HIS and HERS

Haven't been this light in a LONG while!

2011-02-21T19:20:00.001+11:00

Time for another update to this blog!

So in my last blog entry just over a month ago, I noted that I had started dieting. It's been five to six weeks already since I started dieting. I started with the "shock" 3-day NTUC diet and lost about 2.5 kgs, then moved on to another diet that Aeris got from a book where it was a weekly thing.

I stuck to that diet for about a week, and then sort of just altered my eating habits. I'm not following the diet per se, but I am taking bits and pieces of it and the food suggestions and tryin to stick with them.

That particular diet suggests seven eating times a day: breakfast, mid-morning snack, lunch, early afternoon snack, late afternoon snack, dinner and supper. Most of which are small portions, which means that I'd snacking throughout the day in an effort to not feel hungry.

As I said, I tried that diet for about a week and then decided that snacking isn't really for me (even though the snacks are well rounded and balanced), plus I had a lot of weight to lose anyway, so I decided to just go with the three main meals, and if I did feel hungry, I'd either drink a couple of glasses of water until I felt full or I'd eat something healthy.

My diet has changed quite significantly. It's no longer junk food or very oily and fatty foods. Yes, on the odd occasion I might eat something a bit fattier than normal (say, a pizza or crisps/nachos), but I'd go the rest of the day eating healthy things or having a well balanced diet with my food intake.

So now I'm eating heaps more fruits and more vegetables. I'm eating healthy breakfast items like Weetbix. I keep a couple of muesli bars and yoghurt at work too which I can sometimes eat for lunch. And that sandwich diet for lunch? It kinda works if I'm having healthy foods (and less food intake) over the course of a day.

I also started walking regularly; walked the 3km around Gardiner's Creek in the morning when I got to work and then I'd also try to come home and walk 2.4km along Mullum Mullum Creek. The exercise hasn't gone so well...while I kept it up for the first three to four weeks, lately I've been slacking and haven't done all that much exercise. It's kind of related to my new job (which I'll get to in a moment) where I come home late now so can't do evening exercise, and I treasure those extra minutes of sleep so I'm not motivated to get up earlier to go to uni and take a walk around the creek at work.

But it all adds up someway and somehow and in this period of time, I've lost 7+ kgs. I'm even lighter now than when I first met Aeris way back in 2003 (though one might say I don't really look all that much thinner, perhaps just a tad)! It was a bit difficult to start off with because I felt hungry all the time, but now I think I'm used to it. Plus, if I get hungry, I can always drink water or eat some fruits...I usually have an apple or pear with me at work.

It really hit home today how much weight I've lost in such a short period of time (without the crazy exercise regime the Army put me through...even then I don't think I lost weight so quickly compared to recently!) when I went to Forest Hill for a haircut.

My wedding ring has felt pretty loose on my ring finger in the past couple of weeks, but it always stayed on previously. Today, while I was walking in Forest Hill towards the barber, the ring just spontaneously slipped off my finger and took a couple of bounces on the floor! I ran after it to pick it up and felt quite foolish, because this old lady was staring at me as if I had delibately thrown my ring to the floor!

So I've switched back to the simple engagement ring that I had been wearing prior to us getting married in late 2009. It's a little better, but it is still loose. No telling when it will spontaneously slip off too...not quite sure what I will do then.

Last time I blogged, I mentioned that I could have a new job without needing to interview for it. Well, I got that job! Waited a week without hearing anything, then it was the Australila Day holiday on Wednesday 26 January. When I came back to work on Thursday, I found out checking my email that Human Resources had approved the secondment without me needing to interview for the position...this approval had come through late on Tuesday after I had left work!

Trouble was, I was supposed to start on Monday 31 January! So that effectively left me two full working days to let it sink in, and to let people know that I was leaving that office for at least a year. Half the office knew from me having chatted to my colleagues already, and I was fairly confident it was going to happen, though I never expected that I had to start so soon!

So today actually marks the start of the fourth week as the Executive Assistant to the Dean. The first two weeks were a struggle, as I tried to get used to working differently, plus learning all the new things that I had either very little experience with or no experience with. But last week I think I managed really well and I'm now getting used to this job.

I do miss wearing my jeans and it took me a while to get used to office wear (shirt and pants) again. But hey, I'm in a good place in my life right now and things are looking up! That's what counts eh?

2011: Some significant things happening early in the year!

2011-01-17T21:17:00.001+11:00

Hello! It's a new year and with it comes my first blog entry of 2011!

As stated before, I'm only really blogging now when I have something important to say. And I think I've had a pretty good and important day where quite a bit of good news have come my way...all today! Important decisions have been made that started today too...that's why I'm blogging.

So...what's happened today? It started with a nice surprise as I was leaving for work and there was a package at the door:

Rurouni Kenshin complete series from Amazon received
Just before Christmas, I decided to utilise the strong Aussie currency to purchase the entire Vizbig manga series of the Rurouni Kenshin (aka Samurai X)...or at least volumes 2 to 9, as I already had volumer 1. Even with shipping costs, it was significantly cheaper than if I purchased them from local comic shops or even importing them from Kinokuniya Singapore (purchased through the help of Francis of course)!

The box came in a big sack...at first I thought it was something Aeris had purchased, but checking the tag, it was addressed to me! I had no idea what was in the sack so I just brought it to work with me as I was running a little behind as I needed to get to work early...more on that later.

Got to work, opened up the sack and to my surprise and absolute delight, it was an Amazon box and I immediately knew my Rurouni Kenshin manga had arrived! And a good three weeks earlier than what Amazon had suggested, on 5 February! Hoorah, what a nice way to start the day!

I was thinking of having a few New Year's resolutions this year, for a change, but decided I was never really going to keep or stick to my resolutions, no matter how disciplined I tried to be. So I decided to take it one step at a time, setting one goal and achieving it before moving on to the next one. On the odd occasion, perhaps, if they were related, setting multiple goals!

Why was I needing to get early to work, well, that's because of one of the goals that I've recently set myself, to diet and eat properly and to also get some exercise done.

Proper dieting
Technically, this started a couple of days ago. Over the last couple of days, I've made a conscious effort to eat less (especially for dinner) and also to eat more healthily. Finished up the majority of the meat and stuff I had kept in the fridge and freezer, and the proper diet started today.

I'm using the NTUC three day diet that Mum introduced me to when I was back in Singapore. It was really effective when I had that diet...it's like a shock diet where the amount one eats (and what one eats) is regulated strictly! It was successful everytime I had it, losing anywhere between 2.5 to 4kgs after three days (recommended weight loss after three days was 2kg), so I wanted to use this diet again.

Of all the days to start the diet...this afternoon we were having an afternoon birthday tea for Lindsey, and there were so many yummy foods brought in! So I needed to be really disciplined to stick to the diet; just drank plain water while everyone else ate the food! Ah well, there's always next time I suppose and in future morning teas, I don't have to overindulge in the foods.

Aeris also borrowed a book from the library that recommended a seven day diet that one could use 24/7, 365 days a year. She wanted me to start on that diet, but I think I'll try that out AFTER this NTUC diet finishes on Wednesday. I probably won't be sticking too strictly to that diet, but I'm sure I'll still be regulating what I'm eating. It's good for my health in the long run! And speaking of health...

Start of exercise regime
This also started a couple of days ago. Was sort of "forced" on me when Aeris insisted that I dust off that old Wii Fit and start doing half hour step exercises. It was after a couple of days of step exercises that I decided I wanted to eat properly (and go on a diet to supplement the healthy eating) and to also exercise more.

So Aeris and I have been going on a few walks around our neighbourhood, which is kinda nice because we have the Mullum Mullum Creek nearby. I've gone on the occasional walk with Jess at Gardiner's Creek, but that didn't seem like enough exercise and I wanted to increase my physical activity.

So on Sunday evening, I decided to go for a jog along Mullum Mullum Creek. Jogged for a couple of hundred metres before I had to stop because I was huffing and puffing and trying to suck down as much oxygen as I could. I'm sure I was as red as a tomato...I was SERIOUSLY out of shape. I walked for a couple hundred more metres until I caught my breath, then I tried jogging again.

It was kinda start and stop and I think I probably only jogged for about 1/4 of the time I was out on the trail. Bah...I guess I can't be too ambitious and have to start slow. I'll build up my stamina slowly and once I'm able to, will start with the slow jogs.

So I got to work this morning and walked the whole of Gardiner's Creek. Had my ankle weights on and I tried doing a brisk a walk as I could...it was nice and cool in the morning but I had worked up quite a sweat by the time I got back to the office, so I can't imagine what it would be like on the warmer mornings! Think I'm going to have to bring in a change of clothes from now on to work.

Came back home and did about a 40 minute walk along Mullum Mullum Creek, also with the ankle weights. I did contemplate trying to jog, but I think I really need to take things slow for now. Plus the ankle weights would REALLY tire me out...my legs are sore enough as they are!

Oh, and we're going swimming on weekends too...haven't done so the past two weekends because of other commitments, but when we get the chance, we'll go swimming again. Starting slow with the exercise, but I'm sure I'll build up my stamina and start getting fitter...just have to be patient so that I can see the results!

So today was a busy day for me because I was involved in enrolments the entire day and out of the office. Aeris actually got the next piece of good news, but called me immediately to let me know. I couldn't take the call because I was in a course presentation, but I called back to find out the good news:

Case officer has been assigned to our Permanent Residency visa application
What a piece of good news! The Department of Immigration and Citizenship had emailed Aeris today, stating that we now had a case officer and requesting further documents. Aeris had contacted them just after Christmas last year and we were told that the wait time could actually be another two years! So this was indeed a fantastic piece of news that we now had a case officer...the best thing that happened to us today.

We still have a number of things to do, including go for medical check-ups and X-rays again, but this certainly beats having to wait not knowing how long more before we got a case officer and our application got moving. Hopefully this is a precusor to more good news regarding our Permanent Residency application. Hopefully it'll all be successful fairly quickly so that we don't have to move forward with another different visa application (and more costs).

As I was out of the office for most of the day, I had a number of voice messages, missed calls and emails. One, in particular, was pretty important, as it was sent from my big boss' boss. I was pretty surprised that it was addressed to me directly and the content of it, which was:

Potential change of job working in a different area
Let's call my big boss' boss "A". A had emailed me saying that she was aware I was out of the office for most of the day but if I could call her back when I got the chance as she wanted to discuss with me a possible position in a different area.

I tried calling A back but was told that she was in a meeting, though on the Burwood campus! It was likely that I wasn't going to be able to have a quick chat with her regarding this before she left for Geelong, but I thought I'd head up to her Burwood office anyway, to see if I could catch her for a quick chat.

Was really lucky that she was still there, though packing up and about to leave for Geelong. A told me that a position was likely to become available and I had been recommended by my new potential boss (one who I had worked for before). A checked with my big boss who also gave me a really good reference! It was very flattering to be considered and I was a bit shocked, but pleasantly surprised as well and I certainly let A know that.

Well, nothing is confirmed at this stage, and I'm not certain at this stage whether I would need to formally apply and go through the interview process or not. But there is a possibility that I might not need to go through the interview process if it is offered to me directly and with Vice Chancellor's approval.

It'd be a big change for me, though I have been considering change for quite some time. While I wasn't adverse to leaving the Faculty, my preference was to stay in Arts/Education, since this IS my alma mater and I've built so many relationships with staff and students and I do love this Faculty, having been a part of it since I came to Australia (first as a student and now as a staff member). So this would be perfect for me...if it all pans out!

Don't want to jinx anything, but I'm crossing my fingers and hoping for the best!

Oh, and something else fantastic that happened:

Natalie Portman wins Golden Globe for best actress for Black Swan
'Nuff said. Bring on the Oscars!

All in all, a pretty good day with some significant things happening today! Perhaps some potentially wonderful things happening in the near future too, and today may just be the day we first found out about the potential good news!

Why can't everyday be like today?

The long awaited return!

2010-09-01T07:38:00.002+10:00

Hello! It’s been nearly a year since I last updated this blog. (Well, nine months, but who’s counting. :p)

In that period of time, I got really active on Facebook, then I stopped about five months ago because it was taking up so much of my free time, and I wanted to spend that free time doing other things.

Friends had asked for us to keep this blog alive...to post on occasion...to do something just so that it stayed inactive rather than dead! “Dead” was a word that was used often and in all honesty, that’s what I thought would happen to this blog...that I’d stop posting altogether and let it die a slow death. That was the thought and the plan...but the lure of blogging about our mundane lives pulled me back! And here we are again.

It's the first day of Spring so it's a good time to kick this all off again, yeah?

This time around though, I’ll dispense with blogging about our dreary mundane lives on a day-to-day basis. I don’t think I’ll have the time for that anyway. One thing that hasn’t changed since I last blogged (and this probably hasn’t changed for the better part of 3 years now) is that I still have so many DVDs, movies AND series alike that haven’t been watched. Very VERY slowly getting through them, but between real life and that and other things, I don’t have time to blog that often anymore. Plus I don’t really spend much time anymore either! So I’ll contribute with an occasional blog entry when something interesting happens or when I feel like it.

I spent a lot of time on Facebook when it was really fun reconnecting with old friends, long lost classmates who I hadn’t kept in contact with and just basically catching up with friends and family alike. And using the “uploading photos” function and watching other people’s videos and photos! But then I noticed that Facebook was consuming a lot of my free time, so that went out the window too. Real life always takes precedence.

So...a number of things have actually changed in the last nine months! Here’s the quick rundown on the big things that have changed in our lives:

Aeris and I got married
Yes, Aeris and I tied the knot! We got married in Holy Saviour Church in Vermont South on 21 November. We were married by Father Minh Tran (who was introduced to us by a family friend living in Australia) and our families had come down to Singapore and Malaysia to see us get married.

Then we had the wedding reception on 22 November at Potters Receptions in Warrandyte, and it was the rainiest day in Melbourne for a very long time. But still, a good time was had by all and I will certainly remember this for the rest of my life. In Chinese culture, having lots of rain on one’s wedding day meant that you would be blessed with good fortune!

We spent a lot of time planning this wedding reception to make it as memorable as possible. Oh, and there were a couple of “surprises” I threw in that Aeris wasn’t expecting too. Ask those who attended the reception and they’ll tell you what happened (or watch the videos on Facebook). Lots of photos and videos on Facebook...you have to be either my friend or Aeris’ friend on Facebook to see all the photos and videos though!

Oh, and we returned to Singapore and Malaysia in December to have the wedding receptions there...so we had THREE wedding receptions in total, one in Australia, then in Kluang and then in Singapore. Or as my colleagues keep reminding me: “You got married thrice!”

Aeris and I now have a mortgage
After living 2 years 9 months at our rental property at Burwood, we’ve purchased our own home in Ringwood and we now have a mortgage to pay! We made our decision to Since mid-January, we were spending every weekend intensively looking for a place to call our own home. Unfortunately, it also coincided when the property market was booming and prices had skyrocketed to obscene levels. We spent four months looking without managing to find a home!

Aeris spent so much time looking at the real estate websites and the weekend newspapers for suitable properties for us to check out. We knew, having lived in a house in Burwood, that we couldn’t go back to living in units like we did back in Geelong. So much time was spent researching and then going from suburb to suburb. We even went to watch a few auctions for properties that we weren’t interested in, just to get a “feel” for what happens during an auction to prepare ourselves in case we needed to fight it out in one to get a home we really liked!

It was either a case of a property either being too expensive, or not being adequate enough (rooms not big enough, too big of a backyard with a lot of trees/plants etc, horrible location, properties in less-than-adequate condition needing a lot of work and things to be fixed etc), or us being really interested in the property but being outbid in a private sale or auction!

We were interested in one property in March that was on private sale, but after putting in our highest bid, we were politely told by the real estate agents that the offer was too low. Then we were interested in another property about a month later and we went for the auction, and we engaged in a bidding war with this other family (rich Malaysian family we were guessing) but our highest bid was negated within 2 seconds with a higher bid from that family!

In fact, our current home wasn’t even on our radar at all. We had made friends with the real estate agents who oversaw the auction which we had lost, and they recommended this house to us. On first glance on the photos, we didn’t think it was for us, because there seemed like there were a lot of plants and a really huge tree in the backyard (not in the property though, but the neighbour’s property behind) and it looked like the place needed quite a bit of work outside. The only reason we actually went to see the house was because it was later in the afternoon and we didn’t have any other house viewings at that time. So we went to see the house and we fell in love with it.

We put in a private bid (it was a private sale and not auction) which was about $15k higher than what it was listed at and had a nervous wait over the weekend. We met up with the real estate agents and found out that our bid was $5k higher than the high bid by another bidder, but because we had been searching for a while and had made friends with the real estate agents, they decided that they would sell the house to us at our bid!

So we’ve been living in our new home for two months now and we’ve had some renovations done, though not much. This really feels like a home to us now (and we can certainly call it our home!) and Kyo and Ririn, while a bit wary of being in this new home at first, are now loving it too.

Interestingly enough, I’ve been in Australia since 2002 and in the three rental properties I’ve lived at so far, the rental period has always been exactly 2 years and 9 months!

Lived in Belmont from March 2002, moved to Newtown in December 2004: 2 years 9 months
Lived in Newtown from December 2004, moved to Burwood in September 2007: 2 years 9 months
Lived in Burwood from September 2007, moved to Ringwood in June 2010: 2 years 9 months

Freaky coincidence?

The one change that needed getting used to was that I couldn’t just walk to work anymore; I had to drive. And it’s a 19km one-way to drive from home to work! Which leads us to:

New car!
This one is more recent. I traded in the old ’92 Holden Barina just this past Saturday to get a new Honda City. The Barina served us well for 7 years but it’s so old now that we were worried that it could break down at any point of time. It was still such a good car though but really, it was just something to get me from point A to point B. So we decided to get a new car...also good because of me needing to drive some distance from home to work!

We didn’t get much for the Barina, trade-in value was only a measly $250! But it was $100 more than a car wreckers offered and $50 more than Mitsubishi offered (we were looking at getting a Mitsubishi Lancer but decided against it after all because they didn’t have the colour we wanted in manual, and the auto transmission was significantly more expensive than what we budged for). No surprise though I think we may have been able to get a couple of hundred dollars more in a private sale. Too much work involved though!

The Barina was a ’92, it had in excess of 224k km on the odometer, no power steering, no air-conditioning, no central locking, no nothing really! $250 was the highest offer we received and it was a trade in with Eastern Honda, where we were getting the Honda City from (and where we purchased Aeris’ Honda Civic two years ago), so we took it.

Chris, who was the same guy from Eastern Honda who sold us the Civic two years ago, really took care of us and gave us an awesome price on the Honda City, with a lot of extras thrown in and even a good price on the rear park assist and window tinting. All in all, the car cost us less than what the manual transmission Mitsubishi Lancer would have cost on its own without any extra costs (rear parking sensors + tinting)!

Very happy with this new car...it took me one day to get used to the transmission because the clutch biting point is higher, but all is good now. My parents are here now on holiday and they’ve sat in this new car a few times and they like it! The best thing about this Honda City is that it is very similar to Aeris’ Honda Civic so if necessary, we can always just swap cars and drive each other’s cars without too much hassle.

Eastern Honda have really treated us extremely well in the past two years and the past two purchases, and I think we have now become Honda converts. Even though Ringwood Honda is significantly closer to our house, we will still go back to Eastern Honda because of Chris and his immaculate customer service. We’re pretty sure that we’ll be looking at Honda models again for any future cars we want to get; I know Aeris wants to get a Honda CRV in the future!

So that’s quite a long blog entry for the first one in nine months! Lots more to update but we’ll take this slow for now. Enjoy reading!

More stupid hot weather to come...in Spring. :(

2009-11-12T04:18:00.001+11:00

The forecasted top temperature for Melbourne on Wednesday was for 31 degrees, which was still hot but significantly more comfortable than 34 or 35 degrees. I knew it would be too good to be true though, because Adelaide has had a couple of consecutive 39 degree days and usually when Adelaide is that hot, Melbourne gets the heat the very next day. True enough, the top temperature ended up being 34 degrees and it was still quite uncomfortable at night.

With Wednesday being the fifth consecutive day of 30+ degree Celsius temperatures that Melbourne has experienced, this makes it the hottest stretch of temperatures during Spring Melbourne has ever had. In fact, the forecast for is for 30+ degrees at least until Monday, where the temperature MIGHT cool down to 27 degrees. Considering that a few days ago, the predicted temperature for next Monday was a low 21 degrees, the weather patterns have changed a fair bit. UGH!

I just hope that the temperature cools down significantly in time for our wedding. I don't mind it being sunny, in fact I'd prefer the sun to the rain on our big day, but at the same time, I don't want to have a wedding in scorching heat!

A lot of work today again and I went through the paces like a zombie. Before I knew it, it was already 2pm and I still hadn't had lunch. Very happy to take a break before throwing myself back into the work.

More wedding stuff organised and finalised at night. I finalised the wedding ceremony service booklet, all the prayers and stuff, bar the cover, so it's now ready for printing. Aeris and Mum also finalised the menu of the food to order at Gold Leaf restaurant for the family dinner on the day of the wedding; that one's going to be a big one with 23 people there! I tried making a booking the night before the wedding, but Gold Leaf had a major function that night, so we had to revert to our original plans of having dinner on the night of the wedding.

Mum also worked out the order of who Aeris and I needed to serve tea to during the traditional Chinese tea ceremony. Aeris has got the teapot and the cups and we've put them aside to be brought down to Potters on the day itself. Mum also got a little "snippet" of information regarding tea ceremonies which I'll give to Chris to read out because most of our Australian friends and colleagues wouldn't know what the tea ceremony was about and would never have seen one before!

Okies, it's after 4am now and I'm still wide awake. I think I should try going back to bed and try to get some sleep and then wake up in another two hours' time.

36 degrees in Spring! WTF!?

2009-11-12T04:05:00.000+11:00

The hottest day so far in this stretch of consecutive 30+ degree Celsius days was on Tuesday, at a whopping 36.1 degrees. Yeesh.

I struggled to get through my work on account of still being flu-ey and not having enough sleep since my parents got here (have been waking up at 6-ish every day because Mum and Aunt Angela are usually up at that time and I get woken up by their cooking), so I requested to take half a day off.

