My Gorgeous 24th with DarLIN! - 2nd Mar

For starters, on the eve of my 24th Birthday, Alvin made me travel all the way from one island to another, Sentosa, to celebrate my coming of age.
(Coming of age? Yeah, cause this is the year that I would be progressing from being a paper-chasing student to a rat-racing working adult)

He managed to book a 'kampung hut' a few days earlier.
Chalet rooms had been block-booked by a corporate firm.

Before this stay, I had my reservations to bunk in a hut cause 'kampung' doesn't sound appealing to me at all. Even persuaded Alvin to drop the idea and go prawning with me instead. Haha.

On hindsight, I was extremely glad he had refused my birthday request. Heh
I must say I was quite impressed when I arrived at the venue - The fully air-conditioned timber hut, though a wee bit puny, exuded a warm cozy feel.


I was told to wait outside the hut for a few minutes before entering in.
Was picturing that Alvin was busy preparing confetti to throw all over me, hug me, and say "Hey Darling! Happy Birthday!" but nooo, he was in fact busy with lighting up of candles!




There! The moment I saw this, I thought it was the sweetest thing ever presented to me on my birthday besides the video clip C.A.R. made fer me on my 21st!
Kept snapping photos of the beautiful or shall I say romantic set-up till we're almost late for what was to be our MOST SUBLIME DINNER DATE yet.

He had checked in earlier in the evening to prepare all these.
Whatever remains in that box, shall be a secret! =*)




DarLIN took me to Barnacles Restaurant & Bar at Rasa Sentosa Resort!

I've always alwaysssss wanted to dine there ever since I chanced upon the place whilst searching for activities at Sentosa.

I didn't tell Alvin about it, but made it one of the options for him to choose when it was his birthday this year. Sadly, he didn't choose it.

A few reasons why I fell in love with this place were because of the enticing photos, and particularly its commentary:

Enjoy a memorable dinner by the seaside while you take in the romantic sea breeze and the breathtaking sunset on the South China Sea. Situated on Siloso beach by the waterfront, Barnacles offers both indoor and alfresco dining options.


We were led to the alfresco dining area which Alvin had booked way before to watch sunset. By the time we settled down, it was already 8 pm, way past sunset. (Grrr. I had design consultation which dragged till 6.30pm!)

That aside, for we had a wonderful dinner ahead of us.

We were served complimentary entrée, a wide variety of bread with 4 special dips.




For the main, Alvin splurged on a mad expensive $129 Seafood Platter for Two all because it had my favourite lobster in it!
I would have settled fine with lobster ravioli, but Alvin insisted with the seafood platter cause he knew I adore seafood.




Spoilt rotten by DarLIN and I'm simply loving every moment of it. Hahaha.
Happy Birthday to me me me. Thank you you you. I love you. (If only the iPhone emoticon is available here, the emoticon would be the smiley with heart shaped eyes)




Had the accompaniment of live music too!
The family of musicians went from one table to another playing songs upon diners' request.
Couldn't think of any particular song at that moment so they played a love song for us. Heh




An alternative place to wine and dine.
There's a garden party lunch buffet held every Sunday too.




Whilst fiddling with the DSLR, I heard a few people singing Happy Birthday from behind..
Turned out a trio of waiter and waitresses were holding onto a cake singing a song to me!

All this while, Alvin used the Lumix to film down the whole process which I wasn't aware of!
I thought he was trying to take photos of the surroundings. Teehahaha..
He had arranged for the birthday cake surprise after we had our fill.
Gee.. I couldn't shut my mouth, was smiling all the way for the camera.




The alfresco dining atmosphere was further enhanced by the cool refreshing sea breeze!




Emo, not.




The Kampung Huts. We stayed at Hut B.
Was supposed to visit the Resorts' World hotels after diiner but the thought of walking kilmometres back to the huts (the last bus would have been gone by then) deterred me.




After singing me a birthday song and blessing me with a special birthday prayer at midnight, he practised his speech for his FYP Poster presentation.

Really appreciate him sooo much for taking precious time off to celebrate my birthday whilst preparing for his FYP presentation the very next afternoon!




The next morning onboard Sentosa Express.

I'd really like to take a look at Hotel Michael which I helped out  (a part in the casino) whilst interning at DP!
Well, we shall have a date there with a bunch of friends soon!

Whilst preparing Salted Egg Butter Prawns dish..

Dear God,
I didn't know inhaling Chilli Padi is so potent.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock

(sa)Tinah said one chilli padi was enough to add into the Salted Egg Butter Prawns dish..
So I took one out and started to wash and squeeze out the seeds under running water.

Almost instantaneously, I entered into a coughing fit when I accidentally inhaled a waft of chilli padi's spice through my mouth.

