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The days my dearest visited part 2

View from the top of the bed and breakfast.

 

Tuesday, the morning after Christmas. It was raining when we had our late breakfast of local delights. And it was still raining in the late afternoon.

Me: Argh! This rain is depressing! I wanna go out! I wanna show you around!

Cart: Having a relaxing day indoors is good too

Eventually the rain abated a little and by then it was already evening. It would be too late to go to Sim Lim Square, a location where many electrical things that would interest both Cart and me, who are technophiles.

In the end, I brought him to Funan Center and I hoped that there were still shops which were still open.

City hall was still raining when we reached there and we had to huddle close together in my tiny portable umbrella as we walked unsteadily towards Funan Center.

Cart: Wait! The traffic light is still red!

Me: What? Lets just cross! No cars are passing right now

Cart: Ahh … We’re crossing the road the Italian way 😛

We stopped a while to have coffee at the Coffee Club Express where Cartcart had his much needed coffee. Once, he said that coffee was part of the Italian DNA and that it was a daily necessity.

Cart: This espresso isn’t the best, but its still good.

Me: This hazelnut latte is really lovely

Cart: This pamphlet here says that people who likes ‘pick me ups’ like lattes are sociable, gregarious and likes to party

Me: Really? I didn’t know that. Its funny cause my favourite thing to do is to slack all day 😛

Most of the computer shops seemed to be closing as we were done with coffee (why do they close so early?) that the only place we really spent time in was the Times Bookshop where Cartcart seemed transfixed in a local cookbook.

Cart: Look at the recipes, are they good? Do you think it is authentic? What do you think are the food that I’ll like in here?

We looked at the pictures and the recipes together and the recipes looked pretty good. He liked it enough to purchase it. We then walked around the bookstore and poured over the interesting books like, “Different toilets of the world”. (Did you know that there is a toilet entirely made of gold in Hong Kong?)

I noticed the language section and was looking at the learn Italian segment. And that was when I noticed a small Malay book.

Me: Hey Cartcart, maybe you might want to buy this one, so that you could easily talk to my mum and other Malay people 😛

He took the book that I was pointing to, scanned through it, and then said, “This looks useful. I’ll get it” He actually bought the book!

There were absolutely no shops opened from the second floor onwards. (It was only 8.30ish pm) The ones which still had their lights on were scrambling to close shop for the day.

Cart hadn’t eaten for the entire day, save for breakfast and I was concerned that he might have a stomach ache like what I felt yesterday. I didn’t want him to feel the same.

Me: Aren’t you hungry?

Cart: No, I’m fine. I ate a lot at the business class lounge remember?

Me: Yes, but that was days ago! I insist that you eat!

In the end, we went to have dinner at Sakura, a Thai-Chinese restaurant that was nearby. We had to be careful in ordering food as cart was vegetarian.

Me: Hi, I’d like some vegetable soup, bean curd hot plate and some fried kangkong please. But please, no meat or fish in them whatsoever. My friend is a vegetarian.

Waitress: Ok (scribbles in big letters “Vegetarian” in the receipt)

When the food arrived, happily I tucked in to the dishes and rice. “Try this bean curd dearest, it’s really nice ” I invited him.

I saw him chewing, and then he spit out his food.

What’s wrong?

Look

To my horror, I saw a piece of chicken! I was stunned! We quickly called the waitress to have it taken away.

Cart: I cannot eat this. There is meat in it. I’m vegetarian.

Waitress: Oh! Sorry sorry! *rushes away to the kitchen*

Cart: I’m surprised. I thought we made it clear. We saw her scribbling in big words.

I felt really bad. When I was in Rome, Cartcart was extremely careful with the food that I consumed. He made sure that I did not consume any meat or meat products, especially pork. And here we were, our dinner out together and I blundered. I poked around the fried kangkong and to my utter shock found tiny shrimps in them.

It was really upsetting. Cartcart assured me that it was okay, but I still felt bad anyway.

The waitress came up with a fresh dish of hot plate and we continued our dinner.

On Wednesday, mum wanted to bring cart and me to Darul Arqam, a Muslim convert association. After parking the scooter at the car-park nearby, mum and me had breakfast together with Cartcart at the bed and breakfast and headed off to the Paya Lebar Mrt Station.

Darul Arqam was near Geylang and Joo Chiat. The place looked very different compared to the last time that I went there. The Geylang that I remembered was demolished and relocated in a temporary location while waiting for the new construction to be completed.

Mum pointed to a roof at the Malay Heritage Building which was next to the road we were walking on.

