A Mind of My Own

Sometimes, it’s a good thing to stay at home during weekends. After my visit at 1 Night Stand, I couldn’t fall asleep and decided to watch 洗冤录2 (Witness to a Prosecution 2) from 2am till 4am. My first time staying up so late at home.

Needless to say, I woke up at 11am. Decided to watch 2 more episodes after lunch before proceeding to my friend’s house. HF and I kept playing with the elevators because the flat was built in such a way that you don’t really get to the unit because we were at the correct floor but wrong lift.

Usually, once you see the lift, you would think, it’s the one. However, the lift wasn’t the one. We went down a floor, walked along the corridor, found another lift but still haven’t found the right unit and were starting to wonder if we were given the wrong address. When we reached the other lift, we decided to go up and finally found the unit. Hallelujah!

We were quite early, when JC arrived, she had also committed the same thing we did. Aye, our dear friend left out which lift to take. We played some poker (Ban Luck), I don’t know if I actually won or stayed the same amount. However, I did get 21 3 times with just 2 cards.

By 10.30pm, they started on mahjong. This set of mahjong was of less tiles, not that I am familiar with and they were playing big, since I was happy with my current amount, I didn’t join in.

When I reached home, I still couldn’t sleep, so back to watching the VCD till 3.15am. I was woken up at 9am because of the loud blasting from the television. There went my plans to laze in bed till 10. After lunch, I was sleepy and thus, went to have my nap from 2pm to 5pm. Good grief, I didn’t know that I needed sleep.

My sister said the flowers at Sentosa weren’t that pretty. Hmm, so I guess I didn’t waste my sleep then.

Ah, the big day is here. No, I’m not getting married. Yet. It’s Valentine’s Day and we see florists having a field day selling to couples with exorbitant prices. It seems that love is being shown only on this day. Sometimes, I love/hate this day.

[via 3D Screensavers]

So, does that mean that we don’t show our love on other days? Restaurants and hotels having a good day because couples have booked the slots way much earlier to ensure that they will have a romantic day complete with flowers, dinner and finally, bed. Definition of bed is up to your imagination.

The soft toys often used in this gift giving period are teddy bears and more teddy bears besides cute dogs. To think bears are ferocious animals when provoked. It would also seem that ladies find Valentine’s Day as important as the date they started dating, wedding, ROM and birthdays.

Men find it a chore to remember so many things and prefer to just gift the ladies something and that’s the end of story. No wonder women find such men unromantic and dull. However, there are other ways to make it special, without spending too much money.

In addition, love can mean love for your family and friends too. It doesn’t just mean boyfriend or girlfriend love. Likewise, no one wants to be left alone.

Do note that it’s also the best day to propose to her if you have been meaning to.

[via Flickr]

With Chinese New Year falling on Thursday this year, 5-work-day week workers are happy to have a long weekend. For those working on shifts and unable to take any time off without sacrificing your allowance, I do hope your bosses will give you more time off subsequently.

It’s also time for me to meet up with my aunt who had gone through the trouble of flying back for this holiday. I’ve always been doted by her. This weekend is also the best time to travel but it’s expensive if you haven’t booked your trips early.

Besides the time of meeting up with relatives who are very concerned about your marital status, the next best thing is to get the ang baos from them since you are not married, yet. Eat, drink and be merry.

This is also a time to get fatter and I am no longer fitting my tops and pants. So sad. However, I shall comfort myself with the many ang baos that I will shamelesly collect and eat, drink and be merry.
[via Flickr]

I need a holiday. Taiwan or somewhere. The plans are still fuzzy but I’ll get round to them. Meanwhile, enjoy the holiday and don’t eat too much ba kwa, pineapple tarts, love letters, and play too much mahjong. If you still get ang baos, don’t waste them on mahjong la. Not worth it.

My dear readers, may this year of the rat or mouse be filled with prosperity, good health and joy for you.