Went to Nunawading again and purchased a new Navman GPS from JB Hi-Fi...$50 over our re-set budget from Saturday. But this was an offer that was too good not to take. It was a better GPS model than the one we had set our minds on purchasing on Saturday, it only cost $50 more but it also came with three years worth of free map upgrades which would normally cost $447! So the plan is to let Aeris have this GPS while I take her old one and lend that to my uncles and aunts when they get here. They can take the old GPS and use it when they go to Tassie a few days after our wedding.

We then went to the Chemist Warehouse along Springvale Road because my parents wanted to buy a lot of vitamins and other medication. Also stopped by Gunter's office in Glen Waverley but he wasn't around, so I wrote him a little note and gave him the cookies that my parents had brought all the way from Singapore. We decide to take some refuge from the sun (driving in a small Holden Barina with NO air conditioning is not fun on such a hot day) so we stopped by the McCafe at Glen Waverley for iced coffees, a carrot cake and a raspberry cheesecake, before heading home.

Mum helped me finalise the wedding ceremony service booklet in the evening and I also started creating the program for the wedding reception. Also sat down with Mum and planned the seating arrangements for our big dinner with the family at Gold Leaf restaurant the night of the wedding. Went to bed around 1am but more wedding stuff done and finalised!

Finally purchased a proper lawnmower to cut the grass!

2009-11-12T03:54:00.001+11:00

Another scorcher with a top of 35 degrees on Monday. It's not even summer...why the hell are we getting these sorts of temperatures now when there's still a good three weeks before the start of summer? And the weather bureau predicted that the heatwave was going to continue...ugh. It was even HOTTER in Adelaide...I think they have had at least three consecutive days of 39 degree temperatures.

Anyway, I was quite happy being in the cool air conditioned office at work. But there was a LOT of work that needed to be done on account of our offices being closed on Friday due to the cross-campus Student Support Meeting Day. Time flew by very quickly as a result; I didn't even realise that it was 2pm when they started the afternoon tea for our office's November birthday babies!

Was glad to pull myself away from the computer I had been staring at for a few hours straight and eat from the wide spread of goodies that my colleagues had brought in. I was still feeling sick but had to soldier on...time continued to fly quickly by and before I knew it, in my zombie-like state, it was 5pm: time to go home!

Drove home, picked up my parents and we went over to one of my parents' friend's place in Templestowe to pay them a visit. We stayed there chatting for about 1.5 hours and made plans to meet up again for dinner this coming Friday. Then it was off to the Bunnings Warehouse along Middleborough Road where we purchased a lawnmower...our very first petrol operated lawnmower! The thought was to get the front and back lawns mowed in time for the rest of my family arriving here, but given that the forecast temperature for the next week is going to be in the low to mid-30s, is there really any good time for physical labour under the hot sun?

Jersey Boys redux...and still brilliant!

2009-11-12T03:39:00.005+11:00

Was still flu-ey on Sunday but heaps better than Sunday; my nose was blocked for most of the day but it beats having a runny nose! Drove Aeris' car to the airport; only the second time I've done so since she got the car last year! The first time was the day before on Saturday when I drove back home from swimming! It's only taken me a whole year before I've driven Aeris' car!

The reason I drove her Honda Civic VTi-L was because we would have a full carload of passengers: Dad, Mum and Aunt Angela were arriving from Singapore with quite a lot of luggage and we didn't want to squeeze either Dad or myself in the backseat with Aeris driving. So I drove instead; it took me quite a while to get used to the length and width of Aeris' car and also the turning radius. But it was such a good car to drive and I felt comfortable driving it.

Mum and Dad cleared immigration and customs fairly quickly because they had nothing to declare. Aunt Angela took significantly longer and it was a good 1.5 hours AFTER their plane had landed before she left customs. Our original plan was for us to rush back home in time for 11am mass at St Scholastica's, as my parents weren't able to go to mass yesterday night, but we couldn't make it in time for the mass.

We somehow managed to squeeze all the luggage in the car. Most of it we managed to squeeze in the boot, but we still needed to put one big suitcase across the laps of Mum, Aunt Angela and Aeris in the backseat and Dad had to put a smaller carry-on suitcase on his lap in the passenger seat. But quite a bit of luggage they carried were things and gifts that were going to be given to us and other people, so they'll have much less things to carry when we send them off two weeks later.

After a quick afternoon nap, we all headed out to Melbourne city in the late afternoon to have an early dinner at Shanghai Village. Went shopping for nougats and other snacks for my parents and aunt to bring back to Singapore and then we went to the Princess Theatre to watch the Jersey Boys musical at 6pm.

Aeris and I had watched Jersey Boys before and we enjoyed it immensely. We knew Jersey Boys would still be showing when my parents got here, so we asked if they wanted to watch it, given that this was about the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, which was my parents' music era. And of course they wanted to watch it!

Could see that they thoroughly enjoyed watching Jersey Boys, especially Dad. I think it was a trip down memory lane for him and Auntie Angela, because so many of the songs in the musical were those which he listened to and was familiar with back in the 60s. Well worth it to watch Jersey Boys again! And I certainly enjoyed it more the second time around because there was no crazy lady distracting us with her elaborate hand gestures and dancing during the musical!

After the musical, we drove down to Lygon Street to have gelati. We were very lucky that it didn't take us too long to find a parking spot because even though it was nearly 9pm, there were almost no parking spots available and heaps of cars circling around like vultures, trying to find an elusive parking spot!

It was very VERY crowded at Casa del Gelato; the store was absolutely packed it we must have waited at least a good 15 to 20 minutes before it was finally our turn to be served! But on such a hot night (the temperature was still 30 degrees at midnight) it was well worth the wait for nice cool yummy gelati. Came back home after our gelati treats and all of us had an early night.

The start of the hottest stretch in Spring in Melbourne's history

2009-11-12T03:21:00.003+11:00

Saturday was a clean-up day for us as my parents were arriving the next day. Did two rounds of laundry in the morning and then started clearing up stuff in the study and the spare room. Aeris had to go to work for a short while while I did thorough vacuuming and cleaning of the house. Was very flu-ey as well for the entire day; not quite sure whether it was because I was sick or whether it was just as a result of my nasal passages being irritated when I was cleaning the house. I was sneezing uncontrollably and my nose was dripping for pretty much the whole day!

It got hot pretty quickly (top of 32 degrees on Saturday) and it must have reached 30 degrees even before 11am! Which made it very uncomfortable for me when vacuuming, so I was glad to take a rest after finishing. Aeris read in a newspaper that there was this place in Box Hill that sold a decently priced Hainanese chicken rice and we hadn't yet eaten lunch, so we headed out to eat at this eatery.

The Hainanese chicken rice was really yummy, and cheap at $5.90 a plate...well, cheap for Melbourne's standards anyway; you can't really compare that with the prices of food back in Singapore and Malaysia. :P I think we might go back there for some meals when our parents get here because they had a pretty wide spread of Asian foods, including bak kut teh, char kuay teow and the like.

Drove over to the pau shop after our late lunch to buy some paus, chicken pies and egg tarts, then we decided to go shopping at Nunawading for a new GPS. My uncles and aunts and their families are coming to Melbourne for our wedding and we've agreed to lend them our GPS, so we were going to get either a new one to lend them, or lend them our old GPS and get a new one for ourselves.

I had a specific Tomtom GPS and also a specific price in mind, but as we talked to some of the sales staff in JB Hi-Fi and also compared the various GPSes at Dick Smith and Ross Parke: The Good Guys, it became very apparent that we were definitely going to go over our initial set budget for a GPS, given that there was only about a $50 difference between the rank-and-file basic model to the more advanced one with a bigger screen. Still, couldn't really make up our minds as to which one to get, so we left it; could go back some other day to get it.

Went swimming after that, our last day swimming for the next two weekends at least! Even though we got to the pool at 6pm, there were still so many people using the outdoor pool, presumably because it was a hot day and on hot days, there would be more people opting to go swimming!

Stopped by Hungry Jacks to get a soft serve cone for Aeris, purchased Subway for dinner and then headed home. Had dinner and then also had an early night as we needed to get up early the next morning to go to the airport.

I want to go to the China Bar Asian Buffet again!

2009-11-12T03:07:00.000+11:00

So I'm awake now at just a few minutes past 3am, courtesy of a phone call that was received almost an hour ago at 2am, from one of my uncles in Singapore. :P How annoying; Mum received two calls from him as well; apparently he doesn't know there is a 3 hour time difference between Melbourne and Singapore. Not happy given that I have had very little sleep since my parents arrived here and I'm wide awake right now AND have to go to work in a few hours' time.

I guess it's a good time to blog since I haven't done so since last Friday.

Met Chris and Juliet at the new China Bar Seafood Buffet place at Burwood East; there were two dining sessions and we had reservations for the later one between 8pm to 10pm. The place was absolutely packed! They had a walk-in book and a reservations book and I think a walk-in that night was an absolute no-no!

We got one of the booths which gave us a lot of seating room and comfy couches! Yay for ambience! The four of us were absolutely amazed by the spread of food that was available. Sushi, seafood, dimsum stuff, food that you can ask the cooks/chefs to stir fry on the spot, roasted meats (duck, bbq pork, roast pork), Peking duck, soups, congee, heaps of other steamed, fried, braised Chinese foods, etc, a huge dessert and fruit section, and they even had roti prata and various curries! It was a very impressive spread indeed.

So we took our time getting food and 2 hours flew by very quickly since we were chatting and talking about our upcoming wedding and stuff. The Peking duck and the make-your-own-congee-with-century-and-salted-eggs were my favourite dishes for the night and I kept going back for more! Was very full even though I don't think I ate as much I normally would during a buffet. Ah well...there's always next time. Want to try out the lunch buffet sometime in the future, which was half the price but also without the seafood. I still think the spread would be pretty huge for the lunch buffet.

Friday also marked the last day for a while where the temperature was less than 30 degrees Celsius.

Pre-wedding photo shoot...but without the bouquet of flowers!

2009-11-06T16:29:00.005+11:00

I had an RDO today but I still went to work early in the morning to finish up some of the work I hadn't finished yesterday. I needed to get some of the paperwork into today's mail run because our office I was missing a day of work. Plus all our Arts/Ed Student Support Offices were closed today because of a cross-campus meeting over at the Waterfront campus so our entire office would be behind one day's worth of work.

Came back home and the make-up and hair person was already working on Aeris; we were having a pre-wedding photo shoot with our photograph (as part of the photography wedding package we had purchased with Kane Jarrod Photography) in the early afternoon and this was a trial make-up run. The make-up artiste took longer than we expected, but on the wedding day itself it should be a lot quicker.

Aeris had also ordered a bouquet of flowers for the pre-wedding photo shoot so I walked over to Flower Trends at the Burwood Heights to pick up and pay for the flowers:

Unfortunately, as we were rushing out of house to get down to Fitzroy Gardens, I had completely forgotten to take the flowers! $45 wasted! It worked out well though because that meant the pre-wedding or "engagement" shots weren't so "wedding" formal. The photographer, Kane, was actually quite surprised that we turned up in a wedding gown and suit; most Australians think the engagement shots are actually very informal and he was expecting up to turn up in jeans and casual wear!

It was a really good and fun shoot; it was a bit strange that we were in wedding attire because we attracted a lot of attention from people passing through Fitzroy Gardens, but Kane guided us through the shots and we had a lot of fun doing it and just being natural...laughing our way through most of the shoot! Just under 500 shots were taken! Which was pretty scary for a 50 minute shoot. Anyway, we'll have to make an appointment with Kane sometime next week to have a look at the engagement shots so that we can choose a few and even get one printed out to use for the wedding in a few weeks' time.

First time I got to drive Aeris' Honda Civic VTi-L as well; it felt so completely different from my Holden Barina. But it felt really good to drive though it was a bit awkward for me because it was longer and wider than the Barina so I couldn't gauge distance as well. Certainly couldn't do the parallel parking; Aeris had to do that because I'm just not used to this car and the length!

Went to LP Body Works to pick up the Holden Barina; they've changed the windscreen, replaced the mirror and fixed the window, so all is good now; car is ready for when Francis and Kelvin get here so they can use it for a few days while they are here!

Meeting Chris and Juliet at the new China Bar Seafood Buffet place at the corner of the Burwood Highway and Springvale Road at Burwood East; even though it's $49 per head and even children under 3 years old have to pay $10, Juliet's heard some good things about the seafood there and I'm really looking forward to eating dinner there. Didn't eat lunch so I think I'll be pretty hungry when we get there for dinner tonight! Can also discuss some of our wedding stuff with Chris since we're asking him to be the emcee during the reception.

Getting closer now, but more things checked off the Wedding To Do list

2009-11-06T15:56:00.001+11:00

Two more busy days on Wednesday and Thursday at work, especially yesterday because I needed to fill in and finalise all the articulation, course transfer, advanced standing forms, and even get the offers, advanced standing and early exits. I couldn't quite believe the amount of paperwork that I had to fill in...it was quite shocking how thick the pile of paperwork was! All written in hand by me as well.

I had to have a very quick and late lunch and I also took as short break but otherwise, I was hard at work the whole day on Thursday, just focusing on the tasks at hand. Had to transfer my phone to Shali because I really needed to concentrate. But it was good because I was extremely productive the entire day!

More wedding planning on Wednesday night that kept me up all the way until nearly 1am. But it was well worth it because we settled all the little details. We've got our finalised list of guests, finalised the guest seating list, finalised the program for the day, filled out the detailed wedding booking confirmation sheet that Potters needed, as well as composed a list of questions to ask them. Must have spent at least a good three hours working on all that but it was well worth it.

Another major thing done...a few more little detailed things left for us to do!

Melbourne Cup Day and an automatic lighter mood at work!

2009-11-03T22:23:00.001+11:00

It was an interesting Melbourne Cup Day...certainly a lot quieter than normal, in terms of phone calls and front counter queries. I think most people just assume the university is closed because it's a public holiday. The emails didn't stop though!

I left a little later than usual and when I got to work, the mood was just so light, so jubilant, so festive even! I don't know what it is about Melbourne Cup Day that brings the happy mood to workplaces! I've worked through two Melbourne Cup Days in Deakin, albeit at different departments (and this was the third time and in a different area once again) and the mood has always been so light and there's a buzz of excitement in the air.

We hadn't received any word about Melbourne Cup sweeps run by the Faculty, so our Student Support Office decided to run our own, organised by Jess and Susie. We were all buzzing about the Melbourne Cup, even those like me, who have absolutely NO interest in horse racing whatsoever. It's just the novelty of the day I guess, though I still can't fathom why people would dress up in terribly expensive (and terrible looking) hats just to see a couple of horses race. I guess it's more an excuse than anything else to dress up and just party...it's a social event more than anything else!

I had brought in some garlic bread purchased from a Korean grocer at Carnegie yesterday to help celebrate Melbourne Cup Day. Sarah baked gingerbread cakes so we had ourselves quite a bit of food on the day. And then we had even MORE food; Lili had a big and busy day with the result checking and had to order food for the committee. They had to order for at least ten people (as the caterer would could only take a minimum order for that number) so there were heaps of leftovers that she brought back to the office; two platters full of sweet cakes, and another two platters of savoury foods like risotto balls, sushi, and heaps of pastries. There were even two full jugs each of apple and orange juice! What a feast...and I think there are still leftovers for tomorrow!

As it was quieter, I could actually knuckle down and get a lot of work done. Was certainly very productive during the day and I've finished updating all the postgraduate course maps for 2010...a very tiring process given that I had to keep staring at the screen and go back and forth between the documents and the online handbook!

Before any of us actually knew it, the "Race That Stops A Nation" was on! So there was a bit of a mad scramble from some of my colleagues to find a TV to watch the race. I was to-ing and fro-ing, trying to decide whether to rush out to find a TV to watch the race, but decided to stay put instead, since Jess turned up the radio to listen to the race. It must have been no more than a minute after those colleagues left the office to find the TV before the race was over! Just like that! All that hype and the build-up and we didn't really get to watch or listen to the race in full!

Anyway, Aeris came to pick me up from work again and we went to Holy Saviour church in Vermont South to meet the priest to finalise some details. We'd chosen all the readings and prayers we want for our church wedding so we passed these on to the priest. Also worked out some details as to the time of the wedding and also other little details...everything's worked out well so all we need to do is to show up on the day to be wed and sign the marriage paperwork and certificates!

Our wedding preparations have moved quite quickly and smoothly over the last couple of weeks...a concentration over the last four days in fact. Have a couple more days of planning and finalising stuff and we should be more or less ready to go, with just some little details to sort out like the making of the programs and sending out final reminders to our invited guests.

Watching Lie To Me now and will probably go straight to bed after this...only two more days of work for me this week! Also trying organise a dinner trip to the new China Bar seafood buffet with Chris and Juliet for one of the weeknights this week.

Having to get out of bed on a weekday...first!

2009-11-03T21:37:00.002+11:00

So I woke up Monday morning before Aeris and had to drag my sorry ass out of bed while she could just remain asleep...first time in a long time (when it's not the weekend) that I've had to get out of bed earlier than Aeris because I had to go to work...and she didn't because of the extra long weekend due to the Melbourne Cup on Tuesday!

Just another typical busy day at work...it seemed like with each email I sent out, another one came into my inbox! *sigh* I guess Mondays are like that...next Monday will be even busier, given that the results come out this Thursday and our offices are closed on Friday because we're having a cross-campus Meeting Day, so we'll have to deal with all the queries that will no doubt have built up on the Friday and over the weekend! Ah well.

It was supposed to be a top of 33 degrees yesterday...unseasonal heat for Spring, though we HAVE entered the last month of Spring and the days should start warming up pretty quickly from hereon in. As long as it's not too hot during our big day...I'd definitely want it to be sunny but not scorching hot! But the temperature only got to a top of 29 I think. Adelaide had a scorcher and I believe Sydney today felt the heatwave that we were SUPPOSED to get so we're lucky to have missed it!

Aeris came to pick me up from work and we went to Carnegie to meet Marcelo for dinner at Kimchi Grandma. Yummmm. It's been a couple of months since we last caught up with him so we stayed well until past 9pm just chatting. He's not having the best last couple of weeks, so just hoping things start looking up for him.

Came back, watched The Apprentice Australia and a few episodes of Seinfeld and then went to bed, silently sobbing that I had to go to work on Melbourne Cup Day, a Victorian public holiday, when just about everyone else (not in the service industry anyway) was having a day off, chilling, doing absolutely nothing, or more likely, meeting up with mates to watch the big race and getting smashed.

New shirt? Check. Cufflinks? Check. A gift for the Best Man? Check.

2009-11-02T18:22:00.002+11:00

Even though the forecast was for a sunny day with a top of 24 degrees, the morning was extremely gloomy, with skies remaining overcast until well into the late afternoon. Nevertheless, I did the laundry...was going to do two rounds but Aeris just asked for one round to be done. Which is just as well because the clothes weren't dry by the time I took them in during the early evening and I had to put them in the dryer.

We went to Knox City SC...haven't been there for at least a good two to three months! And we ended up staying there for a good six hours just shopping! Had a couple of things we needed to purchase there: a new shirt for the wedding, cufflinks, and also a present for my Best Man. So the first couple of hours was us just going from shop to shop "scouting" these items; first Myer, then to all the other Men's Apparel/clothes shops and jewellery shops for the shirt and cufflinks.

Was very hungry so we went to Nudel for lunch...a very long time since we last ate there! Went window shopping at JB Hi-Fi but didn't really have anything to buy. Had to resist the temptation to buy new games...games that I wouldn't have time to play! And I think we've got enough unwatched and unopened DVDs at the moment. Still, we'll need to go back to JB Hi-Fi again in a couple of weeks to compare prices of a new GPS that I'm buying so that my uncles can use when they arrive here for the wedding.

More shopping ensued and I made a decision to get two new shirts AND a new belt at one of the last shops we went to: Connor. They had a pretty nice pair of cufflinks too, but it didn't come with one of the tie pins, so I decided to give that a miss instead because Beville's had a cufflink and tie pin set which I really liked, though it was more expensive. Maybe in the future. We were also looking for Geelong FC cufflinks at the AFL shop but they didn't seem to have them. Ah well!

Went to Myer to check out the cufflinks (we'd neglected to do that when we went looking for shirts in the morning) and I decided to get the cufflinks and tie pin set from Myer. Grocery shopping at Coles after that, then we went to Harris Scarfe and Aeris purchased a slow cooker that she had seen from the ads.

Was thoroughly exhausted when we got back home! I had decided to cook for my meals over the week and I decided on making kebabs with Lebanese bread I had purchased from Coles. Made a beef/chicken mince with bacon and onions mix to use for the filling for the "kebab wraps" and it took me nearly two hours to finish cooking everything! It'll be good and last me a total of six meals, including dinner!

Had a fairly quiet night reading and watching more episodes of Seinfeld and had a good night's sleep after such a long weekend!

Halloween candy giveaway...failed!

2009-11-02T18:08:00.001+11:00

A number of wedding things achieved on Saturday! It was a very productive day indeed.

We first went to L'Amour to pick up the altered wedding dress and it fit perfectly! So two dresses...just a matter of figuring out when Aeris wears which dress where! Hmmm...that's quite a mouthful. We went to Kat's Cakes at North Fitzroy after that to place an order for the Cherry Blossom cake that we wanted, so that's another tick on our to-do list...just need to work out the logistics of it being delivered later.

We then came back to Burwood Heights where we went to the flower shop, Flower Trends, to have a look and inquire about flowers for our wedding. We were there for a good 1.5 hours, first looking at the photographs of flowers and then selecting them: the bouquets for the bride and maid of honour, flowers for the buttonholes, flower corsages and even flowers for the bridal car! We were about to leave then remembered that we probably also needed flowers for the pre-wedding shots we were taking on Friday, so ordered those too.

Lunch at Palace by the Orient a few doors away and then shopping at Safeway. It was Halloween so we decided to purchase some chocolates to give away to any kids to come knocking on our door. In the last two years, I can only remember ever one family knocking on our door during Halloween night, but hey, it's better to be prepared!