Nearly died coughing and my chest was in pain.
>=(

Bless me

Valentine's Day '10

(The above photo was one of the first few photos taken by me using the DSLR. Though the particular sunset orange alstroemerias was not that focused, I lovvvvvvved the rich colour combi!)

Darling bought me the largest bouquet ever!

We celebrated Valentine's a day earlier cause of the actual day being on CNY Day 1 itself.




Lunched at a shophouse at Spitza, Club Street!

The soup and salad were reaaaaaaaaaaaaaally awesome, saved for the pizza.
Hahaha, I think I ordered seafood pizza that's why, it's a tad too wet for pizza.




Nevertheless, we had a great time there before heading to our respective homes for Tuan Yuan Fan - Reunion Dinner!




Close up of the bouquet.



These pictures were taken by my cousin, Ah Zhen.
(Yea, he had to put his 'logo' there)


Far East Flora still owes me Lambo, Porko, Beefo (Alvin named them) stuff toys till now! (-5th mar). It's supposed to arrive with the flowers, and they called him last minute saying it's out of stock and promised to deliver after CNY.
It is after CNY alreadyyyyyyyyyyy.




Finally, here's the rose that papa gave to each of his daughters!
He gave mommy a dozen in a beautifully wrapped bouquet!
It's a pity that I only remembered to take photo of it after it had withered. Heh heh heh.

The night I cheated for Eye Test

Location: Regina's House

Date/Day: 26th Feb/Friday

Photographer: Amanda

One of the first few photos officially taken by my new toy!

Maybe, just maybe, I'd start the quirkiest photo of the week/month.
What do you think?
Then I think I need to move on to wordpress or something..

Din's Facebook Status

My dad's damnnnnn funny and cute la..

He actually bothered to read all of Din's Facebook status thread, spotted a spelling error and replied with a smiley too.

C.A.R.E. CNY Gathering! - 21st Feb

[My first photo-taking session with the DSLR.. Glee!]



C.A.R.E.'s annual CNY house-hopping kick-started with steamboat at Regina's!




Us, using the prime lens fer the first time.
Other photo at Reg's house that night.




Moved on to Amanda's new house next!




Gawd, these 4 (last of the 10) photos were taken out of our sheer ignorance on how to work the self timer function.

We supposed by setting the self timer to '10' would mean 10secs, enough time for Amanda to rush over from the TV console to the sofa.
Never did we know it turned out to be 10 consecutive shots and the flashes were blinding!

Totally thrown off-guard la.




Amanda set it to 3 consecutive shots this time. Now we know.





Whilst Candice was taking an extremely long shower..
The 2nd row was taken with Amanda's night lamp ambience.




After we bathed, we donned our Christmas caps!




Mahjong fun!
I guess, my 'luck' with mahjong ain't that good this year!




A newfound way of dry swimming - mixing them all up in blanket! Mon, we felt like lifting weights.

Amanda's mum also made us horlicks and prepared some snacks for supper!




Morning! Guess whose watermelon pants is this?

We house-hopped to mine after getting breakfast from Macs, but sadly, we didn't take any photos.
It was just more mahjong anyways.

So there! Hoped everyone had a great CNY like we did!

03S08 CNY Steamboat at Emily's - 20th Feb

Opened my house for JC CNY Gathering this year.




The Steamboat Helpers Gang who helped to buy groceries and prepare the food for the feast that night.
The polaroid on the right was supposed to be a candid shot but I see none of the rest were gamed enough for it!! Hurr




The girls! 3 of them left early - Fraemone, Jiaqi and Serine.




The round table can't fit 17 of us. We'd to use 2 more side tables in the end!
And can you believe it, the most expensive dish on this table was Seaweed Chicken ($25+)




Group photo of the guys with Syahiid (a x5 man) stepping onto poor ol' Lewis' foot.




Group photo of the girls with Ms Lam at the foreground.




03S08 Group shot! This was like one of the largest turnout in years! (including Kang who left earlier and Tim who came later)




Proceeded to Black Jack after dinner.
Lewis siphoned our money that night. He deserved to be stepped on the foot after all.




Lo hei at 10pm!
The yusheng came in a box form so I had to dig out for the largest metal plate in my house, which I didn't know I have in the first place. Ok, (sa)Tinah dug it out fer me.
Had a video of the lohei process which I'd upload to youtube one day.




Back to Black Jack and apparently some of the guys started to pout their lips in front of the camera.
I wonder who the attractive guy was behind the camera!

4 of the girls bought 2 bottles of sweet wine over. I love the wine! - Moscato, Long Flat! =D

We played Taboo using the free iPhone app too.
Performance wise, Nat sucked BIGTIME and Sya was the winner!




