I cried when I had to let go of an interview in The Star back in 2005, like it was the most important thing to do in my blogging career. ( that article did propel four bloggers who went on to enjoy phenomenal success with their blogs) but I really don’t feel anything about it now.

I was envious of peers who had higher readership and tried hard to get there but would fail and feel hurt when opportunities would come for them and not for me.

I was a lot of stupid things.

I really don’t care about all that now. I don’t even get advertorials anymore and continue to turn down the odd clueless company pr people who just don’t do their research on obviously retired bloggers. How can a blogger give you any publicity if she only posts once or twice a month?

Now all I think about is if I should further my studies, charting my career path, if I should open my own clinic, if so, how many can I have, where will the money come from, how do I manage my finance, what establishments can I join in the future, expanding the sticker monster, if I should buy an oven so I can finally cook in all possible ways and maybe pick up baking…so many things!

All I am saying is that there was a period of time where I let it all out because i thought that’s who i am and i enjoyed doing it and now I’m over it. In a way I have become less in tune with my blogger self so when shit happens I get more upset easily than I used to be.

While my father’s worries for me were of people trying to defame me by digging up dirt from my blog when I run for prime minister or something, my concerns are for the asshole public’s lack of tack and humanity to take things from my blog and dissect it in forums where anonymous bastards only has physical opinions to give about anything female being posted there.

My friend and junior from uni, Tee Luun, alerted me on facebook about a post in lowyat. While slightly hurtful, it was just a replica of what happened in the past.

Last time, there was a post on lowyat about the blogger girls used in an advertorial for maxis broadband. A few of us were invited on a girls’ day out and were loan a netbook each. So naturally we had to blog about it and there were photographs of us on our respective blogs, newspapers and magazines. No prizes for guessing who stuck out like a sore thumb among our crop of petite and slender popular girl bloggers. So yeah, flamed on the forums for being big sized and ugly, I was hurt. Before I opened the link to that forum, I was already expecting that i would get such treatment.

Then it became the past.

Sometime before I graduated, my post on creating double eyelids (which I have privatized ever since) was taken and the people on that forum were horrified by the ugliness of it all, cursing while they were at it. That post has been freaked-out-about on some foreign blogs and forums, usually about how Asian girls can’t deal with the fact that they have slitty eyes..but the treatment it received from that particular local forum (can’t remember the address..kopitiam something) pretty much took the cake. The comments were so mean and humiliating. I felt embarrassed because I was about to come out into the working world and I felt like I had no dignity when put in that kind of light so I asked the moderator to remove the post, explaining my situation and he was kind enough to do it. I privatized that particular post because I didn’t like the attention it received.

That too became the past.

It’s not easy to continue feeling neutral about myself when time and time again random douchebags keep reminding me about it. I know I am not ugly to the point where people recoil in horror when they see me out in the streets but perhaps compared to the usual hot chics they prefer to see fleeting across their computer screens, they are left with a bad taste in their mouth when someone like me, not a porn star, nor a typical doe eyed sexy beauty, suddenly appearing on their LCD screens, surely it’s a stark contrast! So…this always always happens. So sien.

What happened today was mild, just a post referring to my height and if I am tall (because I claim to be, standing at 169cm) but of course you got the trolls who will always always always always relate everything to my face. The photos they used were recent too, photos from Kluang and I’m not going to be one of those who privatize my whole blog.

Link: http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/1935892

It’s either I keep going or I just delete it.

If I keep going, who knows what else will be misconstrued, twisted into something unflattering on the forums?

If I delete it, I lose years of memories, years of interactions and a record of every single bit of emotion I have felt in my late teens to early adulthood.

But sometimes it is easier to just press delete and not have to worry about trolls anymore. Is it worth it to be brave about it?

Can anybody explain to me why trolls do what they do?

What do they derive from it?

Is there some satisfaction from humiliating people and all? I mean yea you might cringe when you see someone making a fool of themselves on YouTube, but why comment at all with hurtful words? (no I don’t have embarrassing YouTube videos, I’m just saying.)

Can my future employers understand that I’m just someone normal who enjoys a good laugh without showing her panties to the world or popping out a boob or doing drugs (complete with photos) or even murdering animals or defaming the name of my current workplace(with photos too!) who just so happen to be unfortunate enough to be the subject of a few trolls along the way who have no qualms about making a fool of me with what I was born with (or what I ate over the years)?

I just want to keep this space on the net without worrying too much and feeling so much, please?

Thanks to an awesome app called Kobo, i managed to get my hands on a copy of the ebook. Seriously, if you have exhausted ‘all ways’ to get an eBook, give Kobo a try! (while I’m at it, an awesome android app I have on my samsung galaxy is Magic Hour!! It is prettier than Instagram and with more filters for your pictures than you can imagine! And super fast too with adorable graphics!)

So..anyway..I’m at the part where Michael is waiting in agony for a callback from the Starbucks store manager after his interview.

It reminded me of my agony filled afternoons at the end of the 2002 school year when almost the entire bunch of form four students at my school, SMK Subang Utama, went out in full force to apply for part time jobs at Sunway Pyramid.

While studying for our form four finals, most of us already had a list as to where we were interested in working at for the school holidays. I knew I would die of boredom if I worked at a clothes store..so my list had things like shampoo girl at a cut above, pet store assistant, swensens waitress, baskin robbin ice cream girl, tgv ticket girl, Nail Artz manicurist (the job I eventually got), Starbucks or coffee bean Batista…but it had to be somewhere swanky with all my friends, like at a mall so we could all be together!

An office job was too boring but those paid the most, in the eyes of a rm30 per week pocket money collecting high school kid. But nah, still too boring.

Those days the average wage per hour was RM4 and if you were lucky, you’d get a RM5.50 per hour job! I was underpaid because I was below the legal age to work, was only 15 at that time slogging away for RM3.50…or was it RM3? I remember I couldn’t even bring myself to have McDonalds for lunch because that was a luxury in itself. (it still is a pricey snack now!)

I remember applying to all those places that I wanted and only a handful called back because places like Coffee Bean and Starbucks sent their Baristas for training and most of us could only afford to work with them for 6-7 weeks!

In the end, I was called for an interview with Kimberley (the now defunct accessories store on the highest floor) and Nail Artz, which is also long gone.

I accepted the job at Nail Artz because of my so called passion in nail arts. I was told that I had to do plenty of manual labour like scrubbing customers’ feet, pouring the water from the pedicure machine into a big tub, and wheeling that big tub of water filled with dead skin and grime to the toilet the next morning, sweep, mop, polish the glass cabinets, take out each nail polish bottle and wiping it down, bringing tea to the customers and on top of it all, greeting customers.

My dad was at first horrified about the prospect of me having to mop and sweep (he didn’t know about the scrubbing feet part) when I didn’t even have to do any of that in my own home. (mind you, come uni and working life, I have been sweeping and mopping my own floors, thank you very much!) but in the end I got my way and went on to earn a huge fortune of RM900 for my entire stint at Nail Artz. One of the first things I did with the money was to modify my phone lighting..haha. Instead of the conventional greenish yellow led lights in a Nokia 3310, I had purple and white lights installed! So cool man.

But the joy of being accepted to work was such an awesome feeling! I felt so adult!

By the middle of November most of us had secured our part time jobs.

Amanda worked at Miss Selfridge and I would be able to see her sweeping the floor at the entrance of the store from my booth at the floor above. We’d wave excitedly at each other whenever we could!

Nigel and Yijin were both working at a Nike store, having a good time buying cheaper branded sport shoes.

Chee Kiang was also working at Vikings, a hot dog stand at the entrance of Sunway Pyramid and I could almost see him if I strained my neck hard enough over my counter top. He got very good at frying sausages and layaning old uncles’ sausage jokes.

E Guy had a stable job at Sushi King with Kay Hong.

Thinking back about Kay Hong’s work experience during that time cracks me up. He would steal away from his job at Focus Point, the optical store, and then continue part of his shift at Sushi King, lol. On top of that, whenever he could, he’d work at Holiday Villa as a banquet waiter. He threw the towel down at Sushi King one day after getting into a spat with a superior. It was hilarious. And literally. towel. throw. floor. Hahaha!!

But those were good times, when we dabbled at jobs, jobs our parents slogged hard to put us through university for so we would never have to do.

Loved the thrill of getting a fun part time job, with some pocket money and being in a shopping mall everyday!  It’s very different from getting a job after graduation because with that job you are expected to progress in your career, pay taxes and ..well, take it seriously.

Okay, I’ll continue reading the ebook now. Hope my post wasn’t too nonsensical.

The reason is very obvious. Chee Kiang has three years with the Singaporean government as well.

With fingers and toes crossed on a couple of Fridays ago, it was written in the letter from the healthy ministry that I was indeed due to report at Jabatan Kesihatan Negeri Johor! I was ecstatic!!

