NOTE:[The funny symbols are chinese characters, to view, please change yr "encoding" to "Unicode" Also. please go to the Archives and click n the current month to view latest posts.]
Name: [Harmonie Wong] Date of Birth: [17 Aug 1981] Gender: [Female] Location: [Singapore] Email: [harmonie_wong@hotmail.com] Description: [Not going to spend time here introducing myself. To my dear friends, relax, I didn't change my name to "Harmonie Wong". If you hadn't read my first entry, it's just a nick. However, there is a story behind. "Wong"was chosen because of family's history with the surname. As for "Harmonie", it's because of a numerology pairing with "Wong". You can read more abt it in my 1st entry. I know that the online world is not 100% secure, so won't be revealing too much. & my dear friends, rest assured that I'll not be mentioning yr real life names in this blog.]
Too much of a coincidence right? And as for the next organisation I will be working from next Monday, blue is also the major colour featured in its logo!
Anyway, I will be keeping in touch with the friends I had made , and since my new office is rather near to theirs, I know we will still be meeting up regularly and secretly for lunch. Just that I can't be the "weather broadcaster" for some anymore.
All the best to my friends and to myself too (for the new job).
The season for Melty Kisses. Have actually bought these a few weeks ago, For this year, the flavours available are Rum, Strawberry and Creamy Chocolate. Readlly like the box of Rum Chocolates as they are packaged in my favourite shade of purple color!
Am actually draftng this post on the bus journey home now as I am using an eee PC with mobile broadband function.
Yes, it's a Xmas present for myself, using my bonus. Was deciding whether to get an LG Renior HSDPA mobile phone and sign up for mobile broadband service or get an ASUS eee PC at a special price with a 24 month Data Plan contract with Singtel Mobile Broadband. If not for the reconomy slowdown and we received a lesser bonus payout than last year, I might have consider buying both. However, really have to be careful with my spending as I need to save up for my studies too.
Well, at least i am contented that I still receive my 13th month AWS and an additional variable bonus payout.
It's the same case for my exams results. Was actually quite dissappointed that I did not score well for the paper which I was most confident in. However after seeing the number of students who had failed that subject and another tough module, i guess I should be thankful I managed to clear all 3 subjects to progress into the next semester.
Well it looks like detergent right? Even my colleagues who helped me to buy the medication said so. And while drinking the medicine, I even joked that I was going commit suicide by drinking "detergent".
And recently, I had to spent a precious Sunday to bring my bro to Ikea to choose his study cable and cabinet ( yeah I paid for them). Instead of a study table that comes with its desk, bro chose a plain study table and a separate pedestal. The pedestal, at $99, cos more than the study table! guess my bro like it becos of the blind cover. I was hesitant abt buying it cos it seems too complicate to assemble. Yet my bro was confident he can do it.
Whatever ! cos when we reach home, he din even have the strength to drill the screws of the table legs. Blame it for the lack of electronic drill. Have to beg Dad for help. And Dad only helped to screw the legs of the desk for ask, leaving us to assemble the pedestal. After a few hours, we manged to put everything up.
Well, i also need to pamper myself too. i bought myself a new mp3 player . Mainly becos I need to record lectures in mp3 format. My old mp3 player 's Start/Stop button cannot be used and even though I can still revive it by using the power cable, I was unable to record any files without activating the function by the Start/Stop button. As for the band of Mp3 player I brought, well it's still Creative
But it's Creative Zen X-Fi!
it is not only a mp3 player. You can also watch videos, view pictures on it. Since there is a option on expanded memory by SD-card, I settled for the basic 8Gb model. I dun see the point paying $100+ more for a 16 Gb model with wi-fi function for wireless music streaming & messenger function.
That's all for now, gotta work on my invites for the Aug gathering and my assignment!
I had taken a biteful, then decided to take a pic of the "Ritz Calton chocolate"
Can "da pao" them back ? ;P
The couple
Nicco, the bride.
Yeah my hair seems really red.
One week later, my hair was due for treatment and I was spotting a darker shade of red hair at Miaona's wedding.
Miaona's wedding at Grand Corpthone Waterfront, 1 June 2008
Of so many weddings I have been too, this is quite surprising to me that this was the first time I ever come across the wedding couple, their maid of honour and best man giving a speech. (A friend told me that should be expected in a proper ceremony).
