. blogshop ads . ♥

Auraelle ♥

for those who love to dress up!

http://auraelle.blogspot.com

Many cheers to my entrepreneur friends who decide to mix business with pleasure and in succeeding in launching their debut clothing collection! 

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Xius Vroom Vroom

specially customized shoes

http://xiusvroomvroom.onsugar.com

Ever been in a situation where you are tired of seeing others wearing the exact, same shoes as you are, when strolling down the streets of Orchard Road?  Now is your chance to own an exclusive pair of shoes … all customized to fit your whims and needs!

. the birthday week .

Get the ball rolling …

Happy Birthday, Steven !
@ Plaza Market Cafe, Fairmount Hotel

In celebration of Steven’s birthday, as well as our first pay cheque, the group decided to head over to Plaza Market Cafe for its array of Peranakan buffet feast. The first thing that I usually dash for is the “COLD DISH” section, which unfortunately didn’t live up to my expectations. Cold dishes include flower crabs ( hardly any meat),  salmon & tuna sashimi which were neither tasty nor exactly fresh … that being said, the one saving grace was its succulent prawns. To make up for the lack of delicious cold appetizers, I actually went for multiple helpings of the prawns =)  The range of main courses include a mix of usual Chinese & Malay cuisine. My review? Nothing fantastic to shout about, as the quality of the food was average at best. Honestly, had it not been for Steven’s ‘Feed at Raffles’ membership which gave us a 50% discount off the total bill, I would have been peeved at having to pay so much for the buffet feast that has been seriously over-rated. To sum it up, the experience would not warrant a 2nd trip.

Went down the usual route of surprising Steven with a slice of cake for his birthday. =)   Just a simple gesture, on our part. Planning to head for a seafood fiesta ( crabs! oysters! mussels! prawns! ) to celebrate our 2nd pay cheque in the coming month.

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Happy Birthday to the Girls – Eve & Sharadah !
@ fish & co.

Wasn’t able to turn up for the girls’ 21st celebrations last yr as I was overseas. Come this year, I made sure that I wouldn’t miss their birthdays. Miss once, but not twice. In fact, with some of us bringing our +1, we succeeded in having the largest turnout ever. Like I told MK before, Boyfriends make the best accessories lol.  =)

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Bracing our taste buds for some Indian cuisine goodness
Nicole, MK
Ras The Essence of India

* MUST-READ for those who want to travel to Laos

I can never get about spending enough time with Nicky man. Time simply seemed to zoom past. This time round, Nic shared with us thrilling stories of her ABSOLUTELY adventurous trip in Laos. Together with her gfs, they got themselves involved in an array of off-the-beaten track activities such as dirt-biking, white-water rafting ( something that i’ve been wanting to do since the disappointing experience in Tasmania ), zipping 150m above the ground in a forest and the highlight – to stay in an authentic treehouse!  Awesome!

Oh, and did I mentioned that they almost got swept by the raging waves when their canoe over-turned during their rafting excursion?!? Scary. Not too different from the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse, the open-concept Gibbon Treehouse attends to all your basic needs. Kitchen, Bedroom, Balcony where you can get a bird’s eye view of the stunning wilderness and of course, a gal’s essential room – A Bathroom. So no worries for those who can’t stand a day without shower. Ever thought of how one would travel when staying in a canopy-level treehouse (40m off the ground)? Fear not, for you wouldn’t have to climb up/down the tree. However, it could be a hair-raising experience for those who have a phobia of heights. The only mode of transport to/from the treehouse is to zip/glide along the network of zip lines. So basically, you’re kinda like a monkey … gliding from tree to tree, enjoying the excellent views of nature. If you’re lucky enough, you might even encounter the various families of gibbons. In comparison, the newly opened MegaZip @ Sentosa is child’s play (and might i add, expensive). As with what most people experienced when visiting other SEA countries, the locals there are extremely gracious & friendly ( somehow, the same couldn’t be said for Singaporeans) thus making their trip even more unforgettable.

My passion for travel intensified after listening to her stories and Im now just counting down to the days when I can finally take leave to travel. Probably, just a short getaway to somewhere nearby. Someday, soon.

