“Wah… Your life very happening hor?”

Is it? No leh, I don’t think so. Work so hard so must also play very hard and let down my hair once in a while mah.

Of late, when I meet up with different groups of friends virtually and in the flesh, they would remark that my life seems very fun-filled and happening and that my friends are a very cool and fun bunch.

Next, they would ask me why I haven’t been updating for so long.

Being busy is always the first excuse… oops reason. It is tough to even find a common free time for all members of my family to gather and celebrate my dad’s and sister’s birthday which was a week ago. Plans made have to be changed unintentionally. Moreover recently, my trusty pink Lumix had not been by my side for me to go trigger happy. I love carrying my camera everywhere, whipping it out to capture that fleeting moment.


Wedding Fair
Before I continue, let me make it clear first that there would be no wedding bells ringing for me anytime soon.

I forgot to bring my camera for this event, or rather, because I thought this was an exclusive invite to a fashion show and assuming no cameras would be allowed, I left mine at home. I really regret it! Without pictures, I find it very tough to write about an event as my commentaries always revolve around photos. =)

Two Sundays ago, kh and I attended this wedding fair, thinking it was merely an invite to a fashion show showcasing bridal suits and gowns. It was a biannual event and so I don’t care 3 7 21 (bu4 guan3 san1 qi1 er2 shi2 yi1) and went to apply for half day time-off. I was excited, thinking I could add a lot more designs to the gowns I’ve already had in mind. When we reached Grand Copthorne, we were quite surprised that it was a whole wedding fair with the fashion show as only part of it. We were like so blur when people started asking us when our wedding date was, how many guests we were inviting, the places we had in mind to hold our wedding etc. Soon after, quick-thinking us started tackling these questions by replying everyone that we were really clueless (that’s the truth), we have no set dates for everything yet and so we were there to find out more about restaurants, hotels, packages as everything was under one roof. In that way, we wouldn’t look so stumped for words and out of place.

They featured many dresses and gowns: traditional, modern, edgy, cutesy, fun, sophisticated… You name it, they have it. I must reiterate the fact that I really regretted not bringing my camera!


Jiak Liao Bee’s Birthday
Snapshots from Jiak Liao Bee’s birthday…

The 4 of us that night.


Somebody has been absent for so long and is soon to be ousted from the bimbo club liao… Hehe… We better hang out together for Halloween!!!

Us with the birthday boy


Group shot


The number thing again


I think tiff and Jiak Liao Bee’s buddy look very compatible...

geral is in the background trying to zou4 luan3 (Hokkien for create a nuisance) HAHA

See compatible rite?


I don’t watch tv but apparently he had been on some tv program before. Don’t know if anyone recognises him.

The guyz


My Hollister humour top which only my mum and my bimbo sistas bothered trying to read the words on it.

It says “DON’T UNWRAP TIL X-MAS”


Arabian Nights
One of geral’s friend had this lobang to a private party with the theme Arabian nights. It appeared that her friend used to be my primary 4 classmate too. We wouldn’t even have known save for the fact that geral said he was from the same primary school and I vaguely remembered his name as being one of the jokers in my P4 class. When we met, we could not even recognise each other. Let’s call him by his initials LC.

Before this party, all we could gather from LC was that his classmate, who is an exchange student from Germany was throwing a private party at his place and he was asked to invite some local gals, to quote geral’s words “SPG” (WTF?!). Hence, although gain for fun, we were quite wary of this whole thing. We were thinking that ang mo party must be really wild; full of booze and dope and MO, abbreviated by tiff from the term “mass orgy”. Then, LC told us to check out the website for more info. I was like “Huh? What kinda party is this to even have a website???!!!”

So, we went to check this site out and luckily it seems quite harmless. We decided to try as far as possible to deck ourselves in some Arabian gear just to fit into the mood. I had nothing Arabian in my closet but a pair of Ali Baba pants and cling clang bangles bought eons ago in Little India.