It was a warm afternoon, so it was a good day for us to go swimming at the Box Hill Aqualink. We decided to go later than last week, which was good because it was less crowded at the pool. Slowly getting back my stamina...I'm increasing the number of laps I'm swimming with each time I go back. I was pushing myself to swim a bit faster though, so I ended up with slight cramps and soreness in the right leg after we left.

We went over to get dinner at Noodle Canteen along Station Street and then headed home. As we were driving down our street, we saw a family with two kids knocking on our neighbours' doors, so this time, we knew there would be at least two kids whom we can give chocolates away to! In fact, when we got home, we saw at least two other families of kids who were going Halloween door-knocking!

So Aeris and I got the chocolates and we waited...and waited...and waited. But no knocks on our door! I had a feeling that the kids had already been to our house earlier that evening when we were out of the house...such a shame. So our Halloween candy-giveaway? FAILED!

It was a really warm night and that made it hard to sleep, so I decided to watch a bit of Seinfeld before I was exhausted enough to go to bed.

The long weekend for most people...but me.

2009-10-30T21:19:00.001+11:00

Drove to LP Body Works in the morning and left the car there so that they could work on replacing the windscreen, side mirror and fix the window. I'll get the car back next week, probably towards the end of the week, given that the long weekend due to the Melbourne Cup is this week and they will be closed Monday and Tuesday. But hey, that's fine, it's not like I'm going to use the car anyway. And there's one less car along the street and no chance of it being vandalised again.

Was given a lift to work by one of the employees there, which was just as well, because it was raining! Was a strange day for rain, given that the top temperature was 28 degrees. But we need as much rain as we can get...I saw on the news that water storage levels had gone up 4% to 37% compared to this time last year, but even still, we still need Melbourne's water storage levels to increase...so more rain is good!

The weather seems to be quite volatile. The week we got back it was colder than usual for Spring. And then the temperature has started increasing and we were set for some warmer-than-usual days this weekend...28 degrees on Thursday, 28 today, 30 tomorrow! And next Friday is set to have a top of 27 and sunny...but we're hoping that it'll be sunny (but not that hot) because we have the photographer booked to take our pre-wedding photos on that day.

It was quieter than normal in our office today, which was good because we had half our staff either on RDOs or away sick. I still had a lot of work to do though and I dedicated my afternoon to updating the 2010 course maps. It took me a long time and I still hadn't finished by the time I left work, but I was extremely fatigued from having stared at the computer screen almost non-stop for a good couple of hours.

So the weekend is here! Everyone I know outside of uni seems to have a long weekend because of the Melbourne Cup on Tuesday, which is an official public holiday. Not for those of us working in the uni though, since the uni is still open on Melbourne Cup Day! But we DO get this holiday back during our Christmas break when others have to go back to work...I'd rather have an extended Christmas and New Year break anyway!

A new game, a soon-to-be-fixed car, and a great manga series.

2009-10-30T21:08:00.002+11:00

Aeris tried out the new Wii Fit Plus game that I purchased at Big W either last week or the week before...can't remember when exactly:

It's actually pretty nifty! There are a whole bunch of new features but also has the original exercises and games all in the software. I think they have improved the activities and games a bit and the new games really look fun, but I wonder how long will one play them before tiring of the same-old-same-old.

I also decided that it was time to get the windscreen, side mirror and window of my car fixed...remember my windscreen and side mirror had been vandalised? The driver side window wasn't rolling down properly either so I decided to get that checked out...after all, there was less than four weeks to the wedding and I need my car ready to make the airport run to pick up Francis and Kelvin and then to pass the car to Francis.

Sent the car to LP Body Works on Thursday morning so that they could take down some details about the car and work on a quote. I received a price quote for the replacement of the windscreen, side mirror and the little roller things that allow the window to be rolled up and down and it seemed a reasonable enough price! So I'd need to bring the car back again and let them replace the parts. Had originally decided not to worry about replacing the windscreen, but was told that it actually made the car unroadworthy...in any case, it was a reasonable price so decided to replace it. More expenses though. :(

Over the past couple of days, I've read the Slam Dunk manga intensively at night before going to bed. Finished all 31 books in the series...what a fantastic series! A bit disappointed with the way it ended though. But it was definitely worth purchasing...great art, great story, memorable characters. And it's funny as hell too!

"Neighbours" comes to visit Deakin Uni!

2009-10-30T20:53:00.001+11:00

It was pretty busy on the Monday and even though it was uni holidays in between Trimester 2 and 3, there was still a lot of traffic on campus! There seemed like there were a lot of international students around...possibly because we were only two weeks away from the start of Trimester 3. Then again, they could have been students taking the English language courses at DUELI. Whatever it is, while it was generally quieter on-campus, campus life seemed to still keep buzzing.

On top of that, there was even MORE unexpected traffic on-campus on the day...there were camera crews and props and stuff along Mutant Way, which is the main walkway in the Burwood campus. We were all wondering what the hell was going on...and then one of my colleagues found out that the crew from the popular and long-running "Neighbours" TV series was there on campus that day filming!

Neighbours is an institution in Australia. It's been running for nearly 30 years now and seemingly still going strong. Though it's probably more popular in the UK than in Australia...go figure! I remember watching Neighbours in my first couple of years when I was first here in Australia...there wasn't much else to do in Geelong afterhours when you don't have a car, and there wasn't much else on TV either!

But I haven't watched it for years and I certainly don't know who's who in the series anymore. I've heard that the famous "Ramsay Street" on Neighbours is actually located not far away from where we live, somewhere at the corner of Springvale Road and the Burwood Highway in the Mount/Glen Waverley area. The actual street isn't really called "Ramsay Street" of course, but the Neighbours cast and crew often go there to film.

Anyway, the Neighbours cast (though I'm sure it's only a few of them and not all of them) and crew were at Deakin for pretty much the entire day. When we left work they were still there filming. There was some prop sign with "Eden University" on it, which is presumably the fictional university in the Neighbours-world. It seemed like the episode they were filming was either about one or more of the cast going to uni for the first time during Orientation Week...or something like that.

An interesting start to what would be a very busy week for me!

A rude awakening...still so much more to do!

2009-10-26T17:25:00.002+11:00

Aeris and I went to Potters Reception yesterday to sit down with one of the staff there to work out some details and logistics regarding the ceremony and reception. It was actually really good for us to speak to the people at Potters because we've found out that we still have quite a bit of things left to do, logistically speaking!

So we've got to finalise our numbers and decide the seating plans, make the programs, etc etc etc all in the next couple of weeks before the wedding. But thankfully Potters didn't need the information yesterday and they've asked us to send the info they require by email as soon as we've worked it out. Phew!

We went to Officeworks to buy some paper for our wedding program on the day and then went to Safeway for groceries. While we were walking down the aisles, bumped into Jarryd Roughead of the Hawthorn Hawks! He's a big unit...really tall and just massive. We haven't really bumped into any footy players out in the burbs since we moved over to Melbourne (in Geelong we've bumped into quite a few since they all sort of live in and around the city) and while Roughy isn't one of our players, it's kinda daunting to see one of them in the flesh.

It was a nice warm day yesterday but I was struck down by hayfever. Aeris started cleaning up the house and moving unwanted stuff into the garage (which is more of a storage area than anything else). I finished watching all the CSI: Miami episodes...the only stuff I've taped that I still haven't watched is Skins! Did some reading as well...it was a fairly quiet weekend from the afternoon onwards. We need more of these, but it'll get more hectic in the next couple of weekends leading up to the wedding.

Gone swimming for the first time in years.

2009-10-24T21:17:00.001+11:00

Woke up early to do two rounds of laundry, then made bacon and egg sandwiches for brekkie. Aeris had initially planned for both of us to go to the cake shop so that we could have a chat with the owner about our wedding cake, but they weren't free for us to meet up today, so we're going next Saturday straight after we pick up the wedding dress from L'Amour.

Aeris had to go to work so I stayed at home and vacuumed the house. So much easier and quicker to vacuum the house this week after the massive cleaning I did last week...the house is a lot easier to maintain on a week-by-week basis! Kyo and Ririn also seemed to enjoy their extended stay outside the house.

Aeris came back in the afternoon and not long after, we headed out to the Aqualink at Box Hill. The last time we went swimming was when we were still living in Newtown in Geelong and that was years ago. Which reminds me, we still have "credit" on our cards that would allow us to swim in the Geelong pools...ah well. I wonder if we can give those cards away to some of our friends still living in Geelong so they can make use of them?

Anyway, Aeris and I paid for a "package" that allowed us to go swimming at Aqualink 10 times. We found out that there were heaps of facilities at Aqualink, and not just the indoor and outdoor pools! There was an area with diving boards, a spa, dry sauna and steam room, a multipurpose stadium where you could play basketball, badminton, netball, etc, a gym, tennis courts, a squash court, and even an outdoor futsal area! There were also people playing cricket on the field outside of the main Aqualink buildings, but I'm not quite sure whether that area is actually owned by Aqualink at all.

Heaps of people there and the indoor pools were chock-a-block with kids taking swimming lessons, so we decided to go to the outdoor pool instead, where there were less people, but still enough that we didn't have free reign of the swimming lanes. It'd been quite a while since I went swimming, as much as I love it, so I couldn't swim too many consecutive laps because I just didn't have the stamina for it anymore. Still, it was a pretty good hour plus worth of swimming, though I'm feeling a bit fatigued. Aeris was a bit worried that she had forgotten how to swim, but she was able to pick up where she left off years ago. Certainly like riding a bicycle!

We got chicken and chips and purchased a tiramisu cheesecake from the Cheesecake Shop before coming home for dinner. Been trying to catch up with my taped TV programs as of this afternoon. I've watched 2 episodes of Glee (it's so good!), one episode of CSI, two episodes of Lie To Me and about four to five episodes of CSI: Miami...and this all just in the last two days! Still have heaps more episodes of CSI: Miami to go, and Skins too...though I'm not sure if I want to start on that even though I've taped episodes.

Have heaps of anime and movies to watch too...and games to play. Ugh. Don't think I'll have the time for any of those. Have to scale back on stuff...and stop buying new games. Self control!

Stayed back late to work on Friday...but it was worth it.

2009-10-24T20:57:00.001+11:00

I stayed back late yesterday at work as I was trying to finish my workload and also prepare for the busy period that is to come very soon. It'll just be me doing the postgrad stuff on the Monday as both Shali and Sarah are going to Bairnsdale to do some postgrad marketing stuff!

I've also got nearly a full day of VTAC training on Tuesday and for the next two Fridays I'll be away from work because of either other-work stuff or wedding stuff. So even though we've now got three people working on postgrad stuff, we don't exactly have a full complement, given that Shali and Sarah both have other responsibilities with the undergrad work. I'm the only who is soley focusing on the postgrad stuff but I'm not there 100% of the time. Ah well, just gotta try and do our best.

I did get a huge bunch of work done on Friday by virtue of staying back, so we're well placed for next week. I signed off all the graduand academic records for the international students set to complete their courses at the end of this trimester so that's one major thing checked off. I got a bit tired of checking back and forth between the online handbooks and hard copy handbooks to see what specialisations students obtained in their courses, so I spent the better part of three, maybe four hours working on a Excel spreadsheet that will help us quickly identify what specialisations a student would get in their course based on what subjects they took.

This had been bugging me for a while, that we had to spent so much time checking and double checking to ascertain specialisations, so it's heaps easier now to do this at a glance with this new Excel spreadsheet. I just hope it's useful to those of us doing postgrad! I think it was worth the time and effort producing this at-a-glance type of spreadsheet to aid all of us! Next thing I need to update is the postgradute course maps when I have the time to do so.

So I got home past 8pm but Aeris was still at Forest Hill shopping. Had a pretty late dinner...that diet is more or less screwed now since I get so hungry during the evenings that I just need to eat something. Maybe I should just buy more fruits during our grocery trips and eat them for dinner.

Aeris had planned to go swimming over the weekend, but I couldn't find my bathers, so we went to K-Mart after our later dinner so I could buy a new pair of bathers. All set to go swimming over the weekend!

Aeris: Architect!

2009-10-23T08:03:00.001+11:00

When we returned home from work on Wednesday evening, awaiting us was mail from the Architecture Registration Board of Victoria. Quickly grabbed it from the mailbox and rushed back into the house, while I hovered over Aeris' shoulder, trying to see if it was good news and if she passed the final stage of her Architect Registration process: that interview last Monday that we managed to get back to Melbourne in time for.

She passed! So Aeris is now a fully fledged architect...or at least, after the graduation ceremony (yes, there is one!), she'll be one. The graduation is in December, and I'm going to insist that we go for it. More fees and charges to pay, but hey, it's a big thing.

Aeris did mention that while in the long run, salaries will increase when one becomes a fully registered architect, in the short run, it's actually a bit expensive! Because there are new fees and charges needed to be paid, not just in registration and the graduation, but a whole heap of other things that very few people actually factor into the first place. But ah well...you win some you lose some.

Thanks to everyone who has prayed for Aeris and me. The good news has all come so quickly in the space of two weeks (so far). We've had a real rotten run of bad luck for over two months, so we'll take the good when it comes and when we can get it!

Have been also slowly catching up on my TV viewing the last couple of nights. I've watched all the Amazing Race episodes that were taped when we were away, the last four or five episodes of the previous season, and then the first episode of the new season. Good stuff. Lie To Me is back on television again, hoorah! I've missed the first couple of episodes of Glee but I've taped the last two...not sure if I want to get into it at this "late" stage though, might be best to wait until the DVD set comes out and rent it.

And I have heaps of CSI: Miami and Skins episodes also taped. CSI also recently returned on TV and I have two taped episodes that I need to catch up on. I've stopped watching some TV programs because there's simply not enough time...all in all, there must easily be at least another 20+ hours (probably more!) worth of TV programs taped that I need to catch up on!

Wedding preparations into overdrive!

2009-10-23T07:54:00.001+11:00

It's been a slog so far this week, so TGIF! Thankfully I've managed to catch up on the emails (though Shali and Sarah are still catching up on the backlog which we've divvied up among the three of us). The workload would have to be current because we have quite a lot of upcoming things to do with graduations, articulations, early exits, etc with the upcoming Trimester 2 results in early November. Plus we have wedding plans and preparations as well which will eat up more of our time.

Anyway, it looks like we're on track to get the cake, flowers, make-up and hair styling settled. We've even booked in for the pre-wedding shots; we weren't really sure with only a month before the wedding whether the photographer would be able to do them (they were part of the package we purchased) and would have been happy with post-wedding shots, but hey, it's now locked in!

More or less finalised the wedding reception seating as well, though there may be another two more guests coming so we'll have to look at the seating arrangements again. Music has been chosen, now just a matter of burning them to cd and transferring them to an iPod...I basically want at least three available media on the day so that there aren't any hiccups with the music, since we're not getting a band or emcee.

Aeris and I are going to Potters on Sunday to discuss with them the logistics and almost-final details of the big day. I think we're going to work out the timing and the program and what we intend to have and what we intend to do. There's another major thing that I need to do; sort out the readings and prayers for the ceremony, which I will probably start trying to work on over the weekend.

Looks like most of the major boxes have been ticked, or are half-ticked at the moment. I'm sure it'll be more frantic as we get closer to the date. There are some house preparations that we need to get done (and budget for) like mowing of the front and back lawns so that everything is neat and tidy for when our families visit, but I'll probably leave that till until Mum and Dad get here, since they might be able to stay at home while the mowers come and Aeris and I can still go to work.

Oh yeah...gotta get the vandalised side mirror of my car fixed too before Francis gets here...intending to let him use my car so that he can get to and from the location (and possibly ferry other guests around too) as we're renting another car from the airport.

Still so much to do in so little time...but I feel a bit better and more relaxed knowing that most of the major stuff has been taken care of...or about to be taken care of shortly.

A post 2009 Grand Final surprise!

2009-10-20T22:09:00.002+11:00

Worked my butt off to try and clear the backlog of emails I had but it seemed to no avail. Half the office was missing because my colleagues had VTAC training; I was supposed to go as well but because we were so understaffed on the day, my manager asked for me to remain in the office instead. I can't remember how many times just that morning that I was interrupted by students needing assistance at the front counter.

Anyway, Jess brought me a lovely surprise! Found out that she didn't go to the 2009 AFL Grand Final after all. She told me that she was bringing a friend, who she originally thought was a St Kilda supporter but was actually a Cats supporter, and that friend did go to the Grand Final. But what happened was that his father also wanted to go but wasn't able to get a ticket. So Jess gave up her ticket for her friend's Dad.

So sweet of her. She didn't tell me previously because she was afraid that I'd get angry that the tickets were going to some people I didn't know. Yeah, it would have been nice if the Grand Final tickets actually went to someone I knew who was a Geelong supporter, but at the end of the day, if Aeris and I couldn't use the tickets, then it might as well have gone to some Geelong supporters who WOULD get satisfaction from seeing our great club win the Premiership in one of the greatest Grand Finals ever!

She was telling me how grateful her friend and his Dad was and how they couldn't believe that they were able to get the Grand Final tix, considering that I could have easily sold them off for a significant profit! But I wouldn't have been able to sell them anyway; touting is illegal and I remember how annoyed I was to see 2007 Grand Final tix being sold on eBay for exorbitant prices, when Aeris and I couldn't get tix back then. And how would I have sold them, being all the way back in Singapore? No, I'm still glad that someone else got to enjoy the Grand Final with those tix.

Anyway...the surprise! Jess' friend and his Dad (Sean and John...not sure which one is Sean and which one is John!) actually sent me a nice Thank You card and also enclosed pictures they took at the MCG during the Grand Final! I was so envious...the seats looked awesome. They were behind the goalposts and also JUST under shelter. Wow, if only we could have been there. And one of them also placed the bet for us on Geelong to win...and the winning bet ticket was enclosed in the card!

This was the card that they sent us, along with the betting ticket. They must have taken some time to hunt down a Thank You card with a cat on it! The Geelong blue and white hoops guernsey is drawn in of course...

Exterior of the card

Interior of the card

Our winning betting ticket...I'm not quite sure how much we won! $30? $32? $12? And is it still too late to claim the bet? Maybe I'll just keep this as a memento!

There were also the following 4x6 glossy pictures enclosed:

The weather certainly looked fine! But from watching the game, we all knew otherwise.

Dark clouds looming. They had to switch on the MCG's lights for an afternoon game!

The players warming up

Up goes the Geelong banner!

The other side of the Geelong banner. Congrats on winning the Brownlow, Gazza!

The players line up for the National Anthem

That immaculate final score, signalling that Geelong are the 2009 Premiers!

The skies clear...just in time for the medals presentation!

What great seats they (we) had!

We are Geelong!

So it was a very pleasant surprise indeed to receive the card, the betting ticket and the photos. Especially as I had expected nothing in return at all! Ok, maybe the betting ticket and I certainly would have loved to see photos...I didn't actually expect proper photos!

Unfortunately, it wasn't all good stuff during the day. Was busy throughout and I was so exhausted by the end of the day that I just couldn't stay back to work anymore...I just went home when it was time to go. I also received the internet bill and was shocked as the download/upload limit had been severely exceeded and it was a good $108+ on top of the regular monthly fee that we had to pay. It was a shock to discover that the 6Gb limit we had was exceeded even before Aeris and I returned. But anyway, we're sorting that out.

Aeris and I did more wedding planning at night. We had a look at the various wedding cakes we were interested in for our wedding and shortlisted a few. Aeris made some email enquiries about the price of one of the very unique cakes that we saw. She also checked out the flowers and some of the other things for the wedding...things are slowly coming together now! Not long more.

A good clean house!

2009-10-20T21:09:00.001+11:00

Aeris had to go to work Sunday morning so I took the opportunity to do THREE rounds of laundry; we had done one round on Saturday for the bedsheets, so that was FOUR rounds of laundry in total! Sunday was the best day to do the laundry because the forecast was for sunny skies at a top of 20 degrees.

I vacuumed the house thoroughly; it took me a good 1.5 hours even with the new and more powerful vacuum cleaner because there was a lot of hair and dustballs in every nook, cranny and corner of the house! Felt extremely satisfied once I had finished with the thorough vacuuming though! And Kyo and Ririn must have enjoyed staying outside the house for an extended period of time...though most of it was forced as I didn't let them in while I was doing the laundry and cleaning the house.

We went to visit Eddy in the afternoon at their new place in Toorak. I'd never been there before and it was a very nice townhouse...it had been a good nine months since I last saw them! Caught up for a while then we had to come back home to prepare dinner.

A bit more wedding preparation on Sunday night and then we went to bed early.

Wedding preparations in full swing with only 5 weeks more to go!

2009-10-20T20:56:00.001+11:00

We went to L'Amour, the bridal gown shop at Blackburn along Canterbury Road on Saturday morning because they hadn't yet contacted us about when Aeris should go in to get the alterations done. We found out that we needed actually have contacted them (which doesn't quite tally with what both of us remember them saying when the gown was bought back in February) so it's just as well that we decided to do some of our wedding stuff on Saturday!

They didn't usually take measurements for alterations, but we explained to them that it was getting close to our wedding and we didn't have time to come down during the weekdays so they made an exception for us. They did preliminary measurements, then decided that we needed to bring the hoop and Aeris' shoes that she intended to wear on the day, so we quickly headed back home, picked them up, and returned to the shop.

The measurements AFTER Aeris wore the hope AND the shoes were quite different...there was a length difference of about a few centimetres! So I'm glad they insisted we went back and brought those stuff back to the shop, because now we know for sure the gown isn't going to be "pulled up" too high! We're going back in two weeks' time to pick up the gown.

It took slightly over an hour at the shop, must longer than we had expected, so we were an hour late for our lunch appointment with Chris and Juliet (though we had contacted them to let them know of the delay). Picked them up and we went to this Malaysian diner that was close by their place which Juliet had discovered only a few months back. It was packed, but we didn't have to wait too long for a table. It did take some time for them to cook the food but that was fine by us because we took the time chatting and catching up!

The food was really nice; I had a char kuay teow while Aeris had a hor fun. Of course it's not the same as eating food back in Singapore and Malaysia, but it's a close approximation! We then headed back to Chris and Juliet's place and gave Guitar Hero a go...it was extremely fun when playing in a "band"! But unfortunately, most of the songs I didn't really recognise or wasn't very familiar with. Plus we probably don't have space in the house for the full set of peripherals...guitars and drums.

