A weekend in Bangkok

Yesterday was my father-in-law's 60th birthday. To celebrate, Colin and I brought him and my mum-in-law for a weekend trip to Bangkok. This is the first time we travelled together as a family, and honestly, it was great fun! :)

The spartan budget terminal and its eateries

Now, let's start with the bad part of the trip. Two words. Tiger Airways. Not that we have anything against budget airlines, but Tiger really let us down this time. Firstly, the queues at the budget terminal were snakingly long! Next, the aircraft engine could not start and we had to sit in the aircraft for an hour with no air-con! *suffocated* Lastly, our return flight was delayed (again)! We all agreed that we're gonna stick to full-service airlines next time!

Once we got to Bangkok, everything got better (thank goodness!). The hotel was great, Marriott Resort and Spa is situated by the Chao Phraya river amidst lush greenery. Its far enough from the crowded city to have an air of exclusivity to it, yet is just a 20-30 minute taxi-ride away from wherever we wanted to go. Here's my in-laws at the hotel lobby.

Mum-in-law & I

Mummy by the pool where we just chilled, sipped cocktails and soaked up the sun (scorching!)

The resort is right next to the Chao Phraya River, and there is a ferry which brings guests to-and-from Saphan Taksin BTS station at 15-minute intervals. However, as there are 4 of us, it was actually cheaper for us to take a cab!

Family photo at the Grand Palace

Colin & I at the Grand Palace - one of the rare photos of us since one of us were usually behind the camera during this trip

Colin sprinkling showers of blessing on his folks

Folks in a tuk-tuk

What's a trip to Bangkok without food? We ate every 3 hours, and stuffed our faces with 4 bowls of birds nest each, sharks fin, tonnes of seafood and much more over the long weekend!

Supper at Thipsamai - Yummy Pad Thai and to-die-for orange juice and coconut freeze

One of our visits to Swensens - Ice-cream is really cheap and is a super shiok pit-stop in Bangkok weather! I had the chocolate fondue with 4 scoops of ice-cream of your choice with cantaloupe and bananas at S$4.60! Daddy doesn't like cakes, so we celebrated his birthday with ice-cream! The crew at swensens placed a heart-shaped candle on a banana on daddy's sundae.

Apart from stuffing our faces, we managed to grab thai massages, foot reflexology and did some (actually very little by my standards) shopping. All in all, it was a relaxing and fulfiling (for our tummies) 3 days for all of us. If only everyday was a holiday.....

Could your character be determined at birth?

Was really bored at work today. You know, its one of those days that you just don't feel like working, and just want to surf the internet all day long. Plus it definitely didn't help that its a Monday with both my bosses away for Board meeting in HKG!

Suan, a friend of mine sent me something interesting that entertained me for a while. Basically, its an excel file where you key in your date of birth and it generates a list of your characteristics. According to my date of birth, I :

- Love to chat (err...I suppose so)
- Love those who love me (maybe...)
- Love to take things at the centre (not quite sure what this means)
- Attractive and Suave (*giggle*giggle*)
- Inner and Physical Beauty (err....*guffaws*)
- Do not lie or pretend (I would like to think so)
- Sympathetic (true...)
- Treat friends importantly (most definitely..)
- Always making friends (i guess so..)
- Easily hurt but recovers easily (well, yeah...)
- Bad tempered (sometimes!)
- Selfish (sometimes as well..*blush*)
- Seldom help unless asked (i dun think this is true coz I tend to be quite helpful)
- Daydreamer (surely)
- Very opinionated (err....i suppose)
- Do not care what others think (not always true)
- Emotional (*nod*nod*)
- Decisive (i can be...)
- Strong Clairvoyance (not always true)
- Loves to travel, the arts and literature (YES!!)
- Soft spoken, loving and caring, romantic (only to my loved ones)
- Touchy and easily jealous (hehehe)
- Spendthrift and easily influenced (my hubby will surely agree to this one!)
- Easily lose confidence (maybe..)

On top of analysing your character, the excel sheet also calculates your age, not just in years, but in months, weeks, days, hours, and so on. If anyone's interested in trying it out, let me know and i can email the file to you! My age? Well, I'm 94030820689 milli seconds old! Go figure! :)

10 signs you're a true blue Singaporean

Female magazine came up with this list to commemorate National Day.

1. You order Chilli with everything [Check. I'm a true blue Chilli queen]
2. You'll find somewhere to shop, even if you're in the middle of the desert. [Check. I had a shopping spree when I went to the desert in Qatar some years ago]
3. You queue for hours (even days) for a big sale [Half check. I would queue, but never more than 10 minutes]
4. You'd rather enrol in a slimming centre than work out to lose weight. [Check! Except my hubby violently objects to me walking near any slimming centres and keeps advocating healthy lifestyle instead. Yawn.]
5. You say "lah" a lot.....and you're not even singing [Check. Aiyo..of coz lah!]
6. You have to be the first in line at a buffet [Nah. I love food. but I'm not that Kiasu!]
7. You know that "Want to buy a house together" is boyfriend-speak for "Will you marry me?" [Check. Though I'm glad Colin didn't use that on me]
8. You say something's "not bad" when its actually quite good. [Check. Do you think this stems from our asian culture of being humble?]
9. You let your man carry your handbag [NO WAY! I hate men who carry ladies' handbags. PLEASE!]
10. You "chope" a table at the hawker centre with a packet of tissue paper [err...embarrassed Check. Sometimes my colleagues and I sprinkle the tables with 5 packs of tissue paper at one go! :Þ]

7.5 out of 10 for me! I'm such a true-blue Singaporean! What's your score?

