Supposed to be on MC today, but since I felt better (fever broke), I went back to work for a short while this morning for some tasks before I headed back home.

After a short rest, picked Mum up and headed down to ee_lyn's studio weloveyu to pick a dress for a dinner this Sunday. Alas... although all her dresses were terrific, I didn't quite have the right physique (read: fat). Lucky for me, I still managed to get a nice black dress named "Minutes" which can be used both for day and night, depending on how one accessorises it. Went off a happy girl. (Note to self: true motivation to continue jogging after today's incident; I need to regain that physique that I once had eons ago!!!)

Headed back down to Orchard area, right straight to Taka to settle some business with the spa. Something about the points deduction from our spa package that didn't quite add up. Settled everything quite nicely and headed off, with Pops in tow (who actually took a bus down to meet us) to dinner @ Cedele's. Of coz, the old fogies got to explore Ion @ Orchard en route, and were just as lost as I was in the crazy maze and crowds of people.

Dinner was good and dad was in a good mood, maybe coz I finally brought him to this place Mum & I had been raving about for the longest time. Mum even brought some of my aunties to Cedele's for tea once and they loved it too.



Pity Hubba didn't make it due to miscommunication and my poor dear had to eat dinner on his own instead. To make up for the miscomm, I picked up a nice dessert for him instead, just before leaving.

Took the day off today to do several things:

1. Take a break - need one before I have to go on a two-week no back up period, while my colleague goes on marriage leave.
2. Send car in for servicing - been sitting on it for some time.
3. Go for a much needed spa - hot stone massage and age-defying facial.
4. Spend time with Mummy. :)

( Elaborated under the cut )

Next up: Creative Eyebrow Embroidery tomorrow morning.

Today was a pretty packed day, such that I found it exhausting.

After the morning jog, Hubba and I rushed to complete our housework before we set off for a birthday lunch at FK & Judy's place, to celebrate their baby Aidan's 1 yo birthday as well as Judy's birthday.

As expected, Baby Aidan didn't recognise me since the last time we saw him, which was during CNY. Boy has that little fella grown. He was a little withdrawn in the beginning, and even burst into tears a few times coz of all the strange faces. But after a while, he did warm up to us, and it was pretty fun playing with him.


Judy & Baby Aidan

Later in the evening, we dropped by Tampines central for Hubba to get his library books and to shop on the last day of the GSS. Hubba managed to get himself a replacement pair of sandals (his Teva of 3 years is slowly giving way after our Spain trip) and another pair of working leather shoes (which I felt was a good steal at $69), whilst I got myself another Fancl Lip Cream (somehow their lip balm is super moisturizing and not overly greasy) and a pair of Americaya heels. Think Americaya shoes somehow fit my feet pretty well, and I got this pair of comfy peep-toes to use for work such that I can send my other two pairs of Americaya heels to the cobbler to do up the insoles (the glue for the insoles is giving way). We also accompanied KH in search of his winter wear.

Dinner was at Din Tai Feng coz Hubba had a craving for their fried rice. So the two guys gorged themselves crazy with the fried rice with grilled pork chop, while I had the dan dan mian, and as we ate, I was entertained by the male nonsense sprouting from the two in front of me who were high on their food.



After such a crazy day, I can't believe the weekend is over! Totally not looking forward to working after such a lovely weekend. Why can't the weekend start on Friday and end on Monday, in which we just only work from Tuesday to Thursday?

Just because I had something insignificant to attend to in town, I decided to pull Hubba down to town to have dinner and explore the newly opened ION @ Orchard.

First we headed to Shaw House to try out this place Hubba had checked out, Tonkichi. He was having his tonkatsu craving again, so I just went with the flow. Unlucky for me, having the runs last night meant that I had to go easy on my choice of food, so I ended up going for a soupy ramen instead.


What we had

Am not sure if it was because I was not having a good appetite, despite being hungry, or whether it was really the food, but my miso ramen didn't taste as good as I thought it would. Hubba on the other hand, was happily enjoying his tonkatsu meal, which after all is what this place is known for. Perhaps if we do come back next time, I will make sure I come back on a day when my appetite is better to try the tonkatsu.

After our tummies were filled, we headed towards ION @ Orchard, where Hubba had explored while waiting for me. Somehow, I didn't like the place. Its layout felt like Vivocity all over again, very unfriendly to shoppers unfamiliar with the place, and very maze like. Finding our way around felt like forever, even though Hubba had already ventured through the place. Thankfully he remembered where he saw the shop whose ice-cream that he want to try and we managed to find our way there whilst weaving through the crowd.


