'tis the season of shedding leaves

I only just saw I had this iPhone case and changed all the phone accessories to reflect the changing season as we said goodbye to summer.



In contrast with the brilliant autumn sun we had most of the season last year, we've just had rain and more rain this fall.

mega amp

I offered to help a friend move house and spent an entire Saturday cleaning up and restoring her old place to its original condition when she first moved in and transporting countless boxes of stuff to her new place.

Just when we were about to wrap up the day's work, I discovered her flat mate was relocating overseas and thought to ask if he was selling all his music instruments and accessories - a keyboard, a drum kit, an electric guitar and an amplifier.

Sadly the one item I wanted the most - the keyboard - had been reserved for his brother. Second on my list - the electric guitar - wasn't for sale and I couldn't afford the drum kit. But he offered to give me the amp for free! Extremely generous of him. All the aching limbs resulting from the day's cleaning was worth it. :D

4 days in hong kong

I went on a four day work trip to Hong Kong in mid March where my Academy was a participating exhibitor and conference speaker at the Asia Pacific Airline Training Symposium that was part of the bigger Asian Aerospace event. Being my first visit there, I had grand plans to stuff myself to death with yummy food but that wasn't to be. Because of the last minute crop-up of a Request for Proposal with a rather tight deadline, most of the free time had to be spent on the preparation of the business proposal. Here are two very rare photos showing me in proper boring business attire. We hates it. >.<



The highlight of the entire trip was I got to meet up with Madam J for dinner one night! I took the MTR Airport Express line from Asia World Expo to town on the second night where I got to wander around from Kowloon station to Hong Kong station to Central station on foot while waiting for Madam to get off work. I was pleasantly surprised to see that there are designated 'Quiet Sections' in the train. Singapore should implement something like this on its MRT trains too.



After spending a few hours zipping in and out of shops in the heavily neon-lit shopping districts, I couldn't bear the hunger anymore and decided to grab a snack which turned out to be a full meal of prawn dumpling noodle soup in a hole-in-the-wall eatery. It was awesome! The noodles were extremely 'Q' (pardon me, my semi dead brain can't think of the appropriate English word to describe the noodle texture but my Tudi offered 'springy' and 'bouncy'), the soup very tasty, the prawns in the dumplings very fresh, and the chilli sauce perfectly mixed to balance the taste.



Check out the prices of the dishes in the noodle place - everything is so cheap!!! I had to take a long walk around town to try and get the food digested before having dinner proper with Madam.



Madam took me to Yung Kee Restaurant in Central because she's heard so much about this 1 Michelin Star restaurant. This award winning restaurant had entire pages - no less than five I tell you! - on the menu listing all the awards it has bagged since 1968. I was slightly astonished by the long queue that greeted us despite arriving past dinner time at about 9pm. We ordered a crispy roasted pigeon solely for the sake of me being able to finally declare to the world that I've been to HK and had this dish, preserved eggs (I loved this so much I regret to this day not ordering more) and some tofu dish that was very interesting.

It's been years since I caught up with Madam and I still felt instantly at ease with her such that I poured out my life story from where we'd last left off in our previous meet-up without much prompting. Because I was so engrossed in our conversation, I must admit I didn't pay much attention to the food so I can't really pass any judgement on whether the restaurant's Michelin Star is justified. All I remember when we left was that I wished we had more time. God knows when we'll meet again. Til then Madam.

update on the herb garden

It has expanded from this one shallow trough of six tiny plants to eight large pots of thriving greens including basil, coriander, parsley, rosemary, mint, vietnamese mint, spring onions and one more I-dunno-what.

first taste of butter

I did a weekend pit stop in Singapore on a work trip to Hong Kong and Bro organised a party session for me. Thanks to my other Bro - that renowned One-Swipe-Die Bro - we all got into Butter Factory without much hassle or queueing.


We are a pair of cool siblings eh?



I had to borrow this dress from the Bro's GF as I did not pack any party gear for the short interlude.



How long has it been since One-Swipe-Die Bro appeared on my blog? And here you see him with one of his many gazillions 'girlfriends'.


Seeing how much I enjoyed wearing the Harry Potter glasses during our last KTV session, Mr ProTrim Steve brought along a pair of funky glasses this time as well and it became the accessory of the night as everyone fought to pose with it.





Here's a series of the Bro and the GF. Sweet as ever.









After two bottles of Hennesy courtesy of yours truly, these youngsters started doing weird things! Some of what you see in the below pics, I have no idea what was going on then.







Kenny the last person to arrive super late due to work ended up the most popular among the ladies. One of the pics below shows me almost devouring him LOL.










It was great fun thanks to these darlings who always make sure I am well entertained on my rare trips home. The only disappointment that night was Mr Tenant's absence. Despite the many apologies from him, I have to put it on record here that he owes me a mega KTV session for my next trip to make it up to me.



Cheers. When will the next session be?

"this time, i want a squarish one plsssss......"

was what I said to Flyaway when I made a special request for another 爱心枕头 to be made. And ta-dah! I got this JAC pillow as a X'mas pressie last year to keep my COO pillow company.

Can you see there is a small tear at the bottom right corner of the COO pillow? The useless me does not possess any sewing skills and hence I have to be really mindful not to worsen it.

Sorry for being greedy but may I please have a round one next? ;p

i don't mean to brag...

... but check out what score I got for my IELTS test (FYI, highest band achievable is a 9). ^^v