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CNY 2007 and my new gadget on 0221
Initially wanted to use the blue floral stik-ons but decided to use this pink one as it matches my pink mobile phone. (<--click on the words) Well that's all for today. Shall update on the orientation I had on 22-23 Feb another day.
No updates for 6 days!
Blame it on 《花样少年少女》。 hahaha
Anyway I managed to finish watching the 13 episodes available online over the past few days. Yah , during CNY period.
The only thing I look forward to CNY now is that it gives me an excuse to buy new clothes without that Tiger lecturing on how often i buy new clothes (as if I have the luxury to do that).
Come to think of it, I had only 2 sets for the new year and this morning I overheard her telling her friend in the phone that she has new sets of clothes to last from Day 1 to day 15. Kaoz!
年初一( 18 Feb 07)
As usual , visit grandma's (paternal) home.
Took a picture of my sis & and I on the backseat of the car (I have been doing that for the past 2 years) but that din turn out well . Battery went flat immediately despite having recharged it. Come to think of it, since this is the 3rd year I am taking picture of us during CNY, that means my digicam had survived 3 years. Guess it is time to change a new digicam.
Also visited zi-beh-po's house in the afternoon (same itinerary as prev yrs) where all my father's cousins and their children gathered.
There as expected, came the dreadful question......
I wish i can really say what the Strait Times Life! had suggested , to reply :" Oh I will get married once I have collected enough angpow money from you stingy relatives." (or something like that. The writer joked that either way u win. cos it's either next yr, u get more ang pow $ from them or u dun get any, cos u are not invited to visit them and u can escape THAT question).
年初二( 19 Feb 07)
Visted lua-peh-gong's house in the afternoon. Had our lunch there before going to our grandma's house. Left grandma's house in the afternoon . Ever since my grandpa passed away, we dun stay long at grandma house. long story....
so from 4pm till night, I was watching 《花样少年少女》on my laptop. Decided to back track to the earlier episodes I had missed. Started from Episode 1 part 1 (there are 7 parts for each epi) to Episode 5, part 7.) By the time I had decided to call it a day, it was past midnight.
年初三(20 Feb 07)
Had a mini TXYs gathering at BR's house. Most of the TXYs who gathered this year had been there last yr. But still, we enjoyed the dishes which BR's mum cooked for us, especially the homemade muah chee. haha.
Then I left them ard 2 hrs later and proceed to Wendy's new house in Bukit Batok, where my poly friends gathered. After a meal of pizza (we ordered 4!) , at 7pm, we all gathered in front of the TV to watch Channel U"s 《花样少年少女》. K.L., the only single guy keep on complain how we gals are so glued to the serial where he dun find it interesting. Hmmm wonder if the other two guys shared the same thoughts but kept silent cos after they would get scolding from their wives.
《花样少年少女》. is a very "man" show, but guess KL dun like it cos no pretty gals for him to watch. :P
年初四 (21 Feb 07)
How can I forget this day. It's shi-xiong's birthday. 0221 leh.
Received good news when I got back to work. Pay is in! And decided that I mai-tu-liao, must get an mp3 player ASAP, cos i'm getting tired of the long journey from home to work.
Hence without checking around for any special offers available, I made up my mind to get an mp3 player on that evening.
I was joking (又讲冷笑话了)that perhaps I should get SAMSUNG mp3 player. Cos must use Samsung to play Sam's Songs.
(乌鸦飞过.....)
Well, I did not but Samsung brand but got a Creative Neeon instead. Must support local product mah. Went to the Marina Sq store as suggested by Gor, and saw that Creative is having promotion. I just want a mp3 player with at least 1 gb, that also have FM radio and recording function. Since this 6gb Neeon is selling at a promotional rate of $149, I guess it is a good bargain and hence bought it without much hesitation. Also bought a pack of Stik-ons to personalise the black mp3 player.
As a pic speaks a thousand words, so here I present u:
huat arh
dun have time to write much now cos if I have some time online at night i rather spend it catching a few episodes of 花样少年少女 online.
yah, for the first time, I am 追看~ing 偶像剧。
First caught the serial while i was in Taiwan. Think they were already airing the 10+ episode. For two hours , I was glued to the TV screen. More interested in the plot than the actors.Haha.
Anyway,back to simple blogging
These are the ang pow chocolates received form my colleagues. Both of them are executiveds and one of them is my supervisor. After two years of being formal with my prev supervisors, I am a bit surprised to see the supervisors in my department are so informal when dealing with us.
" See I give u ang pow. Dun say I din give har! ", my supervisor (who is a young married woman )joked.
Had actually saw these choclates at Isetan supermarket and they are not cheap. Each cost abt $2 and it is only half the size of the package. So what u see (the brown part) is what u get.
This is what I have done t the left over flowers. Saw that my colleague was putting the flowers into a vase, so I took over and play ard with them.
anyway this evening, while intending to take some extra madarine oranges from office to bring home. saw that one had turn moudy, was abt to throw away when the group manager saw it and ask me to display it.