The ice cream above is Belgium Noisette (No. 5), bought from a store called Marvellous Creams at basement 4, where the ice-creams were actually frozen versions of popular desserts. This was super delicious compared to the one that Hubba chose, which was Creme Brulee Banana (No. 7), which I felt was a tad too sweet for my liking.

Overall take on ION, I think I will give it a miss until the crowd dies down. After all, although today was the opening day, not all the stores were open. Think it will take some time for the craze to ease up, just like Tampines One, which is still very crowded in the evenings and on weekends. Anyway I'm not that fussed since the only pull for me to go there would be to savour the ice cream, and purchase the super yummy Royce chocolates from Japan, which I fortunately can live without.

Had the day off today, and decided to spend some time with Mummy dearest.

First we headed off to town for brunch, after seeing dad off to pick up his old "new" car from the workshop, at Toastbox in Centrepoint. Then we headed for a pampering session at True Spa for a facial, followed by a pedicure. Facial was good... all the months of accumulated debris was all removed from my face, and I have to say, my beautician did a good job. During the pedi, I managed to psycho Mummy into getting a dark colour for her pedi, rather than the typical reds that she goes for.


Mummy, me and our pedicures

After all the pampering, we headed back to Centrepoint for some shopping and makan. After a nice zen meal at TCC, we headed off to Nine West boutique to see shoes. And to my delight, I managed to settle on a pair of leather boots that was going for more than 50% discount @ $75!


Nine West Ilume Leather Boots in Black (Picture from Amazon.com)

After this, we walked around, originally looking for Giordano to buy me a pair of jeans. But little did we know, Gap had replaced Giordano in Centrepoint (goes to show how long we've not shopped in town). And we ended up shopping in Robinsons.

We actually had no intention of buying stuff, but somehow one thing led to another, and before we knew it, we started looking at bags. Mummy was eying a Radley red leather clutch which was on 20% discount, and somehow the last piece wasn't in good condition as the seams were frayed. At that time, Mummy was suggesting giving me a choice for my birthday, either dinner or a bag. Then we saw the Longchamp counter. And we never got to turn back away from the dark side, coz we ended up getting two Longchamp items.


My Longchamp purchase


Mummy's Longchamp purchase

After that super expensive buy, we told ourselves enough was enough and home was our final destination of the day.

After a hiatus from my last run in Feb, due to my falling sick yet again, I made myself head down to the gym yesterday after work and did a good workout. At least I am still feeling the effects of pushing myself yesterday.

Had to go buy myself a pair of shoes first, before I started my workout, coz my old pair of running shoes had opened a gaping hole after going through the intense team-building session last week. Headed down to the Royal Sporting House in Parkway Parade when I reached the gym, only to be waylaid by the Adidas Shop's sale.

( More about my buy )

With this purchase, I immediately started wearing the new shoes, and chucked my old ones in the box. The sales person actually offered to dispose off the shoes for me, but I decided to keep them, just in case I had another crazy session of team building, for which I was not going to sacrifice my new expensive running shoes.


Run done using my new pair of Adistar Ride

Feel quite proud of myself, coz I ran flat out on the treadmill without pausing. Although, I'm pretty sceptical of my iPod Nike+ calibration coz it didn't track the same distance as the treadmill. In fact, it was 1km difference (treadmill reading was 2.4km). Anyhow, have reset the calibration and shall see how it performs for the next run.

I better make sure that the next run is not another month away... don't wanna waste my new pair of shoes. :P Oh, and many thanks to the sales person at the Adidas Store at Parkway who helped me with my purchase. Pity I didn't get his name; really ought to commend him on his excellent recommendation and service. Well, all I can say is, to anyone who wants to buy a good pair of sports shoes you should go down to that store for his help.

I love Amazon. It's really good to be able to order stuff from Amazon online, especially when they are not available in Sg, or when the one available in Sg does not have the special features in the DVD set, and have them delivered straight to you in a couple of days.


Just got part of my latest order shipped to me, which consists of the widescreen DVD edition of "The Dark Knight" and "Twilight: The Complete Illustrated Movie Companion". Yes I've actually become a Twilight Yuppie. But what is more thrilling is to gather information from the book about what goes on behind the scenes to create the magic and wonder of film; the background homework that has to be done to piece everything together before the final product, even before filming begins.

Which makes me wonder, why didn't I go into film in the first place? The film industry seems to be so much more interesting. From sets to costumes to going on-site, there seems to be so much more to learn and absorb. Planning the action sequences, the wire work for stunts, to choreographing sequences, everything seems so fun! Really makes me wish I could go back in time and re-plan my job prospects all over again...

