We are moving the first of our things into our very first rented apartment together. My pots and pans and textbooks will go first. Only that alone has taken up the whole car!! @.@ Might have to use the textbooks as decor on the ceiling or the walls in our tiny apartment.

I would say this is a pretty huge milestone for us as we have been playing the long distance game for.. well, forever! We have never been the couple who saw each other day which I believe allowed us our own space to grow during the past six years in our own ways and yet whenever we get to meet during our semester holidays, we make the most of it and then go back to living our own lives. It was difficult at times but you get used to it.

Being in Kluang for the past six months was great because I could go home anytime I wanted (space) or choosing to go down to him (spending time together). It was a perfect balance, a gradual step to living together.

I have been praying and bugging and praying and bugging and begging for the second leg of my first year dental officer posting to be done in JB and thankfully, I GOT IT!!! We went apartment hunting the very next day.

It still hasn’t quite sunk in… this whole living together thing. It’s exciting and strange at the same time because living on my own usually means that I have housemates. Is he my housemate? My family? What is he? What is this?? It’s a strange limbo between boyfriend and husband. It’s a whole new level of closeness. I think this is what people mean when they say taking the next step.

The both of us did feel awkward as we surveyed the apartments, quite shy to introduce ourselves as a couple, almost like as if we’re too young to be a ‘couple’. We really need to get this whole We-Are-Still-Kids mentality out of our heads because god knows how long ago that was. This is what being in university for far too long does to you. You grow up a little later than your peers.

I have friends my age already buying houses, some even buying houses on their own without a partner involved. It’s all very adultish!

The idea was to get an apartment that was not too far from the causeway, super safe and near enough to my workplace. But because of the rotations a FYDO would have to do, I’ll have to drive around Johor Bahru for quite a bit and best of all, against the crazy morning traffic!

We were very fortunate, albeit very much poorer now too after paying 3 months rental plus utilities deposit for a 700 sq ft place within spitting distance from Hospital Sultanah Aminah, one of the places I’ll be attached to! I keep telling everyone that it’s really within spitting distance! Like, I can literally throw paper planes from my balcony and it would land in the hospital grounds! It’s also a stone’s throw from the seaside..which is basically just rocks because you ain’t got no beach front along the causeway area. No worries! I still have a seaside residence! The sea breeze blows in pretty strongly so I think we can save on aircon usage!

A lovely plus is the fact that Hospital Sultanah Aminah is THE place for all emergency cases so that means when I am on-call, I can just walk over when my phone goes off!

I’m so glad we’re here, the end of our long distance relationship journey. This moment was a hope we held on to dearly for the 5-6 years. We were even surveying Johor Bahru two years before graduation…that’s how excited we were! And to finally be here, we really don’t quite know what to make of it.

and yes, we have both our parents’ blessings to be doing this together. More like no eye see.. hahahaha. <3

It’s so long ago that my graduation ceremony photo albums pops up on Facebook’s Photo Memories every now and then. But it is my graduation day, and no matter how long it has been, it will be up here. My europe trip too. Even though it happened in mid-2009, one day I shall post all if not some of my pictures taken in Amsterdam, Paris etc.

Some shots from the morning, Chee Kiang in his outfit that garnered many compliments from my friends.

Old news but…CHEE KIANG GOT ME AN IPAD FOR MY GRADUATION!!!

With graduation bouquets that I ordered for myself on behalf of my loved ones T_T

Got Chee Kiang to go trigger happy with my DSLR while I was down at the basement getting ready with my classmates.

Came up to show them my attire! (and to make my parents sniffle..wahahah)

This was when I still did not know how to wear the robes properly. ;|

Getting my attire lovingly adjusted by mum and Chee Kiang.

At the basement with Brenda. This was our day!!

Dinner mates!! <3

With Poh Yee! Side note: We held each others’ hands when opening our letters regarding the places we were posted to.

l-r: Wuan Phing, Jaya, Fiza and Yan Rui! Wuan Phing is in Pahang now, Jaya is in Kota Tinggi, which is Johor as well, Fiza Selangor and Yan Rui is somewhere in Perak.

I’m definitely going to miss moments like this. :’)

Myself and Bala, one of the most capable and independent guys in my class.

Obligatory 5.3 group photo. I miss my group mates so much despite being the only girl there. Yes I am the only girl. *runs away from Cze-Yin’s evil glare*

With a very unfriendly Jimmy.

We were lining up, like in primary school, waiting to go up on stage!

Yup that’s how I looked like in my gown. Uh-huh.

Narjit won the Best Dental Student award! Since Year 1 we have already known that the award would go to her. Just wish that the school would have come up with a better name than that.

Terrible right this Jimmy. Take photo with Narjit so happy pulak.

Doing a favour for Group 5.4. Here’s your group photo if you haven’t already saved it from my facebook album from centuries ago.

Group 5.1!

Group 5.3.

Another one with group 5.3!

And lastly, group 5.5

With my darling Lie Yuen. I sometimes I forget that I am living alone and when there’s something I want to tell someone, anyone, I instantly look for Lie Yuen, then I remember, oh yeah. We are not living together anymore.

With Jamie who got posted back to her hometown in Sarawak!

If you can see, my family members are waving in the background of this picture. Heh. They somehow managed to find seats along my row in the graduates’ area.

More photos while we waited patiently for all the inspiring speeches to end.

After getting our certs! And yup, no nice photos of me on stage by my dad/Chee Kiang. There’s one professionally taken by the gown rental/photography people which I have collected but have yet to scan it… it’ll just get hung up somewhere at home. There’s gonna be a little shrine on one of the walls dedicated to my graduation.

Not a scroll!

With Dr. Manikandan and Dr. Karthik. Dr. Karthik is like a super teacher. He was there with us from (almost) the beginning till the end of our studies. He thought us the super basic stuff like dental materials and cavity designs all the way to complex things like post and core, crowns and bridge, cast partial dentures.. we can’t thank him enough. He is extremely dedicated to the students and helped us in any way he could. We were initially afraid of him because he put on the bad cop persona but over the years, he became a dear friend and mentor to all of us.

Dr. Manikandan is one of the dental officers who sees patients before deciding if they are suitable for the students. He also played a major role during our Clinical Management Report and credits to him for the beautiful before and after photos taken with the clinic’s camera. He also earns many brownie points among the students here by being one of the hottest staff members around! That being said, Dr. George is still a favourite among most female students. HEHEHE. Sorry everybody, the secret is out.

Sneaking a solo photo in amidst the chaos.

Found Dr. Brindha and Dr. Niekla!!

These are the two most motherly lecturers I have here.

Dr. Brindha is Dr. Karthik’s wife and the both of them arrive at AIMST at the end of 2006, early in our second year. She was the good cop to Dr. Karthik’s initial bad cop. Dr. Brindha is usually the one to reassure us when we are faced with “OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT” situations. She takes her time to clear our doubts for us and is super super super patient.

Dr. Niekla.. probably the most popular lecturer at the dental faculty. She has recently left AIMST so it’s quite unfortunate that the juniors will not get to know her . You people at IMU better appreciate her! She’s probably the most animated, adorable, caring and understanding lecturer ever! She has no qualms about letting her hair down when joking with students and swings back into professional mode when it comes to our paediatric sessions. Yes, she’s our paediatric dentistry lecturer. With her good PR skills, she’s excellent with the kids and she’s the one who taught us about the importance of a reassuring touch to improve our communication with the kids.

A bear, Jimmy and Magesh.

Praveena and me!!

With juniors Serene and Rachel.

With my patient, Mr. Phoon! Mr. Phoon is probably one of my most caring patients ever… I only met him during the final leg of my final year, a time when stress levels were sky high, tears were held back by fanning ourselves frantically. When my clinical management report (CMR) patient told me that she probably could not come for anymore treatment, I really didn’t know what to do. Mr. Phoon, whom I had a session with that day, saw my crumbling face and offered to become my CMR patient. He said he could come anytime I needed him to. I was so so so touched by his sincerity but I had to persevere to convince my first patient as I had already started with her case and there was not much time left. Thank you so much, Mr. Phoon. My junior who took on your case is very lucky to have you as a patient.

Finding a good patient back in uni was seriously rare. I can only name like… a handful of patients who were nice to me. Most were nightmares. I had one infamous nightmare. Hahaha. No names please!

With Lie Yuen and Brenda and our graduation presents!

A bouquet of Ferrero Roucher!! Who so lucky?!

Mum and I before I scrambled away to go on stage for a group photo. Sorry mum!

With Maxis’ famous Doraemon soft toy. The soft toy even made it into the papers! More on that further down.

Me, detecting a camera.

Can hardly make out our faces but yeah, that’s all 37 of us. The first batch of dental graduates from AIMST University! Our class photo is hung in the dental students’ common room to be remembered for ages to come.

With Prof. Smales, a man who loves us as much as we love him. He still has his british humour about him which is not quite registered among my classmates most of the time but we do love him so much. He is the one who build up the entire aimst dental programme with the help of Datuk Dr. Rohani, Dr. Robinson and Prof. Comfort. But this AIMST BDS programme is his baby.

In the initial years, he would come in every other month to tell us about the developments of the programme. He would tell us about the construction of the simulation lab, the technology lab, what we were to expect in our new dental building at the new campus (which we only saw for the first time in our third year) and later on, the successful accreditation of our course. It was a long journey and he was with us all the way. I believe that this is a privilege that the first batch of dental students have managed to enjoy. People in the fourth batch and so on would probably never get to know Prof. Smales the way we did. I’m sorry that you guys did not get to see the school transform to become what it is today but please appreciate all the facilities that you have here at AIMST because it wasn’t always like that.

Cze-Yin, her aunt and her cousins.

When we came out from the great hall, THIS was awaiting us. We were stunned into silence. It didn’t quite register at first.. but we eventually calmed down and were overwhelmed with such gratefulness towards our dental juniors. you guys are the best. Always always always so creative.

With Batch 4′s famous dental probe (made from a roller brush) and mouth mirror (mirror made from a milo tin cover..lol).

Extremely supportive juniors. We felt like real celebritites…:) We felt so loved.

This is my politician smile. lol

They called themselves the mobile backdrop. ;D

Lie Yuen’s red carpet smile.

Poh Yee gets mobbed too. LOL

Some quiet time with my dear Brenda and Lie Yuen.

Was getting a little bit tired from all the activity.

With Yen Yen Cheh Cheh who came all the way from Singapore to see me get my certificate. Thank you YYCC!!

With Chee Kiang and all my presents. <3 Oh, the iPad was in the car.

Paiseh to take the flowers.

Ok, a more loving photo.

Family photo!! yup, this is my entire entourage.

The girls!

One of my few solo pictures.

MUST TAKE. Housemates photo. MUST.

As planned on Facebook, we gathered at the grassy patch next to do the administration building for our mortar board throwing picture.

Unbeknownst to us, there was a chinese newspaper journalist among the crowd of proud parents looking on. So yeah, there’s a photo of my classmates and I in one of the chinese newspapers a few days after that.

A few more jumps. Someone kicked Doraemon to the floor by accident. Haha.

Ready for the next round!

Whee!!

Don’t know who’s mortar board is whose.

To this day, I still don’t know how they managed to get the mortar boards to form a circle in mid-air.

We looked more like lawyers!

Group photo with as many as we could find.

With Batch 2 juniors, Melvin, Samuel, CY, Sook Mei and June.

With Ada (second from right) and her pharmacy coursemates.

<3 Sabrina and Aimee!! Batch 4 juniors.

Some quality time with the family. Koo Cheong and Koo Ma!!

With dad and mum.

Chee Kiang and the bear, taken against his will.

Like in a movie, but it would be better if my hair was not so haywire and maybe more make-up for me please.

One more round for Brenda who missed the mortar board throwing photo session.

Whee!!

With Aik Munn, one of my favourite Batch 3 juniors.

I think this was when my dad teased Chin Kai about being the new owner of most of my furnitures.. haha. Take good care of my grandfather’s old cathode tv, Chin Kai!

With Yii Ping and Jen! Jen is the proud owner of one of my book shelves and my weighing scale. LOL

With Philip and Deniece!

Kaixuan!

Stephanie and Charis!

Felicia and Ei Leng!!

Us seniors feeling so loved with all the juniors coming to see us on this special day.

With Janice, Samantha, Sook Mei and Shing Yin

With Janice, Kimra, Agnes, Soo Huan and Wai Yan!

Awww my favourite sibling of a friend, Lie Peh! <3 <3 <3 <3 No prizes for guessing who’s sister. Hahha.

With Siva!

And GERVIENE!! Our current ADSA president, resident funny woman of AIMST Dentistry. Thanks for always making the cutest jokes, Gerv!!

With Ananth and Dhanya.

With Jimmy from Pharmacy Batch 2! Poor guy got posted to Terengganu.

More solo hiaupor photos. Much thanks to Chee Kiang for layaning. <3

With Lily!

With Prof. Ferguson!! My oral biochemistry lecturer. He said if he didn’t make use of his camera (to take pictures with his students), his wife would question him. LOL.

He looks so cute here!

With Jickson, Cynthia and Sheena.

And Victor!

When you leave a boyfriend waiting in the car with your camera, this happens.

Oooh..ooh.. so right, after like 3-4 months of my convo ceremony, the family and I decided to go get proper shots done at a studio. Here’s the results:

*punches fist in air* YESSSSs… done with my convocation ceremony post.

Let’s start off with what I love about chinese new year:

1. I actually love reunion dinners the most.
2. Having Yee Sang and tossing it while muttering auspicious sayings for my own benefit (damn selfish right..haha).
3. The first day of Chinese New Year where it really feels like chinese new year. The festive mood dwindles down after the first day.
4. Counting angpows and breaking last year’s record. Very generous haul this year, even I am surprised!
5. Winning while gambling.
6. Cooing over new nephews, nieces and cousins young enough to be my anak luar nikah (malay translation: child out of wedlock)
7. Long yuk ftw!
8. Mandarin oranges, I think I have reached saturation point. I bought RM34 worth of mandarin oranges in two big plastic bags and ate and ate and ate in my room back in Kedah and I have not actively pursued one since. I just *might* be growing out of it.
9. The red confetti of a disintegrated fire cracker.
10. Being able to tell people that I’m graduating in July. I even don’t mind the “So I’ll be your first patient!” jokes. Just a bit worried about how many first patients I now have.
11. Having a little heart to heart or having a good laugh with relatives I hardly get to meet, realizing we can actually go more than small talk. Hey Michelle, Hey Fiona!
12. Wearing new clothes.
13. Once upon a time….fire crackers and sparklers.
14.  The lack of jam in Subang Jaya during the festive season. But soon, this will be THE hometown as our parents are gonna be grandparents soon and we will be moving out of this congested suburbia.
15. CHAI CHOI!!!
16. Yeo’s packet drinks.
17.  Beautiful angpow packets.

What I Hate About CNY:
1. Not having yee sang for reunion dinners.
2. Having reunion dinners at home with takeaway meals. I had KFC one year, still feeling rather sad about it.
3. Being called fat by relatives. I have SO much to say about this. I read Mel’s tweet on CNY eve about how her relatives can’t keep their comments to themselves about her being a little more meaty. So I suggested that we keep a tally about how many weight comments we get during CNY via twitter under the hashtag #cnyfatcomments. Also unhappy about weight comments, Kok Keith decided to join us.

Here’s our report:

CNY eve:

Mel: What business of everyone is it anyway if I’m fat or thin as long as I’m healthy?! Keep ya comments to yaself! *roar* 

me: @meowdee Let’s keep a tally how many fat comments we get tmr! Read yer tweets! 

