Christmas with Matthew

This is my first Christmas I spent at home in 4 years. And my first with Matthew hehehe..

Look at him, looks all grown up now and handsome. And talkative. Only a 1.5 years old toddler though. And he wanna say Merry Christmas to all of you out there.

Have a blessed Christmas everyone!

Ying Ying Beef Noodle

I'm really thankful to God (and my sis) that I have additional tuition near Old Airport Road hawker centre. Hurrah to additional income! Hurrah to the prospect of tasting good food!

I usually go there to have dinner before giving tuition, if the time allows. At first, I was always in a rush, so I always bought something quickly prepared and can be eaten fast, like the Special Chicken Curry Rice from "Jack's Place" stall. It's quick, nice and within reasonable price ($3.5), but it's not that healthy. The combination of chicken cutlet and curry and eating it every Wednesday and Friday frightens me as time goes by, especially with my cholesterol level history. Yeah, can you believe it, the 48-kg me has a high cholesterol level. Actually, it's just slightly above the 200 limit, so it's not that high, right? Right??

I decided that I gotta survey around and find other stalls selling decent food at decent price. One evening, I didn't feel so well and actually felt like throwing up. At time like this, usually I can only eat porridge, but I couldn't find a stall that open and sell appetizing porridge.

I remembered there's a stall selling beef brisket noodle that looks very nice. Unfortunately it closed that day. I walked around some more and found this stall. It doesn't really look like it's going to be delicious because of the signage. Come on, take a look at it. It actually looks like it's selling fresh milk to me. But I thought, why not?

I ordered beef ball kwetiaw noodle soup. You can choose the types of noodle you want. They have yellow noodle, kwetiaw, mee kia and mee pok (I think) and rice vermicelli. They give quite generous numbers of beef balls. Usually, you either have numerous beef balls but small in size or a few but big. But I get the best of both worlds from this stall. And in a blink of an eye, it's ready.

It has a very reasonable price too ($4), like most stalls there except one or two. And mmmm... the warm soup and tasty beef balls calmed down my stomach. The broth is not that thick but it's nice and warm (nearly scalding hot, but who cares). The beef balls taste similar to those at NTU canteen 2. My taste bud is not like a gourmet (and I was pretty sick, mind you), so I might be wrong. Anyway, because I'm just like most other normal human beings, I can safely say that the food is absolutely edible and won't disappoint you with that price :)

So, next time you're at Old Airport hawker centre, be sure to pay a visit.

*Update on 13 Jan 2014
I visited the shop again to try their dry beef ball noodle. It's not as nice as their beef ball soup noodle though :(

Dry beef ball noodle

What would you do...

...if you have to make a phone call to a person with first name Tit and last name Phoo?

I decided not to give her a call, fearing I would burst into laughter. I'm so sorry...

Silly Things I've Done #3

1. Playing Candy Crush while walking down the stairs. Result: skipped a step, fell down fantastically, with all other commuters watching. I'm too embarrassed to lift my face to confirm it. I earned a swollen ankle, right before I went back to Indo for my cousin's wedding. Urgh.
2. Enjoying Candy Crush too much 'til I missed my bus stop.

Silly Things I've Done #2

1. Lost the movie tickets. I usually put them in my pocket and they were usually safe there. Unluckily, that day I put my phone on the same pocket and I often took it in and out. So perhaps I accidentally dropped them somewhere. I traced back the shops I went in, hoping it's still there on the floor untouched. But that hope remained only a hope. Luckily the ticket booth person (I don't know what's the proper name for this position) was nice and gave us a handwritten tickets for us to go in. And, luckily nobody took the tickets to go in and took our seats. From then on, I'm never the one to keep the tickets, haha.
2. Talked all too familiarly with my friend's father, mistaking him for my friend over the phone. Well, on my defence, I did feel that the voice on the phone was different from my friend's, so I was hesitating and asked to speak to my friend. But the voice told me, "What are you talking about? It's me! Don't you recognize my voice?". I only can say,"Oh, for real? Doesn't sound like you, at all man! Thought you were your dad or...". Then I got cut off mid-sentence to hear the voice laughed, told me to wait for awhile and called my friend to answer the phone. Da**. 

