They taste as good as they looked which reminds me I should get the recipe from Jess and try this at home sometime. The custard tastes heavenly!

We dropped by Mind’s Cafe and found a new game which was really fun! True colours is a game where players attempt to best anticipate how others perceive them. Each round consists of several private ballot votes on who best fits a particular question. Once votes are entered players guess at the number of votes they received for that particular question. The better your estimate the more points you make and the winner being the player who best understands how others see the player. I ended up as the one with the lowest point. Hopefully James will get this for his board games rental site! It’s really fun and entertaining playing with people whom you know.

We went to Bottle Tree Village for dinner and got lost on our way there because the taxi drivers didn’t know how to go there. We chalked up to about SGD 30 of fares. That wasn’t the worst part because the walk back to the bus stop was so creepy. There wasn’t much street lights and no one was walking along the road. It was like a mini night adventure similar to the night walk during our secondary 4 adventure camp but I swear I’m not going there again without a car. It was horribly inconvenient!

On a last note, thanks guys for the gift, tarts and wishes! I really appreciated your thoughtfulness and everything.

Related posts:

1. Sing towards your 21st
2. Farewell gathering for our dear friend
3. Christmas Gathering 2008

Delicious looking soup

Grilled Chicken

Cherlynn is totally (not) camera-shy!

After a hearty lunch, Brenda suggested going to the flea market near by. As I’ve never been to a flea market, I gladly agreed, so did the rest of the girls. The last time I tried to go to a flea market, I spend 2 hours trying to find my way, got lost and never made it there in the end.

Come to think of it, I’ve done a couple of things I’ve never done before that day. I have never withdraw cash from an ATM machine nor have I ever been to a flea market before Saturday. I can explain myself. Let me see, the probability of Dayna losing her wallet is 10% and the probability that she will drop some cash when she opens her wallet is 30% which is about 40% in total and this is considered high risk. To mitigate the financial risk, it’s safer for her to bring lesser cash when she leaves the house. Sounds cool? Since it was my first time, I thought it was normal that I inserted the card in the wrong direction! Ivy helped me on that and Brenda even conducted an interview with me. I feel grown up to have finally used the ATM machine (lol).

We conquered the flea market! - Photo by Brenda & edited by me

Flowery vintage top

The flea market was packed and we had a hard time trying to escape. We went across the road to the other flea market (I’m not sure if it’s suppose to be the same one) beside Cineleisure. It’s quieter and we had a better time shopping if you ignored the hot weather. Everyone bought something and I’m no exception being a hardcore shopaholic myself.

I got myself a brand new vintage flowery top for SGD 18. It was priced at SGD 20 and Brenda manage to bargain to 18 for me. Lesson learn: always try to bargain if the tops are above SGD 15. According to the girls, the top is so me! They practically know my style 101% in an hour. I thought the photo of us above is so “blogger-style”.

We were melting by the time we “conquered” the flea market. Some air-con shopping and Sakura flowers sounds like a good plan? We headed to Takashimaya excitingly to view the exhibition of live Sakura flowers and here’s what we saw…

This fantastic video is taken and edited by Brenda. You should definitely check out her post and Cherlynn’s about our outing. It has an extremely unflattering but cute (according to her) photo of me and I’m definitely not going to post that photo of myself here.

Sakura flowers & a really cool pose - Photo by Brenda

Cherlynn and I look kind of dumb beside Brenda’s awesome pose. It’s kind of funny how all of us did the peace sign in a lot of photographs to piss Brenda off. The awesome pose ended with a bang as well as Brenda fell after a few seconds. I think a few others saw it but we were too busy wondering if Brenda’s okay to bother about the attention. At least her effort was not in vain as Ivy managed to capture this great shot of us. We should all do the star jump pose the next time we meet!