Long story short, I thought I could get my way again the second time around but as expected, Johor Bahru was just wishful thinking for now and here I am in Kluang, feeling nervous about my first day of work tomorrow.

The stuff going through my head seems to be even more than the feelings I had about finishing dental school and graduating. It just seems like a different ball game, this working thing.

Prior to driving to Kluang, I had a very difficult time finding a place to stay. Kluang is not quite real estate heaven, no one bothers to list any properties for rent on any of the property websites. But fortunately I had a junior from school, Vivian, and a new friend I met on twitter, Jonathan, (thanks Jason for introducing us!) who each gave some suggestions as to where I should stay.

Google maps became my best friend and I think the GPS is probably the best thing since the mobile phone. Seriously. Papago is actually better than Garmin in terms of refreshing rate.

The point is….I have to try to do this on my own. I’m scared but at the same time I am excited. I have to keep reminding myself that I am not here to be a student, I am here to work and earn money. Like ACTUAL money that gets deducted for EPX, income-tax. I’m still trying to take it all in. Walking into the KWSP office in Shah Alam was still rather surreal for me.

I still feel like a freaking student!

I was of course a little disappointed that I got Kluang (the other choice was Kota Tinggi). But at least I am in Johor. All this while I was just blinded by the fact that Chee Kiang and I can shorten our distance for the first time in almost six years but when I reported for work at the hospital, the seriousness of the job settled in and I think the motivation is sinking in as well. I’m not just here because I love someone, I’m also here because I have a purpose to serve. I’m pretty gung-ho about this new job, if you can’t tell. I heard that my clinic will have 100 patients a day. That sounds pretty awesome either way.

Kluang is only three hours from home and about 1.5-2 hours to Singapore..see lah if I want to drive or something. I can even take the KTM from here!

Being working adults (wahhhh), Chee Kiang and I will probably have less time to see each other if I was posted back home. But with me being in Kluang, seeing each other would be easier and by seeing each other more, we get to be in the same line of thoughts as we grow through this phase of our lives. We have so much to think about for the future – not just marriage lah u kepo aunty – but like where we actually want to live, what we actually want to do with our professions ..we need to settle down somewhere. And without constantly talking about it, we can never reach an agreement.

With discussions of big issues, come disagreement I’m sure. So if we maintained our distance of over 800km and seeing each other only every 1-2 months, once, (sometimes we are lucky enough to have reasons to see each other for three weekends at a go, or a few days of holidays together when we were still in uni) we won’t be able to talk about the big stuff and ideas would individually form in our heads as we grow up. We make up our own minds about what we want in life and automatically assume that’s what the other one wants as well.

But being here, nearer, we won’t have to spoil any rare weekend by disagreeing about something that we want together in the future. That’s the idea of why I chose Johor.

My stomach keeps clenching whenever I think about my first day at work. I worry about arriving late, I worry about making first impressions, I worry about parking spaces at the clinic, I worry about my lunch! And please don’t get me started about worrying if any of my clinical knowledge has escaped my brain. SO DAMN SCARED! AHHHH!!!

This will be my first real job. It’s a definite jump from the days where I worked part time at a nail art salon in Sunway Pyramid when I was 15. From scrubbing callus from the feet of rich tai tais, pushing back their cuticles, changing the dirty water (had to row 20 litres of dirty water to the nearest toilet) every morning and sweeping the floor…..to well, being a dentist!

Wish me luck…I’ll be needing it.

———-

With my current one week holiday in NUS enjoying the super fast internet connection here, I’ve been putting in a lot of backlogged photos into drafts so yeah, my blog is catching up quite a bit with my life!

The dental dinner was very much anticipated by the first batch of dental students here at AIMST.

Read about the 2008 and 2007 dental dinner here!

It being our last, most of us were having a hard time trying to decide what to wear. For myself, I knew that I needed something long. Of course must be something with a plunging neckline too, hehe. That’s just the way I roll contrary to what my mother thinks. It’s a nice present.

I just wanted opposite of everything that I’ve ever had. No more letting my hair down or even dresses that ends above the knees. I don’t know if I made any fashion boo boos lah, but oh wells, variety in life bla bla bla. Clutch a little bit unavoidable since most clutches looks the same. Sometimes it gets a little bit annoying because formal wear fashion has only so many varieties but still, definitely much better than being a guy.

I did contemplate on treating myself to a mani and padi but Jolene The Nail Artist from 2003 finally emerged from the depths of my many personas and said, “For fucks meh pay so much,” so I decided to do it myself. Since Jolene The Sticker Monster (another one of my many personas) has quite a lot of nail bling blings, I, Jolene The Poor Dental Student (obligatory persona to provide for a better future for my family – current and future. Current because I must maintain poor dental student status so that my dad doesn’t kill me when I tell him that my bank account is high and dry before the month is up and future because dentists usually can put their kids through university) shall make use of this fact. I think most of you might be lost at this point. It’s okay, read again.

Oh before I go on to the pictures, here are full length photos of me from all three years:

2007:

Don’t have full length=( but it ends around the knees, and yes, this is the same dress I wore to the Nuffnang Blog Awards.

2008:

I like my hair the most here.

2009:

Most favourite neckline. Hair, hmm.

Faster say nice!

I think you should look at it again.

This is also a promotional gimmick to get my customers to have faith in Preciosa crystals which is just as shiny, if not more shiny than Swarovski crystals. It’s like an equally good crystal brand lah, that I got duped into selling. I thought I was buying Swarovski. But it’s okay, turns out that some customers are quite pro when it comes to crystals and some of them love Preciosa! Yay!

Tiny gold beads usually used in nail art. I’m selling also! RM3.50! Go see this link for my nail bling blings!

Cze-Yin and I went to get our hair done without Lie Yuen because she was at home with one of her many personas too. To name a few, she has Lie Yuen The Self Hair Stylist Persona (whom she was at home with), Lie Yuen The Comic Doodler Persona, Lie Yuen the Otaku persona, Lie Yuen the Dog Lover persona, Lie Yuen the Lomo Crazy Photographer and so on. There are many people living in our house. Multiples of three.

Sorry yeah, I worked quite long on it so must show you again. I stuck each bead on one by one!

Sick of seeing me photographing my nails, Cze-Yin wanted in on it as well.

Wahh..so sparkly! Preciosa crystals FTW!

She didn’t like her curls though and came home to get Lie Yuen to rectify it for her.

Ee Chean and Chwan Horng were there with us getting their hair done as well. We booked the slots a whole month in advance, damn kiasu right?

This is what they were doing before they put everything up. What I wanted was a high bun but they didn’t quite give me that. Don’t know why the bun didn’t hold up well.

Housemates in Lie Yuen’s room with her purple mirror that has been with her since Year 1.

As you can see, her purple mirror is rather portable. She also has very good taste when it comes to decorating.

Outside our house were two handsome boys and one beautiful girl who eventually won best dressed for her exquisite qipao.

Getting a bit emotional. We wanted a picture in our dresses as housemates right outside our house. Something to look back on in the years to come, don’t you think? The rusty gate, the tiny patch of vegetables planted by the next door popo and the brochure-strewn porch, sigh. Only 5 more months now before we say byebye. If I don’t study hard, maybe I will have to stay there alone for another year. Boo.

Designated driver for the night. But Lie Yuen took over after clubbing that night because you know why lah hah.

As Poh Yee was one of the earliest to arrive, with her standing around the reception area, many people taught that it was a wedding and that they were at the wrong place!
L-r: Poh Yee in her white gown, Pei Zhi, Brenda, Xin Yi, Myself, Sock Nee, Cze-Yin, Narjit, Lie Yuen and Angela.

Brenda in a black halter dress that swept the floor together with me.

L-r: Chwan Horng, Ee Chean, Chee Wen and Joe. I’m not sure if Joe was nominated, but Chee Wen took home best dressed for that night. I know everyone was in a suit *rolls eyes* but Chee Wen’s one had a really good cut!

Poh Yee and Cze-Yin posing together since they both wore white.

Poh Yee with the beige Zhu Zen.

As you can see, we could not stop taking photos. Pretty soon I am going to run out of captions already.

L-r: Magesh, Praveena and Bala. The two boys have rather good taste when it comes to clothings! I think they should have been nominated for Best Dressed Male.

L-r: Samuel, Charis, Ghayatri, Myself.

I love Charis’ dress!! All that bling bling on the boobs! <3 Classy!

Batch 1 girls SS-ing again. Different angles mah, sorry la.

We wanted to take colour coded photos but I think we got distracted half way. So here are a few anyway.

With Professor Comfort and Dr. Robinson, who have been with us through thick and thin since the beginning of the BDS course!

Chwan Horng ambil kesempatan.

L-r: Charis, Shing Hui, Gillian (who was nominated for Best Dressed Female), Ei Leng, Gabriel, Phebe and …um, someone help me! Sorry I forgot your name..:((( though I see you in the locker room everyday (((((((((

I love Phebe’s dress!! It is so different!