Mum: Do you see that Cart? The roof is pointed and curvy at the sides, that’s our traditional kampong house. We have houses on stilts like these because we were prone to floods.

Soon after, we reached the place and enquired at the head office upon whom to speak to. A young woman invited us to sit in the office and we had an informal talk together.

Mum whispering: This is such a special day! I’ve never been in Darul Arqam before. I’ve always wanted to go here!

Me: I absolutely don’t know what to ask her! How you doing Cartcart?

Cart: I feel nervous …

But our fears were for naught as the young woman went through the steps for understanding Islam and eventual conversion.

Young woman: How long will you be here? A week? Then it would be hard for you to attend classes here. Where are you from? Italy? So far there are two Italians in Singapore whom converted. Why don’t I hook you up with him as it would be easier for you to converse with him in your native language? I’ll do a check for you on the internet to see if there are any Islamic institutions in Rome.

Young woman returning later: Oh I’m sorry, the network is down at the moment, but if you pass me your email, I would be happy to send you the details as soon as I can.

(I found out later that the internet connection in Singapore was slow due to the earthquake that effected the Taiwan network cables)

All in all the meeting didn’t go too badly. It was a relaxed and casual environment and it wasn’t pushy and evangelical.

I observed the conversation of an ustadz with two Japanese men sitting in front of me talking about the existence of God and was quite transfixed at the quiet and patient demeanour of the men.

“Shall we go?” Mum asked, as I went out of my observation.

We made a quick stop at the bookshop where mum bought a book, “It’s a souvenir for the first time that I visited this place” Mum whispered to me and I chuckled. There were plenty of interesting things there, even a Koran MP3 player, some DVD’s and some books that I used to study in Sunday classes.

Me: I’m kind of hungry mum, Cartcart. Shall we stop a while at the hawker centre?

Mum bought for Cartcart a plate of rice with some peanut sauce, crispy tempe and begedel, a potato cutlet. She was extremely dismayed when I conveyed the story of our dinner last night and was clucking and went up to the stall owner to be doubly sure of the contents of the food.

Cartcart was really enjoying his food and I was amazed!

Me: Do you really like the food so much? I mean, its just plain, ordinary food to me

Cart: I like it! Especially the potato. If I didn’t like it, I wouldn’t eat it.

Mum: This is chendol, you should try it, and Chng Tng too.

Cart: Mmmmm!!! This is tasty!

I must say that I was very surprised to see that he likes our local food so much. Cartcart’s taste-buds are made for Singaporean food.

And I sat there in amazement and smiling at mum and Cartcart and thought at how surreal everything was. Mum eating her ayam penyet, and this white man happily eating his food in a hawker center in Geylang Serai.

I think I’m dreaming.

(to be continued)

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Being pretty in rainy days

RinazMsn: A common malay greeting is “Apa Khabar”

CartMsn: What does it mean?

RinazMsn: Apa means what, and khabar means news.

CartMsn: Oh! Apa khabar means Whasssaapppppppppppp!!

—

Initially, Mum and me were supposed to go to Bugis and then head to my grandmother’s house yesterday. The plan was to use the scooter as it would be faster. Unfortunately for us, it rained the entire day. The skies did not even seem to want to clear up in the evening when I came back from my training.

Mass media said that it was the worse rainfall in the span of 75 years. There were even flooding in certain areas in Singapore – some were even up to their waistlines. (But I really pity those who live in Malaysia, here the floods are up to their roof!)

In the end, mum and I decided to take public transportation instead. I noticed the bus driver driving slowly and carefully over the damp roads and stared out of the window of the train as the water droplets streamed down steadily from the dark and grey skies.

We reached Bugis and headed to Teng Joo, the shop that we frequently go to, to purchase material for our clothes. Last weekend, I went to Bugis to try to purchase the materials on my own. Then I realise how overwhelming it was. It isnt the same as going to a clothes shop with ready made dresses. There were so many terms that I wasnt familliar with. Chiffon? Georgette? Linen? 60cm? 90cm? It was really over my head.

That was why I asked mum to come along with me. Mum is a very experienced seamstress and my personal consultant. I felt more confident with her around in the maze of clothes bales as she expertly negotiated with the shopkeeper.

How much is this?

$7 per meter

Give me $6 per meter

What? Cannot lah, we wont make any profit that way. I give you discount. $6.50, can?

Come on, I’ve been such a loyal customer. I always come here. Give me $6 per meter.

Ok, ok!

