Going For A Holiday! / 3:19 PM

Quick post before I go out again!! Busy busy busy as a bee.

My internship is finally 100% over. Chor Yim and I did a joint presentation this morning to our NTU supervisor and managed to scrape through it despite having some tough questions from her. As usual, I think I spoke too fast during my presentation.. A strong weakness of mine when it comes to speaking in public. Oh, and something I noticed since my internship ended - I thought I would be sleeping in a lot but somehow I still wake up early every morning!

I finally got to catch up with Taina! Ahh it's so good to see her again. Can't believe she's been here for 3 months already and we've only met thrice. Shame on me. Just 1 more month and she's leaving to Finland again. Gosh. Time flies!! Also discovered a restaurant with nice comfy ambience & yummy kebabs at Arab Street with my hall friends. And went to ION Orchard with MH & his friends! Tried out the infamous Gindaco takoyaki (long queue) but I guess I'm not a major fan of takoyaki so I wouldn't be queuing for it again anytime soon. We also tried AOBA Ramen (had to queue AGAIN!) but were pretty disappointed. On a brighter note, they forgot to charge us for 2 bowls of noodles so we got a heavy discount for our meal. :P

Ok, I'm off to run some errands and prepare for our long-awaited trip to Vietnam. Been bumming in my room for way too long, feeling too comfy and didn't want to move my butt off the chair. I hope everything goes smoothly (i.e. hope we don't get conned since we're tourists) for the next 8 days!

Dinner with Daddy / 6:45 PM

Just gonna write a short post while waiting to have my dinner. I AM SUPER HUNGRY, ROAR.

Anyway, my daddy's in Singapore for a few days of work! He arrived mid-afternoon and after resting for a bit, I met him in town for dinner. We decided to eat at Si Chuan Dou Hua Restaurant at his hotel because of their supposed dazzling tea service.

The deal is that master tea pourers use kettles with a one-metre-long spout to execute dramatic pouring techniques like Nodding Phoenix and Boy Prays to Buddha as they fill your cup with absolute precision. Well that's what they said on their website! I don't know anything about any Nodding Phoenix or Boy Prays to Buddha nonsense, but what I know is that the spout really is looong! And the tea guy only did two "techniques" (if you can call them so) which was just looked like he was pouring tea normally and one more was by kinda putting the tea pot over his shoulder. Or something like that.

The food wasn't too bad but it was still too much for the both of us. We had dan dan noodles and knife-shredded noodles in bean paste (this tasted very much like pan mee) and cripsy soft shell crab with pork floss. And we got to eat fortune cookies too! Haha I love eating fortune cookies. And it's fun to read the "fortune" you get too! Ironically speaking, Chinese people don't actually eat fortune cookies, do we? Think this whole fortune cookie gimmick was made popular in the States..

It was a nice quiet dinner. Not crowded in the restaurant. And I think it's the first time I'm having dinner alone with my dad. Talked to him about his work here and somehow I could sense that he is feeling stressed from work. Or tired. And it makes me feel a little guilty and yet so thankful that I have such a wonderful daddy. For always working so hard so that he can provide his wife & three daughters with a good life. We're really lucky. Love my daddy to bits! (:

The End / 9:24 AM

Finally! Our last day of work has arrived (and gone)! We had to do a presentation together with the rest of the other interns at the head office, so we took this opportunity to dress up formally and take more pics hehe. Sadu said we spoil market though. Oops. :P We were the first group to present and because of that we had the most questions pointed at us during the Q&A session. And in between we had to play this silly charades thing but at least we won ourselves Ferrero Rocher to snack on lol. After the whole session was over, we got our certificates, had lunch, went back to our office at Fusionopolis, cleared some stuff, and took more pics!!

At some times it felt like this day would never come, but now it feels like it was over in a blink of an eye! Gonna miss hanging around in the lab with the girls, having (extended) lunch breaks and laughing over silly stuff. Gonna appreciate my last sem of student life even more now, cos I realized that once I start working full time, I'm going to have so little time to myself! I'm always like an old grandma on weekdays cos I'm always so tired from waking up early & traveling to and from the office, and then I end up sleeping early.. No life at all except for the weekends!



We actually left work early, and Sein Chyi and I went to JP first to look for a convocation gift. It was BHG's convocation day!! BHG = Big Head God = Weng Kit. Yi Chin came a while later too. We got so frustrated trying to look for a present and in the end only bought a card. Sorry BHG!! Since we still had ample time, we went to Bakerzin! Their July promo is even better than the previous months! 50% + 10% off promotion for the cookies & cream cheesecake, New York cheesecake and chocolate amer cake! In the end we had a slice of chocolate amer, strawberry shortcake and lavande (dark chocolate cake infused with lavender) yum yum. Bakerzin has a new menu too and it's really unique! Go see!