Forgotten who initiate it, but we managed to gather the TXYs present at her wedding to take a group photo.
Yeah, all are "老鹰", at least 14届, if I am not wrong.
Boss initially thought that there are exactly 7 people under him, so he mentioned to replace our pics with 新传媒七公主 pics.
My colleague who was also ard, was whining loudly " 老板嫌弃我们。不想看到我们的脸!"
Then later he realised that need to include one more head count and 2 more positions (which he is going to hire). Then he just suggest to include "Andrea Fonseka" under him.
My colleague X , who was the "Andrea Fonseka" later gotta know abt this org chart and her reaction was "Hmm is it becos I very jia-kantang, so boss put me as Channel 5 artiste while u all are Channel 8 (artistes)".
When the org chart was done, we have a great laugh over it. Instead of replacing the younger exec pictures with the sexy Fiona Xie's pic , I purposely replace the older nurse manager pic instead. Haha. None of us wanna be associate with her, or rather her figure....
The last chocolate design is rather cheeky, but it's a fav among my colleagues. A colleague even asked to bring one home to show her husband.
One new item that JQ sent was this "幸福囊”。
Inside this packet, was a red candy with "love" wordings. Well, on the packet, as u can see from the pic , states "恋爱运成". Wonder what makes JQ decided to get that for me. Hahaha.
blog have been left stagnant. Have been busy helping out at an International Advisory Panel meeting for the past few days at work. Ya that's what the "IAP" in my msn nick stands for.
After reading abt the review of Food Addict Cafe from Sparklette's blog, i was so eager to give it a try since it is near to my hometown. Hence on last sat, arranged to meet up with "Fannie" over dinner there.
The cafe sure look quite out of place between a fashion clothing shop & a florist shop. The searting capacity is also small,abt 7 tables (3 extend ouside the shop). That was why I had asked Fannie to meet up earlier, at 6pm. And true enuff, teh crowd start cmomin in as we have our meal.
Yup, the food was good. Really delicious. But not the drinks.... I wondered why "Sparklette" did not mention abt any drink in her blog. Perhaps that's the reason why... But cant't blame the chef. As the drinks were prepared by the waiter and waitresses
I ordered an ice mocha (which i find it rather diluted) and the glass behind was Fannie's Green Apple Soda .
I ordered the recommended Hot Chicken (pic on the left). Yeah, for those who know i dun eat spicy stuff, dun be surprised. It was not hot (spicy) at all. "Hot" is becos it is popular. Love the chuncky , "crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside" potato wedges. Even fannie who was full after having her pasta, could not resist taking a few pieces from my plate. As for the chicken piece, it is marinated with some honey sauce. Normally for chicken chop or barbeque or fried chicken, I would at most, only ate a litle portion of the chicken skin, but for this dish, I ate more than half of it.
Fannied ordered a seafood pasta (shown on the right). I prefer creamy based pasta but from the few bite I had taken off from her plate, I have no complains abt it. Fannie also said it's quite nice.
Food served here are similar to NYDC style (heard the chef has worked at NYDC for 15 years) but the prices are dedinately much cheaper. and best of all, there is no service charge or GST . All NETT Price as stated on the menus.
We were quite full after our main course, but earlier on, I had ordered a Berry Berry Mudpie as dessert. Wanted to try the TCM (not Traditional Chinese Medicine but Total Chocolate Mocha) mudpie but was told that it is out of stock. So despite our stomach being filled , we still attacked the $4 Bery Bery mudpie.
Would definately want to visit it someday with friends cos I wanted to try out other dishes and their cheese cakes. Haha anyone interested?
On an additional note, the service is not bad, for the waitress and waiter had taken initiative to pull an extra chairs for our bags and asked us if we need extra plates when the main courses were served.
Now for the location of this gem in the heartland: Food Addict Café is located at 185 Toa Payoh Central #01-324 , Singapore 310185 Tel: 6259 4218
have my own personal reasons for not writing . Had been dealing with a load of shit that was finally settled yesterday.
Confrontation..betrayal...
those who care would surely know the story now....
anyway, now gg to do a quick summary of what I had actually intended to post BEFORE the chinese new year (the rest , i'll slowly "pay back in installments").
***********************************************
all are related to FOOD!
