One of the reasons why I love to be born in the 80s

Good songs...


Al Jarreau - We're In This Love Together
This song never fails to soothe my soul in the still of the night.




Spandau Ballet - True
Uh huh huh huh huh... Period




The Cars - The Drive
It just have the 80s soulful tune in it.




Bryan Ferry - Slave To Love
The 80s soulful tune again.




Kool & The Gang - Cherish (The Love)
This song brings back bittersweet memories of years ago.




Johnny Hates Jazz - Turn Back The Clock
Makes me reminisc and pine for lost time




We Are The World
It's all been said here.




Tokyo Square - Within You Remain
I dunno if this is an 80s song. There isn't much info on this song or band on the internet. I didn't quite believe my dad when he insisted this is by a Singapore band.




Phill Collins - Another Day In Paradise
This song tugged at my heartstrings when it was used in one of the video campaign addressing the plight of the handicaps years ago when I was in primary school.




Bobby Mc Ferrin - Don't Worry Be Happy
Makes one happy, no?




Jefferson Starship - Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now
GASP! The mannequin in the 1987 show is Kim Cattrell!!! My Samantha Jones! I do not think I've watched the movie before but looking at snippets of this video do bring back some recollections.




Paul Young - Everytime You Go Away
When I was young, I've always thought it was "Everytime you go away, you take a piece of MEAT with you."




Foreigner - I Want To Know What Love Is
It's just the tune.




John Parr - St. Elmo's Fire (Man In Motion)
Movie theme songs can't go wrong. I didn't watch the movie though.




WHAM - Last Christmas
With so many covers and renditions, this is still the best. And I never ever get sick of this song.




The list goes on and on and on... I could have a post on 80s love songs, 80s duets, 80s soul music, 80s dance tracks, 80s movie themes, 80s nice but overplayed songs etc.

Let me know what you think of the songs.

Unfolding July's Folder -- Anniversary Staycation

To celebrate our 1st year wedding anniversary, the hubby and I had a staycation right here at home at Sentosa Hard Rock Hotel. I was unable to clear my mountain of work to take leave for a vacation so a short 3-day staycation it was!



Sentosa was chosen for the bimbotic reason of answering people that I went "overseas" for our celebration as techinically Sentosa is not on mainland Singapore.

Of course that wasn't the reason. Kh was asking me to choose between Marina Bay Sands and one of the hotels at Sentosa. I was thinking that we could hang out by the beach or check out other attractions at Sentosa. Should we choose the former, we could only hang out in town no matter how enticing the roof top infinity pool was.


~*Day 1*~

After my work that evening, we zipped off to Hard Rock Hotel. There weren't many people but it took a while to get us checked in.



The lobby still looked like it was undergoing renovations. Part of the walls and floors were grey concrete in July. When I went back again in September this year, they've erected a bar and the lobby looked more spruced up by then.




The observing of the changing colours of lights made waiting more tolerable.




We finally got our keys!



I loved our room! It had a boutique hotel feel to it and I absolutely love how purple reigned here.



The hubby switched on the tv and scrolled through a list of restaurants --categorized according to fine dining, family, casual etc-- for our anniversary dinner.

In the meantime, the overly excited wife started snapping photos of everything in the room and letting out shrieks of delight every now and then.

"Wah deardear! Look at the fridge! So futurisic."

"Oh! Look at the bedroom slippers, so cuuuuteeeee!"

"Whoa! The inside of the lamp very nice leh!"

"I like the motifs on the wood."

You get the drift.




The bathroom reminds me of a rock star trailer with the rows of light bulbs bordering the mirror. I liked how the lights illuminated the room on the other side of the glass panel as well.



Never once did I fiddle around with the safe deposit box while snapping photos as keeping our valuables was always kh's job.

While I was still snapping away like nobody's business, it was kh's turn to exclaim. He pretended to open the safe and yelled out.



