friendship has come a long way.. since sec school .. and whenever i say something like that, i really feel very old.. haha.. anyway... happy birthday xingzan..

Happy JS Day part 2

2007-08-12T17:40:00.000+08:00

Another simple celebration for js' birthday. This time round just jx js jt and jl, and if you have forgotten, it's the j4.. hahaha
Dinner at basil alcove, followed by chilling out at dempsey hill, initial intention was to go ps cafe, but it was far too crowded and we didn't know how long will the wait be, so we took a walk around the area.walked to the ben & jerry's cafe and there were available seats, instead of waiting for one at ps cafe, we decided to settle for it here. they had some kind of promotion for national day as well as uob card, so instead of 6 scoops, we got 8 scoops of ice cream..

Everyone felt that this whole think looks more like ice kachang... i'm not sure if it's because of the crowd that made them rush through making the ice cream or is the standard like that all the while. this merlion thing looks like merlion's vomit!! the whipped cream seems over whipped. we should have asked for the toppings on a seperate bowl. or even better, every scoop on it's individual bowl.An as usual, before anyone can start eating, there must be a round of photo taking, it's always more interesting to have photos on your blog to illustrate what you want to bring across right? and here's all the gadgets we have for times where the moment is to be captured, of course my big one was currently in use.

And it has been a long while since i use the label j4, which means the 4 of us haven't met up for so long, i almost thought i couldn't use this label anymore. i wonder who's the busy one.....

Back From Shanghai

2007-08-12T17:22:00.000+08:00

Siying is back from shanghai for a short holiday, and we decided to catch up over dinner at fish & co at novena.. and everyone was really late .. i was 30 mins late and i'm the second one to arrive.
This lady have been enjoying life in shanghai with weekly facials and manicures, everything seems really cheap there.

And it has been a really long time since i've met grace and weihong.. they didn't change much though.
Another person who always seems too be busy with work is junwei, and he actually made it for this gathering...

Dinghong, the person who suggested the place can actually forget about this dinner totally!!

Weekend Getaway (Part 2)

2007-08-08T14:10:00.001+08:00

We spent most of our time nuaing at the resort. the pool was quite small, but since there wasn't many people using it, we have most of it to ourselves at most times. walked around the area around the resort, around the mountains, to other resorts, along the beaches and the mangrove swamps.. and we were happy that we got the railay bay resort, the others, except 1 which i'll talk about later, seems very lok kok. and we manage to get hold on a couple bottles of chang beer! wonderful for a hot afternoon.

The beach was fantastic. lot's of tourist sun tanning there, i wonder why they prefer it there with the sand rather then at the pool. anyway, the beach is full of activities, locals playing soccer, volleyball, frisbee etc.. kids building sandcastles, and we saw this artist (looks like one from his cap) who's making a sand beauty!! it was really nice.. regret not asking the guys to strike a pose around the artwork.

And a the end of the beach, we saw a huge swimming pool!! really huge.. and then we realised that it belonged to another resort called rayavadee. once we walked into their premises, the security guard approached us to ask if we needed any help? very courteous. then we faked to ask about their spa and facilities. so he brought us to a staff at the restaurant just by the pool and she made a phone call, then she told us to wait while the buggy is coming to fetch us to the spa!! on the way to the spa, we realised that the place is really big!! it's like a huge jungle, and the cottages are so beautiful and situated quite a distance from one another. cut the story short.. cheapest spa service costs around s$150 and the cheapest accom for 2 cost s$1000 a night!!!! you get to take their posh ferry to the bay as well.. check out their website.

Happy JS Day

2007-08-08T07:57:00.001+08:00

Js' birthday has past but many cannot make it on the actual day, so we had a belated celebration. i had to miss the surprise party because i was not in singapore. and rip did not tell me it was supposed to be a surprise, i nearly wanted to sms js to tell him i'll meet him another time since i cannot make it for the gathering. so on wed, i finally met up with him together with rip sr kel goldie and anan at sushi tei.

And because the presents he wanted are too expensive for us to give as solo gifts, we had to do the same as what we did last year ... give ang pow!! and the angpow is big!!It was a creative ang pow made by ripple.. the card was cute too!! and of course, we took lots of photos.. and here's showing you people how to take a good group photo.. first preparation.. then after lot's of n.gs you might be able to get a good shot!! and goldie found out from somewhere that if you say "yeh" when posing, the smile looks ore natural, go try it and see for yourself. click on the photo below to see a larger version if you cannot see the text clearly
Oh and shengrong finally got his braces removed after having it for 6 years (dun you think that's a very long time?).. i dun even know him back then. so how does he look without them?
Here's a photo that i like very much from that day. the smile was natural.. unlike the many funny faces from him in the group photos!! Happy birthday js, remember to show us the present that you got from the angpow!!

Weekend Getaway (Part 1)

2007-08-05T12:44:00.001+08:00

Trip to krabi was indeed a wonderful getaway from the usual life in singapore. the place seems so secluded that you cannot do anything much except nua, unless you do mountain climbing.. didn't know what to expect of the place before going cos i have never heard of this place before and i didn't have time to check it out on the web. so we just tried our luck in booking a hotel that seems alright.