The day ended with more shopping and jokes, of course. I will proudly present the joke of the day award to Cherlynn (I’ve got a feeling she’s going to kill me for this). So what happen exactly? We were trying out some clothes at Fox. Cherlynn tried out this grey superman tank and denim shorts. We thought she look great in it and urge her to grab the top. She thought the denim shorts was a bit too short. It all happened within a few seconds when she asked the big question: Do I look like a hooker in it? And the next moment, this was what we heard over the speaker: And you ain’t nothin’ but a hooker. According to Brenda, this song is titled ‘Hooker’ by Pink. It was so much of a coincident that all of us burst out laughing uncontrollably. I feel bad for exposing her in this entry, how about a little cartoon as compensation?

Cartoon illustration of the awesome photo above

Related posts:

1. A day with Terry and Brenda
2. SingTel INQ mobile event
3. Sing towards your 21st

We arrived at about 9.30am and the place was pretty packed. I had not expected such a big crowd since it wasn’t a weekend or school holiday. I was very impressed with the architectures, buildings and design because they are gorgeous! I don’t feel like I’m in Singapore once I stepped into the park. The friendly staff directed our ways to collect the dining and shopping vouchers and we started our day via taking a picture with my favourite animal in the world – the famous Kungfu panda, Po.

Honestly speaking, I don’t really like this photograph because I’m so tiny in it. I can’t even see my own face clearly. The shot taken by the cameraman of Universal Studios Singapore did a better job and we ended up purchasing the photograph which cost us SGD 10 from the photo studio; The Dark Room. Quite a creative name instead of the usual “Kodak Express” I see in the malls!

Why doesn’t Singapore have such beautiful newspaper stands (or is it called the papers vending machine)? We headed straight to Madagascar and managed to catch a 15 seconds performance of the penguins. I was so glad I got the chance to take a shot with the super duper adorable penguins. What’s his name again? Skipper? My personal favourite is the short chubby one. I should have asked him for his name (the penguin not the person)!

Our first ride was the King Julien’s Beach Party-Go-Round which is basically just a ordinary Merry-Go-Round without the horses. You will find all kinds of characters in Madagascar on this ride. I love the penguins so I chose to ride with them! The ride was really slow so don’t worry about getting dizzy. The kids are having a really good time on this but for someone who has lived 2 decades on this earth, it was all right. The characters were adorable though.

There was really nothing much at Madagascar but the shops are beautifully designed. I took a picture of the penguins hanging from the ceiling. I applauded the management for taking the time and money to beautify the ceilings. Most wouldn’t even spare a glance at the ceilings. On a random note, you are going to love Sissy’s photographs, she has the most hilarious and coolest pose! And one of the joke of the day?

Mum: Excuse me, may I know where to get to this roller coaster (pointing at the Enchanted Airways ride)?
Staff: Oh, you have to walk to far far away.
Mum: Huh? I still have to walk far far away to get there?
Sissy: LOL! No, no, that place is called “Far Far Away”.
Mum: Oh (laughs), thanks!

I couldn’t get a full view of the castle because of the blue shelter built right in front of it. I remember seeing a photograph of it taken by my friend a few weeks ago and I’m pretty sure the blue shelter wasn’t there at that time. Perhaps it was built to cater to the queue. After taking the Enchanted Airways which is a small family roller coaster, we went to watch the Shrek 4D show. Frankly speaking, the pre-show talk was way too long. We were brought into this empty room with a few big screens right at the top. I had a stiff neck after looking up for 15 minutes during the pre-show talk. The grandma standing behind us was getting tired as well. Seriously, no seats? The screen is way too high up and the speech was terribly long. My anticipation for the show decreased by a fair bit after the long speech. My verdict of the show: it was mediocre. Just rocking seats, splashes of water and maybe some wind. The 3D effect wasn’t fantastic either.

Mum suggested having an early lunch to avoid the lunch crowd. Since she wasn’t a fan of western food, we decided to have lunch at Hollywood China Bistro. On our way back, Sissy spotted this interesting sign and asked me to take a photograph of it. All shopping malls should be using this. Dolls FTW! We had Chinese noodles and dim sum which cost us SGD 30+ after deducting 30 bucks using the complimentary dining vouchers. Lunch was pretty good. The restaurant was beautifully decorated in red and gold (typical colours used in Chinese restaurants). In addition, the friendly and polite staff makes it a good dining experience for us.

