A Special Tribute

Early this morning, I received a shocking news from my secondary school classmate that my secondary 2 Form-cum-Maths teacher has passed away suddenly today. I was really shocked and for some time I did not have the mood nor concentration on my work. I had just started work in my office then and for almost the whole morning, my thoughts were about him and the times during my secondary school life.

He became my permanent Form teacher during secondary 2. The reason I used the word 'permanent' is that my class had several changes to Form teachers then. I cannot remember how many Form teachers we had during that one year. My class was the legendary Class 2E3 and was the most rowdy Express class you can ever find in this world. Before he came, all the teachers who attempted to control our class failed to do so. Only he could control our class and made us listen to him. Somehow he managed to touch the hearts of everyone in my class and finally we got him as our permanent Form Teacher.

The last time I saw him was at my wedding in May 2009. Here is a photo taken during my wedding:



Dear Mr Ng, thank you for making a difference in our lives. You will always be remembered in our hearts.

Tioman trip...

Over the Hari Raya Puasa long weekend, I went to Tioman with my hubby, parents-in-law, sister-in-law and her boyfriend. This was the first time I went to a resort for a short holiday trip. I was really looking forward to it. However, the trip turned out to be a rather bad, or should I use a stronger word, VERY bad... haiz.. But then it's not everything that was bad lah... there were good things also...

My parents-in-law had booked a driver for the journey from Singapore to Mersing jetty where we would go to Tioman by a small ship. At the resort (Berjaya Resort), we stayed in a suite comprises of 2 bedrooms, 1 living room, 1 balcony, 1 kitchen and 1 bathroom. I find it rather spacious, good for 4 people. Of course, for the 6 of us, it was not that spacious. However, I liked the room and the view of the balcony as I could view the sea from there. There is also a complete set of cutlery and crockery in the kitchen. Even those motels which I stayed before at other countries, such as USA, do not have such amenities. Thumbs up!

Beach
The beach was rather clean and the sea was calm. We spent some time at the beach picking up seashells after we reached our suite and did some unpacking. This was my first time picking up seashells in my life ever. My sister-in-law collects seashells so we helped to pick for her. I managed to found a very very big seashell for her as well as other unique ones like those black in colour. I was really amazed to find such unique seashells and was very happy to spend such great time at the beach.

Swimming at the pool

Another good thing was the swimming pool which was just outside the mini lobby. You will never miss it when you arrive at the lobby after alighting from the shuttle bus. On the 2nd day, we went for a swim in the morning at about 10am. It has been a very very long time since I stepped into the swimming pool due to certain personal reasons. For those who are close to me will know what I mean so I shan't elaborate here. Anyway, for the purpose of this trip, I went to buy a swimming suit [the one I had long long time ago sure cannot fit liow loh : )]. When we went to the pool, there wasn't any one there. It was like a private pool for us. Everyone was there except for my father-in-law as he had more important things to do (see below). When I entered the pool, I felt a bit afraid of the water. I think it's natural since I long time never swim already. I tried all the strokes I learnt before and I'm glad that I remembered each of them. We stayed in the pool for 2 hours before going back to our room for a shower.

Snorkeling
After the shower, we went to take a boat which my father-in-law specially chartered it to bring us for snorkeling. We were scammed by the person (called Rizal) who brought us to the jetty. You know what, the boat which was supposed to bring us to the snorkeling places were delayed and we were left stranded at the jetty for quite some time. That Rizal was uncontactable and my father-in-law had to talk to one of the locals there who happened to know Rizal and asked him to get a boat for us. Finally, we were able to get on to a speed boat which brought us to 3 places for snorkelling. Only my hubby, his sister and her boyfriend went for snorkeling. I did not go down as I was afraid that I would be sea-sick. The amazing thing was I did not get sea-sick at all! Anyway, I was given the task of being a photographer so I was snapping away photos of the sea, fishes and our snorkelers. The sea was calm and the fishes were beautiful.

After snorkeling, we returned to our suite and was shocked to find that the floor tiles in the living room had cracked. We thought that it was most likely the water that came from the air-con and seeped through the tiles. During that night, more tiles cracked and my hubby who was sleeping in the living room had no choice but to squeezed with me in the single bed in one of the bedrooms.