Went to the Box Hill Motel after and we booked the rooms for Aeris' parents, her brothers and sister-in-law, and Francis and Kelvin. We had spent the whole of the previous night working out logistics as to which motel to make reservations with, who was arriving when and how we were going to pick them up from the airport and so on and so forth. We've got a nice system going on the busy days when we need to make the airport runs to fetch people and send them back to the airports when they are leaving, but it WILL be an extremely tiring week for us.

It was quite funny, while making the bookings, to see my uncles' families' names also in the logbook, since they made their bookings online. Aeris made upfront payment for all the three rooms; just a matter of getting back the amount from Francis and Kelvin when they get here.

We are very very broke and will remain broke until after the wedding methinks. Between paying for that accommodation, we also have to pay for the car hire (we need an extra car to ferry people to and fro) over that wedding weekend. Then Aeris has also paid for the airfare and accommodation for her family who are going over to Tassie for a week before our wedding. There's also the matter of the reception to pay for. We've also paid for airfare back to Singapore in December, and we still have to pay for the wedding cake, flowers, make-up, stipend for the priest and the church...it all adds up VERY QUICKLY.

Thank goodness I've decided to go on this diet so that I don't spend unnecessarily during this period. Not that we can afford to do that anyways.

We had an exhausting day, but we sorted out the list of songs we want at our wedding at night...it was quite fun doing that! We've still kept at least 60% of the original songs we had chosen months ago, but I was also quite surprised at the new songs that we've added in that we didn't consider previously. Most of them Aeris' choices, since she wanted a better variety of songs (ie: not all love songs) for the wedding.

So much still left to do, so much that still needs to be paid for. That big day is drawing ever closer!

Three receptions in a year!

2009-10-20T20:26:00.001+11:00

Mum and Dad helped me to find a venue for a Singapore wedding reception at the end of the year when Aeris and I go back. I didn't think we'd be able to find any venue, simply because it was such last minute notice, it was around the Christmas period and it needed to be over a specific and small window timeframe to suit our short return!

So I was quite surprised when they did manage to find a venue...not the cheapest of places and certainly not a place I might have originally considered, given that we were only planning to have a small ceremony! But beggars can't be choosers so we're going to make the most of it...since it's going to be pretty expensive anyway!

The only thing is that our wedding receptions in Malaysia and Singapore are back-to-back. We're having one and then the very next day we're having the other! So it'll be a very tiring weekend for ALL our immediate families...not to mention expensive! *sigh* Ah well...but at least we're holding ALL the receptions in the one year. We didn't think it would have been possible at all much earlier in the year!

Was working on the invitations yesterday and while I originally only thought it'd be a small wedding where we'd have only perhaps four or five tables of our family members and closest friends, it's all of a sudden ballooned out to eight tables! Didn't quite factor in my parents' closest friends as well. At least it looks like it might go beyond eight tables...possibly up to nine but that's about it! Phew.

Mum and Dad are sort of handling the logistics of this over in Singapore. They've got the menu, met with the people at the venue, made the bookings, sorting out the payment, etc etc. They're even printing out the invites and sending them out! The only thing that I really need to do on my end is to work on the list of invitees and provide the addresses to send the invites to! So I spent a great deal of time doing that yesterday night.

It's going to be an intensive next two months where there are weddings and receptions everywhere...all of them ours!

The return and a new diet!

2009-10-20T20:13:00.001+11:00

Was sick on Wednesday and Thursday. Not quite sure whether it was straight up flu, or hayfever, or us just not being used to the cold weather (yes, cold for Spring...it was a week of low temperatures with the temperature not rising above 20 degrees!) having adapted to hot and humid weather in Singapore and Malaysia. But I kept on sneezing and sneezing and the nose was runny. Ugh.

It was extremely busy at work as well, given that I still had a backlog of emails ot get through...plus calls to answer! And for some reason for the entire week, there were heaps of students who walked up to the counter and wanted assistance, possibly because it was the last week of the re-enrolment period for Arts and Education. There were at times where I felt I wasn't getting on top of the work at all! Had to stay back at work well past work hours just to try and catch up.

Have also started on a new diet which might also have contributed to me being sick as my body is slowly adjusting to the "system shock". I'm trying to eat breakfast and lunch and skipping dinner altogether. It didn't quite work for the first couple of nights because we were still a bit jet lagged and couldn't wake up early enough to have breakfast. So missing brekkie, having lunch, and by the time it was the evening, I was just so hungry! But then slowly got used to the hunger.

This new diet is only for weekdays though. It'll be too hard on weekends when Aeris and I might be outside and would need to eat, meeting up with friends or otherwise!

Pictures of Terminal 3 in Singapore Changi Airport

2009-10-14T15:21:00.000+11:00

Just updating some pictures I took on Saturday when we left Singapore to return to Australia. These are pictures taken in the new Terminal 3 of Changi Airport. It's probably not THAT new, but it's new to me since I hadn't been back in Singapore in 3 years and had never been to Terminal 3 before!

They had this sorta "hanging garden" as the backdrop in T3, where you can pick up your luggage from the conveyor belts.

Inside the transit lounge. Very pretty...apparently the couches that are there were very expensive!

There was also this oscillating/moving "flower fan" structure designed by Christian Moeller that was pretty impressive...and imposing! Not something one can miss if you're in the central area of Terminal 3.

First day back of work after 5.5 weeks!

2009-10-13T19:45:00.001+11:00

Woke up really early on Monday morning despite only getting about 5+ hours of sleep because I wanted to go to Baker's Delight/Brumby's to see what I could buy to bring to work. It's been a while since I brought some yummy food to share with my colleagues at work (but mainly because it HAS been a while since I went to work)!

I couldn't find anything appropriate at Baker's Delight at Burwood Heights SC, though I got myself a bacon and cheese bun for brekkie. Went over to the Safeway and got some profiteroles...the creamy chocolatey treat! I then got to work really early; glad I went there early because it took a while for my computer to load up and update the programs and software!

None of my colleagues knew I was coming back because I was deliberately being very cryptic on Facebook so one-by-one, they were all surprised to see me at my desk when they came in. Regaled my tale about my trip back to Singapore at least ten times! But I was really glad to be back and everyone else seemed to be happy to have me back to.

Threw myself into work...I had to ignore my phones a bit because I had so many emails to catch up on. I was floundering for a while because I wasn't quite sure where to start or what to do. It HAS been 5 1/2 weeks away from work! But I soon got into the swing of things. The day flew by...before I knew it, I had completely missed lunch (was planning on skipping it anyway) and not long after it was time to go! Stayed back a bit longer to do a bit more work and then headed home.

Aeris had made dinner reservations at Gold Leaf Restaurant, so we took Felice, who had looked after our house for the past six weeks, there for dinner. Got a banquet for four...mmMMmm...good Chinese food. We actually did well to finish up almost all the dishes, given that we each had 2.5 bowls of shark fins' soup, a huge lobster with noodles portion each, a large fish, fish pieces with vegetables, pork necks and even fruits and red bean dessert. Tapowed most of the pork necks away but finished up everything else.

Went grocery shopping at Coles and then sent Felice back home. Sorted through the Saturday and Sunday papers that were delivered to us over the last six weekends and watched half of the 2009 Brownlow Medal Ceremony before turning in.

Back again...naturally.

2009-10-13T19:20:00.001+11:00

So we're back! It was a long long flight. We touched down in Melbourne almost exactly 12 hours after we left Singapore, but that's because we had to have a stopover transit in Darwin. That's what happens when you're on a budget airline which doesn't have a direct flight between Singapore and Melbourne! Ah well, s'right.

We left early for the airport late Saturday afternoon so that we could go to the new Terminal 3 for dinner. Never been to Terminal 3 before so I wanted to see it. T3 reminded me a lot of T2, though much newer and cleaner of course! After dinner, went over to T1 to wait for Aeris to arrive so that we could check in.

Francis and Kelvin sent us off at the airport...thanks guys! Aeris and I didn't hang around for very long...after we checked in, we hung around for many 10 minutes and then decided to go through the immigration checkpoint so that we could do some shopping inside the transit terminal. Used my new passport for the first time; a passport scan followed by a fingerprint scan. So quick and easy! Aeris and I then spent nearly 2 hours shopping and then realised we really needed to check-in!

I had my new novel by Bill Willingham (acclaimed and Eisner Award-winning author for his Fables comic book series), Peter and Max: A Fables Novel, and I expected to read it for most of the way to Darwin. But I hardly got past the first chapter...was really really exhausted, and the lack of sleep over the past three days caught up with me, so I slept most of the journey to Darwin.

We were one of the last few people to get past immigration and was the second last in line for the customs check. Aeris and I had food and stuff to declare, and when the customs officer asked us what we had to declare, we told her. Strangely enough, the customs officer, walked with us and directed us past the customs checkpoint and towards the exit!

We were passing one of the customs checking tables and we thought she was actually asking us to wait behind the person who was being checked, so that we were next. But when we stopped, she turned around and motioned for us to follow her...and she pointed us to the exit! So even though we were all prepared to open up our luggage to show them the foodstuffs we wanted to declare, we were led straight out without any checks! Not even an X-ray! Could hardly believe it.

Anyway, we went straight to the Jetstar counter to check-in our luggage and then went up to the small transit area to wait for our flight to Melbourne. Despite us being one of the last few people off the plane and through customs, we still had a good two-plus hour wait for the next flight. Aeris shared her big breakfast meal with me from the eatery while I got myself a Red Rooster meal at around 8am...it was very likely that we were going to miss lunch anyway!

I slept a bit more in the flight to Melbourne but then spent the rest of the time reading Peter and Max. It is a really good and engrossing novel and you don't actually need to be a Fables fan to enjoy reading it! It's a great standalone story, but it's one of those tales where you could be "persuaded" to find out more about the supporting characters that are mentioned; the supporting characters that just happen to be the major players in the Fables series like Bigby, Frau Totenkinder, Rose Red, etc.

Didn't have to wait very long for our check-in luggage and we caught a taxi home. It was $86+ for a taxi ride from Tullamarine airport to our place, which was about 40+km. It was expensive, but a lot cheaper than I expected; I thought it would cost us at least $120! But better to pay that amount than to try and take a skybus to the city (which would have amounted to $34) and then try and take public transport from the city to our place...on a Sunday when there was less public transport and the trains stopped at every stop.

After we got back, we both started our cars. Surprisingly, despite nearly six weeks of not starting the engine, it took me less than 20 seconds to start up my engine. Aeris' Honda Civic was even better...she didn't even have to wait at all; the car roared to life on the first turn of the key! Aeris' car was absolutely filthy, so she drove over to the nearby petrol station to fill it up with petrol and then gave the car a thorough clean at the car wash. I also purchased a mirror from the $2 shop at Burwood East SC so that I could create a makeshift driver-side mirror while waiting for it to be repaired (no thanks to the moron who vandalised my car before we left for Singapore, if you remember).

We then went over to Box Hill Centro to meet one of Aeris' high school friends, Zach, who moved over to Melbourne a couple of months ago. Zach lived all the way in Narre Warren, so it was a LONG trip for him on the train to get to Box Hill! Zach had never been to the Box Hill market before, so we took our time shopping and buying groceries...lots of vegetables! Went for dinner at 1228 Tea House and we had a huge spread, since Aeris and I both missed lunch and Zach was hungry.

Came back home and Aeris and Zach had some tea, sat down and chatted, while I started unpacking the bags. Sent Zach to the Clayton train station then came back home and more unpacking...managed to unpack everything before going to bed, thoroughly exhausted after such a long day and night before. It's great to be back!

Day 38 in Singapore - the final day of our holiday here!

2009-10-10T15:29:00.001+11:00

Woke up really early this morning (for the third day running) and I followed my parents to church for morning mass. Wanted to go for mass for thanksgiving that a miracle had happened and our prayers have been answered; it's just as well because I won't be able to attend mass this evening and it'd be too late for us to attend mass tomorrow.

After mass, there was a small group rosary with my parents' close church friends, afterwhich, Dad went off with them to go swimming while Mum and I made our way to Vivo City to have breakfast. Yummy kaya toast with soft boiled eggs and coffee at Toast Box. Yum!

We went to the Telok Blangah hawker centre to buy takeaway lunch and then proceeded home. Not more than 5 minutes after we got home, the storm started. It was absolutely pouring....visibility was very poor and I even saw a flash of lightning strike the ground between two housing flats opposite where our place is! If we were held up at any point of time, we would have been caught in the rain. God was sheltering us!

Just another couple of hours and we're on our way to the airport. Meeting Aeris there; they could be on their way from Kluang now. I think a few of my friends may turn up at the airport even though I've told them there's no necessity to. Aeris and I won't be hanging around the terminal for very long after we have checkd our luggage in because her parents need to go back to Kluang and it's a fairly long drive back!

Had an enjoyable holiday back in Singapore. I wish I had met up with more friends or spent more time with them, but there WAS a period of time where I was going out pretty much every day from day to night! No one can really afford to do that on a constant and regular basis (well...unless you're naturally rich of course), plus I did need some days of quiet time as well as days spent with my family.

I'll miss my family and friends and the food in Singapore, but certainly not the heat and humidity, haha! Won't be too long before we're back though...Aeris and I are already making plans to return during the Christmas period for a short break here.

Farewell Singapore, but we'll be back soon!

The power of prayer

2009-10-09T23:49:00.002+11:00

I remained depressed for the rest of the day. Have been in despair the past few days but today was the last possible day for action to be taken and with each passing hour, our chances were decreasing exponentially, so I was even more depressed today.

Went to mass again with my parents; despite it all, I was still holding out for a miracle and there are so many people praying for us as well. After mass, I had more or less resigned myself to the highly likely possibility of it not happening, and I was at peace with it.

Parents took me to SCC for dinner; haven't had the yummy Mulligatawny soup for years and the fish and chips were still as good as ever! Came back home and rested.

Then I received a phone call just before 9pm. Could this be? It was indeed...a last minute miracle, just when I had completely given up all hope.

Just like that, I was rejuvenated. Despair and depression immediately turned to pure joy and relief...and to a certain extent disbelief. Aeris and I have had such a rotten run of bad luck in the last two months. Surely this could not be happening to us. A miracle? For us?

But a miracle it was. While on the brink of total defeat and resignation of our fate, a miracle happened and a lifeline was thrown to us. It was the most unlikely thing to happen, given the frustrating dealings we've had in the past five plus weeks we've been back in Singapore/Malaysia, and right on the cusp of me totally giving up hope as well.

Miracles do happen. And I have no doubt this was through the power of prayer. Not just my prayers (and I must admit I haven't been praying all that much or that hard), but the prayers of everyone else who know us and have heard of our plight. Family, family friends, friends, colleagues...all those who have been praying for us and keeping us in their thoughts.

I have been a Catholic who lost his faith. But my faith has now been renewed. This is the kickstart of my faith and my spiritual journey all over again and it took a miracle to rejuvenate me. Quickly said the rosary with my parents who were overjoyed when they heard the news; they had always believed while I had given up hope.

Thank you everyone for keeping us in your thoughts and have been praying for us. We appreciate it immensely. God has a greater plan for us and through the power of prayer, miracles can happen. It did for us.

Day 37 in Singapore

2009-10-09T11:57:00.001+11:00

It has now been five weeks and two days since we have been away from Australia. Don't think we've had such a long stay away from Australia, not since I was still a full-time student back in 2004 or 2005!

My return durations back to Singapore each year since I first went over to Australia to study have become smaller and smaller with each passing year...until now at least. I think I had a holiday of three months back in Singapore at the end of 2002, then 2.5 months in 2003. Then it was 2 months in 2004, a month in 2005, then when we returned in 2006, it was just 10 days.

Couldn't sleep again last night even though I tossed and turned and tried to force myself to sleep. I eventually only went to bed past 2am, but I woke up around 5am again...this time around I remained in bed and tried to sleep it off but eventually got sick of tossing and turning and pulled myself out of bed at 5.45am.

No updates via email or phone, so extremely disappointed, frustrated and depressed. Nothing we can do now. Completely out of our hands. Still a very small window of hope that the right people will do the right thing by us; we have been waiting for such a long time now. And even though we've informed the authorities of the urgency of the matter, still nothing seems to happen for us.

As I said, still a very small window of hope that maybe, just maybe, things will work out. Only about another hour to go for the powers-to-be to do the right thing by us and take some responsibility and accountability. But we will only find out later tonight or even tomorrow morning. Still hoping and praying that it will all work out in the end though.

Everytime a carrot gets dangled in front of us, it gives us hope and so far, it has all been false hope. I do wish that would change and a concrete positive outcome is reached. Parents have been praying for us, extended family members, friends, family members' friends...

Anyway, to take my mind off the depression, I decided to read the latest reports on the Herald Sun and Geelong Advertiser websites about the latest trades in the AFL.

It was confirmed that Shane Mumford, our developing ruckman on the rookie list who had a pretty good year, was traded to the Sydney Swans for pick #28. They were offering him $1.2 million for a four year contract...that's too good an offer NOT to take and while I'm disappointed that we lost Mummy, I know this offer was too good for him. If I were in this position, I'd be very tempted to take it too. Plus, he'll be their number one ruckman over in Sydney.

We traded pick #49 for Fremantle's Marcus Drum, who was a top ten draft pick in the 2005 draft and a key defender only 22 years of age. If he plays to his potential, he'll be more than a handy replacement for Tommy Harley and/or Dasher Milburn when they retire.

I needed to further take my mind of depressing and frustrating thoughts, so I decided to join in the live blog on the Geelong Advertiser website:

AFL trade week live blog

The live blog session took up a good 3.5 hours of my time and I'm not feeling so depressed anymore. Just have to wait and see now.

Days 35 and 36 in Singapore

2009-10-08T21:22:00.002+11:00

Spent most of yesterday online and periodically on the phone. Aeris and I needed to get a confirmation letter of our healthcover from HBA in Australia and we needed it fairly urgently and in a very specific format. We had put in the request on Tuesday, and it was promised to us in 24 hours via electronic copy.

I'd spoken to a couple of different people from HBA over the phone to organise the confirmation letter and they all assured me that the letter they were sending out would be the correct format. Received the document just before 11am Singapore time (2pm Australian Eastern time) but the document was just a generic confirmation and NOT at all in the format that we required!

So I had to scramble and contact HBA again to organise for the letter in the required format to be produced urgently for us. I managed to get in contact with an extremely helpful representative who got us the document exactly the way we needed it, in terms of content. The only problem was, it was on a generic Word document and we needed it on official HBA letterhead paper AND signed! But it was too late in the day to get it organised.

Went to weekday mass at Sacred Heart then came back with my parents and had dinner. Was very concerned that we might not get the letter in time but resolved to contact HBA again the next morning to sort it out. Read comics in the night...I couldn't get to sleep at all and only went to bed only after 2.15am...and I woke up at 5am (8am Australian time) so I was extremely fatigued.

Called up HBA; I wanted to speak to the lady who helped me yesterday but she hadn't yet come in, so I spoke to one of her colleagues instead. Extremely unhelpful; this person said that there was no way they could print out the letter from their office, scan it and send it back to me electronically. I asked to speak to the manager but she refused to put me through, saying that she had already checked with the manager.

At a complete loss as to what to do. I sent another email to the lady who assisted me yesterday to ask for her help, but I didn't get a reply (as it turns out, she may not have gone into work today).

I decided to try one last time to get this confirmation letter from HBA in the required format; I managed to speak to a very helpful gentlemen who was not only accommodating, but he offered to stay on the line with me while he printed out the document on official letterhead, sign it, then scan it and send it electronically to me.

So much for that earlier person from the EXACT SAME OFFICE who said that it couldn't be done, and insisted that she had checked with her manager that it couldn't be done either! Very lucky to have spoken to this extremely helpful gentleman; will need to send a thank you card to both him and the first lady who assisted us yesterday for their high level of professionalism and their kind assistance.

I was thoroughly exhausted from the panic set in that we may not have been able to get that letter (from the first call in the morning), and also the lack of sleep, so I went back to bed; it was now after 10am in the morning. Was interrupted by a few smses and calls coming through on my phone; very drowsily took the calls but I was too tired to respond to my smses.

Woke up about 2.45pm and responded to the smses that I had received; there were five of them. I headed out to Rochor Centre to pick up my weekly comics and then went to Sacred Heart church to meet my parents for weekday mass.

As I was still early for mass, I decided to take a very slow stroll from Bugis to Tank Road (where Sacred Heart church is located), stopping along Bras Basah Road to take pictures of the various sculptures/displays outside the Singapore Management University (SMU) and Singapore Art Museum.

A very different sculpture (in colour at least!) to most of the other sculptures outside SMU. More pics of the other sculptures to come below.

The serene environment just outside SMU

The former St Joseph's Institution (way back in the old days...60s and 70s?) which is now the Singapore Art Musuem

Serenity now!

This famous sculpture used to be displayed outside the National Museum, but has now moved to outside the Singapore Art Museum.

One of the buildings of SMU, in the heart of the city

One of the many various Buddha-like sculptures outside SMU

The National Museum of Singapore

One of the other SMU buildings. I thought it was neat they had plants/shrubs growing and hanging down off the sides of the building!

Despite my very slow stroll, I still reached Sacred Heart church a good 20 minutes before mass started. After weekday mass, parents and I went over to Vivo City where we had Carl's Jr for dinner. Had myself a very yummy Portobello Mushroom burger; I was extremely hungry before dinner and completed stuffed when I was about two bites away from finishing the burger!

Did some grocery shopping at Giant and then came home.

Day 34 in Singapore - a catch up with my two best Poly buddies

2009-10-07T09:12:00.002+11:00

Finally received a concrete update. Though there are a few more obstacles to cross and things need to fall nicely into place for it to work out the way we plan and hope. So even though it's good to know for certain what is happening and what needs to happen, it's still a waiting game and hoping and praying that they get everything done right...and done quickly and accurately.

So I was online for pretty much the whole morning and afternoon. It had been a while that I chatted on friends and while I haven't logged into MSN for a while, I chatted with various friends on Facebook instead, though I much prefer MSN as a chat tool since if you have too many open chat windows on Facebook, it screws up the other internet browsers one may have open.