Kokkeith: I also got my first! RT @jayelleenelial: @meowdee Let’s keep a tally how many fat comments we get tmr! Read yer tweets!

me: @kokkeith : 1 @jayelleenelial: 2 @meowdee: 0 #cnyfatcomments

CNY Day 1:

me: @kokkeith : 1 @jayelleenelial: 3 @meowdee: 0 #cnyfatcomments complete with hand gestures..fml*
 

Mel: @jayelleenelial @kokkeith Hahaha OMG Jo kesian! Mine is still at 1, but I’m only at my grandaunt’s. #cnyfatcomments

Kokkeith: Kena gang bang by all my aunts. 1 even said she wants to pinch my cheeks! Zomg! @kokkeith : 6 @jayelleenelial: 3 @meowdee: 0 #cnyfatcomments

CNY Day 2:

me: Uncle predicted i put on at least 1 kilo. Mel still so lucky ah? @kokkeith : 6 @jayelleenelial: 4 @meowdee: 0 #cnyfatcomments

Mel: @jayelleenelial @kokkeith O boy sorry guys. Think mine’s still at 1. #cnyfatcomments

me: Twice from the same uncle! Fuckanathan!! @kokkeith : 6 @jayelleenelial: 5 @meowdee: 1 #cnyfatcomments

Kokkeith: @jayelleenelial @meowdee I’m still at 6, they might be saying I’m fatter but its in hokkien so I just nod & smile. #cnyfatcomments

–

Throughout the entire duration of fat comments, I’ve had aunties who squeezed the fattest part of my arm, an old grand uncle whom we all thought can’t remember me coz he’s quite weak now, could mumble something that I can’t comprehend but it was accompanied with sign language with two hands firstly close to each other followed by the two hands moving further apart. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know what he meant. Then one uncle who sized me up with his good eye saying and in his most tactful and polite voice, “At least 1 kilo more than last year la you.” Then shot me again with round 2 after I was wiping my sweat complaining about the heat, “Especially people like you who are a bit heavier, you’ll sweat more in this weather”.

All the comments were more bearable by being able to update @kokkeith and @meowdee about my latest score.

4. Having to travel from house to house. I had FIVE houses to go to on Day 1 and when I came home, I slept on the living room floor.
5. How angpows don’t mean as much to me now. I was once excited about receiving Rm2 and Rm5 notes as I got to keep those and the bigger RM10 notes were to be given to my mum to be put into the bank for me. Now ang pow money is like loose change that never enters the bank. Too paltry an amount, saves me time to just use it as part of my living expenses still the next time I need to withdraw money. 
6. Not knowing which of my new clothes to wear coz I got side tracked to pick out uni clothes/cocktail dresses instead of pretty summer dresses which are suitable to look trendy yet modest enough to not shock the older folks.
7. Tong tong chang music. I hate the ones that are sung by modern singers thinking it is cool to give a little remix to an old chinese new year tune. I like authentic ones, but I would most prefer the sound of the instruments played during a lion dance. 
8. My mouth working faster than my brain. I wish I could turn back time and un-say a few things to some relatives.
9. Getting pineapple tart crumbs stuck between my teeth. 
10. Losing RM40 one short during a game of In Between.
11. Not that I hate, but I’m not too keen when I have to attend a big open house. The host is far too busy and we have to make new friends instead of bonding with old friends.
12.  The smell of rotten mandarin oranges.
13. Having to endure the infamous chinese new year weather. This year is particularly worse. It’s humid as well!
14. The mere thought of having a stretch of houses to visit. (but it’s not so bad once the conversation flows)
15. Having to go back early to school without being able to absorb all of the chinese new year.

I think that’s about it.

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I’ve known this for a long time already but you are actually my best friend, confidante, gossip partner and most of all, boyfriend rolled into one. It’s all Jolene ever needs. Someone who can feed her with gossip, listen to her gossips and react to it, listen to her embarrassing secrets, make her howl with laughter, surprise her randomly when you notice almost all her likes and dislikes and to love her just the same. I’m glad you can do all that and not run away yet.

Expensive phone bills are not the norm for us and we only use Skype to chat when MSN is down. Though admittedly I have emo-ed in the past about the lack of phone calls (we’re both too busy and lazy) and lack of webcamming, but I know this is the way we do it. We make up for it when we see each other by telling each other everything and anything about what we have done, people around us who did things (ie. juicy juicy gossip!) and what we want for the future wayyyy into the night before we drift off to sleep. I’m usually the one falling asleep first as you continue to talk excitedly while I reply you with super random things coz my brain doesn’t quite comprehend anymore as it is shutting down. <3

I really like that.  

So this Malacca trip was supposed to be an eat as much as possible and take nice nice photos kind of trip. We started off with some noms back home in SS15. It was is one of those quieter lanes where Chee Kiang usually likes to have breakfast at. I can’t remember the name of the place for the life of me. So much for being a Subang girl.

He likes his dry..

I like mine wet.

It was supposed to be a day full of photos so here’s one to start things off. 

Stitch was REALLY happy when we arrived in Malacca.

As it was during the year end holidays, plenty of cars were jamming all the way into Malacca town. Here’s the Jalan Munshi Abdullah road sign. This was the road where my mum grew up on in a couple of shop lots that housed almost 20 members of the Ho family and one nanny to each kid! There were live-in cooks as well.

The road was called New Come Road back in the day. My great grand father bought three shop lots on that row to build a home for his family but he never got to live in it because he died before the building was completed. His third and fifth wives brought the children (child no.6 right up to child no.14. Child 1-5 either died or were back in China) to live their lives there. My grand father and his brother being number 7 and number 6 respectively started a hardware store business which we still have to this day though the shares from all the siblings have since being bought by my grand dad. Grand Uncle no.6 excelled in his studies and went on to study medicine in Hong Kong to become an orthopedic surgeon. 

My mum would tell me plenty of stories from her childhood about how her older guy cousins would play pranks on the young maids. Of how she and her cousins used to steal food from this refrigerator at Aunty No.6′s apartment as it was stocked full with ice-creams and chocolate. Of her dangerous stunts sliding down the stairs with a few of her cousins on ONE piece of wooden plank, at the SAME time. Of how they hid in fear and peered out the balcony to see soldiers roaming the streets in 1969. At that time my Aunty Ping (my yeema who passed away) had a foreign exchange student who stayed with our family. I think she was American, and being more happening than my aunty, she was out at some party when the riots started and scared my grand dad shitless when he couldn’t even contact her. 

Another one of my mother’s favourite story to share from the old shop lot was the aircon story. She messed with the sole air conditioner in my grandparent’s unit (the entire shop lot housed three families, each family had one unit to themselves) and spoiled it. Just as she was about to be caned by my grandmother, my 4th Uncle steps in to block my mum from getting hurt. Quite touching, but not much drama, sorry.

My family used to own a hotel called Regal Hotel in Malacca and it was the first proper hotel in town. The kids could just walk in anytime and have a meal and put it on the tab. My mum said she dare not simply eat for free because it was after all ran by 12th Uncle and so she would usually just tag along when 12th uncle’s daughters went for a treat. The hotel has since been sold off.

Then sometimes when I have alone time with my grandma, she tells me stories of her early years in that shop lot after marrying my grand dad in 1950. Third great grandmother was a feisty woman who is your typical first wife. (1st and 2nd wives were left in china. 4th died shortly after marriage.) A particular scathing remark I remember grandma telling me was when my first Uncle was born (if you remember my cute nephew Ethan, it’s his grandfather!), my grandma’s mum always came over to look at her first grandson. Third great grandmother did not like having my grandma’s mum around and said to her, “If you like babies so much, why don’t you go get one yourself!” and being a midwife, my great grand mother (grandma’s mum) adopted a child. So just like that my grandma had a baby brother at the ripe old age of 20.   

In the early 90s, I remember visiting the already empty shop lot with my family as they picked out antique furniture to decorate their respective homes. My Yee Ma gave the kids a task to keep us occupied, she got us to pick up all the coins we found on the dusty wooden floor and surprisingly there were plenty. 

The hardware store business was still running on the ground floor and this was before they moved to a bigger premise about half an hour away. By then grand uncle no.6 came home to be with his family and hung out with grand dad quite a lot. It was shocking when Grand Uncle No. 6 hung himself in the shop lot because he did not want to trouble the family when he found out he had alzheimers. Consequently, my grand father too developed the illness about 9 years later and so did his 9th brother. *crosses fingers* Let’s hope it stops there! 

The shop lots have since been transformed into a modest budget hotel called Venus Hotel! I was trying to look up information on this budget hotel but there was none. Maybe my family history can make the place feel more ‘authentic’. Throw a bit of the antiques around and put up some old photos. Perfect! 

This was when we parked the car and started taking artsy fartsy shots (which we hope turns out to be so). Here’s an old school car number plate shop.

and now time for some hau por photos from me.

You think that’s spontaneous huh? It was more of “Okay now this side, then you kiss me on the cheek okay! 1..2…”

Just so you know, that we were there and all.  

Jonker Walk, the musical!

I thought fish spas were usually found in atas-ier places. 

Had to hurry past this as I was afraid the scaffolding (that is what it is called right?) might collapse on me.

Almost all the trades in the area looked like family business. Another old school looking something, this time, A MONEY CHANGER! (oh how exciting. -_-)

Guess me taking his photo added a little excitement to his day judging from his smile. 

This was selling all over Jonker Walk. Tiny umbrellas posing as wine bottles and most of it was like RM10 to RM15. I almost bought one but I get turned off when all stalls sell the same thing.

This was rather interesting! More photos on this guy later. You usually see these clay figurines being depicted in ancient tvb dramas.

What an apt name for a dentist! I got a very apt name too. Pergigian Gigi Lai, as suggested by my cousin Hong Fei.

1Malaysia!

Just for fun, we did something we never thought we would ever do! At least not until we become superstitious adults who take note of numbers of new cars, death certificates, number plates of cars in car accidents, birthdate of first born, new washing machine serial no, four numbers our dead ancestors gave to us in our dreams… the list is endless.

Being total novices to the whole 4D Toto thing, we bought a few numbers which was basically variants of our anniversary date 17 or 18 of December 2004. Being total noobs, we just randomly bought the numbers and didn’t ‘ta’ the numbers. To ‘ta’ is to permutate. 

Fuckanathan 1718 came out but it came out 7811 or something. CONSOLATION PRIZE OKAY!

You wonder if all the businesses are there just to look pretty for tourists or is that really how they roll? 

Though it does not have anything to do with malaccan culture, I thought the knick knacks that almost every other shop was selling were rather cute! Cartoon magnets!

Store owner yakking on his modern handphone while being enveloped in old world architecture.

So, there were plenty of chinese characters all over Jonker Walk as expected, since the area is rather chinesey. Had a bit of mandarin tuition from him though frequently reading things wrongly, like mixing the chicken character for mother or horse. Mother and horse are quite similar. But turns out it was about the chinese prime minister. This was on a poster at the front of Jonker Walk. Not the towel. So easy la the towel. Lao por wo ai ni. THERE!

Chee Kiang’s favourite cartoon! When I found Tusiki (Tuzki?) stickers, he wanted one for himself!

Tusiki building the great wall of China? Hahahaha.

Cute fans… but such is my life these days, always in an aircon somewhere so this is quite useless. Aircon clinics, aircon afternoon nap rooms (common room at school), aircon car, aircon bedroom……wait, only my lunch place is not air-conditioned! How can this be! ROAR! 

Chee Kiang thought including the chinese words would make for a better photo. 

Little wire decos. 

Another staple at Jonker Walk would be the awesome t-shirts! I just bought one with a few black sheeps staring at one conventional white sheep going, “Who’s the black sheep now?”. Gangsta sheeps! And another one with the silhouette of a little girl and a tiny baby alien holding hands looking at his spaceship crashing into her home. He then says, “Sorry……..” SO CUTE. Little alien has a tiny antenna from the top of his head!

Just liking the colours but I think these Babe shirts are rather much.

Steamed peanuts!! But I love salty steamed horse peas more than these. 

Okay, this was rather nice and unlike the mass produced toys found all over the place! 

Not quite a tourist attraction, but he just wanted to pose like the models.

He’s getting there!

One with the weather beaten road sign. Do you think the Malaccan government manually scratched the paint off for maximum authentic effect?

Perhaps an actor hired by the Malaccan government to make the area look more rustic. 

Check out the long line waiting to cramp into the chicken rice ball shop. The last time I had chicken rice balls I hated it because it was too mushy. But it was also because I was like 8 years old and was so damn picky when it came to food. Mushy rice balls is so yum now with soya sauce from the soggy steamed chicken. Mmm.

A quick fish face with the stone fishes.

SUPER OLD SIGN BOARD! Check out the currency denomination! 

We had to share tables when we were in there and the wait is super long. I think all the lining up and food waiting took about an hour.

Really long wait.

I was wondering though why chicken rice balls are not replicated all over Malaysia like how Char Kuay Teow and other hawker delicacies are. 

A smile with lips slightly parted.

A smile with teeth showing. 

Chicken carcasses right next to our table. Nice.

In case the chicken started sweating.

Good to see that good hygiene was a priority.

The steamed chicken skin was a little too soft for my liking.

Chicken rice balls up close.

The chicken rice sauce that is used is not quite soya sauce so it wasn’t up to my usual expectations but we finished five balls each!

Yeah just shove it in your mouth, uh huh.

This little girl was not happy that I was going trigger happy. The two times I went near her with a camera, she turned away, refusing to look at me. I felt so sad.

 But he enjoyed his mochi.

Mochi close up.

Since it was the end of the year, Jonker Street was filled with tourists. Elbow to elbow.

Passed by a shop selling toys from my past. Couldn’t resist myself!

The brand I bought was the inferior one. Thins out damn fast. The good one is the one with a pink cap and is slightly bigger in size. 

I miss these things!

Chee Kiang didn’t want to play though.

Chee Kiang reenacted his “HEY YOU!” look which was in one of his FB profile photos. This look kinda sticks in your head.

You can’t see it here but I was blowing one of my bubbles.

More quaint chinese things to be found along Jonker Street. My grandmother used to have one and she would walk around the house with it on some evenings saying that the smoke will chase away the evil spirits. 

Haven’t-Finish-Skool meets Old Skool.

An olden toy outside an antique shop. Isn’t it gorgeous?

A lone joss stick under the afternoon sun.

A trip to Malacca can never ever be complete without having Durian Cendol. This means I have racked up far too many incomplete Malacca trips in all the 21 years that I have been visiting. 21 x 5 visits = Over a hundred visits sans cendol. I haven’t even been to A’Famosa until 2007. Locals never bother to visit the tourist attractions.

Durian Cendol monster. He had two.

Of all places to be pinching a pimple!

It’s a little unfortunate that the stain on the mirror made his nostril look diseased. 

High tv aerials to get Singapore television shows illegally. My mum used to have it as a child.

One trishaw puller put his legs up in the air and shouted, “Weee!” as he took a corner.

Some pastries that I think belong in Negeri Sembilan?

A necessary photo outside the clogs shop.

So this was the clay figurines that I promised to get back to. I tried googling about this cute little things but I really don’t know what they are actually called. Polymer clay right? Not candies right? 

The sifu is a real master. Love the gold bits he puts on the figurines.

To play with my bottle of bubbles, I found a quiet spot away from the bustling crowd to just blow bubbles. 

A young family wound down their car window to allow the bubbles to get into the car.

Chee Kiang managed to get a photo of me exchanging smiles with the family. Would have looked better if I was 19 years younger. 

Fascinated by the bubbles.

A few passing kids were rather jealous of me.

It was without question that I made Chee Kiang blow his fair share.

Weak bubble.

Found another quiet spot with a pretty backdrop. 

I thought there was supposed to be a mirror on this thing. How will the ghosts see themselves now? 

Pineapple tarts are one of the more famous souvenirs from Malacca. Again, never knew.

Another downtrodden altar.

We then explored the back alleys, away from the main Jonker Street and saw a bit of the local trade. This shop sells noodles!

A shop that sells plenty of beans and spices.

So messy, not quite sure what it sells but provisions nonetheless. 