Our next stop was at Jurassic Park. We went to watch the WaterWorld show and Sissy nearly fell asleep in there. I thought the show wasn’t too bad. Explosions, lots of water, stuns, rather good storyline and a wee bit of fireworks. The performers can really get the audiences to participate and at the same time, get them soaked as well. Lots of small children were crying halfway through the show. I’m not sure why parents will want to bring their young children to the show when they have been warned that this show involves lots of loud noises, explosions and requires parental guidance due to the use of (fake!) guns and stuff.

We were actually planning to ride the Canopy Flyer but the queue was an hour long. Since the park closes at 6pm, we don’t think there will be enough time so we skipped and proceeded to Dino-Soarin. The sun was blazing that day and I felt like I’m melting into a puddle of goo. Up next is the Jurassic Park Rapids Adventure and I got to say this ride was a disappointment! Sissy wanted to get the poncho initially but we didn’t realise that we have to get it in the Jurassic Park merchandise store and not at the ride itself. Mum and I convinced Sissy that it will be fun to get wet because it’s no fun when we get off the ride dry. The lockers were rented at $4 for the first hour and since we were without the protection of the ponchos we rented one to keep our bags dry.

The first half of the ride was so slow and mundane. We were just floating down the river looking at (very) fake dinosaurs that open and close their mouths like robots. The raft entered a dark tunnel with flashing lights, a door opened and we were “flushed out” of the tunnel. The ride ended with a big splash and I was pretty much drenched. Even the raft ride at Sunway Lagoon is way better than this. Is this all they can come up with?

I tweeted that I almost died that day on the Revenge of the Mummy’s ride and it was true. i swear I’m never going to take this ride again. Like I said, I’ve a low threshold for thrilling rides and I’m surprised I still have my voice after screaming the entire time while I was on the ride. Just the walk from the main entrance of the ride to the actual queue took us about 15 minutes. A rather long walk I would say. To top if off, the passage way was really dark with lots of turns and corners. Interestingly, I saw someone in front of me wearing a pair of sunglasses in the dark. I wonder how he sees in the dark. Anyway, is the walk suppose to build up our tension for the ride? People that cut the queues really spoil the fun for me. I do not understand why some people let others cut the queue in front of them without saying a word. I would have told them off but I was too far away at that time.

In the Sci-Fi City, Battlestar Galactica was closed so there wasn’t much to see. Mum and Sissy went onto the Accelerator ride which has the same concept as the Mad Tea Party in Disneyland. Both of them said that it wasn’t much fun because it’s slow even when they control the speed manually. I didn’t take the ride because the last time I rode a similar ride at Escape theme park 10 years ago, I ended up puking really badly. It started to drizzle and we headed to New York because it was sheltered. We spend some time snapping away on our cameras. There was lots to see but nothing much to play.

The only attraction we went at New York was Lights, Camera, Action which actually showcases what happens to a boat house in New York City during a category 5 hurricane. The effect was nice and the sea look very realistic from the fake windows. But again, it wasn’t anything exciting. I was expecting more than just a few broken windows, fire etc.

It’s nearly 5 when we exited Lights, Camera, Action and we decided to go for a quick bite. We wanted to have tea at this princess-looking pink cafe, Hollywood Celebrity’s Cafe but after looking at the menus, we thought we should go for something fuller and cheaper. True to its name, the menus especially the price tags are really celebrities’ class.

We settled for Mel’s Drive-In. They have a shiny looking junk box and the retro interior decorations suits the theme very well! The servings are huge and very fulling. The place was pretty packed, perhaps due to the more economic price of the burgers. I caught the appearance of a few retro dancers right outside the dining place. I love their colourful costumes and how they tried to engage the audiences and get them to dance together as well.

