I had a big craving for chocolate and I hauled my sis and together, we over to the Esplanade for a dose of Max Brenner goodness. I was joined with the lovely Mintea and her sister.
Enthusiastically, we ordered a number of items from the menu :
It was all good, but we did not feel the high yet and we ordered more! 😀
Mintea had the Italian thick chocolat served in a hug mug. There were no handles, so the drinker would have to wrap their hands and hug the utensil to drink it. Doesn’t the colours of the chocolate look absolutely beautiful? I think I’ll get this the next time I visit 🙂
And this is my Dark Chocolate Suckao. The utensils were clear cut enough, I poured the milk in, and then stirred the chocolate buttons in to melt it. But for a few moments I was clueless at how to eat the chocolate.
Upon close examination, I saw that there was a hole in the spoon which doubles up as a straw. Henceforth, the reason why it was called, Suckao!
And that was when the high kicked in and that we finally got our euphoria from the heavenly chocolate. It was really really good. Pure happiness slipped down my throat and radiated through my body.
And we all just sat there for a full 10 minutes, grinning at each other, being all happy and contented.
After our chocolate trip, we said our goodbyes, sis and I headed up to the esplanade library. I think that this could easily be one of the most beautiful library in Singapore.
Photo credit by Night86mare
It was a lovely place to hide away in the tranquillity, by the beautiful sea. By then, Cartcart was already online and I walked around the library surreptitiously with the eee pc opened facing outwards and Skype webcam on to show Cart the surroundings.
And that was when I heard the most beautiful voice emanating from the library cafe and was instantly drawn to it.
She sounds so beautiful.
I found out later that that she is Olivia Ong, a 23 year old Singaporean singer who went to Japan to further her career as a singer.
She was here for the annual Mosaic Music Festival which featured artists from all over the world and all sorts of genres. There were so many exciting line-ups. I love it! I want to go!
Shamelessly, I asked for a picture with her :
And smilingly, she said yes, and she hugged me! Olivia Ong hugged me! My euphoric feeling went up another notch 🙂
After the encounter, sis and I headed towards the car-park where we encountered an acapella group singing and they sounded really good.
Its been about a month now that I’ve been using the eee pc. So far, it has been pretty good. It is really handy to have especially while waiting in public. Just yesterday, while waiting for my turn at the customer service, I was so engrossed that I missed my turn!
Using Skype with webcam on the eee pc
I’m definitely getting used to it. There is a couple of neat programs that I enjoyed using. In fact, I could touch type with no problems now. The interesting bit is that when I use regular laptops, sometimes the keys seems unfamiliarly large!
It took a lot of hair pulling, but finally I could install Gimp
However, one of the downside is that, once the novelty has worn out, my insatiable mind started to get frustrated at the extreme difficulty in trying to do the simplest things like changing the wallpaper and installing programs in easy mode.
Nevertheless, it’s kind of amazing the responses that I had while using it in public. Many of the people who sees it would be exhilarated by it.
Like some of these people here 😀
An engrossed Attilio on the eee pc
A happy Claudia on the eee pc
DK promoting the eee pc
Farinelli holding the eee pc proudly while NTT looks in jealously
CC and Mintea looking good next to the eee pc
Nadnut with the eee pc
It even attracted the attention of a stranger while I was blissfully engrossed between sips of coffee and surfing the net. My womanly instincts noticed someone peering over my way.
It was a man. He was using a subnotebook too – a Kohjinsha. Instantaneously we bonded and spent time postulating about the merits of subnotebooks.
His Kohjinsha and my Eee pc look like siblings!
Moral of the story : Everyone should get a subnotebook because owning one immediately makes you more attractive to the opposite sex.
On Valentines day, I spent the evening sweating with a tall, dark and muscular man. After we were done, I was left tired, but feeling really good! 😉
This is Nicolas in all his sweaty glory after a cardio workout. He’s a fitness instructor for the sports council. I was introduced to this workout class when fellow blogger friend, Lizan recommended it. And for the past few weeks, my friends, Lizan, Dolly and I has been attending cardio-mix sessions with him in the hopes of becoming more fit.
The first session was pure torture. I didn’t realise that it was so high impact!
As soon as we entered the room, Nicholas started to bark the instructions … “Grape Vine! Easy Walk! Double! Step Touch” and he would laugh maniacally when he noticed us slowing down. It was so exhausting, I thought I was going to die! And that was when he announced, “Alright, that was your warm up. Lets start our session!”