Smoulder

As a farewell token for my (ex-)colleagues, I bought chocolate lava cakes from Smoulder. At first, I just wanted to buy simple snacks from Old Chang Kee or the likes, but since there's no nearby OCK outlet near my office and my break time was limited, I decided to look for some dessert shops nearby office from hungrygowhere.com.

I stumbled upon Smoulder, which was placed 1^st in my search result. Lucky the place is very near office, within 15-minute walk to and fro office, plus buying time.

I like their website (http://www.smoulder.it), though it gets a little bit confusing when you scroll down. Almost all the flavour are listed there.

I went to their main outlet at China Square Food Centre and bought a combination of 9pc and 3 pc boxes. Yeah, they have an unusual package for ordering. I thought they would offer the normal half dozen / a dozen pricing.

The available flavours at the outlet vary a bit from what is listed in the website. There are additional oreo and milk chocolate; less mocha and raspberry flavours. The rest are the same as in the website. I bought all the available flavours there.

I named the signature chocolate and dark chocolate wrongly in the picture. They are supposed to be the opposite.

They are best eaten warm. They come in small sizes, so those with large mouth can eat one whole piece at one go. For me, I still need to bite twice. Actually I can eat it in one mouthful, but it will be very unsightly. And the melting filling is hot. I'm not that good with hot stuff.

I ate the rum raisin, and it's nice! It contains alcohol though. The rest of the office all exclaimed that the cakes were very nice. So, I didn't make a bad decision on buying from Smoulder. All are satisfied.

For those on diet, you can consider to buy this when you are very tempted to eat sweet stuff. At least they come in small sizes, so they won't add too much calories into your body :) You won't feel that guilty :) Just don't buy too many.

Main outlet:
China Square Food Centre
51 Telok Ayer Street #01-04
S048441, Singapore
Phone: +65 6225 6422
Opening hours: Mon-Fri, 8am to 8pm. Closed on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays.

Branch:
Raffles City Shopping Centre
252 North Bridge Road #B1-68
S179103, Singapore
Phone: +65 6338 0661
Opening hours: Dailiy, 11am to 10pm

Email: enquiries@smoulder.it
Jobs: careers@smoulder.it

A Tribute to You, My Beloved Companion...

Oh how we have been together for the past 7 years, shared our special moments together; the sweet, plain and bitter life throughout all these years.

Not even once you betrayed me. 

My faithful friend, I will never forget our memories together. I keep them close to my heart.

Thank you for always being there for me, every day, without failing, even during the darkest night and the earliest morning of my life.

You will forever be my most precious...

New obsession: PUZZLE!

Yeah, my sis and I now have found our newest passion: PUZZLES.

I thought that playing puzzle was tedious and boring. How that view changed after I helped my sunday school student complete some of her 1000 puzzle pieces we bought for her birthday present. I couldn't stop, neither could my sis. Unanimously, we decided to buy ourselves a 1000-piece puzzle.

We bought a panoramic Mickey and Minnie Mouse puzzle at Toys 'R Us for $28.90. Thank God it's not so expensive. There's a store in Plaza Singapura, exclusively selling puzzles, and they sell pretty expensive. Maybe because they sell high-quality puzzles and a lot of varieties.

We completed the puzzle in 4 days. I forgot to take picture on Day 1. Not much was done on the first day though.

We almost lost one puzzle piece. Thankfully it's just slipping underneath the almost-complete-set.

In the middle of working on the puzzle, a thought crossed my mind: how to carry the completed puzzle to a shop to frame it nicely? It shouldn't be a problem in Indo; we can use car. In Singapore? Taxi? Forget about how to deliver it to the shop. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO CARRY IT OUT OF MY ROOM, DOWNSTAIRS, THEN OUT OF THE HOUSE?!