Next up was Mahjong session after most of them had left. The guys went to The Cage for soccer.
Lewis was still the biggest winner, followed by Kok Chen, The Queen Bean and Teck Xian
O yes,  these 4 photos were taken by the DSLR my dad bought that very night! He came back at around 1+am and started snapping these shots with the latest tech babeh. Hahaha.. so consider these MJ photos the virgin shots. HUAT AR!





Yea, that's the end of the night with us forcing to keep our eyelids up at 3am! Shanru totally closed hers.




Ok, we should have a photo of her eyes wide open shouldn't we? Hahaha =p

P.S. Teck was posing with one of the rock cookies which Ah Yee and I baked!
He said they were delicious and proceeded to wipe out the container! Haha

And then Torris, alright, Torrence had to tell me about his sad botch cookie baking attempt with Nattie. Awww.. =( hahaha
(Anyway, I love guys who bake, so sweet of Torris and Nattie!) Maybe we should have a cookie baking get-together some day too! For Christmas?! Heh

Prawning - 14th & 20th Feb

CNY Day 1 early morning had never been so fun!

Went prawning at 12am on V-day/CNY Day 1!

Was supposed to go with the cousins too but their mum don’t allow them too.
My other uncle was saying it’s cruel, will have karma etc. ZOMG la.
Tell that to a fisherman.
To think he risks his life by venturing out to the deadly open seas daily so that you might have your prawn dish on your dinner table and you say “woah, you’d get karma leh..” He’d slap you upsidedown.
(What is o, that’s his livelihood, different? It boils down to the same subject - taking of animal/crustaceans’ life! Get a life.)

What’s so cruel about prawning?
Aren’t they themselves abettors for such cruel acts since they consume prawns?
Under law, abettors are equally guilty even though they didn’t personally act on it. TMD.

Sheesh. O, vegetarians (some, there are different categories) don’t get off the hook too. They consume food such as veggies which they deemed as ‘low life’. What exactly is the definition of ‘low life’? I see cockroaches/locusts as ‘low life’ too, why then why didn’t they eat them too?
Bleargh. That’s just my point of view.

Just said I don't believe in karma to my uncle and I don’t wish to argue and be late for prawning (by the way, we’re already late in meeting our 小姑, Esther, there).
So toodle doos to the 'high life' people and we’re off to Geylang Prawn Fishing at former Singapore Badminton Hall!

It’s my maiden visit there, but not for the rest!
(My family once queued here many years ago for National Day Parade tickets too!)




Got a rod for myself at $25 for 2 hours.
I have to add we had a good deal as we had another 2 hours thrown in free cause they didn’t bother to check our rods that night!




小姑仗(Stephen), the master prawner, who taught us the art of prawing.
Hurhurhur.




Our prawns! Caught 34 in total.
34/4 = 8.5 prawns per hour.
8.5/4 rods = 2 prawns per person per hour!
No laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.. BO KO LENG.

Huan Zhi and I caught more than that. It’s because 小姑 held on to a lousy rod for almost 3 hours and caught nothing before she decided ask for a change of rod. -.-
Rod no.36.
Don’t ever use it if you happen to go to Geylang Prawning! It's been condemned.




Pulling out the pincers of the Big-headed Prawn, 大头虾 and skewing them alive!





Went to bbq our prawns.

Mannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn… they were the most delicious and freshest BBQed prawns I’ve ever eaten thus far.
Lightly salted.. Ooooo.

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Went back on 20th Feb, CNY Day 6 again!

This time with Huan Zhi’s brother, Huan Yu and their mom.
But 9/10th of the time, their mom was sleeping.
The other 1/10th was to stop Huan Zhi from crushing the pincers of the prawns to induce pain detachment of pincers by itself. Each time she’d snatch the rod and try to free the prawn herself, “O-mi-ta-hoot! (a taoist chant in hokkien )Cannot do that!”.
LOL. The rest found it a comical sight.




Also caught a worker ‘scuba diving’ in the ponds to clear out the dead prawns.

O yes, there are 2 crab ponds too.
It was said that the same technique used for prawning can be applied to catch crabs too, but sadly we’d zilch.

I didn’t bother to try catching after spending half an hour on with not even a bite on the first visit.
At least, Huan Yu said he felt the crabs bit the bait TWICE. Woah, imagine the excitement.

These crabs were some other patrons'. Boo hoo.
Will try again next time!


FYI:
Geylang Prawn Fishing Restaurant at 100 Guillemard Road


Rates
$15 - 1 hr
$25 - 2 hrs
$30 - 3 hrs


VIP:
$130 - 15hrs
with max 2 rods used. (which was what 小姑 bought)

Temp Post from iPhone

All these years, I wondered where the marks on my bedside wall came from..


It's from my nail polish! I must have been kicking or scratching the wall a lot whilst asleep at night. Hurhur

- Posted from BlogPress, iPhone