I was ecstatic yet puzzled at the same time, wondering in my heart if my silly tailtail had informed the hotel that it was our wedding anniversary and that the hotel was really that thoughtful as to prepare something special or that the silly boy had something up his sleeves again. When I saw the little bue box with beautiful white ribbon, I immediately knew it was from him and I guessed that it was the choker which I was eyeing the other time.




It was a pleasant surprise as I thought he would not have gotten any present since he had already said that the Ferragamo bag was a combined birthday and anni present. I didn't get anything for my silly tailtail but I guess putting up with his constant keyboard bashing of WOW (Warcraft for those who dunno) and his other annoying traits sort of balanced it up. ;P

After that, we changed into more presentable outfits as I told kh we had to dress up for our dinner date just to make us feel like it's an important occasion. Haha... Turned out that we seemed to be overdressed in the sea of beach-goers, Universal Studios patrons and temporary denizens of the island.

It was CROWDED everywhere. Every restaurant had 30 minutes to an hour's wait list time. We then realised that it was the weekend of the World Cup Finals and there was an event at Resorts World Sentosa (RWS) which would screen the live telecast of the finals on huge projector screens with rounds of booze and madcap partying the following day. What a bad timing for us to be there! Many families and friends had made use of this event to hold a staycation at RWS hotels too.




Palio, an Italian restaurant, was the only one without a wait list time. However, there was only outdoor seating available. Not being able to withstand the hunger, we decided to dine there.

The food was not bad. I love the bread, the oil that went with it, the soups, the appetizer but the mains were so so. I almost could not finish my steak. As usual, kh thought I was being too picky. My camera battery died on me and so I'd to use my lousy nokia camera to snap the food with flash (urgh!).




Some shots of us...





This wasn't meant to be an outfit photo but this is the only full length solo pic of me.



Dress:
River Island
Accesories:
earrings from Green Petals
necklace from Tiffany & Co
shoes from Anna Nucci


~*Day 2 *~

Rise and shine! I was up by brunch time but the lazy tailtail wanna snooze more. I amused myself by annoying him till he woke up.



We didn't get a room that faced a good view. Lots of parts of Sentosa was undergoing a facelift which explains the multitude of cranes seen. The pool view would be good but I reckon they were all snapped up by the "World Cup People".

We had to take this dazzling bling bling lift. I like the bling but I swear that I would be momentarily blinded each time I stepped in.




What was supposed to be brunch and lazy lounging by the pool turned out to be an almost 2-hour lunch for us at Fiesta buffet. They had quite an extensive selection of food. I love their little sandwiches.






Me thinks the hubby looks like those HK triad gang member whenever he puts on his aviators and acts in a certain manner. Am I the only who one thinks so?




After lunch, it was time for some lounging by the pool.



Erm... actually this was taken after the lounging at the pool but heck, I needed a photo for the above sentence. Haha... remember this "fat photo" from this post? And I made a mistake in the date. It's supposed to be July. I'm not quite sure what got into my head.


The pool at Hard Rock Hotel consist of the normal pool with a lap length side and a simulated beach side, what they call a sand pool. How ingenious is that? Kh and I had initially wanted to head out to one of the beaches on Sentosa but with this pool, we could enjoy the sun, sand and "sea" in close comfort of our room without having to shower at some beach toilets.

I don't know if anyone understands my description about the pool but this video would probably help. Scroll to 6:51 for the pool shots.




The beach side was filled with people of all ages, sizes and nationalities. It was also filled with loads of screaming kids since it was a Sunday. Hence, we adjourned to the pool side where there were significantly lesser people and more people of our age, or so it seemed.






The numbers on the scale
Left:
Before stuffing my face silly with buffet at about 12pm
Right:
After a whole afternoon and evening of lazing by and in the pool at about 8pm.



Wow! Lazing by and in the pool could actually lose weight by the grams! I dunno what the weight was immediately after eating! I'm a 43kg on normal days. That's how much food weighs!