"发霉好!‘发’嘛!会发财!”。That was what she said.
so, before the new year arrives, let me wish you
恭喜发财!
Huat arh!
hahaha
完了。没了。
welfare & freebies
writing this post in the eve of Valentine's day. Am multi-tasking between wrapping small tokens for my colleagues and writing this post now. so Dun think I am in the mood to start on my Taiwan Trip Day 5. keke
Just a day before Valentine's Day, i had received 2 roses... from the office. haha, this is one of the ideas that the SWC (staff welfare committee) came up with. oh, did I mentioned that i am in the committee too. Actually the idea was that each staff is to receive one rose and a chocolate from their supervisors. Nice to see that the supervisors actually came to collect the flowers and chocolates once the message was sent out.
SWC members have the privilege to take more flowers, which is why I was given 2. haha.
And yesterday, each of us receive a box of mandarin oranges . Each box contains ard 15 oranges, which i bought home ard 10. Still have 8 more in office( as u see, I was given extras). Have to remind myself to eat them.
and heard that tomorrow, we all with be given a pack of Yakult each!
woah!
Who's interested to join my organisation huh? haha
Finally, I think I manage to see my previous post appearing on harmoniewong.blogspot.com, ( without the www"). Dunno what's wrong with blogger nowadays. If blogger shifting too beta mode had so many glitches, I dunno how many bugs there will be for upgrading to Windows Vista.
something work related
*I dunno whats wrong with blogger. Ito view posts after this date, please go to http://www.harmoniewong.blogspot.com, instead of just typing harmoniewong.blogspot.com Thanks)
sianzzz
Day 4 of Taiwan 2007 Trip
Going to be a long post...
20 Jan 2007 (Sat)
Woke up in the morning with shoulder ache, and feeling really tired. 才奔波两天就那么累了。 What I worried more was my legs, must not let 旧病复发。 又累又痛,因此变得很安静。Sally thought I was unhappy with something. hahaha.
Where got unhappy? Even though I had visited Dan Shui last year, I still wanna visit it again. Cos I like the place so much!
While waiting for others to arrive at 淡水Mrt, my mood got better. Because for the first time over the past few day, the weather was good. Such a sunny day. No rain at all. (looking at the pictures, though it seems that the sun was shining brightly, it wsn't scorching hot. Take note that we were still wearing our jackets).
What a sunny day!
Jessica, Huimei arrived soon. And as we walked along the 淡水老街, we bought some t土产along the way. I need to get 阿婆铁蛋for ah-shui. She specified that she want 阿婆 brand. Went to Sophisca candy store of the 淡水branch & bought more candies.
Had 阿给& 鱼圆for lunch. They took me to a different stall from the one I visited last year. But to me, I feel both stalls’ ah-geis tasted great.
If you did not read my last year posting on the food I had from my March , 2006 Taiwan trip阿给are fried tang hoon wrapped in beancurd skins . Each costs only NTW$30 (abt S$1.50)
Decided to visit the tourist attraction -- 红毛城or Fort San Domingo. Chile joined us as we walked along the 淡水河边。 3 ladies are a ruckus, not to mention now there are 6 ladies in total. Dunno who started the idea of wanting me to pretend to jump into 淡水河边 just like what 李圣杰 did in his 《很想说》MV.
闹够了,就继续走向“红毛城”。A brief description of the fort can be found on this admission ticket which I had carefully “preserved" (click on it for larger view):
I took this picture of he building and was rather suprised by the colours of the sky and the building which turned out. I swear i din did any touch-up to it:
Somehow I think we had more fun taking pictures than touring the place. (most of the picture shown here were taken by Nita & Huimei)
See what Chile did:
And even though we were touring the place in a group of 6, we still manage to take group photos without getting assistance from other people. Nita is the best, know fully to make use of fire hydrants, walls to position her camera and set it on timer-mode.
As you see, the only problem we faced were “路人甲,乙” who get into the pic. Hahaha.
Walked back to 淡水河边and guessed what, we heard someone performing 《痴心绝对》。 It’s not the first time we heard it during the day and burst out laughing when the performer introduce himself as “阿杰”。
先生,搞不好你也姓“李”吧。
Frankly speaking, he is not a bad singer. Quite a crowd forming to listen to his performance. A shy little boy even went up to buy his CD.
Went to try out their 巨无霸ice-cream:
See I was rather nervous when holding it.
Cos it wasn’t mines. Huimei bought it at ard S$1 only.
I had bought a smaller version at S$0.50 – green tea & strawberry flavor.
Wanna see “Spiderman” perform but too bad the Spiderman-of-the-day was not active, just stood around. Heard from others that they had seen a Spiderman jumping ard, making lots of poses.
Oh forgot to mention that Miss Nita is a ‘dangerous woman” when she had her camera with her. Cos she can be taking picture of you without being noticed. But had to admit she is really good, see this picture she took when I was resting at the river bank
(I changed it to sepia mode)
Set off to 橘屋.日式陶锅 opposite 淡水捷运站for our Shabu-shabu dinner. I had never tried this type of individual steamboat dinner before. Good leh. need not worry abt not having spicy soup base where others want it. hahah.
