Nine months;

Time flew by just like that, it’s been nine months since I stepped into a new environment.

xx

Met up with dear peeps after work today, and one of them mentioned a very familar scenario – ‘All pumped up upon entering this new foreign place, and energy boosted up to the maximum level and looking forward to a new day everyday. Then, all that fizzed out after time.’ It’s taking place now, all these zest were long gone and it sucks to see friends leaving one by one. No doubt the remaining ‘survivors’ are happy for them, but a tinge of sadness and paranoia is hovering over our minds now. Having said so much, I guess it all boils down to our own perserverance and beliefs. We may be stuck in a hopeless rut, but these experiences may lead us to stronger individuals and better persons. As we all know, so long that our conscience is clear and upright, bring them on nothing can defeat us. For now, I’m just gonna remain ‘zen’ (as what one of the peeps mentioned), and do my stuff. Come what may, I know I can count on the peeps. Other may doubt us or cast suspicions on us, but we’re just going to focus and channel our energy to healthier stuff. Not to mention, the support from family and friends to tide through for at least this period of time. Indeed, we’ve found love in a hopeless place.

xx

Our motto;

xx

So much for verbal diarrheoa, perhaps the heavy downpour triggered off thoughts. Nights peeps

xoxo, Noi

A week in a blink;

Another week has gone by, and it’s scarier knowing that another seven days are taken off my countdown chart to the first paper for this term. Three papers to take, and one ECA to complete; I just can’t wait for June to arrive! Not to mention how stupid the topic is for the ECA – a three to five minute video on end-of-life care in Singapore. And the lecturer had actually suggested us to interview her mom, who’s struck with a terminal illness. Gees, seriously?!

SATURDAY
That aside, I am glad that I managed to squeeze in some leisure time amidst the crazy weekend of mugging, doing up the outline for the ECA, and planning the study schedule. My aunt from Malaysia is in town to visit us and will be heading back to KL tomorrow, so Mommy and I brought her out on Saturday to have dinner together simple food-fare at Jurong Point’s Kopitiam.

SUNDAY
I headed out to capture some shots for my assignment. First stop was Bras Basah, and we jumped onto the opportunity to tour around National Museum of Singapore since full-time students and regulars get to enjoy free entry/S$5 (special rate) for admission fees.

BOOMZ clouds taken outside the museum;

A couple of exhibitions and galleries were opened when we visited, and I found the photography gallery particularly interesting. Perhaps ‘cos it showcased the history of Singapore from various perspectives of the key people, such as Sir Stamford Raffles and the performers from Great World Amusement Park. A pity I left my SD card at home so, I could only make do with my iPhone to snap some photos from the museum tour. That, I shall leave it to next entry.

Another place that we went to, Tiong Bahru Market; this place serves really delish hawker fare. Ordered Hainanese Chicken Rice, Chwee Kueh, Beef Soup, Oyster Omelette, and Sugar Cane drink to top it off. My fave dish has got to be the Chwee Kueh  from Jian Bo Tiong Bahru Chwee Kueh (#02-05)!

Tiong Bahru Food Market & Hawker Centre
(Check out ladyironchef’s post for more food recommendations!)
Address: 30 Seng Poh road
All these for less than S$15, daebak!

MONDAY
After a somewhat long Monday, the whole family brought my aunt out for dinner with some hawker foodfare lovin’. Our initial stop was Redhill Market & Food Centre, but too bad the tzi char store wasn’t opened for business so we decided on heading to Taman Jurong Market & Food Centre instead.

We ordered BBQ Sambal Stingray, Sotong, Kang Kang from BBQ Seafood, and Winter Melon with Spare Ribs soup from Yi Ping Tung. The latter serves really good soup, and the unique way of cooking it charcoal-style allows all the ingredients to be well-broiled. Best of all, the price is reasonable at S$4 per claypot. Yay!

BBQ Seafood
(Check out InSing’s post for more information)
Address: Yung Sheng Road, #03-178, Taman Jurong Market & Food Centre

Yi Ping Tung Charcoal Claypot Soup
(Check out InSing’s post for more information)
Address: Yung Sheng Road, #03-157, Taman Jurong Market & Food Centre

After the dinner, we brought her to Marina Bay Sands to take in the night-view of Singapore.