We were scammed again when we were coming back the next day. The ship which we were supposed to embark to go back to Mersing Jetty did not even come at all. We kept asking the locals at the jetty and they did not even know the time the ship would come. We even asked our driver (whom was supposed to drive us back to Singapore from Mersing Jetty) to ask the locals at Mersing Jetty. The office there was not even opened. Aiyoh... where's everybody? Must have gone for their Hari Raya celebrations and did not bother about us. In the end, we had no choice but to purchase another ticket to embark another ship that would take us back to another jetty at Malaysia mainland. We were so flustered and frustrated about what had happened.

After so much that had happened, I really have a bad impression of Tioman. I don't think I would want to go back there again.

Hey I'm Back!!

hey everyone... It's been long long time since I blogged. 3 months already... Had been very very busy with my wedding preparations and also with work... then after wedding I was busy preparing for my honeymoon trip to the USA. I came back only 2 weeks ago... hehe.. My heart is still much pretty in USA... haha. According to my USA tour guide, there is a song called "I left my heart in San Francisco". I think it should be "I left my heart in USA"... haha.

I will update more on my trip soon. :=)

Genting Trip

Just came back from the Genting trip with my hubby, his sister and boyfriend, my future in-laws and their workers. Altogether there were 13 people in our group. This was the 2nd time I went to Genting Highlands. The last time I went was in 2006. Actually, there isn't much to do at Genting if you don't go to the rides. I went to my hubby's place to stay over on Thursday night as the bus was very early next day. I did not have enough sleep that night so when we reached First World Hotel, I was already quite sleepy. That night, my hubby and the rest went to watch Shinjuku Incident at the cinema at Genting. I gave it a miss as I was really tired... sigh...

The next day, i felt better and we went to a few places such as the bowling alley (I'm very satisfied with my scores - got at least 140 for 2 games!) and the temple which was set up by Lim Goh Tong (there was shuttle bus service to the temple). Here are some photos to share... :)

Happening day...

Today i went for my japanese lesson as usual in the morning and my lesson ended slightly later than the pre-planned time of 1pm. Today's 聴解 was more difficult than the previous lessons and I was full of question marks in my head as I could not really catch the phrases. Guess I'm still not up to mark. Need more practice in this area. :=)

After my japanese lesson, I rushed to Yishun SAFRA for my bowling training session organised by my company's bowling team. Because of the rush, I had to have my lunch at SAFRA. I had a big 肉包 which one of my colleagues bought there. It's damn big loh... really filled my stomach fully. Dunno where he bought the bun.. haha... Anyway, today's number of participants were much more than previous sessions... really better... I felt that it really increased my morale as there were more people playing and able to communicate with each other. I felt that my scores were better... haha...But for my 2nd game, dunno what happened also... the frames were basically 9 pts, strike, 9 pts, strike again...all the way to the 8th frame then i finally broke the "curse" with a spare. And the funny thing was that my scores of 9 points were made up of all combinations of additions to 9 (i.e. 7+2, 6+3, 5+4 and 8+1). Cool... never had this kind of score in my life before.. Haha! Because of all the open frames in between, I did not get good points overall. Looking forward to the next session to improve my bowling... :=)

After bowling, I rushed down to Changi Airport with my hubby to welcome his dad who came back from China. hehe. Despite the big 肉包 I ate earlier, I was hungry suddenly when I was at the airport. So I went to MacDonalds to grab a sundae and eat. After that, we rushed down to Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel to meet my cousins for dinner at Cafe Brio. Today, basically I'm rushing everywhere... travelling half of Singapore already. haha... The buffet dinner at the hotel was quite unique with quite a number of Thai food on its menu. I think i'm getting closer with my cousins and that's a good sign. In the past, I seldom join their activities as I was quite an introvert. hehe. It's good that they organise such get-together and I will try to participate as much as I can in future so that I can interact more with them. :=) Here are some pictures which were taken at the hotel.


The "senior citizens" table. haha...


The "childrens" table. haha...


The whole family.. Yeah. We are one family!

FYI, these were only less than half of all my cousins from my father's side (excluding all the cousins-in-law). I have approximately 20 cousins in total (lost count le... too many.. haha).

Ok, that's all for now. :=)

Some thoughts...

This year's birthday celebration is unique, meaningful and enriching. Despite a little not-so-good event that happened this morning, I feel とても('to-te-mo' --> 'very') happy today. A lot of people around me, at different parts of this planet, send their birthday greetings to me, from my ex-primary schoolmate, my cousins to current colleagues. One of my friends is holidaying in Sydney now and even made the effort to send birthday greetings to me on facebook. I am really surprised and appreciate it very much. A little thought like this counts, you know!

