The Evening The Leopards Went Meow

It was our division's gala night two Fridays ago. It was a safari theme and hence our department agreed that we should all be clad in leopard prints.

I like how my department is so cohesive. I always count my blessings to have such great co-workers turned friends in the organizations I've worked in so far.

A few weeks before the gala night, the gals were even helping one another to look out for leopard prints apparels and also lending various apparels to those who needed them. We started preparing for the gala dinner by early evening and was helping one another with lining eyes and sticking faux lashes in the office.

I would let the pictures do the talking. The resolution isn't sharp as all the photos were taken using handphones.


Spot the only guy! We all felt he could really blend in with us gals.




The props kinda soften the whole fierce and hawt leopard feel.




Even our immediate boss was game to put on those ears and be silly like us.




Leopard prints in various patterns and sizes




and various colours too!






Car buddies? Thank you for the car rides always.




The snake felt really leathery and slinky. The last time I held a snake was at the zoo when I was 4 and this snake felt really different. Oh, and it was warm too. I was amazed. The man said it was under the sun before that.




Just 8 photos for the night. There aren't many photographs of my colleagues at work but only during events as we are working in an organization which prohibits the use of image-capturing devices.

We often discuss how some nosey relatives and friends of our parents would try to dig out more information on what our job scope is from our parents. Most of the time, our parents don't exactly know what we do even after explaining to them. Hence one of my colleague (who is about our parents age) suggested to tell our parents to convey the message to these nosey parkers that we work in a secret organization whereby we have guards behind us pointing guns to our heads as we work. We all thought that was really funny and decided to try it out for fun some day.

PS: That was the first time I put on contacts and had heavy eye make up after my cornea infection. Sad to say, my eyes really could not take anymore of these despite only having them on for a few hours. So I'm back to specs and no make up or light make up days again.

PSS: The leopard print dress I'm wearing belongs to my mum. When I took out the dress from my bag to show my colleagues, they were all amazed and immediately rained stuff like "Is your mum very skinny?", "Is your mum very young?" "Wah! Your mum is very happening!" Yes, my mum is more happening than me.

Google Reader Retiring?

Argh... I really hate change even though the only thing constant in life is change.

I must be the last person to know that Google Reader would retire in July 2013. I found it a little strange that my bloglovin started to have a few more followers last week.

Here comes the noob questions:
Is Google Reader the same as the blogger followers as seen on my sidebar as Google Friend Connect?
Is this also the same as the reading list on the blogger home page upon logging in?

I usually get updates from my blogger-google reading list since it is more convenient to have it all in one place when I log in to my blogger account. I dread  to think that I have to open another tab to log into bloglovin just to get updates. However, if everyone on blogosphere is gonna use bloglovin, then I don't see an issue in this change.

What are you people intending to do? All switching to bloglovin from July onwards? If so, follow me here or click the bloglovin badge on my sidebar. I think bloglovin can't keep track of who follows who so do drop me a message if you have followed me.

蛇年 CNY 2013 Volume 2

Since there are 15 days of CNY but only 2 official CNY public holidays, some Chinese continue with their house visiting and gatherings on the 2nd weekend.

~*Day 7*~

Day 7 of CNY is also known as 人日 (ren ri) which literally means "human day". According to Chinese customs, ren ri was the day human beings were created.

The VIOS gang organized a steamboat dinner in celebration of everyone's birthday. To up the fun factor, WL suggested the theme -- Fashion Disaster.

While the rest of the gang would be changing into their outrageous outfits at WL and B's house for after-dinner activities, kh and I decided to wear our fashion disaster outfit to the mall instead. We opened our wardrobe to carefully select the combination which would fit the theme yet not being too overly disastrous to be seen in public.

I decided that stripes and checks/ tartan together would be quite a disaster. On the other hand, kh thought it was perfectly normal to go out in public with this combination. I was doubtful of his taste so I sent this picture to the Watsapp group chat and asked if it was normal to wear that to the mall. All the girls opined that kh was trying to sabotage me whereas all the guys felt it was fine. What do you think?




It was a challenge attempting to be fashionably disastrous enough to go out in public. While I stuck to the original choice of stripes and checks, Kh decided that checks on checks was a great recipe for fashion disaster. He topped the whole look with his neon basketball shoes. I used the romper's belt as a tie to jazz up the outfit and slipped on my golden sneakers.




I also added my Hello Kitty glasses. Do I look ready to face the public?




Outfit of the day:
♥ ClubCouture Striped Cowl Jumper (belt provided)
♥ Checkered Flannel Shirt
♥ DKNY Sneakers
♥ Seiko Kinetic Watch

Note: The ClubCouture Striped Cowl Jumper is certainly not a fashion disaster outfit on its own. See how I would normally wear it in this post.