The party really was harmless to the extent that it was a little boring. Luckily, xtina, xtine and I were late. By the time we arrived, it was close to 1am. We were the only Chinese Singaporeans there! It is indeed a godsend that we bimbo sistas are good at amusing ourselves and as long as we hang out together, a venue or an event will never turn out boring.

As we made our way through the different parts of the house, we heard snippets of “How long have you been in Singapore?”, “3 months”, “2 weeks”, “Here on internship”, “Exchange student” etc. Boy, the people there are all temporary migrants! And most of them are younger than us!

The “bar” located in one of the rooms.


Simply VILE but we didn’t really consume much. We were so silly as to not make use of all the free booze, instead, choosing to sip red wine from plastic cups. Whatever we had wanted were all empty too. Tough luck!

CHEERS!


I really like talking to Germans. They have a good command of English and their accents are easy on the ears. We had a hard time trying to understand this French. But for a French to speak English like him was really a mean feat. Most French do not or even if they know, dislike speaking English. I shan’t be mean and make fun of anybody. *Looks at sistas and laughs knowingly*

Sit back and enjoy the photos…



Top L: xtina contorting her face.
Top R: We tried our best to save tiff by asking her to join us in the shots but she didn’t know how to save herself.
Bottom L: Max, the host and LC joined in.
Bottom R: A Denmark gal joined in and this time we managed to get tiff and French man (boy) in the shot as well.

We taught the ang mos the number thing, telling them it’s those cutesy kinda Asian pose and they gladly posed.





The first two photos were taken by “zi4 ji3 ren2”. See how well they turned out. All centralised and stuff.
Next two were taken by ang mos. Check out the last one with half of LC’s face cut off. After the last shot was taken, the ang mo was like “OK! Great shot!” and we were greeted by this on the screen.

Let’s learn addition + 1 together…


From the shots, it looks like geral and max were dancing the Tango.


Angled shots are paparazzi’s good friends. They serve to create rumours from false perspective. The following shots were taken by xtina paparazzi.

An illicit love affair.



OOoohhh!!! They kissed.



Ok la on closer inspection, it does not look like anything. But it creates that “For a moment there, I thought I saw…” kinda effect.

The origin of the phrase “had a ball of a time”.



Funny faces




Geral and I say…

“Pay us to advertise for Corona.”


Does anyone remember me saying that I dyed my hair a darker shade? Look how much the colour has faded. It is freaking golden all over again!

We finally found somebody older than us but he refused to admit he is old so he had to act cute.

I am 26 years young.


Daniel is a German too. With no heavy accent, he is a great person to talk to.



He thought he looked ugly with the Arab head gear.

Parting group shots


Oh yes, before the Arabian Nights party, I went to my cousin’s housewarming. And the best part of the house was the soundproof room.


It is viewable through a large glass panel in the living-cum-dining room as a pseudo bar lined itself just along the window. Cool! Seems like it is heaven for my little cousins.

Acknowledgement to my er jie for helping me with the photos last night. She forbade me to download Picasa and all other blogging programs and so I coerced her into teaching me some Photoshop skills. It turned out that she was practically helping me to do all these collage, filmstrip effect and speech bubbles. She could do them so quickly. I would have taken 2 whole days to do them… IF I were to do them. Haha and bless her that she managed to snag that job at Mediacorp. With the huge jump in pay and all, she must have been in a good mood. We scratched each other’s back. I lent her my resume and resignation letter and help her with language and sentence construction while she helped me with all her technical know-how. It’s a win-win situation. =)

Pig out Sessions in September

Mummy’s Birthday
Mummy’s belated birthday dinner at Din Tai Fung. Kh was there and after being together for 5+ years, I think that was the 2nd time we ate out together as a family. She was very happy that day. I was too. I’m always pissing her off (and she pissing me off) that when I see her beaming, I was beaming inside too.