It was the longest 60 minutes of my life. For an entire week my body ached and felt beaten up. And now after going for a couple of sessions, it is still tiring, and many a times my coordination is completely off. But I think I’m slowly getting a hang of it and I am looking forward to the next sessions.
Here we are after our cardio session. I look completely unglamorous in here, while Lizan and Dolly still look amazingly fresh faced. Nevertheless, I felt really good. Its been such a long time since I felt that rush. Its a great feeling 🙂
I haven’t changed my glasses since 2001. The only issue that was holding me back was how insanely expensive glasses are for me. My last glasses were about $350. Being cheapskate frugal, I procrastinated upon getting new ones.
However, last week, I got so tired that I went to take a nap with my glasses on and accidentally bent them slightly as I slept. When I woke up, I felt dizzy when looking through the unaligned lenses.
I had to make new ones.
There were so many types that I didn’t know what to choose. Under the recommendation of the optician, he chose this pair for me and since being the neighbourhood optician, it wasn’t that expensive.
And I love it! It was surprisingly stylish and <shameless>I look really hot with the sexy secretary look going on</shameless> Forget contact lenses. I’ll be wearing glasses all the time now 🙂
Without realising it, it was already his final day in Singapore. Where did all the time go?
After the pizza outing and that everyone has left, I started to feel my emotional turmoil again and the floodgates opened. All the other times I’ve always felt sad when we had to say our goodbyes, but this time round, the feeling of sadness was more intense than ever, that it caught me by surprise. My eyes hurt and felt swollen as I went on my journey home.
Friday, 4 Jan 2008
After I left work for the day, I parked my scooter in the car-park near the bed and Breakfast. When I arrived, Cart took out the last pack of pasta that my aunt has kindly made for him and asked me to join him for a late lunch. I was surprised as I would have been too hungry to wait for anyone. He said that he preferred to eat with me than eating alone. I thought that that was kind of sweet 🙂
It may not look good, but it tastes absolutely delicious!
After our lunch we decided to take the scooter and head to Sim Lim Square. We proceeded to the carpark and I was just about to rummage in my handbang to find my keys when my eyes scanned the scooter box. And my eyes went completely opened wide. My keys were in the scooter box!
How could I have left it in there! Someone could have just taken the keys and rode away with my beloved scooter! I must have been extremely stressed out. It was disconcerting. Cartcart tried to calm me down and I realised how lucky I was that the scooter wasn’t stolen.
At length with Cart safely behind me, we first stopped by to have coffee at ‘Geek Terminal’. It was open! We were finally here! I told Cartcart that Geek Terminal was the place where I believe serves very good coffee.
I didnt drink all that, this were what my friends had the last time we were at Geek Terminal
Here was what Cartcart had to say :
After our coffee, we then continued our journey and rode past Tekka Market and I parked my scooter in an area somewhere near Chinatown and in a short time, we had a leisurely walk to Sim Lim Square.
Sim Lim Square is a famous center for electronic gadgets. It was interesting seeing Cartcart there. As we both loved electronic gadgets, we were going about different stores peering and examining anything that caught our eye.
Eventually, after comparing the prices, Cart decided to get the Creative Zen. He looked quite pleased at himself after finding out that it was duty free. 🙂
The gadget was spiffy. I’ve been enamored over it after seeing the guys over at Tech 65 do a review over it. I tried getting Cartcart to buy one for me too but he said no. Instead he said, “I’m getting you something else.” I stared quizzedly at him and he continued, “Where is the nearest jeweller here? I want to buy you a ring”
OOH!!!
I was most excited that my mind couldn’t compute momentarily. I called up my good friends Geri and Juli to ask them if they knew of any jeweller in the vicinity.
Geri adviced us to head to Parco Bugis Junction as there were a number of Jewellers there. So we walked around and sure enough, there were about 5 jewellers side by side.
We walked into one of them. It definitely was an interesting experience being with Cartcart in a jewellery shop. I asked gingerly about their engagement rings. Already in my mind I knew that I wanted. A simple but classic solitaire set in yellow gold.
And the man at the counter showed us a collection of beautiful and exquisite rings. But I didn’t want any of them, they were all white gold.
So we tried going to the other jewellers, Goldheart, Lee Hwa, Soo Kee, Meyson, Citigems. And it was all the same. None of them carried yellow gold with them.
One of the goldsmith helpfully adviced us to go back to Chinatown to see if there were any jewellers there.