Chanced upon the window display of Louis Vuitton, and snapped a photo of it – amazed by the vibrant colours. But I thought the colours used for window display were a big contrast to the pastel colours used in their SS12 campaign.

LABOUR DAY
The journey went like this – Jurong Point, Jurong East, JCube, Redhill, IKEA, Changi, and Old Airport Road Food Centre. And I finally got to try the Lao Ban Soya Beancurd!! Bought a few back for mommy and sister, and they love it too. Mommy said that there’s a tinge of black sugar taste in it. The queue wasn’t that bad when I went at 8+pm, less than 30 minutes I’d say. At S$1.50 per bowl, it’s much pricier than the usual soya beancurd in the market but I think it’s worth the price. HAHA!

Lao Ban Soya Beancurd (Old Airport Road)
Address: 51 Old Airport Road, #01-127 Old Airport Road Food Centre

Wednesday
Alas! Mid-week was finally here, and it’s another day with bad headache etc. Went to the temple to pray that evening, and had a good talk with my god-uncle. Let’s just see how things go!

Simple foodfare // home-cooked food is love! Mommy never fails to let us come home in comfort and bask in love from her. LOL, so much for cheesy lines, but I really learnt not to take such details for granted after working. It’s not like I get to eat home-cooked food everyday

OTD // Crochet top with TheTinselRack Floral Blossoms Paperbag Skirt in Violet Peonies, and my trusty Longchamp bag

xx

Sooooo many movies that I wanna catch, but I think gotta wait till my assignment and exams are over – the highly raved Avengers and Battleship. Boos*

xx
Review on “The Lucky One” movie

Details:
Movie title: “The Lucky One“
1hr 41min – Romance, Drama
Director: Scott Hicks
Writers: Will Fetters (screenplay), Nicholas Sparks (novel)
Stars: Zac Efron, Taylor Schilling and Blythe Danner

Synopsis (credits here):
A Marine travels to Louisiana after serving three tours in Iraq and searches for the unknown woman he believes was his good luck charm during the war.

Perhaps I held too high hopes for this movie, so I was tad disappointed after watching it. Other than the scenes with the hot bod of Zac Efron, the rest of the story plot lacklustre and predictable. I felt the emotions shown during the scene where Taylor reminisced about her brother was more real than the chemistry between her and Zac. Nonetheless, it’s a nice movie to catch if you don’t want to fight with the crowd this weekend over tickets to the Avengers movie.

Rating:

.5 out of 5 popcorns

xx

QOTD// daily mantra; thanks for the love received.

xx

This is like, one of my longest posts ever; blogged this over the week and finally managed to publish it today. Gotta find time this weekend to do a good run and finish the rest of my mugging and video assignment \m/ FIGHTING!

xx

TGIF peeps! Looking forward to tonight

xoxo, Noi

Bucket List – Cave Diving;

*Typed a whole paragraph here and it just went MIA, grrrr*

Last Friday, we had our department retreat and the whole afternoon was packed with activities. After a 20-minute laser quest session at HomeTeamNS, which left us all lethargic and sweaty, we proceeded to Science Centre Omni Theatre for the IMAX movie, Journey Into Amazing Caves.

Synopsis of the movie
(Credits: Omni Theatre)
All over our planet are landscapes that hold caves beneath them. Challenged by the underground frontier and inspired by the secrets it may yield, cavers share a passion for exploration. Journey into Amazing Caves follows Dr. Hazel Barton and Nancy Aulenbach on an adventure as they explore unusual caves, like ice caves in Greenland and underwater caves in the jungles of Mexico, looking for important clues about the Earth’s past and microorganisms that inhabit its most extreme environments.

Come join us on an adventure from the natural world…into the unexplored depths of the underground landscapes that are as beautiful and vital as any other place on Earth.