Arranged a meet-up with Francis and also Vincent, who I haven't met for a good three years...in fact, the three of us haven't actually met up as a group for at least four or five years! When I was over at Francis' place last Friday, we reminisced over some old photos of our Poly days back in 2006/7 when we took class photos and photos of our presentation for one of our modules.

Man, those were the days when we looked so much younger...and thinner. Haha! We met at Clarke Quay MRT station and the initial plan was to eat at one of the many restaurants at Riverside Point/Clarke Quay, but we eventually ended up eating at Tampopo restaurant at Liang Court.

Our table at Tampopo. Eating at a Japanese restaurant with a conveyor belt, though we didn't order sushi so none of our dishes came via the conveyor belt.

Francis, obviously very excited! "Tok some bong?"

Me and Vincent

Francis, still on a high!

Francis and Vincent

Francis and me

Black pig shin loin tonkatsu set that I ordered. Yummmmm!

Vincent hasn't changed much at all! Still very much the same bloke we've known for 13-14 years! So we sat there enjoying our meal and basically updating each other on our lives, talking about how we've grown, how we've changed, what we've seen and done in the last couple of years.

We then reconvened at the Maccas in Liang Court for coffee/tea and begun talking about the old days, how our lives were back in Poly, how we've changed since then, how the more things change the more they stay the same, etc etc. Always fantastic meeting up.

The bid to keep our Premiership winning side intact!

2009-10-06T14:46:00.002+11:00

Downloaded this wallpaper of our victorious 2009 Grand Final footy team two weeks ago which I forgot to put up...until now that is! Click and save it and use it as your desktop wallpaper and enjoy!

On another note, this week is AFL trade week, which is always one of the weeks that interests footy fans across the country as they watch in interest to see if their team gets a fantastic player and removes the chaff from their lineups.

It's only Tuesday but there have been quite a number of major trades happening. Big Bad Barry Hall has been traded to the Western Bulldogs from Sydney, Brock McLean from Melbourne to Carlton, Andrew Lovett from Essendon to St Kilda, Josh Gibson from North Melbourne to Hawthorn, and there was a complicated three way deal between Brisbane, West Coast and Sydney. Some big names still on the table up for trade including Carlton's goalkicking machine, Brendan Fevola, Port Adelaide's Shaun Burgoyne and St Kilda's Luke Ball.

We've recently resigned Mathew Stokes, who was a target of interest from West Coast, and are trying to keep some of our other players as well, which is really hard because we have hardly any room to move in our salary cap. Having 13 All-Australians and two Brownlow medallists is really good for the team, but makes it hard when it comes to salary caps and payments!

Have heard rumours that poor David Wojcinski may be squeezed out of Geelong because we cannot afford to keep and pay everyone's salary. If that happens, he will be the second Premiership player to move on from the Cats not long after we've won the Premiership...former skipper Steven King was shipped off to the Saints after he won his 2007 Premiership. Really hope Wojo doesn't go as he's a fantastic player, taking risks and breaking the lines with his speed.

More of a concern is hearing that our developing ruckman, Shane Mumford, has been made an offer of $900,000 in three seasons by the Sydney Swans. We can't pay him anything CLOSE to that amount and it will be a difficult task to keep him. With Brad Ottens closing in on retirement over the next couple of years, we need up-and-coming ruckmen and Mummy was superb this year, even though he missed out on the Grand Final.

The new Gold Coast team will inevitably also make multi-million dollar offers to Gary Ablett and Joel Selwood to play for them in 2011, so we will have to try and re-sign them before their contracts expire in 2010. The one player that our club is interested in is Fremantle's Marcus Drum, who is seen to be a long-term replacement in defence for the aging Tom Harley and Darren Milburn.

A very interesting trade period this year, moreso than in previous years!

Day 33 in Singapore - Another catch up session with another old friend

2009-10-06T14:23:00.001+11:00

It rained yesterday! Hurrah! Very heavily as well, which was most appreciated. It also rained on Sunday night. Love the rain because it means that the temperature is much cooler (though it becomes significantly much more humid as well). Found out that Melbourne was having a cold snap...how I wish I could be back there to enjoy the unseasonably cold weather. Ah well.

Mum's finished up her work yesterday for the year so Dad and I went to pick her up from school. The rain had just started but wasn't a torrential downpour but on the way back home, the heavens opened up...Dad remarked that it was good because it helped clean his car!

Received an sms from Chris who asked if I was free to meet up for dinner at night, since we weren't able to last week. Decided to go to Alexandra Village for dinner and he picked me up and drove there. Surprisingly, we didn't have to wait at all to find a park and Kelvin was already waiting at the hawker centre. Had curry mutton with rice while both Chris and Kelvin had mutton stew with rice.

Walked over to the 24 hours Maccas at Queensway Shopping Centre just opposite the road and we just chatted and caught up. Really enjoying every single opportunity I can get to catch up with friends. Who knows when we'll be back home in Singapore and Malaysia again!

Days 31 and 32 in Singapore

2009-10-06T14:17:00.002+11:00

I wonder if a month in Singapore should be considered as 28 days (which is four weeks), 30 days or 31 days. Depends on the month I guess...but anyway, we reached Day 31 in Singapore on Saturday. This means that our current stay TRIPLES the stay we had the last time we were here back in 2006 (10 days)!

I had a quiet Saturday reading comics...I've actually read through more than half the stack of comics that had been accumulating since three years ago...can't quite believe it!

Went for Novena and mass with my parents and then went out with two other friends for dinner at Marina Square so that the three of us could discuss whether there was anything we could do to help repair or salvage our two friends' friendship that was falling apart.

We've come to the conclusion that it was still a misunderstanding, which both parties misinterpreting the other's behaviour and intent. It's become an Everest out of a molehill, but at the end of the day, no amount of assistance we give can repair this friendship...the two parties involved need to be the ones that resolve this together. And the first step is speaking to each other, which doesn't seem like it's going to happen. Ah well...only so much we can do.

Went for lunch with Theo and Kelvin on Sunday afternoon. As usual, we didn't go straight to lunch after mass; we were hanging around outside Sts Peter and Paul chatting with various friends and only left for lunch at about 12.45pm (mass ended just after 12 noon).

Went to Aston's at Cathay for lunch and even though we had to wait in a pretty long queue, and we had to endure a rather rude Indonesian family who cut in front of us in the queue and then pretended that they hadn't done anything wrong. Was really angry so the three of us made jokes at their expense.

Caught up and then went to Kino and had coffee at the Coffee Club there, caught up some more and then headed back home for dinner as Mum cooked yummy fried rice. Mum had taped the 2009 NRL Grand Final that was shown on the Australian Channel earlier that afternoon so I sat down to watch it.

The first 30 minutes of the game wasn't taped so I had missed watching two tries by the Melbourne Storm, but it was still an exciting end to the first half when the Parramatta Eels scored one try but Melbourne scored another and led by 10 points at half-time. The second half was very exciting as well and Parramatta made a late charge and scored a cracking try with about 8 minutes to go with only a 6 point deficit. But a drop goal by Storm superstar Greg Inglis with less than 3 minutes to go meant that a Parramatta win was an impossibility, so the Melbourne Storm, for the second time in four years (they had made four Grand Finals in a row!) were the NRL Premiers!

Was extremely tired and even though I wanted to watch the Chelsea Vs Liverpool game live on TV at 11pm, I fell asleep just before 9pm. Turns out that Chelsea won 2-0 anyway, bleh.

Days 28 to 30 in Singapore

2009-10-06T13:01:00.001+11:00

Had a pretty quiet end to last week. The two major issues that were dominating my headspace was when we'd be able to head back to Australia and that whole friendship strain between two close friends that happened earlier in the week.

It was tiring to keep thinking about our situation and my friends' situation, so I revelled in just resting at home on Wednesday and Thursday and following up and actioning some other important personal stuff. Been in Singapore for a month now at that point of time...how time flies.

On Friday, I was invited to my brother-in-law's ROM at the Singapore Registry of Marriages at Fort Canning. It was an extremely hot day and I tried as hard as I did not to over-exert myself so that I didn't end up a sweaty mess, body teeming with pespiration, but unfortunately, it didn't quite work out and I was wiping beads of pespiration off my forehead the entire day.

It was the first ever ROM I've attended and it felt pretty funny because the only people I knew there were Aeris, her parents, her brother Alex and his new wife, Rachel. Aeris brought her D-SLR with her and I brought my Canon Ixus so the two of us became the unofficial photographers for the day, taking pictures whenever we could of the happy couple!

The immediate families of the happy couple reconvened at Plaza Singapura after the ROM ceremony and picture-taking and we had a light dimsum tea/dinner at Crystal Jade. All went our separate ways after that; was still hungry so I was arranging to meet Kelvin and Christopher for dinner but that fell through because Chris had some stuff to take care off, so I went over to Seng Kang to meet Francis.

Purchased takeaway dinner and then went over to Francis' place, which I haven't been to in years and it's changed so much! Had dinner while watching Russell Peters, and then headed back home after.

Day 27 in Singapore - long time friendships sorely tested

2009-10-02T12:01:00.002+10:00

There was a huge incident happening at the dinner on Monday night which has led to us seeing the long-time friendship between two of our closest friends sorely tested to its breaking point...and as unlikely as it seems, could possibly result in the cessation of that friendship.

What basically happened was friend Y (let's use the letters denoting chromosomes to descibe the two friends involved in this) was asking friend X to order his food a bit quicker. Y was a bit aggressive in asking X to order his food because she wanted to order her food and was waiting for him to finish ordering. To the rest of us there, this seemed quite normal and wasn't anything out of the ordinary as Y does have a history of being more aggressive (though most of the time jokingly) towards X.

However, X didn't take it the same way. He thought that Y was not only verbally abusing him and to an extent bullying him, and he also thought that she had deliberately belittled him in front of the waiter, a complete stranger, and he believed that Y had also deliberately gotten the waiter to agree with Y about how slow X was ordering his food.

X then decided that he had enough and stormed off, leaving the rest of us there. None of us actually knew at that point of time that he was angry, but after a few minutes of him leaving, I felt something was amiss and decided to sms him to find out where he was. I received a reply sms from X saying that he had left because he was angry about what had happened. Called X twice but he hung up on me twice.

I was in the middle of sending him another sms when he called me, explaining why he had left because of the above situation. X felt he was being bullied and had been pushed beyond his limits of tolerance, and he decided he was not going to take it anymore because he felt that even though it was a long-time friendship, he had always been the victim of verbal abuse and bullying by Y.

Met up with X the next day for dinner and we chatted more about this incident. X repeated again that he felt like he was being verbally abused and bullied and that he thought he was the bigger man by leaving before anything worse happened. X explained that if he had chosen to stay, he would have blown up and it would have been very unpleasant, not just to Y, but to the rest of us there who had nothing to do with the situation. So instead of this happening, X decided to be the bigger person and leave.

There's an issue here. Those of us who were there didn't perceive that X was being verbally abused or bullied. Yes, Y spoke aggressively to him, but certainly not more so than she's always spoken to X. Is it a bad thing to be speaking so aggressively to X, especially when he's a long-time friend? Yes, perhaps. But that's not quite something for us to judge, it's up to X and Y to decide where the limit is in terms of "verbal abuse" or "bullying" and for lines to be drawn. It makes it hard when no one knows where that line is.

To further complicate matters, X had put up on his social networking/chat pages about his feelings on the issue about being abused/bullied, which was read by X. X didn't think she was in the wrong; once again, without clear lines as to how far one can go with "hurtful words", she certainly didn't perceive herself as bullying X and thus took umbrage at the comments. So more fuel added to the fire.

X demands an apology from Y but hasn't actually talked to Y about the incident nor tell her that he wants that apology. I've told him that Y couldn't possibly know that he wants this apology without him asking for it (or without getting friends to convey the message to Y).

X wants Y to realise that she was in the wrong and apologise to him, but he's not going to confront Y and ask for one. I've asked X what happens if he doesn't get an apology and the response is along the lines of "If I don't get an apology, so be it" and "Y should know she's in the wrong and needs to give an apology". X has also said that if he doesn't receive an apology, he's quite happy to remove Y from all his contact lists and terminate the friendship.

The friendship looks quite irreparable at this stage, with both parties refusing to budge. X has said that he wasn't upset with the rest of us at the dinner, only Y, and I believe he has apologised to everyone else who was there that night for just up and leaving. And the thing is, none of us at the dinner knew that X was upset and they only found out after I had spoken to X over the phone about why he had left!

I've been thinking about this the last few days. I'm not taking either side here as both parties are close long-time friends, though one of them is closer to me than the other party. I think there needs to be some communication between X and Y; there has been no discussion previously (at least, not that I'm aware of) about tolerance limits and where the line is drawn when it comes to joking with X.

What constitutes verbal abuse/bullying and what is just normal aggressive dialogue? Where are the limits before one perceives that they are being abused by the other party? It is hard to work out. Obviously, one can tell what is genuine abuse or bullying. But when it's aggressive banter, then the lines are blurred and it's hard to tell whether it constitutes bullying/verbal abuse or not.

If those lines or tolerance limits haven't been set by X or Y than how would the other party know what is acceptable and what isn't?

It's a tough one, but I still do personally think that both parties need to talk it out, even if it ends up turning into a shouting match. Differences need to be set aside for this to be resolved; pride must be swallowed. Only by discussing this in its entirety and setting up of tolerance limits would we be able to reach some sort of outcome where it doesn't involve friendships being terminated.

Days 26 in Singapore - The relaxed feeling of walking on what would usually be busy roads in the city

2009-10-02T11:17:00.001+10:00

Went out in the evening to meet a few old friends for dinner at Bugis. We walked down Liang Seah Street to find a place to have dinner, but couldn't find anywhere suitable. Took a short walk down to Purvis Street and decided to have dinner at Ms Clarity Cafe.

Found out that it was one of those places where it was very popular with the younger generation (ie: high school kids). And certainly none of us there could count ourselves in that age bracket...not for quite a number of years already! Still, it had a nice atmosphere for us to chat and catch up and the food was pretty good too. Photos were taken but they haven't yet been uploaded so I'll have to ask for the photos soonish.

After dinner, we decided to take photographs of our meet-up so we went to Raffles Hotel first to take a few crazy pics. After that, we decided to walk to City Hall; the roads were still blocked from the F1 Grand Prix the couple of days before, so for the first time, we had free reign and were able to walk on the roads which would normally be busy if not for the barriers blocking off the roads!

It felt very...therapeutic. Okay, wait, that's not the correct word. Uplifting? Not quite correct either. Basically, it was a nice serene feeling to be walking on what would usually be busy roads (even at that time of night) and looking at the night lights of the city in the Esplanade and City Hall area. A shame that we don't get to do things like this more often.

More pictures (funny ones!) were taken which I'll share when I get the pictures.

More 2009 AFL Grand Final analysis

2009-10-02T11:04:00.001+10:00

Apologies for the lack of updates the past week.

When I woke up on Monday morning, I still felt euphoric and on a high from Saturday's amazing Grand Final win by our beloved Cats. Kept thinking about how superb that last quarter was where our boys clawed for every ball and refused to be put down. Having watched that final quarter another two to three times since, it was actually very evident that we were the better team in that final quarter that counted.

A couple of realisations hit home too. I predicted a couple of days before Grand Final day that the final result would be Geelong by 5 points, with Paul Chapman kicking the winning goal a minute from the siren:

Cats Blog - 23 September 2009

While the winning margin was 12 points, courtesy of Rooke's goal after the final siren that no one bothered standing the mark for (why bother? It's not like the result was going to change for St Kilda), Chappy DID kick that winning goal, albeit perhaps four minutes from the siren instead of the one. Eerie.

Marcus and I were also having a discussion the night before about who would be the Norm Smith medallist and we both predicted Chappy, and that came true too. Amazing how Chappy played out the game with a torn hamstring...while I don't think he was leading the Norm Smith medal race at halftime, his contribution was significant: 26 possessions, 3 goals, 4 inside 50s and 2 goal assists. Though I think Harry Taylor, who did a wonderful job on St Kilda captain Nick Riewoldt, would have been a deserving winner of Normy as well...and with a suspected broken hand during the game too!

I read all the post-Grand Final articles on the Herald Sun and Geelong Advertiser and I came across one article that was simply staggering. It was a little article written by Herald Sun Stats Confidential columnist Mark Stevens about how, statistically, St Kilda dominated the entire game but not where it counted the most: on the scoreboard. Have a read:

The inside story of the AFL Grand Final

Truly remarkable and after reading the article, it brought back bad memories of the 2008 Grand Final where Geelong also dominated most of the stats except the one that really counted: the scoreboard.

How did we somehow manage to win a game when the Saints had so many more additional inside 50s than us at half-time? All credit to our defence that was steadfast in defending, but the fact that the Saints missed quite a number of gettable goals and the scoreline didn't blow out helped us make our late charge in the game.

Harry Taylor with 15 spoils, tied for the most ever recorded in a game since stats were officially recorded. Amazing for a Grand Final. Though of course, he had help from his teammates in double and sometimes triple teaming the Saints' champion.

A couple of stats that weren't in the article but were in various other articles: Jimmy Bartel had a game high 16 tackles. This game recorded the second most tackles in an AFL match, certainly the most tackles ever recorded in a Grand Final.

St Kilda won the first three quarters, by 2 points, 4 points and 1 point respectively, and led at every change, except at the final siren. St Kilda is the first team in 25 years to not win the Grand Final after leading at three quarter time. In fact, in the two encounters that St Kilda and Geelong have had playing against each other this year, St Kilda had won 6 of the 8 quarters.

History will show, in that Round 14 encounter which many have tipped to be the best home-and-away game they have ever watched (and we were at that game...hurrah!), that St Kilda won the game by a straight kick, thanks to a Michael Gardiner pack mark and goal in the final minute of the game. But that was not the game that mattered, and history would also show that Geelong are the Premiers of 2009, beating St Kilda in the game that DID matter: the Grand Final.

I remember after that Round 14 loss to the Saints (and both teams were 13-0 before that game) saying to Aeris and my other friends that I'd rather take that loss and win the one that counted, the Grand Final, if both teams met again on the last Saturday in September. So how sweet it was that both teams did meet again and this time, we were the victors.

It seems to be something that's been written into AFL history the past couple of years, where the losing Grand Finallist would beat the Premiers in the home-and-away game during the season, but lost the big one when it mattered.

Port Adelaide beat us at Skilled Stadium in Round 20 (or 21?) in 2007 by 5 points kicking a goal a few seconds before the final siren. We thumped them by a record 119 points in the Grand Final of that year, registering our first Premiership in 44 years.

Geelong beat Hawthorn in Round 17 of 2008 by 7 points after an errant Luke Hodge kick gifted the ball to one of our players who kicked it to Steve Johnson in the forward 50. Goal and match. But Hawthorn would have their revenge, beating us in the Grand Final that year, preventing us from going back-to-back.

And then there was that bruising Round 14 encounter this year. St Kilda got out of the blocks early and took a five goal lead in the first quarter, only for us to slowly claw our way back. They had a sizable lead in the fourth quarter, but again we clawed our way back to level the match. And then that speccie taken by Saints ruckman Michael Gardiner which led to the sealing goal. But what matters is the Grand Final result, not the regular season game, and history has etched us as the winners.

It has been a truly fantastic season. Yes, it looked shaky for our boys at times, especially during our mid-season slump after Round 14, where we dropped a few games and very narrowly pinched a few victories, but Geelong's attack on the 2009 Premiership came at the perfect timing when it mattered the most: September.

There's a good article written by The Age chief footy write Caroline Wilson about the 2009 Grand Final and another really enjoyable article written by columnist Tim Lane about the 2009 season: hope you enjoy!

'Wrongs' of 2008 righted...and another that got away
Superlatives aside, it's been a season full of highlights

Day 25 in Singapore - Catching up with old friends one hasn't met in over 5 years!

2009-09-28T12:33:00.001+10:00

Slept early on Saturday night and woke up pretty late around 8.30am on Sunday morning...been a while since I had such a long good night's sleep, probably because I was exhausted after Saturday's events where we gave it our all yelling and cheering and screaming during the 2009 AFL Grand Final which we worked at Brewerkz!

Dad had taped the game as it was shown on the Australian Channel so Aeris and I watched the half-time match analysis (which we missed at Brewerkz because while they had vision, they were playing music for the first part instead of switching on the speakers for the commentary), then we fast forwarded to watch the final quarter in its entirety.

So many critical moments we remembered; Geelong players diving for the ball to win the contested footy, to smother the ball, to deny Saints players from taking away an easy possession. That game-winning goal from Chappy, that match-saving mark from Harry.

We watched the winning speeches as well and once again, saw Tom Harley thank Matty Egan for his contributions to the club. What a shame Matty was never rewarded with a Premership medal...surely the AFL should go the way of things like the English Premier League where all players who have had a significant contribution to the club during the season gets rewarded with a Premiership medal if the team wins the big one?

Went down to Sts Peter and Paul church to meet up with Kelvin, Theo and Alex Tan for lunch at Waterloo Street. Had Indian rojak for the first time in at least a good four years...yums! Wish I had remembered to take pictures though. Theo had to leave earlier while the four of us remained there just chatting and catching up.

Alex and Kelvin went their separate ways and I went with Aeris to Golden Mile Complex so that she could catch the 2.30pm bus back to Kluang. The bus was inexplicably delayed and only arrived just after 3pm...which meant we had to wait over an hour there since we arrived before 2pm, as stipulated in the coach ticket as the check-in time! Not very happy especially when they couldn't give an explanation as to why the driver was late, or where he was even though we asked them several times what time the bus was to be expected and why it was running late!

Once Aeris had left, took a bus down to Vivo City to meet up with two old Deakin friends, June, who I hadn't seen since late 2003, and Chelsea, who I hadn't seen since 2002! We had reconnected through Facebook earlier this year (good old Facebook...reconnecting rocks!) and had tried to organise a meet-up the past two weeks but were unable to until the last couple of days.

Went to Coffee Bean first for drinks, then over to Shin Kushiya for dinner. We certainly had a lot to catch up on and a lot of gossip to share, not to mention a lot of events to reminisce about! The food was a bit on the higher end of the price range, but it was certainly worth it and extremely delicious.