Went back to hall to change to more comfortable shoes and filled up the card we bought before heading to the auditorium. This year's College of Science convocation ceremony was held in the evening.. I hope ours will be in the morning or afternoon sessions next year! Nicer for photo taking. :P And this is the first time I'm seeing our robes. The blue & green reminds me of SPRING Singapore.



Noticeably, a lot of parents there looked bored.. Haha. I'll make sure it'll be otherwise for my daddy at my convocation next year.. Because he'll be busy helping me take pics! Lol. I'll remind him that he has 1 year to brush up on his DSLR skills. =P

Breakkie / 5:51 PM

Yesterday Sein Chyi and I had breakfast together at Ya Kun Toastwich that's at the lobby of our office buildling. We love the eggs at Ya Kun! Haha the yolks are so big and yellow.. And bouncy!! Aahhh. Cholerestol in all its glorious moment. Actually the best part is that the eggs seem to always be half-boiled to perfection. Something which I still haven't exactly mastered.

I think our incessant photo taking of the eggs, kaya toast, coffee & tea kinda weirded out the middle-aged man seated at the table next to ours. He had a horrified look on his face while we were camwhoring. He proceeded to quickly down the remains of his breakfast and left with his lady friend.. Wei. Never see people take pictures of food before meh!?

This branch of Ya Kun sells sandwiches as well but till today, I've yet to try their sandwiches! It's quite expensive compared to our normal lunches though, so I guess that's why we never went there and always stick to our mixed rice-yong tau foo-ban mian-western food-chicken rice usuals. Oh well. Such is the life of lowly-paid interns. One more week and it's over!

Milk Toof / 4:16 PM

Haha this reminds me of us. I'll be the one knocked out on the watermelon rind, too full from eating and suffering from bloatedness. MH on the other hand, will be the one still busy munching away on his 3rd serving!!

How come boys can eat so much and yet not get fat as fast as girls!

Random Quickie / 5:33 PM

30 more minutes till it's the end of our working day! So tired from churning out verbal diarrhea for my final report. I'm trying not to drown in all the computer jargons. I'm calling it a day for now! Lately we have not been slacking at all and truth be told, I would want my future work environment to be a sorta busy one. I really can't stand not having anything to do.

Last night we watched The Kite Runner on DVD and sadly the movie was quite disappointing as compared to the book. I guess more often than not, movies based on books never meet my expectations. What was interesting was that most of the dialogue was in Farsi. Thank goodness for subtitles!

Oh and over the weekend we borrowed a Vietnam travel guide back from the library. We booked our flight tickets about 4 months back but we have yet to really sit down and think about where are the places we want to explore. Oops. But hey! I learnt 2 very important phrases from the book! The pronunciation of the words baffle me. You should try saying it out loud, cos it sounds pretty comical. :P

Where's the toilet?
Nha ve sinh o dau? [Nya-ve-siny-o-dau]

Do you have toilet paper?
Ban co giay ve sinh khong? [Ban-ko-ziay-ve-siny-khom]

Armed with that knowledge (very important for toilet emergencies) and our Vietnamese Dongs, I think we'll do just fine there hehe!

Room Hunting / 5:05 PM

Last weekend was busy and tiring but really fun nevertheless! And also I was stuffed with A LOT of food so today till Friday shall be "watch what you eat" days. Hmm despite feeling BLOATED throughout the entire weekend, the sliced fish bee hoon, chicken rice, fried sweet potato, avocado milkshake, sushi, chocolate waffle, xiao long bao & many many other dumplings & crazy expensive dou miao, homecooked tofu & tau foo pok, bak chor mee, bbq chicken wings, oh chien, tong yun and durian were all super yummy! :D

Anyway, back to the main point. My mom & sis were here for a day trip on Saturday to hunt for a room for my sis to rent for when the new academic year starts. So we looked at 5 different places in the afternoon and it was so exhausting! And there was something wrong with every single place we looked at. The first room we saw was the smallest, and also it faces the west so it gets really hot in the afternoons. The second room we saw was fine, but the landlady seemed.. Not fine. The third room failed to meet our expectations at the very instant we set our eyes on it. The fourth room was just alright, plus it has a lot of weird angles in the room - very bad feng shui. The last room we saw for the day had a weird smell, is on the ground floor and we didn't like the surrounding area. Now I understand how tough it is to find a place that will meet all your requirements. :|

So on Sunday I dragged the boyf with me to look at yet another room. This one is pretty satisfactory! Not too far from the bus & MRT interchange, the whole house has been newly refurbished, there are supermarkets, banks, the library, etc. downstairs too. The landlady seems quite cincai and nice too. But my mom said it's a bit pricey since it's quite far off to the east.

SO.

I am being sent to look at yet another room tomorrow.

LAI PUI YEAN YOU OWE ME BIG TIME MAN.