Answer: I just divide it nicely to parts, put them on top of A4 papers and keep them inside the box. Then carry it wherever I want to. And assemble back in the frame shop if we ever want to frame it. Voila.

I promised myself, that if I can finish this 1000-piece puzzle, I will buy a more challenging puzzle, like this one. Or I will buy another 1000-piece puzzle and complete it myself.

Please sis, buy me one for my birthday :) or high heels. Thank you in advance!!!

The Gourmet Pie Company

I've passed by this shop numerous times when I went out for lunch in my previous work. The logo and the interior of the shop make me think that the pie will be delicious. But they also make me think that the pie is expensive. And yeah, it is...

Finally, after so many times cancelling to buy, I bought one Chicken Mushroom Pie from the shop. They engrave the initials of the flavor on top of the pie. For Chicken Mushroom flavor, they engrave "CM" on it. The rest of their menu can be seen here.

Inside the menu, they provide canape, snack and hearty pies. I intended to buy the snack size as a trial. When I was in the shop, I didn't know which one is snack or the hearty size; they don't put any sign other than the flavor signs. All pies inside the display look snack size to me, so I just pointed there. How surprised I was when I paid, because that's actually hearty pie! Wow... $8 just for that size.. I felt brokenhearted. My money...

Argh, the marking on top of the pie is barely seen, but it's there.

But it was delicious. The chicken breast chunk was big and I don't know how, but the pie still had some chicken broth inside. I like it. It's best to eat it warm.

They provide meals inside the shop, but I don't know the price. For meals, they serve pies with 2 side dishes (from what I spied on the plate of the only customer eating there at the shop).

Though it's delicious, I think $8 for a pie is still too much. Well, maybe the prime location contributes in the expensive price. Afterall, it's in Boat Quay/Clarke Quay area where a lot of customers swarm in at night for a drink at nearby pubs and restaurants.

They have three branches and the one I went to is the Boat Quay branch.

Boat Quay
72 Circular Road,  Singapore 049426
Telephone: +65 6557 2734 (or Head Office 6570 0094)
Fax: +65 6491 5968 

Opening Hours: 
Mon to Wed: 9.30am – 10.00pm 
Thur to Sat: 9.30am – 11.00pm 
Sun and PH: Close

Serangoon Gardens
myVILLAGE (SERANGOON GARDENS)
#B1-K2, myVillage, 1 Maju Ave
Serangoon Gardens 556679
Telephone: +65 6636 9045 (or Head Office 6570 0094)
Fax: +65 6491 5968

Opening Hours:
Mon to Sun & PH: 10.00am – 10.00pm

North Bridge Road
GREAT VALUE PROMOS ON WINE AND BEER AVAILABLE AT THE NORTH BRIDGE ROAD STORE…

776 North Bridge Road, Singapore 198744
Telephone: +65 6298 8896 (or Head Office 6570 0094)
Fax: +65 6491 5968

Opening Hours:
Mon to Wed: 9.00am – 6.30pm
Thur to Sat: 9.00am – 8.30pm 
Sun & PH: Close

Silly Things I've Done #1

I can't remember all the silly things I've done and there will be additional things to come in the future, so this list will be updated continuously as soon as I remember the event and experienced it. The list is not chronological.

1. Missed out my practical exam for Computer in my 2nd year of middle school days. I was happily having my lunch and relaxing at home when I realized I should've gone back to school for the exam. I hastily went back to school, and I think because of my very pitiful face that I unconsciously made since this was my first time ever failing to be present in an exam, the teacher was so kind as to let me join in the next class' exam schedule. I narrowly missed my first FAILED mark in my whole life.
2. Forgot to wait for my brother to go home together, and this happened after three days going back together with him ever since he entered middle school. My driver also forgot that we were supposed to go back home together. Hadn't my mother asked me "where's your brother?" when I reached home, I wouldn't have remembered right away. Lucky our house is not that far away from school, so he didn't wait for long. Sorry, bro!
3. Washed my hair with body wash. I think this happened to almost all of us. I did it around 3 times in my life.
4. Forgot to apply shampoo when washing my hair. Only when I realised that my hair was still oily after it dried that I remembered I didn't put any while "washing" my hair.
5. Woke up at 6 p.m. after a nap, thinking it's 6 a.m., went to take a bath, and put on my uniform to go to school.
6. Searched for my glasses while I was still wearing them.
7. Wore my glasses while I was still wearing my contacts.