Reminds me of the turtle eggs I saw being preserved in a similar jar.

A little out of place was this dirty looking warehouse which I assume to be a santan making factory.

More arts and crafts things. 

After falling in love with works of art in Paris, I had an inkling that Malacca would satiate my new desire to look at and learn about paintings. But this was a batik painting gallery, bleh. I want to look at poster colour or water colour paintings! Even oil paintings would do!

I think we eventually ventured over to an area called Masjid India… or something. Here’s one of the lions guarding the oldest temple in Malacca.

And here’s one of me with the joss stick container.

Here’s one of someone who knows exactly what to do at a temple. 

So grand..

Red candles! I wonder what they signify.

The insides of the old temple.

We didn’t want to disturb anybody because everyone looked busy praying so we had to camwhore instead of asking for some help.

Remnants of prayer flowers.

These are the bronze engravings found on the temple doors.

There is something so calming about wax lotus tealights. Beautiful, religious and you can almost hear the chanting monks. Actually the only times I hear chanting monk is when I go to a funeral. If the funeral is for a family member, the song sticks in your head and you hear it when you’re in the car alone, when you’re in the bathroom, basically anywhere where there is supposed to be silence. Freaky.

Oh, here’s a fair bit of art.

Seems like you can’t take artsy fartsy shots these days without uncles staring at you with arms akimbo.

Check out my shadow!

You really don’t pass up brightly painted, uh, shutters? Whatever it is, nice background.

I’m sure he is just joking.

Beautiful clogs!! Probably a novelty but oh so pretty!

We ended up at this coffee placed called Malaysia 13 States’ Coffees or summat. Chee Kiang and I actually kepo-ed because we saw an old white guy flirting with .. um, i don’t know what race, but I’m pretty sure the girl is a fellow South East Asian.. and she was laughing at all his photos in his camera so we took the table next to them for some afternoon entertainment. We turned our chairs around to sit the Al Fresco way. Oh right, this picture is a list of all the websites and blogs that have reviewed this coffee place. Was hoping to put jayelleenelial.com on the map by blogging about having coffee there.

A bit of christmas decoration.

So as you can see, apparently coffee beans grow and get processed different in various parts of the country.

Chee Kiang had a Negeri Sembilan drink.

Thick and frothy..

He actually likes it.

I was just having one since it seemed rather different but then I remembered how much I hated coffee that is not Nescafe.

My coffee was from Terengganu and it tasted horrible. So damn bitter.

Possible the only way to pass the time.

I noticed that the colours of my gorilla pod and our hands together looked rather nice under the afternoon sun and then he went on to exclaim, “I notice you like to take this kind of photos a lot.” Blushing, I decided to have a little variety so here are some pointless finger and hands photos:

That’s what waiters are for.

Since I wasn’t the driver of my own car for once, I had the chance to spend plenty of quality time with the toys in my car. I hardly get to hug them as they are strewn all over the backseat.

We passed by Bukit Baru and I had this urge to visit my grandparents’ old house. In 1997, they shifted to Bukit Beruang which is where the family would congregate every time we all go back to Malacca prior to my Aunty’s death. This Bukit Baru house holds many childhood memories for me. All the cars could be parked in the porch and the garden. During chinese new year, five cars would be parked there and there would still be room to run around playing fireworks. 

When it wasn’t chinese new year, my cousins, my brother and myself would be playing in the garden and running round to the back to play with the dog. We were about 6-9 years old and were light enough to seat on the dog who really didn’t mind us. Some nights, my aunty would devise games for us and we would play on the porch until we got bored. I remember once she asked me to lift up my legs as she held my hands and swung me round and round and round. I was flying!

Behind the sliding doors on the first floor was the family hall. We would all sit there after our bath to watch a VCR, either a Disney cartoon or a TVB show. Afternoons were spent playing pirates with the big bean bag and if there were hell notes lying around (especially when there is some taoist celebration coming up) my cousin sister, Jacqueline, being the tallest would hide the hell notes and ask us to find it. Speaking of that particular bean bag which always seemed to be bursting at the seams, I remember taking a polystyrene ball from it when I was three years old and putting it up my nose. It couldn’t come out for awhile and scared my parents shitless.

So many memories, I can never finish writing them all. 

I had to have a picture taken with the house. Since I was lazy to put my glads back on (glads can be such a bitch), I wore Chee Kiang’s Crocs out. The colours are blinding aren’t they?

Nice of him to wait patiently for me.

Opposite our house was a big family with so many girls. I didn’t quite comprehend it back then but come to think of it now, the parents were probably trying for a boy. So many girls I don’t even remember how many there were. They used to come over and play with us and we would flag down the Roti Man/Ice Cream Man together and get the adults to treat us to 30 cents ice-cream cones or Mammee Monster. 

There was a little boy who stayed in that house who would climb over the fence (very dangerous) to play the Happy Family card game with us. 

My grandmother painstakingly watered and loved these pine trees (there were four of them, but only two are left) and now they are cut in half.

I had quite a bit of explaining to do to the owner of the house when they saw me snapping outside their home. The lady asked me why I was taking pictures and I had to tell her that I was a bit sentimental and that this was my grandmother’s old house. She wasn’t too friendly.

Feeling a bit embarrassed, we then made our way back to the highway and headed home. 

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And now he is married to a beautiful Miss Gloria who hails from Negeri Sembilan. 

He proposed to her at a bus station in Negeri Sembilan before going back to Johor for his clinical (he was still in final year at that time, I think) as they were so very sad having to part each time he came to visit her in Negeri Sembilan. His story damn drama one lah, typical Ben Shyen. Something about how he asked her mum if he could take her with him to Johor/Kulim and the mum was like, “You marry her lah!” and that’s exactly what he did! In his words, “So after proposing to her, I drove…” “WHAT!!!!” I shouted, incredulous. Coz Ben Shyen, being a very good citizen has refused to bribed the JPJ people for his kopi-o license and has not got his driving license yet. He has not had the time to retake his driving test and for years have become a running joke among the bunch of us. We still love him just the same, always so fun to tease him. <3 

I need to share the infamous incident where Ben Shyen failed one of his driving tests. Hope he won’t kill me for this.

He was all ready and set to go in the driver’s seat when the instructor asked, “Hujan kah hari ini..?”

“Ya Tuan, Ujian!” he replied.

Abit frustrated, the instructor asked again, “Hujan kah??”

“Ya Tuan, Ujian!” he answered again, perplexed. 

“HUJANKAHHHH?!?!?!” the instructor shouted, pointing at the swinging windscreen wipers.

So anyway he said, “OKAY fine, WE drove to a nearby goldsmith to get our rings. And when I came up to Kulim, she followed me. ”

*sigh* HELLO LAM CHEE KIANG APAMACAM! GOT TAKE DOWN NOTES AH. 

Ben Shyen’s bunch of guy friends were our other close bunch of guy friends who were from the 1984 batch. This means that most of them are two years older than us but my bunch of girls (the dahlings who are all 23 year old grandmas this year) and them got on like a house on fire. Many thanks to Interact Club and being on the Volleyball Team. Because of them, I had wonderful wonderful high school memories. 

So for them to come all the way up north was a damn fun road trip that I wished I was a part of. The boys bought a Doraemon helium balloon and was voiced by Dennis all along the high way. The balloon was supposed to be tied to Mel’s car because she apparently drives like a demon on the North South Highway. All the better they could see her with, my dear. 

Since I’m already in Kedah, all I had to do was drive down about 45 minutes to Penang to meet up with the rest who started their journey about 6am from Subang. It’s quite nice to be in Kedah for once so that I can wave my hands dismissively at them when they offered to fetch me from Sungai Petani, “Pfft..it’s okay. I can drive down myself, very near only.”

While leaving Sungai Petani, I saw this signboard. Quite demeaning lah. Like Kedah is not ALL about paddy fields okay! 

Long story short, my gps sucks balls and meeting up with the rest took far too long so I spent my afternoon on the internet at E-gate while waiting for further instructions to meet up. Since the rest were still gallivanting around mainland Penang, trying out the local rojak and what not, I was alone on Penang island hoping they would arrive soon. Wai Kit too arrived in Penang airport and so I offered to pick him up as I didn’t have anything else to do at that time.

The moment he got into my car, he snapped his phone shut and was like, “Okay, we need to have operational base here in Penang. I’ve booked a room at Rasa Sayang in Batu Feringghi!”

Room is an understatement though. 

The awesome awesome bed that I didn’t land my ass on.. abit paiseh.

And there was a freaking open air hot tub!

The living room..

The bathroom which could do with a little bit more privacy.

The hugeee wardrobes… gosh. I would love to stay there again!! 

The idea was to make full use of the beach as the sun set on the straits of Malacca but they were STILL stuck in a long crawl all the way from the Penang bridge right up to Batu Feringghi. If you know your Penang roads, you would shake your head too. So it was just Wai Kit and me. Haven’t seen him in about 3 years and there we were hanging out together, doing beachy stuff.

Wai Kit grew up with Ben Shyen, Dennis, Joshua et all when they went to primary school and high school together until he left for Singapore in form3 when he got the Asean scholarship. Being the smart fella that he is, he later went on to further his education in US, scored a really good job and was sent over to Hong Kong where he now works. He comes home frequently and hangs with his high school friends so as you can see, they have rather strong bonds! 

Growing up with Dennis, Ben Shyen and the rest, I did not really have the chance to know Wai Kit like how I got to know the other guys (can insult until the sky fall down that kind) as he left my high school when I was in form1. Still, it’s nice to see him in short spurts whenever the chance permits.  

For a damn long time I have been meaning to try parasailing and with Wai Kit’s encouragement, I just thought, “Ah what the fuck” and decided to go on one. 

It’s quite scary actually because the guide’s like, “Must run fast okay!! MUST RUN!!!” I’m all so what if I don’t run fast enough will I die or what!!! and before I know it, I’m dragged on the sand for a bit before my entire body is lifted off the ground and I’m floating through the sky, about a 100m above the sea.

My parachute is damn cute right! It’s like so happy go lucky while I’m screaming like a little bitch.

Happily sailing over the sea. 

At that point I was totally taking in the sights, regretting not bringing my camera with me. Could have tied it to my wrist, no problem one.

It’s a short ride. But for RM80, it was worth it as I will probably never have the chance to do something like that again. If I don’t pay RM80 to do it again la. -_- Must always try everything once right?

Happily landing.

Got dragged on the sand again. Such is life.

You can’t see Wai Kit in this picture but he was happily having a swim while I sat gloomily at the side waiting for the rest. Should have brought my bikini damnit! The lack of a bikini also contributed to an event where Mel, Mun Teng and myself took our friendships to whole new levels while using a certain facility that we would never ever have the chance to use again if we didn’t fork out huge sums of money. Desperate times.

And the gossip girls hath arrived!

While the boys decided to do some catching up by the pool..

Mel, Mun Teng and I made full use of the open air hot tub in the room. I wish I could stay in that room again and again. This time must substitute everybody in that room for just one single person.

The wedding boy treated us to seafood at Batu Feringghi! 

I think these were baked prawns marinated with salt. Or seawater. Tastes real good!

We couldn’t care less and used our hands anyway!

There were so many crabs – no shortage at all! Usually when I get to eat crabs, I have to make sure that other people have enough to eat before I take a second piece.

If you like crabs slightly salted, this is good!

Meet Soon Han and his coconut!

LOL Joshua wasn’t trying anything, poor guy was just caught in a candid pose.

Jiun Jeh and Mun Teng who sat at the other end of the table and had their own jokes going on and all. Boo.

See how Vern Yang enjoys his food!

L-r: Jiun Jeh, Soon Han, Myself, Sarah and Yuen Fatt!

Jiun Jeh and Soon Han seemed to be trying rather hard to be in the photo. 

This is basically the entire bunch who were there for Ben Shyen’s bachelor party that night.

Since it was a bit improper for the bunch of boys and us girls to be getting naked in the tub together, we just soaked our legs and talked cock the night away.

Some bachelor party this is. -__- The boys were lying in bed together watching some football match. That’s Ben Shyen on the floor waiting for his stripper who never came. (We never called also)

So of course the idea of a bachelor’s night is to get the wedding boy drunk. This is my first bachelor’s party (and I think the only one ever) so I don’t quite know the traditions. 

But I think in Malaysia, birthday boys and wedding boys all same only ya? Idea is to get them pissed drunk so that we’ll have plenty of stories to tell in the years ahead.

Because we were near water, the boys parked all their gadgets on the massage bed. YES there was a freaking massage bed too.

A  very unflattering photo of me and the wedding boy. Only Yuen Fatt looks nice here.

L-r: Dennis, Wai Kit and Mel having a good soak.

Joshua emos on the massage bed as he wanted a good rub.

Best friends forever! Since standard 3 apparently.

Josh wanting in on Mun Teng and my intimate moment.

Dennis and Mel being bodoh as usual. Thank god for Yuen Fatt and his sanity.

Sigh…*proud momma tone* See how the boys have grown! Met them when they were all tiny 15 year olds hitting on my best friend. 

top l-r: Jiun Jeh, Jit Seng
bottom l-r: Soon Han, Tze Hur and Wai Kit.
I was never really close to most of the guys in this pic with the exception of Jiun Jeh and Wai Kit (thanks to Interact Club) but because of Ben Shyen’s wedding, I got to know them all a little better. All damn funny one!! 

Josh finally got his massage.

As part of his bachelor night, Dennis offered to give Ben Shyen’s feet a good rub.

He even went in between the toes!

A clearer picture of Ben Shyen’s infamous bulus. Back in the days, Ben Shyen was already very hair for a 16 year old and volleyball tournaments meant Ben Shyen would be owning the court in his short shorts with our volleyball coach goading him on going, “GO BULU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” 

Volleyball practices were whiled away seating by the benches and finding ants on the floor to be put into his mass of leg hair. The ants had a tough time finding their way out.

As for Interact Club projects which involved some arts and crafts (think cutting hearts/roses thorns for V’day projects), the scissors would come out to snip snip away at his hair. It was okay, he always had more to spare. 

This was when Wai Kit popped a champagne bottle and splashed it all over Ben Shyen.

Poor thing.

Totally not helping.

Even though a lot of the champagne spilled, there was still quite a lot to go around.

Cheers to the first one of us to get married!

Dennis taking care of his buddy.

After a few drinks, all the emoness started. Dennis damn make spoil the moment lor. 

I can’t remember what happened in this photo. But there was a running joke that since there was no stripper for the night, Mun Teng could fill the spot. She’d stand in the middle of the tub and prepare a bubble bath and we were like, “Oh show starting already show starting!” and she’s only trying to make more foam in the tub.

From Batu Feringghi we then made our way back to Kulim using a GPS, which meant getting lost until almost 4am. Zzzzzzzzzzz. Once we reached our accommodation for the night, I asked Dennis, “What time are we getting up tomorrow?”

He deadpanned, “6am”.

So after an hour’s worth of sleep, I was up at 5am blow drying my hair while cursing. 

Mel and her sleeping gear.

Everybody loved my mirror. That’s Jiun Jeh shaving.

Dennis in his bad ass get-up as Best Man.

They even made t-shirts for all the heng tais. The girls had t-shirts as well but we were like, “AND PASS UP THE CHANCE TO PAN LENG LENG?!! Go die.”

Best friends since 1984.

The design was done by Jiun Jeh who is pretty much our designated t-shirt designer since forever. Volleyball team t-shirts, Interact Club t-shirts, Project t-shirts… all thanks to Jiun Jeh! He went on to become a superstar in his hall (Raffles Hall) at NUS and if you are aware of the traditions at NUS, Rag Day is a huge thing! He designed one of the rag float during his years there!

The guys looking dashing in their heng tai t-shirt complete with blazers.

At 7am we made our way to Ben Shyen’s house. He has now officially moved away from Subang Jaya and is staying in Kulim. It’s only like half an hour away from Sungai Petani, technically I could visit him whenever but since Mr. Doctor Ooi is always so busy……so.