So we headed back to Chinatown. By then, there were a number of street buskers around. It was fascinating to see them. One of the performers were doing a beautiful piece of calligraphy using his mouth.
That was when we stumbled upon a jeweller as we passed by and I noticed yellow gold in their display case!
But when looked at their designs, I did not really liked it. The designs looked much too garish and what made it worse was that they were all very tight! Suddenly I felt very self conscious of my body type.
After a while, I found one that could fit me. Vehemently, not wanting white gold and with little time left, I looked at Cartcart and said, “I think I could learn to like this one.” Cart looked at me and asked, “Are you sure?” I just nodded my head and he proceeded to take out his card.
That was when the goldsmith shook his head and said, “Cash only please”. We were crestfallen. Eventually, the both of us left the shop quite dejectedly.
cart : I still would like to give you a ring
rinaz : Lets go back to parco, I dont really like white gold, but I can live with it
cart : Ok. lets go
We decided to walk by the other street as we both did not want to walk in Bugis Street where it would definitely be crowded by this time. That was when suddenly, out of nowhere, pops out a man out of a jewelery shop. It was Taka Jewellery. I wasn’t very optimistic as I was sure that it would be the same as the others.
Man : Hello! Would you like to come in?
Cart : Do you have yellow gold?
Man : Oh yes we do!
And just like that, I saw the ring that I wanted. A simple solitaire set in yellow gold. It was perfect! We were both pleasantly surprised at our find.
Later on Cartcart took the ring and slipped it to my finger, and proposed. Of course I said yes! 🙂
We had a quick vegetarian dinner at one of the hawker center where I had the yummiest spring roll ever. For a vegetarian one, I was impressed at how flavourful it was that I went back for seconds, even though I wasnt hungry.
We went back to the scooter where I found out that my cashcard was stolen! I had forgotten to take it out of the IU-unit and someone swooped in to steal it. That was twice the blunder that I did today. I was in extreme stress that I could not even think properly.
I was so upset with myself.
We rushed back to the bnb to grab his luggage before grabbing a cab to the airport. The cabbie was cheerfully chit chatting with us and when we almost reached the airport, both of us were amazed by the long queue of taxis at the airport. The taxi driver said that he had to wait about 3 hours once while waiting in line for a passenger.
As soon as we reached there, I began to feel very sad. I didn’t think we spent enough time together. I really didn’t want Cartcart to go.
But in what seems to be no time at all, he was in the ticketing queue and then I reluctantly let him go and waved while he disappeared off in the boarding hall. My heart just shattered. In front of everyone, I started to have tears rolling down my cheeks. I just couldn’t help myself.
Aftermath
Its been about 3 weeks now that he’s left. Of course I do miss him a lot. But life goes on. I guess I’m very lucky in that we both want to make this relationship work.
So for the moment, I’ll just try to keep being positive and hang on in there. We’ll be planning our wedding this coming December. But as much as just thinking of the expenditures and the planning makes me stressed out, I can’t wait to become Mrs Cartcart 🙂
Cartcart, I love you very much. Thank you for being there for me. Thank you for being the way you are. Thank you for loving me 🙂
It was a big day for Cartcart. After studying Islam at Darul Arqam for several sessions, today was the day he converted.
It felt sort of festive with my relatives and family bearing witness to the entire ceremony and I wondered how it would be like during the actual wedding itself.
Cart and I already looked like a bride and groom, with our matching green outifts.
Coupled with my relatives whom were already wearing colourful clothes themselves, I heard someone quip, “Was there a wedding going on?” while we were having our lunch together.
Tues 1 Jan 2007
We spent the new year visiting my maternal grandmother’s place. It wasn’t anything eventful, but it was nice to get together and interact with the extended family anyway. But the air seemed a different there with my relatives all teasing me to hurry up and get married.
After we visited my grandmother’s place, we decided to drop by my maternal aunt’s place. It was an interesting experience as Cart and I reached there on my scooter!
Thank goodness that I did not get too lost trying to get from one part of the Island to the other.
It was already reaching nightfall when we reached there. We rang on the doorbell. No answer. We rang again. Didn’t seem to be anyone inside. No one home? We almost left for the elevator when the door opened gingerly and out popped my cousins head.
“Come in! Come in!” they invited us in warmly, “We thought that you couldn’t make it”
My aunt and cousins were one of the first of my relatives to know of my relationship with Cartcart. They were there when I first brought Cartcart to meet my parents for the first time. They are very nice and both Cartcart and I are very comfortable being around them.