I'm never obsessed with my weight and numbers (aside: only with fats and flabs) but having a weighing scale with blue illuminated screen made weighing oneself really addictive. Now if only they came with a body fat content ratio, I would see 90% of fat on my flabby arms and tummy (they've recently migrated to the cheeks too). I'm really terrified at how my arms and tummy fats are increasing at an exponential rate.


After showering, we decided to walk around RWS. There are many stores and lots to explore. There is even a Victoria Secrets store, the first ever in Asia.




Blah dinner at Ruyi, a chinese fast food restaurant under the Tung Lok group.



I was hungry and craving for fried rice so I ordered it. I was exepecting the warm fragrant fried rice a la zi char style. However, the rice was too hard and I could not finish my food. The seaweed soup was not as tasty as how seaweed soup should be. I was expecting Tung Lok to whip up better dishes even at wallet-friendly fast food prices.


They've got a really cheesy write up on their placemat about how ruyi the little cloud came about. Click to enlarge.




Have you seen Ruyi today?




Outfit of the day: Top from Armani Exchange



This has since become my FAVOURITE casual tee. Love the fit, love the comfort of the material and love the little tie closure instead of the usual buttons on polo tees.

We spent the night watching the World Cup finals in the comfort of the bed rather than to squeeze with the crowd at the large screen area at RWS.

For one of the rare times, husband and wife were not on the same side. Hubby supported Netherlands while wifey supported Spain which I thought played quite fairly and well I must say.

When Spain won, I jumped up and down the bed till I pulled a muscle but the pain was nothing compared to the joy of seeing kh's expression when Netherlands lost... Go Spain!


~*Day 3*~

We had to check out in the afternoon but I called to ask for an extension and so we headed to the pool once more. This time by the simulated beach side of the pool. We were the only few at the beach since it was a Monday. All the families with screaming kids had since gone home. Or else then, they slept in after the World Cup Finals.



I loved how soft and fine the sand felt. It doesn't really stick onto the skin too and it feels really clean. I really hate the icky feeling of wet sand in between my toes but the sand here seems to slide off easily.



As I was stepping around in the sand, I thought of cyn and the kids and how we could bring them here in future to play with sand. The kids missed playing with sand.

It's a lot cleaner with lesser people, towels are available and the public shower rooms are definitely cleaner than those at the beach.

We did end up here in the end for Charmaine's birthday outing that same month which I would blog about when I get down to it.




We were famished and decided to check out what's available at the pool bar. We ordered some cocktail but kh drank it up before I could say snap.




As for the food, it was absolutely gratifying to eat hot cheesy marcaroni and fries with the accompanying delicious dip. Pretty good for a pool bar.




shower rooms for the men and the women indicated by "M" and "W".




For dinner, we headed to Vivocity and ate at Japanese Gourmet Town. It houses 3 restaurants under one roof. There is Botejyu from Osaka, Yoshimi from Hokkaido, and Ajisen from Kyushu - central, north, and south of Japan.



The food wasn't too bad. I had Ajisen ramen coz even though it is considered one of the cheaper ramen alternative in Singapore, I feel it could never go wrong. Kh ordered the curry tempura rice. After that, we headed for a movie and as I'm typing this, I can't remember what we watched. It's unnerving when you want to try to recall something but can't. I asked kh, I checked my old ticket stubs but there isn't any clue.

It was home sweet home after that and the gruelling realization of having to work the next day. Talking about work, I've to settle some urgent work stuff via sms and calls even as I was sipping my ramen. This sort of annoyed kh as he wondered why I had to reply to those work sms and calls while on leave. =(


Here's what I did with the layer of construction works dust which coated the car at Hard Rock Hotel carpark in reply to the engraving on the back of the pendant:

Late night webcamming with my godkids

Edited on 5 December:
The trio are heading back to sg for stronger dose of chemo. The docs there proposed that a few days ago instead of to continue with the one they suggested before. Not too sure about the exact details though. We'll have to wait for cyn to come back to fill us in.