Josh staring in amazement at his own reflection.

I joined him.

Dennis damn traditional right, came complete with a fan and everything.

Aunty and Uncle Ooi with their son on his big day.

MEET GUCCI!! The family’s pet dog who can give Angel a run for her money.(not like she has any)

So damn teddy bear right <3

Awwwwww.

Ben Shyen tries to garner the same enthusiasm for his pet cat….. so I layan only.

Camwhoring with the groom.

Making use of the big mirror in his house.

While waiting for the rest before we left for Pearl View hotel, where the bride’s side was waiting, I kepohed around and found their wedding pictures. So nicely done!

I want to get married too!!! Fasterfasterfasterfaster. 

Dennis carrying out his best man duties.

Big boy liao. *sniff*

One with the wedding car!

Instead of the usual ribbon on our antennas or car handles, we got a sticker! It was my first time being one of the cars partaking in the Heng Tai entourage!

The gorgeous view of rolling hills outside Ben Shyen’s house.

Much thanks to Josh who offered to drive my car, I could spend some quality time with Stitch.

Stitch is damn nice to hug one.

Heng tais!!

That’s Ben Shyen’s brother who look pretty serious about photography.

This groom ah, still got time to camwhore one. -_-

One with the pseudo heng tais.

The heng tais and pseudo hengtais plus one Ah Soh (Marcus’ girlfriend, Pei Yong who was also our senior from school!). Trivia: Marcus’ dad was my Add Maths Tuition teacher, Mr. Chan who is one of my most favourite teacher ever! He loves cooking and would always share with us his latest baking attempt. He would even whip up extremely delicious meals for us during chinese new year.  

All 11 of the heng tais. Just you wait, during my wedding, all 11 of the Dahlings.

Mun Teng was designated camerawoman for the day. Mel handled Jit Seng’s DSLR and I, my own camera of course.

So that i could camwhore whenever I wanted.

Don’t know what Dennis was up to lah.

Here comes the groom!

Make way. Dennis really kept up with his act.

Jiun Jeh totally spoiled the cool look.

He invited himself into the frame when I was camwhoring with the heng tai entourage.

As per our tradition, the bride’s chi muis will make the heng tais play some games before they allow the groom to see the bride. Would have been better if it was at a proper house, but since it was held at a hotel, the only place they could play the games was at the corridor. 

This was a strange game. They made Ben Shyen eat an entire rope made out of dried sotong, and it stretched on for about 6-7 doors. 

Cruel.

See how demure he is, eating everything obediently.

Lousy heng tais, just laughing at their brother and taking photos.

The next game involved bananas.

The bananas were tied around their waists…

And a poor unsuspecting heng tai would have to eat it without using their hands.

Some of them had the better end of the deal.

And some, not so.

Dah kenyang kah belum?

I didn’t quite understand this game as it involved some seashells and some alphabets… but apparently he had to put some ice in his mouth etc and say how much he loves Gloria.

I really don’t understand the point of this game.

As you can see it was really packed.

The heng tais trying to push down the door.

This was when Ben Shyen had his mouth full of ice and declaring his love for Gloria. Tough work.

SUCCESS!!!

I bet the bride was anticipating it for a really long time:) Must have been very exciting for her.

LOL see Josh and Yuen Fatt’s face, so full of love for Ben Shyen, seeing him all married and stuff.

Awwwww <3

And here begins the photo session with the bride and groom.

Plenty of people waiting for their turn to have a picture with the happy couple.

I’m not sure what these were for but they were on the table.

First off, the heng tais and the couple.
L-r: Jiun Jeh, Soon Han, Joshua, Jit Seng, Tze Hur, Chee Seng, Vern Yang, Dennis, Yuen Fatt, Wai Kit and Marcus. 

The pseudo heng tais. There are supposed to be more of us but a lot of them could not make it=(

Gloria and her chi muis!

Mel found some left over bananas.

And me a carton of drink somewhere. Damn tak malu, we just helped ourselves to whatever food that was lying around. And then took stupid photos. -_- Such is life.

Not satisfied with first stupid photo.

Scandalous photo of Mel and Josh sneaking off together.

We left the happy couple to have their tea ceremony in peace while we waited outside or else the entire room would have been cramped with unnecessary guests (ie. us). 

This is when the sohai photo taking session took place outside the hotel room. Here is Vern Yang trying to hit on Mun Teng who is supposed to be a hot chick.

Too eager already, Mun Teng’s face.

Suave guy then digs his nose.

And he gets the girl/gets the girl drunk.

Third party comes into the picture.

Wife of third party wants him to come home.

Bloopers wtf.

Damn depressed coz he didn’t get the chick he wanted and the wife (me) left him.

Then the older brother comes into spank his backside.

Some incest takes place.

Promotional poster for the stupid short story.

Trying to give me looks worthy to be in Vogue/GQ.

Our turn to act slutty.

This is me with the “Such is life” pose where two guys check me out. Josh fail lah you. Cannot smile so happily, must smile with bad intentions.

Mun Teng was seriously sleeping due to the extremely short sleep we had.

Josh continues with the sohai photo taking. This is the one where he acts as some rich man who could have any woman he chooses. So he sees a sleeping beauty unconscious somewhere in his hotel.

One last group photo before we took Gloria back to Ben Shyen’s house.

Man and wife. :’)

Gosh I absolutely love the ruffles at the back of her dress. It’s so dreamy.

They take the chinese traditions quite seriously. What does a red umbrella signifies anyway? Wait, what’s the meaning of the umbrella in the first place?!

Typical wedding day process photo.

The entourage on the way home was far larger.

Bringing his wife home to show his mum.

Gucci has a bow tie on for Ben Shyen’s big day.

Ben Shyen’s uncle could not stand Gucci’s cuteness. His cat Lulu was wearing a tutu and was looking damn grumpy.

Gloria’s gorgeous hair.

There was nyonya cake for lunch and I said the stupidest thing, “Eh? Ben Shyen got nyonya blood ah?”

Couldn’t stop eating..:P

Can see the boys emoing to Boyzone which was playing in the background. Jiun Jeh seemed to know the entire album by heart.

More evidence that we were seriously lacking of sleep.

Heng tais without their blazer! 

Looking at this pic, I thought about the shared history between this bunch of boys and the dahlings. At least half of them were involved with at least one dahling during our high school days. Some were involved with two dahlings, many had hit on the same dahling, some one way, some two ways, some three ways *shifty eyes*. But we still remain good friends despite it all. <3 And none of us ended up together. -_- FRIENDS FOREVER!!

They are very proud of the back of their t-shirts.

Me and my korkorbear, the older brother I never had. Dennis had always taken care of me since I was 12 years old and has seen me and the other girls grow up and sideways (me). He was there to mediate our arguments and he always gave the best advice. 

I haz tutu. 

And a nice ribbon too I just realized!

Someone’s not too happy about his red bow. 

Even Doraemon had a tutu to wear! In case the cat crapped her first tutu, there was a back-up tutu! I don’t know which is cuter, the doraemon wearing a tutu or Mun Teng’s face. <3

Mun Teng terrorizing the animals.

Mun Teng terrorizing the toy animals in my car. Poor pink flat bunny with wings can’t seem to breathe.

Aforementioned Doaremon balloon which seems to be made of very good plastic for a helium balloon.

When one has balloon in hand, one must act cute. An idiom I learned during my english classes long ago. 

This Jiun Jeh ah, when I told him, “I take photo ah!”…he’s like, “go out go out!” I didn’t believe him. He then took off his pants. X_X

Wai Kit and the bed.

The cat tries to hit on Doraemon but he was totally playing hard to get.

Josh asked us if we could help him to sew a button onto his pants but we forced him to do it himself as it was for his own good. If other girls saw him do his own sewing, they’d just melt inside and want his number. 

This was him laughing after we explained to him.

Being girls, we took a damn long time to get ready.

Such a necessity these days. What happened? When was the turning point?

Damn lazy lah the boys, still wanted to lepak around.

Bimbo shot in the girls’ room!

Wai Kit, not quite James Bond.

Some kungfu action takes place while waiting for the rest.

Very pretty already lah Dennis.

This was actually a strappy dress and in the car I turned around to say something to Mun Teng and Soon Han and the straps broke just like that coz I’m just too fat.

A proper photo to be used on my Mail Order Bride application forms should anything happen to my relationship. One must plan for the future.

HAHAHHHA I’m feeling ya, buddy.

Just to check if Dennis The Monkey had any remaining kutu.

Sensitive topic, apparently.

Why does Wai Kit want to kill Doraemon! Why?!

Totally satisfying Doraemon. Mmm.

Best friends forever and ever!

LOL Soon Han, looking good already.

This was when I asked them to give me their most CEO face. You know, the usual pose when some big shot in a company stands in front of his manufacturing plant in a presentation video or something. Josh nails it.

There’s a tiny smile playing at the side of Jeh’s lips.

Emo CEO. WTF Soon Han! 

Pan cute CEO! Hahahhaa. Maybe Sanrio punya boss.

Damn seductive right his lips, partly open and all. I don’t know lah, new year resolution is to think less dirty thoughts, so better not come up with any idea. You guys go ahead!:P

As for the girls, I made them give me their most pan cute faces! Awwwwwwww.

Why my friends so cute one.

Not my friend. 

My so called pan cute face.

It works for some.

Without any effort too!

Heh, this was no need to say lah. He’s got it already.

Hahahaha, he kept laughing. But this is like a CEO asking you, “You sure you know what you’re doing, boy?”

Haih. Friendly CEO.

Vern Yang works the lanci look damn well.

Tak kenal siapa ni.

*ignores*

Wah this CEO look can make you shit in your pants.

The CEO who made it look.

This is what happens when boys find your hair curler.

Seriously, got to keep it out of boys’ reach.

Mun Teng’s won-an-award face.

Long story short, we were damn late for the wedding. When we went in, the bride and bride groom were already sitting down. It’s very very very very bad. We know, we were damn guilty. Probably some of us are still feeling guilty to this day.

Butterfly and heart and Mel’s tattoo! 

Interesting idea for table confetti! 

The people at our table minus Dennis. Well in a way we were glad that there were so few of us at the table. All the more for us to eat!

The heng tais and the ah sous.

As best man, Dennis had to give his speech.

Gloria’s brides maid. (I think)

Ben Shyen sang a song for Gloria. The cha tou part was that he had to ask Gloria what the title of the song was coz he forgot. -_-

The usual yam sengs.

Vern Yang damn gentleman, serving everybody and all.

The girls and myself in our dinner dress.

Sigh, didn’t think I’d live to see this day. Ben Shyen growing up and getting married…:)

Yam seng one more time!

Marcus and Pei Yong who are now based in Penang!

Josh and Mun Teng. josh sure has a damnnn big smile on.

Vern Yang and I.

Joshua and I.

Yuen Fatt and I.

The heng tais and the chi muis!

And finally I got one with the newly weds. 

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I’ve been on the plane on my own a lot this year. My virgin solo flight was in Feburary 2009 to surprise Chee Kiang for Valentine’s day and I even flew to Thailand on my own last weekend. My first time in Bangkok! SHOPPING MADNESS. Promise you, it’ll be the blog post after this. Not a big deal to you jetsetters but I’ve always regarded airports and flights as a family thing, a big hoo hah when a bunch of friends plan a holiday months in advance. 

Coming out from my car at the Penang International Airport’s carpark. I’ve been googling for years regarding buses or simpler modes of transportation from Sg. Petani to Penang airport but to no avail. A freaking cab costs RM90 from Sungai Petani to the airport and that’s only one way! If you drive, the toll only costs about RM12 or so. I can’t really remember. But get this – if you leave your car at the carpark for 24 hours, it’s RM20! So if I leave my car at the airport over the weekend, say Friday night, Saturday night and I return on Sunday, my total will be about less than RM70? Which is tons cheaper than RM180 for your cab ride to and fro Sg. Petani. Still pricey. :X 

Hate doing aeroplane maths. Return flights + parking cheaper than driving home (RM50 petrol, RM50+ toll one way) or what? Sigh. Anyway, moving on. This is not a post about my travel expenses.
 

Felt quite proud of myself as I managed to hop on to the MRT from Changi Airport and actually walked from the Outram MRT Station to Link Hotel. I is not a pampered girl! Yayz! (Actually because no money to flag down a cab). Link Hotel was previously a row of HDB apartments which have since been converted into a boutique hotel. The rooms there come in four themes – chinese, malay, indian and modern. I think mine was chinese.

For the Nuffnang Asia Pacific Blog Awards, all foreign bloggers (Malaysia, Phillipines and Australia) were put up at Link Hotel. It was packed with bloggers… over 90 rooms apparently. Like a whole conference going on! I was feeling a tad bit antisocial, don’t know what’s wrong with me, so I didn’t make many new friends.

Foreign bloggers were also provided with free transportation and given a three day tour of Singapore which I had to miss out on due to uni commitments. (Read: Visiting a kindergarten on Sunday morning to read to them a story about The Teeth Siblings (Adik-Beradik Gigi) It was part of my assessment okay -_-)

The link bridge between the.. uh, Link Hotel. (now I know where the name came from)

The bathroom wasn’t too shabby too! Nice and bright for my much anticipated make-up session. Since I arrived earlier than most of the other bloggers who were on the bus from KL, I had time to kick back and make full use of the complimentary broadband internet. That’s like a total of 4 hours of me-time. Very enjoyable.

The lights in the room were a bit dim though. 

NYahahhahahahaha. My cosmetic collection which hardly sees the light of day. 

Gotta love the mantlepiece in the bathroom. So very convenient!

When the invitation deems it a black tie event, you know you can go all out. Bring on the extravagant lashes! <3

Fascinators are great alternatives when one is low on cash to splurge on professionally styled hair. I got mine from BabyBeDazzled which is pretty much THE place to get headbands and hairbands from for those on a budget. I’m low on funds after the boomz (souvenir from Singapore) Bangkok trip so need to save up whatever I have left. Dental dinner is in two months and I need cash for dress, hair, clutch, shoes, blings, mani and pedi…and what else ah….oh yah dental dinner ticket. ahahaha.

Falsies, lock and loaded!

I only used some brown and turquoise eyeshadow from the 88 colour palette which I bought from Blushberry almost a year ago and my usual Blitz ‘n’ Glitz MAC Fluidline with the Kohl eyeliner. Kohl eyeliner kind of smudges, much to my disappointment. :\ 

Okay, just one more picture of my fascinator before I put up pics of my dress (which is recycled from a previous dental dinner. MONEY DON’T FALL FROM THE SKY OKAY. Actually someone should tell me that. I have seriously been overspending. T_T)

To those who were curious, freebra is always my answer. Always. :ppPPpppPP

I buy a new pair every three months or so as the adhesive do wear out. The idea is to slap it on as far left and for the other side; as far right as possible..and clasp it together. You’ll see the difference too! 

After getting ready, I went over to Soon Seng and Yen Li’s room to kacau a bit as it was still early. That’s Soon Seng doing up his hair.

Yen Li and I wore the exact same shade!!! Great girls look alike.

The sea of bloggers gathered at the reception area was a little daunting but slowly, familiar faces started to become apparent. Here’s Ginny and Vvens!

That’s Natalie whom I was very friendly to during the entire time – all the time thinking she was this other girl, Carmen. -____- Some more can hug and say bye bye see you again keep in touch! Only found out my boo boo when I came home to tag photos on FB. :\

Yatz so handsome with his now short hair!

Met Wei Zhi of KampungBoyCityGal fame and Christine, who happens to be Chee Kiang’s classmate from his short lived IMU days.

On the way to Pan Pacific Hotel for the inaugural Nuffnang Asia Pacific Blog Awards 2009!!

The first of many photos. L-r: Julian, Grace ?? (Sorry, please correct me if I am wrong. ), Swee San, Soon Seng, Yenli and myself.