With only an hour left, we went on a shopping spree. I love all the merchandise sold there! They have the best souvenirs such as toys, cushions, mousepads, pins, notepads, caps, t-shirts, towels, mugs and lots of other stuff. Admittedly, the best attraction at Universal Studios Singapore was their merchandises and not exactly the rides. Here’s the other joke of the day:

I was looking at 2 tees which look exactly the same with different price tags.

Me: Excuse me, may I know why these tees are priced differently? The size L tee cost SGD 21.90 while the size S tee cost SGD 23.90.

After pausing for a few seconds, he replied.

Staff: Oh, the smaller the tee, the more expensive is it because it’s more difficult to manufacture.

Me: Huh, okay. Thanks!

After I went home and look at the photos on my computer screen, I realise the size S tee was a men’s tee and hence it’s more expensive then the ladies’ size L tee. The ladies’ tee are priced at SGD 21.90 while the men’s tee are priced at SGD 23.90. So much for “the smaller the tee, the more expensive it gets”! He (the staff) was really friendly though but I just thought the above was hilarious!

With all the self control I had, I only bought 2 tees and a penguin clipboard + notepad. On the other hand, Sissy got a tee, pin and mousepad. I regretted not getting the mousepad. It’s really cute! Sissy’s going again next week so hopefully the stores will be open so that she can grab an extra for me. This concluded our day at Universal Studios Singapore. We didn’t manage to visit all the attractions due to time constraints. I wish the park would extend it’s opening hours till about 8 to 9 at night so that we’ve more time. Although I wasn’t too wow by the attractions, I had a rather enjoyable time. Maybe it’s my first time visiting a theme park, hence I don’t have a very high expectation. For more photographs, check out this album on my Flickr.

Related posts:

1. Hong Kong & Macau Trip – Part I
2. My first look at Resort World Sentosa
3. Our DIY cake

Delicious Crepe from Marche - Photo taken by Terry

Mushrooms for Brenda & I, carrots for Terry - Photo taken by Terry

Brownie and vanilla ice cream - Photo taken by Terry

I didn’t tried the steak like the previous time because I didn’t want an overly cooked steak and to avoid chalking up the bill. We had the usual dose of mushrooms and Terry has carrots as well. Coincidentally, both Brenda and I aren’t a fan of vegetables.

I tried the Seabass fillet and I had to say they aren’t really up to my expectation. Even the brownies aren’t as great as the last time. It has almonds in it which taste weird when I’m having it with vanilla ice cream. Almonds and ice cream just doesn’t seem to go well together.

We had a long chat at Marche and sat all the way from 2 to about 5.30 PM. It’s really nice chatting with people of similar interests. I know they can understand and relate to what I’m saying. It’s always good to hear different opinions from people regarding issues we are all familiar with. There are so many things we can talked about such as our common hatred for Internet Explorer 6, weird floating and margin issues, odd scrolling input fields and of course some private gossips of our own.

It’s also really comforting to know that I’m not alone and there are people who think like me. Speaking of which, we have brought up the topic of how a well designed commenting system on a blog will actually attract and encourage more people to comment. I shall talk about this on a separate post because it’s going to be pretty long but I did make some changes to my comments form because of it¹.

Brenda and Terry also gave me a tip on how to link the site title in the header without splitting the image. The site title is now clickable. Yay! Furthermore, I actually added the previous and next post links to each of my single post page. It’s something I’ve wanted to add in for a long time but I’m too lazy for my own good. All of us agreed it’s more user friendly with the post navigations. I actually got to learn quite a bit of stuff from them that day!

Poking games during our conversation - Photo taken by Terry

We left at about 5+ PM and walked around Orchard Road, snapping away with our cameras. We saw this tiger made from fresh flowers right outside Mandarin Oriental. I wonder what will happened if it rains. I’m also pretty proud of the photographs I took of the flowers. I thought it wasn’t too bad considering the flowers were swaying due to the strong wind.