1) That day, boss was supposed to be on leave and yet he came back to deliver some stuff to my colleague, and he called me to also get some stuff from him. So walked all the way 3 blocks down to the passenger drop off point and he passed me a tray (for his office use) and a box of ineapple tarts which he fotten from Malacca.
"This one is for u" he said.
Boss know I tend to share whatver food I have , like that day he just passed me a box of chocolates and know that I will let my colleagues to “干掉” them. And co-incidentally, just that same morning, I had brought a box of pineapple tarts to office . So I presume when he said "for me" is referring to for us to share.
And Within the next 20 mins, I was like forcing my colleagues to eat them.
Then came a call for boss, saying that that box of tarts is for me only and not to share with others.
alamak.. too late... but to him i mumbled "orh orh" and thinking that if it is for me, i can do whatever I want mah. hahha
Think boss think he might have ill-treated me cos I'd lost weight. Boss have this tendency of making sure the staff under him eat more after they lose weight. My colleague was nagged by him to eat more at the steamboat dinner he treated us last year. And i was nagged by him to bring home the tarts and quickly finish them, cos they are hand made.
Think my family like them. In less than 2 days, the pineapple tarts were all finished. even my sis whom i seldom see her eating pineapple tarts can tell me they are nice.
so these are the tarts. Lots of fillings right?
2) Finally, after hearing abt the famous braddell coffee shop that sells chicken riceballs which have been reviewed by the press for quite a number of times over the years. I finally get chance to try them. Went to the coffeeshop for lunch with some TXY alumni friends after our meeting on Sunday . 3 Feb. All along, I have been rather guilty to say that as a 100% Hainanese, i have never eaten Hainaneses chicken rice balls before (well, not counting the times where my grandma used to make rice balls by compressing two ups together. Haha
3)Been to this MoguMogu Japanese fastfood restuarant twice within 10 days,after seeing cute pics of the food published on newspaper.
One thing that I dun like was Takashimaya's ( or rather, Ngee Ann City) decor. It looked so familiar........ I have pics to prove:
But the big pillars of Poinsettia at the ground level made up for it. Taking pics with it as the backdrop looked so pretty!
Like Takashimaya, Paragon also have its tradition Xmas tree just in front of the building, but the decor is different every year. Who would have out of a "pearl-y" Xmas tree!
Dropped by at Nana's shop (http://www.bythebranch.com.sg/) to get some more xmas gifts. She commented my hair as red as Sammi . Hmm I was starting to worry if my highlights are too striking and my parents will freak out when they saw my hair...
In the evening, met up with the SPH gang for dinner at 天外天。We not only ordered the famous Fish head steamboat, but also order other zhi-char dishes such as prawn paste chicken, fu-rong egg, prawn and beancurd, and veggie. Yummy yummy.
20 Dec
as shown in the pic above, met up with 王太and 金城太 at Bishan. We wanna avoid the Orchard crowd as it's a public holiday. checked out the Junction 8's Wan ChaiHongKongTeaRoom. Even though I have my lunch, i could not resist ordering the honeydew sage with ice cream when I had already ordered a cup of tea and a sering of fried dumplings.
One thing I found out, my new digicam take pics of food quite well. The food looked appetising on the screen.
later went to AMK Hub to get another new toy for myself. As mentioned in the previous post, wanted to get Nokia 6110 navigator but ended up getting a 6500 Slide cos of the Hot Deals Promotion.
21 Dec
Back to work at office. It's rather quiet in the office as many of the colleagues took leave to enjoy a long weekend. For those who are around, many are in a holiday mood. In the evening, met up with KTV khakis for gift exchange over a round of drinks and KTV at a pub in Serangoon gardens. As we left the place rather early,(b4 midnite), VGF suggested we the whole group of 4 to check out the Upper Seletar reservoir where the carpark are full of cars with newspapers or cardboard pasted around the windows. We also climbed up the tower to check out the view from there, while climbing the stairs, we kinda worry what will happen if we happened to bump into some couples who were making use of the ahem.. place... there. To our relief (or some, a disappointment), we were the only ones who climbed up the tower that nite. A bit bohliao , I have to admit....
Had supper with them before went home. Rotiprata = more carbohs...