...to be continued

10th donation!

Finally, I donated for the 10th time on 16 Sep! I was rejected two weeks before because of low haemoglobin level of 12.4 g/dl (should be at least 12.5 g/dl). I had to take iron supplement for two weeks before I could try again.

Many ask, is the process scary?

Have you loved your neighbour as yourself?

One day during lunch time, my soon-to-be-ex-colleague told me his story when he's travelling in Bangkok. He went to a famous street market in Bangkok, unfortunately I forgot the name, with his mom. Of course, you have to bargain if you are at a market in South East Asia (except Singapore I guess), he is no exception. He went around shops, asking for the price of things he didn't even need, but just for the sake of buying cheap stuff.

He stopped at one shop to ask the price of a merchandise. From where he stood, he could only look the back of the long-haired shopkeeper. He was so surprised when the shopkeeper with a female feature answered him with a bass voice. He immediately left the shop with his mom and giggled after they were out of the shopkeeper's earshot.

His comment after telling his story was what appalled me the most. "If I had known that the shopkeeper is a transvestite, I would've avoided his shop!", he said with a disgusted tone.

Everybody knows Thailand is famous for not only for their food, but also for their.. ehm.. extraordinary people (read: transvestites, transgenders, transexuals, whatever you name them). They are everywhere. Thailand has also become the go-to-country if you want to undergo gender reassignment surgery. Some transgenders are very pretty you can't even differ them from the real females, but some not so. Tourists often get deceived by their appearance.

But are they SO different from other human beings, that you need to treat them like they are less than a human being?

Thanks so much!

This month has just started for two weeks, but a lot of good things have come to me one after another. I just can't say enough thank you's to You who makes this possible.

Look closely

I thought the camera was just panning to get the effect of the tree moving. Turns out they were swallowed by the sinkhole. Ha. Talk about peculiar things happening around the world.

How long do you need to work to buy one Big Mac?

Unfortunately, it's not applicable to Singapore since there is no minimum wage per hour set by Singapore Government. In Indonesia, people need to work 5.9 hours to be able to buy one Big Mac.

Nexcare Acne Patch

Time for another beauty product review.

Last week, I had this extra large pimple on my forehead. Just after I thought to myself, "Good, now I have less pimples on my forehead". Then I got one. Big time. Literally.

It was so red and huge that my sis told me to just cover it up with acne patch. But I didn't have one. So I temporarily covered it with band-aid, cut into small piece, until I bought a proper acne patch.

Teachers' Day

I didn't know the existence of this day until I become a tutor. Hadn't my student congratulated me, I would've never known about Teachers' Day.

Last year, I received one congratulatory note from my beloved tutee.

This year, she gave me a box of chocolate. And two others gave me a cute bell and a flower. I'm touched :') Thank you!!!!

I promise I will become a better tutor for you all!!

Smoky day, here I come!

News said that haze from Indonesia is back for the next few days, with PSI ranging between 50-100. This is still fine compares to the haze in June which peaked at 401, a new record high for the PSI level in Singapore.

It is still better days than in June. Sky is still clear and the smell doesn't stick to my body. But haze or no haze from Indonesia, I will still smell smoke these days. Sigh...

Happy belated birthday Indonesia!

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY!!

It's supposed to be on 17th August haha.
better late than never :)

Anyway, this year Indonesia received a sweet birthday presents from our badminton athletes.

Year 3000

"I've been to the year three thousand

Not much has changed but they lived underwater..."