[via Flickr]

Chinese New Year is coming. So are the frequently asked questions by the relatives who are very concerned about my marital status. Since they don’t see me every time throughout the year (that is in case they get sick from looking at me and won’t give me the ang bao so generously), they will ask me “So, when are you getting married?”

A colleague of mine would answer this way, every year, “Yesterday.” That was that. Good, I should start using from now until I get married. The next question to field is “When are you going to have a baby?” Maybe I should use the same answer, no?

As mentioned before, it’s expensive to get married in Singapore especially when most of the elders want you to hold an 8-course dinner. I want to say “SILENCE! I KEEL YOU!” Achmed style. Cool, right? Of course I can’t just tell them that. They will kill me before I have even ended the sentence.

Sometimes I wonder if life is just all about marriage, kids and work. Have we made our lives so utterly routine that the questions are always about marriage, girlfriend, boyfriend, kids, flat, money and many more? I want many things but they aren’t achievable at this stage but I will get there.

Another question they will ask you after your first child, “Second one coming?” Besides money being the problem of feeding the first one plus all the money going to the flat, I seriously wonder where the heck do the parents cough out the money for all those stuff.

What I’m hoping for is that they won’t be asking me about my mundane life and just focus on my kids about their studies and height. Or I should just go adopt one and let them ask the kid.

My question is “How come must hold an 8-course wedding dinner one?“

Rant ahead.

NYDC is famous for not allowing anyone to make any bookings on Friday. Thanks. At least that was what I expected since my friend had informed me about it. I just wanted to test them. The next sentence sprouting out of the lady’s mouth was “It should not be too crowded on Friday at Citylink.” Say what? I got 10 people wanting to eat, what if you don’t have enough seats for 10? Surely you won’t be moving one of your dining couple to another table, would you?

Next, I tried New York, New York. The website is slow. I think it’s ridiculous to use Flash for a webpage and it so reminds me of the hideous look of 1996. Slows down my loading time! The lady said last slot is only 6.30pm. So I have to find people to arrive there to ensure the table is not un-reserved by 6.30pm. They sure take their own sweet time to pick up calls too. I am turned off by the offhanded way that she threatened to un-reserve our table.

Frustrated by now, I tried Swensens. The lady replied that they don’t take reservations for Friday, Saturday and Sunday rather happily. This was getting out of hand! How can a simple booking take so much complication?

Since I have run out of places, I decided to go ahead with the restrictive New York, New York. This time a heavily don’t-know-what-accent guy picked up the call. Taking his own sweet time too. I couldn’t understand half the time what he was talking about. I had to repeat my name, how to spell, my mobile number (twice), the total number of people, etc.

All done, now I had to ensure that my table doesn’t get un-reserved. Now, I realised that I forgot to ask them to reserve a corner table. I was too caught up with the frustration of trying to understand what the accented-voice guy was telling me.

Attended a wedding at Furama Riverfront Hotel last night. I late but in time for the 1st march in. My first impression of the ballroom, Venus at level 3 was, cramped. I think there were more than 40 tables being squeezed into the ballroom.

The tables were just enough for 10 average sized people. Seems pretty small to me. While the greeter at the lobby was polite, I wasn’t really impressed with the toilet either. The 1st level toilet had the flush button missing. It won’t flush at all. So, I left it like that. Not my fault, right?

Come to think of it, I didn’t manage to look at the wedding album in the end. The food arrived at odd paces. It didn’t feel timely. Each course was served but the plates were never replaced immediately. The drinks were not refilled fast enough either.

The servers weren’t that polite except for a few which is rare but I don’t have high expectations of servers except they should refill the glasses in a timely manner. The decoration of the ballroom was rather simple.

Overall, I wasn’t impressed with the place. Not that I had a terrible time but I felt that the service wasn’t up to par with a hotel whose name is supposed to be synonymous with quality service since it’s a 4-star hotel. Oh, it was formerly known as Novotel Apollo Singapore. Apparently, the name change did little difference.