Going For A Holiday! / 3:19 PM

Quick post before I go out again!! Busy busy busy as a bee.

My internship is finally 100% over. Chor Yim and I did a joint presentation this morning to our NTU supervisor and managed to scrape through it despite having some tough questions from her. As usual, I think I spoke too fast during my presentation.. A strong weakness of mine when it comes to speaking in public. Oh, and something I noticed since my internship ended - I thought I would be sleeping in a lot but somehow I still wake up early every morning!

I finally got to catch up with Taina! Ahh it's so good to see her again. Can't believe she's been here for 3 months already and we've only met thrice. Shame on me. Just 1 more month and she's leaving to Finland again. Gosh. Time flies!! Also discovered a restaurant with nice comfy ambience & yummy kebabs at Arab Street with my hall friends. And went to ION Orchard with MH & his friends! Tried out the infamous Gindaco takoyaki (long queue) but I guess I'm not a major fan of takoyaki so I wouldn't be queuing for it again anytime soon. We also tried AOBA Ramen (had to queue AGAIN!) but were pretty disappointed. On a brighter note, they forgot to charge us for 2 bowls of noodles so we got a heavy discount for our meal. :P

Ok, I'm off to run some errands and prepare for our long-awaited trip to Vietnam. Been bumming in my room for way too long, feeling too comfy and didn't want to move my butt off the chair. I hope everything goes smoothly (i.e. hope we don't get conned since we're tourists) for the next 8 days!

Dinner with Daddy / 6:45 PM

Just gonna write a short post while waiting to have my dinner. I AM SUPER HUNGRY, ROAR.

Anyway, my daddy's in Singapore for a few days of work! He arrived mid-afternoon and after resting for a bit, I met him in town for dinner. We decided to eat at Si Chuan Dou Hua Restaurant at his hotel because of their supposed dazzling tea service.

The deal is that master tea pourers use kettles with a one-metre-long spout to execute dramatic pouring techniques like Nodding Phoenix and Boy Prays to Buddha as they fill your cup with absolute precision. Well that's what they said on their website! I don't know anything about any Nodding Phoenix or Boy Prays to Buddha nonsense, but what I know is that the spout really is looong! And the tea guy only did two "techniques" (if you can call them so) which was just looked like he was pouring tea normally and one more was by kinda putting the tea pot over his shoulder. Or something like that.

The food wasn't too bad but it was still too much for the both of us. We had dan dan noodles and knife-shredded noodles in bean paste (this tasted very much like pan mee) and cripsy soft shell crab with pork floss. And we got to eat fortune cookies too! Haha I love eating fortune cookies. And it's fun to read the "fortune" you get too! Ironically speaking, Chinese people don't actually eat fortune cookies, do we? Think this whole fortune cookie gimmick was made popular in the States..

It was a nice quiet dinner. Not crowded in the restaurant. And I think it's the first time I'm having dinner alone with my dad. Talked to him about his work here and somehow I could sense that he is feeling stressed from work. Or tired. And it makes me feel a little guilty and yet so thankful that I have such a wonderful daddy. For always working so hard so that he can provide his wife & three daughters with a good life. We're really lucky. Love my daddy to bits! (:

The End / 9:24 AM

Finally! Our last day of work has arrived (and gone)! We had to do a presentation together with the rest of the other interns at the head office, so we took this opportunity to dress up formally and take more pics hehe. Sadu said we spoil market though. Oops. :P We were the first group to present and because of that we had the most questions pointed at us during the Q&A session. And in between we had to play this silly charades thing but at least we won ourselves Ferrero Rocher to snack on lol. After the whole session was over, we got our certificates, had lunch, went back to our office at Fusionopolis, cleared some stuff, and took more pics!!

At some times it felt like this day would never come, but now it feels like it was over in a blink of an eye! Gonna miss hanging around in the lab with the girls, having (extended) lunch breaks and laughing over silly stuff. Gonna appreciate my last sem of student life even more now, cos I realized that once I start working full time, I'm going to have so little time to myself! I'm always like an old grandma on weekdays cos I'm always so tired from waking up early & traveling to and from the office, and then I end up sleeping early.. No life at all except for the weekends!



We actually left work early, and Sein Chyi and I went to JP first to look for a convocation gift. It was BHG's convocation day!! BHG = Big Head God = Weng Kit. Yi Chin came a while later too. We got so frustrated trying to look for a present and in the end only bought a card. Sorry BHG!! Since we still had ample time, we went to Bakerzin! Their July promo is even better than the previous months! 50% + 10% off promotion for the cookies & cream cheesecake, New York cheesecake and chocolate amer cake! In the end we had a slice of chocolate amer, strawberry shortcake and lavande (dark chocolate cake infused with lavender) yum yum. Bakerzin has a new menu too and it's really unique! Go see!