Remember that song? It's Year 3000 by Busted, now a disbanded pop rock band from England. It was a catchy song, with a funny imagination about the future world where everybody lives underwater.

Then I thought, their imagination is not impossible to happen in the future. Well, I don't know about our ability to live underwater, I'm talking about the world being submerged underwater.

Jinxed July 2013

The first month of the 2^nd half of the year has been a very eventful month. Most of it is coloured by grim news all over the world. Here is what has happened in month of July:

2nd July 2013	News from home: 6.1-magnitude earthquake shook Aceh. What a way to start the month, especially when the Muslim-majority province was going to observe fasting during the month of Ramadan, starting on 9th July. The death toll is 35, with 275 injured.
3rd July 2013	Morsi, the then President of Egypt, denounced and thrown out of office.
6th July 2013	Lac-Megantic train derailment. An unattended runaway freight train carrying crude oil derailed in the town of Lac-Megantic, Canada, causing massive fire and explosion right at the centre of town’s centre. (Final Destination? Could be a potential storyline for the next horror/thriller summer movie)
6th July 2013	Another earthquake in North Sumatra; this time with magnitude of 6.0. No tsunami occurred.

For Running Man Lovers

 지석진 아저씨 대박!
ㅎㅎㅎ.. 차 차차 차차 살아있네 임팔라!

(Translation:
Uncle Ji Seok-jin awesome! Hahaha.. Cha cha cha cha cha Impala is alive!)

Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/07/11/travel/impala-escapes-cheetahs

Some background story:

noiseless mouse by Tuscani

When I moved to my current company and started my first day at work, the first thing I noticed was how uncomfortable my mouse was. I couldn't scroll smoothly and the click sensor was not sensitive enough. I tried to put up with it for a few weeks, but in the end I gave up..

So.. I needed a new mouse. ASAP. And because I'm soooo addicted to Qoo10, I decided to look for a mouse there. Usually they sell a good yet cheap stuff. And I found this 'noiseless mouse by Tuscani' at Qoo10. Reviews mentioned that it was great for stuff as cheap as this one. So I decided to buy it.

World War Z

I’d never have thought I’d watch a zombie movie, ever. The last close-to-zombie movie I watched was Will Smith’s “I am Legend”. Even that is not zombie; it’s rabies/vampire-like virus. I couldn't think of other zombie movies/books I read either. The only zombie thing I enjoyed was the game “Zombie vs plants”.

The idea of watching zombie movie to me was, uh, uncompelling. If it is an apocalypse movie about a deadly virus, not zombie, which humans have never encountered before, maybe I’d still watch it even though it’ll gross me out. But, the undead? Hmm…

But here I am, a person who has watched a zombie movie, starring Brad Pitt. So, why the change?

My Very Own Drama

Oh my goodness!

I really can't believe this!

They are engaged, and she still worries I have 'something' towards her fiancée!

I think I can make my own Korean drama out of my life story hahahaha.

DISCLAIMER: I didn't, and I don't, and I won't ever have any feelings towards the guy whatsoever. He's just totally not my type. AT ALL. In the past, now, or forever. And to me, the idea was, is and will be just too ridiculous to be true.

OK, here is the story:

Thank You!

thank you for the sky so clean,
thank you for the air we breathe,
thank you for the wind that clears away the air,
thank you God for everything, Amen!
(sing to the tune of "Thank you for the World so Sweet" Sunday school song)

* I know it might be temporary, but I'm still thankful I can breathe a little more freely during the weekend; it allowed us to have our Sunday service normally :)

The Return of the Haze - "I'll be back..."

I blinked my eyes once, twice, thrice… It’s still blurry. Then I smelled the smoke. Oh, I thought, the haze has finally made its way back to Singapore. It slowly approached the island and surprised me with its presence on Tuesday morning. My morning looked like lala land with using smog as visual effect.

