Monday, October 31, 2011

End of my Month One

This beautiful rangoli marks the end of my month one.
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Friday, October 28, 2011

Home made salad for lunch

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Similar halloween design at Ion

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Halloween with vintage Paul Frank

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Thursday, October 27, 2011

My Orange Longchamp La Pliage sucks!

Fata got me a medium shoulder strap one when he was in Lyon, France last month.€75 later the foldable bag had 2 obvious folds. At the Longchamp store at Ion Singapore, the sales lady told me that 'it's like that'. And that it could take years before the fold will straighten out.

I'm very disappointed at what that sales lady told me, based on that I'm not ever going to buy another one. And to think I was considering getting a blue one for myself, and more for my family.

So disappointed :(
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Microsoft Windows XP sucks :(

Can't even run 2 Microsoft office applications at the same time! Augh!!!
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Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Kumxia Fata

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Kumxia KE

Special Disney Earth Day pin from Hong Kong :)
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Monday, October 24, 2011

Will he never stop?

I have found a rival to the 4 Japanese ladies in the bullet train, an honorable contest to the Gilmore Girls. This 60ish year old man has not stopped talking in the last 45mins, and there was dinner in between! Talk about talking with your mouth full! :S
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My New Lippy

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Start of my week four

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Friday, October 21, 2011

End of my week three

Don't recall how this shot was taken, but good enough to mark the end of my third week of work.
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Thursday, October 20, 2011

Happy Birthday Mommy

It's been 26 years since we last spoke... we miss you
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Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Exploring new charms

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I rock :)

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Monday, October 17, 2011

Start of my week three

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Sunday, October 16, 2011

Chopsticks 2011/35

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Quiet end to another Sunday

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Kumxia Fata

From Lyon, France.
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So Charming...

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Saturday, October 15, 2011

Out in full force

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Friday, October 14, 2011

End Of My Week Two

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Thursday, October 13, 2011

Chopsticks 2011/34

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Remembering Japan

And the fun we had there :) one more sleep and Fata will be home ;)
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Kumxia for the Mocha

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I miss this building..

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No more Capitol Center

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Monday, October 10, 2011

My start of Week Two

MIL made salad :) 4 more sleeps and Fata will be back :)
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Everything happens for a reason

I hope...

Whatever that reason may be, whether it's immediately apparent or not, I sincerely hope that all that happens is for a good reason :(

The last coupled of months have been emotionally draining. Can't call it a rollercoaster cos its been mostly down for me.

Little things will put me in tears, and it hurts. Need to pull it together and hang in there for 6 months, it's now too early to access.

I miss Fata so bad it hurts :( plus having to adapt to a brand new work environment, people and processes. I just hope that I can later look upon this time and laugh, and be a better person then.

For now, it's looking forwarding to Fata coming back Friday afternoon and the light festival & time with good friends in Dec :)
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Sunday, October 9, 2011

Looking forward to December

December is France! Yippee...
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Thursday, October 6, 2011

Steve Jobs on Google

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Steve Jobs on apple.com

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Kumxia Steve Jobs

He passed away last night...
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My Day Four

Taking it a day at a time. 8 more sleeps before Fata gets back.
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Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Charming!

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My Day Three

So far it has been just to smile..
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Tuesday, October 4, 2011

OMG! I miss my mac! - My Day Two

Sigh..
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Monday, October 3, 2011

I miss you already

Fata is off on a 11 work trip, I miss him already :( plus a brand new work environment to get used to, I'm not a happy bunny :(
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Phuket Day Three (back to SG)

We started our 3rd day in Penang bright and early again. Breakfast at the level 6 King's Club was surprisingly quiet, the lady said they had 47 pax that Sunday morning, and we were between waves. Nice for us.:)

Between the 2 of us we brushed off blueberry pancakes, French toast, eggs benedict, Spanish eggs, coffee, tea... Yummy :) Our cab was waiting for us by the time we checked out to bring us to the airport. With a couple of stops enroute to buy tau sah piah, and the 2-sister char away kok we missed on Saturday.

The rest of the drive to the airport and flight home were pleasant and uneventful. Oh yes, just one more thing, that band at Hard Rock Cafe on Saturday once said - oh we don't have that song by The Bills, but we can do a medley by The Bills instead. For that 20secs we thought, who are The Bills? So famous they have a medley? And we haven't heard of them?? Then the band sang, I wanna hold your hand... Hhhmmm...

Kumxia Fata and Penang for a great trip. The next time we come back, we're taking the bus :)
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My Day One



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Sunday, October 2, 2011

Penang Day Two

This morning started with a 1-hour massage at the Rock Spa, sweet! Followed by an eggs ben breakfast with lots of extra sides. Then it was off to the Macalister area in George Town (RM40) in search of local food. This fee was confirmed when we got into the cab at the hotel, this cabbie actually started the meter - dunno what for. If these fixed prices were done for the benefit of the taxi drives, then why did this cab's meter stop at RM42 when we got off? Why didn't he just use the meter and make the extra couple of bucks? I don't get it...