Ming, who was earlier tweeting about how it all seemed like preparing for a big wedding reception.

That’s Simon, another familiar face. 

Met Swee San for the first time in person too!

Michael, who was there to cover the event for The Star! Gone were the days when he made me pixelate his face. THANK YOU MICHAEL! But just to be safe, won’t be linking him…. unless he says it’s okay!

Tried to get a shot of the crowd before we entered the hall.

A bit like Leo/IU event now. One rep from each Subang school. Got Subang Utama (Chee Kiang), Seafield (Yenli) and SJ (Soon Seng). Chee Kiang said I’m always very excited when there are Subang people around and that I like to group them together to have a photo taking session. LOL. Well if we wanted it to REALLY be a Subang people thing, there were two others (Audrey and Wai Ping(Pinky)) who were running around.

As with any Nuffnang event, there’s the huge backdrop that people would go and have a photo with. Very much like actual gala awards. 

With Chee Kiang who came after his class ended at 6pm! Hugs and kisses to him for sitting through the entire thing while I went about making small talk with new friends, gossiping with old friends and camwhoring with the luminaries. Also for being my camera man. Thanks dear..:) That’s why I love you so much!

Gourmet Pringles!

Okaylah sorry one more of the two of us. Shit, the silly feather from my fascinator is hanging over my forehead like a dancer’s headgear. Anyway, the last time we got dressed up for something so glamorous was when we were both only 16 and 17 years old. 

Taken back in 2004. On the eve of my birthday, so technically I was 16! 

Nuffnang Bloggers from Australia! I’m not too familiar with their blogs but Mel got all excited that I could have said hello to Super Kawaii Mama and Lady Melbourne! =\ Now I regret.

Yenli and I with our smart colour choices, heh. Actually there were plenty of blues that night. Perhaps the next most common colour after black (which is the Nuffies’ colour code). But it was nice, we stood in shades of blue and took pics!

This is Jayden who is one of Singapore’s top bloggers! This guy is mad…check out the video he made for the Pringle’s Krrrunch video which won him SGD5000.00! He’s also doing his national service at the moment. He got his inspiration for his suit from Willy Wonka, damn creative right?

Here’s his video and here’s the Behind The Scenes entry.

I think I wanted a picture with Jolyn and the line just grew.
L-r: Sorry I didn’t get your name? Kenny, Jess, Tzia, Jolyn, myself and Chee Kiang (it’s written on his face that he got pulled into this picture forcefully..lol)

Kenny got his suit barely 2 hours before the event! And most amazingly, it looks really good too!

Inside the ballroom while waiting for the event to start.

We had little bottles of rock candies as door gifts. It had ‘NN Blog Awards’ and ‘I Love Blogging’ in the middle of the sweets. But because of all the holes made by the alphabets, I cut my tongue a few times while sucking on some. Got ulcer now. Still tastes nice though. *continue to torture myself with more sweets* I seriously don’t know when I will I start having the mentality of a dentist and shun sugary stuff. ;\

With KY, Haze (of Blushberry fame) and myself.

OOOh!! Look look! I’m in the programme book! This was some section depicting their journey from their early days. And there I am, their second ever featured blogger for the month of April in 2007. Wheee. For plenty of times, this screen shot has been used over and over. Quite syok sendiri right.

Aforementioned rock candies. Bad for your teeth. Bad. So..very..bad. *dying of guilt from having eaten three today*

But it’s so cute!! The tiny candies come in bright quirky colours. Sigh. Why are bad things so cute.

I think the candies were a great touch. Very personalized. 

This is the only photo of the stage that you’re gonna get. From where I was sitting, I couldn’t even see the stage. But we had a big screen right in front of us and as a result both Chee Kiang and I had to give neck massages to each other late at night.

Ming and Tim’s heartwarming speech about Nuffnang’s journey thus far. Tim was quite nervous though when he delivered his part of the speech! He must have been way too excited. Well, they have all come a long way. So proud of them!

And there’s a video too.

I thought it was pretty good, where Tim and Ming will complete each other’s sentences.

The nuffies get introduced. Hi Yee Hou.

Yee Hou’s pelvis thrust dance when he seals a deal.

Then it was time for the moment that everyone was waiting for. THE AWARDS!!

I’m honestly very grateful that Nuffnang came up with this ingenious idea of picking and awarding the best blogs in the region. I now have gems to trawl as I am losing my touch when it comes to finding good blogs to read. The nominees and winners are of seriously good quality. Not your average trashy eat shit sleep kind of blogs or copy and paste assholes or even head tilting bimbos with emoticons in place of vocabulary.

And here we are! First up, Winners of The Best Blog Shop: Bonito Chico. 
It’s not often that I acknowledge that girls are pretty. But this is one of the very few times where I will chase after them just to have pictures with them. They are so hot!!! 

The other nominees were:
Tracyeinny.com.sg
Ohmymuffins.blogspot.com
Hervelvetvase.com
Ohsofickle.com.sg
 

Winner for Best Food Blog: IeatIshootIpost’s Dr. Leslie Tey. He’s a medical doctor by day, food blogger by night! 

According to Chee Kiang, Jon always quotes from Dr. Leslie Tey’s IeatIshootIpost.sg about nice places to eat around Singapore. He must be really good at juggling his time with his medical career and his food blogging! I’m not sure to what extent his popularity goes out to, but he seems to have appeared on a tv programme before and his camera equipments are sponsored by Canon too.

Quite proud of my boyfriend also. Seems to be quite savvy about a few Singapore blogs. He even reads Taxi Diary!

Other nominees were:
Eatshowandtell.com
Awhiffoflemongrass.com
Ladyironchef.com
Kitchencow.com

Winner of Best Fashion Blog went to Lady Melbourne! I love her hair bun!! So elegant. Apparently I’m a total dinosaur here. So ancient in terms of blogging trends that I should just hang up my blogging hat and call it a day. I never knew fashion blogs were a whole category on their own. Given, I know Tongue In Chic is a good example and have become a staple to almost all Malaysian girls… but yeah, didn’t know it has spread like wild fire! 

Other nominees:

Fashionation.wordpress.com
Bryanboy.com (strange that he didn’t win..given the amount of supporters he has. He even has a Marc Jacob bag named after him, okay?)
Monoxious.com
Superkawaiimama.com

Winner of Best Parenting Blog: Childhood101!

My favourite parenting blog will always be Loopymeals (been reading since 2004 and now the kid that they were pregnant with is attending kindergarten) and Karen Cheng (speaking of which, why is she not nominated?)

Other nominees:

Oureverydaythings.com
Wifelysteps.com
Redmummy.com
Planningwithkids.com

Winner of Best Travel Blog: Ironwulf.net! All the way from the Phillipines!! 

Other nominees:

Travelerfolio.com
Passportchop.com
Akademifantasia.org
Nicolekiss.blogspot.com

Winner of Best Celebrity Blog: Joanne Peh!!!111111111111. I didn’t get a picture with her. I loved her so much in Little Nyonya. She’s really tall in real life and in the show, she’s quite tiny. So I suppose everybody who acted in Little Nyonya must be really tall. If I go on the set, I’ll probably be the littlest one there. That would be nice for a change.

Also, I wanted to tell her that the guy who raped her in Little Nyonya is quite cute, so must’ve been quite nice! I also read that during the rape scene, he was so afraid to put his body weight on her because he was such a gentleman and had to place his entire weight on his knees.

Other nominees:

Cruzteng.com
Fallagain.pitas.com
Inibelogsaya.blogspot.com
Haringliwanag.pansitan.net

Winner for Best Entertainment Blog: Kenny Sia! MALAYSIA BOLEH!! (finally lo)

I knew Kenny would have won hands down. 

Other nominees:

Girlwithasatchel.blogspot.com
Cowboycaleb.liquidblade.com
Budiey.com
Beautifulnara.com

Toilet break! Met up with Yenli and camwhored. We were placed so far apart. Table 8 and Table 34. ;\

I finally got to meet Nicole Kiss after spending nights chatting together on Gtalk about her Thailand adventures, my sticker business, her jewelry business. She even sent me a whole pack of stickers from Thailand once. Thanks babes. She’s really tall in person too and just as pretty as in her pictures.  

Jojo Struys, our local Malaysian celebrity. I first met her in 2003 on the set of Kopitiam when I went to the Vision New Media studios in Section 14 to interview Douglas Lim for my school magazine.

Wai Ping or as most of you know her, Pinky! She’s now studying in Melbourne and also working part time for Nuffnang Australia! 

Audrey! Tiny hat for a tiny girl, awww! Love your dress, Aud!

Cheryl, whom I met at the Vpost Christmas Party last year, happened to sit next to me at my table. YAY! 

Trying to get more couply shots. I was complaining why didn’t he put his head nearer to mine and he’s like, “Your hat thing keep poking me!”

Realized I didn’t have one with Soon Seng!

Doesn’t Diese look resplendent in that shade of blue? I love how it stands out. Maybe my dental dinner dress should be this shade of blue.

Winner of Most Influential Blog, Winner of Best Blog Design, Winner of Region’s Best Blog: All Xiaxue. She won so many times that she could have a few laughs with a variety of acceptance speech. Kenny even came up to do the whole Kanye West thing: “Xiaxue, imma let you finish but I just wanna say that Steven Lim has the best blog OF ALL TIME!” If you don’t know who Steven Lim, go google him. Maybe google “Steven Lim Singapore” to get more specific results. 

Other nominees of Most Influential Blog:

Kennysia.com
Beautifulnara.com
Down–to–earth.blogspot.com
Jehzlau-concepts.com

As for Best Blog Design’s nominees:

Phunkiefresh.net
Akiraceo.com
Octwelve.com
Jayleif.blogspot.com

See how happy she was!

Winner of Best Hidden Gem: Dedoodleblog.blogspot.com

This category consist of blogs that are instant hits among the masses though they are new.

Nominees:

Teddy-o-ted.com
Lollili.blogspot.com
Taxidiary.blogspot.com
Lobbylu.com

Jayden, accepting his SGD5000 prize money for his Pringles video. It was so good that some commercials on tv can’t even fight it.

A group shot of the finalists at the end of the event.

With Kimcun and Shaolintiger. Kim, I love your dress! Futuristic lapels (?), them.

With Ringo! 

Yenli, Soon Seng and orang gila.

Yee Hou so big boy now. *wipes tears from eyes*

Huai Bin is awake this time around! The last event (Vpost Christmas Party) he konked out before we were even half way through, hehe.

I’m actually enjoying the variety of bloggers I saw there that night. Here we have Leeza Foo, owner of Tasty Cherry Chapstick and Yien Yee, the brains and beauty behind A Shopaholics Den. A Shopaholics Den is one of the must-go-to blogshop review site for all online shopaholics in Malaysia.

And David Wong! Always nice to have friends who come into the Nuffnang family (which pretty much means the blogosphere) from my circle of friends outside the blogging world. This includes people like Wai Ping, Soon Seng and Audrey. I met David Wong during a lunch session at Sakae Sushi and he couldn’t stop talking. So we set him up with one of our friends. Shhh. Secret. Then one day I got some advertorial email from Yee Hou, Cc-ed to David Wong. It included an introduction to their new staff “David”. I took quite a while to put one and one together before sending an ALL CAPS email back to him asking him what in the world was he doing in Nuffnang. He said, “Working.”

And of course, how could I leave the awards without a photo with Xiaxue? 

She was very friendly (she sometimes helps me to clean my Farmville and eats from my Cafe in Cafeworld. She’s a nice person like that) and she said, “Wah your boobs like popping out like that,” and I said, “Thank you!! Wait, is that a compliment?” and she said, “Yaa it’s a compliment.” Awwww..so sweet. Thanks Xiaxue.

Made Chee Kiang take one with Xiaxue just so he could brag to his friends at uni.

Tim still looks every bit the proud father. It was his baby’s big day!

With the beautiful ladies from Bonito Chico! I just can’t get over how hot they are. 

With Hui Wen who is always so layan (Hui Wen, it means very… how do you say.. along the lines of entertaining another person) on twitter. She is, as I have learned, Nuffnang’s Country Manager.

With Christine, Chee Kiang’s ex-uni mate.

Oooh couply shot again. 

With Red Mummy! Her lashes wins mine lah.

Grabbed a few of the girls who were in shades of blue for a photo.
L-r: Yenli, Jolyn, Haze and myself. Love love love the colours!

Ooops forgot to include Diese who was in the nicest shade of blue. But you get to see her shoes anyways.

Long story short, the event wrapped up at 11 plus but due to some logistics issue (poor Yee Hou) we only managed to get back to the hotel at almost 1am. Went out for some bites with Chee Kiang and Soon Seng, both who coincidentally do not have any Cheah or Lam female cousins or siblings. Thus they were talking about how nice it would be to have a younger sister so that they can see if female Cheahs/Lams will be attractive to men. LOL. What kind of thoughts are those.

Chee Kiang left the hotel at 5.30am for his Nike Human Race. Crazy one. Sleep at almost 3.30am some more. At least I had longer hours in bed and went down to meet the other bloggers at 8.30am. Some couldn’t wake up and missed the bus ride to the city.

L-r: One of two Cheah boys, Yenli and myself.

Raine and myself. She’s so cute!! *pinch*

That’s Mike Yip!

With Ginny, Natalie and Vvens.

HAIYOH, this Natalie is so cute with her goldfish impression. If only I had a video. She could do the whole ‘bloop bloop bloop’ thing.

Didn’t want to burden whoever who was helping us take this group photo thus I just snapped one from where I was. Can see Chee Kiang walking towards us after his race. Hahaha. He was so drenched!

Group photo without me, coz I was the one taking the photo.

One with the soggy boy.

Woot. Always wanted to go up but too kiamsiap to. AND NOW WE HAVE IT FOR FREE. Ah, blogging rocks kan.

To show you the satisfied look on my face.

I presume it’s for some upcoming Halloween thingie.

With the flyer. We were talking about wedding proposals in the flyer. So now he cannot use that idea anymore because I’ve already heard of such wedding proposals. Poor Chee Kiang. hohoho. I’ve already heard of Fireworks over the Grand Canyon, From The London Eye, At Tasik Kenyir, At Mount Kinabalu, At One of Their Parents’ Backyard, Over the Internet (WTF? Got read or not, that #AlvinandRachel thingie.)…. so yeah.

You can have dinner inside the capsule for SGD200 per person. We were like, “wah not bad..” when we first heard it. Come to think of it, I think we forgot to convert back to ringgit. :\

Woo~ Big.

You can hardly feel the capsule moving.

So much space to walk around. We had our own tour guide too, just because we are so called categorized as media people. I thought it was pretty cool that the marketing person they sent to accompany us is named Joleen Lau. So similar to my name! 

That’s part of the F1 tracks.

With the view of the water catchment area.

With Raine and Wai Ping. I’d include Ringo too but she wasn’t looking.

Okay, here are some snapshots of the view from the flyer.

Participants from the Nike Human Race.

How quintessential Singapore.

Someone’s Blackberry Storm! *slurp*

Another couply shot, sorry ah. We don’t have many this year.

I think the flyer maintenance team are doing a good job. I can take such clear photos through their windows!

Almost as if there’s no barrier between me and the ground below.

Can you see the number 31?

More of the centre of Singapore.

Twas a lovely sunny day.

Like playing battleship like that!

That’s where my grandma and I will be hanging out when it’s ready!

Sorry ah one more.

Group shot!

 
Managed to grab a pic with Cynthia before I left.

Obligatory side shot of the flyer.

One last picture with Ginny, Vvens and Natalie before I ran off with Chee Kiang for lunch at City Hall, a 2 hour snooze fest back at the hotel before my flight back to Penang. 

Thank you Nuffnang for the invitation and free lodging!