You may be wondering what's the not-so-good event. Well, someone gave me a present this morning and unknown to her, it was broken (it's fragile). I let her know and she passed me the receipt and asked me to change it. Then she offered to give me vouchers if i cant get it changed. Dunno why deep down in my heart i was fuming.. I was thinking why she din offered to change for me instead. It's kind of insincere, in my opinion. I wasn't in my right mind, i guess. After sorting out my mind and getting some advices from some people, I finally cooled down. I realise I shouldn't be hot-headed and should look at her initial intention of why she gave me the present. It's nothing harmful actually. I should have applied what I read and learnt from this book, The Mastery of Love (by Miguel Ruiz). Happiness can only come from inside of you and you can't change how other people wish to react. They are who they are. In every relationship, there's always 2 halves, yours and the other party's. Each of us can only handle how we react towards each situation i.e. we can only take care of our part in the relationship and not try to control the other half. We have to love ourselves so that we can create the happiness from ourselves. In this case, my expectation is that she should change for me but since she chose not to, I cannot control her decision and therefore I should not get upset over it. This situation also let me understand her further. (The Mastery of Love is a very good book. You should try to read it and understand the principles of how to love yourself, others and reduce emotional poison.)

Ok, I shall write until here... will update again soon.

Long time no see...

Time passes very fast... it's been more than one month since i went 'missing in action' from my blog. No choice... had been very busy, especially with my wedding preparations. Never been so busy in my life before. Just for that BIG day... hehe.. let me briefly tell you what's been happening this month..

NATAS Fair
Since my last post, I talked about going to Chan Brothers' travel fair. My hubby and I also went to similar travel fairs of other travel agents. Finally, we went to the biggest travel fair, the NATAS fair and found a tour package which we were keen to take up - to the USA! Eventually, we signed up with ASA Tours - 13 days to the west coast of USA, including San Francisco, Los Angeles and Las Vegas! This will be our honeymoon trip in June 2009. I've been to USA 12 years ago... that's damn long ago loh. A lot of things sure have changed and I want to visit USA again. I've been to LA and LV and my hubby has been to SF. So this time, we will be going to at least one place where we've been before. For now, I need to take passport photo (which I just did today) so that I can apply for a new passport suitable for going to the USA. I've bought some sunblock lotion in advance as it'll be summer in June. Looking forward to this trip very much!! USA.... here we come!

Culinary Tasting at Meritus Mandarin
My family and my future in-laws together with Marcus's grandmother and aunt, went to the culinary tasting at Meritus Mandarin Singapore, where my wedding will be held in May. The food there was very delicious... おいしいね！(oishii ne!) My guests will get to eat the delicious food and of course the famous dessert there is a must!! If you've been there for a wedding dinner before, you will know what dessert I'm talking about. The only not-so-good thing is that there are too many 'meaty' dishes and you will sure get bloated if you finish every dish. Having this in mind, we've decided to reduce one dish so that our guests wont feel too full and of course to reduce food wastage. I'll have to discuss some trivia details with my wedding planner this week. So I'll update again.

IT Show
The next big fair I went was the IT Show 2009 at Suntec City Convention Centre. It was crazy man! There were so many many many people to the extent I felt that a quarter of the whole Singapore population were at Suntec City!! Anyway, my hubby and I squeeze with the crowd and went to recontract my hubby's Singnet plan and the more important thing is to buy my new MacBook. I've been longing for a MacBook for a few months already as I feel that there are lesser breakdown and problems as compared to the Windows platform. I can only collect my new MacBook in 2 weeks' time but it's ok. I still have a desktop to use... The MacBook will be my personal computer when I'm at my hubby's house and of course when I move in eventually. Will update again when I get it.

Wedding photos
I've also collected my wedding photos, photo album and portraits from my bridal studio. Previously, they've given us the softcopies of the photos which we have selected but the photos were unedited ones! I complained to the bridal studio and the lady boss apologised and said they will give us the edited photos. I returned the CD to them (after copying all the photos into my desktop!) and today I got another CD which supposedly to contain the selected and edited photos. To my surprise, they not only give the edited photos, the non-edited non-selected ones were also in this CD!! (I guess they've made a mistake.. haha!) I'm very happy and going to burn a copy of it in case they find out and want it back. haha... it'll be too late then. :)