I dont think I have mum’s oratorical power yet. In time I’ll soon inherit it, I hope.

We bought some lovely organza cloth for our matching hari raya outfit next year and I bought some shantung cloth in green for cartcart and me to wear. But I’m not sure if it will be completed in time. The trouble with being a seamstress’s daughter is that we always get our outfit the last 😐

Just as we were about to leave, my eyes noticed something shimmering at the corner and there, lied a bale of the prettiest cloth I’ve seen. I’m not too sure what material it was, but it was soft and had small shimmery dots. Oh it looked so classy, glamourous and royale.

I’d like to have it made into this style, the dress that I fell in love with last week while walking at Shaw towers.

Isnt it gorgeous? But I’m sure it was pricey. I didnt see the price, but did noticed the price of the shirt behind it. It was $60. I’d approximate that, that dress would cost 3 times more. But I do love the design, the pattern and how elegant it was.

I should learn how to make my own dresses. At the moment, I’m only limited to the rudimentary sewing skills that I’ve learnt in secondary school.

We didnt have time to go to grandmother’s as it was drawing late. It was still raining heavily our entire journey home. Thank goodness we didnt take the scooter. I’d be cold and wet and miserable throughout. Mum would be double that, since she cant take coldness as well.

The weather has been crazy isnt it? Just a couple of months ago it was the haze, and the months before that was the heatwave.

Whats the weather like for you?

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Review of 1bnbSingapore – Bed and breakfast in Singapore

I spent some weeks of scouring on the internet for suitable and affordable accomodation, emailing them to see if there were rooms available, asking friends for recommendation and the actual viewing of rooms.

There were some rooms which were dark and totally creepy – stained carpets, broken bathtubs. There were some which had no windows at all, and was so small that made it seem jail-like and claustraphobic.

Cuclainne recommended 1bnbsingapore, a bed and breakfast where her family in laws stayed. After checking the website out, I decided to take a look at the place after work.

The nearest train station was the Outram Mrt station. All train stations had a locality map at the exit, but since I couldn’t find the place, I decided to take a taxi instead.

Spottiswoode park. That sounds very high class doesn’t it? Like a condominium. That was why I was surprised when the cabby said that we’ve reached the place. It was nondescript, and looked like a regular high rise building. With the exception that there was a guard sitting at the stone bench at the lobby and a lcd screen in front of the elevator with a security camera pointing to me.

I went up to the 25th floor and met one of the managers, Debra, who showed me one of the rooms. It was roomy – I saw a writing table, cable tv, a playstation set, cupboard and a clean bed. And the view from the top was gorgeous. I could see the Tanjong Pagar railway and the city from there. So it would be easy to get around the city and other areas because of its central location.

Though I couldn’t get the largest room which had bathroom in it, and have to share with another 2 rooms, the bathroom is so much bigger than any of the hotels that I’ve viewed so far.

I was definitely interested.

Best part is that it was one of the most affordable one I’ve seen. There is vacancy for the dates when cart would be here. Hooray! I was ready to book a room and make a deposit on the spot there and then. Its that great!

I finally found a place that is suitable for cart! Air conditioned, large bathroom and it wasnt expensive. Awesomeness!

Thanks cuclainne! If you didnt recommended me that, I still would be searching for rooms! 🙂

And thanks everyone for the suggestions, I really do appreciate them. I’ve learnt so much 🙂

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Adventures in looking for suitable accommodations in Singapore

Juli accompanied me hotel hunting after work today and we went to different areas to survey for suitable accommodations. She said that it was not advisable to trust from the pictures from the brochures alone. It’s best to see it in person.

First off, we went to the Santa Grand Hotel in West Coast and though the location was far from the heartlands, it looked private and cosy. From the pictures, the rooms looked good. But unfortunately for us, there were no rooms available for viewing nor were there rooms in late December.

We then went to another hotel which was nearby. We asked for a viewing, and got to see one of their rooms. To me, the rooms were live-able but Juli didn’t liked it. I could see her point that it could be a little creepy with the bare walls and the room was rather dark.

We then went off to go to the northern side of Singapore. As I don’t frequent areas outside of West and Central Singapore so much, I wasn’t sure how to get to Serangoon on my scooter without the streetdirectory. We went around riding till my rear was sore and after the longest time, we found ourselves in the city area.

I found out that my IU didnt work just about I was to enter the gantry at the central business district area. Previously I didn’t insert my cash-card properly into the IU and I got fined. I had to swerve and quickly parked my scooter at a drop off point and wondered if I should just push the scooter back to the main road.