–

The movie was really an eye-opener, especially since I’ve never heard of cave diving before. I only know of the open water diving and night diving, which I haven’t even conquered yet. The caves and waters shown in the movie were breathtaking, and I’m still in awe of the descent that the team had done in Antarctica. The glaciers proved to be great danger to the team, and they were risking their lives just so that they could collect samples of micro-organisms that may be the next drugs or antibiotics to fight human illness. Cave diving is one of the most dangerous activities, with many fatalities reported. One of the fatalities involved a cave diver’s operation to retrieve a dead cave diver’s body, but he himself died during the process.

–

Before I list cave diving into my bucket list, I think it’s more practical to conquer my fear of water, and complete my basic diving course first. Hopefully the June’12 trip with besties can go as planned! Redang, Dayang, Tioman, or Bali, bring them on!

–
Bali

Pulau Dayang

Pulau Redang

–

xoxo, Noi

Happy New Year 2012!

There’s a backlog of photos that I really need to update soonest, but due to a packed week ahead, I shall just post the preview for MYnt first A new collection will be launched tonight at 8.30pm. For preview, you can check out the Facebook page – http://www.facebook.com/MYntShoppe <3

Here’s the preview banner, and a couple of my personal favourites from this collection! ;D

 

That aside, I spent my last day of year 2011 counting down to year 2012 with these peeps! We had actually pitched a tent at West Coast Park, and counted down to another great year with the other tent-pitchers. Heh, a whole new experience I must say, though we gave up after the count-down and ran for ‘shelter’ at McDonald’s to seek refuge for the night. Loving them! More photos to be up, I pinkie swear!

Day one of work later for a new year – bless us please.

xoxo, Noi.

A Celebratory Dinner;

So on Wednesday, the phone call came. Mommy hesitated to pick up the call and asked my dad to pick it up. She was right, the call was indeed from the gynae clinic. It’s good news! =) Thank you all for the prayers! Superbly elated when dad conveyed this piece of awesome news to us over the phone (my sis and I were at work, then)! So that night, we all went out to have a good meal together. Not necessarily in the form of luxurious food, but a simple meal at Clementi 448 Market & Food Centre would suffice.

Mommy still has to watch her diet, so she ordered porridge =) sister and I followed suit. It’s our first time trying this famous Soon Lee Porridge, and we finally can understand the reason behind its popularity. For S$2.50 (Pork/ Chicken) and S$2.80 (Fish) each bowl, it’s really worth the amount spent. Generous serving on the you tiao, ingredients, and garnish, I’d say the 20 – 30 minutes is totally worth the wait. Go go go try it!

Soon Lee Porridge
Blk 448 Clementi Ave 3, #01-50 Clementi 448 Market & Food Centre

Dad ordered his usuals – Pork Cutlet from Tanglin Halt Westen Food, and 15 sticks of satay (Pork) from Chai Ho Satay to share. The queue wasn’t too long this time, but they had ran out of ketupat rice when I ordered. And as always, their satay never fail to impress ;D

 Chai Ho Satay
Blk 448 Clementi Ave 3, #01-21 Clementi 448 Market & Food Centre

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The past few days (prior to receiving the results from the report) have been tough on the family, especially for our parents. Mommy, being the emotional one, had a hard time sleeping and we were so worried for her. So glad that it’s all clear now. This ordeal kind of tightened the bond within the family =’) something which I’m really thankful for. Bless everyone with good health please, it beats being wealthy. Trust me. ♥♥♥
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Shopping Review ♥ SMooch Paperbag Waisted Skirt in Grey (Size M)

 Joined the backorder for this piece, and received it on Monday! Imma happy kid please, ‘cos this skirt is gorgeous. I usually steer clear of paperbag bottom designs because I have wide hips. However, this fits my frame nicely and it ends just right above my knees. The colour is very sweet and feminine too =) material wise, the chiffon doesn’t seem filmsy but I think ironing is advisable to iron out the creases. This is gonna be a staple in my wardrobe now!  ♥ (Ref: UK Size 10/ 169cm)

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Read from Facebook of a schoolmate’s passing due to a horrific car crash yesterday… Her elder sister is of the same age as me. Sighs, the fragility of life.

xx, Noi.