Myself and the handsome CY!

Ahhh…my two lovely juniors Sabrina and Gerviene who made the exam season more bearable by responding to my crap on facebook. Thanks babes! <3

L-r: Aimee, Sabrina, Myself and Gerviene. Had to have one with the reception counter!

I thought the Batch 3 boys looked rather dashing so I positioned myself right in the middle.
L-r: Navin, Phillip, Kenneth, Me, Aik Munn, Chew Weng (whom I always mix up with Wah Seng) and Chin Kai. Chin Kai was the emcee for that night and I think he did a fantastic job playing the Ah Beng stereotype. It’s not like he overdid it, you can see that plenty of his own personality was up there on stage with him!

One of the few solo photos of myself. It was a sad night for me as my second SD card fucked up on me. It made weird lines across the photos, with grey areas etc etc. Some photos were lost and some of the more kooky ones were the affected ones. So much sadness in this world.

One more with the entire reception area.

Just realized that Pei Zhi and I have similar clutches. Eh actually almost all of us had white-silver clutches! LOL. Batch 1 dentistry girls and their similar tastes, tsk tsk.

Josiah and myself.

Xin Yi was nominated for Best Dressed Female too! Love the slightly bondage style but in such a happy colour.

Jamie and Brenda – The GIrls in Black.

I love Sock Nee’s choice! The blue really stands out and also adds to the many colours when we stand together. Thank you for bringing a piece of rainbow to our class photos, Sock Nee.:)

Zhu Zen and myself. Who was the photographer? So lousy wan!

A few of the girls with Dr. Niekla (in black) and her daughter (in white).

Nien and I before entering the hall. Nien bought her toga dress from UK when she was there for her year end holidays! You have to touch the material.. so beautifully thick!

Props to Ei Leng for her gorgeous style. Firstly, love the design as it really shows off her curves, love the colour and the fascinator? WIN! Why? The black dots were garnished with blings from The Sticker Monster. <3 Totally adds to the glamour.

It’s people like Sock Nee and Ei Leng who brighten up an otherwise sea of blacks. Not that most of the girl wore blacks, but dare to go against convention!

See how awesome Sock Nee’s blue goes with Gerviene’s red as well?

One with Gerviene.

Batch 2 girls posing and I pull a paparazzi at the side. Don’t you just adore Carmen’s dress? (far left) I have one of her posing for me but as fate would have it, it HAD to be one of the spoiled photos. BAH.

L-r: Me, Narjit, Janice, Kaixuan.

Myself and my other damn funny junior, Jennifer! I thought your outfit was so Princess Jasmine. The slinky cloth, the hair, the make-up, the bustier (?), the sash, the works! And apparently people said I looked like The Queen as my choice of outfit was rather regal. So…we were royalties that night!

The folks at my table. For three years in a row now.
Up l-r: Cze-Yin, Nien, Ah Thong, Myself, Ee Chean
Bottom l-r: Brenda, Poh Yee, Lie Yuen, Zhu Zen, Chwan Horng.

Half the class with our beloved dean, Prof. Smales.

The other table.
top l-r: Xin Yi, Pei Zhi, Zhu Zen, Brenda, Lie Yuen, Pih Yee, Nien, Sock Nee, Myself
bottom l-r: Angela, Sett, Joe, Maxis, Chwan Horng (why close eyes!), Ah Thong and Jimmy.

All of us were fussing over Dr. Brindha and Dr. Karthik’s baby boy, Darshan! And don’t you just love Dr. Brindha’s blue sari??? I could lose myself staring forever into this shade of blue.

L-r: Brenda, Nien, Dr. Karthik, Narjit with Darshan, Dr. Brindha, Cze-Yin and Jamie.

So so so so so cute!!!!!! He has so much wisdom in his little baby face.

So the opening act was by a bunch of hot chicks from Batch 5. I don’t know their names. I hardly know anybody from Batch 5. It is always the case for any Year 1 dental student.

Playing with Sett’s brother-in-law’s DSLR.

The VIP table looks on intently.

The hot chicks at my table.

Like how they say it in the magazines and newspapers when they photograph celebrities and politicians: Jolene and Nien share a light moment.

The dinner was also to introduce the new AIMST Dental Students’ Association Committee 09/10. I’m finally done with secretarial work. *dusts hands*

The committee strikes a post for the camera.

Oh cute little ballot holders for the Dental King and Queen and best dressed candidates.

Deniece wows the entire school with her sizzling belly dance moves. She jiggles in sections!! Too amazing.

Myself and Janice.

Steven and I! Steven’s one of the few international students we have in dentistry. He is from Seychelles Island! So cool right! He was telling me that the people in his country speak French.

This is our other international student, Nadia who is from Kenya and is now in the third batch! I think we have another one or two international students. There’s even one international student from China in the first year.

This is Ke Ke, my Batch 4 junior.

Yii Ping is one of the few girls on campus who can work the electric guitar.

The three person band doing their thang.

SEI KAM MOU. Here’s Jimmy practicing his skills with a DSLR. He would soon get a DSLR a week after dental dinner.

The clever system they derived for the voting process. Each label comes with a slit, so you pretty much can understand, I don’t have to come up with words to describe the process.

Melvin the ADSA president squatting and digging some food from his buccal sulcus with his tongue. Hehehe. This photo made many laugh on Facebook.

The ever hyper Batch 4 girls did a dance that brought many of us back to the 90s, early noughties. N’Sync’s Bye Bye Bye and Britney Spears’ Baby One More Time to name a few.

Old ladies like me appreciate songs from the 90s.

Dr. Niekla belts out Whitney Houston’s The Greatest Love Of All. Dr. Niekla can SING! Not only is she a brilliant pediatric dentist, she had an album and everything when she was in high school and quit the singing business to pursue her dentistry studies. My lecturer was a pop star back in Indonesia!! I can’t get over it, it’s just too awesome.

It has been a tradition for the Batch 1 to put up a video and this year, Jimmy came up with the idea to make a parody of this funny Thai commercial about exaggeration over the simplest things.

Here’s the video:

Ah Thong laughs at himself on the screen. I’m getting some Oscar/Golden Globes vibes here. Heh, like they are all dressed to the nines like how they are in the awards as they watch snippets of their award winning performances.

After the video was the part where a couple of students from each batch were sent up on stage to compete for the Dental King and Dental Queen title. The winner was Khim Yik from Batch 3 and Stephanie who is from Batch 2! This is Khim Yik’s second win! He first won the title when he was in Year 1!

The two reps from my class are Narjit and Joe.

This is Khim Yik!

This is Xin Le and Shanmugam from Batch 4. The couples were asked to act out a situation on the spot and I think these two did quite a good job!

A dance by Batch 2!

Batch 2′s drama was damn cute lah. The red cloth is the gingiva and those white stuff are of course teeth. It’s a story about a few teeth in the mouth of a boy. Whoever who was doing the voiceover (I think Carmen was one of them) did such an amazing job!

Then you have the bad guys, who are none other than evil S. Mutans. Streptococcus Mutans is the commonest bacteria which contributes to tooth decay, so of course all the dental students roared with laughter. So geeky of us!

Myself and Melvin while I was on the way to the toilet.

Wouldn’t be able to forgive myself I didn’t get one with the mirror.

Sigh, the sadness starts here. I have a few nice pictures on my own with awesome poses on the stairs, at the table etc. But it was all damaged by some stupid fucked up glitch with my SD card. I have digital camera phobia now. I never want to lose photos again, ever. And it had to happen with the pictures of my last dental dinner ever.

At least this one is still here. I’m going to have to ask you to excuse the chunk of an arm.

Crowning Dr. George as the best dressed lecturer.

And for the last time….Zephyr.

Zephyr is a band formed by my classmates and in their heydays (a time when they were less occupied with clinics and the likes) they actually played in places like Halo Cafe and were quite well known around campus.

If our schedule doesn’t free up and what with us finishing the course soon, this was their last performance.

Ah Thong and me! His tie quite different right!

Carmen and myself! Carmen was Chee Kiang’s senior (by one semester only) at IMU when he was there doing pharmacy for 6 months. And then she too left IMU to become my junior here. Hehe. Another transferred coursemate of Chee Kiang’s is Philip who used to be Chee Kiang’s junior when they did A-levels together in Singapore. He then pursued dentistry here as my Batch 3 junior.

Soo Huan, who won best dressed with her beautiful qipao.

l-r: Vivian, Me, Zhu Zen, Poh yee, Kaixuan, Soo Huan and Sylvia.

Brenda and I with Dr. Sonu, our pediatric dentistry lecturer.

Yii Ping and I. She’s got such a gorgeous smile!

Zephyr’s adoring fans.

Chwan Horng and I.

Narjit and me.

Oooh sexiness. (not me lah)
l-r: Deniece, Jeanette, Me

San leong.

Jamie and Me. Nice lace!!