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Mini Mirror Stickers In A Plethora Of Colours

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Finally found the energy to complete the post! This is coming from the girl who still has not blogged about New Year’s Eve. I’ve also been meaning to blog about ADSALympics 2008, a sporting event by my dental faculty and ADSAlympics 2009 is in two weeks’ time. T_T

Nuffnang Music Bash is by Maxis Broadband, if you don’t already know. Gotta love all these costume parties. There were plenty of Jason Mrazes and Katy Perries that night.

Here’s the link to the post about how much I spent effort I put into creating my Lady Gaga look.

So as usual, Soon Seng offered to drive. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those girls who leach off boys for free rides. I offered to drive since my car was back in Subang with me. But Soon Seng is and has always been such a gentleman, so down the Federal Highway we went after his ACCA classes. He’s so hardworking, already working and yet he has his ACCA classes during the weekend. Joyce, your boy is made of stability and financial security.

Just like the time I stepped out of my house as the Slutty Joker Nurse for the Halloween party, his expression from behind his window still made me laugh like mad.

I’ve been pestering him for a couple of weeks, “So what are you going as? What are you going as?” and he’ll be like, “I’ll think of something..just you wait….”

And Saturday rolled around and he was like, “I got a pair of sunnies and you know what? I’ll go as that dude who sings the bridge in Just Dance.” You guys should watch the video if you feel lost.

Totally loving the long feathery lashes!

Kim who came as a gay man trapped in a hot woman’s body. She’s one of the members from Village People. A thin moustache is quite sexy on her, don’t you think?

Kim and Susan from Maxis. She didn’t bring her two little girls along this time, would have been fun to see the little girls in costume. I first met Susan when I did the Maxis Broadband review
. I really like her as she’s very genuine.

Cindy and myself. If you can’t recognize Cindy’s costume, you’re probably like 5 years younger than us or something. Seriously, when the Nuffnang team went on stage to perform Let The Music Heal Your Soul, the crowd couldn’t sing along because most of them at the party were about 8 or 9 years old when the song was popular. I is old. Cindy is Britney Spears from Baby One More Time.

This is Andy whom I met at a funfair 4 years ago! He is one of Liss’ close friends from uni and it was really strange seeing him at a blog gathering! I always feel like my world which is filled with friends from real life are not in anyway connected with the friends I have in the blogging world. Strange perception, I know.

The crowd warming up to the ever so funny Liang who is Nuffnang’s permanent MC.

PENNNYYYYY! I haven’t seen this woman in yonks!!

Julian who came as Bob Marley. Julian is soooo cool. I hope you become a Doctor In Blogging soon!!

Bob Marley and his bong. Do go to his blog to do a survey for his study on the Malaysian blogosphere if you’re a blogger yourself.

Another person whom I’ve not seen in the longest time as well – SERGE aka Dustyhawk. He’s supposed to be Jason Mraz.

A clearer photo, but no hugging. Awww

Check out the awesome colours from Jem and the Hollograms!
That’s Nigel in the tiger coat, Joshua at the back with the chicken hairstyle, Hsu Jen smiling from behind and Andrew with the star. I love Andrew’s make up!

love love love the colours.

l-r: Aud, Myself and May. May thank you thank you for the video! No one else cared for Lady Gaga’s killa moves…

Soon Seng wanted a photo too!

Kelz is part of the Jem and the Hollograms band. She is obviously, Jem. All PINNNK. I like!

I’m not sure who the girl in red is (please let me know!) and that’s Liang interviewing CopyKate who came as KatE Perry.

Jolene meets Jolyn again, who came as Pink from the Lady Marmalade video. We’re both Ladies!

Nick so hiphop! I think he’s trying to tell you that his bling is real gold.

Soon Seng and Jolyn.

You guys shall call her Iris, but I will call her Lie Peh because I call her sister Lie Yuen. Feels weird to call you Iris lah, but PEOPLE this is Iris Heng Lie Peh. Lie Peh came as Victoria Beckham. You can see she perfected the scowl.

L-r: Carmen, Drunken Lady Gaga, Vivien and Wan Wei. Love your pink hair extensions!

Carmen and Vivien came as Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. You must guess which is which. I got it right.

I’m doing something inappropriate with you but I forgot your name. sorry. It’s like I have alzheimers or something.

Jamie Chin came as Katy Perry and gosh, she is perhaps one of the most beautiful girl I’ve seen in the longest time.

Jamie Liew came as herself with an outfit her mother helped her put together. very glamorous! Why are all Jamies so goddamn beautiful?

Huai Bin who came as Eminem (and won the Worst Impersonator Award) loan me his caplang pasar malam toy gun to pose like a Bond Girl.

Huai Bin as Eminem! Should have gave him some hair from my wig. Eminem is platinum blonde as well, r ight?

I tell you ah, this couple is damnnnn cute one lor. At the last party, they came as Jack Sparrow and Keira Knightley. Hsu Jen’s pirate costume was damn sexy, love the cleavage, babes. Jen and David are both part of the Jem and the Hollograms band. I love how David’s hair colour is of that electric blue shade and how his shades can be of the exact same shade.

Soon Seng and Jamie Chin. Jamie wrote in her blog that her dress is from Velvet Ribbon!

Another blog couple..:) Copycate and her boy Hikaru. I think he was a Jason Mraz.

With Pink and KatE Perry.

Andy wanted one with the sexy Pink.

And there were people there acting like celebrities..

KY … I didn’t quite get your outfit. What was it?

There was a contest to see who could sing a chorus from any song and hold the last note for the longest possible time. After the bash, I’ve been singing randomly in the car, in the bathroom and trying to see if I can last more than 14 seconds. That’s the record made by this girl called Natalie who wowed the crowd with her Power Of Love rendition. I’m sure most of you have also been trying to see if you have got what it takes, don’t lie!!

All the pros hard at work.

The winners got a pair of sunglasses each.

There was a nother game where the contestants had to dance to Beyonce’s Single Ladies. Like copy her moves EXACTLY. Even professionally done, the moves are already so outrageous. Imagine it replicated. By guys. 0___0

Tim looked like he was having a good time. Wish I could say the same for Aud. Oops.

The Nuffnang team took to the stage with the ever so nostalgic Let The Music Heal Your Soul. It is the one and only song that combined all the awesome boybands.

Must be Robb’s idea. Right, right?

The Nuffies danced to Jai Ho and thanks to them, the song is stuck in my head. *plays Jai Ho for the millionth time on ipod*

I was elated when they announced my name as one of the nominees for Best Dressed. Again, Liang couldn’t get my blog url right. It’s pronounced, JAY-ELLE-ANNE-NUR-LAI-YERL. It probably is not meant to be pronounced this way. But if the French can dictate that Cafe be pronounced as CA FAY, I can butcher up the english language and have my blog url being pronounced however way I like it to be.

Pink, Lady Gaga and Britney.

For the guys, it was ‘Eminem’, Bob Marley and John Lennon. Soon Seng didn’t include Yatz in the pic! Poor thing. But look at that! All the nominees got a dot com each.

Lilmejo.com, jayelleenelial.com, jadezheng.com, sixthseal.com, julianhopkins.net, jenkinyat.com. Nicee.

To generate some crowd response, the nominees had to do some booty shaking to show the audience what they were made of.

Eminem had his suave moves.

Britney was sizzling!

Gaga was just fucken scary. SOON SENG, BAD ANGLEEE. Anyway, I was quite worried that I embarrassed myself on stage, but after looking through the video a few times, it wasn’t THAT painful.

*forces you to watch the video*

Video is from May!

The crowd was cheering and all, probably because I’ve got some good friends in the crowd who have mega lungs (thank you Kelz, Jen, Pam and gang!). I did my default dance moves (hands in the air, swinging hip) and ended it with a Shakira butt shake that I usually do to make friends laugh.

The cheers stopped adruptly. I think I shocked the audience on the right of the stage into silence.

And this was the only nice dancing photo I could find. Thanks Shaolin!

Pink finished her number and we then waited anxiously for the winner to be announced.

Awww I’m smiling so sweetly at Liang. Who in this photo has the eyes of the Fortune Cat.

Julian Bob Marley waits anxiously for the results ot be announced. He would eventually win the Best Impersonator Award. He took home a SONY PS3. Damn awesome.

Jolyn won herself an iPod for her creative pre-bash video.

The Sony PS3 that Julian won. Jealous!

Huai Bin won the worst impersonator award. LOL.

Yatz won the best dressed male award. Like me, he won RM500 worth of Topshop vouchers. In a way it is rewarding because I could never afford anything from Topshop. But apparently the vouchers can also be used at Warehouse, Diva, Dorothy Perkins and Miss Selfridge. I’ve been salivating over the clothes at Warehouse for the longest time and now I have these vouchers! I’ll remember to treat all two pieces of my Warehouse apparels with tender loving care.

The only photo of Tim and myself from that night. Thanks for the vouchers, Tim! And thank you Maxis Broadband!!

Robb who was too busy to take a pic with me.

Another photo of myself with Lie Peh.

Alex and myself. What did you come as, Alex?

I’m here with Jess who came as Amy Lee from Evanescence.

Oooh! Love the lighting in this one. Thanks Kim for posing with me again!

I went up to check out the Maxis Broadband Live Blogging thing and saw Julian there. Had trouble loading my dashboard so I didn’t get to do any live blogging. Sigh.

With Simon, the retired hip-hop star.

Andrew’s outfit is so damn cool.

Oh finally a picture with Yatz. WHO DARE CUT OFF MY HAIR BOW?! WHO?!

Soon Seng, Jen and myself.

And this is Aaron/Cincau Hangus!! Couldn’t recognize him at first.

FInally a picture with Yee Hou.

And that’s ChrisTock

Soon Seng and Kate!

Ahhh..my favourite photo of the night.

Myself and the gorgeous Zoey!

Colby and Gaga doing it right!

l-r: Yenniedoll, Jolyn, Myself (watch the video lah, she does this hand thing too!) and Jess.

Poor Pam arrived so  late but thankfully I managed to get this shot with her.

Thomas arrived late too. Was nice seeing you again:)

Compulsory car photo. Pity that the lashes were positioned weirdly and hence I look like I have black eyeshadow at a wrong spot.

There, better!

Proud to say that I now have an extra sticker to be added to my collection.

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But first things first!

Check out what I did to my aircon remote control:

Most of the leopard print fur sticker sheets have sold out in the first post. I did however restock and they are in this album on Flickr! I’ve not put it up on the Sticker Monster blog yet. See, the benefits of being a Jayelleenelial.com reader…:P

Here’s a photo of what’s new at The Sticker Monster and links to my new posts.

Strapya World says, “Furry Sticker Sheets For The Coming Winter!”
Kawaii Japanese Plushy Stickers
Knock Knocking On Chipboard Stickers
Floating Animal Jelly Stickers

——————————————————————————————–

If you’re a true blue online Malaysian shopaholic, you would have heard of Fleur De Lis, jointly organized by Shirts4Real and A Shopaholics Den. Esther and her friends Jan, Brian and Sze May to name a few, are the people behind Shirts4Real! Can’t believe one of my bestest friend in the whole wide world organized a bazaar! And this was her first time at a bazaar too!

A Shopaholics Den has a strong presence in the Malaysian blogshop community and thus publicity was a breeze! But if you’re organizing a flea market and you invite blogshops to come open stalls at your bazaar, lifestyle ezines such as TongueChic, Emmagem or other famous blogshop review sites will pick it up and promote for you! But never be greedy with your rentals, RM80 should be the cut off.

I was wondering if it would be a mistake to drag Chee Kiang there… but he even bought a shirt! Haha. Anyway, this is too ancient, so I can’t really remember what else happened that night.

Chee Kiang and I with Esther and Sze May who were handling the registration table. I could’ve gotten a table last minute..grrrrrrrrrrr!!! My stickers need to be cleared to make way for newer ones!

Mimpi Murni, she’s always at the bazaars!

It was kind of stuffy as it was in a bungalow, but if you wants bargains, what’s a few buckets of sweat right?

Something to distract the boyfriends.

Look who I met there! Haze! The beauty maestro behind BlushBerry also happens to be one of Lie Yuen’s friends from high school. Small world, small world.

I BOUGHT A PALETTE, yes i did.

As it was a real house, there were many convenient places for the sellers to hang their wares.

He totally enjoyed being the only male at any given room.

Sigh, I’m so happy to be part of this era where bazaars and flea markets are all the rage and it’s still quite underground where young people open stalls at bazaars organized by equally young people.

This is Jan, who poured his sweat and blood into making the event a success. Shirts4Real is going places!

I bumped into Eliza from Phatculture. I was introduced to her partner, but as we all know how bloody ancient my posts are these days, I’ve already forgotten her name. I’m SO SORRY!!

Awww, isn’t Eliza cute? Eliza and I were blogger friends from way back in 2005/2006. So she’s an old timer like me. We met for the first time that night.

Since Esther was part of the organizing committee, Chien and Min Dee came to give their support and bought a bag each! I spent about RM150 there.

These were the lucky vendors who did not have to cram inside the house with the rest of the sellers.

Another super long ago thing that happened was when Sook Mei, one of my Year 3 juniors, asked me to take a puppy in my car back to KL. This puppy, whose name is Noobie, but whom I christianed Bolt for the two days it was with me, was from a litter of puppies by a pair of husband and wife strays. It’s pretty good looking for a stray dog, don’t you think?

Poor little Noobie actually has two other siblings and of course, a mum and a dad. But one afternoon when my juniors were at uni, the MPSP (Majlis Perbandaran Sungai Petani) people came by and kidnapped two puppies and the two adult dogs. Noobie and his brother, Stupidoo (yea. I know.) were hiding under a dust pan at that time and were safe from the evil MPSP dog takers. Sounds like a Disney Pixar movie plot. This is when the two dog brothers would start talking with teenage boys’ voice

He’s quite the poser too! Since that bunch of juniors were afraid that the MPSP dognappers will come back for the rest, they put the two puppies at another classmates’ house. This house has three floors and it houses six boys. So just imagine lah, six guys taking care of two puppies, you’d think it’s all a bowl of dog biscuits once every three days with dog biscuits strewn all over the kitchen and five days old dog poo.

Which would probably happen if the puppies stayed with me. Thank god hamster poo is almost invisible!

If you’ve seen my other posts, you might remember names such as Melvin, Tee Lun, Samuel, CY, Ken and Kelvin. All these manly boys are the daddies and mummies to the two pups!

CY is the one who feeds them and scolds them! I think he bathes them too!

Samuel will be following behind with a mop to clean up any peepee or poopoo.

Tee Lun, whom I thought would have nothing to do at all with the two dogs, actually goes to sleep with the puppies on his bed!

<3 <3.. such sweethearts!

And boys being boys, they couldn’t be bothered with names so they simply called the two pups Stupid and Noob. Then Ei Leng dropped by and gave it a feminine twist, Stupidoo and Noobie!

Poor Noobie feeling very wary about the mess in my room.

He wanders on into the mess. Brave dog.

He keeps walking.

Then he got tired.

Since this little doggie has passed through so many dental students’ hands, I thought it would be apt to photograph him with my trusty molar container.

He’s looking for his good side.

Since he’s still a puppy, he needed to be entertained. Thought the tofu might keep him occupied for awhile.

He’s so fluffy and fat!!

|And he just loves tummy rubs!!

Coz dogs maketh good camwhoring props.

I introduced him to my hamsters.

oops.

“Hello!”

The hamster looks like it was trying to tell me something.

Noobie keeps an eye on the hamsters, just in case they get up to no good, like kicking woodchips out of the cage or bite annoyingly on the metal bars.

Here’s Noobie in his box, where he slept for the entire four hour ride.

He wonders why the box, him and the tofu are of the same colour.

What a good doggie!

Gotta love the way he sleeps! <3

I brought him home before Sook Mei’s mum came from Klang to pick Noobie up. Mum wanted to bluff dad that we have a new dog in our house.