22 Dec
Dinner at Vil'age with the TXY gang ( a grp of 10) before fannie and I proceed to take picture of the Xmas deco at Orchard Rd. Not going to list down what I ate and "koped" from others.
Pics of the deco will be post on another day. Quite pleased with my new toy (camera). Hahah
28 Dec
Went to attend a basic digital photography photoshop course with my colleague. In the evening, we proceed to the ZuiFairprice Steamboat Restaurant at upper thomson road to meet other colleagues for dinner. Boss was giving us (those who worked under him) our dinner treat there. Thinking that the serving would be quite little, we ordered quite a lot of food (since it's buffet anyway). turned out we have plates of meat, meatballs, veggies to clear. Boss even ordered an extra dish of slated chicken. We were also given a plate of live prawns. I was the one who "murdered" the live prawns by catching hold of them from their feelers and throw them into the boiling soup. What to do, the rest of the gals dun dare to touch them.
Even though all of us were full, some colleagues wanted to have a up of ice-cream at Eskimo nearby. Couldn't find a seat for 7 people there and we just walked around and decided to check out this white and red themed cafe instead. For those interested, can check out this url of a review of the cafe which I just found online . Craving Thoughts Cafe (http://www.hungrygowhere.com/craving_thoughts_cafe) .
Drinks were on boss again! Suggested taking a group photo since it is rare chance that we can get together after work. Then one colleague added that we should all be standing behind the boss. (as it happen that currently , all the staff under him were all gals, boss often likes to joke that 我们是他的女人. And another colleague added that the two Sisters (who are higher in rank) should be sitting beside him instead. Andsurprisingly, everyone was so 'on". Quickly sprang into action and gotten the waiter to help to take a pic.
The funny thing was, after we took our pic. The customers at the neighbouring tables start to take their group photos too.
Above pics are some of the drinks we had ordered. As you can see, I really like to to take pics of food with my new toy. :P
I've done something which is not my usual style again.
After aiming to get theNokiaNavgigator 6110 for weeks and have been telling my close friends for the past few days that I will upgrade my hp to that model this few days, and set to get my hands on this model yesterday (it's mid nite now), I changed my mind again at the counter!!!
Got a Nokia 6500 slider phone instead
Anyway will talk more abt it next time. Now busy trying to find back the contact numbers of my friends. As the shop was abt to close when it was my turn to be served, (spent hours waiting at teh Hello! Singtel shop), the salesperson was in a rush and did not transfer the contacts of my old SIM card to the New 3G SIM card. Now my old SIM card is de-activated and I can't get back the contacts stored .
So now I have to request my dear friends if your happen to read this, please sms me yr name and contact number. My HP number is still the same.
Thanks a lot ya.
and u know what. I just saw my horoscope for yesterday (20 Dec) in my email mailbox and guessed what it read:
Your Horoscope for DECEMBER 20, 2007 Today is likely to bring communication problems, XIANGXUAN. Perhaps a colleague is in a bad mood, and not very receptive to anything you might have to say. Or perhaps the phones are out or the computers are down. This could prove frustrating. Really have communication probs .. damn kan-cheong to get back my contacts...
Wanted to get this cos it has the rotational lens function. And this model is 12 megapix!! But my friend said that it is so bulky, not suitable for me. and I wun be fully utilising its advance feature cos i dunno much abt photography.
So he recommended this camera which is sleek and has a wide 3 inch screen . showed me all the fun things I can do with this model, where can add icons (stars) on the pic taken directly on the camera. The best part is that this camera cost $100 less then the Canon PowerShot A650. Though it is 8.1 megapix , it has face recognition, smile detection features and the best offer among the authorised dealer in Sim Lim Sq came in a package of TWO 2 Gb SD card ( each value at $65) and a carry case.
So at the last minute, I can see it is quite stupid to get the bulky Powershot just becos of a that rotational lens feature and i decided to change my mind.
Here I present my new toy:
Sony CybershotDSC-T70 in rose pink.
Too lazy to describeabt its specs cos they can be viewed here:
One thing I realised. The above pic of cos is taken with my old digicam. So the last pic (most prob) taken with the old digicam is a pic of the new digicam which it will be replaced by.... How ironic!
Have to say although I am not very into pink, but this camera is very "me" hor. :P
Nothing much happening during the past week -- as in events.