Anyway, now the only 2 other items on the pending ship list would be the Twilight DVD 2-disc special, which is supposed to be released in March, and "The Twilight Saga: The Official Guide", which is still pending release. I can't wait! *rubs hands in glee*

Had some Mummy time yesterday after my full day seminar in town.

We had earlier agreed on going to the Spa for facial. But the only available slot was at 8pm at Cuppage. So after my seminar ended, I picked her up and we drove down to park near Cuppage, but went shopping first to while the time.

I managed to buy some bras to replace some of my old ones, which have been with me for almost 10 years. Ha! that's how sentimental I am with my garments. But bras are so ex now, so as long as they function properly still, why change?

Anyhow, we paid the happy sales people some good money and went on for a light dinner at TCC. I had the wild garden salad which was super scrumptious while Mummy had the seafood aglio olio, which was pretty good too. For drinks, I ordered a light Tsujiki, green tea with yuzu and some other fruity stuff blended while Mummy had the Russian Earl Grey which had bergamot infused into the tea.

With our tummies nicely filled, we proceeded to the Spa for our scheduled facial. Boy were we surprised. The facial was none like what we were used to, and the girls were really good in keeping both of us relaxed. I fell asleep pretty fast, and it was a first that Mummy didn't complain of the cold as the "bed" actually had a heater underneath which kept both of us nice and warm. An hour long session was all it took, but we were really rejuvenated at the end of the session and somehow I felt like I could on to work for the next 12 hours. Ha!

Now we are planning for the next possible session next month, to have a facial plus the massage if possible. :) So looking forward to that...

Went down to Bugis to meet the hubs for dinner. Actually took the plunge to drive down after the peak hour was over (past 1930hrs) and was pleasantly surprised that it was not that badly congested. Needed to pay the $2 ERP though, just to park at Bugis Junction, which thankfully had per entry parking after 5pm.

Upon leaving the carpark, I chanced upon an optical shop that was having a sale on most shades, including Ray Ban's. Apparently the offer was not just to that shop I had gone to in Wheelock Place, but at some other stores too! After much deliberation, I chose this pair:


New model just in!

After spending good money on this cool pair of shades, I met up with the hubs to have our dinner at our favourite Japanese-Western Restaurant, Ma Maison.


Halloween Dinner 2008, the first Halloween we have spent together ever since we started work.

Dinner at Ma Maison was super good as usual, and for anyone who loves squidink pasta, they have one of the best that I've tried. Hubba's pork cutlet was also superb!

Now I'm dreading the weekend, coz come Monday, the hub's would be gone for 2 weeks! Sob!

I think it's something to do with age or the fact that we both used to work in the retail sector, but the hubs and myself don't really like going down to Orchard coz we don't like crowds. So that area is almost always avoided whenever possible.

However, we had to make a trip down yesterday coz the hubs' new iPod Nano was giving trouble. Yup, barely a month, and the light had conked off. Since it was still under warranty, we were entitled for a one-to-one exchange, juz that we had to wait for 3 working days before we got our hands on the replacement. Even we were there early, before lunch time, Epicentre @ Orchard was already totally packed, and we still had to wait a good half hour or more.

While the hubs was being attended to at the service centre, I browsed around and managed to get myself this:


A little something to secure my Nike+ sensor on my shoe.

Anywayz, after the entire wait, we finally got to go for lunch. And where better than Cedele's, where I had been wanting to bring the hubs to for the longest time. Here's what we had:


Hubba's Beef Stew



My Wild Mushroom Soup



Hubba's Main: Rosti Sea Bass



My Main: Beef Balsamic Mushrooms

Hubba gave the food a thumbs up, and I think we probably have to find ourselves an outlet to frequent away from town, in order to continue frequenting Cedele's.

After the heavy lunch, I spied a sale at the hidden optical shop, and went in to take a look, while the hubs went to browse at Borders. A number of sunglasses were on offer, and in the range of 20 - 30%. And to my delight, majority of the sunglasses on offer were still rather new models! Wanted to get myself a pair of stylish shades to be worn with work clothes, but none that I tried look nice on me, coz of my almost non-existent nose bridge. Finally I set my eyes on this pair, and after trying it, there was no turning back, even though it wasn't what I had set out to look for:


Ray Ban Xrays in Pink

Something sporty, and totally cool. Something I could use when cycling / biking.

After this buy, I forced myself not to look into any more shops so as to prevent myself from buying anymore stuff. But I did head home a happy gal...

Silly me did something dumb.

Hubs and I went to NTUC to pick up some groceries. Ended up only purchasing my favourite Meiji milk and a pack of muesli bars for breakfast.