Movie Review: “那些年 我们一起追的女孩”

————————
~如果你真的很喜歡一個女孩的話
當新郎不是妳的話
那麼你永遠無法祝福她。
結果：不，當你真的很喜歡一個女孩的話，
那麼無論新郎是誰，你都會真心祝福她。~

————————
~被你喜歡過，就感覺別人沒那麼喜歡了。~

————————
~成長，最殘酷的部份就是
女孩子永遠比同年齡的男孩子成熟~

————————
~戀愛最美好的，就是曖昧的時候。~

————————
- Excerpts from 那些年語錄 on Facebook -

Details:
English translation of movie title: “You Are the Apple of My Eye”
1hr 45min – Romance, Drama (Mandarin)
Director: Giddens Ko
Writer: Giddens Ko (novel)
Stars: Zhendong Ke, Michelle Chen and Owodog

This movie from Taiwan, 那些年 我们一起追的女孩, originated from a novel by Giddens Ko also known affectionately to his fans as Ji Ba-Dao (九把刀). Spawned off from his novel, 那些年 我们一起追的女孩 has been well-received by many who have caught this movie! Though readers of his novel have commented that the contents differ slightly, but I guess a movie could only summarise so much into a short span of 105 minutes.

For me, the movie brought back many bittersweet memories of Secondary School life – the mugging for exams, the falling out of love moments, the crushes I had, the BGR rumours, and of course the bickers with friends. Till date, the memories I had from then remained most vivid to me. Though I may have difficulties remembering the names of all the people whom I have crossed paths with, I could still remember most of the scenes and some are quite laughable, to be honest. That’s how 那些年 我们一起追的女孩 does to most people I guess; friends around me have raved about the movie. The cute leads added brownie points to the movie! Many were not convinced that Michelle Chen (the female lead) is actually almost 10 years older than her character in the movie and Zhendong Ke (the male lead). The humour in the movie rounded up this sweet movie perfectly, and most locals would definitely be able to relate to the humour.

All in all, do catch it if you haven’t! A must-watch for all, I reckon

Rating:

.5 out of 5 popcorns

The movie kind of made me missed my Secondary School life so much; given anything in this world, I wouldn’t trade this four years away. And of course, I’m thankful for the friends (from Secondary School) that I hold dear to. Coming December, we’re so gonna organise a meet-up to celebrate their after-exams and to catch up!

xx, Noi.

♥♥♥

- 我想成為一個很厲害的人， 讓這個世界因為有了我而有一點點的改變 而我的世界，不過就是妳的心 -

A week documented in visuals;

A whirlwind week that saw the end of my exams for this semester, I can only say that I have done my best and I pray for a smooth transition to the next semester! Another round of events over the weekend, work events that is. Last Friday and Saturday, I had a long car journey; so, out of boredom, I dabbled with my iPhone and snapped a couple of images of the beautiful clouds. This got me to be kind of fascinated with scenic landscapes and sky photography now! Check out the amateurish shots below, heh.

~Poofy clouds~

~Lone man standing~

~Baby, we can rule the world~

—————————-

And last Friday evening, I had a great night with my KAL babes at our beloved Jenn‘s wedding. Thanks hannie for accompanying me to get some tonics for mommy, prior to making our way to Grand Hyatt Hotel =) On the way there, we met up with Yun and Yiling too! As usual, the endless gossips kicked start ;D Arriving at the wedding dinner venue, we were delighted to know that Jenn and Azlan had prepared a photo-booth corner for the dinner guests. Needless to say, with the camwhore nature in us, we had fun at the photo-booth and even more fun when the rest of the KALs arrived (Prisc and Lynn!). Here are a couple of photos to sum up the fun and laughters we had that night :B once again, congrats to the newly-weds – Jenn and Azlan!

And here’s a photograph of my OTD with my new SMooch Goldie Obi Belt. The belt is pretty unique with the gold rope to fasten the belt, and it can worn in many ways (major love). I would say that it would complement any top or dress, and makes a good accessory too! A gem for S$15, super worth it! The dress is another prized gem that mommy had picked for me from a retail store located at Jurong West Blk900+ area, a surprise find in a neighbourhood area.