Me and my darling housemate! Nice right the swirly thing she did to her eyes?

A more decent one of Lie Yuen and I.

By far the sweetest couple in BDS (the rest also very sweet..but the guys must take a leaf out of David’s book okay!) This is Kimra and David who have been together since their first year. They are now in third year already. Like most couples here in dentistry, they are always together. A particular sweet moment was during the futsal ADSALympics event. Someone kicked the ball and it hit Kimra on the head with a loud smack. David left the court and immediately rushed to her side and rubbed her head. SO SWEET RIGHT. It was by far the most exciting part of the game for me. *guy sports bore me*

Eh, another photo with Bala and Praveena!

Wilander and me!

Wah Seng and me!

Wah smexxy Peta and me. So onz your dress! I love it!

Oooh, this was a spoilt photo as well. But luckily the important parts of the photo was still good. So here it is, looking like some sidebar image link! Jacqueline and I were excited that we both had bling bling eyelashes.

The sides of myself and Jacqueline.

L-r: Encik Mansor, Encik Yahya, Myself, Lishen and Encik Abdullah. They are our dental technology lecturers.

Ei Leng and her gorgeous fascinator again! Courtesy of The Sticker Monster! (tak habis-habis promoting) ;P

L-r: Jeeva, Venga and me.

Sett and me. What’s with the thumbs up?

Jimmy and Brenda. I had one with Jimmy too but it was one of the spoilt photos, sigh.

I like this one of Andy and Lie Yuen!

And this one of Poh Yee with our guy classmates!! Regret that I didn’t have one like that!!! Why didn’t I think of it!

Before everyone made their way home, we tried to gather all the classmates for a photo together. However, Cze-Yin and Andy were missing from the photo.

So I made this! Jimmy and I have an on-going bet that anyone who can make the most realistic complete class photo will be able to laugh at the loser who will have to eat a ball of ZOE. (ZOE is the material used to fill the tooth temporarily and the material is dough-like) I’m still procrastinating my entry as he did a pretty damn good job. LOL. Let him wait lah till he forgets about it.

Room service!

Was driving out of the carpark when I saw Jimmy lying on the stairs. Somehow he looks like a dwarf with the optical illusion.

After the dental dinner and it being our last, many of us made our way over to Mois. It was fun because people from different batches came along. The crowd was huge! About a quarter of the club were taken up by dentistry students and some of us called our friends from other courses along. So basically Mois was filled with AIMST students that night.

Sock Nee looking so adorable here.

A few drinks before everybody warmed up.

Me and my sweaty face and my chewing gum.

If you think Chee Wen looks red here, this is nothing.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH MY CAMWHORING SKILLS!

This looks like a really nice movie poster. With Bala smiling in orange and Sett smiling knowingly at him! It’s another one of my distorted photos.

A clearer one of the two of them.

The girls looking happy.

Wah Adrian is SO feeling it.

L-r: Adrian (needs a tissue!), Aimee and Aik Munn.

l-r: Stephanie, Charis and CY.

SCARY RIGHT!! It’s like he used red paint on his face.

Poh Yee and her bling bling dress.

Andy declines a drink.

l-r: Pei Zhi, Xin Yi and Poh Yee.

Here’s a clearer view of Poh Yee’s super bling red dress.

Whatever is in the jar looks kind of gross. It’s not a mixture of puke, don’t worry.

Like every other outing to Mois, we ended at the night at the nearby mamak.

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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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It’s hard to believe that some old friends whom you have lost touch in the last five years or more, suddenly messages you out of the blue trying to say hello and stuff, actually want to keep in touch. I believe there are some people who just want to say hello for old time’s sake but at least 99% of the time, after exchanging a few default greetings, a favour is asked of you. Usually these come in the form of monetary gains. 

Got people so thick face one or not?

I’m so cynical that when a really really really old friend/acquaintance message me on facebook or msn asking me how’s life, I feel like saying “Cut the crap, what is it that you need me to do for you?”

I’d rather you just say “Hi, I know we’ve not been in touch, but I’d like to ask you about this…” rather than “Hello! How’s life? Good? So have you graduated? How’s your family? How long more to graduation?” etc etc until I thought we were having a really good conversation before they just cut in the conversation with a “Hey…. have you heard about (this is the worse)/I’m currently doing this thing (usually)/do you think you can (expected, but not as bad)..”

I don’t want to be this bitter old woman but I will help if it is within my means but when it inconveniences me (and takes up my time by listening to them rattle on about how this or that product or service would totally change my life) I will not bother to give face to the person at all. Admittedly it can be pretty tough to brush someone off if they were never ever annoying and are pretty nice people. Some people you can just tell them directly that you’re not able to help/you’re not interested because it doesn’t really matter for you to preserve that relationship.

Also, like most bloggers who has been at it for long enough, you really can’t say no to friends when they ask for help. Sometimes you don’t even take any payment when they ask you to help publicize something coz it is really not the right thing to do to a friend. But when an acquaintance, someone who didn’t even bother to say hello to you in school because you were not worthy of their time suddenly wants you to write about their something or other, it really pisses me off. Majorly. 

I will definitely help friends who I have kept in touch with but to be out of someone’s life for a long period of time only to say hello again with a favour to ask is just plain rude. You make us feel so worthless as a friend. 

I mean if the favour is to help look for some super medical specialist to cure a dying family member, of course it is okay. But when you burden me with your insurance/direct marketing nonsense it becomes really despicable.

I don’t know man, I just don’t have patience for these people in my life.  

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I loved Bangkok so much that before my shoppings were even removed from their plastic bags, I’ve already booked another flight ticket to my shopping paradise for April 2010! Um, sort of like booked tickets the day after I returned home from Bangkok. Hahaha. The shopping made me delirious, in a very very happy way.

If you think I’m nuts, you’ll curse yourself that you have missed out on the RM168 RETURN FLIGHT ALL-INCLUSIVE Air Asia to Bangkok! Woohoo! I don’t know if the promotion is still on but you can go check. Also, do check out Jetstar, Tigerairways too yeah. Must take everything into consideration. Singapore tickets damn cheap la on those two other airlines. So much cheaper than Air Asia!

This trip was planned many many months ago, even before my dad booked tickets to UK. So I felt like quite bad right, the month before just came back from UK, then the following month go Bangkok (then the weekend after that go Singapore).

When I touched down at the Suvarnabhumi Airport, I felt a little lost but thankfully I could roam immediately so I put the cabbie on the line to get directions from the hotel’s receptionist. The rest of my friends were already waiting at the hotel as I had an exam the day before, so had to go there all alone. So nice to be in Batch 2. I had classes on Tuesday, and some of them stayed on till Tuesday AND rushed back for afternoon clinics on a 7am flight from Bangkok to Penang. We are maaad shopping people. You’ll see why later.

The nice cabbie tried to make conversation but I think it went something like this.

Cabbie: My english is not so good. (in thai)
Me: Yea….I came from KL.

*awkward smiles from both of us*

Cabbie: Where are you from? (in thai)
Me: Jolene

*awkward smiles and a little bit after that I realized he asked me which country I was from*

Cabbie: Suk Tiet Tiet? (Sukhumvit 77, where I was staying)
Me: Seventy-seven! Yes..!

*blank stare from cabbie*

Anyway glad I arrived at the hotel in one piece and without taking a breather, we hopped into the next cab and sped off to Chatuchak! It was like GO GO GO KEEP SHOPPING GO!!! With only three days in Bangkok, I lost count of the amount of markets I went to. Okay maybe I know the total. 1..2..3..4..5…6…7(if you consider the stalls I saw along the way as I walked the streets of Bangkok as one mofo huge market place. No street corner was left unhawkered.).

With Stephanie and Ei Leng, full of expectations outside Chatuchak.

With Samuel too!

Though they say Tuk tuks can rip you off, we went on one that was rather reasonable. I don’t know what tactic Cassandra used, but we were half way negotiating fares with a cabbie and a tuktuk approached us quoting us RM8 to a nearby night market. RM8 for four screaming girls in a makeshift tray on top of a motorbike, not too shabby!

Charis, Ei Leng and their clever hats! It was either too hot in Bangkok or too wet. But what did we care, we were SHOPPPINGgggG.

Ei Leng and Charis went mad in Bangkok stocking up for their blogshop SWEET TOOTHSOME with really awesome finds. So if you want yourself some Bangkok lovveeee, head on over to their blogshop!

We went to Chatuchak on the wrong day, a Friday. We thought it was the wholesalers day but turns out the best time to go is during the weekend. So I didn’t get to see the infamous mayhem that is Chatuchak. NEVERMIND APRIL!

A few stalls were open but not worth the whole flying to Bangkok thing though.

They have tong yuan there as well!

Ah hah! Now we know where all those little novelty mummies come from.

Disco balls! It costs like close to Rm20 for a ball that size back home you know? And if about 5 times that size, about Rm50.

