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i started this monday really stoned from a long weekend of lack of sleep!
but it was a great weekend with so much love in the air 
i wanted to “play it low” this V day i.e. not buying or making any gifts or cards for friends – NOT bcos i want to tighten my belf but bcos i simply lack the time. as the day was drawing near, i can’t help but felt that love was in the air.
i made a last minute dash to the malls (hey, i work in orchard road, so that’s not an unusal itin in my daily life) with the focus of looking for a V day gift for B… and along the way, i was tempted to buy gifts for collys and friends too but i resisted. it was too rushed for me to make any wise decision during that short lunch break – especially when i am not done with getting B’s. in any case, i have already prepared 2 crafty gifts for emily and anthea. so… the rest will not get any gifts.
for the record, i bought B’s V days Part 1 pressie on friday; the 13th and his Part 2 pressie the following day.
cell group meeting on friday evening was very unlike the usual cos’ daniel updated the cg on his proposal to cherrie and what happened the night before. i was really amused by daniel’s account and what he did and made me think that it is a good idea to converse with B about it before it is “too late”….
daniel and gilbert have been educating me about diamond of late bcos of such occasion mentioned above. i parted ways with them on friday night with the thought that it is a good time now to buy a diamond ring for myself bcos of the economy downturn. so the guys told me!
i couldn’t meet with B after cell that night as i have yet to prepare for my whampoa cell the next day. he did sms me in the afternoon to ask if i have cell. he didn’t as it was brought forward to the day before. reached home at about 11.30pm after cell and was smsing B. he sent me a V day greeting at the strike of 12 and i was amused. after another sms from him, he called and said he was outside my door. i was definitely surprised! and how sweet of him to pass me my V day pressies!
all these years, i found myself to be someone that would not be too surprised by things (not sure if it’s that whole “cool persona” that i have) or events esp. during special occasions such as my birthday etc… but B has on a few occasion surprised me quite delightfully.
he never gave me flowers for he is 1 of those guys who deem it as a waste of money. but last year; on my birthday, he gave me a bouquet of flowers for the 1st time and i was pleasantly surprised and delighted. and really for V day this year, i had not expected him to give me flowers again or attempt to spring me a surprise such as turning up at my house at mid-night.
he came by to hand me a bouquet of flowers and a pendent with a diamond stud! ok, it is a very very small diamond but it means SO much to me! i was (and still is) pleasantly surprised and delighted! i feel so loved!
on sat, we gave out roses at our whampoa cell too i asked CY to help me check out the prices of the roses in the market. it was $2 a stalk and un-wrapped. i saw the super-market selling a dozen of roses for $15 the day before and regretted that i didn’t buy it; even though i did not have any idea who i was going to buy it for then. CY convinced me not to get them (those in the market) as they were too expensive. he called me a few minutes later and told me he managed to get 11 stalks of roses at $1 each :O [this shall be kept a secret off the blog; for reasons]. so, i told my whampoa cell that CY has bought them roses for V day. and i must say it was a wise decision (to have that idea of giving out roses) cos’ they were really happy and glowing in their faces
i came across these on friday when i was looking around for B’s pressie. i thought that was interesting. i decided to get it for whampoa cell, just for the occasion of V day
B and i went out on sat night after my bible study class and we had our late dinner at esplanade before we headed to marina sqaure to catch “new in town”. i like that movie. i think rene zellweger and harry connick jr. have pretty good chemistry. i’ve always liked rene zellweger and her movies. what i liked about this movie was also for the fact that a few of the characters in the movie scrapbooked LOL! there were a few scenes of them scrapbooking and a few scrapbook pieces were exhibited. they even used that idea in their credits at the end of the movie.
after almost watching all the movies available over the first couple of days of CNY – ok, just 2 of the better ones then (bride wars & inkheart ), we had to catch those “sneaks” last weekend. so, we decided upon “definance” over “underworld” and it was definitely a good choice – not that we will rule out watching “underworld” eventually… .
i had no clue what so ever the movie was about.
i then learnt is it based on the true story of the bielski partisans during the world war II. the movie is an adaptation of the book “definance : the bieski partisans” by nechama tec.
the film opens and it is aug 1941 and nazi forces were sweeping through eastern europe; targetting the jews. amongst the survivors not killed or restricted to ghettoes are the 4 bielski brothers. they fled to the forest; vowing to avenge their parents. they encountered other jewish escapees hiding in the forest and the brothers took them under their protection and leadership. over the next year they sheltered a growing number of refugees, raiding local farms for food and supplies, moving their camp whenever they are discovered by the germans. the eldest brother killed the local police chief responsible for his parents’ deaths and the brothers staged raids on the germans and their collaborators, however jewish casualties caused the eldest brother to reconsider this approach because of the resulting risk to the hiding jews.
these refugees survived another two years, ultimately growing to a total of 1,200 jews. whilst the 3rd brother was killed in action not long later, the other 3 brothers survivied and emigrated to US and the descendents of the people they saved now number in the thousands.
i would strongly recommend this movie!
on 22 jan 09, one of my whampoa cg members heeded to ps lam’s challenge and bought me, hanbin and chau yong dinner as an appreciation.
we went to newton circle’s food centre. it has been some while since i last went as it has been renovated. the weather was great – windy. it was about 8.30pm when we reached and the crowded was not too big and we could find seats quite easily.