Now, the slide show was done in animation format which is a difference from those photo montage I’ve seen. A nice change. I like the 3 projection screens though. The lighting wasn’t too dim. I guess the saving grace were the screens.

[via Flickr]

Flying kites in Singapore often means East Coast Park or Marina South. I was rather surprised that we would be at West Coast Park to fly kites. Someone was in charged of buying the kites and all we had to do was to turn up. Turn up we did.

I had the common sense to bring a bag with mats. It was a good thing too. Although my friends teased me for bringing such a huge bag, again. At this moment, it’s best to ignore when others laugh at you. However, we chose the wrong place. The sun was setting and the wind was blowing towards the sun, meaning we had to face the sun when our kites got flying.

I just let the kite go and it fly up high. Twice. Without any help. I’m a good kite flyer. Got these genes from my father, obviously. The second time, I got my string tangled with another kite and it got stuck high up in the tree. I had to break the string. So sad. Kite flying instructions here and here.

After dinner, we went to Settlers Cafe at Holland Village. It’s a fun place for small talk and board games. Officially tired from kite flying and playing exciting brain games at Settlers Cafe.

I didn’t have to spend too much today since there is someone who is very nice, drove us to and back.

Ventis and Wises 2000 study, “Choice, Chance and Wealth Dispersion at Retirement,” found that people in the lowest income groups were able to save more than some of their middle-income peers — by about $100,000. This is because they spend less than they are able to earn.

Professor Tahira Hira has 25 years of studying how and why people spend money, including why some end up in financial trouble such as credit card debts, loans and others. Thus, MSN Money Central has come up with the following 7 ways to help with saving money.

1. Hold a garage sale.

Anything that is in your storage for more than 6 months and not being used, sell. This is because if you are not using it for 6 months, you won’t be using it anything soon either.

2. Quit smoking.

With the expensive packs being sold, what do you think?

3. Drive less.

Rising petrol, global warming, maintenance, etc. Enough said. Except there’s no way you can control how much to spend on the public transport.

4. Buy used.

This means buying 2nd hand goods such as clothes. That’s for people who don’t mind, IMO. If you want a list of thrift shops in Singapore, I can think of YWCA and other thrift shops can be found in the NEA list here.

5. Cut housing expenses.

I don’t know if that’s true here as the rentals are more expensive than owning your own flat.

6. Don’t use credit cards.

True in a way since you look at the amount deduction immediately.

7. Become a homebody.

This means eat out less, make full use of the library for books, movies and music.

I hope this will help you save more money this way too.

This little girl is unable to eat food. She needs a special formula concocted by the doctors in order to survive. The bill is expensive too but the health insurance refused to let the family claim the amount. It’s a food supplement issue according to them.

This makes me wonder, if my insurance refused to cover such issues and I have to fork out so much money, why on earth am I buying from this insurance company for? Have we ever bought the “wrong” insurance before? What if one day, you thought that your insurance is enough to cover for almost everything since you have paid high premiums, but the company says, no, sorry. You can’t claim because it’s <insert some insurance or medical or whatever term> and you won’t get a cent from us.

What is the purpose of buying insurance if we can’t claim it? What are the things we should be looking out for? Can we ever be able to cover absolutely everything in life?

Went for a dinner treat by ES because the sisters have helped out at her wedding. It was great and I am now fatter than before. Great. I have resolved to do some workout but have done nothing until now. I think by getting wider in the girth, I get lazier. Darn.

We had the dinner at Just Greens in Chinatown. Ordered my favourite, fried golden mushrooms. Yummy and oily and sinfully great. I love the salad and oat meal prawns too. As for the mapo tofu, sorry, I’m not a fan of spicy food. However, everyone enjoyed the treat.

After the full dinner, we went for dessert. Oh no! The money for the drinks and fries! Erm, I think I got 2 free treats today. Thanks! Anyway, I’m growing old. I noticed that I have minute crow’s feet! NO!