Our table was too small to contain all the dishes.


My mother actually requested for me not to put up her photo anywhere coz she was not photogenic that day. However, I thought that candid photo of she and my dad smiling is very cute. 2 ah laos smile till cannot see the eyes. I wish they would always be like this.

I love the pretty and colourful illustration on the BreadTalk cake box!

My mother asked me to keep the box but the sides had got cream.

After persuading me to watch her dance class for years, I finally relented and agreed to do so. Firstly, I wanted to please her on her birthday and secondly they were learning Samba (happening!) then. Since the cc was a stone’s throw away, it wouldn’t take up much time. Kh and I was actually planning to catch a movie but sweet kh agreed to watch the dance lesson with me. I could see that my mum was really delighted. She has always been suggesting for kh and me to take up dancing.

It was only at the studio that I learned how well my mum dances. I dunno about my dad coz from what I witness, he’s always quite clumsy and would never fail to get scolding from my mum whenever they practise at home. Apparently, he is supposed to be a very good dancer too. They weren’t there as students but as helpers for the teacher. I have people coming up to me and asking me why hadn’t I learned dancing. A few others commented that my parents are such good dancers. And the majority of them kept commenting on how much I look like my mum and I should take after her!

I wanna learn some form of dance… SIGH... when I have the time.


Seafood Dinner at Mellben
Seafood dinner was the consensus but to head up north to the Malaysian border or just north to AMK was the question. A dictator rose among the procrastinators and suggested the famous Mellben Seafood.




That was my first time there. My parents and da jie raved about their crab bee hoon and butter crab. The last time we went there as a family, it was too crowded so we ate at his brother’s kopitiam just across the road. The food was so-so. I would never expect Mellben’s food to be even more so-so than his borther's, to be polite.

The dishes

Clockwise from top left: feng1 liu2 ji1???, kangkong, some half-eaten 8 treasure thingy, beef or was it deer?

Their dishes really weren’t nice. My parents could cook better and I think our great cook-out dishes 2 years ago were much more delicious than these right?

I don’t know if my tastebuds weren’t working well but even the crab wasn’t exactly fantastic.

The texture of flesh was indicative of its freshness but the taste was nothing to shout about.

We did not order any butter crab as somebody in the group hates anything butter. Lalala…

NOw we know, we should just eat dinner elsewhere and go there for the crabs.

After the dinner, We went to have some ice-cream at Serangoon Gardens. That was when wq the avid photographer whipped out his extraordinarily large and heavy photo album which contained all our JC memories. He really put us gals to shame with his ornately decorated “scrapbook look-alike” album. Little notes filled with his impeccable cursive handwriting were plastered haphazardly yet artistically on some pages of the album. WAH!!! All my tangible photos from 1999 are still piled in stacks, slotted in envelopes and bundled together accordingly to events with some loose ones here and there in my drawer, while all my soft copy photos from 2001 onwards are still not developed! I’m such a mess!

The gals pouring over the good ol times.


Group shot



TCC with evan
Finally met with with that crazy evan again. I think the night wasn’t enough to fill a few month’s of gossips. I missed you!

with flash


without flash


Had wanted to do a collage of these but the photos kept blocking each other. Picasa should look into this. Too bad I’m lousy at photoshop so have to make do with picasa for now.


I Hate My Hair
I dyed my hair a darker shade 2 weeks ago and I absolutely loveD it! It was sooooo difficult to capture the exact colour of my hair on camera so I gave up. It looked quite black at night but was kinda ash dark brown under light. The dark brown seeped into my previously porous blondish parts and turned to an ash tone. It was such an accidental but nice colour. Even the fashion-unconscious kh could actually recognise that it was “ash” and it was the colour he wanted to dye.

