Dedicate to Ting

Ting, this post is specially dedicated to you. My dear friend here is crazy over durains. So check this lovely dessert out:

This lovely dessert is named “Durain Pearl”. I am not exactly a fan of durains but I kind of like this dessert. Smooth on the outside and creamy on the inside. Yummy, eh?

Ting, are you seriously salivating at the picture now?  

Fret not, you can ask your Tavis to bring you to this restaurant shown below. It is located very near “Tea Chapter” actually, one of the shophouses near Tanjong Pagar.

This restaurant served 点心 as the name suggest. However, I find the 点心 to be a bit average for my liking. But definitely worth a try.

Ting, you can ask your Tavis to bring you there or we can all go together and visit Tea Chapter at the same time? How about it gals? Anyone??

My 爱心瓶子

Haha… My 爱心瓶子 from Dearie.  It is now sitting in one corner of my messy desk in school.

In it contains:

1) Sweets – to keep me awake during work so I can finish my marking (hopefully)  and enjoy my weekend.

2) Fruit Bars – to prevent me from going hungry in between lesson as I tend to have irregular lunch hours.

And Damn… I cannot keep my hands away from this bottle. At this rate, I am so going to finish everything in the bottle by this week. But Dearie mentioned that there is free refill service for me.  How sweet of you, Dearie!

Appreciate the care and concern you have shower on me thus far. Love you!

Batam Trip

Headed to Batam for a short trip over the weekend with the entire staff room’s population in tow. There wasn’t much anticpation for this trip because you glance down at your luggage and realise that you are carrying stacks of unmarked papers with you.   Staff retreat during our peak period of the school term is considered an extremely bad timing and is seriously causing anxiety amongst the teachers. Me included. But then again, when is ever a good time to have such a retreat? *Sigh* Life and its controversy. 

Honestly, Batam is a dead town to me. Nothing much to see except for alot of Ah peks around. And sleazy KTV rooms it has! It contain a toilet and a bedroom.  You can imagine what nocturnal activities goes on in there. Didn’t go around the town. Stay in my room the whole day…. to mark instead. 

Anyway, highlights from this Batam trip:

1) Overnight, I become a millionaire. Just by changing S$80, I ended up with a thick stack of notes (in Rupees) from the money changer. I just had to “hao lian” in front of my brother, only to had him laughing at me and telling me that these money is similar to ”Banana Notes”. He is so right – S$1 = 7000 Rupees. No wonder my brother could not stop laughing. 

2) My roomie! She is absolutely an excellent friend to room with! We gossip, talk, watch and laugh over silly dialogues from the movies together. We managed to catch ”Music and Lyrics” and “Bee Movie”. Definitely a plus point for my entire trip. 

3) For once, I managed not to 认床 and slept like a log. My roomie is no better. Both of us are equally heavy sleepers. My colleagues from next door, who got drunk the night before and slept later than us, exclaimed that she cannot understand why we two are still in bed. Well, I am honestly very tired, can? Waking up early the day before is a valid excuse to sleep late! Plus it is a SATURDAY!

4) Bought a shirt for Dearie. Are you touched? Even when abroad , I think of you as well.  Gals, I did try and get gifts for you all. But there is seriously ZERO stuff to buy in the hotel where I was staying. So I am very apologetic about it.

5) I was so delighted to see Dearie grinning at me from the arrival gate. He really took me by surprise because I told him to pick me up at the bus-stop outside Vivocity.  So glad that he is the first person I get to see upon my arrival.

After this weekend, I promise myself I will never step foot in Batam again. This is how I spend my weekend. How did you spend yours?

A Different Valentine

Admist all the economic gloom and because I feel Dearie had spent quite a bomb on surprising me on our First Anniversary, I told him we could live our life as that of a simple couple on Valentine’s Day. I suggested we save money and cook for ourselves.

There you have it: 2 chefs in the kitchen at 5 plus preparing a simple dinner for ourselves.

白木耳鸡汤，菜 and  炒蛋.  炒蛋 and 菜 cooked by Dearie. Taste is not bad at all – maybe just a tad too salty for the 菜. Not a bad cook I must say.  I did the soup. And Dearie lamented that it is the same taste as the one I cooked for him before. (Even though it is a different kind of soup) 

Our Simple Dinner

Chef Sim was sweet enough to do the dishes and tasked me to wipe them clean.  We ended our dinner with Hagen Daz ice-cream – Vanilla flavour. (My favourite!)

A very different kind of Valentine – spend at home with Dearie. But I love it!  The important thing is not the day itself, rather it is the time spent -planning and doing the activitiy together, that I find it so endearing. 

Anyway, Happy Valentine’s Day to us!

Happy First Anniversary To Us!

Yesterday was one of the happiest day of my life. Not that I have much gloomy days after knowing Dearie. 08/02/09 marks our first anniversary together as a couple.  

Dearie was sweet to the max! Giving me surprises after surprises. I am honestly very touched by Dearie’s efforts and his intention to make me an extremely happy girl yesterday.