More and more cars arrived. They were all waiting for the time to turn to 7 pm, when the gantry stopped operating for the night. It was so funny to see how these cars queue up one by one and then zoom in just as the gantry stopped operating just to save maybe a dollar or two.

We continued on our journey and about 2 hours later, reached One Florence Close. I met Mr and Mrs Tan and their helper. They were really friendly and answered my questions.

“Can we see your rooms?”

“Aww sorry, we have guests in the room and we don’t have any to show you”

“Is your rooms suitable for a family?”

“Yes, you could even have 5 – 8 people in a room sleeping comfortably”

“What’s the oldest person that has stayed here?”

“Hmm .. We had a 70 year old couple from England”

And I saw their adorable, fluffy cats Romeo and Pepper. Gosh I could just eat them both.

The place was very home style, with visitors being able to cook in the kitchen and lounge on the sofa next to it. There is a computer we could use and a deck outside for a little al-fresco. I could see myself staying there as its very homely and inviting. The only one minor issue is that the communal toilet and showers are a tad cramped for me and Juli so I don’t think its suitable for Cart.

After we said our goodbyes to the family, we headed to our last stop, which was hotel 81 Bugis. I managed to see a standard room. The beds were clean, I liked that they used a LCD screen for their TV. But the room were so tiny and were no windows so it felt so claustrophobic.

The bathroom! It’s tiny! It’s the size of two toilet stalls. Argh!! This is almost demoralising.

I need to do more scouring.

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Where to stay in Singapore?

I’ve been scouring for a place for Cart to stay during his visit this december.

Cartcart wasn’t choosy about his accommodations, the only requirement was that the room needed to be air-conditioned and I prefer that it be affordable. The first thing that came to mind was ‘Hotel 81’ – one of the best known budget hotels in Singapore.

I’ve already reserved a room, and luckily for us, there were still some available at the time though I was pretty certain that it will be fully booked soon due to the peak season of Christmas and the new year.

Peak season! They charged extra on the holidays! On typical days they charged about $50 – $90 for a room for a day. I did my calculations and my heart skipped a beat. $950+

Woah! That’s kind of pricey. Isn’t there any alternatives? For that price, I could rent a fully furnished apartment. However, Juli said that the minimum length of time required for rental was a month. Cart would only be staying for 9 days.

Some of the nice people from the forums had some great ideas. One that I liked in particular was the ntuc chalet that costs $70 a day. Unfortunately, some of the dates during the week were already booked. It would be inconvenient to keep changing accommodations during the stay.

So it’s back to to square one. I wasn’t satisfied.

After a search on google, I discovered a page which recommended ‘service apartments’. It said that it was more economical and had a more homelier feel to it. It was like a hotel, but larger and had amenities where you could cook, wash among others.

The more I read and the more I looked, the more attracted I was to the whole deal.

Doesn’t these look gorgeous?

Living room at The Lotus at Joo Chiat.


Deluxe rooms at Metropolitan Y Apartments

And unfortunately they were all fully booked. I even went to the extent of checking each and every one of the links here to see if there were any available.

In the end, I had a reply from Valuestay which had a room for $100 dollars a night which was reasonable. But it excludes utility rates, no kitchen and you had to pay $500 upfront as deposit.

Ouch! Plus I don’t even know what the room looks like as there’s no picture of the rooms to be found in the website anywhere.

As now, we’d have to stick to the original plan. Anyway, it’s near to a lot of interesting places like the National Library, and the Esplanade. I do hope there will be some interesting events there in december! 🙂

What do you think? Do you have any suggestions?

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Raya Ramblings

There were a whole sea of people at the mosque when my family and I went to there for Hari Raya mass prayers in the morning.

I wanted to take the lines of cars parked by the entire stretch of roads, to and forth as well as the mountain of footwear outside of the mosque but I really didnt have the time with everyone rushing and squeezing in.

It got to the extent of the majority of us having to prostrate in an extremely cramped fashion.


Listening to the preaching after mass prayers

—

My dad has a very large family. He has 12 siblings. For several years so far, every raya, a relative will host the clan meetup according to their age-rank. My dad was the eldest, so we played host some years back. This year is my aunts’ turn. She’s the youngest in the family.


Me, mum and sis all have the same noses!

Hari Raya is a day for forgiveness and past misdeeds are forgotten. It can be a rather emotional moment for family members.

I could hear the conversations from around.