What has Indonesia done now, another forest fire? It seemed pretty bad… And as if the smell of the smoke was not enough, strangely the number of people smoking along my walk to the MRT increased by 4 fold. My lungs immediately screamed for fresh air. Well, I wouldn't get any until I reached MRT premises.

once upon a sunny day...

... I accidentally saw the beautiful clear blue sky from my balcony...

(but it was a very hot, hot day...)

The Regimen by acne.org

Before I have acne problems, I usually didn't pay too much attention to my skin except when I was having pimples. I didn't follow a specific regimen tightly. I just washed my face with whatever cleansing foam within my budget which didn't make my skin oily. I didn't even apply moisturizer nor sun screen daily. I was blessed with clear skin with periodic acne which cleared out quickly. I applied acne cream from dermatologist only when I had pimples.

Then I moved to Singapore, and acne problem came. It was getting serious when I started working. My clear cheeks suddenly full of annoying acne. And they didn't clear out so quickly anymore :( I was desperate and I visited my sis' dermatologist for help. She gave me facial foam, acne creams and powder which I have to apply regularly until my skin clears up. And, they were quite expensive.. They did help clear out my acne slowly. So I thought, what if my acne comes back again after I finished all of the creams from my doctor? The recipe was only purchasable 3 times max.

So I began my research on how to get clear skin using over-the-counter beauty products. And I came across...

Weekend getaway in April

On 20th-22nd of April, my sis and I had a short trip back to Surabaya to attend my cousin's wedding reception. We were asked to be the receptionist.  We agreed to help to show our gratitude, because her family helped us when my eldest sis got married. Family have to help each other, indeed.

We arrived in Surabaya around an hour past noon time. We were almost stranded at the airport! My bro almost didn't pick us up at the airport because everyone thought our arrival was at 330pm, the airline's usual arrival schedule a few years back. Luckily, my uncle, the bride's father, informed my mom and bro that the airline schedule was different from the previous, haha.

We had a scrumptious lunch at Ikan Bakar Cianjur;  we ordered 2 gurame fish (!), tahu goreng and mixed veggie sour soup (sayur asem). And my drink was coconut with orange juice. It was like heaven..eating good food everyday..

joke of the day

well, it's not exactly today.. but, anyway.. (dlm bahasa indo, krn bakal lbh make sense haha)

Friend: "Itu kunci yang kamu kasih ke aku, itu kunci duplikat kantor gereja dari orang?"
Me: (utterly confused) "Hah? iya, dari orang lah.. emang dari sapa lagi? Hantu?"
Friend: "..."

2013 CNY trip to home! - part 2

So, after our short trip from Sarangan, mainly my sister and I were just relaxing at home, playing with my beloved nephew, Matthew...

For the remaining five days, we had a routine with Matthew. Her mom (my eldest sis) is taking Master Degree currently, so she has to ask for help to take care of Matthew. Some days, Matthew will be at our house, other days, he will be at her in-law's. Lucky us, Matthew was at our house during our stay, hehehe...

he looks just like me, doesn't he? hehe..

Everyday, he came around 6.00-7.00 a.m. to our house. Then, we would play with him for awhile before his milk time. He only drinks milk when he's dozing off to sleep. It's quite difficult job to make him goes to sleep. He loves playing, but he's sleepy, but he doesn't want to sleep, so he's cranky, hahaha.. Every morning my mom had to soothe him to sleep, usually with the help of "Twinkle twinkle little star" lullaby in the background.

sleeping peacefully in the morning..