Oooh ooh!! Chau lou bags!! You know the kind that people from China used to bring in to Hong Kong but in red, blue and white stripes? These days they make all these cutesie ones and blogshop owners all over have been using these babies to cart their stuff to and from bazaars. I bought myself one because I foresaw a great deal of shopping bags that needed lugging around. So very convenient!

It’s like all those deco items that I’ve always sought after back home were taunting me in Bangkok. So difficult to find plastic beaded curtains back home okay! And even if it was available, choices were so limited and ugly.

More deco items being sold like vegetables at a morning market.

Miniature porcelain decorative items! I had no use for it but they were so cute!

This one I have use for. Beautiful hand painted candle holders! And damn cheap too!! About RM2 for one. (hahaha, girls, now you know how much they cost..:P Sorry yeah, budget went to shopping instead of souvenirs.:P)

Transparent jewelry boxes for about RM5.00.

If you’re into crafts, we saw some buttons during our quest to find some metal studs. Stephanie wants to sew them onto clinchers!

A guard dog can be found at almost every store front but the strange part is that they are all tiny little puppies begging to be hugged.

Wooden tribal inspired earrings. ALMOST bought some, but then I thought about my abandoned earring tower and how sad my once sparkly earrings looked, now dusty and forgotten, I decided that I should not subject other earrings to the same fate.

A typical alley in Chatuchak. So….imagine. Apparently there are 8000 shops in this marketplace.

You get better treatment too with such bags, plenty of the storekeepers think that you’re stocking up. I don’t know if that translates to better bargaining power, but worth a shot right? And trust me, you NEED this bag. NEED.

Beautiful enamel plaques adorning the artsy fartsy alleys of Chatuchak. We were all fantasizing about our future clinics’ deco.

Not quite Blythe Dolls, right? I really don’t know my dolls.

Oooh nais.

Since there weren’t any opened clothes stall at Chatuchak, we went over to the nearby JJ Mall and spent the entire day there. I personally didn’t quite like the stuff that was available at that mall but the rest could spend like hours on ONE floor! They bought plenty of hair accessories, accessories, SHOES (RM10 for one pair!!) and some clothes. But the best has yet to come.

Oh right, check out how pink oriented this store is! Love the stools!!!

You know, with all the pink loving that most grown up girls are doing these days, what is truly missing is a goddamn doll house. Then our lives are complete.

Remember to check out Pink Sunday if you’re ever around Chatuchak! Get your pink fix.

See what I said about tiny guard dogs?

Preparing to ward me off.

Gorgeous prints on sling bags! But I don’t really like the super casual look. I like solid looking bags but unfortunately, all my bags are anything but solid. T_T Looks may be deceiving. T__T I’ve been through over 8 bags and it’s not even one year yet. I hate it when my bag dies on me.

Obscene amount of pork at JJ Mall!

This was when I stopped to enjoy a bowl of steaming pork noodles. Delicious. Think Bak Kut Teh Udon! Super delicious fusion!

After devouring my bowl of noodles, I continued on my shopping journey. Saw this shop which sold ALL Barbie Doll things. I don’t know why I didn’t really go in, maybe because I felt hindered by  my huge bag.

Tons of Barbie doll dresses for the picking!

After an RM18 one hour Thai foot massage (don’t jelez), I went back into Chatuchak to check out the infamous pets section.

No photography was allowed so I could only manage a little bit of quick shots. Couldn’t get pictures of the albino hedgehogs, guinea pigs, the many many puppies and kittens, snakes, iguanas, tarantulas…. the list goes on. Chee Kiang has a friend in Thailand named Jessie, whom you will see later on in this post, told me that there are actually dog farms in Thailand! I hope it is for people to take home as pets. Apparently there are Shih Tzu farms, Maltese farms, Pomeranian farms… and the dogs will all run to you!

Sleeping wrinkled pugs. <3

Found myself at the artsy-fartsy part of Chatuchak again.

Funk handmade hair clips, love the colours but I wouldn’t wear them! Maybe the metal ones.

After JJ mall, those who have been to Chinatown went back to the hotel with our shopping bags. Phebe, Ei Leng, Cassandra and myself went on their MRT/BST (i’m confused) to have dinner at Chinatown.

Interesting ticket concept! Wonder why they use chips instead of the usual cards.

Truth to be told, the MRT/BTS is convenient but not as cheap as cabbing! Per person on the train can set you back about RM3 one way but with cab to almost anywhere it was RM8 – RM12 and you can go like four in a cab, at most five. But our record was EIGHT people, not including the driver. That was just hilarious! Photos further down! If you can get that far, that is.

Traffic is just plain shit in Bangkok, there’s no way you can get to your destination in time if you have to meet someone. So if you’re doing the whole free and easy thing, cabbing is great. I mean everything is cheap there if you don’t plan to shop! You can just go there with the money in your wallet RIGHT now and like spend the weekend there, mo man tai.

It was drizzling that night but thankfully we made it to Chinatown unscathed. Plus me and my trolleybag hobbling along. Given my history with bags, I was pretty sure that one wheel would come lose or something but thankfully it worked really well! It even lasted the 2 hours flight back to KL.

Medicinal halls double as car parks in Chinatown.

An authentic hawker stall. Who makes them like this over here these days?

We didn’t really get to check out the entire China Town but we did manage to get some food. It was wet everywhere and you were either grazing cars or other people.

Seafood was everywhere though. Lobsters were eaten by the size of road, crabs, you name it. I wanted some, but budget is for shopping!

I like this because it reminds me of Hong Kong, with all the protruding signboards. Gives it a very lovely cluttered look.

Pad Thai, not Char Kuay Teow! Sure had me fooled though. Pad Thai is sweeter than our local CKT, but so spicy=(

They wrapped it in egg, sort of like our Nasi Pattaya back home.

Hm didn’t get a good angle of it but it’s a Coke bottle with Thai words on it.

Would have been better if it’s not that spicy. I don’t really enjoy spicy food but I managed to finish quite a big portion of this!

Not sure what this is, I’m not a foodie. Just make your own assumptions.

The four of us on our Chinatown adventure.

This was in the aforementioned Tuk Tuk ride! The Tuk Tuk’s there, no such thing as safety belts, and the place to seat in is just a damn tray, with maybe some handles around for you to hold on to dear life. Tuk Tuk drivers are kind of impatient, they don’t go slower to switch lanes, they just swerve.

Your things could fall out of the Tuk Tuk for all you know, so hold on to all your bags!

Just a few measly poles as barricade betwene me and the ground.

From Chinatown, we went on to Khao San Road which was a night market that sold mostly casual stuff like guys’ statement t-shirts and some casual dresses (by casual I mean solid colour dresses).

Me and my bag again for Shopping Round 2! Up to that point, shopping in Bangkok was still a little meh *Palm stretched out tilting left and right* to me. This was before I discovered Suan Lum Night Market and the one place where I can set up a tent and live forever at – Platinum Mall!!

Heh. I’m still so juvenile.

An attraction was cruising down Khao San Road and I had to have a picture with him. Poor guy was probably stopped plenty of times.

Khao San is actually popular for their many bars where tourists go to chill out. And no, I didn’t get to see Patpong this time around. NEVERMIND APRIL 2010!

And so here we are! The wonderful, wonderful Suan Lum night market. Since the rest arrived on Thursday evening, they have already surveyed the place. They loved it so much that none of them even sat down and had dinner together. Charis and Stephanie just bought like a bag of Lays (if you go to Thailand, you’ll be amazed at the selection of Lays there and how cheap it is) and munched on it as they continued on their quest for awesome bargains.

There was a shoe shop there that claimed to be stocking imported Korean shoes. Their most expensive ones only came up to about 399 Baht which is about RM39.00 and the pink one is 390. Baht where else the blue satin ribbony-glads was about 250 baths. I’ve never seen anything quite like the shoes they were selling over there. But they say that Bangkok’s fashion trends are steps ahead of Malaysia.

Though it looks like you can get lost in there but eventually you’ll bump back into each other.

Saw these plastic fairy-like shoes but given its material and design, I’m quite certain that they’ll give you blisters. So pretty though!

As I had mentioned it was really pouring down that night in Bangkok. In the cab, we saw a thunderbolt strike a nearby lamp post and sparks flew out and cascaded down. We were in shock! So yeah, the market was flooded that night. Fortunately, the shops were placed on a higher platform. Good thinking!

As a true blue shopaholic, I had to brave the murky waters and crossed over to better bargains with my by-then heavier chau lou bag.

Ei Leng did the same as well! In this picture you can see how dirty the water was. Like right in the middle, the water was so black that you can’t even see your feet. My feet felt a little itchy after that but it was okay, it was worth it.

Satin lingerie, didn’t get any though.

And there are some boys out there who might enjoy this stall. Miniature toys galore!