“I planned alot of things with mum in law for this coming raya but its just not fated to be … we should treasure the people while they are still around”

“Lets just hope that we dont end up meeting only once a year”

—

There were loads of lovely food to be eaten, including my raya favourites, Ayam Masak Merah (Chicken in savory chilli) and Ketupat! (Rice dumplings wrapped in coconut leaves)

I got to meet up with a few of my relatives.

Like this really adorable boy! He’s the son of another aunt. He’s so small and so cute I just wanted to eat him up.

And this is another relative which I find amazingly romantic after all these years. From the start when they courted till many many years after, they still have a most loving relationship. I’ve never seen them being ill tempered with each other before.

People like these are quite a rarity.

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Singapore Big Bike Fest 2006

Clark Quay was alive with the the roarings of motorcyles as it saw the ‘Singapore Big Bike Fest’ yesterday. There were so many bikes to see that it can be quite overwhelming.

After much contemplation, I finally decided to join the Vesporean Club October outing just to satisfy my curiosity on how it would be like.

I brought my brother, Nazry along. I thought he would be interested as he was currently trying to get his motorcycle license too.

We took the AYE highway to get to our destination. While we were riding along, there was a guy riding a green GT. He noticed us, gave us the thumb up. I flashed him the peace sign and he rode away in the traffic.

We reached Maxwell Food Centre and looked for the Vespa club members. It was hard to miss them. They were prominent, standing around an array of scooters in all shapes and colours. It was like a mini convention.

We walked up to the group and I said hello. One of the lady turned around from her conversation

Hi. You are?

I’m rinaz.

Oh rinaz! Hi! Glad that you can make it! I’m leonids. (points) This is beary, that is precious and this is un-sith. 

Would you like a tee shirt?

Hey, aren’t you the one I passed by on the AYE?

I looked around to see the different types of Vespa scooters. There were so many colourful display. There were some modified ones – Different paint-jobs, different cover seating …

I noticed a purple lx scooter with embellishments. A lady told me that it was said to be designed by Britney Spears. But how true it was, we both weren’t sure.

Another scooter that caught my eye was an et8 which had a flowery sticker. The lady tells me that it was a winning scooter sponsored by coke.

Soon after we were told about our itinerary and we got ready to move off together.

There we were, in two rows riding off on the roadside.

Nazry quipped:

This reminds me of a time long long time ago …

Huh? What are you talking about?

Sigh …

Oh, are you talking about your cycling days?

Yesssss …

We’re on a different convoy now 😉

It was so nice riding together. I’m sure that we were a lovely sight to see. Then I noticed a lady and was transfixed at her footwear. It was high heels! Never did I thought that I’d ever see a lady rider wearing heels in real life.

We reached Clark Quay and rode one by one through the display area letting everyone admire our beautiful procession.

We parked our scooters together in a row. There were so many different group of bikers parking together. (Nazry called them clans) The Honda Waves, the Hayabusas, The Harley Davidsons, The Ducatis and others.


Thank goodness the white shirts weren’t around!


I want this band-aid sticker!


Hayabusa


Interesting paint job, but not for me.


This isn’t for me either

And we entered the area. There were so many different motorcycles, it was mind boggling.





This was an interesting bike as we didn’t see the speedometer, or fuel or any display at all.

Many of these bikes had extremely powerful cc’s – This Ducati went to 992cc. (My GT was already a powerful machine at 198cc)


This Harley went to 1548 cc. I started to wonder why anyone would get such an extremely powerful machine for the Singaporean road since the maximum speed on the highway was 90 km/h – definitely it was more for the image than for practicalities.


And this Triumph Harley Davidson was 2200 ccs! That’s faster than a car! I was perplexed. Nazry on the other hand, was transfixed at how its engine vibrated showing off its power.


2200 cc! That’s crazy!

There was a loud roaring and vroom-ing that we went to investigate.



Babe-alicious babe on a bike.

It was the Harley Davidson convoy arriving and we went to see their procession. Harleys are possible a chick magnet, aren’t they? All of their pillions were females.

But the person standing next to me did tell me that there was a female Harley biker which I missed.

We left about two hours later. It was an interesting event with loads of cool looking motorcycles see. I still prefer my scooter though 🙂


Not mine, but I vote this the best looking Vespa, ever.

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Going to the arts house

Mr Chandran, my literature lecturer, approached me to do a photoshoot of a play that he was directing. It turned out to be a really interesting and facinating experience.

I was to be at the Arts house in the Old Parliament road. After riding on the road for about a month now, I had very little problem getting there as i was a little more used to the different roads (with a little help from Streetdirectory.com).