Mini Turns 50 Celebration
@ Clarke Quay
* pics credit to MK

Out of curiousity, we went to have a look at the  “Mini celebrates 50th Anniversary” exhibition. Unfortunately, we left the lackluster event feeling disappointed as we thought that it would have more activities/exhibits to offer. Nonetheless, the Mini Cooper S remains as my dream car. Oh well, what’s lacking: Driving License. Vitamin M. The 2 most crucial factors. Meanwhile, I’ll continue dreaming … … head in the clouds.

Spectacular night views of Clarke Quay
* pics credit to MK

With a magnificent river view like this, it’s not surprising that Clarke Quay is such a hit amongst night-dwellers!

A rare sighting:
A trishaw driver all alone, at a quiet lane at CQ

. go on & re-live my childhood .

Not Forgotten

Tiny Tots making an appearance once more !

Out of the comfort zone of being @ home
and stepping into the outside world.
A world that overwhelms the innocents.
Drink more booze.
Light up the Marlboro stick.

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Mr Men, Little Miss

I think I just climbed out of the mountain or something, been oblivious to the “Mr Men Little Miss” toys in capsules at 7-11 till a couple weeks back. Seeking cheap thrill in the novelty of purchasing the capsules and not knowing which characters that come along with it. Such a joke that we are finally starting to collect these collectibles, only when the hype & interest is dying lol. Super Slow.

Mr Nosey. Mr Greedy. Little Miss Sunshine. Mr Small. Little Miss Shy. Little Miss Chatterbox.
Missing: Mr Happy, Mr Bump, Little Miss Naughty, Mr Strong

Next Post

It’s been awhile since MK & I had gone out on a date. Conflicting work schedules ( me working in the day, and him working as a bartender in the past couple of mths ) had made it slightly more difficult for us to get together. Time together were hard-to-come-by and usually spent in the comfort of my home with Archie. Now that he’s finally working in his new ( and dream! ) job, I foresee that our schedules will be much more compatible.

Laughter with you in the picture

♥

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Disney Pixar’s UP

A heart-warming movie that has been raved about by many people, I , likewise, got to admit that Pixar’s UP is undoubtedly the best film that I have watched this year. A simple plot, UP’s story revolves around the power of love …  how one man’s love for his wife and her dreams re-energized him and made him embarked on a journey of re-discovery of a life of adventure. The movie also explores the different aspects of life – Love. Joy. Sorrow. Loss. Unfulfilled dreams. Pursuit of happiness. Just the way our real life is … the ups & downs. To finally learn how to let go of the things/ones we cherish most, in order to start life afresh. No point harbouring all those sad memories in us all the time, for we’ll never be happy that way.

It is especially inspiring as the movie goes to show that a simple lifestyle does not exactly equal to being boring. The stereotype of a perfect life – good career. finding the love of your life. first home. settling down to start a family. kids. etc … – might be deemed as cliche but that doesn’t discard the fact that the so-called stereotypical lifestyle also comes with challenges & a sense of adventure. To put it, it reflects “the importance of finding life’s adventures right under our noses” … don’t say that life’s boring, for you can simply find (that’s if you bother to look)  a sense of adventure, everyday & everywhere. An uplifting & compelling movie! Definitely planning to get the dvd once it’s released =)

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: on arrangement

@ substation

MK & I went for the exhibition ” : on arrangement “  at The Substation a couple weeks back. Directed by Atelier HOKO, the exhibition aims to portray how different people from all around the globe view & perceive arrangement to be. True indeed, all of us arrange things every day, probably even almost every hour. Yet more often than not, we take “arrangement” for granted …  not knowing consciously on how it affects us and our lifestyles. It all boils down to arrangement – From a daily activity of how we try to schedule our week to maintain a work-life balance to decorating our first home to suit a particular theme and even to something as simple as the way we pick our accessories/shoes to fit our outfits.