However, after washing (even with a shampoo for coloured hair)…

My hair became quite yellow again!!! And because my black roots and yellow length contrasted so much, it was impossible to get a single colour on my whole crown with any kinds of brown, except black. Almost nobody could tell I coloured my hair coz it has faded to quite a light tone by now and my black roots are still showing, just that they are dark brown.

Also, my curls have lost their elasticity and bounce that my hair looked neither wavy nor straight. It’s just horrid la.

I am wondering if I should:
1) Perm bigger curls just like D&D.
Pros:
- My stylist assured me that she would not further damage my hair and advised me it is not as damaging as compared to twirling and plaiting my inelastic hair everyday just to get curls.
- She said this is not as damaging as rebonding since the bonds in my hair are already “curled bonds”.
- I’m still liking the permed hair look.

Cons:
- Further chemicals added
- Possibility of more damaged hair
- Possibily of perming lotion lightening my colour even more which may lead to:
- Wasting of money to dye again
- Adding even more colour chemicals on top of perming chemicals

2) Rebond my hair, dye it black and leave it alone for 2 years.
Pros:
- Rebonded hair is fuss free
- kh likes me with smooth straight hair
- Imagine the amount of money I could save!
- Saving lots of styling time.
- The comfort of sleeping and waking up to perfect hair that falls in place
- The illusion of hair looking better when it is damaged straight than damaged curled
- I miss tying up my hair into a pony tail

Cons:
- I hate poker straight hair
- Rebonding is actually very damaging.
- Stylist said my hair will just break by the bundles if I rebond it
- I’m slowly trying to get used to living with black hair (Those who know me know how I cannot live with black hair)

3) Leave the damn hair alone!
Pros:
- It's the least damaging decision
- I can stop weighing the pros and cons

Cons:
- The state of it is too ugly to be left alone

Why do I ponder over such frivolous stuff when children in Ethiopia are starving?

The Devil Wears Bata

While watching The Break Up and The Devil Wears Prada, besides subconsciously absorbing the plot, I can’t help but consciously absorb all the clothes, bags, shoes, make-up, dressing and hairstyles. Feast for the eyes, starvation for the heart, and abstinence in the mind.



The Break Up is so realistic.

"It’s not about the lemons!" ... on being unable to grasp the true problem

"Really? Is that how you see it?"... on different perspective

"Why can’t you do this little thing?" ... on simple expectations

WOW! All husbands and boyfriends should watch the show man!

Her tan, her clothes, her hairstyle, she looks darn good with both untidy curls and sleek straight hair. She looked almost flawless in every scene.

Double WOW!

The opening scene showed her in the stadium watching a baseball match. She was dressed in the most casual outfit but she looked damn good! Love her tan!

-Brown Calvin Klein button tee with vintage belt.

No wonder la… casual also CK leh! And accessorize, accessorize, accessorize! Accessories really spruce up an outfit.

Even her “home clothes” of a simple grey tee paired with jeans looked fab.

I think simplicity doesn’t come cheap for Jenn Ann.

I love all her working attire.



-White grayish buttoned down Calvin Klein shirt (with white bag that looks like can be purchased cheaply in TPY)
-Simple-looking watch from CARTIER!



-Sleek black dress (by I hope This Fashion)

Another black working dress of hers in the show was chio! But I can’t find the picture anywhere online. =(

My favourite casual outfit on her.

- Very fitting and slim-cut white buttoned shirt by Calvin Klein
- Slim-looking jeans by Second Skin
- Black leather handbag by Bottega Veneta

YUMMY! I really wonder about what size she is. So many clothes look so fitting on her and she’s like skinny lor!

As for her dresses…

Evening dress which made her look slightly pregnant here.

-By prada

There, the gorgeous prada dress!


I love this dress of hers the most!

-White sundress by Calvin Klein made to measure for Jenn

And of course, I would always love her straight hair.


I love Jennifer Aniston. She is the epitome of comedy and class combined.

The best person to watch
with is with a boyfriend with totally no clue of the fashion world and who can’t tell the difference between a Prada and a Bata.