Apparently our neighbours from a few houses down (whom we do not know) could not accept our dressing. She turned back more than 3 times to look at us. When we reached Causeway Point, many more people gave us second glances. Some sniggered. Some whispered. Some pointed at us. Well, of course there were some who totally ignored us.

After noticing the crowd's reaction, I wrote this on my facebook status:
For a 人日 dinner at a very public shopping mall with the theme of "fashion disaster", we have to strut very confidently and imagine that we are clad in the latest trend amidst stares from the crowd.


After a long "parade", we reached Shabu Sai. We had to sit at separate tables due to the long queue. So long for a celebratory ren ri dinner.




We had a choice of various soup bases and I loved the 2 that we chose for our table.
Pictured on the left: sukiyaki and tonkatsu I think. Absolutely delicious! I would return and choose these 2 flavours all over again.
Pictured on the right: sukiyaki and curry. The curry tasted like curry soup base from instant noodles which wasn't too bad as well.




We ordered lots of meat which was free flow. Everyone piled their meat containers on kh and my table and pretended that we ate them all. The beef was good. Skip the pork and chicken. Those tasted bland.




The non-meat products were displayed in buffet style and we had to help ourselves. There were various sauces and dips available too and we could mix them ourselves. I love those dips!




What a feast! The soup was absolutely delicious.




The people at the 3 separate tables:

Clockwise from front: Baby Belle, Mummy BY, Flor, Jully, Daddy WL




Clockwise from front: Jac, Peggy, Benson, Jon




KH, me, SL (who was so late as she came from work)




Before SL arrived, Jon asserted that the 2 greedy pigs (mainly referring to kh) had wiped all the dishes clean.




The meatball maker, the glutton, the last one.




Grouchy mood Belle. She looked sleepy.




Everyone agreed that Jully looked really hawt and disastrously fashionable! She tried to mix many prints, colours and textures all in one outfit but failed to look like a disaster. Don't the Japanese and the Taiwanese celebs dress like this too?




Kh on the other hand, looked like that geek who thought he was the most fashionable person in the whole wide world.






After dinner, we headed over to WL and BY's house for games. While waiting for the rest of them to change to the dress theme, kh busied himself crushing candies with a panel of advisors surrounding him.




Almost everyone in the group plays (or had played and given up on) Candy Crush that WL changed the group icon the next day.

[Aside: Candy Crush Saga was a conversation glue during awkward CNY gatherings with people you barely know. I recall the time when I was at kh's relatives' place and all his cousins, cousins' spouses and I started talking because of the game. His younger cousin even asked me to teach him how to complete certain levels. Without Candy Crush, I do not really think we would know what to talk to one another. The irony of having smart phones! It disconnects yet connects people.]




Jon and Jac busied themselves in the kitchen concocting cocktails for us all. Thank you!




Presenting all the fashion victims!






BY went away for a while to her mum's place to put baby Belle under her care and while BY was away, her hubby took the opportunity to raid her wardrobe. WL emerged clad in BY and Belle's apparels and we all teased him about how he must have had this secret desire to don female clothing his whole life.




The 2 obiang ones who braved through the crowd. Each time kh and I stood up to get food from the buffet counter, people would just stare. Out of the public's eye, kh nerdified himself more with the tucked in shirt and maroon bow which got the thumbs up from everyone. As for me, all the gals commented that I managed to wear my disastrous outfit in such a way that they had to retract what they said on the watsapp group chat about how kh was trying to sabo me. Hmm, that means I failed in my theme but I would still treat their words as compliments. =P




The 2 goofy ones who were the most into their character.




The gals!




The 2 goofy ones did a photo bomb.




After kicking the 2 goofy ones out.




All the gals minus BY.




The boys thought they should exude coolness.




But thereafter decided that being sissy was more fun.






BY returned just in time before we started the group shots and we forced her to change as well.




Presenting the fashion victims of VIOS in full force.




It was my first time playing DiXit and I like the concept and the illustrations on the cards. I think I'm gonna buy a set for myself too.




Cupcakes time! It was my first time eating cupcakes from 12 Cupcakes.




Yummy cupcakes!




We did a toast to more than 10 years of friendship with our CUPcakes instead of martini glasses.




~*Day 8*~

The next day which was a Sunday, I awoke to pain and discomfort in my left eye which most of you would know was the start of my cornea infection and eye ulcers as written in this post.

Bestie Cyn and Godson Jase was to come over my house to 拜年.

My handsome boy with his bag  of mandarin oranges.




My handsome boy was exposed to Candy Crush that day thanx to Godpa kh. It was good coz Jase was helping kh to clear the levels together while kh taught him how to play the game, leaving time for Cyn and I me to catch up with each other.






Cyn's hair had got 3 shades of colour!




Such a random candid shot.




The mommies with cheeky Jase.




Goofy Godma tried to match Goofy Godson's expression. I was trying to open my eyes as wide as possible as kh deemed that I looked half blind in all the shots before that.




So there you go. A CNY post in the middle of March.