A topic that I find to be very relevant in my current line of work where the positioning and placement of goods is extremely crucial in capturing the customers’ attention and increase profit sales. That aside, the exhibition also brought to light how insignificant & minute details like these can often be over-looked in our lives … “The arrangement of the untidy one” is one particular exhibit that I took special interest in. In its display, it stated that one need not be organized or neat in order to understand the “discipline of arrangement”. Instead, an untidy individual can likewise, knows where she places her stuff and how she organises her life despite living under messy conditions. Sounds JUST like me, thou Im still guilty of misplacing my stull all the time! That, according to the directors, is the concept of arrangement. “That arrangement is simply a bit of intuition and common sense“. That arrangement can also be used as a tool to reflect, ponder, evaluate & change our lifestyles & habits, if needed.

An extremely well-planned exhibition that encourages one to probe and  further examine the significance of ‘arrangement’ in our lives ( & thereafter, according to the directors).

” All your life.

You have been arranging.

Arranging things, arranging appointments, meetings, objects, words, sentences, language, food, flowers, shoes, clothes, furniture, interiors, things in drawers, in cabinets.

Arranging colours, arranging your hair, clothes on the body, arranging flowers at home.

After work, looking at the arrangement inside shop windows, shoes, food, words, transportation systems, advertisements, all communicated through arrangement …

Upon reaching home, arranging what you bought into the respective places …

Clothes goes into the wardrobe or onto hooks, food into the cabinets and refrigerator, shoes on the show racks … etc … etc …

Arranging is like breathing the air around you while you are alive.

But unlike breathing, arrangement goes beyond death … arrangements for funerals, arrangement of your body in the coffin you arranged for, arranging a tomb space for your dead corpse.

Receiving arrangements of flowers every year on your death anniversary.

After thirty years, your bones get dug up from the grave, re-arranged to another place.”

- Atelier HOKO -

. peek-a-boo .

The most inexpensive beauty secret.
. A Smile .

SMU Settlers’ Cafe with SIM friends.
We play, let our hair down & make merry.

The gals & I finally managed to make time for a way,way,way overdue dinner! Sad to say, we had not been about to organize a successful meet-up ever since the last day of school ( which was 3mths ago! ) … So, it’s about time anyway!  With some of us holding full-time jobs, it was thus inevitable that we came to a consensus that “All work and No play makes Jack a dull boy” & that we needed to inject some childhood, mindless fun back into our lives. No Wii, Lan games or X-box, just back to the era of old school boardgames & card games. Temporary LAGGARDS.

As with almost all of our outings, we burst into a fit of laughter whenever we managed to sabo someone else lol. Extra hooray to Cherie for being gutsy enuff’ to perform an impromptu tap dance to entertain us. For Cherlynn, Jocelyn & me for being IDIOTS most of the time, during the IDIOT game. For Cherlynn (again!) for being kena the most no. of FINE cards for not being able to stop talking ( can’t help it, since she’s our dear host for the night). With all ups, there were also downs. May I say Horrendous food? Terrible. And also, the lack of mindless, but superbly fun games like Dinosaurs ( warning: Coarse voice to be expected at the end of the day).

* PS: Im sure we would do great with yet another gathering @ a games’ cafe real soon!

A special Settlers’ Cafe promotion – Use a pair of chopsticks to pick up as many coins as you can within 45 secs. The total amount of coins picked would be used to off-set our final bill. As expected, most of us suck at it. We thought that it would be a hopeless case, till Master JZ came into the picture and worked her magic. The final result? A whopping $6  ($10 being the max. and the remaining were 20cents & 10cents coins) off the total bill for us! 
JZ, you rock !

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Importance of my fellow MTs

It has already been more than a month since I started work, but somehow other events & commitments have taken priority over blogging about “Starting my first FT job”. Nevertheless, work has been smooth-sailing so far … Along with 5 other MTs, our current schedule comprises mainly of trainings and OJT. Truth to be told, all 6 of us can’t help but agree that we still do feel like tertiary students. Right now, we are still birds flying in the sky … carefree, fun-loving and handling lesser responsibilities. Come 6 months later ( end of traineeship ), that’s when the stress will set in and we often joke that we should film ourselves on video. A “During Training” to depict how crazy and loud we can get ( oh, words cant even begin to describe the madness that we can get ourselves into! Laughter being an essential, whenever we meet for trainings ), and a “After Training” video to show the drastic change lol ( probably, haggard & exhausted ). It’s common to hear from many of our seniors that there’ll bound to be much office politics/competition upon entering the workforce and I suppose that each of us could have been alil apprehensive about one another from the start too. However, we soon realized that those worries were totally uncalled for, as we get along extremely well. More like friends than colleagues =)  My life at work would not be as lively, had it not been for the 5 of them!