Both Terry and Brenda were having fun at the water fountains located on the steps outside Ion Orchard. I almost wanted to give Terry a little push right into the fountain and he didn’t realise it while we were there². I didn’t do it in the end because he was carrying his camera and I didn’t wanted to risk it.

Impromptu pose by Brenda and I - Photo taken by Terry

Brenda left to meet her parents for dinner so Terry and I decided to check out Wild Honey cafe at Mandarin Oriental Gallery. It’s a small cosy place to chill out – dim lights, soft relaxing music, comfortable seats, delicious looking sandwiches and tea. What’s not to love? I can spend hours there just enjoying my tea. Have I mentioned how much I love their cube sugars? This is the first cafe I’ve been to that actually has cube sugars and provide colouring pens and papers for kids!

Terry has the honour of testing out what the whitish looking powder in the small plate beside the sugar is. It turns out to be salt and I’m glad I’m not the one trying! The place seems to be popular among Japanese according to Terry. We have seen quite a number of Japanese sitting beside us. I’m getting all excited for our next meet-up already. Wild Honey, here we come!

Cube sugars in a glass - Photo taken by Terry

1. Do you like it?
2. Hope Terry is not reading this!

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1. What happens when 4 girls are put together?
2. SingTel INQ mobile event
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It’s the first time we took a family photograph with my uncle’s family. I’m definitely going to print these out and display them in my room. No words can describe how much I love my family. They meant the world to me.

Related posts:

1. Are you ready for Chinese New Year?
2. Merry Messy Christmas
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My check-list for the new year:

• Chinese New Year decorations – Check!
• Spring cleaning – Check!¹
• New clothes – Check!²
• New Year goodies, snacks, chocolates, drinks and food – Check!
• Mahjong table – Check! We bought a new one after one of ours was stolen a few weeks back.
• Manicure nails – Check!
• Prepare my stomach to welcome all the delicious food and snacks – Check!

What else are there left?

Chinese New Year Goodies

Colourful candies

Lots of vegetables for the reunion dinner on Saturday

Pink glittery nails to welcome the new year

French tips

With purple crystals and pearls

Speaking of which, is anyone planning to head to Resort World Sentosa during the Chinese New Year?

1. My room is messier now as compared to the day I tidied it, it’s piling up with all my exams notes
2. Surprise surprise, it isn’t black this year

Related posts:

1. Pinky nails and last minute spring cleaning
2. Green tea cake and my new year resolution
3. Happy New Year 2009

On a side note, I realised I fulfilled a few of my new year resolutions for 2009. Reading back the post I wrote at the end of 2008, I managed to get at least 50 marks for each of my UOL papers in the 2009 examinations and I got myself a new wallet as well. 2 out of 4 accomplished in the last year! I hope I managed to get those for 2010 done as well.

Presents for myself - Slingbag and wallet

Here’s the delicious looking dinner we had:

Sausages and bacon

A sumptuous dinner

Instant pizza!

Black forest cake

Benjamin is definitely enjoying the food

Sharon and her signature scarf

Related posts:

1. Happy New Year 2009
2. Memories of 2009
3. Missy’s 2008

On a side note, I actually drew the above illustration for my own Christmas cards but couldn’t find a inexpensive place to print it. There’s usually a minimum quantity of 100 to 200 and I don’t need that much. I only got to know of a shop at Bras Plaza that does printing for $1 per card with minimum spending of $30 from Ivy when we meet up for lunch last week. Hence, I will just leave the handmade cards for this year since it’s a bit too late to do that now.

I spent Christmas eve at home with my friends and family. We didn’t want to hang out at the parties due to the crowd. So Dad cooked steak and we had Christmas dinner at home. Michelle joined us for dinner and mahjong session as well. No turkeys on the table though.

We had a small gift exchange session and here’s Francis, Michelle and my sister with their presents. The panda Michelle’s hugging is from Chewy. He bought it in Hong Kong and she’s utterly soft and adorable. Definitely the cutest panda on earth.

My sister showing off her new iphone. She’s been waving it in front of me these past few days! I’m super envy because I’m dying to get my hands on an iphone. I’ll wait and get it next year.