This is the menu, which is also the "coaster".
Took a few pics while waiting for the soup to heat up:
Had a really great dinner. The meat & seafood were fresh. Ate a lot of new “yong-tau-foo” stuff which cannot be found in Singapore—cheese fishballs, white & purple balls which are a mixture of flour & yam.
And the price – NTWS$330. That is ard S$15. Including free flow of drinks too. So I guess it cost less than our usual ChongQing steamboat @ beach road.
Sally left to attend to some matters while we had Haohao joining us towards the end of our dinner.
Went to 忠孝东路 , intending to find a place where we can sit down & chat. Was turned off at the first place cos it required a minimum spending of NTW $800 each (though they say we can order food, sing ktv). The most far-nie thing was that when we opened the door, the counter staff said :
“对不起,这不是让人来跳舞的。”
我们像是去跳舞的吗?!!!!
In the end, we settled at a small pub called Queen Coffee. Long story lah, dun wanna explain here. Just interesting to learn that in Taiwan, many of such pubs were another business (in this case, it serves coffee ) in the day and turned into pubs (and dun even serve non-alcoholic drinks) as the sky turn dark..
So that’s the end of my long day on 20 Jan 2007.
3rd day of 2007 Taiwan trip
19 Jan 2007 (Fri)
Had their local 豆浆&水煎包 for breaking before leaving for 西门町。
Planned to have 阿宗面线 for lunch & find out where the Sophisca Candy Shop branch is located at Ximending .
As stomach is still full for the breakfast , went to walk ard and take some pictures. Suprised I could still remember the location of some somes & buildings, eg 玫瑰唱片行,好口杯 bubble tea shop. Still, there were some chances over the year -- eg saw a new Mister Donut shop in the last stages of renovation, the signages of 好口杯 bubble tea shop used too be blue and white but now it was like this:
Walk further down and saw a deserted building filled with graffiti. Seems eerie even in broad daylight. Walked back to the MRT station and capture a pic of the temperature of that morning.
Had 阿宗面线 for lunch with janet and as I had taken a pic of it durng the last trip, I din take any pic. Wanna enjoy my orh-lua-mee-suah. hahaha.
Managed to find Sophisca candy shop with the help of Janet. The melty chocolates I craved for now comes in a new packaging.
Biought a lot of candies and chocolates, which include :
and these:
Could have bought more if i have more budget & baggage allowance. ;P
Then went to 台北地下街 -- an underground shopping mall at Taipei Main Station. Bought another pair of shoes for CNY. S$10 only. hahaha.
Had dinner at a Thai Restaurant at 西门町红楼. (a memorable one).
Too bad the lighting was not good, i gave up taking pics after seeing how the best this月亮虾饼 turned out:
Heard abt the rumoured gay restaurant beside the Thai Restaurant. Saw that there were a lot nice- fit guys there. hmmm.
When I went to the washroom and walk pass the restaurant, something on their noticeboard caught my eyes:
Well... need I say more?
Then went to the outdoor café (奥多咖啡)永和仁爱公园,which is some distance from 顶溪 mrt station.
Cos Sally wanna watch the performance by 萧煌奇。
萧煌奇 is visually impaired ( i dun want to use the word that starts with B) singer, like Singapore 's own 陈伟联。 However he is not as lucky as Chen to have been shot to fame through a singing contest. If you had come accross this song "你是我的眼“ ( i think i might have heard it over 972 or 958 cos it sounds familiar), then you will know he is the singer of ths song. 李圣杰在他的第二张专辑“痴心绝对”有收录他与萧煌奇的合唱曲《看见》。
Back to outdoor cafe. It is like our hangout place-- 木船,except that it is at outdoors and much cheaper. There is only a requirement of minimum spending of NTW$60 (ard S$3) per pax (be it drinks or food) and you can hang ard and enjoyed the performances from 8-10pm. The only thing-- pray that it wun rain.
Really full of respect for 萧煌奇 after watching his performance. Due to his visual impairedness, he have to work harder than any other singers. 自弹自唱,hence have to memorised a lot of scores and lyrics as he can't be refering to them.
I dunno how's 陈伟联's arangement when he was performing at Muchuan, but for 萧先生,there is an "angel helper" who will collect the dedications from the audtion. After some time, she will read out the dedication list & 萧先生 will try to memorises what are the songs, choose a few and make them into a medley.
I can only recalled he sang 大海,黄昏,痴心绝对,眼底星空,你是我的眼 , and some 闽南语歌曲。 see my memory is failing me。
Haha took a pic with him too. Found him to be friendly and humourous. 一点架子都没有。
Here is a scanned pic of his upcoming concert. Can check out the urls listed (click on it for larger view);
I tried visiting the Outdoor cafe website but it was down. Meanwhile can check out this website;
http://blog.yam.com/outdoorcafe