We both made friends with their cat called baby.
Isn’t baby absolutely cute.
Naturally our conversation flowed to baby, the star of the day. Cart starts to ask why baby had such a short tail :
My aunt invited us to have dinner where we had pasta and vegetarian finger foods that resembled mini sausages and squid balls that tasted quite yummy actually.
We also had dadih. This is a rather popular Malay dessert which is made up mostly of yoghurt and fruits. It tastes light and fresh and absolutely delicious. And it’s a whole loads of fun to play with as it’s quite shaky.
We had a most lovely evening. It was really nice to be there with my aunt and cousins, laughing the evening away feeling very relaxed.
So much so that I did not realise that it was already past 10 pm! Reluctantly, we had to say our goodbyes as I had to go to work the next day. I rushed to send Cartcart back to his bed and breakfast while I went home and had to force myself to go to sleep.
Next : Heavenly Chocolate Fondue at the Esplanade and yummy pizza at Da Donato!
For three years, Jurong Institute was part of my life. Jurong Institute used to be a school where we studied for the A-levels to head to the university. When JI closed its doors in 2003, many of us felt sad. Personally for me, my JI days was one of one of the most memorable days of my life, especially for the people and the friends that I made.
See if you can spot me 🙂
So when my JI classmate, Hong Boon sms’ed me about the the class reunion, I instantly replied back that I would be able to make it. It would be so nice to meet the gang again.
Sat, 29 Dec 2007
Cart and I decided to head to Geek Terminal for some coffee before going to the meet. Having always hearing me gush about how lovely their coffee was, Cart wanted to find it out for himself. Unfortunately when we reached there, it was closed!
We both left dejectedly and went to ‘Coffee Club’ instead, where we had some coffee and shared a really delightful Chocolate and Coffee Mud pie ice cream with Oreo powder and fudge drizzled onto it.
Yummy! It was so good that I felt sorry when it was finally gone.
After realising the time, we took the train to Orchard. Being a city area, it was a very popular place to be which tends to be a congested place. Both Cart and I had to walk against the week-enders crunch, like salmons swimming upstream.
We finally reached Ngee Ann City and stopped a while to admire the beautiful 4 storey high Christmas tree before heading to the Family International Buffet Restaurant. I was surprised to see only Melvin and then Juli, BK, William and his wife arriving shortly after.
Apart from Juli, it has been ages since I’ve seen them. They were still as friendly as ever and we chatted amiably while waiting for the others.
But the others were so late! We could not take it any longer that we decided to enter the restaurant and have a seat. And that was when the rest arrived one by one. Over an hour later than the time stipulated -_-”
The restaurant looked like a nice place. Being voracious eaters, all of us couldn’t wait to attack the food there. And there were plentiful types of foods to choose from. Here are a few of the sections that I managed to capture :
From different types of rice and savory food.
To steamed food.
Colourful desserts.
At one point, Xiang Long said, “Stop taking pictures! You look like a tourist!” to which I replied, “Come on, I’m a BLOGGER!” 😛
But there were loads loads more like the seafood (like lobsters, sashimi and Salmon) section, that I neglected to take a picture of because we were all raring to eat!
Hello? Sorry darling, but I want to eat now. Callyoubacklater!
In the middle of our meal, Hong Boon, took out the class Time Capsule. This was where we added in memorabilia of our school life all the way back in 1997. And now that 10 years has passed, each of us were curious to see what was inside it.
This is our time capsule made out of a coffee canister. On top of the time capsule reads, “This remains as 97G property to be rediscovered on 06112007” It turns out that we were one month late 😛
It was really cool to see the things inside the time capsule, mostly hand written old letters, photographs and we poured over each and every one of them. Truth be told, many of us have even forgotten about these items.
Like this excuse card. I don’t even remember putting this into the time capsule. I don’t even remember carrying it around! But since it had my name on it, it should be mine :
See! Never skipped class, never left school early, never pretended to be sick. I’m such a good girl.
Here Max is showing the handwritten letter of one of our classmate. Briefly it says, “I have a wish to become a member of the parliament. I would like to be an officer in the Army or the Navy. And I would like to marry Karen Tee Wen Chi”
It was just so lovely to go through old memories together.
After our dinner, on a whim we decided to get a new time capsule to be opened in the next 10 years. I wonder how we will all be like by then? 🙂
Next : Meeting Geri and monkeying around in the zoo!