I know what I said about earrings earlier, hehe, but I promise to love this!!! (Don’t I sound just like Becky Bloomwood?!) What’s to resist? Epoxy coated cartoon earrings with metal backings? <3 <3 <3 <3!!! No one will have earrings just like me and I can be the girl with the very very unique earrings and anyone who sees them on my earlobes will want to know where I got it from…. hahaha.

Familiar kan. Seen them around in blogshops kan. Fraction of the prices!!

And if you’re into very girly stuff, plenty of ribbon accessories there. Ribbon hair ties, ribbon headbands, ribbon tops, ribbon skirts, ribbon shoes..

39 baht is like RM3.90. Okay lah at this point I still thought that was very cheap!! But wait till you see what I saw at Platinum Mall. Don’t scroll down lah, give face abit, keep reading. I spent so much time on this post you know.

Bangles that were initially too small for me, but I managed to squeeze through! *unwilling to accept one’s own fatty wrist*

I really adored the accessories at this stall because they were all so very whimsical. Aww see that cute pacman charm?

I bought quite a few of this. Since they weren’t awesome bargains, I’m not gonna dwell on the price. *self denial mode on*

My first ever earrings were something like that. Gold outline with coloured metal to fill up the spaces. It was a pair of Christmas Trees and my grandmother bought them for me at the Toys R’ Us on Hay Street, Perth when I was seven years old. It was also during that trip to Perth that I saw my aunt’s bloody amazing collection of earrings. She made her own earring hanger and had it plastered onto the side of her wardrobe, like top to bottom. At least a hundred pairs of earrings.

Cute necklaces that you and I know cost a bomb back home.

More of the cute whimsical metal earrings.

Some very 80s looking earrings on the side. As in, the kind of prints then, incorporated into grandmotherly type of metal borders. Vintage with an 80s twist.

Oh there were rings there too if they are your kind of thing.

Just one stall FILLED with Hello Kitty stuff.

I’m too lazy to upload the video here but it’s up on Facebook, so you can go see it if you’re on my FB. These strange graphics are stuck onto black t-shirts and upon loud noises such as the pulsating beats from some loud dance music, the graphics will light up in tune to the beat.

Decorative light balls! Plentiful at Batu Feringghi’s Night Market or even at The Curve’s Flea Market. I used to think they were pretty, now they are everywhere.

But still makes for good photo taking.

Cassandra found a gem of a shop selling bags for RM20!! I couldnt really find any though as they were all a little too feminine for me. I did pick up something to put my phones in when I’m in the clinic.

Love the graphic bags.

Le Sports Sac aplenty!

This was near the food courts and the bags sold at this stall were very chic.

Those are the kind of bags that I want but you know they freaking quoted me Rm300 for one bag?! Are they out of their mind? If they can’t afford to set up stall at Siam Paragon (assuming that’s Bangkok’s equivalent of KLCC), then they really shouldn’t.

And the shoes were pretty damn gorgeous too!

This is what I had for dinner. Was alright, love the kailan.

Samuel, the only guy who came along for the trip, was just as much a shopaholic as any of the other girls.

When we went back to the hotel, we got Samuel to showcase some of his brilliant finds.

Stephanie, Ei Leng’s fedora and the mess from a day’s worth of shopping madness.

Accessories all over the bed, we didn’t even know which belonged to who!

Trying out my twitter inspired earrings.

Everyone’s just so proud of their wares.

Phebe holding up her I’m assuming new wallet, Cassandra with my crochet shoes and myself with two cans of chocolates that I bought for my grandmother.

My Day 1 Stash! Please don’t faint when you see Day 2.

Samuel’s biker jacket. Problem is he doesn’t own a bike.

This one is nice! Pac man t-shirt!

Charis with her new blazer!

And Stephanie who was curling her hair in the middle of the night -_- with her new straightener/curler which she bought for only RM50.

So here we are, finally with some photos of the boutique hotel I was staying at. We stayed at this place called The Bedrooms in Sukhumvit 77, right next to a gigantic Carrefour. It would have been very convenient if only we had time to stop and get some groceries but clearly we had other more pressing matters to tend to.

This is the breakfast area! The rooms are good enough for 3 people ( but we packed four in, heh )and one room is about RM94 for one night! So cheap!!!

As you can see, for Rm94/night rooms, there’s quite a lot of effort put into the decor of the place. I forgot to take photos of the room but it’s not at all different as compared to the ones on their website. We’re coming back here again in April 2010!!! .. I mean I am. The rest of the girls and Samuel thought I was crazy. I’ve roped in Lie Yuen, Lie Peh (her sister), Poh Yee, Angela and Chee Kiang so far. All bought their tickets already!!

It’s very nicely designed. Though the hotel is small but it looks really spacious. It also helps that the nearest BTS is only like 10 minutes walk away.

And there’s wifi and free internet on the public computer in the lobby.

Small but classy. Here’s the outside.

And that’s what it’s called.

I know I sound like I’m promoting the hotel right? Hahaha. When I love something, I’m like that.

Charis’ stash.

Samuel’s sleeping place. Such a gentleman right?

Group photo while we waited for our cab to Platinum mall.

With the rather interesting wall.

I know this photo is damn obscene but I swear it has got nothing to do with me! (and I was wearing really short shorts…) So poll! Period stain or just … chocolate stains/fruit stains?

You think his mother gave him that name? MR. SUPER KITTY!

Loving the colours in the cab.

Samuel wanted in as well.

Taking on Day 2 with my trusty chau lou bag. Not only was this bag so useful to cart my shopping around Bangkok but it would also come in handy when I bring my stickers to meet my customers! COD ANYWHERE NOW! MO MAN TAI! Previously I only liked to COD at Drive-thru McDonalds or anywhere where I can a parking space right in front of the cafe/restaurant so that I don’t have to carry all my heavy boxes too far.

We took this picture when Samuel had to make an emergency toilet trip.

We had to take the BTS because it was just too jammed and we didn’t want to waste any more time in the taxi, so yes, we had to alight halfway.

As you can see, the architecture in Bangkok is not that different compared to Malaysia.

Right?

When he was finally done.

But when it comes to shopping districts, the Thais know it is best to emulate Singapore. Or did Singapore copy them? Ah, either way.

And not fair!! How come they have Boots in Thailand and we don’t?!

There were people selling things all over the streets.

Some were deep frying snacks..

Some were selling fresh products in such an authentic way!

Some RM5 belts…..

Some RM2 earrings! Not as nice as the ones I bought though. *snotty*

And like every major city, a river runs through it.

People coming up from their boat ride.

I just happen to like street posts.

Even the sidewalk lingerie seem to be of rather good taste.

A bit of rustic Bangkok for you to see.

The amount of pink cabs there were astounding! They could’ve made it a nicer pink shade though, but I’m sure they have their reasons.

Crossing the overhead bridge to platinum! Hardcore man. That’s Samuel checking something out.

With the surprisingly smooth Bangkok traffic.

<3!!!

Crossing the busy Bangkok roads to get to heaven.

See what I meant by Bangkok traffic? Human traffic too! And I didn’t mean to make the lady as my main focus in this picture! She just so happened to be there.

Little girl on a pushcart as her dad crosses the busy road.

*angels singing in the background*

As you can see, I meant serious business.

This was the first shop I saw and already it looked so promising! The people at Platinum Mall really know how to get you. They sell the casual stuff at dirt cheap prices and the evening wear is as per market rate. About RM100 and above for any formal dresses.

But these weren’t too bad. It was about RM60! Still pricey for Bangkok standards, but I guess from the looks of the material, it’s pretty good! My last dental dinner dress was this material and it cost no where near that price. Don’t talk about it lah, feel so heartsick now.

Oooh! Studded singlet. I thought it was time to embrace a little bit of rocker chick so I got the one in white.

Ei Leng made friends with a Singaporean who asked if they could share to get wholesale prices. You should do that too when you shop there!

On the average, a top/dress would set you back about RM28-25.
But if you are getting their ‘wholesale price’, you have to purchase a minimum of 2-3 pieces from their shop. Wholesale price is about RM13-RM18.

And when they say wholesale, they mean that you can choose ANY 2-3 pieces of items from their shop. Doesn’t have to be like the Jalan Hang Tuah ones where you are required to buy stuff in all colours/all sizes.

Cinchers for RM10 each! There were other shops that were selling these cinchers for RM5. Don’t expect to pay anything less than RM20 back home for one.

Bags my love! <3 There was a navy blue suede bag that I really wanted but it was about RM70. Rip off.

More of the gorgeous dinner wear that was there.

Love love the black one, damn unique.

I went mad at every accessory store that I passed by.

Would you believe me that the necklaces are RM6 for one, and the hairbands and bangles are RM1.90 each?!

And if I bought like 17 pieces of items and above, it was RM1.70 for one item.

So many, how to choose right?

I’m almost there, just you wait.

Sorry yah, so many photos of accessories. I just couldn’t get enough of it.

Bet you’ve seen this for sale in Malaysia selling for RM20+.

As you can see, the fashion is slightly different than back home. More variety!