Surprise No. 1 – 01/02/2009

After lunching with our parents and visiting Wenjing and her baby (its her baby’s first month!), Dearie suggested that we head down to Bras Brasah. Since I haven’t got a clue on where we should go, I agreed. But I couldn’t help myself and asked:

Me: Go there for what huh?

Dearie: Look at books.

Me: Oook.

Most shops are closed when we reached there at around 4.30pm.

Me: Think your book stalls are closed lei. See, most shops are closed.

Dearie never say much and continued walking, pulling me along until we stopped in front of a shop that sells watches. Before I can quizzed Dearie on why in the world we are outside the shop, Dearie spoke.

Dearie: Pick a watch you like. First Anniversary plus Valentines’ gift.

That liar! He wanted to buy me a gift but used “looking at books” as an excuse to get me here.

Initially, we wanted to buy a couple watch. However, we couldn’t find one to our liking. Either the design sucks big time and it look like shit on us or the price is too bloody expensive. Ok! I admit. Actually Dearie can carry off most of the watches. However, some of the watches look wierd on me because my wrist is too small. Damn.. So we have to discard alot of choices.

In the end, we have no choice but to discard the notion of buying a couple watch. And Dearie bought me a TISSOT watch. I wanted to buy Dearie a watch as well but he preferred branded pen. So I bought him a Parker pen instead.  

Surprise No. 2 – 08/02/2009

Stayed over at Dearie’s place on Saturday since he was playing mahjong with his JC friends till late. Woke up the next morning and started pestering him for my letter.

Me: Where’s my letter? I want my letter!

And that boy took out a notepad, wrote down “I Love You!”, sign off, enclosed in an envelop and handed it over to me.

Dearie: Your letter.

And he smiled at me. I was gaping at him with disappointment and immediately questioned him on why he has forgotten my letter and on such an important day somemore.

Little did I know, that schemer got a nice surprise waiting for me.

Since we wanted to go PS to watch “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”, I told him we could just skipped breakfast and have brunch.

On our way to PS, Dearie made a detour and we ended up outside a row of shophouses near his house.

Me: Why are we here?

Dearie: Got to go 7-11 and get some medication for my dad.

Me: PS got 7-11. No need to come here. Let’s go to the one in PS. Don’t need to waste time.

Dearie. Cannot. My father insisted must buy from here.

Me: Ok loh. Then I wait in the car, you go get.

Dearie: Cannot! You must come down. Don’t be lazy.

And he dragged me out of the car.

Instead of going to the 7-11 stall, he bought me to this flower shop next to it. Before I can questioned his motive, he presented the shop-keeper the receipt, bought the flower over, grinned at me and handed the flowers to me.

I was  speechless for words. And I couldn’t stop smiling. I hope I don’t look like a fool then. Though I told Dearie that I find flowers a waste of money, I thought it is very sweet of him to plan this lovely surprise for me. 

Dearie: You should have come down to breakfast with me when I asked. Spoil my plan.

Me: How am I to know? Sorry. So much for buying medication for your father hor?

Dearie grinned and said:

Dearie: How long do you think the flowers can last?

Honestly, not very long. Dearie, in fact, the petals of the rose is starting to turn black when I last looked at it before I sleep yesterday. But I will try my very best to keep the flowers alive for the next 4 days.  

Surprise No. 3 – 08/02/2009

After movie and dinner, Dearie sent me home yesterday. Initially, he wanted to send me right to my doorsteps but we saw the “summon aunties”. So, I told him to go home and I can get home on my own. He presented the last surprise for me. A letter plus a jigsaw puzzle of Mickey and Minnie Mouse holding hands, looking at the ferris wheel, that I can hang on my wall.

So very sweet and thoughtful of Dearie, can? I was nearly touched to tears.

Dearie, I cannot say how much I appreciate the thoughts behind the gifts. Indeed, you make me feel very special yesterday.   And I absolutely love you very much for that.   I really enjoyed myself tremendously yesterday. In fact, it is the same like any other day when we are together.

Hope we have many more anniversary to celebrate. HAPPY FIRST ANNIVERSARY TO US!

It’s really a very simple wish

With my family, we went lunching with Dearie’s family yesterday to celebrate 人日.  Thanks goodness there wasn’t really a moment of awkwardness between the parents.   

Since yesterday was 人日, 鱼生 became an auspicious food necessity which appears in all the tables in the restaurant. Ours included. I let out a string of wishes while doing the lo-hei yesterday.

大家身体健康，事业顺利，天天开心。

In addition to that, I continued with:

Eric  赚多多钱，so can 养我。Then I can drink tea, admire the clouds, count the number of  birds flying past plus count the number of lizard jay-working across the ceiling while lying on bed.

Had my Mummy laughing like hell when she heard what I said. Eric’s brother response to my wishes once we were seated was the following:

I think my brother 捞不下去了。

I honestly thought that this is a very simple wish for Dearie to fulfill. Really that difficult to grant me that wish meh? I am by nature a very simple person you know.