At the cashier, since I had lots of small change, I decided to pay the cashier with whatever shillings I had to lighten my load; so I gave her the exact amount. Thanking her for her patience, I waited for my receipt, but didn't get any. Embarrassed to be the cause of a hold-up of the queue, hubs and I decided to forgo the receipt and walked off.

Unfortunately, we took it for granted that both items had been packed in a single bag. We didn't realise until when we were home that the pack of muesli bars had not been packed in. With no receipt, there's no way we can go back to ask for the pack of muesli bars too. So, we basically "donated" $5 to NTUC during this trip. :(

Have been egging to get a car for quite some time now, and with the change of job, and the inconvenience of the new working place (no eating areas nearby other than the Expo which is a 15-minute walk away), I was spurred into putting that thought into action.

Was originally going to buy a friend's car off her hands but pricing wasn't really right. Plus it wasn't the model that I was looking into either.

Discussed the situation with my parents (the husband wanted out, coz he didn't think it was a necessity) during lunch and decided that getting a new car would be better than a second hand car.

So went car shopping with my dad in the afternoon and after looking around and all (I actually did my homework yesterday), I made my downpayment for my new car:


The Nissan Latio Sport

As usual, with the outings, I ended up by a little something for myself. Which is good, coz it gave me reason to clear away some old stuff and be happy.

First things first, I bought myself a nice pouch from Sony Ericsson shop when I was in Raffles City yesterday. It was one of those pouches that I had been eying for a long time on the website, and I was really glad I got it.


Picture taken from Sony Ericsson website

What I love about this pouch is that it's multi-functional. Other than using it to house my phone, I can also slip in a couple of cards, cash and I can just leave the house with this little baby in my hands. Neat! Of course, with the stylish accessory as an option, I can dazzle it up and use it as a dinner bag too for functions. Totally cool!

( More buys here.. )

Took half-day leave on Friday and spent it with Mummy for the long overdue mother-daughter outing.

The afternoon was spent entirely in town, specifically at Tangs and Takashimaya. Why? Coz little old me had just realised after scanning through my wardrobe the other day that a big portion of my work clothes have been with me since 2003/04. *Slaps forehead* Really about time for all these "old clothes" to be chucked into the pile of homewear clothing, to make way for new outfits. Thankfully we had some vouchers, so it kind of helped lessen the expenditure.

After 4.5 hours, we spent more than $1.3k on 5 dresses, 3 coaties (2 for Mummy), a blouse, 3 shirts for the hubs and 3 pairs of Geox shoes (2 for me, 1 for Mummy). Gosh! The expenses for next month would have to be carefully watched.

After a couple of weeks of a cranky mobile, and the possibility of missing job opportunities due to its non-reliance, I finally gave in to purchase a new phone last night, the SE G900 in red!

Phone's pretty good, very slim, pretty reliable 5mb camera and has nice clear speaker sound. Package even came with free bluetooth headset and 1gb memory card. Only minus found so far is that the contacts function is pretty weird. After copying all the contacts over, whenever the phone book is open, the contacts on your phone memory and SIM card are both shown, resulting in duplicates. Also, sms entry is more email like now, and reminds me a bit of the Samsung phone that my dad has, which needs some time to get used to. Haven't really fiddled with the rest of the functions yet, but on the whole, I do like the "Post-It" style notepad fastkey as well as the keylock shortcut key on the side of the phone.

Just hope whatever problems with the phone will surface within this one week, if there are any.

After a couple of weeks of enduring the death of our existing DVD player, which unfortunately is an all-in-one home-entertainment system, plus searching online for the best deals in town, the hubs and I finally got a replacement.

Thankfully the old player only conked off relative to the player head (player head was not detecting discs nor reading anything), but the sound system was still working fine. So after checking with some reliable sources (a.k.a my dad and his sound-enthusiast friend), we realised the cheapest way to solve the problem was to get another DVD player, together with an optical cable and hook that up to the existing player, which would then act as the A/V receiver.

So off we went to Courts to take a look at the DVD players on sale. What we wanted was something cheap (preferably less than $200), had the optical cable slot, could read multi-region, and had HDMI capabilities.

At first we had settled on a LG DVD player that was going only for $169, with HDMI, USB and card-reader capabilities. But when we were about to pay, the salesperson recommended a Pioneer DVD player, which was going on 50% discount at $199, with HDMI & USB capabilities, and supported multi-region code and all recordable types of media, as well as DivX, WMA/MP3, WMV file types.


Pioneer DV-400V-S DVD Player

We ended up going along with the salesperson's recommendation and bought the Pioneer, together with an optical cable, which came to be slightly less than $300.

