Thursday 31st July 2008

Sakae Lunch

The last big meal of the month taken at the last big day. hehe. We all trooped down to the Sakae by the nearest mall because we have the prejudice that the one in school, albit new, would not be as fresh. This concern is valid as it is still vacation season and not many people are patronising the restaurants in the school.

Once again, I could not resist ordering, and we ended up with way too much food. Luckily for us, the guys are all big eaters and managed to gobble everything up. The 'we' this time round consisted of Ld and Li, Th & Jon and myself of course.

Friday 25th July 2007

Ritz Carlton

The ambience and food here were all great. We were rather annoyed with the fact dat we had to line up for the fresh sashimi tho. Wat a bubble buster. However, the delicious desserts in this buffet more than made up for it. I am still dreaming about the tiramisu they had. Smooth, bitter and pungent with alcohol. hehe. The sweet kind. I was so bz eating, I forego the chance to take more food pictures once again.

We (SF, EL, Ph. HL & me) had great fun posing and taking pictures of each other. I think it was a great idea just bringing the 1.8mm prime lens tho i regret not using the wide lenses attachment more.anyways, if you are interested to hv a look, please feel free to visit my flickr site for our portraits.

Sunday 20th July 2006

Asia Grand

Aunt S & Uncle A dropped by last Sunday on an impromptu visit. After abit of pooking, my mom agreed to take a ride to town, and we had a great dinner at a Cantonese restaurant called Asia Grand. Uncle A opted for the set menu (less thinking needed, hehe), and we both hogged the sashimi once again, since Aunt S and mom have no interest in raw fish.

I love these dinners with Aunt S since she is always full of great stories about everyone. Through her, I get to know her children a little better and we get all the funny tales of Uncle A's attempts in curbing her food intake. *lol*

My mom I think, secretly enjoys such outings too. Although I thought the food almost similar to the ones we had in a restaurant near our home, she felt that the food here out in town was way better. Hehe, Aunt S winked and said it's a definite sign dat my mom wants more 'far-reaching' food. Location and ambience does matter huh? Company too, definitely.

Saturday 19th July 2008

Lens Day

Thank you Ju. I loved the trip to the Arab St. with the great food and all those tiny lanes hiding so many nice boutiques and great shops.

Friday 18th July 2008

Vege BBQ

Check out the pic, cut and arranged using SnagIt9. I have liked the software since my undergraduate days, when most software is either free or free because it is pirated. Now, I am way more honest and pay for the joy of using these nice tools. The SnagIt works just like ur regular print screen + Paint, but it's resizing, cropping and capturing is way more user friendly. These days, microsoft office 2007 (complete set) have something similar, but I guess old dogs just refuse to acknowledge new tricks. *woff*

Friday 18th July 2008

ISA visit

My Re-entry permit is about to expire. Fascinating really. I have been in this country for 5 years, most of which is spent in the university. Waiting took ages. (ages here = 2 hours). I got hungry and decided to head for lunch. Luckily, they only called the number before mine as I walked back into the waiting area. Phew...

Not so 'Phew' is they were only willing to extend my permit for another year due to lack of proper employment and the almost due date of my PhD course. Sigh... well, I guess i should just be grateful for 1 more year. Oh plse let me complete it soon.

Wednesday 16th July 2008

Iljimae

Picture above is obtained from dramabeans.com

Oh, I loved this drama. Very very much so. If you hv yet to watch it, u can try mysoju.com. Was not very happy with the ending though. Why didn't they clearly state that Iljimae still lives? The feeling I got was that he had actually died from the stomach wound, and only the idea of Iljimae still remained. *sniff* Don't like.

Monday 7th July 2008

Finally... connected again

Since HL's broadband contract for our flat has ended, we hv been going through a rough transition time. ST has a rule that connections must be severed for about 2 weeks - 1 month before we are allowed to reapply a new line. 1st, to ensure that all payments for the previous line has been cleared, and 2ndly, because they just like delaying. hehe...

Anyways, after many false starts, the password was finally obtained (over the phone instead of through mail like they promised), and I wasted a few hours trying to figure out the wireless access stuff all over again.

EL, Ph & myself finally get to go online again after so much time loss. Dramas galore again folks.

Sunday 6th July 2008

Ramen

Before Epen's concert officially end, I sneaked off to meet C, CS & SC in time for a Japanese Ramen dinner. My first one ever. The conversation is enlightening as usual, with CS helming the topics. hehe...