It’s our custom to get a Christmas cake every year. Ta-da! This is our log mango mousse cake from The Icing Room. We couldn’t find a small log cake for 6 so we decided to get this instead. I was surprised when the cashier asked me if I want any candles. Does anyone put candles on Christmas cakes?

Joke of the day:
Mum: Is there cheese in the cake?
Dad: Yes, there is cheese in basement 1 of the cake.
Me: LOL! Our cake has basement 1, 3, 5 – mango mousse and basement 2, 4, 6 – chocolate sponge.

The cake is delicious though. Everyone gave the thumbs up for it.

I received this card from Huaian today. I was really touched. It has a photo of us taken 6 years back and he still has it sent all way from Australia. I love it Huaian! Thanks so much for the awesome card. I hope to see you back in Singapore in Feburary.

This is from my sister and her boyfriend, Francis. My sister gave me a beautiful necklace from Gold Heart which matches all the tank tops in my wardrobe.

That’s it for today. Hope you have fun on Christmas eve as well and have a great Christmas!

Related posts:

1. Happy Merry Christmas
2. Christmas Gathering 2008
3. Happy New Year 2009

Happy Birthday, Sharon

My favourite macro shot of the day

I really like this photo showing everyone's presence

Somehow they always laugh when I'm taking photographs of them

Getting really engrossed into the song

Peach Sundae - This ice cream is love!

Scallops and chicken baked rice

Delicious pasta

Group photo

We took a short walk from Orchard all the way to City Hall and I noticed they are putting up the Christmas decorations already. I have to say that the Santa isn’t adorable at all. A bigger head and a smaller body would definitely looks cuter than a smaller head and fatter body. On a random note, I couldn’t wait for Christmas to come. It’s the gift exchange season again and it’s time to love and share! Is there anyone in Singapore who would like to do a gift/card exchange?

Christmas decorations at Orchard Road

Yee Loong also gave me some tips on taking night shots and gave me a short lesson about shutter speed and aperture. I think Orchard is a good place to take night shots in Singapore. All the newly renovated buildings have fantastic lightings.

Orchard Central at night

Related posts:

1. Christmas Gathering 2008
2. “How do you know Christmas is coming?” meme
3. Farewell gathering for our dear friend

Twitpic of the week

I also went Haw Par Villa & Vivo City with mum. We went on board the MV Doulos. I found a Chinese craft book with lots of pandas artwork at PageOne and I took a few photos of them. I was so afraid the loud shutter sound of my mobile will alert the staff on duty. Anyway, the pandas were so adorable!

Some day later, Chewy and I went shopping at Orchard. I brought my panda and pooh bears to guard the car again. Notice the claypot rice with abalone? We had dinner at Ah Yat Tian Xia Restaurant at Orchard Central. The abalone cost an additional SGD 7 and taste okay, for the price I can’t complain of course. Chewy had pork chop rice and he finds it delicious. I tried it and it’s also so-so in my opinion.

The rest of the week was spend on spring cleaning my room, playing bridge at home and having dim sum at Ah Yat Seafood Restaurant. I still think the dim sum from Imperial is better. So, that’s how I spend my entire week. How about yours?

Ultimate Blog Awards

By the way, Tiff’s holding her first contest, Ultimate Blog Awards at JynxedPanda. There are lots of attractive prizes, such as WordPress themes, illustrations, t-shirts and even cash to be won. There are also many mini contests for all her readers. She is also trying to raise donations for the victims of Typhoon Ondoy amd Pepeng via the contest. It’s an all rounded contest for everyone so please join in the fun and head over to her website for more details.

The voting for the Site Glamour Contest will close on 30 October instead of November because I hope the contest will be focused on the discussion of the articles instead of the voting next month. Please vote for the website which you think deserves the award and don’t forget to participate in the contest article discussion next month.

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1. Twitpic of the week
2. I’ll love you eternally if you …
3. Twitpic of an even busier week