Before we knew it, it had already been over four hours even though it had seemed like we had only spent two hours catching up! Time flies when you're having fun!

Day 24 in Singapore (continued)

2009-09-27T23:59:00.006+10:00

After the game, the four of us walked towards Funan Centre; just couldn't stop talking about the game we had just watched! It was such a fantastic game and it was a great game to introduce to someone who had never watched footy before...I know Kelvin was remarking how physical it was and I'm sure he must have though that I was mad from yelling, screaming and jumping up and down so much!

Aeris was looking for a GPS to purchase and we managed to find one from the Challenger store at Funan Centre. Francis and Kelvin then left while Aeris and I caught a bus to Sacred Heart church to attend Novena and Saturday evening mass. My parents had a dinner appointment after mass so Aeris and I made our way down to Chinatown to have dinner.

Chinatown at night

Chwee kuay that Aeris and I shared

Teriyaki chicken don - only SG$4!

Aeris was also specifically trying to find a Chinese cd which she wasn't able to find in Kluang. I had spent the last couple of days trying to find this cd to no avail and she remembered seeing this cd in Chinatown about a week ago, but she just couldn't find that cd this time around.

We caught the MRT and a connecting bus home and I was glad to get out of the guernsey I was wearing. I think I would have been pretty happy wearing it to sleep if I could but I was just sweaty and stinky and my shirt underneath was drenched in pespiration so it was good to finally have a nice cold shower after such a memorable day.

GO CATS!

Day 24 in Singapore - a Grand Final to remember

2009-09-27T23:50:00.002+10:00

I decided to wake up early and buy some breakfast from the Telok Blangah hawker centre so that I could have brekkie while reading the latest articles about the 2009 AFL Grand Final on the Herald Sun and Geelong Advertiser websites before the big game in the afternoon.

Got myself a white fried carrot cake...

...and bought Dad two plain roti pratas.

Aeris smsed me to let me know that she had passed Malaysian customs so I hurriedly finished reading the remaining articles, got changed and then went to catch a bus to the city. I was afraid I wasn't going to get to Golden Mile Complex on time so instead of waiting for the bus that would take me directly there, I caught another bus to Lavender MRT station and then walked the two blocks over to Golden Mile Complex.

Aeris had already arrived and purchased her tickets back to Kluang for Sunday afternoon. It was still early, so we decided to go to Funan Centre first to have a pre-game brunch so that we wouldn't need to purchase too much food at Brewerkz while watching the 2009 AFL Grand Final.

I only had a soursop with jelly since I had already eaten brekkie...

...while Aeris had a sea coconut with jelly...

...and a teriyaki chicken karaage set meal as she hadn't eaten anything for brekkie.

Took a short walk over to Clarke Quay MRT station where we were meeting Francis and Kelvin. Actually wanted to go to Brewerkz directly but I couldn't remember exactly where it was, so we met Francis at the MRT control station. Kelvin called to say he was running a bit late and was in a cab, so we walked over to Riverside Point (where Brewerkz was located) and Kelvin arrived shortly after.

The four of us got seated with about 10 minutes before the started of the 2009 AFL Grand Final coverage that they were showing on the Australian Channel. We were in an area with high chairs with four screens (three LCD screens and a much larger projector screen) so there were three screens (to our left, right and in front of us!) that we could watch the game on!

More and more people started coming in; the open main area and another side area in Brewerkz was also screening the Grand Final and all the areas seemed packed...it was a full house! Aeris and I were the ONLY people at Brewerkz wearing our team guernseys!

Two couples, who came to Brewerkz together, approached us when they saw our guernseys and let us know they were West Coast and Fremantle supporters (respectively of course) and they were evenly divided as to which team they were going to support on the day: two for Geelong and two for St Kilda! One of the ladies was wearing her West Coast Eagles polo shirt...apart from her and Aeris and myself, we couldn't see anyone else decked out in footy apparel during the day.

We started ordering some food and drinks; the Brewerkz menu had a huge selection of food and drinks!

Golden Ale draft; we ordered a jug though I didn't have any. Don't like beer! I had a bitter lemon instead.

Spicy fried whitebait

Mild Buffalo chicken wings

Fried cheese sticks. These were superbly yummy and I wish I could have some more...right now!

Potato skins - Francis ordered these knowing how much I love eating potatoes! Yums!

The pre-game entertainment was very good and I think it was certainly better than last year's! A whole bunch of kids choirs sang "I Still Call Australia Home" beautifully and Mark Seymour from the Australian rock band, Hunters and Collectors, performed their classic (which is also synonymous with footy) "Holy Grail":

Mark Seymour performing "Holy Grail"

No AC/DC's "Long Way To The Top" unfortunately! That would have be so awesome if they could have performed it. Ah well. Australia's "Working Class Man" Jimmy Barnes also performed, singing "No Second Prize", as did John Farnham with his classic "You're The Voice". The Australian National Anthem was then sung by the four leading cast members of the Jersey Boys musical, with the guy playing Frankie Valli offering a twist on the National Anthem, singing the last couple of stanzas in falsetto!

Of course, I couldn't help but remark how Aeris and I could actually have BEEN there at the MCG if things had gone our way! It looked very wet and cold though, but even if it were hailing hail the size of tennis balls (it was a 50/50 chance of hail that arvo but the hail never came), we would STILL have loved to be there!
Ah well. It was good to watch the game with good friends, one who understood footy and had watched it before (Francis) and one who was being introduced to the game for the first time (Kelvin):

Francis and Kelvin

Two footy-mad and Geelong-loving supporters. Both of us left our homes this morning in our guernseys and had them on the ENTIRE day despite how hot and humid it was!

It was time for the first bounce...PLAY BALL! As the game wore on, I noticed that there was really only one person who seemed to be a genuine St Kilda supporter. There seemed to be more overall support for St Kilda from the patrons in Brewerkz...I suppose most of the neutrals would support St Kilda given that Geelong HAS had such a purple patch the past three years and that St Kilda hadn't won a flag in 43 years.

It was kinda nice that, coincidentally, the tables of patrons in our area supporting Geelong happened to be on OUR half of the room, whereas the other half had the patrons supporting St Kilda!

St Kilda completely outplayed us in the first half...they had more than DOUBLE the number of inside 50s we had at half-time, but their conversion rates was poor, missing some easy set shots and shots on the run. Kind of what we did in the 2008 Grand Final against Hawthorn. Despite the complete dominance by St Kilda in the first half, we only went into half-time trailing by one straight goal.

There were two controversial incidents towards the end of the second quarter. One in which Tom Hawkins had kicked and hit the post glancingly but a goal was awarded, and another one when St Kilda had kicked a goal and was immediately given a free kick at point blank range directly in front of goal to kick another goal. That free kick seemed to be a direct result of Dasher Milburn verbally abusing the goal umpire. Harden up morons...you don't gift goals in a Grand Final! Was really angry because if we had lost by a goal, then the free kick would have been a major discussion point. Though I guess Tomahawk's kick being awarded a goal cancelled that free kick goal out.

It was pleasing to see that despite our forward entries into the 50 were much less than St Kilda's, we had converted 7 of our 8 shots at goal into majors...completely different from last year's Grand Final when we just fluffed shots at goal...even ones from seemingly point blank range! Was fate smiling down upon us for last year's debacle? Was the Premiership trophy destined to be ours this year after last year's heartbreak?

Aeris ordered a tiramisu and an Earl Grey tea while Francis and Kelvin each ordered an oreo ice cream cake for the second half. There were no further orders or top ups for drinks (except for iced water) as we watched the second half...and it was a fascinating and absorbing second half.

Tiramisu

Despite Geelong seemingly playing a better 3rd quarter than St Kilda (and MUCH improved from the first half), we lost the quarter by a single point, so we went into three quarter time trailing by 7 points. Bomber Thompson had looked unhappy for pretty much the entire game and while our boys had picked themselves up for the 3rd quarter with a much better performance, it was still infuriating that a lot of umpiring decisions went against us inexplicably and we couldn't beat St Kilda in that quarter.

So it was time for that final quarter; to be honest, I was really nervous and wondered whether we would be able to get over the line. Some of those worries subsided when Tom Hawkins kicked a beautiful set shot goal early in the 4th quarter and Geelong started imposing themselves on the game. Our boys seemed to chase the footy, laying hard tackles and basically throw themselves across the ground in an effort to win the footy or prevent St Kilda from winning it. It was terrific stuff to watch!

Our boys seemed more desperate to win the footy and negate St Kilda. Bodies flew to block St Kilda from getting an effective kick. Geelong players dived to win contested possession of the footy and also threw their bodies at the ball to prevent the Saints from getting an easy uncontested possession. For a long long time, there was no change to the scoreline. First, a point to St Kilda. And then another point...both points could have easily been goals if the Saints players were a bit more accurate on the run with their shots on goal.

But we seemed to be getting the upperhand in the contest and soon levelled the scores (though one a very close miss from a soccer off the ground and another a missed set shot). We were about a minute into red time (ie: more than 20 minutes had elapsed) when Scarlett soccered the ball into the hands of Gary Ablett, who took off on a run from the centre square. Our little champion kicked the ball 80 metres to the goal square.

A crash of bodies in the goal square; Mooney and Rooke jumped high but neither could mark the ball. The ball fell to the ground and Byrnes dived to try to get it but only managed to knock the ball towards Varcoe. A magnificent pick-up, handball to Chappy and shepherd laid by Trav and Chappy, our beloved Chappy, kicked the goal that would be the winning goal.

UNBELIEVABLE! See it for yourself here:

Paul Chapman's winning goal of the 2009 AFL Grand Final

I leapt out of my chair in sheer delight yelling "YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" after Chappy's goal, knowing there was not that long left in the game. The way the 4th quarter went, goals were hard to come by and surely now, Geelong would just lock the ball down and prevent the Saints from scoring!

We went into the forward 50 again and Rooke had a chance but kicked a point. But those of us supporting Geelong still cheered as loudly as we could when the point was scored, because it was an important point with not long left in the game; St Kilda would now need to score at least twice to either tie or win the game!

It was a little tense when Matthew Scarlett had to concede a rushed behind and the lead was just a straight goal, but we somehow kicked in the ball from our end of the ground to the other where Rooke marked the ball uncontested in the forward 50. Not long after, the siren sounded and Aeris and I leapt out of our chairs in joy and to celebrate a fantastic Geelong win, when all the odds were against us! To top it off, Rooke kicked a goal, so we won by 12 points. Final score: Geelong 12.8 (80) St Kilda 9.14 (68).

What an amazing Grand Final we had just watched! St Kilda were very unlucky and played much better for us for most of the game; they certainly didn't deserve to lose the game. However, they just couldn't put us away on the scoreboard and missed quite a number of gettable goals, and when it mattered the most with the game on the line, we just played better in the 4th quarter and took our chances.

Every Geelong player put their bodies on the line in that tense and desperate 4th quarter and that Premiership trophy, our second in three years, was well deserved. While Matty Stokes missed out on getting his second Premiership medal, it meant that for the first time, Harry Taylor, Tom Hawkins, Travis Varcoe and most importantly, Mark Blake, won their first medals. Especially satisfying for Blakey I'm sure, as he was dropped for the 2007 Grand Final, having played in almost every game leading up to that game.

Paul Chapman, first time All-Australian this year who kicked our winning goal, finished with 26 disposals and 3 goals to take out the Norm Smith medal for best-on-ground in the Grand Final.

2009 Norm Smith medallist: Happy Chappy!

Jock McHale medallist (for the winning coach of the Grand Final) Bomber Thompson

Geelong captain Tom Harley, who was very emotional. Could the tears welling up in his eyes be signalling something?

When Tom Harley went onto the podium, his eyes seemed to well up with tears. It has been long rumoured that this game might have been Harley's last game before he retired, and it certainly seemed that way! What better way to go out, on a high after winning the Premiership?

Harley also thanked the St Kilda footy club, the sponsors, the fans and everyone else associated with the Geelong Football Club. What was really poignant was that he singled out Matthew Egan, praising him for being the ultimate club man. Egan was delisted from the club a few months ago, which was a sad end to his playing career that once looked so promising.

Egan has been a favourite of both Aeris and me, and he looked set to be Matty Scarlett's replacement at fullback when Scarlo retired. He was an All-Australian in 2007 when we won the Premiership, but Egan broke the navicular bone in his foot in Round 22 of the regular season and he hasn't played a game since. We've waited and waited for Egan's foot to heal but it never has and Egan has retired from the game, meaning that his promising career was cut short and he never won that Premiership that he seemed destined to win with our footy club.

The celebrations were soon in full swing!

A really happy Tom Hawkins, next to Geelong legend Bobby Davis, who played in our Premiership winning teams of '51 and '52, and was also the coach of our '63 flag-winning team.

Gary Ablett seems to be saying: "I'm going to celebrate by having myself a Whopper stunner meal tonight, boys!"

The two big hairy cats, Rooke and Mooney, celebrating with the Premiership cup

WE ARE GEELONG!

How sweet it is!

Update - Day 23 in Singapore

2009-09-27T23:21:00.000+10:00

Contacted Ticketek later in the afternoon and the lady I spoke to over the phone confirmed that the Ticketek Sydney office had received all the necessary documentation that had been faxed over so all Jess needed to do on Saturday was to show up at the ticket office, present the letter of authority and her ID and she could pick up the tickets! Called Jess to tell her that everything was a-ok for her to go watch the Grand Final in our place...and also asked her to put a $20 bet on Geelong to win on behalf of Aeris and myself.

Francis called me in the evening to ask whether I wanted to meet up for dinner and I didn't have any plans so was quite happy to meet up. We arranged to meet in City Hall and I had just passed Clarke Quay MRT station when he called me again to say that he was reminded of the F1 being held in Singapore over the weekend and how it would be packed in the area we would be meeting because of the increased crowd AND the road closures...so we decided to meet at Funan Centre instead.

Kelvin called to say that he was going to meet up with us as well and suggested dinner at the Beach Road hawker centre, just opposite Golden Mile Complex. We had quite a lot of time before meeting up with Kelvin, so Francis and I decided to walk to Beach Road all the way from Funan. It wasn't that hot out anymore but it WAS still very humid so we worked up a sweat.

Decided that since we were passing by the Intercontinental Hotel at Bugis, to check it out to see if we could purchase tickets or anything of the sort for the AFL Grand Final on Saturday. We looked for the Imperial Ballroom but there were three ballrooms and none of them were called the "Imperial Ballroom"!

Francis asked to have a look at the printout of the flyer I had with me and pointed out that while the event was held at the Intercontinental Hotel, it was for the Australian Business Association of Cambodia, something which I didn't pick up the first time round. So it was likely that this was an event that was being held in Cambodia! Even though I did a search for "2009 AFL Grand Final in Singapore"! Blech.

Both Francis and myself were extremely dehydrated by the time we got to Beach Road hawker centre (it WAS a long walk after all!) so we decided to have sugar cane juice while chatting. Kelvin soon arrived complaining about the massive traffic jams on the road and the three of us had dinner.

With my plans to watch the footy at the Intercontinental Hotel dashed, on account of finding an event that wasn't held in Singapore, I convinced Francis and Kelvin to take a walk with me down to Little India to check out the Prince of Wales. Certainly wanted to find out if it was a conducive environment to watch the footy.

It looked like a good old fashioned pub, but the problem was, the Prince of Wales seemed to be divided out into two sections: an outdoor area and the indoor "pub" area, which didn't seem to be air-conditioned. It looked a bit small and we'd be standing the entire four plus hours, so decided that it would be wise to just watch the Grand Final at Francis' place instead.

We had done a fair bit of walking and were thirsty and exhausted, so we walked some more (haha!) to the Kopitiam at Plaza by the Park along Bras Basah Road to have nice ice-cold desserts. We then went to Coffee Bean a couple of doors down for more ice-cold drinks and to chat.

Aeris had smsed me to say that she would be taking the early bus leaving Kluang on Saturday morning to get to Singapore; I had talked to her over the phone earlier that morning to ask if she was coming down to watch the Grand Final but she wasn't going to. But I'm glad that she changed her mind because I would have felt foolish yelling at the TV screen by myself!

She asked where we were going to watch the game and I told her that we had decided on Francis' place. But Aeris really wanted to go watch the game at a pub or somewhere where there were more people watching the footy, because it would be a nicer atmosphere watching and supporting your club. So after conferring with Francis and Kelvin as to whether it was fine by them, I called Brewerkz to see if I could book a table for four.

Thankfully, they had places for us so it was all set: we'd be able to watch the 2009 AFL Grand Final at a proper pub AND be able to cheer and yell and boo and scream along with the other people interested in this beautiful game that we love! And we were able to watch it with two good friends as well!

Day 23 in Singapore - Depressing confirmation that we're not going to attend the 2009 AFL Grand Final

2009-09-25T14:02:00.002+10:00

I asked Mum to wake me up early for two reasons: I wanted to go down to the Telok Blangah hawker centre for breakafast and also because I wanted to get online to check my emails for any further updates. Had nasi lemak while Mum had economical beehoon for brekkie while Mum and I discussed various things about Australia and our lives there while eating. Haven't had a good heart-to-heart with Mum for a while.

Got back home and my Aussie mobile started ringing; it was about 7.30am (9.30am Melbourne time) so this was it...would it be good news or bad news?

Bad news. The person handling our case was not yet back from leave (and will likely to be back only next week) and another case officer had quite blatantly said that there a decision would NOT be made on our case today even though it was confirmed that our case file was on the manager's desk, waiting for approval/action.

So we'll have to wait until the original case officer gets back next week and who knows how long more before a decision gets made! It's hard to plan ahead with this waiting game, not knowing what's going to happen and not knowing when it will happen.

So the run of bad luck continues. No miracles for us. Just now hope that a decision will be made as soon as possible next week and for us to return to and resume our lives in Australia.

I called Ticketek again and while they put me on hold for a much longer time today, I got the good news and confirmation that I could nominate someone else to pick up the Grand Final tickets tomorrow at the game. The original plan was to ask Rachael, my immediate boss, whether she wanted those tickets, since she's a Geelong fan and we have had various chats about the Cats.

Rach was indeed interested when I first asked her yesterday, but having spoken to her partner, in light of possible wet and cold weather conditions tomorrow during the game, they decided to stay in and catch the game on the telly instead. Jess was interested though, so I nominated her as the person to pick up the Grand Final tickets at the MCG tomorrow so that she could watch a game with another friend.

Sent all the necessary supporting documents electronically to Rach who helped me fax them to Ticketek (since we don't have a fax machine here); just need to call Ticketek again sometime later today to confirm that they have received these documents and Jess can pick up the tix tomorrow at the big game.

Interestingly enough, this will be only Jess' 3rd footy game, all of which have been Cats games. My fault getting her into the footy, though she was introduced to the game (not really knowing the game previously, since she was from Canberra) only a couple of months ago while working in her other job. And she's not even a Cats supporter! Ah well. As long as someone else is enjoying the game in our place!

In the meantime, I've done some research on the places in Singapore that WOULD be showing the 2009 AFL Grand Final live. Aeris isn't coming down so she'll just watch the "live streaming ticker" or whatever it's called on the internet...I've also suggested that she can just try and listen to Australian radio online and that might be better. I'm pretty sure I'll be smsing her score updates regardless!

Can watch the 2009 AFL Grand Final at home since it's showing live on the Australian Channel on cable TV, but I'd rather be in an environment where there are OTHER footy fans around cheering and screaming. So I've found four places so far that are showing the Grand Final:

Orchard Hotel - as part of the ANZA/Wombats AFL Grand Final Party
Brewerkz - as part of their sports on TV coverage
Prince of Wales Backpacker Hostel
Intercontinental Hotel - as part of the ABAC AFL Grand Final Party

At this stage, I'm thinking of going for the one at the Intercontinental Hotel. Might also be tempted to check out the one at Prince of Wales as it's probably like that pub-type atmosphere! Have already asked Francis and Kelvin (who has no idea of what AFL is) to join me and I think Francis is a definite "yes"!

Now to just make sure that Francis has a blue and white hoops top and if Kelvin says "yes", that he has one too.

CARN THE CATS!

Edit at 2.12pm: Just called the Prince of Wales and they said while their tables were all fully booked out, if we wanted to go there tomorrow between 11am to 12 noon, there should be heaps of standing room and there are five screens on which we can watch the footy. Not quite sure if Francis and Kelvin want to be standing for a couple of hours in a pub though!

Day 22 in Singapore - start of our fourth week back in Singapore and Malaysia

2009-09-25T13:21:00.002+10:00

Another day of waiting and hoping for the best for a decision to be made but there didn't seem to be any updates so I decided not to spend unnecessary time waiting in front of the computer in vain, though of course, we were certainly hoping for the best to happen, even if it WAS a miniscule window of opportunity for us to return to Australia before the 2009 AFL Grand Final on Saturday.

I decided to call up Ticketek anyway to ask if there was any possibility, because we may not be able to return to Melbourne on time, for someone else to pick up the tickets instead. Was kept on hold for quite a while as the customer service person checked with their supervisor, and eventually he came back to me and said they would log the request in their system and asked for me to call back again tomorrow. At least this way, if that's approved, if we're not back in time, someone else might be able to enjoy those tickets and watch the Grand Final live at the MCG.

Went to G&B Comics in the afternoon and met Kelvin there, afterwhich we decided to go Vivo City. It was a good a day as any to organise meet-ups with friends so smsed a couple of friends asking whether they wanted to meet up for a catch-up session over dinner at Vivo City.

Kelvin and I had time to kill so we took our time at Vivo City at the Pet Safari shop there, and then to Page One, which is a bookshop akin to Kinokuniya. Theo was the first to arrive, and then Christina arrived soon after. The four of us decided to go to Gloria Jeans for coffee first while waiting for the rest to arrive. Not long after, Alex Ik and Christopher arrived with Aaron smsing me that he had finished work late and not to wait for him.

The six of us decided to go for dinner at Hungry...*AHEM*...Burger King and we just sat there for about two hours after dinner chatting, reminiscing about the past, reliving and retelling old stories and basically catching up! Chris gave me a lift home after we all decided to call it a night.