Simple pleasures

Colin had been travelling very extensively these past 2 months. Today, he's back and will not be travelling for a while. We decided to have a healthy "detox" day to nourish our tired bodies and souls. Kickstarted the day with a visit to the gym. Haha. Haven't done that for a while now. After the work out, we decided to take a trip to the Pasir Panjang wholesale market for some fruit shopping.

Now, this place sells the freshest fruits and vegetables, but in bulk as they are wholesalers. Our good friends Kevin & Sueann recommended the place to us some time back, but we have not taken the effort to drive all the way there. Not till today.
Some of the fruits that were on sale...there were nectarines, peaches, cherries, longan, berries, kiwi, melons, almost everything except my favourite durian! These giant jackfruits were twice the size of my head! The above 2 photos were taken using my camera phone so please pardon the quality.

Anyway, take a look at some of our loot today.The box of 18 persimmons (i love persimmons, like them a little firm, not too mushy, and definitely skinned!) cost us $25, the bananas and honey pineapple were $1.50 each, and the huge 5kg watermelon was $4!

Colin could not resist getting a carton of these Holland Potatoes at $5. Potatoes are his comfort food and are to him, what noodles are for me. Everything is such a steal there but its best if you have a big family or friends to share the loot with!

After shopping and lunch, we came home to "detox" our house. Cleaned, washed, and ironed. Plumbers came over to fix our toilet pipe, which has been leaking for a while. Our house is only 2 years old, and already, things are starting to age and some even falling apart! Gosh!

We're gonna cook dinner together later, gonna have some fresh vegetables that we bought this morning and potatoes with luncheon meat! After dinner, we'll probably just curl up on our couch and watch DVDs with some B&J ice-cream! Such a simple way to spend our Saturday, but totally enjoyable in every way.

Home is where the heart is

Its been a while since I last wrote. Its been a long while. So much has happened in the span of these 30 days. July 2007 indeed has been the longest month of my life, so far at least.

But its true what people say. What does not kill you makes you stronger. Through the pain, sorrow, worries, I would like to believe I have emerged a stronger person, more aware of myself, my loved ones, and much more thankful for everything and everyone around me. Its easy to take things for granted when your life is all hunky-dory, but it is only during times of tubulence that you make sense of who you really are.

But it was not all bad during the past month. Many wonderful things also did happen, as the following photos will show.

Lovely Andrea's wedding. Andrea's my NTU friend with whom I worked closely in an AIESEC project in 1998. Good pal and ex-colleague Junhui's wedding. Melvin (extreme left) and I were emcees. Junhui and his wife Junming in their cocktail outfits prior to the start of the dinner. During the dinner, Junhui did an impromptu rendition of "Liu San Jie", which made Junming gag and made Melvin and I laugh! (nah, just kidding, you did great Junhui!)

During the month, I was also sent to our KL office for a short recruitment visit. And it was during this visit that my "lovely" voice became an awful "croak". Nevertheless, the trip was fruitful as I managed to achieve my objectives and at the same time, meet up with an old friend who I have not met for 10 years! The view from my 30th storey room at the Westin. Despite all the eerie stories, I would not mind staying there again if I were to visit the KL office again coz the hotel is right next to my office building! You can't beat that for convenience!
Kok Keong and I met 10 years ago through the NUS Leonis chat! We haven't seen each other since, and today, we're both married, and he is the proud daddy of a little girl!

And just last Friday, my company had our annual summer party at Bora Bora beach bar. Everyone had tonnes of fun in our beach shirts, flip flops, and tequila shots!

Sharing some laughs before the guests arrive!

My toilet buddy Huizhi. Somehow we keep bumping into each other at the restroom so we decided we might as well go together - something that the boys in the office can't fathom...Some of the Catlin babes - can't help but feel old when standing amongst these 22 yr old fresh graduates!

Some of the boys from the office

We girls were tasked to welcome guests with colourful flower lays........
......while the boys mingled over beers at the bar....i guess some things just don't change ya?
For the rest of the day, we just lazed by the beach, played volleyball, played pool....
ate....
check out the yummy chicken on the grill...and of course, what's a beach party without alcohol! It was a lovely party, wonderful company, and I hope we do this more often!

Oh well, its August now and today is National Day! Incidentally, National Day is my favourite Public Holiday. :) You may laugh at me, since most people favour jolly Christmas or fatt choi CNY, and to many of you, National Day is just another day that you don't need to work. But to me, this is the day that unites us as Singaporeans, regardless of race and religion (oops, do I sound like i'm reciting our national pledge?) Every year when I see an entire stadium filled with people in Red & White, singing Majulah Singapura, my tear ducts just go into overdrive!

Call me patriotic, call me nationalistic, call me whatever you want. I love my country and I am proud to be Singaporean (despite all the little and not so little flaws that I can't stand about my many fellow countrymen e.g being kiasu, inconsiderate and generally just being plain selfish!)

anyways, happy birthday, Singapore! :)