It was my first time on tiger and also my first time boarding from the budget terminal. initially i thought the only place i can find food is han's but upon checking in, there are quite a few food outlets including o'briens.
Boarding pass came in a form of a printed reciept, really budget. and we took tha chance to grab some duty free liquor for consumption at krabi. we even brought our own in flight entertainment system.
We booked a room for 3, but 4 of us are staying, so in order not to let the staff know that there are 4 of us, we decided to not take the airport transport service by the hotel, and tried to make our own way there (wrong move). at the airport, we enquired on how to get to railay bay, and was told to take a cab to ao nang beach, then take a longtail boat to ferry us across to the bay. seems easy. we paid for the cab @ 200baht each to pier. upon reaching the pier 45mins later, we were told that water conditions was not good and boats are not going out, so we gotta pay another 50baht each for the cab to get us to the other pier at ao namao. 15 mins later finally reached the super lok kok pier and luckily they have boats going across. but we have to wait till there was 8 person. waited for 30 mins and no one was there, it;s nearly 10pm at night.. and we offered to pay for 8 persons for them to get us across!! yes that's another 140 baht a person. reached railay bay, on the easy side, and our hotel is on the west side.. now we have to walk ....... blah blah .. finally got to our room, and spent more that what we would have if we took up the airport transfer service!!!
Anyway, the place was good. i felt that for S$150 a night for this room for 3, it's really worth it. the room was big and clean, breakfast was good, nice scenery, good service. i really recommend this place (railay bay resort and spa) if any of you guys are looking for a good place to stay at railay bay. will post more later!!...

Gifts from Europe

2007-07-31T23:50:00.000+08:00

Ripple and js just got back from europe (ok this post was a little late, they have been back for a couple weeks already)... check it out here, here and here.. and they brought some gifts back for me!!they even found my special request of instant risotto... now i gotta plan when to cook it... and i finally got a bottle of absolut pears... thanks guys!!!

Lunch at Evans

2007-07-31T23:32:00.000+08:00

Chongwei came back singapore for a short visit to settle his visa. he got a new job, hopefully he will like this job better, now he and me can be considered to be in the same industry, but his is more atas.. haha.. we took this chance to meet up and decided to spend a lazy afternoon having lunch at the wine company at evans road together with jiehong mingbao ting alvin bingwei and of course not forgetting little jerard.
The food was quite good. most of us took the brunch set that consist of eggs, saussage, bacon, baked beans and a basket of breads. looks more like breakfast right? but i like this variety of food, feels like having breakfast at the hotel when travelling overseas. Here's the crowd for the day.. the place was quite empty and very quiet. nice place to chat. but i wasn't very satisfied with the photos taken that day. must find another time to go there again.

Time passed so fast.... we knew one another for more than 13 yrs already!!! to recall.. i knew alv in 1988, mb and cw in 1990, ting in 1993, jh and bw in 1994 (did i get any of the years wrong?)... and it's now already 2007!!! time can really fly very fast...

Krabi Getaway

2007-07-30T17:30:00.001+08:00

I was a wonderfull weekend with terry yihan and jackson at railay bay in kriba, thailand. sorry for the lack of posts in the last few weeks, was too busy with work. lot's of unposted and unsorted photo, will try to post them all up this week, inluding those from this trip..
The trip was a very relaxing one, getting away from the usual busy life in singapore.. the place is really beautiful, although a very small place, but can be really fun.. had some adventures over there too.. ok.. back to work..will update soon!!

Congratulations

2007-07-25T11:20:00.000+08:00

It has been a while since i attended a wedding.. this time round it's ruey loon's turn. couldn't make it for the dinner so i took time to go for the church ceremony. i went there and realise that i dun know a single person there, all of them weren't there, cos they are attending the dinner in the evening. and as usual, i wasn't very early so i couldn't get a good seat at the front for nice photos. was seated right at the back of the isle. oh and the bridal car looked gorgeously retro.

More Birthday

2007-07-22T12:23:00.001+08:00

This time, it's mum's birthday, and after the bad experience with chocolate cake, i decided to get a fruit cake instead, this one is definitely a better choice. at least we could finish the cake with no left over.

Mum didn't want to put too many candles on the cake so we only used 2 big ones out of the so many candles that was given to us. hahaha it was a simple celebration at the office, after having lunch at soup restaurant... Happy birthday mum!

Naughty Little Cyrus

2007-07-16T08:30:00.000+08:00

Anather very backdated post. met up with nisban booncheng and little cyrus last sunday for lunch. haven't met them in quite a while. cyrus has grown quite a lot, in term of size an also in terms of intelligence. he actually recognises a camera. what i took my camera out, he started posing and he knows i'm taking photos of him.After the phototaking, we started chatting and didn't really gave him much attention. and i wonder if it's because he really wanted attention that he dropped a cup full of milo on the floor causing a real big mess on himself, his mum and the floor.. of course he started crying, and insisted that the cup be picked up, really fierce... insisted that the place had to be cleaned up ... and only his dad and mum knows what he was instsing on, cos i dun really understand what he meant by pointing at the cup and the floor. the interesting thing about him crying is tat he could actually accumulate his tears in the eyes and make them fall in huge droplets.. wah .. bc then said to him "you dun have to do this, no matter how big your tear droplet is, it's useless". seems like it's not the first time he's doing this.. then the dad said: "the next thing he's going to do is to vomit". i was shocked.... but he didn't ... we were getting so much attention at the cafe that i got a little paisei.. and we decided to leave, just as we were leaving, cyrus, who's still crying started to cough and it sounded like he's choking... then... he vomitted all over himself.. wah nisban really knows his son well .. i wonder how i can ever take care of a kid like that.. i think he's really smart, using such methods for attention.. must be inherited from the dad.. very gao geng.
Leon and mb, you might wanna consider meeting up with them and see what's coming your way in the next few years.

Surface Computing

2007-07-11T13:18:00.000+08:00

Saw this from starsapphire's blog. watched it and i was totally amazed by the technology. you gotta see it for yourself

This seems like a super big version of the iphone(the multitouch technology). the wireless connection and interface to devices like the camera and phone is just too cool!!