Went back to hall to change to more comfortable shoes and filled up the card we bought before heading to the auditorium. This year's College of Science convocation ceremony was held in the evening.. I hope ours will be in the morning or afternoon sessions next year! Nicer for photo taking. :P And this is the first time I'm seeing our robes. The blue & green reminds me of SPRING Singapore.



Noticeably, a lot of parents there looked bored.. Haha. I'll make sure it'll be otherwise for my daddy at my convocation next year.. Because he'll be busy helping me take pics! Lol. I'll remind him that he has 1 year to brush up on his DSLR skills. =P

Breakkie / 5:51 PM

Yesterday Sein Chyi and I had breakfast together at Ya Kun Toastwich that's at the lobby of our office buildling. We love the eggs at Ya Kun! Haha the yolks are so big and yellow.. And bouncy!! Aahhh. Cholerestol in all its glorious moment. Actually the best part is that the eggs seem to always be half-boiled to perfection. Something which I still haven't exactly mastered.

I think our incessant photo taking of the eggs, kaya toast, coffee & tea kinda weirded out the middle-aged man seated at the table next to ours. He had a horrified look on his face while we were camwhoring. He proceeded to quickly down the remains of his breakfast and left with his lady friend.. Wei. Never see people take pictures of food before meh!?

This branch of Ya Kun sells sandwiches as well but till today, I've yet to try their sandwiches! It's quite expensive compared to our normal lunches though, so I guess that's why we never went there and always stick to our mixed rice-yong tau foo-ban mian-western food-chicken rice usuals. Oh well. Such is the life of lowly-paid interns. One more week and it's over!

Milk Toof / 4:16 PM

Haha this reminds me of us. I'll be the one knocked out on the watermelon rind, too full from eating and suffering from bloatedness. MH on the other hand, will be the one still busy munching away on his 3rd serving!!

How come boys can eat so much and yet not get fat as fast as girls!

Random Quickie / 5:33 PM

30 more minutes till it's the end of our working day! So tired from churning out verbal diarrhea for my final report. I'm trying not to drown in all the computer jargons. I'm calling it a day for now! Lately we have not been slacking at all and truth be told, I would want my future work environment to be a sorta busy one. I really can't stand not having anything to do.

Last night we watched The Kite Runner on DVD and sadly the movie was quite disappointing as compared to the book. I guess more often than not, movies based on books never meet my expectations. What was interesting was that most of the dialogue was in Farsi. Thank goodness for subtitles!

Oh and over the weekend we borrowed a Vietnam travel guide back from the library. We booked our flight tickets about 4 months back but we have yet to really sit down and think about where are the places we want to explore. Oops. But hey! I learnt 2 very important phrases from the book! The pronunciation of the words baffle me. You should try saying it out loud, cos it sounds pretty comical. :P

Where's the toilet?
Nha ve sinh o dau? [Nya-ve-siny-o-dau]

Do you have toilet paper?
Ban co giay ve sinh khong? [Ban-ko-ziay-ve-siny-khom]

Armed with that knowledge (very important for toilet emergencies) and our Vietnamese Dongs, I think we'll do just fine there hehe!

Room Hunting / 5:05 PM

Last weekend was busy and tiring but really fun nevertheless! And also I was stuffed with A LOT of food so today till Friday shall be "watch what you eat" days. Hmm despite feeling BLOATED throughout the entire weekend, the sliced fish bee hoon, chicken rice, fried sweet potato, avocado milkshake, sushi, chocolate waffle, xiao long bao & many many other dumplings & crazy expensive dou miao, homecooked tofu & tau foo pok, bak chor mee, bbq chicken wings, oh chien, tong yun and durian were all super yummy! :D

Anyway, back to the main point. My mom & sis were here for a day trip on Saturday to hunt for a room for my sis to rent for when the new academic year starts. So we looked at 5 different places in the afternoon and it was so exhausting! And there was something wrong with every single place we looked at. The first room we saw was the smallest, and also it faces the west so it gets really hot in the afternoons. The second room we saw was fine, but the landlady seemed.. Not fine. The third room failed to meet our expectations at the very instant we set our eyes on it. The fourth room was just alright, plus it has a lot of weird angles in the room - very bad feng shui. The last room we saw for the day had a weird smell, is on the ground floor and we didn't like the surrounding area. Now I understand how tough it is to find a place that will meet all your requirements. :|

So on Sunday I dragged the boyf with me to look at yet another room. This one is pretty satisfactory! Not too far from the bus & MRT interchange, the whole house has been newly refurbished, there are supermarkets, banks, the library, etc. downstairs too. The landlady seems quite cincai and nice too. But my mom said it's a bit pricey since it's quite far off to the east.

SO.

I am being sent to look at yet another room tomorrow.

LAI PUI YEAN YOU OWE ME BIG TIME MAN.