Of May Birthdays, Vesak Day Cookies, JB Outing and Surprises!

Of May Birthdays, Vesak Day Cookies, Tennis Progress, JB Outing and Surprises!

So my colleague Yan says to me one day "Eh, Pris... so is there anything WORTH reading in your blog NOW cos the last update was 8th MAY!". Gggggrrrrrrrrr... Hehe...Alright, alright! I've been told by a number of people to update my blog. Well, I'm a busy lady y'know! I am, really! :P

Ok, I know the title for this blog entry seems ridiculously long but it's a summarisation of how eventful and busy my last week(s) have been. Here goes (lol):

Of May Birthdays:

For a start, my colleague Yilin went on a holiday in Australia (At last!). While we were happy that this poor over-worked but super efficient girl is getting her well deserved vacation to rest, without her the office was a tad too quiet and we became the poor even more over-worked people in her absence. Haha. Oh well, that girl needs her break!

Usually we try to celebrate our birthdays where every team member is around, but alas we had to do so without Ms. Yilin Tan (Ms. Tan, if you're reading this.. you know it's NOT done on purpose ok!! haha). We brought the birthday gals - Michelle and Lay Hoon to Spizza for some pizzas!

I cannot recall the name of this pizza (my powerful selective memory fails me) but hey.. it's tasty for sure! hehe.

Up next was my all time favourite pizza at Spizza. It's called Isabella (I told you it's selective memory didn't I? :P) - comes with thin parma ham shavings and a handful of ruccola salad (? think my spelling is not right if u know pls correct me! =)), the combination of these 2 ingredients simply spells deliciousssssssss!

The team in Yilin Tan's absence. There's me in grey, beside me is Calista and Michelle. Sitting opposite of me is our manager Lily Cheang whom we all call Ms. Cheang affectionately.. (lol), beside her is Lay Hoon and Yan.

So that was the birthday lunch treat for the 2 May babies in our team!

Vesak Day Cookies:

Ahhhhhh..... another public holiday for my aging body to catch up on some rest and have some fun too. Activity of the day was to bake some cookies!! While the men in church had their "band of brothers", we ladies had our mini activity to gather too! So Reina & I head down to TzeYee's place where all the baking action would take place!

Reina - the lady behind all that mixing, sifting and folding of the cookie mix!

Mylene & I behind the chopping of almonds.



The women behind those tasty cookies... They are tasty!! It's true!! Go ask Ink! :P

Us with cookies! (I looked exhausted I think!! Too little sleep!! Hahaha and if I recall... Vesak day was also an extremely humid day too.. so that definitely got to me!)

The final outcome! Ta-dah!!! Delicious looking almond cookies that look a wee bit like pineapple tarts from afar! Haha..

Oh look! The little cutie pie wants to help bake cookies too? Awwwww....

And that was our baking activity!!

JB Outing:

After Saturday service, Edna (Reina's cousin) suggested out of the blue that we head to Johore Bahru, Malaysia for dinner and if possible some shopping if the shops were still open.
So without further ado, Edna fetched all of us home to collect our passports to be able to enter JB.

We prayed in the car to the Lord for fast customs clearance (Some of us haven't had our dinners and you know as they say Hungry People Are Angry People.. thus the prayers.. haha). We even prayed for the shops to be open still as it was already 9ishpm and asked if possible to have some sale too! Hahaha.... (Now you know the true meaning of asking for too much... just kidding.)

La di da... lo and behold, we reached Tebrau City Shopping Mall after passing through customs rather smoothly (Thank God!!) as seen from the pic below as taken from inside the car. Wooo.. there's Jusco too! Brilliant!

Inside Tebrau City. Although it has a rather cheesy name for a shopping mall but it's pretty huge! Therefore (I love this word!), the massive size of the mall make up for its tacky shopping mall name. Haha. Another thing to Thank God for.. the shops were still open to our amazement and there were sales everywhere!



Something extinct in Singapore: Baskin Robbins - 31 flavours!!


Edna in Pink and Grace in Black!



After shopping to semi-heart's content (It's never enough when it comes to shopping.. lol), our stomachs were concaved and we drove round in search of Dim Sum and found Yum Cha Dim Sum open when it's already past midnight!



While Edna, Reina and Qiuyun were selecting Dim Sum, Grace & I played with my camera!



Behind us were some road stalls and I saw that they have alot of similar food to us too. Just that when I saw the prices, it makes me wanna cry. Why? I've always thought that the carrot cake near my office area, Tanjong Pagar is cheap (SGD 2)... bbbbut... here its SGD 1.50. Okok... I know 50cents isn't a big deal but still ... it's cheaper!! hehe.



These road stalls somehow bring back a little nostalgia.



The arrival of our Dim Sum!! The lotus paste pao (my fave!) were like mmmmmmmm...... We ordered alot of dim sum as you can tell and the bill came up to something like SGD 6 bucks per person. Approximately SGD 30 in total.



It was indeed fun to go to JB in such "spur of a moment" occassion, especially when Reina and I each came back home with 3 pairs of new shoes... at good prices. Well, I cannot recall how much she paid in total but for me I paid approximately SGD 60 or slightly less for 3 pairs. =) I'm beginning to like Tebrau *I still shudder at the name of the mall* City Shopping mall. Haha.

Surprises:

Surprise number 1: I had a nice surprise on Thursday, 18th May 2006. Grace called me during office hours and I was wondering what was up when she shared the wonderful news that her sister, Jacqueline have just accepted Christ! Brilliant!! Praise God!! And Jacqueline said to Grace that she would like to say the sinner's prayer and Grace invited me to her place for dinner that night. When we got off the hook, I felt my heart skipping with joy!!! Tired as I was from lack of sleep (I love to sleep ok... hehe) , I felt an excitement in me like a bottle of bubbling champagne, just waiting to burst!

After work, I went down to Grace's place for the first time. While Edna cooked our dinner, Grace, Jacqueline and I said the sinner's prayer with her.

Reina came after her work and celebrated this day with Jacqueline with fried rice, chicken nuggets, chicken wings that Edna cooked and we downed chinese tea for digestion purposes. Haha. After that we had a mini praise and worship session to Thank God, talked and Edna & Grace gave everyone a lift home. How sweet my Thursday ended. =)

Surprise 2: Friday, 19th May 2006. Office phone rang near to 4pm and was thinking to myself "who's calling me now? need to rush stuff so my Mondays would not be so rush". Picked it up and to my nice surprise, Jane called me from down under to just talk and say she missed me. Awwwwww...... babe, I missed you lots too! It was uncanny that prior to her call, I was just thinking to myself that I have not replied to her email she sent me last week as we promised to keep in contact no matter the distance and she called!! It is nice to hear her voice once more and to catch up in each other's lives although we are geographically apart and instead of emailing each other all the time. Sigh... Jane, you definitely made my day!!!

To all the overseas folks like Annie (Germany), Caroline (Canada), Jane & Lien (Melbourne, Australia), Kirsten (Tasmania, Australia), Richard (Sydney, Australia), Serene (business in U.S now), Apple (Shanghai, China) and even to my wonderful working counterpart Carrie (Shanghai, China). I just wanna say thank you and it's so nice to know that the distance between us only made our friendships fonder. =) Hopefully I can visit all of you at least once (or again for Annie.. hehe) to catch up on ol'times!