FZ ordered alot of food – chicken, vegetables, fried oyster, fried prawn mee, crabs, fish ball soup!
they are the norm hawker food alright but they are still not quite the norm for me. every dish was good and yummy.
i did hear from hanbin and korene before that the last time when they went with FZ, they hear the hawkers calling her 大姐 and that the hawkers are familiar with her. see, her husband and her have been hawkers all their life until recently, when they had to retire because of health.
so, i had that piece of info but little was i prepared for what was served. when the fried prawn mee came, i “wowed”… definitely is 加料的. the plate of mee was not too big BUT there were about 6 to 7 mid sized prawns on top of the plate. they are still shelled. hoho…. really makes me feel very privileged to be at the hawker centre with FZ 
it’s later into the dinner that i realised, her elder brother owns the fried oyster stall (and that was very nice too) and her younger brother owns the fried prawn mee stall. i understand from the rest that it’s the famous fried prawn mee that that has the franchise in food republic where the cook wears the straw hat? FZ’s younger brother has gone to san fransico his biz there before – you can see photos at his newton stall.
i knew before hand that FZ’s eldest and youngest sons are all in the food biz too. eldest son has a franchise – which i can’t remember very well which stall it is. youngest son has a famous duck stall in the lagoon hawker centre. that’s when i realised that it is that very stall that my aunty likes. the latter queued very long when our family went there late dec last year. as much as i do not like to eat duck, i must agree that the food is good.
by the end of it, i figured it all out – why there were excess serviettes, plates, utensils, top up of ice (for the beer), yummy food, 加料… i had dinner with the “queen of the hawkers” :p ….. ok, i’s exaggerating but that’s my nick for her…it was really quite an experience for me, i must say.
it’s zees’ 6th birthday and this is the 1st time i thought of “inviting” myself to join his family to celebrate his birthday.
his dad couldn’t make it because of a leaders’ meeting and so, it was just the rest of us. we met at swensons in parkway parade.
he picked his cake… and then we played the “making faces” game. think it is an idea juliana had that they played at home. it was really funny and fun, i must say
a player will be the banker/judge. he/she will call out a description such as “happy” and the rest around the table will have to make a face that best shows it.
ray kit was really good. for a young child, i’m very amused he could make a “tortured” face.
anyway, it was quite hilarious as it was obvious that zee was biased towards shang as the latter always win when zee is the judge.
i went shopping for zee’s present before i met them. i must say, it’s no easy task whenever it comes to playing a present for zee. there was a year that i bought him a toy which he already has. i’m not a parent and so, i guess it’s natural that i’m not updated about the ‘in’ toys and what’s fun for what age etc. i cracked my head and ended up making a purchase for a Transformers toy.
i got it wrapped up and didn’t give it to zee initially. but he noticed it and asked who was it for. i said it was for someone else. after a while, he was still curious about the present and asked me again. it was quite fun teasing him and seeing his curiosity around it. anyway, he likes the gift and i’m all pleased
though i managed to get more sleep towards the end of last week, after about 2 weeks of accumulated lack of sleep, i was still relatively stoned and i knew it quite so when i was leading worship yesterday. everything that could have gone wrong have gone wrong – singing the wrong words, singing in the wrong keys…
i introduced a new song and it has proved to be a “tricky” song. it was a off-tempo song (don’t know what the technical terms is) and we had to keep drilling on the song… still, all in all, i’m thankful God saw us through.
i was totally zonked and drained by the end of service.
am glad for an “un-occupied” early evening that i can leisurely walk around vivo-city and catch a movie and eat my thunder tea rice!
i was craving for the thunder tea rice as i didn’t get to eat it last tues before my meeting at sally’s office. i simply love eating thunder tea rice. B enjoys it too. between both of us, we finished 4 saucer of chilli. their chilli is nice. kind of goes with the food.
watched dangerous bangkok starring nicholas cage. guess, any movie with nicholas cage can’t go very wrong?? yes/no? charlie young (hk actress) looks very thai in the movie, i must say.
managed to get some buys at vivo too. wanted to buy some more folders from daiso for my scrapbook stamps. i came across it some weeks back and purchased some to see if they serve any good and practical storage function. then a scrapbooker blogged about it and true enough, they were all gone except for 3 when i got to daiso. hopefully, they will bring in some more.
another disappointment was my attempt to buy a particular type of julie’s biscuits. i brought them once before at least half a year ago at vivo’s giant. i couldn’t find them anywhere else in a couple of other supermarkets and thought i would try vivo’s giant again. hmm…. seems like they might have discontinued it. or i can try hunting them down in the other supermarkets 
i learnt about tampopo restaurant from my colleague and that it serves very good ramen. i’m not sure if it’s because it is really good or that because it is in liang court (one of our company’s properties) that we are encouraged to patronize… HMMM… i think it HAS to be that because it’s good la… .
i never got to try it until yesterday and that’s only because collys requested to have their cake for our company’s september birthday celebration.
seems like the ramen with black pig is their speciality… hmmm… but me not a fan of pork and me not adventurous when it comes to food i decided on one of the ramen that comes with pork (still).
the soup is good. the ramen noodles is good. they also give u a scoop of roe which u stir into the soup. and the egg is VERY good! the only not-so-good is that the soup is not hot enough for my preference. maybe it was a lil chilly and had thought a hot bowl of soup would make it all perrffeecct.
i’m especially “impressed” with the way they did their egg. it’s hard boiled on the outside but half-boiled on the inside. YUMMICIOUS!! i’ve been to one other jap restaurant that does the egg in a less than conventional way. i learnt about it from the radio broadcast and the restaurant is in tanglin mall. (can’t remember it’s name.) for all eggs-lover, this bowl of ramen will make u happy (“,)
tampopo is located at :-
liang court shopping centre, #01-23/24
and about the cake – i couldn’t get any in the end as a big cake would require 2 days’ pre-order. but apparantly, their cakes are good; according to my collys. they do serve them in slices at the restaurant and also at tampopo deli (which is at the basement 1 of liang court).