Then, he slept for 1.5 hours before waking up, had his fruit time and play time with his aunties! hehehehe.. Usually, around 10.30 a.m. we went shopping (without buying anything) and sometimes we would bring him along, especially to malls with good air-con. He sweats easily. For such a small body, I was surprised to see him sweating so profusely. Even with the air-con on sometimes.

happily eating

He's quite an impatient baby. If he knows he's going out soon, he will be very excited and shout at us, like telling us, "Quick, I want to go already!". Hahahah.. Love him soooo muchhh!!

ready to go to the mall

After his lunch (various mixtures of veggie and meat and some carbs blended into soft (yucky) porridge), usually he would nap again and wake up to have his fruits and to take a bath. He's fond of water, so during bath time, he would splash around the water, hahaha.. Because he's very excited, he often accidentally kicked his nanny during the process. He surely has a strong kick. ouch. And, usually around this time his mom came to pick him up. And time for us to say bye-bye. boohoo ㅠ.ㅠ

He's a smart baby. He can recognize his mom, dad and himself in a picture at only 8 months old. He can wave bye-bye and shake his head when I sang "nang ning, ning nang ning nung", until his mom scolded me because he shook his head too excitedly hahaha..

Hiks.. 5 days with him was not enough.. The last time I saw him was when he's a newborn baby, only a few days old. I missed a lot of moments of him growing up ㅠ.ㅠ

...coming up next, my short week-end trip to Surabaya for my cousin's wedding. another meet up with Matthew, hehehe

2013 CNY trip to home! - part 1

Haha, I should have posted this months ago but was too tired (read: lazy) to write and update my blog.

Ever since I entered workforce, it's been a custom for me to go back to my hometown to celebrate CNY (Chinese New Year) with my family. We don't really celebrate it like Chinese in China do, but we still have mini-reunion now and then with our extended family, usually with my extended family from my mother's side. Usually, I just visit our great grandmother (yeah, my great grandmother still lives! and she is 97 years old! long live great grandma!) in Madiun and pay respect to her, to my uncles and aunties from my mother's side; catch up with my cousins, nieces and nephews; and eat! Of course, I also pay respect to my uncles and aunties from my father's side too; but ever since my grandpa and grandma from my father's side passed away, we hardly ever have any reunion. My father's side's extended family is really huge anyway; it's very difficult to arrange reunion with all of them hahahaha..

and here is when I suddenly thought about how taxing it is for Chinese to explain their extended family (;ㅡ.ㅡ) see this funny video showing how Chinese are supposed to call their extended family members! I think I can never do that without a really, really, really great effort and love to Chinese tradition :)

Anyway, this year my family didn't just visit our great grandma, but also visited Sarangan, our beloved holiday spot ever since I was a kid until just before I moved to Singapore to study. It was located at the foot of Mount Lawu. We visited her almost every school holiday that time for one, okay, two particular reasons: it is so near to Madiun and it has a great, clean air to refresh our body and mind (muahhaha.. okay, a bit of exaggeration here, but the air is really clean and refreshing!). The decision came partly because of me :p My mom asked me and my sister where we wanted to go. She's afraid that we'd get bored only staying in Surabaya during our one-week break, so I just anyhow said, "I miss Sarangan, let's go there! I wanna ride a horse again!". Yeah, we rode horses too in Sarangan; it's one of the only 3 activities you can do there: riding a boat circling the small lake Sarangan, riding a horse circling the path around the lake Sarangan, or just relaxing in hotel room and eating satay.

Lake Sarangan at daylight. taken from: kerasatamagetan.blogspot.com

This year CNY was pretty interesting, because it's my first time flew and arrived in Surabaya in the middle of the night, and directly travel to Madiun the next morning to visit my great grandma. Felt a little bit like living "Running Man" with their crazy travelling schedule :P which now I know is not good for me because I turned cranky the next day, not enough sleep :( We flew to Surabaya on Friday night, arrived in Surabaya at 12++ a.m. local time and traveled to Madiun the following morning at 9 a.m. Along the road trip, we made some stops to pay respect to my father's side relatives. I was very tired, so I slept for the most of the road trip.