Sunday 6th July 2008

Voce - Epen's concert

Epen invited us to a recital his teacher set up for the opera singing students to perform.

Having gone to a opera singers performance once before, I had a rough idea what to expect today. Lots of gliterry cocktail dresses and vibrating sopranos and tenors and no particular storyline; an environment which I can endure for a few hours, yup. I reached the recital hall late and had to wait for abit for the break between performance. Luckily, I didn't miss Epen's singing parts.

The singers were sitting in to semi circles on the stage, the pianists sitting among them as well; while the singer singing at any moment would be by the grand piano execising their lungs while the pianist of the song play. Pretty systematic i'd say. For the songs not in English, the translations were given over the projection screen at one end of the stage. Very orderly and neat.

The girls were more attractive, with their more melodious songs, whereas the songs the tenors sing all sound rather similar to me. hehe... I should really brush up on operatic music. One day.

The boss himself belting out a song or two

Thursday 3rd July 2008

Day off with mom

Had a most enjoyable day today. I love trips to the clinic with my mom. After a meeting with Doc G regarding her diabetic control (Good...Good, as always) and bagging 3 months worth of medicine, we head on to the shopping mall across fm the medical centre.

We then roamed level upon level of uncrowded floors thnx to the day and time. The shops have just opened and not many people shop on a thursday morning. Mom, in a sudden interest, bought about 4 blouses with cutesy flower prints on 'em. We then headed across to another mall to hunt down a popular 'teo chew' restaurant there. Seeing how it was still early, we then head down to the basement and found that they were having a food fair there.

We bought a box of lonquats, a bottle of apple juice black vinegar fm Sakamoto and a few other items rarely found in the supermarkets.

We then had a lunch which consisted of some rare delicacies like sea cucumber and goose feet (yikes!) and the more ordinary (and more delicious) food like bean curd + vege, marinated duck slices, soup and dessert. Ahh.... a happy end to a happy day.

Tuesday 1st July 2008

OSA VP visit

The future president of OSA dropped by for a visit at our school to have a look at our school chapter. Since I was the self-claimed secretary of our little band of optics enthusiast and I just got my new camera, I agreed to be the photographer.

Thnx to many other optics enthusiast, I learnt a few more handy info about dear canon. For instance,it is always safer to stick to AWB or automatic white balance control. Group pictures that uses the normal lenses, in my opinion, just ends up looking like the day to day digital cameras. So, nothing fancy there. I learnt that the 50mm F1.8 lens is known as a prime lens as opposed to the zoom lens that came with the basic kit.

Anyways, back to the VP's visit. He seems rather 'un-research' looking. I loved his hand-gestures and animated movements which are just slow enough to be captured nicely. From our chat before the conference we gathered that he had travelled to many places in Asia, most recent being India. He seems a big fan of all the latest fad, having a canon of his own, a webcam he kept on fm his office the whole time, connected to his website, depicting the garden outside his building, and an iPhone of course. He is the chief editor of OL, which I hv yet to imagine writing in.

So, all in all, an amiable enough fellow, but, seeing his current position, i doubt he is one to be taken lightly.

Currently reading: The Blade of Fortriu (Bk 2 of The Bridei Chronicles) by Juliet Marillier - Bridei is now king with Tuala his queen. The 2nd bk centers more on Ana, Faolan (the spy and assassin) and Drustan, the man who is also a bird. Pretty engaging read.

Just finished reading: White Night by Jim Butcher - I kept thinking I have read this book before initially, but I have come to the conclusion that I was remembering wrong. hehe. Anyways, a good book as always. Go Dresden! Abit sad the fallen angel no longer resides in his mind. She was so cool.
The Inside Ring by Michael Lawson - I was all fired with assassin stories after watching Wanted, but this book was quite different from the movie. An investigator is set to find out whether the assassination attempt on the president (which failed and got his best friend killed instead) was actually perpetrated by one of the officials in the gov. Pretty interesting in a mediocre way.
Betrayal by Paul Carson - About a prison doctor, Frank Ryan who got himself in some sort of conspiracy between government and prison inmates. The book was good in some parts, poor in details in others. Especially the parts regarding his love interest Lisa. So wat? They broke up in the end? Dat's it?