This looks nice alone or even with some plain coloured babytee!

SHOES PARADISE! This was only like a quarter of all the shoes on display!

Usually when this much of shoes are on display, they are bound to be some hits and misses but you know, they were alllll gorgeous! After buying a pair from the stash, I wanted to make my way back to get one or two more pairs but couldn’t find it anymore. It’s like a shoe shop apparition.

The other half of the shoe ‘stall’. Don’t know if it’s right to call it a stall.

The suede pseudo-glads that I bought. Laced up too! LOooove.

Can you understand the promotion?:D If you can, you’ll be very very happy.

Some stalls are a little messy but that’s where the fun is at. Sift through!

Fascinators, headbands, hairbands what have you were everywhere.

Some proper skirts for class/work. I think these were about RM20 per piece!

Slutty clothes shop.

Comes with boots too!

Speaking of boots, I saw plenty. <3

Looking up at all the other floors which I have yet to cover. Remember, it takes about 3 hours min to get through one floor if you’re a suffering shopaholic.

Getting kids to compress the bags in the trolley to make space for more shopping!

I like how they organize specific shops to each floor. I went straight up to the fifth floor where all the bags and shoes were.

Bag heaven for real! Because of luggage constraints I could only get two. =(

Luckily I was with Ei Leng and thus we could get wholesale prices together.

And some sold bags AND shoes.

After I was done shopping (was more busy procuring great bargains than photographing them, there are a lot more stalls than the ones I put up), I went down to check out this Bangkok Street Fashion contest submission. Reversible rock goddess. Not bad eh the idea.

The hot designer! We noticed that Thai men are quite hot. Most of us girls had a very good time treating ourselves to eye candies on the BTS.

I love the headbands!!

This was outside one of the shopping malls in the city centre. I think it was for the Kau Wong Yeh (Ninth god?) festival.

I didn’t get to check out the fashion show that was held on Sunday since I had to go back already. The rest did say it was rather nice.

The girls and their purchases. It might look few to you but don’t be fooled as Samuel was carrying almost all the shopping. Poor boy has to be the only gentleman. Thank you Samuel!

The Bangkok jam that you never ever want to get stuck in. Good if you want to take in the sights of the city with plenty of time to kill in a cab.

Even the human traffic was rather severe as well.

That night, we were to meet Chee Kiang’s friend Jesse whom he met at a pharmacy student conference in Romania back in 2008. Jesse is a local and duh, also a pharmacy student at the Mahidol University in Bangkok.

Having some low fat Italian ice cream while waiting for Jesse at the Siam BTS station.

Somehow Stephanie does it sexier than me.

Italian ice cream it may be but it tastes exactly like Paddle Pop.

Verdict? Mine was still the best.

After meeting Jesse, he brought us to one of his favourite Thai restaurants as we they were craving for tomyam.

Charis and Stephanie busy choosing their Thai food.

Ei Leng, Cassandra and a sad looking Phebe.

And this is Jesse!

Jesse and Chee Kiang became very close during that conference in Romania because they both thought they found their long lost twin. Firstly, they both thought they looked similar, had the same sense of humour, have girlfriends who study dentistry (!! but I can’t compare to his girlfriend, she’s one of the top students at her university!), both are pharmacy students (as we already know), hate the same pharmacy subject – statistics and are both the same age. I think there are more similarities, I can’t remember now.

Jesse was a really good host, even attempted to foot the dinner bill before we went behind his back and snatched it. He brought us to have dessert and to a or the (I’m not sure if there’s only one) Sky Bar.

I’m not much of a food blogger so here goes. Something fried and cheesy. Very nice.

Some meat and veggie. Very nice too.

Something more thai.

OH THIS WAS GOOD. As if fries weren’t unhealthy enough, they had to go and add fried bits to make the fries crunchier. Very nice.

Didn’t try, so don’t know very nice or not.

I am a very boring person so I had kuay teow soup. Yes, slap me please. I’m sure Jesse wanted to. Hehe. He was like, “What?!?! How can you not like spicy food?”

Group photo before leaving the restaurant.

I didn’t know that.

Some sights while walking through Bangkok city at night.

We wanted to have dessert at this cute pastry place but most of the cakes were gone by then. Sigh. These were really cute though!

They even sold cupcake decorations!

Plenty more where that came from.

Colourful birthday candles..! I want some. Gonna be one sophisticated birthday cake.

For dessert, we went to Ice Monster! I’m not sure if we have this at home because the name sure sounds familiar. Is there one in Pavillion?

It’s quite interesting as you can see there’s Laici, Laici ice shavings, oreo and peach/pineapple.

It was impossible to finish one by yourself.

Jesse was seriously spoiling us with more Thai dessert. This was some mango coconut pudding thing. Really nice, like something pulut.

Offering us more food.

Damn camera flash.

Frozen fruits coated with chocolate.

This was the highlight of the night!! We wanted to get a cab to Sky Bar (Se-kai bar, that’s how it is pronounced in Thai) and the cabbie was like, “Small people one cab!”

Very nice of him to say that, so we packed in. All 8 of us!! The boys sat in front and the rest us girls packed into the backseat. I was like, “Okayyy the smaller sized ones can sit on top.”

Somehow I ended up on top. LOL. Poor Ei Leng and Charis. Sorry ah babes.

Jesse was enjoying himself as well. You can see how squashed up Samuel looked.

Hhahahahaha. Trying to maintain as little body contact as possible.

Can see we were all camwhoring! It was definitely an experience, I bet no other cabbies are this cool. He even said that his highest record was 7 people. YES!! We beat it!

Why I look so proper. -_-
This was at the lobby of the building where the Sky Bar was situated at. The building has 50 over floors.

Towering decos.

Was supposed to do a sexy pose with my Sexy Kiwi drink.

If at first you are not sexy, try try again.

We wanted to have a seat under the Bangkok night sky but there were not enough tables.

Sexy kiwi makes another appearance.

There was a wall at the open air are that had all these pinhole lights shining through! Beautiful! Like the ceiling in the Emirates plane.

That’s Bangkok’s tallest building amidst the sparkling city.

Because one shot is never enough.

I love that wall so much. Maybe I’ll have one in my future house.

Hahahaha look at Samuel okay, see properly ah. He’s all “Ooh, this might taste nice.”

NOT!!! Hahaha. His face damn classic here.

Every table had a dinosaur egg lamp! Very cute to camwhore with.

Without flash.

Jesse and Me and the dinosaur egg.

With flash.

Phebe and the dinosaur egg.

Samuel trying to eat the dinosaur inside the egg. This reminds me of a scene in Disney’s The Rescuers Down Under where the evil hunter’s evil pet lizard tries to bite the american great eagle’s egg and his tooth broke.

Charis chose to look pretty with the dinosaur egg.

Libery Charis.

Another group shot before we left.

You usually see the name of the establishment on the wall or something but this was on the floor.

And this was how much I had to bring home with me after spending only two days in Bangkok! Sunday doesn’t count as I didn’t have time to go anywhere but the airport. The ride from the airport to my hotel at Sukhumvit 77 was RM30 inclusive of some airport fees but from the hotel to the airport it was only RM14!!

Jesse was kind enough to come see me off at the airport as he lives really close to the airport. He had me try the coconut ice blended! VERY NICE! (what else is there to say right -_-)

Since I already had some breakfast at the hotel I opted for some broth.

Jesse and I before I entered the departure hall. Unlike any other guy, he gave me some damn useful advice, “Go shop at duty free. You can get at least 20% off the cosmetics there!” WOOHOO! I made a beeline for MAC.

And here we are!! My spoils from my weekend in Bangkok!

Bangkok is like statement t-shirts heaven. So I got myself a few. Back here a t-shirt like this can set you back about RM30. If you’re lucky, RM20.

Got myself another Little Miss shirt for my collection. So far I’ve got Little Miss Curious and Little Miss Boobjob which are both very me. Little Miss Helpful…… depends on my mood I guess. I can be a real bitch when I’ve had a bad day in the clinics. Slamming lockers, friends glaring..

Bought myself two decent dresses to be worn where conservative people are present.

Believe it or not, this was only Rm15.

So was this. The belt doesn’t come with it though. Without it, the dress looks quite boring. But decent, right? I had to buy two pieces from the shop to get wholesale price.

There are more clothes further down the post.. don’t know how I arranged my photos those many days ago. Worked on this post for damn kau long la okay.

The bags I bought!

Using Angel as my hairband holder. Quite a good look on her!

My preppy puppy.

This is not quite her.

Not one for accessories and the likes.

I couldn’t resist this bag!! It was only RM15 and I believe I’ll never see anything quite like it again so I HAD to get it.

I bought much hairbands and much earrings.

I know it’s a whole lot for one trip but siggghhh I wish I brought home more. You hardly see these styles here!

Hairbands!!! I’m now wearing a different hairband everyday to uni. This is not appropriate for uni lah, but who knows, I might wear it.