Happened to touch on a topic related to flirting and how someone was like always trying to gain attention in the mid week and co-incidentally, met a super flirt the next day . And that person was our course instructor....
My colleague and I attended this Dreamweaver course at an external site on Thursday and Friday. The class consist of 6, with me and my colleague sitting on the left side and a young school buy, and 3 other ladies seated on the right. Initially, tot the course instructor was trying to be friendly or lightened up the mood when he start introducing himself to us (on the left), with details abt his age, and self-proclaimed he looked like Jon Leong (which we dun think so), giving occasional winks.
Din bother to remembered the whole conversation but here's an extract
Instructor : " Yeah, I dun look like I am in my 30s right?" (flirty glance) My colleague : " Except when u smile, the wrinkles will show." Instructor : " It's in the smile." ( Wink) "Adds character , yeah?" (wink)
And then my colleague was typing a message on her hp and show it to me. The message was :
He super flirty hor?
I almost burst out laughing loudly when just that moment, he turned to the ladies on the right, perhaps caught their looks ( I have to say, to put it diplomatically, they were just average looking) and said " No, I'm not flirting with them."
Perhaps he didn't heard of this phrase called 不打自招....
Though I am paying attention in class, I find it difficult to keep my eyes open wide as I began to develop sinus symptoms. And every time my eyes were half opened, he 'd have caught me off-guard and threatened to frightened me with a surprise evil laughter. And asked my colleague to give him the cue if I start to doze off.
Anyway, the treats were empty threats and it was beginning to be quite boring that my colleague eventually asked him to go ahead to show us his evil laughter just to stop all this nonsense.
The flirting continued throughout the day. Especially during the breaks. We noticed how he "casually" portray himself as a family man by saying he'd like to have kids and he recently ended a long relationship ( ppl seldom reveal that much on the 1st day of knowing someone) and then slowly came to the questions of asking our age and if we are single or attached.
I was laughing when i heard my colleague's bullshit reply that she is single but dating 3 people at the same time now. (obviously trying to scare him off). Have to say, as she is in the marketing line, she sure know how to talk and talk crap when dealing with such people. have to contain my smile when i heard her continue bullshitingabt how she gave equal standing to the 3 guys and how aware they are abt it. It sounds so convincing that the instructor asked me if I knew all these, which I played along by saying of course I knew that as we are close.
I have to admit I am not the type who would know how to 应酬 and tend to draw out my spears and amour when dealing with these type of people. Here are some of the "attacks" I have launched.
1) During our practice sessions, he came over and saw the colour scheme I had for my webpage and commented " I noticed you are quite a pastel person."
Quite irritated by the way he purposely soften his tone and his glance, I shot back " Oh, it's just that I don't like yellow." (referring to the yellow background he had chosen for his demo)
2) In the afternoon, I was still having a runny nose and the the gal seated at the right was also having such symptoms. And there he was like making a joke of how we two from the same Poly having the same symptoms and said that he have a jacket and we can borrowed from him if he want. Because he was looking in my direction at the end , I cut him off by saying:
" Nah, it's ok. I'll be alright once I get out of here" He gave my colleague a look, which she added "Ouch!"
Taking cue, I turned to her and added " Yah, I was ok when we were out having lunch right."
That left him finding a way out by saying " Woah. She has a sharp tongue."
I dun care that seems rude but was rather relieve that i manage to fend him off as he tend to speak more to my colleague after that.
At the end of the day, my colleague was telling me that she was so tired cos she feel like catching some rest during our breaks but he came over to our side to chat. ( and I had to admit i let her do most of the talking since she's good at it).
The next day was much better, for me. With the exception that he tried to make me tell him where I am off too after class (cos was wearing a dress) , make fun of the animal print lining of my jacket, and saying he is trying to get back at the 4 "Ouches" I gave him the previous day ( Oh man, he even count them. So petty), he was occupied by questions from the other students most of the time. If he's free, he will continuing with his flirting with my colleague who will know how to deal with his questions.
When filling up the evaluation form, we joked that we should reflect that the instructor was too flirty to his students. But , fairly speaking, to give him some credits, we were really impressed by the designs he had created, and he is generous to teach us some tips on other applications (like photoshop) when we asked.
**************************************
Nearly mid week of Dec, I am still working on my cards and gifts. How I wish I have more time after work or am able to work 24/7....