I reached the arts house in the late afternoon and was amazed at how beautiful the entire area was. this was strange to me because I often walked around the parliament road, but this was an area that I’ve never really spend much time at. There would always be nook and cranny that I’d miss.


A couple of my kids from my previous school at the Parliament House

I tried to find some place to park my scooter, and after riding around the area I couldnt find any. Not wanting to be fined by overzealous parking attendants, I went to seek help. I saw a couple of men in uniform. They were valets on the job.

Me : Excuse me! Hi! Do you know where I could park my scooter?

Men : Well, you can park it here (by the roadside) We’ll take care of it for you.

Me : Wow! Really? You are so kind. Thank you so much.

I approached the Arts house. It was gorgeous. It was like a palatial building with all the lights and old charm decorations. There were people lounging and sitting around artily on the seats outside. They were probably waiting for a play to start.

I went upstairs to one of the rooms where the actresses were putting on make up and trying out their costumes.

Hi everyone! I’m Marina. Nice to meet all of you


Diane (in white) helping to apply make up on a fellow actress

I noticed a familliar face. One of my classmate from night class, Diane was there and we talked excitedly.

Diane : What are you doing here? Are you acting too?

Me : Oh yes, I’m acting. I’m playing the part of the photographer. Heheheh.

I met this gentleman called Goon, the assistant director for the play and he tells me what type of shots he wanted.


Mr Chandran and Mr Goon, you cant miss him, he’s got a huge silver earring on his left ear

Goon : I want mood shots. These images will be used for the website.

Me : Will it be used for posters or brochures?

I was concerned about the dark lighting which will impair the images. Printed images needed a high resolution for it to look good.

Goon : It’ll only be for the website for now.

Me : Awesome. Thats great!

I saw them play-acting some parts and I found out that the title of the play was called ‘Horse Face’. The gist of the story was about a village of girls in India, trying to find a husband. A potential man arrives. The girls try to different ways to get him to notice them.

It was facinating looking at the girls. They were so pretty! Some of the girls looked fit to be a model. The costumes eccentuated their allure.

Mr Chandran and Goon were discussing director-y things with the girls and we wrapped up about an hour later and some final shots.

The play will be opening somewhere in October. How exciting! Come on and give support to the play, if you can 🙂


Look at me … Too cool for wind-blowers

Link to the event here

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The wedding dinner

Ah! Its so nice to meet up with old friends again!

Sheedah invited me to her wedding. Sheedah was a friend and an ex colleague from the previous school that I was attached with. I spent about two years there and had very fond memories of the school.

I messaged Narima if she wanted to go with me. She affirmed, so I fetched her on my scooter, and together we went to the ceremony.

A dance for the bride and groom

It still tickles me when I think about us wearing baju kurong (traditional Malay wear) on two wheelers. Me in my orange gold dress and my wedges and Narima in her Kebaya must have attracted quite a few shocked motorists on the road. I imagined that they were thinking, “Crazy Women! Why on earth are they wearing fancy clothes like that on a scooter?”

When we reached there, I saw so many of my ex-colleagues. We looked at each other and started to talk animatedly, excited to see each other again. I missed them so!

We entered the grand hall and waited for the bride and groom. It was so lovely, the sound of the Malay drum beating in chorus, and adorable little girls strewing flower petals on the floor. Sheedah looked radiant and her husband, Suhaimi looked equally dashing.

The chandelier almost covered my face

One could see the love in their eyes as they smiled and glanced at each other. It was so lovey dovey. It made me feel like wanting to get married too.

While watching the emcee talk, I updated my friends on whats new in my life while they updated theirs. It seemed that there are quite a few changes in the school – quite a few staff has left or thinking of leaving. Some going for new pastures, like teaching in Hong Kong.

Peiyi : Hey! You look so nice!

Me : Not as nice as you 🙂 You look beautiful in that outfit and that hairstyle.

Peiyi : I thought you were coming with your boyboy?

Me : No, he’s coming in December, thats why I sms’ed you about Tea Chapter.

Sherry : It’s popular with tourists.

Xiaofang : Boyfriend?

Peiyi : Where is he from?

Sherry : What is he working as?

Peiyi : How did you guys met?

Me : Erm .. erm ..

I was really happy to be around these wonderful people.

Mr Loo, Me, Hasnah, Waheeda, Linda and Narima.

But the night ended too quickly and we had to say our goodbyes too soon. But what a lovely night. Being among good friends is one of the most priceless things one could have.

By the way, the post to be Marina’s husband is now open. You may apply here.