But was I glad that I watched it with him. Initially, I felt as if I was forcing my suggestion on him, saying, “The next show I wanna watch is The Devil Wears Prada” for like 834278943 times while he just answered, “Ok lor” for the same number of times. I think he found certain parts really amusing for he was the only one laughing in the cinema (Oh I think he’s gonna kill me for typing this) and we both unanimously agreed that the NICEESSST set of clothes Anne wore in the show was this….



I really love that scene where they featured her daily change of clothes each time she disappeared behind the bus, into the subway, behind and across pillars… And when they showed her dressed in the white coat above, I went screaming, “I love that coat and hat!!!” loud enough for him to hear. And he agreed the outfit was indeed nice.

Our favourite outfit ensemble:
-Ivory angora coat by Yigal Azrouel (Poor, poor rabbit!)
-Gold python hobo bag by Calvin Klein (I like hobo bags but they are so ex!)
-Pretty pretty hat and gloves by Chanel.(Been looking for that kind of hat in sg for a loooong time.)

This coat is great too! I don’t like the polka dot muffler though.


It looks more flattering when she is all flustered up.

- Wool coat by Calvin Klein

Nice bag which doesn’t look quite flattering draping over her lean shoulders.


You can practically “wear” the bag two ways. Sleek!

-Distressed studded handbag by La Rue

I also liked the outfit that she wore the very first time Nigel dolled her up.

-Chanel all e way!

How come she can be so lucky as to wear all these clothes for free just because she works at Runway huh? If I can wear all these clothes for free just for a day, I don’t mind working as a lowly-paid assistant too… Haha… Falling into the devil’s arm of fashion.

Love the brown boots and head scarf here.
A confused mix of gypsy look (headgear), hooker look (check out the fishnet stocking!) yet going for the classy look (all others)?

-Black coat by Rebecca Taylor
-Brown boots by Christian Louboutin
-Headscarf (by I really wanna know manz)

I happen to think this dress looks great too but fashion gurus thought otherwise. I love how the belt worn at the empire line emphasizes her ample bosom in a soft feminine way.

-Cotton voile jersey dress by Calvin Klein
-sunglasses by Chanel

I never liked Anne Hathaway since her Princess Diaries days. I find her eyes bulgingly big and her mouth and teeth looks like the laughing men at the Esplanade a few years back. But she looked quite good in this show.

The devil herself dresses well too. All her suits are classics. Who cares if fashion gurus criticized the show for Miranda Priestley’s outdated classics just to save up on budget? I mean, they are classics what! Classics don’t get out-dated. Sheesh! And I think Meryl Streep’s performance was stunning. The titular “devil” of the story, she does have the devil air wrapped thickly around her, engulfing her kind soul. Love her floppy, silver hair, her lined eyes and stern gaze!




Did you see the scene where she was crying at home sans make-up? Her eyes had almost no lashes, no unyielding gaze and no sparkle. The wonders of make up!

Flinging her bag and coat onto Andrea’s table everyday.


The devil again.


What’s up with the blue checkered suit Nigel is wearing?

Am I the only one who thinks Emily’s dressing here is like cool?

It’s like huge shoulder pads from the 80s I abhor. It’s like those knight’s armour you see from those Celts, Roman, French, Vikings… But I like.

There were of course clothes which were not too flattering; the whole movie isn't about delicious fashion garb. But the ultimate question after watching the show is………

WHERE IS THE PRADA???

I only saw one prada logo in the whole show and that was Miranda’s bag.

After the show, I also kept lamenting to kh how Singapore is so boring without the four seasons. If only we had the four seasons we could all dress up in fabulous Fall clothes. Winter clothes are cool too. I think kh must be secretly thanking his lucky stars that we don’t reside in such countries. “Spend money on clothes again?!” is his pet phrase.

I’m a devil, but I can only afford BATA for now…