And...when we reached Madiun around 2 p.m., things started to get..frightful. Well, the weather was. I became very alert because the sky was very dark all of a sudden when we stopped there for awhile to change driver. My brother took the wheel and drove us up to Sarangan; it was his first time driving up to Sarangan. And then... it started raining. And it became heavier as we approached the dangerous, sloping, winding road going up to Sarangan. Scenes from "Final Destination" started popping out in my head; mind you, it was my bro's first time driving up to Sarangan. The rain was very heavy to the point that you couldn't see past 2 m from the windshield. With my mom whispered prayers continuously beside me and my sis became very quiet all of a sudden, I could only think of the worst in that moment. Carry Underwood's "Jesus take the wheel" started playing in my ear. Then, suddenly my mom teased me, "Now you woke up, worried your bro will crash the car, huh?". Err... *knockwood three times after hearing that*

As swiftly as the flash, the weather turned beautiful. The air became clear and fresh as we went up the mountain. We arrived safely in Sarangan, checked-in to the hotel, rested for awhile, ate satay and then around 6 p.m. we went down to Madiun to have a feast (and collect hong bao haha. i think i'm getting too old for that..)! Yeahhhh!!! Slurp! Too bad I forgot to take pictures of the food because I was busy eating hahaha. I love Indo. I love the food. haha.. We also celebrated my niece's birthday there. Took some pictures with my long-never-see nieces and nephew.

my pretty nieces.. on the right is the b'day gal

On the following Sunday, my dad was scheduled to preach at the local church in Plaosan. It's a 20-minutes drive down from Sarangan. The praise and worship session was in Javanese. I was dumbfounded for awhile, then took that chance to challenge my Javanese, which vocabulary already lost here and there from my brain. We were then served lunch by the home Pastor family. As always, Indonesian food is yummyyy!! hehehehe..

Lake Sarangan at night. Took it from hotel when there was a local rain, only on the lake, but can't see clearly at night with my phone cam :(

After the Sunday service, we went back up to Sarangan, lazying in the hotel room and taking a walk around the lake.We ate at our beloved Miroso diner for dinner. Almost everytime we go to Sarangan, we go to Miroso to eat. I'm not a gourmet, so I don't really know what the actual standard of deliciousness Miroso has. But to me, it serves the most delicious food in Sarangan hahaha..

We didn't do much after that, just eating and relaxing more before our trip back to Surabaya the next day, Monday. And up until that moment, I hadn't met my nephew, Matthew. I missed him so much that I actually wanted to see him right after we arrived in Surabaya, but everybody was so tired from the road trip that we decided to just wait and see him on Tuesday.

And story with Matthew will be continued on PART 2 :P

joke of the day

me: "Do you still remember that song, 'I Was Born to Love You'?"

friend: (confidently) "Oh yeah, of course! That's Britney's song!"

me: "..... (wondering when did Freddie Mercury wear a long blonde hair)"

Work

What an inconsistent manager can do to you:
1. Unclear direction.
2. Low self esteem because you keep thinking what you do is never correct.
3. Wasting time.

And can you stop blaming me with that look on your eyes and your tone and your emails? Why the heck everything seems to be my mistake after taking over your category when you do not clearly give me all information and guidance on how to do things here? How am I supposed to know that it's a mistake and not an intended 'chim' term you inserted in the file you are supposed to assess previously? Do you even check attachment files?

Roar

randomness of the day

today, my sis somehow was opening the scanned old photos of our family and among them there was an old photo of my dad and mom, dating in a park. she clicked a few photo and... one photo made us laughed in sync. and we had the same thought, that in that photo my dad looked like a korean actor. but, we had different actors in our mind.

to me, my dad looked like Sung Dong Il (My Girlfriend is a Nine-Tailed Fox)

(taken from http://wiki.d-addicts.com/File:SungDongIl.jpg)

to my sis, my dad looked like Kwon Sang Woo (Stairway to Heaven)

(taken from: http://wiki.d-addicts.com/File:KwonSangWoo.jpg)

It's just nice that Kwon Sang Woo's photo was taken at an almost same angle as my dad's, thus adding to the similarity hahah.. it looked like a before-after cosmetic surgery photo hahahaha

if my dad's face were longer and his nose were straighter, no doubt he would be an actor instead of a pastor :p