Day 21 in Singapore - and still waiting! How much longer!?

2009-09-23T11:15:00.000+10:00

Woke up early this morning to check my email in the hopes of getting some good news, but nothing yet. So I went to the Herald Sun and Geelong Advertiser websites to read the articles about the lead-up to the 2009 AFL Grand Final this Saturday.

I even participated in an online blog/chat run by the Geelong Advertiser. Got into the blog only about half way through, just after 30 minutes after it started, but it was still a good chat nevertheless. The Cats blog is located here:

Cats Blog - 23 September 2009

Checked my email again after the blog/chat ended and got a reply, but NOT uplifting news...the person handling our case was on leave this week! So I think it will take some sort of miracle for us to get back in Australia by Saturday to be there for the AFL Grand Final. I've all but given up hope that we will be back on time.

And I certainly have no confidence in their system; not that I have had in the past. How do you go about telling people that it would take only a couple more days to resolve, knowing that you are going to be on leave the week after and there is a likelihood that it would need a LONGER period of time to resolve? That's just shirking responsibility and/or giving false hope!

Yes, everyone's entitled to their leave. But if there is every likelihood that it would NOT get resolved by the timeframe that YOU have stipulated, then don't say that it would only take a couple of days and then just pass the buck (if at all) to the next person who may or may not have a full understanding of what's going on. So what, by the time you get back and get it resolved, it would be over 10 days since you've originally said that it would only take a couple of days?

I'm annoyed. Angry. Frustrated. This why people have no confidence and speak negatively about the system and the organisation...because it has not given many people good impressions about the way they do things there.

We need a miracle and are praying for one.

Day 20 in Singapore

2009-09-23T11:00:00.001+10:00

Had a fairly quiet day yesterday. I spent the morning online, reading articles and coverage of the 2009 Brownlow Medal ceremony (as evidenced from yesterday's blog entry 2009 Brownlow Medal coverage). Didn't really have any plans for the day and I had intended to just stay at home reading, but Aaron smsed to ask if I wanted to meet up for dinner, so we arranged to meet at his place in the evening.

Spent the afternoon intermittently online and also reading the rest of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms comic series produced by Asiapac Books, which I had purchased from Kinokuniya a week ago. Have always loved the Romance of the Three Kingdoms saga, especially since I was addicted to playing the Romance of the Three Kingdoms II computer game by KOEI all those years ago.

Didn't get to finish reading the series before I needed to head off to Theo and Aaron's place. Kelvin was already waiting there so the four of us decided to take a walk out to this famous curry rice place in Jalan Besar for dinner. Hadn't realised that Mustafa Centre was so close to the brothers' place as we walked right past it! It was a good meal and we went to explore the new City Square Mall that had recently opened.

Went back to the brothers' place and watched Harold and Kumar Goes to White Castle on DVD before it was time to head back home. Finished reading the Romance of the Three Kingdoms comic series before heading to bed.

2009 Brownlow Medal coverage

2009-09-22T12:24:00.004+10:00

I've been reading the articles and all the various coverage pieces of the 2009 Brownlow Medal ceremony this morning (and yesterday as well before the actual ceremony)...boy are there heaps of articles! Mainly just read stuff from my favourite tabloid when it comes to footy news, the Herald Sun, and also of course, the Geelong Advertiser, since it IS the newspaper with most news related to the Geelong Football Club. With Gary Ablett winning the 2009 Brownlow Medal, there are a HEAP of articles.

It all started off with the form guide that was put out yesterday in the Herald Sun:

2009 Brownlow Medal Favourites

And then there was the analysis about who was likely to win, who was favourite to win, who the punters were betting on, and how it was nigh impossible to win if you were playing for a team that wasn't in the finals.

The money's on Gazza
Rich punt, but Gazza still hot
Mission improbable

And then I found out that Gaz had won last night and read the majority of the articles this morning. Have a read if you wanna!

Geelong Advertiser
Gary Ablett wins Brownlow Medal
Gary Ablett's win is the one we've all been waiting for
At last, Geelong Cats star Gary Ablett wins the Brownlow Medal

And for more stories centric to the Geelong Football Club, check out the Geelong Advertiser online, where they have a specific link to all news related to the Geelong Football Club. I'm certainly going to be reading all the articles here in the lead up to the Grand Final this Saturday!

Herald Sun
I've had better days - Ablett
Gary Ablett Brownlow Medal winner
Elite honours lifts grand finale
'Finally' theme song of the night
Ablett focused on winning flag
2009 AFL Brownlow Medal votes leader board
2009 AFL Brownlow medal count club-by-club

There is also an extremely enjoyable article that's not like the normal newspaper stories, but more tongue-in-cheek, with post-game analysis of the 2009 Brownlow Medal ceremony. If you enjoy footy, you MUST read this article!

If you don't mind, umpire

And heaps more pictures and videos from the Herald Sun's Brownlow 2009 special report.

Not that I really paid much attention to the online coverage of the Brownlow in previous years, on account of actually getting to watch the Brownlow Medal ceremonies live on TV back in Australia, but I've noticed there are a lot of videos and a HELL of a lot of picture galleries, mostly regarding the blue or red carpet pre-ceremony events.

The footy WAGs (wives and girlfriends) have gotten significant coverage over the last couple of years. Brownlow ceremonies used to be about the players, but now the interest seems to have shifted over to the WAGs, at least during the red carpet events before the actual ceremony itself.

WAGs would stop to pose for the cameras and from most of the pictures I've seen of this year's red and blue carpet events, the WAGs are usually in the picture by themselves and there is nary a player in sight! In fact, when there IS a player in a picture, that's because he's standing next to his significant other. This was the reverse in the past; it used to be the players in the picture and if a WAG is in a picture, it's because they're standing next to their partners.

This all seemed to change since 2004 when Chris Judd's girlfriend, Rebecca Twigley, arrived at the Brownlow Medal ceremony in THAT RED DRESS. See below:

Rebecca Twigley in THAT RED DRESS.

From the moment she made the front pages of newspapers across Australia wearing THAT RED DRESS, the landscape of Brownlow fashion changed forever and WAGs keeping trying to one-up their contemporaries every year.

Twigley, in particular, seems to be the photographers favourite and the centre of attention every single year since 2004. Photographers (and I guess the public) are interested in seeing whether she can top herself from when she first became famous in 2004. Here are some of what she wore in the past couple of years...some good, some not so good.

2009

2008 - an S&Mish toga-style dress?

2007

2006 - one of the few times she's not in a picture on her own

Yes, Brownlow fashion is now a high-stakes "game" where the WAGs have taken the centre of attention away from their higher profile partners. I guess it's the one night in footy when all eyes are on them instead!

But for every glamorous gown, there are some shockers. I've chosen to highlight a few, but there are heaps more every year of course!

Fox footy presenter Leah Hudson in 2003. What in the world!? Green pants for an awards ceremony? Yeesh!
The Age journalist and TV's Before the Game footy panellist Samantha Lane, also in 2003. I'm a huge fan of Sam Lane (is she or isn't she dating Nick Dal Santo from St Kilda? One ponders!) but this dress was not flattering at all!
Hawthorn footy player Trent Croad's partner, Tanya Stewart in 2005. Pink leopard prints?! Oh dear.

One of the most famous and worst Brownlow frocks of all time came courtesy of Collingwood champion Nathan Buckley's wife, Tania Buckley (who went by her maiden name of Minnici back in those days), when she decided to wear a diamond encrusted G-string to the 2001 Brownlow Medal ceremony.

Somehow, Nathan Buckley thinks something was really funny! Look at that grin on his face!

And worse...Tania Buckley seems to be a serial offender when it comes to Brownlow fashion! Do a search online for yourself to have a look at what else she's worn in the past. As terrible as that "frock" was, it pales in comparison to THAT DRESS of 2009...if one can call it a dress that is:

Worn (and I use the term very loosely) by Brynne Gordon, who was the fiancee of medico Geoffrey Edelstein, how this dress was actually ALLOWED by the AFL last night is beyond me. Surely someone would have put up their hands and said, "That's not a dress! It's two pieces of cloth covering (*AHEM*) a bikini top! That can't possibly be considered evening or formal wear!"

THAT DRESS of 2009 caused quite a stir and of course, as expected, there was an article about it in the Herald Sun:

Doctor's girl raises temperature

But wait, there's more! Not only are there videos, there's also a photo gallery of THAT DRESS of 2009:

Brynne Gordon at the Brownlow Medal

Oh dear. Despite all the elegant gowns by the footy WAGs last night, it seems that, to some, taste is a thing of the past.

Day 19 in Singapore - Go Gazza!

2009-09-22T11:03:00.003+10:00

Was woken up in the morning when my aunt came over to deliver some foodstuffs...she didn't wake me up deliberately, but I was awoken by the doorbell.

Couldn't go back to sleep anymore, so I went online to check whether we really were successful in obtaining Grand Final tickets for the ticketing ballot...and we certainly were! So now, it's fingers crossed that everything will go well for us so that we will be back by Saturday to watch our beloved Cats play against St Kilda...and hopefully beat them to lift our second Premiership in three years! GO CATS!

As Monday was a public holiday (on account of Hari Raya Puasa falling on Sunday), we had originally made plans to play basketball but those plans fell apart because Theo and Aaron were overseas and we just didn't have enough bodies to play basketball. So I had a free day with no real concrete plans.

My two uncles came over in the morning and I sat down with them helping them to organise their Tassie trip that would take place straight after our wedding. Helped them do the research as to what places in Tassie to go to, research for accommodation, car rental and flights and eventually also did the hotel, vehicle and flight bookings. Took between 2.5 to 3 hours all up!

Francis contacted me in the afternoon asking if Kelvin and I wanted to meet up for dinner. I had actually wanted to stay at home to watch the 2009 Brownlow Medal count online, but was happy to go out for dinner on the proviso that we found somewhere with WiFi internet connection so that I could watch the count live while we were outside. Francis and I both brought our laptops as I needed to copy some stuff off him anyway.

We met at City Hall and we went for dinner at one of the Japanese eateries there, can't remember the name of the place but I think it was called "Okonomiyaki", which I found amusing because that's the name of the Japanese pancakes Aeris and I enjoyed eating back in Melbourne! Had a sumptious dinner at the Japanese eatery at just after 5pm.

Didn't realise we had dinner so early as my mind was set on Australia time due to anticipation of the 2009 Brownlow Medal ceremony!

Kelvin had a seafood yakisoba...

...Francis had a chicken cutlet with rice in an omelette...

...and I had a Sakura ebi okonomiyaki

We also ordered a soft shell crab and fried cuttlefish as entrees, but we finished them quickly before I could take pictures! After dinner, we headed over to the Gloria Jeans outlet for coffee as there was WiFi access there. No Mint Chocolate Bomb drinks so I had to settle for Francis' favourite, the Cocoa Loco instead.

Copied the files from Francis' portable HDD into my laptop then both of us tried getting online via WiFi, but we just weren't able to from Gloria Jeans. Decided to hang around anyway just chatting and catching up, then we took a short walk to the Maccas along North Bridge Road opposite Bras Basah Complex.

Could access the internet there via WiFi so we were there for the next two hours at least; Kelvin was watching Russell Peters on another of Francis' portable mp3 player thingos while Francis and I chatted and I kept a dutiful eye on both the AFL and Herald Sun streaming blogs for updates on what was happening at the 2009 Brownlow Medal ceremony.

It certainly wasn't the same as actually watching the real ceremony (pity that the Australian Channel on cable TV didn't have it scheduled), but it was still a pretty good way of keeping updated. It was very exciting as well...we only started "watching" halfway through the Brownlow count and our little champion, Gary Ablett Jr had jumped right out of the blocks to take a handy lead.

There were some players polling big in the rounds between 12 to 18, and at the end of Round 19, Gazza only had a lead of 4 votes from St Kilda's Lenny Hayes and Brisbane's Jonathan Brown, who were both surprise pollers in the Brownlow this year. Round 20, Hayes and Brown didn't poll anything, but Gazza got best-on-ground and three points against the Sydney Swans, meaning he was the 2009 Brownlow medallist an unassailable lead of 7 votes with only two more rounds of polling left.

Congratulations Gazza! Well deserved; 'lil Gary has won the award that his father, the legendary Gary Ablett Sr never won. Has the son surpassed the father? I don't think so, but time will tell on that one. With Gazza being the favourite the past two years but coming up short, third time's the charm.

Little Gaz finished with EIGHT best-on-ground performances (3 votes each), another game with 2 votes and a further four games with 1 vote each to reach a final tally of 30 votes. In second place was Carlton's Chris Judd (the man-half of perennial Brownlow WAG favourite Rebecca Twigley who became famous because of THAT red dress) with 22 votes, meaning that Gaz' win was the biggest margin between the winner and second-place-getter in the Brownload since Robert Harvey's win in 1997.

Came back home on a high; now's just a matter of hoping that we can get back to Australia in time for this Saturday's Grand Final!

Day 18 in Singapore - Meeting up with friends en masse and an unexpected surprise!

2009-09-20T20:45:00.001+10:00

Met up with Adrian, Alex Tan, Alex Ik, Kelvin and Irving at Sts Peter and Paul church. Also bumped into Terence and Cynthia there and chatted with them for a while before heading to lunch with the aforementioned group. The initial plan was to go to Waterloo Street to have the chicken rice and Indian rojak there, but Adrian had other plans and we all went over to Yet Con instead along Purvis Street for lunch.

Yet Con is this famous place where people went for steamboat; Adrian asked whether I was up for steamboat, but I declined; not one for hot food as most people know! So we had rice served with Hainanese chicken, roast pork, tofu and kailan. A very filling meal and the roast pork and chicken was as good as I remembered it when I last ate there...oh, perhaps five years ago!

We also stopped at this dessert place a street away (had myself a mango with sago dessert), then Irving parted company and the remaining five of us went to The Coffee Connoiseur at Bugis Junction where we sat down, had some coffee and just chatted about old times...and new ones.

Adrian and Alex Tan needed to go off, so Kelvin, Alex Ik and I caught up some more before Alex dropped me home. Haven't been chauffered around so much...normally I'd be the one driving, though that's back in Australia of course. As I was in Alex's car on the way to my place, received an sms from Spud in Geelong who indicated that he was going to his first ever Grand Final...he had secured tickets in the balloting for Grand Final tickets!

I completely forgot about the Grand Final ticketing ballot so after my shower, I jumped online. We had been charged $269, which was the EXACT amount for the Grand Final ticket options Aeris and I opted for, so I guess this means that for the second year running, we were lucky enough to secure Grand Final tickets in the balloting! Hoorah!

It was a bit of a shock actually, because I didn't think we would be lucky enough to get the tickets. Instead of opting for the Premium seats, this time around we just went for the standard ones, which meant that our chances of securing Grand Final tickets were much less, given that those people opting for Premium seats were also automatically opting for the lesser options of Prime and Standard seats. So it was an unexpected but delightful surprise!

Now just hoping that we'll be back by this Saturday so that we can go for the Grand Final...and hopefully we will get to see Geelong lift aloft the Premiership cup!

CARN THE CATS!

Day 17 in Singapore - 2009 Preliminary Final Geelong Vs Collingwood

2009-09-20T20:29:00.001+10:00

Aeris and I were woken up to the sound of thunder...that sort of scary-sounding thunder that quite a lot of people are afraid of! Haven't heard that sort of loud crackling thunder for a while now! The rain soon followed, which was good because it meant that it wasn't that hot outside.

What it did mean though was that we had a change of plans; instead of Aeris and I taking a bus down to Golden Mile Complex so that she could catch the 2.30pm bus to Kluang, Dad sent us there instead because of the rain. But before we left, Mum went downstairs to purchase roast pork and bbq pork rice for lunch and also some pork spare ribs which Aeris hadn't eaten since she had arrived here...she really loves eating those spare ribs.

After dropping Aeris off at Golden Mile Complex, came back home. Dad and Mum went to mass in the evening but I didn't join them this week; I stayed home because I wanted to watch the 2009 Preliminary Final game between Geelong and Collingwood, live on the Australian Channel on cable TV! Was extremely pumped; it was our third consecutive prelim final. Would we be able to make it our third consecutive Grand Final as well? Here's hoping!

It was a very tight first half. Collingwood dominated the first 10 minutes of the first quarter, scoring the first two goals and keeping us pointless but we dominated the rest of the quarter and led by 10 points at the end of the first quarter. It was a pretty tight second quarter and it ended up just being an 11 point lead by our boys at half-time. It looked like it was going to be a tight competitive game and an expert commentator even said like it looked that an upset could be on the cards because of Collingwood's seeming ascendancy towards the end of the half with their relentless pressure on Geelong.

What a second half by our boys though. We kicked 10 goals to 1; Collingwood's lone goal in the second half was right on the cusp of three quarter time and it was just a defensive error from our boys who were being too cute and overpossessing the footy in defence. Collingwood only scored two points in the final quarter!

We finished the game thumping Collingwood by 73 points; an emphatic win to get to the Grand Final! It was really pleasing seeing Steve Johnson back and Otto imposing himself on the game. Tom Hawkins had one of his best games for Geelong and the Geelong machine looked polished, well-oiled and hungry to win.

The most pleasing thing was watching our boys chasing and tackling even though we were miles ahead of Collingwood on the scoreboard and victory was imminent. And best of all...after weeks of not scoring over 100 points in a game, we scored 120 points; one commentator said that Geelong had lost the ability in recent weeks to bury teams, so it was great to see us pile on the points towards the end! We need to play our best against St Kilda in the Grand Final if we're going to beat them! It'll be one cracker of a game!

It was the penultimate day that Francis had the car so he asked whether we wanted to meet up for supper; Francis and Kelvin picked me up just past 11pm and we went to the West Coast again but once again, couldn't find parking spots. Kelvin suggested Beauty World at Bukit Timah so we went there; we wanted to eat roti prata, as we didn't get the chance to eat that on Friday, but when we got to Beauty World, all the prata shops were closed! To our horror, we realised that Hari Raya Puasa was the next day and of course, most of those shops would be closed!

Eventually ended up at Bencoolen Street and surprisingly the prata shop was open. Had a teh tarek and a cheese prata and egg & onion prata. We then walked around the corner to this place selling "tau hway" (soy beancurd products) and had myself a soybean drink as well as a dough stick. Chatted some more but we didn't stay out as long as we did on Friday night. Francis dropped Kelvin off first (since we were closer to his place) and then dropped me off just before 2am.

Day 16 in Singapore - First dental appointment in 3 years

2009-09-20T20:08:00.002+10:00

Took a bus to the Heeren along Orchard Road in the morning as I had an appointment with the dentist. Haven't actually BEEN to see a dentist since the last time I was back in Singapore three years ago; it's not cheap to see a dentist in Australia and dental stuff isn't usually part of most health insurance packages and is usually an extra you'd have to pay for.

No cavities, which was a bit of a surprise, though very thorough cleaning needed to be done...must have been all those coffees I've had in the past three years. Gums were a bit sore as they were bleeding as there was quite a bit of tartar, which is to be expected from not having seen a dentist in ages. I was reminded to floss more; something which I really should be doing more!

Walked over to Takashimaya to the Kinokuniya; it was still early as my dental appointment only lasted 30 minutes, so we found an empty bench to sit down and wait for Kino to open. Aeris continued playing Rhythm Heaven on the NDS, which she's been quite addicted to the past few days. It's an extremely fun game to play!

We spent quite a bit of time in Kinokuniya and purchased quite a number of books, including some Singapore-centric ones (humour stuff about the Army and Singlish) which I had seen from various bookshops during window shopping the past week.

I needed to go to G & B Comics at Rochor Centre (it has moved from Bras Basah Complex as of a couple of months ago) but it was still early so decided to go to Bugis Junction for lunch first. As the bus went down Orchard Road, it started raining extremely heavily and for a moment we were worried that the little umbrella that I had with me wasn't going to be enough to shelter the both of us! Thankfully the rain had subsided by the time we got to Bugis.

Aeris wanted to eat some sort of Japanese soup ramen, but we couldn't find any (I found out today, on Sunday, that there was an Ajisen Ramen outlet at Bugis...d'oh!) so we went up to the food court where she had a ramen with chicken karaage set meal while I ate combination rice and had a durian chendol for dessert.

Walked over to G & B Comics to pick up my comics (only the one unfortunately), afterwhich we walked over to Seow Choon Games Specialist to see if the Nintendo DS game Scribblenauts was in stock yet.

It was!

We headed home straight after and tried out Scribblenauts in the bus. Didn't actually play the game; was just on the main title screen and Aeris and I were thinking up as many items as we could to see if it were available in the game. The items that could be "conjured" up seemed limitless!

Abraham Lincoln? Check. Gyoza? Check. Shopping mall? Check.

Even God was available! Think I might be having heaps of fun with this game for a long long while.

Aeris was meeting up with her high school friends at Holland Village and I was meeting Francis and Kelvin for dinner, so Francis picked us both up and dropped Aeris off at Holland Village. Unfortunately, there seemed to be quite a lot of accidents on the major expressways and as a result, a lot of traffic jams on the major roads because vehicles were trying to avoid the expressways.

Francis and Kelvin were caught in massive jams getting to my place and we were also caught in a massive jam between my place to Holland Village. As a result, Aeris was nearly 30 minutes late, but some of her other friends were even later as they too were stuck in the traffic jam!

We decided to have roti prata but when we got to the place somewhere along West Coast, there was no available parking at all. Then we decided to go for garlic fries, also somewhere along West Coast but once again there was no parking. Eventually ended up at Buona Vista (near Holland Village) and we ended up having rojak, char kuay teow, fried carrot cake (dark) and oyster omelette.

Francis drove to Changi and we chatted in the car while watching some of the planes taking off and landing and eventually ended up at the McCafe at East Coast Park where we chatted some more. It was past 1am when Francis dropped me off; Aeris got a lift back and also got home after midnight (but before I returned home).

Day 15 in Singapore - A glorious dinner at Copthorne King's Hotel

2009-09-20T19:39:00.001+10:00

After nearly a week of going out on consecutive days (and doing a lot of walking and spending a lot of time outside), Aeris and I decided to take it easy and stay at home and rest on Thursday. We went down to Telok Blangah hawker centre for lunch where I had a mee goreng and mango with longan dessert while Aeris had a fishball noodles and sugar cane drink.

