What the...?

Of Monsters, Walkabouts & The Big Reveal

The “Two Monsters” having a ball at my office event on Friday. Managed to burn them out with an afternoon of wreaking havoc, and then dinner at Waraku. The younger one was so wiped out by night time, she crawled straight into bed without showering…*relief*

Saturday afternoon, Y and I spent a happy few hours checking out the touristy shops in Kampong Glam. X’mas gifts for colleagues – mission accomplished!




Headed back East to pick A up for a cuppa, some catching up, and to relieve her from the “Three Monsters". Conversation continued on Monday night with dinner at Y's, where we laughed so hard doing something so evil (of the "lightning will strike you dead" variety), we were literally rolling around on the sofa, with tears streaming down our faces...*cower from lightning*

Saturday night was the Thanksgiving Clan get-together. Rellies, wait for email link to the photos of the spread you guys missed! And pay attention to the lady in the orange cardi...

Look up in the sky!

It's a bird!

It's a plane!



It's ...freaky!

The new “rewarding” career :)

I wonder if I have to declare this gift from an appreciative visitor??

This gift of a Punjabi suit came from a VIP whose itinerary I had to arrange recently (including tracking down a tailor to pay him a visit in his hotel during his visit). I was cautioned to be very deferential in my written correspondences with him (in the manner of “we’re not worthy”), but he turned out to have no airs about him, and was so nice, he insisted on coming back to the office with the Boss to meet me so he could put a face to the *ahem* efficient assistant. :)

It still amazes me when people show appreciation for me doing my job. In my previous life, it felt as if going above and beyond my job scope to be three secretaries, one dispatcher, and two scum-of-the-earth, just wasn’t enough.

Come December, it would be two years since I discarded my old life (“like old clothes that no longer fit”, as J had said).

Jingle Bells...

Festive decorations are spilling out of the shopping malls' ears, and it's only mid-November. This ginormous tree, spotted during a lunchtime sojourn to Ngee Ann City, makes me want to burst out in Yuletide songs. However, for the sake of everybody's ears, I shall settle for a short stint of blasting of some choice selections from my iPod in the Executive Office (there being "no government" this week :D ).

And before any of my sensible friends start to remind me of the Frugality Drive I am purportedly on, I had a legitimate excuse for being in a shopping mall during lunch time! It's all these blasted weddings taking place in December, of people we have never even met in our lives...We were looking for items in the wedding gift registry on instructions from colleagues/bosses. (Christofle - *gasp* I think we can only afford that tiny frame for a passport-photo with our pauper's budget! No, wait! We can't even afford that! How?? *wring hands*). Why can't these people just elope?? *grrr*

For those of my friends who are closely following my retail therapy activities, (yes, that's you, LY), I am happy to report the successful (thus far) resistance of the seductive siren call of a certain purple top from The Coast (a.k.a. The Station)...

Hitler...

'Nuff said. 

I'm Singing in the Rain...

LK had a team-building session in Bintan last week, and so dropped by Singapore en route to Hong Kong.

As promised, we had pepper crab and deep fried baby squids for dinner. Took plenty of photos of Victor Tan's exhibition at the Esplanade (I like!). Did the touristy walk to the "Spitting Singapore Chimera", then along the Esplanade Walk to the sounds of a 'live' Bhangra performance. In fact, we had the whole 'live' Bhangra performance to accompany our dinner...

Off to a late start this morning. It being a lovely day, we threw caution (about any unhealthy readings of PSI) to the wind, and decided on an al fresco breakfast buffet at Halia in the Botanic Gardens. We found the new Visitor Centre and carpark/foodcourt. Hiked through the park to the restaurant, and found that we had missed the breakfast buffet. Nonetheless, we had a delicious a la carte lunch of "Char Siew Salmon" and Tandoori chicken sandwich instead. Yums!

Other brilliant idea we had : to take a walk through the rainforest section, even with the skies clouded over and threatening rain...

Did we wise up to the name serving as a portent of things to come, thereby nudging us towards a wiser course of action? Nooo... It started raining when we were halfway through, so we took shelter under the canopy of the RAINforest. After a while, it REALLY started pissing down, so much so that the leaves were no longer effective as shelter. Since we were getting soaked standing there, we decided to just walk all the way back to the car in the rain. By the time we got out of the rainforest, we were DRENCHED. So of course, the heavens decided to clam up then...Tails between our legs, we trotted back to the car...