♥ Taking delight in having them as my fellow MTs ♥

Witness adults going crazy over game machines !

Have you ever caught a sight of 4 grown ups who went obsessed over trying to win mini toys at the coin game machines? If you did, there’s a chance that it could be the four of us. Frankly, I don’t even play such games even when I was in Pri/Sec school but for that day, I was hooked. Addicted to trying to beat the machine at its game and winning the toys. Felt just like an adrenaline rush. We screamed in anticipation whenever we came close to getting the toy, though there were certainly more failed attempts than successful ones … Without a doubt, the 4 of us were quite an attraction or maybe, public nuisance as we unwillingly captured the attention of many of the other players/other passers-by with our shouts!  ZN even ended up having a coarse voice. 45 mins & an estimated $20+ later, we finally won 5 Elmo & 1 Cookie Monster. If you work out the Maths, 1 tiny toy costs us an average of $3+  & ALOT of energy.

” FRIENDS “ in Sesame Street style.
Jingwei. Serene. Stephanie. Victor. Wai Mun. Zhennan.

Here to the 4 of us who could make it for the dinner @ Waruku.
And BOOS to the other two for forgetting about it lol.

Happy Birthday, Serene !!
surprises come in small packages too
the glee that we felt when we managed to pull off the surprise for her !

♥
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The Biggest Prawning Losers

My 2nd attempt at prawning over at Bishan. The first time round, MK & I caught 6 prawns in 3 hours. This time round, the 4 of us only caught a pathetic 3 prawns in 2 hours. We OFFICIALLY SUCK at this. Especially so when the lady beside us seemed to catch the prawns so effortlessly, probably a prawn in every 5 mins or less. Oh wait, make that everyone else surrounding us. Yes, the pathetic 4 also had to make do with splitting the 3 prawns amongst us … what a sight! Whoever said that prawning is easy is a liar man.

The one saving grace that actually saw us grinning was when we got to hand-feed the stray kittens. Hungry, the kittens gobbled down the prawns’ heads as fast as they could before they tried to mesmerize us again with their charming, innocent stares. A pic collage of these beautiful creatures.

Proceeded to have delicious prata ( rec: cheese & egg prata. mushroom prata) at the highly-raved Roti Prata House, where we spent hours yakking & sharing of stories. CC & Wendy shared with us their experiences & challenges of taking the first step into setting up their own blogshops ( Wendy, I support u eh! Besides, ur blogshop seems to be doing alot better compared to last wk! ). Future business women, perhaps! True life supernatural accounts that made our hair stand on ends and goosebumps to appear, despite being right smack in a crowded diner. Brought back memories of 1 particular incident where the few of us were so spooked to head home at 2-3am, after watching a Thai horror film that we rather head to the nearby Kopitam to wait for the Sun to rise. It’s so ironic though – Im a coward when it comes to supernatural stuff, yet at the same time … I enjoy watching horror films to freak myself out once in awhile ( preferably, in the comfort of my home and in the company of like-minded pals! ).

I ♥♥♥ U Gals !!!


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A reunion with Ken, after like, 19mths! Gotta make sure that I catch that guy, before he leaves for UK for his exchange. Speaking of exchange, it was a year ago since I embarked on mine :/  Time flies, and oh gosh … I sure do miss those treasured moments so badly. Busy boy has his hands full with lotsa trainings for an upcoming competition so lucky me, managed to steal some time from him for a yakking session. =)

Orchard used to be my 2nd/3rd home, but these days, Im more of a shopping mall-hermit … eschewing crowded places like Orchard & Bugis for more laid-back spots like HV. Being a hermit, I gotta admit ( albeit very embarrassing ) that I have yet to check out the latest “IT MALL”, ION. So off we set to explore more of ION but the tremendously long queues at 99% of the restaurant simply put us off. Guess that the exploration trip to ION will just have to be postponed to a later date. – Mountain Tortoise -

. a year ago .