And ending this post with my current screensaver that would possible melt any girl’s heart – Zhendong Ke, the male lead of the renowned movie “You’re the Apple of my Eye”. :B

(p.s. thanks to all for your well-wishes/ messages =) mommy’s op went ok, and we are praying for optimistic results now)
(p.p.s. all the above images are taken with my iPhone)

xx, Noi.

Food Review: P.S. Cafe at Palais Renaissance (23rd with sisters!)

A beautiful Sunday it is, when my dear sisters Qin and Meh had planned a birthday brunch with me at P.S. Cafe at Palais Renaissance. We were thinking of the various brunch places, and P.S. Cafe sprang up to my mind! I have heard raves from friends who’ve been to the one at Dempsey Road, but Palais Renaissance seemed to be more accessible for us who travel via public transport.

Address:
Palais Renaissance
390 Orchard Road, Singapore 238871
6887 2207
Open Weekdays 11:30am-11pm; Weekends 9:30am-1am

We reached just in time (4pm) for the brunch menu, after which they will be serving their dinner menu from 6pm onwards. Awesome ambience, a tad too pity that I did not manage to capture that in photos. Nonetheless, this beautiful bouquet from sisters dears added a more feminine touch to the already floral setting of the cafe bistro. =) Thank you dears!

As we were pretty hungry yet did not want to overstuff ourselves, so we ordered the following - (to die for) Truffle Fries, Portobello Mushroom Soup, and Eggs Benedict, to share among the three of us. I also ordered a pot of Earl Grey Tea to go along with the meal! =) All three items that we ordered were simply delish! That’s not all, we ordered a Double Choco Cake to end off our sweet brunch. The Truffle Fries came in a gigantic-sized portion, which we felt that it could be overwhelming for two to share. The soup was awesome – thick and full of flavour. Eggs Benedict needs no introduction – the eggs were perfecto and the veggies added a great complement to the dish. The price was pretty costly though, about 100+sgd odd for all these. Then again, indulgence to pamper oneself every once in a while seems perfectly alright I guess? Heh. Here’re the mouth-watering visuals for you to savour…

Of course, with great food and company, cam-whoring (or rather, capturing beautiful moments in print) is essential as well. Kudos to sister for bringing her polaroid and film! :’)

The sweet handmade card by sisters – ain’t they awesome? =’)

Love them tons please, though we’d only bonded in year 3 but I felt like I’ve known them for ages! Thanks sisters =) cheerios to our friendship, and once again thanks for taking time off to spend the afternoon with me! =) The treat, the flowers and the beautiful handmade card.

x, out.

Project: A photo a day, three.

No photo for day three as I zonked out after I bathed and replied to MYnt‘s emails. On a side note, we have managed to get re-stocks for Facets of Heart necklace, highly raved by lots of ladies! xoxo.

To cut a long story short, I really hope to complete my two assignments by Sunday so that I can set off on a celebratory break on Sunday till Tuesday!

Here’s a photo a day, four.

Friendships and Relationships

Perhaps it’s just me, taking things too hard in stride could be a bad thing at times. Friends whom you care too much, may fail you in the end. People change, I realised this recently; sad fact but hey, that’s life. Change is constant, this cliche phrase I’ve heard of it a million times but only till date, then I see it coming true. Sometimes caring too much pushes them further away from you, maybe it’s time that I learn how to step back instead of pushing you to the brim. Same for Love, give him space, give him time, if he doesnt want to talk about things, no matter how much you force him to…you wont force the answers out of him, you’d only be pushing him away. Maybe that’s the difference between men and women, we rant too much we talk too much, the guys prefer to keep it down keep it quiet keep it to himself.

I could have spoken too much, I could have been too open about thoughts on social media platforms, just plain rants could escalate to being labelled. I thought friends would understand, I thought you would know me best. Turns out that I’m my own best friend. How sad, how true. I’ve learnt my lesson, you’re right…some thoughts are best to be kept to oneself. Putting yourself in the sympathic light doesnt help in the long run. Give me time, give me strength, I just wanna have more faith in friendship and love these days.

x, out.