Our first target was char koay kok, which Allan found via a Penang food blog. This push cart was elusive, didn't find it until it was closed :( but there was good chendol and wheatgrass drink at the end of that street. Around the corner was soya bean curd with gula melaka. Walking further, we found ourselves back at the coffee shop where the cabbie had earlier dropped us off. There we had steamed and fried yam cake, fried oyster omelet, prawn noodle soup, char koay teow and ice kachang. With a coke and iced milk tea on the side. Too much food again...

There was a kind waitress at breakfast who told us about local buses, which cost a fraction of the cabs. And we were lucky to catch a glimpse of the buses 101 and 102 both mentioned earlier. So... time to venture onto the local bus system. Sitting at a stand which looked like a bus stop but didn't have any indication that is was a bus stop, we sat patiently. After about 20mins bus 102 arrived. The trip back to the hotel was only RM5.40 for 2! Yippee!!!

The afternoon was so hot, we quickly changed at spent more time in the pool. Today there were A LOT of kids... so we kept to the quieter pool until it was time for pre-dinner rum, beer and perrier! Dinner was supposed to be near the Toa Pei Kong Temple, Pearl Lagoon Seafood (RM25 cab ride), recommended by a Penangnite. A lovely local place with a few stalls with seafood was the main feature.

We had crabs, prawns, fried oyster, fried spring chicken, fried spring roll, chicken satay and fried Hokkien noodles all washed down with more beer. Food, glorious food! hahaha... Then Fata said that we had to go back to Hard Rock Cafe for dessert so that we can we say that we ate there. Sure... this time bus 101 was RM4 for 2 people. Luck was on our side as the band was starting in 10 mins and we had that amount of time to order our dessert!

The 7 member band was ok, not great. The songs were old, and the place started to fill with cigarette smoke. We forgot that in Malaysia smoking was still allowed in restaurants and bars :( We spent that set as a pair of air filters... hhhmmm... enough! Back to the room.

Kumxia Penang for another great day, tomorrow we go home and back to reality.

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Penang Day One

It's time for another adventure. This one is a longer-than-usual one too. Wednesday 28 Sept I bid farewell to my job of over 7 years. Yesterday, 29 Sept, Fata and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary. Today 30 Sept we headed to Penang, Malaysia for a quick weekend getaway before, Monday 3 Oct, I start a new job and on that same day Fata heads out to 3 European countries in 2 weeks for work.

So, today 30 Sept our adventure stared with an early walkabout Changi T1, it was good to see this 36 year-old airport (from 1975) slowly get a facelift to catch up with the times :) Our budget flight (there is nothing budget about 2 return tickets Singapore / Penang for S$515!!!) left for Penang at 11:25am. It was a quick 1hour 10minute flight.

Our 75RM cab ride from the Penang International Airport (also going through it's own upgrading) took almost as long as the flight from Singapore! The vintage taxi took it's time... we got to the Hard Rock Hotel Penang just after 2pm. The check-in was at the King's Club on the 6th floor. We had initially booked a lagoon room (with direct access to the swimming pool) via the Hard Rock Hotel Penang website, but we got a call (followed with an e-mail) the next day to say that the room which was meant for us needed fixing, so they offered us a free upgrade to a Seaview Studio Suite. Sweet!!!

There was afternoon tea from 2:30pm at the King's Club, and the rest of the day was spent at the pool. It started out really nice, but as the sun creeped across the sky, more and more screaming children started to crowd the pool. Time to shift deck chairs and look for a quieter haven. We left for a quick rinse and went back to the King's Club for evening drinks and canapés.

A long stroll along the beach brought us to a friend's food recommendation, Beach Corner Seafood. It was ok but I found it costly, RM103 for 1 x pomfret assam claypot, 2 x deep fried spring rolls, 1 x stir-fried mixed vegetables, 5 x dark soya sauce prawns, 2 fresh coconuts and 1 orange juice. And only the assam pomfret and springs rolls were worth the walk :P

It cost us RM25 (there don't seem to be any metered taxis in this area of Penang, the signs on the outside of each cab says "Metered Taxi - No Haggling Allowed" is such a farce) to get from Beach Corner Seafood (just next to Parkroyal Hotel) to Gurney Food Center. It is like Newton Circus in Singapore, lots of local food stalls and lots of locals so something must be yummy. We waited 20 minutes for the famous char koay teow, tried some rojak with sugar cane juice.

Fata needed contact lenses 'cos they are more comfortable when swimming, we walked to the CapitaLand mall just next to the Gurney Food Center at 9:45pm in search of the lenses. Very luckily Fata found his savior in the form of a pretty-young-blue-contact-wearing-lady, who had the contact lenses he needed, but also replaced the nose buds on his spectacles, one of which fell out in the earlier swim. :) kumxia nice lady :)

With the earlier pre-dinner, first dinner, and the first part of the second dinner, we went for a long walk along Gurney. Back at the food center at around 11pm, it was chee cheong fun, chendol and lok-lok :P the cab ride back to the the hotel was another RM25, very expensive... now to rest up for another day in Penang! :)