Angel started to feel left out.

Trying to get them to be friends. Angel just doesn’t like playing with other dogs.

Look at Angel’s face lah! So lanci!

But she looks extremely depressed..probably thought that her status as Cutest Dog In The House was threatened.

Must comb nice nice before taking photos.

Angel still didn’t bother to get acquainted with Noobie.

Angel went to get some ego boosting from Chee Kiang who always acknowledges that she’s the cutest dog in the whole wide world! Right, dear?

See?!! She’s smiling again! Compare the photos, you can see the difference!

This was after Noobie went home to Klang and Angel was back to her normal self.
***

December usually means everyone’s home for the holidays! From UK, Us, Aussie…they were all home.

Save for Abby, Liss, Amanda and Mel (who was in Australia visiting her…wait for it..FIANCE!), the other seven of us Dahlings met up for dinner on Christmas day.

So yeah, a few days before Christmas, all of us got the same message from an Aussie number, “HE PROPOSED!!!”

And that picture is us, drinking Ocha to Mel’s engagement to a Dahling-approved Tim Murphy. Her kids are going to be gorgeous! The wedding’s not until 2012, so hold your horses! You may go to her facebook and comment on the photo of her engagement ring if you wanna send your love.

It’s been so long since we’ve had pictures of us together. She Dee still can’t surf even though she’s been in Hawaii for two years now! Esther has graduated and I know it’s so mean of me, but i hope she doesn’t get a job too soon or else there won’t be anyone to play with me when I go home to Subang!! We go out almost everyday together when I’m back home.

For the sake of that cute face in the middle.

Cheek rubs!

Haih, just coz we haven’t been doing this for a  looong time.

Esther and the ball.

I’m totally losing my skills. This was meant to be one of those slutty smooching pics.

So I did what I do best: Being a busy body.

Next door neighbour Mun Teng wants in on the goss.

Now that Munty is slogging it out in the corporate world, I hardly see her. So this photo is a good reminder of how she looks like.

Seriously, my camwhoring skills have deteriorated.

Yee Hou was right about how my Canon Ixus 80IS is not exactly camwhoring friendly.

It was one of those nights where we said No Boys!

As a punishment for crashing a girl’s night out and with Chien’s help, I stuffed Ji Yang’s box of cigarettes down my my cleavage. A new box of cigarettes! I’m all about tough love! Smoking kills, this is how I educate my friends.

People from school would know that my cleavage have been used as storage space for a few other things. Hand phones, liquid papers…. etc. When I say hand phones, I’m talking about the trusty hardy big ass Nokia 3310.

When I look at Min Dee I think about the ceramic plate she brought over for Christmas 2007, which I keep promising to return. Argh. Min Dee is living the corporate (intern) life, enjoying life in HK. I want to go to HK too~~ T__T

I’ll be losing one of my best friends to that melting pot (salad bowl?) called Singapore.

She’ll go there and produce many stressed out kids with Mr. Shawn!

Sush is now at KPMG in UK, making them pounds and coming home to SPEND SPEND SPEND!

Just trying to be generous with my camera. With all the individual shots in my camera, one of them might be picked up to be a Facebook profile photo by one of the girls.

it’s not fair if my role was solely to be the camerawoman right?

That’s Min Dee being Min Dee. Talking at the speed of light with equally fast hand movements.

Nah, Sush, You want this as your facebook profile pic ah?

l-r: Min Dee and She Dee.

Gonna be a year till I see all of them in one place, at the same time again.

After leaving Pyramid, Chee Kiang told me he was at McD’s Drive Thru with Gaya, Wern Cheen and Eu Foh. They were all my form4-5 classmates and I’ve not seen them in quite a long time. In form4 we all sat at the back of the class doing our own thang while the teacher rambles on in front.

We adjourned to Gaya’s place that night where we updated each other about whatever we knew about anyone from Subang Utama. There were some shockers.. but for fear of getting chopped into bits by the subjects (and I mean this literally), I’d better not say.

Wern Cheen laughed about our ex class teacher who only taught our class Agama Islam. This means that we got away with quite a lot of things, or so we thought. During open day, our teacher told Wern Cheen’s mum, “Ah……Wern Cheen kini dalam alam percintaan.” Seems like he knows quite a bit about Wern Cheen’s love life.

I didn’t get away too easily too! My class teacher told my mum, “Aahh.. Ini Lai Pei Shan selalu bersama itu Lam Chee Kiang. Belajar dulu…” and I’m all, “Wat…”. I looked at my mum and she sniggered. -_-”

All he thinks about is puppy love/romance issit? Deprived issit?

L-r: Eu Foh, Myself and Chee Kiang.

It felt weird to go to the same place and be in a different car from my boyfriend. Can you see himin the car behind Eu Foh?

**

The next morning, I had breakfast with Kyle, Elizabeth and Esther. Was great to just catch up and ask each other the usual FAQS (so when graduating?/working where?/got girlfriend ah?).

Elizabeth who is looking really really good since I last saw her!

I present to you the many faces of E Yon Kyle. His facial expressions are the best! And this is just him being his normal self.

Sigh, good ol’ Kyle. He still looks the same since Standard 6.

Eli and Kyle.

With an Esther.

And finally a Jolene.
***

When Brenda was down from Penang, we went to Sg. Wang and met up with Sohpoh whose real name is Lee Peng. But we were so used to calling her Sohpoh, we kind of forgot her real name. Haha, I was quite sure it was something Peng.

Sohpoh is our mutual online friend whom we met via both our blogs. We got acquainted because she is a dental student as well! She’s a semester younger than us and is currently pursuing her fourth year in Australia.

We compared disgusting dental stories but we were most horrified by one case:

One of her seniors accidentally drilled into the floor of the mouth and the bur got stuck there. To remove the bur, they had to set it to spin anticlockwise (or opposite of whichever direction it was). How traumatizing for the student and the patient!

l-r: Soh Poh, Myself and Brenda.

Though it was the first time we met Sohpoh in person, we got on like a house on fire! A particularly memorable part of the whole thing was when I cajouled them to come into a sex shop with me.

Yep, that’s right. There’s a sex shop in Sg. Wang and not just some lame candy store that sells happy looking condoms and other paraphernalia laced with sexual inuendos. Trivia: I was kicked out of I Need House when I was 16, posing as a 19 year old.

So anyway, we sauntered in, acting cool. Go in sex shop must act cool one okay, cannot giggle like you’re young. Or not later they asked for IC.

But we ended up giggling anyway when we spotted a long curved dildo kind of thingamajig that was called “Double Trouble Slender Bender”. But they didn’t ask for our IC even though we acted like total juveniles. I must menyerah kepada takdir already that nobody will ever ask for my ID ever.

Go into casino also nobody stop me, go into club also like that, go into sex shop and act like a kid, still nothing. *squirts antiwrinkle cream and rubs on cheek sadly*

It was quite awkward as the shop was totally empty and only three of us went in. It was manned by about 5 guys to add on to the awkwardness. And if things weren’t awkward enough, one of the guys was being a hard sell.

“Ahh.. this one very good one! Must try!”

…… -_-”

They were initially playing some lala jengjeng songs but when we were there, they put on some Westlife songs to accomodate us. And not just any Westlife song, it was “If I Let You Go.”

Default song that banana girls like issit?

Back to the story about the long rod that was called Double Trouble Slender Bender. The sales assistant saw us looking at it and went on to say, “Aaaahh.. boys and girls also can! Girl on girl, boy on boy, boy and girl…..”. The dildo was a two ended dildo, so there was no base, nothing. Just a long curved acrylic rod with the anatomy of a shaft and a head.

Dildos were selling for like RM200 and above! Must be high quality stuff. If there were dildos for less than Rm50, they are probably made in China and imagine if it explodes! Oh yeah.

If I’m not mistaken I saw fleshlights too.  If you don’t know what it is, google it. I was told that they even have little girl ones!!! *traumatized*

So … if any of you need anything.. there’s a shop in Sg. Wang. Just saying.

Brenda was the shopping monster for the day. My damage was done on another day, during CNY. Blog post later. Ya I promise, ok!

Brenda’s got style.

***

This is about the night where we duped by a very misleading message that Gaya received.

A friend of her’s texted her saying, “I’m planning for a glamourous, classy, sophicated night at *some bar at Starhill*. Free drinks for the ladies till 1am!”

Thinking that we had to follow some kind of theme, she roped the two of us to join her and dressed up for what sounded like a promising event with free drinks.

Us on the Federal Highway, doing the obligatory.

Since we were still early, we decided to head across to Pavillion and grab a bite. Maklumlah, we wanted to arrive fashionably late. Ahem.

Some good shit bun slathered with butter that Gaya discovered at Coffee Bean.

Me appreciating the good shit bun.

LOL. Dear, Russel Peters said don’t roll your eyes remember.

I think it was sometime after this photo when she got another text from her friend.

“Seems a little dead here. We’re heading over to Changkat Bukit Bintang. Feel free to join us!”

It seemed a *little* weird that someone who was organizing an event, would walk out on it because it was dead!? After analyzing earlier messages, we realized that the guy was actually asking Gaya to bring some friends to join them on a glamourous, classy and sophisticated night out. And then the bar was too boring for him, he adjourned to Changkat with his friends.

Quite dramatic right this fella.

It’s only normal for normal people like us to think it was an event and dress up like fools, anticipating an event with free drinks.

LOL we decided we might as well make the most of it and went to the bar anyway. It was super dead but we had fun camwhoring with the beautiful furnitures around that bar.

With velvet plushy cushions!

The bar had an interesting concept. Curved and open air, so I got a little sweaty.

I was distracted by the pretty lights which changed colours every few seconds.

I was especially enthralled by the strands of fibre optics which looked like a glowing chiffon curtain.

There was an enclosed area within the bar which was off limits to normal guests like you and me. We went in anyway, who cares.

Better camera, better hair, better make-up, better lighting would make for a nicer photoshoot. Really love the setting of the place. It just oozes luxury.

As you can see, we had our own mini photoshoot.

Must give the photographer some camera time too.

A contemplating posh boy.

Cheers to us three duped fools.

But it’s fun to dress up, so we forgave that stupid guy anyway.

And yes, the drinks WERE free.

Posing with Chee Kiang’s wine which caused him RM40 for that one freaking glass. We were all living in denial and pretended that the RM40 was the total for all our drinks that night.

My favourite lashes.

Gaya was all up for dressing up and taking tons and tons of photos. All these pics went up on Facebook a long time ago.

Because owls are all the rage. Or were they?

We were too bored and we certainly couldn’t neglect our feet.

I love this sultry pic of Gaya.

Upon leaving the bar, there was another weird piece of furniture outside so we carried on.

Oops, the dirty soles make spoil only.

This dress was actually bought online and why this is a point that I feel the need to highlight is because I can ALMOST NEVER fit into the things sold by our local blogshops. Really happy with this dress!

This is Chee Kiang’s idea of a sexy photo.

cK <3

The bag is also another great buy I found online. I love love love it!

Maybe I’m being perasan but I think my rebonded hair is still behaving very well since my last trip to A Cut Above Academy back in February 2008. It’s an awfully long life span for rebonded hair which only costs RM160! For that length too!

While Gaya was peeing..

.. I couldn’t resist the mirror. Never could.

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So yeah! I decided to spend Vday with Chee Kiang this year.

The thing is, he wouldn’t know until about 5 hours before Valentine’s Day.

The 13th was supposed to be a long day for him, with a test in the afternoon after an entire night of cramming and his evening was spent at Media Corp recording for a radio show (my boyfriend’s a DJ! More on this in another post!) for this radio channel called Lush Fm and then his day would end with dinner at Fish n Co with Jon, Karthik and Yen.

A Malacca trip was ‘planned’ for him and the ‘plan’ was to leave at 7am the next day, so his stomach was set to Durian Cendol mode. Poor thing. He first told me about his Malacca trip when he came over to help me peel vegetables for my CNY reunion dinner. I immediately texted Jon and begged him to change the dates as I wanted to surprise him for Valentine’s Day! I  know I’m not creative at all… he pulled this one on me too for my 21st birthday! But I still think it’s fun.

Jon said, “It’s so that he would keep his weekend free for you!” What geniuses!! I was so grateful!

I told Leong Hui, Jon and Chun Leen about my plans and had meant to tell more people, but procrastinated and they did more of the planning for me. I’m so lucky!

The funniest thing was when Chun Leen texted me with such urgency, “Jolene, we have a situation. Call me. ” Panicking, I called him, fearing the worst.

He was all, “We’re going to Malacca the weekend that you’re here.” Haih, so kancheong~! Poor guy was not briefed about their master plan.

As for me, my journey started on the 12th of February! After my morning patient, I immediately hopped onto a bus and made my way down to KL and upon reaching Pudu at sunset, I joined the sweaty masses jostling and tumbling in the LRT and the KTM all the way back to Subang. As I wasn’t sure if my parents fully approved of my tiny adventure, I decided to be the independent daughter (as opposed to my usual troublesome daughter role) and saved them the traffic jam stress along the Federal.

Gotta love my iPod nano. Also, after watching Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist during my bus ride, I felt COOL listening to songs on my iPod while walking through the city. Don’t ask me why, I also don’t know why I’m pretentious like that.

Went home, offered to wash the dishes, talked tons about the latest going ons back at dental school to distract my dad from asking and then nagging me about my spontaneous trip, I made it through the night without much fanfare.

The next morning at 9am, mum dropped me off at Pyramid where I boarded the Aeroline and summoned enough courage to plop my butt down onto the plushy plushy OHH so plushy lounge area, where there were three other guys already making themselves at home. Kept looking up at this middle aged high ranking malay uncle who kept shouting into his phone, “Miss Lai?? Can I speak to Miss Lai???” Was quite distracted by that.

Decided to be cool again (sigh) and brought out my laptop from my bag. Thought about whether it would be embarrassing or fun to be seen with my super blinged pink laptop in a tiny area filled with men but decided to be proud of the person that I am and watched an episode of Gem of Life before I curled up in a ball and fell asleep.

Woke up and saw that my tube had rode a quarter way down and my green bra was showing, so thought it would be best that I move away from there before I humiliate myself further.

Was really proud that I managed to sleep right through the entire journey! When I opened my eyes, I had already arrive at the immigration!

Since I had a few hours to kill before the big surprise, I had lunch at Vivocity and freshened up at the toilet there.

1) Lunch was a bowl of Loh Mee and it SUCKS. I would go hungry and die in Singapore if my salary is only sufficient for hawker food. Western food in Singapore is so damn good though. Let me tell you about Esther’s Singapore hawker food experience. She was alarmed when the Wantan Mee uncle started pouring tomato sauce into her Wantan Mee. I’ve been to Singapore so many times and only rarely, VERY rarely, can I finish a bowl of noodles/plate of something from a hawker stall. Most of the time I couldn’t go through with it. The food there just tastes different, somehow. I remember staring in horror at the clear Bak Kut Teh soup as I was walking pass some hawker stalls. Bak Kut Teh soup is supposed to be brown!!

But to be politically correct, Chee Kiang has done his part and brought me to places which can satiate my salty malaysian tastebuds, such as this awesome Chicken Rice Stall at a place called Ginza and the one and only Prata Shop that all NUS students throng, making that mamak fella a millionaire (really, came out in the papers and all that), with my fav mutton nasi briyani that is not so much my fav anymore since the spiciness has gone up a few notches. *fans tongue*

2) The toilets are clean enough for me to pee sitting down, place my backpack on the floor and do my make up at the same time. Yes, I can pee standing up. *cue to clap

After cleverly boarding Bus No. 30 to NUS from Vivo, I made my way up to Jon’s room where I got ready and then later all of us went into the city, ready for the surprise!

Riding into town. L-r: Karthik, Yen, Jon and Myself.