Two nights ago, I was talking to cyn over msn about char's cancer progression. It really sucks big time coz char's been so energetic recently that we really thought/hoped that the latest scan results would show some signs of improvement.

Cyn was really devastated. Whenever she looked at how cheerful and active char was, she couldn't understand how the cancer could have gotten worse. It had been a nerve-wracking 3 days while awaiting the docs advice on the next step.

At least there was other advice from the docs at MSKCC other than strong and damaging chemo and so char would be put on that trial for two months to see how she would react to it.

She would be having a minor operation this coming week on the other side of her chest to put a temp line in where a stem cells could be harvested. There would be a tube hanging out from her chest after the op and it scares us just having the thoughts of a tube dangling out. A lot of care has to be taken to ensure her safety at all times.

Later, the kids wanted talk to me on video (we haven't done so for ages!) and so cyn left me to entertain the kids over msn while she got about to do other things. Indeed, it's really tough for a single mother to be looking after 2 kids in a foreign land, shuttling to and fro the hospital and school. She often doesn't have time for herself at all.

Char was wearing her checkered dress. Recently, she seems to be wearing that a lot. Seeing how similar it looked to one of my checkered shirt I got recently, I immediately rushed to my wardrobe and put that on over my t-shirt just to amuse her.

She was rather amused and agreed we should both stand up so that she could see clearly if our outfits were indeed similar.



That's her watching cartoon at the same time talking to me. This young lady could really multi-task!



Telling me about the cartoon



Drinking liang cha (cooling tea)







Soon, it was time for them to attend the Thanksgiving lunch organized by RMH. Cyn and I got to talk for a while.



I find her expression really cute here! It was fortunate she did that for a few seconds and I managed to do a printscreen of it.

Jo: Your expression is sooooo CUTE! I'm so gonna do and printscreen and send this to you!
Cyn: ...



and when she leant over to switch off the webcam, I couldn't help but feel that it was such a sexy pose. *LoLz* My good friend here is such a beautiful mummy even though she had been crying buckets the past few days. Truly, beauty shines from within a good heart.



Hope to catch them at the right moment on msn soon!

Charmaine needs your prayers now. Please pray that her operation would go smoothly and that the trial woud work miracles on her. Thank you!

MY BACK! MY BACK!

Facebook status at midnight:

"Midnight run with the hubby is cancelled due to backache... MINE! =( I've never
experienced such ache before... feels like there's a taut string running down
and connecting my left back, hip, butt, thigh and every move seems like I would
snap the string. Anyone knows what this condition is? So painful that tears
streamed down when the hubby tried to move me."

I feel like Peter Parker in this video:



Alright serious stuff.

My usual nice lady doc said I must have sprained my lower left back such that the muscles are inflamed and pressing against the nerves that go all the way down to the back of my left thigh. It was rather fun feeling my lower back myself. I could feel the right side being soft and flabby while left is tight and much harder. I wouldn't have known this had she not told me.

It was rather embarrassing when she asked me to lie down and she tried bending my right leg, then my left. My left leg could not even go half as much as my right when I started yelping... Seriously yelping. Next, she asked me to roll over to my right side so she could administer further tests on my left. I tried my very best to roll over but couldn't. She decided to stop the test.

I got a 3-day MC to recover.

Yay! coz who doesn't like MC? =D

Boo! coz I have lots of work to clear and those are work that can't be brought home. =(

The hubby had to add to my agony by lauging so loudly. He told the doc that it was the first time I accepted my MC so willingly and not complaining about going back to work coz I couldn't even walk properly and perform simple daily tasks, much less make my way to work.

In the meantime, the evil hubby enjoys pressing all the painful points and hearing me yelp like a helpless puppy.

A Package from ClubCouture

A while back, I received a registered package from the lovely people at ClubCouture.