In the evening, Dad, Mum, Aeris and I went to Copthorne King's Hotel at Havelock Road where we were meeting Uncle Ronnie, Auntie Janet, Rachel and Richard for dinner; just a follow-on dinner from when we went for brunch at the Singapore Cricket Club on Sunday!

I was just joking with Auntie Janet the other day that whenever our two families met, we'd be going somewhere out to have a yummy meal. Our families were like "makan buddies"!

Had one of the most sumptious spreads that I have EVER eaten at a restaurant! Everything was just dripping with deliciousness, from the entree dish all the way to the dessert...heck, it even started with the side dishes that were on the table as a pre-meal snack!

Some pictures of the courses we had:

Pre-meal "snacks" of "hay bee hiam" (spicy dried prawns), nuts and a type of Japanese bean of which I can't remember the name.

An entree of fried mushrooms (very yum!), roast pork and prawns/shrimp in mayonnaise

Shark's fin soup

Pork spare rib. Very Masterchef-like in presentation!

A delightful fish; deboned so very easy to eat!

Prawns with chilli

Not quite sure what vegetables these were, but once again, very yummy.

Szechuan style beef noodles. Absolutely brilliant and I had SIX big cubes of beef instead of the two per bowl, since I ate Dad's and Aeris' beef too.

"Orr nee", which is a type of Teochew-style yam dessert.

Absolutely stuffed after dinner and we bid each other farewell and headed home.

Day 14 in Singapore - Catch up with an old friend

2009-09-20T19:23:00.002+10:00

Went to look for my second Aunt on Wednesday at her workplace since it had been well over three years since I last saw her. Also wanted to thank her for the wedding gifts for Aeris and myself that she brought over to our place when we were not at home sometime last week.

Dad suggested that we also stop by Golden Mile Complex to purchase a bus ticket back to Kluang for Aeris as it was sort of on the way home. I didn't think it was necessary, remembering how empty the bus to Kluang was when I went there last Friday, suggesting that we just turn up on Saturday morning to purchase the ticket on the spot.

It was a good thing that we did go down to Golden Mile Complex though; there was no space left on the Saturday morning buses back to Kluang, which I though was pretty odd. In fact, there were not a lot of places left on the 2.30pm bus either! I thought it was really strange why there were so many people who had decided to go back to Kluang this coming weekend.

There was a really good reason why though, which we only sort of realised over the next couple of days: the coming weekend was a long weekend due to Hari Raya Puasa falling on Sunday (and Monday being a public holiday as a result), which was why so many people were heading back to their hometown over the weekend! Completely didn't realise this at all and it was just as well we went down on Wednesday to purchase one of the few bus tickets left...who knows whether Aeris would have been able to return to Kluang over this weekend if we hadn't gone to Golden Mile!

After purchasing the tickets, Dad dropped Aeris and I off at Vivo City at the Harbourfront; we had been there a few times (notably after catching an MRT to Harbourfront station and then taking a bus back to my place) but we never really explored the place in full. So we did; there were a few interesting shops here and there, but it's just like any other shopping mall. Seen one mall, seen them all, it seems nowadays!

We hung around until it was time for dinner and we lined up at the HK Kim Gary restaurant; didn't have to wait very long to find a seat. We were meeting up with an old friend, Jean, from back in our days living and studying in Geelong. Always great to catch up with old friends and Jean is certainly one of the friends I was fairly close to back in Geelong! We had so much to talk about, the good old days, what had happend to various friends since we all pretty much went our separate ways, etc.

Had a pretty nice meal; the mango milky drink that I ordered was especially nice! Decided to go to Bakerzin after to have coffee/drinks and catch up some more. Jean also gave us a wedding present: one of those little pillows on which you could place the wedding rings on! This was something that Aeris and I hadn't considered previously, so now it can be a part of our wedding ceremony, hurrah!

Day 13 in Singapore - More food than you can shake a stick at!

2009-09-17T11:29:00.002+10:00

Had to get up early on Tuesday morning because Dad, Aunt Angela and myself needed to go to the Immigration Checkpoint Authority (ICA) of Singapore to pick up our new biometic passports, which were ready for collection! Aeris came along as well since we were going out straight after we were done that morning.

The three of us each had pre-booked appointments at 10am, but we got there much earlier, about 35 minutes past 9am. We went to get queue numbers and before I even walked into the waiting area, my number was already flashing on the board! The service was unbelievably quick and all three of us had been served and picked up our passports three minutes before 10am. Talk about efficiency!

Dad then drove to Hong Lim Complex where we had the famous Outram Park char kuay teow at the hawker centre. I've longed to eat this char kuay teow for the last three years, after settling with the Melbourne "equivalents"! Savoured every last bit of kuay teow...oh man, what a sumptious delight. It's as good as ever after so many years!

Outram Park's famous char kuay teow

Soy bean and chin chow drinks

After the early lunch, Dad drove home while Aunt Angela, Aeris and I walked over to Chinatown a few hundred metres down the road. Aunt Angela headed a separate direction while Aeris and I explored Chinatown; we did that when Aeris was in Singapore after we flew back from Australia but we didn't explore the area thoroughly and she always wanted to come back, so there we were.

We even explored People's Park Complex and that other shopping centre down the road closer to Outram Park MRT station!

Something interesting that was printed on the walls at Chinatown MRT station.

The Mandarin equivalent.

Took a bus down to Rochor Road as I wanted to first stop by Seow Choon Games Specialist at Jalan Besar, a place that specialised in selling video games. Scribblenauts was due to be released that day and I wanted to be one of the first to pick up this innovative game!

Unfortunately, Seow Choon Games hadn't yet received copies of Scribblenauts but said they were likely to arrive over the next few days. I settled on purchasing this game instead, which I saw the last time I was there:

Yes, believe it or not, from someone who has pretty much struggled with the Mandarin language his entire life, I'm trying to proactively improve my Mandarin/Chinese skills, at least the spoken part of it. Definitely need to get myself up to the level where I can at least hold a conversation with Aeris' family members...especially in time for the big dinner in Kluang.

I think my spoken Mandarin has improved over the last couple of years where now I can at least have a somewhat decent (but broken) conversation with Aeris' parents, but it certainly isn't at the level I want it to be. Hopefully this DS game can help me improve my Mandarin to a more acceptable level. Those of you reading who know me, don't laugh! :p

Had a chicken rice lunch before walking over to Mustafa shopping centre in Serangooon.

Roast chicken rice. It was pretty disappointing unfortunately.

We hadn't had Kickapoo (the original joy juice!) in ages so now was as good a time as any to have it!

Shopped at Mustafa Centre for quite a while and we purchased a few things that we weren't available in Australia to bring home with us. Was in the bus on the way back home when Aeris spotted this interesting structure along Grange Road:

Not quite sure if it was some eatery of sorts! Wow, the old non-air-conditioned double decker buses. Took me back 20 years! We got back home, rested for a while and then out we went again for dinner. Picked up Auntie Lucy from her place then the five of us (Dad, Mum, Auntie Lucy, Aeris and I) went to have a buffer dinner at Sakura in Clementi.

Aeris first found out about Sakura from a Wiki travel guide search I believe and my impression of it was that it was a Japanese-centric buffet style restaurant. It did have quite a lot of Japanese food, but the cuisine was more international-styled than just strictly Japanese. I don't know why I had it in my head that it was like one of those restaurants where they had the conveyor belts where we could grab sushi off it!

Anyway, the food was still really good and there was a wide enough spread that I could just take the things I wanted to eat and ignore those that wasn't appetising to my tastebuds. Don't have any pictures because we were so hungry that we just devoured the food quickly! Very yummy though, and I think I must have had three serves of the teppanyaki beef.

Day 12 in Singapore - a trip to the Singapore Zoological Gardens

2009-09-17T10:47:00.002+10:00

First, a PICSPAM warning!

Aeris and I went to the Singapore Zoological Gardens on Monday and we took heaps of photos. I actually had more than twice the number of photos I wanted to blog, but decided to cut down on the number of photos blogged or this would be one really massive blog entry (and it already is!).

So anyway, Aeris and I were discussing things that we wanted to do this entire week on Sunday morning and the Singapore Zoo was one of the places we wanted to explore; we were also thinking of the Night Safari but decided that our nights were too packed with dinner appointments with family and friends and settled for the day zoo instead.

Both of us do enjoy going to see animals, be with in zoos, aquariums or such (though we nixed the idea of going to the Jurong Bird Park). In the last couple of years, especially during Aeris' birthday, we've gone to the Melbourne Zoo and Melbourne Aquarium and we've also gone to the Werribee Open Range zoo, so we certainly wanted to see how the Singapore Zoo stacked up.

We had an early start to the day and went for breakfast at the Telok Blangah hawker centre. Aeris had ta mee pok while I had white carrot cake; no pictures though as we forgot to bring the camera with us! Came back home, caught the MRT all the way to Choa Chu Kang station and then took the bus that dropped us right at the entrance of the Singapore Zoo.

It was a really good zoo, but I think both Aeris and I prefer the Melbourne Zoo. The one thing that the Singapore Zoo has though is a hell of a lot more monkeys, and a lot more wild cats as well, which is really good because we didn't see that many breed of wild cats in both Melbourne zoos! All in all, a good day and a good experience.

MRT on the North-South line which we caught from Jurong East interchange to Choa Chu Kang

We're going to the Singapore Zoological Gardens!

Here we are at the zoo!

The endangered Proboscis monkey. Have a look at that honker!

A family of otters

How can polar bears survive in our hot and humid climate I wonder? The insides of their pens aren't even air conditioned, according to the guide!

Monkey madness! A baby Orang Utan swings across some rope during the "Rainforest Fights Back" show.

Not quite the famous Ah Meng, but a relative perhaps?

A big ape trying to imitate a little chimp.

A cobra's biggest enemy: the mongoose! I don't know why, but I love mongeese!

A family of mongeese.

Some interesting trivia about the mongoose

I remember one of the insults a primary school friend used was "baboon". Well, here's a baboon.

Check out that red bum!

The pygmy hippo (and an even smaller baby)...

...the underwater ballerina of West Africa.

The Singapore Zoo's famous white tigers. There are three of them in total and the male's name is "Omar".

"You talkin' to me? Are ya?"

An interesting folklore tale about the tapir, which is native to South East Asia.

The Malayan tapir

Check out those cute animal heads at the tip of each sign!

As part of the package ticket that we purchased, we were entitled to one free boat ride from one end of the zoo to the other. This was the boat we took, named after the male white tiger.

Not quite a cheetah or a leopard, but an ocelot. It's a really small cat and I think even our Kyo is bigger than this ocelot (though of course, less fierce or predatory).

The cheetahs, taking an afternoon nap. Just like most cats, they look adorable when asleep. Watch out when they're awake though!

"I'm auditioning to be an extra in the Meerkat Manor TV series!"

The biggest cats of the jungle, the lion. This one thinks the log is a scratching post!

Have an itch needing to be scratched? No problem...improvise!

Food thrown to me? Yum!

One of my favourite animals, the giraffe.

Check out that tongue!

Did I mention that Aeris and I love cats?

Interesting trivia on how to tell a cheetah apart from a leopard: leopards have little black rings with another black spot in between those rings! Not that you're going to be able to tell once they're chasing you.

The majestic Komodo dragon. We actually saw two of them mating while we were there! The female looked very uncomfortable and distressed though. Domestic abuse! Rape!

More pics of the white tigers come feeding time.

"I'll just prowl these waters until you throw me my food."

"Free food? Deeeeeeeeeeeeeeelicious!"

Feeding time for the pygmy hippos

A lemur jumped straight out of the bushes and ran in front of me! Was quick enough to take this shot.

There was this butterfly that attached itself to my back and try as I might shaking (and rattling and rolling), I just couldn't get it off me!

Ah hell, let's just pose with it then. A nice lady tourist helped me get the butterfly off...but then the butterfly attached itself to HER instead and wouldn't detach itself from her fingers!

It was a long and tiring day at the zoo and we hadn't eaten any lunch (thank goodness for breakfast!) so we caught a bus to Ang Mo Kio MRT station then went to Plaza Singapura where we ate at Cafe Cartel for dinner, since one of the things that Aeris wanted to eat was their famous St Louis pork ribs.

St Louis pork ribs

I had the honey roasted spare ribs myself.

Aeris couldn't finish her meal so I ended up eating the St Louis pork ribs as well; the quality and standard has dropped quite significantly and it certainly wasn't as yummy as I remembered it from when I ate it the last time four years ago. Things have changed as well...there is now a 10% service charge meaning that there isn't quite that value-for-money at Cartel anymore like in the past! I can see why Theo has gone over to Aston for meals instead.

Came back home to rest. Francis called to ask if I wanted to go out for dinner. Was feeling peckish since we had finished our dinner at Cartel just after 5pm and had skipped lunch, so I agreed to go though Aeris decided to stay at home instead. Francis went to pick up Kelvin and then picked me up from home and we went to Seah Im Food Court at the Harbourfront for supper; just had myself a strawberry peaches dessert.

Francis then decided to drive to the Marina Barrage, which is this new dam at Marina Bay, at the entrance of the Singapore River, which I had never seen before. It was very scenic and the three of us just chatted while admiring the night views of the city from Marina Bay. Went to the 24 hours McDonald's at West Coast where we had supper and chatted some more before he dropped me back home.

Day 11 in Singapore - Aeris has to work on a Sunday. While on holiday!

2009-09-17T09:41:00.002+10:00

Aeris and I had an early start to Sunday morning as Aeris needed to go to "work". What's that? She needed to work on a Sunday? Well, Aeris is certainly no stranger to that as she does go back to work Sundays on the odd occasion. But going to "work" while she's on holiday here in Singapore/Malaysia?!

Well, it wasn't WORK work, as in working for the company that's paying her salary. We went over to her eldest brother's new flat in Choa Chu Kang and as it is pretty much still unfurnished and not ready yet, her eldest brother and her soon-to-be sister-in-law asked Aeris to help them with the interior designs. So we both went over to their new flat in the morning so that Aeris could take some measurements of all the rooms.

It took a bit longer than expected to get the measurements done, but we still managed to catch the MRT train and get to the Singapore Cricket Club right on time at 12.30pm, where we were meeting my parents, Uncle Ronnie, Auntie Janet, Rachael and Richard for Sunday brunch.

I haven't eaten Sunday brunch at SCC for a long LONG time and it has changed quite a fair bit! Gone are the days where they would make roti pratas and eggs (omelettes, sunny-side up, scrambled, etc) on the spot and they don't serve the traditional American brekkie foods like bacon, ham, sausages and hash browns anymore. It's now a proper buffet with an international spread; Asian food, Japanese sushi, anglo-foods like roast beef, chicken and lamb.

We didn't take that many pictures because we were so hungry and the food looked so good that we just jumped straight into the food! It took a while before we realised that we had forgotten to take some pictures. Ah well...here's what we have:

The roast lamb, in particular, was to die for! I've never had such wonderful lamb before in my life and I went back for thirds and fourths. Uncle Ronnie, who loves eating red meat, was also saying that the roast lamb and beef were both unbelievably good!

I made sure I tried most things that were on offer and everything was just wonderfully delicious. Wish I could have this sort of buffet cuisine every day! We parted company after brunch about 15 minutes to 3pm; we're all meeting up for dinner again at Copthorne King's Hotel this Thursday.

Aeris was meeting Sharren at Orchard Ion so I walked her to City Hall MRT station, afterwhich I walked over to Suntec City for the Comex (Computer Expo) fair. Let me first say that I wanted to go to Comex because I had this impression that expos in Singapore would be similar to Melbourne; it would be crowded but it wouldn't be insane because people would be scared off by the admission fee.

I found out the hard way how wrong I was. First of all, there WAS no admission fee. Which means anyone could just walk in, even those with NO interest in computer stuff who just wanted to go there to browse the products, score some freebies or do whatever it is they wanted to do there. IT WAS PACKED. I hate crowds so it was definitely not one of my better ideas to go.

Eventually decided that it wasn't worth trying to squeeze past people trying to just have a browse of the computer products; I had some things in mind that I wanted to get but it just wasn't worth trying to get them there and then. Decided to leave; Francis called much later in the evening to suggest going for supper but by the time he was ready it was much too late around 11pm at night. We'd do supper soonish though!

Day 10 in Singapore - a religious experience, in terms of food and going to church!

2009-09-16T23:59:00.003+10:00

I had tried out the Bugs-Off mozzie patches (see this recent post) that was purchased in Singapore and it worked quite well Friday night; wasn't bitten by any mozzies while I had the patch on!

I still got bitten twice at night, probably by the same mozzie, on the feet though. But that was because I had accidentally kicked the mosquito net while asleep and there was a large enough opening for any mozzies to fly in, so I got bit twice! *sigh*

Woke up, very well refreshed from a long and good night's sleep to make up for the lack of sleep I had on Thursday night. It wasn't long before all of us headed off to the city again where we had a dimsum breakfast.

There was a lot to eat but the final bill amounted to just over RM50, which worked out to be just over SG$20 for all five of us! A very filling and yet cheap meal!

Aeris' second brother headed home while her parents dropped us off at the bus terminal where we boarded the bus back to Singapore. It took us nearly three hours to get back to Singapore because the bus took the longer journey and went by the Tuas checkpoint.

The bus was supposed to drop us off at Golden Mile Complex but the driver was happy to let us off at Lakeside MRT station so Aeris and I took an MRT to Redhill before catching a cab back home. Put our stuff down then went down to the Telok Blangah hawker centre for lunch before coming back upstairs to unpack and rest.

Went to Sacred Heart church for Saturday evening Novena and mass with my parents. Now's a good a time as any to show pictures of Sacred Heart church, the parish our family has been with since 1989, since Aeris took a couple of shots with the camera:

After mass, my parents brought us to the Henderson Road hawker centre to eat BBQ stingray; it has been a long time (at least four years, probably longer!) since I last ate BBQ stingray and Aeris loves eating it too, so we were looking forward to it!

We weren't sure how long it would take for the stingrays to be cooked and served, so we ordered our desserts first. Also ordered half a dozen sticks of chicken satay and six sticks of pork satay, but forgot to take a picture.

Aeris' soursop with ice jelly dessert

Mum's durian with corn dessert

My strawberry peaches dessert. Dad had a red ruby dessert but ate it too quickly before we had a chance to take a picture of it.

Yum yum yum! BBQ stingray...to die for.

Fried rice

Sambal kangkong...also to die for.

Was absolutely stuffed after dinner!

With our return to Singapore on Saturday, it started off our "great Singapore food makan sessions" and we had good food the next couple of days...all of which I will blog about in the next few days or so (with pictures!).

Needless to say, I've put on some weight since coming back, which is what I expected anyway.

Day 9 - in Kluang!

2009-09-16T23:30:00.004+10:00

I didn't really sleep at all Thursday night (or rather Friday morning). Wasn't feeling well on Thursday and was resting the entire day at home and I fell asleep at around 8pm. I woke up at 11pm spontaneously, which is just as well because there was a footy highlights program I wanted to watch on the Australian Channel on Pay TV!

Bad idea; I should have gone straight back to sleep (though I don't think I would have been able to) because after watching the program, try as I might, I just couldn't go back to sleep. So I went online, responded to my emails, went on Facebook and then decided, since I was so awake anyway, to play Texas Hold 'Em at Poker Palace on Facebook.

Washed up, changed and then got ready for my parents to drop me off at Golden Mile Complex at Beach Road so that I could catch the 7.30am coach to Kluang. I thought it would only take about two hours tops to get to Kluang, but because we went by the Tuas checkpoint (as opposed to the normal Woodlands checkpoint which is so much closer to Kluang), it was nearly three hours since departure before I got to the Kluang bus terminal.

Aeris and her Mum were already there waiting and we went straight to the new Kluang Mall:

Aeris wanted to purchase a new luggage bag there as there were some on sale at 70% so she got a pretty good one very cheaply. Aeris' Mum headed off and we stayed at the new Kluang Mall to do some shopping at the Pacific department store.

Stayed there for quite a while because I was looking to get a number of polo shirts but I couldn't quite make up my mind which ones to get! I didn't bring a lot of Malaysian Ringgit with me and apart from the money I kept aside to purchase some stuff for my parents, I pretty much spent all that I had at Pacific, the very first store I shopped at! Did get four good polo shirts very cheaply though; perhaps that gives one an indication of how little money I actually brought with me!

After a bit more window shopping at Kluang Mall, we walked around Kluang to do more window shopping. Kluang had actually changed a fair bit since I was last there about five years ago; there were at least two new places, the aforementioned Kluang Mall and SongMart, which is like a wet and dry market in one, plus redevelopment/refurbishment of Kluang Parade.

Food stalls that we passed by while walking in Kluang. Closed in the day but come evening time, this area would be bustling with food vendors and lots of activity!

Old style tables and chairs at one of the coffee shops we stopped by for afternoon coffee.

Cheap kaya toast. Yums!

After a full day of shopping in Kluang, it was time to go back to Aeris' place. I was hot and sweaty and stinky after walking the whole day, so I was extremely happy to take a nice refreshing cold shower...hardly made a difference though because as soon as I finished my shower, the heat and humidity meant that I started perspiring again almost instantly!

We had a good spread of food for dinner which Aeris' Mum cooked, just in time as Aeris' second brother returned home from work in Johor Bahru. Was extremely fatigued and sleepy because of the lack of sleep I had the night before, but I managed to hold out until it was time for supper! The five of us (Aeris' parents, second brother, Aeris and myself) headed back out to the city again at 9.30pm.

Each of us had a bowl of sweet dumpling dessert and Aeris also had a soy beancurd dessert and shared an egg and onion roti canai with me while her brother had a plain roti canai.

Always a favourite: roti canai! Also known as "roti prata" back in Singapore.

Soy beancurd dessert

Sweet dumpling dessert

No, it's not a fishabll, it's actually a sweet dumpling! This one had a peanut-filled centre.

Got back to Aeris' place and couldn't hold out any longer and went straight to bed, exhausted from a full day of activities and the lack of sleep the night before. What an eventful day and I had been up for nearly 24 hours!