Jon and Karthik waited inside Fish n Co for Chee Kiang while Yen and I walked around a mall nearby. Possibly the most boring mall ever. It only sells furnitures and art paintings. We had to wait for like an hour and almost died from boredom and hunger. Thanks Yen for being so nice to accompany me.

When Chee Kiang finally arrived, Jon smsed us to make our grand entrance. The restaurant was packed to the brim with people!

Yen sat down first and from outside the restaurant, I could see Chee Kiang’s hand moving about in frustration, complementing an angsty rant about his day. I snaked around the tables and tried my best to stay out of sight till the last minute.

I then snuck up on him and waved.

This was after an entire day’s worth of text messages about how I would be in Penang at night, dining with my classmates or maybe shopping.

He just looked at me, stunned! LOL. After staring at me for a long time he then stood up and said, “WHY?! HOW?!”. Haha..and he hugged me ever so tightly. It made the entire thing really worth the effort!

Anyway, I took a video to re-enact the scene since Jon’s camera’s battery died. Sigh.

The first part of the video was of me trying to get Chee Kiang to do his ‘stunned’ face. Which is also his tulan face when waiters serve him poorly. In the second video, I painfully record myself talking about the entire thing. Gah. And I have eyeshadow on so that I don’t look too haggard in the video. :X

L-r: Jon, Yen, Myself

I’m glad his reaction was more happy than troubled, in case I was cramping his weekend or something.

Karthik’s tulan-ed face, as he was pushed away in the first photo by Chee Kiang.

Made a new friend, Angeline! And that’s Chun Leen, who is not a new friend. <3

Angeline and Karthik, when we went to Loof, a roof top bar. I can’t believe the amount of people there were at Loof. I guess the only way to save the economy is to spend!

Karthik and Yen, like their at a premier.

l-r: jon, Chun Leen and Angeline.

It was quite warm where we were which totally defeated the purpose of a bar, but we managed to find somewhere else to sit which was less of an oven. The walls were too warm to lean against as right behind it was the aircon’s compressor.

I must remind myself to never be experimental – Cucumber martini. Ughh.

Karthik’s holding The Loof Life which was supposed to be a specialty but apparently it did not have enough alcohol.

Everyone had a Loof Life.

I can’t remember what Chun Leen had but there was veggie in it. Bleh!

Boyfriends are for finishing sucky drinks.

There were some fun alcoves with padded seats for people to just chill at.

And for shameless couples to frolick.

Eng Hooi dropped by for drinks after a play with her boyfriend, Samuel.

For over a week, Chee Kiang has been gushing about the awesome additions to the balcony he shares with his floor mates on the 6th floor of his block at Sheares Hall. A senior donated a tub to them and they’ve been having tub sessions for many days now. Chee Kiang said that they would all get into their swimming togs and sit in the tub and eat longan.

The tub!

His floormates had asked him if I would be coming down for Valentine’s Day and if so, they offered butler services and they would serve the two of us as we soaked. Their charges are more expensive on Valentine’s Day too, apparently. Super wtf.

Each block was allocated SGD2000 and they got themself some tables, chairs and even a little koi pond.

Enjoying life.

This is their ‘fish spa’. They bought a lot of baby carps and started freaking out when they increased in size after a couple of weeks. LOL. What with the tiny pond.

Not long term planners, these boys.

Uni life is so fun, right?

I totally cracked up when I saw this!

Why are they so cheeky?? Hahahahaha.

Fish spa.. -_- Chee Kiang was telling me that they placed a few unfortunate carps inside the tub to act as fishes for their fish spa and the poor fishes didn’t make it.

Remember the Rag event which Chee Kiang took part in 2007? The one with the awesome float? As times are bad, companies have refused to sponsor scrap materials and hence they’ve taken to collecting empty cans to build their float. This is going to take a loooong time.

HAHAHAHA damn stupid.

And to wrap up our Valentine’s Day weekend, here are some photos of us spending some well deserved time together on Valentine’s Day.

And for the first time ever, I flew all by myself! I know it’s no big deal, but to me it is. Furthermore, I paid for the ticket with my own money. It’s not much but it’s something! Gotta love AirAsia for finally collaborating with Maybank2u, best move ever!

The captain said something about flying over Genting Highlands but I couldn’t see it! Damn.

Flying in an aeroplane never gets old!

It was really interesting to see the patterns below. Almost every inch of our country has been developed in someway or other. If it’s not a city, it is used for agriculture.

And here I am, flying into Penang.

It’s a little hard to believe that I saved myself 10 hours on the bus. Flying is so convenient.. sorry I’m quite jakun.

Despite coming back to Sungai Petani to crash before lunch until dinner time, I’m still deprived of sleep. Shall turn in now. I’m really glad I did this. It was convenient, it was fun and it made me happy that he was happy.

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I’ve had my dosage of mandarin oranges, “wah so fat already ah!” comments, chai choi and ang paus for the year! Wouldn’t say that the fat comments are a nice way to start the year, but oh well…….. WHEN WILL RELATIVES START TO FREAKING UNDERSTAND THAT GIRLS DON’T WANT TO BE CALLED FAT? How to react ah? As if I can throw a tantrum there and then and leave the table sobbing right!

So just smile and bob your head and sheepishly say, “Haha, hai ah…?” “Hahh.. sek siu tit fan tak gah? Hai meh? Oh..” *rolls eyes*

Regarding my weight issue, my Kaima broke a piece of bad news to me. Apparently, my greatgrandmother is of hakka descent. SO, apparently, my greatgrandma comes from a lineage of Hakka Warrior Women. wtf wtf.. and according to my aunt, hakka warrior women are big and burly. This is why most of the women in my family are not exactly size 10 and below.

This is where I come in. Hakka warrior women of the 21st century. Sadness. I’m a friendly giant!

Speaking of lineage, my dad has always been convinced that we’ve got a Manchurian as one of our ancestors.

He was led to believe so because there’s a photo of one of our ancestors in full manchurian get-up. Only recently did we think that maybe he went to a photo studio and found a manchurian costume there and he decided to have some fun. He’s got the expression and parted legs and hands on knees, the works lah! Akibatnya, a long line of descendants thought that he was a real manchurian.

So let’s see, I’ve got Hakka Warrior Women in my blood, maybe-Manchurian, Siamese blood (1/16) and the usual hokkien and canto on dad’s side. At least on my mum’s side it’s purely cantonese! Is anyone from Panyu as well? Apparently that’s my kampung in China. Ooh ooh, my Yeema (the one who passed away) once told me that most of my family members have a crack down the nail of their baby toe. This means that we are of Han descent. I’m quite the Rojak chinese! I still can’t quite accept the fact that I don’t have Nyonya blood. :\ So many people are nyonya, it’s trendy!

My dad took an entire week off for CNY and as we didn’t have to go back to Malacca this year, we had the most tiring chinese new year in all of my 22 years of life. A record breaking 16 houses were covered within the first three days of CNY, I could feel myself shaking towards the end and I had to hold my grandmother up. Surprisingly my dad was still going strong. But in a way good also lah, “wan sek ka  nan” right? The ang pau collection has surpassed the RM400 mark, another record breaking feat! Usually it rarely touches RM300…so I happily deposited money into the bank for the first time in my life! Usually mum or dad puts cash in, or when I bank in cheques from rage/nuffnang, or money just comes in when my customers pay up. (I sound like an Ah Long right.)

The reunion dinner for dad’s side was at our place. But it’s just like any other weekend dinner since the entire family only consists of 10 people and 2 of them are in the UK.

With my grandmother around this year, we had a far more sumptuous meal than last year’s pitiful excuse of a reunion dinner.

L-r: Dad, Kaima and Mum helping out in the kitchen.

Angel felt bored.

Grandma putting the finishing touches to our feast.

A braised mushroom and chicken dish courtesy of my grandma.

This is by me!! My contribution was a bowl of spinach with boxthorn (kei chi).

Mervyn flashes a rare smile. With his now wavy hair, he has been getting comments that he looks Korean now. My uncle was teasing him that he can now give Rain a run for his money. Presenting, “Flood”!

Dad’s famous chai choi. The recipe was passed down from my grandfather to my dad and over the weekend, I wrote the recipe down. It’s the Lai Chai Choi!

Grandma’s lap cheong and ngaku dish!

My Kaima made a dish called Lou Chu Yok.. I think it translates to Braised Pork? It’s damn nice! Salty and porkish, just the way I like it.

Another view of the delicious dish.

Grandma’s spicy prawns. Surprisingly they weren’t that spicy and so I could actually eat a few.

While waiting for the others to gather round the table.

Thought it would be nice to get a photo of the three of us. We must keep adding entries into the family album before we grow up and away.

And the man of the house finally officiates the reunion dinner.

MY favourite bit of the yee sang is the crunchy crackers! Yummm! Not to forget the salmon.

Angel sitting on the floor, wanting to be part of the camaraderie.

Lo-ing sang on dad’s side.

Shevie and her phone which probably already grew roots into her hands (haih kids these days, always smsing ) and Angel was used as a tummy warmer.

The next day, it was with mum’s side of the family. For the first time in my life, I’m having the CNY reunion dinner with mum’s side of the family. After my aunt’s demise, we don’t have a reason to go back to Malacca for CNY and since almost the entire family is based in Subang, we decided to have it at our place as well.

Ethan looking for his mummy. He knows a few words like, “Mi!! Mi!! Mi!!” (always with the same urgent tone) and “Car” or “Car key”. Too cute. Oh, and the name of his little girlfriend, “Annie”.

Hong Weng and dad layaning my photo request before we had our meal.

Aunty Jenny brought delicious fried duck!

Look at Ethan traumatizing Angel.

The second plate of yee sang.

As you can see, there are a few repetitions. We are not very creative people..

Ethan gets a chance to be part of the ruckus too!

Mum’s side of the family is bigger hence there were more hands.

We had to split into two groups! My dining area is not big enough to accommodate mum’s side of the family but it was really nice having everyone around. Especially with little Ethan running around terrorizing Angel.

It was also my Uncle Yew Hee’s birthday and his wife, my Aunt Jenny made him a sponge cake. We didn’t have any candles or decorations so out came the make shift candles and make shift cake deco.

The happy birthday boy.

Isn’t Ethan such a sweetheart in this picture? I love him so much!! Poor Kwee Fong has got to sacrifice for this photo, her son is just too cute here!!

Acting like a baby again.

Sigh.. *pinch*

The little boy  has an obsession with cars! He was looking at the Myvi brochure for a really long time.

Our little darling <3!

The quality of this photo is obviously much better than the usual ones on my blog right? My brother and Jacqie snapped out their dSLR to get a shot of the entire family to be forwarded to the dozens of relatives spread across the globe. Great grand father has 14 children, and we are the 7th son’s family.  We still see the other siblings’ families during special occasions!
top l-r: Mervyn, Hong Weng, Aunty Doreen, Dad, Mum, Kwee Foong, Hong Fei
bottom l-r: Uncle Yew Pun, Jacqie, Aunty Jenny, Ethan, Grandma, Myself (and Angel in her CNY clothes) and Uncle Yew Hee.

Mum and Dad playing the filial children come the first day of Chinese New Year. It was actually past midnight when they presented my grandmother with ang paos. Damnit, I totally forgot about the tea serving ceremony……..I’m such a lousy chinese child.

On the first day of CNY, while waiting for Shevie, Kaima and Kaiyeah.

Grandma watching the CNY programmes while waiting.

Awww.. even Angel gets an ang pau. She gonghei-gonghei-ed for her ang pau too! RM5 to buy doggy treats! Her sister, Chazzy, which belongs to my Kaima, also got RM5 from my mum.

Got money also still so angry.

Since we have so many family photos on my dad’s side, it’s okay if I sit out on this one and just be the camerawoman.

Shevie and I before we cover the obligatory three houses. Same route every year.

Later that night, I brought a little something over to Chee Kiang’s place and was just in time for his aunt’s birthday!
L-r: Chee Kiang’s dad, Chee Liang (Chee Kiang’s bro), Chee Kiang’s mum, Chee Kiang’s aunt, Chee Kiang, Dina (Chee Kiang’s sister in law).
Wow.. so many Chee Kiangs in one sentence.

On the 7th day of CNY, my family hosted an open house for the relatives. Photos from here onwards are from my brother’s dSLR. Seeing the beautiful colours and sharp pictures kind of makes me want to buy a dSLR. :\

We catered tubs of mee hoon, mee, fried pandan, curry chicken and acat from this nasi lemak Aunty at Parkway, SS19. She’s got a whole range of dishes to choose from, highly recommended! Email me for her number!

After the makan ended, my brother and I had to go return the tubs to the nasi lemak aunty whose name was Pek Yuk.

“Return to Pek Yuk ah!” my mum nagged.

“But I don’t know how Pek Yuk looks like,” I said, even though my mum has been catering from her for a few years now.

“Aiyah, sell nasi lemak one ma”, my brother said, very confident and all.

Since I’ve been away from home in the last few years, it’s no surprise that he knows more than me.

When I got into the car, my brother asked, “Pek Yuk, boy or girl ah?”

*insert japanese anime falling down emoticon*

Uncle Ricky and Jezzenio, my next door neighbours for the past 19 years. My brother and I stood at the gate watching Baby Jezzenio being carried back home from the hospital in a baby basket 15 years ago.

Dad playing host in black and white.

See what I told you about Shevie’s handphone?

Angel being totally nonchalant, thinking that she’s very much one of us.

We entertained in batches, hence the empty looking place.

l-r: Uncle Ewe Jin (who is expecting his first child in September!), Aunty Alice (who took care of my brother for the first two years of his life) and Aunty Ah Sui. Angel stares longingly at what could probably be long yuk.

We still have leftovers from Sunday’s lunch. I’m going to be a Yam Cake soon if tomorrow’s lunch is still left over Yam Cake.

Cousin Kwan Hoong looking handsome!

I showed off my domestic side for this year’s CNY open house! I made Bubur Pulut Hitam (Hak Lou mai/Black Glutinuous Rice Porridge)…and I got it right this time! woot!! I loved it! I’ll post a recipe up later.

I didn’t wanna call friends, sorry yah, this way it would be easier for me to entertain relatives.

Dad preventing Angel from disturbing the guests.

Popo and Aunty Ah Sui having a long chat.

Hehehe, Hi Kaima!

Uncle Caleb’s family!
L-r: Leon, Aunty May, Amos and Florence.
Uncle Caleb was one of my dad’s colleague when my dad had a small firm called BioVision during my primary school days. It was like an events company cum advertising company cum designing company.. I don’t even know what it really does, but I know artistes and printing and computers were of utmost importance to the company. I remember my dad had to take a sleeping bag to the office (which was at the shoplots where Tanjung in SS14 is, so it’s just down the road from my place) when he had to rush for a dead line. Sounds like hard times, doesn’t it? But life was really fun back then because we could just go into the office whenever we want and check to see if Hasbro (one of their clients) left behind any toy samples.

Almost all his staff were like family members back then and now they’ve become long time family friends. Uncle Caleb is one such person. When he first joined my dad’s company, he didn’t even have Leon yet. I remember a pregnant Aunty May and we were waiting and waiting and finally the baby came! We went to see little Leon at their apartment and watch him get his nappies changed. I was 9 years old then. Baby Leon is now a 13 year old boy attending high school already! Sigh time sure flies.

And just a couple of years ago, he was a mere 7 year old who had a strange interest for beautiful bathrooms. He’d go into people’s bathrooms and shout, “Waaaaahhh so nice!”.

Sweet kid. I never really got a chance to bond with Amos and Florence as they were much younger.

The poor boy who looks most bored on the far left of the photo is the youngest son of my dad’s childhood friend.

My dad’s childhood best friends were a pair of twins (and one half of the twin was at the table but you can’t see clearly from this pic). They grew up in PJ Old Town and would climb Gasing Hill together and play with the monkeys when they reach the top. Amazingly, they are still such good friends to this day!

Gotta love CNY in a way. Good food, good company and money!

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