ClubCouture is an online fashion label that offers contemporary ladies wear in a wide range of fashionable and chic apparel. Unlike blogshops which are sprouting like mushrooms every other minute here on our sunny island Singapore, ClubCouture is a local company which has gone international with the US, UK and Australia under its belt.




What I like about ClubCouture is their range of clothes. Upon browsing their user-friendly site, you would be greeted with an ensemble of elegant evening dresses, sophisticated work attire, dainty dresses, funky streetwear right up to the basic tanks and bottoms. They have really chic accessories too! Whatever your style is, I'm sure you would find something you like at ClubCouture.

I was rather impressed with their packaging. Firstly, the clothes came in a box with the brand name printed on it which I felt was very professional. (For the environmentally-friendly me, I could reuse the sturdy box to store my knick knacks.) Each of the dresses were individually wrapped with tracing paper and additional apparels are packed neatly and separately.

What's in my package?

My choices of 2 lovely dresses -- the monochrome toga and the audrey layered dress kindly sponsored by the lovely people at ClubCouture. Aren't they simply gorgeous?



The audrey layered dress is a soft layered dress in earthy tones which comes with a floral brooch and a braided belt. I really love the layered look so I'm pretty much in love with this dress.





The brooch with its netted and tulle-like layers gives a whimsical feel while the twisted rope design belt consists of 2 separate belts which you could wear in any way you like. I twisted both of them together after the knot as you can see from the picture above. No fraying at the ends of the belt! Me likey!

I recently wore this dress to Char's solemnization earlier this month. (I will write more about it in the November updates.)





The audrey layered dress is still available on their site! So if you like this dress, click on the link to purchase it.

Have I already mentioned that their stocks for popular items run out quite quickly?

To ensure exclusivity, ClubCouture manufactures their clothes in limited numbers. The good of this would be to put your mind at ease of not spotting someone else in the same outfit as you. However, the bad of this would be that THE STOCKS RUN OUT QUITE QUICKLY. Hence, if you spy something you like at ClubCouture, make sure you place your orders swiftly for your sizes may be snapped up in a flash, just like the tunas at Japanese fish auction markets.


I had initially wanted this sexy black number in the form of the pleated one shoulder dress.



This classy little fitted number features a one shoulder neckline with pleated detailing at the shoulder and a hidden side zip. Made from 50% cotton and 50% polyester, the dress would stretch to fit.

There were so many dresses at ClubCouture which I absolutely adore and took some time in narrowing down my choices. When I had finally decided on the pleated one shoulder dress, I realised to my disappointment that my procrastination had led to all the size S being out of stock. Sizes M and L are still available though.


I chose the monochrome toga dress in the end. This lovely dress is already sold out on their site!



This outfit consists of a fitted strapless black dress and a removable white pullover. The inner black tube dress features a sweetheart neckline and a hidden side zip. Similar to the dress above, it is made from 50% cotton and 50% polyester and would stretch to fit. The white pullover features a ruched shoulder.

I haven't worn it out yet as the white pullover looks a little poofy on my smaller frame. I will alter it and update on it as soon as I wear it out the next time so you could see how it looks like. =)

While I sometimes encounter clothes with many loose threads, clothes that don't turn out as depicted in the photos or clothes with not so good quality fabric or stitching on other blogshops, I had no problem with the clothes from ClubCouture at all. Their clothes came almost exactly as depicted on their site and their workmanship is excellent!

Those of you who have been here long enough would know that whenever I do write-ups or reviews, my opinions are always honest and I would only recommend good stuff to my friends and readers alike. =)

Now, I've got a good news for everyone. All my blog readers are entitled to a 15% storewide discount. Just key in the discount code JOLENE15 (all in capz) to enjoy this offer.





ClubCouture has launched their autumn and winter wear. Despite our tropical weather, I really love chic capes, parkas and aviator jackets, don't you love them too? I absolutely adore the trenchcoat with a twist above.

Excuse me now while I continue my online shopping voyeur at ClubCouture.