Furry! Only Rm1.90!!

I already wore this to the clinics, hehe. Dr. Karthik was worried that it might drop into the patient’s mouth.

A boring one for days when I don’t feel so flamboyant.

I wear this quite a lot now. If you did see the Nuffnang Blog Awards post, it’s there.

And hair ties. Also Rm1.90! I keep forgetting that I have these.

TWITTER EARRINGS! I won’t dwell on the price as I am trying to erase the money. Cheap as Bangkok may be, but it was disgusting what I had to pay for these special earrings. (more at the bottom)

Lightning earrings. The blue part is made of enamel paint.

Ice cream cones which everyone said looks really delicious. It totally looks like the McDonald’s Sundae Cones right?

One big one small heart. Like in the cartoons when someone falls in love. <3

And something for days when I’m feeling spunky.

For days when I am feeling aunty.

I thought these rocking horses look rather whimsical.

There’s a friggin’ nursery rhyme going round and round what looks like Peter Rabbit, what’s not to like? BUY!

Awwwwwww. Another whimsical set.

This one damn random, so I couldn’t resist them as well.

RM6 for one strand! Which is what the wholesalers back home sell for anyway. But they would want you to buy up to RM200 from their shop before they are wiling to sell it to you. Evil people.

Ei Leng encouraged me to get this bucket bag!

I think it looks very classy but it’s not all that spacious. RM25!

It’s not really very Paris Hilton but it does remind me of her, not so much the bags from her shop.

And there’s a nice brown suede lining inside. Got it for RM22!

And some pouches (RM8 and RM5) to carry my phones into the clinic.

Continue with the clothes now! Oh yeah I forgot I have a Little Miss Daredevil now too. Also depends on my mood one. RM10!

RM15. This is very new to me…….so might as well experiment abit lah. Hope nobody laughed at me when I wore this.

RM15! I didn’t really feel this one, but a black something is always wise.

RM13 flowery skirts!! I love this and the price too!!

I liked it so much that I even bought another skirt in a different design. The sequinned top is about RM25.

One of my better purchases! Rm18!!!!

This one not so clever… was Rm22 and I stupidly paid for it.

And got it in purple too. -_-

And on to my great big love…SHOES!!!
These were RM39 but it’s not often I can find this type for this price.

As for this, it is something that I’ve never ever seen before! Thai silk glads, GRAB! With ribbons somemore!
RM25 I think.

Crochet sandals..for RM20. With bells too!

Some decent pumps for lab sessions. Very sweet too. RM25.

These are RM35 because they are rather unique. So feminine, right?

This is what Jesse gave me at the airport. It’s some dentistry souvenirs from his university! Apparently, second year students usually design some souvenirs to be sold to the freshmen to raise funds. Can you see that each character is a tooth?

Tooth!

It’s just an empty exercise book inside. A very clever idea!

He gave me a keychain from his university as well.

And here are my guilty pleasures just before I left Bangkok.

Okay, do comment coz I want to know how many of you are still awake/alive after spending a part of your life reading this.

It was only in university that I started taking actions against people who are supposed to provide me with good customer service. I do not like to be given attitude when I am clearly a paying customer. This is not about some stupid disrupted telco service. If you’re smart enough to decipher this then good lah. I used to war with the security guards at uni because they would not let me into the old campus for wearing short skirts (it was about 1 cm (I’m not exaggerating) above my knees) or when I wore a sleeveless top (when traditional costumes without sleeves are totally allowed. I wasn’t even wearing a racer back.). 

 Just like everyone else, I hate to be spoken rudely to. I might not like it, but I can understand if you’re going through a rough patch, if you’ve had a bad day or if your house got burned down, your dad passed away and your contract with your company ended all on the same day. True story. Damn kesian.

If you want to tell me off, use a nicer tone. Explain the situation to me as politely as you can. You would like that to, right?

 But this is beginning to take place on a weekly basis. 

If this person is paying me money or is a mentor of some sort to me, you know someone with ACTUAL authoritative power over me, I’M TOTALLY OKAY about taking your shit. Even if the person is paying me money, I might get very very angry if I’m getting shit from that person (like how some customers make me so pissed I could tear my stickers into smithereens). But teachers and lecturers who tell me off, I accept. Because it is my responsibility to be a student. But this is not about me being a student. Please take note.

I’m not okay with people who are disillusioned about their status within an organization and thus dare to raise their voices at people who are not even under them. Heck, people who will never be under them! Most of the time, I do things according to the rules laid out for me and this time I was acting upon instructions given to me, and yet I get blasted again. Just like last week. Just like the week before.

I’m up to my eyeballs in bullshit. I am trying as best as I can to function in the role given to me (at least the very basics, anything more than that is NOT under YOUR jurisdiction.) and yet every time I come to you because I NEED to, I have to suck it in and just smile and lower my voice to a polite whimper when you talk to me like I’m a kindergarten kid who just pooped her pants.

It is degrading to be scolded by someone of that stature. 

Most of the crimes that were committed by others are so negligible but a big fuss is always kicked up. I just want to perform my role happily and be done with what I need to do. I really do not need to stand there and waste many minutes of my life reasoning with you why I need to do this, why you need to do this for me and why this is NOW the rules so PLEASE get with the times.

I’ve lodged complaints to your superiors and I’m not afraid to continue doing so until a warning letter is issued. 

Also, would one speak in condescending tones to a peer? No right. So how am I below you to be spoken rudely to?

This is your job. It’s very simple. I merely carried out my duties. It’s your duty to continue from where I left off. If you’re not happy with your job, it’s really not my problem. There are plenty of other jobs out there. Please don’t make me do the mundane work that you’ve been entitled to do. I will take this back if I’m given a notice that what you asked me to do is part of my job. But for months, this has never been my responsibility. 

Even if you made a mistake in assuming that it was part of my responsibilities, I would really appreciate to be spoken humbly and politely to. Out of the kindness in my heart (though these days I’m doubting if there’s any in it), I might even help you out. It’s just not the case today, nobody.

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I mean I’ve seen enough blogs that become ‘famous’ just because there’s a hot girl strutting about with photos of herself plastered all over their blogs. Like 80% of the picture is of her face and her body, and maybe like a puny 20% is of the background of wherever that she is at. 

I immediately clicked the ‘x’ button after scrolling through. There was NO content, only like photos of herself, a few inanimate objects around her, two or three words simply strung up to form a caption for one or two of the photos. And there you have it, a popular blog.

LIKE SERIOUSLY WTF?!

To top it off, my friend told me that this particular girl actually thought about quitting school and going on to become a full time blogger and maybe do more event stints. You know, those car modelling/umbrella girl crap. I shit you not, with two or three words for sentences, yes I’m pretty sure you’ll have a stellar blogging career. 

I have no issues with beautiful women who can engage you in their blogs. With their words, not with their boobs and big eyes combo. It makes you envy these women because they have the best of both worlds but when there’s no substance in your blog only photos of yourself knowing clearly well that you’re sizzling, and THEN have the audacity to consider a career in blogging full time, ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?! If you finish school already and don’t quite know what to do yet also not too bad lah. But are you mad ah? If your writing isn’t even good enough for a magazine to take you on as part of their contributors’ column, please just get your degree/diploma first. Don’t embarrass us womenkind with your mentality. Once you graduate and bum around, you’ll have all the time to earn those moolah, go for events and maybe read some books (if too difficult, maybe magazines also can) so you’ll learn how to structure proper sentences. At least then your blog entries are whole, you know? Not just smatterings of words and emoticons. 

It boggles the mind that there are such bimbos around. While we’re on the topic of bimbos, are girls who work for car shows, alcohol and tobacco products actually proud of their jobs? I mean I’m all for baring skin if you have what it takes lah but to be paid to bare most of your some skin while selling things? Right, I won’t pick on those damn kesian girls who have to feed their mother, father, sister, brother, dog at home. Money is hard to come by, I get it. Any job that comes along, you’re hot, you take it. A bit of skin for food on the table, degrading but what can you do.

But what about those college girls at private institutions who just want that extra cash to go on shopping trips? Damn low la please. I’ll give my daughter two tight slaps if she dares to take on such jobs. 

Oh right, back to little girls who can’t write and want to be full time bloggers.

As we know, there are a few full time bloggers around but these are people who have made such a name for themselves that they are practically a brand in their own right. They are involved in huge projects and… well, people actually know who they are. You know, like they have audiences that actually consist of females and males. Not just very friendly boys.

No doubt about the fact that full time bloggers do get paid rather well, which is why these little girls aspire to be full time bloggers too. Of course success stories can be repeated because OnE SHoULd DaRE To DreAm RighT?! Bloggers who manage to carve a name for themselves and thus are deemed popular are usually of the intelligent sort. If they have not already completed some form of education, they are most likely to currently be pursuing one. They have ambitions like normal people. 

Quitting school to blog full time is just plain dumb.