Once we reached home, the hubs spent less than half an hour to do the entire set up with the old player and in no time, we were able to enjoy our rented DVD "Untraceable" on the big screen, that is our 42-inch LCD TV. So much for having survived watching rented DVDs on our laptops for the past couple of weeks.

Iron Man rocks! My impression of Robert Downey Jr has totally changed. I initially wondered, "What the hell are they trying to do? This guy ain't a superhero kind of actor." Possibly coz of his role as Larry Paul in "Ally McBeal" that left a long-lasting impression on me.

Still, his portrayal as Tony Stark really brings a quirky kind of humour to the movie, and gave him a kind of charisma that one would never expect of a superhero character. Pretty unusual. The chemistry between him and Gwyneth Paltrow (who plays Pepper Potts) is also not the typical on-screen chemistry one would expect. Nevertheless, I found myself pleasantly surprised by the atypical hero kind of plot that this movie presented, that totally made sense at the end of the show why Robert Downey Jr would be cast as the lead. Now, I must admit that I'm really looking forward to the sequel, which is unfortunately a 2-year wait.

( On other things... )

So sian, barely a week back from Hokkaido and I've already caught the flu bug! :(

Was asked by a colleague to go see the doc to get MC, so that I wouldn't go spread the germs in the office. Did so dutifully, and have been given the MC, plus 2 antibiotics. Argh! So hope that tomorrow's MC will really help with the fight against the flu.

Had an interesting lunch today. Epitex was having a warehouse sale just a few floors below my office. So went there with my colleagues after lunch and managed to get 2 quilt bed sets, and an anti-dustmite mattress protector. All for under $180!

( My buys under the cut... )

Think it's money well spent. Hardly can get such prices from the departmental stores, the prices were almost like 50% discount! Now I can't wait to show them off to the hubs...

If there's anything good about my work area, it is it's close proximity to all the lovely food industries' factory outlets.

My colleagues and I made a trip to Meiji Seika during lunch yesterday. Boy was it like going into food paradise! Rows and rows of Meiji chocolates, sweets and gummies, in one end, Meiji crackers and biscuits in the other end, and new stuff that were just about to be launched on the retail market. And the nicest thing was, they were substantially cheaper than buying from the supermarket or retail stores. In fact, they even had a super offer corner, for products that were a month or so away from expiry, with prices slashed almost 50% off it's usual pricing!

The moment we stepped into the store, which was totally packed, we snatched up baskets and started picking out our favourite snacks. It was like a child's dream come true. Think Willy Wonka. My favourite 'Black' chocolate was only going for $1.81, while some yummy Garlic Crackers were being sold for 92cents per packet. I also picked out my favourite gummy-centred strawberry choc which was only $2.15, Cacao 86% for $2.59, Strawberry-centred Hello Panda biscuits which were priced at $4 for the huge can with a free bowl, green tea coated chocolates for $2.19 and the Venezuelan dark choco for the same price. I even chanced upon something new, the Gold Floral Bitters which were a high-end range, going for $6.59, though I managed to resist picking out all the different Fran choco-coated biscuit-sticks. Other than snacks, I also picked up some offer Meiji Amino Collagen drinks going at $5.10 for 2 bottles. All in all, I possibly spent about $37, buying enough Meiji snacks to last me for the next 6 months!

From the looks of things, I better start going for more yoga classes to burn off all those sinful calories!

Had this sudden urge to shop for shoes again today, and so I popped into Isetan at TM to take a look at the shoes. Love the shoe collection there, especially Gripz, Izzi & Otto and of course, my favourite Americaya. After looking around, I spied on a lovely pair of heels, which I bought almost instantly.


My new Americaya heels

Had a nice chat with the saleslady there, regarding my other pair of Americaya's that I bought a couple of months back. Told her that my feet kept slipping, but using insoles made the shoes tight. She immediately produced a pair of half insoles to be placed the the ball of the foot, FOC, and told me to try. :) Also I told her about my sweaty feet causing foot odour when wearing certain types of shoes, and she immediately recommended me to buy Konol, a foot powder, which was only available at NTUC.

After having dinner with the hubs, I went over to NTUC to look for the foot powder. After walking round and round, I totally gave up, and decided to just follow the hubs to pay for his purchase. At the cashier, I kind of just enquired about this foot powder, just in case I had missed it. He immediately offered to go check up on the product for me, and came back in less than five minutes with the product. That really took the hubs and I by surprise that a busy supermarket like NTUC could still offer such service.

Thank you to Meiying, the saleslady at Isetan, and Jun Wei, the cashier on lane 3 at NTUC, for such terrific customer service.