1 year ago.
12th August.
Changi Airport.
Flew to NYC.

* pic credit to Abs.
the 2 oblivious gals in the background-  Cherlynn & Me.

. online shopaholic .

Here are a couple of blogshops that a few of my dearies started recently, so here’s me lending them my support !
Enjoy ! 

http://buyonemore.blogspot.com

Offering an array of purse-friendly accessories ( items costing not more than $6 ). Some of the pieces are rather cutesy & unique – like the “Dress with Suitcase” , “Mini Rainbow School Bus” necklaces & “Red Lips” earrings. Charms & accessories that you can mix & match with any outfit! Im in  ♥ with the ” ♥ ” necklace , so typical of moi.

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http://smackeys.livejournal.com/

Want your lips to taste & smell yummy? Here’s your chance now – Great tasting lip gloss that comes our way.  Lip Smackers come in a range of flavours from Fruity ( Tropical Punch, Mango, Berries )  to Ice Creamies to M&Ms ( yum! ) & Skittles. Want Angelina’s or Megan Fox’s sexy lips? Add an instant glitter to plump your lips with the Shimmers series. Currently on sale @ only $6.90/each !

. glimpse of life .

Seeing The World Through the Camera Lens

Photography Exhibition
@ the Gallery
” On the Road Again “

Time is precious & often, taken for granted. Capturing the split second moments. To many of us, photography is portrayed as a form of art to capture & then frame the beautiful yet fleeting moments of life. How frequent is it that we allow those random moments to pass by us, without actually cherishing how charming those moments can be. Do we even remember the reason why we roared into laughter, when out with friends? Or the emotions we felt upon graduation? Im very much guilty of that. A picture says a Thousand Words. To look back at the pictures, reminisce the good/bad old days and re-live those memories once more. Once in awhile, I find myself looking through my blog/pic folder & smiling at myself ( as idiotic as it might sounds ) as I scan through the pics. As Mandarina puts it, ” A moment in time rendered eternal by just one click is the ultimate reward of photography. ” Very well-said, indeed.

This photography exhibition showcased the picturesque works of avid, local travellers who had embarked on adventures to off-the-beaten-track places ( Uzbekistan, Iran, Nepal, Russia) and captured the moments of their journey in still images. The series of photographic installation were truly candid and clearly reflected the culture & attitudes of the people living in those different countries. Avoiding the usual tourist traps, those pics depicted the lifestyles that these people lead & made us, the audience, see the globe through camera lens. True indeed, photography has enabled them to freeze time and document their colourful & vibrant experiences. An exhibition that not only opened my eyes to global activities, but also one that inspires me to develop a deeper interest in photography.

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Putting the camera into use : Nature

Pictures taken on the way back home, from work. To take time out, walk a longer distance from the bus-stop ( my daily form of exercise, lol ) & enjoy the flora & greenery in my neighbourhood.

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Archie, My Love.

The bundle of joy that stares through the window as I bid farewell to him every morning. The little boy that rushes to the door whenever the door bell rings and wags his tail, in his anticipation to greet me each evening. Coming home to Archie never fails to give me a much appreciated respite from an exhausting & draining day at work.  =)

Captured Emotions

( pics credit to MK )

I call the following pics ” MK’s masterpieces”. It’s usually a challenge to take clear pics of Archie as he seems to have an endless flow of energy so I have to give MK extra credits for his successful attempt. I must say that these are some excellent pics of Archie. =)  Melts our hearts with those irresistible puppy doe-eyed look. The expressive look in its eyes … those special moments captured on film, for life.

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Putting the camera into use AGAIN : for vanity sake !
Girl. Mirror. Camera. CHECK.

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Supper Time for Tiny Tots.
Nothing more instant than a miniature cup of prawn flavour MAGGI MEE !!!

01. 08. 09

19 Months.
Just 3 simple words for you.